Calligraphy Lesson (4 page)

I got up quietly and went out, carefully closing the door behind me.

Damp, mist, cold night air. The cusp of daybreak.

I stopped at the nearest bush. Steam rose from the stream.

And suddenly something happened to me. As if I'd stepped from the unreal into the real. As if, like a lens twisted into focus, all my senses had been sharpened. As if the whole world around me had donned my skin, chilled in the August morning frost.

I looked around and couldn't understand what was going on: after all, I'd passed by this spot on so many occasions—and took notice of nothing; but now I saw, as if for the first time, that honeysuckle bush, and this rowanberry tree, and the towel forgotten on the washing line.

In the silence, sounds came forth from the mist: the distant hum of a motorboat on the river, the barking of dogs from the village on the far shore, the anxious call of a night bird, the whistle of a train at the station. Hoarse profanities floated in from the main road, accompanied by a girl's drunken guffaws.

And I heard myself breathing, heard my lungs gulping in life.

Suddenly I felt that I was no longer by a bush amidst the mist, but amidst the universe. No: I
was
the universe. That was the first time I experienced this remarkable sensation. And this was not only an anticipation of all my life to come. For the first time everything fused together, became a single whole. The smoke from an unseen bonfire and the wet rustling in the grass under my feet. Dad, who'd died no death, and Uncle Vitya, who'd asked no questions. What was and what would be.

Everything is still unnamed, nonverbal, because words for this do not exist.

And the Volga courses somewhere close by, swashing in the mist, but flows into no Caspian Sea.

And Mum died and yet lives still. She lies in her coffin with an Orthodox paper chaplet on her forehead, puffing away in her sleep in that rest home.

And everything melts into one: the half-belt overcoat, and Bobby Clarke's toothless grin, and Robert Walser's snowdrift, and that rickety 77 that never made it to Dorogomilovskaya Street, forcing us to splash our way through the puddles. And so, typing these words on my notebook, do I. As does the I now reading this line.

And the only way to die is to choke with happiness.

Translated by Leo Shtutin

__________

1
I.e., the completely expendable members of penal battalions, which consisted primarily of convicted military personnel, Gulag inmates, and POWs.
—Trans.

2
Enrolling in a higher-education institution with a military chair was (and remains) a way for young males to avoid otherwise compulsory military service.
—Trans.

3
The first and third installments, respectively, of Brezhnev's ghostwritten memoir trilogy, for which he was awarded the Lenin Prize for Literature in 1980.
—Trans

4
An allusion to Solzhenitsyn's essay “Live Not by Lies” (1974), an appeal for moral courage.
—Trans.

5
Varlam Shalamov's
The Kolyma Tales
(1978) and Solzhenitsyn's
Gulag Archipelago
(1973) are classics of Gulag literature.
—Trans.

Calligraphy Lesson

 

The capital letter, Sofia Pavlovna, is the beginning of all beginnings, so let us begin with that. It's like a first breath, a newborn's cry, you might say. Just a moment ago there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. A void. And for another hundred or thousand years there might still have been nothing, but suddenly this pen, submitting to an impossibly higher will, is tracing a capital letter, and now there's no stopping it. Being the pen's first movement toward the period as well, it is a sign of both the hope and the absurdity of what is. Simultaneously. The first letter, like an embryo, conceals all life to come, to the very end—its spirit, its rhythm, its force, and its image.

Don't go to any trouble, Evgeny Alexandrovich. I'm just a little chick and this is just my scratching. Why don't you tell me something amusing? Interesting things happen at your work every day, after all. All those crimes, murderers, prostitutes, and rapists.

Good God, what criminals? They're ordinary people. One blind drunk, another out of his mind, commit God knows what atrocity and are now thoroughly horrified themselves. We have no idea, they say, not a clue. And anyway, how could you even think that I, fine, upstanding man that I am, might do something like that? So they write petitions and solicitations and then more petitions and solicitations, begging for mercy, but no one has the slightest notion of how to hold a pen. Allow me to demonstrate.
Lay the left side of the middle finger, down by the nail, against the right side of the pen. Like this. Lay the thumb, also close to the nail, against the left side, and let the index finger rest but not press on top, as if it were stroking the pen's back. The pen rests against the base of the index finger's third joint. These three fingers are called the writing fingers. Neither the pinkie nor the ring finger should touch the paper. There should always be space, air, between the hand and the paper. If the hand is constrained and lies on the paper, if even the tip of the pinkie rests there, the wrist has no freedom of movement. The pen must touch the paper lightly, easily, without the least tension, as if it were simply playing. The pinkie and ring fingers, I assure you, are nothing but bestial atavisms, and one can both write and make the sign of the cross without them.

