The Tolstoy Estate

by Steven Conte

  Anyway, weren’t you the one who pointed out in your first letter that an unrequited love is better than a consummated one? Wise words. You should heed them. I should heed them, since now I have to admit that against my better judgement I have asked Marlen what he thinks about you and I meeting with the approval of the authorities, since the idea has the potential to harm Marlen at least as much as me. Naturally he was surprised to learn of your existence, and because I censored my account of our time at Yasnaya Polyana he was also puzzled why I would consider endangering my career for some German I met in the war, even one who went on to become the Mayor of Nuremberg. Probably he was suspicious, his Oedipal ganglia all aquiver, as yours evidently were when your mother’s former admirer came sniffing about; but like you, Marlen managed to remain calm and rational about it. His verdict? That we should wait for a thaw in East–West relations, when the Party is more likely to take kindly to the idea. Such a thaw is inevitable, he believes, as both sides will soon be forced to cut spending on weapons and on space – us because we didn’t have any money to begin with, America because of the sums it is haemorrhaging in Vietnam.

  So neither a yes nor a no but a maybe. Will that do for now? In the meantime you have my letters, and I yours. I am looking forward to the next of them very much.

  Love,

  Katerina

  * * *

  28 Jonah Strasse

  Nuremberg

  18 November 1969

  Dear Katerina,

  Looking over our letters (I’ve kept copies of mine) I see that we tend to begin by discussing the past before moving on to the present, leaving any talk of the future to the end. Perhaps as the lesser writer I ought to hold with this convention, but I have a question for you that’s too pressing to wait.

  Katerina, will you marry me?

  Since your last letter arrived I’ve had plenty of time to contemplate this proposal, and plenty of time to imagine your reaction. But just hear me out. The fact is that from shortly after our first meeting I have loved you; and for all that’s happened to us since, and despite sometimes trying to subdue it, I can’t dislodge the feeling. Yes, yes, I know I’ve claimed that unresolved love is the most precious of all (a mistake which of course you pounced upon), but allow me to formally say that I have changed my mind. The platonic ideal, I’ve come to realise, is all very well, but our letters have given me a renewed appetite for involvement, not only with the joys of life but also with its untidiness, imperfections, ambiguities and woes. Be assured I’m not harbouring any strong illusions about you! When, for instance, you say you’ve become a cantankerous old cow, I say, nonsense: you were always cantankerous. At Yasnaya Polyana you were a cantankerous cow in her prime, and I expect you were cantankerous in your youth as well. And I love you for this. I trust you for it – trust that whatever you say is likely to be sound, forged and tempered in the furnace of your scepticism.

  And what would you get from marrying me, I hear you ask? In my repeated attempts to draft this letter it is this paragraph that has given me the most trouble. Modesty is part of the problem, but the greater difficulty is reality. What am I, after all? A 68-year-old man who hasn’t shared his life with a woman for over thirty years; a man, moreover, who is moderately ill with emphysema and therefore presumably unlikely to live into his eighties. What I keep asking myself, then, is: what’s in it for Katerina? My answers strike even me as unconvincing, but mostly they relate to soothing you, and by soothing, helping to concentrate your strength – for instance, on that special book which I believe (despite your claims to the contrary) is still inside you awaiting release.

  Even in its final form that damn paragraph dissatisfies me. What it leaves out is the texture of life, the trivial episodes I imagine sharing with you. I want to brew your morning coffee, for instance. (Do you drink coffee? Is coffee readily available in Moscow? Is that question insulting? I must admit there’s a lot about your life I don’t know.) I want to pass your reading glasses to you, or share your indignation at what’s in the newspaper – Süddeutsche Zeitung or Izvestia, you decide (more of that below). I want to discover you asleep over a book and switch off your bedside light. I want to hear you snore! And I long to appear alongside you in public, though my motivations here are suspect, I’m afraid, as I’ve managed to track down a photograph of you at the conference at Stanford. When I saw it the words that came to mind were elegant and chic – those boots, that woollen skirt, that silver bob! It’s time we stopped disparaging our appearances, wouldn’t you say, since the truth is I’m more or less presentable and you remain as striking as ever.

