Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea

27

THIS WHIRLWIND did indeed determine all our fates—tossing us to the right, tossing us to the left.

A fourteen-year-old boy, the son of a sailor executed by the Reds, made his way back north in search of his relatives. He was unable to find even one of them. And then, within a few years, he had joined the Communist Party. As for the family he had been trying to find, they had all emigrated. When they spoke of their son, it was with shame and bitterness.

An actor who sang popular Bolshevik songs and ditties happened to get left behind in some town or other after a Bolshevik withdrawal. He refashioned his songs till they sounded appropriately anti-Bolshevik and then remained White forever more.

Eminent artistes ended up stranded in the south. Far from their theaters and loved ones, they found life unbearable. Lost and bewildered, they span around for a while in the White whirlwind. Then, breaking free, they were swept north like migrating birds, flying over rivers and burning cities, obedient to the pull of their native roosts.

Enterprising little gentlemen began to appear, shuttling between Moscow and the south along paths known to them alone. Bringing things to us in the south and taking things back to Moscow on our behalf… They would politely offer to deliver money to relatives; or they could go and fetch things we had left behind in Moscow or Petersburg.

These little men were strange. It was clearly not merely to be of service to us that they went on these long journeys. But what was the reason for their constant shuttling? Who were their masters? Whom were they serving? Whom betraying? No one seemed very bothered by any of these questions. People just said, “So and so is going to Moscow soon. He knows a way through.”

But how did he know? Why had he needed to know? These were questions people chose not to ask.

Occasionally someone would say casually, “He’s probably a spy.”

But their tone of voice was benign and matter of fact. They might just as well have been saying, “He’s probably a lawyer.”

Or “Probably a tailor.”

Spying, it seems, was a profession like any other.

And the little men kept scuttling about, shuttling back and forth, always buying and selling.

The population of Novorossiisk was changing. Gone were the encampments that had made the waterfront so lively and colorful.

The first wave of refugees had receded.

Denikin’s White Army was advancing and those who, only a few months before, had been fleeing the Bolsheviks were now pouring back into the towns Denikin had liberated.

News of Denikin’s successes was a source of feverish excitement.

This excitement concealed both farce and tragedy.

I often came across a man from Kharkov, always arm in arm with a pretty young actress. Gesturing perplexedly, he would say, “Why do they have to keep advancing so quickly? They ought to have a little rest. Don’t you agree that soldiers should be allowed to get their wind back? I know they are heroes, but even heroes sometimes need a break.”

Then he would add hopelessly, “The way things are going, it won’t be long before we all have to go back home.”

He had a wife in Kharkov.

But another element in this tragedy was more farcical still. His wife—and I knew this for certain—was no happier than he was; her delight in Denikin’s victories was equally bleak.

“Your poor darling wife,” I once said to him. “She must be overjoyed!”

And then silently, to myself, I went on, “Poor woman! Every time she hears news of a White victory she probably wanders about the house tearing up letters, clearing away telltale cigarette butts, her hand trembling as she writes little notes: ‘The Whites are approaching. To be on the safe side, you’d better not come tomorrow…’”

“Yes,” I went on aloud, “the poor darling must be well and truly overwhelmed.”

I shall never know just what he was thinking, but he replied, “Yes indeed. You know what she’s like—such a meek little soul. Sometimes I almost wish she’d love me a little less. Self-denying love like hers always brings suffering. I am, of course, as you know, both faithful and devoted—”

“Yes, yes, of course…”

“These days, marriages like ours are few and far between. We couldn’t be more faithful to each other—not if we were Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky themselves.”[128]

What happened when husband and wife were reunited, I do not know. Maybe Bobchinsky succeeded in tidying away the evidence. Maybe Dobchinsky was able to lie his way out of trouble.

Two actresses unexpectedly paid me a visit. They had been sent by an impresario from Yekaterinodar who wanted to put on two evenings of my plays. The actors—and they were a good company—would perform the plays, and I was to give a short reading myself. The terms were not bad. I agreed.

The actresses also gave me a letter from Olyonushka. She too was in Yekaterinodar. She was writing to tell me that her husband had died of typhus and that she was planning to come and see me.

Poor Olyonushka. It was hard to imagine Olyonushka as a widow, in mourning.

