A Russian Story (11 page)

They went to Kobivka. Tanya said it was best to go through the forest and then across the fields, because if they went through the village the eyes of the entire population would be on them. So they took the path through the pine trees. On the way, Tanya told him a lot of interesting things. She said that her darling sister Olya had had her eye on Doctor Volodya for a long time now, ever since he had returned from medical school, in fact. She came to see him at the hospital and said she was going to study at the college of medicine and afterwards she would be working with him, because their medical assistant Nina Pavlivna was due to retire. Their mother had always taught them that if you want a husband you have to pick a lad and treat him from the outset as if he was your husband, shouting at him, even if he does everything as he is supposed to, but looking after him as well, asking if he is hungry, say, or whether he needs anything. That’s what Olya did with Volodya, and it seems to have worked. But when you turned up in the village, Eugene Whatsyourname, Olya decided to switch to you, but Volodya’s hooked now, which is why that time…”

“Volodya’s much better than me! Tell that to Olya!”

“But you’ve got the General’s house, haven’t you!” said Tanya, outspokenly.

“Tell your sister I intend to sell the house. Just as soon as I am in a position to deal with it.”

They came out of the forest and took the path across the fields. As it turned out, there were several paths in those fields; they were hidden in the grass and they criss-crossed one another. If you take the wrong one, you end up somewhere else, as had already happened to him before.

“How do you know which path to take, Tanya?”

“Well, how do you know which street to take in the town?”

As they were walking along the path across the fields, Tanya told him that, according to Demyanivna, her fate was not yet determined. There were not yet any signs to be read. It was unusual in a girl of her age; in most cases everything was already quite clear. At any rate that is what the fortune-teller said the day we met in the middle of this field, remember? Besides that, as her sister Olya said, Demyanivna told her that day that she and Volodya would be together. But she had said it with a little sadness somehow; well, perhaps it was Olya who said it with a little sadness.

They reached Kobivka and Eugene felt he had been misled. Just as Irivka did not give the impression of being a paradise on earth, Kobivka did not appear to be the habitat of numerous sorcerers either. An inconspicuous village street with fencing, dark foliage and little brick-built houses with painted wooden verandas. One of these dwellings was where Demyanivna lived. Only hers was not directly on the street, but set back from it. Between two stretches of land there was a narrow path where Tanya turned off; he followed in her footsteps.

In the yard a little dog started whining. Tanya waited until the woman, by no means an old granny, came out onto the veranda and ordered the dog to be quiet. Then she invited them indoors.

The room they entered from the veranda was rather small, with practically no furniture except for a table without any tablecloth, and two benches. The walls were starkly whitewashed, with no pictures or rugs. Only dried sprigs with red berries, probably viburnum, hung here and there on the walls. Smooth, broad floorboards, no curtains on the windows. Eugene felt an unexpected draught in the room and he became apprehensive. He felt cold, although he was warmly dressed. It was as though some large, alien space had entered the room. It was the second time that he had been impressed by an interior. The first time was in his childhood, when his mother had taken him to visit her friend Iryna Romanivna, who had a large room in a communal flat on Lviv Square. Since then, neither the large houses on Pushkin Street nor the mansions of his American colleagues had aroused in him such an almost heart-stopping delight as he suddenly felt in this rustic room.

Demyanivna sat by the table and invited them to sit down opposite her. She was a handsome woman, though she was not young, and slim, which was unusual in country women, who for the most part became shapeless with age. The only concession to tradition was the head-scarf she wore in the style of the Ukrainian
ochipok,
^*
completely concealing her hair. But there were no special effects, no alarming, menacing glances, no theatrical gestures. They talked for a while, like ordinary acquaintances. There were no cups or glasses or books on the table. They talked in a relaxed manner, mentioning that summer was over and school would start the next day. Your last year, Tanya. And how are you getting on here, Eugene, er — I don’t know your surname. Have you completed the formalities regarding the inheritance of the house? Do you like living there? Then Demyanivna suddenly said:

“Tanya, go and see why Irchyk is barking like that.”

