“Thank you, sir.”
“Needless to say, I’m not going to reduce your teaching load. What would you be without our kids, right? But I won’t burden you with additional administrative duties. Instead, we’ll try keep that sort of thing to a minimum. To begin with, I want you to focus on teacher evaluations. Try to sit in on every class a couple of times a week. And then tell me what you observe. Just drop by — no formalities. All right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“By the way,” Hammurabi said, already opening the door for her, “pay special attention to Turkina. I have very little faith in her.” He grimaced. “Sometimes I get the impression that she doesn’t care. How is that possible? But you never know with people, you just never know.”
4. SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD ONE
AND SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD TWO
Turkina, a buxom bottle-blond who preferred provocatively short skirts and, whatever the ensemble of the day, a cunning pink scarf, taught English, the director’s favourite subject. Whether the posh inflections of Oxford had once signified better times and places to him, or he believed that the road to happiness might be paved with the cobblestones of English grammar, Hammurabi required that all his charges begin study of the language in grade two. Though they could by grade seven produce a semblance of the foreign speech they had never heard, the emphasis was not on oral communication, for which Hammurabi appreciated there could rarely be any call. Rather, his charges would learn to read and write the language, so that as cutting-edge scientists (his vision for them) they could read technical articles in English with perfect ease.
Inna herself had but a nodding acquaintance with Hammurabi’s beloved language, but she could still tell at once that Turkina wasn’t making much of an effort.
The first time Inna visited her class, the topic was something that Turkina called Subjunctive Mood One and Subjunctive Mood Two.
“‘If your parents earned a thousand rubles a month, how much of it would they give to the people of Cuba, the shining island of freedom?’ That’s Subjunctive Mood One,” Turkina explained after writing the sentence on the blackboard.
Her gaze then fell on at a skinny boy chewing on the end of his pen as he stared out the window. She waved at him to get his attention, and then after he had turned toward her and could read her lips, she said: “Proshin, give me a sentence using Subjunctive Mood One.”
The boy slowly rubbed his chin and then offered: “My parents work in a factory. They earn a hundred rubles a month. If they will earn a little more, they will be able to buy me winter boots.”
“If they earned, and not will earn. And would be able, and not will be able,” Turkina said.
“But my parents won’t earn a thousand rubles in the future. They aren’t some kind of bourgeoisie,” the boy replied. “Besides, if it’s all in the future, how come I need to use the past tense?”
Exasperated, Turkina instinctively raised her voice. “I’ve already explained that! You should have been paying attention instead of counting the crows in the yard. You have to pretend that it’s possible in the future. Use your imagination. In Subjunctive Mood One, you imagine the future by using the past tense. But on the other hand, if there isn’t the slightest chance of their earning a thousand rubles, then you use Subjunctive Mood Two instead. Like this.” And on the blackboard she wrote: “Had my parents earned a thousand rubles last year, they would have given five hundred to the children of Cuba or Angola.”
“Had my parents earned a thousand rubles,” repeated Proshin slowly, carefully enunciating each word, “my parents will buy shoes to me and winter coat to Masha, my sister.”
The students sitting near him who could see his face and read his lips laughed. Before turning to the blackboard again, Turkina said: “That will do! We’ll now have a quiz on Subjunctive Mood One and Subjunctive Mood Two.” And she quickly covered the blackboard with 20 sentences to be translated into English.
“I don’t understand,” Proshin said in a characteristic monotone. “You didn’t give us any warning.”
Inna had to pinch herself to believe what happened next. After the class had settled down to write, Turkina took a bottle of bright-red nail polish from her cosmetics bag, and, starting with her left pinkie, applied loving strokes to each of her fingernails.
After finishing her left hand, Turkina blew on it and waved it in the air. When she moved on to her right hand, Inna couldn’t take it anymore. She rushed out of the classroom, ran to the teachers’ lavatory, and splashed cold water on her burning face. There was no doubt that Turkina had done it on purpose to flout Inna’s new authority, to humiliate her. “But why?” Inna wondered in bewilderment. “What did I ever do to her? She’s married to a general, and I’m married to . . . a man who sees other women. I’m younger than she is. Maybe she resents it.”
