I wanted to stand up, but couldn’t.
Then a Duralumin stool flew out from under me. As I fell, I took down a heavy brown curtain.
I couldn’t manage to get up, even though I think Markov was taking a beating. I heard his tragic cries:
“Let me go, you beasts! Finita la commedia!”*
It’s not that I was thrown out of the restaurant. I crawled out on my own, sheathed in the drapery fabric. Then I hit my head on the doorpost and everything went black…
I came to in a strange room. It was already light. The clock was ticking; it had a chisel for a weight.
I was still covered by the same brown drape. On the floor nearby I discovered Markov. Evidently, he had given me his bed.
My head hurt. I felt a deep gash on my forehead.
The sour odour of a peasant home made me a little sick.
I groaned. Markov raised himself up.
“Are you alive?” he asked.
“I think so. What about you?”
“Status: heading into the storm! How much do you weigh?”
“No idea, why?”
“I barely managed to drag you here…”
The door opened and a woman with a clay pot entered.
“Vera,” shouted Markov. “Hair of the dog! I know you’ve got some. Who needs this road to Calvary? Bring it to us now! Let’s bypass this interim period of developed socialism…”
“Drink some milk,” said Vera.
I said hello with dignity. Markov sighed:
“And I had to be born in these boreal backwoods…”
Vera was a pale, tired woman with large, calloused hands. Cantankerous, like all wives of alcoholics, without exception.
A look of deep and utmost sorrow was etched on her face.
I also felt awkward because I was occupying the master bed. What’s more, my slacks were missing. But the jacket was on.
“I’m sorry to have put you out,” I said.
“Don’t worry,” said Vera. “We’re used to it.”
This was a typical village abode. The walls were flecked with reproductions from Ogonyok magazine.* A TV with a blurry magnifiying lens hid in the corner. A faded bluish oilcloth covered the table. A portrait of Julius Fučík* hung above my headboard. A cat sauntered between the chairs. It moved soundlessly, like in an animated film.
“Where are my trousers?” I asked.
“Vera undressed you,” replied Markov. “Ask her.”
“I took off the trousers,” explained Vera, “but I felt awkward about the jacket.”
I felt too weak to process the meaning.
“That’s logical,” quipped Markov.
“They’re in the hall, I’ll get them.”
“Better get us a drink first!”
Markov raised his voice a little. Arrogance and self-abasement constantly alternated in him. He said:
“A Russian dissident has got to have hair of the dog, don’t you think? What would the academic Sakharov say?”*
And the next minute:
“Vera, give me some cologne! Give me some cologne with the seal of quality.”
Vera brought me my trousers. I got dressed. Then put on my shoes, after shaking the pine needles out. With disgust I lit up a cigarette…
The heavy taste of morning blocked out the shame of yesterday.
Markov felt great. His groaning, I thought, was only for show.
I asked:
“Where’s the envelope of money?”
“Shhh… In the attic,” said Markov, and added at full volume: “Let’s go! We should not await favours from nature. To take them – that is our task.”
I said:
“Vera, I’m sorry for the way things happened. I hope we meet again… under different circumstances…”
“Where you going?” asked Vera. “Again? Do keep an eye on my fool.”
I gave her a crooked smile, so as to say that I myself don’t set a very good example…
That day we paid a call on four drinking joints. With apologies, we returned the brown curtain. We drank at the boathouse, at the film projectionist’s booth and by the monastery fence.
Markov drained his sixth bottle and said:
“Some are of the opinion that a modest obelisk should be erected here!”
And he stood the bottle on the knoll.
We lost the envelope of money several times. We hugged it out with last night’s accordion player. Were seen by every senior worker at the tourist centre. And according to Natella, claimed to be Pushkin and Baratynsky.*
Even Mikhail Ivanych preferred to keep away from us. Though we invited him. He did say:
“I know Valera. You knock back a few with him and find yourself sobering up at the precinct.”
