The Summer Guest (18 page)

Before they left the pub, Katya handed Ana a check, apologizing that it was not the full advance. You'll get the rest when you send us the translation, she said. I promise.

They lingered for a moment outside, and she said, Forgive me while I call my husband, then I can walk with you to the Tube.

Ana looked away while she was on the phone, and she tried not to listen to the conversation, though she could not help but overhear.

And what time? . . . Will you be there? . . . Peter, we can't afford . . . No, I haven't . . . She is . . . Please don't bring that up again . . . Do what you like . . . I have an appointment . . . No,
no, I'll be home in time, but can't you at least start the dinner? I see . . . No . . . I can't discuss that now, I told you. Bye . . . Sorry . . . No problem.

Ana followed her through the crowd. When they parted, about to go their separate ways inside the station, Katya hugged her lightly, but for a long time. As she pulled away, Ana thought she saw tears in her eyes. But Katya was smiling. She gave a little wave before she headed down the tunnel to the westbound District line.

I have found a hiding place for the diary, so that no one will come upon my thoughts about this situation with Elena and Aleksandr Pavlovich. One volume is full; I had to ask Georges to fetch me a new one from Sumy.

Will my niece Ksenia read these words someday?

Under the mattress, inside the bed frame, there is a trapdoor hiding a deep square well, just the right size for these notebooks. This was my great-grandmother's bed. She'd had it built when Napoleon's army was advancing, with this well to hide her jewels. (That is something for Ksenia to know, too.) We used to hide our dollies here as children, and other things we didn't want the boys to find. I can leave the trapdoor open to reach my notebook more easily; no one will see it.

August 22, 1888

Anton Pavlovich has left again for Poltava on his search for a farmstead. I do so hope he succeeds! I told him to be sure of a river (or a lake) and a western exposure—it's best to have the sun at the end of the day. At least in my opinion, for lasting warmth. The rest—views, space, the condition of the estate—won't matter so much if his heart and mind find a place where they can belong.

I did not have time to discuss the issue of his brother and Elena. We were numerous around dinner the night before he
left—his mama invited us all—and all I could do in saying goodbye was to whisper that he was quite right where Elena was concerned, and his brother ought not waste his time, unless . . .

There I would have needed to see his expression to ensure that he knew what I meant by
unless
. So much contained in a little word. But he held me back, the time to say good night to Georges, then he whispered, Agreed. Only if his heart so dictates.

You've understood me, I concluded, and we said good night.

Sometimes I suffocate within these pages. The darkness seems to spill out of the ink and engulf them, as if all I am writing is a great swath of black. I cannot describe a smile—Tonya's smile or the proud gleam in Pasha's eyes, or the sunset, or Anton Pavlovich's hand rubbing his beard in thought, or Grigory Petrovich's toothless grin. Although I know these things exist: I have seen them
before,
I have
heard
them.

The voices of the Chekhov brothers as they laugh and prepare their lines for fishing, little suspecting that it is somewhere deep inside me that they cast their lines. They pull me up toward an ever brighter light. I can almost see it glinting on the surface.

Anton Pavlovich once asked me what was the last thing I remember seeing before the light departed. There was a long shadowy period: I could see form and color but not details. I remember the market in Sumy—a blur of movement beneath a sharp blue sky, then a woman in a red dress. A long vivid red dress in the crowd; all the other colors—blues, browns, black, the odd white peasant's shirt—had run together like failed colors on a novice's canvas, but then that surge of red . . .

Long before that, the last sharp detail was Mama's face, I told him. As it should be. I'd just had my first real seizure—when we knew that something was wrong beyond a cold or fatigue—and I
was in bed. I awoke when she came in the room, the bright flame of her candle lighting her face, a pale copper glow effacing the lines of worry and the life she'd lived, and restoring the youth to her features; it was as if I were a small child again and my mamochka was there to be sure I was sleeping as I should, that I had not been awakened by some nightmare.

In the morning I could not tell Mama's face from Natasha's or Elena's. They had become shadows against a wall or the sky. I lurched toward them, hoping closeness would restore their features. Over time even their shadows yielded.

