Tatyana Tolstaya - White Walls - Collected Stories

Waiters were passing by and Denisov asked the sweetest and friendliest of them: Comrade Bakhtiyarov isn’t here by any chance, is he? And the waiter immediately took to Denisov like a brother and pointed with his little finger, directing him: The comrade’s relaxing over there. In a circle of friends and lovely ladies.

Now go on over there—what will be, will be—over there— I’m not asking for myself—over there, where a dome of blue smoke billows, where giggles cavort like gusts of wind, where champagne leaps out onto the tablecloth in a frothy arc, where heavy female backs sit, where someone in a lilac-colored tie, puny, doglike, quickly prances around the Boss, incessantly adoring him. Take a step—and Denisov stepped, he crossed the line and became the envoy of the forgotten, the nameless, those who hover in dreams, who lie covered with snow, whose white bones protrude from the ruts of the steppe.

Comrade Bakhtiyarov turned out to be a round, soft, Chinese-looking person, he even seemed rather a fine fellow, and it was impossible to say how old he was, sixty or two hundred. He saw straight through people, saw everything—the liver, spleen, and heart, but he had no use for your liver or spleen—what good were they?—so he didn’t look straight at you lest he pierce right through you, and he wound conversations around somewhere to the side and past you. Comrade Bakhtiyarov was consuming veal of a downright disgraceful tenderness, as well as criminally young suckling pig; and the salad—a mere three minutes separated it from the garden—was so innocent, it hadn’t even had a chance to come to its senses; there it had been, minding its own business, growing, and suddenly—whoosh!—it was picked, and before it had time to cry out, it was being eaten.

“I love to eat young things,” said Bakhtiyarov. “But you, my little bunny rabbit, shouldn’t—you have an ulcer, I can see it in your face.” He was right on target: Denisov had had an ulcer for ages. “So I’ll treat you to something that’s for your own good,” said Bakhtiyarov. “Drink to my health, drink deep to my hospitality.”

And at the snap of his fingers they brought Denisov stewed carrots and sweet Buratino soda water.

“I keep thinking, thinking,” said Bakhtiyarov, as he ate. “Day and night I keep thinking, and I can’t figure out the answer. You look like a scholarly fellow—your eyes are oh so gloomy—come on, tell me. Why is the brewery named after Stenka Razin? After all, my little lovebirds, it’s a government organization with plans and quotas to fill, fiscal accountability, socialist competition, Party committees and—oh, goodness, I can’t take it—lo-ocal trade union committees. Trade union committees. This is serious business, it’s no joke. And then they go and name it after some bandit! No, I don’t get it. In my opinion it’s funny. Go on, laugh!”

The friends and ladies laughed, the lilac-colored one even shrieked. Denisov also smiled politely and took a sip of his warm Buratino.

“But if you look at it from the other side: Razin, Stepan Timofeevich—he’s a folk hero, an inspiration, our national pride and joy:

“That, you see, is an event with great political resonance—and now we have some measly little factory with, you get my meaning, a dubious profile. To my way of thinking, it’s funny. Go on, laugh!”

The ladies again opened their mouths and laughed.

“Like Grandma’s furs stored in the chest… he doesn’t rot, he doesn’t rust, he doesn’t sweat, he gets his rest,” the lilac-colored one suddenly sang, wiggling his shoulders and stamping his heels.

“See what great fun we’re having here,” said the contented Bakhtiyarov. “We play around and laugh like innocent children, and it’s all within the bounds of the permissible, we don’t go beyond what’s allowed, now do we?… And everything’s just hunky-dory, but I can see you’ve got a little favor to ask of me, so ask away, we’ll have a listen….”

“Well, actually, it’s very simple, that is, it’s very complicated,” said Denisov, trying to concentrate. “That is, you see, I’m not really asking for myself—personally, I don’t need anything….”

“Oh my willow, green willow, who asks favors for himself? Nowadays nobody asks for himself…. Nowadays you only have to spit—and a bunch of those inspectoring fellows grab you by your little white arms—did you spit in the right place, where did you get that spit, and on just what grounds—but what do we have to do with it, we didn’t do anything, we’re clean as a whistle…. Can I call you my little chickypoo? ‘You’re my frost—frost, don’t freeze me out,’” comrade Bakhtiyarov began to sing. “Sing, my little lovebirds!”

“Don’t freeze me out!” they struck up at the table.

“Like Grandma’s furs stored in a chest…” the lilac-colored one tried to sing against the chorus, but he was drowned out. They sang well.

“Klavdiya’s soprano isn’t just any old la-di-da,” said Bakhtiyarov. “Our Zykina! Maria, so to speak, Callas, or maybe even better. You sing too, chickypoo.”

Well, they warned me, thought Denisov, opening his mouth in time to the rhythm. They warned me, and I was prepared— after all, it’s not for myself, and you don’t get something for nothing, without suffering you won’t get anywhere, I just didn’t realize that suffering would be so incredibly unpleasant.

“No sweat, no sweets,” affirmed Comrade Bakhtiyarov, looking straight into Denisov’s heart, “what did you think, my pretty boy? You need some kind of article? A ca-a-abinet, is it? Oooh, we’re a naughty boy…. Why don’t you sing for us personally, eh? Something simple, heartfelt? Give us your best consumer solo, make our spirits rejoice. We’re listening. Quiet, my little lovebirds. Be respectful.”

Denisov sang hurriedly, suffering under the gaze of Bakhtiyarov’s guests; he sang whatever came to mind, what’s sung in courtyards, on camping trips, in trains—an urban ballad about Lenka Sharova, who believed in love and was deceived, and who decided to destroy the fruit of her frivolous lapse from virtue: “She dug a hole, pushed the stones inside, and then wee Zina gave one last cry!” he sang, already realizing that he was in a desert, that there were no people about. He sang of the sentence pronounced by the heartless judges: “To the firing squad with her, to the firing squad it be!” of the sad and unjust end of the girl who’d gone astray: “I walked right up to the prison wall, and there lay Lenka in her death pall,” and Bakhtiyarov nodded his soft head sympathetically. No, Bakhtiyarov himself was all right, not bad at all, really, his face even began to reveal some nice cozy nooks and crannies, and if you squinted, it was even possible to believe for a minute that here was a grandfather, an old-timer who loved his grandchildren… but of course only if you squinted. The others were much worse: that woman over there, for instance, an awful woman, she resembled a ski— her front was entirely encased in brocade, but her back was completely bare; or that other one, the beauty with the eyes of a cemetery caretaker; but the most horrible of them all was that fidgety giggler, that unstrung Punch with his lilac tie and toadlike mouth and woolly head; if only someone would wipe him out, exterminate him, or burn him with Mercurochrome so that he wouldn’t dare look!… But then, actually, they’re only horrid because they’re celebrating my humiliation, my trials and tribulations, otherwise—they’re just citizens like anyone else. Nothing special. “There lay Lenka in her death pall.”