Thankfully, Mitrofanov and Pototsky were away on an excursion in Boldino.
We fell asleep in someone’s hayloft in Petrovskoye. In the morning, this nightmare started over. Even the stable hands from the lumber mill recoiled from us.
What’s more, Markov was going around with a lilac lampshade on his head. I was missing a left sleeve.
Loginov came up to us by the shop and asked:
“How is it that you’re without a sleeve?”
“I was getting hot,” I said, “and threw it away.”
The keeper of the monastery mused over this and then made the sign of the cross over us both. Markov said:
“You shouldn’t have… Instead of God, we now have Lenin’s Central Committee. But there’ll come a time when these bitches have their own great terror…”
Loginov looked uncomfortable, crossed himself and rushed away.
And we continued to stagger around the Preserve.
I made it home towards the end of the week. And spent the next twenty-four hours in bed, without moving. Mikhail Ivanych offered me wine. I turned to face the wall without saying anything.
Then a girl from the tourist centre named Lyuda showed up.
“You have a telegram,” she said. “And Major Belyaev is looking for you.”
“Belyaev who? From where?”
“Our old man says from the Ministry of the Interior.”
“Just what I need! Can you tell him I’m unwell? That I’m unwell and in Pskov…”
“He knows.”
“What does he know?”
“That you’ve been unwell for quite a few days. He said, ‘Tell him to stop by after he sleeps it off.’”
“Stop by where?”
“The building next to the post office. Anyone will show you. Here’s the telegram.”
Shyly, the girl faced the other way and removed from her bra a bluish scrap of paper folded to the size of a postage stamp.
I unfolded the warm telegram and read:
“Flying Wed. night. Tanya. Masha.”
Only five words and some cryptic numbers.
“What day is it today?”
“It was Tuesday this morning,” joked Lyuda.
“When did you receive the telegram?”
“Marianna brought it from Voronich.”
“When?”
“I told you, Saturday.”
I wanted to say, “And where were you before?” but changed my mind. They were where they were supposed to be. A better question was: where was I?
The earliest I could leave was on the evening bus. I’d get into Leningrad around six in the morning…
“He knows all about the telegram,” Lyuda said.
“Who?”
“Comrade Belyaev.”
Lyuda was a tiny bit proud of the acuity and omniscience of this foreboding major.
“Comrade Belyaev said that you should see him before you leave. Or you’ll get an ass-kicking… His exact words…”
“What old-fashioned courtesy!” I said…
Feverishly, I tried to collect my thoughts. My money added up to around four roubles. Still the same mystical four roubles. I felt horrible…
“Lyuda,” I asked, “do you have any money?”
“Around forty copecks… I took the bike…”
“And?”
“Take my bicycle, I’ll walk. Leave it with someone in the settlement…”
The last time I rode a bike I was a schoolboy. Back then it seemed like a fun thing to do. Evidently I had aged.
The road was gnarled with pine roots. The bicycle clanked as it bobbed up and down. The small hard saddle traumatized my behind. The wheels kept sinking in the damp sand. My tortured insides responded to every jolt with a spasm.
I stopped by the tourist centre, leaning the bicycle against a wall.
Galina was by herself. My appearance did not startle her. She asked:
“Did you receive the telegram?”
I guess it would be hard to surprise anyone here with drunkenness.
I said:
“I need thirty roubles from the safe. I’ll pay it back in two weeks. Just don’t ask any questions.”
“I know everything anyway. Your wife betrayed the motherland.”
“Alas,” I said.
“And now she is leaving for the West.”
“It looks that way.”
“And you are staying?”
“Yes, I am staying. As you know…”
“And you’ll continue working?”
“Of course. If I don’t get fired…”
“Is it true that only Jews live in Israel? Listen, are you ill? Would you like some water?”
“Water won’t help. How about the money?”