You never think, I said to Anton Pavlovich, when you examine a patient, that such a calamity might happen to you. And when it does, there is a moment of shock when you know nothing will ever be as it was, you are wrenched from your dreams, your expectations, above all your illusion of immortality—but then life unexpectedly gives you another birth, another chance. I can't explain it—a different way of apprehending the world. Grandiose words, but . . .

I did not dare tell him that perhaps he, too, was in some way responsible, simply by being there.

He was very quiet for a while, then said something about his brother Nikolay, the artist who is unwell. He wished Kolya had my courage, or philosophy, or something to that effect, and then he said something terrible: Kolya is mourning his life as he lives it. Drinking, carousing, to forget his troubles, and then weeping at dawn when the shock of illness pins him to his bed.

I did not tell him about my dark days when I, too, mourn. They all think I am terribly brave. That in my place . . . They do not know that there are times when their discourse tires me, annoys me, as if they suppose I am already dead. It is in part their apathy toward life and fear of death that I am fighting.

But it is also purely selfish: I love the world, I love life, and
I want as much of it as my darkness will allow. I think grandly of Marco Polo and Vasco da Gama—there are still worlds for me to explore.

I don't explain this to Anton Pavlovich, either; it would sound too far-fetched. And indeed rather grandiose. I must think of a better way to share it with him.

(And do I flatter myself that he might remember me someday in a story, in a novel? Let me be the black ink on the page.)

August 26, 1888

Late-summer storms. For several days now. I have been feeling them, sensing them in my blood. I am nervous, as if I am a cloud charged and ready to burst. The thunder rumbles from far away, then everything begins to fly around in a petulant wind, and the storm is upon us, cracking and booming, hurling the rain. I sit on the veranda with Georges or Natasha or Elena. They watch the lightning—they gasp—and then we all shriek like children when the thunder breaks over our heads.

One morning Anton Pavlovich came to me. He had returned from Poltava, and he described being caught in a storm not once but several times, drenched through, indignant in his person.

The ladies could see how skinny I am, he said, most unflattering—and what to do with a soggy hat?

He was coughing, however, and admitted that he must have caught a cold.

His trip has not yet yielded results. I was hoping he would find a farm right away, so that he would stay in the region; now he must defer his purchase and return to Moscow for
the winter. He has made an offer on a little place near the Smagins', between the villages of Khomutets and Bakumovka; he is very happy with the farm and says they need a doctor there, so it would be the perfect spot, but the owner wants three hundred rubles more, and Anton Pavlovich won't go higher, he says.

(If I could give those three hundred rubles, just to be sure he would be nearby, it would be a happiness cheaply bought. But of course I can't.)

The others were talking and laughing. He was describing his stay at the Smagins', and naturally, they wanted news. Anton Pavlovich was there during harvesttime and was much impressed by the huge threshing machine, which he described in minute detail, I think more for the pleasure of refining his description than to inform us of the intricacies of threshing machines. We have them here, too, sniffed Natasha. And the mysterious Smagina sister: There was some muted laughter, and there must have been some miming or raised eyebrows or facial expressions that left them all sniggering and sighing until Natasha burst in: She's unhappy, that's all, I don't blame her.

I could have felt left out, but my heart was still pounding with hope that the recalcitrant owner of the farm would yield. In October, said Anton Pavlovich, he would know whether his offer had been accepted.

We were in the garden after dinner. It had rained earlier and the evening was fresh, fragrant. There were children by the river, and their cries and shouts and splashing came to us, mysterious and thrilling, on the breeze.

I have made good progress with the novel, Zinaida Mikhailovna, he said. I'm pleased with what I've done, if for no other reason than I do it without the slightest thought for
anything pecuniary. My characters are truly free men and women, with no thoughts of how to put bread on my table.

And on their own table? Or are they wealthy aristocrats?

Ah, no, Zinaida Mikhailovna, they are simple folk, like you and me.

We burst out laughing.

Let's say, he continued, they are ordinary people, with ordinary human aspirations, and yet . . .

He paused. I encouraged him with a wave of my fingers.

All too often their aspirations are—will be, because I haven't written it yet—destroyed by others or left unfulfilled. Some of them will continue to hope, to fight, while others will give up, become cynical . . . Am I boring you?

