Tatyana Tolstaya - White Walls - Collected Stories

And from over there, beyond the distant horizon, laughing and rumbling, waving a motley flag, the green summer came running with ants and daisies.

Uncle Pasha got rid of the yellow dog—he put it in a trunk and sprinkled it with mothballs; he let summer renters onto the second floor—a strange, dark woman and her fat granddaughter; and he invited kids into the house and fed them jam.

We hung on the fence and watched the strange grandmother fling open the second-story windows every hour and, illuminated by the harlequin rhomboids of the ancient panes, call out:

“Want milkandcookies?”

“No.”

“Want potty?”

“No.”

We hopped on one leg, healed scrapes with spit, buried treasures, cut worms in half with scissors, watched the old woman wash pink underpants in the lake, and found a photograph under the owner’s buffet: a surprised, big-eared family with the caption, “Don’t forget us. 1908.”

Let’s go to Uncle Pasha’s. You go first. No, you. Careful, watch the sill. I can’t see in the dark. Hold on to me. Will he show us the room. He will, but first we have to have tea.

Ornate spoons, ornate crystal holders. Cherry jam. Silly Margarita laughs in the orange light of the lamp shade. Hurry up and drink! Uncle Pasha knows, he’s waiting, holding open the sacred door to Aladdin’s cave. O room! O children’s dreams! O Uncle Pasha, you are King Solomon! You hold the Horn of Plenty in your mighty arms. A caravan of camels passed with spectral tread through your house and dropped its Baghdad wares in the summer twilight. A waterfall of velvet, ostrich feathers of lace, a shower of porcelain, golden columns of frames, precious tables on bent legs, locked glass cases of mounds where fragile yellow glasses are entwined by black grapes, where Negroes in golden skirts hide in the deep darkness, where something bends, transparent, silvery… Look, a precious clock with foreign numbers and snakelike hands. And this one, with forget-me-nots. Ah, but look, look at that one! There’s a glass room over the face and in it a golden Chevalier seated at a golden table, a golden sandwich in his hand. And next to him, a Lady with a goblet: and when the clock strikes, she strikes the goblet on the table— six, seven, eight…. The lilacs are jealous, they peek through the window, and Uncle Pasha sits down at the piano and plays the Moonlight Sonata. Who are you, Uncle Pasha?

There it is, the bed on glass legs. Semitransparent in the twilight, invisible and powerful, they raise on high the tangle of lace, the Babylon towers of pillows, the moonlit, lilac scent of the divine music. Uncle Pasha’s noble white head is thrown back, a Mona Lisa smile on Margarita’s golden face as she appears silently in the doorway, the lace curtains sway, the lilacs sway, the waves of dahlias sway on the slope right to the horizon, to the evening lake, to the beam of moonlight.

Play, play, Uncle Pasha! Caliph for an hour, enchanted prince, starry youth, who gave you this power over us, to enchant us, who gave you those white winds on your back, who carried your silvery head to the evening skies, crowned you with roses, illuminated you with mountain light, surrounded you with lunar wind?

… Well, enough. Time to go home. It doesn’t seem right to use the ordinary word “Thanks” with Uncle Pasha. Have to be more ornamental: “I am grateful.” “It’s not worthy of gratitude.”

“Did you notice they have only one bed in the house?”

“Where does Margarita sleep, then? In the attic?”

“Maybe. But that’s where the renters are.”

“Well, then she must sleep on the porch, on a bench.”

“What if they sleep in the same bed, head to foot?”

“Stupid. They’re strangers.”

“You’re stupid. What if they’re lovers?”

“But they only have lovers in France.”

She’s right, of course. I forgot.

…Life changed the slides ever faster in the magic lantern. With Mother’s help we penetrated into the mirrored corners of the grownups’ atelier, where the bald tubby tailor took our embarrassing measurements, muttering excuse me’s; we envied girls in nylon stockings, with pierced ears, we drew in our textbooks: glasses on Pushkin, a mustache on Mayakovsky, a large white chest on Chekhov, who was otherwise normally endowed. And we were recognized immediately and welcomed joyfully by the patient and defective nude model from the anatomy course generously offering his numbered innards; but the poor fellow no longer excited anyone. And, looking back once, with unbelieving fingers we felt the smoked glass behind which our garden waved a hankie before going down for the last time. But we didn’t feel the loss yet.

Autumn came into Uncle Pasha’s house and struck him on the face. Autumn, what do you want? Wait; are you kidding?… The leaves fell, the days grew dark, Margarita grew scooped. The white chickens died, the turkey flew off to warmer climes, the yellow dog climbed out of the trunk and, embracing Uncle Pasha, listened to the north wind howl at night. Girls, someone, bring Uncle Pasha some India tea. How you’ve grown. How old you’ve gotten, Uncle Pasha. Your hands are spotted, your knees bent. Why do you wheeze like that? I know, I can guess: in the daytime, vaguely, and at night, clearly, you hear the clang of metal locks. The chain is wearing out.

What are you bustling about for? You want to show me your treasures? Well, all right, I have five minutes for you. It’s so long since I was here! I’m getting old. So that’s it, that’s what enchanted us? All this secondhand rubbish, these chipped painted night tables, these tacky oilcloth paintings, these brocade curtains, the worn plush velvet, the darned lace, the clumsy fakes from the peasant market, the cheap beads? This sang and glittered, burned and beckoned? What mean jokes you play, life! Dust, ashes, rot. Surfacing from the magical bottom of childhood, from the warm, radiant depths, we open our chilled fist in the cold wind—and what have we brought up with us besides sand? But just a quarter century ago Uncle Pasha wound the golden clock with trembling hands. Above the face, in the glass room, the little inhabitants huddle—the Lady and the Chevalier, masters of Time. The Lady strikes the table with her goblet, and the thin ringing sound tries to break through the shell of decades. Eight, nine, ten. No. Excuse me, Uncle Pasha. I have to go.

…Uncle Pasha froze to death on the porch. He could not reach the metal ring of the door and fell face down in the snow. White snow daisies grew between his stiff fingers. The yellow dog gently closed his eyes and left through the snowflakes up the starry ladder to the black heights, carrying away the trembling living flame.

The new owner—Margaritas elderly daughter—poured Uncle Pashas ashes into a metal can and set it on a shelf in the empty chicken house; it was too much trouble to bury him.

Bent in half by the years, her face turned to the ground, Margarita wanders through the chilled, drafty garden, as if seeking lost footsteps on the silent paths.

“You’re cruel! Bury him!”

But her daughter smokes indifferently on the porch. The nights are cold. Let’s turn on the lights early. And the golden Lady of Time, drinking bottoms up from the goblet of life, will strike a final midnight on the table for Uncle Pasha.

ZOYA’S a beautiful name, isn’t it? Like bees buzzing by. And she’s beautiful, too: a good height and all that. Details? All right, here are the details: good legs, good figure, good skin, the nose, eyes, all good. Brunette. Why not a blonde? Because you can’t have everything.