“Only why from the safe? I have my own…”
I wanted to kiss Galina but held myself back. Her reaction could have been most unpredictable.
I got on the bicycle and went to the monastery.
The day was warm, but cloudy. The shadows of the trees were barely distinguishable from the grey asphalt. Tourists ambled along the side of the road. There were some that wore rainproof jackets.
I raced towards the sandy slope. I had a hard time holding on to the handlebars. Boulders tarnished by a coating of grey flew by…
The Ministry of the Interior’s local branch was pointed out to me straight away.
“It’s the building after the post office,” the cleaner from The Seashore waved. “See that flag on the roof?”
I pedalled on.
The doors of the post office were wide open. Inside were two long-distance phone booths. One of them was occupied. A gesticulating blonde with big legs was shouting:
“Tata, do you hear? I wouldn’t advise you to come… The weather here is B-minus… But most importantly, there are absolutely no guys here… Hello, do you hear me? Lots of girls leave without feeling refreshed…”
I put on the brakes and pricked up my ears. Mentally I reached for the pen…
As dreadful as things looked, I was still alive. And, perhaps, the last thing to die in a man is his baseness. His ability to respond to peroxide blondes and the need to write…
On the steps of the ministry building, I ran into Guryanov. We nearly collided, so he couldn’t avoid me.
At university, Guryanov was nicknamed Lenya the Snitch. His main responsibility was keeping an eye on foreigners.
What’s more, Guryanov was famous for his extraordinary ignorance. Once he was taking an oral exam with professor Byaly. Guryanov drew the question on the Tales of Ivan Belkin.*
Lenya attempted to broaden the theme. He opened on the subject of the Tsarist regime.
But the examiner asked:
“Have you read the Tales of Ivan Belkin?”
“Not really, I never had the occasion,” replied Lenya. “Do you recommend it?”
“Yes.” Byaly contained himself. “I strongly recommend that you read this book…”
Lenya came to see Byaly a month later and said:
“I’ve read it. Thank you. I liked a lot of it.”
“And what did you like?” Byaly was curious.
Lenya tensed up, then remembered and said:
“The tale of Ivan Onegin…”
And here we ran into each other on the steps of the KGB.
At first he was a little taken aback. He wanted to walk away without saying hello. He lurched to the side, but it was difficult to miss each other on that porch. So he said:
“Well, hello, hello… Belyaev is waiting for you…”
He wanted to make it seem like everything was OK. As if we’d run into each other in a polyclinic and not the Gestapo.
I asked:
“Is he your boss?”
“Who?”
“Belyaev… Or a subordinate?”
“Don’t be ironic,” said Guryanov.
His voice had a firm, authoritative note.
“And remember, the KGB is the most progressive organization today. It’s where the real power of the state is. And, by the way, the most humane… If you only knew what kind of people they are!”
“I’ll know in a minute,” I said.
“You’re terribly infantile,” said Guryanov. “It could end badly…”
This wasn’t easy to listen to with a hangover!
I went past him, turned around and said:
“And you, Guryanov, are a piece of shit! You’re a shit, an imbecile and a scoundrel! And you’ll always be a scoundrel even if they make you a senior lieutenant… You know why you snitch? Because women don’t like you…”
Guryanov capitulated as he stepped back. He tried to choose between indifference and superiority, but it ended in rancour.
I, however, felt great relief. And anyway, what could be better than an unexpected verbal release?
Guryanov hadn’t prepared for insults. Which is why he suddenly started to speak in a normal and natural voice:
“It’s easy to humiliate a comrade… But you don’t know how it all happened…”
He switched to a sonorous whisper:
“I nearly got thrown in the locker as a kid. The authorities practically saved me. They got me into university. Now they’re promising a residency permit. Because I’m from Kulunda… Have you been to Kulunda? It’s a pleasure below average…”
“Ah,” I said, “now it all makes sense… Kulunda changes everything…”
I’m forever listening to the outpourings of monsters. It must mean that I am predisposed to madmen…
“So long, Guryan, bear your heavy cross…”
I pushed the pretty pink button. A meagre woman of indeterminable age let me in. Without a word she ushered me into the adjoining room.
