by Maxim Osipov
I went to the hospital once, to obstetrics—I got lost, it took me a long time to find it, and they still didn’t let me see Lyubochka. Maybe there was a quarantine, or maybe they never allow visitors, or maybe just not men; everyone offered a different explanation. I had brought her books, fruit, water. They told me they’d pass them along: Schwalbe’s fine, temperature is normal. That calmed me down, so I went back to the carriage—to read, to dream.
“Well, well, well,” as Mir Savvich, our unforgettable director, used to say. My dreams were sweet, and although I now know how they ended, I still don’t think I dreamed in vain. At night, when they’d turn off the upper light, I’d lie in the dark, remembering the little songs my mother used to sing to me, going over the funny phrases and rhymes I’d learned in childhood. How little I know myself: here, it turns out, is what I needed all along! I had singed my fingers on Glashenka and decided not to risk it again. No, in truth, I didn’t decide any such thing—just lived the life I was born to live.
•
“So, what, I’m Medea to you?” She’s screaming, attracting attention: I couldn’t resist telling Lyubochka about “the life I was born to live.”
Hush, hush—the partitions are paper-thin. Then again, what does it matter? Cry, scream, it makes no difference now.
•
Lyubochka was in the same department with women who were planning to get rid of their pregnancies.
“Abortion, Alexander Ivanovich. It’s called ‘having an abortion.’ What’s so cruel about that? Besides, you were the one who shoved me in there.”
To be brief, one day a priest came to visit the women. Everyone went to see him, and she did too. He was a young man. How did he manage to get in there?
“Priests are probably immune to infection, Alexander Ivanovich. Anyway, he spoke well, he’d prepared. Fire and brimstone . . . All the girls cried. I didn’t: What do I care? I just came for the company. So I’m sitting there, listening, watching him. Tall. Neat, trimmed beard. And I notice he’s also looking at me a lot, more than at the other girls. He sees I’m not taken in, not dissolving in tears. Asks me who I am. An Aquarius, I say. He smirks: ‘I mean, what do you do?’ A dramatic actress. He shakes his head: ‘You wanted the easy life. Well, look at how these other girls live.’ What are you talking about? ‘About the fact that hypocrites will not be saved. That’s what actors are: hypocrites. Woe unto you, hypocrites! You know what they called the theater in the old days? “The spectacle.” Shameful spectacle. It’s not for nothing that they bury actors behind a fence, next to the suicides.’ I ask: Isn’t it a little too early to bury me, Holy Father? ‘I am not your Holy Father,’ he says. All the more so! He turns away: ‘Forgive me, dear sisters, for steering the conversation away from the matter at hand,’ and goes on with the eternal agony and the gnashing of teeth. He doesn’t look at me anymore. The girls are so-o-obbing. I think to myself: Effective lecture—they’ll be in labor before you know it. He wraps it up—and they start! ‘I’ve got no apartment!’ ‘I got laid off!’ ‘Have you seen the waiting lists for kindergarten?’ ‘You don’t know what my mother-in-law’s like!’ One’s unemployed, another has no roof over her head, the third’s husband is a drunk. The priest hears them out: ‘You should have thought about that earlier.’ And leaves.”
All the girls went through with it, had their abortions. Every single one. Including Lyubochka.
“Alexander Ivanovich,” smiling and crying. “The priest, he sounded like he was summoned from the Ivanovo region. Remember?”
Do I ever. “The Vale of Tears.”
•
You wanted to spite the priest, is that it?
“No! Why can’t you understand? He was right! I should have thought about it earlier . . .”
About what? Look at my mother: she gave birth to me, raised me all by herself. Her circumstances weren’t exactly favorable either.
“And what was the point? Look at us now: no one cares whether we live or die. No family, no home, no work.”
I was going to say that she was my family, but why force myself on her? You, I say, are an actress. Think of how many roles you’ve played! Any theater would be glad to have you. While I have a pension. And I’ve even saved up a little—just a little, of course, but I have. I could always work as a teacher, too.
The poor girl is crying, thrashing about: “Alexander Ivanovich, dear Alexander Ivanovich, forgive me, forgive me.”