  The purpose of this letter is to ask rather than convince you to marry me, and I’m acutely aware that probably you’ve already made up your mind. If so, and if you’ve decided to say no, the rest of this letter can only deepen my embarrassment, but on the off chance that you’re undecided, or – my God – persuaded, let me address some of the practicalities, as I’m all too aware I won’t be able to write to you again for months. As I understand it, Soviet citizens are in principle allowed to marry foreigners, though naturally the bureaucratic obstacles are formidable. Of course if you wanted you could come and live in West Germany. I am assuming, though, that for reasons of work and family you would wish to stay in Moscow, and accordingly I want to assure you I am willing to move there to be with you and if necessary to take up Soviet citizenship. Yes, I know what I’m saying, know as well as any Westerner could what inconveniences and discomforts I would face as a result, not to mention the probable surveillance. Do bear in mind, though, that I have experienced far worse, and also that my Russian is quite serviceable – certainly good enough for daily conversation or for reading Izvestia. (Speaking of which, would I have to refrain from scoffing at Izvestia over breakfast, which is to say, would the KGB bug your apartment? Is your apartment even big enough for two? Could I live nearby, or are such Bohemian practices frowned upon? Naturally there would be a great many problems to sort out, but if I have learned one thing from the three years of my retirement it is that a problem-free life is insipid.)

  Of course I can’t hope to foresee every difficulty that might arise, or anticipate all your possible objections, but sex and death seem issues worth addressing, the first because you mentioned it yourself (how seriously I wasn’t able to tell) and the second because in your position I would be worried about becoming my nurse one day. Regarding sex I am, to put it mildly, out of practice; not entirely without desire but sufficiently uninterested to do without it if that were to be your preference. My health, too, as far as I can judge, is in a state of equilibrium (or should that be ‘precariousness’?); that is, neither excellent nor terrible. As I said, I don’t expect to live to a great age, a fact that explains the directness of this letter, and for that matter makes it probable that one day you would get to resume your single life. As for the risk of you becoming my nurse, I should point out that I have no interest in a drawn-out death, which if necessary I could avoid by pharmacological means.

  Is this the gloomiest marriage proposal ever made? In presenting it this way I have aimed above all for realism, partly because I sense you will prefer it this way but mostly because our ability to speak candidly to one another is (in my experience, at least) unique, and at the core of why I love you.

  One more thing: I can cope with refusal. Confessing my full feelings for you has caused me some anxiety but also much relief; if you choose to say no I will undoubtedly feel sadness, but this will be easier to bear than the regret of not having spoken at all. Katerina, how I hope that you might be reckless again, that your last great folly will be me, but if not please know I will be all right, that I will adjust and go on loving you as I have done for years, grateful for the blessing of having known you at all.

  Your loving Paul

  TWENTY-FOUR

  In snow that dithered on a changeable wind Metz officiated at Hirsch’s funeral service, which took place beside a hole hacked from frozen ground in the Tolstoy burial glade. It was a
brief affair. Metz kept to the official script and Bauer delivered a short eulogy, aware of how keen the mourners were to get indoors.

  After dinner he normally liked to read, but that evening he made his way instead to the officers’ common room, intending to somehow mark Hirsch’s passing with his comrades. Drexel and Zöllner were there. Also Molineux and, facing him across a chessboard, Demchak. ‘Nobody minds Yuri being here?’ Molineux asked. ‘I’ve been meaning for ages to tackle him at chess.’

  Bauer did mind, but while everyone knew Hirsch had shot himself, only Bauer and Metz and Demchak knew why, and because Metz had ordered him to stay quiet about it Bauer was obliged to bite his tongue. It wasn’t as if Demchak was solely responsible; Bauer himself felt culpable – for not doing enough, for not setting aside his exasperation with Hirsch long enough to see how badly he was faring. As always Molineux had schnapps to hand, and for once Bauer accepted a little. ‘To Volker,’ he said, raising his mug. To hell with Demchak; he would just have to live with what he’d done.

  ‘To Volker,’ agreed Zöllner, who unusually for him was also nursing a mug. ‘I keep asking myself if I should’ve noticed something wrong, if I could’ve done more for him.’

  Bauer said. ‘Of all of us, you were the kindest towards him.’

  ‘I don’t know about that. Sharing a room with him . . . well, I just can’t work it out. Why did he do it? It makes no sense, not that I can see.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Molineux said, ‘my rook! I go forward and this wunderkind attacks my flanks. And we’ve hardly started! It’s like sorcery. Is sorcery,’ he said, and took another slug of schnapps.

