White Walls: Collected Stories

THE FAKIR

Filin turned up—unexpectedly as always—on the phone, with an invitation to have a look at his new flame. The evenings program was clear: a crisp white tablecloth, light, warmth, special puff-pastry pirozhki à la Tmutarakan, the nicest music coming from somewhere in the ceiling, and engrossing conversation. Blue curtains everywhere, cupboards with his collections, beads hanging along the walls. Then there might be new toys: a snuffbox with a portrait of a lady in transports over her own pink naked powderiness, a beaded purse, perhaps an Easter egg, or something else useless but valuable.

Filin wasn’t offensive to the eye, either—clean, not large, wearing an at-home velvet jacket, a small hand weighted down with a ring. And not a clichéd, corny, “ruble fifty with the box” ring—why no, his is straight from an excavation, Venetian if he’s not lying, or a setting of a coin from, God help me, Antioch, or something even grander than that…. That was Filin.

He’ll sit in a chair dangling his slipper, fingers folded in a tent, eyebrows like pitch—marvelous Anatolian eyes like soot, a dry silvery beard that rustled, black only around the mouth, as if he had been eating coal.

Plenty to look at.

Filin’s women weren’t run-of-the-mill, either—collector’s rarities. Either a circus performer, say, twisting on a trapeze silvery scales shimmering, to a drum roll; or simply a young woman, a mama’s girl who dabbled in water colors, a brain the size of a kopek but dazzlingly white, so that Filin, in issuing his invitation to view, will warn you to bring sunglasses to avoid snow blindness.

Some people privately didn’t approve of Filin, with all those rings, pastries, and snuffboxes; they giggled over his raspberry robe with tassels and those supposedly silver Mongol slippers with turned-up noses; and it was funny that in his bathroom he had a special brush for his beard and hand cream: a bachelor… But whenever he called, they came; and secretly always worried: would he invite them again? Would he let them sit in the warmth and light, in comfort and luxury, and in general— what did he ever see in us ordinary people, what does he need us for?

“If you’re not busy tonight, please come at eight. Meet Alisa, a cha-arming creature.”

“Thank you, thank you, of course.”

Well, as usual, at the last minute! Yura reached for his razor, and Galya, slithering into her panty hose like a snake, left instructions with her daughter: the kasha is in the pot, don’t open the door to anyone, do your homework, and straight to bed. And don’t hang on me, let go, we’re late already. Galya stuffed plastic bags into her purse: Filin lived in a high-rise, with a grocery store on the ground floor; maybe they’ll have herring oil, or something else.

Beyond the house the boundary road lay like a hoop of darkness where the frosty wind howled, the cold of uninhabited plains penetrated your clothes, and the world for a second seemed as horrible as a graveyard; and they didn’t want to wait for a bus or be squashed in the metro and they got a taxi; and lounging comfortably, cautiously berated Filin for his velvet jacket, for his collector’s passion, for the unknown Alisa: where’s the last one, that Ninochka? nowhere to be found now; and wondered whether Matvei Matveich would be there, and roundly denounced Matvei Matveich.

They had met him at Filin’s and were charmed by the old man: those stories of his about the reign of Anna Ivanovna and those pastries, and the steam from English tea, and blue-and-gold collector’s cups, and Mozart bubbling from somewhere up above, and Filin caressing the guests with his Mephistophelian eyes—and, oh, heads spinning—they got Matvei Matveich to invite them. Some visit! He received them in the kitchen, the floor was made of planks, the walls brown and bare, a horrible neighborhood, nothing but fences and potholes, and he was wearing jogging pants that were threadbare and the tea was stale and the jam crystallized, and he just thumped the jar on the table, stuck a spoon in it—dig it out yourselves, dear guests. And you had to smoke on the landing: asthma, please understand. And Anna Ivanovna was a flop, too. They sat down—the hell with the tea—to listen to his purring speech about palace intrigues, all kinds of revolts; but the old man kept untying these awful folders and poking them with his finger shouting about land reform and that Kuzin, the mediocrity clerk backstabber, won’t let him get published and has set the whole department against Matvei Matveich, but here, here: invaluable documents, he’d been collecting them all his life. Galya and Yura wanted to hear about villains, torture, the ice house, and the dwarf wedding, but Filin wasn’t there to steer the conversation to interesting topics, and all they heard that evening was Ku-u-zin! Ku-u-uzin! and the finger-jabbing of the files, and the valerian sedative drops. They put the old man to bed and left, and Galya tore her panty hose on the old man’s chair.

“What about Vlasov the bard?” Yura recalled.

“Bite your tongue!”

