Calligraphy Lesson (9 page)

I walked by a few times. Then I couldn't help myself and went up. I was just about to put the key in the lock when I thought I heard someone walking on the other side of the door. I was about to go away but thought
better of it and rang.

So, you're Dmitry's daughter. Come in, don't just stand there. Alyosha told me, “Mama, I'm going to take my Verochka to the sea, but you can stay here for now. You never know what might happen.” So here I stay. I think, who have I dressed up for, old woman that I am, got all made up for, put on my rubies for, set out the brandy for? I never expect visitors. Then all of a sudden—you. Drink up, sweet girl, drink a glass with an old woman, or else I'll go on drinking alone and reminiscing. Alyosha was very young when I said, “Eat your sausage, son!” He refused. Then I said, “Do you want me to make you a Maltese cross?” I cut off the sausage edges and fried it up. He ate it all and asked for more. “A Maltese cross!” he shouted. “A Maltese cross!” I said, “You're my nut, Alyosha! You're eating words, not sausage.” What a happy one you are, sweet girl. You still don't know that you are me. You don't understand? No need. You wouldn't anyway. And by the time you do, I'll be gone—my skin, my hair, my eyes, my guts will be gone. And what's the use of bones alone?

I woke up and thought it was raining, but it was doves on the iron cornice.

Poor Mirra Alexandrovna decided I couldn't take a step without her. Here she was, torturing herself and me. But in fact, it's she who's helpless, not me. Getting oriented in the so-called visible dimension doesn't necessarily mean seeing. I assure you, Evgenia Dmitrievna, any blind person orients himself as well as you. That's not the main thing, you know, it's trivial. It's much easier than you think. After all, no two doors sound and no two rooms smell alike. Believe me, all it takes is a rustle, the creak of a floorboard, a cough, to know the size of the room, if it's a strange one, and whether anyone's in it, if it's your own. Empty and filled spaces sound different. It's easy to know when you're approaching objects by the
reverse flow of air on your face, so it's absolutely impossible to run into a wall or a closed door. Evgenia Dmitrievna, I can immediately determine for you even a detail as small as whether a room is dusty or clean. Do you want me to tell you what you're seeing now? I just have to snap my fingers. Permit me. The curtains are drawn. The lamp over your bed is on—all it takes is holding your hand out to feel the warmth. There's a fresh newspaper and flowers on the table. Here there's an unmade bed. And the marvelous smell of perfume, eau de cologne, and lipstick is coming from over there. You're wearing a skirt but no blouse yet. It's reckless to change clothes in the presence of a blind man, Evgenia Dmitrievna.

