White Walls: Collected Stories

HEAVENLY FLAME

THIS KOROBEINIKOV, he would come over to the dacha from the neighboring sanatorium. They operated on him there for an ulcer. That’s what doctors always say: for an ulcer. After all, you don’t just go cutting someone open without rhyme or reason, although I know a lot of people think it’d be interesting to get opened up, so they can take a look and see what’s in there just in case. But you can’t go and do that for no reason. So they give a reason to cut—an ulcer, let’s say—and then it’s up to God; our citizen goes and dies for some entirely different reason, and the doctors had nothing to do with it.

So anyway, Korobeinikov would come visit the dacha from his sanatorium. It’s a nice walk, not hard, a couple of kilometers among hills, through a little birch forest. It’s August; the birds aren’t singing anymore, but it’s pure bliss all the same. The weather’s dry, the leaves are turning yellow and dropping off, here and there a mushroom sticks up. Korobeinikov would pick the mushroom and bring it to the house.

You can’t make anything with one mushroom, but it was still a gift. An offering to the house. Olga Mikhailovna would stand on the porch, watching him come from behind the high-spiked birch-trunk fence, and say, “Here comes Korobeinikov, he’s got a mushroom.” And her words made everyone feel good, kind of peaceful, like in childhood: the sun shines serenely; the seasons slip by serenely; serenely, with no shouting or panic, autumn draws near. A nice man is coming, carrying a bit of nature. How sweet.

Who knows how or why he got into the habit of going over to their place, why he became attached to them. But they were glad to have him. Having company in the country—it’s not like having company in the city. There’s a pleasant lack of obligation. In the city a guest won’t just drop in, he’ll phone first to say, I’d like to come by and visit you. The hostess will glance quickly at the floor: is there a lot of dust?—she’ll do a mental check: is the bed still unmade?—she’ll give a nervous thought to the refrigerator shelves—all in all, it makes for tension. Stress. But in the country none of that matters: what to sit on, what to drink, or from what cups. And it’s no disaster if you leave a guest alone for five minutes—in the city that’s a cardinal sin, but not in the country. It’s a different type of hospitality. The guest lounges in a wicker armchair, has a smoke, or just sits quietly, gazing out the window at the view, at the sky, and there’s a sunset playing through all its colors—it’ll give off a red or lilac stripe, then a golden crust will flare on a cloud, or everything will be tinged with a frosty green or lemon—a star will sparkle—Better than television.

Then the hostess returns carrying a teapot under a padded-cotton cozy, she slices a loaf of pound cake, turns on the light. Moths fly in from the garden, flutter about. Small talk, this and that, everyone laughs, argues, sits around, sighs. Korobeinikov would be better off not smoking, what with his ulcer, but he smokes, launches into his discussions of mysterious phenomena. He believes in aliens, in little green men; he’s concerned about giant spiders, and triangles in the Nazca desert. In the newspaper Labor he read that a flying saucer came and hovered over the city of Sverdlovsk, that the sky near Leningrad shone with a strange light and no one knew why. This disturbs him. It disturbs Olga Mikhailovna too: she’s always wanted to meet little green men; she has plans for them. Korobeinikov says that in South America the little green men took this woman Dolores up with them in their saucer, gave her a ride, showed her a bird’s-eye view of the earth, then set her down—in the city of Boston. Dolores, a simple peasant woman, was completely bewildered—she didn’t know the language, didn’t know where to go. She’s got sixteen children at home howling to eat, and here she is, gadding about the city of Boston like a chicken, while her husband, José, also a simple peasant, doesn’t have a clue what’s going on either, and is so furious he’s sharpening his switchblade and threatening to take care of his faithless wife— just let her cross the threshold of their house! Olga Mikhailovna both believes and doesn’t believe, but she’s extremely annoyed: she would have figured things out just fine over there in the city of Boston, what with her common sense and clear thinking; she would have known what was what right away— these little green men are forever picking up the wrong people. Everyone laughs and gives Olga Mikhailovna instructions about what to bring them from Boston if the same thing ever happens to her. Olga Mikhailovna’s husband says just let her try; he’ll sharpen his switchblade, too, he won’t stand for any of these little men. Someone says aliens only take people to Boston if they’re from South America; anyone from the Moscow suburbs, it stands to reason, they’d take somewhere like Tyumen or the Matochkin Strait, and what would Olga Mikhailovna do in that case? Olga Mikhailovna’s husband says this is all nonsense—as if Labor was any authority!—and that there’s no such thing as aliens, it’s all meteors with megahertz. What hertz? Well, he couldn’t say for sure, he’s no astronomer, but they’ve all got megahertz. Oh, there goes Olga Mikhailovna’s husband again with his cheap materialism—he’s always reducing the dreams of progressive mankind to some little turd. One witty fellow immediately starts punning. “Whatever hertz, a person blurtz.” Who hertz where, comrades? Korobeinikov’s ulcer hertz, but he feels good here at this dacha; everything is so relaxed that he somehow forgets about his pain. One hour of time spent with pleasant people, a single hour an evening, is worth all the medicines they cram down him at the sanatorium.

