Zoya stuck her photograph—chestnut curls, arched brows, severe gaze—into Vladimir’s wallet: whenever he reached for his train pass or for money, he’d see her, so beautiful, and cry: ah, why aren’t I marrying her? What if someone beats me to it? In the evenings, waiting for him, she placed a pink round-legged lamp in the window—a family lighthouse in the gloom. To bind the noose, to warm his heart: the tower is dark, the night is dark, but the light still burns—it is the star of his soul not sleeping, perhaps canning fruit, perhaps doing some laundry.
Soft were the pillows, soft were the dumplings put twice through the grinder, everything beckoned and Zoya buzzed like a bee: hurry, friend. Hurry up, you lousy bum!
She wanted to be married before she hit twenty-five—it was all over by then, no more youth, you get run out of the hall, and others run to take your place: swift and curly-haired.
In the mornings they drank coffee. Vladimir read Cutters and Yachts magazine, chewed, scattering crumbs in both beards; Zoya was hostilely silent, staring at his forehead, sending telepathic messages: marry, marry, marry, marry, marry me! In the evenings he read again, and Zoya stared out the window waiting for bedtime. Vladimir didn’t read calmly, he grew excited, scratched his head, jerked his leg, laughed, and cried out, “Just listen to this!” Laughing as he spoke, jabbing Zoya with his finger, he read what he had liked so much. Zoya smiled wanly or stared at him coldly, not responding, and he would shake his head sheepishly, quiet down, and mutter, “What a guy!” and out of pride keep an uncertain smile on his lips.
She knew how to spoil his fun.
But really: he had everything he wanted. Everything was swept, cleaned, the refrigerator defrosted on time. His toothbrush was here. His indoor footwear. He was fed here. If something needed to go to the cleaners—no problem. My pleasure. So what about it, you so and so, why won’t you marry me and just ruin my mood? If I knew for sure that you weren’t planning on it, I’d send you packing. Bye-bye. Say hi to the folks. But how to find out his intentions? Zoya didn’t dare ask a direct question. Many centuries of experience kept her from doing that. One bad shot—and it was over, write it off; the prey runs away hard, leaving a cloud of dust and view of the soles of its feet. No, you have to lure it.
And the viper felt right at home. Became completely tame. Brought his shirts and jackets from the communal flat. His socks were all over the place now. He’d come over and put on the slippers. Rub his hands: “And what are we having for dinner tonight?” Notice the we. That’s how he talked.
“Meat,” Zoya said through gritted teeth.
“Meat? Fine! Fine! And why are we in a bad mood?”
Or he’d start in, “Would you like it if we got a car? We’ll drive wherever we feel like.”
Mockery! As if he had no plans to leave Zoya. And what if he didn’t? Then marry her. Zoya didn’t want to love without guarantees.
Zoya set traps: she’d dig a pit, cover it with branches, and nudge him toward it. . . . Suddenly, all dressed and made up, she would refuse to go out, lie down on the couch, and stare balefully at the ceiling. What’s the matter? She can’t . . . Why? Because . . . No, what’s the matter? Is she sick? What happened? She can’t, she won’t go, she’s ashamed to be a general laughingstock, everyone will point at her: and in what capacity is this one here? Everyone else will have wives. . . . Nonsense, Vladimir would say, at best only a third will be wives there, and they’ll be strangers. And Zoya had been going until now—without a problem? Until now she had, and now she can’t, it’s just her sensitive soul, like a rose, wilting under poor treatment.
“And when have I ever treated you poorly?”
And so on and so forth, and always moving away from the camouflaged pit.
Vladimir took Zoya to visit an artist; they say he’s quite interesting. Zoya pictures the beau monde, groups of art historians: the ladies old biddies, all in turquoise and with turkey necks; the men elegant with colored handkerchiefs in their breast pockets, smelling good. A noble old man with a monocle pushes his way through the crowd. The artist in a velvet smock, pale, and with a palette in his hand. In comes Zoya. Everyone says “Oh!” The artist grows even paler. “You must pose for me.” The noble old man regards her with sadness and nobility: his years are gone, Zoya’s fragrant beauty is not for him. Zoya’s portrait—nude—is taken to Moscow. A show at the Manege. The police hold back the crowds. There is a show abroad. The portrait is behind bulletproof glass. They let in people two at a time. Sirens wail. Everyone squeeze right. The president enters. He is astounded. Where is the original? Who is that woman? . . .
