Brisbane, page 4
Nestor lives on Bolshoi Prospect on the Petrograd side. It takes exactly ten minutes to drive there from the hotel. As I’m getting out of the car, Nestor is just returning from the store. We go up to the apartment together, where we are met by Nika, a lady with a low, husky voice. Nestor, Nika, and I, by all accounts, were born the same year or very nearly so. You usually feel at ease with people like that.
The table is set in the kitchen. Cheese, sausage, sardines, vodka. Before sitting down, Nika shows me the writer’s quarters. All as it should be: bookshelves packed to the limit (her husband is given many books, we haven’t bought them in a long time), vertical and horizontal placement side by side. In addition to the books, room has in some inexplicable way been found for many knick-knacks. Books on tables, on beds, on the floor, on the microwave and washing machine (the writer likes reading in the bathroom). Nika refers to Nestor as a writer and is very proud of him.
The Veuve Clicquot goes into the freezer, but no one here seems to have any particular interest in it. Nestor pours vodka for everyone, including his wife, arousing no protest in Nika. We drink to our meeting. Nestor recounts to Nika in detail how it began. He acts out our airplane conversation. He shows her how arrogantly I answered him and put his card away without a glance. I applaud Nestor.
“Is that really me?”
Narrowing his eyes, Nestor shakes his head.
“That’s the view from the outside,” Nika reassures me. “I wouldn’t trust it.”
“And I don’t.” I drain the shot I’ve been poured. “But I do want to say that your writer is pretty darn good. A decent writer.”
Nika’s phone rings. Covering the mouthpiece with her palm, she says it’s their son. She lights a cigarette and goes out into the hall to talk.
“Your son doesn’t live with you?” I ask.
“He lives nearby.” Nestor also lights up. “And I’ve already started writing, you see. … Are you truly agreeing to the book? That’s an outside view too.”
Three decisive noes come from the hall.
“I’ve looked at myself so long from the inside.”
With the fourth no, Nika appears.
“Get lost,” she whispers and hangs up. She sits down at the table. “I’m sorry, an educational moment.” To me: “Do you have children?”
“No.”
A phone rings – Nestor’s this time. After a brief, dry greeting there is yet another no. They have a taste for that word here. Nestor leaves the call unexplained. The topic of children is not revived because Nika makes a toast:
“To collaboration!”
Everyone drinks.
“We have just clarified …” Nestor sounds depressed, like someone who hasn’t joined in yet. “We’ve clarified just how seriously Gleb regards this undertaking.”
“How seriously is that?” Nika asks. “You know, even I’m amazed. You always speak so well about life through your music, why do you need his words?” She nods to her husband.
I take a cigarette out of Nestor’s pack. Nestor offers me a light.
“It’s hard to explain. I think music … and painting, too, probably … Ultimately they exist only because the word exists.”
Nika nods at the guitar lying in its case.
“Will you play?”
I suggest we all switch to informal address, the familiar “you.” I get out the guitar and tune it for a few minutes. Nika points out the empty glasses to her husband.
“Whereas at the edge of the word I experience fear.” Nestor is about to pick up the bottle but puts it back down. “You know, where the word ends, that’s where the music begins. Or, well, yes, painting. Or silence in general.”
I start playing a Ukrainian song, “The Sun Is Setting” – first the theme, then variations. I hum along quietly. The words aren’t entirely clear to my audience, but it’s obviously a sad song. It’s night. A young girl’s beloved comes to her. As she let him in, she squeezed his hand. And as she let him go, she asked him the truth. Voice and strings resonate. “Do you love me?” she asks. “Might you be seeing another,” she asks, “and won’t admit it?” “No,” he answers, “I love you, only you, but I’ll not marry you.” Guitar solo. Pizzicato on the high notes – all the way up the neck. “Oh, my God, my God …” Clearly he’s telling her everything. The height of sound shifts to the height of suffering and dwindles until it is completely inaudible because grief has no expression. His fingers are now still, but the music keeps pouring out.
I leave at dawn. At the open door, Nestor embraces me firmly and Nika’s arms rest on top. The three of us stand there like that at the open door, the night’s lingering chill on our backs. His eyes dropped delicately, a neighbor walks by with a fishing rod. There’s a car waiting for me by the front entrance.
