The Last Station: A Novel of Tolstoy's Final Year (19 page)

‘I am an atom of God,’ the man replied.

My father shook his head in assent, then asked the same question of a fat, oily-skinned woman, who said, ‘I do not believe in God. I believe in science. God and science cannot exist together.’

Papa was taken by the clarity of her remark and asked Chertkov to write it down so that he could record it later in his diary.

That afternoon, before dinner, a delegation of children from the local orphanage came to Chertkov’s house with flowers for Papa. He greeted them with affection, kissing the little girls and rubbing his knuckles over the boys’ shaven heads. Chertkov appeared from the next room carrying a boxful of photographs of Papa on horseback. He passed them out to the children, who received them in silent gratitude.

‘Is this you?’ one of the smaller girls asked my father.

‘I’m afraid I cannot deny it,’ he said. He bent to kiss her on the forehead, but she withdrew. ‘An old man is a very ugly thing,’ he said.

The next day we received the news that Chertkov would be allowed to return to Telyatinki on a temporary basis. Papa quivered with joy. He wrung his hands, both blood-bright, and shifted from foot to foot like a schoolboy. I liked seeing him so happy.

Chertkov speculated, quite rightly, that this temporary permission will probably be extended indefinitely if he does not publish ‘inflammatory’ pieces. Such strictures are distasteful to him, he said, but he understands the practical need to be close to Yasnaya Polyana and will ‘behave’ himself.

‘That’s like asking an ass not to brae,’ Papa said.

Chertkov assumed his usual arctic stare. He can hardly bear it when Papa teases him.

At last the weather grew heavy, with storm clouds swirling in the sky. It was raining hard, a diagonal June rain that turned the garden behind Meshcherskoye into black mud. That night, after dinner, a telegram arrived from Varvara. It startled the entire company: ‘Sofya Andreyevna’s nerves dreadful. Insomnia, weeping. Pulse is 100. Please telegraph.’

I felt sorry for Varvara. Mama was putting unnatural pressure on her, trying to pull her into the expanding web of madness that she spins for herself.

Two hours later, as we drank glasses of tea by a fire, a second telegram arrived, from Mama herself: ‘I beg of you, hurry back. Tomorrow.’

I took Papa off by himself into his room. ‘You must not give in to her,’ I told him.

‘She is unwell.’

‘She’s faking it. She always does this. It’s a trick to get you to go home before you’re ready.’

‘I’ve been here quite a long time.’

‘A few days! Anyway, Erdenko is coming tonight.’ Erdenko is the most celebrated violinist in Russia, and Papa cannot resist a good musical performance, even though he disapproves of taking too much pleasure in music.

He wrote a telegram: ‘More convenient return tomorrow. Unless indispensable.’

‘I’ll send it immediately,’ I said.

Everyone was pleased with Papa for not giving in. Alas, only a few hours later, a brief reply from Mama was delivered. ‘Indispensable,’ she wired.

‘You mustn’t cave in,’ I said to Papa. ‘There will be no end to her demands if she sees that she can force you to come and go at whim.’

Papa insisted that she is unwell, not physically but mentally. ‘She cannot help herself,’ he said. ‘It is my duty. I am glad of a chance to do my duty.’ More to himself than to me, he added, ‘God help me.’

I went to my room and, for the first time in some years, prayed. I prayed for Papa, whose burden grows heavier each day. I sensed that, soon, he would crack under the weight. A man of his age can carry only so much without breaking.

My chest is so tight I can hardly breathe. At first, I wanted Lyovochka to go to Meshcherskoye. His pulse was sinking. He could remember almost nothing with clarity. I thought the trip to see his beloved would help. Alas, it did. He became well obscenely quickly. It was almost embarrassing to watch him charge to the station in Tula on horseback.

A long absence was not planned. I could have granted him a week or so. But the visit lengthened, and he never said a word about coming back. Didn’t he realize how sick I was, with sleeplessness and my rapid heartbeat, my headaches and dizziness?

The bare truth is that my husband, the greatest Russian author since Pushkin, has developed a ludicrous, senile crush on a plump, middle-aged flatterer. As a boy, even as a young man, he was drawn to men. He liked nothing better than his hunting trips. I have talked about this openly, but it makes him indignant. He does not see how foolish it is for a man to love another man. Not only is it foolish, it is sinful in the eyes of God.

Sasha says that I’m fantasizing, but I think Lyovochka would sleep with Chertkov if his conscience could bear it. But it can’t. It hovers over him like Father Time, flashing its sickle, making ridiculous demands. He is hounded by Furies, too – demons that pursue him into all corners of his life. It suits him to regard this mania as a visionary religion, but it’s nothing more than mental illness.

Religion should be a comfort, not a goad. When I go to the little church in the village, I expect God to calm my nerves. And He does. Otherwise I could not have remained married to Leo Tolstoy for nearly half a century. Nobody could withstand that pressure. It’s like living with a tornado.