“Watch you don’t break a leg down here,” Vladimir said. They were going down to a basement. Mossy gunk dangled from the hot pipes. It was warm in the studio. The artist—a little snot in a torn T-shirt—dragged out his heavy paintings. They depicted strange things: for instance, a large egg, with lots of tiny people coming out of it, Mao Tse-tung in canvas boots and an embroidered jacket floating in the sky with a teapot in his hand. The whole thing was called Concordance. Or this one: an apple with a worm crawling out of it wearing glasses and carrying a briefcase. Or: a wild craggy cliff, growths of cattails, and from the cattails comes a wooly mammoth in slippers. Someone tiny is aiming at it with a bow and arrow. On one side you can see the little cave: it has a light bulb hanging from a cord, a glowing TV screen, and a gas burner. Even the pressure cooker is drawn in detail, and there’s a bouquet of cattails on the little table. It’s called Hunting the Wooly Mammoth. Interesting. “Well, it’s daring,” Vladimir said. “Quite daring. . . . What’s the concept?” “Concept?” the artist gleefully demanded. “You’re insulting me. Am I a Peredvizhnik or something? Concept! You have to run from concepts, brother, and don’t look back!” “No, but still, but still . . .” They argued, waving their arms, the artist set out lopsided ceramic mugs on the low table, clearing not very clean space with his elbow. They drank something that didn’t taste good and followed it with rock-hard pieces of the day-before-yesterday’s leftovers. The host’s radiant but unseeing gaze slid professionally over Zoya’s surface. The gaze did not connect with Zoya’s soul, as if she weren’t even there. Vladimir grew red, his beards were unkempt, both men were shouting, using words like “absurd” and others that sounded like it; one referred to Giotto, the other to Moisenko, and they forgot about Zoya. She had a headache and there was a pounding in her ears: dum, dum, dum. Outside the window in the dark rain was gathering, the dusty lamp on the ceiling floated in layers of bluish smoke, and the crude white shelves were crowded with pitchers holding Crimean brambles, long broken and covered with cobwebs. Zoya wasn’t here or anywhere else, she simply did not exist. The rest of the world did not exist either. Only smoke and the noise: dum, dum, dum.
On the way home, Vladimir put his arm around Zoya’s shoulders.
“A most interesting man, even if he is nuts. Did you hear his arguments? Charming, eh?”
Zoya was silent and angry. It was raining.
“You’re a trooper!” Vladimir went on. “Let’s go home and have some strong tea, all right?”
What a louse Vladimir was. Using dishonest, cheating methods. There are rules of the hunt: the mammoth steps back a certain distance, I aim . . . let loose the arrow: whrrrrrrrr! and he’s a goner. And I drag the carcass home: here’s meat for the long winter. But this one comes on his own, gets up close, grazes, plucking at the grass, rubbing his side against the wall, napping in the sun, pretending to be tame. Allows himself to be milked! While the pen is open on all four sides. My God, I don’t even have a pen. He’ll get away, he will, oh Lord. I need a fence, a picket, ropes, hawsers.
Dum, dum, dum. The sun set. The sun rose. A pigeon with a banded leg landed on the window and looked severely into Zoya’s eyes. There, there you are! Even a pigeon, a lousy, dirty bird gets banded. Scientists in white coats, with honest, educated faces, PhDs, pick him up, the little bird, by the sides—sorry to disturb you, fellow—and the pigeon understands, doesn’t argue, and without f
urther ado offers them his red leather foot—my pleasure, comrades. You’re in the right. Click! And he flies off a different creature, he doesn’t get underfoot and cry, doesn’t recoil heavy-jawed out of the path of trucks, no—now he flies scientifically from cornice to balcony, intellectually consumes the prescribed grains, and remembers firmly that even the gray splotches of his droppings are illuminated henceforth with the unbribable rays of science: the Academy knows, is in control, and—if necessary—will ask.
She stopped talking to Vladimir, sat and stared out the window, thinking for hours about the scientific pigeon. Feeling the engineer’s sorrowful eye upon her, she would concentrate: well? Where are the long-awaited words? Say it! Give up?
“Zoya dear, what’s the matter. I treat you with love, and you treat me like a . . .” mumbled Mr. Two-Beards.
