The Big Green Tent (21 page)

“Mama, dear, you can leave if you want to. Without me.”

Olga was also provoked by another incident concerning Kostya. She discovered that he had a whole packet of letters from Ilya that had been sent poste restante to the local post office, which happened to be on the first floor of their building. The first thing she did when her hands and legs stopped trembling was to read the letters. They were long letters, wonderfully expressive—the thoughts and impressions of someone who has left the Soviet Union for the first time. The first letter he wrote Kostya, from Vienna, was very similar to the letter he had written Olga. He wrote about feeling that it was all a mirage, about his sense of disorientation about what was real and what was not, in a place where everything was so different from what his eyes, his nose, his mouth had been accustomed to till now. In another letter, written to Kostya on the eve of his departure from Vienna to America, she read something that cut her to the quick—that “the ability to survive here, in the West, is a function of one's willingness to reject everything one experienced before, in Russia.” Now she herself was a part of what had to be rejected in order for him to survive.

The next letters were from New York, and much of what he wrote coincided with what he had written to her—about the tragic incommensurability of the two cultures, Russian and American; about the “superficiality” of American culture, not in the banal, generally accepted sense of that term, but from the perspective of superficiality as such: the scrubbed and deodorized surface of the American body, which smelled like chemicals and laundry detergent; the blinding cleanliness of the asphalt; and the fact that every cover, wrapper, or envelope was just as important as what it contained. About how he had once searched all day for a subject to photograph, and finally found one: an enormous heap of garbage, both cast-off building materials and ordinary household refuse, right in the middle of Harlem, with a smiling, toothless black man in a snowy white tank top, his hands gripping a banjo, in the foreground.

The last letter from America was sad and strange. Ilya wrote to the still very young Kostya: “Only shedding your skin completely, acquiring a new surface with new feelers, can ensure your survival here. However strange it might seem, the same does not hold true for one's inmost self. You can keep your thoughts, however original, however jarring to their sensibilities and at odds with their incomprehensible (to me) way of life, to yourself. No one is interested in them in the least. In order to become part of this society, you just have to carry out their elementary rituals of communication. The idiotic ballet of Western life. I am prepared to do this, though it forces me into a number of painful decisions.”

After reading these letters, Olga felt as though the scales had fallen from her eyes. She even found herself thinking that it might have been easier for her to endure this rupture with Ilya if he had really fallen in love with some brilliant, youthful beauty. But she nipped this feeling in the bud—no, it would have been just as painful. In the long run, wasn't it all the same, whether he had turned away from her because of a new love or only out of self-interest? Either way she was bereft. The real reason for his departure always eluded her. Her love, trust, naïveté, and spiritual innocence prevented her from seeing it.

Olga reproached Kostya for betraying her, though she was aware of the unfairness of her judgment. Nevertheless, she confiscated the letters from him. Kostya held his tongue.

He also felt sorry for his mother; still, he couldn't agree with her. He felt especially violated by the fact that not only had she broken into the desk drawer where he kept the letters, but that he had a stash of condoms in the far corner of the same drawer. This both embarrassed and infuriated him. He didn't realize that, blinded by her jealousy, she hadn't paid the slightest bit of attention to the paper package or its contents.

Meanwhile, it emerged that the cousin of one of her university friends was living in Paris, and knew Oksana from Kiev very well. She shared new information that confirmed Olga's worst suspicions. It was not a fictitious marriage at all! Oksana, the old vixen, was very much in love with Ilya, and had even given up her two-room apartment for a larger, three-room flat, anticipating the arrival of her young husband.

Tamara begged her: “Olga, enough is enough! Stop dwelling on it. He's gone—consider him dead. Live your own life!” Olga brushed off her pleas.

Not a year had passed since Ilya's departure, when Afanasy Mikhailovich died. He was buried at the Vagankovo Cemetery, in a good spot, with other soldiers of the highest rank, but without a salute. No one recalled how, exactly, he had been made a general. During the war he had traversed all of Europe on foot, ending up in Vienna as a lieutenant colonel. He was certainly no armchair officer. He had constructed bridges and built ferries.

