The Story of a Life

22

Kean, the Great Tragedian

Yellow posters had gone up on the fences around Bryansk announcing the arrival of the actor Orlenev,fn1 then on tour.

The posters had been printed on thin, rough paper. The paste had soaked right through them, and the goats ripped them off the fences with their teeth and ate them. They walked about chewing, and one could read the words Genius … Dissipation printed in big black letters on the yellow strips of paper dangling from their mouths. Only a few of these posters had survived and on these it could be read that Orlenev would be appearing in Bryansk in the role of the English tragedian Kean in a play called Kean, or Genius and Dissipationfn2. Uncle Kolya bought tickets well in advance. For several days all we talked about at home was Orlenev.

The play was being put on at the Summer Theatre in the municipal park. It was an old wooden structure covered in peeling pink paint. Years’ worth of posters, drenched by the rain, hung in tattered clumps from the walls. The theatre had been boarded up for ages. At dusk, bats flew out from under the eaves and darted about over the deserted back alleys. Young ladies in white dresses shrieked from fear – there was an old superstition that bats were drawn to anything white and once they attached themselves you could do nothing to prise them loose. The abandoned theatre appeared mysterious. I was certain that in its empty hall and dressing rooms withered flowers, pots of greasepaint, ribbons and yellowing sheet music lay scattered about, all left behind from those days when, according to local lore, a touring company had once passed through and put on an operetta. I imagined young women with rouged cheeks and blue-shadowed eyes running over creaking boards from their dressing rooms onto the stage, their velvet trains trailing behind them. Impudent Lotharios strummed seductively on their guitars, the cruel words of their romances tearing at the hearts of the simple townsfolk:

I dreamed of a day, never to return,

And of the one who shall never come …

That theatre had seen it all – young Gypsies with heartbreaking voices, ruined landowners smelling of horse sweat – they’d ride a hundred versts just to hear some Nina Zagornaya sing – cavalry officers with black whiskers, merchants in brown bowlers, and trembling young brides in ruffled pink dresses as fluffy as foam.

This theatre conjured up for me thoughts of July nights, when lightning flashed over the tops of the lime trees and the rush of blood to your head made you giddy. Nights when passing love and unruly passion left neither fear nor regret and when one would risk everything for nothing more than a single glance. One glance, to the jingling sound of horse bells and the whoops of a tipsy coachman. One glance, like lightning in the sultry black night filled with the scent of the lime tree blossoms and the distant hum of the Bryansk forest, wild and impenetrable and capable of healing any heart suffering from melancholy and betrayal. The walls of the theatre held inside them the echoes of long-silenced voices, the memories of reckless lives, seductions, duels, muffled sobs and burning hearts.

The theatre seemed long dead and shrouded in cobwebs and destined never to be used again. But it was opened up, cleaned and aired. New carpet was laid in the aisles, and the dust was brushed from the boxes’ velvet upholstery, after which it went from grey to cherry red. The chandelier up under the roof was lit. Its old crystals shone, dim and uncertain, but then, with the first chords of the orchestra, they burst boldly to life and twinkled with the light of hundreds of multi-coloured stars. Old ushers in white cotton gloves took their places at the doors. The air was filled with the smell of perfume, sweets and the freshness of the garden. A murmur arose, of muffled voices, jingling spurs, creaking chairs, laughter and the rustling of the little programmes decorated with lyres and oak leaves.

‘Orlenev, Orlenev, Orlenev!’ the audience called from every corner of the theatre.

Uncle Kolya took his seat in the box, elegantly dressed in his uniform frock coat with its black velvet collar. Aunt Marusya sat next to him radiating an ashy brilliance from her new smoke-grey dress, her hair and her excited grey eyes – this was her first visit to the theatre in a very long time. Staff Captain Ivanov strode casually down the carpeted aisle, the little spurs on his pointy-toed boots clinking ever so softly. Even Captain Rumyantsev combed his thick reddish beard and put on his best coat. He kept taking his handkerchief out of his back pocket to wipe his flushed face. The Rumyantsev sisters sat close together in a row, their cheeks blazing.

My old friends from Rëvny also came – Volodya Rumyantsev and Pavlya Tennov. Even though there was a seat for him in the box, Volodya went up to the gallery. He had quarrelled with his sisters. Pavlya sat with his legs crossed and a condescending look on his face. Having lived a long time in St Petersburg as a student, he expected little from provincial theatricals.

Aunt Marusya pulled me towards her, picked a piece of lint off my jacket collar, took a good look at me and then smoothed my hair. ‘Now, that’s better.’ I glanced at myself in the tarnished mirror at the back of the box. I was terribly pale and so thin I looked as if I might snap in two like some little child.

The curtain went up. The play began.

I had seen good actors in Kiev, but this small, sad man with sharp features was performing a miracle on the stage. With every word and every expression, he revealed the pain and nobility of the great Kean. When he cried in his ringing voice, ‘The deer’s been shot!’, all his hopeless despair and need for mercy erupted in that single exclamation.

I was trembling by the time the players seated in the audience began acting out the staged quarrel. I could not hold back my tears when the curtain fell and the old English stage manager, his eyes red from crying, came out to the front of the stage to say in a quivering voice that the play could not continue because ‘the sun of England, the great tragedian Kean, has lost his mind’.

Aunt Marusya turned towards me, tapped me on the hand and tried to say something amusing, but instead screamed with surprise and leapt up out of her seat. Uncle Kolya also turned towards me and rose to his feet. The entire hall shook with applause. And then I turned round. Right behind me stood Father, as tired as ever and with the same sad, affectionate smile, but with his hair now completely grey. Everything began swimming before my eyes, and then, suddenly, went blank. Father caught me as I fell.

