The old man lay down on a pillow and plunged into a deep sleep.
The next day, exactly on schedule, the airplane took off on the runway. Soon the sea appeared. The plane tipped down its wing and made a semicircle. Odessa quickly disappeared in the thickness of clouds …
***
Part Three
Exodus
Serge lays half asleep. His eyes are closed. In the fireplace are nearly burned logs, and dim patches of light run across the walls and up to the ceiling. Sometimes he opens his eyes and takes a long look at the play of the yellow-orange tongues of flame. Then, he closes his eyes again, and he is instantly carried away there, to the Black Sea coast …
The hot Odessa summer was replaced by the coolness of early autumn. The foliage on the trees was still green, but here and there, thin strokes highlight the yellowness of another time of year. A few more weeks will pass, and the crowns of maples and poplars will change their color to red-brown-yellow. Only the cypress trees shaped like candles will remain the same, proudly meeting winter’s bad weather.
But now everything, except for puffs of colder wind, was still summer-like. The center of the city was overflowing with foreign tourists preferring the velvet of September to the stuffiness of August. They sat in small street cafes, slowly wandered around Deribasovskia Street, and were languidly interested in souvenir shops. It was the same as it was many years ago. Flocks of youth gathered, but only now their conversations were often interrupted by the various warbling of cell phones—nothing could be changed: on the Earth the 21st century was strongly affirmed.
Two days ago Serge and Janna arrived in the city of their youth. The circumstance of their meeting is not so surprising: in our century it is possible to fly from different parts of the world and arrive at one point. The surprise was something else—they met as if they had separated only yesterday …
***
From the time of their last meeting in 1985, a whole eternity had passed. When in 1992, Serge learned that Janna, with her daughter and her mom, had moved to the USA, it became clear to him: in this life he would never see her again. He had already lived without her for about twenty years. The kids were growing up. Sometimes, it seemed to him that he was quite happy, but the number of nasty days was increasing. His business was falling apart. In his personal life his hopes for a solid foundation, between a man and a woman on which family relationships are based, never appeared. His wife, often without visible reason, created arguments with shouting and tears, and they did not promote a loving relationship. For weeks on end, Serge found it difficult to remove himself from a state of catalepsy and detachment. A feeling of loneliness engulfed him for a long time. Several times in the past years he opened the journal with his memories of 1973, and each time, tears welled up in his eyes.
He was continually putting away his journal, thinking that he would not open it any more. But then he was finding it again, and again was wiping away tears. That feeling for the woman which he experienced in 1973 never returned to him. For sure, he had affairs. But these affairs were fleeting and superficial. The birth of his children strengthened in him the thought that the past should remain in the past, where it belongs. He begged God to grant to him love for the woman, the mother of his children, and from time to time it seemed that God heeded his requests. But the Almighty handled it differently. He had not given happiness in home life to Serge, nor, as it became clear later, to Janna.
***
“Well, hi.” Serge opened the door of the taxi and gallantly extended his hand to the lady. She fluttered out of the cab without effort as though her shoulders did not feel the load of the years lived.
“Hello,” she pronounced with a smile and immediately fell silent, as if her lips were under the power of his. Then she smiled with the same wide smile, showing the whole expanse of her strong teeth, and a sparkle of mischief appeared in her eyes. Her black, big-bellied suitcase travelled into his car. At the beginning she was holding her purse on her lap, and then she populated the dash, just below the windshield, with her phone, cosmetic bag, wallet, and a bottle of water. The purse fell under her feet—she quickly arranged her spot, surrounding herself with things familiar to her. It seemed to Serge that she had been riding with him her whole life. The wall which had been built from a huge number of days apart collapsed: beside him sat that very same Janna, his Janka,41 from the distant 1973 …
Truthfully, to think and say his was presumptuous. But all the same he thought it, though he did not speak—he simply felt the warmth of a dear person. Ahead, the chain of cars facing the customs post appeared, and Serge tapped the car’s brakes to take his place in line. He threw off his seat belt and drew Janna to himself. They kissed for a long time, as if they didn’t finish kissing then, in 1973, and now it was necessary to make up for the lost time.
***
… Serge rises on his elbow, looks at the fireplace, and reluctantly gets up and throws on two logs. Then he takes the poker and moves the fire wood so that it doesn’t burn too quickly, looking as if it were melting, although this may not be the right word.
He moves to an armchair and pours some cognac into the bottom of a glass. “My God!”—he thinks, “How fast these ten days flew by where we tried to replace our missed life together.” And now again a separation—would it be another long time?
***
To find Janna in the presence of the World Wide Web was not so complicated. He had quickly found her website and sent an empty email, attaching only a poem he once wrote for her. That’s all! He waited for a response. Then he stopped waiting—four or five months passed. Janna was silent. Probably, she had crossed him out of her life. So thought Serge. Maybe, she was right. Who was he for her now, 35 years later?
