Not So Much, Said the Cat

by Michael Swanwick

  Don’t! We can work something out. I’ll—

  This will be bright. You may want to close your eyes.

  Please.

  Goodbye, officer. What a pity you’ll never know the love of a woman like me.

  PUSHKIN THE AMERICAN

  The American, whose name has since been forgotten, came to Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains in the year 1817. He was a young man and whatever disgrace had driven him so far from home had been left behind in his native Philadelphia. Somehow he had found work as the secretary of an American industrialist who, along with his wife, was making a tour of Russia with a particular eye to the natural riches of the Urals.

  Yekaterinburg was at the time, though a century old, a provincial backwater. Gold had been found there recently (this figured in the industrialist’s extending his voyage so far), and the influx of miners and opportunists gave the city a raffish, frontier feel, which in turn made the local aristocracy insecure enough that the industrialist was feasted and feted in all the best houses. Such a dazzle of silver and crystal, of French wines and Irish lace, of tenors and talented daughters who played the pianoforte was produced as to temporarily assuage the ill-humor of the industrialist’s wife, who had long grown weary of the uncivilized rigors of their extremely protracted journey.

  Such are the facts as they can be reconstructed at this late date. Of this episode, only one last incident remains: One fine summer morning, without prior warning or any word of explanation, the industrialist and his wife abruptly got into their carriage and departed Yekaterinburg forever, leaving their secretary behind.

  This put the Ryazanovs, at whose mansion the industrialist had been staying, in a difficult position. The young man had no stature of his own, and so could not be kept on as a houseguest. But neither could he simply be evicted. However indirectly, he was a recipient of their hospitality, which could not be rescinded without cause. Yet the circumstances of his abandonment—the industrialist was not young; his wife was; the lad was handsome—were suggestive enough as to cast a moral cloud over anybody harboring him.

  To make matters worse, he spoke no Russian whatsoever.

  Several of Yekaterinburg’s more prominent citizens assembled in a smoke-filled room at the English Club (known locally, as was an identically named establishment in Moscow, for having not one Englishman as a member) to consider the matter. The American was healthy enough but, lacking language, he was unqualified for most forms of work. Even a miner must be able to take orders and heed warnings. It was a tricky business all around. But eventually a solution was found, and the next day a delegation led by the lawyer Nikitich, who spoke English, called upon the American.

  The American listened attentively and respectfully to their preamble, and then said, “I apologize, gentlemen, for having caused you so much trouble. Further, I would like to make it clear that I understand I am in no position to make any demands on you. To the contrary, I am already in debt to the Ryazanov family for their hospitality. Alas, I am all but penniless, and so in no position to repay them at the present moment, though I hope to do so as soon as I am in better fortune.

  “Meanwhile, I am prepared to leave immediately. I have no prospects, nor anywhere to go, and so if any of you can suggest a means by which I might find employment, however menial, I would be extremely grateful. I understand, however, that this may not be possible.”

  When translated, this handsome speech was received with approval and relief by the businessmen. It cast the proposal they had managed to cobble together in the best possible light. For, as the ad hoc chair of the committee explained, there was an ancient and revered priest who had been a force in the community when he was in his prime, and to whom much was subsequently owed. Now his powers of thought were failing, and so he needed a companion—an amanuensis, the speaker hastened to add, though as a scholar, the priest’s faculties were . . . well, in brief, the American’s duties would consist chiefly of chopping wood, cleaning house, and cooking. For this, he would receive food and lodging and a small stipend. Not much, but enough for a frugal young man to get along on. Meanwhile, he would find Father Asturias genial and undemanding company, and he could take the opportunity to learn his new country’s tongue.

  All this the American received with a good will. At the end, he shook hands with each of the committee, thanking them for all they had done. Then everybody went home to their wives, glowing with a positive sense of virtue, and since all went as planned, within the month they had as good as forgotten about the young man.

  Autumn came, and then winter. The American worked diligently for the old man who, as it turned out, no longer had a need for an amanuensis for he was slowly sinking into senility. However, the young man dutifully saw to the priest’s cooking and housekeeping, was pleasant to all, and rapidly picked up a rudimentary knowledge of the Russian language so there was no need for anyone to give him much thought.

  One spring day, a young woman named Elena Mikhailova was walking by the parsonage when she heard small children shrieking with laughter and stopped to see what game they were playing. She saw then the American sitting on a log with a semicircle of youngsters in the grass before him and was captivated by what she heard. “Who’s next then?” he asked.

  “Baba-yaga!” shouted one little boy.

  The American thought for a moment, and then solemnly recited:

  “Baba iaga (Baba-yaga

  kostianaia nogahas a leg of bone

  nos kriuchkoma hooked-nosed crone

  golova suchkom . . .” with a head like a stump . . .)

  He paused, as if lost for a final rhyme. Then his face lit up and he concluded:

  “. . . zhopa iashchichkom.” (. . . and a box-shaped rump.)

  The children all laughed so hard that two of them fell over on their backs. Then the American saw Elena watching him and quickly said, “One last rhyme, my dears, and that’s all until tomorrow.”

  “Tomato!” shrieked a girl with braids down almost to her waist.

