A Question of Return

by Robert Carr

  The estate was on the unpaved and delightfully named Windy Hill Road, a few miles from the village of Cavendish. The chain-link fence around it was an eyesore. After waiting at the tall gates for a couple of minutes, Fedya exchanged a few words with a female voice and a TV camera, and the gates opened. A winding lane led to a two-storey house which had, or so it seemed to Laukhin, recent additions on both sides. Svetlova appeared—an attractive woman whose dark hair held a hint of grey—and directed them inside, into a large room the height of the house. She said her husband had not expected them until much later that day. Fedya said they’d been unable to arrange a later visit. They sat down while Svetlova left to fetch her husband.

  It took almost fifteen minutes for Solzhenitsyn to appear. They could hear the sound of a typewriter from somewhere upstairs, but except for a blond boy who briefly appeared and said hello both in Russian and English, there were no other noises. Laukhin walked over to the window for a view of the mountains. He heard steps coming from the door the child had disappeared through, and a woman’s voice saying, “No, no, you can’t do that.”

  Solzhenitsyn looked shorter than Laukhin remembered, and plumper, and his long beard reminded him of a retired and less wicked Chernomor. The writer repeated what his wife told them, that he had expected them much later. It was not often, he added, that he’d interrupt his work for a visit, but he’d make an exception this time. He had not read his guest’s poetry (here he inclined his head toward Laukhin in a old-fashioned, almost military gesture that Laukhin presumed was meant to remove any guilt), he had time for few other things besides his work, but he had heard others praise it. Fedya said it was entirely his fault they had showed up early. Solzhenitsyn said Fedya Malgunov would have to play tennis with him as a payback, and Laukhin thought that there was a thin smile on his lips, a hint of a smile.

  They had a light, improvised lunch in the large kitchen. It was Svetlova who led the conversation at first, wanting to hear news from Russia. Solzhenitsyn seemed uninterested, and hardly touched anything that was put in front of him. He then slowly took over. He expressed a brief curiosity in Pavel Laukhin’s journal, wanting to know how it was smuggled out and the state it was in. He expected short replies and showed irritation at details. The subject of where Laukhin should settle was quickly dismissed too. “I’ll assume,” he said without seeking confirmation, “that like most Russians you don’t like warm climates. It means the north-eastern part of the United States, say from Philadelphia up. The west and the central part of America are full of happy philistines. Don’t bother. Canada has the right climate, of course, but …” He ended the sentence with a shrug that Laukhin could not interpret. That was it, subject exhausted. The rest of the time he talked about his struggles, his monumental Red Wheel, the huge amount of detailed history he had to master for each of its four knots, the little time he had left to finish it. He missed Russia and hoped to return one day. He hoped God would hear his wish, for his sake, for his family’s sake, and for the sake of all Russians. Svetlova smiled and said what her husband meant is that his return to Russia would simply mean that the current monstrous regime would not be there anymore. Solzhenitsyn blinked a couple of times and added that he was getting old—he was sixty already—and he’d accept his fate, whatever it was. Again, the most important thing for him was the cycle of his historical novels.

  It was a long and rather impressive discourse, undoubtedly already repeated many times. At the end, he looked at his watch and excused himself because he had to go back to work, although he added, magnanimously, “Please stay as long as you want.” Then, looking at his young wife, “You’ll look after our guests, won’t you, my dear.”

  No, he, Laukhin, had never cared for the man or the novelist, but it was Solzhenitsyn’s refusal to sign a letter of support for Sinyavsky and Daniel that had appalled him. Sinyavsky’s wife had approached Solzhenitsyn and he declined because—an irate Rozanova told Laukhin the story the next day—he didn’t approve of writers who sought fame abroad. Imagine. The hypocrisy of that statement had left Laukhin speechless. It was even more shocking thinking about it now, knowing what happened later. Clearly Solzhenitsyn couldn’t stand others to be in the limelight, even in front of prison gates. He was jealous whenever attention was not focused solely on him. There was no other possible explanation. More than sixty Moscow writers had signed the letter.