With him, it was just the opposite; but the shame was terrible: they picked him up at Filin’s, too, and invited him to their house and invited lots of guests to hear him sing, spent two hours in line to get a special cake. They locked their daughter in her room and the dog in the kitchen. Vlasov the bard came, grim, with his guitar, didn’t even try the cake: cream softens the voice and he wanted his voice hoarse. He sang a couple of songs: “Aunt Motya, your shoulders, your pecs and cheeks, like Nadia Comaneci, are developed by gymnastique…” Yura made a fool of himself, showing his ignorance, loudly whispering in the middle of the song, “I forget, what part are the pecs?” Galya grew anxious, and, hand laid on heart in emotion, said he must sing “Friends”—it’s such a marvelous, marvelous song. He had sung it at Filin’s—gently, sadly—about “around the table covered with oilcloth, over a bottle of beer” sit a group of old friends, bald, all losers. Each one’s life went wrong, each has his own sorrow: “one can’t love, the other can’t rule”—and no one can help, alas!—but at least they’re together, they’re friends, they need one another, and isn’t that the most important thing in life? You listen and you feel that—yes-yes-yes—the same thing happened in your life, yes, just like it. “What a song. A hit.” Yura whispered. Vlasov the bard frowned even more, looked off into the distance—off into that imagined room where the mutually admiring baldies were uncapping a distant beer; he strummed the guitar and began sadly, “around the table covered with oilcloth…” Julie, locked in the kitchen, scratched at the floor and howled. “With a bottle of beer,” Vlasov continued. “Woof woof woof,” the dog persisted. Someone snorted, the bard put his hand on the strings with an injured air, and took a cigarette. Yura went to deal with Julie.

“Is that autobiographical?” some idiot asked reverently.

“What? All my songs are autobiographical to a degree.”

Yura returned, the bard tossed away his butt, and concentrated. “Around the table, covered with oilcloth…” A tortured howl came from the kitchen.

“A musical dog,” the bard said viciously.

Galya dragged the resisting German shepherd to the neighbors, the bard hurriedly finished the song—the howling came through the co-op’s walls—he shortened his program, and then in the foyer as he zipped up his jacket announced with disgust that he usually charged two rubles a head but since they didn’t know how to organize a creative atmosphere, he’d settle for a ruble apiece. And Galya ran back to the neighbors—a nightmare, lend me a ten—and they, also just before payday, dug around, collecting change and shaking the kids’ piggy bank to the howls of the robbed children and the barking of overjoyed Julie.

Yes, Filin knows how to deal with people, and we sure don’t. Well, maybe next time it’ll go better.

It wasn’t quite eight yet—just enough time to stand in line for paté in the store at the bottom of the block of flats where Filin lived. There’s no trouble finding cows in our suburb, but you just try finding pàté. At three minutes to eight they got into the elevator, and Galya, as usual, looked around and said, “I could live in an elevator like this,” then the polished parquet floor of the landing, the brass plate: “I. I. Filin,” the bell; and then the man himself on the doorstep, black eyes glowing, head tilted to one side: “Punctuality is the politeness of princes…”

And it’s so pleasant hearing that, those words, as if Filin were a sultan and they truly were princes, Galya in her inexpensive coat and Yura in his jacket and knit cap.

And they floated in, the royal pair, chosen for one evening, into the warmth and light, the sweet piano trills, and proceeded to the table where the hothouse roses refuse to acknowledge the frost, wind, darkness that have besieged Filin’s impregnable tower, powerless to penetrate.

Something elusive is different in the apartment… ah, they see: the glass case with the beaded trifles has been moved, the candelabra has moved to the other wall, the arch leading to the back room is curtained, and moving that curtain aside… Alisa, the allegedly charming creature, comes out and offers her hand.

“Allochka.”

“Well, yes, she is Allochka, but we will call her Alisa, isn’t that right? Please, sit down,” said Filin. “Well, I recommend the pàté. A rarity. You know, pàtés like this…”

“I see you got it downstairs,” Yura said happily. “We go down. From the conquered heights. Even the gods descended’—isn’t that how it goes?”

Filin smiled thinly and twitched an eyebrow—to say maybe I got it downstairs and maybe I didn’t. You have to know everything, don’t you? Galya mentally kicked her husband for his tactlessness.

“Appreciate the tartlets,” Filin started anew. “I’m afraid that you are the last people to have them on this sinful earth.”

Tonight he called the pirozhki “tartlets” for some reason— probably because of Alisa.

“Why, what happened, have they stopped selling flour? On a global scale?” Yura was in good humor, rubbing his hands, his bony nose red in the heat. The tea gurgled.

“Nothing of the kind. What is flour?” Filin’s beard nodded.

“Some sugar, Galya…. What is flour? The secret is lost, my friends. The last person to know the ancient recipe is dying—I just got a call. Ninety-eight, a stroke. Try them, Alisa; may I pour you tea in my favorite cup?”

