In the kitchen, a still warm teapot. I looked for a note, but there wasn’t one.
Knowing Lena, I wasn’t surprised. She lacked the required mix of romance and sentimentality. Decisiveness, determination, passion: these were Lena’s fortes, and one day she might make some weak-willed creature an ideal wife. And she would put up with him for the sake of having somewhere to come back to after each fling …
Meanwhile I was alone again, in thrall to expectancy, entirely dependent on the secret timetable that was hers. But that morning I was not especially pained by her abrupt departure, being still sated with her, her kisses, her passion – a peculiar and reassuring satiety.
I would, I decided, take the day very slowly, not go anywhere, and for a start, ran a hot bath and put the kettle on.
*
Several days passed, and I was pleased to find that being alone no longer affected me as it had in the past. Life was no different. Here was the accustomed lull, a time without Lena, but without my feeling aggrieved.
I was, I decided one evening, sitting drinking tea in the kitchen, Pavlov-conditioned to Lena’s phonings. More by accident than design perhaps. Though there did seem to be an element of experimentation in our relationship that turned on the dreaded secret timetable. What did she do on the days not spent with me? Walk Kreshchatik Street? Hardly for more than an hour or two, and in this weather, not at all. But where, with the coming of spring and thawing of life, would I be? It did not bear thinking about. Pavlov’s dog asked for nothing, merely waited for a bulb to light, as I for a phone call. What a laugh! Still, given that any male-female relationship must to some extent be experimental, it wasn’t only my reflexes that were conditioned.
30
NEXT DAY THE silence of my flat was shattered by the telephone.
It was snowing.
The clock showed 12.45.
I was in my chair with the telephone beside me, reading Correspondence of Mayakovsky and Lili Brik, looking for love and romance but finding no more than skittish foolishness.
The telephone made me jump. By now my attitude to loneliness had changed completely, my old “enforced solitude” having become more in the nature of voluntary isolation.
My thoughts more with Mayakovsky and his Lili Brik, I picked up the receiver.
“Tolya?”
“Yes.”
“Marina. Again to tell you I’m sorry. You did get home?”
“I did.”
“Thank God! I was so worried, and I feel so guilty. You wouldn’t be free this evening, I suppose?”
“Actually, yes,” I said, expecting to be asked to help in some way, and hoping it wasn’t to baby-sit!
“Come to supper then. About 7.00.”
“Thank you, I’d like to.”
Leaving Mayakovsky and Lili Brik forgotten on the sofa I went to the kitchen to make coffee.
Strong coffee, sweetened with the sight of snow slanting past the window. The biological and the geometric with glass in between. Two realms of space, one quite apart from the natural. My own physical as opposed to mental, world, in which I had my being, deciding when and how much fresh air to admit, when to extend day by putting on light, or shorten it by drawing curtains. That, in my limited realm, was Power, a moment of joy, a fleeting “sense of profound satisfaction”, to use a cliché beloved of government. Power like that of the tongue, which, if the coffee be bitter, lets hand reach for spoon and sugar, leaving eye to determine the amount. An unperceived, unconscious game concomitant with any action, any desire, desire being itself a manifestation of power, begetting such truisms as “A woman’s wish is law”, “The customer is always right”. The world was made up of desires, one of the most important being the desire to submit, and I thought I knew how that came about. It all began with woman.
I thought of my wife. She left me because I refused to submit to her, finding no joy in so doing, and in the end she found herself a man submissive enough to restore harmony to her life. I was glad for her. Glad for myself. Glad to be liberated. But by nature sensitive, I found solitude as hard to endure as the want of a woman to submit to without being aware of so doing – a torment not unlike Russia’s in its want of a good Tsar. That woman, as I saw her, would be sensitive, loving and intelligent enough to make submission a joy.
Loneliness, now less a burden, had become the solitude long enjoyed by monks, a condition favourable to reflection and perfection of self. Though, to be truthful, self-perfection was not my aim, I being of the number who prefer to be taught by life.
Still it snowed.
Drinking my coffee, I reflected further on the nature of desires, pleased with my originality of mind on the subject.
31
THAT EVENING, IN a half-empty tram and a state of elation I made my way to Marina’s, looking out at the wintry city and thinking how nice to be reborn in it with no fear of repeating the mistakes of one’s previous existence. I felt more than usually light-hearted. New Year was in the air. It was as if I was heading for some street carnival, or at very least our “National Outing”.
With the year nearing its end, tonight’s invitation had the feeling of a whole series of celebrations logically culminating in a New Year’s Feast. It would have been nice to take a few flowers, but none were to be had on that particular route.
Marina was all smiles. A pair of slippers awaited me.
The table was laid in the living room. Cheese, sliced sausage, everything neatly set out, main course still in the kitchen, bottle of wine waiting for me to open it. No candles.
The cot, I saw, taking a peep while Marina was in the kitchen, had been moved into the bedroom.