You see, I can never get anything right. For instance, a few days ago I decided to drown myself. Really, don't laugh. I dashed off a note and taped it to the mirror. But first, for some unknown reason, I decided to stop in at the bathhouse. I have no idea why. Oddly enough, I remember this one sturdy woman washing her red hair across from me. She was sprinkled all over with freckles—on her breasts, her belly, her back, her legs. Her hair was thick and long and soaked up so much water that when she straightened up, the washtub was nearly empty and an entire waterfall came crashing down into it. When I finally got to the bridge, a barge was drifting by below. The men down there shouted something and laughed, as if to say, Come on, jump! I waited for it to pass, but right behind came another barge and another. They kept shouting and laughing from each one and there was no end to those barges in sight. All of a sudden it struck me as funny, too, so I went home, arriving before anyone else, thank God. I took down the note, grabbed a loaf of bread, and gobbled up the whole thing practically. Actually, this is all totally beside the point. Go on. Now where were we?

Why don't we move on to the line then? But first, sit up straight and relax your shoulders. You can't write hunched over or at attention. You see, at the basis of everything is the line, the stroke. Take any two points in space, any two objects, and you can draw a line connecting them. There are these invisible strokes between all the things in the world. They make everything interconnected, unseverable. Distance is totally irrelevant. These lines can stretch like rubber bands, which only makes the connections between objects stronger. You see, there's a line stretching between the inkwell and this ace that fluttered down to the parquet, between the piano pedal and the branches' shadow on the windowsill, between you and me. It's like a tendon that keeps the world from falling apart. The pen-drawn line is that connection materialized, so to speak. And letters are nothing but strokes, or lines, held together by knots and loops for stability. The pen ties the line to the form, the shape, and endows it with meaning and spirit—humanizing it, so to speak. Try to draw a straight line! All right, now admire this trembling curly hair. Mortals can't draw a straight line. A straight line is nature's unattainable ideal toward which myriad curves aspire. Just as letters cling pell-mell, so too do they all have an inherent harmony and beauty—in the symmetry of their curves, the impetuosity of their slant, the correctness of their proportions. The pen is merely the registrar that faultlessly imprints on paper every dream and fear, every virtue and vice, taking us by the arm each time we press down. Everything that happens in your life immediately ends up on the tip of your pen. Tell me about someone, and I'll tell you exactly what kind of handwriting that person has.

So start on me.

You are magnificent. You are extraordinary. You have no idea how wonderful you are. And your handwriting, Tatiana Dmitrievna, is pure, fresh, childlike. The letters actually get bigger as they approach the end of the line.

You mustn't go on like that, Evgeny Alexandrovich! You're much too kind. Just look at a bit of my writing. Take this. No, better this. No, don't. Never mind about my handwriting. You're nothing but a sly widower, chasing after me, and now you're spinning tales for this gullible, simplehearted woman. I can see right through you even without any handwriting. After all, you aren't indifferent toward me, isn't that so? Well then, declare your love right now, this instant. Not that any of this matters. Better not to say anything.

