The Monastery, page 81
December 25:
A month ago, I gave him a bunch of documents concerning infractions amongst the supervisory staff and administration.
There was no answer.
Today, I saw him in the administration building. The documents were just a reason to see him, of course. I stopped him in mid-run (he’s always walking fast, and everyone hurries after him).
He says, “If everything is to be properly in order, we’d have to shoot all the Chekists. Because all the ones they send here are penalized soldier, sadists and villains. There’s no point in trying to reeducate them. But if I shoot them all, they won’t give me any more. So, I let everything continue as it is.”
January 3:
Sometimes I try to calm myself. So much has happened in my short life, it wouldn’t have fit in most long lives.
At night, I had a dream. We were again in Trotskii’s train, and once again we accidentally met in the secretariat.
F. was trying to convince Rudolf Peterson, the director of the train, of something. He was thin, but the leather jacket made him look larger in the shoulders. It sat very well on him. That jacket looks good on everyone. When they — the guards in leather jackets — accompanied Lev Davidovich and everyone left the train, it was pleasant and yet horrifying to look at. They walked like black demons. All the Red Army soldiers from all the fronts — apathetic, hungry, and eaten alive by lice — were gathered together and were all shot down. But the demons were always forgiven, because they always brought victory.
We came to Peterson with Ustinov the journalist, whom I was helping. Ustinov needed clarification on some questions. They discussed something for a short time, then Rudolf Avgustovich said, “Eichmanis will accompany you.”
We went into the second car, F. showed us everything. Ustinov left to meet someone else, and F. and I talked for the first time.
I immediately felt that I could fall in love with this one. I wanted to fall in love with him.
His eyes. It was as if there was moisture within that would never come out. The line of his cheekbones was indistinct, though I still called them “slanting cheekbones”, as Mayakovskii wrote in his poetry. Slanted in the sense that they were scythed down, mowed down.
But then he laughed once, and triumphant flames danced in his eyes, as though somewhere beyond the river, the grass or a hay bale caught fire. The wind blew, and the sparks flew. I looked at those eyes for so long that he understood everything immediately. He invited me to see him again. His jacket creaked. He tried to stand without moving — maybe the creak would have distracted me?
I rejected him. He nodded, as though I had rejected him for a perfectly good reason that he respected.
Then Ustinov walked in.
It did happen a month later, and it was short and the memory of it is murky. I held on to his leather sleeve, and all the while, my hand was sliding off. I was falling the whole time, falling, and I wanted to land.
Anyway, I had been writing about the dream. I dreamed everything exactly how it was, except with some new, confused, completely unnecessary details. This time, Peterson talked more, Ustinov talked more, everyone kept talking, and I wanted them to get on with it.
I so wanted to experience it all anew. What happiness would that be — to relive it all anew.
January 17:
In the summer, he had had his fill of parades and inspections; in the autumn it was the museum; and now, he can only think of the hunt.
I’m angry, but every time, I unwillingly get inspired by everything that he does. In the summer, I thought it was all so terribly important — all the inspections, the marching step, the calls: “Good! Good! Good!” Then I was ready to work in the museum myself. I constantly called either the artist Braz in to interrogate him (I almost gave him a heart attack — he didn’t understand what I wanted from him), or anyone else who appeared in the know, intelligent. Finally, I called in the priests. They also didn’t understand why I kept asking them about the value of the icons and the ecclesiastical accoutrements. I so wanted to be useful to F.! I just caught myself thinking that I want to go hunting, after all, the hunt is glorious — the sun, the freezing cold, we killed an animal, it’s lying in the snow…
I went to the library, looking for something about the hunt, but I could only think of the scene with the wolf in War and Peace. I reread it and became sad.
Who’s he sleeping with, I wonder?
I would have forgiven him. Just curious.
I’m lying, lying, lying. I’m shamelessly lying to myself.
F. grew out a mustache. Maybe she asked him to?
January 19:
In the morning, I read my own file and caught myself thinking that, on the one hand, everything is so clear, but on the other, I don’t recognize myself in a single line. Where I am in these descriptions?
My father was a student. He divorced my mother when I was six. I only remember his bad teeth, bristle, his shabby jacket. I was ready to adore my father. Where is he? Probably killed somewhere.
I lived a year and a half at my aunt’s in Odessa. I was fourteen years old. My neighbor in the house across the street sold cakes, grapes, wine, homemade ice-cream from her window. I used to go to the sea with my uncle. He taught me how to hoist sails. I understand the sea and charts a little bit. My uncle was always breathing on me. I was very skinny; he was probably afraid of breaking me, he had very big hands. He stank of fish.
But the sea — the sea was like happiness. Only a single summer, but it was enough for a whole lifetime. I used to buy ice-cream from my neighbor for a penny, but my hands also stank of fish. That’s my Odessa.
Then Petersburg. Mom finally got married, but I didn’t get along with my stepfather. He was a vulgar man, a failed factory owner. I finished the Transfiguration Gymnasium in ’17. Tried to enter university to study natural sciences, was hungry, fell in love for the first time, though now I hardly remember it. It just occurred to me that I hadn’t remembered for a whole year, goodness. And it was such a love!
