The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight (24 page)

That was the other thing about women and tears. Once they'd cried them out, they usually felt heaps better. Not so with men. Men took all their sorrows and complaints and insults and added them to the already mountainous pile of shit they carried around. It would be easier if men were allowed the occasional crying jag too, but the last time Yuri had
succumbed to that kind of emotional freedom (in the yard of School Number 13) he had paid for it dearly. It was unmanly to wear your sorrows on your sleeve, Vitek said all those years ago in the schoolyard, and even then, Vitek had a way of driving a lesson home.

Yuri spied the bottle of Crowbar on the windowsill. An opened bottle of vodka must be finished. That was another rule. He poured a shot into a teacup, dipped a handkerchief into the liquid and dabbed at his cuts. Vodka was healing, was the silvery light of the moon in a bottle, was the tears he and every other vet he knew would cry if they thought they could get away with it. Yuri tipped the downed bottle on its side. Fallen soldier—that's what you called a dead bottle. And then you waited for the last drops to collect on the glass, and drank those down too, the final salute.

A rattle at the door and then Mother came into the apartment. Yuri listened to her find her way through the dark to the divan that folded out into a bed. He listened to her hang her coat over a line and her purse and scarf on a nail. He listened to the slide of her shoes stowed in the cupboard. He counted the ticks in his head and at thirty he heard the sniffling, Mother crying in the dark. She couldn't help it, he knew. She brought her work home with her, in her purse, under her arms, carried it word for word in her head, and now in the quiet of a darkened apartment with nothing but the hours, she was parsing through each and every phrase and sentence.

Yuri rearranged his body along the narrow mattress,
willing sleep to drag him to darkness. Zoya mumbled. Angry words about electric beaters and their bright silver dashers. Because it is universally true that people dream what they want, dream what they can't have, he knew she was dreaming of a fleet of them, shiny as steelhead and moving away from her, to spawn upriver. Mother was breathing deep and evenly now. He imagined the she dreamt of manna on the tongue, of living on the bread of faithful speech.

Yuri curled his body around Zoya's. But the ticks, the throbs, they were a hook snagged in his cheek. A convenient image. The very thought of which inspired more thoughts of hooks and flies he longed to tie. Which took him to the world of fish. To rivers in the south. To ancient seas and seabeds, to the grandfather sturgeon who lived in the Caspian Sea.

To find him, Yuri knows he has to row as far as he can against a storm. His arms churn at the oars but his boat—where he found it, he doesn't know, only that he's in it now and it's sprung a leak—makes no gain against the wind and water. It's like this in the dream world, working against your own weight and getting nowhere. But Yuri can't quit. He must have this fish. And then he remembers the rule: Cry three times into the sea, and the old codger will swim to the surface. There are many reasons for this, the first being that the fish is old, and therefore lonely and longing to sharpen his wits. But longing is such a terrible thing. For this fish, sure, but also for anyone who has wanted to catch it, for Yuri, for Zoya.

Now they're both in the boat, knocking elbows and knees,
because desperation puts people in tight quarters. Especially in dreams. And they are hungry, Yuri and Zoya. And because hunger makes its own argument, they determine that no matter what the fish promises them, they will not let it go should they catch it. And so Yuri rows into the storm and cries three times and when the sturgeon swims up to the surface, he plucks it from the water with a net. Then Yuri rows furiously towards the shore, ignoring the sweet words of the sturgeon, who is promising them the moon for a mirror and the stars to salt their front steps.

As they make shore the sturgeon promises them wisdom for their suffering, joy for their sorrow. 'Wisdom won't fill my stomach,' Yuri says to the fish. And joy won't quench my thirst,' says Zoya. But she lifts the fish from the net, pats its sides, holds it to her chest and cradles it as if it were a child. The scales are thin gold coins and the fish smells like salt and air and clouds and mud. 'Gold,' Zoya inhales, 'this must be what gold smells like, and the slick sides, this must be what a new life feels like.'

The sturgeon, out of the water and held tight to Zoya's bosom, pants hard, its magnificent sides heaving like a small dog's, its eyes reproachful, so full of fury to have been taken from the world it knew and so unceremoniously brought to this one. Because it is a dream—his dream—Yuri knows this is what the fish is thinking. But held so close to Zoya's face, Yuri also knows that the sturgeon can read in her empty eyes how much she wants heaven and earth, sky and water, and
everything in between them. And the fish can divine Yuri's future and knows there is no help for him.

'Let me go,' the fish says. 'I can't help you.'