Korobeinikov savors one last cigarette: he taps it against the table; he kneads the hollow cardboard tip, lights a match; the pale flame illuminates his yellowish face, the fat lenses of his glasses, a bulging forehead with locks of thick black hair. Korobeinikov has extraordinary hair: the man is nearly sixty years old, and look what a mane he’s got! Everyone else already has bald spots of various shapes, except for the young people, of course. Olga Mikhailovna’s husband, glancing at Korobeinikov, runs his hand over his own balding head with chagrin—oh well, to each his own. At least I don’t have an ulcer.

But now it’s dark outside the window—in August it gets dark early—and time for Korobeinikov to go. He’s expected for supper at the sanatorium: his piece of baked cheese pie with its beggarly puddle of sour cream has already grown cold, and the tea urn, too, and the lights have been turned out. He’ll sit in the half-empty cafeteria, deep in thought, brushing crumbs off the tablecloth, staring at his shaggy reflection in the black win-dowpanes, listening closely to the mustard-hot pain somewhere inside him—to the pain that awakens with the darkness and drones, drones like a distant transformer.

Dolores—that is, Olga Mikhailovna—walks Korobeinikov out to the porch, and everyone else stands up as well, nodding and shaking his hand: It’s not too cold for you? Maybe you should take a jacket? No? Are you sure now? He will carefully step down from the porch, his glasses glinting, he’ll turn on a pocket flashlight, the bright circle will play at his feet, catching a bit of the green grass, the fence spikes, the trampled path, the startled, white tree trunks. Korobeinikov directs the beam to the skies, but the weak light scatters and the skies remain just as dark as ever; only the top branches and the crows’ nests are lit for a moment. Playful, he turns the flashlight back toward the porch, and then nothing can be seen in the night but a white star where Korobeinikov had been standing.

At some point Olga Mikhailovna finds out that Dmitry Ilich has also rented a little dacha in their village—Dmitry Ilich, whom she knew slightly in the city; she’d run into him at friends’ houses, and they even kind of took to one another. Olga Mikhailovna thinks it’s only natural that people like her; she’s considered pretty, and from Dmitry Ilich’s viewpoint she’s still quite young. Dmitry Ilich is an interesting man, too: he’s a sculptor, and he knows tons of stories and amazing incidents, like for instance how once they unveiled a monument and it was headless! Well, and stuff like that. Dmitry Ilich limps, he walks with a stick, and it suits him. He says things like “No, I’m not Byron, I’m something else,” but somehow it ends up that he is sort of Byron, after all—he’s lame, he writes a little poetry, and he was in Greece for a day and a half on a cruise. He’s seen Europe, and this automatically commands respect. He says, “Italy—huh, nothing special. But Greece, now— Greece is something,” and though everyone understands that Italy is probably not exactly nothing special, he’s been there and they haven’t, so it’s hard to argue. Well, he says a lot of other things—he’s had plenty of adventures in his time. He was at the front for a speck, and in the camps—he “went camping” in Siberia for two years, as he puts it, not for any particular reason, naturally—but he doesn’t hold a grudge, he believes in destiny and has a sense of humor. So when Olga Mikhailovna runs into him in the village, she says, “Drop by and see us some evening,” and he thanks her and says, “I will be sure to limp by.” He’s really a gorgeous man—he plays the bohemian, of course, but so what?—he has hair down to his shoulders, streaked with gray, a slightly pockmarked face, yellow hawk eyes, and he wears a smock. He says to Olga Mikhailovna, “I must sculpt you.”