1972
Soon after Evdokia’s funeral, Gleb heard the cymbals and drum once again. This was at the opera theater, where his grandmother took him to hear Evgeny Onegin. What struck him first was the way the orchestra started up. The enormous hall filled with melody fragments. A grandiose torrent of sounds freed from the music forever, it seemed, creating a new fellowship. That was only how it seemed, though. In the darkened and stilled hall the fragments were gathered up by the very first sweep of the conductor’s baton. And Gleb burst into tears – at this harmony, at this fullness and power of sound such as he’d never heard before, because, plunged into darkness, the hall slowly soared, and he was part of that flight. An incredible journey began for the select – those who had had the courage to sit in the dark hall. The boy sobbed, covering his mouth with his hand, although no one could hear him over the loud music, and in the darkness no one saw his shoulders shaking. Gleb and his grandmother were sitting in a first-tier box, while two tiers above Sergei Petrovich Brovarnik, who taught compulsory piano at Gleb’s music school, lay on the floor. Sergei Petrovich believed that music should be listened to by tuning out not only the surrounding world but even one’s own body. He would bring a sheet to the theater and spread it on the floor, where the rows ended, lie down on the sheet, and close his eyes. He didn’t miss a single opera performance. Keen on opera, Gleb very often saw Sergei Petrovich in the theater. Once, when Antonina Pavlovna and her grandson were sitting in the third tier (they were performing Ivan Susanin), Sergei Petrovich was lying directly behind them. From time to time muffled sighs could be heard from where he lay, and the audience, alarmed, not versed in the various ways of perceiving music, would look around into the darkness behind the seats. In Gleb’s memory, Sergei Petrovich was an example of true devotion to music. As for Ivan Susanin, the boy liked the opera, but it wasn’t a patch on Evgeny Onegin. Singing over the cacophony, Lensky with maximum precision: “I have simply asked Mr. Onegin to explain his actions. He does not wish to do so, so I ask him to accept my challenge!” Oh, how harsh this was; Ivan Susanin, for all its tragedy, had nothing like it. Especially that “simply.” And the cry of the mistress of the house, “Oh, my God!” musically repeating the exclamation “my challenge!” Plus, of course, the word “Mr.,” which Gleb liked tremendously – so elegant compared to unkempt, unwashed “comrades.” An extraordinary item was the top hat, filled with aristocratism, instead of the worn, here-we-go-again cap. Nonetheless, in Gleb’s eyes, what hit hardest was the duel scene. He acted out this scene endlessly with Kleshchuk, whose parents, it turned out, had also taken him to Evgeny Onegin. Kleshchuk-Lensky would sink slowly to the floor after Gleb-Onegin’s shot. Tubby Kleshchuk sank awkwardly and unnaturally, and each time Gleb had to show him how people usually fall after being shot. Gleb took some satisfaction in this – as an artist and a teacher. Despite all his efforts, progress was imperceptible. Kleshchuk, overcautious, would manage to look at his feet a few times, although what did he actually expect to see on the highly polished parquet? While instructing Kleshchuk, though, Gleb tried not to go overboard. He knew what comes from excessive pressure on people, and he didn’t want to spoil his impression of Evgeny Onegin, which became the chief delight of his first academic year. The fullness of this delight was reached when, as of that winter, the boy was able to listen to the opera on record. For New Year’s, his mama and grandmother, after long consultations in the evenings, gave Gleb a record player. Even Fyodor was drawn into this expensive purchase, and, impoverished though he was, he came up with the last twenty rubles. Along with the record player there was a cardboard box in which lay three records: Evgeny Onegin. And although subsequently other records were bought as well, Gleb listened to Onegin almost exclusively. In a couple of months he knew all the arias by heart. At family parties, the boy, at the guests’ request, would sing them all in order or at random – with feeling, although, according to his father, who was once invited, not entirely in tune. His mother, indignant, objected that how the child sang the arias wasn’t the point, the point was that he was singing them, and that instead of supporting him, his father was spouting all kinds of nonsense. Being out of tune isn’t nonsense, Fyodor muttered, but he didn’t get into an argument. Gleb pretended not to eavesdrop, but deep down he was hurt. He very much wanted to impress his father. And didn’t. On the other hand, he did impress the others – his classmates, for