Then came a telegram: “Arriving tomorrow.”

The Shilka was taking on coal. The large coal barge—already nearly empty—was moored alongside.

I was sitting on deck, keeping an eye on the gangway, waiting.

All of a sudden our cadets began laughing and shouting, “Bravo! Bravo!”

I turned around. Walking along the narrow band of planking around the edge of the barge, above the gaping black abyss of the almost empty hold, was a young lady. Using a little travel case as a balancing aid, she was walking with a spring in her step, almost skipping along.

“Olyonushka!”

I had pictured her wearing a long black veil, with a handkerchief in her hand. But the woman I saw before me had a bright, rosy face and a plaid cap perched on the back of her head.

“Olyonushka! I thought you’d be in mourning….”

“No,” she replied, giving me a firm kiss on the cheek. “Vova and I made a vow. We each promised that should the other die, we would do all we could not to be sad. Instead of grieving, we’d go out and enjoy ourselves. We’d go to the cinema. That’s what we promised each other.”

Then she told me the complicated story of her marriage.

When she got to Rostov, Vova had been expecting her. He had booked her a room, the one next to his, but they didn’t tell anyone else in the hotel that they knew each other. They got married, but in secret, continuing to pretend to everyone that they were complete strangers.

“But why?”

“I was worried about Dima in Kiev,” Olyonushka said awkwardly. “I was afraid he’d shoot himself if he heard I’d married. Or that he’d suffer most dreadfully. And I can’t bear people to suffer.”

Olyonushka kept a little picture of Vova on her bedside table. This was a source of constant surprise to the chambermaid.

“Your brother looks just like that young officer who’s staying here!”

“Does he really?” Olyonushka would respond with no less surprise. “I must remember to look out for him.”

She and Vova had had little money, but they had been quietly happy together. Vova’s work often took him away. Even though he was only nineteen, he was already a captain and was being sent on important missions. Before he set off, Olyonushka would bless him with a tiny pearl-embroidered icon of the Mother of God. He would then take the icon away with him, as well as a little plush dog she gave him “so he wouldn’t feel lonely.”

After one of his missions Vova came back looking tired and sad.

“When I was at the station,” he said, “a big shaggy dog came up to me. It kept looking at me, begging me to stroke it. It looked so wretched and dirty. And for some reason I kept thinking, ‘If you give in, if you stroke this dog, you’ll catch typhus.’ But it kept looking at me. It kept begging to be petted. Now I’m probably going to die.”

From that day on Vova was very subdued. And it seemed to him that whenever he entered a room, some kind of strange, transparent, gelatinous figure would be standing by the wall. Then it would bend down and vanish.

Vova was called to Yekaterinodar again. He set off, then disappeared. The days passed: He should have been back in Rostov long ago. And Olyonushka kept hearing the most terrifying rumors about Yekaterinodar. Apparently people were collapsing in the street, struck down by typhus as if by lightning. And then they died without even once regaining consciousness.

Olyonushka took two days’ leave from the Renaissance (as her little theater was called) and went off in search of her husband. She went round all the big hotels and hospitals in Yekaterinodar, but he was nowhere to be found. There was no record of Vova anywhere.

She went back home.

And then she received a message that her husband was indeed badly ill—in a hospital in Yekaterinodar.

Olyonushka asked for leave once again. She found the right hospital. There she was told that her husband had been picked up unconscious in the street and that he’d had a fever for a long time—the most severe form of typhus. He had died without ever coming back to himself and had already been buried. In his delirium he had kept repeating just two words: “Olyonushka, renaissance.” Eventually it had occurred to one of his fellow patients that he might be asking the hospital staff to contact the theater in Rostov.

“The poor boy,” the doctor said to Olyonushka. “He never stopped calling for you. He was calling for you with all his heart, and none of us understood.”

The widow was given “the possessions of the deceased”—a little plush dog and a tiny pearl-embroidered icon of the Mother of God.

And then Olyonushka had to go straight back to Rostov. She had to take part that evening in some idiotic Bat-style cabaret.

And that was the story of Olyonushka’s marriage.

Just like the Polish children’s song:

Our lives were indeed at the mercy of a whirlwind. It tossed us to the left; it tossed us to the right.