The Story of a Life

65

One Day

They asked to see my travel permit for Sevastopol in the booking office. I didn’t have one, so I bought a ticket as far as Bakhchisarai. I was certain I’d find a way to get to Sevastopol from there. The old clerk felt sorry for me. ‘All these regulations!’ he sighed. ‘And all because of the Empress Maria.’

The tragic loss of the Empress Maria, the mightiest battleship in the Black Sea Fleet, was a mystery.fn1 At the time the whole world was talking about it. While anchored in Sevastopol’s Northern Bay it suddenly exploded for no apparent reason and sank. Shortly before the explosion, a number of ‘august personages’, including members of Empress Alexandra Fëdorovna’s own suite, toured the ship. It was said that one of them must have placed several little bombs – no bigger than champagne corks – with timers at key points throughout the vessel. This was not the only such incident. Ships loaded with arms crossing the Atlantic for Europe also often exploded or caught fire. Many believed they were being sunk by small bombs tossed into the coal upon refuelling.

I stood for a long time in the train’s vestibule looking out of the window. The southern night was descending, warm and impenetrable. At every stop I opened the door and stuck my head out to listen. I could hear a faint rustle coming from the darkness. It must have been the sound of the ground drying out after the melt of the final snow.

I regretted every stop and rejoiced at every verst marker that I saw fly past in the dim light from the carriage window. In those days there was no electricity on the trains, only candles. The dimly lit carriages were a good place to imagine one’s future, which in that atmosphere always appeared alluring and exciting. The other imaginary world, of which I have written, became startlingly real. I gave myself over to it completely, without the least bit of remorse. It was too dark to read or write on the train, so what else was there to do but let my imagination wander? Assuming, of course, one wasn’t bothered by importunate fellow travellers.

Luckily, on this particular journey I wasn’t. The only other person in the vestibule was a young sailor in a black greatcoat. He kept singing the same song over and over, but just the first few lines before stopping and starting again. All I can remember are a few words: ‘There was an awful commotion, at Dzhankoi station …’ I never did learn what sort of commotion it had been, even though we passed through Dzhankoi station in the early hours of the morning.

After that, I kept staring out into the dark hoping to catch a glimpse of the spurs of the Crimean Mountains, but all I could see were the lights of Simferopol.

The station platform in Simferopol was empty. It was nearly dawn. A wind blew from the mountains. The poplars shook their leaves in the station square. The windows of the station’s buffet were brightly lit. Almond twigs stood in vases alongside silver champagne buckets on a long table. A sunburned young sailor sat with his elbows up on a table, smoking a cigarette and flicking ash onto the floor. When the train started, he sauntered out of the buffet and neatly swung himself up into the last carriage. The guard passed through the carriages snuffing out the candles. In the tranquil blue of dawn the ancient land unfolded before me: the mountain peaks lit by the rising sun, crystalline streams rushing over rocky beds, plane trees and the magical luminescence of the sky, out there, far off in the distance, towards which our train raced, leaving in its wake a long narrow cloud of the softest pink steam.

I got off in Bakhchisarai. The guard told me the easiest way to get to Sevastopol was by catching the local train that night out of Simferopol. All I had to do was give the policeman three roubles.

I had no choice but to spend the day in Bakhchisarai. It was a compact little town, the alleyways paved with worn flagstones. Water gurgled in its many fountains. Women collected the water in copper jugs. As the water rushed into the jugs, it made a sound that changed quickly from a high treble note to a low bass. This water music amazed me. It seemed to come from one of those imaginary countries that I had dreamed up. I began to wonder whether everything I thought I had imagined actually existed, that these places were not part of my make-believe world but were real lands that I simply hadn’t yet visited.

Everything was new to me here – especially the fountains. I had never seen fountains like these before. Instead of a steady stream of water spouting from the bronze beaks of herons or the mouths of dolphins, water here poured lazily from openings in flat stones set flush into the walls. The famous Fountain of Tears in the Palace of the Khans was unlike any fountain I had encountered. The water dripped slowly, like tears, from one shell to another, down and down it trickled, barely making a sound.