But Zoya clutches the sturgeon even harder. It flaps helplessly and Yuri, watching and dreaming, both in his own body and beside it looking on, watches the fish struggle. He thinks how interesting and strange it is that such a magnificent creature as the golden sturgeon in his last moments looks less like a fish and more like a bird taking to the sky. Then, with a jolt and a terrific thrash of its tail, the golden sturgeon stops breathing.

Beside him, Zoya's voice thundered in the dark. 'You are dreaming—again. Knock it off!'

The trouble began with the changing weather. It was the fault of all this water sleeting the one and only window in the entire basement of the All-Russia Museum that Tanya careened toward a lethargic contemplation of the sky, the rain falling from the sky. Neither white nor black, it wasn't even grey. Valueless. Odd that something so ordinary and important as water dropping from the sky carried no colour. So unlike the virulent hues her grandmother remembered in the days when the mines and smelters to the south released their char and glow and ash into the air. Tanya nibbled on the end of her pencil.

In evening the sky, you said, this sky you loved and hated, burned magenta. The ash separated into belted colours of hurt and glory, then quieted to a smoulder of brake dust and chaff. In evenings, while you'slept, you rose buoyant in your dreams. With your hollow bones and skin of paper you flew, like a Crane, like a kite. I listened to you breathe, to your rattles, knocks and whistles. I
stood below your dreaming, holding a string around your ankle, reading the sky through your skin, that parchment of those letters you and I have memorized all these years together. I listened to you snore, to your snores muscling through you, the only sound making any sense.

Tanya rubbed her eyes. Another mistake. Because as she did, the sudden urge for sleep overtook her. And as she watched the colourless liquid sheeting over the colourless glass, her eyelids fluttered. She rested her chin (so heavy now she couldn't lift it even if she wanted to) on her ample chest. And then she was up and flying. And where Tanya's fold-out chair had formerly been earthbound, held fast by the sagging metal seat, now it soared, the legs spread as steel pinioned wings piercing the bright heavens. As always, Ludmilla, inside her glass ticket office, encouraged Tanya's flight with powerful snores of her own that first rattled the glass and then fluted the arms of the many coats and sweaters. And this was how, in the cuffs and sleeves of the flapping coats and sweaters, the old woman's snores began as the sound of saws and burrs and slowly became the low rumbling of the Ilyushin. Then the museum whirled below Tanya, a colour wheel of beige and yellow spiraling away, growing snore by snore more distant.

Her course: upward and eastward. East where all manner of madness roamed freely, but nobody minded. East where the vermilion beets and cow parsley breathed quietly in loamy
black soil. East where the tongues of the bells rang out the hours in iron tones and people called it beautiful. East where people still remembered how to behave like people.

But what's this disturbing the relative calm of her dream? Tanya pulled a deep breath through her nose and verified: Americans. Not only that, but Americans with artistic inclinations. Stowed neatly in the overhead bins, their leather baggage exuded the brown suede odours of the upper classes. Beneath the bins three women sat side by side, smiling. Their dentition so bright it dazzled and spun Tanya's thoughts. The women have such mighty teeth—white as flake, white as the finest grade of Cremnitz, a white of a calculating quality. And then, from a vast distance, Zoya's voice unspooled: 'I myself have always preferred silver to gold, which is so heavy.'

Heavy.
Heavy as lead pigment in the tube. In the hand, in the blood. The mere thought of the word ushered instant panic. The cabin alarm bleated with mechanical insistence. She'd slap the alarm with her palm, if only she could reach it. But her hips, far too wide to allow for easy passage in these narrow Aeroflot aisles, will not allow her to move. That was to say, she was stuck. Wedged tighter than ten sprats and all their cousins in a tin. The truth (how it hurts) was that she had not lost the weight. Not a single kilo. More bad news: the oxygen piped through the cabin was not of the therapeutic sort. Not dense enough to support her massive high-altitude dreams. And now the plane was crashing. Falling fast toward a flat land of cold hard silver where there were no shadows to receive
them. The horror—unimaginable. Nowhere in their travel correspondence, in their many faxes with Head Administrator Chumak, did these women come across mentions of in-flight free fall. They could flap their arms, could beat madly at the air, but it would do no good. The engines had failed, the rumbling gone quiet.

The women gnash their teeth and rend their clothing. They break their fingernails while punching the crew-call buttons on the consoles above their heads. They brace for impact. They are beyond the reach of Tanya's stocky arms, her silly tray of coffees and sugar. Nor does it buoy their spirits to observe the beautiful well-stitched baggage huddling at the lip of an open cargo door. To make matters worse, the luggage has conspired to appropriate the only parachute. And why not? This luggage, built to last, will outlive them all, just as their warranty tags proclaim. But how confusing all this will be to the cows below, who, turning their slow gaze upward, will see geometrically shaped versions of themselves tumbling down down down.

