A Young Scoundrel

Chapter 7

At this point it is necessary to provide an elementary outline of the history and topography of Kharkov, so as to make it easier to follow our heroes' movements in time and space.

"A large Southern city," as Bunin called it… located in Europe, in the northernmost part of the Ukranian Soviet Republic, a few hundred kilometres from the border of the Russian Soviet Republic. It was founded either at the end of the 16th century or at the beginning of the 17th, by wild Cossacks who had been causing a great deal of trouble in the huge area between the fiftieth parallel (on which sits precisely the fat dot of the city, if you look at a map) and the shores of the warm Black Sea itself.

After the Great Revolution, and right up to the year 1928, the city served as capital of Ukraine. In those ten years Kharkov managed to build several absurd architectural monuments, which would never have been built if Kharkov had not been the capital. In November l930 a Conference of Proletarian Writers was held in the city, in which took part, among others, Romain Rolland, Barbusse, and Louis Aragon. In this city was born Tatlin, celebrated author of the tower project of the International, as well as the second-greatest poet of the OBERIYU Group, Vvedenskii – not to mention that insignificant figure, Kosygin. A further point of Kharkov pride is the multitude of factories located on its outskirts. Kharkov is a gigantic industrial center, much like Detroit, for example, in the United States…

Sumskaya Street is the main artery of the city, but not because it is the longest, widest, or most fashionable. Its popularity as an ancient road, leading to the other Ukrainian city, Suma, is founded on the fact that it's central – located in the exact center of the Old City – and also on the fact that at its exact center are located the city's best-known restaurants, theatres, and administrative centers. Sumskaya Street begins at Tevelev Square and runs, climbing upwards, to Dzerzhinskii Square. And right there at No. 19 Tevelev Square Anna Moiseyevna Rubinshtein lives quite comfortably with her mother, Celia; and there, at the beginning of l965, our hero, the "Young Rascal" Eduard Savenko, moved in. From the windows of the Rubinshtein apartment on Tevelev Square can be seen the building formerly occupied by the Assembly of Nobles, the corner of Sumskaya on which is located the "Theatrical" restaurant, and the building of the Refrigeration Technical School.

On Dzerzhinskii Square are located the many-columned and many-floored barracks-yellow headquarters of the Party Regional Committee. The square, which is still the largest in Europe, accomodates other, no less remarkable but less massive architectural landmarks: the ochre-coloured Kharkov Hotel, which recalls the step-pyramids of the Aztecs; the University, a smaller version of Moscow State University; and finally, that marvel, "GOSPROM" – the prison-like constructivist headquarters of State Industries – a grotesque heap of glass and concrete.

Basically, our hero's life has taken place between Tevelev and Dzerzhinskii Squares. On Sumskaya Street, between the two squares, is located not only Store No. 41, but also the Theatrical Institute, with its beauties promenading down Sumskaya at lunchtime, and the fabulous "Mirror Stream," an unremarkable little pond with a waterfall, immortalized nonetheless on dozens of postcards and in every tour-guide to Kharkov. (In the archives of our hero's Mama, Raisa Fyodorovna Savenko rests a photograph of Eduard, age ten, standing by the "Mirror Stream" in a sky-blue belted jacket and knickers.) Just behind the "Mirror Stream" and the Theatrical Institute is located, on the ground floor of a tall building, the famous "Automatic" – a snack bar which is Kharkov's "Cafe Rotunda," "Cloiserie de Lilas" or "Cafe Flore." More precisely, the Automat fulfils all the functions of all these famous cafes. (It was here that an interesting idea occurred to our author: was not the sudden flourishing of Kharkov's cultural life at this time related to the opening of the "Automatic" Snack Bar?) A few buildings on from the "Automatic," directly opposite the towering monument in memory of the "Great Kobza-Player" Taras Schevchenko, is located the central supermarket, rather important in the history of Kharkov during this period. In this very store the heroes of our book purchased their wine and vodka. Up Sumskaya, behind the grocery store, is located a two-story building housing the combined editorial offices of "Leninist Zmin" and "Socialist Kharkov."

