Brisbane, page 21
DECEMBER 31, 2013, PETERSBURG
Katya and I land at Pulkovo Airport. A Petersburg blizzard greets us. The car speeds toward town, leaving snowy vortexes in its wake. I feel Katya’s look.
“Maybe now you’ll tell me where we’re going? Okay?”
I turn. The expression on her face: Where we were happy. I answer:
“We’re going where we were … where we were, in short.”
Katya laces her fingers through mine.
“You know, Gleb, I tried to call our old dormitory. It was razed. And built all over again afterward, but it’s something different now.”
“You’ve managed to do a lot, Katya.”
“It’s just that we began thinking alike long ago. I immediately realized where you wanted to take me, you see. I’m thinking, you know: there is no dormitory in that building anymore. It was moved to Peterhof.”
“I know.”
“There are elite apartments for sale, and they’re impossible to rent – even for a star like you. Imagine! When I called the sellers on your behalf they were very cool.”
“We’ll get even.”
Katya holds the pause.
“Are you saying you actually rented an apartment there?”
“No, Katya. I bought it.”
The concierge meets the car as it pulls up. He takes our suitcases and carries them to the elevator. In the lobby are representatives of the municipal authorities in an excited mood. Flowers, a bucket of champagne. French, I note, two bottles: the Novgorod students are back on their feet. Welcome home (a firm civic handshake). Happy New Year (embraces). Happy New Home, I joke, and everyone laughs.
The apartment has four rooms, magnificently decorated, and windows on the Neva. It bears little or no resemblance to the dorm rooms we once came to live in. Katya compares our apartment to the halls of the Hermitage spread out on the opposite bank of the Neva. I make a face (an expression of slight disbelief ) and openly express my disagreement.
I think the main difference from the Hermitage is that the choice of furniture is more ascetic. Three rooms are empty, and the fourth (the living room) has two iron beds, two nightstands, two desks, a bookshelf, and a refrigerator into which I immediately put the gifted bottles. Hanging on the wall is an ebonite radio – almost identical to the one thirty years ago. Katya turns it on, and a song plays, “Oh Field, Dear Field.” I press one of the buttons. A disc slides out: the radio is a CD player.
“I haven’t heard Soviet songs in such a long time. And the choruses …”
“The Red Army Chorus,” I respond. “Crème de la crème.”
I pull Katya to me and touch my lips to her forehead.
“Thirty years ago, you kissed me on the lips.”
“I couldn’t bring myself to right away. Don’t you remember?”
Katya does remember. She goes over to the bookshelf and picks a book at random. Bakhtin. Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics.
“Your polyphony is here too. You didn’t do so badly with that.”
“Now I can pick up where I left off.”
Katya puts the book on the shelf.
“Why not?”
Through the window, the Hermitage lighting blazes up. The blizzard blurs its outlines, and the window turns into a painting. Now the Impressionists are exhibited on both sides of the Neva: on the third floor of the Hermitage, and on the fourth here.
At about ten o’clock, there’s a ring at the door. Two waiters accompanied by the concierge bring in baskets with New Year’s refreshments. Without the slightest hint of surprise, they spread a tablecloth on the desks moved together and light the candles. From the baskets they extract pickles and tomatoes, mushrooms and ramson. Black caviar. A small, toy-size suckling pig on an oval platter. The rest is left unwrapped for now. Biting her index finger, Katya follows what is happening.
“And where is the Olivier salad? Where are the mandarins?”
As if on command, something peeks out in foil, under the foil: a salad bowl with the Olivier. Mandarins are heaped into a bowl brought in.
“Now everything reminds me of New Year’s in the dorm.” Katya’s eyes shine. “Especially the black caviar and suckling pig.”
At eleven, they bring a package wrapped with a ribbon and give it to Katya. Untying the ribbon, she unseals it: it’s a dress. Exactly the same as then, light and translucent. Katya silently buries her face in the dress.
“I have to spill something,” I explain.
Katya puts on the dress.
“I don’t understand how you guessed the size. You don’t even know your own.”
“Geraldina helped me.”