I had the strange idea suddenly that it was not Marina I had come to visit, but Kostya, who, being delayed, we had decided not to wait supper for. At which point, pangs of guilt. What was I doing, entering a home that I had destroyed? But the question failed to intimidate, as if I were possessed of some powerful immunity. I was, I recalled, discharging a duty.
At that moment Marina came in with a great dish of rissoles and fried potatoes.
“Oh, dear! I’ve forgotten the bread.”
“I’ll cut some,” I said, following her out to the kitchen.
She produced a corkscrew, I opened and poured the wine, and we sat down to eat. Reaching for my glass, I was beset with difficulty. To propose a toast would, for all the absence of any sign of mourning, be like cracking a joke at a funeral, I felt again as if Kostya was still alive and about to join us at any minute. Why else would Marina still speak of herself as his wife rather than his widow. My glass was becoming unsteady.
“Well, to the coming New Year!” said Marina, saving the day.
The cheerful clink of glasses eased the tension.
“Would you like some music?”
I nodded.
Fetching a cassette player from the bedroom, she played light jazz.
“OK?”
“Fine.”
She wanted, I sensed, to talk, but didn’t know how to start, and to obviate a wake-like meal in silence, I refilled our glasses.
“Here’s to a good start next year, and none of the old year’s bad,” I proposed.
“No repeats,” she smiled.
“No repeats,” I said with feeling.
“I’ve got so used to silence recently,” she said suddenly. “When Kostya died, I thought at first I’d go mad. For a whole week nothing but phone calls. Then, cut! Utter silence … I cried, then I thought, it’s not me that’s dead. I’m alive! Mourning, photographs, what was the point? The dead were dead, and should show a bit of consideration to the living, not keep reminding … Sorry, I shouldn’t be talking like this – you knew him. Do pour some wine.
“The fact is that I’ve spent a lot of time alone,” she continued, glass unheeded. “He was constantly away on business. Crimea one minute, Moscow the next. Next year he was going to study law. It was all fixed, he said, the exams were just a formality. He would give up business, while studying, stay a
t home with me, help with Misha. He had $12,000 put by, enough to last a year or two.”
Clearly she had known nothing of his business. Her Kostya and mine were different people, both of them dead.
“So now it’s keep going for the sake of Misha,” she said, reaching for her glass. “Kostya never talked of his friends, never brought them home, or I might have known you earlier. Maybe that’s what makes it easy to say all this. Still, I’m sorry. Let’s drink to a happy New Year.”
The clink of glasses cut across the much subdued jazz.
The bottle was nearly empty. Time to be going, I thought, just as Misha started crying.
“Won’t be a moment,” said Marina.
Getting up to stretch my legs, I saw my inscription still in the TV dust.
When she returned, I made as if to go.
“You must have some gâteau – I spent hours making it.”
“I returned to the table. With the gâteau went tea and a liqueur in miniature tumblers. It was about midnight when I left. She kissed me on the cheek and told me to ring, writing her number on a pocket calendar – next year’s, I saw, when I got home.
32
SNOWING ON AND off, the year moved to its close.
One evening Marina rang asking my address so as to send me a New Year card, and it occurred to me that she might be intending to pop in unexpectedly.
So time to tidy up a bit. Starting with the ubiquitous newspapers and magazines, I set to work, and within the hour achieved a more pronounced aura of civilisation that extended to dusted surfaces. Now the question was whether she would come, if so, when, and hopefully not to coincide with Lena. Two days passed and nobody came, but on the third there was a letter.
Dear Tolya,
Thank you for coming. I greatly enjoyed our supper and the human warmth of it. It’s ages since I got anyone a meal. It’s dull cooking just for yourself. It would be nice to have a repeat. You are, I’m sure, much sought after. Even so, I’d like to invite you for a quiet New Year celebration – you’re such good company, so kind and attentive. If you have other plans don’t worry – just ring and say. Marina.
I had, I realised, given no thought to New Year, counting, though without having consulted her, on celebrating à deux with Lena. It was a week since she had rung. So I would hear, if not today, tomorrow, barring some radical change in her timetable.
I played Corelli. There was a breath of spring about the music, as if this year was done, all that was bad forgotten, and a new life, a fresh start in the making. One good thing after another, smiles all the way, thoughts, actions, all bathed in romance. A world that was ideal, naïf, a world I lived in and was in keeping with. Some kindly, unseen censor having excised the grey and the black of life’s experience, and left me as fine and upstanding as any hero of Soviet classical literature – even if deficient in heroic spirit and deed, and totally devoid of enthusiasm for, or pride in, my native land, or a people of which I had no knowledge. A world in which all were united by a happy past.
As I re-read her note, it occurred to me that there was more to it than an invitation to a New Year supper. Her “kind and attentive” was pleasing. Flattered and grateful, I could not help thinking of Dima’s disparaging “Another will take his place”. Well, I’d happily worn his slippers. They fitted. And if someone always did take someone’s place, why shouldn’t it be me?
