Letters from Yelena

by Guy Mankowski

  You said you still felt like an outsider in the city, as if by returning you were outstaying your welcome here. But that as time went by, you were rediscovering what you had first loved about it. I asked how, with no-one telling you what to do, you had developed the rules by which to govern every moment of your own life. You looked at me as though there were years of consideration tied up in that question. ‘I am still learning,’ you said.

  The bottle of wine was almost at an end. As its effect began to take hold, you amused me with your impression of Michael, lizard-like and effete one minute, then a kind of camp Nazi the next. You had him down to a tee, the slightly leering gaze which crawls up your face as he considers you, the twitch of discomfort that whips around his shoulders when he momentarily realises how disingenuous he is. I found myself laughing so hard I almost fell off the rickety rail I was perched on.

  We passed the rest of the bottle of wine between us, like guilty schoolchildren. I saw that in fact having the freedom to run your own life gave you room for small decadent pleasures, which another’s rules could never encompass. You showed me that I didn’t need to see decisions as an unending pressure, that in time they could be a cause for celebration. I saw how addictive you found it to make me laugh. Once I began you didn’t want me to stop, and you quickly went on linguistic flights of fancy, surreal and imaginative that had me giddy with the absurdity of it all. Through the sheer dexterity of your words, Michael suddenly became a meerkat in a gilet, clambering sleazily up a ballerina’s leg one minute, kicked disdainfully off the next, and then suddenly asserting his homosexuality the minute he was addressed. Given the hesitant start to the evening, it felt great to find that groove with you. Suddenly the evening felt ignited with a sense of spontaneity. We drained the last of the wine, and you asked if I was ready for the grand tour. Throwing off my shroud of caution, I said that I was.

  The house was like a dusty jewellery box, its many compartments still hidden even to you. There were grand drawing rooms, decked in mahogany and rich leather, lined with ancient glass cases all containing antique books. There was a dining room with a long oak table, surrounded by portraits of woodland scenes, like something out of the first act of Giselle. ‘And this,’ you said, pulling open two high wooden doors. ‘Is the pool room, where my uncle gambled away the last of his inheritance with his many alcoholic friends. I don’t even know what half of these pool cues do.’

  I felt as if I had entered a C.S. Lewis novel, as if Toad of Toad Hall could come bounding into our company at any moment. The house resembled the most charming turn of the century English fantasy, every detail evocative of some new eccentricity. As you kicked a gramophone to life, I tried to show you the trick shots I remembered from my teenage days at the local pool hall. As the second bottle of wine flowed, we placed some of the antique statuettes on the table and tried to play crazy golf around them with the snooker balls. ‘We’ll tear the felt!’ I said.

  ‘And then I won’t have to maintain it!’ you replied, passing the bottle.

  We found the cigars your uncle had hidden in a cabinet, and on top of them his old poker cap. With a Cuban cigar smouldering between your teeth, you kept scores on the chalkboard – Y versus N. As the wine began to take hold I danced with the pool cue, singing huskily along to the jazz numbers you played. I berated you, with wandering hands, whenever you started to cheat at our customised game, snooker balls flying noisily onto the wooden floor. In the corner of the room you played the role of decadent barfly, cradling a bottle of wine in the tips of your fingers. I played the role of a gangster’s moll, serenading you with torch songs, the façade only broken by me occasionally coughing on cigar smoke. ‘Finish that bottle before you take the shot,’ you said.

  ‘Are you trying to get me drunk?’

  You muttered something about it being your only chance of winning, as you fiddled with a Nina Simone LP.

  ‘I said, are you trying to get me drunk?’

  As if about to address an errant child, you set the record down, and came over to me. I looked up at you, my mouth opening as I laughed, embarrassed at having said it. As you kissed me I dropped my pool cue with a clatter. For the first time, with my nervousness having vanished, I felt lust surge through me. The feeling was almost unrecognisable; it made me giddy and weak. You kissed me harder and our mouths opened. You pushed me up against the pool table. I giggled, but you suppressed that slightly feverish sound as you kissed me again, harder. I felt the strap of my dress fall around my elbow, our waists pressing into each other’s. ‘The neighbours will see,’ you whispered. ‘Shall we go upstairs?’