Filin’s gaze grew misty, as if hinting at the possibilities of special closeness that could result from such intimate contact with his beloved dishes. The charming Alisa smiled. What was so charming about her? Her black hair shone as if it were greased, a hook nose, mustache. Simple dress, knit, the color of a pickle. Big deal. Better women than she have sat here, and where were they now?

“And just think,” Filin was saying. “Just two days ago I ordered the tartlets from this Ignaty Kirillych. Just yesterday he baked them. Just this morning I got them, each wrapped in tissue paper. And now, a stroke. They called me from Sklifosovsky hospital.” Filin bit into a puff pastry bomb, raised his handsome brows, and sighed. “When still a lad, Ignaty worked at the Yar, and the old pastry chef Kuzma gave him the secret of these pastries on his deathbed. Just try them.” Filin wiped his beard. “And Kuzma had worked in Petersburg in his day at Wolf and Beranger—the famous pastry shop. They say that before his fatal duel, Pushkin dropped by Wolf’s and asked for tartlets. That day Kuzma was sleeping off a binge and hadn’t baked any. Well, the manager said, we don’t have any. These people are like that, Alexander Sergeyevich. Wouldn’t you like a bouchée? Or a cream horn? Pushkin got upset, waved his hat, and left. Well, you know what happened later. Kuzma overslept, and Pushkin is in his grave.”

“Oh, my god,” said Galya.

“Oh, yes. And do you know it had repercussions on everyone? Wolf shot himself. Beranger converted to Russian Orthodoxy, the manager donated thirty thousand to a religious institution, and Kuzma simply lost his mind. He kept muttering, ‘Oh, Alexander Sergeyevich…. You didn’t have my tartlets… If only you had waited a bit…’”

Filin tossed another pirozhok in his mouth and crunched. “However, that Kuzma lived to our day. He passed on the recipe to his students with shaking hands. Ignaty got the dough; someone else, the filling. Well, then came the revolution, the civil war. The one who knew the filling joined the Social Revolutionaries. Ignaty lost track of him. A few years later— Ignaty was still with the restaurant—something prompted him, he came out of the kitchen, and there at a table is that man with a lady. He’s got a monocle, a mustache—unrecognizable. Ignaty runs over to him as is, covered with flour. ‘Come with me, comrade.’ The man had no choice. White as a sheet, into the kitchen he went. ‘Bastard, tell me the meat filling.’ What could he do, his past could cause him trouble. He told. ‘Tell me the cabbage filling.’ He trembled, but he did it. And now the fish.’ That was absolutely top secret. He said nothing. Ignaty: ‘The fish!’ And he picked up his rolling pin. The man said nothing. Then suddenly he screamed and ran out. They chased him, tied him up, and looked at him—he’d lost his mind, he was rolling his eyes and foaming at the mouth. So the fish remained a secret. Yes… That Ignaty Kirillych was an interesting old man, so fastidious. How he felt puff pastry, what a feel for it!… He baked at home. He’d draw the curtains, double lock the door. I would say, ‘Ignaty Kirillych, dear man, share your secret, what’s it to you?’ but he wouldn’t budge. He kept waiting for a worthy recipient. And now the stroke… Try one.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” the charming Alisa said. “How can I eat them now? I’m always so sorry for the last of anything…. My mother had a brooch before the war….”

“The last one, an accidental one!” sighed Filin and took another pirozhok.

“The last storm cloud,” Galya entered the game.

“The last of the Mohicans,” added Yura.

“No, my mother had this pearl brooch before the war….”

“Everything is transitory, dear Alisa,” Filin said, chewing in satisfaction. “Everything ages—dogs, women, pearls. Let us sigh over the fleeting nature of existence and thank the creator for giving us a chance to taste this and that at the feast of life. Eat and wipe your tears.”

“Perhaps he’ll regain consciousness, that Ignaty?”

“He can’t,” the host assured them. “Forget about it.”

They chewed. Music sang overhead. It was good.

“What new pleasures do you have?” Yura asked.

“Ah… I’m glad you reminded me. Wedgwood—cups and saucers. Creamer. See, blue on the shelf. Why I’ll just… Here…”

“Ah…” Galya touched the cup carefully with her finger— white carefree dances on a blue foggy meadow.

“Do you like it, Alisa?”

“Nice… Now before the war my mother had…”

“Do you know where I got it? Guess… From a partisan.”

“In what sense?”

“Just listen. It’s a curious story.” Filin made a tent with his fingers and looked lovingly at the shelf where the captive service sat cautiously, afraid of falling. “I was wandering around villages this fall with a rifle. I stopped by one hut. A man brought out some fresh milk for me. In a cup. I look—it’s real Wedgwood. How could it be? Well, we got to talking, his name is Uncle Sasha, I have the address somewhere… well, it doesn’t matter. Here’s what I learned. During the war he was a partisan in the woods. Early morning. German plane flying over. Bzzzzzzz,” Filin added an imitation. “Uncle Sasha looked up just when the pilot spat—right in his face. An accident, of course. But Uncle Sasha’s temper flared, naturally, he went bang with his gun—and hit the German. Also accidentally. The plane fell, they looked inside—five crates of cocoa, and the sixth had these dishes. He must have been delivering breakfast. I bought the set. The creamer is cracked, but that’s all right. Considering the circumstances.”