That night Inna didn’t sleep a wink. She listened to her husband’s breathing and stared at the ceiling as if the answers to all the questions tormenting her were written on its rough plaster surface. To report the nail-polish incident would mean Turkina’s immediate termination. Not to report it would be to collude in her wrongdoing.
When the first birds announced the dawn, Inna got up intending to follow the voice of her conscience. In the oak-panelled gloom of Hammurabi’s office, she reported Turkina’s transgressions as if they were her own. “The whole lesson was conducted in Russian and the pedagogical method left much to be desired. And not only that, but . . .”
“But what?” Hammurabi said, narrowing his eyes.
“Nothing, really. I just wanted to say that Turkina had a hard time explaining some aspects of grammar.”
“You’ve already told me that. Concrete examples?”
Inna glanced through her notes.
“The difference between two types of subjunctive mood was vaguely presented.”
“You don’t say!” Hammurabi scoffed with a dismissive gesture.
“Unfortunately, it’s true,” Inna muttered in dismay.
“Hmm . . . Just look what humanity is coming to, what degradation, what squalor, what irresponsibility! But let me ask you, Inna Borisovna, in complete confidentiality. What is the source of that indifference? Myrosyan is old, he won’t notice, is that it? Or maybe Myrosyan is ignorant and no English word was ever uttered by him? Ha! Is that what they think? Tell me the truth!”
“How could you say that, sir?! Everybody knows that your were . . . ”
“Don’t try to pull the wool over my eyes, comrade Tesemkina! I know what’s on their minds. Myrosyan’s a doddering old fool! Who cares that Churchill personally invited him to tea at his home? Or that the two of them spent hours discussing the fate of the world when the war was over? They don’t give a damn about any of that, do they?”
Hammurabi sighed deeply and was silent for a moment.
“So, what does the woman think she’s doing? This English instructor, so to speak.”
“That’s what I was wondering too,” Inna said, now as pale as chalk.
Myrosyan swivelled in his chair.
“You wanted to tell me something else, didn’t you?” he said with a mysterious smile.
Inna gazed pleadingly at him.
“Come on. Do your duty! Tell me!”
“Her fingernails.” As soon as she said the word, it seemed strange, alien to the tongue.
“What about them?”
“Well, Turkina was . . . Well, she was . . . she was doing her nails in front of the class.”
“No!” Myrosyan said with a moan. “Not her nails, Inna Borisovna, no!”
“But I saw it with my own eyes.”
“How many students were in the class?”
“It was full. Twenty-two, I think.”
“Twenty-two witnesses!” Hammurabi leaned back in his chair, his hand on his heart.
“And what measurements did you take? Did you immedia
tely point out to your colleague the impropriety of her behaviour?”
“I didn’t take any measurements.”
“Don’t fool with me! What I meant was measures. Did you take any measures?”
“I didn’t take any measures. I wanted to tell you about it first. To get your advice.”
“That was very prudent of you, Inna Borisovna,” he said, drumming his fingers on his desk. “You couldn’t have done better! Anything else?”
“No, that’s all.”
Hammurabi got up. “Thank you so much. I appreciate your insight!” And before she was even out of the room, he had sat down again and turned his chair 180 degrees away.
5. STOREROOM ANTICS
A week later, after the classes were over for the day, Inna noticed that she had run out of chalk. She ran downstairs to the storeroom next to the gymnasium where spare desks and chairs were piled up. There on its shelves in dusty cartons were chalk, pencils, and other school supplies. The door squeaked as she entered. The stifling smell of chalk and dust made it hard to breathe. In the semidarkness on the other side of the room (its single window near the ceiling provided little light), she glimpsed bobbed blond hair and a pink scarf in the embrace of a white shirt: Hammurabi’s silver-gray head was buried in Turkina’s unbuttoned blouse. Her kicked-off high heels lay on the floor next to her. Inna had never seen the director without his jacket before. The sight of his muscles working under his shirt struck her. Like a mole digging in his burrow, she thought with disgust.
