Tatyana Tolstaya - White Walls - Collected Stories

“Have a smoke?” Kissov asked. “I quit, so I don’t carry any.” He relieved Simeonov of half a pack. “Who are you? An adoring fan? That’s good. Have your own place? With your own bath? Gut. She has to share one here. You’ll bring her to your place to bathe. She likes to take baths. We gather on the first of the month and listen to recordings. What do you have? Have you got ‘Dark Green Emerald’? Too bad. We’ve been looking for it for years. It’s awful—nowhere to be had. The ones you have were hits, lots of them around, that’s not interesting. Look for ‘Emerald.’ Have you any connections for getting smoked sausage? No, it’s bad for her, it’s for… me. You couldn’t find any punier flowers? I brought roses, they were the size of my fist.” Kissov brought his hairy fist close. “You’re not a journalist, are you? It would be great to have a radio show on her, our little Vera keeps hoping for that. What a face. But her voice is still as strong as a deacon’s. Let me write down your address.”

He squashed Simeonov into the chair with his big hand, “Don’t get up, I’ll see myself out,” Kissov got up from the table and left, taking Simeonov’s cake with the dactyloscopic memento.

Strangers instantly inhabited the foggy banks of the Okkervil, hauling their cheap-smelling belongings—pots and mattresses, buckets and marmalade cats; there was no space on the granite embankment, they were singing their own songs, sweeping garbage onto the paving stones laid by Simeonov, giving birth, multiplying, visiting one another; the fat black-browed old woman knocked down the pale shadow with its sloping shoulders, crushed the veiled hat under her foot, and the old-fashioned round heels fell in different directions, and Vera Vasilevna shouted across the table, “Pass the mushrooms!” and Simeonov passed them and she ate some.

He watched her big nose move, and the mustache under it, watched her large black eyes veiled with a film of age travel from face to face when someone turned on a tape recorder and her silvery voice floated out, gathering strength—it’s all right, thought Simeonov. I’ll get home soon, it’s all right. Vera Vasilevna died, she died long, long ago, killed, dismembered, and eaten by this old woman, the bones were sucked clean, I could enjoy the wake but Kissov took away my cake; but it’s all right, here are chrysanthemums for the grave, dry sick dead flowers, very appropriate, I’ve commemorated the dead, now I can get up and leave.

Tamara—the darling!—was hanging around by Simeonov’s door. She picked him up, carried him in, washed him, undressed him, and fed him a hot meal. He promised Tamara he would marry her but toward morning, in his sleep, Vera Vasilevna came, spat in his face, called him names, and went clown the damp embankment into the night, swaying on the black heels he had invented. In the morning Kissov knocked and rang at the door, come to examine the bathroom, to prepare it for the evening. And in the evening he brought Vera Vasilevna to bathe at Simeonov’s, smoked Simeonov’s cigarettes, devoured sandwiches, and said, “Ye-e-es… our little Vera is a force! Think how many men she devoured in her time—my God!” And against his will Simeonov listened to the creaks and splashes of Vera Vasilevna’s heavy body in the cramped tub, how her soft, heavy, full hip pulled away from the side of the damp tub with a slurp, how the water drained with a sucking gurgle, how her bare feet padded on the floor and at last, throwing back the hook, out came a red parboiled Vera Vasilevna in a robe, “ Oof. That was good.” Kissov hurried with the tea, and Simeonov, enchanted, smiling, went to rinse off after Vera Vasilevna, to use the flexible shower hose to wash the gray pellets of skin from the tub’s drying walls, to scoop the white hairs from the drain. Kissov wound up the gramophone, and the divine stormy voice, gaining strength, rose in a crescendo from the depths, spread its wings, soared above the world, above the steamy body of little Vera drinking tea from the saucer, above Simeonov bent in his lifelong obedience, above warm, domestic Tamara, above everyone beyond help, above the approaching sunset, the gathering rain, the wind, the nameless rivers flowing backwards, overflowing their banks, raging and flooding the city as only rivers can.

The first time Alexandra Ernestovna passed me it was early spring, and she was gilded by the pink Moscow sun. Stockings sagging, shoes shabby, black suit shiny and frayed. But her hat!… The four seasons—snow balls, lilies of the valley, cherries, and barberries—were entwined on the pale straw platter fastened to the remainder of her hair with a pin this big. The cherries dropped down and clicked against each other. She has to be ninety, I thought. But I was off by six years. The sunny air ran down a sunbeam from the roof of the cool old building and then ran back up, up, where we rarely look— where the iron balcony hangs suspended in the uninhabited heights, where there is a steep roof, a delicate fretwork erected right in the morning sky, a melting tower, a spire, doves, angels—no, I don’t see so well. Smiling blissfully, eyes clouded by happiness, Alexandra Ernestovna moves along the sunny side, moving her prerevolutionary legs in wide arcs. Cream, a roll, carrots in a net bag weigh down her arm and rub against the heavy black hem of her suit. The wind had walked from the south smelling of sea and roses, promising a path up easy stairs to heavenly blue countries. Alexandra Ernestovna smiles at the morning, at me. The black clothing, the light hat with clicking dead fruit, vanish around the corner.

Later I came across her sitting on the broiling boulevard— limp, but admiring a sweaty, solitary child marooned in the baking city; she never had children of her own. A horrible slip showed beneath her tattered black skirt. The strange child trustingly dumped his sandy treasures onto Alexandra Ernestovna’s lap. Don’t dirty the lady’s clothing. It’s all right—

Let him.

I saw her in the stifling air of the movie theater (take off your hat, granny! we can’t see!). Out of rhythm with the screen passions, Alexandra Ernestovna breathed noisily, rattled foil candy wrappers, gluing together her frail, store-bought teeth with sweet goo.

Later she was swirled in the flow of fire-breathing cars by the Nikitsky Gates, got flustered and lost her sense of direction, clutched my arm and floated out onto the saving shore, losing forever the respect of the black diplomat behind the green windshield of a low, shiny car and of his pretty, curly-haired children. The black man roared and raced off in the direction of the conservatory with a puff of blue smoke, while Alexandra Ernestovna, trembling, bent over, eyes popping, hung on to me, and dragged me off to her communal refuge—bric-a-brac, oval frames, dried flowers—leaving behind a trail of smelling salts.

Two tiny rooms, a high ornate ceiling, and on the peeling walls a charming beauty smiles, muses, pouts—sweet Shura, Alexandra Ernestovna. Yes, yes, that’s me! In a hat, without a hat, with hair down. Oh, so beautiful—And that’s her second husband, and well, that’s her third—not a very good choice. But what can you do about it now…. Now, if she had made the decision to run off with Ivan Nikolayevich then…Who is Ivan Nikolayevich? He’s not here, he’s crammed into the album, spread-eagled in four slits in the cardboard, squashed by a lady in a bustle, crushed by some short-lived white lap dogs that died before the Russo-Japanese War.

Sit down, sit down, what would you like?… Please come visit, of course, please do. Alexandra Ernestovna is all alone in the world, and it would be so nice to chat.