A School for Fools

by Sasha Sokolov

  When our dachas get veiled in dusk and the heavenly dipper, overturned above the earth, spills its dew on the banks of the enchanting Lethe, I leave the house of my father and quietly walk through the garden—quietly, so as not to awaken you, a strange man who lives next to me. I follow my old tracks, stalking through grasses and sand, trying not to step on glowing fireflies and on sleeping dragonflies named simpetrum. I descend to the river and my reflection smiles back at me when I untie my father’s boat from the crooked willow tree. I oil the oarlocks with thick dark river water— I’m going beyond the second river bend, to the Land of the Lonely Goatsucker, the bird of good summer. The trip is neither short nor long; I’ll compare it to the movement of the barely shining needle sewing up a cloud shredded into pieces by the wind. I’m floating, rocking on the waves made by phantom steamboats; I pass the first river bend and the second and, after dropping the oars, I look at the shore: it’s running to meet me, whispering with its reeds and quacking in a friendly duck voice. Good night, Land of the Lonely Goatsucker, it is me, vacationing student so-and-so of the special school, allow me, allow me to leave my father’s boat among your wonderful reed canes, let me follow your paths, I’d like to visit the woman named Veta. I ascend the tall hilly bank and walk in the direction of the tall solid fence, beyond which one can picture a house with cheerful wooden turrets on its corners, but one can only picture it; in reality on a such dark night among the solid interlacings of acacias and other tall bushes and trees neither the house itself nor the turrets can be discerned. Only on the third floor, in the attic, as I approach, the lamp of Veta Arkadievna, my mysterious woman Veta, burns and shines for me, bright and green. I know a place where one can easily get through the fence; I get through and hear her simple dog running towards me through the high grass of the lawn. From my pocket I take out a chunk of sugar and give it to the shaggy yellow dog; it wags its tail and laughs; it knows how I love my Veta and it’ll never bite me. And so, I’m approaching the house. It’s a very large dacha with many rooms; it was built by Veta’s father, a naturalist, an old world-famous scientist who in his youth attempted to prove that the so-called galls—lumps on various parts of plants— are nothing but dwelling places of the damaging larvae of insects and that they, the galls, are caused primarily by the bites of various wasps, mosquitoes, and elephant beetles that lay their eggs in these plants. But very few believed the academician Akatov and one day some men in snow-covered coats came to his house and took the academician somewhere for a long time, and there, nobody knows where, they beat him on the face and on the stomach so that Akatov would never again dare to proclaim all this nonsense. And when he was released, it turned out that many years had passed, he’d gotten old, his hearing and eyesight had deteriorated, but the lumps on various parts of plants remained and all these years, as the men in snow-covered coats with padded shoulders realized, the damaging larvae really lived in the lumps, and that’s why, in acknowledgment, these men decided to give him a prize so he could build himself a dacha and peacefully, without any hindrances, research the galls. Akatov did just that: built a dacha, planted flowers on his piece of land, got a dog, started raising bees, and keeps researching the galls. And now, during the night of my arrival in the Land of the Lonely Goatsucker, the academician got lost in one of the bedrooms of his cottage and is sleeping, unaware that I have come and stand under the window of his daughter Veta, whispering to her: Veta Veta Veta it is I the student so-and-so of the special school respond I love you.

  2. NOW

  The Stories Written on the Veranda

  THE LAST DAY

  HE WAS leaving for the army. He understood the next three years wouldn’t pass quickly for him: they would resemble three northern winters. And it didn’t matter where he would be sent to serve, even if to the south—in any case, each year of the three would turn out to be an unbelievably long snowy winter. He was thinking this now, while walking to see her. She didn’t love him. She was too pretty to love him. He knew that, but he had just turned eighteen and it was impossible for him not to think about her every minute. He noticed he was thinking about her constantly, and he was happy he didn’t want anything from her and, therefore, really loved her. This state of affairs continued for two years; he was surprised he didn’t want to think about anything else and that this didn’t get boring. However, he thought, the thing has to be finished. Today they’ll send him off to the army and tomorrow he’ll go somewhere far, for three winters, and there he’ll forget everything. He won’t write her even one letter: she wouldn’t answer him anyhow. So he’ll come to her and tell her everything. His behavior was horribly foolish. In the evenings he used to wander underneath her windows until late, and when the windows turned dark, for some reason he would stand there, looking at the dark glass panes. Later he would go home; there he would smoke in the kitchen until dawn, dropping ashes on the well-worn floor. From the window he could see a night yard with a gazebo. There was a light in the gazebo that shone constantly and above the light someone had nailed a wooden board with the inscription: SUMMER READING ROOM. At daybreak pigeons used to fly up. Walking on the chilly mornings of the autumn of the draft, he experienced a strange weightlessness of his body, which was linked in his mind to the inexplicable nature of everything he knew and felt. In those moments he used to ask himself many different questions but usually couldn’t find an answer to even a single one—he was walking towards the house where she lived. She would come out of her front gate at seven thirty and always crossed the yard in a hurry, while he kept watching her from a plywood gazebo that also had a lantern and the same kind of wooden sign—SUMMER READING ROOM. What a stupid sign, he used to think, stupid because in summer nobody reads in a gazebo. Thinking like that, he used to follow the girl at a distance from which she wouldn’t hear or sense him behind her. Now he was recalling all this and understanding that today was the last day he would be able to see the girl, the house where she lived, and the Summer Reading Room in her yard. He walks up to the second floor and knocks on her door.

