The Suitcase

by Sergei Dovlatov

  “Aha,” said Churilin. “Here… I want… whatchama-callit… I want to take bulldozer driving courses.”

  The major turned to him: “What do courses have to do with it, damn your eyes! You got drunk, maimed your friend, and now you dream about courses!… How about going to college while you’re at it? Or the conservatory?”

  Churilin looked at the paper once more and said grimly, “Why are we worse than the regular army?”

  The major choked with rage. “How long will this go on? I’m trying to meet him halfway, and this is what he comes out with! I ask him to tell his story and he won’t!”

  “What’s there to tell?” Churilin said, jumping up. “You want some Forsyte Saga or something? Tell us! Tell us! What’s to tell? What the hell are you bugging me for, you son of a bitch! I can plant one on you, too!”

  The major reached for his holster. Red splotches appeared on his cheeks. He was panting. Finally he regained his self-control. “Everything is clear to the court. The meeting is adjourned!”

  Two old-timers took Churilin by the arms. I reached for my cigarettes as I headed for the door.

  Churilin got a year in the disciplinary battalion. A month before he got out I was discharged. I never saw the crazy prisoner again, either. That whole world disappeared for me.

  Only the belt remains.

  Fernand Léger’s Jacket

  THIS IS THE STORY of the prince and the pauper. In March 1941, Andrei Cherkasov was born. In September of that same year I was born.

  Andryusha was the son of an outstanding man. My father stood out only for his thinness.

  Nikolai Konstantinovich Cherkasov was a fantastic actor and a deputy to the Supreme Soviet. My father was an ordinary theatre director and the son of a bourgeois nationalist.

  Cherkasov’s talent thrilled Peter Brook, Fellini and De Sica.* My father’s talent elicited even his parents’ doubts.

  Cherkasov was known by the whole country as an actor, deputy and fighter for peace. My father was known only by the neighbours as a drinker and a neurotic.

  Cherkasov had a dacha, a car, an apartment and fame. My father had asthma.

  Their wives were friends. I think they graduated from the drama institute together.

  My mother was an average actress, then a proofreader, and finally a pensioner. Nina Cherkasova was also an average actress. After her husband’s death, she was fired from the theatre.

  Naturally, the Cherkasovs had friends from the highest social circles: Shostakovich, Mravinsky, Eisenstein…* My parents belonged to the Cherkasovs’ everyday milieu.

  All our lives we were aware of that family’s care and protection. Cherkasov gave references for my father. His wife gave my mother dresses and shoes.

  My parents often argued. Then they divorced. The divorce was practically the only peaceful moment of their life together, one of the few instances when they acted in concert.

  Andryusha was my first friend. We met during the evacuation. Actually, we didn’t meet, but lay next to each other in baby carriages. Andryusha had a foreign carriage. Mine was locally made.

  We ate equally badly, I think. There was a war on.

  Then the war ended. Our families ended up in Leningrad. The Cherkasovs lived in a ministerial building on Kronverkskaya Street. We lived in a communal flat on Rubinstein Street.

  Andryusha and I saw each other frequently. We went to children’s matinees together. We celebrated all our birthdays together.

  I went to Kronverkskaya with my mother on the tram; the chauffeur brought Andryusha to our house in a war-spoils Bugatti.

  Andryusha and I were the same height, about the same age. We grew up healthy and energetic.

  Andryusha, as I remember it, was bolder, fiercer, harsher. I was a bit stronger physically and, I think, had a tiny bit more common sense.

  The Cherkasovs had a dacha, surrounded by firs, on the Karelian peninsula. The windows opened onto the Gulf of Finland, with seagulls soaring over it. Every summer we stayed there.

  Andryusha was given a maid. The maids were changed frequently; as a rule, they were fired for theft. Who could blame them? Nina Cherkasova had foreign things lying all over the place. The shelves were packed with perfumes and cosmetics. This excited young maids. Noticing yet another loss, Nina Cherkasova would frown.

  “Luba is being naughty!”

