The Kukotsky Enigma: A Novel

17

Dear Sergei!

How my hand enjoys writing your name! How your name suits you; it’s the only one for you. But it could have been Vitalik or Gena . . .

Greetings, Sergei!

Congratulations to you on having me and to me on having you. Everything about my existence today is different from yesterday. I had a little girl. It looks like we were terribly deceived, and she got substituted for a little boy. But she is very beautiful, everyone says, she looks like me. Keep in mind, I’m going to need a little boy soon. A little boy who looks like you. The fact that the little girl doesn’t resemble you and could not resemble you makes her a not very interesting creature for me. That is, I like her. They brought her to me today. She is touching and darling, but in some way—I can admit this to you—she is particularly dear to me as a witness to our love, as a witness to your caresses. As a secret participant even. I think that she will love you terribly, in a way that will be torturous for me.

I am jealous of you. Jealous of your former life, of all the things you touch, especially your instrument, but also the towel you wipe your face dry with, the teacup you touch with your fingers. Of all the women you caressed before.

Since you appeared, the world has changed so awfully much. Because I used to look at everything from one point of view, but now I look at things from two: I ask myself what would you think? I kiss you wherever I want. This time in the little indentation under your neck and on the scar on the left. Our little girl says hello. I don’t have any milk, but they say it might still come. Bring kefir and a big towel. It hurt, but went quickly.

Tanya

SERGEI READ THE LETTER, NEATLY REFOLDED THE SHEET of paper along the crease, and placed it in the inner pocket of his jacket. He had just delivered to the mustached receptionist behind the little window a bouquet of tea roses, some food, and a note. He had asked where the windows in Tanya’s ward looked out, and it took him a long time to figure out how to find them. He had known since evening that Tanya had given birth, and he had spent the whole night drinking with friends on that occasion, but now he suddenly wanted terribly to see Tanya, not through the window, but in person. He walked away from the information desk and headed for the staff entrance. A door guard was sitting there.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“I’m here to fix medical equipment,” he improvised. “Someone in the second section called me to come in and fix the proton synchrotron. Where can I leave my coat?”

The proton synchrotron that had for some reason rolled off Sergei’s tongue thoroughly satisfied the door guard.

“The coatroom attendant’s out sick; take off your coat and hang it up yourself. No one will steal it. We all know each other here.” The door guard let him pass. Removing his jacket, he took the absent cloakroom attendant’s blue work coat off its communal nail and rushed up the stairs. The door to the section was closed, so he rang the bell. A while later a nurse opened the door.

“What do you want?”

“They called me about fixing some equipment,” Sergei answered, trying not to breathe wine fumes at the nurse.

“You have to talk to the head nurse, in room seven,” the nurse barked and disappeared.

Sergei immediately spotted the door he needed, ward four. Tanya was standing alongside the window, her back to him, in a blue hospital gown—very tall and very thin.

“Tanya,” he called to her. She turned around. He had never seen her not pregnant, and she seemed like a stranger and terribly young.

The bouquet lay on her bed stand, not yet put in water. It was obvious that having received his parcel she had immediately run to the window to look for him.

“How did you get in here?” Tanya asked, somewhat embarrassed and freeing herself from his embrace. The women in the beds stared at them, their eyes popping out of their heads.

“I got called in. To fix the proton synchrotron,” he continued the game, and not in vain, because one of the women, almost elderly, who had just given birth to her fourth, was already planning to complain, because visitations were not allowed . . .

“They just took the children away. Too bad. If you had shown up about twenty minutes earlier, you could have taken a look at her.” Tanya smiled the silliest of smiles.

At that moment Sergei seemed to her to be dazzlingly handsome and unbearably her own. She had long ago and permanently forgotten that the child had no relation to him, and she passionately wanted to brag. After Pavel Alekseevich had praised her daughter yesterday evening, she had started to like her a lot more.

“Let’s go out somewhere before they throw me out . . .”

The section at that hour was quiet. They pulled at one door, then a second, and found an empty linen room, and Tanya pushed him inside. Here they buried themselves in each other, whispering passionate silliness in each other’s ears, locking themselves to each other with lips and teeth, and, between kisses, informing each other of various important things. Tanya told him that after they let her out she was taking the child to Moscow for a bit. He told her that he had been to see Poluektova and told her that he had a daughter, and that Poluektova had been invited to conduct ballet classes at the Perm Choreographic School and she had offered them her apartment to live in . . .

“In your wife’s apartment?” Tanya was taken aback.

“What’s the big deal? It’s normal. We’ll keep an eye on her place, walk her dogs, and feed her old cats . . .”

Tanya pressed his wrists.

“All right. We’ll decide that later. But on the whole it’s pretty cool that she’s so . . . magnanimous, is it?”

“No, you don’t understand. It’s just easier for her that way. She has two borzois, and they’re not easy to deal with . . . But they listen to me . . .”

They buried themselves in each other once again, and with her tongue Tanya traced the hard spot inside his lip—from the saxophone mouthpiece . . . For a whole hour no one bothered them in the linen room as they checked to make sure that nothing had changed now that Tanya did not have a belly anymore . . . But everything was just as it should be: the hot places were hot; the damp places—damp; and the dry—dry . . . And their love, as it turned out, had not diminished one single bit . . .