The Story of a Life

20

Ruin

After our family’s Crimean holiday everything suddenly changed. Father had an argument with the head of the South-West Railway. He quit his job and our financial well-being came to an immediate end.

We moved from Nikolsko-Botanicheskaya to Podvalnaya – ‘Cellar’ – Street, where, as if fate were mocking us, we took a basement flat. We lived off whatever personal belongings Mama could sell. Silent men in sheepskin hats appeared with ever greater frequency in our dark, chilly rooms. Their sharp eyes roamed about the flat, taking in our furniture, paintings and the china laid out on the table, and they discussed business quietly and confidently with Mama and went off. An hour or two later a cart would drive into the courtyard and soon depart with a chest of drawers, a table, a mirror, a rug.

In the mornings we would find a Tatar man in a black quilted skullcap in our kitchen. We called him ‘Shurum-Burum’. He would be squatting and examining Father’s trousers and jackets or some sheet in the light. Shurum-Burum liked to haggle for a long time, leave and then come back, which drove Mama to fits of anger. Finally, Shurum-Burum would agree and shake on the deal, pull out a fat wallet from his pocket, and, after spitting delicately on his fingers, count out his torn banknotes.

Father was almost never at home. He left early in the morning and returned after we were asleep. Where he spent his days, none of us knew. Apparently, he was looking for work. Mama aged overnight. She stopped taking care of her hair. Grey strands hung down over her face. Borya left us and took a room at the Progress boarding house near the railway station, ostensibly since it was closer to the Polytechnical Institute. In truth, he left because he no longer got along with Father, whom he blamed for all our misfortune, and he didn’t want to live in our depressing surroundings on Podvalnaya Street. Borya kept himself by giving lessons, but he couldn’t spare any money to help us. Dima also gave lessons or, as it was then called, worked as a ‘tutor’. I alone was too young to give lessons, and Galya was so short-sighted that the only thing she could do was to help Mama around the house. We had to let Liza go.

One morning the porter brought in a gaunt, creaky old man who turned out to be a bailiff. He impounded almost all of our remaining possessions to cover mysterious debts that Father had kept hidden from Mama. Now it all came out into the open. After that Father took the first job he could get – an awful position at a sugar factory near Kiev – and moved out. We were left on our own. Grief overtook us. Our family was dying, and I understood this. This was especially difficult for me after Crimea, after my short, sad love affair with Lena, after my happy childhood. Once a month Uncle Kolya sent money to Mama from Bryansk. Mama cried from shame every time the money arrived.

One day I saw Mama in the school director’s waiting room. I ran towards her, but she turned away, and then I understood that she didn’t want me to see her. I didn’t understand why she had gone to see the director, but I never asked her about it. A few days later our new director, Tereshchenko, who had replaced Bessmertny, stopped me in the hall. Short, fat and bald, with a head that looked like it had been buttered (we called him ‘Butter Head’), he said: ‘Be sure to tell your dear mother that the school board has granted her request and you and your brother will be exempted from all school fees. But don’t forget, this is done only for good pupils. And so, I advise you to improve your marks.’

This was the first time in my life I felt humiliated. Back at home I said to Mama: ‘Dima and I have been exempted from our school fees. Why did you go to see the director?’

‘What else could I do?’ Mama asked in a soft voice. ‘Take the two of you out of school?’

‘I could go out and earn my own money.’

Then for the first time I saw fear on Mama’s face, almost as if she had been struck. ‘Don’t be angry,’ Mama said and lowered her head. She was sitting at the table and sewing. ‘How could I have you go out and work?’ She started to cry. ‘If only you knew how much it hurts me to think of what he’s done to us, and especially to you! How could he have dared? How could your father have ever been so foolish? How?’

For some time now Mama had started to refer to Father as ‘he’ or ‘your father’. She cried, slumped over an old dress. Scraps of fabric and white thread lay on the floor around her.

Mama had sold off almost all our things. The flat was now dank and empty. A cold, harsh light shone from the windows, through which, down in the cellar, we saw nothing but shuffling boots and galoshes. The constant shuffling of dirty feet through the wintry slush was distracting and unsettling. It seemed as if all these strangers were walking through our flat, bringing in the cold from the street with them, and considering it unnecessary to even deign to look at us.

