The Story of a Life

31

My Grandmother’s Garden

Grandmother Vikentia Ivanovna had been living in Cherkassy together with Aunt Yevfrosinia Grigorievna. Grandfather had already been dead a long time, and then while I was in Polesia for the summer, Aunt Yevfrosinia died of a heart attack. So, Grandmother Vikentia moved to Kiev to live with one of her other daughters, my Aunt Vera, who was married to a wealthy businessman. Aunt Vera had a large home in Lukyanovka on the edge of the city. They put Grandmother up in a small cottage there in the garden.

After living on her own in Cherkassy, Grandmother felt like some hanger-on in Aunt Vera’s grand home. She kept her shame to herself and managed to take a little bit of comfort in the fact that she had her own place, could cook her own meals, and did not have to live under the same roof with, and so feel even more indebted to, her rich daughter.

Grandmother was lonely, and she talked me into leaving Pani Kozlovskaya and coming to live with her in the cottage. There were four small rooms. Grandmother lived in one, an old cellist by the name of Gattenberger lived in another, and I was given the third room. Even though it was called the sun porch, the fourth room was cold and had nothing in it but flowerpots covering the whole floor.

When I returned from Polesia in the middle of the summer the city was empty. Everyone had moved to their dachas. Borya had left for an internship in Yekaterinoslav. The only people at Lukyanovka were Grandmother Vikentia Ivanovna and Gattenberger.

Grandmother had aged a great deal. She was bent over and had lost her former strict demeanour, but nonetheless she had not given up her old habits. She still rose at dawn every day, flung the windows wide open and then made herself coffee over a spirit lamp. After her coffee, she went out into the garden, sat down in her wicker chair and read her favourite books – countless novels by Kraszewski or the stories of Korolenko and Eliza Orzeszkowa.fn1 She often fell asleep over a book – her grey head drooping, dressed all in black, her thin arms lying at her side. Butterflies settled on her arms and her black widow’s cap. Soft, ripe plums fell from the trees and landed in the grass with a muffled thud. A warm breeze blew through the garden, scattering shadows of leaves along the paths. High over Grandmother’s head shone the sun – the bright hot sun of the Kiev summer – and I would think to myself as I watched her that one day Grandmother would fall asleep for good here in the fresh warmth of this garden.

We were friends. I loved her more than any of my other relations. She felt the same way about me. Grandmother had raised three daughters and two sons, but now in her old age she was all alone. We were both lonely and this helped to bring us together. Grandmother radiated kindness and melancholy. Despite the difference in age, we had a lot in common. She loved poetry, books, trees, the sky and daydreams. She never forced me to do anything.

Grandmother’s only weakness was that at the slightest sign of a cold she forced on me her own well-tried remedy which she called ‘the spiritus’. It was devilish stuff. She took wine, wood alcohol and liquid ammonia and mixed them together with turpentine and any other spirits she could get her hands on. It was a blood-red liquid, as caustic as nitric acid. Grandmother rubbed this ‘spiritus’ all over my chest and back. She was convinced of its healing properties. A harsh, burning smell filled the cottage. Gattenberger immediately lit a fat cigar, and the fog of its pleasant bluish smoke chased the acrid aroma from his room.

It was usually when Gattenberger was playing the cello that Grandmother fell asleep in the garden. Gattenberger was a handsome old man with a curly white beard and piercing grey eyes. He liked to play one of his own compositions by the name of ‘The Death of Hamlet’. The cello sobbed, and the cascade of chords, as though reverberating beneath the vaults of Elsinore, rose to a solemn climax: ‘Let four captains bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage.’

Listening to the music, I imagined the great hall at Elsinore, the narrow Gothic shafts of sunlight, the fanfare, and over Hamlet’s dead body enormous banners – tall and light, reaching to the floor and rustling softly. The stream had long ago borne Ophelia’s bouquet down to the sea. Far from shore a halo of rosemary and rue, the last symbol of her bitter love, drifted among the waves. This too one heard in the music of his cello.

Grandmother woke up and said: ‘My God, can’t you play something cheery?’

To please her, Gattenberger would then play her favourite pastorale from The Queen of Spades: ‘My tender friend, my darling shepherd …’

Music wearied Grandmother. She got a rest from it in the evening when Gattenberger left with his cello to play with the orchestra in the Merchants’ Park. I often went to the concerts. The orchestra played in an expansive white wooden bandshell and the audience sat under the open sky. Large beds with stocks and nicotiana gave off a strong, sweet smell in the twilight. The beds were watered before every concert. The musicians sat under bright lights; the audience in utter darkness. The women’s white dresses glimmered faintly, the trees swayed, and now and then summer lightning flashed over our heads. I especially loved those damp, overcast evenings when only a few people came to the concerts in the park. It seemed as if the orchestra was playing just for me and a girl in a floppy hat. I saw her at almost every concert. She always gave me a look. I watched her furtively. Once she caught me looking at her, and I thought I saw her eyes flash with a mischievous fire.