Her features hardened and sharpened, and no one has said Oh!” in a long time upon meeting her, and she didn’t need that anymore: the blue flame of endless sorrow, burning in her soul, put out all the fires of the world. She didn’t feel like doing anything, and Vladimir vacuumed, beat the rugs, canned eggplant “caviar” for the winter.
Dum, dum, dum beat in Zoya’s head, and the pigeon with the fiery wedding ring rose from the dark, his eyes stern and reproachful. Zoya lay down on the couch straight and flat, covered her head with the blanket, and put her arms along her sides. Unbounded Grief, that’s what the medieval masters from the album on the shelf on the left would have called her wooden sculpture. Unbounded Grief ; so there. Oh, they would have sculpted her soul, her pain, all the folds of her blanket the right way, they would have sculpted her and then fixed it up on tippy top of a dizzying, lacy cathedral, at the very top, and the photo would be in close up: “Zoya. Detail. Early Gothic.” The blue flame heated the woolen cave, there was no air. The engineer was tiptoeing out of the room. “Where are you going?” Zoya shouted like a crane, and the married pigeon grinned. “I was . . . just going to . . . wash up. . . . You rest,” the monster whispered fearfully.
“First he goes to wash up, then to the kitchen, and the front door is right there,” the pigeon whispered in her ear. “And then he’s gone.”
He was right. She tossed a noose around the two-beards’ neck, lay down, jerked, and listened. At that end there was rustling, sighing, shuffling. She had never particularly liked this man. No, let’s be honest, he had always repulsed her. A small, powerful, heavy, quick, hairy, insensitive animal.
It puttered around for a while—whimpering, fussing—until it quieted down in the blissful thick silence of the great ice age.
Translated by Antonina W. Bouis
THE CIRCLE
THE WORLD is ended, the world is distorted, the world is closed, and it is closed around Vassily Mikhailovich.
At sixty, fur coats get heavy, stairs grow steep, and your heart is with you day and night. You’ve walked and walked, from hill to hill, past shimmering lakes, past radiant islands, white birds overhead, speckled snakes underfoot, and you’ve arrived here, and this is where you’ve ended up; it’s dark and lonely here, and your collar chokes you and your blood creaks in your veins. This is sixty.
This is it, it’s over. Here no grass grows. The soil is frozen, the earth is narrow and stony, and ahead only one sign glows: exit.
But Vassily Mikhailovich was not willing.
He sat in the hallway of the beauty shop and waited for his wife. Through the open door he could see the crowded room, partitioned with mirrors, where three . . . three women his own age squirmed in the hands of mighty blond furies. Could he call what was multiplying in the mirrors “ladies”? With growing horror, Vassily Mikhailovich peered at what sat closest to him. A curly-haired siren planted her feet firmly, grabbed it by the head, pulled it back onto a waiting metal sink, and splashed it with boiling water: steam rose; she lathered wildly; more steam, and before Vassily Mikhailovich could cry out she had fallen upon her victim and was choking it with a white terry towel. He looked away. In another chair—my God—long wires were attached to a reddened, albeit very happy head, with protruding diodes, triodes, and resistors. . . . In the third chair, he realized, was Yevgeniya Ivanovna, and he went over to her. What at home appeared to be her hair was now wrinkled up, revealing her scalp, and a woman in a white coat was dabbing at it with a stick dipped in a liquid. The odor was stifling.
“Take off your coat!” several voices cried.
“Zhenya, I’m going for a walk, just a quick circle,” Vassily Mikhailovich said, waving his arm. He had felt weak in the legs since morning, his heart was thumping and he was thirsty.
In the lobby stiff green sabers grew hilt-down out of large pots, and photographs of bizarre creatures with not-so-nice hints in their eyes stared from the walls under incredible hair—towers, icing, rams’ horns; or, ripples like mashed potatoes in fancy restaurants. And Yevgeniya Ivanovna wanted to be one of them.
A cold wind blew, and small dry flakes fell from the sky. The day was dark, empty, brief; its evening had been born with the dawn. Lights burned brightly and cozily in the small stores. A tiny, glowing, sweet-smelling store, a box of miracles, had grown onto the corner. You couldn’t get in: people were pushing and shoving, reaching over heads with their chits, grabbing little somethings. A fat woman was trapped in the doorway, she clutched the jamb, she was being carried away by the flow.