  “Oh, that’s too easy,” the American said:

  “Eenie-meenie gagado

  wine-brine tomato

  Es-mes, dear children, off you go!”

  and, standing, he shooed them away, flicking his fingers as if they were dandelion fluff. Then, with an accent but less of one than Elena might have expected, he said, “I hope the children didn’t disturb you. They are so very enthusiastic and so very easy to please.”

  “No, of course they didn’t,” Elena said. “Where did you learn those rhymes? I never heard them before.”

  The American smiled pleasantly. “Oh, I make them up. The children give me a word and I invent a verse for them. When I don’t know the right word, I invent nonsense.” He winked. “I am a terrible person, you see. I pretend to be playing with them when actually I am tricking the children into teaching me Russian.”

  “You speak it quite well,” Elena said. “For a. . . .”

  “For a foreigner, you were about to say. Yes, but I don’t want to speak Russian like a foreigner. I—may I tell you a story?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Please!”

  He patted one side of the log, signing for her to sit, and took a place at a polite distance on the far end. “You have doubtless heard something of me, how I was stranded here and set to work as Father Asturias’s servant. But you can have no idea how terrible last autumn was for me! There were times I believed I would go mad.

  “Back in America, you see, I gave no more thought to the language I spoke than to the air I breathed. Nobody writes poems to air. But, oh, to be without it! Imagine the silence into which I fell, when there was nobody I could talk to. Father Asturias lives in a little house in the woods, as you know, and though there were occasional visitors, none of them spoke any English. I was left alone with my thoughts but, through disuse, the words in which I phrased them grew strange and unfamiliar. I would spend hours obsessively trying to remember whether one stood in line or on line. Worse, the old man only very rarely spoke.
As his mind weakened, he fell more and more into silence. He was abandoning the language which I would have given half my soul to possess.

  “In such circumstances, every single word that grudgingly silent old man let spill from his word-miserly lips was like a golden coin dropped before a beggar. I remember that once, after a silence of three days, Father Asturius raised his mug and said ‘Moloko.’ Moloko! What a wonderful word! I fetched the pitcher and poured him milk. ‘Moloko,’ I explained, pointing to the mug. ‘Moloko!’ Then I danced about the room, singing, ‘Moloko, moloko, molokolokoloko!’ until the old man growled, ‘Zatknis’!’”

  Elena laughed.

  “That night, I fell asleep repeating ‘moloko’ and ‘zatknis’ over and over to myself. I believe it is then that I fell in love with your beautiful, beautiful language.

  “All through the winter, I stalked the good father, seeking to trick him into revealing new words. I would pour water and say ‘Moloko,’ in order to make him angry enough to growl, ‘Voda.’ In this way I learned such words as khleb and pol and lestnitsa, for bread and floor and ladder. From his occasional mutterings I learned that ‘Nams nuzhyenos derevos dnyas pyechkis’ meant that we needed wood for the stove, that ‘Esches pokhlyobkis’ meant he wanted more gruel, and that if he said, ‘Vkusnos!’ my cooking had met with his approval. Small victories, you would say, but they gave me the beginnings of your grammar.

  “Father Asturias had only two books, a Bible and a dictionary, and when I at last managed to puzzle out the secrets of your alphabet, they were invaluable to me. I began reading aloud to him from the Bible. That he enjoyed greatly, and in his clearer moments he would correct my pronunciation and once or twice even answer a question as to a word’s meaning or derivation. Though, regrettably, those clear moments were few and far between. When visitors came, I spoke in a deferential and fragmentary manner, and cunningly coaxed more of the secrets of your tongue from their responses.

  “Out of that dark tunnel of that winter, I emerged desperately in love with the Russian language. So much so that I now want only to spend the rest of my life writing poems and stories in it. But to do that, I must become much better in it than I am now.” Then the young man said, “But where are my manners? I haven’t even asked you your name.”

  Elena told him, and then said, “And yours?”

  The young man thought seriously. “I had a name once, an American name, but I disgraced it. So let me choose a Russian one. Alexander, because I have a language before me as large as all the world to conquer. Sergeyevich, because the priest’s given name is Sergei. And Pushkin because—well, no reason really. I just like the sound of it.” And he laughed.

  “Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin,” Elena said solemnly, “I am pleased to meet you.”

  Pushkin took her hand. “Not half as much as I am to meet you.”

  Elena blushed.

  Elena was beautiful in the way that only a young woman of the Urals can be. Clean air and regular work had made her strong and healthy. Her red hair and her perfect complexion she got from her mother. It was inevitable that Pushkin should be drawn to her. And she, in turn, was already half in love with him.

  They were young and so they were ingenious. Their affair lasted for months before it was discovered.

  Thinking back on that period, many years later, it seemed to Elena like a dream. Never once did she consider the future—perhaps because she already knew that, for them, there could be none. Theirs was an old, old story and even an innocent like Elena knew exactly how such stories went, and how they must end.

  When young Pushkin, disgraced for a second time in the eyes of Yekaterinburg, was sent away, Elena cried halfway through the night. But in the morning she dried her tears and set to work pulling her life back together. Since she had always known it would be like this, it took less time than might have been expected.