Actually, the little dog was silent. But Tanya obediently went out, and Demyanivna stood up; Eugene, as though seized by some spasm, leaped up as well. A hot flush suddenly came over him, although till then he had felt uncomfortably cold.

“You can’t arrange everything as if it was pre-ordained, Zhenia. You’ll be uneasy abroad. You won’t be able to find your old self again.”

As she spoke these three sentences, she addressed Eugene by the short form of his Christian name, although both before and afterwards she addressed him more formally. He seemed to be hypnotised and he didn’t ask for any explanation, but followed her towards the door as though driven by some force. As he passed through the veranda forming a hallway, he caught sight of himself in a dusty mirror covered with cobwebs, not as he was then, but much older, with a grey moustache, his hair noticeably thinning. This apparition lasted a few seconds, but the terrifying sensation persisted for a long time afterwards. Why hadn’t he stopped in front of this mirror? Then he would have realised that it was all a figment of his imagination. Of course it was an optical illusion — something that everyone experiences from time to time.

Tanya was waiting for them outside. He set off along the path, reached the gate and turned round. During the few moments when Tanya paused by Demyanivna’s house, the latter must have said a few meaningful words to her.

“Good luck to you,” said Demyanivna, closing the gate after them. “I hope everything turns out for the best. Both for you and for Tanya.”

They walked back in silence. No sooner had they emerged from the forest, approaching Irivka, than Tanya, without saying goodbye, ran off home down the street, while Eugene made his way to the General’s house.

Back at home, he went over in his mind what Demyanivna had said, and then for some reason he noted it down: You can’t arrange everything as if it was pre-ordained. You’ll be uneasy abroad. You will be a changed person and you’ll lose touch with your homeland. You won’t be able to find your old self again.

He spent all autumn in Irivka. He bought firewood, because nobody intended to give him any, as it turned out. People who buy it in the village because they don’t grow their own don’t share it with anyone. The firewood reduced his savings considerably, as it cost ten million.

But they taught him how to stoke up the stove at no cost. He was adept at placing a log on a stand and chopping it with a small axe. In the autumn the women hardly ever visited him, but one day they brought him two bags of potatoes on the cart. The autumn rainy season began. He didn’t leave the house. He didn’t need to go anywhere. Sometimes it was easy for him to think and read, and at other times it was boring and unpleasant. A life without responsibilities is also a burden not everyone is able to cope with. The sooner he was abroad, where he would be uneasy, the better. He would surely be given a scholarship in America. Well, how else would he be able to go abroad?

Once the weather began to improve, he managed to get to Kyiv for a day. He found out that no notification had come from America and that nobody had telephoned or offered any work either. He exchanged some more dollars and received hundreds of thousands of coupons, bought some coffee and went back to Irivka.

The way across the fields after getting off the train, when the wind is so strong, is quite an ordeal for a town dweller. So when Tykhonovych, on his way from the district centre where he had been attending a meeting of the professional association of Ukrainian language teachers, waved to him and offered a lift, Eugene immediately accepted.

But Tykhonovych took him to his own house, not to the General’s.

“You are in need of a meal after your journey and Zoya Mykolayivna has got it all ready. Home-made cockerel borshch.”

Yes, the phonetics of a foreign language is the most difficult thing to master, he supposed, as he listened to Tykhonovych’s Russian accent. That applies to all languages. On the train recently he had heard so many people trying to speak Russian but sounding Ukrainian. Here the opposite was the case.

The hosts sat at the table with Eugene and Tanya. Olya was in town; she was in her second year at college. Sometimes she came home when she had a day off, sometimes she didn’t. Tanya is silent, but she is listening attentively. This was the first time he had seen her since the visit to Demyanivna’s. Zoya Mykolayivna is complaining again that they have issued new directives on the teaching of foreign literature.

“Eugene, you’ve just been home. Tell me, how is your mother?” This time, Eugene was prepared, so he could give a suitable reply:

“She is unwell, but she is working.”