Chertkov’s bitter stare and flabby jowls haunt me when I try to sleep. His smell, his voice, his pudgy fingers – everything about him taunts me, even when he is not here. He would be nothing without my Lyovochka; with him, Chertkov has risen in the world’s eyes to the rank of Leo Tolstoy’s closest friend, counselor, and publisher. He wears these facts on his shirtsleeves and lapels. ‘Look at me!’ screams from every pore. ‘I am the beloved of Leo Tolstoy! I am his conscience! His beacon!’

After Lyovochka’s death, which cannot be far away, Chertkov will discover who he is. Nobody.

I regard jealousy a defect of character. And I am jealous. I admit it and pray to God for forgiveness. But what does anyone, even God, expect of me? Chertkov has stolen the one thing that has sustained my life for forty-eight years! He has snatched Lyovochka from my arms. My dear, sweet Lyovochka….

Various ways of committing suicide have occurred to me, but I am not the type really. I do not want to die. But I do not want to live like this, either, with the knife of jealousy pushing its hot blade through my heart. This morning I wanted to go to Stolbovo and lie down on the tracks beneath the train on which it was
convenient
for Leo Nikolayevich to return from Meshcherskoye. What irony if the author of
Anna
Karenina
should ride home over the pullulating body of his own dear wife! What a story
that
would make for the international press!

I have consulted Florinsky’s book on medicine to see what the effects of opium poisoning might be. I do not want a painful death, and death by train sounds dreadful. What if I didn’t die instantly? I once saw a dog run over by a heavy cart, its body crushed in the middle of the road. It writhed horribly, trying to drag itself to the edge of the road, bent like a horseshoe. A benevolent muzhik, fortunately, crushed its skull with a large stone, ending its misery. No, that is not for me.

Opium poisoning begins with a feeling of excitement, which soon turns to lethargy. It’s a little like freezing to death in the snow. It doesn’t really hurt; you just go numb. Eventually, the sky and the earth meet, and your mind becomes your body, and your body turns to air. And there is
no antidote
.

I daresay if I don’t succeed in killing myself but do half a job of it, Chertkov will have me committed to an insane asylum. Perhaps then Leo Tolstoy, with his great admiration for the insane, will visit me. Then I shall garner his respect. Not now. I am too sane now. I tell the truth, and it hurts him.

Lyovochka arrived at ten on the twenty-fourth, much later than I wished. It was an act of defiance, of course. Like a little boy who cannot say directly what is angering him. Perhaps without his even knowing it himself, his delay said to me, ‘See, my dear. You are not so important as you think you are. I do not believe you are ill. But I shall go along with your petty game.’ Sometimes I feel hatred for him, a black bile that rises in my veins, dragged up through the roots of our ill relations. Sometimes I want to
kill
him.

I wanted to hate him then, but he seemed meek and nervous, frail as a bird, as he sat beside me on the bed, his hand pressed to my forehead.

‘Dear Sonya!’ he said. ‘I was so worried about you. Those telegrams had us all frantic.’

So. But I did not trust him. He has so often in the past affected great concern when what he usually wanted was sex. Now what he wants is to be let off the hook, to be forgiven for this emotional infidelity he commits repeatedly with Vladimir Grigorevich.

‘You want to kill me, don’t you?’ I asked. ‘You would prefer that I were dead.’

He shook his head. ‘Nonsense, Sonya. Where do you get such ideas? I don’t understand you anymore.’

‘It’s a question of logic, is it? You don’t see why B follows A? Is that your problem?’

‘You are trying to upset me.’

‘Do you still love me, Lyovochka?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ he whispered. I waited for him to continue, to expand on this.

He lay down beside me on the bed, putting his broad forehead against my shoulder, and soon we both fell asleep and remained like that through the night. It was altogether strange and caused me to remember our first passionate years together, when it meant so terribly much to feel him beside me, to know that I mattered to him as I had mattered to my father. Once my father went to Paris to attend an international conference of doctors when I was thirteen. He stayed away for three months. And he never wrote me.

The next morning I spoke gently to Lyovochka about Chertkov.

‘It is quite insane, darling,’ I said, nestling beside him. ‘Everyone is making fun of you.’

‘Who?’

‘Andrey, Sukhotin, even the muzhiks. I heard them giggling in the horse barn one day, and I listened at the door. They were talking about you. Yes, about you!’

‘It matters very little what anyone says about me. Let them giggle if they find it amusing.’

‘I don’t find it amusing. I find it sick.’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said, sitting up in bed, kicking back the blankets.

‘I know what’s not normal. You’re obsessed with that man. You hang on his every word, as if God spoke through his mouth!’

‘He is a dear friend, and we have much in common.’ He was putting on his leather boots. ‘In any case, I do not find it a subject worth discussing. We have been over this ground before, Sonya. So many times….’

‘You and that man have nothing in common. He’s a sycophant and a pervert. He’s just using you, but you can’t seem to see it. It may not bother you, but I will not have such a person making a fool of my husband!’

He spat at the floor – I can’t remember when he last did that. ‘Let me alone,’ he said, ‘for God’s sake!’

I watched as he snapped the door shut behind him, leaving me alone. More alone than I have ever been. I wanted my bottle of opium.