  THREE YEARS IN A ROW

  I met her father in the theater. Her father was an actor, while I worked as a stagehand. Once, after a performance, he took me to his place, treated me to imported wine, and introduced me to her. They lived together on the second floor of a yellow two-story barrack. From the window of their room one could see another identical barrack and a tiny cemetery with a church in the middle of it. I forgot what the name of the actor’s daughter was. But even if I remembered it, I wouldn’t have revealed it. And so, she lived in the yellow barrack on the outer edge of the city and was the daughter of an actor. It’s quite possible you don’t care about her. Then you don’t have to listen. No one is forcing anyone. And speaking seriously, you may do nothing at all—and I won’t say a word. Only don’t try to learn her name, or I’ll stop telling the story altogether. We went out for three years: three winters and three summers in a row. She would often come to the theater and sit through the entire performance in the half-empty hall. I watched her from behind the curtain with holes—my girl always sat in the third row. Her father played tiny episodic roles and appeared not more than three times during the entire play. I knew she dreamed of her father getting a large part at least once. But I suspected he wouldn’t get a good part. Because if an actor hasn’t gotten a decent part in twenty years, he’ll never get it. But I didn’t tell her that. I also didn’t tell her that when we strolled along the very wintry and very dark streets of the city after the performances and to warm ourselves ran after streetcars that screeched while turning on the rails or when on rainy days we went to the planetarium and kissed in the dark empty hall under the artificial starry night. I didn’t tell her that the first summer, the second, or the third, when her father went on tour, or during hurried nights when we wandered through the tiny cemetery that surrounded the church and where lilacs, elders, and willows grew. I didn’t tell her that. And I also didn’t tell her she’s not pretty and that someday I probably wouldn’t be w
ith her. And I didn’t tell her about other girls with whom I went out before or on other days at the same time. I only told her I loved her—and I did. Perhaps you think one can love only beautiful girls or that if you love just one girl you shouldn’t go out with others? Well, I already told you—you may do nothing at all in your life, including not going out with even one girl in the world, and I won’t say a word. But that’s not the point. We aren’t talking about you but about her. I told her I loved her. Even now, if I ever see her, we’ll go to the planetarium or to the cemetery overgrown with elders, and there, like many years ago, I’ll tell her the same thing again. Don’t you believe me?