“Your partisan is a liar.” Yura was delighted, he looked around and slapped his thigh. “What a great liar. Fantastic!”

“Nothing of the sort.” Filin was not pleased. “Of course, I can’t rule out that he’s no partisan at all but just a vulgar little thief, but you know… somehow I prefer to believe.”

He grew huffy and took the cup back.

“Of course, you have to believe people.” Galya stepped on Yura’s foot under the table. “An amazing thing happened to me, too. Remember, Yura? I bought a wallet, brought it home, and inside were three rubles. No one believes it.”

“Why not, I believe it. It happens,” Alisa mused. “Now, my mother…”

They talked about the amazing, about premonitions, and dreams. Alisa had a girlfriend who had predicted her entire life ahead of time—marriage, two children, divorce, division of the apartment and property. Yura told in great detail how a friend’s car was stolen and how the police cleverly figured the thief’s identity and caught him, but the real trick was—he couldn’t remember it right now. Filin described a dog he knew that unlocked the door with its own key and heated up dinner for its masters.

“Really, how?” the women gasped.

“Easily. They have a French oven, electric, with a control panel. Push a button, everything goes on. The dog looks at the time: goes to the kitchen, works there; well, warms something up for itself, too. The owners come home from work and the soup is on the boil, the bread sliced, the table set. Convenient.”

Filin talked, smiled, turned his ankle, glanced over at satisfied Alisa, the music died down, and the city made itself heard through the windows. Dark tea steamed in their cups, sweet cigarette smoke curled upward, the roses gave off their scent and beyond the window the Sadovoye Ring Road quietly squealed beneath tires and people cheerfully plowed through the streets, the city glowed in wreaths of golden street lamps, frosty rainbow rings, multicolored crunchy snow, while the capital’s sky sowed new charming snow, fresh, just made. And just think, this entire feast, this evening of miracles was created especially for this completely unspecial Allochka, extravagantly renamed Alisa—there she sat in her vegetable dress, mustached mouth open, delightedly staring at the all-powerful gentleman who with a wave of the hand, the flicker of an eyebrow can transform the world to the point of unrecognizability Soon Galya and Yura would leave, crawling back to their outskirts, and she would stay, she was allowed…. Galya grew depressed. Why, oh, why?

Filin’s tower nestled in the middle of the capital, a pink mountain, ornamented here and there in the most varied way—with all sorts of architectural doodads, thingamajigs, and whatnots: there were towers on the socles, crenels on the towers, and ribbons and wreaths between the crenellations, and out of the laurel garlands peeked a book, the source of knowledge, or a compass stuck out its pedagogic leg; or, if you looked, you’d see a puffy obelisk in the middle, and standing firmly on it, embracing a sheaf, a firm plaster woman with a clear gaze that rebuffs storms and night, with flawless braids and an innocent chin…. You kept expecting trumpets to sound and drums to play something governmental and heroic.

And the evening sky above Filin and his curlicued palace plays with light—brick, lilac—a real Moscow, theatrical sky.

While back in their outskirts… oh my God it’ll be nothing but thick oily cold darkness, empty in the cool abysses between houses, you can’t even see the houses, they’ve blended into the night sky weighted down by snow clouds with an occasional window burning in an uneven pattern: gold, green, red squares struggling to push aside the polar murk…. It’s late, the stores are locked and bolted, the last old lady has rolled out, carrying a packet of margarine and an eggbeater, no one is walking along the streets just for the fun of it, no one is looking around, strolling; everyone has slipped into his own door, drawn the curtains, and is reaching for the TV knob. If you look out the window, you see the boundary road, an abyss of darkness marked by doubled red lights and the yellow beetles of someone’s headlights…. Something big drove by, its lights nodding in a pothole…. Here comes a stick of light—the headlights in the bus’s forehead, a trembling nucleus of yellow light, live roe of people inside…. And beyond the regional road, beyond the last weak strip of life, on the other side of the snow-filled ravine, the invisible sky slipped down, resting its heavy edge on a beet field—right there, on the other side of the ravine. It was impossible, unthinkable, unbearable to realize that the thick darkness extended farther, over the fields that blended into a white roar, over badly constructed fences, over trees pressed into the cold earth where a doomed dull light quivers as if held in an indifferent fist… and farther once again, the dark white cold, a crust of forest where the darkness is even thicker, where perhaps a pathetic wolf is forced to live: it comes out on a hill in its rough wool coat smelling of juniper and blood, wildness, disaster, gazes grimly and with disgust at the blind windy vistas, clumps of snow hardening between its cracked claws, and its teeth are gritted in sadness, and a cold tear hangs like a stinking bead on the furry cheek, and everyone is the enemy and everyone is the killer….