That winter Mama received a letter from Uncle Kolya that upset her very much. As we sat at the table later in the evening, each of us busy with some task by the light of our only lamp, Mama announced that Uncle Kolya was insisting that I come and live with him for a time in Bryansk, where I would go to school, and that this was absolutely necessary until Father got a good job and returned to the family. A frightened Galya looked at Mama. Dima was silent.

‘Your father’s not coming back,’ Mama informed us. ‘He has other attachments. That’s why he went into debt and left us destitute. And I don’t want him back. I don’t want to hear anything more about this. Not one word.’

Mama, her lips pursed, was silent for a long time.

‘Well, that’s that,’ she finally said. ‘It’s not worth talking about. What are we going to do with Kostik?’

‘It’s simple,’ said Dima, not looking at Mama. Dima thought everything was simple. ‘I’m finishing school this year and will then be off to Moscow to enrol at the Technological Institute. We’ll sell everything. And then you, Mama, and Galya will move to Moscow and live with me. We’ll manage. And Kostik will just go and live with Uncle Kolya for a time.’

‘What are you saying?’ Galya said. ‘What sort of life would he have there? And why should we all be separated?’

I sat with my head down, feverishly drawing flowers and swirling scribbles on a piece of paper. For a while now I had taken to drawing elaborate doodles on some scrap of paper whenever I felt bad.

‘Stop drawing!’ said Mama. ‘I don’t understand, why are you smiling? What do you think about all this?’

‘I’m not smiling,’ I mumbled, even though I could feel the awkward smile on my face. ‘It’s just …’

I fell silent and went on doodling. I couldn’t stop.

‘Kostik, darling,’ Mama said in a weak voice, ‘why don’t you say something?’

‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’ll go … if I have to …’

‘That would be best,’ said Dima.

‘Yes … it’ll be fine … of course,’ I said to keep from saying nothing.

Everything fell to pieces at that moment. I saw nothing but a burning loneliness before me, and I felt utterly useless. I wanted to tell Mama that she needn’t send me to Bryansk, that I could give lessons just as well as Dima, that I could even be of help to her, that it was all so painful for me, and that I couldn’t stop thinking that they were kicking me out of the family. But my throat hurt so badly and my jaw was clenched so tightly that I couldn’t speak, and so I sat there not saying a word. For an instant the idea struck me of going to be with Father the next day. But the idea had gone as quickly as it had come, and I was left feeling that I was already completely alone.

I eventually pulled myself together and with difficulty managed to say once again that I was ready – happy even – to go to Bryansk, but my head hurt now and so I would like to go and lie down. I went to the cold room I shared with Dima, undressed quickly, lay down, pulled the covers over my head, clenched my teeth, and did not move the entire night. Mama came into my room and tried to speak to me, but I pretended to be asleep. She took my school greatcoat, laid it over me and went out.

The preparations for my move to Bryansk dragged on until December. It was hard for me to say goodbye to my school and my friends and to begin my new and what I assumed would be sad life. I wrote to Father to tell him I was moving to Bryansk but heard nothing for a long time until just days before my departure.

I typically walked through the deserted square behind the Opera House on my way home from school. I always walked together with my friends Stanishevsky and Matusevich, who lived in the same direction. One day we encountered a young woman in the square. She was slight and wore a thick veil. She passed us, stopped and then turned to watch us. We ran into the woman the next day at the exact same spot. She came up to us and said to me: ‘Pardon me, but are you Georgy Maximovich’s son?’

‘Yes, I am.’

‘I need to speak with you.’

‘Certainly,’ I said, blushing.

Stanishevsky and Matusevich left. They pretended none of this interested them in the slightest and didn’t even turn round.

‘Georgy Maximovich asked me to give you a letter,’ she said in a hurry, digging around for something in her handbag. ‘You understand he wanted it to reach you directly … Forgive me for telling you this … I could not refuse him. I recognised you at once. You look like your father. Here’s the letter.’

She handed me an envelope.

‘Are you going away?

‘Yes, in a few days.’

‘Oh, well … it’s a pity. It didn’t have to be this way.’

‘You’ll be seeing my father?’

She didn’t say a word, just nodded.

‘Kiss him for me,’ I blurted. ‘He’s very good.’ I had wanted to tell her to love and care for him, but all that came out were these few words: ‘He’s very good.’

