Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Sour Cream

Natalia Petrovna Kivokurtseva came from the same Kivokurtsevs that were bodyguards to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich.¹ But, you know, only now we can mention this; before – not a peep. She told no one, and no one knew, so somehow she managed to keep it secret and not get into trouble. And come to think of it, why would anyone bother with her? She never married – times were such that she couldn’t possibly find a proper match. You could count the decent bachelors in Stargorod on the fingers of one hand. Her father died in 1920, mother in ’24. What did she know? Embroidery, piano, French. She asked around at the music school and worked there until she retired, and since she didn’t have a university education, her pension was just a notch above that of a kolkhoz milkmaid. Later, they increased it, twice, and she was grateful for that. And then what? Before the war there were the Gryaznins, the Korobovs, the Ebermanns and the Shirinskys, but they were all gone; the last one, Nikolai Nikolayevich Monteifel was in the museum’s employ, with the paintings department – she buried him in the sixties. His children were all in the capitals – they had degrees. She had colleagues, of course, but some had died, and the others had forgotten about her. She was alone.

She got used to it. To the ladies on the bench she never said much – they had little to talk about. They got used to that, too: they’d greet each other, and that was it. Once, people from the museum came. They wanted to buy her painting, but she refused; instead, she bequeathed it to the museum in her will – the painting was all she had left, her mother used to say it was Italian. Recently, however, it hasn’t mattered to Natalia Petrovna where the painting came from: she’d look at the little painted cows and their young cowherd, and the tiny castles and towers up on the hill, and remember things. Her eyesight has gotten poorer, but she can still see the picture in her mind.

The museum people mentioned that the Assembly of Nobles² had started up again in Moscow, and that women were now being admitted as well. But this, pardon me my dears, is nonsense. It’s all in the past, and if someone’s got the taste for playing dress-up – well, it’s not dangerous anymore, apparently. But she doesn’t. And not with those people. Her eyes don’t see, her feet barely walk – she’s ashamed of herself, but she gets around.

It was her eyes that let her down in the end. One morning she went out, first to buy some canned mackerel. She spent three hours in line and they ran out right before it was her turn. Then sour cream. Another line. She got some. She was on her way home, when, near the home for deaf children, a drunk stumbled out from behind a fence, knocked her into the mud, broke her jar of sour cream and, for good measure, cursed at her: “Damn blind hag, high time you kicked the bucket, you bitch.”

High time indeed. She headed home, having more or less scraped off the dirt; tears swelled to a lump in her throat, but she held strong. The Kivokurtsevs don’t cry, that’s what her Mama had said when they took Uncle Kolya away.

She remembered it. She remembered her whole life. She didn’t go to college – not with her background. And as to whitewashing her pedigree by working in a factory, no, thank you. She taught children music, quietly. And just as quietly, like a mouse, she slipped into retirement.

And now she couldn’t even bring her sour cream home. It was very upsetting.

Chin up, knees straight, past the old ladies on the bench, with a “Good evening!”

“Hello, hello, Natalia Petrovna, what happened?”

She didn’t even attempt an answer. Went upstairs, took her clothes off. Coat into the bathtub to soak it before the dirt caked. Afterward, a cup of tea. She had no strength left. She boiled the water for tea, to have with a bublik and a piece of hard candy, instead of sugar.

The museum girls – good, nice girls all – sometimes asked her, “Natalia Petrovna, what do you remember?”

And she’d always answer, “Nothing, girls, absolutely nothing…”

She took the cup to the sink, put it down with a clang – her hands shook, her head was spinning. High time, bitch.

For the first time in her life she didn’t wash her dishes.

She went to her room and fell into the armchair. She looked at the painting on the wall. The Kivokurtsevs’ home was long gone and the one that had been Ms. Goncharnaya’s was gone too, but the Shirinskys’ still stands. How strange…

They think they’ve got themselves an Assembly of Nobles…

“I-di-ots!” she said, hitting each syllable hard, staccato.

But she didn’t cry. No, she did not. She felt better, after a while.

1. Father of Peter the Great; ruled 1645-1676.

2. An institution of self-governance in Russia from 1766-1917.