I became “red” immediately. At least, that’s how I think of myself now. At lot of it was youth, irritation and resentment at being without a father. Because of my stepfather. But much of it was sincere.
Yana, a friend from the gymnasium, was the first of all my acquaintances to get an abortion. She arrived in March of 1919 because of her ill health. She said that she worked as a stenographer in Trotskii’s train and said the salary there was huge. She also talked about men, of course. Everything she said was unpleasant, but (I didn’t want to admit it to myself) it attracted me.
But I still wanted to go to the front. Plus, the famine.
The final scene with my mother — we already hated each other.
The salary was almost two thousand rubles; Yana hadn’t lied. I never sent a penny of it home. I justified it by saying that it would never get there. Mama got sick and died. My stepfather disappeared, and I didn’t look for him.
When I read all this, it seems that it was sad and difficult. But at the same time, we were young, there was hope and poetry all the time.
F. knew some poems by heart. I was so surprised. Something horrible, maybe Severianin. He has terrible taste, it seems to me sometimes. But because he’s a man, he can carry off his terrible taste as though it were the best taste.
I’m getting angry again. He’s brilliant. I can’t bear it.
March 14:
I felt it for the first time, intensely, today: spring. How much I want to survive this spring in full strength. I’ve begun to feel my youth, it’s still there, but it’s like gasoline that’s running out. I could still run on this gasoline quite a distance, but I’m standing still.
I have nothing: no love, no child, no parents. Only people on whom I inflict pain.
But they deserve it. Everyone lies like a child and they think I can’t see it. Everyone’s innocent. Everyone hates the Soviet government. Everyone is ready to lick my boots. When I see them, I begin to love our revolution more. It stands behind me like a wall.
March 15:
It’s disgusting that it happened. Disgusting that it happened with D. He’s an idiot; he has neither a mind nor thoughts. Only brazenness and self-opinion. And he caught me with it.
Today he came, and I told him firmly: “Forget it. If there’s even a rumor that you told someone about this, it’ll come back to me, and you know what I’m capable of. You know what F. is capable of. You have to think of your safety.”
He was surprised and left quietly. His face was red, even his ears blushed from surprise. His eyes hate me.
April 29:
At night, I couldn’t stop myself and rode to his house. Suddenly I realized that the horse knows the way.
I stood there, looking at the window. One window was illumined.
I imagined that he would see me, come out and embrace me.
“Stupid girl,” he would say. “I’ve been waiting so long for you.”
Delusion. What foul delusion.
I rode back in tears.
The red army soldiers at the gate look at me crudely, as though they understand everything. How good it would be to shoot them all.
May 3:
Z. told me how F. canceled the May 1 celebration. The beast. I had already guessed. I even overheard a conversation about it once, but I convinced myself that I had imagined it.
May 17:
F. used to read avidly, then he stopped completely. He said that he loves to read orders and decrees most of all. He’s being coy, because he’s on vacation here, he could even get fat, but his inner fire burns away the consequences of his eternal parties.
And, of course, his masculine flame and the orgies with his favorite counter-revolutionary girls. Foul wanker. Oh, how I want to kill him. How I want to stare in his eyes when he hears me say the words: “Enforce the sentence.”
(Evening of the same day; I’ve calmed down.)
Then F. said that with time they’ll read only newspapers or, in the worst-case scenario, diaries and memoirs. I swear, that’s exactly what he said. What nonsense! All diaries and memories are filled with more lies than any novel. In a novel, the writer thinks that he’s hidden himself, revealing himself fully in one of his heroes or in two or three of them, in all his vulgarity. But in a diary that is always written with the expectation that it will be read, the writer (anyone, me, for example) fools around, puts on a show of himself. To judge by diaries is stupid.
If I were writing a novel about F., I would have… Everything would be quite different than in here. I only write the truth here, the truth as I see it. But to describe life, truth is not enough! The truth of events, writing them down or even reflecting on them only captures a small, external, laughable part of life.
You write the truth, but it turns out to be lies.
(I remembered, how curious!)
I summoned Shlabukovskii, whose file was labeled “order of Russian fascists”.
Shlabukovskii knew Yesenin well, he knows that milieu very well. I interrogated him for a whole hour about Yesenin and Marienhof. He couldn’t figure out why I was interested, but he carefully talked, then later even got inspired and softened up.
I suddenly thought: what a strange fortune that I ended up on Trotskii’s train, then here, while I could have stayed in Moscow, I could have befriended the poets, started living with one of them. Would I have lost or gained more?
I would not have known much. I would not have understood the cost of the revolution. I would have been younger and stupider.
In conclusion? I don’t regret a thing.
Shlabukovskii is a cocaine addict. There is some opportunity to get cocaine, even here. F. is a lover of the theater; he wants to let him leave the camp early, pardon him. But he should add five years to his time.
May 19:
Yesterday they brought me perfume and mascara from Finland.
F. came into my office. Funny: it’s as though he smelled it. He’s a hunter, after all. Like a hunting dog. Smelled the scent and lost his head.
Everything happened again. It’s funny, but my laughter is happy.