Turkina moaned a few times and then suddenly stopped and looked in Inna’s direction. Hammurabi dropped his arms. Inna hurried out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
That evening, after she got home, Inna spilled a cup of boiling-hot tea on her hand. The scald took a week to heal. The day after that accident she left her wallet behind at the bakery, and shortly after that, at the end of the term, she misplaced her grade-ten final essays. In the end, she just couldn’t deal with it anymore and told Olga what she had seen in the storeroom.
Olga shot a startled glance at her friend.
“Have you just come from the moon? The whole school knows about Hammurabi and Turkina. It’s been going on for over a year!”
“Isn’t he married?”
“Sure he is. And so is Turkina, you silly goose.”
“But how can that be?” Inna’s lips quivered. She blinked helplessly. “What eats at me is that Hammurabi heard me.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I opened the door to the storeroom, they were both startled.”
“Hammurabi’s deaf, silly.”
“Anyway, I’m pretty sure Turkina saw me.”
“So what if she did? She knows everybody knows. And is proud of it! She finally managed to push Nilina out! She wants everybody to know. Though some say that Myrosyan is screwing them both now.”
“Nilina too?!”
“Inna, you never fail to surprise me. You’re . . . you’re like a somnambulist. Walking around asleep.”
Inna squeezed her temples with her fingers.
“Tell me one thing, then. Why did he sic me on her? ‘Inna Borisovna, please pay special attention to Turkina. I have very little faith in her. I need a confidential report.’ Why would he do that?”
“You’re asking me? Ask Hammurabi. He’ll give you a much better answer than I ever could.” Olga glanced around. There was nobody else in the hallway. She leaned closer to Inna’s ear. “He’s a degenerate and a clown and enjoys manipulating people. It’s his favourite pastime.”
6. A MATTER OF BELIEF
Inna thought of the days of the year as thin and thick. Summer days were thin: the thin, luminous trunks of birch trees; the thin, limpid voices of brooks in the woods; the thin stalks of grass in the meadows; girls playing hopscotch, their pale thin legs freed of wool stockings. Winter days, on the other hand, were thick and increased everything in size: the snow-laden fences, railings, window ledges, and trees; people bundled in many layers of clothing. The thick days were duller, more hollow somehow, and if misfortune struck on one of those days, its blow was muffled.
When on one of those thick days Inna found a letter lying on her desk, she didn’t immediately pay it any heed, and then when she did, it didn’t particularly affect her, at least at first. It was from Hammurabi. He was, in the customary way of such things, advising her to resign from her job voluntarily. She put the letter in her pocket and went home. Vova was out. She peeled and fried some potatoes for supper and then reread the letter. It was then that it hit her. She locked herself in the bathroom and sobbed. The next morning she went to school as usual. Sitting in her new swivel chair, she wrote a brief reply to the director.
Dear Comrade Myrosyan:
I worked hard for you, honestly doing my duty. Nevertheless you’re firing me for reasons unknown. Since the decision to terminate me is your own, I cannot submit an application to “voluntarily” end my employment.
Respectfully yours,
Tesemkina, I. B.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” Hammurabi’s secretary asked, waving Inna’s reply in front of her. “You’re giving him no alternative. If you refuse to do as he asks, he’ll be forced to put in your employment record, ‘terminated for lack of professional qualifications,’ or some such thing. Do you realize what that means? Nobody will ever hire you!”
“Do whatever you like with it,” Inna said. And then she walked out the front door of Myrosyan’s school for good.
