Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea

1

MOSCOW. Autumn. Cold.

My Petersburg life has been liquidated. The Russian Word has been closed down.[1] There is, it seems, no possibility of anything.

Or rather, there is one possibility; it appears, day after day, in the shape of a squint-eyed Odessa impresario by the name of Gooskin, who is trying to persuade me to go with him to Kiev and Odessa and give public readings there.

“Had any bread today?” is how he begins, in a tone of foreboding. “Well, tomorrow you won’t. Everyone who can is going to the Ukraine. Only no one can. But you… You’ll be going there by train. I’ll be paying you sixty percent of gross takings. I’ve already telegraphed the Hotel London to reserve you the best suite. The sun will be shining, you’ll be beside the sea, you’ll read people one or two of your stories… You’ll take the money, buy yourself some ham and some butter—and then you’ll be sitting there in a café, eating away to your heart’s content. What’s to lose? Everyone knows me—just ask your friends. My pseudonym is Gooskin. I could tell you my real surname too, but it’s terribly long and difficult. For the love of God, let’s go! The best suite in the International!”

“But you said the Hotel London!”

“All right then, the London. Do you have something against the International?”

I ask around for advice. There truly are a lot of people desperate to get to the Ukraine.

“This pseudonymous Gooskin of mine,” I demur. “There’s something odd about him.”

“What do you mean?” people of experience reply. “He’s no odder than any of the others. They’re all the same, these petty impresarios.”

It’s Averchenko who puts an end to my doubts.[2] It turns out that he’s being taken to Kiev by some other pseudonym. He too is going to give public readings. We decide to go together. Averchenko’s pseudonym is also taking along two actresses, to perform short sketches.

“You see!” says Gooskin triumphantly. “Now all you need do is apply for your permits and everything will go swimmingly—like a knife through bread and butter.”

I have to say that I hate all kinds of public appearances. Why, I don’t know. It’s a quirk of mine. And as for this pseudonymous Gooskin with all his talk of percentages, or, as he himself puts it, “precentages”… But everyone around me is saying, “You’re so lucky, you’re going!” Or “Lucky thing, in Kiev they have pastries filled with cream!” Or even just “Lucky thing… with cream!”

It seems clearer and clearer that I have to go. Everyone wants to leave. And if someone isn’t struggling to obtain the necessary permits, since they know they’ve got no hope of success, this doesn’t stop them from dreaming. While those who remain hopeful are suddenly discovering that they have Ukrainian blood, Ukrainian connections, and ties of every kind.

“My third cousin had a house in Poltava!”

“And my surname, strictly speaking, isn’t Nefedin, but Nekhvedin—from Khvedko, which is a Ukrainian root.”

“There’s nothing I love more than fatback and onion!”[3]

“Popova’s already in Kiev. So are the Ruchkins, the Melzons, the Kokins, the Pupins, the Fiks, and the Shpruks.[4] Everyone’s already in Kiev.”

And then Gooskin begins to prove his worth:

“Tomorrow at three I’ll be bringing you a commissar—the most terrible commissar of all from the frontiermost station of all. A wild beast of a commissar. He’s just stripped the whole of the Bat. Stripped them bare—didn’t leave them a thing.”[5]

“But if they even strip bats, what hope have we got of slipping through?”

“That’s why I’m asking him round. Just say a few pleasantries to him and ask for a permit. And then in the evening I’ll take him to the theater.”

And so I begin the application procedures. First in some institution to do with theatrical matters. A languid lady with a Cléo de Mérode hairdo[6] adorned with a shabby copper band and liberally sprinkled with dandruff grants me permission to go on a reading tour.

Then long, long hours in an endless line in some place that’s like a cross between an army barrack and a large prison. Finally a soldier with a bayonet takes my document from me and goes off to show it to his superior. Then a door is flung open—and out comes the superior himself. Who he is I don’t know. I can only say that, in the language of the time, he is “draped in bullet belts.”

“So you’re Teffi, are you?”

“Yes,” I confess. (There is, after all, no getting away from this.)

“The writer?”

I give a silent nod. He’s going to say no. Why else would he have emerged so suddenly?

“Would you mind just writing your name in this notebook? That’s right. With the date and the year.”

I write with a trembling hand. First I forget the date, then the year. I am rescued by a frightened whisper from someone behind me.

“So,” the superior repeats somberly. He frowns. He reads what I have written. And then his stern mouth slides into a warm and confidential smile: “You see… I wanted your autograph.”

“You flatter me!”

I receive my permit.

Gooskin now further proves his worth. He brings the commissar along. The commissar is indeed terrible. Not a human being, but a nose in boots. There are creatures called cephalopods. Well, he is a rhinopod. A vast nose, to which are attached two legs. One leg, evidently, contains the heart, while the other contains the digestive tract. And these legs are encased in yellow lace-up boots that go right up to his thighs. These boots clearly mean a great deal to the commissar. He is very proud of them and they are, therefore, his weak spot. There indeed lies his Achilles heel. And so the serpent prepares to strike.

“I hear you are a lover of the arts,” I begin my oblique approach. And then, with sudden feminine naïveté, as if unable to control myself, I exclaim, “Ah, what wonderful boots!”

The nose blushes and puffs itself up a little.

“Hem… the Arts… I adore the theater, although I have seldom had the opportunity—”

“What astonishing boots! Truly the boots of a warrior. I can’t help thinking you must be an extraordinary man!”