•
I don’t even know how much time has passed. A week, two? I see Lyubochka only sporadically. One day I’m coming back to the carriage after breakfast and there she is, on the platform. I ask: Where are you heading?
“Now I’ll always have to give you a report, right?”
Lyubochka has a kind heart: she notices that her answer has upset me, so she takes me with her to the pool. That’s where she was heading.
I don’t swim, never learned, but I stand there and watch. Of course, you can’t make out too much: it’s May, the sun’s out day and night, while the air temperature is below zero, so there’s a cloud of steam over the water. So how did the Gemini fish her out of that soup?
A few days later Lyuba comes to me: “Congratulate me, Alexander Ivanovich. I met a man. And I’m moving in with him. I have a feeling this time it’ll work out.”
Well, who is he? What does he do?
“Nothing interesting—an engineer. He’s a Gemini. You understand? I’ve never been with a Gemini before. Nothing but Aries and Sagittariuses. We’re going to get married, move to America.”
I congratulated her, of course, wished her happiness. Lyuba’s her cheerful self again, that’s what matters. And she has a new hat, I notice.
We also talk business: “Please don’t forget, Alexander Ivanovich, you and I have an appointment the day after tomorrow. The social-welfare agencies just can’t wait to see us.”
•
Yet another round of visits to the agencies, all seemingly pointless.
“Take what you can get . . .” Lyubochka was given compensation instead of an apartment: determined by the cadastral value. I can’t wrap my head around what that means.
“As for you, my dear fellow,” they say (that is, as for me), “we cannot offer compensation. Our records tell us you were only a temporary resident of Eternity. And besides, we only compensate those who have lost personal accommodations, not those who had them provided by their place of work.”
Lyubochka gets angry, starts to shout: “And you told me to have the child, Alexander Ivanovich!” She turns to the audience, mocks them: “ ‘My dear fellow.’ This man,” she points to me, “has more dignity in his little finger than all of you taken together.”
I hide my hands in the pockets of my coat. Lyubochka will remind me of that. The audience—a line of applicants and the workers—is taken aback: she’s on a real tear.
“Are you in greater need than the rest of us, lady?”
Another question: Schwalbe—what kind of name is that? Doesn’t sound very Russian.
Oh, Lyubochka swung around and gave them a look to end all looks: Jocasta, Gertrude, Elizabeth of England! She doesn’t need much to get her going. Calm down, whisper, let’s get out of here.
The chorus chimes in: “Wait, isn’t she the one that actor went to jail for? Remember, he played that bald major on TV?”
I grab Lyubochka by the hand, drag her to the exit, pleading: Don’t raise a fuss, I don’t need these scenes, I don’t need anything. Have we any right to complain? As if we’re blameless.
We go out into the street:
“What do you mean, as if we’re blameless? Wake up, Alexander Ivanovich! Eternity wasn’t shut down because of some play we put on, or because I slept with my husband and Slavochka at the same time—by the way, it was never at the same time—or because Gubaryev shot him. You yourself said it: the truth is necessary. Well, here’s the truth for you. It’s politics!”
The Gemini had probably explained politics to her.
�
�It isn’t just towns, whole countries are folded up and thrown away. But not in America—there it’s different. There, if they want to run the road through your house, you’re in luck.”
Really? Why is that? Lyubochka and I look at each other and start to laugh! Don’t they determine things by the cadastral value? We’re in stitches, repeating the same words with every possible inflection. The people who walk by must think us mad. Lyubochka quiets down before I do: “You go back to your carriage. I’ve got to visit the prison and divorce a certain convict, before the public turns on me for abandoning a hero.”
•
It’s summertime. Everyone has found something by now, except me. They’d forgotten all about me, then suddenly remember: “Let’s get you into a nursing home, old fella.”
Lyubochka snorts when I tell her about this: “Not a chance! Let’s go to the real-estate broker, find a house. Where would you like to live?”
We spent a long time looking at the options. Lyubochka was such a help. She even pitched in with a little money: “Take it, take it—don’t force me to persuade you.”
