The Summer Guest (24 page)

I am a fool, Zinaida Mikhailovna, I have tired you, I am sorry. I am a selfish fool, forgive me.

Something warm against my hand, next to his, it was his cheek, his beard. I do not know how long he stayed like that.

Then he left, and I dozed dreamlessly until Natasha woke me for supper.

I have remembered something: The other day, Anton Pavlovich described his trip to and from the Smagins'.

It was, he said, as if the weather sought to warn him, then to punish him: on the way there, thunderstorms, rain, a gray, lowering sky. He was soaked through, miserable, they all were. During the return trip, he was obliged to wait in Romni for hours for a connecting train. He sat in a garden, and it was dreadfully cold, and in the next building he could hear a troupe of amateur actors rehearsing a melodrama.

He writes his stories, his plays, sets actors to music beneath a
lowering sky. Now life has lifted him helpless into his own sheaf of papers. He is soaked through; the ink has run.

June 21, 1889

Last night I slept long, my body immersed in recovery, and I woke again, refreshed, the pain almost gone, just the usual throbbing that responds to the laudanum, and the residual tiredness of an excess of sleep; that would pass. I could hear a gentle rain outside, soothing, washing away the bad thoughts. I resolved to spend the day usefully, not to dwell on the difficult conversation with Anton Pavlovich. I begged Mama, who wanted me to rest, to assign me some useful task—a trip to Sumy, a visit to the village—so she led me to the laundry, where Anya was ironing napkins and tablecloths. It would save Anya time if I helped to fold napkins, that much I could do, feeling the warm clean edges come together, the wonderful smell of clean linen—of warmth itself, beneath my fingertips.

At first Anya was quiet, just the heavy banging of the iron, sizzle of steam. I knew she must find it somewhat awkward for me to be there, though I could hardly supervise her work, it was rather she who would supervise mine. But very soon she began to talk about the Chekhovs, in a surprisingly free, gossipy manner, which confirmed to me that although she did not find it easy to be working for them (indirectly, through Mama), they were a source of endless entertainment. Even their recent tragedy seems to have been enlightening to her—now she said to me: Master Nikolay, in the end, mistress, he was the soul of kindness, where he'd been so difficult before, barking orders at everyone, even Anton Pavlovich used to call him the General, but then he knew it was his time, mistress, and it was as if death had told him, I'll
be coming for you tomorrow during the night, so he'd had to say his farewells in a way the others wouldn't notice, and he was ever so kind, at least to me.

And I knew, I did, continued Anya, I felt it, and sure enough . . .

At times her talking got ahead of her and I had to remind her to pass me a napkin.

And wasn't it awful, she continued, the way the others treated that poor woman—the children's maid—who'd come with Master Aleksandr the day before Master Nikolay died. You would've thought Madame Chekhova was the grand duchess herself, and this poor Natalya Aleksandrovna was some scullery maid. And all the brothers arguing, and you could tell it was because she was there, and did she look after those two boys? Not at all, she just sat out in the garden with a sorry face as if she was bored or hurt that no one talked to her. Even Miss Masha ignored her. She had a fan and sat in the gazebo fanning the air, as if it would hurry the long hours. And do you know, mistress, I heard Master Mikhail Chekhov shouting at her, wasn't she a fine one, because before she'd been with Master Aleksandr, she'd—

Anya broke off.

I noticed the scent before I knew he was there—a rich bouquet of flowers, their fragrances familiar yet elusive, mingled together without form or color to identify them. He coughed and asked Anya in a strained voice if he could borrow her mistress, and I wondered if he had overheard what she'd been saying about Aleksandr's nanny. He took my arm and led me to the veranda, and we sat in our usual chairs, and the air was fresh and fine after the warmth of the laundry room.

He reached over and placed the bouquet in my arms. They're from Sumy, he said, from the florist's; all your flowers have succumbed to the heat. So you have exotic blooms that have traveled all this way by train, on ice, from the Crimea, and
Turkey, and Egypt, and the source of the Nile, and distant Zanzibar. I chose them for their scent.

I smiled and thanked him. I immersed my face in the bouquet, in the soft petals quivering with raindrops. I saw a profusion of imaginary varieties, picked in a garden where flowers were grown only for me.

If Anton Pavlovich were mumbling some sort of apology for his behavior the day before, I did not hear him.