‘Really?’ she said and started to laugh, opening her mouth just enough to show her small yet very white, glistening teeth. ‘Thank you!’

She shook my hand and hurried off. The bracelet on her wrist made a faint jingling sound. To this day I still do not know the woman’s name. I’ve been unable to discover it. Only Mama knew, but she took the secret with her to the grave. Her voice, laugh and bracelet reminded me of the woman I had once seen at Cherpunov’s. Perhaps if it had not been for the heavy veil I would have recognised her, this butterfly from the island of Borneo. Even now I am at times disturbed by the notion that this had been the same young woman who had treated me to cocoa at Kirchheim’s.

My father’s letter was short. He told me to endure my struggles with courage and dignity. He wrote:

Perhaps one day our luck will change and then I can help you. I firmly believe that you will grow up to be a true man and will succeed where I have failed. Remember this one bit of advice (I always made sure not to bore you with too much): never pass a hasty judgement on anyone, including me, until you know all the circumstances and until you have gained enough experience to understand the things you can’t possibly understand now. Be well, write to me, and don’t worry.

Only Mama and Galya were at the station to see me off. My train left in the morning. Dima couldn’t miss his classes. He kissed me before he left for school without saying a word. Mama was cold and kept her hands in her muff. Galya clung to her. Her eyesight had got much worse in the past year. She was confused by the crowd and the trains’ whistles frightened her. Mama made the sign of the cross over me, kissed me with her thin, cold lips, led me by the arm off to the side, and said: ‘I know that this is hard for you and you’re angry. But do try to understand that it’s you most of all I want to spare from our poverty and our troubles. This was the only reason I insisted that you go to Uncle Kolya.’

I told her I understood and wasn’t angry. I uttered the right words, but my heart felt empty and my only wish was for the train to hurry up and leave so we could end this wretched parting. Mama and I must have already had our true parting the night she laid my coat across me in bed for the last time. The train began to move, and I lost sight of Mama and Galya through the window. The engine’s thick smoke had enveloped the platform and hid everyone from view. The carriage, filled with winter’s weak light, was as cold as my heart. The windows let in a piercing draught. The sight of the snowy plains made me feel worse. A harsh wind blew all night. I was tired but couldn’t sleep. I stared at the candle in the lamp. The wind bent the flame down to one side and tried to put it out. I told myself that if the flame didn’t die then I could still expect some good things to come my way in life. The candle struggled mightily against the wind and come morning was still burning. I felt a bit better.

When I got off at Bryansk in the morning it was so cold that the air rang with the sound of sleigh runners across the hard snow. The frost clung to the earth like a thick layer of smoke. The frozen sun gave off a crimson glow. A sleigh had been sent to meet me. Inside lay a heavy sheepskin coat, a hood and long mittens. I wrapped myself up, and the horses took off at a gallop. We rushed along through the glistening, powdery snow – first along a causeway, then over the ice of the river Desna. The bells on the horses’ harnesses jingled wildly. Far off in the distance up on a hill, the old town, shaggy with hoar-frost and icicles, sparkled like a child’s tinsel toy.

The sleigh stopped by a wooden house built on the side of a hill. I climbed the steps and the door flew open. Aunt Marusya grabbed me by the arm, pulled me into the dining room, where reflected sunlight danced about on the ceiling, and insisted I drink half a glass of red wine. My lips were so cold it hurt to speak. Everything at Uncle Kolya’s was loud and cheerful. The samovar roared, Mordan barked, Aunt Marusya laughed, sparks shot with a pop from the stoves. Uncle Kolya soon arrived from the Arsenal. He kissed me, took me by the shoulders and gave me a playful shake. ‘The main thing is not to get discouraged! We’re going to do some wonderful things together.’

I slowly began to thaw out at Uncle Kolya’s. As always in such circumstances, my memory pushed aside everything unpleasant. It was as if my memory had cut out the bad sections in a piece of cloth and sewn together only the good parts – autumn in Crimea and the cheerful, noisy Russian winter. I tried not to think about what had recently happened in Kiev. I preferred to recall Alushta, the three plane trees and Lena. I even wrote a letter to her in Yalta, but never could bring myself to send it. It seemed to me very stupid. I tried hard to write something cleverer, but no matter how much I worked on the letter, it was no better.