33
WITH A WEEK to go, Kiev put up New Year decorations to distract from the daily grind, children were playing “civil war”, fighting with snowballs, and the radio was broadcasting promises from on high that the price of bread and milk would not be “liberalised”.
Lena turned up at last with a bottle of champagne and a box tied with festive ribbon. “A New Year’s present,” she said.
I kissed and thanked her. “Open now or wait till New Year?”
“Up to you.”
“How about New Year? What are we doing?”
“Let’s leave that till tomorrow.”
When, at supper, she toasted the New Year, I felt sure we would not be seeing it in together, but said nothing, determined to put on a brave face, and make the most of what I had.
It was morning before we slept, and midday when we woke.
I went to the kitchen and made coffee.
Back under the blankets and reaching down for my cup of coffee on the floor, I asked again about New Year.
“No good,” she sighed. “I’m booked for a bankers’ ‘mini Decameron’.”
“A what?”
“Orgy with group sex. I’m looking to the future, saving for a one-roomer.”
I nodded, smiling at the literary ring of mini Decameron! There was always a word for everything, and if there wasn’t, one got invented.
My problem of choice was removed.
Before she left, Lena made me open my parcel. Socks. Of all colours.
“To last you the year. When I’m next here, your holey ones go out of the window!”
When she had gone, I rang Marina, thanked her for her invitation and said I would come.
Next morning I went to buy her a New Year present, visiting boutiques, shops, seeing what other men were buying.
I had the feeling of entering on a new, quiet, stable, comfortable life, such as I had aspired to.
In three months little Misha would be sitting on my knee saying Da-da, and nothing he said thereafter would ever match that for importance.
My old schoolfriend Dima would turn up, and help to invest Kostya’s $12,000 in something earning good interest.
Marina and I would embark on a quiet and happy bourgeois existence, meeting new friends and avoiding old.
I would give the keys of my one-roomer to Lena and sometimes we would chat on the phone.
Life would be good, and I would be completely won over by it.
EPILOGUE
Some days after our quiet celebration of New Year – I having at Marina’s insistence moved in with her – a postcard arrived requesting payment in respect of a post office box, which was, I saw with a start, the very one where I had deposited the envelope of info. for Kostya. I thought instantly of the carrier bag still at my flat containing what I had taken from Kostya’s pockets. The key to the box might well be amongst them. I hurried off to check, and finding that it was, proceeded to the post office.
The box contained an envelope addressed to Kostya, which I pocketed, then having paid rental for a further year, I crunched my way through the snow to St Andrew’s Church and down the Descent to Fraternal Street and my café. Here, over a cup of double strength at my favourite table, I examined the contents of the envelope: passport photo of a man aged about 50, neat hair, suit, collar and tie, and written on the back, “10.01. Spadshchina, Podol, 6.00 pm.”
*
The Spadshchina was a restaurant, and on January 10, I went, with strange feelings, to Podol. I tried to think of myself as Kostya doing the same, but could not manage to at all. My mind was totally confused. It was, I realised, me who was Kostya, wearing his slippers, going daily to the dairy on his son’s behalf … The last three months had turned everything on its head. And today it was as if the remote past had come alive again, stirring doubts afresh. What if Kostya were alive? Alive was what one was so long as no-one knew anything to the contrary. The person who had deposited the envelope could have known nothing of Kostya’s death. So here was I heading for a restaurant selected for a killing that would not take place because the would-be killer was dead. There was a touch of theatre about it. What I wanted was to have a look at the man not going to be killed today, and oblivious of the chance happenings on which his survival depended. Which was not to say that he might not be killed tomorrow elsewhere, by someone else.
I arrived at the snug little restaurant on the early side at 5.30. It was only just open after the afternoon break, and the waiter wasn’t expecting custom so soon.
Twenty minutes or so later, the man arrived and was shown to a table facing mine.
I
was struck by the utter theatricality of it: play for two actors and one waiter, the latter as sole but invisible audience. Never did the avant-garde want for novelty. Watching closely, I could see from the unsteadiness of the menu he was holding that his hands were shaking. Was he, I wondered, aware of the danger he was in?
Seeing me looking, he looked back. The coloured lighting made it impossible to determine his expression.
The waiter served wine and hors d’oeuvres. Reality, as I sipped my red wine, was now more that of the cinema.
A decanter of vodka and hors d’oeuvres were brought for him. The waiter poured obligingly, took a step back and froze pending a curt nod from the diner, clearly long one of life’s managers. Accompanying the nod, a look of something between contempt and studied indifference directed at me. Still staring, he got to his feet, took two steps towards me, and collapsed, clutching at his heart, eyes raised to the low ceiling.
“Call an ambulance!” I instructed the waiter who came bounding in at the noise.
He did so, and when he returned, bent and examined the man, and I joined him.
“He’s dead,” said the waiter incredulously. “Heart attack,” he added with a shrug.
I collected my jacket and left.
It was dark and still snowing.
I walked quickly to the metro, clutching the postbox key in my pocket, conscious of the killer inside me, but undismayed.
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A Matter of Death and Life Page 7