  ‘Bring the wine,’ I said. That lust swung inside me as you led me up the stairs, into a room filled with canvases, books, and a messy bed. The rich sun tumbled through the broken shutters. I felt a round throb rise in my middle, which spread through my torso as I stepped over to the bed. After setting the wine down by the bed, your every step acted as percussion, forcing my desire to build. I wanted to be placed so far within your world that I’d be irretrievable, and I kissed you as if seeking from your lips the very essence that would keep me there. As you kissed me your fingers explored the straps of my dress. I pushed you back onto the sheets and then reached behind me, unzipped the dress, and let it fall to the floor. Except for a tiny slip of fabric at my middle, I was completely exposed and yet I felt strangely empowered. Our eyes fixed upon one another, yours ablaze with curious lust. I unbuttoned your jeans, urged you to lean back. I felt a new urge, one I had never experienced before – the need to please. Carefully, as if your body was too refined to ignore, I unbuttoned your shirt and eased it from your back. Our lips closed again and I reached down to find you. And then, as sunlight spilt onto our faces, there was that glorious moment as I found my body with yours and you eased, determined and yet tender, inside me. That clamouring moment when our bodies assured one another’s that the pleasure was only going to build. I draped my arms around your shoulders, and felt my hair stroke your face. Your eyes clamoured over my breasts and the slim delicacy of my shoulders. I leant back, the sunlight splayed through my hair, and you gave me a look of such tenderness and resolve, that I knew something had just begun. And I looked back at you, as if slightly afraid of what you might be about to unleash from me.

  I’d never made love to someone so quickly before, Noah. That night we only revealed shards of ourselves, the type of glistening shards one usually reveals to a stranger in passing. There was that exhilarating sense of reckless disclosure, and yet there was something more elemental between us too, which we then began to build from. Our consummation in one sense was sudden, forceful, but within it there were shades of tenderness we both knew were too rich to neglect. And yet in that bright flash of sensuality we had satisfied one another with the present and with promises for the future. I saw the way that your eyes greedily took in my body, which I wanted to give generously to you. Not as a stranger would, as an indulgence, but more as a promise. I had never seen my body in that way before, but that night, for the first time, I saw its power. And in that look, I saw that you knew I had presented you with a gift too magnificent to be consumed in one evening. That you would find it almost indecent to neglect that truth. And then I prised my body from you, not yet ready for the state of intimacy that we would soon enter into so readily. I wanted you to feel that you would have to work to experience that again. So many men, I knew, might have their curiosity satisfied by such an encounter, but I knew you were not one of them. Not with your mental cravings and your creative insatiability. Until then my body had always been a foreign object, bent into shape for a stringent purpose, using bad temper and relentless hunger. It had never before been a tool of pleasure, an object of appreciation. Merely a long, pale curve, wan and fragile; hardly a plane on which a man could find himself. But from your starving expression, which betrayed how rarely you had felt such sensations, already I knew it would soon become just that.

  I moved over to the other side of the bed, but you came over to m
e and firmly took the flow of my hair in your hands. You pressed your body against me, and though you did not see it, I felt you had given yourself to me then, more completely than I had given myself to you. Your eyes searched me for confirmation that you were not alone in what you felt, but I held back. I knew that in so doing you would be forced to make the room to express your feelings, and through that confirm them. ‘You make me ravenous,’ you said. I leant back, and pulled the sheets around my body until I knew its concealment would frustrate you. In the night you would have to reach out for me, so you could detail the next portion of your private map of Yelena. And when that time would come, I knew I would turn to you in the dark and embrace you.

  With love,

  Yelena

  Dear Noah,

  I’m sorry for my delayed response to you. There are some good, and some rather less good reasons for this. The most important reason is that I found parts of your reply very difficult to read.

