The Dream Life of Sukhanov

by Olga Grushin

“Great. Very interesting works. A perfect space for displaying them too.”

  “Perfect, eh?” Belkin repeated, and squinted at him good naturedly. “You used to say the Manège was better as a riding academy, that its architecture was suited for horses, not paintings—”

  And then, without any warning, an incredible smile flashed across Belkin’s face. It was his unforgettable trick of old, that smile, the sort that very few people ever possessed; it transformed his ordinarily woebegone features instantly, brilliantly, imbuing them with rare humanity, with a kind of intense, radiant meaning. Smiling, he lightly touched a button on Sukhanov’s jacket.

  “You also said that in a way it was appropriate, because most of the artists who exhibited here were fit to be displayed only in a stable. Do you remember, Tolya?”

  It was astonishing, simply astonishing, that after all this time the man could still smile like that—and it was suddenly disconcerting to see how little his eyes had changed, how, in spite of the lines at the corners, the pouches underneath, the eyelids that had grown heavy, they could still dance in his face, they could still play with the same dark, fiery, infectious life.

  “I don’t remember,” Sukhanov replied stiffly. “I don’t know… Perhaps I said something like that once. In any event, they’ve redone the place since—” He faltered and ended hurriedly, “It’s completely different now.”

  Belkin looked Sukhanov full in the face, then twisted his lips, nodded, and released the button. The fire in his eyes dwindled away, and the tired creases around his mouth became more pronounced.

  “Funny,” he said flatly, “it looks exactly the same to me. I visit almost every exhibition, you know. Staying abreast of the new developments and all that. Not that there are any, but one keeps hoping.”

  “Yes,” said Sukhanov, not knowing what else to say, and righted his glasses.

  The whole thing was awkward—awkward and unnecessary There was so little space under the cornice that with every motion their shoulders nudged each other softly, and the dripping, splashing, murky world kept creeping closer, invading their cramped refuge, lapping at the edges of dryness, already seeping into Sukhanov’s beautifully polished shoes. He ached to be away, to be home, where it was light, warm, and comfortable, to be drinking his nightly tea…. The encounter was stretching to nightmarish proportions, and he knew he needed to end it, end it now, this very instant—but strangely, he could do nothing, as if he were trapped in a tedious, helpless dream. A short-haired girl darted across their lengthening pause, and he thought he saw the edge of a yellow dress flash beneath the flapping fold of a flimsy coat, but she ran by so quickly he could not be sure. Belkin too watched her melt in the rain.

  “So, is Nina here?” he asked when the water had erased the girl’s steps.

  “She got tired and went home early,” Sukhanov said, and added, pointing across the street, “She took our car.”

  “Ah… A pity. I was hoping to see her. I bet she hasn’t changed one bit.”

  “We all change,” said Sukhanov. “None of us is getting any younger.”

  God, haven’t I said that already, he thought miserably.

  “And how is… er… Alia?” he asked, to prevent another silence.

  “Oh, didn’t you know? She left me a long time ago. She’s married to a math teacher now. Has three kids. But she is doing quite well, thanks for asking.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t know…. But apart from that… That is, how are you getting along in general?”

  “Not too bad, thanks. Painting and all. And you?”

  “Can’t complain, can’t complain…” He coughed, shifted his weight to the other foot. Their shoulders grazed again. “Well, it seems that the rain’s almost over.”

  It was raining every bit as hard as before.

  “Yes, certainly looks that way,” agreed Belkin. “So, where are you off to now? I’m heading for the metro. Shall we walk together? I have an umbrella.”

  “I would, but… I need to go the other way,” said Sukhanov with a vague gesture.

  “Of course, I understand,” Belkin said quietly. “Well, good-bye then, Anatoly. Good luck to you and everything.”

  He turned up the collar of his burgundy blazer, produced a disheveled umbrella from his pocket (ridiculous, who in the world keeps a wet umbrella in his pocket!), and without another glance stepped into the darkness. Sukhanov noticed that he stooped. Strange, he used to carry himself so straight, he thought involuntarily—and all at once, this stray little thought released in him some echo of the past, a solitary trembling note whose sound rose higher and higher in his chest, awakening inarticulate longings and, inseparable from them, a piercing, unfamiliar sorrow. He watched as Belkin trudged away into the downpour under his lopsided umbrella with one spoke sticking out, and he thought bitterly, Here we are, two aging fools, and our lives almost over. His throat tightened, and for a second he was afraid he would not be able to call out, to say anything at all…. Then the spasm passed.