Sometimes the painful thought about his women bothers me, his beastliness, the fact that he can infect me. I’ve seen what goes on around here. But I quickly, quickly, quickly banish those thoughts.
What joy. What bourgeois pettiness — I dreadfully want to put on makeup.
I sing loudly:
I will sew a modern bustle.
Whatever I can’t hide, I’ll stick in a chest.
He said that he expected me tonight, that I should come. He didn’t make excuses, and I even liked that — it would have been too painful and repulsive if he had made excuses. (But inside, the thought still flared up: he’s just shameless, he’s long crossed the line).
All day I couldn’t do anything. Before leaving the office, I am trying with all my might to stop smiling.
F. also said, “Get rid of Lev Davidovich’s portrait if at all possible.” But he said it nicely. So I put it away. Into my writing desk.
Trotskii’s personal chef is an inmate in the camp. I, and probably F., often met him in the train. He only cooked for Trotskii — we cooked for ourselves — but I remember that he once treated me to a cooked apple with sweet filling. This was about one hundred years ago. I was just a girl. But I still want that apple.
F. doesn’t speak to him; he sent him to work in the infirmary, where he never goes himself.
If it wasn’t for Trotskii, the revolution would have failed. I know this; F. knows this too. We saw it with our own eyes. The revolution doesn’t feel gratitude. That’s probably correct. The future tramples the unnecessary. That’s how it should be.
I should order some more perfume. I don’t give a damn about anything. I went to the warehouse, picked some boots taken away from the counter-revolutionary dames. I don’t want to think about that. I just took them, and that’s that.
May 23:
F: “Here everyone has an invisible ring in his lip. If I have to, I grab that ring and pull him to the abyss.”
I’ve noticed also that the inmates are incompetent in their attempts to hide. They look like radishes — every one of them has a tail sticking out of the ground. At any moment, anyone walking by the garden could grab that tail and pull it out.
I could do that with any one of them here.
(Later.)
I think I know why he took me back. He wants to speak to a woman. He has no one to talk to here. He could have talked to the counter-revolutionary girls, but he’s not in a position to allow himself to do that. Or so it seems to me. He needs to be listened to, and that silence of listening has to have a feminine intonation. I’ve mastered that intonation.
As for the rest, he doesn’t love me. I can tell myself that.
Sometimes we don’t do anything and only talk. Then, I look at his face as I would look at a lamp. I feel the warmth, but I can’t touch it.
The boots are tight.
May 24:
I took another pair of boots. To hell with it.
But these boots need a different skirt, but I don’t have that skirt yet. Its OK, I’ll get it later.
In general, I need to go shopping in Kemi. I really want him to notice me.
And here I realized something funny. No sooner do our relations start again (in all seriousness, this is already the fifth time, not counting petty arguments and those first arguments were all my fault, now I think — what a moron I was) — anyway, whenever we’re together again, I begin to believe with some kind of new power and passion in all that we’re doing here, and the revolution in general, which, of course, didn’t bring all that we had expected, or at least not quickly enough.
Everyone understands this, even F., who never speaks about it.
He only talks about what’s happening here and now. Sometimes I memorize his words, and when the “political types” try to argue with me during an interrogation, I answer them with F.’s best conclusions.
He (and the rest of the Soviet government) is blamed for the severity of the regime, but he said to me, laughing, not long ago, “You know how it was in 1917. It’s true, the Bolsheviks didn’t close the prisons, though some wanted to. But there were no iceboxes, no taking advantage of the prisoners, no single file strolls — what am I talking about! The rooms were open! If you want, go ahead and talk to each other! Then in 1918, we even abolished the death penalty. So why did we bring it back, do they ask? To kill more people? We brought it back because no one wanted peace except us. Now it turns out that we’re the only ones who murder people. What, they didn’t murder us?”
(But he probably heard that from someone else, probably from Bokii. F. was in the hospital all of 1917).
A little more about why, sometimes, innocents end up here (yes, it does happen, I knew about several cases).
F. says (I’m paraphrasing) that the Bolsheviks don’t have the luxury of waiting for a crime to be committed, so there is a whole group of those inclined to anti-Soviet activity or those observed engaging in it that are imprisoned and isolated for the safety of the Soviet government.
Are they his own thoughts or not? It doesn’t matter.
Everyone here insists that he’s innocent, everyone! Sometimes I want to punish them for that. I know their files and some of them are so filthy that I wouldn’t mind burying them alive, but they look at themselves with completely honorable eyes. Man is such a horrible creature.
Burtsev, the White Army officer, wasn’t imprisoned for being part of the White Army, but for a series of robberies with a band of thieves that he himself ran (but what an aristocrat, what tone!). That priest John, though a Renovationist, is sitting because he gathered a group of parishioners, then transformed then into a secret anti-Soviet political organization. The poet Afanasiev (I just called him in) wasn’t imprisoned for his poems (though they’re terrible), but for taking part in opening a gambling den and for trading in moonshine and prostitution.
And a little more about our so-called bestial discipline (in actual fact it’s all a lot more complicated. Sometimes it’s beastly, but other times the reins are completely slack).