Olga hardly noticed her father's death.

She was furious that now she would be stuck in this Party-owned apartment with her mother, who was on the verge of retirement, and with Kostya and his sweetheart Lena. What would become of her?

What a fool she was not to have left with Ilya when she had a chance! Now everything had been shot to hell, it was all a shambles. This was the hardest thing of all to reconcile herself to. If she had left when the time was ripe, her life would have taken another course.

As the tempestuous hurts and grievances occasioned by her ex-husband turned into rigid, formulaic mantras, her livid anger turned into a hatred every bit as livid. She continued to lose weight and started turning yellow, like a withered onion; her stomach hurt, and she suffered other unpleasant symptoms, besides.

By this time, Ilya had learned to make his way in the West, but success still evaded him. Olga's correspondence with Ilya was cut short after Olga sent his wife Oksana the letter he had sent her about the necessity of entering into a fictitious marriage to further his plans in life, and about their love, eternal and immortal.

During the second year of their separation, Olga was diagnosed with cancer. She began to undergo treatment at the Oncological Institute, but her condition steadily worsened. The doctors told her friend Tamara, in so many words, that the process was irreversible and that they should prepare for the worst. Antonina Naumovna stopped going to the hospital. She feared more than anything that Olga would die in her presence.

Tamara, a recent convert to Christianity, was tireless in her efforts to guide Olga onto the righteous path of reconciliation and love. To no avail: Olga was completely indifferent to the Church, she refused to see a priest, and was even alarmed when Tamara mentioned one. She blamed all her suffering and misfortune, including her fatal illness, on Ilya. By this time, Ilya had managed to rise out of poverty and obscurity and had moved to Munich, where he worked at Radio Liberty. He broadcast to Russia. Olga never missed a program. At night she would turn on the transistor radio and listen in rapt attention to the penetrating voice out of Munich that defied the censor's scrambling. What must she have felt during those nights?

Tamara, seeing the bitterness etched on Olga's face, decided to write to Ilya, informing him that Olga was dying, that God expects forgiveness and love from all of us, and that Ilya would have to make the first move …

The letter contained nothing that Ilya didn't know already, since he had been corresponding with Kostya and was aware of the sad situation. He was not callous. He spent a long time composing a letter to her, weighing every word, contriving every phrase, and tailoring it to Olga's needs and expectations.

It was the end of December, and many patients checked out of the hospital for the New Year; some were even allowed to spend several days at home.

Tamara went to Olga's doctor to ask whether Olga could celebrate the New Year at home too. “I assume all responsibility,” Tamara said.

The doctor looked at her searchingly and said:

“All right, Tamara Grigorievna, we'll discharge her. If she makes it till then…”

That was when the letter from Ilya arrived. Letter? No, it was a masterpiece. He glorified their past, describing their time together as the best days of his life. He repented of his sins, asked for forgiveness, and hinted (laying it on a bit thick, but still not missing a beat) at their imminent reunion, which grew nearer with each passing day.

And the letter caused a turnaround in Olga's life and in her illness. She read the letter, put it aside, and asked Tamara for her cosmetics. Looking at her reflection in a small mirror, she sighed and powdered her nose—the powder showed up as a pink blotch on her waxen yellow skin, which didn't escape Olga's notice. She asked Tamara to buy her some more powder in a lighter tone.

“This light pink will look like rouge on my complexion!” And she smiled her former smile, which featured four dimples at once—two round ones at the corners of her mouth and two longer ones in the middle of her cheeks.

She reread the letter, reached for her cosmetics, and corrected her face again. Before Tamara left she asked her to bring a good large envelope the next day.

She wants to reply to the letter, thought Tamara. But she was wrong. The next morning Olga placed the envelope with the foreign stamps into the larger one, and stashed it away on the bottom shelf of the bedside table. Tamara had expected that Olga would read her the letter from Ilya; this took her by surprise. At last, Tamara couldn't contain herself any longer and asked what Ilya had written. Olga smiled a ghostly smile and replied enigmatically.