  I admit that with these letters we are trying to achieve something brave and perhaps also foolish. When we first agreed to do this, I felt inspired by the sense of possibility. I felt inspired by the thought of mapping out the wilderness inside me. In theory, I knew that it might sometimes be painful to do so. But practically speaking, I did not know the extent to which that would be the case; hence my delay. Although you did not intend your last letter to cause me pain, it did. And at times, in the last few days, I have feared how this process might irreversibly disturb the finally stilling waters of my mind.

  Please do not be frustrated at me for admitting this. Both of us knew that this process would not always be easy. I hope it is not impulsive of me to think that in time I will reveal things about my past lovers, which you too will find it difficult to read. If I am to properly tell my story that time will inevitably come. And when it does, I will not shy away from the truth. Because you have shown me that honesty is essential if we are to achieve our purpose. And to be honest, I have refrained from replying sooner because if I had done so I would have written to hurt you. And I know that I must write instead to impart the truth, which is an entirely different matter.

  I didn’t realise how soon it was after Catherine left that you and I met. I knew that you and Catherine had a passionate affair, and that when she suddenly vanished from your life, without reason or warning, it caused you great upset. I knew that this pain caused you to isolate yourself, as at times I have had to do in my life. Catherine sounds intriguing; and I must admit that your description of her caused me some jealousy. She sounds mysterious, empowered and wilful. In many ways, the opposite of me. Like a force of nature; untroubled by self-doubt, completely focused in realising her desires. Although the thought of you lustily entangled with her causes me pain, I know that her abandonment set the stage for me. Her lack of commitment caused a void in your life, which I was soon to fill. It meant that when we met you were finally ready to love completely, as you never would have been permitted to with her. It comforted me for you to write that you never felt such devotion for anyone as you felt for me. For you to say that intrigue pales in comparison to love, with all its permanent realms, that only grow more distinct and detailed with time. And when I occasionally loathe myself for what I lack, I think of this.

  You mentioned that as a writer, it bothered you to think you could not express yourself absolutely through the written word. Do not think of that again. It is not our fault that the world’s social conventions force us to relate to one another only sporadically, and in such fragmented ways. It is part of our bind, on our trawl through this partial, compartmentalised world. Put aside your frustrations at the subjective nature of life. Trust me when I say that your hunger for an objective, definitive world is nothing more than a mute protest. To me, the world’s beauty comes from its evasive, slippery quality. From the futility of trying to pin down petals, which whip and whirl in the wind. Because when you do catch one, it finally all seems worth it. And that is what we are trying to do with these letters. And if we do not manage to catch any petals, we should be mindful that it was still an admirable way for two people to spend their time. That it was beautiful to live in flagrant disregard of reality for the short period that we were writing to one another.

  I find it so fascinating that I am beginning to gain a reputation as a ballerina. If only you had seen me in my youth, at thirteen perhaps. I do wonder what you would have made of that underfed, sulky little girl in cheap Western makeup. Her bruised little thighs poking out of a tiny skirt, her face constantly screwed up at something small. She desperately wanted to be a ballerina one day, she knew that much. But she wanted it in such a hostile way that it didn’t seem very likely to happen.

  My mother died when I was six. She was a flighty, small town girl, idealistic and naïve. She was English, and she ensured that I was raised speaking the language that she loved as well as Russian. This meant that although I retained a slight Ukrainian accent with some English words, my dialect did not possess the usual plummeting vowels that most Ukrainian bilingual’s possess. As you know, my Russian background was not easy to detect. If anything, I spoke with a slight County Durham accent, for that is where she was raised. As a student, my mother studied English literature, and one of her first legacies to me was to pass on her love of this language. I collected and treasured English words as another child might collect stamps, and I delighted in writing and speaking the language at every opportunity. Whereas I found Russian to be a restricted and proud tongue, I found English delightfully exact. I seemed able to express myself better with it. English represented my mother, it was artistic and expressive. Russian represented my father; purposeful and determined. This was perhaps the reason I wrote my diary, from the age of eleven, in clipped and vibrant English.