I saw a safe, a portrait of Dzerzhinsky* and brown drapes. Like the ones in the restaurant. So much so that I felt a little queasy.
I sat in an armchair and pulled out my cigarettes. For a minute or two, I sat in solitude. Then one of the curtains moved and a man of about thirty-six stepped out from behind it. With grave reproach, he said:
“Have I invited you to sit down?”
I stood up.
“Sit down.”
I sat.
The man enunciated with even greater reproach:
“Have I invited you to smoke?”
I reached for the ashtray, but heard:
“Smoke…”
He than sat down and gave me a long, sad and almost tragic look. His smile expressed the world’s imperfection and the heavy burden of responsibility for the sins of others. His face, though, remained ordinary, like an underwear button.
The portrait above his head seemed more inspired. (Only halfway through our meeting did I suddenly realize that it was Anton Makarenko* and not Dzerzhinsky.)
Finally he said:
“Can you guess why I invited you here? You can’t? Excellent. Ask me a question. To the point, soldier-like. ‘Why did you invite me here, Belyaev?’ And I’ll answer you. Also to the point, soldier-like: ‘I don’t know.’ I haven’t the slightest idea. I feel that something’s not right. I feel that the lad took a wrong turn. He’s been led astray by the snaking road. Believe it or not, it’s been keeping me up at nights. ‘Tomka,’ I say to my wife, ‘a good lad has gone wrong. He needs help�
��’ And my Tomka, she’s a humanist. She yells: ‘Vitalik, you must help. Have a character-building talk with him. It’s a shame, the lad is one of ours. He’s healthy on the inside. Don’t resort to harsh disciplinary methods. The organization does not only punish. The organization enlightens…’ And I yell: ‘The international situation is complex. Capitalist encirclement is taking its toll. The lad has gone too far. Contributes to this… what’s its name… Continental. Like that Radio Liberty… He’s become a literary turncoat, a traitor as bad as Solzhenitsyn. And to top it all, he’s been geezed up to the eyeballs with that windbag Valera… So his wife played a dirty trick, decided to go to Israel… So what, is he to be lit now till he turns blue?’ In short, I’m confused…”
Belyaev continued to talk for another fifteen minutes. I swear I saw tears glisten in his eyes.
Then he threw a sideways glance at the door and produced glasses:
“Let’s unwind a little. It’s not bad for you… in moderation…”
His vodka was warm. We had cookies as a chaser.
The phone gave a shrill cry.
“Major Belyaev speaking… At four thirty? I’ll be there… And tell the cops to mind their own business…”
He turned to me:
“Where were we? Do you think the organization hasn’t noticed this bedlam? The organization notices everything, better than that academic Sakharov. But where’s the realistic solution? In what? In a restoration of capitalism? Let’s suppose I’ve read your vaunted samizdat. Just as much crap as in Znamya magazine.* Only everything’s turned on its head. White is now black and black is white… Take, for instance, the problem of agriculture. Let’s say we go ahead and abolish collective farms. We give the peasants their land and whatnot. But first, ask the peasants what they think. Do they even want this land? What the fuck do they need this damned land for? Ask that windbag Valera. Go to the villages around the Preserve. Old man Timokha is the only one who remembers how to harness a horse. And when to sow and what – they’ve all forgotten. They can’t bake a simple loaf of bread… Besides, any peasant will swap this land for a half a pint of vodka in the blink of an eye. Let alone half a bottle…”
Belyaev took out the glasses again once and for all. He turned pink. His thoughts deviated towards dissidence with blistering speed.
Twice the phone rang. Belyaev pressed the button on the intercom:
“Valeria Yanovna! Hold all calls.”
Pushkin Hills Page 10