What have I done to earn such a reward? I take it, thank her.
•
“Alexander Ivanovich, is fate a part of one’s personality?”
What a question! Lyubochka posed it last autumn, before we parted. Why didn’t you ask me earlier?
“Would you have had the answer back then?”
OF THE PONT MIRABEAU . . .
In the end I settled on Tarussa, near Moscow. There was another good option, Abkhazian Gudauta, but at my age, it’s hard to adjust to a new climate, dangerous. Although, to tell the truth, it isn’t a matter of climate: “Of the Pont Mirabeau, where the Oka doesn’t flow . . .”20 It’s true, there’s no Pont Mirabeau over the Oka, in fact, there’s no bridge at all. Still, there’s a lot to like about Tarussa.
•
I do a lot of walking. The natural landscape is marvelous. And I’ve struck up a friendship with a local author, Vladilen Nilovich Makeyev, whom I’ve already mentioned.
“Alexander Ivanovich, don’t you ever choose your friends?” Lyubochka once asked me.
I don’t know, my dear—it seems you’re right: I feel you ought to make peace with the friends fate has brought you. And it turns out Makeyev and I have a great deal in common. We’re almost exactly the same age; both our fathers were sent away to the camps when we were children. Of course, Vladilen Nilovich’s father was an important figure, a bigwig, while mine was only a tram conductor.
There’s only one thing: Makeyev loves to complain. Not that it bothers me much when people get things off their chest, if it makes them feel better—as long as they don’t work themselves up into a lather.
“Another award season has flown by, leaving me empty-handed. A bunch of Yids took all the prizes. Yids giving prizes to Yids. That’s the whole literary process for you.”
Look, I try to tell him, look all round us, Vladilen Nilovich. Such beauty. I feel the lilacs are about to bloom. Do you know how many years I’ve gone without seeing lilacs?
“ ‘Russian Spring,’ they’re calling this. Sure, the spring may be Russian, but who gets all the prizes?”
I’m certainly glad I didn’t become a writer. I had, at some point, entertained the thought. I point to a tree: Look, is that an alder? Grows all by itself—no need to plant it, no need to tend it. I rejoice at these trifles, can never get used to them after the north. I mean, it really is a miracle!
“A miracle, certainly. . . I love our nation’s landscape. And yet it wouldn’t hurt to make a noise, just once more.”
•
When the weather permits, I go for a walk, either alone or with Makeyev. The rest of the time I’m in the library. It opens early in the morning, closes at seven. I’ve managed to catch up a bit, but there’s so much more to read.
I’ve found a good place to stay again, but I try to be home as little as possible: I don’t like to bother Antonina Feodorovna. She and Mikhail Stepanovich are my neighbors; we share a wall, a yard. And half the garden is also mine, but I told them they could use it—I’m no gardener. They used to share the house with their relatives, but there was some sort of falling-out; I do not know the details. I get along better with Mikhail Stepanovich. For example, he once gave me a hand when it was my turn to clear the ice from the yard: I hit the ice this way and that, but couldn’t break it up. Mikhail Stepanovich saw me struggling, and came out and taught me how to hold the scraper properly, get it under the ice.
“I’d do it for you, if not for . . .” He nodded at the window.
He calls his wife, Antonina Feodorovna, ma. I confess, at first I thought she was actually his mother. That would have been something . . . All those Greek tragedies must have really sunk their teeth into me! It was pure luck that I didn’t say anything. The situation is fairly bleak as it is, frankly speaking: for the first time in my life, I have my own home, and I just can’t get the hang of it—the theater has spoiled me completely. You take your shirt or jacket to the costume department: they’ll press it, sew on a new button, or let you swap it for something else. Need a haircut? No trouble there either. Anyuta in makeup—we called her Nyuta—always spat on her fingers before arranging anyone’s hair. We’d laugh at her for that. To say nothing of food, scrubbing the floor, throwing out garbage, paying for electricity. . . I never had to concern myself with any of that. I lived without a care in the world, didn’t leave the theater for weeks.