  ‘What about Hirsch?’ Bauer asked him. ‘Anything to add?’

  ‘What do you want me to say? Boo-hoo, I’m sad? I was sad about Dieter, I was sad about Sepp, I was sad about poor Pflieger. Now I’ve run out of sad. Men die in war. Half of us here will probably cop it and have no say in the timing, whereas Hirsch went and did it to himself. I have no sympathy for the man.’

  ‘Christ Almighty, can’t you at least pretend?’

  ‘Bah. Why should I? You yourself said he was a danger in theatre.’

  ‘He was twenty-four years old.’

  ‘My point exactly. What sort of ingrate spits on the sacred gift of life?’

  There was a long pause. Eventually Zöllner said, ‘It is true that suicide is a sin.’

  ‘And we have no idea of motive?’ Drexel asked. ‘Why do it in front of Metz, for instance?’

  ‘For the attention,’ Molineux said.

  ‘Look who’s talking,’ muttered Bauer.

  Molineux wheeled around and almost fell off his chair, looking angry and far drunker than Bauer had realised, though by the time he’d regained his balance there was a broad grin on his face. ‘It’s true,’ he said, and guffawed. ‘I’ve been upstaged! The poor sod’s upstaged me, and that I can’t forgive.’

  Drexel said, ‘It’s my belief that the reason one man cracks and another doesn’t is to be found not in the life but in the chemistry of the brain. Fix that and a man can endure anything. If Hirsch had come to me I might have saved him.’

  ‘Check,’ Demchak said to Molineux.

  ‘What do you mean “check”? Don’t lie to me, Yuri, I’m carrying a pistol.’ Demchak tapped the threatening piece, a knight, making Molineux reverse into his chin. ‘Outrageous. Black magic. Fabian, hand me that bottle.’

  ‘In fact,’ Drexel said, handing him the schnapps, ‘there’s no reason in principle why a treatment of that kind couldn’t be administered to the entire population, say in the water supply. Human misery could be abolished at a stroke.’

  ‘Good God,’ Molineux said, ‘do that and there’ll be no need for alcohol. Plus you’ll drive a stake right through literature. Philosophy too. Painting. Sculpture.’

  ‘What about misery that’s justified?’ Zöllner asked. ‘Someone who’s dying, say, or – I don’t know – who’s lost a limb or an eye.’

  ‘Same principle: it’s all in the brain,’ Drexel said, for emphasis tapping his own squarish head. ‘The day will come when pharmacological interventions will make even the worst misfortunes endurable.’

  ‘Not my queen!’ Molinuex cried. ‘Damn and blast it, Yuri. Dominate the centre, that’s my strategy, and dictate terms, but you’re cutting me to shreds. But I persevere, my word, I do. Down with your bishop – voilà. Death or glory, that’s my motto.’

  Behind them the door opened and Metz strode in, bringing all of them to attention. Metz spotted Demchak and frowned. ‘What’s an enlisted man doing here?’

  ‘I invited him over to play chess, sir,’ Molineux said.

  ‘This is an officers’ common room.’

  ‘Yes, but Private Demchak is a phenomenon, sir, you’ve no idea. I’m a fairly good player – not a grandmaster, understand, but not bad, and —’

  ‘You,’ Metz said, pointing a finger at Demchak, ‘back to barracks. Now.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Demchak said, then turned about and left the room.

  Metz swung around. ‘From now on I want no fraternisation between officers and enlisted men. None! Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘But, sir —’

  ‘Captain, quiet! You’re under the drink. Shamefully so. Where did you get it from, anyway?’

  ‘It’s a gift from my wife, sir.’

  ‘Well, she ought to know better.’

  ‘I’ll make sure she doesn’t do it again.’

  ‘Anyway, I haven’t come here to discuss Captain Molineux’s domestic arrangements,’ Metz said, addressing the whole room. ‘I’m here to announce news of true historical importance. Of immense historical importance. I am here to report that, not three hours ago, Reich Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop summoned to our Foreign Office the American chargé d’affaires, and there informed him that in reaction to a series of intolerable breaches of neutrality, the Greater German Reich has declared war on the United States of America.’

  For several seconds there was absolute silence in the room, then Molineux flopped back onto his chair. ‘Come again?’