No, Anton Pavlovich, please go on, I just hope—

It's the scale of it, you see, to fill a whole novel, you need the trajectory of a life. It's overwhelming at times, I think: Why can't my hero just put his watch in his pocket and walk offstage? End of story? But no, he has to persevere, allow his love or his dreams to take him where they will.

And can he not take
them
? Must he merely submit to life?

He became excited, took my arm. Precisely, Zinaida Mikhailovna—do we forge life, regardless of other people, do we act selfishly at times and thoughtfully at others, but always in accordance with our own will? Or do we wait, attune the senses, allow fate to do the puppeteering work, while we preserve an immense respect for the mysteries—dare I say, the magic of life? Those inexplicable workings that elude the will?

Do you believe, as I do, that there are two sorts of people on earth?

Well, perhaps I do, but tell me what you mean.

Take Natasha. She believes that she can forge her own life, to use your words. Georges, on the other hand, is a dreamer. He
waits to see where life will take him, lets people, and love, toss him this way and that.

And you?

Well, me . . . I believe it's obvious, no? Life decided to chew me up and spit me back out; I have had very little to do with it.

And before?

I shrugged. I struggled, more than Georges, less than Natasha, but I was always waiting for something grand to happen.

I paused, then said ruefully, And it did, in a way, but not quite what I expected.

He said softly, You are hard on yourself.

No, Anton Pavlovich, if I cannot laugh at life's ironies, what am I to do? You must bend, bend to the will of circumstances. Just because one is not strong-willed does not mean one necessarily manages
badly;
perhaps one is more sensitive, more attuned to life. Look at you: You did not set out to become a writer, yet you have, almost
malgré vous
. Speak to me of your will, Anton Pavlovich!

Zinaida Mikhailovna, my sympathies do tend to lie with those who leave themselves open and vulnerable to life's vagaries, that's certain. But if they do nothing, do not turn their yearnings into gold, what then is the point of their gifts, their goodness? They must act. As for my own will, I must have a farm and a river full of crayfish, and the rest will follow.

I smiled. The rest?

Ah, you know, love, wife, children, renown as the best doctor for miles around, regular publication in thick learned journals. And a novel that will be read from Edinburgh to Irkutsk.

There was a short silence, and I said, I'm sure it will be.

And if it isn't . . .

He didn't finish his sentence, as if it didn't matter; as if it mattered more than he cared to say.

August 29, 1888

Anton Pavlovich took me aside last night and told me he had written to Aleksandr Pavlovich regarding Elena.

I felt alarmed, worried that my own part in this episode might have repercussions beyond what I could have anticipated. What if I had pleaded
for
Elena, instead of being so vague with my
unless
that Anton Pavlovich might have misinterpreted?

But I do not know her feelings. Or perhaps I think I do, but I must not presume to speak for her.

In his letter, Anton Pavlovich informed his brother that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the idea of his marrying Elena Mikhailovna, but that he was going about it altogether in the wrong manner.

I told him, Zinaida Mikhailovna, that he knows your sister no better than he knows the man in the moon! It's true, you must agree! You don't propose marriage on such short acquaintance, in such an anguished and drunken state of mind! He must be human about it. That is, he must behave as a proper human being and get to know her—come back here in the winter, for example—and see what her feelings are. For the time being, he only wants a nanny and a sick nurse for his loneliness. And your sister would surely not marry him out of philanthropy or principles.

Oh, but that is what I fear, Anton Pavlovich, she does so want to help people and be useful.

Well, it's done, anyway, I think he has gotten the point. I will have to keep an eye on him, insofar as I can once I leave here, with me in Moscow and him in Petersburg. You will let me know if ever he shows up uninvited or unannounced?

He is always welcome, of course, but yes, if he shows up unannounced, I'll let you know.

We discussed the matter no further.

This morning Natasha came and sat by me on the veranda. I could sense she was restless: The creaking of the wicker told me as much. Finally, she said, They're leaving soon.

I know.

It will be so dull here without them.

I was silent, acquiescing. Then I encouraged her: But you will have your classes soon, the children.

I know, but I shall miss Masha even then—we have so many ideas and stories to share.

I'll listen, you know I will.

She made a small noise between a laugh and a sigh, and said, What do you and Anton Pavlovich talk about all the time?

Oh, life. You know. Do we philosophize? Not exactly, nothing that grand.