  The next day Luba was replaced by Zina…

  I had a nanny, Luiza Genrikhovna. As a German in the post-war period, she was subject to arrest. Luiza Genrikhovna hid out at ours. That is, she simply lived with us, and at the same time she brought me up. I don’t think we paid her anything at all.

  Once I was staying at the Cherkasov dacha with Luiza Genrikhovna. Then this happened: Luiza Genrikhovna had thrombophlebitis. A dairymaid she knew recommended putting excrement on her legs. A folk remedy. To the dismay of the people around her, the remedy worked. Right up to her arrest Luiza Genrikhovna exuded an unbearable odour. We put up with it, of course, but the Cherkasovs turned out to be more refined. Mama was told that the presence of Luiza Genrikhovna was not welcome.

  After that Mother rented a room on the same street, in a peasant house. Nanny and I spent every summer there. Right up to her arrest.

  In the mornings I went to Andryusha’s house. We ran around the property, ate blueberries, played ping-pong, caught beetles. On warm days we went to the beach. If it rained, we played with clay on the veranda.

  Sometimes Andryusha’s parents came. His mother came almost every Sunday. His father came about four times each summer, to catch up on his sleep.

  The Cherkasovs themselves treated me well, but the housekeepers weren’t as nice. After all, I was extra work. Without extra pay.

  So Andryusha was allowed to be naughty, but I wasn’t. Rather, Andryusha’s pranks seemed natural, and mine – not quite. I was told, “You’re smarter. You should set a good example for Andryusha.” Thus, I was turned into a small governor for the summer.

  I felt the inequality. Even though people raised their voices at Andryusha more frequently, and punished him more severely, and I was always set up as an example for him.

  Still, I felt hurt. Andryusha was more important. The servants feared him as the master. And I was just one of the folk. And even though the housekeeper was even folksier, she clearly didn’t like me.

  Theoretically it should have been different. The housekeeper should have liked me for being closer to her socially. She should have felt sympathy for me as a classless intellectual. But in reality, servants love their hated masters much more than it seems. And of course, more than themselves.

  Nina Cherkasova was a cultured, wise and well-bred woman. Naturally, she would not allow her friend’s six-year-old son to be humiliated. If Andryusha took an apple, I was entitled to one just like it. If Andryusha was going to the movies, tickets were bought for both of us.

  With hindsight, I now see that Nina Cherkasova had all the good qualities and all the flaws of the rich. She was courageous, decisive and focused. She was also cold, haughty and aristocratically naive. For instance, she considered money a burden.

  She said to my mother, “You’re so lucky, Nora! Your Seryozha is happy if you give him a caramel. But my big lug only likes chocolate…”

  Of course I liked chocolate, too. But I pretended to prefer caramels.

  I don’t regret the poverty I lived through. If Hemingway is to be believed, poverty is an invaluable school for a writer. Poverty makes a man clear-sighted. And so on.

  It’s interesting that Hemingway realized this only when he became rich…

  At the age of seven I assured my mother that I hated fruit. By nine I refused to try on new shoes in the store. At eleven I learnt to like reading. At sixteen I learnt to earn money.

  Andrei Cherkasov and I were close until we were sixteen. He was graduating from a special English-language school, I from an ordinary school. He loved mathematics. I preferred the less exact sciences. But we were both incredibly lazy.

 
; We saw each other often, since the English school was a five-minute walk from our house. Sometimes Andryusha would drop by after school. And sometimes I would go to his place to watch colour TV. Andrei was infantile, distracted, full of goodwill. Even then I was mean and attentive to human weakness.

  In our school years each of us made friends, each his own. Criminal types predominated among mine. Andrei was drawn to boys from good families.

  That means there is something to Marxist-Leninist teaching: no doubt social instincts do live in people. All my conscious life I was drawn instinctively to damaged people — the poor, or hooligans, or budding poets. I tried making respectable friends a thousand times, always in vain. It was only in the company of savages, schizophrenics and scoundrels that I felt confident.

  My respectable friends told me, “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but you create all kinds of trouble. Your neuroses are catching…”

  I wasn’t hurt. Ever since I was twelve, I knew that I was irresistibly drawn to lowlifes. It’s not surprising that seven of my school friends ended up in prison.

