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

I walked around the park and then down to the river. It was green with upside-down trees. Delicate clouds floated by.

I had an urge to take a dip [53] to take a dip – искупаться , but a tour bus had pulled up just then.

I went to the Svyatogorsky Monastery. Old ladies were selling flowers by the gate. I bought a bunch of tulips and walked up to the grave. Tourists were taking photographs by the barrier. Their smiling faces were repugnant. Two sad saps with easels arranged themselves nearby.

I laid down the flowers at the grave and left. I needed to see the layout of the Uspensky Monastery. An echo rolled through the cool stone alcoves. Pigeons slumbered under the domes. The cathedral was real, substantial and graceful. A cracked bell glimmered from the corner of the central chamber. One tourist drummed noisily on it with a key.

In the southern chapel I saw the famous drawing by Bruni [54] the famous drawing by Bruni: In 1837, Fyodor Bruni (1799–1875) sketched Pushkin on his deathbed. . Also in there glared Pushkin’s white death mask. Two enormous paintings reproduced the secret removal and funeral. Alexander Turgenev [55] the secret removal and funeral… Alexander Turgenev: Alexander Turgenev (1784–1846), a close friend of Pushkin’s, transported the poet s body to the family vault in Svyatogorsky Monastery, near Mikhailovskoye. looked like a matron…

A group of tourists entered. I went to the exit.

I could hear from the back:

“Cultural history knows no other event as tragic… Tsarist rule carried out by the hand of a highsociety rascal.”

And so I settled in at Mikhail Ivanych’s. He drank without pause. He drank to the point of amazement, paralysis and delirium. Moreover, his delirium expressed itself strictly in obscenities. He swore with the same feeling a dignified older man might have while softly humming a tune – in other words, to himself, without any expectation of approval or protest.

I had seen him sober twice. On these paradoxical days, Mikhail Ivanych had the TV and radio going simultaneously. He would lie down on the bed in his trousers, pull out a box marked “Fairy Cake” and read out loud postcards received over the course of his life. He read and expounded:

“Hello Godfather! … Well, hello, hello, you ovine spermatoid… I'd like to wish you success at work. He’d like to wish me success. Well, fuck your mama in the ear! Always yours, Radik. Always yours, always yours. The hell I need you for?”

Mikhail Ivanych was not liked in the village. People envied him. I’d drink, too, they thought. I’d drink and how, my friends! I’d drink myself into a motherfuckin’ grave, I would! But I got a household to run. What’s he got? Mikhail Ivanych had no household. Just the two bony dogs that occasionally disappeared for long stretches of time, a scraggy apple tree and a patch of spring onions.

One rainy evening he and I got talking:

“Misha, did you love your wife?”

“Whatsa?! My wife?! As in my woman?! Lizka, you mean?” Mikhail Ivanych was startled.

“Liza. Yelizaveta Prokhorovna.”

“Why do I need to love ’er? Just grab her by the thing and off you go…”

“But what attracted you to her?”

Mikhail Ivanych fell silent for a long time.

“She slept tidy,” he said. “Quiet as a caterpillar.”

I got my milk from the neighbours, the Nikitins. They lived respectably. A television set, Kramskoy’s Portrait of a Woman on the wall. [56] Kramskoy’s Portrait of a Woman on the wall: Ivan Kramskoy (1837-87), Russian painter and critic. The master of the house ran errands [57] to run errands – (зд.) заниматься делами from five o’clock in the morning. He would fix the fence, potter around in the garden. One time I see he’s got a heifer strung up by the legs. Skinning it. The blade gleamed clearest white and was covered in blood.

Mikhail Ivanych held the Nikitins in contempt [58] to hold in contempt – презирать . As they did him, naturally.

“Still drinking?” enquired Nadezhda Fyodorovna, mixing chicken feed in the pail.

“I saw him at the centre,” said Nikitin, wielding a jointer plane. “Laced since the morning.”

I didn’t want to encourage them.

“But he is kind.”

“Kind,” agreed Nikitin. “Nearly killed his wife with a knife. Set all ’er dresses ablaze. The little ones running around in canvas shoes in winter… But yes, other than that he’s kind…”

“Misha is a reckless man, I understand, but he is also kind and noble at heart.”

It’s true there was something aristocratic about Mikhail Ivanych. He didn’t return empty bottles, for example; he threw them away.

“I’d feel ashamed,” he’d say. “How could I, like a beggar?”

One day he woke up feeling poorly and complained:

“I’ve got the shakes all over.”

I gave him a rouble. At lunchtime I asked:

“How goes it, feeling any better?”

“Whatsa?”

“Did you have a pick-me-up? [59] Did you have a pick-me-up? – Опохмелился? ”

“Huh! It went down like water on a hot pan, it sizzled!”

In the evening he was in pain again.

“I’ll go see Nikitin. Maybe he’ll gimme [60] gimme = give me a rouble or just pour some…”

I stepped onto the porch and was witness to this conversation:

“Hey, neighbour, you scrud, gimme a fiver.”

“You owe me since Intercession [61] Intercession: The Intercession of the Theotokos, a holy day in the Russian Orthodox Church, celebrated on 1st October. Покров день .”

“I’ll pay you back.”

“We’ll talk when you do.”

“You’ll get it when I get paid.”

“Get paid?! You got booted for cause ages ago.”

“Fuck ’em and the horse they rode in on! Gimme a fiver anyway. Do it on principle, for Christ’s sake! Show them our Soviet character!”

“Don’t tell me, for vodka?”

“Whatsa? I got business…”

“A parasite like you? What kinda business?”

Mikhail Ivanych found it hard to lie; he was weak.

“I need a drink,” he said.

“I won’t give it to you. Be mad, if you want, but I won’t give it you!”

“But I’ll pay you back, from my wages.”

“No.”

And to end the conversation Nikitin went back into the house, slamming the heavy door with the blue mailbox.

“You just wait, neighbour,” fumed Mikhail Ivanych. “You wait! You’re gonna get yours! That’s right! You’ll remember this conversation!”

There was no sound in response. Chickens maundered about. Golden braids of onions hung above the porch…

“I’ll make your life hell! I’ll.”

Red-faced and dishevelled, Mikhail Ivanych bellowed:

“Have you forgot?! Have you forgot everything, you snake? Clean forgot it?!”

“What’d I forget?” Nikitin leant out.

“If you forgot, we’ll remind you!”

“What’d I forget, eh?”

“We remember everything! We remember 1917! We whatchamacallit… We dispossessed you, you scummy scrud! We’ll dispossess your whole Party lot! We’ll ship you off to the Cheka [62] Cheka – ВЧК, Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия по борьбе с контрреволюцией и саботажем, специальный орган безопасности Советского государства, действовавший с 1917 по 1922 год . Like Daddy Makhno [63] 1917. Makhno: Nestor (or Bat’ko, a diminutive of the word “father”) Makhno (1888–1934) was a Ukrainian anarchist who fought against both the Whites and Reds in the Russian Civil War. Although Makhno escaped the Cheka (the Soviet secret police) after the Bolsheviks consolidated their power, many of his followers were shot. . There they’ll show you…”