So he actually does come to see them one evening, and they slice a pound cake and put the kettle on. Dmitry Ilich tells them about his cruise, and about how one old guy in their group blew all his foreign currency the first day out, and when they were already on their way home through Turkey he suddenly remembered that he hadn’t bought anything for his wife, so then he raced down to the Turkish market and traded his hearing aid—which he passed off as a radio—for a necklace. And he brought his old lady this necklace. Everyone’s laughing, including Olga Mikhailovna’s husband, and Olga Mikhailovna looks out the window and says, “Here comes Korobeinikov, he’s got a mushroom. Oh, he’s such a dear, and he tells the most amusing stories—about this woman named Dolores and all!”

Dmitry Ilich says, “Korobeinikov! Which Korobeinikov? Could it really be the same Korobeinikov?” And he doesn’t explain what he means. Olga Mikhailovna is intrigued, of course, and looks to and fro, and in comes Korobeinikov with his mushroom and his stories, sweet and affable as ever—he likes it here, and it’s a nice day, and the air is good, and the woods are lovely, and the people are nice, and he’d be happy to stay forever.

The guests are introduced to each other, everybody has tea, the evening chitchat begins. Korobeinikov, it must be said, is in top form, and Olga Mikhailovna is simply thrilled, but Dmitry Ilich is watching sort of intently and there’s some thought glimmering in his yellow eyes. Olga Mikhailovna is dying of curiosity—what did he mean?—her eyes shine, and everyone finds her charming. As always, for that matter.

“Hmm. Well, what do you know?” says Dmitry Ilich, after the ulcer patient, playing with his flashlight, has disappeared into the grove. “Who would have thought?”

“Well, what? What is it?”

“No, who would have thought?” And he drums his fingers on the table. Then he lays out everything he knows about this Korobeinikov. They were in school together, as it happens. In different classes. Korobeinikov, of course, has forgotten Dmitry Ilich—well, it’s been forty years now, that’s only natural. But Dmitry Ilich hasn’t forgotten, no sir, because at one time this Korobeinikov pulled a really dirty trick on him! You see, in his youth Dmitry Ilich used to write poetry, a sin he still commits even now. They were bad poems, he knows that—nothing that would’ve made a name for him, just little exercises in the fair art of letters, you know, for the soul. That’s not the point. But, as it happened, when Dmitry Ilich had his little legal mishap and went camping for two years, the manuscripts of these immature poems of his ended up in this Korobeinikov’s hands. And the fellow published them under his own name. So, that’s the story. Fate, of course, sorted everything out: Dmitry Ilich was actually glad that these poems had appeared under someone else’s name; nowadays he’d be ashamed to show such rubbish to a dog; he doesn’t need that kind of fame. And it didn’t bring Korobeinikov any happiness: he got neither praise nor abuse for his reward; nothing came of it. Korobeinikov never did make it as an artist, either: he changed professions, and now he does some kind of technical work, it seems. That’s the way the cookie crumbles.

“How do you like that,” says Olga Mikhailovna.

“How do you like that,” says her husband. “What a bastard!”

“Now then, I wouldn’t call him a bastard,” said Dmitry Ilich, softening. “At that time people saw things differently. Who could have known that I would come back? And this way my humble verse didn’t perish—at least it saw the light of day. Maybe he was even prompted by noble motives.”

“But he could have apologized after your return,” says Olga Mikhailovna. “That’s what I would have done, at any rate.”

“Those were different times, my child,” Dmitry Ilich explains indulgently. Olga Mikhailovna likes it when he calls her a child. At forty, it’s pleasant. “Different times. And how would he have known that I came back? I didn’t report to him. We weren’t even really acquainted. God will forgive him, and I already have. Right here and now I’ve forgiven him.”