What's happened to you, kind Alexei Pavlovich? I wouldn't recognize you. Where is your caution and prudence? How can you do such rash and risky things? It was a miracle your message didn't reach my father, since he always collects the mail. Only today, as if sensing something, out of the blue, I woke at daybreak and lay there for a long time listening to the wall clock and watching it swing on its stem toward the cupboard, but never quite all the way. Then some unconscious alarm, some inexplicable force, made me get up, get dressed, and go down for the mail. The clumps of snow—what the mailman left behind—still hadn't melted on the steps in the vestibule. I opened the box: papa's
Gazette,
some ads, and suddenly the Swallow's Nest floats from Crimea to the floor. Addressed in block letters, so he wouldn't recognize the handwriting, and instead of text, stamp-cancelled emptiness. Gasping from joy, I thought, but sensed with horror, that there was no happiness in this; on the contrary, the blank card held something humiliating, and I loved you in a completely different way. I put the newspaper and ads back, but I folded your little nest in two, slipped it in my pocket, and went back. Everyone was up by then. I think I wrote you before about Roman, the blind man and his mama
dreaming of the conservatory. At the home where he used to live, it turns out, their favorite game was
gorodki
. One person sets up a figure, claps his hands, and runs back, while the other throws a bat. Remember that stuffed leopard cat in father's study? Roman touched it and said it was a squirrel. Outside, I stopped him for a minute and went to buy ice cream, but he kept talking to me the whole time—because of the street noise he hadn't realized he was standing there alone. He asked me to teach him chess, but he just couldn't remember the positions and kept running his fingers over the pieces. If the scissors weren't in the sideboard, he'd raise a scandal for his mother Mika—he calls her Mirra Alexandrovna. For that matter, he calls me Evgenia Dmitrievna instead of Zhenya. Mika came to me and asked me to put everything back where it was, and I explained that the position things happened to be in on the day of their arrival was by no means set in stone. I come home and lock myself into my room just so I won't see him. I can't stand to watch him constantly rubbing his stuck eyelids with his fist and digging snot out with a toothpick and licking it off. You can't go into the bathroom after him without a burning match. Mika brought us theater tickets. At the same time she laughed, turning to my father: “Every woman is a bit of a Traviata, isn't that so?” I spent half the day getting ready, but when it was time to go I still wasn't ready. Roman, sleek, wearing gleaming boots and smelling of Papa's cologne, was sitting in the hall by the door. Mika kept checking in on me every other minute. “Zhenya dear, let me help you! Zhenya, please, it's better to get there a little early and wait! Zhenya, how long can this go on? It's time! Zhenya, I beg of you!” I was all set when my coral necklace broke and the stone berries rolled all over the parquet. Mika waved her arms in panic. “Zhenya, just go, I'll pick them up!” I flew into a rage. “What do you mean just go! I can't go like this! I won't go anywhere like this!” I put on the lilac dress you like, or maybe you just said you did and really
didn't notice, and now I wear it all the time. By the time we left it was obvious we'd be late. I said, “It's not so terrible. Imagine, we'll arrive for the second act. We'll have a nice walk, there's no rush now anyway. If Alfred sings his aria without us, he's not going to marry her because of it.” Roman was giving me the silent treatment. After the rain there were puddles everywhere, and each one had to be stepped around or over. A simple, “Careful, there's a puddle,” said nothing, and a few times Roman stepped right in the mud, splashing himself and me. He walked along pale and angry and didn't utter a word the whole way, while I chattered on. He stepped into a puddle again, stopped, and stated flatly he wasn't going anywhere looking like this. I said, “Don't be silly.” He insisted. I couldn't restrain myself. “What earthly difference does it make to you what you look like!” A shudder ran through Roman, and he turned around and went home. I followed him. And so we returned in silence. Mika acted as though nothing had happened, as though it was all supposed to happen like that, but she wouldn't look in my direction. I also forgot to say I went to see your mother. She talked about what you were like as a child. I can just see it, the teary-eyed little boy running not to her but to me and telling me that the mean little boys there were catching baby birds, poking twigs through their eyes, and running around with these fluttering garlands, boasting over who had more.

Papa, are you busy? I wanted to ask you about one thing.

What, now?

All right, it doesn't matter. Later. Someday.

Naturally, Evgenia Dmitrievna, there are definite drawbacks to any situation. I don't like street orchestras. Drumming is to me what a thick fog is to you. Or a snowfall, for instance. Then it's like even the streetcar's wearing felt boots.
Or new shoes—that's a torture only the blind can understand. In general, as a result of their limited mobility, nonsee-ers' muscles are flaccid, their bones thinner, and their fingers—here, look—can be bent back without much effort. And I'll admit, I don't find the way you slip me thicker, sturdier dishes so I won't break them very nice, Evgenia Dmitrievna. On the other hand, believe me, the nonsee-er has his advantages. Why else would the philosophers of antiquity have blinded themselves? Evidently, they understood that your visible world, which you treasure so, is no more than tinsel, smoke, zilch. Those colour pictures say nothing about the essence of things; they only corrupt and render you helpless. With your eyes closed, you couldn't even get your spoon in your mouth. Of course, it's easy to cheat a blind person, but you can't fool him. It's not hard to artificially make the right facial expression in a conversation, but you can't do that with your voice. Words lie; the voice never. What seems important to you—colour, shapes, so-called beauty—are in fact of no importance whatsoever. Does it matter what colour the sky or wallpaper is? A bust that is usually admired is really nothing special—a head's a head. What difference does it make how you look, Evgenia Dmitrievna? I can't see you, but that doesn't change anything about our relationship. What difference does it make what kind of hair or nose you have? All that's important is that you hate me.

The floor polisher came and slid his brush under the couch and out rolled a dried up Christmas mandarin orange, ringing like a nut.

Zhenya dear, what's the date?

The teenth of Martober.

And they brought a blind man to Him, and they asked Him to touch him.
Taking the blind man by the hand, He led him out of the village, spat in his eyes, laid His hands upon him, and asked whether he saw anything. The man looked and said, “I see people passing by like trees.” Then He laid His hands on his eyes again and told him to look again. And the man opened his eyes and saw everything clearly.