All right, I can learn to wash my clothes and cook for myself—but the fact that Lyubochka doesn’t write to me is harder to deal with. I stop by the post office every few days, to see whether they have anything for me in general delivery.
•
But everyone has worries of his own. Makeyev and I talk about his work quite often.
“Since my novel is in the historical-patriotic genre, it might be wise to rename it. In light of recent events. What do you think of Korsun for a title?”21
I was fond of No Hand in the Matter. Although, in all honesty. . .
“In all honesty, dear Alexander Ivanovich, you still haven’t found the opportunity to acquaint yourself with my writings. Artists are easily offended. I’m joking, of course.”
Oh, yes, I know. I begin to explain to Makeyev about my cursed glasses. I wasn’t planning on telling him, these things happen, but he’s rushing me.
An unfortunate incident: my glasses vanished. I rummaged through all my things—nowhere to be found. I can’t read or write without them. Even food doesn’t taste as good if you can’t see what you’re eating. And you know, I’m not so well off that I can order a new pair of glasses just like that. Suddenly my neighbor Mikhail Stepanovich comes in and brings me my glasses. I run up to thank him—where on earth did you find them?—and he tells me he found them in my room. Imagine that. He came and took them when I was out.
“I thought they’d work for me,” he says. “But no, too strong.”
Makeyev hears me out: “I don’t know how things are done up north, but in Central Russia it’s common practice to lock one’s doors. At any rate, now nothing prevents you from reading my novel, am I right?”
Yes, I’ll read it, I promise.
•
And I would have read it, without delay, if Eternity hadn’t reminded me of itself again. I didn’t expect news from that direction! And to think: if it weren’t for Makeyev, I would probably never have known how the story of my theater ended.
It was like this. We meet at our usual place: in the garden in front of city hall, near the river. Vladilen Nilovich, as a rule, is a bit late, but on this day he comes early. And the expression on his face is unusual, cunning:
“My dear Alexander Ivanovich, have I got a surprise for you.” He pulls a newspaper out of the inside pocket of his raincoat, but holds it in his hand, doesn’t give it to me. “This morning I pick up the newspaper and start to read it. On the front page there’s a lot of material about the wonders of our military technology. An
d about the fact that the commander in chief has personally—personally!—taken part in testing it. A supersonic, variable-sweep wing, heavy strategic bomber. Do those words mean anything to you? Our pilots call it the White Swan.”
Vladilen Nilovich is standing in the middle of the garden, enthusiastically describing all manner of objects that fly through the air. I’m afraid to mix them up—I myself have never flown, only traveled by train and bus.
“Aerial refueling . . . Four missiles!” Makeyev exclaims. “Hit the target every time! And then . . . Pay attention, please. And then, Alexander Ivanovich, I look at the caption beneath the photograph. Hold on just a moment, I tell myself: Is that not our Alexander Ivanovich’s native soil? Indeed: Eternity! Here,” he holds out the newspaper, “see for yourself!”
I don’t remember taking the paper from him or sitting back down on the bench. My thanks to Makeyev: he caught me before I keeled over. My theater—there it was. The women’s dressing rooms—a hole, a huge ragged hole. That’s where one of the missiles had entered. To the right, one floor up, my window. No glass, blackness. There’s the cornice Slavochka would use to climb up to his room, so as not to wake the watchwomen. Did the urn survive? How could it have . . . I burst out in tears. Never mind reading it—I can’t even look at the pictures.
Lord, who’s that standing there, holding up pieces of metal? Isn’t that Zakhar? Smiling ear to ear. He was never exactly skinny, but . . . No, it really is him: Head of the Severogorsk district, Zakhar Gubaryev. They sprang him loose quickly! There he is, in all his glory—our Sagittarius, the Commander.
Poor Makeyev is shoving napkins into my hands. I mumble: Forgive me, Vladilen Nilovich.
“Alexander Ivanovich, no one was hurt . . .”
Of course, of course. Don’t pay any attention . . .
We sit for a while; I calm down a bit, only the tears keep coming. Makeyev moves closer to me, puts his hand on my shoulder: “Do you know who our commander in chief is?”
Well, yes, of course. I haven’t fallen that far behind . . .