  “Leva, wait!” he shouted.

  He feared at first that Belkin had not heard, that the rain had snatched away his words. Then Belkin turned. He was struggling with the umbrella, which had grown unruly.

  “Listen, Leva, why did you come here tonight?”

  “Oh, I was just passing by when the rain started, and I thought I’d wait it out!” Belkin yelled back.

  Sukhanov could not see his eyes—he was too far, it was too dark.

  “But… you have an umbrella!” he shouted again.

  “Not a very useful one, as you can see.”

  “Oh yes, of course, I see! Well, so long now. Say hi to… I mean, take care of yourself!”

  Belkin did not move. The umbrella flapped over his head like a demented bird. Several moments passed, dreary, endless as a lifetime. Then he muttered something under his breath and strode back, throwing up sprays of water with each heavy step. His face, as he stopped before Sukhanov, streamed with rain.

  “All right, so that wasn’t true,” he said, scowling. “I came because I wanted to see you. You and Nina. I read about the opening, and I thought, What better chance will I have?”

  Violently squashing the umbrella, he dropped it at his feet, then fumbled in his sagging pocket. A golden candy wrapper flew out, twirled in the wind, and drowned. Sukhanov observed his movements with strange anticipation. Finally Belkin extracted what looked like a glossy postcard and held it locked between his palms.

  “I wanted to give you this,” he said. “It’s next Wednesday. Naturally, it’s not going to be a big deal, nothing to write about in the papers…. Anyway, I realize now it was stupid of me, you can’t possibly be interested, so—”

  Wordlessly Sukhanov stretched out a slightly trembling hand. Belkin hesitated, then shrugged, and shoved the postcard at him. A jumble of multicolored letters leapt wildly, confusingly, in all directions, against a shocking neon-green background. Sukhanov took off his glasses, smeared rain all over the lenses, and tried again. The letters started to behave more predictably, and eventually, in a long minute or two, joined to form a few words—“L. B. Belkin (1932—). Moscow Through a Rainbow”—and, underneath, in smaller print, the address, the dates, the times…

  And as Sukhanov looked in silence, he knew that his wrenching sorrow was giving way to some other, as yet unnamed, feeling, which was slowly unfurling its black, powerful wings inside his heart.

  Belkin began to speak rapidly. “It’s my first, you see. True, I’ve had a few things displayed here and there, but this one, it’s all my own. Just a little gallery in the Arbat, but I’ll have the whole place to myself. The name, of course, is idiotic—it’s so cliché, it wasn’t my idea, but I let them do it, because my work is all about color studies anyway, so I thought… Oh, hell, what am I talking about?” Abruptly he stopped, pressing his fingertips to his temples. Then, in a different voice, quiet and oddly desperate, he said, “Listen, Tolya, I know we didn’t remain friends, but it’s been almost a quarter of a century, and…
Well, it would make me really happy if you and Nina could come to the opening. It’s on Wednesday, at seven o‘clock, it’s all written right here, in the corner, see?”

  Sukhanov started as if emerging from a trance. He had a broad smile on his face.

  “Of course,” he said, twisting the card and smiling, smiling. “That is, I’ll have to check my schedule, but I’ll be glad if I can… Nina too, I’m sure… Most glad…”

  Belkin looked at him closely, then averted his eyes.

  “It would mean a lot to me,” he said softly “But I’ll understand if you’re busy, I know this is rather short notice…. Please say hi to Nina for me. Good night, Tolya.”

  “Good night, Leva,” said Sukhanov, still smiling.