I went to a small café. Every time an oxcart passed by the ramshackle glass-walled structure shook and rattled. Outside on the verandah pigeons softly cooed as they waddled to and fro under the wobbly tables. The windows at the back looked out over a gorge of yellow sandstone overgrown with thorn bushes. A road led along the side of the gorge to the cave city of Chufut-Kale.fn2

What a life! I thought, sitting on the verandah. Fuchsias in vases set out on the tables nodded their reddish-black flowers, as if in agreement. What a life! Romanin was right when he used to say that what we had now wasn’t life, but a series of ‘encounters with history and geography’. I had hungered for such encounters. And now I had them. I had to admit that the changes in my life of late had held more grief than happiness. But despite these misfortunes, I felt that my youth, as powerful, so it seemed to me, as the sea that stretches out like an infinite blue wall to the horizon, could ease the sense of failure and loss.

I paid for my coffee and headed off for Chufut-Kale. I had no idea what a cave city was until I saw a sheer yellow cliff-face honeycombed with hundreds of windows. I climbed a steep path up to a flat ledge at the top of the cliff and suddenly found myself in a world so ancient it didn’t seem real. Deep tracks had been hacked into the limestone, yellow with lichens. Heavy carts had left behind deep ruts. Low doorways led into cave dwellings. Lizards scurried about on the altar of a small underground basilica. Who had carved this city out of this mountain of stone? No one could tell me since there wasn’t a soul in sight.

Carpets of tiny purple flowers covered every patch of stony soil between the cliffs. They had a beautiful five-petal shape, although a magnifying glass would be needed to look at them properly. A thin bay horse grazed among the rock walls. It often stopped and nodded off, its back twitching every time wasps landed on it.

I climbed higher up one of the cliffs and sat down. The rocks were warm to the touch. Before me I saw a majestic semi-circle of flat-topped hills like Chufut-Kale. I was alone up here in this airy wilderness. Sheep far off down below became clumps of dirty wool. I could clearly hear the clanking of their bells. I didn’t want to move. I lay down and closed my eyes. The sky shimmered with a blue flame. Sharp rays of rainbow-coloured light flickered over my eyelashes. Looking up, I saw an eagle soaring overhead. It seemed to be watching me and trying to decide whether or not to come down and pay a visit.

I became aware of the faint sound of dripping water. I turned round and saw a tiny rivulet, as thin as a fine necklace, trickling out of a crack in the next rock and hastily releasing its drops like so many beads. I fell asleep. When I awoke the sky still burned, but not with the blue light of earlier. It was now a savage ochre. Strange crimson clouds – feathers, plumes, columns, islands and mighty mountain peaks – stretched from horizon to horizon. The sun was setting. Its copper disc spread an angry glow over the rocky cliffs. With every minute this incredible evening fire grew harsher and ruder. It burned and burned until it reached the culmination of incandescence only to go out in a flash. And just like that, the sun had set. Immediately, a cold wind stirred the brambles. I made my way back down. The fountains of Bakhchisarai sounded louder now than by daylight.

I drank another cup of coffee in the same café – I didn’t have enough for any food – and then headed to the station, hungry but light-hearted and excited. The train arrived at five o’clock in the morning. I didn’t buy a ticket, but just climbed in and stood in the vestibule at the end of the carriage. A strapping policeman appeared immediately. He had spotted me getting on the train. It hadn’t been difficult: I was the only one to board at Bakhchisarai.

‘Your permit?’ he asked, smiling.

I offered him three roubles. He took the money, saluted casually with one finger, and walked on. I remained standing in the vestibule.

I stood glued to the window, anxious to finally catch sight of the sea. It was getting light outside. The train’s roar echoed as we passed through the overhanging cliffs. In an instant, the train shot out into the open and crossed a gorge over a bridge that shook lightly under our weight. Then the carriages were flung sideways as the train rounded a sharp bend. A hillside of yellow flowers flashed briefly before my eyes. The curly leaves of a vineyard flew by and then once again the hollow thunder of an overhang buffeted the carriage. The jagged cliffs were so close I didn’t dare put out my hand.

The greenish water of the sea hit me in the face after we exploded from the final tunnel. The broad Northern Bay lay out on the horizon, twisting and turning before receding into the dry haze. Nothing was moving outside the windows, but the speeding train made it seem as though everything was twisting, turning and flashing – the black schooners lying keel up on the beach, the grey battle cruisers, the long minesweepers, the buoys, flags, guard ships, masts, tiled roofs, fishing nets, bollards, acacias and the empty tin cans tossed along the beach that shot off flames of reflected sun. And then finally, amid curls of smoke, the city lay before me in the form of an amphitheatre, almost as though covered with the bronze patina of its fame.

Brakes hissing, the train fearlessly tore into a tangle of streets, courtyards, breastworks and stairways, going up and down slope after slope, until finally coming to a stop at a handsome station.