example. Although not all. His aria performances did not impress Bdzhilka, who had known the magical word ochyeryet. He asked Gleb to sing folk songs and even sang one himself – “Oh, in the grove by the Danube” – one especially beloved in his village. The song was beautiful (Ukrainian songs are fabulously beautiful), but this did not induce Gleb to change his repertoire. He continued to sing his arias under Bdzhilka’s mocking gaze. Meanwhile, Bdzhilka would ask questions to which Gleb could not always find an answer. Listening to Gleb’s performance of Lensky’s aria, Bdzhilka asked what an “aurora” was (“aurora’s ray will shine come morning”), why the “biss” was slow (“the young poet’s memory swallowed by the slow Abyss”) and the urn early (“shed a tear over the early urn”). Outside, sometimes, he would stop over an urn and start collecting imaginary tears in his hand. Actually, when it came to laughter, Bdzhilka couldn’t come close to Gleb – Gleb and another classmate, Vitya Kislitsyn. Gleb and Kislitsyn were called the laughers because they were constantly guffawing. If they looked at the passing bursar (squint-eyed, fat-lipped), they’d laugh. If they looked at a dog (one ear up, the other drooping), they’d laugh too. Whoever they looked at, they’d laugh, because there’s something funny about everyone, it just takes an eye. An eye and company, since you’re not going to laugh alone. The English teacher, as long as a stork, arms and legs like the blades of a pen-knife, was walking down the hall. Walking stiffly: in lockstep, her head thrown back. Irina Grigorievna. Gleb and Kislitsyn started laughing. Irina Grigorievna complained to Lesya Kirillovna. At her very next lesson, Lesya Kirillovna, an unsmiling person, called Kislitsyn to the board. Without warning, she picked up the pupil by the nape (his legs quietly swinging) and prompted him: “Laugh!” Kislitsyn didn’t laugh – evidently that’s hard to do dangling. It had the exact opposite effect: tears started rolling down his cheeks. Gleb realized that he was probably next, which was scary. Scary and funny, as can happen. He looked at his dangling comrade but got no look back. Kislitsyn had no thought of exchanging looks, he was looking at the ceiling. Gleb was the first to notice that Kislitsyn had an incredibly big head over his small swinging body. His friend looked like an eighth note on the top line of the staff – the one with stem and tail pointed down. D, apparently. Or F. Gleb smiled at this thought, and now it was hard to imagine what punishment awaited him. But once she’d set Kislitsyn down, Lesya Kirillovna unexpectedly smiled too – for the first time in a year, maybe. Something had touched her, either Kislitsyn’s tears or Gleb’s smile. Lesya Kirillovna turned out to have quite a few gold teeth in her mouth. Gleb thought her smile was blinding and was amazed that the possessor of such wealth had never smiled before. Actually, she didn’t smile much afterward either, except for one strange instance Gleb was told about by Plachinda, who continued observing Lesya Kirillovna. This time, sitting at Kislitsyn’s desk, the teacher smiled shyly, evidently depicting the pupil’s smile. Then, after she was back at her desk, she burst into laughter with a brutality compared to which all her former swearing dimmed. Lesya Kirillovna pulled an imagined Kislitsyn off the floor and demanded, “Laugh!” But the real Kislitsyn wasn’t laughing anymore. He never did recover from that dangling at the board, you might say. From time to time he would still smile, but his smile would sometimes turn to tears. Maybe this was why Plachinda told Gleb, not him, what she’d seen. As for Gleb, he also got what was coming to him, only in a slightly different way. Seeing Gleb laughing, Lesya Kirillovna once advised him to hide his buck teeth. From the standpoint of pedagogy, this advice might raise questions, but the comparison certainly did hit its mark. By the middle of second grade, Gleb’s upper teeth had shifted noticeably forward and become exactly what the teacher described. The sole advantage of teeth growing in wrong was their acoustic properties. By clicking his thumbnails on his teeth, Gleb learned to do a virtuoso rendition of Gershon Kingsley’s “Popcorn.” He could play other things, too, but nothing could compare to that staccato, xylophonic melody. After what the teacher said, Gleb’s amazing gift was forgotten overnight. Everyone in class repeated what Lesya Kirillovna had said. Kislitsyn, who didn’t want to be known as the only one to dangle, had an especially good time with it. Listening to the new teasing repeated in different ways, Gleb wondered at what cruel creatures children were after all. Why, Gleb thought, were they (we) considered angelic? The only person who expressed sympathy for Gleb was