The Story of a Life

16

Lime Blossoms

I had never seen such ancient lime trees. At night their crowns were lost in the stars. When the wind blew, the stars seemed to dart here and there among the branches, like fireflies. In the daytime it was dark under the limes, while overhead, in the fresh green leaves, a world of birds of each and every sort squawked, fought, whistled and fluttered from branch to branch.

‘Just wait,’ Uncle Kolya liked to say. ‘Soon the lime trees will blossom, and then …’

He never did say what would happen when the lime trees blossomed, but we already knew ourselves that then the old park at Rëvny would be transformed into a place of wonders, of the kind which only occur in fairytales. After school had broken up for the summer, the whole family returned to Rëvny for the second time. Even my father had come along during his holiday. The impoverished owner of the estate rented out two or three wooden dachas in the park for the summer. The estate was far from any towns and the railway. Almost no one came during the summer, except for Uncle Kolya and us. In order to picture the beauty of the place, one must describe it in topographical precision.

A forgotten park of lime trees, wild with hazel and buckthorn. Mossy benches lost amid lilac bushes. Overgrown allées with names like the Temple of Diana, the Path of Sighs and the Nightingale Ravine. Sunny glades with solitary pines and wild flowers, and then another canopy of mighty and, so it seemed, thousand-year-old lime trees. The park sloped down to the river Rëvna. On the other side rose a small hill covered with a dense wood. A single sandy path led down to the river. You could follow it to a crumbling old chapel, which contained an icon of Tikhon Zadonsky. A bit farther on the path petered out in some dry grass.

No one dared to venture farther than the chapel by themselves – not even the bravest of the summer residents, Volodya Rumyantsev, a student of the Petersburg Institute of Forestry. A woody thicket surrounded the timbered chapel; it smelled of mould and ferns. At dusk, owls flew out from its depths. Once at night we heard a distant cry coming from the forest – it was a wandering pedlar who had got lost on his way from the Svensky Monastery to the fair at Trubchevsk. The forest warden found him and brought him to Rëvny. The pedlar, a lean little man with blue eyes, couldn’t stop weeping and crossing himself.

One day, we boys, together with Volodya Rumyantsev, took a compass and set off for the woods. We saw bottomless ravines, filled to the brim with brambles and wild hops. Water gurgled far down below, but it was impossible to descend. We discovered in the woods a small stream whose water was so clear it could have been glass. From the steep bank we could see clouds of minnows darting about along the bottom. Eventually we came upon a rotting cross by the stream’s source. A tin cup hung from the crosspiece, and a flowering bindweed had grown up and around the cup, holding it in place. We tore away the weed and scooped a cupful of water from the spring. It tasted of rust. Above us cranes rattled, orioles whistled, hawks soared. Clouds with dark blue bottoms floated by over our heads. We gazed at them and thought how well they must be able to take in this land of mysterious forests from up on high. Woodpeckers tapped diligently at dry trunks, and here and there pinecones fell upon our heads.

Volodya Rumyantsev kept insisting that there was an abandoned Old Believers’ monastery in the woods. The monastery was now home to nothing but bees, and if you found it, you could take all the honey you ever wanted. We never did find that monastery. We climbed up pine trees to search for the timbered roof with its crooked eight-pointed cross amid the sea of greenery. A cool breeze blew up in the treetops, and our hands stuck to the sappy branches. Black-eyed squirrels jumped about us. The young green pinecones smelled of turpentine. But no matter how much we searched from the tops of the pines, as if from a lighthouse, shading our eyes from the sun with one hand, we never saw a thing other than forest and drifting clouds, which made us dizzy as they floated by.

From the tops of the tall pines the clouds appeared much closer than from the ground. You wanted to reach out and touch these massive, snow-white puffs. High above the clouds, a bright ripple pierced the sky and poured forth rows of transparent plumes. Volodya Rumyantsev said that these were also clouds, but they were so high up they consisted not of water vapour, but ice crystals. The plumes hung motionless in the cold, unattainable height.

Along with the forest, another place of mystery was the river. It twisted beneath overhanging willows, divided into two branches, washed the sides of an island, and in many places was covered by water lilies and flowering rushes that stretched from bank to bank. Wooden dams had been built along the river by the island, where a rundown sawmill stood. Mountains of sawdust had piled up in front of some empty sheds. On hot days the smell of the mill’s wood shavings was overpowering. At one time the mill had been powered by a water wheel, but it had long since collapsed and now the wheel and the wooden teeth of its gears were covered in furry cobwebs and yellow mushrooms the colour of sulphur.