So once again evening falls, and from the woods comes that vile Korobeinikov, carrying his foul toadstool. Everyone already knows about his treachery, about the mark of Cain on him. Olga Mikhailovna stands on the porch. “You have to forgive him,” said Dmitry Ilich, but she doesn’t want to forgive him. “Judge not, that ye be not judged,” said Dmitry Ilich. All right, so she’ll be judged, but at least she’ll have the satisfaction of making judgments herself. She loves truth, what can you do, that’s how she is. Of course, she’s not about to persecute Korobeinikov—he has an ulcer, after all—but inside, in the pure house of her soul, she has the right to keep things in their proper place. And the place for trash is the kitchen, not the parlor.

There he sits, in the wicker chair, weaving a lot of nonsense about miracles. There he goes, slurping tea and chomping on cake. There he goes, singing like a nightingale about how some kind of mysterious voids were supposedly found deep inside the pyramid of Cheops, and what could this signify? You’re the pyramid of Cheops yourself, thinks Olga Mikhailovna. “Megahertz…” mutters Olga Mikhailovna’s husband. And everyone else thinks hostile thoughts. And Korobeinikov can’t help but feel this.

Korobeinikov is confused; Korobeinikov mumbles on—about how one fine evening, see, the skies over Petrozavodsk convulsed and a heavenly flame descended, a column of horrendous force, and everything turned bright as day, while crimson stripes ranged the sky and the whole shebang flashed and quaked, and what could this possibly signify? But knowing what they now know about Korobeinikov, the hosts and their guests no longer ooh and ah, no longer laugh, no longer cry out in disbelief. Olga Mikhailovna forces a smile, even though it’s about as easy for her to smile as it would be to lift weights, and she curses herself for her fake smile, her female cowardice: if only she could somehow give Korobeinikov to understand that that’s it—that’s it!—he needn’t come around here again, that’s enough, we don’t want him anymore. We know about your low-down dirty trick. And your ulcer is no excuse! Your ulcer is a heavenly flame sent down on you as a punishment, that’s what! We wish you no ill—go and get yourself cured, take your little vitamin pills, go drink buttermilk in your sanatorium—but don’t come around here! And don’t bring us any mushrooms.

Korobeinikov, of course, can feel that the temperature at the dacha has dropped for some reason. He’s nervous; he smokes one cigarette after another; behind the thick lenses of his glasses his eyes watch, frightened and uneasy; he thinks the problem must be his stories—maybe he’s repeating himself, maybe they aren’t interested in this stuff. He hastens to inform them about the Filipino healers—it doesn’t help; he remembers a marvelous story about the Berdichev bonesetter who puts hopeless paralytics back on their feet—useless; the ice stays ice; they stare at him, their eyes hard as nuts. Finally he gets up to leave, and they all nod, but it’s not quite the same; they offer him the jacket again, but they don’t even pretend to rise, don’t walk him out to the porch, don’t see him off—it’s as though their joints had turned to stone. True, Olga Mikhailovna can’t help but do her duty as hostess: she opens the front door, waits for him to descend from the porch, turn on his flashlight, and disappear deep into the birch grove. The beam floats steadily, thoughtfully, through the severe, white tree trunks; it doesn’t soar or circle, doesn’t dance in the darkness.

Korobeinikov’s ashtray is full of butts—geez, look how much he smoked! Everyone stares after the ashtray meaningfully as Olga Mikhailovna’s husband goes to dump it—that mound of empty, stinking cardboard tips—as if it measured the guilt of an unclean man.

Korobeinikov walks through the unsheltering grove. The birch trunks are chilly, and the ground feels cold through his shoes; ahead smolder the lights of the sanatorium, a vale of woe: the beds there are white and the bed tables are white, the walls shine with white oil paint, white lamps hang from the ceilings, and on the staircase landing, where Korobeinikov goes to smoke, a fire hose is curled up in a white cabinet with glass doors. The hose is brown, flat, long—infinitely long, longer than life—and at night, when Korobeinikov falls asleep, headless orderlies will sail into the ward without touching the floor and order Korobeinikov to swallow the hose—that’s what you have to do before an operation—and, choking, he will swallow, swallow those long, endless yards of dull, rough ribbon.