For dessert they had pineapple. And then they had to get out. And it was so far to the house…. Avenues, avenues, avenues, dark blizzardy squares, deserted lots, bridges and forests, and more lots, and unexpected not-sleeping factories, light blue inside, and more forests and the snow in the headlights. And at home—boring green wallpaper, the cut-glass lamp fixture in the foyer, the dull cramped feeling and the familiar smell, and the color cover of a woman’s magazine tacked to the wall for decoration. A rosy, disgusting couple on skis. She’s grinning, he’s warming her hands. ” Chilled?” it’s called. “Chilled?” She’d tear it off the wall, but Yura won’t let her, he likes things sporty, optimistic…. So let him find a taxi.

Night had entered the deep hours, all the gates were closed, joyriding trucks zipped by, the starry ceiling hardened with the cold. The rough air had formed into clumps. “Hey, chief, take us to the city line?” Yura ran from car to car. Galya whimpered and switched from foot to foot, hopping on the side of the road, and behind her, in the palace, the last lights were going out, the roses plunging into sleep, Alisa babbling about her mother’s brooch, while Filin, in his tasseled robe, tickled her with his silvery beard: ooh, darling. More pineapple?

That winter they were invited once more, and Allochka hung around the apartment as if she belonged there, bravely grabbing the expensive dishes and smelling of lily of the valley and yawning.

Filin demonstrated Valtasarov to his guests—a dreamy bearded muzhik, amazing in his ventriloquism skills. Valtasarov could imitate a knock at the door, a cow being milked, the rattle of a wagon, the distant howl of wolves, and a woman killing cockroaches. He couldn’t do industrial sounds. Yura begged him to try, to at least do a trolley, but he refused flat out: “Fraid of busting my gut.” Galya was uncomfortable: she sensed in Valtasarov the degree of noncivilization from which she and Yura were a stone’s throw—over the city line, beyond the ravine, to the other side.

She must have gotten weary of late…. Just six months ago she would have actively pursued Valtasarov, invited him and a group of friends, served cracked sugar, rye cakes, and radishes—and whatever else the old peasant liked to eat—and he would have mooed and rattled the well chain to general excitement. But now it suddenly was clear to her: it wouldn’t work. If she were to invite him, the guests would laugh and leave, but Valtasarov would stay, ask to spend the night, probably—and she’d have to clear the room, and it was right in the middle of the apartment; he’d go to bed around nine or something, and it would smell of sheep, and shag, and haylofts; at night he’d stumble to the kitchen in the dark for a drink of water and knock over a chair…. A quiet curse. Julie would start barking, their daughter would wake up…. Or maybe he was a lunatic and would come into their bedroom in the dark… in a white shirt and felt boots… rummaging…. And in the morning, when you don’t feel like seeing anyone at all, when you’re in a hurry to get to work and your hair’s a mess and it’s cold—the old man would sit in the kitchen making a production of having tea, and then pull out illiterate scraps of paper from his pocket: “Girl, they wrote down this medicine for me…. It cures everything…. How can I get it?”

No, no, no! Don’t even think about getting involved with him.

It was only Filin, untiring, who was capable of picking up, feeding, and amusing anyone at all—well, including us, too, of course! Oh, Filin! Generous owner of golden fruit, he hands them out right and left, giving food to the hungry and drink to the thirsty; he waves his hand, and gardens bloom, women grow more beautiful, bores get inspired, and crows sing like nightingales.

That’s what he’s like. That’s him.

And what marvelous friends he has…. Ignaty Kirillych, the pastry wizard. Or that ballerina he visits—Doltseva-Elanskaya…

“Of course, that’s her stage name,” said Filin, kicking his foot and admiring the ceiling. “Her maiden name was Dogina, Olga Ieronimovna. Her first husband was Katkin, the second Mousekin. A game of diminishing returns, so to speak. She was quite a hit in her day. Grand dukes stood in line, bringing her topazes by the sack. That was her weakness, smoky topazes. But she was a very simple, heartfelt, progressive woman. After the revolution she decided to give her stones to the people. She was as good as her word: she took off her necklace, tore the thread, poured them out on the table. There was a knock at the door: they came to move more people into her apartment. While they talked and so on, by the time she came back the parrot had eaten them all. Birds, as you know, need stones for their digestion. He’d devoured about five million’s worth—and he flew out the window. She followed. ‘Kokosha, where are you going? What about the people?’ He went south. She followed. She reached Odessa, don’t ask me how. The ship was taking off, the stacks smoking, shouts, suitcases—people fleeing to Constantinople. The parrot landed on the smokestack and sat there. He was warm. So this Olga Dogina, what do you think, she hooked her trained leg over the side of the ship and stopped the ship. And she wouldn’t let go until they got her the parrot. She shook everything out of it down to the last kopek and donated it to the Red Cross. Of course, they had to amputate her leg, but she didn’t give up, she danced in hospitals on crutches. Now she’s hundreds of years old, flat on her back, put on weight. I visit her, read Sterne to her. Yes, Olga Dogina, from a merchant family… Think what power there is in our people. So much untapped power…”