But when he began to tell me he would be going away for a few weeks—to meet friends in Odessa, in Yalta—the cloud of scent seemed to move on. I left the bouquet on my lap and listened.

I thought of joining Suvorin in Vienna, he said, but this will be more entertaining. They're theater people, it could be further inspiration—stimulation, I should say—for my theatrical endeavors. I need to get away, Zinaida Mikhailovna. I feel like a leaf in a whirlwind here. I can't get my head straight, even if the family is beginning to live more normally again.

Of course, Anton Pavlovich, you've had to bear the brunt.

So Vanya and I will head off in a day or two. Masha will stay here. And Misha. It will be altogether quieter. We've been turbulent tenants, to say the least. Your mama—

Mama has been only too happy to have you here. She is genuinely fond of you all, Anton Pavlovich.

I said it somewhat sternly. I could not face more conversations with apologizing, or sighing, or talk of ennui and death. I picked up the bouquet again, lifted it to my face. Felt the moisture against my skin.

Be careful, there are thorns.

Roses, then? That's lovely. I'm not too worried about thorns, I said with a smile.

I hope when I get back from my trip, in August, to return to work on the novel. I'll be fresh, inspired, the quiet will be
welcome, not dreary. In the meantime, your dreams can continue to age my manuscript.

Like a fine oak cask?

Precisely.

The chair creaked; he took my hand and said goodbye.

I sat for a long time with the bouquet, thinking I might identify individual scents in addition to the roses, but I couldn't. Elena found me there at dusk.

ONE LAST TIME, ANA
thought of flying to New York for the Fleur Mailly awards ceremony—a dinner to be held in the mansion belonging to the foundation that sponsored the prize—but then decided firmly against it. Franck and Isobel would be there. She knew it was cowardly of her, and that she would regret it if she did win, so she tried to convince herself that she couldn't afford it, which was true up to a point—the point where emotions seem unjustified but are so overbearing that a person will grasp at any excuse rather than admit to them.

A polite email had informed her that should she decide not to attend, her publisher would be given advance notice of the results in the course of the day, and naturally, would she keep the information to herself. So, with any luck, taking the time difference into account, she would hear before bedtime.

She spent the morning of the ceremony cleaning and tidying, coaxing out a bohemian chic that she hadn't known her cluttered book-strewn dwelling possessed. She threw the windows open on the spring air, the warmth tentative but the sunshine bright. She dusted, allowed herself to daydream like some urban Cinderella, not of a prince and a ball but of a crowning achievement, a confirmation in her quest for recognition, a nod to her talent. And a cash prize of four and a half months' rent with its interlude of freedom, a real vacation of the kind she had not taken since she lost her flat in Paris. Perhaps she could go on a tour to Russia and then Ukraine, provided things quieted down, and visit the places where Chekhov had lived—Moscow, Melikhovo, Taganrog, Sumy—with the regrettable exception of Crimea. She had not been back to
either country since her student years, when both were part of the Soviet Union; this would be her chance. If she won.

She had a bottle of champagne in the fridge. If I don't get the prize, she thought, it'll be the usual Calva.

In the afternoon she went back to work. Anton Pavlovich was about to leave for the Crimea with his brother. She checked the news. The email. Her phone line. All equally quiet.

She looked up Fleur Mailly on the Internet: a French heiress who had married an American banker and used her money to promote French literature in translation. She was no longer alive. What would Madame Mailly think, wondered Ana, of the perceived decline in the status of the French on the world literary scene? But then it seemed the whole world literary scene was in decline.

Ana baked a piece of salmon. The champagne would be nice with it, but it might be bad luck to open the bottle before there was something to celebrate. Besides, she had already decided to keep it for when she finished Zinaida Mikhailovna's diary, if she didn't win the prize.

She had run out of wine; tap water would have to do.

After dinner, Ana eyed the bottle of Calvados. She didn't want to be pessimistic, either. It was nine o'clock—three
P.M.
in New York—and it was getting dark, but she put on her coat and walked to the end of the village and back. There were stars; Ana decided against superstition and stared at them defiantly.

Still nothing. Not a good sign.

Doodle, wisely, had gone into hiding. Ana picked up one book after another but could not concentrate. She decided to watch
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
for the umpteenth time but couldn't lose herself in the absurdity and switched it off after the knights who said Ni. She resisted running to her laptop every five minutes and trusted her hearing to pick up the chime of incoming mail.