  Belkin raised a hand in one last farewell and walked off, grappling with his glistening absurdity of an umbrella. Sukhanov remained where he was, crushing the card in his fingers, smiling the same frozen smile as he gazed into nothingness. In a short while the rain began to diminish, rarefy, slow down, until it reverted to the same innocuous drizzle with which it had started earlier—an hour or an eternity ago, depending on one’s point of view…. Sukhanov blinked, shook the water off his shoes, buried the wet invitation in his pocket, and briskly set off in the opposite direction from the one in which his former best friend had disappeared.

  He was halfway across Red Square when it occurred to him that he had forgotten to say congratulations.

  THREE

  The black face of the giant clock on the Spasskaya Tower swam ominously in the floodlit clouds; as its golden hand shivered and leapt to a new notch, the chimes announced a quarter to an hour. It had been years, if not decades, since Sukhanov had last found himself in Red Square so late at night, and the virtually deserted, brightly illuminated expanse made him feel uneasy. The greenish cobblestones, slippery from the rain, glistened coldly, and the cathedral of Vasily Blazhennyi rose before him like a many-headed, iridescent, scaly dragon from some tale with an unhappy ending. A youth in an oversized purple jacket appeared from nowhere and followed him for a while, his steps echoing loudly and menacingly in the surrounding stillness; then, just as abruptly, he was gone. Sukhanov nervously touched the lining of his breast pocket and walked faster. As he neared the end of the square, it seemed to him that someone tittered from the dense shadows. He reached the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge almost at a run.

  There he stopped and leaned against the parapet to catch his breath. His legs were aching. Below, the Moscow River moved its slow, dense, brown waters, and from their depths emerged a flimsy upside-down city that existed only at night, created by a thousand shimmering intertwinings of streetlights, headlights, floodlights. The walls, the churches, the bell towers of the underwater city trembled with a desire to break free, to float away with the current, to leave the oppressing, crowded, dangerous Moscow far, far behind; but the night held them firmly, and they stayed forever tethered to their places by infinite golden chains of reflections. Other things were luckier in their flight—dead branch, a billowing white scarf, a fleet of cigarette butts, a gasoline stain widening in the beam of light… Unable to tear his eyes away, Sukhanov looked at the rainbow-colored film spreading across the water. The invitation burned in his pocket, and that unnameable feeling was beating its great black wings in the hollow of his soul.

  Suddenly the sounds of someone running banged along the pavement, growing closer. He swung around. The youth in the purple jacket stood behind him, grinning and breathing noisily. Sukhanov glanced up and down the bridge in desperation, but there was no one, no one at all; only cars flew in and out of the night, too quickly, too quickly… His heart pushed in his throat.

  “Nice tie you have there, mister,” the youth said conversationally. “What’s the label?”

  Sukhanov swallowed. “What do you mean, ‘label’?”

  “I mean, who made it?” the youth said. “It’s got to be written on it.”

  Moving slowly as if underwater, Sukhanov lifted his favorite wine-red tie and read in a faltering voice, with a sense of nearing doom, “It’s… er… Christian Dior.”

  “How nice for you,” the youth said, clicking his tongue in appreciation.

  “Listen, what do you want?” Sukhanov said hoarsely. “Do you want this tie? Take it.”

  “Nah, thanks, don’t need it,” said the youth, “not my style. How about two kopecks, though?”

  “You want two kopecks?” Sukhanov repeated dully.

  The youth nodded, and his eyes darted crazily in his pimpled face. Knowing that something unthinkable was about to befall him, Sukhanov reached a shaking hand into his pocket and held out a few coins. One single thought fluttered in him like a dying moth—why didn’t I take the metro, why didn’t I take the metro, why didn’t I… The bridge was deserted, and he imagined himself flying, falling endlessly through the night, plunging toward a dark, cold death below, and this monster laughing, laughing above him…. The youth bent over his hand, so close that Sukhanov could smell the stale smoke on his breath.

  “Let’s see what you have here. Five, ten, another five… Aha, here we go!” He picked a small copper coin from Sukhanov’s palm. “Well, thanks so much, mister. Got to go call my mom now. She always worries when I stay out late.”