  * * *

  Though shunted for hours between and through two sets of lungs, the air in the room stayed cold, and Bauer, having woken in the early hours, couldn’t get back to sleep. Quietly then, so as not to wake Molineux, he lit the lamp beside his bed and opened War and Peace, manoeuvring to keep his arms beneath the blankets. He had arrived at the novel’s climax, the capture and burning of Moscow, though ‘culmination’ was perhaps a better term for the protracted havoc being wrought in the characters’ lives.

  About three-quarters of an hour later Molineux turned in his bed and groaned. He sat up, ‘Sweet mother of God. This is intolerable.’

  Bauer apologised. ‘I didn’t think you’d wake. I’ll turn off the lamp.’

  ‘It’s not you, it’s the cold,’ Molineux said. ‘Shine the lamp in my eyes for all I care: it might warm up my eyeballs. I swear, even my farts are cold. If I went to the lavatory now I’d shit ice cubes. We could chill champagne.’

  ‘I’ll try to remember to ask Ritter for a bottle.’

  ‘And here was I thinking it’s the idea of death that’s chilling. Ye gods, killed by a metaphor. Bauer, will you promise me something?’

  ‘Probably not.’

  ‘If I don’t make it through the night, will you tell my wife . . .’ Here he paused, searching for a suitable phrase.

  ‘That you loved her?’

  ‘That she should’ve sent more socks.’

  When they went down for breakfast the mess room was freezing, the windowpanes crazed with frost. Apart from Pabst and a helper only Drexel was there, his already stocky frame bulked out by his greatcoat and a blanket, but then shortly afterwards Zöllner arrived, looking if anything even cheerier than normal. Seeing Molineux, he said, ‘Sir, have you checked the temperature yet?’

  ‘Do I look as if I give a damn?’ Molineux said. Zöllner chuckled at this, making Molineux bristle. ‘You think that’s
funny?’

  ‘It’s just that Frau Kälter was right.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘It’s too cold for you.’

  In Bauer’s chest a riot at the sound of her name.

  ‘My God,’ said Molineux, brightening, ‘the woman’s a seer.’

  ‘Or a witch,’ Drexel said.

  ‘That’s true,’ Molineux said, ‘a witch.’

  ‘Don’t say that to Metz,’ Bauer said. ‘He’ll have her burned at the stake.’

  ‘God, I hope so,’ Molineux said. ‘In fact, if this cold keeps up I’ll shove her off the fire and clamber onto it myself.’

  ‘Aren’t Frau Kälter and Metz best friends now?’ Drexel asked.

  ‘Metz likes to think they’re friends,’ Molineux said. ‘In reality it’s me she’s closest to.’

  ‘Has anyone seen her in the last couple of days?’ Bauer asked, attempting nonchalance. Four days had passed since he and Katerina had made love, only two since he had seen her off in Tikhon Vassilyvich’s sleigh, but it felt to Bauer as if both events had happened long ago.

  ‘Not me,’ Zöllner said.

  ‘Nor me,’ added Drexel. ‘Or any of her staff, come to that.’

  ‘You see,’ Molineux said. ‘That’s how you know it’s cold: even the Russians are scared to go outside.’

  ‘I don’t blame them.’ They all turned and saw Weidemann in the doorway, his epaulettes flecked with snow. ‘It’s minus forty-one degrees out there.’

  * * *

  Later that morning a convoy of casualties arrived, most of them frostbite cases. To Bauer one of the medics described conditions at the front. Men’s gloves freezing to rifles. Firing mechanisms icing up. Lorries and tanks immobilised. Corpses stripped naked for their clothes. For every man killed in combat, up to eight succumbing to the cold.

  Around midday came news by radio that the Soviets had launched a big counter-offensive around Moscow, and although nobody knew the details it was clear the Wehrmacht was falling back. Among corpsmen and patients alike an unsettled mood spread over the wards, a mix of sombreness and irritability, but also defiant insouciance, bombast and madcap humour. Some, such as Molineux, cycled through all of these states. At 16:00 hours Metz issued an order forbidding discussion of events at the front, though this had little effect. Molineux told Bauer that Knoll had told him that the pilot of a patient-evacuation plane, a ski-equipped Fieseler Storch, had told one of Knoll’s men that Army Group Centre was retreating in such disorder from the outskirts of Moscow that it was leaving behind weapons, vehicles and even the fallen, not just the dead but also in some cases the wounded.