Galya regarded Filin with adoration. Suddenly he was clear to her—handsome, giving, hospitable… Oh, how lucky that mustachioed Allochka was. She didn’t appreciate him, turning her indifferent lemur-shiny eyes at the guests, Filin, the flowers and cookies, as if this were the usual order of things, as if this is just the way things should be. As if far away at the ends of the earth, Galya’s daughter, dog, and “Chilled?” were not languishing, hostages in the dark on the threshold of the aspen forest, quivering with rage.

For dessert they had grapefruit stuffed with shrimp, and the magical old man drank tea from his saucer.

A stone lay on her heart.

At home, in the darkness, listening to the glassy ringing of the aspens, the roar of the sleepless boundary road, the rustles of wolf fur in the distant forest, the slither of the chilled beet greens under their snow blanket, she thought: we’ll never get out of here. Someone unnamed, indifferent, like fate, had decided: this one, this one, and this one will live in a palace. Life will be good for them. And these, and these, and these ones, too, including Galya and Yura, will live there. No, not there, wa-a-ay over there, that’s right, yes. By the ravine, beyond the deserted lots. And don’t be pushy, don’t bother. End of conversation. Wait a minute! What is this? But fate has already turned its back, laughing with its friends, and its iron back is solid— you can’t get its attention by knocking. If you want, you can have hysterics, roll on the floor, kick your legs, if you want, you can lie low and gradually turn wild, collecting portions of cold poison in your teeth.

They tried clambering, tried switching, posting notices, turned the apartment exchange newsletter into Swiss cheese, gutting it, telephoned in humiliation: “We have a forest… wonderful air… it’s great for the child, and you don’t need a dacha… same to you. You’re nuts!” They filled notebooks with hurried notations: “Zinaida Samoilovna is thinking it over….” “Hana will call back….” “Peter Ivanych has to have a balcony.…” Miraculously, Yura found an old woman who had a three-room apartment on the second floor in Patriarshie Prudy, in the middle of Moscow, and she was willful and spoiled. Fifteen families got entangled in an exchange chain, each with its own demands, heart attacks, crazy neighbors, broken hearts, and lost birth certificates. They taxied the capricious old woman hither and yon, got expensive medications for her, as well as warm boots and ham, and promised her money. It was on the verge of happening, thirty-eight people trembled and grumbled, weddings were called off, summer vacations burst, somewhere in the chain a certain Simakov dropped out, bleeding ulcers—doesn’t matter, forget him—the ranks closed, more efforts, the old woman equivocated and resisted, under horrible pressure signed the documents, and just at the moment when somewhere in the cloudy skies a pink angel filled out the order with an air pen, bam! she changed her mind. Just like that— upped and changed it. And just leave her alone.

The howl of fifteen families shook the earth, the axis shifted, volcanoes erupted, Hurricane Anna wiped out a young underdeveloped nation, the Himalayas grew even taller and the Marianas Trench deeper, but Galya and Yura remained where they were. And the wolves giggled in the forest. For it was written: if you are meant to chirp, don’t purr. If you are meant to purr, don’t chirp.

“Should we denounce the old woman?” Galya said.

“But to whom?” Haggard Yura burned with an evil flame, it was sad to look at him. He figured this and that—no go.

Maybe complain to St. Peter, so that he wouldn’t let the lousy woman into Heaven. Yura picked up a lot of rocks in the quarry and went one night to her house to break her windows, but came back with the news that they were broken—they weren’t the only ones with the bright idea.

Then they cooled off, of course.

Now she lay and thought about Filin: how he folded his fingers into a tent, smiled, dangled his foot, how he raised his eyes to the ceiling when he talked…. There was so much she had to tell him…. Bright light, bright flowers, the bright silvery beard with the black spot around his mouth. Of course, Alisa was no match for him, and she couldn’t appreciate the wonderland. Nor did she deserve it. He needed someone understanding….

“Blah-blah-blah,” said Yura in his sleep.

…Yes, someone understanding and sensitive… to steam his raspberry robe… run his bath… do something with his slippers…

They’d divide their property like this: Yura could have the apartment, the dog, and the furniture. Galya would take their daughter, some of the linens, the iron, and the washing machine. The toaster. The mirror from the hallway. Mother’s good forks. The African violet. That’s all, probably.