Beyond the dams there were deep pools – home to enormous pike – which we called ‘the drop-off’. The water here was black and whirled about slowly. My Uncle Kolya and I dropped dozens of hooks and spoon lures into these pools. Along with pike, the waters were home to large, almost dark blue perch. We fished for them from the wet logs of the dam. There were times when the perch tore the rods from our hands and swam off. Our bamboo poles slipped quickly into the depths like golden arrows. They usually resurfaced below the drop-off, and we would retrieve them, together with two perch, from a boat.

There was also an old house with columns at Rëvny, built, so it was said, by Rastrelli.fn1 Swallows nested on the pediment. Radiant light flowed through wavy glass into the empty halls, stairways and corridors. Whenever anyone walked along the enfilade, the furniture creaked and the chandeliers tinkled softly. No one lived in the house. Only on certain family celebrations, such as the name day of Maria (there were two Marias in the family – my mother and Aunt Marusya, Uncle Kolya’s wife), was the hall with the musicians’ gallery opened up and aired in preparation for a ball.

We hung round lanterns from the balcony and set off fireworks in the park late in the evening. The rockets shot up through the dense foliage and released their coloured balls of fire, illuminating the old house in flickering reddish flames as they slowly began to fall. Once the balls went out, the summer night returned to the park, with its distant croaking of frogs, glittering stars and smell of blossoming lime trees. Comrades of my uncle – fellow artillery officers – came to the name day celebrations from Bryansk. Once even the Moscow tenor Askochensky came and gave a concert in the old ballroom.

‘Oh, if only you’d return to me once more,’ sang Askochensky, ‘to where we were so happy! You’d hear a whisper in the trees and would know ’tis the moaning of my aching heart.’

It seemed to me that this romance had been written about our park. It had heard many declarations of longing and witnessed the pale faces of lovers, along with their tears upon parting. ‘When melancholy tones disturb your sleep,’ Askochensky sang, leaning against the piano, while Aunt Marusya, quickly brushing back a strand of hair, accompanied him, ‘or when the wind moans on a stormy night, know ’tis the sound of my inconsolable weeping.’

Supper at Uncle Kolya’s dacha followed the ball. The candles in their round shades crackled with the sound of burning moths. We schoolboys were served wine, just like the grown-ups. We began to feel a bit of Dutch courage. Once, after some wine, we decided that each of us would run right round the park by himself in the dark of the night. To be certain no one cheated, each of us had to leave something on the bench in the Nightingale Ravine. Uncle Kolya promised to check in the morning that everyone had kept his word. The first to go was Aunt Marusya’s brother, Pavel Tennov, a student at the Academy of Medicine and Surgery. Lanky, with a snub nose and curly beard, he resembled Chekhov and was known as exceedingly trusting and good. For this reason, everyone played tricks on him.

Pavel was supposed to leave an empty wine bottle on the bench in the Nightingale Ravine. It was my turn next. I dashed off into the tree-lined allée. Dew-covered branches lashed my face. I had the feeling that someone was bounding after me in pursuit. I stopped and listened. Someone was creeping about in the undergrowth. I raced on farther and farther until I came out into a clearing. The moon was coming up. Ahead, covered in impenetrable darkness, lay the Nightingale Ravine, and I threw myself into it as if it were dark water. The river glittered, and from the other side came the doleful cry of a bittern.

I stopped by the bench and could smell the lime tree blossoms. Their scent filled the night air. It was quiet, and I couldn’t believe that not far from here, on the brightly lit verandah, happy guests were chatting and laughing. We had agreed in advance to play a trick on Pavel. I grabbed the bottle he had left on the bench and threw it into the river. The bottle twisted as it flew, flashing under the moon. Circular, moonlit ripples widened outward towards the banks. I ran farther along the edge of the ravine. I could smell the damp earth and angelica. Panting, I eventually reached the long lime-tree allée. Ahead, the lights burned brightly.

‘Kostik!’ I heard Aunt Marusya call nervously. ‘Is that you?’

‘Yes!’ I replied, running up to her.

‘What nonsense you all are forever coming up with!’ said Aunt Marusya. She was standing in the allée, a light woollen shawl around her shoulders. ‘Your mother’s very worried. Whose idea was this? Gleb’s, I suppose.’

‘No, it wasn’t Gleb’s idea,’ I lied. ‘We came up with it together.’