At five minutes before midnight, the standard Brezhnev smacking comes from the speaker, accompanied by a New Year’s greeting. I don’t think Brezhnev was still smacking in 1983, so most likely they’ve presented a recording of the 1981 version. An anachronism. I pour champagne into aluminum mugs, and we celebrate the thirty years gone by. With the last peal of the bells, we drink to another thirty years. Katya expresses the hope that the matter won’t be limited to thirty years. I nod silently. At a quarter past one, Katya’s dress has champagne spilled on it with the greatest care. Like it or not, she has to take it off. We push the beds together. The night is no less incandescent than what happened here thirty years ago. Almost.
1985–1986
For Gleb and Katya, life in the ornithological apartment was like hovering freely over the everyday. Ever since, thoughts of good fortune have been connected in Gleb’s mind with birds, especially stuffed ones. Their stay on Bolshaya Pushkarskaya lasted two years instead of one: the professor’s contract with the Berlin university was extended a year. After the first year, the couple came home for a month, and for that time the young couple decamped to the dorm. Katya’s things stayed at the ornithologists’, but they decided to remove Gleb’s. It wasn’t quite clear how the apartment’s owners would feel about Gleb’s presence, and Katya’s parents even more so. Or rather, Katya was well aware of their attitude. They hadn’t wanted to let her go to the USSR, having a presentiment that their daughter would find herself a Russian husband there. Katya was forced to agree that her parents’ presentiment had not misled them. She had gone to the USSR, she reasoned in her morning bath, and found a Russian husband. No need to tell them the good news before she had to. Her Russian husband maintained a diplomatic silence. He didn’t try to clarify why being a Russian husband was so bad. Most of his country’s women had precisely that kind of husband, and you can’t say that distressed them particularly. The answer to Katya’s parents’ prejudice was Gleb’s study of German, which he pursued with doubled effort. On the other side of the border, though, they had their own prejudice with regard to the German Katarina Gärtner and her relationship with Soviet citizen Gleb Yanovsky. Acting in loco parentis here was the university’s Young Communist organization, whose obligation it was, according to its charter, to know who was sleeping with whom. The organization summoned Gleb to a meeting. When Gleb received the invitation, he decided to consult with Dunya, whose liaisons had been primarily international. Without hesitation, Dunya suggested that Gleb accuse the bureau of “political myopia.” He had come across this phrase once in a history of the Communist Party textbook and had immediately decided it would come in handy. Finding the expression effective, Dunya repeated it on every suitable occasion, and sometimes without any occasion. He showed Gleb how to say it: sternly and a little bit pensively. Maybe even with a squint – myopia and all that. Dunya also took a shine to the expression “vestige of Zinovievism,” but in this case (Dunya looked at Gleb dubiously) that seemed less appropriate. At the meeting, it was brought to Young Communist Yanovsky’s knowledge that his behavior was amoral and that he must immediately separate from the GDR citizen. In response, Gleb stated that he would not part from Katarina inasmuch as they intended to marry. Looking into the eyes of the bespectacled presiding officer (behind those thick lenses they were comically small), he accused those present of political myopia just in case. After these words, silence fell. Strictly speaking, the Young Communist organization was opposed to international marriages, even with representatives from socialist countries. Such marriages invariably ended with the Young Communists going abroad. Those who left were fainthearted enough to prefer their ties with foreign citizens to their ties with their native organization. But the case of Gleb and Katya seemed ambiguous. The determination Gleb had shown made the bureau members hesitate. That determination threatened a scandal, and a scandal was undesirable – and ultimately, Katya was inside the socialist camp. Overzealous insistence on their part might be viewed as deafness to the ideal of internationalism, a deafness that led, as should be expected, to political myopia. An unreassuring diagnosis. Gleb (as if Dunya had foreseen it) had made an ineradicable impression on them. There was in it something unbecoming, intellectual, uncharacteristic for a genuine Young Communist. In his confusion, the presiding officer removed his glasses, but even this decision was not distinguished for its farsightedness. His