Tanya was a mysterious woman. I knew so little about her that I never ceased being amazed. Any fact about her life was to me a sensation.
Once I was astonished by an unexpectedly political outburst. Until then, I had no idea about her views. Seeing Comrade Grishin* in a newsreel, I remember my wife saying:
“He should be tried for his facial expression alone…”
So an understanding – that of partial dissidents – had been established between us.
And yet we fought often. I became more and more irritable. I was, at the same time, an unrecognized genius and a terrible hack. My desk drawers stored impressionistic novels while for money I created literary compositions about the army and navy.
I knew it displeased Tanya.
Bernovich kept insisting:
“By the time a man reaches thirty he must have resolved all his problems except literary ones…”
I couldn’t do it. The amount of money I owed had long crossed that line where you stop caring. Literary officials had put my name on some sort of blacklist a while ago. I did not want to nor could I actualize myself fully in my role as a family man.
My wife brought up the subject of emigration more often. I became completely disoriented and left for Pushkin Hills.
Officially I was single, able-bodied and a standing member of the Journalists’ Union. I also belonged to an appealing ethnic minority. Even Granin and Rytkheu acknowledged my literary abilities.*
Officially, I was a full-fledged creative personality.
In reality, I was on the edge of a mental breakdown.
And here she was. It was so unexpected, I found myself at a loss. She just stood there, smiling, as if everything was fine.
I heard:
“You’ve got some colour…”
And then, if I’m not mistaken:
“My darling…”
I asked:
“How is Masha?”
“She scratched her cheek the other day, she’s so headstrong… I brought some tinned food.”
“How long are you staying?”
“I have to be at work on Monday.”
“You could get sick.”
“Get sick with what?” Tanya was surprised.
And added:
“Actually, I’m not feeling all that well anyway.”
That’s some logic, I thought.
“Plus I’d feel uncomfortable,” continued Tatyana. “Sima is on vacation. Roshchin is getting ready to leave for Israel. Did you know that Roshchin turned out to be Shtakelberg? And now his name isn’t Dima, it’s Mordechai. I’m not kidding…”
“I believe you.”
“The Surises wrote; they said Leva got a good job in Boston.”
“Why don’t I see if I can take the day off?”
“What for? I’d like to hear the tour. I’d like to see you at work.”
“This isn’t real work. This is a job… I, by the way, have been writing stories for the last twenty years and you’ve never shown any interest…”
“You used to say fifteen. And now it’s twenty. Even though it hasn’t even been a year.”
She had a fantastic way of making me lose my temper. But it would have been stupid to fight. People fight due to an abundance of life.
“We here are something like entertainers. We help workers have a culturally stimulating vacation.”
“That’s wonderful. How are your colleagues?”
“There are all kinds. We have one local guide here, Larissa, and every day she bawls over Pushkin’s grave. She sees the grave and then the waterworks come…”
“Is she faking it?”
“I don’t think so. A group of tourists once gave her a set of kitchen knives worth forty-six roubles.”
“I wouldn’t say no to that.”
Just then Galina called my name. A group of tourists from Lipetsk had arrived.
I turned to Tatyana:
“You can leave your things here.”
“I only have one bag.”
“And you can leave it here…”
We headed towards a blue bus spattered with mud. I said hello to the driver and found a seat for my wife. Then I greeted the tourists:
“Good morning! The administration, curators and staff of Pushkin Hills welcome our guests. They have entrusted me to be your guide. My name is… This is what’s to come…”
And so on.
Then I explained to the driver how to get to Mikhailovskoye. The bus started. The sounds of the radiogram drifted in as we rounded the bends:
Give the gift of fire, like Prometheus,
Give the gift of fire to big and small,
Do not begrudge the people,
The fire of your soul!
Going round the decorative boulder at a fork in the road, I said venomously:
“Pay no attention. It’s just for show.”
And whispered to my wife:
“These are Comrade Geychenko’s dumb ideas. He wants to create an enormous amusement park here. He even hung up a chain on a tree, to make it more scenic. They say students from Tartu stole it. And dropped it in the lake. I say, bravo Structuralists!”
I led the group, stealing a glance at my wife from time to time. Her face, so attentive and a little lost, struck me anew. The pale lips, the shadow cast by her eyelashes and mournful look…
Now I was addressing her. I told her about a slight man of great genius in whom God and the Devil coexisted so easily. A man who soared high, but ended up the victim of a common earthly affliction; who created masterpieces but died the hero of a second-rate romantic novel. And who gave Bulgarin* legitimate grounds to write:
“He was a great man, who vanished like a rabbit…”
We walked along the lake. At the foot of the hill loomed another boulder. It was adorned with yet another quotation in Slavonic calligraphy. The tourists circled the rock and began snapping pictures greedily.
I lit a cigarette. Tanya came up to me.
The day was sunny, windy and not hot. A band of tourists, stretching along the shore, was catching up with us. We had to hurry.
A fat man with a notepad approached:
“Terribly sorry, what were the names of Pushkin’s sons?”
“Alexander and Grigori.”