That boring summer in Kiev began to fill with dreams of this unknown girl, and soon I was no longer bored. Even the loud echoing of the rain that summer now seemed full of life and excitement. The rain pounded the garden’s greenery with a fury from on high. The glass drops, flying from the clouds, seemed to strike the keys of a musical instrument, sending chords of sound into my room. It seemed like a true miracle that ordinary water – the kind that drips off a roof into a green tub – could sing in such a way.

‘All summer, nothing but rain and more rain!’ said Grandmother. ‘Well, at least it’s good for the crops.’

Somewhere beyond the light haze of these ‘blinding rains’ and the shimmer of the rainbows lived the unknown girl. I was grateful to her for appearing in my life and changing everything around me. Even the city’s yellow-brick pavement with its little puddles became beautiful and wondrous, like something out of a tale by Hans Christian Andersen. Grass sprouted in the cracks between the bricks, and ants struggled through the puddles.

When I entered into the depths of my fantasy world or, as my grandmother, using the Polish, called them, my ‘marzenia’, I thought everything was amazing, even the pavements of Kiev. Even now I don’t know what to call this state of mind. It came from a number of invisible sources. There was not an ounce of exultation in it. Just the opposite, it was accompanied by a sense of peace and calm, and it disappeared at the first sign of worry. This mood demanded expression, and it was during that hot summer with its ‘blinding rains’ that I began to write.

I hid this from Grandmother. She was surprised that I had been spending hour after hour alone in my room writing, so I told her that I was taking notes on the books I had read in preparation for my literature classes in the autumn.

When there were no concerts in the Merchants’ Park, I went off to the Dnieper or to a neglected park called ‘Cheer Up’ on the edge of the city which belonged to a patron of the arts by the name of Kulzhenko. For a few cigarettes, the keeper let me into the park – it was completely empty and overgrown with weeds. The ponds were choked with duckweed. Jackdaws chattered in the trees. The rotting benches swayed and buckled when I tried to sit down. The only person I ever encountered in the park was an old artist. He sat sketching under a large linen umbrella. He always gave me angry looks, and so I made certain never to go near him.

I liked to go to a deserted house deep in the park to sit and read on the steps of the verandah. Sparrows flitted about behind me. I often put my book down to look out into the park. Smoky shafts of light filtered through the trees. I waited. I was certain that here, in this park, I would meet her, the stranger. But she never came, and I returned home, taking the most roundabout way – on the tram through Priorka and Podol, then along Kreshchatik and Proreznaya Street. Along the way I stopped to visit the Idzikovskaya Library on Kreshchatik. It was always empty in the summer. The young assistants working there exchanged my books. Their faces were pale from the heat and sweat glistened on their moustaches. I borrowed books for Grandmother and myself. Given my condition at the time, all I could read was poetry. For Grandmother I brought home novels by Spielhagen and Bolesław Prus.fn2

I arrived home at Lukyanovka tired and happy, my face glowing from the sun and fresh air. Grandmother was waiting for me. She had supper ready in her room on a small round table covered with a tablecloth. I told her about ‘Cheer Up’ Park. She nodded as she listened. Now and then she said that she had had a long and lonely day at home, but not once did she scold me for having disappeared like that. ‘Youth has its own laws,’ said Grandmother. ‘It’s not my place to interfere with them.’

I went to my room, undressed and lay down in my narrow bed. My lamp lit the crooked branches of the apple tree just outside my window. Yielding to the embrace of a fragile sleep, I could sense the night around me, its darkness and infinite quiet. I loved nighttime, even though I was terrified by the thought that in the stillness above Lukyanovka and our cottage, Sagittarius and Aquarius, Gemini and Virgo were passing by far overhead.

I wrote a short story about that summer in Kiev. I included everything in it: the cellist Gattenberger, the girl from the Merchants’ Park, ‘Cheer Up’, the nights, and a dreamy, somewhat ridiculous boy. I worked hard on it for a long time. The harder I worked the less defined my words became; they became mushy and soft like cotton wool. I had crammed the story with so many beautiful things that even I found it rather overwrought. At times I gave way to despair.

At the time there was a magazine in Kiev with the strange title of The Knight. Its editor was the famous local writer and lover of the arts Yevgeny Kuzmin. I hesitated for a long time, but eventually screwed up my courage and took my story to The Knight’s editorial office. It was located in Kuzmin’s flat. A small, polite schoolboy opened the door and showed me to Kuzmin’s study. A spotted bulldog sat drooling on the rug and looked up at me with diseased eyes. The room was stuffy. There was the smell of scented candles. The white masks of Greek gods and goddesses hung on the black walls. Everywhere stood large piles of books in dried-out leather bindings.