  * * *

  Laukhin left his house at nine o’clock. It was warm and windy outside and he smelled dust and imminent rain. On Yonge Street he hailed a cab and got to the gallery in twenty minutes. Inside, the event was at its end. There were empty glasses and dirty plates everywhere. Two or three small groups of people were still hanging in. Audrey and her mother were talking with an older man who looked as if he had just returned from an elegant canoe trip. Laukhin waved a discreet hello in that direction. Audrey smiled back and nodded slightly. Martha Osterhoudt, taller than her daughter, looked at and through him. Jean Lezzard was in another small group. A giant Bouvier lay half-asleep near the folding doors to the smaller room, as if guarding Lezzard’s prized Chemakoffs.

  Flyers introducing the artist were everywhere. He picked up one and also a glass of wine before beginning his tour. He learned that Marga Lear had turned to sculpture in her forties. She’d been a writer in the past, and continued to be, and the two artistic expressions were still battling it out for her soul. She found sculpting a more direct art, also a more complete and fulfilling one. She was quoted as saying that “like barrels left outside in the rain and steadily filling up, artists accumulate a mysterious energy, peculiar to each art, which has to be released, that is, expressed. Working with clay, I feel that my fingers are direct conduits of this energy. It’s almost as if all I have to do is plunge my hands into the wet clay and, miraculously, it will shape itself into that something that I have only vaguely known, but obsessively pursued.”

  Marga Lear discharged her energy on two-dimensional shapes as well, black or dark red blotches on large sheets of paper. Laukhin glimpsed, in one of them, old bearded men, with round backs and pointed hats, and then he admonished himself for seeking a banal resemblance.

  He finished his tour undisturbed near the giant dog. The Bouvier lay on his belly, its head between its paws. Laukhin bent down, patted the dog, and looked around. The Bouvier gathered enough strength to lick one of his shoes. Jean Lezzard walked by and Laukhin said hello. Lezzard stopped grudgingly. “That’s all we need here,” he said. “Don’t bother Audrey, she has work to do.”

  “Cheer up, Jean, it’s a vernissage. Have a drink.”

  “I’ve had too many already.”

  The giant dog switched its wet attention to Lezzard’s shoes. “He licks everybody’s shoes,” Laukhin said. “A sensitive dog. Doesn’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings.”

  “This bloody beast ate all the sandwiches,” Lezzard grumbled glancing down. “You’d think that the only reason people came to this opening was to feed the dog. For all I know he had a few glasses of wine too.” Unfazed, the dog went on with his licking. Lezzard moved his foot and the Bouvier looked up at him with reproachful eyes. “Come, I’ll introduce you to the artist. Be of some use—don’t let me say anything that I’ll regret later. I’ve already had a shouting match with the husband. Perhaps he’s also had too much wine. We almost came to blows. Quel imbecile. Wealth, professor, like fame, is a licence to say stupid things.” He picked up a half-full glass of wine and drained it, closing his watery blue eyes.

  They joined the small group that Lezzard had left moments earlier. The artist was a small, frail, intense woman with dyed black hair. She had a faint accent and spoke in a halting way, choosing her words carefully. She was telling a man, who turned out to be her husband, that the dog looked lethargic. Turning to Laukhin, she said, “Mugs is usually in his element surrounded by art. I don’t know what’s wrong with him. He’s going to fail the field trials tomorrow.”

  “Mr. Laukhin, here,” Lezzard said nodding toward him
, “loves your work, Marga. Marga Lear, the artist. Her husband, Howard Lear. You should feel flattered Marga—Art Laukhin is an artist too, a famous poet. In Russian, unfortunately. I mean, unfortunately for those who do not understand Russian.”

  “I’m one of them. What exactly do you like in my work, Mr. Laukhin?” Marga Lear’s challenge was direct. She must have had a whole evening of empty words.

  “Tell her, tell Marga word for word what you just told me moments ago near the dog,” Lezzard said nodding at him.

  Lezzard would pay for this. “The energy,” Laukhin said. “One feels there is an excess of it at first, and yet it is creatively restrained.”

  The artist stared at him, disappointed.

  “It sounded better in Russian,” Lezzard said.

  “Oh, I know now,” Marga Lear said looking at Laukhin. “There was an interview with you in the Globe the other day. Taking a very long time with some family memoirs, or something like that.”