I have seen a great many cities, but none finer than Sevastopol.

The Black Sea came up almost to its very doorsteps. It filled the rooms with its sound, its breeze, its scent. Small, open-decked trams cautiously navigated the hillsides, fearful of slipping into the water. Bell buoys clanged out by the wharf. On the edge of the market, next to the zinc-lined bins and the piles of flounders and pinkish goatfish, the small waves lapped against the creaking hulls of the shalandas, the local flat-bottomed fishing boats. Breakers rolled in from the open sea, beating against the round bastions of the fortress. Warships stood smoking in the roadstead.

Sirens wailed, bottles clinked, calling out to the jingling of the trams and the peal of the church bells. Straining against their taut anchor chains, passenger steamers hooted with displeasure. At sunset came the sound of bugles from the warships striking their colours. The mournful sound travelled far over the still water. It was soon replaced by waltzes from Primorsky Boulevard, music so soft and lilting it might be coming not from the orchestra, but from twilight itself as it sang to sleep the last waves circling about the Monument to Sunken Ships.

I walked around the city until I was ready to drop, always finding one more alluring corner to explore. I especially loved the steps of porous yellow sandstone that connected the upper and lower town. Houses stood on rocky ledges on both sides, connected to the landings by narrow, ivy-covered hanging bridges. The windows and balcony doors stood open, and from the steps it was easy to hear everything going on inside the houses: children laughing, women talking, the clatter of dishes, piano scales, singing, dogs barking, the tinny screech of parrots. For some reason there were a lot of parrots then in Sevastopol.

Fearing a sneak attack by the German fleet, the city was dark at night. But the blackout wasn’t complete. The shop blinds pulled down over the windows had letters cut out in them through which their interior lights shone. The streets now glowed mysteriously, as though lit from below by fiery words: PASTRY SHOP, MINERAL WATER, BEER, FRUIT.

Talkative women sold violets in large baskets on the pavement late into the night. They kept a candle burning on a stool next to them. The flame scarcely quivered – the evening was calm. Crowds of sailors and their officers gathered in the streets. If not for the blackout and the searchlights sweeping the distant sky, there was nothing to suggest we were at war. No doubt this was how seaside towns looked during naval blockades in the early nineteenth century, when the danger wasn’t that great. Clumsy enemy gunboats smoked offshore and lobbed cannonballs from their bronze barrels at the mossy walls of ancient forts. It wasn’t war as we knew it. Now, the sense of danger felt exhilarating and filled the people of Sevastopol with that reckless gaiety considered to be the indispensable mark of the brave.

I sat in the gloaming until nightfall near the bastions of 1854. Below me lay the Southern Bay and beyond that the harbour. I was surrounded by blossoming almond trees. No other tree has such a pure and affecting scent. Their branches bedecked in rose-coloured flowers, they reminded me of brides before a wedding. The twilight gradually wrapped the unlit city in a deceptive haze. At first the air shimmered faintly with the gold of the dying sun, and then it acquired a clean silvery shade as the gold died away. The silver, too, quickly darkened, losing its transparency and being covered by a deep, impenetrable blue. Once the blue had been extinguished as well, night descended.

I left the bastions for the station in the hope of getting a ticket and boarding the train without having to show a permit. The train was scheduled to leave later that night. The first porter I asked agreed to get me a ticket.

‘The train won’t leave for another three hours,’ he said. ‘A young fellow like you, you don’t want to sit around bored in the station. Go have a look around our beautiful town.’

I headed off to the tram stop, thinking about the simple kindness of these southerners, but just then a patrol – two sailors with rifles and armbands – marched up. They demanded my identity papers.

‘Where do you live?’ one of the sailors asked. ‘What street?’

I admitted I wasn’t from Sevastopol.

‘Right!’ he said. ‘Not that you have to be. But we’ve got to take you in to see the warrant officer. And don’t get any ideas about wriggling out of it. He can see right through anybody.’

They took me along. On the way, one of them asked: ‘How much did you give the porter?’

‘Ten roubles.’

‘Here’s your money.’ He handed me a ten-rouble note.

I turned round expecting to see the porter watching me being led off with malicious joy, but it was too dark to see a thing.

They took me to a small building not far from Nakhimovsky Avenue. Sitting on the windowsill in a vaulted room was a wiry, hook-nosed officer and a girl in a short, checked skirt. She was playing with her two light brown plaits and swinging a crossed leg. A worn old shoe dangled precariously from her big toe. Another warrant officer in full uniform – greatcoat, cap, black revolver on a patent leather belt – sat at a desk. The sailors gave their report and left the room. The officer at the desk took my papers and lit a cigarette, wincing from some smoke that got in his eyes.

