Fish- a History of One Migration

by Peter Aleshkovsky

  “Your wish is my command,” I exhaled my answer.

  His shoulder was like Mustang’s neck: it exuded the same intoxicating smell. We rode the elevator to the ninth floor, the top of the building; the machine crawled slowly, creaking and shaking. I had lost all ability to reason, and he kept whispering, “Let me know you, let me know your want and your secret thoughts. Perhaps you have a dream I could help you make true? Ask me, vizier’s daughter, ask me, maiden, you, who are so innocent yet so clever and wise, so insightful and with such excellent mind, you, who could become the balm of my heart, ask me whatever you want. And if you ask me for that which your heart desires, I shall grant it to you.”

  My knees buckled under me, but I willed myself to walk on; he held me by my elbow and led me on, ahead, all radiant with a secret delight, saying all the right words at the precisely perfect moments, so tender and touching.

  “I swear to Allah, I shall be among those who perish lest I find aid and advice!”

  I had said these words a thousand and one years ago in a school play, and now I knew why I had remembered them.

  “Let it be as you say, oh, the princess of beauties!”

  He opened the door to his apartment. We crossed the threshold in each other’s arms. Night had fallen and the daytime ended with it.

  . 10 .

  We rushed towards each other like two mighty rivers falling from unimaginable heights; like two armies, worn out from the long wait for a battle, simultaneously hearing the call to attack. Like two streams, full and ferocious, we melded together and skipped over hidden rocks, beating with the inextinguishable energy that had lain shackled for the thousand years of our slumber under the glacier; wild and berserk we clashed, with no shame or fear of death, like the mythical warriors battling demons in the name of Allah, the only, the conquering. Ecstasy ruled our battlefield and the ground shook under our entwined feet, as if armored elephants took flight upon it like fearful gazelles. The air filled with our coarse cries, our voices made rough with the desire to conquer, to savor the victory, to subdue. One army came over another, a nation flooded a tribe, and our souls caught a glimpse of heaven. The thrill of combat blinded us to its barbaric ugliness; we had eyes for each other’s glowing eyes alone, and our hands took flight like wings, and all was mixed: the charged air, our sweat and our breath. And forward stepped the brave, and he was hard and unshakable like a king’s wand cast of tempered iron. And the brave attacked, and threw himself onto the hard shield, and then again, crushing its bolts with his sword that had known no loss. And the enemy retreated, luring the hero into a trap as he lunged, like a chained lion, again, and again, and again. And the battle went on, and more than once did the sides trade places and the attacker became the one defending himself, helplessly throwing up his hands and letting his armor be hammered and drummed with the maddened fists of the one who just a minute ago had pretended to cower. Soon the parts became a single being and birthed a monster with two heads, four legs, and four arms. In its ancient battle with itself, the beast aimed not to maim but to partake of both its strength and its weakness, melded like copper with tin, to reach the depths where time stands still, and there are no more corners, or up, or down. The air filled itself with spice and acid, with our sharp and marvelously shameful smells, with tender, and sad, and triumphant scents, sweet and salty, and lay heavy upon us, pressing down like a love-soaked blanket, and so it was until night turned to face the day and the first light dawned through the window.

  The light drained the darkness, put the walls and bookshelves back into their places, found the writing desk and the armchair in front of it, and the antique engraved map with a funny portrait of the Northern Wind as a furiously puffing putty face. The light filled the space with all the hushed objects that had served their master so faithfully. And that’s when the drums beat the victory and the warriors parted. The two reveling streams finally merged and spilled out from the narrow gorge onto a vast plain where they could slow their flow and even their breath. They had known each other in this wild race; they had felt each other inside and out and drawn forth many secrets. They’d played and laughed their hearts out, they had submitted and insisted, they had touched each other innocently and violently, shamelessly and timidly and now, sated and drained, happy and exhausted they continued their journey together as a full and quiet river.