  “Jean thinks the dog has had one drink too many,” Laukhin said.

  The feeble joke drew a hostile stare from the husband. Howard Lear, short and intense too, but wide, looked like a bulldog ready for a fight. Laukhin was saved by a young man in a bright red shirt who was hovering around the group. He held glasses in both hands and was at the precise stage of intoxication when delight comes from keeping the body straight and the words rolling. “Athletes go to bed early,” he said, and for some reason he winked at Laukhin. “Early curfew, not parties, is what Mugs needs.”

  Howard Lear’s eyes drifted to the young man and back to Laukhin, unsure yet whom to tear up first.

  “Marga is from Belgium, originally,” said Lezzard in the tone of one expecting that, with such a remark, the conversation would fork out into unexpected and intelligent vistas. He pointed to the two-dimensional shapes that had attracted Laukhin’s attention earlier and added, “She does these things strictly with her thumbs.”

  “Really,” Laukhin said. He failed to see what the country of her birth had to do with it.

  “To be truthful—” Marga Lear said.

  “Marga is very talented,” Howard Lear interrupted. “She could use her knuckles and the results would be just as striking.”

  “Don’t say such silly things, Howard,” said Marga Lear. “Especially when Jean is around. He is a wicked raconteur. Anyway, we should get going. It’s late and it has been a full day. Do you think you can get Mugs on his feet? He seems to have had a breakdown of some sort. We may need a tow-truck. Good night to you all. Good night, Jean. Not the vernissage I had hoped for. A rather motley opening crowd, on the shy and penurious side, wouldn’t you agree?”

  They nodded to the rest of them and left, the dog the only one of the three reluctant to go.

  Lezzard saw them to the door. Laukhin turned to the young man and asked, “Which one did you reserve?”

  The young man took a while to comprehend Laukhin’s question. “Good heavens, have you had a good look at them? The only thing I reserved was a bottle of wine. And now, I’m afraid, I have to return it. I feel sick.” He ran off, muttering to himself.

  “The young man in the red shirt is being sick in the toilet,” Laukhin told Lezzard.

  “Who cares?”

  Lezzard was in a foul mood. With her mother in tow, Audrey approached them holding two umbrellas. She was wearing a black dress—not too elaborate, but with a low neckline. Martha was glamorous, and Laukhin saw hardly any evidence of fading due to age. Audrey made the introductions. Lezzard repeated his remark about Laukhin and his poetry, and Audrey mentioned the long awaited journal. Martha made Lezzard look puny. Laukhin thought that, as much in love as he was with Audrey, the daughter was a muted copy of what Martha must have been. She was leaving, Martha announced, acknowledging Laukhin’s presence with a simple nod. She was staying in Toronto for a few more days, at the flat, before going away. “Probably to Montreal at first. Dirks isn’t sure where to spend the rest of the summer. I talked to him this afternoon, and he had this whole story about his sister being quite sick, and that we’d stop in The Netherlands for a while to look in on her, and, while there, spend a few days in Nordwijk with Dirks’ friend—another impossible Dutch name—who always invites us, to my despair, because it’s a dingy resort, with sand blown in your eyes and terrible food, and staid Dutch who, nevertheless eat a lot and laugh loudly. We had a bit of an argument and we still don’t know whether it’s Austria or …”

  Laukhin didn’t immediately realize that Dirks was Martha’s third husband, Diederik Osterhoudt. Audrey had once told him that Martha often referred to Dirks as The Unpronounceable. She said that things happened around Dirks, but he always seemed at a considerable distance, and, although she had met him in the past, she was now beginning to think that Martha had stashed him away under the floorboards of one of their many residences.

  Audrey turned to Laukhin and said, “I was afraid you wouldn’t come. Don’t leave. I’ll walk Martha home and be back in a few minutes. It’s raining, but a walk will do me good, clear my head.”

