Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea

11

THEN TRUE winter set in, with snow and severe frosts.

My doctor said that living in an unheated room with broken windows after a bout of pneumonia, however amusing it might seem, was not conducive to good health.

And so my friends found me a room in a pension for high-school girls run by a very respectable lady. They promptly gathered up my belongings and moved both them and me to this new room. They worked selflessly. I remember how Vera Ilnarskaya, who had made herself responsible for the small accoutrements of my everyday life, threw into a single cardboard box a lace dress, my silk underwear, and an uncorked bottle of ink. Verochka Charova (from the Korsh Theatre in Moscow) took charge of twelve withered bouquets that she considered of sentimental value. Tamara Oksinskaya (from the Saburov Theatre) collected together all the visiting cards heaped on the windowsills. Meskhieva carefully packed the remaining sweets and empty bottles. All in all, my move was arranged briskly and efficiently. The only things they forgot were my trunk and all my dresses in the wardrobe. But the little things were all there and that’s what really matters, because it’s little things that are most often forgotten.

My new room was astonishing. The kind lady who rented it out to me had evidently furnished it with all the objects that had embellished her journey through life. There were antlers and horns of all kinds, canes, woolen pom-poms, and nine or ten small tables, their stout, heavy marble tops supported by frail, splayed, stick-like little legs. It was impossible to put anything down on these tables. You could only marvel from a distance at human ingenuity: Who would have thought it possible to rest such a weight on something so insubstantial? Sometimes one of the tables would collapse of its own accord. You’d be sitting there quite peacefully and then you’d hear a sigh from the other end of the room—a table swaying for a moment before crashing down to the floor.

There was also a grand piano which—amid all this clutter—we did not immediately notice. It was awkwardly located. First you had to squeeze past some horns and an étagère—only then, hemmed in by three small tables, could you sit down at it.

We decided to make everything a bit nicer and more comfortable: to drape a shawl over the unused door, to move the piano to the opposite wall, and to hang the portraits of various aunties behind the wardrobe.

No sooner said than done. There was a rumble of tables, a glassy tinkle—and one of the aunties broke free from the wall all by herself.

“Good God! What was that? If the landlady hears, I’ll be straight out on the street.”

Blonde curly-haired Lilya, who had come to welcome me on behalf of the high-school girls, also offered her help. She immediately broke a vase full of pom-poms and collapsed in horror onto the divan, right on top of the second aunty, who had been taken down and carefully placed there out of harm’s way.

A crunch and a snap. Howls. Squeals.

“Somebody sing something to drown all this racket!”

At this point everyone got down to the really important task—moving the piano.

“Wait!” I cried. “There’s a little bronze dog on top of the piano, on a malachite stand. I’m sure the landlady really treasures it. Let me take it out of the way. Yes, leave this to me—you good people just smash things.”

I took hold of the little dog and carefully began to lift. What a weight! And then—what was that terrible crash? And why did this dog suddenly feel so light? There it was, still in my hands. The malachite stand, however, now lay at my feet, smashed to bits. Who would have thought that the dog hadn’t been glued to the stand!

“That’ll fetch the landlady all right,” Lilya whispered in horror.

“Whose fault is that? Why didn’t you sing like I asked you to? You saw me picking up that little dog—that was your cue to start something choral. Well, you’d better get on and move the piano or we’ll be here all night.”

We pushed the piano out into the room, rolled it along on its casters, tucked in its long tail, and finally got it into position.

“Wonderful. Over here will be just right. Meskhieva, I’ll compose a new song for you.”

I fetched the stool, sat down, and tried to play a chord…. What on earth? The piano refused to play. We rolled it along a little bit further and banged a few times on the lid. It remained silent as silent can be.

A knock on the door.

“Sh!”

“Somebody sing something!”

But we couldn’t not answer the door.

It wasn’t her. It was an engineer I knew. He’d come to wish me well in my new lodgings.

“Why are you all looking so tragic?”

We told him everything, including the tragedy of the grand piano.

“The piano? I can sort that out for you in no time. First, we just need to take out the keys.”

“Darling, you’re the answer to our prayers.”

He sat himself down, twiddled something around—and out came the keys.

“There! And now back they go!”

But the keys didn’t want to go back.

The engineer went very quiet. He took out his handkerchief and wiped his brow.