She attacked a pile of ironing. At half past eleven the laptop pinged.

Yves, inquiring if she'd had any news.

Diddly squat,
she wrote.
They were supposed to notify me come what may, so what does this mean?

That you're special and they'll send a singing telegram,
replied Yves.
Bearded Ukrainian poet—are you ready with the vodochka?

She smiled but relented, filled a shot glass, and went to bed. She slept reasonably well, and when she saw in the morning that there were still no messages from the foundation or the publisher, she swore once, then sat down to work.

At three o'clock that afternoon there was a message from the publisher of her translation of Lydia Guilloux's novel.
We're so sorry,
they wrote,
our intern did not realize this should be forwarded to you.

The prize, she read in the enclosed press release, had been awarded to Isobel Brookes for her translation of
The Lemon-Rind Still Life.
There is not a word out of place
, said the judges
. With such agile craftsmen as Isobel Brookes at work we can look forward to discovering a wealth of new literature from France.

I've been walking around all these days as if I were in love,
wrote Anton Pavlovich to Suvorin after he won the Pushkin Prize.

Ana knew love was a gift, not something you could command, but she wondered how much depended on the recipient. There was no answer for such speculation other than to move on to the next moment as if the previous one never existed, and to put herself elsewhere, in a place where, next time, love might find purchase.

Anton and Ivan have left for the south, for their theater troupe, their people from Moscow and Petersburg. Luka is provincial; Luka is a country graveyard where gentlemen bury their brothers and their ennui.

Am I bitter today? Just lucid. It is not a bad way to be, after all. Natasha is angry that she was not invited; Elena is sad and wistful. Masha is sullen and silent. Only Georges is a pleasure to be with, dear Georges, always even-tempered, eager to play for me. He went through all the Mussorgsky pieces again; in a wistful mood myself, I had him play “Une Larme” three times over.

Time no longer measured by the ticking of the clock but by the memory of the metronome. All the hours he spent learning to play, restored to me now, that I might forget time.

July 12, 1889

Anya has been enjoying her role as chief gossip for the guesthouse. The latest: A ceremony is being planned, the priest has been summoned, a rush of preparations—zakuski and small cakes, bottles of wine and vodka. Try to guess, she says, teasing me. What could it be, scarcely a month after Nikolay Pavlovich's death—not even forty days? she asks insinuatingly.

I give up, Anya.

She draws a breath, pauses for dramatic tension, and says, Master Aleksandr is to wed the children's maid.

A silence, then she adds, As I thought.

What did you think, Anya?

She was never the children's maid, mistress. They just waited for Mr. Anton to get out of the way so's they could get married. I couldn't tell you, the other day when I was ironing, and he came in himself, Mr. Anton that is, but she used to be Mr. Anton's fiancée, she did, some years ago, so Mr. Mikhail said.

I sigh. Please don't gossip, Anya. It's none of our business. Let's just wish them well.

Anya's words have stayed with me, disquieting, along with an image of a faceless Natalya Aleksandrovna Golden standing undecided between the two brothers, one finger to her invisible lips.

A small ceremony at John the Baptist's, I was told, just the family. They went to Nikolay Pavlovich's grave. Not long thereafter, the newlyweds left with the children and returned to Moscow. I should be happy for them—people I hardly know but who are close to us all the same—yet there seems to be something so terribly desperate and sad about their wedding. Why here, in the shadow of his brother's death? The same church, the same priest? And deliberately in Anton Pavlovich's absence?

Perhaps each of them has his own way of reaffirming life, said Natasha later, when we discussed it. Anton and Ivan go off to the Crimea; Aleksandr finally takes his bride, provides a mother for his boys. At least he's not running away.

What do we really know of other people? Who has ever seen my own secret feelings, who might suspect them? How much unspoken love misfires in the dark; how many marry and wait all their lives for a shot that never comes?

I have seen peasants in love, strolling hand in hand by the river at nightfall, their faces flushed and glowing with their amazement at what has befallen them. They ask no questions,
life comes to them. Briefly, they embrace each other, they embrace life—the bounty of a season, a full harvest. There is little else, but for the moment, that is all that matters.

Elena has been busy on house calls, but she found a moment to sit with Natasha and me this evening. Eventually, our conversation settled on Aleksandr Pavlovich's recent wedding, as if we had been avoiding it all along yet knew we must speak of it.