Taras Schevchenko Park begins immediately opposite the first entrance of the "Automatic" – assuming, of course, that the pedestrian is proceeding along Sumskaya starting from Tevelev Square. The Park consists of several square kilometres of trees and shrubs, stretching right to the territory of Kharkov University, and including the Zoo (where Genka, Ed and Anna are now sitting), a summertime film-theatre, several public toilet-bunkers (with exquisite wall illustrations!) and Genka's Father's restaurant – the "Crystal." Where the Park runs into the fenced perimeters of Dzerzhinskii Square, almost from its underbrush, the Pioneer House stares askance at the grand classical building of the Party's Regional Committee.

In the ravines which have etched the surface of the park, Kharkovites play Preference and Chemin-de-fer for big money. Like any self-respecting park, Schevchyenko Park has a central fountain, where on holidays a military orchestra conducted by an Armenian plays gallant marches. This Armenian's moustache is as thick as a push-broom, and is famed throughout the city.

Rimarskaya Street, as we have already observed, runs parallel to Sumskaya. It begins almost at Anna Rubinshtein's very door. Below, right past Anna's door, the famous Bursatskii Gulch descends. On it, halfway to the sprawling Blagovyeschchenskii Market, the biggest in the city, stands the former Seminary Building, now the Library Institute. The Seminary was described by Pomyalovskii in a popular nineteenth-century book, "Seminary Sketches." From this building hordes of wild seminarians used to fall upon the peaceful vendors of Blagovyeschchenskii Market. According to legend, here on the benches of Bursatskii Gulch the great Khlebnikov wrote his poem, "Ladomir." Beyond Sumskaya, beyond the Blagovyeschchenskii Market, beyond Dzenzhinskii Square, stretch the petty-bourgeois districts of the city and its proletarian outskirts. But fortunately they are outside the boundaries of the present narrative.

"Rackles, crazies and galakhs", in Khlebnikov's words, populated the city in his time. "Rackle" is a local Kharkov word, or rather a Bursatskii word, born in the Bursatskii Gulch. It seems to the Bookseller that now, after many years, Rackles and Crazies have again appeared in Kharkov. Crazies especially. Something is happening in Kharkov. Something still not quite understood by the Bookseller, dragging around his heavy sacks of books.

"Ed, we're going to Anna Rubinshtein's. You want to go with us?" asked Motrich, as they cheerfully delivered the cargo to Store No. 41 and handed it to Liliya, who it turned out was rushing off to the cinema with her young husband, Alik. The Directress didn't even get up to help and simply slipped the money into the cashier's kiosk, after putting it into an envelope.

"Yeah, I want to." And he did want to. For the first time in the Bookseller's life, maybe, he was with the people he really wanted to be with. A strange, tranquil pleasure came over him.

"We just have to buy something to drink." Motrich stood searching the pockets of his fur coat for change. He hadn't worked anywhere at all for a long, long time, and as the Bookseller knew, he had no money. Directress Liliya always sternly warned the Bookseller not to lend Motrich any money. Either the Bookseller's own or money from the cash register. "Even if he promises to give the money back to you in a few hours, don't give him any. Volodya's a poetic genius; maybe that's why he drinks so much. Getting him to pay back a debt is impossible. It's awkward squeezing a debt out of our poetic genius. Remember: you have no money for Motrich!"

The Bookseller contributed a five-ruble note toward the drinks. Misha Basov didn't even pretend to look for money in his pockets. Obviously he never has any money either. The Bookseller, who still had a hundred rubles severance pay from the foundry shop, and six suits hanging in his closet in Saltovka, condescendingly pardoned the intellectual for his unworldly poverty.