A terrible suspicion began to dawn on me.

“Wait! Look me in the eye and tell me the truth. Have you ever before in your life removed the keys from a grand piano?”

“Yes!”

“And have you ever got them back in again?”

Silence.

“Tell me the truth! Have you ever got them back in again?”

“N-n-no. Never.”

Dreary, uneventful days.

The life that had bubbled up so noisily and excitedly had now subsided.

Returning to Moscow was impossible. Kiev was cut off from everywhere to the north. Those who were quicker and more alert had already left. Everyone, however, now had their plans. Remaining in Kiev was out of the question—and we all knew this.

Once, I was talking to the famous clairvoyant, Armand Duclos, in the foyer of a theater, after a show. A soldier on duty by the door came up to us and said, “Tell me, Mr. Duclos, will Petlyura be here soon?”

Armand frowned and closed his eyes.

“Petlyura… Petlyura… three days from now.”

Three days later, Petlyura entered the city.

Armand Duclos was extraordinary.

Before I left Moscow, I had been to several of his séances. His answers to the questions put to him were extremely accurate.

Later when we got to know each other, he admitted that he usually started these sessions with little prearranged tricks—but after a while he would start to feel strange. He would slip into a trance and find himself answering a question this way or that way without knowing why.

He was very young, not more than twenty. A pale, thin boy with a beautiful, tired face. He never talked about his background, but he spoke French quite well.

“I was alive many, many years ago. Then I was called Cagliostro.”[58]

But he lied lazily and without enthusiasm.

I think he was simply a Jewish boy from Odessa. His impresario was an energetic young student. Armand himself was quiet and sleepy and had no business sense at all. His own success meant nothing to him.

While Armand was still in Moscow, Lenin had taken an interest in him and twice summoned him to the Kremlin; Lenin wanted to know what fate held in store for him. When we asked Armand about these meetings, he was evasive: “I don’t remember. I remember only that Lenin has success till the end. As for the others, some have success and some don’t.”[59]

His impresario told us how alarming all this had been. He was well aware that “when something came over him,” Armand would quite forget who he was dealing with.

“Well, thank God that’s all behind us!”

Only a few months later, Armand was executed.[60]

The last act of our Kiev drama.

Petlyura was entering the city. There was a wave of arrests and searches.

Nobody wanted to go to bed at night. We all wanted to stay together, usually in Milrud’s apartment. We would play cards to keep awake and we were always listening out to see if anyone was coming. If there was a knock or a ring at the door, we hid the money and cards beneath the table. Armand often used to join us.

“No, I can’t play cards,” he said. “I mean, I know every card in advance.”

He then lost three nights in a row.

“How strange. When I was a little child, no one dared play with me.”

“But who wants to play cards with children?” we would reply.

Quiet, always rather sleepy, he neither argued nor laughed. He was a strange boy.

“I’m always half asleep. And this sleep exhausts me. It drains my blood and saps my strength.”

His beautiful face was indeed very pale. He was telling the truth.

Petlyura’s men were now patrolling the streets. Unbelievably polite gentlemen in soldiers’ greatcoats would click their heels and tell us which streets to avoid so as not to get caught in one of their raids.

“But who are you?” we would ask.

“We’re the peasant bands you all kept talking about,” these gentlemen would reply with proud humility and heavy Ukrainian accents.

The shops ran out of stock, then closed. People hid or fled. There were more and more soldiers’ greatcoats to be seen.

Milrud’s apartment was searched. Apparently little Alyoshka sprang out of the playroom with a ferocious cry:

“I’m Petlyura! Don’t you dare!”

And the patrol respectfully withdrew.

There was a victory parade. Vinnichenko bowed to the crowds. Never had he received such ovations for any of the plays he had written.[61]

Fine fellows in new overcoats made from German cloth rode by on strong, sturdy steeds.

Muscovites said mockingly, in Ukrainian, “Long live Ukraine, from Kiev to Berlin.”[62]

And then—after a last quick walk, a last quick look—we packed our cases. Time to leave.

Not far from the city, we heard the boom of cannon.

“Where?”

“Behind Bald Mountain, I think. Seems the Bolsheviks are approaching.”

“Well, there’s no knowing when all this will be over. Have you got a travel permit?”

“Odessa! To Odessa!”