The short walk led through the woods. Damp and cold crept from behind the trees. Endless cyclists were passing us by. The path was intersected with pine roots and the wheel rims jangled sharply.
Tanya was saying:
“Perhaps my decision is adventurism or even madness. But I’ve had enough…”
Her desperation frightened me. But what could I say?
“Do you remember the time when I carried you home? I held you in my arms and then I dropped you… There was a time when everything was good. And it will be again.”
“We were such different people then. I am getting older.”
“Nothing of the kind…”
Tanya fell silent. I, as usual, launched into discourse:
“The only honest path is the path of mistakes, disappointments and hopes. Life is the discovery of the boundaries of good and evil through personal experience. There is no other way. I have arrived somewhere… I think it’s not too late…”
“These are words.”
“But words are my profession.”
“And these, too, are words. It’s all been decided. Come with us. You’ll live another life…”
“For a writer it equals death.”
“There are a lot of Russians there.”
“They are defeatists. A bunch of miserable defeatists. Even Nabokov is a flawed talent. So what’s there to say about some Zurov!”
“Who is this Zurov?”
“There was a guy…”
“What are we talking about? It’s done. I’m going to file all the papers on Thursday.”
Absent-mindedly I counted the days till Thursday.
And suddenly I felt such acute pain, such inexplicable bitterness, that I even choked up. I said:
“Tanya, forgive me and don’t leave.”
“It’s too late,” she said, “darling.”
I walked ahead of her and started to cry. Or rather, I didn’t cry, I stopped holding myself back. As I walked, I kept repeating: “Dear God! What am I being punished for?” And I replied to myself in my head: “What do you mean, what for? For everything. For your sordid, lazy and reckless life…”
Behind me walked my wife – distant, resolute and courageous. And not quite as foolish, as it turned out…
We reached the top of the hill. I pointed out the house in which I lived. A thin line of smoke rose vertically from the chimney. That meant the landlord was home.
We walked through a village street and all the people greeted us with a smile. I noticed long ago that people liked us as a couple. When I’m alone, things are different.
Suddenly Nadezhda Fyodorovna said:
“Come by for milk in the morning.”
The roosters and the shaggy pups amused Tanya, but when she saw a turkey there was no limit to her delight:
“What aplomb! What pomposity! All given his rather heinous appearance. The roosters and geese are also putting on airs, but this guy… My God, he looks just like Isaacson!”
Seeing us, Mikhail Ivanych became terribly animated. With a doleful grimace he did up the shirt buttons on his permanently brown neck. So much so that the wrinkled corners of his collar turned up. And he put on a peaked cap for some reason.
“Borya and I are doing good,” he said, “in terms of behaviour and in general… In the sense – no white, no red, no beer… Not to mention cologne… He just reads those books. He reads and he reads and he’ll die a fool,” concluded Mikhail Ivanych unexpectedly.
I tried to neutralize him somehow and called him to the hallway:
“Misha, do you need money?”
“Whatsa? Eh… OK…”
I shoved three notes in his hand.
“The Cavalier is open till eleven,” said Mikhail Ivanych. “I’ll make it. Or take Alexei’s mare… And where were you earlier, eh? They had apple wine for a roub fourteen at the settlement. So, I’m off. There’s salt pork and onions over there…” he hollered from the threshold.
It was just the two of us now. Tanya looked around the place with fear.
“Are you sure this room is inhabitable?”
“There was a time when I had my doubts. I’ve straightened the place up. You should’ve seen it before.”
“There are holes in the roof.”
“You hardly notice it in good weather. And there’s no rain forecast, I think.”
“There are gaps between the floorboards.”
“This is nothing. In the beginning stray dogs would use them to visit me.”
“The gaps are still there.”
“But I domesticated the dogs.”
Tanya touched the blanket.
“Christ, is this what you use as a cover?”
“It’s warm now,” I said. “There’s no need to cover oneself. Least of all you.”
“Was that a compliment?”
“Something like that.”
“You’ve lost weight.”
“I walk a lot.”
“It suits you.”
“I also have rather large eyes…”
“This is a totally ridiculous conversation,” said Tanya.
“Well, wonderful. I’d like to attain complete idiocy, buy an aquarium with little fish and a palm tree in a wooden bucket…”
“Why do you need an aquarium?”
“Why do I need a palm tree?”
“Let’s start with the aquarium.”
“All my life, I’ve dreamt of having a couple of trained goldfish.”
“And the palm tree?”
“You could sketch a palm tree from nature. And keep it on the balcony.”
“In what life do we have a balcony, I’d like to know?”
“It’s not like we already have the palm tree…”
“Dear Lord, what am I asking? And what are we talking about?”
“Really, what should we talk about? Especially when all’s been decided.”
I looked at the windows. There were no curtains. Anyone could have looked in. In village life, things were basic.
I could move the wardrobe, I thought. I looked around and didn’t see one…
“What’s new in Leningrad?” I asked.
“I told you. Some people are getting ready to leave, others despise them for it.”
“Did Mitya call?”
“He calls occasionally. Things have got very bad between him and Galina. There’s a Yugoslav in the picture… Or a Hungarian, I can’t remember… His name is Achil—”
“An ancient Greek perhaps?”
“No, I remember that he’s from the socialist camp… Anyway, Mitya is beside himself. He became really angry, sort of like you. He wanted to beat up Zhenya Kreyn…”
“And Zhenya?”
“Zhenya said to him: ‘Mitya, I’m not afraid of you because you have horns. Thus it follows that you are not predatory…’ They barely managed to pull them apart.”