Wet, greasy snow slopped clumsily onto Kharkov, blown in from time to time by gusts of wind from the streets perpendicular to Sumskaya, where the Bookseller was hurrying, barely keeping pace with the big Motrich in his fur coat and the elk-like Basov in a light woolen jacket. The snow of Blok's "Blockade," or perhaps the snow of "The Twelve," fell on the heads and shoulders of the young people. On the black, Georgian-style cap of the Bookseller – it, and the heavy ratine overcoat, remained to the Bookseller in memory of the brave little Jew Mishka Issarov, who had wanted to outwit life and had paid dearly for trying. Before he offered Ed the chance to work with him he gave Ed three meters of ratine for an overcoat, at a price of 57 rubles a meter… The Symbolist snow clogged the city of Vrubel and Khlebnikov, Tatlin and Vedenskii, and through it walked Motrich and Misha Basov, in their present, and, distinct from them, into the future walked the Bookseller. In the future, awaiting him, was Anna Moiseyevna Rubinshtein, "prodigal daughter of the Jewish nation," as she sometimes called herself – a woman who was destined to play a major role in the fate of Eduard Savenko. The ex-steelworker, not entirely sure what he wanted, having found Anna, unconsciously chose her for this role. Afterwards, he called his choice "Fate," "Destiny," "the Roll of the Dice." But if we turn to a romantic, yet more truthful explanation, we will see that the worker very much wanted to become an intellectual, to become a poet, to learn, to study more and more. And wanted this passionately, heedlessly, violently. Having read a few dozen pages of the Introduction to Psychoanalysis, he got a big notebook and started copying out the book word-for-word because he knew that he needed this book. Alas, there was no other way of obtaining a copy of this rarely-republished work. And he couldn't bring himself simply to commandeer Melekhov's book. Anna Moiseevna served as another study-aid, and it was necessary to commandeer her.

Anna Moiseevna herself opened the door to the damp Symbolist, his pockets full of bottles of port. Backing up against their primus stoves in their nightgowns, the women of the corridor stared in terror at this invasion of hulking Decadents. Crying, "Hey, Vovka! Misha!" Anna, in a heavy dress… and in a complex aroma redolent of some twenty very different dinners, the four of them made their way through the doorway of her private compartment. And led the Decadents, herself among them, into the tiny inner corridor of her apartment-compartment and, heavily opening the door to her room (on the door were hanging her overcoat and dresses),herded the decadents into the room. On the little card table (At which the poet will write the whole of his first book of poems, as well as "The Cook" and "The Notebook") a candle burned, and from a low wooden bed Anna's friend, the broad-faced Vika Kuligina, rose smiling…

"Who are these guys, Anna?" From behind the panel of a folding door which divided Anna's room from the main room appeared – first the cigarette of Celia Yakovlevna, and then the aforesaid Celia Yakovlevna herself. "Ah, the poets have arrived!" At this point Celia Yakovlevna was still pleased at the appearance of the poets.

"Good evening, Celia Yakovlevna!" Basov, swooping suddenly, darted past the surprised poet and, grabbing the hand of the lady with the cigarette in his own wet hand, brought it to his lips. The bookseller did not yet know that Misha Basov, whom he knew as a symbolist, was also a surrealist; and this well-read youth was imitating the manner of Andre Breton in kissing ladies' hands. The not-so-well-read bookseller timidly mumbled, "Good evening."

"Mama, go to your room! Time for you to go to sleep!" Softly but mercilessly, Anna pushed her mother into her room. And lit a second candle, standing it on the windowsill. Beyond the window the wild, featureless snow was falling. Falling on Tevelyev Square, and on the former cathedral which faced it, on the Theatrical Restaurant at the corner of of Tevelyev and Sumskaya, on the people coming through the raised gates, on the venom-red sign reading "Keep your savings in the credit union!" – the amateurish product of a Kharkov advertising agency, low in the Kharkov sky…

Why such snow? – wondered the Bookseller, glancing out the window. Maybe something's happened? The present becoming the future? – he thought, and was afraid.