Sergey Dovlatov - Pushkin Hills / Заповедник. Книга для чтения на английском языке

“And converted to brew? At rouble four apiece?”

“Nineteen bottles of ‘Fortified Rosé’. A pack of ‘Belomor’ smokes. Two boxes of matches,” spat out Tolik.

“And two roubles for moving expenses,” concluded Mikhail Ivanych.

I took out the money.

“Do you care to examine the toilet?”

“Another time,” I said. “Then we’ve agreed? Where do you keep the key?”

“There’s no key,” said Mikhail Ivanych. “It got lost. Don’t go, we’ll make a run.”

“I’ve got some business at the tourist centre. Next time…”

“As you wish. I’ll stop by the centre this evening. I gotta give Lizka a kick in the butt.”

“Who’s Lizka?” I asked.

“She’s my woman. Wife, I mean. Works as a housekeeper at the centre. We be broken up.”

“So then why are you going to beat her?”

“Whatsa? Hanging her’s too good, but a mess to get into. They wanted to take away my gun, something about me threatening to shoot ’er. I thought you were here about the gun.”

“A waste of ammo,” threw in Tolik.

“You don’t say,” agreed Mikhail Ivanych. “I can snuff ’er with my bare hands, if need be. Last winter I bump into her, this and that, it’s all friendly, and she screams: ‘Oh, Misha, dearest, I don’t want to, let me go…’ Major Jafarov summons me in and says, ‘Your name?’ And I say, ‘Dick on a stick.’

“I got me fifteen days in the clink, without smokes, without nothing. Like I give a shit. Just kicking back. Lizka wrote to the prosecutor, something about puttin’ me away or I’ll kill ’er… But what’s the point in that?”

“You won’t hear the end of it,” agreed Tolik. And added:

“Let’s get going! Or they’ll close the shop.”

And the friends set off for the housing development, resilient, repulsive and aggressive, like weeds.

I stayed in the library till closing.

It took me three days to prepare for the tour. Galina introduced me to the two guides she thought were the best. I covered the Preserve with them, paying attention and taking a few notes.

The Preserve consisted of three memorial sites: Pushkin’s house and estate in Mikhailovskoye; Trigorskoye, where the poet’s friends lived and where he visited nearly every day; and finally the monastery with the Pushkin-Hannibal burial plot [45] burial plot – участок захоронения .

The tour of Mikhailovskoye was made up of several parts. The history of the estate. The poet’s second exile. Arina Rodionovna, his nanny. The Pushkin family. Friends who visited the poet in exile. The Decembrist uprising [46] The Decembrist uprising: The failed attempt to overthrow the Tsar in 1825, directly supported by many of Pushkin’s close friends. . And Pushkin’s study, with a brief overview of his work.

I found the curator of the museum and introduced myself. Victoria Albertovna looked about forty. A long flouncy skirt, bleached locks, an intaglio [47] intaglio – инталия, ювелирное изделие, выполненное в технике углублённого рельефа and an umbrella – a pretentious painting by Benois [48] Benois: Alexandre Benois (1870–1960) was a Russian artist who worked extensively with the Ballets Russes and Sergei Diaghilev. . This style of the dwindling provincial nobility was visibly and deliberately cultivated here. Its characteristic details manifested themselves in each of the museum’s local historians. One would wrap herself tightly in a fantastically oversized gypsy shawl. Another had an exquisite straw hat dangling at the back. And the third got stuck with a silly fan made of feathers.

Victoria Albertovna chatted with me, smiling distrustfully. I started to get used to that. Everyone in service of the Pushkin cult was surprisingly begrudging. Pushkin was their collective property, their adored lover, their tenderly revered child. Any encroachment on this personal deity irritated them. They were hasty to prove my ignorance, cynicism and greed.

“Why have you come here?” asked the curator.

“For the rich pickings,” I said.

Victoria Albertovna nearly fainted.

“I’m sorry, I was joking.”

“Your jokes here are entirely inappropriate.”

“I agree. May I ask you one question? Which of the museum’s objects are authentic?”

“Is that important?”

“I think so, yes. After all, it’s a museum, not the theatre.”

“Everything here is authentic. The river, the hills, the trees – they are all Pushkin’s contemporaries, his companions and friends. The wondrous nature of these parts…”

“I was asking about objects in the museum,” I interrupted. “The guidebook is evasive about most of them: ‘China discovered on the estate.’”

“What specifically are you interested in? What would you like to see?”

“I don’t know, personal effects, if such exist…”

“To whom are you addressing your grievances?”

“What grievances?! And certainly not to you! I was only asking.”

“Pushkin’s personal effects? The museum was created decades after his death.”

“And that,” I said, “is how it always happens. First they drive the man into the ground and then begin looking for his personal effects. That’s how it was with Dostoevsky, that’s how it was with Yesenin, and that’s how it’ll be with Pasternak [49] Yesenin. Pasternak: Sergei Yesenin (1895–1925), a Russian lyrical poet who committed suicide at the age of thirty. His works were widely celebrated, but many were banned by the authorities. The poet and novelist Boris Pasternak (18901960) suffered enormously at the hands of the authorities, especially after being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958 for the novel Doctor Zhivago, which was banned in the Soviet Union. . When they come to their senses, they’ll start looking for Solzhenitsyn’s [50] Solzhenitsyn’s: Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1914–2008), dissident writer and activist. personal effects…”

“But we are trying to recreate the colour, the atmosphere,” said the curator.

“I see. The bookcase, is it real?”

“At the very least it’s from that period.”

“And the portrait of Byron?”

“That’s real,” beamed Victoria Albertovna. “It was given to the Vulfs… There is an inscription. By the by [51] by the by – однако, кстати , you’re quite pernickety. Personal effects, personal effects. It strikes me as an unhealthy interest.”

I felt like a burglar, caught in someone else’s apartment.

“Well, what kind of a museum,” I said, “is without it – without the unhealthy interest? A healthy interest is reserved strictly for bacon.”

“Is nature not enough for you? Is it not enough that he wandered around this hillside? Swam in this river? Delighted in these scenic views…”

Why am I bothering her, I thought.

“I see,” I said. “Thank you, Vika.”

Suddenly she bent down, plucked up some weed, pointedly slapped my face with it and let out a short nervous laugh before walking off, gathering her maxiskirt with flounces.

I joined a group headed for Trigorskoye.

To my surprise, I liked the estate curators, a husband and wife. Being married, they could afford the luxury of being friendly. Polina Fyodorovna appeared to be bossy, energetic and a little conceited. Kolya looked like a bemused slouch and kept to the background.

Trigorskoye was in the middle of nowhere [52] in the middle of nowhere – у чёрта на куличках and the management rarely came to visit. The exhibition’s layout was beautiful and logical. Pushkin as a youth, charming young ladies in love, an atmosphere of elegant summer romance.