“She ought to have come to the village for the summer. We had such a good summer. There would have been room for everybody in the General’s house.”

“She’s allergic to the village. The country air affects her asthma.”

“She’s asthmatic, is she? Dear me, how dreadful! Tell me, Eugene, what is your mother’s view of the cut-backs in the Russian literature course?”

Eugene couldn’t care less what his mother’s attitude to all this was. Oh dear, they’ve dragged me into this primitive household again, and they’re involving me in these pointless discussions. Home-made cockerel borshch is fine, of course, after a journey, but those accompanying discussions …

“As a patriot in independent Ukraine, my mother takes a positive view of all this,” replied Eugene, thinking that if he had to lie then he would do it in style. “It is too much effort for her to re-train to teach Ukrainian now, but she welcomes foreign literature in the secondary school.”

“How can Eugene Onegin not be included?” asked Zoya Mykolayivna in alarm.

“How can Goethe not be included? And Hemingway?” exclaimed Eugene. “And Homer?”

“But that was always for reading after school! I noticed a long time ago that children prefer reading foreign literature. But if you don’t introduce Russian literature in class they don’t read it.”

“Why do we need that sick literature? Russian literature is pre-coital!”

“What?!” The teacher was flabbergasted; she didn’t understand this word.

“Well, how can I put it — literature which, unlike any other literature in the world, is opposed to family values.”

“What do you mean? Russian literature is one of the greatest world literatures! It is for love!”

“For love, but without intimate relationships! Without coitus, to put it plainly!”

“Coitus shouldn’t come into it! You have to get married first!”

“You may be right. But when they are married, is it in order then?”

Zoya Mykolayivna and Mykhailo Tykhonovych chuckled with satisfaction.

“But when it’s a case of true love, then there are circumstances when it’s possible outside marriage.”

“Well, if it really is true love,” the family of teachers conceded.

“But Russian literature tells you it isn’t possible then either! Because it ends badly! My grandma, my mother’s mother, who left high school back in tsarist days, was actually the mother of our General!”

“Oh, Zhenia! The mother of our General, God rest his soul, went to high school? I always told you he was an exceptional man, Misha! You are exceptional too, Zhenia!”

“I’m unexceptional! But that isn’t what I’m talking about, that’s too literal. I meant something else. Grandma was always reciting this society poem, ad nauseam:
Only the morning of love is fine, fine are only the first timid encounters!
This also meant that afterwards, when romantic affairs went further, they would turn out badly. Russians are hopeless at love-making! Whatever they do, it’s a case of Dostoevskyanism! For this reason
fine are only the first timid encounters
.”

“But what books they are capable of writing!” Zoya Mykolayivna said in defence of the Russians.

“But what is in those books? Only platonic love, with all its agonies! Anna Karenina, when she met Vronsky, merely ‘besmirched’ her reputation! After they made love for the first time, she told him to ‘get out!’ Whereas our Ukrainians Mavka and Lukash made love, and everything went well for them! Although they weren’t married!”

“You can’t tell schoolchildren things like that, though.” exclaimed Zoya Mykolayivna.

“But it’s all right to pull a girl’s knickers off under the desk in class,” muttered Mykhailo Tykhonovych.

The dreary autumn was becoming colder and yet more dreary. The days were so short that all you could do was sleep. Nobody visited him now; nobody was stopping him reading great books or improving his German, or writing something of his own. But he lacked inspiration, although everything was peaceful in the house. There was only the creaking of the floorboards in the neighbouring wing, slowly settling back into place an hour after they had been walked on. Or perhaps it was being walked on by the mutilated Kobi who had for some unknown reason been castrated by the stupid Iri in the absurd act of cruelty which they are atoning for to this day?

So when the front door creaked, he thought it was one of them. Footfall in the hallway, in the kitchen. No, there was somebody there. He went to the kitchen and switched on the light. It’s Tanya. “Good grief, Tanya, come in. Has something happened? What brings you here all of a sudden at this hour?”