  My mother met my father at university, and moved with him to his homeland in Ukraine to start a family. I don’t think she had expected to stay there as long as she did, but his business began to flourish and she found herself drawn into nursing his mother through her final years. She was dutiful and protective of his mother, just as at times she could be over-protective of me. I think she felt I was not tough enough for the world, and she wanted to hold me back from it slightly. Tragically, she did not outlive her mother-in-law by very long. She was hit by a bus while out shopping with a friend. I remember the hysteria in her friend’s eyes when she came to tell my father what had happened. My father had been utterly devoted to her, and her death caused a rupture inside him, which he never recovered from. He lost the will to fight after that, perhaps he felt there was nothing really to fight for now. I remember the utter confusion I felt about what had happened to her; it seemed no-one could give me a proper answer. Her sudden disappearance left a void in my life, which was never fully addressed. I think perhaps that my love of England became an expression of my frustrated love for her.

  My mother’s second legacy to me was ballet. She started dancing late, and I often wonder if she encouraged me to begin early so that I would have it all my life. When I was five she took me along to the local folk group, which danced at the village hall. I think they hoped she would become more involved, but her focus was only on nurturing me. She saw that I had a talent before anyone else did. I think she wanted me to have the glamorous, and in her eyes artistic life she never had, and I have always strived to fulfil that wish of hers. I can only imagine how she would have felt if she’d have known that one day her daughter would dance the part of Giselle.

  It seems hard now to imagine how she would feel about anything. She has retreated into time, become idealised. She no longer feels like flesh and bone, but like a half-forgotten dream, one that I feel perpetually guilty for not fully remembering.

  The only video we still have captures her as gamine and fragile. A sunny, natural happiness shines from her face, which does not seem strong enough to deal with it. I look most like the mysterious woman on that video when I am upset or ecstatic. In it she is standing in the living room of her and my father’s first home, and
my sister and I are still dots on the horizon. My father is picking out the notes of a slow waltz on the piano and she is dancing lightly along to it. Even to my eyes, she looks green. Many times I have feared how this waiflike woman would have reacted if she had seen what was to happen to her two precious daughters. I don’t know enough about her to know if she possessed any fight. But the fight I have found in me, when my back has been against the wall, suggests that she would have done. She certainly would not have taken what happened next lying down. I know she would have fought with every ounce of strength in her body. Either way, without our mother, life suddenly became very difficult.

  Nine months after she died, Bruna Zlenko discovered my father. Bruna met him during the sale of some offices that she part-owned the lease on, when he was first starting a business with my Uncle Leo. Bruna wiped the dust from my father’s eyes and promised to raise his two daughters if he kept her in return. At first it was little more than a contract, born out of my father’s desperation. He felt utterly overwhelmed at having to raise Inessa and me alone and Bruna seemed like a solution, albeit not a particularly romantic one. But over the years Bruna gained a hold on him, and she became almost a wife to him. He feared her, but he became convinced he needed her in a way that I could never quite fathom.

  Bruna could not have been more different to my mother. She had a flat, almost feral face, and a naturally downturned mouth. Her eyes were always narrowed and she was quick tempered. From an early age my sister and I proved that we were tenacious enough to fend for ourselves, and that my father was capable of filling any gaps, but it was this essential truth which started the troubles. Bruna knew that her best chance of keeping my father was to convince him that his daughters needed extra attention. Without finding such a role to play, Bruna would have had little chance of keeping a man like my father – an enterprising and handsome businessman. At first, my father was reluctant to accept that his daughters were especially troublesome, but battered by Bruna’s persistence he eventually acquiesced and at least outwardly accepted that Inessa and I were difficult children. Any of the usual misdemeanours reported by the school took on a sinister edge when Bruna relayed them. I have always found the tendency to colour information in that way a rather sickening trait. Bruna knew that Inessa and I had a natural intelligence that would one day render her presence redundant. And knowing that, she loathed us from the start. She knew it would be one hell of a challenge to prove to the world that we were useless. Her way of doing it was to constantly talk down our abilities to our father, and to seal us off from him enough so that he could hopefully not realise the truth. At first she was only able to do this by pretending it was done out of affection for my father, who seemed permanently weary from work. Consequently he allowed Bruna to have more access to us than she should have done.