I explained, “Alyosha, my son, don't act crazy! Why should you marry her?” He said, “How can you not understand? Vera's having my baby!” I said, “Lord, who cares who's expecting what from who!” And he said, “Mama, what are you saying! What are you saying!” I always called her Vera dear, darling—but she bore me a grudge and set Alyosha against me. Right before the wedding, a miscarriage. “Alyosha,” I told him, “This is a sign.” My little idiot should have postponed the wedding and let everything run its course—to the end. But no, he married out of principle. “You don't love her,” I told him. His whole body flinched. “How can you know whether I love her or not? On the other hand, I won't be a scoundrel.” Then there was another miscarriage. That was right before my eyes. A five-month-old boy. Hands, feet, fingers, ears, wee-wee—just like a live baby. The third time they told her, Choose, it's either you or a child. What choice was there? For some reason Vera decided it was all my fault. That's ridiculous, of course, but in her condition she might have thought anything. I feel like a mother to her. I do understand… I sent them a gift at Christmas, a Chinese cup with a lid, the one I had from my grandmother. And what happened? I came home and my box was standing by the door. As if they'd said, Go choke on your gifts. You know, Zhenya dear, at the time, I remember, I went to bed and thought I could never get up. No, that's not it. I could, but I saw no point, no need. I wasn't even hungry. I lay like that a whole week. I'd eat a bite, wander around my room, and go back to bed. And then, you know, life won out.
It's all so simple. I laughed at myself, fool that I am. Life's like that, Zhenya. Afterward you have to laugh. Vera and I made our peace somehow. They would visit me on holidays, and I'd visit them. And here she's fallen ill, and I wanted to move in to look after. “Don't,” she said. If she says don't, I won't. “Zhenya comes over, she helps,” she said. “What Zhenya?” “Dmitry's, Alyosha's friend, his daughter. An odd girl, but good-hearted.” And here you are. What a happy girl you are, Zhenya. The very best is just about to begin for you. I know. I had all that. Imagine, Zhenya, for me, after every time, a while later it would heal. Can you imagine? My doctor, the late Pyotr Ilich, was always amazed. “I can't tell you how many sugarplums I've seen in my day, but never in my life anything like this.” That's what he called them, sugarplums.

So, kind Alexei Pavlovich, I hasten to inform you who is breathing seagull-beaten air that I had a fight with my father, that we made each other so mad we stooped to low blows. We shouted, trying to say the most hurtful things we could, and rejoiced in the wounds we inflicted on each other. I ran to my room and wailed for an hour. I assume you're already experiencing a slight incapacitation, an unpleasant chill: Did my father find out about me and you, about our plot, about the fact that I'm your secret, and therefore true, wife? Calm down. My father is still in the dark. What set us off was completely insignificant, not even worth mentioning. All that's important is that we are little by little, bit by bit, sucking the life out of each other, and the closer we are, the more lethal it gets. Mika came in with water and valerian drops and begged me to take them, but I waved her off, knocking the tray out of her hands, and the glass spilled on the bed. She said, “Zhenya, the bed has to be changed!” And I shouted at her, “There is no has to! Leave me in peace!” Here I am lying in the wet and writing these lines to you. You, kind Alexei Pavlovich, are afraid of my father.
So am I. I keep imagining telling him. What's scary isn't his anger, that he'd kill me and you—because he wouldn't—but something else. My father is irascible, crude, and crazy. But that's not why you're afraid of him. You're afraid because he's holy, not of this world. He's amazing, remarkable, a kind that no longer can or does exist. That woman, my mama, hasn't existed for a long time, she's absent in nature, and instead of her is a void easily filled by things and people, but my father has latched onto this void and won't let anyone or anything in. He thinks he's doing all this for me, out of love for me. He thinks he's living for his Zhenya's sake. He's never denied me a thing, neither money nor time. He could play with me for hours—puppets, theater, post office, all that childish nonsense. When I was just a child, he was already jealous of the whole world, even when I was simply playing with other children. It's a disease, insanity. He's not normal. You never know what to expect from him. He does impossible things. In the spring we went to Petersburg, and on the way back the train was held up at a station; some woman had thrown herself under the wheels. Everyone went to look, and I wanted to go, but my father wouldn't let me. I lay on my berth and read. Two Germans were standing by the open door in the passageway chatting. It was so stuffy, you couldn't close the compartment door. The train started. We rode and rode, and the Germans kept chatting, or rather, one spoke while the other listened. I already had a headache, and that voice was so grating and effeminate, I couldn't stand it. My father stuck his head out into the passage and asked them to move away or quiet down. I said, “They didn't understand you.” And he replied, “The gentlemen are in Russia, so they should be so kind as to understand Russian.” The German did not quiet down and kept chattering. Finally my father couldn't take it and hollered at him. “
Du, Arschloch! Halt's Maul!
”
¹⁰
The Germans cleared out.