Pushkin Hills (12 page)

We reached the tourist centre a little before nine. The driver had already turned the bus around. The tourists were stacking their bags and suitcases in the luggage compartment. Some had taken their seats by the windows. I walked up to the driver I knew:

“Got any free seats?”

“For you, not a problem.”

“I want to send my wife to Leningrad.”

“I sympathize. I’d like to send mine to Kamchatka. Or to the moon, instead of Gagarin.”

The driver was wearing an attractive imported shirt. As a rule, drivers of tour buses were fairly cultured. Most of them could easily have replaced the guides. Only they’d be taking a significant pay cut…

From the corner of my eye, I saw that Tanya was talking to
Marianna Petrovna. For some reason I always feel alarmed when two women are left alone. Especially when one of them is my wife.

“OK, then it’s settled,” I said to the driver. “Drop her off on Obvodny Canal.”

“It’s too shallow,” the driver laughed.

I should just get on the bus, I thought, and leave as well. One of the guides can bring my things. Only what will we live on? And how?

Galina dashed past us, nodding in the direction of my wife:

“My goodness, how plain!”

I didn’t say anything. But in my mind I set her peroxide-bleached locks on fire.

The sports instructor, Seryozha Yefimov, approached.

“My excuses,” he said. “This is for you.” And he put a jar of blackberries in Tanya’s hands.

We had to say goodbye.

“Call me,” Tanya said.

I nodded.

“Is there a phone you can use?”

“Of course. Give Masha a kiss. How long will all this take?”

“It’s hard to tell. A month, maybe two… Think about it.”

“I’ll call.”

The driver climbed behind the wheel. The imported motor roared with confidence. I blurted out something unintelligible.

“And I…” said Tanya.

The bus started and quickly turned the corner. A minute later, its crimson side flashed through the trees near Lugovka.

I popped into the office. My group from Kiev was arriving at noon. I had to go back home.

On the table, I saw Tanya’s hairpins, two dirty cups from the milk, leftover bread and eggshells. There was a barely perceptible scent of smoke and cosmetics.

When she left, Tanya said, “And I…” The rest was drowned out by the drone of the motor…

I looked in on Mikhail Ivanych. He wasn’t there. A shotgun glimmered above his dirty bed. A Tula-made, heavy double-barrelled gun with a reddish stock. I took down the gun and thought – isn’t it time for me to shoot myself?

June turned out dry and clear, with grass rustling underfoot. Multicoloured towels hung off the tourist-centre balconies. The sturdy snap of tennis balls resounded. Bicycles with shiny rims glowed ruby along the wide porch railing. The sounds of an old tango carried through from the speaker above the attic window. The melody seemed traced over a dashed line…

The snap of the balls, the smell of scorched earth and the geometry of the bicycles were the things I’ll remember about this unhappy June…

I called Tanya twice. And each time it felt awkward. It felt like her life was following a rhythm different from my own. I felt silly, like a fan who’d jumped out onto a football field.

There were strange voices in our apartment. Tanya would ask me unexpected questions. For instance:

“Where do we keep electricity bills?”

Or:

“Would you mind if I sold my gold chain?”

I didn’t even know that my wife owned anything valuable…

Tanya ran from pillar to post filing documents. She complained about bureaucrats and bribe-takers.

“I have in my bag,” she said, “ten bars of chocolate, four tickets to see
Kobzon and three copies of Tsvetaeva’s poetry…”*

Tanya seemed excited and almost happy.

What could I say to her? Beg her for the tenth time, “Do not leave?”

I felt humiliated by her absorption in her own affairs. What about me with my problems of an almost dissident?

Tanya had no time for me. Finally something important was happening…

Once she called me herself. Luckily I was at the tourist centre. At the library in the main building, actually. I had to run across the entire facility. It turned out Tanya needed a document giving her permission to take the child. Saying I had no material claims.

Tanya dictated a few official phrases. I remember these words: “…a child in the amount of one…”

“Have it notarized there and send it to me. That will be simplest.”

“I can come to you,” I said.

“Right now that’s not necessary.”

There was a pause.

“But will we have time to say goodbye?”

“Of course. Please don’t think…”

She was almost making excuses. She felt guilty because of her disregard. For her hasty “that’s not necessary”…

Evidently, I’d become an agonizing problem that she had managed to solve. In other words, someone from her past. With all my vices and virtues. None of which mattered any more…

That day I got drunk. Got myself a bottle of vodka and finished it all on my own.

I didn’t want to invite Misha – conversations with him required too much effort. They reminded me of my university chats with Professor Likhachyov. Only with Likhachyov I made the effort to appear smarter and with this one, just the opposite – I tried to be as plain and simple as I could.

For example, Mikhail Ivanych would ask:

“You know why Jews have their knobs snipped? So their joysticks work better…”

And I agreed, amiably:

“I guess so… I suppose that’s what it is…”

Anyway, I walked to the grove near the bathhouse and sat resting against a birch tree. I drank a bottle of Moskovskaya vodka on an empty stomach, chain-smoking and chewing on rowanberries.

The world didn’t improve right away. At first I was disturbed by the mosquitoes. Some slimy thing kept trying to crawl up my leg. And the grass felt soggy.

Eventually, everything changed. The woods parted, encircled me and welcomed me into their sultry bosom. For a time, I felt myself a harmonious part of the universal whole. The bitterness of the rowanberry seemed inseparable from the damp smell of the grass. The leaves overhead vibrated slightly from the buzzing
of mosquitoes. The clouds floated by, as if on a TV screen, and even a spider’s web looked like a jewel.