And suddenly in the list of received messages in his inbox—was her letter. Only a few lines, at first. Correspondence started, then communication by phone and Skype. Later, she told him that she would be travelling to Europe, to Romania to visit relatives, and this would happen soon. Serge suggested that they meet. Janna resisted for a long time, but eventually agreed to meet. Serge did not know whether there would be a continuation of this meeting. He simply wanted to see the woman who was so strongly burned into his memory. He also wanted to see for himself if the ending in 1974 was a fatal mistake or not. Maybe he was moved by simple curiosity. Maybe he was hoping for a continuation of the romance, so ingloriously and foolishly broken long ago. Some similar expectations gripped Janna as well, though she was afraid of this reunion. She was afraid to lose the bright memories of 1973. Without any ambiguity, she told him about it by phone. But both understood that most likely, there would never be another chance. And life rapidly counts years. They agreed to meet in Tiraspol,42 in neutral territory, and then dash away to the Black Sea …
***
“Why did you dump me, Seriozha?” She sat at the open door of a balcony and spoke as if to the street, where the yellow specks of autumn already filtered onto the dense greens of the trees. “Why did you dump me? What a blockhead! What have you done?!”
Serge lay on the bed and looked at the ceiling. And what, really, could he answer? Yes, back then he was fainthearted, and he gave others the opportunity to convince him that he did not need this girl. It has already come to pass, it congealed with time—nothing can be changed. Why return, why look back? It is important to look forward, at what has not yet come to pass and at what may happen. He needed to think of the future, and whether they would have a joined future.
When she was tumbling down the rabbit hole, there in the past, it seemed to Serge that she would never return: neither in the present, nor in the future. He was afraid of this—he was extremely afraid. He felt like he was a billiard ball in a high-stakes game, and that now she would recoup her losses. She would take her ball and strongly and precisely drive it into the pocket, so it could never roll anywhere again.
But she was coming back. Again she appeared in his embraces and spoke tenderly, with the low voice of a strong w
oman who wanted to be weak. She gently kissed his palm, and words of love flew from their lips that were pressed against each other …
***
… A lone tear slides down Serge’s cheek and falls into a glass of cognac.
“In 1974, whom did I make happy when I put the signature on this ill-fated paper stating that our married life has come to an end? Whom did I free? And from what was I freed? Myself? The anarchy of the following years testifies to it. Her? And how much happiness did she have for these past 35 years? As she said, very little.” Both of them tried to find replacements for each other. Oh, what terrible nonsense, bosh, absurd! And though they agreed not to move back this marker on the scale of time, the idea was difficult to maintain—again and again it returns both him and her there, in this black 1974. But he doesn’t want to think of it any more. He, despite his mature age, wants to look into the future, aspiring to grab what he lost earlier. Why? The answer is simple: because he, in spite of everything, kept his love for her.
“Yes, I love her very much!” whispers Serge, and tears drip from his cheeks. He picks up the glass, then looks at it and with one sip, drinks it down …
***
“You left,” she began. “Perished. Disappeared from my life. As though you never existed. But there is a memory, and from it I will never escape. I could not run. The first years after that foolish divorce I saw you everywhere: in the bus when I went about my affairs, in the street I found your image in passers-by. I looked in the faces of other people, but saw your face, or more truly, tried to see the features of your face in the faces of others. It was intolerable. You were next to me all the time. But the real you was not there. The most horrible thing began at night. I remained alone, alone with you, and still by myself … I understood that it was possible to go mad. And it seemed to me that it had already begun. That reason had grown dull. And when there was a person who admitted that he fell in love with me, I surrendered. I wished to start living from a clean page. To leave you in the remote past. The new life has begun with the birth of my daughter—Allochka.
“But soon everything repeated. I could not embrace him, unless I imagined that I was embracing you. Somehow by itself, the formula of life worked out: let reality happen whatever, and in my soul I will live in 1973 to protect that, which we did not manage to save in reality …” She sipped her already cooled down coffee. In the street were cheerful, chirping birdies. The easy sea wind swung the branches of the trees. In the end of September in Odessa, autumn was only beginning.
“Why did you dump me? … ” She did not cry any more, but she moaned. Then she became quiet for a long time.