  Not one person in the city thought they would ever hear from the American again. But there was an unexpected coda to this tale.

  Years—but not many of them—passed and the rising fortunes of Elena’s family caused them to sell their holdings in Yekaterinburg and move to St. Petersburg. There, much to her surprise, Elena learned that Pushkin had made something of a name for himself as a writer and poet. Indeed, he was by almost any standard to be considered a great success.

  After considerable hesitation, Elena sent her former lover a letter into which she put a great deal of effort. It was neither too warm nor too cold. It presumed nothing, but neither did it preclude anything that might ensue. It was such a letter as might be printed in a grammar book as an exemplar of its kind.

  By return mail came a missive that took her breath away.

  Alexander Sergeyevich still loved her! In great storms of words he declared his passions, his yearning, his eternal devotion to her. All in a rush he overwhelmed the battlements of Elena’s reserve, swept aside her defensive uncertainties, and retook the innermost sanctum of her heart. His was a letter that could never be printed in a grammar book, for though it contained not one gross or offensive word, it lay bare his soul. It was a letter that would have seduced a nun.

  But Pushkin made no demands, nor presumed any presumptions. All he asked was for the chance to see Elena again, and to hear her voice like the music of the woods once more. Specifically, he suggested that they might attend the opera together.

  Could there be any possible doubt that she would go? Elena went.

  Pushkin sent a coach for Elena and when she alit before the opera house, he was waiting anxiously. On seeing her, a look of tremendous relief came over his face. He offered his arm and escorted her inside, to a private box.

  For a girl from the provinces, it was like falling into a fairy tale. The best of St. Petersburg society were present and many a titled lady craned her neck to get a glimpse of the new beauty who adorned the great poet’s presence. So dazzled was she that the opera itself, Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, left Elena with only a vague impression of beauty, as if it were but a velvet background for the fine clothes and glittering jewelry of the audience. She did not so much see as feel the sidelong admiring glances of her former lover. Once she mischievously slipped free of a shoe to run a stockinged toe up under his trousers leg and caress his calf. From the corner of her eye she saw Pushkin shudder with desire. Yet outwardly he remained calm and composed, a perfect gentleman, and during intermission he graciously introduced her to his highly placed friends.

  When the opera was over, they left in the same coach. By unspoken assent, they retired to Pushkin’s apartments.

  It was strange, for Elena, to return to her first love’s embrace. Pushkin’s stroke was longer and smoother. His hands lingered where once they had groped. It was clear he had experienced many women since last they’d been together, and learned much from them about the arts of love. Elena, though to a more modest degree, had in her turn learned enough since their springtime passion to appreciate the improvement.

  Afterwards she lay in his arms while Pushkin happily made plans for them both. He would announce their engagement immediately. They would be married in the spring. He would buy her a house in the country where he would plant roses, and another in the city, where they would hold salons. Their first child would be a boy and the Tsar himself would come to the christening. Elena smiled and nodded. She fell asleep to his happy prattling.

  In the morning. . . .

  In the morning, Elena awoke first. She dressed quickly and fled from the apartment, though not without regrets. Pushkin was a restless sleeper and had kicked away most of the coverings, leaving him exposed to view. She had to fight down the urge to kiss his chest, or possibly some more intimate part of his body. But she left without the fleetingest touch of intimacy. For though she did not regret her actions of the previous night, she knew that to presume more would be false.

  Pushkin tried to reestablish contact, of course. He assailed her with armies of letters, poems, and declarations of passion. All of which she read with mel
ting heart and then burned to ashes in the cook stove.

  Eventually he stopped.

  Elena for her part found another lover. One day, eight months into their affair, he abruptly blurted out such a clumsy jumble of words that it took her a moment to realize it was a proposal. To her amazement, then, she discovered that she’d come to love this man dearly, and accepted on the spot.

  Not long after, they were wed.

  So it was as two respectably married individuals that Elena and Pushkin met for one last time. It was at an afternoon party thrown by a mutual friend when they both chanced to be passing through Moscow, headed in different directions. There was dancing and though they both danced, they did not dance with each other.

  Nevertheless, Pushkin contrived to confront Elena when no one else was near. In a low, intense voice he said simply, “Why?”

  “You are married and happily so, I hear,” Elena said. “As am I. Let us leave it at that.”

  But Pushkin’s look remained troubled. “You abandoned me, madam,” he said, not in an accusatory manner but as one who has been shipwrecked and then subsequently rescued might wonder aloud how it had all came about. “I think I deserve an explanation.”

  Elena sighed and agreed. “Let us walk together in the garden, where everyone can see us and observe that we behave not as lovers but as old friends—I believe my reputation can stand up to that—and I will briefly tell you all.”

  So, strolling together, not touching, they talked. “Do you remember our first time together,” Elena asked, “how we murmured to each other as we made love? You entreated me to tell you my every thought, my least emotion.”

  “I shall never forget. We were like two doves, cooing. I could reconstruct our conversation phrase for phrase, endearment by caress.”

  “Every night we talked like that.”

  “It was a feast of language and love.”

  “That time in St. Petersburg. What did I say then?”