  AS ALWAYS ON SUNDAY

  The prosecutor couldn’t stand relatives. I was installing some glass for him when a bunch of relations invaded his dacha, and he kept walking around his lot all sort of white, with a newspaper under his arm. He was as white as those places in the newspaper where nothing is written. And everybody in the dacha settlement and in the village beyond the meadow knew he couldn’t stand either relatives or disorder because wherever there are relatives there’s disorder and wherever there’s disorder there’s boozing. This is what he says. I heard him myself. I was installing glass for him and that’s what he said to his wife. His wife is also interesting. I installed glass for her many times, repaired the stove and fixed the shed, and yet she never offered me a drink. She gives me money, but as far as a drink is concerned it’s always zip. I take any job. I clean people’s outhouses, but I haven’t done it for the prosecutor. His wife doesn’t let me do it. No need for you to get filthy—I’ll do it myself. And that’s the truth. One time in the spring I’m installing glass for them and she takes a special shovel from the shed and starts spreading crap under the trees. When she finished doing that she asked me to install a lock on the outhouse so it could be locked for winter to prevent the neighbors from taking anything for free. Otherwise they take, she says, but why for free: it’s not easy today to get fertilizer. Of course, I installed the lock and later their neighbor, the assistant prosecutor, asked me to make him a spare key to the prosecutor’s lock. Well, he invited me for a drink; everything was the way it should be. So I made him a spare key, right on. Only later I heard a conversation at the police station that, apparently, the prosecutor’s outhouse got cleaned out when he was in town. What do I care—I’m just installing glass at the police station, that’s all. There will be enough work in this settlement to last my entire life. In the winter all kinds of riffraff live in the dachas—they break windows, destroy stoves, and that’s good for me. As soon as the snow disappears, my work begins. And so the prosecutor called me to fix his windows. Our village boys smashed all his windows during the winter. Even in the attic. And they also damaged the roof of the veranda. That’s also my job. When I have time, I’ll fix the roof too. And on this particular day, I’m fixing windows starting early in the morning. The prosecutor is reading a newspaper in the hammock—he keeps dozing off and waking up. At the same time his wife is digging a huge pit in the middle of the lot. What for, I ask. She answers: I’ll make little ditches from all sides of the yard to the pit and then all the rains will be mine. Fine, I think, you dig and I’ll fix windows. And the prosecutor, as I said, keeps dozing off and waking up, or he gets up from the hammock, approaches the fence, and starts talking to his neighbor, the assistant prosecutor. What do I hear, comrade prosecutor, says the assistant prosecutor, you’ve got no windows left? Yes, answers the prosecutor, as you know, in the winter the winds here are quite strong—they must have broken them. Sure, says the assistant prosecutor, and I also heard recently someone cleaned out your outhouse. Yes, says the prosecutor, they did clean it out—darned hooligans. Too bad, says the assistant prosecutor, it must be annoying. And it was he who cleaned it out, son of a gun. And a funny guy this assistant prosecutor is. He goes to the dacha dressed like a human being, and the moment he arrives—he immediately puts a strange hat on his head, dresses in all kinds of rags, sticks his feet in galoshes, ties a piece of rope around his waist and smaller pieces around his galoshes. Fine, I think, tie them, and I’ll fix broken glass. And in the evening, you crap thief, I’ll make you pay me three rubles. And if you don’t—I’ll have to report everything to the comrade prosecutor. After all, the prosecutor cannot stand disorder. Or relatives. And they happened to arrive just in time for dinner. As I said, the prosecutor had turned completely white, even stopped reading the newspaper. He was walking around his yard trampling dandelions under his feet. He even resembles a dandelion himself, he’s round and white like a blank newspaper, and he has lots of relatives—about nine of them arrived just in time for dinner. All in good spirits, right away they organized games on the grass and sent the prosecutor’s boy to the kiosk. Well, that time I got to play with them too. They are great folks. One works as a streetcar conductor in town, one is a driver, and two are elevator operators. Another one is a coach and still another, an excavator operator. And he had his daughter with him. Everything worked out between me and her—picture-perfect. And the weather just happened to be dry—as always on Sunday.

  THE TUTOR

  My physics teacher lived on a narrow side street. He was my tutor and twice a week I came by trolley to his place to study. We studied in a tiny room in a semi-basement, where my teacher lived with several relatives, but I never saw them and don’t know anything about them. Now I’ll talk about the teacher himself and describe how and what he and I studied during that sultry summer and what smell pervaded that narrow street. That narrow side street always smelled strongly of fish because somewhere nearby was a store called Fish. The draft chased the smell along the narrow side street, and through the open window the smell drifted into our room, where we looked at dirty postcards. The tutor had a large collection of these postcards—six or seven albums. He would make special trips to various train stations in town and buy from some people full sets of these types of photos. The teacher was fat but handsome, and he wasn’t too old. When it was hot, he used to sweat and would turn on a table fan, but it didn’t particularly help and he continued to sweat. I always made fun of it. When we got bored of looking at the postcards, he told me jokes and it was peaceful and cheerful to be together in the room with the fan. He also told me about his women. He said that at different times he had many different women: big, small, and of different ages, but he hadn’t decided yet which were better in general—the small or the big ones. It changes, he used to say, it changes; everything depends on the mood. He told me that during the war he was a machine gunner and there, when he was seventeen, he became a man. That summer, when he was my tutor, I also turned seventeen. I didn’t pass the entrance exams to the institute and I really got it from my parents. I failed physics and went to work as a nurse in a hospital. The next year I took exams for another institute where one didn’t need to pass physics and I got accepted. To tell the truth, later, in my second year, I was expelled because I was caught in the dormitory with a guy. There was nothing going on between us, we were just sitting and smoking and he was kissing me, and the door of the room was locked. And when the knocking started we didn’t open it for a long time and when we finally opened it, nobody believed us. Now I’m working as a telegraph operator at the station. But that’s not important. I haven’t seen my tutor for almost ten years. How many times I ran by or rode on the trolley past his narrow side street, but I didn’t drop in even once. I don’t know why it so happens in life that one absolutely can’t do something simple but important. For several years I used to walk quite close to that house and always thought about my physics teacher, remembered his funny postcards, his fan, and his knobby wooden cane that he carried in order to appear more distinguished even when he just went to the kitchen to see whether the teapot was boiling. At last, not long ago, when I was sad, I dropped in. I rang twice, as before. He came out, I said hello, he also said hello, but for some reason he didn’t recognize me and didn’t even invite me to his room. I asked him to try to remember me, I reminded him how we ha
d looked at the postcards, I told him about the fan, about that summer—he didn’t remember anything. He said that at one time he really had many male and female pupils, but now he doesn’t remember almost anyone. The years go by, he said, they go by. He did get a little older, my physics teacher.