“The eldest was…”
“Alexander,” I said.
“And his patronymic?”
“Alexandrovich, naturally.”
“And the younger?”
“What about the younger?”
“What was his patronymic?”
I looked helplessly at Tanya. My wife did not smile. She looked sad and absorbed.
“Oh, right,” the tourist caught on.
We had to hurry.
“Let’s go, comrades,” I yelled out with pep. “Forward march to the next quotation!”
At Trigorskoye the tour went smoothly, and even felt a bit inspired. Mainly, and I repeat, due to the nature and logic of the exposition.
I was taken aback by one lady’s request, though. She wanted to hear the love song ‘A Magic Moment I Remember’. I told her that I couldn’t sing at all. The lady insisted. The fat man with a notepad rescued me. “Why don’t I sing it,” he proposed…
“Please, not here,” I implored. “On the bus.”
(On our way back the fat man did indeed sing. Turned out this dunce was a wonderful tenor.)
I noticed that Tanya was tired, and decided to skip Trigorskoye Park. I’d done this in the past. I addressed the tourists:
“Who’s been here before?”
As rule, no one has, which meant I could abridge the programme without any risk.
My tourists dashed to the bottom of the hill. Each rushing to be first on the bus even though the seats were plentiful and assigned. While we had explored Trigorskoye our drivers had used the opportunity to go for a swim. Their hair was wet.
“Let’s go to the monastery,” I said. “Take a left from the parking lot.”
The young driver nodded and asked:
> “Will you be there long?”
“No more than half an hour.”
At the monastery, I introduced Tanya to the curator, Loginov. Rumour had it that Nikolai Vladimirovich was religious and even observed tradition. I wanted to talk to him about faith and waited for an opportune moment. He seemed happy and calm, and I was so lacking in that…
I concluded the tour in the southern vestry by Bruni’s drawing. The ending would have been more effective by the grave, but I wanted to let the group go. My wife stood by the railing for a bit and soon returned.
“All this is sad and absurd,” she said.
I didn’t ask what she meant. I was tired. Or rather, I felt very tense. I knew that her visit was no accident.
“Let’s have dinner at The Seashore,” I offered.
“I wouldn’t even mind a little to drink,” replied Tanya.
The room was deserted and stuffy. Two enormous fans sat idle. The walls were adorned with wooden reliefs. The few customers comprised two groups: the visiting aristocracy, in blue jeans, and the local public, much greyer in appearance. The visitors dined. The locals drank.
We sat by the window.
“I forgot to ask how you got here? I mean I didn’t have the chance.”
“Very easily, on a night bus.”
“You could have come with one of the guides, for free.”
“I don’t know them.”
“Neither do I. Next time we’ll arrange something in advance.”
“Next time you come to us. It is rather taxing.”
“Do you wish you hadn’t come?”
“No, not at all! It’s wonderful here…”
A waitress with a tiny notepad came to the table.
I knew this damsel. The guides nicknamed her Bismarck.
“Yeah, what?” she uttered.
And fell silent, fully debilitated.
“Is it possible to be a little more polite?” I asked. “As an exception. My wife is visiting.”
“What did I say?”
“I beg you, please stop.”
Then Tatyana ordered pancakes, wine, chocolates…
“Let’s discuss everything. Let’s speak calmly.”
“I won’t go. Let them leave.”
“Who are ‘they’?” asked Tanya.
“They are the ones who are ruining my life. Let them leave.”
“They’ll put you in prison.”
“Let them. If literature is a pursuit deserving condemnation then our place is behind bars. And anyway, they no longer send people away for literature.”
“Heifetz* hadn’t even published his work and yet he got put away.”
“That’s precisely why they got him: because he didn’t publish. He should have printed something in Grani. Or Continent.* Now there’s no one to fight for him. Otherwise they could have made some noise in the West.”
“Are you certain?”
“Of what?”
“That Misha Heifetz is of any interest to people in the West?”
“And why not? They wrote about Bukovsky. They wrote about Kuznetsov.”*
“These are all games of politics. We must think of real life.”
“I’m telling you again, I will not leave.”
“Can you explain why?”
“There’s nothing to explain. My language, my people, my crazy country… Imagine this, I even love the policemen.”
“Love is freedom. While the doors are open, everything is fine. But if the doors are locked from the outside, it becomes a prison…”
“But they’re letting people out now.”
“And I want to use this chance. I’m fed up. I’m fed up with standing in lines for all sorts of junk. I’m fed up with wearing stockings with holes. I’m fed up of getting excited about beef sausages… What’s holding you back? The Hermitage, the Neva River, birch trees?”
“I couldn’t care less about birch trees.”
“Then what?”
“Language. In a foreign tongue we lose eighty per cent of our personality. We lose our ability to joke, to be ironic. This alone terrifies me.”
“I don’t have time for jokes. Think about Masha. Imagine what awaits her.”
“You’re blowing everything out of proportion. Millions of people live, work and are perfectly happy.”
“Let these millions stay. I am talking about you. Either way, you are not published.”
“But my readers are here. While over there… Who needs my stories in Chicago?”