  Valentin Yegorovich soon fell asleep. He slept as if he were swimming—with his arms thrown wide in a breaststroke and breathing heavily. A long-time smoker, he had chronic bronchitis. Quietly, so as not to wake him, I got up and went to the window. On the other side I could see the racetrack. I could not see it out of my second-floor apartment: the buildings on the other side of the street blocked it from view. Here, so high up, I could see pieces of it through the breaks in the treetops. The lights were still on, and the sand of the track appeared to be orange, as if someone had just dredged it up from a river bottom, brought it to the city this very night and spread it under the horses’ feet. Two drivers came out to the track in their sulkies. They moved slowly along, side-by-side, their reins hanging loose off the horses’ croups, talking to each other… For some reason, suddenly I really wanted to know what they were talking about. Finally they passed out of sight behind the stands, and only the lights remained until an invisible hand turned them off, all at once. A pink stripe appeared above the mass of the city buildings as if above the half-imagined wall of an ancient fortress. The sky turned blue; a few scattered clouds hung wide and still.

  A sudden flash of light hit my eyes and reflected in the window, startling me. Valentin Yegorovich stood by the bed with a camera in his hands.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you. You were so beautifully posed against the window.”

  “I’m cold.”

  “Come warm up.”

  I went to him. The cold eye of the camera’s lens pushed under my breast like a stethoscope’s chestpiece.

  “You poor, pretty girl. You gave me bliss,” he whispered.

  It was such a grandiloquent thing to say—he was still playing his Arabian Nights game, but I was grateful for it: I, who was unworthy of ever mixing my breath with his, had been granted royal favors.

  I climbed back into the bed, pressed against him like a spoon to another spoon in the dark of a sideboard drawer, and pretended to fall asleep. Last night I had told him everything: about Panjakent, Gennady, Pavlik. He kept a tactful silence and just stroked my hair.

  . 11 .

  He lived a reserved life and didn’t have many friends, only acquaintances. These were plenty: his land line and cell phone often rang at the same time. He would pick up both, politely ask one person to call him back later and go on talking to whomever he considered more important. He was always calm and business-like, sometimes leaving to another room or asking me, with his eyes, to step out. I wasn’t privy to his affairs. I surmised that he had a business, and possibly more than one. It appeared that he functioned as a middle-man who put people together, smoothed over sharp corners, and made things happen. Once I accidentally overheard him making a deal about a shipment of tractors to Krasnodar, and another time he was talking about some quotas and licenses. He made good money, enough not to count it, and spent it generously. He took me to restaurants twice, and would have done it more if it weren’t for my Grandma. She, as if sensing my betrayal, caused all kinds of trouble, so much so that at one point I became convinced that was it and waited for the end, keeping night watch at her bed. But she pulled through.

  Valentin Yegorovich did not reproach me once about her, and never suggested that I abandon old Lisichanskaya. On the contrary, he always listened attentively when I talked about her health, inquired after her, and several times, when I asked him, bought drugs for her. He respected my work.

  He had no interest in housework, so I added his apartment to my duties. Somehow, without wanting to, I had turned into the kind of parasite fish that sticks to the big shark’s belly. He offered to pay me for cleaning his place, and, o
f course, I refused. Then, at the end of the month, very straightforwardly, he handed me an envelope.

  “Spend it on candy. I won’t take no for an answer.”

  There were nine thousand rubles in that envelope. I thought about it a little, and kept the money, put it in a bank. He certainly knew how to exercise his will. We went on like that, sort of together, but more apart. I got used to it, and did not make any plans. We saw each other almost every day: I stopped by his apartment, but he never came to the Lisichanskys’ again. I’d call first, and go upstairs; if he wasn’t there, I would clean while he was gone. He had prohibited me from cooking—he enjoyed doing it himself, and he actually taught me quite a bit: not to salt the meat while it’s frying because it’ll bleed too much; to roast steaks on high heat, but quickly, so they stay “rare.” Soon I began to add raw mushrooms and cauliflower to my salads, got over my fear of shrimp and developed a taste for mussels. He could talk about food forever—but he never told me much about himself. After he evaded a couple of direct questions, I stopped asking. Instead, I spent a lot of time trying to imagine his life; it became my new favorite pastime during my night watches and I read much less.

