Julie Himes - Mikhail and Margarita

“What I mean is that I’m sorry you had to see that—I mean if it’s the last time— God , I mean I’m certain that’s not the way he feels.” His words had become haphazard, going from odd to reckless.

She glanced at the pages, as though they might give better comfort.

The curtain pushed aside and Nadya appeared. They both stood and he moved between them as if he would mediate or divert her from examining the obvious.

Nadya’s arms were crossed over her chest. She studied Margarita.

“I guess I’m not surprised,” she said finally. Her voice lacked the earlier chilliness that he’d received. He found her calm unnerving. Her face was empty; something was about to happen there.

“I’ve wanted to see you,” said Margarita. “I wish this was under different circumstances.”

Nadya’s face darkened slightly but her words were still assured. “Are you suggesting we could have arranged to meet for lunch? The way friends do?”

“I’ve missed you.”

They knew each other. Perhaps even had been friends, and suddenly he knew, as though he’d been told, or really, as though he’d been witness: Nadya had introduced them to each other. Nadya, her arm through Margarita’s, at some sort of gathering, had delivered to her husband his future mistress. Perhaps she’d read the desire in his eyes at that first encounter. In any case, she had known.

“A ladies’ tête-à-tête?” Nadya’s voice rose.

He thought to pull Margarita away. His hand edged to her arm, but she seemed not to notice. She had the same demeanor as in the restaurant the night before: there was something she needed to say.

“I know I’ve hurt you, Nadyusha.”

“Slut.” The word was well formed as though it had been waiting for its opportunity.

“I’m so sorry.”

Nadya raised her hand to strike her. As though Margarita’s regret was itself a kind of insult. As though some had rights to certain losses, to certain grievances, and some did not.

Bulgakov took Nadya’s wrist. She pulled her arm away.

“I’ve hated you both,” she said to Margarita. “Selfish—that’s what you are—selfish—thoughtless.” He could see her trying to get the words right. “No—I never hated him. It was you who made him selfish.”

“He’s not selfish,” said Margarita. Nadya laughed.

“The wife knows ‘selfish.’” She nodded. “The wife.” She jabbed her fingers into her own chest. “Believe me. All of this.” She gestured to the room. “All of this—he brought into being. Selfish.”

“Nadya,” he said. He knew he sounded reproachful. She turned on him with her anger and self-pity.

“The—wife—” She looked as if the need to explain this took something from her; particularly to explain to him, who should have known better. The wife who had suffered the humiliations of police searches. Who had borne the shame of gossip and curiosity. And now—an uncertain future. This was the currency of devotion measured against the currency of desire. They all should know better.

They had all become perpetrators of a kind, Mandelstam included. Their crimes might be different, but she was their victim. It was reflected in her face. Perhaps she had guessed it when Bulgakov had first appeared that morning: that he would fall in with them; that she would be alone, once again, as always; and he saw how she hated him for it.

She disappeared again behind the curtain.

Margarita didn’t move. She looked at the fabric as though waiting for it to become something else.

The curtain stayed closed.

What else was there to do? Bulgakov set the desk upright, then the desk chair. He pushed the smaller bookcase back against the wall. Below was the wrecked sideboard. He swept the bits of glass onto a loose page. Everywhere were books and papers.

She pushed her sleeves up past her elbows, knelt, and began to return the books to their shelves. He worked at this too. Her hair slipped from its knot. She finally tucked it back and continued.

She smelled of soap.

Nadya appeared. She crouched and gathered as many papers as she could reach, then went back into the bedroom. There was something about her movements that made him follow.

A small stove extended from an older fireplace. It hummed. Nadya opened the grate and stuffed some papers into it. Next to her, a steamer’s trunk sat open, filled with notebooks and more papers and letters. She watched, then slowly fed more to the flames.

The curtain moved and Margarita came up behind him.

“What are you doing?” he asked. He took the page in her hands. There were handwritten lines of verse. She pulled it back and pushed it through the grate.

He sensed some part of her was doing this to him, forcing him to watch. Asking who he thought the perpetrator was now.

“You’re just angry,” he said. “You’re upset,” he repeated, thinking to negotiate. “I understand. But you can’t do this.”

Nadya reached into the trunk for more papers. This seemed too easy for her.

“They’re not yours to burn.” He tried to keep his voice even.

She sneered. “They’re yours?”

“Yes—perhaps. Yes—they could be.”

“This will save him,” she said. “Despite everything—because of everything. I will save him.”

“But this—Nadya—it is his work,” he said. She must be made to be reasonable.

Her face shimmered in the fire’s light. He was suddenly afraid for himself.

She opened the grate again. “There are enough poets in this world,” she said.

“I’ll help you,” said Margarita.

He turned in disbelief. She was already beyond the curtain. He followed her.

She was on her knees, turning over books and furniture, gathering pages from the floor. With the growing light, they seemed to be everywhere.

“What are you doing?” he whispered.

She considered the sheets in her hand. Slowly she paged through them. She pulled out several and hid them in her shirt. Not everything was verse.

He dropped to his knees and began to do the same.

Nadya appeared. Margarita gave her the assortment in her hands.

He paused and let the papers he held slowly fall to the floor. Nadya didn’t seem to notice.

“You understand,” she said to him. “This is his life we’re talking about. His flesh and blood life. I cannot live without him.” She spoke as if she was the first to ever say such things, the first to ever contemplate those feelings.

“I understand,” he said. He couldn’t look at her.

She disappeared behind the curtain.

“What about the trunk,” he said.

Margarita looked pained but said nothing. She slipped more pages into her shirt.

He scrambled to collect others. One held a new poem. Its opening line rattled him. He shut his eyes.

Nadya took them from him and went into the bedroom.

What were those words? Their order became confused; then they dropped from his memory, first the smaller ones, then the larger ones followed. They were gone.

Margarita went to the desk and began to go through the drawers. He went to the bedroom again.

Nadya was kneeling next to the stove. The collection in the trunk had noticeably shrunk.

“He would not agree to this.”

She stared through the open grate. “Get out of my apartment,” she said.

“Please—”

She turned on him. “Get out. I will call the police. I will turn you over to them as a traitor. An enemy of the people.” Her face loosened; the calm was gone. She was shaking. She went back to the stove. “I would hand you over in exchange for him.”

He slid along the wall and passed through the curtain.

Margarita was kneeling on the floor. He took the pages from the corner of the bookcase as he went toward the door. Beyond it, as he rounded the upper landing, Nadya called to him.