Olga Grushin - The Dream Life of Sukhanov

And then, for one moment, I almost believed that all my creations of the past five years—all those flights of fancy, all those sleepless nights, the bouts of despair, the transports of happiness, the smuggled revelations, the full moons, the museum vaults, the lingering dreams, the stolen moments of love—all of those things were nothing but idle imaginings, youthful indulgences, rainbow dust on a butterfly’s wing; and that my real life was here, now, in this unlivable room with its odors of ancient pipes, dust, and paint, with this silent woman who was lying in bed, her back toward me, pretending to be asleep…. And so unbearable was the thought that I did not move for a long time, and the shadows twitched and cavorted in the corners, and my mother murmured in haunted nightmares behind the wall, and my works, my gifts, my children, begged to be released into the light, and Nina’s breathing gradually assumed a different, measured rhythm, and still I stood in the dark, and after perhaps an hour Nina suddenly said without turning, “You know, Tolya, there is more than one way to lose your soul.”

And then, after several dismal, mostly silent weeks, the telephone rang.

For the full first minute, with Lev stuttering in his excitement and Alla shrieking in the background, I understood nothing. “Pinch me, I’m dreaming,” he kept repeating. Then Nina walked into the corridor, her face remote, her eyelids swollen with insomnia.

“Please don’t shout like that,” she said flatly. “It’s seven-thirty in the morning.”

My hands were jumping so much I could not immediately fit the receiver into the cradle; then, drawing her to me, “Listen, you won’t believe this,” I said, already anticipating the wondrous light about to come into her eyes.

A couple of months earlier, a major retrospective— Thirty Years of Moscow Art— had opened at the Manège. Lev and I had gone and, having found the whole affair, with a few exceptions, staid and uninspiring, had pronounced it worthy of being displayed in the former stable. But now an event little short of miraculous had taken place. A benevolent official from the Ministry of Culture had approached a few openly experimental artists with an offer to join the show, among them Ilya Beliutin, who ran an unofficial studio, and his students; and as Beliutin happened to be an old acquaintance of our Yastrebov, the loose invitation had been extended to the members of Viktor’s circle as well—the bearded Roshchin, and Lev, and myself. True, we were allowed only one work each, but all the same, it was a beginning, was it not, and one should be glad even of such—

“Oh Tolya,” Nina interrupted, clasping her hands, “so what if it’s only one painting—it’s the Manège, millions of people will see it, and you will be noticed, I know you will be! My God, it’s wonderful, just wonderful…. When does it start?”

It was all happening with the rapidity of a dream: we had been told to bring our paintings by tonight; Lev and I were meeting by the Manège that evening; the show was to open to the public the very next day. Mother and Nina left for work, but I quickly summoned an impressive cough for the benefit of a sympathetic secretary on the other end of the line and spent several hours in an incredulous, delightful haze, leafing through my canvases as through pages of my life, remembering each birth, at times tender and slow, at times furious and breathless, passing judgment on the sum total of my existence as an artist—my early studies of trains and reflections; the mythical and urban landscapes that had occupied me all through 1958; my subsequent fascination with surrealism, in an attempt to transplant the lessons of Dali and Magritte to Russian soil; and in the past two years, my ultimate arrival at what I believed to be my own, truly unique style—trying to choose from among them the one painting most representative of my philosophy of art, or possibly the one most original, or the one most beautiful, or perhaps simply the one most dear to my heart. In the early afternoon, when the air had already begun to thicken into blue softness outside the window and I was still at a loss, Nina called.

“Tolya, I’ve been thinking,” she said, and I could hear a smile in her voice. “What about that early one, with the reflection of a woman’s face in a train window, you know the one? Of course, it’s not as complex as your current pieces—but it may be easier for people to understand, and, well… It’s what made me realize how brilliant you were.”

“Oh,” I said, smiling also. “Well, since you put it that way—”

Once inside, we unwrapped our bundles. Lev had selected an abstract piece.

“What do you think?” he said uncertainly, turning it to the light. “It’s a new one.”

I did not have the heart to tell him the truth. Together we watched our paintings being mounted on the walls; I found it exhilarating and almost frightening to see a deeply private vision of mine splayed across the impersonal white surface under the clinical glare of gallery lamps, with a rectangular label bearing my name underneath. Roshchin and a few others of our acquaintance were milling about, all with the same slightly disoriented look on their faces, but I did not stay to talk to them. I wanted to preserve the sonorous fullness of this day unmarred by nervous banter, insincere compliments, exaggerated camaraderie, so I could carry it, slowly, carefully, like some precious elixir, through the gleaming blue city, through the quietly falling snow, through the softly illuminated streets and the darkened courtyards, and present it, with not a single drop spilled, to her, my Nina.

She met me on the landing, kissing me quickly. She wore the white dress of our wedding day, her bare arms were goose-bumped, and her eyes were bright; she had bought a bottle of champagne, and it was lovely to hear her laugh at the dry explosion of the cork later in the evening. My mother quit the dinner table without finishing her glass, her lips tightly pressed together, and we listened to her shuffling behind the closed door of her room, muttering darkly about reprisals and retributions, until the hum of the television drowned out her voice.

“Poor woman, she never stops worrying,” Nina whispered.

For a while after that, we sat silently in the cozily lit kitchen. I was watching the snow whirling outside the window, and Nina was peeling a tangerine, the first of the season. And all at once the scent of the fruit, sweet yet with the slightest hint of bitterness, and the light taste of champagne lingering on my tongue, and the soft, furry snowflakes dancing in the sky like some white winter moths, and Nina’s profile bent in the gentle glow of the green lampshade, and the knowledge of this wonderful change that was drawing closer and closer, all merged into a feeling of such intensity, such completion, that I felt this to be the happiest moment of my life—happier even than that luminous, color-mad moment when, with Chagall and Kandinsky for witnesses, Nina had promised to marry me—or perhaps it was still the same moment, now in its long-awaited fulfillment…. Smiling, Nina looked up.

“Here,” she said, holding out half of the tangerine. “It’s a bit sour, but so delicious.”

We did not sleep at all that night. The snow stopped soon after midnight, and immediately the sky grew dark and deep like velvet; then the grayness began to creep into the nooks and crannies of the world; and sometime later, in the pale light of a cold dawn, Nina lifted her face to mine and said, “Tolya, I’m so sorry about my birthday. I know I was unfair. It’s just that as a girl I always imagined what my life would be like at thirty, and, well… It was harder than I had expected, that’s all.”

For a minute unspoken words hung between us. Then she said with a small sigh, “But I never stopped believing in your talent, not for an instant, and I would have stood by you no matter what. Still, I’m so relieved this finally happened. We’ve waited for this for a long time.”