  By now there were very few people left in the gallery; a mirthful group of four or five, and two stragglers who still managed to look interested. Lezzard glanced at his watch. “Good God, it’s almost midnight. I better get these revelers out.” Mesmerized, Laukhin watched Lezzard’s hoarding technique. First, he led the stragglers to the larger group. He then proceeded with perfunctory introductions and said something that created some merriment. The rounding up phase was complete. Next, he pointed to an exhibit close to the exit door and the enlarged group travelled there together. It was kept compact by Lezzard’s outstretched arms. With his willed bonhomie, Lezzard had the pose of an avuncular bird of prey. One or two more minutes passed in amiable chatter; then Lezzard looked openly at his watch. He pointed toward Laukhin and said something. The group poured out into the night. Lezzard left the door ajar. Laukhin joined him to breathe in the fresh air. It was raining, but not hard.

  “What did you tell them?” he asked. “They took off in a hurry.”

  “I said you’d offered to help clean up the mess in here and asked for other volunteers. Are you waiting for Audrey?”

  Laukhin nodded.

  They went back inside. Lezzard found a bottle of wine and an empty glass and dropped exhausted into an armchair. He poured, drank, waved the bottle at Laukhin to see if he was interested, and then poured and drank again. “Quel métier, mon dieu,” he said. “I soothe, I cajole, I laugh at bad jokes, I listen to the most inane comments and nod in approval. I praise what should not be praised, sell what should never be sold.”

  Audrey came back. Her clothes and hair were wet, drops on her collarbone threatened to slide downward.

  She looked around with a discouraged air. Paper plates were piled on top of each other, slanted by plastic cutlery and leftover crudités. A plate with potato salad was on the floor, near where the dog had lain. A solitary olive glistened in the middle of it, like a bull’s eye. Clear plastic glasses, some printed with lipstick, were everywhere, along with paper napkins, water bottles, and flyers about Marga Lear. Lezzard mumbled something about opening another bottle of wine, but without conviction, and Audrey shook her head at Laukhin to ignore the request.

  “Cleaners are coming in the morning,” Audrey said. “I have to be back here by eight to let them in, but I hate to leave all these dirty plates and leftovers overnight.”

  Laukhin volunteered to help clean up the mess.

  Lezzard emptied the bottle into the glass, took a sip, and then raised the drink in a mock toast. “Hang on to him, Audrey. He’s the reliable, helpful type. It must be a first for a famous poet—a professor as well—to clean up after a party.”

  “I had a row with Martha,” Audrey said looking at Laukhin. “It was only a short walk, and we still managed to quarrel. To think that I have to go back.”

  Lezzard made a valiant effort to get up, without success. “Order a cab for me, chère Audrey,” he said, waving his hand at a ph
one beyond his reach.

  Audrey ordered the cab, and she and Laukhin began to throw everything in garbage bags. Lezzard made no attempt to help. He held the emptied plastic glass in his hand, his eyes shut, a lonely, bitter old man peddling art to Philistines.

  The cab arrived and Audrey helped Lezzard up from his chair, down the stairs, and out. “He’s had a lot to drink,” she said when she came back. They had filled two garbage bags and Laukhin took them outside and left them near the curb. A large paper plate of yellow cheese slices was almost untouched. She wrapped the cheese, placed it in a bag with a bottle of wine and gave it to Laukhin. “Your pay for the help. I hope you like cheese.”

  “I’ll walk you to your place,” he offered.

  She locked the gallery. It had stopped raining, and the wet smell of the night engulfed them. A garbage truck came out of nowhere and halted noisily nearby. Silent and efficient men in neon-orange vests fed the compacting monster. It was as if an invading alien team was feeding itself with the city’s detritus. One of the men had a short conversation on a two-way radio. He climbed into the truck, while the others jumped onto invisible running boards, and drove off. The mother ship had radioed that there was better nourishment on Bloor Street.

  Carrying the bag of food nonchalantly over his shoulder, Laukhin felt like a seasoned traveller, unafraid of life’s tough spots. When Audrey hesitated to go into her building, he heard himself say, “You don’t want to disturb your mother, and you don’t want another argument. That’s how old people are—cranky and unpredictable. Best to avoid them. Wake her up now, and you’ll get no sleep. Come to my place, Audrey. It’s a fifteen-minute ride by cab. Come see the poet’s home. We have wine and cheese. I’ll sleep on the floor, of course.”