Aunt Marusya had guessed correctly. Uncle Kolya’s ward, Gleb Afanasiev, a shaggy-haired schoolboy from Bryansk whose inventiveness was inexhaustible, had proposed the idea of this nighttime run through the park. He always had a sly twinkle in his grey eyes. A day did not pass without Gleb coming up with some new idea. And so, no matter what, everyone always blamed Gleb for everything. In the morning Uncle Kolya went to check the items on the bench. The bottle Pavel had left was not there. Everyone started to tease him, saying that he’d got scared and never made it to the ravine, but just threw the bottle down somewhere along the way. But Pavel quickly guessed what was going on and threatened Gleb: ‘Just you wait, you’ll pay for this!’

Gleb was silent and didn’t give me away. That same day Pavel dunked Gleb several times while they were out swimming and then tied Gleb’s trousers into a tight knot and tossed them into the water. Gleb spent a long time undoing the knot with his teeth. He looked ridiculous in his wrinkled, heavily chewed trousers, which was particularly unfortunate given that in one of the dachas at Rëvny lived the Karelins, a mother and her two school-age daughters, from Orël. Lyuba, the elder of the two, spent all her time reading in some hidden corner of the park. Her cheeks were fiery red, and her fair hair was always ruffled. We were constantly finding black ribbons that had fallen from Lyuba’s plaits near the benches where she had been sitting. The younger sister, Sasha, was capricious and sarcastic; Gleb had fallen for her. He could not imagine letting her see him in his rumpled trousers. I felt guilty and asked Mama to iron them. In his newly pressed trousers, Gleb was at once restored to his former casual, confident appearance.

There had been nothing special about our run through the park that night, but I could not forget it for a long time. I recalled the waves of lime tree blossoms brushing my face, the cry of the bittern, and a night seemingly without end, brought to life by the light of the stars and filled with the echoes of happiness. At times that summer I felt that there must be practically no place left on earth for human grief. But soon after the name day celebration I began to have my doubts. I saw a barefoot boy in a ragged peasant’s coat near our dacha. He had come to sell strawberries. He smelled of berries and smoke. He wanted ten kopecks for a jugful of strawberries, but Mama gave him twenty and a piece of pie. The boy stood there staring at the ground and rubbing one bare foot against the other. He tucked the pie inside his shirt and was silent.

‘Whose boy are you?’ Mama asked him

‘Aniska’s,’ he answered shyly.

‘Why aren’t you eating your pie?’

‘It’s for my mum,’ he said, in a hoarse voice, not raising his eyes. ‘She’s not well. She was hauling wood, hurt her belly.’

‘And where’s your father?’

‘He’s dead.’

The boy sniffled, stepped back and took off running. Frightened, he looked back over his shoulder as he ran, clutching his chest to keep from losing his pie. For a long time, I could not forget that tow-headed boy and secretly judged Mama. She had eased her guilty conscience with a piece of pie and twenty kopecks. I understood that very well. I understood that such bitter injustice demands something more than pitiful crumbs. But how to end such injustice, which I encountered ever more frequently in my life, I still did not know.

We often heard my father and Uncle Kolya arguing at teatime. They argued about the future of Russia. Uncle Kolya tried to prove that education was the key to the happiness of the Russian people. My father believed that revolution would bring happiness. Pavel, who called himself a populist, joined in the arguments. Once he was nearly expelled from school for a speech he gave at a students’ meeting. Volodya Rumyantsev kept quiet, but he would tell us boys that neither my father nor Uncle Kolya nor Pavel understood the slightest thing.

‘And do you?’ we asked him.

‘Not in the least!’ a satisfied Volodya answered. ‘And I don’t want to understand. I love Russia – that’s all there is to it!’

Volodya was the brother of my Uncle Kolya’s dearest comrade at the Arsenal in Bryansk, Captain Rumyantsev. Volodya was a bit deaf. He slept in the hayloft and always had pieces of straw stuck to his reddish beard. He disdained all human comforts. Instead of a pillow he slept with his rolled-up student’s jacket under his head. He shuffled when he walked and spoke in a mumble. Under his jacket he wore a faded blue traditional Russian shirt tied with a black silk tasselled cord.

Volodya’s hands were always covered in burns from developing fluids and fixatives – he was passionate about photography. He was an enterprising young man. He signed on with a Moscow lithography firm, Scherer and Nobholz, and travelled in the summer to remote towns to photograph the local sights, which the lithographers printed as picture postcards and sold on bookstalls at railway stations. We liked Volodya’s hobby. He often disappeared from Rëvny for several days, and then returned to say he’d been to Yefremovo, to Yelets, to Lipetsk.

‘Now, that’s the life, my young fellows!’ he’d say, sitting in the banya, lathering his head. ‘The day before yesterday, I swam across the Oka, yesterday, the Moksha, and today, the Rëvna.’