The next day, Korobeinikov sits at his boring meal, listlessly pokes at his fish balls with a fork, stares out the wide sanatorium windows to where August burns with gold, green, and deep blue—he’ll go for his usual walk and then he’ll drop by that house after all: he was only imagining things, he must have been in a bad mood himself, it’s just the illness, it’s the pain, the rumble, the spoonful of fire he must have swallowed somehow by mistake, those people have nothing to do with it. He walks through the grove, touches the cold bushes, leans his spectacles earthward, looking for a mushroom, but there aren’t any; lots of people hunt for them here.

He sits on the veranda, trying to joke and be entertaining, but Olga Mikhailovna only narrows her eyes, and Olga Mikhailovna’s husband, who whenever he hears a good joke repeats it again and again, asks, “So how’s your megahertz—still hurts?” although the question is really unnecessary. And the conversation flags, halts, dries up, as if everything on earth had already been said.

It must be boring for them to listen to the same thing over and over again—why hadn’t he considered that? Now, when that yellow-eyed sculptor puts on a show, they’re all pleased as Punch, they all laugh. Still, an old friend is better than two new ones, Korobeinikov thinks vaguely to himself; no matter, he’ll just have to outtalk him. He’ll prepare something for tomorrow. About life after death, for instance. What a person sees when he faints or is in a coma, when he’s clinically dead. Oh, there’s a lot of gripping stuff! The witnesses are completely reliable. He actually talked to one of these people. This guy told him that on the other side, everything is sky blue and transparent, but there’s no air, and you don’t need to breathe, you don’t even miss it. And, you know, the feeling is like when you’re young, or you just got out of the army, or you just had a son— a really good feeling. And then someone appears—you can’t exactly see anyone, but he’s there all the same—and this someone talks to you, but without any voice. “It’s not time yet,” he says. In a kind of respectful way. And then, whoosh!—you’re suddenly back on the operating table again, everybody’s running around you, frantic, but you’re lying there and you’re thinking, What do any of you know!… Yes, that’s a good story. Only it has to be told with elan, with spirit. Have to rouse the audience, right?… No, I won’t go there anymore, thinks Korobeinikov, heading back, tripping over a root. It’s humiliating, for heaven’s sake! If only it weren’t for the whiteness of the hospital, the dull shine of the linoleum, the sterile, deathly cigarette bucket! If only the fire hose didn’t come sneaking up in the evenings, didn’t stick to you with suction cups, didn’t sting you to the very core.

Completely yellow, Korobeinikov walks along the evening path. Dmitry Ilich embraces Olga Mikhailovna in the birch forest.

“Why does he keep dragging himself over here?” says Olga Mikhailovna indignantly, her eyes following the gaunt figure.

“Oh, don’t pay him any mind, little one,” says Dmitry Ilich, kissing her.

“How do you stand him, Dima, you’re simply a saint!”

“Don’t be silly, my child, what’s there to get excited about! He’s got it bad enough as is, let him live out his life in peace! For him the time has come to wither; for you, to blossom. You see, even my walking stick is blooming at the sight of you.” Olga Mikhailovna’s head spins; if no one could see her she’d jump up and down and do cartwheels—wow, what a romance! Dmitry Ilich combs back his hair with his fingers, flashes his hawk eyes, and feasts them on Olga Mikhailovna.

It grows dark. Korobeinikov, completely black, shuffles from the village to the sanatorium; a little ball of light bounces about on the roots. Dmitry Ilich has no secrets from Olga Mikhailovna: “By the way, my child, I was only joking,” he says, knocking leaves from a bush with a stick. “It was a practical joke— punish me. That story about the poems—it never happened, and I’ve never seen that Korobeinikov of yours before in my life.”

“What do you mean, Dima?” says Olga Mikhailovna, scared.

“The devil led me astray. Or maybe I was jealous of him. I thought, Who is this Korobeinikov character? But I pulled it off, didn’t I?”