“No, no, whatever makes you say that?” the commissar protests feebly. “Let’s just say that ever since childhood I have loved beauty and heroism… and service to the people.”

Heroism and service to the people—these are words best avoided. It is in the name of service to the people that the Bat has been stripped. Art and beauty are surer ground.

“No, no, don’t deny it! I sense in you a profoundly artistic nature. You love the arts. You are a true patron of art; you do everything in your power to bring art to the people—into the thick of them, into their depths, into their heart of hearts. Your boots are truly remarkable. Only Torquato Tasso[7] could have worn boots like yours, and maybe not even him. You are a genius!”

That last word settles everything. I am given permission to take a flask of perfume and two evening dresses across the frontier—as tools of my trade.

In the evening Gooskin took the commissar to see the operetta, Catherine the Great. Lolo and I had written the libretto together.[8]

The commissar softened still more, gave free rein to his feelings and ordered Gooskin to inform me that “art is indeed of material significance” and that I could take with me whatever I needed: he would say nothing. He would be as quiet “as a fish against a brick wall.”

I never saw the commissar again.

My last days in Moscow pass in a senseless whirl.

Bella Kaza-Roza, a former chanteuse from the Ancient Theatre, arrives from Petersburg.[9] These last days have brought out a peculiar talent in her: She always knows who needs what and who possesses what.

In she comes, a distant look in her dark rapt eyes, and says, “In the Krivo-Arbat Lane, in the fabric store on the corner, they’ve still got a yard and a half of batiste. You absolutely must go and buy it.”

“But I don’t need any batiste.”

“Yes, you do. When you come back in a month’s time, there won’t be a scrap to be found anywhere.”

Another time she rushes in, out of breath, and says, “You must make yourself a velvet dress this very minute!”

“?”

“You know very well that you simply can’t go on without one. The owner of the hardware store on the corner is selling a length of curtain. She’s only just taken it down. Fresh as can be—nails and all. It’ll make a wonderful evening dress. You simply can’t do without it. And you’ll never get a chance like this again!”

The look on her face is serious, almost tragic.

I hate the word “never.” Were someone to tell me that I’ll never again get a headache, even that would probably scare me.

I do as I’m told. I buy the luxurious scrap of cloth with the seven nails.

Those last days were strange indeed.

At night we hurried past the dark houses, down streets where people were strangled and robbed. We hurried to listen to Silva[10] or else to sit in down-at-heel cafés packed with people in shabby coats that stank of wet dog. There we listened to young poets reading—or rather howling—their own and one another’s work; they sounded like hungry wolves. There was quite a vogue for these poets, and even the haughty Bryusov would sometimes deign to introduce one of their “Evenings of Eros.”[11]

Everyone wanted company, to be in the presence of other people.

To be alone and at home was frightening.

We had to know what was going on; we needed to keep hearing news of one another. Sometimes someone would disappear and then it would be almost impossible to find out what had happened to them. Had they gone to Kiev? Or to the place from which there was no return?

It was as if we were living in the tale about Zmey Gorynych, the dragon that required a yearly tribute of twelve fair maidens and twelve young men.[12] One might well wonder how the people in this tale could have carried on, how they could have lived with the knowledge that a dragon would soon be devouring the finest of their children. During those last days in Moscow, however, we realized that they too had probably been rushing from one little theater to another or hurrying to buy themselves something from which to make a coat or a dress. There is nowhere a human being cannot live. With my own eyes I have seen sailors taking a man out onto the ice in order to shoot him—and I have seen the condemned man hopping over puddles to keep his feet dry and turning up his collar to shield his chest from the wind. Those few steps were the last steps he would ever take, and instinctively he wanted to make them as comfortable as possible.

We were no different. We bought ourselves some “last scraps” of fabric. We listened for the last time to the last operetta and the last exquisitely erotic verses. What did it matter whether the verses were good or terrible? All that mattered was not to know, not to be aware—we had to forget that we were being led onto the ice.

News came from Petersburg that the Cheka[13] had arrested a well-known actress for reading my short stories in public. She was ordered to read one of the stories again, before three dread judges. You can imagine what fun it was for her to stand between guards with bayonets and declaim my comic monologue. And then—miracle of miracles!—after her first few trembling sentences, the face of one of the judges dissolved into a smile.

“I heard this story one evening at comrade Lenin’s. It’s entirely apolitical.”

Reassured by this, the judges asked the suspect—who was, of course, also greatly reassured—to continue her reading, “by way of revolutionary entertainment.”

Still, all in all, it probably wasn’t such a bad idea to be going away, even if only for a month. For a change of climate.

By now Gooskin was proving his worth more than ever. Perhaps more from nerves than from any real need. One morning, for some reason, he had been over to see Averchenko.

“It was awful,” he told me, waving his hands in the air. “At ten o’clock this morning I hurried over to see Averchenko—and what did I find? He was snoring—snoring cats and dogs! He’s going to miss the train!”

“But I thought we weren’t leaving for another five days.”

“The train leaves at ten o’clock. If he sleeps like that today, then what’s to stop him from sleeping like that a week from now? He’ll be sleeping like that his whole life. He’ll be sleeping—and we’ll be waiting. Wonderful!”

Gooskin dashed about. He got more and more agitated. He moved faster and faster. He flapped his hands in the air, like a broken belt drive. But had it not been for his frenzied energy, who knows how my life would have turned out? Wherever you are, O my pseudonymous Gooskin, I send you my greetings!