Colum McCann - Dancer

October 21

Father has been so tired, he has no strength for this. He’d prefer not to eat. There was a postcard from an acquaintance of Rudik’s, but it was impossible to read with the black marks. Sergei came over again. It seems that neither he nor Father has anything else to do with their lives. I dislike this old fool. I worry about him being in our house but it is true he has been rehabilitated. And I don’t suppose things could get much worse. He had more cigars, which made the room rank. They were cheap, he said, they came from Yugoslavia. He offered Father one, but Father said that smoking it would make him feel like a pig with a gold ring in its nose. They laughed and then had a long discussion about the weather on the radio. Father says he likes to listen to the weather in Chelyabinsk and then he knows what it will be, whereas Sergei listens to the weather from the east, something to do with the winds and a complicated idea to do with patterns from the mountains. And then he quoted poetry, as if poets were weather forecasters! Mother said why would we want to know the weather in advance anyway? All we have to do is to look out the window. Or, even better, step outside if your body allows it. Before Sergei left he saw the postcard and said there is a way to read the sentences underneath the black marks, that you must get a very thin sheet of paper and lightly rub the postcard with a pencil and that way the indentations will come out. Father was made nervous by this and asked Sergei not to say such things. Mother tried with the postcard but it was a complete and utter failure.

October 22

Mother says she is thankful for the small mercy of her body (even her varicose veins!) when she sees Father and Sergei together. She told me that they often finish their conversation chatting long and seriously about their bowel movements.

October 23

Father said, What is there to think about, except the past, if you have no future? I tried to remind him of things, but that was a mistake because it made him angry. I attempt to convince him that Rudik is an ambassador, one of goodwill, he can tell the world the truth about us, but Father just shakes his head, no. He continues to say, My son the traitor, how can I walk down Lenin Street? Nor does Father like his armchair anymore. The problem is that he used to be bigger and now, in these months, his smaller body has to lie in the big indent. And there is a coiled metal spring beginning to bulge that must be contained, perhaps tomorrow, tie it back with string so that it doesn’t stick out and hurt his back.

October 24

A new consignment of oil for the school! And Ilya the janitor did indeed fix the oven! There was nobody home. We talked. He charged no money. What a wonderful day! I forgot of course to ask him to fix the chair, which he certainly would have done.

October 25

Illogical rumors of Rudik with Margot Fonteyn in different places all over the world. How can that be? We are not machines or robots or satellites. It has no logic, but perhaps it is how the West treats its artists, if art is considered at all. Such a world we live in. How many lies are holding him up? How many treacheries? If only to know the truth. The West is using him as a pawn. They will suck the life out of him and spit him out into their dump yards.

October 27

A comic from the London Times was reprinted today in Izvestiya, a drunken bear at the feet of Stalin’s ghost. They attempt to make fools of us. If they could only admit the leaps we have made, but they cannot. They are scared since we will outlast them.

October 28

My birthday. I used to think that when I was older the world would be uncomplicated, but nothing seems to finish, nothing ever becomes simple. Father woke up sweating. Mother had knit a scarf for me using the wool from some of Rudik’s old sweaters. It is warm and yet I am loath to wear it.

October 29

Ilya came over again to fix the armchair. We had tea and bread. When he’s not at school he says that he adores skating. After a while he got to work. He cut the back of the seat open, reached in, and was able to get the spring and pull it back. He heard it had been my birthday and he asked me to meet him to walk by the lake some evening. He has thinning hair and very dark eyes. I am nervous but why live life at the bottom of an ocean floor?

October 31

We went past the Opera House, where washerwomen were busy scrubbing down the stairs with soap and water. By the bandstand men were singing bawdy songs and people were folk dancing. I laughed a lot. Later I boiled Father’s undershirts.

November 1

The children threw paint on the schoolhouse steps. What have they become? Ilya cleaned it up immediately — he said he did not want the young children to get into trouble. They flock around him and ride on his shoulders.

November 2

Preparation for celebrations of the Revolution. Ilya is very busy in school but he had time to take me to the park. The lake is his second home he says. He skated beautifully. Later he presented me with a small silver chain and a locket with the design of a fish. It is not my birth sign, but who cares. How handsome he looked as he waved good-bye. He says they play hockey late at night — they light fires on the ice and sometimes they carry burning bushels so they can see in the dark.

November 3

Father seems to fall further and further down into his overcoat. Rudik’s trial in Moscow, in absentia, will begin soon. Father has sent messages to Sergei through the young Turkish boy three houses down, asking him not to come over to the house, since he doesn’t want things to be jeopardized or influenced in any way. Father sits and stares. I fear for him.

November 4

Such beautiful drawings the children did for the Celebrations, we hung them along the corridor.

November 8

Revolution Day, yesterday. I dreamt I was at a kiosk selling summer apples with Ilya.

November 10

They have given Rudik seven years hard labor. We have no strength for this. Mother fell on the bed and put her face to the pillow and wept. A death sentence had been quite possible, so in truth she should have been relieved. But she wept. Father told me a story from Berlin about a soldier who got his foot caught in the tram tracks. A tram was approaching fast. Another soldier was walking down the street when suddenly he heard the screaming. The second soldier tried to pull the first soldier’s foot from the track. He couldn’t, so he tore off his overcoat and threw it over the soldier’s head so he would not have to watch the tram bearing down, to spare him the agony. I have heard this story before somewhere.

November 11

Am I the one who must throw the coat over Father’s eyes?

November 12

Mother worries about Father, and yet perhaps it is her we should worry about. Her neck is red and scratched raw, perhaps a recurrence of the shingles. Father says nothing, and I have no idea where I can get tomatoes, which seemed to work last time. Even if it was possible to get them, they would be far too expensive this time of year.

November 13

Father sits, still unmoving. He must now choose whether to denounce Rudik to the Committee, not really a choice, since they will surely denounce him anyway. Mother spent the night counting the money she has kept over the years in the porcelain elephant. Her outbreak of shingles seems to have calmed even without the tomato cure. She recalled for me her first ever meeting with Father. She seemed briefly happy, as if the memory propped her up. It was in the Central House of Culture of Railroad Workers, when he put a pinch of snuff up his nose. He had been talking of Mayakovski, quoting “Glory be to our beloved Motherland.” Then of course he sneezed in the middle, which embarrassed him terribly. She recalled how Father bought her the porcelain elephant the next day. I tried to ask him about it but he didn’t remember. He shooed me away like a fly. I cannot wait to tell Ilya these stories tomorrow. He says he doesn’t care about Rudik, that I am the only one who interests him. Happiness!