“Ohhhh, Dimochka, you’re so bad,” pouts Olga Mikhailovna. “What are we going to do with you? Come on, let’s go have our tea. My husband is probably sharpening his switchblade by now.”

Over tea they giggle like conspirators. “What’s with you two?” says Olga Mikhailovna’s husband, surprised. So they have to tell about how Dmitry Ilich played a joke on Korobeinikov.

Dmitry Ilich is very amusing about doing penance—he clasps his hands together and begs to be forgiven. He even wants to get down on his knees in front of everyone, only his lame leg gets in his way. “Don’t be ridiculous!” everyone shouts. No, he insists, he’ll get down on his knees! At least on one knee. He’s repented, repented! On one knee, and the other leg cocked like a pistol: how do you prefer the other leg—in front or behind? Everyone laughs: this Dmitry Ilich is so awfully artistic! And though Korobeinikov may be vindicated now, he’s a bore anyway. And somehow they’ve got used to thinking badly of him. Oh, to hell with him! “Heavenly flame!” “Megahertz!” “It hertz until it stoptz!” “Did you hear that?” shouts Olga Mikhailovna’s husband. “It hertz until it stoptz!” Anyway, he always talked such a lot of nonsense, and told such lies—did you notice? And tomorrow he’ll drag himself over here again. He ought to at least be ashamed—he can see how people feel about him; he could just stay put in that sanatorium of his! Spit in his face and he thinks it’s a spring rain!

The next day Olga Mikhailovna feels very uncomfortable. First of all, around her husband, who doesn’t suspect a thing— oh well, that doesn’t matter—and secondly around Korobeinikov. It would be better if he didn’t come. It’s uncomfortable to look someone straight in the eye when we’ve treated him like crap for no reason and we can’t admit it. But, on the other hand, he’s been cleared. And now we don’t have to live with that awful feeling of having invited a bastard into the house. Dima behaved badly, of course. But he’s repented—and all on his own, too, no one twisted his arm. It takes guts to do that, whatever you say. That’s courage.

But Korobeinikov does come, of course. And he tries really hard. Why does he try so hard? It’s all over with! And Olga Mikhailovna puts up with him, soiled as he is, and she’s solicitous, emphatically solicitous, as she pours him tea and feeds him pound cake. “Everything they give you in the sanatorium is probably mush—isn’t it? At least here you can eat like a real person.” Korobeinikov is startled, he looks bewilderedly through his thick glasses. He doesn’t understand—what was all that about, last week? What’s going on now? There’s some kind of tension in the air. And does anyone like this tension? No one does. It’s hard to be with him, Korobeinikov. He’s already turned completely yellow. And it would be nice if he’d realize that, since the conflict is resolved and everything’s cleared up now, it would just be better if he didn’t come here anymore. Because it’s hard to be with him. And when he looks closely into their faces, trying to understand, that’s hard too. And there’s no point staring. As it turns out, it’s nothing to do with him. He’s been acquitted and now he can just leave.

Olga Mikhailovna looks at Korobeinikov with hatred. These nightly visits drive her crazy. And they drive everyone else in the house crazy, too. What—don’t we have the right to live like human beings? Among our own friends? Honestly, it would be better if he died. Yes, well, that’s what’ll probably happen soon. That’s no ulcer he’s got, oh no. It’s not an ulcer; see how lemony-looking he is, and he’s aged right before our very eyes. And another sign that the end is near is that insensitivity and tactlessness, that thickheaded stubbornness—when the sick person doesn’t care about proprieties anymore and just clings to life, to people, to whatever there is. Yes, as an honest person, she freely admits it to herself: she wishes he would die. There you have it. Everyone would rest easier.

The nights are cold: she goes out on the porch, offers Korobeinikov a jacket, knowing that he won’t take it; she waits while he lights the flashlight, steps down from the porch; she listens greedily to his feeble feet shuffling through the fallen leaves. She hopes that she’s right about the symptoms. Soon, very soon. It would be nice if it were before the end of the summer. She stands for a long time and watches the flashlight’s pale fire count the hospital-white birch trunks, watches the corridor of light close in, the darkness thicken, the heavenly flame sweep blindly by, searching out its victim.