No, that’s nonsense. How could you understand Galya’s life, Galya’s third-rate existence, the humiliation, the jabs at her soul? How can you describe it? How can you describe—well, how about the time Galya managed to get—through chicanery, bribery, and the necessary phone calls—a ticket to the Bolshoi—in the orchestra!—just one lousy ticket (of course, Yura wasn’t interested in culture), how she bathed, steamed, and curled herself, preparing for the big event, how she left the house on tiptoe, cherishing the golden atmosphere of the lofty and beautiful in herself—but it was autumn, it started to pour, and she couldn’t get a taxi, and Galya rushed around in the slush, damning the skies, fate, the city builders, and when she finally got to the theater she realized she had left her good shoes at home and her boots were full of mud and the soles had red cakes with clumps of grass sticking out of them—a vulgar bumpkin, a country creep, a local yokel. Even the hem of her dress was messed up.

So Galya—and what was so bad about that?—simply crept to the ladies’ room quietly and washed her boots with her hankie and rinsed off the shameful hem. And then this toad—not an employee, but an art lover—like lilac jelly, her cameos jiggling, started in on her: How dare you! At the Bolshoi, scraping your filthy feet, you’re not in a bathhouse, you know! And she went on and on and people started to stare and whisper and, not knowing what was going on, to give her dirty looks.

And it was ruined for her, spoiled and lost, and Galya wasn’t up to high drama, and the small swans wasted their famous dance at a slow canter. Angry tears boiling, tormented by unavenged injury, Galya flattened the dancers with her gaze without any pleasure, making out through her binoculars their yellowish working faces, their laboring neck muscles, and severely, ruthlessly told herself that they weren’t swans at all but union members, that their lives were like everyone else’s—ingrown toenails, unfaithful husbands—and that as soon as they finished their dance, they would pull on warm knit pants and head for home, for home: in icy Zyuzino, and puddly Korovino, and even to that horrible city limits road where Galya howled silently at night, into that impenetrable misery where you can only run and croak inhumanly. And let’s see that white insouciant fluttery one, that one, take Galya’s daily path, let her fall belly-deep into the tortuous mud, in the viscous Precam-brian of the outskirts, and let’s see her twist and clamber out— now, that would be some fouetté.

How can you describe that?

In March he didn’t call, and in April he didn’t call, and the summer passed in vain, and Galya was going crazy: What was wrong? Was he sick of them? Were they unworthy? She was tired of dreaming, of waiting for the phone call, she began to forget the beloved features: now she pictured him as a giant, frightening black gaze, huge hands with sparkling rings, dry, oriental beard with a metallic rustle.

And she didn’t recognize him right away when he passed her in the subway—small, hurrying, careworn—he went around her without noticing and just walked on, and it was too late to hail him.

He walked like an ordinary man; his small feet, accustomed to polished parquet, spoiled by velvet slippers, stepped on the spittle-covered bathroom tiles of the passageway, ran up the ordinary steps; small fists rummaged in pockets, located a handkerchief, hit his nose—boof, boof!—and back in the pocket; then he shook himself like a dog, adjusted his scarf, and went on, under the archway with faded gold mosaics, past the statue of a partisan patriarch, confusedly spreading his bronze hand with an annoying error in the position of his fingers.

He walked through the crowd, and the crowd, thickening and thinning, rustled, pushed against him—a cheerful overweight woman, an amber Hindu in snow-white Muslim underpants, a soldier with boils, old mountain women in galoshes, stunned by the bustle.

He walked without looking back, he had no time for Galya, her greedy eyes, extended neck—he leaped up like a schoolboy and onto the escalator—and he was gone, vanished, no more, only the warm rubber wind from an approaching train, the hiss and bang of the doors, and the speech of the crowd like the speech of many waters.

And that same evening Allochka called and informed her indignantly that she and Filin went to get married and there, filling out the forms, she discovered he was a pretender, that he was subletting the apartment in the high-rise from some polar explorer, and all those things probably belong to the explorer and not to him, and that he was actually registered as living in the town of Domodedovo. And that she proudly threw the papers at him and left, not because of Domodedovo, of course, but because her pride wouldn’t let her marry a man who had lied to her even this much. And they should know whom they’re dealing with.

So that was it…. And they had associated with him. Why he was no better than they, he was just like them, he was simply pretending, mimicking, that pathetic midget, that clown in a shah’s robe.

Even on the landing she could smell the boiled fish. Galya rang the bell, Filin opened the door and was astonished. He was alone and looked terrible, worse than Julie. Tell him everything. Why stand on ceremony? He was alone and was brazenly eating cod and listening to Brahms, and he had placed a vase with white carnations on the table in front of him.

“Galochka, what a surprise. You haven’t forgotten me…. Please, have some perch Orly, it’s fresh.” Filin offered the cod.