short-sighted, helpless look became in the eyes of those gathered the most vivid illustration of myopia. Its apotheosis, you might say. The energy of angry condemnation dried up instantly; he had no strength left for even a formal reprimand. In view of current circumstances, the Young Communist could only be given a fatherly scolding. On the way home, Gleb bought a bottle of wine and proposed to Katya that very evening. Katya burst into tears and said yes. These were tears of hurt as well as joy. It turned out she’d been waiting for his proposal for a long time and didn’t understand why it had taken so long to be made. Gleb himself didn’t understand either. Maybe he was afraid of jinxing the infinite happiness that had come into his life with Katya. A few months later (not without some trouble), they were married at one of Leningrad’s registry offices. Arriving in sweaters and jeans, they asked the officiant not to say anything. “From our point of view, it’s fairly unceremonious,” Gleb said into Katya’s ear. “Exactly so” the officiant, who had excellent hearing, confirmed. After that she maintained silence. She indicated where to sign with a pointer. “Why didn’t you propose a wedding?” Katya asked once, having realized she had to clarify everything for herself. “Because we belong to different churches,” Gleb answered. A few days later, Katya told him she’d decided to convert to Orthodoxy. “I don’t want us to end up in different places after we die,” she said firmly. This time Gleb teared up. This was what he hadn’t been able to bring himself to ask. A month later, the prayer blessing her conversion was read over Katya, who had learned the Orthodox symbol of faith. One letter was changed in her name: Katarina became Katerina. This took place in Prince Vladimir Cathedral, which Katya and Gleb attended on Sundays. Their wedding later took place in the same church. They sensibly did not invite guests. The Young Communist organization, which had done so much to bring about their marriage, would never have forgiven a wedding. At another meeting of the organization, even “vestige of Zinovievism,” the most biting definition from his collection, wouldn’t have helped, in Dunya’s opinion. It should be said that the wedding would not have happened without his support. As an Orthodox Bulgarian, he and a young woman by the name of Alexandra had participated in the mystery as witnesses. Dunya and Alexandra were taller than Gleb and Katya, which came in very handy when they had to hold the crowns over the couple’s heads. At the end of the service, Alexandra complained that the crown was heavy and that if she’d had to hold her arm high (which she didn’t), she might not have lasted to the end. She also supposed that if Gleb and Katya ever had to hold the crowns, say, over her and Dunya, they’d never be up to the task. At these words, everyone looked at Dunya, but his eyes locked on the dial of his watch. Dunya was the soul of concentration, as if time had stopped on his watch or, for all anyone knew, started going backward. In a certain sense, that was true: all Dunya’s romances repeated each other and ended in a conversation about marriage. As for the young woman, nothing was known about her besides her name, and neither Gleb nor Katya had ever seen her before. Nor did they in the future. Katya tried to picture the height of those who would hold crowns over Dunya and his girlfriend. Alexandra’s disappearance attested to the fact that no such people were ever found. Actually, before her disappearance, she managed to stop in at the Brigantina with the newlyweds and celebrate the event among a select few. Naturally, Dunya was there too. And so in his life was everything desperately repeated: once again he was toastmaster and once again he fell asleep in an awkward pose, although this time he did not have to talk about Leninist intrigues. Gleb and Katya recalled this pose a few years later when they learned of Dunya’s tragic death in Sofia. After returning to his homeland, he finally married and had a son. In a difficult period, when the threat of famine arose in Bulgaria (as in Russia), Dunya showed himself to be a loving father. The child needed milk, and people got in line for it in the middle of the night. Every night, Dunya started up his rickety old Zhiguli and drove to the milk store. And returned in the morning. One of those nights, he drove into a trailer hauling pipes. The taillights were out on the trailer, there wasn’t even a flag on the pipes, and Dunya didn’t notice the pipes. People said he lay with his head on the steering wheel, sprinkled with shards from the windshield – more or less the same pose as on the celebration table once upon a time. Katya and Gleb mourned him terribly and could not imagine Dunya dead.