Bdzhilka. Sensibly, he didn’t comment on Lesya Kirillovna’s statement, but he did give practical advice. “If you lick your teeth, they’ll straighten out,” he told Gleb, and he even showed him how it was done. Bdzhilka’s tongue – surprisingly long and agile – moved freely across his teeth. At one point his tongue even seemed to latch on tight to his front teeth and drag them back by force. And although upon closer examination it was discovered that Bdzhilka’s teeth remained in their former position, his power of persuasion was so great that for several days Gleb did in fact lick his teeth. Without results. No, that’s not entirely true. The result was his grandmother became aware of the problem. She took Gleb to the dentist. Before she could put the boy in the chair, the dentist said he needed a retainer. Gleb had the discouraging thought that his bad bite could be seen from the threshold. So as not to lose time, they decided to take measurements for the retainer right away. The nurse took a metal form and filled it with wet plaster. The doctor shoved it deep into Gleb’s mouth, telling him to bite down as hard as possible. With his lower teeth the boy felt the metal, but his upper ones sank into the mildly malodorous mass. It felt as if this mass was growing, that soon it would block his throat and he might suffocate. He started to feel sick. He tried to hold on, told himself it would all be over in a moment, but nothing was over. The fear that if he started to vomit the vomit would have nowhere to go rolled over him in uneasy waves. He threw up a second after they removed the form with the set plaster from his mouth. A couple of weeks later, when the retainer was ready and Gleb put it on for the first time, he threw up again. The plastic palate looked disgusting, touched his real palate disgustingly, and unstuck with a disgusting sound. The one more or less acceptable part of the gear was the double wire that grasped the teeth that deviated from the right position. When touched with a finger, the wire made a quiet but melodious sound. That alone reconciled the boy to the teeth-straightening process. An outside observer saw only the wire, not suspecting the construction, physiologically repulsive, that held this fragile detail. Sometimes Gleb’s patience ran out. He would look around, take the retainer out of his mouth, and put it in his desk. And honestly (though perhaps not very) would forget it there. Be that as it may, the next morning he would invariably receive the retainer from Lesya Kirillovna and put it in his mouth under her stern gaze. Gleb wore the retainer for nearly a year and – who would have thought! – his teeth were fixed. Now they were big and even, qualities that undoubtedly constitute beauty for men’s teeth. This did not happen without loss, though. Now that his teeth were even, for some reason they lost their musical properties. They no longer played “Popcorn.” On the other hand, how his domra played! Little by little it was becoming clear to everyone that the boy possessed great talent because he alone was capable of playing with such impressive nuance. At times his technique betrayed him – he didn’t always keep to the tempo – but when it came to nuance, he had no equals. This was what made Gleb the pride of the music school. Yes, his ear was still far from perfect, but he wasn’t playing the violin, after all! Strictly speaking, Gleb’s current domra was nearly a violin by now. Seeing her pupil’s success, Vera Mikhailovna presented him with his own instrument for his studies, a custom domra made from Caucasian fir. To carry it, Gleb was given the brown case originally ordered with the domra. The boy was enchanted by its velvety sound, and he admired the amber relief of the old wood. Everything pleased him – except for the case, because the case reminded him of a coffin. Each time Gleb opened it, the domra looked like a broad-hipped beauty brought not from music school but from the Berkovtsi cemetery – then still deserted but already enormous. Putting the domra back in its case, he pictured it as his lost beloved taken away to the cemetery forever. The case poisoned his life.
SEPTEMBER 15, 2012, MUNICH
Our building on Am Blütenring. Katarina and I are reflected in the evening window. Katya. I’m sitting at my desk while Katya stands behind me, her hand on my shoulder. My desk lamp is turned on, and in its yellow light the reflection in the window is fabulously beautiful. Painted by the lamp, we remind ourselves of an old photograph and look to ourselves vaguely posthumous. Actually, there’s a painting hanging in a hotel with the same composition (including the reflection), but we prefer resurrecting it every evening. We appreciate the details – the turn of the head, the bend in the arm, the placement of the fingers on the shoulder.