Just think, it's been eight whole years since my Olya's been gone. I'm not saying she died, of course. I haven't told anyone about this since it happened, but I'll tell you. She and I had been through so much, but for better or worse we'd survived it all together, and suddenly I found myself living with a complete stranger, someone I didn't know at all. At one point Olya's right eye started to dim and she started going blind. I took her to Moscow, found a specialist, and they operated. Thank God, she recovered. After that, every six months, and later even more often, she went back for checkups. Whenever I asked, she would say everything was fine, but it felt like she was leaving something out. I was afraid Olya was going blind and wasn't telling me. She'd changed a lot. She was withdrawn, got annoyed over the least thing, and often cried at night. Before, she'd loved to read Kolya his little books in the evening; now she wouldn't touch them. I was frightened. I wanted to help somehow, realized there was nothing I could do, and loved her all the more because of it. And then one day at dinner Olya was pouring tea and the china teapot broke right in her hands. We got splashed and jumped up, at which point Olya started screaming that she couldn't go on like this, that she hated herself but she hated me even more, that she didn't go to Moscow to see any specialist but to see a man who loved her and whom she loved. I was having a hard time understanding what she was saying. “What do you
want?” I asked. “I want to not see you!” Olya started screaming again. “I'd rather hang myself, but I'm not going to go on living like this. I'm leaving you for him. I love him.” “And Kolya? What about Kolya?” She started to weep. “But this whole thing is impossible,” I said. “I can't live without Kolya, nor Kolya without you. You want to abandon your son? Kolya can't go through his whole life being ashamed of his mother and despising her. That's not going to happen. It can't.” “I know,” I heard in reply, “you wish I were dead! Fine! I'll die!” She jumped up and ran out of the room. I tried to hold her back. “That's crazy! Stop it!” She broke away and locked herself in her room. I got scared and started pounding on the door, but Olya suddenly opened it and in an almost calm voice said, “You don't have to break the door down. Everything's fine.” The next day at breakfast, in front of Kolya, she announced there was something wrong with her eyes again and she was going to the clinic in Moscow tomorrow. What could I say? Kolya and I went to see his mama off at the station. Olya was crying and kept kissing and hugging Kolya. The boy kept breaking away and asking her to bring him back a rifle. The next morning a telegram arrived from Ryazan. Olya had fallen ill en route. She'd been taken off the train and had died right there at the station. The telegram had arrived while I was out. When I ran in from work, everyone had gray, tear-stained faces, only they hadn't said anything to Kolya. The boy had been badgering everyone. “What happened? Is something wrong with Mamochka?” “Oh no,” I told him. “Everything's fine, everything's fine.” That same night I went to get her. I had to ride all night. My traveling companion complained of insomnia and suggested we play chess. We moved our men around until morning. From time to time I'd forget, but when I remembered what had happened and where I was going, I'd start wailing. My neighbor would shudder and give me a frightened look. The train car shook, the chessboard shuddered,
and the men kept slipping off their squares. Then I would stop wailing and right them. Olya—a beautiful stranger wearing a dress I'd never seen—met me at the station early in the morning. When she saw me she waved and burst into sobs. My first impulse was to slap her across the face. I could barely restrain myself. “What's going on?” She only shook her head, unable to utter a word. Her whole body was quaking. I sat her down on a bench. “Listen, Kolya doesn't know anything. Let's go home and explain that it was a misunderstanding!” At last Olya got a hold of herself. “Don't interrupt me,” she said. “I've made my decision no matter what you all think of me. The space in the baggage car is paid for. There are some minor details left: the lining and the ribbons. The train is at seven this evening. We'll make it.” It was all crazy and impossible, and I followed her around in a daze. At the store she took a long time and kept finding fault with the fabric and ribbons. Nothing pleased her. Either the colour didn't go or the material was crummy. She dragged me to another store, and then we went back to the first. We went to one office and then another and another. By six a coffin lined in blue ruches and bows was in a separate room at the station. She'd even thought of that. We stopped in at the refreshment stand. She looked starkly at her plate and swallowed in silence. I couldn't help it; I started shouting. “But what about Kolya?” “I'm going to have another child,” she said calmly. I recoiled for fear I might kill her. On the way back, to avoid questions, I rode in the mail car. The sleepy worker sorting the mail mumbled, “I've shipped lots of these dead folks in my life. Like some tea?” I declined. He slurped away at it for a long time, then lay down and started to snore. The car rocked, and everything rumbled and shook. In the light from the night lamps you could see the cockroaches crawling in from everywhere. Next to me, behind a wooden partition, was the empty coffin. I was in shock. I couldn't imagine that morning would come and there
would be a funeral. The whole time, I kept seeing Kolya asking his mama to bring him back a rifle. It felt like the end of the world, like there would be no coming day or life thereafter. There couldn't. But then morning came and a hearse met me at the station. There were many tears, laments, and sighs and even more fuss and commotion. They wanted to take the coffin back to the house, but I insisted it be sent directly to the church. I instructed that under no circumstance should the lid be opened. Seeing Kolya was what scared me the most. When I entered his room, he threw himself into my arms. He sobbed and I walked him around the room, kissing his soft, dear, sweet-smelling nape. “Our Mamochka is gone forever now,” I whispered. The funeral was the next day. People shook my hand and said things. Many were just pretending to be sorry, I could tell, and out of the corner of my ear I heard something bad said about Olya. Her mother arrived, a woman trying to look younger than her age, wearing perfume and dressed in black, but elegantly. I thought with horror that she too might be party to this cruel joke, but when she saw the coffin, she started crying and demanding it be opened. “Show me my little girl! I don't care what happened to her. I want to see her one last time!” I barely managed to talk her out of it. At the funeral banquet everyone kept trying to get me to drink. “Drink up, Evgeny Alexandrovich! Believe me, you'll feel better!” But I didn't so much as touch my glass. The evening after the funeral, I could barely get Kolya to bed, he was crying so. I was going to read him a little something, but he suddenly looked at me with angry, hate-filled eyes. “Stop it, Papa. How could you!” I went on leave and took Kolya to Yalta to let the child regain his senses and clear his head. At first the boy seemed to be walking in his sleep, oblivious to everything and refusing to eat. Then a woman moved into the dacha next door with her three sons, who were a little older than Kolya, and the company of boys quickly distracted him.
They raced around from morning to night, flew into rages, and fought. Imperceptibly, Kolya grew tanner, taller, and stronger and got to be a good swimmer. One time at the beach, when he and I were there together, he suddenly dove under and for the longest time did not appear above the water. I jumped to my feet, started running, and was about to dive in myself when he popped up in a completely different spot and started beating the water with his fists: “Scared ya!” he shrieked joyously through the splashing. “Scared ya!” Kolya ran around barefoot all the time so his feet toughened up and every evening I greased his hardened, callused heels, to keep them from cracking. At first, that woman from Syzryan came on strong with stories about her creep of a husband, but before long she backed off and started hanging around with some well-built Greek. A year later I received a letter from Olya, from Kiev for some reason. The handwriting was uneven, but it was hers, even though the signature said Sorokina. Olya wrote that she'd given birth to a marvelous little girl, she and her husband adored each other, and she couldn't be happier.