He infected us with his love for provincial Russia. He knew it inside out – its fairs, monasteries, country estates, customs and traditions. He had visited Lermontov’s birthplace in Tarkhany, Fet’s country house near Kursk,fn2 the horse fair at Lebedyan, the island of Valaam and the battlefield at Kulikovo. Everywhere he went he had elderly female acquaintances – former schoolteachers or minor local officials – who would put him up for the night. They fed him fish pie and cabbage soup, and in return for their hospitality he taught the old ladies’ canaries how to whistle a polka or gave them presents of superphosphate – adding it to their geraniums would produce huge scarlet blossoms guaranteed to amaze their neighbours.

He never took part in arguments about the fate of Russia, but always had something to say when the conversation turned towards the subject of Tambov ham, frozen apples from Ryazan or sturgeon from the Volga. On such subjects no one was his equal. Uncle Kolya liked to joke that only Volodya Rumyantsev knew the price of bast shoes in Kineshma and how much a pound of goose down was going for in Kalyazin.

Once Volodya Rumyantsev travelled to Orël and returned with awful news. We were playing croquet by the dacha. We all loved to play. Our games often dragged on after dark when we’d have to bring lamps out onto the lawn. We did not fight over anything as fiercely as over croquet, especially with my brother Borya. He played well and always became the ‘rover’ very quickly. He’d then start whacking our balls and sent them so far that sometimes we couldn’t find them. We were so angry, and when Borya took aim we muttered: ‘The Devil in your hand, a toad in your mouth!’ There were times this spell worked, and Borya would miss. We also fought with Gleb. When he played against Sasha, he would always muff his shot and lose intentionally in order to make the girl happy. But when he played with Sasha against us, he showed off his miraculous skill and always won. Usually, all the summer residents gathered to play croquet. Even Uncle Kolya’s dogs, Mordan and Chetvertak, came running to watch, although they always were careful to lie down behind the pine trees to stay out of the way of the balls.

That morning the croquet lawn was very noisy, as always. Then we heard the sound of rolling wheels. A tarantass drove up to Uncle Kolya’s dacha. Someone shouted: ‘Volodya Rumyantsev has arrived!’ No one paid any attention: we were all used to his constant comings and goings. A minute later Volodya appeared. He walked up in a dusty topcoat and boots and his face was pinched as if he were about to cry. In his hand he held a newspaper.

‘What is it?’ asked a worried Uncle Kolya.

‘Chekhov has died.’

Volodya turned round and returned to the dacha. We ran after him. Uncle Kolya snatched the newspaper from Volodya, read it, tossed it on the table, and walked off to his room. Aunt Marusya followed anxiously behind. Pavel had taken off his pince-nez and rubbed the lenses with his handkerchief for a long time.

‘Kostik,’ Mama said, ‘go down to the river and call Papa. He can stop his fishing for once.’

She said this as if Father could have somehow known already about Chekhov’s death, but wasn’t saddened by it or even cared given his frivolous nature. I felt bad for my father but went anyway. Gleb Afanasiev came with me. All of a sudden he became quite serious. ‘Yes, Kostik!’ he said as we walked, and then sighed deeply. I told my father that Chekhov had died. All at once he went pale and slumped over.

‘How is it possible?’ he said in a confused voice. ‘I never thought I’d outlive Chekhov …’

We walked back past the croquet lawn. Mallets and balls lay strewn about. The lime trees were full of noisy birds and the sun shone through the branches, making green patches on the grass. I had already read some Chekhov and loved it. I walked and thought that such people as Chekhov ought never to die.

Two days later Volodya Rumyantsev left for Chekhov’s funeral in Moscow. We accompanied him to the station at Sinezërki. Volodya was carrying a basket of flowers to lay on Chekhov’s grave. They were simple wild flowers. We had picked them in the fields and woods, and Mama had packed them between layers of damp moss and made a cover out of a wet cloth. We tried to pick as many wild flowers as possible because we were certain Chekhov loved them. We picked many King Solomon’s seals, pinks, daisies and centauries. Aunt Marusya added some jasmine she had cut in the park.

The train left in the evening. We walked all the way back from Sinezërki and did not arrive at Rëvny until dawn. A waxing crescent moon hung low over the woods. It had rained earlier, and the moon’s tender light shone in the puddles. The smell of wet grass hung in the air. A lone cuckoo was still calling in the park. Once the moon set, out came the stars for a brief moment before being blotted out by the dawn mist. It rustled for a time, trickling off the bushes, until a peaceful sun rose and warmed the earth.