  After that first incredible night that robbed me of all reason, our passion was replaced with tenderness. Several times he mounted new attacks, but was defeated every time. Unlike Gennady, who was enraged and ashamed of his insolvency, Valentin Yegorovich thoroughly impressed me with his good humor. He laughed at himself, and was always so tactful, rejecting any hint of my guilt, not drawing any attention to his problem but deemphasizing it. I found my own rhythm and got used to it; the doubts that tormented me when I was alone disappeared as soon as we were together. We’d lie on his wide bed and he stroked me like a father comforting a wayward daughter. We touched each other lightly and carefully, and, it seemed, without a shred of disappointment. This was the deepest level of trust, and it was enough—at least as far as I was concerned. He did feel pity for me, but never uttered the word, knowing that it would wound me. When I was with him, the world disappeared. I could close my eyes and float in wonderful calm, caressed as if by a warm nocturnal breeze after an exhausting hot day, like when I was a child and would fall asleep naked with the unnecessary sheet wrapped around my ankles.

  Sometimes Valentin Yegorovich also whispered kind words into my ear and I would fall into a short, restoring nap, to be awakened again by his voice, “Vera, wake up, Grandma is waiting.”

  Oh, Grandma! I so didn’t want to leave—be it during the day or in the middle of the night. But I had to get up, give him a peck on the cheek, and ride the elevator down to my real life. I don’t mean that I cared for my patient less; quite the opposite—I loved her even more now and told her stories about my pasha. Whatever did he see in me? Why doesn’t he end it? I wished I hadn’t told him all about Pavlik and Gennady! Did he feel sorry for me? It seemed there was nothing I could give him, and yet, he must have needed me for something, if only as a distraction from his depressing thoughts.

  And thoughts he had. Without warning, he could retreat into himself; he got this heavy look in his eyes and responded to my touch with effort, as if overcoming some internal obstacle. He was used to living alone, having left his wife twelve years earlier, when Anton was still small. He still helped them; he had bought the apartment for Anton, and was now fighting his addiction. But he did it as if he were just buying another pair of jeans: it was just something that needed to happen. I could sense that his reserve and serenity were both superficial, a mask. In bed, he allowed himself to step out of his usual role and did not shy from his feelings, but when that was over he always went back to his icy competence, occasionally broken with an impromptu joke. He lived for himself and with himself; sometimes there was something inside that made him talk to me as if I were just another stranger in the street—precisely, politely, without emotion.

  When his eyes grew heavy, he resembled an animal: he was as lonesome and taciturn as a moose in the woods. It was easier for him to travel like this, blending in with the leaves, listening attentively to the world around him, and these moments made me feel achingly sad for him. I tried to melt the ice that shackled him inside, but my hand, so well-versed in reading incoming signals, often hit impenetrable armor, and I had to retreat.

  If I did succeed at breaking his trance, he would take my hands into his, and say softly, “Go.”

  And I would go. He’d kiss me on the forehead wearily, to say goodbye.

  He never neglected his obligations: he visited Anton regularly at the clinic and met with Alexander Danilovich.

  What did we talk about when we were together? What do people talk about when they are close? Nothing special. About another book I had read to Grandma—he had read many of the same books when he was a child. About the weather. It amused him that even here, in Moscow, I am always looking at the sky.

  “Those clouds—it will snow.”

  “God, Vera, this is so great! No one here cares any more. I thought Muscovites had forgotten the sky even exists!”

  “It’s just a habit.”

  “That’s what’s great about it!”

  He teased me for this ruralism, but I liked it. I could feel that he was at ease with me.

  “Live and learn. I made a living out of noticing things, but you just taught me to look at the sky.”