'Up! Up! Wake up!' A voice, really a shriek, sharp and sure, pulled Tanya down to her chair anchored now behind the hat/coat-check counter. 'He's coming!' Ludmilla from the ticket office called.

Tanya forced open her eyes. Yes, Head Administrator Chumak was coming. She could hear him labouring down the stairs and the sound of his uncooperative foot lagging:
thump,
THUMPITY,
slide.
But he was making good time and as he
cleared the stairs the syncopation of his gait quickened. And in that slight skipping triple beat of Head Administrator Chumak's weighted step, Tanya detected the giddy excitement of a man kicking at the threshold of a long-awaited dream. For never in her two years of working at the museum had Tanya heard her boss move with such speed or purpose.

At last he gained the counter.

'Big news,' Head Administrator Chumak gasped. He leaned on his elbows, waiting for his breath to catch up with him. 'They're here, my dear girl, they're here!'

'Who?' Tanya stood and straightened her skirt.

'The Americans of Russian Extraction for the Causes of Beautification! They're here. Well, not here, as in right here.' The heel of Head Administrator Chumak's leaden foot fell with a final thump. 'But they are certainly very nearly here.'

'How near?'

Head Administrator Chumak glanced at his watch. 'They'll be arriving at the airport first thing in the morning, or possibly in the afternoon. It depends. But you, Tatiana Nikolaevna Bobkov,' Head Administrator Chumak's voice swelled with the calibrated mirth of fine-tuned optimism, 'you will be the friendly face of the museum, there to greet them the moment their feet touch the ground.'

Tanya squeezed her throat. 'Oh.'

'Yes, I thought you'd be pleased. And I know you will take good care of our distinguished guests and cultivate in them an appreciation for this museum, for this staff, for this city. I trust
you completely. It's a big job, I know, but believe me, you have my hearty endorsement.'

Tanya gulped. Despite her nightmare from moments ago, never had she really believed that their museum would be in the running. Certainly she didn't think the Americans would actually come. When people from the West make promises to visit, her grandmother had assured her all these years, they most certainly do not mean it.

'When they arrive, while you are getting them settled into their lodgings, Daniilov and I will clean the museum like men possessed.' Head Administrator Chumak tipped his head slightly. 'Well, Daniilov will clean, anyway.'

'Lodgings?' Tanya croaked.

'Yes. They're staying with you, remember?'

'But, seriously, wouldn't it be much better if they went to a four-star hotel or something?'

Head Administrator Chumak handed Tanya the file fat with travel itineraries and grinned ferociously. 'Off you go then!'

'But sir, what about transportation? Am I to hire a microvan or perhaps a car?'

'Cars!' Head Administrator Chumak clapped his hands. 'I myself have been thinking of a Zhiguli, or perhaps something German. Of course one must factor in the cost of petrol, spare parts, but still.' Head Administrator Chumak sighed an expansive sigh, smiled at the ceiling.

'My wife has her eye on a pair of leather driving gloves. Imported from Austria.' Head Administrator Chumak snapped
his gaze on Tanya. 'Well, don't just stand there like a historical monument. Get moving!' He patted her backside in a manner far too firm to suggest genuine affection.

Tanya pulled on her coat, tucked her colour notebook under her arm and hurried for the metro. The boy with the open violin case blew her kisses, but she was too distracted to contemplate purple and the lining of the boy's violin case. Now she was on a mission. The Americans were coming. With many questions and probing eyes and theories and advice, the Americans were coming. With ultra-white teeth of perfect proportion and baggage stuffed and overstuffed, thrice stuffed with hair dryers and razors equipped with the wrong adapters. With highlighted dictionaries and travel guides. Tourists, not travellers, they will have no intention of blending in, of being inconspicuous. Of travelling lightly or quietly or with subtlety. They will arrive bringing with them their many expectations. Their good intentions. Their endless curiosity. Their needs and unspoken longings to experience things. What things? Tanya knows the list: ambiance, ice cubes in cold drinks, the assurances of quality medical care should the need arise. Private transportation. Extra pillows on their beds. Clean drinking water. Hot water for bathing. Prestige toilet paper for wiping the backside. A serenade by moonlight and girls dancing in folk costume. Black caviar, not red. Cream for their coffee. The moon and stars. They will ask without understanding how impossible their requests are to fill. They will not know how deep and thoroughly devasting the recent crop failures and
economic crashes have been, how turbulent the transition from command to market economy. Nor would it be wise for her to point it out. They will want to believe that they are making a sound investment in the future of art, that their dollars will be put to good use, that this is a sure thing.