  And with these words he turned and walked off, back toward Red Square. In an instant the bridge seemed filled with people. Two drunk girls stumbled along, singing over and over, “We wish you happiness,” a line from a popular song; a middle-aged couple passed, arguing about a burnt teakettle; a group of six or seven little Asian men in suits trotted by, carrying a gigantic map of the city unfolded between them, taking countless pictures of the river, chattering in some birdlike tongue. Sukhanov stared about in astonishment, unable to comprehend what had just happened. Then, all at once, he understood, and a wave of laughter washed over him. That boy—that hooligan with the lunatic eyes—had simply needed change for a public phone.

  And at that glorious moment of realization, all the misfortunes of the evening turned trivial in Sukhanov’s mind, and even the whole Belkin incident did not matter any longer. The beating of the black wings ceased in his heart. Oh, it was all quite obvious really, not worth another thought. Of course, the man had come for the sole purpose of humiliating him—him, Sukhanov, who had accomplished so much in life! Yes, he had come to fling his success in Sukhanov’s face—but in truth, there was no success, just a measly little show that had arrived a lifetime too late and meant nothing. Still laughing, Sukhanov pulled the invitation out of his pocket. The glossy paper had hardened with dampness, but after a brief struggle he overcame its resistance, ripping it along the middle, then again, then again…. As he threw the pieces over the parapet and watched them spiral down into the lead-colored water, he felt perfectly at peace with himself. One shred fluttered in the air and landed on the railing; he saw three brightly colored letters, blue, indigo, and violet—the very tail of the rainbow. For an instant he looked at the letters with narrowed eyes, then shrugged and sent the shred into the dim, glimmering void with an adroit flick of his finger.

  The rest happened with the magic facility of a dream. Immediately as he turned to go, a taxi approached with a welcoming green light burning behind its windshield. Incredibly, it pulled to a stop even before he had time to raise his hand, and then there he was, in the backseat, leaning forward to give the address.

  After his brush with death, everything seemed impossibly amusing to him—the quickening flicker of shop signs beyond his window, the cab that, for some unfathomable reason, smelled of violets, the driver whom he could not see clearly in the shadows but whose funny straw-colored beard and old-fashioned glasses leapt in continuous jolts through the rearview mirror, and most of all, the stubborn solemnity with which the man kept assuring him that his street did not exist.

  “Belinsky Street?” he was exclaiming. “Believe me, comrade, I know Moscow like my own hand”—every time he said that, he lifted a delicate, childlike hand off the wheel and wig
gled his fingers— “and there is no such street anywhere near the Tretyakovskaya Gallery.”

  “There most certainly is, I guarantee you,” Sukhanov repeated. “I’ve lived on that street for the past twelve years, so I should know.”

  This argument would make the man fall quiet for a minute or two, but invariably he would start again, and his beard’s reflection would flit about in agitation as the darkness inside the taxi breathlessly chased the darkness outside.

  “Of course, it’s your business, comrade. If you want to be taken to a place that does not exist, who am I to stop you? Why, I take people places all the time, and half of them end up somewhere they had no intention of going, but me, I never object, I—”

  “Turn left here,” Sukhanov interrupted. “The gray building on the right, you see?”

  “This?” the driver said triumphantly. “I knew it! This here is no Belinsky Street. This is Voskresensky Passage. Let me back up to the sign and I’ll show you, hold on.”

  Sukhanov smiled indulgently. The tires squealed. The square black letters on the white background spelled out “Belinsky Street,” as, naturally, he knew they would. There was a momentary silence, and then a long, sorrowful sigh sounded in the dimness.

  “I don’t believe it!” the man wailed softly. “They’ve renamed this one too! And the old name was so much better…. Please accept my apologies. I’ve memorized the whole map of the city, you see, the street names, the intersections, everything, but my map is a bit out of date—it was printed before the Revolution—so this kind of thing is bound to happen from time to time.”

  “And does it happen often?” Sukhanov inquired innocently.

  The man suppressed a sob. “Almost always,” he confessed in a tragic whisper.

  What a loon, thought Sukhanov, as he extracted a ten-ruble bill from his wallet.

  “Perhaps you should buy yourself a new map with the change,” he said generously, and chuckling under his breath, stepped out of the car, catching as he did so the last sparkle of the glasses and a farewell wave of the yellow beard bristling on the man’s invisible chin.