“Let me out! Let me get out!”
“What’s in there?”
“Lip gloss!”
Vassily Mikhailovich joined the jostling. Woman, woman, do you exist? . . . What are you? . . . High up a Siberian tree your hat blinks its eyes in fear; a cow gives birth in suffering so you can have shoes; a lamb is sheared screaming so you can warm yourself with its fleece; a sperm whale is in its death throes; a crocodile weeps; a doomed leopard pants, fleeing. Your pink cheeks come from boxes of flying dust, your smiles from golden containers with strawberry filling, your smooth skin from tubes of grease, your gaze from round transparent jars. . . . He bought Yevgeniya Ivanovna a pair of eyelashes.
. . . Everything is predestined and you can’t swerve—that’s what bothered Vassily Mikhailovich. You don’t pick wives: they simply appear out of nowhere by your side, and you’re struggling in fine netting, bound hand and foot; hobbled and gagged, you’re taught thousands and thousands of stifling details of transient life, put on your knees, your wings clipped; and the darkness gathers, and sun and moon still run and run chasing each other along a circle, the circle, the circle.
It was revealed to Vassily Mikhailovich how to clean spoons, and the comparative physiology of meatballs and patties; he knew by heart the grievously brief lifespan of sour cream—one of his responsibilities was destroying it at the first signs of mortal agony—he knew the birthplaces of brooms and whisks, distinguished professionally among grains, had in his head all the prices of glassware, and every autumn wiped windowpanes with ammonium chloride to eradicate the ice cherry orchards that planned to grow by winter.
At times Vassily Mikhailovich imagined that he would finish out this life and begin a new one in a new image. He fussily selected his age, an era, his looks: sometimes he wanted to be born a fiery southern youth; or a medieval alchemist; or the daughter of a millionaire; or a widow’s beloved cat; or a Persian king. Vassily Mikhailovich calculated, compared, deliberated, made conditions, grew ambitious, rejected all suggested possibilities, demanded guarantees, huffed, grew tired, lost his train of thought; and, leaning back in his armchair, stared long and hard in the mirror at himself—the one and only.
Nothing happened. Vassily Mikhailovich was not visited by a six-winged seraph or any other feathery creature with offers of supernatural services; nothing burst open, there was no voice from the heavens, no one tempted him, carried him aloft, or hurled him down. The three-dimensionality of existence, whose finale was ever approaching, suffocated Vassily Mikhailovich; he tried to get off the tracks, drill a hole in the sky, leave through a drawing of a door. Once, dropping off sheets at the laundry, Va
ssily Mikhailovich stared into the blossoming clover of cotton expanses, and noticed that the seven-digit notation sewn onto the northeast resembled a telephone number; he secretly called, and was graciously welcomed, and began a boring joyless affair with a woman named Klara. Klara’s house was just like Vassily Mikhailovich’s, with the same clean kitchen, although the windows faced north, and the same cot, and as he got into Klara’s starched bed Vassily Mikhailovich saw yet another telephone number in the corner of the pillow case; he doubted that his fate awaited him there, but, bored by Klara, he called and found the woman Svetlana with her nine-year-old son; in Svetlana’s linen closet, clean folded linen lay with pieces of good soap in between the layers.
Yevgeniya Ivanovna sensed that something was up, looked for clues, rummaged in his pockets, unfolded scraps of paper, unaware that she was sleeping in the pages of a large telephone book with Klara’s telephone number, or that Klara dreamed in Svetlana’s telephone numbers, or that Svetlana reposed, as it turned out, in the number of the accounting department of the social security office.
Vassily Mikhailovich’s women never did learn of one another’s existence; but of course, Vassily Mikhailovich did not pester them with information about himself. And where would he have gotten a surname, a job, an address, or say, a zip code—he, the phantom of blanket covers and pillow cases, born of the whims of chance of the laundry office?
Vassily Mikhailovich stopped the experiment, not because of the social security office; it was just that he realized that the attempt to escape the system of coordinates was a failure. It wasn’t a new, unheard-of road with breathtaking possibilities that opened before him, not a secret path into the beyond, no; he had simply felt around in the dark and grabbed the usual wheel of fate and if he went around it hand over hand, along the curve, along the circle, he would eventually end up with himself, from the other side.
White Walls Page 6