“You know, Brinchik,” she said, calling Tamara by her nickname. “He didn't write anything in particular. It's just that everything seems to have fallen into place. He's an intelligent man, and now he understands. We just can't live apart.”

On that very day, Olga got up and made her way down to the dining room.

They say that this is not unheard of; it does happen sometimes. Some backup program in the body kicks in, a blocked switch turns on, something rejuvenates itself or springs to life, who the hell knows … God only knows … the very same thing that happens in miracle healing. Saints who perform wonders in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ know nothing about biochemistry, and biochemists, who are well aware of the destructive processes associated with oncological diseases, are at a loss to explain the workings of the magic button setting in motion this backup program that Father John of Kronstadt or the Blessed Matrona of Moscow knew to press.

After the New Year, Olga didn't return to the hospital. She began to heal herself, like a sick cat who steals into the woods to eat healing grasses and herbs. Now Olga surrounded herself with herbalists and wisewomen. The well-known herbal healer from Pamir was summoned, and he prescribed infusions and potions. She ate the earth from sacred spots, drank urine. And sages and soothsayers came to see her as well. Where on earth did she dig them up?

Antonina Naumovna, already reconciled to her daughter's death, was disconcerted by all of this. Death from cancer was more comprehensible than all this healing by methods bordering on the indecent. The doctor who had foreseen Olga's imminent demise made a house call, examined her, probed and pressed her, and asked her to undergo further tests and analyses. But the patient merely smiled her enigmatic smile and shook her head: no, no, what need is there for that?

The doctor was deeply perplexed. Such tumors can't dissolve just like that. He probed her underarms, pressed her groin. The lymph nodes had shrunk. But if the tumor had disintegrated, traces of toxicity should be manifesting themselves. And Olga's jaundice had disappeared; she was even gaining weight. Remission? How? Why?

Half a year later, Olga began going outside, and her friend Tamara stopped visiting so frequently. Tamara was somewhat hurt that Olga didn't appreciate this miracle of God that had been worked before their very eyes. Tamara kept bringing up the subject of baptism, which she suggested Olga should consider if only out of gratitude to God for what had transpired. Olga laughed, and it was almost her old, childlike laugh, interspersed with little breathless gasps:

“Brinchik, you're an intelligent, well-educated woman, a scientist—how could you endorse such an absurd faith, a God who expects gratitude, and punishes us like little puppies, or rewards us with treats? You could have at least become a Buddhist…”

Tamara took offense and fell silent; still, she lit candles in church for restoring Olga's health and offered prayers of petition for her during church services. Despite her preoccupation with her own hurt feelings, Tamara couldn't help but notice another significant change in Olga. She no longer talked about Ilya. Ever. She spoke no ill of him, nor any praise. And when Tamara herself brought this up, Olga shrugged off the subject:

“Everything's fine. He's already made his decision; now it's just a matter of time. There's nothing to say.”

And this was a miracle in its own right. After months of talking only about him, and about him only …

Olga, absorbed in her own rejuvenated life, didn't pay much attention to Kostya's marriage. Kostya moved away from home, and the newlyweds settled in with his mother-in-law outside of town, in Opalikha. Very soon he became the father of two children—twins, a girl and a boy. Olga was touched by this, but only momentarily. She didn't have the energy for anything other than healing. All her spiritual resources were devoted to this end.

Although her illness was clearly on the retreat, Olga was tireless in her efforts to chase it away. On the dining room windowsill she grew wheat from seedlings. She scorned the ubiquitous sourdough bread and baked herself flatbreads from bran and straw. She boiled herbs in “silver” water. On the same windowsill stood two pitchers of water containing silver spoons, which was what lent the ordinary tap water its healing properties …

Fate took a deep breath; shaking off the dust here, reevaluting this and readjusting that, a year later Olga's health had been almost completely restored. She set to work again, hammering on the typewriter six hours a day or more. She now lived alone in the large apartment with her mother.