  Red-haired Boris Ivanov was sent up for stealing sheet metal. The weightlifter Kononenko knifed his mistress. Misha Khamrayev, the son of the school janitor, robbed a train dining car. The former model plane-maker Letyago raped a deaf-mute. Alik Brykin, who taught me to smoke, committed a serious military crime – he beat up an officer. Yura Golynchik wounded a militia horse. And even the class monitor, Vilya Rivkovich, managed to get a year for selling black-market medicine.

  My friends made Andryusha Cherkasov nervous. They were always in trouble. And they all recognized only one form of self-affirmation – confrontation.

  His friends made me insecure and melancholy. They were all honest, reasonable and well-meaning. They all preferred compromise to lone struggle.

  We both married comparatively early. I, naturally, married a poor girl. Andrei married Dasha, granddaughter of the chemist Ipatyev, thereby increasing the family fortune.

  I’ve read about the mutual attraction of opposites; but I think there’s something dubious about it. Or, at the very least, debatable. For instance, Dasha and Andrei looked alike. Both were tall, good-looking, well-meaning and practical. Both valued peace and quiet above all. Both lived with taste and without problems.

  Lena and I were also similar. We were both chronic failures, both at odds with reality. Even in the West we manage to live contrary to the prevailing rules…

  Once Andryusha and Dasha invited us to their home. We went to Kronverkskaya Street. A policeman sat in the lobby. He picked up the phone.

  “Andrei Nikolayevich, you have guests!”

  And then, making a slightly more severe face, he said, “ Go on…”

  We took the elevator. Went in.

  Dasha whispered in the foyer, “Please excuse us, the nurse is here.”

  I didn’t understand at first. I thought one of Andrei’s parents was ill. I even thought they wanted us to leave.

  They explained to us, “Gena Lavrentyev brought a nurse with him. It’s horrible. A girl in a Soviet Persian lamb coat. She’s already asked four times when the dancing starts. She just drank a whole bottle of cold beer… Please, don’t be angry…”

  “It’s all right,” I said, “we’re used to it.”

  I had once worked for a factory newsletter. My wife had been a hairdresser. There was very little that could still shock us.

  Later I took a good look at the nurse. She had pretty hands, thin ankles, green eyes and a shiny forehead. I liked her. She ate a lot and bounced around in a dance rhythm even at the table.

  Her date, Lavrentyev, looked a lot worse. He had bushy hair and small features – a vile combination. Besides which, I was sick and tired of him. He talked too long about his trip to Romania. I think I told him that I hated Romania…

  The years passed. Andrei and I saw each other pretty rarely. More rarely each year. We did not have a fight. We did not suffer mutual disappointment. We simply went our own ways. By this time I was writing. Andrei was finishing up his Ph.D. dissertation.

  He was surrounded by merry, smart and good-natured physicists. I was surrounded by crazy, dirty and pretentious poets. His friends occasionally drank cognac and champagne. Mine systematically put away cheap rotgut. In company, his friends recited the poetry of Nikolai Gumilyov* and Joseph Brodsky. Mine read only their own works.

  Soon Nikolai Konstantinovich Cherkasov died. A memorial meeting was held near the Pushkin Theatre. So many people came they had to divert traffic.

  Cherkasov had been a People’s Artist. And not in name only. He was beloved by professors and peasants, generals and criminals. Yesenin, Zoshchenko and Vysotsky* had the same kind of fame.

  A year later Nina Cherkasova was fired from the theatre. Then they took away her husband’s prizes. They made her return the international awards Cherkasov had received in Europe, among them some valuable gold items. The authorities made the widow turn them over to the theatre museum.

  The widow, of course, was not in financial trouble. She had a dacha, a car and an apartment. Besides which, she had savings. Dasha and Andrei had jobs.

  My mother sometimes visited the widow. She spent hours on the phone with her. The widow complained about her son. She said that he was inconsiderate and egotistical.