  He did enjoy noticing things; it was part of his vocation. He loved talking about photography. At some point he had grown disappointed in it—the reporting routine grew old, he said. From the heat with which he criticized younger photographers, though, I deduced that there may have been another, secret reason, that he did not want to talk about. He had a studio set up in one of his rooms. He took pictures very rarely now, only for his own pleasure, and only with a wide-angle lens and black-and-white film; he didn’t care for digital photography at all.

  “I’m not interested in retouching and drawing on the computer. I want to turn a living thing into a painting, to catch it and not let go.”

  I became his audience when he talked about photography: how to construct a shot, how hard it is not to rush but to wait for that one shot that is so clear in your head—to wait for days, months. Sometimes he’d forget and go on about technical nuances that were important to him; I couldn’t follow everything, but he needed to think out loud. He showed me a series of pictures called “Birds”: pigeons, sparrows, blackbirds, crows, seagulls—all caught in fierce urban scenes, being greedy, shameless, idly curious, narcissistic bullies.

  “You’ve given the birds human characteristics.”

  “Is it obvious?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then it worked.”

  He never boasted about his own accomplishments, but praised me constantly: I was insightful, and smart, and intuited things, and… I just melted, surrendered, and closed my eyes. His magical hands picked up where the words left off. It was so easy and sweet to put myself at my conqueror’s mercy, to step out of time and space, and soar over the abyss, like the catfish in the moon-path on Babkin Dip on a quiet, still night. It was pure bliss, and I didn’t ask for anything more than what had been given me. With him, I could forget about everything; it felt good, natural and not shameful, like in heaven.

  . 12 .

  Winter, spring and summer passed in this manner. It seemed I would not have been able to live a day without his attention, or simply his voice. Every morning, after I got up and checked on my Grandma, I called Valentin Yegorovich. It became a habit; it was important for me to start my day with his greeting.

  “Did you sleep well, Verunchik?”

  “I did, and you?”

  “Pretty well.” “

  “When are you coming over?”

  “I’ll take care of Grandma, and be there right away.”

  “Very well, I’m home until two.”

  If he left early, I went to his place anyway, having called ahead even though I had my own keys. He had once asked me to do it this way, and I dutifully observed his ru
le. I cleaned his apartment, did his laundry, and took the dry clothes downstairs, to be ironed together with Grandma’s sheets. If we didn’t see each other during the day, we always made sure to do so at night. Occasionally, he had days that were booked all the way through, and he always gave me advanced notice about those, with apologies.

  Sometimes when I came over he would be sitting at his desk, reading some papers. Then I would take a seat in an armchair under a yellow floor-lamp, with a book, and glance furtively at his strong, straight back. I liked his self-control. I knew that he knew I was looking at him, but he wouldn’t turn and look back at me. He once confessed that feeling my eyes on his back was torture for him. Every time I remembered this silly confession, an idiotic happy grin would bloom on my face. I looked at myself in the mirror and wanted to cry.

  Anton got locked up in the clinic for a good long time; Valentin Yegorovich made regular payments to cover his treatment. The doctor was pleased with his patient’s progress, and it seemed even the father came to believe that full recovery was possible. I deduced as much from a few things he said.

  “You wouldn’t recognize the boy. He is calm, but not depressed, reads plenty. He might even go back to college.”

  Anton was enrolled at the Economics department at MGU,[5] but for the last three years he’d been taking one leave after another.

  Yulka lived in Anton’s apartment, but we rarely saw each other; she told me she was working at a marketing agency. One day we ran into each other on the landing in front of the elevator: I was washing the floor. She looked a little slow to me.

  “Yulka, what are you doing?”

  “What?”

  “Yulka! Are you up to your old stuff? I’ll tell Valentin Yegorovich everything!”

  She forced a lop-sided smile.

  “You out of your wits, finally? I’m just tired—we’ve been shooting all day.”

  “Seen Anton recently?”