JANUARY 2, 2014, PETERSBURG
Katya and I are on our way to see the Avdeyevas. Katya has already called Anna; they’re expecting us. Turning off Nevsky onto Pushkinskaya Street, the car stops at a building. The lobby is dim. The apartment doors are amazingly varied. A true gallery of doors – from armored to flimsy plywood, some with holes from old locks. Like the Avdeyevas’.
Anna opens up. Shapeless, ungroomed, mother-of-pearl lips taking up half her face. Fear – mixed with coquetry – in her eyes. She asks whether she’s changed a lot. Oh no, not a lot – and I squeeze out a smile. Consider yourself unchanged. I try not to look at her. To think I’d once been in love with this dumpy old woman. Anna leads us into the living room. A girl comes out of the next room. Pale.
Very thin. She smiles nicely.
“Vera” – and she holds out her translucent hand.
She looks like Anna as a child, but without her vulgarity. Light brown hair with subdued features. Strange though it seems, in this she reminds me of my mother.
“We’re recuperating after the latest hospital stay,” Anna says. “We’re terribly tired.”
The living room is spacious but neglected. A high ceiling, cracked molding. In the corner, where the piano is, the wallpaper has separated noticeably from the wall. In the corner, naturally. Where else? He’d known that before he ever met Anna. An aquarium next to the piano. Two bookshelves from the 1950s with glass doors covering the books. The windows are unwashed. Anna catches my gaze.
“With all I’ve had to do, I haven’t gotten around to cleaning.”
I nod. It’s obvious that Anna hadn’t gotten around to it for much longer than that.
She invites us all to the table. Olivier, vodka, and Sovetskoye champagne. Mandarins at the edge of the table. Katya must be asking herself whether they’ve been initiated here into my retroplan – that’s the expression on her face. Sometimes Katya jokes with herself.
Picking up a fork, I feel a slight stickiness. So that Anna doesn’t notice, I wipe the fork on the slightly used napkin. I catch Vera’s distraught look. I feel an awkwardness but to an even greater degree a sympathy for the girl, who (this is immediately evident) is not made at all like her mother. I’m just about to say I’m not hungry, but Vera’s look stops me. I serve myself some Olivier salad, which bodes nothing good for my stomach. I have no doubt the Olivier is made the same way the forks are washed. The glasses too. I notice dried soap spots on mine. While I’m talking with Anna, Vera quickly exchanges her glass for mine. Red drops appear on the tablecloth. I’m still contemplating their source while Katya is already taking Vera to the bathroom. The girl has a nosebleed. Anna takes cotton balls out of the cupboard and joins them.
A few minutes later, everyone returns. There’s cotton in Vera’s nostrils. Her forehead is wet from the towel on it. I think that Vera is worse, much worse off than I am, only she’s being stoic and I’m not. Suddenly I want to hold this child close and breathe life into her. That’s how you pull a person out of any pit. You can scramble out yourself too. It all depends on strength of will.
“Excuse the meagerness.” Anna points to the table, and this gesture seems habitual. “Were my parents alive, it would all look quite different. Everything now goes to treatment.”
“Mama.”
“This is life, daughter dear, nothing to be embarrassed about.”
I make a sign to Katya, and she puts a miniature leather case on the table. I hand it to Anna.
“I hope you won’t object if we help out a little?”
Glancing at Vera, Anna sighs.
“No, I won’t. I don’t have the option to object.” She comes over to Katya and me and hugs us in turn. “Gleb means everything to little Vera. She listens to him all the time. And the fact that he and I studied together.… After all, she herself plays the piano. Right, Vera dear? She’s performed in London, Helsinki, and Prague. She’s won prizes in Moscow.”
“Please, don’t, listen to me …”
Vera’s face is sad and drawn somehow. Katya squats next to Vera’s chair. She takes her hand and presses it to her cheek.
“Will you play? Please.”
Vera looks at me.
“In front of Gleb Fyodorovich?”
“Gleb Fyodorovich” – Katya turns around – “you’ll support us in some way, won’t you?”
I walk over and squat next to Katya. Right now my wife and I probably look like a pair of large birds. Or something similar. Stuffed birds, for example.