Natasha told us she has been talking to Masha. Masha has known all along about her brother and this Natalya Aleksandrovna! she said angrily. She might have told us sooner. They have been living together since last October. She's an old family friend, they've known her for years, along with her sister. Anton Pavlovich was often with her, often stayed with her. For years! One of his regulars! She called him Anto-chez-vous. And she was Nata-chez-vous long before I was. Literally. Nata-chez-lui, more likely.

Do you think that is why we weren't invited? said Elena solemnly.

Fff! I wouldn't have gone if we had been. Imagine, what a woman! First one brother, then the next. Playing the
children's maid
all that time.

We were silent for a moment, then I said, Well, it can't have been easy. Apparently, the parents treat her dreadfully. And what about Aleksandr Pavlovich, then?

What about him, said Natasha crossly.

I wished then that I could have given her a warning glance; I tried to arrange my features and look in her direction, but it didn't seem to help, because she said, What man waits until his brother is out of the way to up and marry his former sweetheart!

After that, I had to say something: Well, it goes to prove that Anton Pavlovich was absolutely right!

Right about what?

I realized I had talked myself into a corner. I would either
have to reveal our private conversation about Aleksandr's dubious interest in Elena or find a way to retreat.

He told me his brother was quite desperate after his wife's death.

Well, obviously! barked Natasha. We don't need Anton Pavlovich to tell us that. Anto-chez-vous!

All this time Elena had not said a thing. But now, her voice solemn and resigned, she said, He was a very unhappy man. Men don't cope well with their feelings, don't you think? I suppose she was able to offer him some comfort. I wish them well.

After they had gone, I sat and brooded for some time.

Could I have lied on Elena's behalf, told Anton Pavlovich something that wasn't true but that might
become
true? Could I have seized that chance for her?

Now we shall never know. And I suppose if Aleksandr Pavlovich found it so easy to secure a consoling presence almost the moment he was back in Petersburg, he might not have been a suitable husband for Elena after all.

But only she could have been the final judge of that.

I have been spending a great deal of time with Tonya and little Ksenia. She has just learned to walk and she tries to follow her mama along the lanes. Falls down, says, Oh-oh! in surprise, then her mama snatches her up. Or she clings to my skirt. Often I hold her, carry her on my hip, to feel her warm fresh body, breathe her milky smell. I keep my other hand on Tonya's shoulder as we walk, to steady myself, so I don't trip and drop my precious burden.

I remember one day before he left for Odessa, I asked Anton Pavlovich if he wanted a family. He cleared his throat several times. Then he said, First I would have to want a wife. Then I'll see.

And you do not want a wife?

Perhaps it is, dear Zinaida Mikhailovna, a matter of a wife wanting me.

(I know that in Spain, they fight with bulls, and the bullfighter must be a master of stepping elegantly to one side.)

He continued: I've no doubt there are women who are sensitive to my charms.

There was a pause, as if he were thinking. Then he continued, But they want those charms for themselves, and charms do not make a family. If, somewhere, there is a woman who wants me not for herself but for my sake, our sake, because she knows she will be the best guarantor of my freedom—and her own as well—I expect the day such a woman comes along, then I shall fall in love and have a dozen
bambini
like Count Tolstoy.

Elena told me Anton Pavlovich went with her one day to treat a little girl in the village who had typhus. He had such a good manner with little Katyenka, she said. The child was frightened, her little chin all creased and trembling with sobs, and there was Anton Pavlovich telling her his silly crocodile stories, not to frighten her but to make her laugh and see that even crocodiles can be vanquished.

He will make a fine father someday, Elena added wistfully, as if she wanted him for her own unborn children and knew it was impossible.

July 20, 1889

Ivan Pavlovich has returned from the Crimea already, but on his own. And Masha has had a letter from Anton Pavlovich. He
is feted wherever he goes; he eats ice cream and draws ladies to him. I imagine they are actresses who dream of being in a play, or writers who hope some writerly dust will rub off his linen suit onto their delicate ink-stained fingers. We all wonder why Anton Pavlovich wanted to go to such an upstart of a place as Yalta when he could have gone with Suvorin to Abbazia or Biarritz, but he has written to Masha that he misses Luka, that he sits on the waterfront and wishes he were by the river Psyol. He writes that a
pealing sound
reminds him of Natasha's laugh! What does this mean, then, to appreciate a place only when you are far from it? He was so eager to be gone, to put our dry, mournful springtime behind him, to flee toward lights and women and ice cream—and now he claims to miss our Luka?