“I know everything,” Galya said and sat down, as is, in her coat. “Alisa told me everything.”

“Yes, Alisa, Alisa, what a treacherous woman. Well, how about the fish?”

“No, thank you. And I know about Domodedovo. And about the polar explorer.”

“Yes, a horrible story,” Filin said sadly. “The man spent three years in the Antarctic and he’d still be there—it’s romantic— and for such a thing to happen to him. But Dr. Ilizarov will be able to help, I’m sure of it. They do that here.”

“Do what?” Galya was bewildered.

“Ears. Don’t you know? My explorer froze off his ears. He’s a Siberian, expansive and generous, they were having an International Women’s Day party with some Norwegians, and one Norwegian liked his fur cap with ear flaps, and so he traded with him. For a cap. It was eighty below outside and seventy degrees indoors. That’s a hundred-fifty-degree difference, can you imagine? Someone called his name from the street: ‘Petya!’ he stuck out his head, and his ears—wham!—just fell off. Of course, there was general panic, they hauled him over the coals, stuck his ears in a box, and flew him immediately to Kurgan, to Dr. Ilizarov. So here’s what… I’m leaving.”

Galya sought words in vain. Something painful.

“Really,” sighed Filin. “It’s autumn. It’s sad. Everyone’s abandoned me. Alisa abandoned me…. Matvei Matveich hasn’t shown his nose…. Maybe he’s dead? You’re the only one, Galochka…. You’re the only one who could, if you wanted to. But now I’ll be closer to you. I’ll be closer now. Have some perch. Einmal in der Woche, Fisch, which means, fish once a week. Who said that? Well, which famous person said that?”

“Goethe?” Galya muttered, softening against her will.

“Close. Close, but not quite.” Filin was animated and younger. “We’re forgetting our history of literature, tsk-tsk-tsk…. I’ll give you a hint: when Goethe—you were right there—was an old man, he fell in love with the young and charming Ulrike. He was foolish enough to offer his hand and was cruelly refused. From the doorway. Rather, from the window. The beauty stuck her head out the window and berated the Olympian—well, you know all that, you have to know. You’re old, and so on. A real Faust. You should eat more fish— it has phosphorus to make your brain work. Einmal in der Woche, Fisch. And she slammed the window.”

“No!” Galya said. “But why… I’ve read…”

“We’ve all read something, my dear,” Filin said, blooming. “I’m giving you the bare facts.” He sat more comfortably and raised his eyes to the ceiling. “So the old man wanders home, shattered. As they say, farewell, Antonina Petrovna, my unsung song…. He was stooped, the star on his neck went jingle jangle, jingle jangle…. It’s evening, dinner time. They serve game with peas. He loved game, I hope you’re not going to argue with that? The candles were lit, silverware on the table, you know, the German kind with knobs, and the aroma…. So, the children were there, and the grandchildren there. And in the corner, his secretary, Eckerman, settled in, writing. Goethe picked on a wing and tossed it aside. He couldn’t eat it. Nor the peas. The grandchildren say, Gramps, what’s the matter? He got up, threw his chair down, and said bitterly: once a week, she says, eat fish. He burst into tears and left. The Germans are sentimental. Eckerman, of course, put it all down. If you haven’t had a chance, read Conversations with Goethe. An edifying book. By the way, they used to exhibit that game bird— absolutely petrified by then—in a museum in Weimar, until 1932.”

“What did they do with the peas?” Galya asked furiously.

“Fed them to the cat.”

“Since when do cats eat vegetables?”

“Just try not eating them with the Germans. They have discipline.”

“What, did Eckerman write about the cat too?”

“Yes, it’s in the notes. Depends on the edition, of course.”

Galya got up, left, went downstairs and outside. Farewell, pink palace, farewell, my dream. Go fly in all four directions, Filin! We stood with arms extended—to whom? What did you give us? Your tree of golden fruit has withered and your words are just fireworks in the night, a brief sprint of colored wind, the hysteria of fiery roses in the darkness above our hair.

It was growing dark. The autumn wind played with bits of paper, scooping them out of the rubbish bins. She took one last look inside the store that gnawed at the foot of the palace like a transparent worm. She stood at the cheerless counters—beef bones, jars of “Dawn” brand vegetable puree. So then, let’s rub the tears across our cheeks, put out the candles with our spit: our god is dead, and his temple is empty. Farewell!

And now—home. The road is long. Ahead—is a new winter, new hopes, new songs. Well, then, let’s sing to the outskirts of town, sing the praises of the rain, of buildings gone gray, long evenings on the threshold of darkness. Let’s sing the empty lots, the brown grasses, the earth’s cold layers under an apprehensive foot, let’s sing the slow autumn dawn, the barking of a dog amid the aspen trees, fragile golden webs, and the first ice, the first bluish ice forming in the deep print of another’s footstep.