“And who needs them here? The waitress at The Seashore, who hasn’t even read the menu?”
“Everyone. They just don’t know it yet.”
“This is the way it’ll always be.”
“You are wrong.”
“Try to understand: in ten years I’ll be an old woman. And I know exactly what my life will look like. Because each day that’s gone by is a step into the future, and every step is the same: grey, worn and steep… I want to live one more life. I dream of something unexpected. I don’t care if it’s a drama or tragedy… it’ll be an unexpected drama…”
We’ve had this conversation time and again. I would disagree, call her to reason. Pose some kind of moral, spiritual or psychological arguments. Try to prove something.
But at the same time I knew that all my rationalizations were lies. It wasn’t about that. I simply couldn’t make this decision. Such a serious and irreversible step frightened me. After all, it would be like being reborn. And at one’s own will. Most people can’t even get married properly…
All my life I had detested active behaviour of any kind. To my ear, the word “activist” sounds like an insult. I lived in the passive voice, so to speak, allowing circumstances to take the lead. This helped me find justification for everything.
Any decisive step imposes responsibility. So let others be held responsible. Inactivity is the only moral condition… In a perfect world, I’d become a fisherman. Sit out my life on a riverbank. And preferably without any trophies.
I didn’t believe Tanya capable of leaving without me. For her, America was synonymous with divorce, I had thought. A divorce that had already formally taken place and lost its vigour, like flat beer.
In the old days women would say: “I’m going to find myself a good-looking rich guy, then you’ll be sorry.” Now they say: “I’m going to America.”
America for me was fiction. Something like a mirage. A half-forgotten film starring Akbar the tiger and Charlie Chaplin…
“Tanya,” I said, “I’m an irresponsible man and I’m up for any adventure. If the Santa María* or a Boeing was sitting out there” (I pulled back the curtain) “I’d get on and go. Just to see this Broadway. But dealing with all the red tape, explaining things, convincing them… Historical birthplace… Ancestral calling… Imaginary aunt by the name of Fanny Tsyperovich…”
Our food and drinks arrived.
“Then wish us luck… Oh look, ‘potato’ is spelt with two As in the menu.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Anyway, I’ve come to say goodbye. If you don’t want to go, we’ll leave by ourselves. It’s decided.”
“And Masha?”
“What about Masha? I’m doing all this for her. Will you sign the papers?”
“What papers? Wait a minute, let’s have a drink.”
“That you have no material claims against us. Do you have material claims?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Then you’ll sign the papers?”
“And what if I don’t?”
“Then they won’t let Masha leave.”
“And you’ll go alone?”
“I don’t know… No… But I don’t think you’ll do that. Fundamentally you’re not a mean person.”
“What’s kindness got to do with anything? We’re talking about a living person. What if our daughter grows up and says… How can you decide for her?”
“And who should decide? You? You, who’ve ruined your life and mine…”
> “All’s not that hopeless.”
“I urge you to think about it.”
“There’s nothing to think about… Some stupid papers… Why did you have to start all this? Besides, I’m not drinking. I’m working. Life will sort itself out, you’ll see.”
“You yourself said, ‘Once a drinker, always a drinker!’”
“No, I didn’t. It was some Englishman. Let him be damned!”
“It doesn’t matter. Someone is trying to say hello.”
I looked over. Mitrofanov and Pototsky were standing in the doorway. I was glad for the chance to stop this conversation. If I could just get her into bed, I thought…
“Let me introduce you,” I said. “Sit down.”
Stasik bowed ceremoniously:
“Author of novels, Pototsky. Member of the SU of Writers.”
Mitrofanov nodded without saying anything.
“Join us. Do you have time?”
“I’ve done time,” Pototsky replied playfully.
Mitrofanov maintained silence.
I realized they had no money and said:
“My wife is visiting. It’s on me.”
And I went up to the bar to get us some beers. When I returned, Pototsky was saying something animatedly to my wife. I could tell he was talking about his talent and the outrageousness of censorship. Which, however, did not hamper his departure from the subject:
“Beer? I’m afraid it won’t irrigate the system…”
I had no choice but to get vodka. By that time the waitress had brought our sandwiches and salad.
Pototsky became visibly invigorated.
“For me – a large one,” he said. “I love the larger ones.”
Volodya still hadn’t said anything. Stasik noticed my look of curiosity and explained, pointing to Mitrofanov:
“You see, a wasp flew into his mouth.”
“Dear God,” sighed my wife. “Is it still in there?”
“Not any more. He was finishing a tour of the monastery, you see, and a wasp flew into his mouth. Volodya, beg your pardon, hawked up, but it whooped him all the same. Now he can’t speak – it hurts.”
“And does it hurt to swallow?” asked Tanya.
Volodya shook his head vigorously.
“Swallowing doesn’t hurt,” clarified Pototsky.
I poured them vodka. It was evident that this company was burdensome for my wife.
“How do you like it here?” asked Pototsky.
“Some parts are wonderful. Like the view of Savkin Hill, or Kern Lane…”
Pushkin Hills Page 7