The more one knows him, the less one understands him.

Or perhaps it is an emotion I cannot understand, as I have always been happiest at Luka and have rarely known what it is to be torn by nostalgia for a place or time. To be dissatisfied in the present moment—what a torment that must be, constantly pursuing one with doubt and disappointment. I don't know whether to pity him or not, he says other very kind things about us in his letter to Masha—says that the murmur of waves reminds him of the
good doctor's
singing. It's true, when Elena is of a mind to sing . . . He also asks where his eldest brother has gone; he will not know yet about Aleksandr's marriage.

The others play cards; it has been raining. I listen and wish I could join them. I used to love our games of vint. I would have played more often had I known. Pointless, wistful regret; now I suffer from other forms of nostalgia. I listen to Natasha's peals of laughter and am glad I am not in Yalta.

July 30, 1889

How long the days seem.

I have said that to Mama, and Elena, and Natasha, and Georges, and now to this page. Perhaps it will break whatever spell is keeping me bound to the slowness of the hours.

Natasha has been reading to me, and Mama has had visits. For once I joined the company, although I usually don't, they fuss over me so.

Nothing seems to help.

It's as if Anton Pavlovich entrusted me with his wretched ennui when he left for the Crimea. I can just hear him: Look after it well! Don't forget, it needs watering three times a day, and the third time add a splash of Grigory Petrovich's poteen.

I'm laughing in spite of myself.

Because I've brought him back for a brief instant.

I suppose I could do that, write him into my life while he is gone, imagine the conversations we have had or might have, and during the time it takes to write them, at least he would be back here with me.

But I fear I've become too eager for his company—how will I manage when he is gone again for the winter? Perhaps for good?

If only I could reread this journal on my own, but that is the cruel irony of my affliction. Although I believe the mere fact of writing it all down does help my memory of it.

Or if I could live long enough to have Ksenia read it to me herself—she will be a smart child, with such clever parents—how old will she need to be? Five? Eight?

I don't think I shall have that long. My headaches are nearly constant now. Only distraction seems to relieve them at times. Good conversation, flowing ink, Georges at the piano.

How dark the room seems when I put down my pen.

Words are like spots of light, flickering candles.

August 12, 1889

It is so good to be back at Luka, Zinaida Mikhailovna. I had to go away to realize what bliss it is to be here. The river, the crayfish, the clean silence of birds and frogs and lonely dogs. All that chattering of women, the fashionable set in Yalta—it distracts you for a day or two, it's exciting and new and flattering, then it drains you, dissipates you. Here I feel I can work again. It's as if the season changed during my absence. I know this is still summer, but it's a different summer, there's a restful coolness to the morning, and the longer nights are good for writing: peaceful August.

We were talking on the veranda before dinner. He had arrived that morning, dusty and hot from the journey, and it was indeed as if we were starting the summer all over again, as if the sadness and restlessness of the earlier months had at last been buried and life could resume. He was full of ideas, there was a story he wanted to write, and he would go back to work on a play that had been stalled for months. His energy was returning.

And the novel? I asked, almost embarrassed to bring it up.

He was silent for a moment and said, more a statement of trust than a question, It is still safely sleeping beneath your person?

It is.

Then let's leave it there for now. When I have a moment between the story and the play—when I've made real progress and the intrusion of impatient, neglected characters into my life no longer fills me with fear and despair—well, yes, perhaps I shall return to the novel, too.

If you like, you could read to me what you've written so far. It would be a way to reintroduce yourself to your characters.

It came out very suddenly and unexpectedly, my request, or offer, despite the fact that I knew that sharing his work, even finished, was something he disliked doing.

I could hear him scraping the soles of his shoes in semicircles on the wooden floor, could imagine him staring at his feet as they cleared a small space of thought. Then he said, Yes, I like your idea, but only if you promise, dear Zinaida Mikhailovna, to be very good and speak of it to no one, not even your journal. This must be done in the utmost secrecy; you must give me your word.

You have it, Anton Pavlovich.

And so I have agreed, henceforth, not to write another line about Anton Pavlovich's novel.