  My mother would sigh, “At least yours doesn’t drink…”

  In short, our mothers turned into similarly sad and touching old women, and we into similarly hard-hearted and inconsiderate sons. Even though Andryusha was a successful physicist and I a pseudo-dissident poet.

  Our mothers came to resemble each other. But not completely. Mine almost never left the house. Nina Cherkasova attended all the premieres. Besides which, she was planning a trip to Paris.

  She had travelled abroad before. And now she wanted to see her old friends.

  Something strange was happening. While Cherkasov was alive, they had guests every day. Famous, talented people – Mravinsky, Raykin,* Shostakovich. They had seemed to be family friends. After Nikolai Konstantinovich’s death, it turned out that they had been his personal friends.

  For the most part, the Soviet celebrities disappeared. That left the foreign ones – Sartre, Yves Montand,* the widow of the artist Léger. And Nina Cherkasova decided to visit France again.

  A week before her departure I ran into her. I was in the library of the House of Journalists, editing the memoirs of some conqueror of the tundra. Nine out of fourteen chapters began the same way: “False modesty aside…” Besides which, I was supposed to verify the Lenin quotes.

  And suddenly Nina Cherkasova came in. I hadn’t known we used the same library.

  She had aged. She was dressed, as usual, with understated elegance and luxury.

  We greeted each other. She asked, “They say you’ve become a writer?”

  I was bewildered. I wasn’t prepared for the question to be put that way. Had she asked, “Are you a genius?” I would have answered calmly and affirmatively. All my friends bore the burden of genius. They called themselves geniuses. But calling yourself a writer was much harder.

  I said, “I write a bit to amuse myself…”

  There were two people in the reading room. Both were looking our way. Not because they recognized Cherkasov’s widow — they could probably smell French perfume.

  She said, “You know, I’ve been wanting to write about Kolya. Something like a memoir.”

  “You should.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have the talent. Though all my friends like my letters.”

  “So write a long letter.”

  “The hardest part is starting. Where did it begin? Was it on the day we met? Or much earlier?”

  “That’s how you should start.”

  “How?”

  “‘The hardest part is starting. Where did it begin…’”

  “You have to understand, Kolya was my whole life. He was my friend. He was my teacher. Do you think it’s a sin to love your husband more than your s
on?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think love has sizes. It either is or isn’t.”

  “You’ve grown smarter with age,” she said.

  Then we talked about literature. I thought I could guess her idols without asking – Proust, Galsworthy, Feuchtwanger… But it turned out that she loved Pasternak and Tsvetayeva.*

  Then I said that Pasternak lacked sufficient good taste. And that Tsvetayeva for all her genius was a clinical idiot…

  So we moved on to art. I was convinced that she adored the Impressionists. And I was right.

  Then I said that the Impressionists had preferred the moment to the eternal. That only in Monet did generic tendencies predominate over the specific…

  Cherkasova sighed softly, “I thought you had got smarter.”

  We spoke for over an hour. Then she said goodbye and left. I no longer wanted to edit the memoirs of the conqueror of the tundra. I thought about poverty and wealth. About the pathetic and vulnerable human soul…

  When I was a guard, some of the prisoners in the camp were important members of the nomenklatura. They kept up their leadership manner for the first few days. Then they dissolved organically into the general mass.

  Once I watched a documentary about Paris during the Occupation. Crowds of refugees streamed down the streets. I saw that enslaved countries looked the same. All ruined peoples are twins…

  The shell of peace and wealth can fall from a person in an instant, immediately revealing his wounded, orphaned soul…

  About three weeks passed. The phone rang. Cherkasova was back from Paris. She said she would drop by.

  We bought some halva and biscuits.

  She looked younger and slightly mysterious. French celebrities turned out to be much more decent than ours. They received her well.

  Mother asked, “How are they dressed in Paris?”

  Nina Cherkasova replied, “As they see fit.”

  Then she told us about Sartre and his incredible outbursts. About rehearsals at the Théâtre du Soleil. About Yves Montand’s family problems.

  She gave us presents. Mother got a delicate evening bag. Lena a make-up kit. I got an old corduroy jacket.