•
Two or three decades passed. Out for a walk one warm spring evening, Inna came upon an old man feeding a squirrel from a bench in nearby Sokolniki Park. Her hair had turned gray and her complexion was an unhealthy yellow, but the blue forget-me-nots of her eyes still gazed at the world with the same startled wonder. And the old man on the bench recognized her.
“Inna Borisovna? How nice to see you! You haven’t changed a bit, not a bit,” he said with the ingratiating smile of an old lady’s man, an old flatterer.
“Mr. Myrosyan, is that really you?” Inna gasped as she came to a stop in front of the nearly bald, shabbily dressed figure.
“What? Am I so unrecognizable?”
“Yes, almost.”
Myrosyan chuckled. “Time has no power over you, Inna Borisovna. No power over the wonderful simplicity of your heart. How many years have passed? Twenty-five, 30? But you’ve remained the same.” He looked at her almost tenderly. Then he sighed.
“I buried my wife last week. Half a century of cloudless marriage. Not a single quarrel, not a single angry word between us. And now she’s gone.”
Holding out a handful of crushed walnuts to the squirrel, he patiently waited for it to overcome its fear and approach.
“And you, Inna Borisovna? You must have grown-up children by now.”
“No children. I’ve been divorced for many years.”
“That’s too bad!” It wasn’t clear what Myrosyan was referring to: her divorce or the absence of children or both. “On the other hand, you and I gave our hearts and souls to the next generation. They were our children. We did a good job. We can be proud of that. You know, I have no regrets in my life at all. Except for one, perhaps. That I let you go. You were one of my best teachers. I found very few as good as you.”
Twitchily, hesitantly, the squirrel moved closer, at once fearful and attracted.
“Now that so much water has gone over the dam, I have to make a confession. There was one little problem with you, Inna Borisovna. You were extraordinarily naïve and gullible. Charming, even endearing, but in a way also dangerous.”
The squirrel looked at them both with the gleaming dark beads of its eyes, waved its tail, and scampered off.
“Well, I have to go,” Myrosyan said. And leaning heavily on his cane, he slowly got to his feet.
He won’t last long, Inna thou
ght without looking at him directly.
“I may never see you again, Inna Borisovna,” Myrosyan said, as if he had heard her thought. “So let me ask you one question. Why didn’t you fight back then? Why didn’t you try to stop me from doing what I did?”
“I don’t remember, Mr. Myrosyan. It was a long time ago,” Inna said, lowering her eyes.
“You were too proud, eh? You wouldn’t beg?” Myrosyan paused and looked up at the trees covered with pale-green buds and at the sky, its early evening blue especially deep and clear.
“Perhaps, like Pushkin, you believed that there was no disgrace in dying?”
Inna looked directly at Myrosyan for the first time.
“Why did you fire me, then, Comrade Director?”
“I simply wanted to see if you would remain true to your beliefs.”
A ROOM BETWEEN
THE TWO GOGOLS
1
GOGOL WAS A melancholy man, as befits a great satirist. But genius though he was, he couldn’t write sitting, standing, or lying on his back or his belly, as ordinary writers can. Inspiration only came to him in a carriage hurtling somewhere. Which may account for the famous apostrophe in Dead Souls: “Oh Russia, troika-bird! Where are you flying? Answer! But no answer came.”
Gogol had a long nose and a predilection for mysticism. He hated dank, miasmic St. Petersburg, and spent years in sunny Italy, begging his friends for truthful accounts from home, vivid vignettes of domestic goings-on. But since none of his friends was a Gogol, their dispatches were useless to his nostalgia. Defeated, he returned to the hated city. He hoped his great art would heal life, but when he realized that it hadn’t left so much as a dent in human misery, he stopped eating and died.
Two sunbeams of boulevards, resplendent with linden blossoms, radiate from Arbat Square in the very centre of Moscow. At the end of one beam, a bronze Gogol stands tall, with straight hair nearly touching his mighty wrestler’s shoulders and the inevitable pigeon perched on his head. “To Gogol, from the Soviet Government,” the inscription on the pedestal reads.
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