I felt ready to cry, though I still understood it was the alcohol’s doing. Evidently, harmony hides itself at the bottom of the bottle…

I kept saying to myself:

“Pushkin too had debts and an uneasy relationship with the government. Plus the trouble with his wife, not to mention his difficult temperament…

“And so what? They opened a museum. Hired tour guides – forty of them. And each one loves Pushkin madly…

“Where were you all before, I’d like to know? And who is the butt of your collective derision now?”

I never got an answer to my questions. I fell asleep…

When I woke up it was almost eight. Twigs and branches beamed black against the pale, ash-grey clouds. The insects came to life… The spider’s web touched my face…

I got up, feeling the heaviness of my sticky clothes.

My matches were damp. As was my money. But more importantly, there was very little of it left: six roubles. The thought of vodka loomed like a dark cloud…

I didn’t want to go through the tourist centre. At this hour it was full of idling methodologists and tour guides. Any one of them might have started a serious conversation about the director of the Lyceum, Yegor Antonovich Englehardt.

I had to walk around the tourist centre and make my way to the road through the woods.

Cutting through the courtyard of the monastery also frightened
me. The very atmosphere of a monastery is unbearable for a man with a hangover.

And so I continued downhill along the route through the woods. More of a broken footpath, actually.

It began to ease off a bit by the time I reached the Cavalier. Compared to local drunks, I looked like a prig.

The door was held open with a rubber brick. On display in the hallway by the mirror was a ridiculous wooden sculpture – a creation of the retired Major Goldstein. The copper sign read: “Goldstein, Abraham Saulovich”. And below it, in quotes: “The Russian”.

“The Russian” brought to mind both Mephistopheles and
Baba Yaga.* The wooden helmet was painted silver with gouache.

Eight people or so were crowding around the snack bar. Wrinkled roubles soundlessly landed on the counter. Coins jangled in the chipped saucer.

Two or three groups were partying by the wall in the main room. They talked energetically with their hands, coughed and laughed. These were workers from the tourist centre, psychiatric-hospital orderlies and stable hands from the lumber mill.

The local intelligentsia – a film projectionist, an art restorer and entertainment organizer – kept apart, at different tables. Facing the wall was a man I did not recognize, wearing a green polo shirt and domestically manufactured jeans. His ginger locks rested on his shoulders.

It was my turn at the bar. I felt the familiar hangover shakes. Under the soggy jacket throbbed my weary, orphaned soul.

I had to maximize my six roubles. They had to stretch as far as they would go.

I ordered a bottle of fortified wine and two chocolates. I could get two more rounds like this and there would still be twenty copecks left over for cigarettes.

I sat by the window. Now there was no rush.

Outside two gypsies were unloading crates of bread from a car. A postman surged up the hill on his moped. Stray dogs were rolling around in the dirt.

I got down to business. And made a positive mental note: my hands aren’t shaking. Which was good…

The wine was spreading like good news, colouring the world with hues of kindness and compassion.

Ahead of me lay divorce, debt and literary failure… But here are these mysterious gypsies with bread… Two dark-skinned old women near the polyclinic… A damp day cooling off… Wine, a free minute, my homeland…

Through the general din I suddenly heard:

“This is Moscow! This is Moscow! You are listening to the Young Pioneers’ Dawn… At the microphone is the hirsute Yevstikheyev… His words sound like a commendable rebuff to the vultures from the Pentagon…”

I looked around. This mysterious speech was coming from the fellow in the green polo shirt. He was still facing the wall. Even from behind you could see how drunk he was. His back, covered with rippling locks, expressed some sort of aggressive impatience. He was almost yelling:

“And I say no! No to the overreaching imperialist beasts! No,
echo the workers of the Ural paper mill… There is no happiness in life, my dear listeners! I say this to you as the last man standing of the 316th Rifle Division… Thus spoke Zarathustra…”

People in the restaurant began to listen. Although without real interest.

The guy raised his voice:

“What are you staring at, you schlubs? You want to behold the death of a private in the Guards of the Maykop Artillery Regiment,
Viscount de Bragelonne?* Allow me to grant you that chance… Comrade Rappoport, bring in the prisoner!”

The other patrons reacted peaceably. Though “schlubs” was clearly meant for them.

Someone from the corner said indifferently:

“Valera’s a bit pickled…”

Valera rose energetically:

“The right to rest and recreation is guaranteed by the constitution… As in the finest houses of Paris and Brussels… Then why turn the sciences into a slave of theology? Live up to the agenda of the Twentieth Assembly of the Party! Listen to the Young Pioneers’ Dawn… Text brought to you by Gmyrya…”

“Who?” someone asked from the corner.

“Baron Kleinmichel, lovey!”

Even at just a quick glance at the fellow I felt a sense of alarm. On closer inspection, this feeling intensified.

Long-haired, ridiculous and scraggy, he gave the impression of someone feigning schizophrenia. But with the single-minded determination of being exposed as soon as possible.

He could have passed for a lunatic were it not for his
triumphant smile and expression of common everyday tomfoolery. A cunning, shrewd insolence was detectable in his crazy monologues. In this stomach-churning mixture of newspaper headlines, slogans and unfamiliar quotations…

It all reminded me of a faulty loudspeaker. The man expressed himself sharply, spasmodically, with afflictive grandiloquence and a sort of dramatic vigour.

He was drunk, but even in that one felt some cunning.

I did not notice him come up. Only just now he sat there facing the wall. And suddenly he was looking over my shoulder:

“Let’s get acquainted – Valery Markov! Habitual transgressor of the public peace…”

“Ah, yes,” I said. “I heard.”