“That’s a shame…”
There was a silence.
I was still trying to find something to put on the windows. And do it in a way that seemed spontaneous and effortless.
We’ve been married ten years and yet I still die with fear. Afraid that Tanya will pull her hand away and say: “That’s all I need!”
And yet I’ve managed to take off my shoes. I always take my shoes off ahead of time so as not to get distracted later… So as not to have to say: “Just a minute, I need to take off my shoes…” Plus the laces get tangled in the nervous haste. I must have torn a thousand of them in the throes of passion.
“I also met Guryev, a known dissident. You must have heard of him, he’s been mentioned on Western radio stations. Frieda introduced us. We were at his house, on Pushkin Street, talking about emigration. His home is full of icons…”
“Then he must be a Jew.”
“So it seems. But his last name is Russian – Guryev.”
“That’s what’s suspicious. Guryev… Guryevich…”
“What do you have against Jews?”
“Nothing. Especially since this one is Russian. I’ve known him since ’65.”
“So you’re kidding me again.”
“That’s because I’m a kidder.”
“Guryev is really smart. He says that Russia is experiencing a Christian renaissance. That it’s an irreversible process. And that in the cities, sixty per cent of the population is religious, while it’s seventy-five in the country.”
“Mikhail Ivanych being one, for example.”
“I don’t know Mikhail Ivanych. He makes a good impression.”
“Yeah, not bad. Only his saintliness is a bit lacking…”
“Guryev treated us to instant coffee. He said: ‘You’re using too much… I’m not being frugal, it’s just that it changes the flavour…’ And when we were getting ready to leave, he said, ‘I’ll walk you to the bus. There’s some mischief in these parts. Hoodlums everywhere…’ And Frieda says to him, ‘Don’t worry, only forty per cent…’ Guryev got touchy and changed his mind about walking us there. What are you doing? At least turn off the light!”
“Why?”
“That’s what people do.”
“I can drape my jacket over the window and put my hat on the lamp. We’ll have a night light.”
“It’s not very sanitary.”
“You’d think you were from Andalusia!”
“Don’t look.”
“As if I come across beauty a lot.”
“My pantyhose are full of holes.”
“Banish them from my sight!”
“There you go again.” Tanya’s feelings were hurt. “And I came here for a serious talk.”
“Just put it out of your mind,” I said, “at least for half an hour.”
I heard footsteps from the vestibule. Misha had come back. Muttering, he got into bed.
I was worried that he’d start swearing. My fears were confirmed.
“Maybe we could turn on the radio?” asked Tanya.
“There is no radio. But there is an electric grinder…”
It took Misha a long time to settle down. A philosophical note was discernible in his profanities. For example, I heard:
“Eh, swimming upstraddle, up yours, with no paddle…”
Finally it was quiet. We were together again. Tanya suddenly got loud. I said:
“Keep it down. Let’s not wake Misha.”
“What can I do?”
“Try thinking about something else. I always think about my problems. Like my debts, aches and pains, the fact that I can’t get published.”
“And I think about you. You are my biggest problem.”
“Do you want some country salt pork?”
“No. Do you know what I want?”
“I can guess…”
Tanya was crying again. She was saying such things that all I could think of was whether Misha would wake up. Wouldn’t he be surprised…
And then I smelt fumes. My imported cap was shrouded in a cloud of smoke. I turned off the lamp but it was already light. The oilcloth gleamed.
“The first bus leaves at nine thirty,” my wife said. “The next one is at four. I still need to pick up Masha…”
“I’ll get you on a bus for free. There’s a Petersburg three-day tour that leaves at ten.”
“I won’t be imposing?”
“Not at all. They have a huge ‘Icarus’ luxury bus. There’s always a free seat.”
“Maybe I should give something to the driver?”
“That’s my problem. We keep our own tally… OK, I’m off to get milk.”
“Put your pants on.”
“That’s an idea…”
Nadezhda Fyodorovna was already pottering around in the garden. Her blooming behind rose over the potato vines. She asked:
“So that was your gal?”
“My wife,” I said.
“It’s hard to believe. She looks too nice.”
The woman looked me over scornfully.
“Guys got it good. The worse they are, the prettier the wives.”
“What’s so bad about me?”
“You look like Stalin.”
Stalin was not loved in the countryside. I noticed this a while ago. Evidently, they still remembered collectivization and his other tricks. Our creative intelligentsia could learn a thing or two from the illiterate peasants. They say the entire auditorium of the Leningrad Palace of Arts burst into applause when Stalin appeared on screen.
But I have always hated him. Long before Khrushchev’s reforms. Long before I learnt how to read. Political credit for this belongs to my mother. My mother, an Armenian from Tbilisi, criticized Stalin unrelentingly, albeit in a rather idiosyncratic manner. She repeated with conviction:
“A Georgian cannot be a decent man!”
I walked back, trying not to spill the milk. Tanya was up. She
washed her face and made the bed. Mikhail Ivanych was fixing his power saw and grunting. There was a smell of smoke, grass and sun-baked clover in the air.
I poured the milk, sliced the bread, and got out some green onions and hard-boiled eggs. Tanya was examining my ruined hat.
“I can put a leather patch on it if you like?”
“What for? It’s warm already.”
“I’ll send you a new one.”
“I have a better idea, maybe some cyanide.”
“No, I’m serious, what should I send you?”
“How should I know what they’ve got in America these days? Let’s not talk about it.”