‘Hmmmm, yep!’ the man with the revolver announced after carefully going through my papers. ‘The little bird strode blithely down the path to disaster, never bothering to think who was following after.’

The girl, still swinging her leg, laughed and gave me a look.

‘All right then!’ Revolver said. ‘Tell me, in all honesty, just who and what are you, why you’re here in Sevastopol, and how come you tried to slip out of town unnoticed? Your papers are in order, not that it means anything.’

Embarrassed, I told him the whole story.

‘Aha!’ he said, satisfied with my explanation. ‘So, it’s all because of your artistic nature? Some sort of bohemian, eh?’

‘Sasha, stop fooling around!’ said Hook-Nose. The officer with the revolver ignored the comment.

‘If you’re able to prove to me that you are by nature a poet and that you’ve been lured here by the passion for travel, then maybe, just maybe, we can come to some sort of agreement,’ Revolver said.

I couldn’t tell if he was making fun of me or not but decided to at least pretend that I took him at his word.

‘Sasha, if Admiral Eberhardt knew about your techniques of investigation,’ said Hook-Nose, ‘there’s no way you’d avoid the barge.’

‘The barge’ was the name for Sevastopol’s floating prison.

‘A poet must know some lines by heart,’ declared Revolver, still ignoring Hook-Nose. ‘What can you say to that?’

I wasn’t quite sure what he meant.

‘Recite some sort of poem for him. He’s a poet himself,’ the girl explained.

‘Something like “And the Lord did send the raven a little piece of cheese”,’ Hook-Nose said to me, snickering.

‘No,’ I said. ‘If that’s what you want, then I’ll recite for you something by Leconte de Lisle.’

‘Well, just look at you! Very impressive,’ replied Revolver, full of surprise. ‘No, that won’t do. How about you recite for us some Blok – something like “I shall never forget it”. But if you want your permit, I advise you not to forget a word.’

‘Enough clowning from you, young man,’ said Hook-Nose, whose words were ignored yet again.

I recited Blok’s poem. I liked it myself. The sailors pounded their rifles on the floor in the corridor. It seemed they were quite surprised.

‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ said Revolver, putting on a frustrated expression. ‘Isn’t there someone here in Sevastopol who could vouch for you?’

‘No,’ I answered.

‘I’ll vouch for him, Sasha,’ said Hook-Nose. ‘Enough of this foolishness. It’s obvious what kind of fellow he is. Write out his permit. I’ll write out a guarantee for you tomorrow.’

Revolver grinned and then slowly, and with considerable effort, began writing out the permit. As he wrote, the rest of us started talking about poetry. Hook-Nose liked Fofanov, the girl preferred Mirra Lokhvitskaya.fn3 She blushed and said that she wished there were time for her to recite a poem of her own, but it was too long.

‘Here!’ said Revolver, handing me my papers and a permit. He sighed. ‘It’s too bad you’re leaving. We could meet once I’m off duty. There’s plenty we could talk about.’

I thanked him and said that Sevastopol was clearly a city of wonders. Nowhere else could my arrest have ended so happily.

‘My dear and rather naïve young man,’ said Revolver, ‘Sevastopol is no city of wonders. Keep in mind – spies and other shady characters never confide in porters. Now that’s a good epigram, don’t you think?’

We said goodbye. The girl and Hook-Nose offered to see me to the top of the hill overlooking the station. Revolver looked disappointed. It was obvious he wished he, too, could walk through the nighttime streets of Sevastopol with the brown-haired girl. Along the way, she said to me: ‘Come back and see us sometime. I live on Green Hill, number five. My name’s Rita. Everyone knows me there. Oh, it’s really too bad you’re leaving. There are so few of us here in Sevastopol!’

‘Us?’

‘Poets, of course. There’s just the two of them, and myself. Wait, there’s also a student from Kharkov.’

The same porter came up to me. He was grinning from ear to ear. ‘Well then,’ he said. ‘All straightened out? That’s better. You don’t have to worry, and I won’t get in trouble. Give me a fiver. I’ll go and get you a ticket.’

The smell of seaweed drifted in through the open windows of the carriage. The white rivers of the searchlights poured into the dark depths of the sea and vanished there without a trace. I was sorry to be leaving this city and to see this happy day – the first after many weary months – come to an end.