I remember poorly or, more accurately, don’t remember at all, what happened next. I came to on a small sofa at the back of the box. I was lying down and my collar had been undone. Water was running down my chin, and Aunt Marusya was spritzing me with eau-de-Cologne. Father lifted me by the shoulders, sat me up, and kissed me.

‘Just sit for a minute, don’t try to move,’ he said. ‘It’ll soon pass. Didn’t you get my telegram?’

While an exhausted Orlenev took his bows and collected the bouquets that had been tossed on stage, Father told me briefly that he had found a job at the railway factory in Bezhitsa, a small town only eight kilometres from Bryansk. He had just arrived and, having found no one at home at Uncle Kolya’s, had come to look for us at the theatre.

‘How’s Mama?’ I asked.

‘Mama?’ he repeated, as if he hadn’t quite heard. ‘Oh, by the way, I brought you a letter from her. Mama doesn’t want to live in Bezhitsa. She’s moving to Moscow with Dima, she thinks for good. She’s taking Galya too, of course.’

‘Did she say anything about me?’

Father thought for a moment. ‘I don’t think so. I saw her only briefly. She must have written everything in her letter. Here, read it.’

He gave me the letter. The audience continued applauding. I read the letter quickly. It was short and dry.

Mama wrote that I was to stay with Uncle Kolya until she got settled. For now, there was nothing she could say to comfort me. She was planning to move to Moscow next month, in July. She wanted me to spend the summer in Bryansk, but if I wanted I could go and live with Father in Bezhitsa. Still, it would be better and easier if I were to stay in Bryansk. She added: ‘Unfortunately, we can’t stop in Bryansk on the way from Kiev to Moscow, but I’ll send you a telegram on our way through so you can come and see us at the station and we’ll talk everything over.’

After I had finished reading the letter, Aunt Marusya laughed and said to my father: ‘And now, we won’t give him up to anyone, not even to you, Georgy Maximovich.’

‘Not for anything,’ said Uncle Kolya. ‘But don’t worry, Georgy, we’ll have a little chat about it.’

‘Yes, we’ll do that,’ Father agreed.

We went out into the gardens. The glowing lamps hissed among the trees. Up on the bandstand, a military band pounded out with all its might a rousing march as though delighted the play was over and the musicians could go back to making as much noise as they liked. We climbed into our carriage. As we made our way down the steep hill, the horses picked their steps carefully.

Mama’s letter left me disheartened. Things were no clearer now than they had been. Obviously, Mama had not taken Father back. I couldn’t understand why she had written me such a cold letter. Had she already started to forget me? Did no one at all want me? Father carried on a lively conversation with Uncle Kolya. But why was he ignoring me? There were so many troubling things I wanted to tell him. Perhaps if I could have told him and had a good cry I might have felt better.

Everyone loved me at Uncle Kolya’s – my uncle, Aunt Marusya, all Uncle Kolya’s friends, but still I always had this profound pain in my heart. I had to hide my sorrow so as not to hurt my aunt and uncle’s feelings.

I remembered Suboch’s words – that soon I could stop being a burden to anyone. The notion seized me. Everything was suddenly clear. In other words, I was a burden to everyone. Father had his own life. Who knows, maybe he was planning on living with someone in Bezhitsa. And Mama? Why had she accepted my leaving so easily? It must have been because of Galya. Galya was blind, the doctors could do nothing to help her. This had driven Mama to despair. She was completely consumed by Galya’s terrible misfortune. She must have had nothing left in her soul besides her enormous pity for Galya.

A dusty moon hung over the town. Its light made the metal roofs look wet. Aunt Marusya leaned over to me. ‘May I see the letter?’

I handed it to her. She folded it in half, slipped it into her glove, and then fastened the mother-of-pearl button over it.

My head started to ache. The pain was so bad it brought tears to my eyes.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Aunt Marusya.

‘I’ve got a terrible headache.’

‘You poor thing. It’s all too much at once.’

At home they put me to bed. I lay there listening to the conversation in the dining room. I could hear my father’s voice. I kept waiting for him to come in and wish me goodnight.

Fresh air from the window made me sleepy. Dozing off, I heard Orlenev cry out in a tormented voice just outside my room, ‘The deer’s been shot!’ And then, all of a sudden, I heard faint music coming from far off, on the very edge of the night. It was leaving, drifting off into the distance, and it seemed as if it nodded farewell to me as it departed.

Then Aunt Marusya said: ‘He’s a weak boy. It’s all been too much for him.’

I asked: ‘For whom?’

‘Sleep now,’ said my aunt’s voice. ‘I’ll be right by your side. Pour your own tea, why don’t you.’ Teaspoons began twirling in their cups, round and round, faster and faster. They made me giddy, and I began to feel myself falling. I fell for a long time and as I fell, I forgot everything.

I lay in bed with a fever and headache for several days. Meanwhile, Father left for Bezhitsa. As soon as I was well, Uncle Kolya and I left to visit Father. Bezhitsa was a dull and dreary factory settlement. The ground was littered with porous slag from the furnaces. The few birch trees were bent and crooked. Smoke belched from the factory chimney. Father lived in a crude log house that smelled of coal dust. His room was spartan. He lived here alone. We found him reading an encyclopedia. He was glad to see us.

‘I understand,’ he said to Uncle Kolya. ‘This no place for Kostik. It’s boring, uncomfortable and lonely. I won’t last long here myself.’

‘Well, what are you going to do?’ asked my uncle sternly.

‘Go somewhere else. My life just hasn’t worked out, and I don’t even care anymore. It’s all my own fault.’

I looked at Father. This was no longer the man I knew from 1905 or before – at Gorodishche or Gelendzhik, or in Vrubel’s hotel room. It was as if that had been my real father, and this was some double who had ruined his life.