I waited. I could hear the crackling of the leather books. Kuzmin entered – he was very tall and very thin and had long white fingers with shiny silver rings on them. He spoke to me respectfully, his head bowed. I blushed and tried to work out how I could get out of there. I was now convinced that my story was terrible and that I was an inarticulate fool. Kuzmin leafed through my story with his limp fingers, pausing to mark something with a long, sharp fingernail.

‘My periodical’, he said, ‘is a forum for young writers. I would very much like to find one more worthy contributor. I’ll read your story and send you a postcard.’

‘If it’s no trouble, please send your reply in an envelope.’

Kuzmin gave me a knowing smile and nodded.

I left. Gasping for breath, I raced down the stairs and out into the street. Men were out washing down the pavement with hoses. The water chugged and gurgled, and some of it splashed me in the face. I felt a bit better. I jumped on a moving tram to get away from there as quickly as possible. The passengers looked up and began to laugh at me. I jumped off and walked.

Dust from hay and firewood hung in the air over the Senny Market. Identical round clouds sailed above Lvovskaya Street. There was a sharp smell of horse manure. An old grey horse pulled a cart with bags of coal. Alongside walked a man with a coal-black face. From time to time he called out in a doleful voice: ‘Coal? Anybody need any coal?’

I remembered my story, with its purple prose and vague notions about life, lying there on the desk back in Kuzmin’s stuffy office. I felt ashamed of myself and swore never to write another story. ‘It’s all wrong, it’s all wrong!’ I said over and over. ‘But then, even if it’s bad, maybe there’s something there in it?’

I didn’t know a thing and was utterly lost.

I turned onto Glubochitskaya Street in the direction of Podol. Cobblers sat out in the cold hammering the soles of old shoes. Every time their hammers fell, the aged leather released little puffs of dust. Boys fired stones at sparrows with their catapults. A cart carried flour. The bags had holes in them and flour spilled onto the road. Women hung up coloured clothes on lines in the back gardens. The wind was blowing, sending litter high up into the air over Podol. On the hill, St Andrew’s Church – Rastrelli’s magnificent creation – with its silver domes and red columns glittered in the sun. I went into a tavern and drank a glass of sour wine. It didn’t help me feel any better.

I returned home with a headache early that evening. Grandmother immediately rubbed me down with ‘spiritus’ and put me to bed. I was certain that I had made an irreparable mistake – I had written an atrocious story and as a result had ruined any chance of ever writing again for the rest of my life. I knew no one who could tell me what I was to do next. Was it truly possible to give all of yourself to what you loved most, only to discover that your efforts were futile?

Gattenberger was playing softly in his room. He no longer played ‘The Death of Hamlet’, but selections from a new composition, ‘A Feast During the Plague’. He had been working on this for some time and played parts of it for Grandmother and me. As always, Grandmother was astounded by Gattenberger’s love of gloomy themes.

‘One minute it’s death, the next it’s the plague!’ she complained. ‘I just don’t understand it. I think music should make people happy.’

Gattenberger had come to his favourite part:

And pitiful moans resounded long and loud

Along the banks of the streams and brooks,

Which now run peacefully and happily

Through the wild paradise of your native land!

‘That’s better,’ I muttered. ‘There’s truth in that – “Through the wild paradise of your native land”.’

Wild paradise! These words hit me like a healing wind. In a word, I knew what I had to do. I had to strive, I had to work, to persevere. I knew the path would be long and hard, but for some reason this knowledge calmed me.

Two days later Kuzmin’s postcard arrived. He had ignored my request to send it in a sealed envelope. He wrote that he had read my story and was publishing it in the next issue of the magazine. Grandmother had, of course, read the postcard. It had made her cry.

‘Your father, Georgy Maximovich, used to laugh at me, but he was a good man,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry he didn’t live to see this.’ She made the sign of the cross over me and then gave me a kiss. ‘Well, work hard and be happy. I see now that God took pity on me and sent me this joy late in my life.’

She was more excited about my first story than I was.

When The Knight came out with my story in it, Grandmother baked a mazurek cake and prepared a special celebratory breakfast. She even put on her black silk dress that morning, which she typically only wore for Easter. She pinned to her breast a small corsage of artificial heliotropes. In the past the dress had made her look young, but not anymore. Nevertheless, when she looked at me, I could see that her eyes were filled with joy.

As we ate, wasps buzzed around the jam jar. Gattenberger guessed somehow what had happened and struck up a mazurka by Wieniawski,fn3 beating time with his foot as he played.