Serge was silent as well. He lay on the bed and imagined that it would always be this way. Or at least, for a very long time. This return to the past, to 1973, would be here next to him, like a ghost. Wherever they would be, or wherever they would travel—it, 1973, materialized and took the shape of a phantasmagoric monster. But in fact, back then no monster existed. There was the love of two young beings. It was pure, without any platitudes or catches, just the attraction of two hearts. There was pleasure. There was happiness, at last. Why couldn’t their long-standing relationship of 35 years be called happy? Then why recollect that period with such bitterness? No. Bitterness certainly, that all this did not continue. Everything was artificially interrupted, like an interrupted pregnancy. The embryo had not developed into a robust and strong love lasting the rest of life …
Serge looked at his friend. In front of him was sitting an adult woman who lived somewhere and somehow without him all these long years. She was a stranger, but at the same time, absolutely close and dear—the same lips, nose, ability to laugh and cry almost simultaneously. He was looking at her. Her sight was aimed through the open door of the balcony somewhere afar. He brushed away furtive tears, but they again and again appeared in the corners of his eyes …
“We can drive ourselves to the point of madness if we constantly torment ourselves with that divorce. I was just twenty-one. I was just a lad. How could I know that you can never be replaced? Yes, periodically it seemed to me that I was forgetting you. I was infatuated by others, like any normal man. But it quickly cooled down because, among other things, love requires being entwined. Not a unification of bodies, but of souls. My God, why do I spin this banality? … Listen, you took a drink, and the coffee went down your gullet. And this movement is now congealed in the past. It never will return. You have another sip. But this one will be a different one. Not like the previous one. But the old one, you cannot repeat. It has petrified, like stone. You cannot do anything with it. With our divorce, you cannot do anything, understand, my dear. Nothing can be done with the years lived. It is already history. While we live, it is necessary to look there, where we are capable to reach what we desire. Well, how will we benefit if we kill ourselves with our efforts and expire with tears for that, which you cannot return, and that, which you cannot change? … Fie, with clever words I speak common truths, like an elementary school teacher. Forgive me.”
“I want to eat. And, apparently, we can do something about it.” She smiled, and cheerfully looked at Serge. She then set aside the cup and friskily moved next to him in bed …
An hour and a half later they sat in deep leather armchairs at the restaurant, and assiduously studied the menu. Serge didn’t feel like eating. He struggled all the time with feelings of stupidity that stuck to him from the irrevocably lived years outside of and apart from this woman. Though if he tried to undertake the slightest effort … Oh! To hell with the elementary school teacher! To hell with all this mean theory. You simply tossed aside the whole thirty five years of pleasure to be near this matchless, unique, unpredictable in her actions and consequently an extremely attractive woman. Here she is smacking her lips and stops on a fish dish. Well certainly, Serge will eat fish too. To be at the seashore and not eat fish—what an absurdity.
“How did you manage to finish American graduate school in a couple of years?” he asked her. “You studied in a foreign language.”
“Do you want to hear a joke?” Janna says. “Two Englishmen, two Italians and two Jews were stranded on an uninhabited island. After a while they were rescued. ‘So, how did you live without women?’ the rescuers asked the Englishmen.
‘We are Puritans—we were never introduced,’ was the answer.
‘And you?’ they asked the Italians. ‘We established a schedule: one week I am the woman. The next week—he is.’
And then, there on the island, they noticed two women with the Jews. ‘My goodness! How did they get here?’
‘It was difficult, but we managed to get them,’ answered the Jews.
“Well isn’t that funny? And I finished my degree the same way!” Janna burst out in laughter, and both she and Serge dipped their heads into 1973 …
***
From the fireplace, orange light jumps out. Serge looks at a photo. It is dated 1982. A young woman … An open face … Her eyes are sad. As though they were inquiring: Am I alone? It’s difficult for me. And where are you, man of mine, for whom I still continue to wait? Behind her on the wall—is a portrait of Hemingway. This is their favorite writer. He looks at the woman, as though he wishes to tell her what ordeals lie ahead of her. She does not know yet what she needs to overcome. There are still six more years before 1988, and the beginning of her difficult wanderings. In front of him is her photo with the sad beautiful eyes. This picture has been around for many years. The same amount of time will pass, perhaps, or less, and the one who now looks at her photo will no longer be here. And the photo remains as a frozen moment of life. Even though the photo paper already turned yellow, it is capable of telling much about the destiny of the person who is captured there. Paleontologists can use hardened bones to reconstruct the whole world from the depths of millions of years. But the photo of a person is only a representation of their appearance. Something else is still needed …
***
“How did you end up abroad?”
“Um. It is a long story.”
“So tell me. We are not rushing anywhere.”
“Where do I begin? Probably, where my friend instilled in me the need to leave.” She was deep in thought, frozen, staring at one point as though drilling through the layers of years that piled up since that time. Serge took a sip from a glass of fragrant wine and began to listen …
***
We had a vacation in Koktebel, or Planerskoie as it was known at that time. The vacation was coming to the end. But we didn’t want to leave. Alla and I are walking down by the seaside, and suddenly—Boris's lanky body comes into view. His face is covered with big dark glasses. Wow! I didn’t know that he was coming here. And not by himself, but with his wife and children. Boris sits with me in a tent under the trees. They arrived at the sea unexpectedly. Here comes his wife Marina. She is kindness itself. My impression is that she loves all people in the world. We embrace. She brought two big buckets of almonds in green shells.
“What is this for?” I ask.
“For the winter,” answers Boris.
We remove the green shells from the almonds and toss the nuts into our mouths. The almonds obviously will not survive until winter. We are going down to the sea together.
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