The Summer Guest (4 page)

THIS BROTHER, THEN, IS
called Anton Pavlovich, and he is the writer.

Ana shook her head, closed her eyes. Surely some ironic coincidence, someone with the same name and patronymic. Perfectly common Russian names.

She took the printout of the text onto her lap and skimmed slowly across the Cyrillic characters until, fifteen pages further along, she found:

Natasha, bold as ever, said to Anton Pavlovich that if we were to have Pleshcheyev and Tchaikovsky, then we must surely also have Chekhov.

Perhaps they were merely referring to Chekhov, as they had referred to Tolstoy?

Ana set aside the printout and keyed a few words into Google. And found:

In the summers of 1888–1889 Anton Chekhov, with his family, stayed with the Lintvaryovs on their estate at Luka, near Sumy, Kharkovsky Province, Ukraine.

What a gift this was in her quiet little life! To come upon a completely new, never before published vision of the great man—even if the diarist was blind, it was not his looks that mattered, there was an abundance of photographs to attest to his flair and charm—no, it would be how Zinaida Mikhailovna perceived him, what she told of his days, his words, the thoughts he might share . . . The young man, fresh, spontaneous, and himself, before the brand of fame.

Ana looked around for Doodle, picked her up, squeezed her gently, spoke to her in Russian,
daragaya koshka maya,
and jigged around the room until the cat determined the nonsense had gone on long enough and began to wriggle.

Ana drafted a short message to Katya Kendall, ostensibly to ask advice regarding the diarist's lack of quotation marks, surely a consequence of her blindness—should she insert them?—and confirmed that she would refer to Crimea as
the Crimea,
as was the usage in the past, but should she use
the Ukraine
? She also asked why the journal must be kept confidential and whether the emphasis, when marketing the book, would be placed on
the famous summer guest,
or on the diarist, or on both. After she sent it, she realized it was a ridiculous question; she just wanted to share her enthusiasm with someone other than the cat.

She spent the rest of the morning on the Internet, reading websites, searching, skimming.

Chekhov, she learned, at the time he stayed with the Lintvaryovs, was on the eve of an extraordinary career. His stories had been selling well to various publications in Saint Petersburg; he had made a valuable ally of a publishing magnate, Aleksey Suvorin. He'd had a play produced in Moscow,
Ivanov,
which, although initially not well received, did give him a certain notoriety, and would go on to great success when it opened in Saint Petersburg in January 1889. These were his last weeks of relative anonymity, of normality, before the outside world began to claim him, to celebrate him, in both senses of the term, good and bad. He was twenty-eight years old.

KATYA
WAS
PEELING
POTATOES
by the sink, waiting for Peter to come home.

His homecoming, later and later these days. There were excuses—delays on the Underground, the pub with his old friend Jacob, who'd recently been made redundant—but Katya suspected he often just stayed at the office, brooding, drinking.

She was surprised by her strength. She did not confront him; there did not seem to be any point. Some women would worry he had a mistress; if he did, she might be grateful at this point.

She looked through the kitchen window, the familiar landscape of trees, sky, windows with their reassuring glow of a London evening. This had been home for so long. Would they lose it? There were mortgages. Peter had grown up here. They had moved to this house from their tiny flat in North London when his mother died. Katya's mother, back in her dreary flat in the outskirts of Moscow. Tilting in a concrete box against the seismic forces of shoddy construction and dilapidation. They had been shocked the last time they visited. The obscene graffiti, the litter, the mud. The gangs of teenage boys lurking like feral dogs. Katya had wanted to bring her mother to London; the old woman refused. Once you closed the door on the stinking stairway (cabbage, urine, cat piss, stale rain), you entered her world: Everything was there. The small things Katya's grandmother had rescued from before the Revolution: books, photographs, embroidered linens. A clock, still working. Her mother explained that these things could not be moved to an English house; they would be meaningless there, like language.

Katya nicked her finger with the knife. Raised it to her lips: the taste of blood, salty skin, potato starch.

She left the potatoes to soak in water and went to check the computer while waiting for Peter. He could call, at least. But he wouldn't use a mobile. Even Katya's mother had a mobile.

She looked briefly at the news. These demonstrations in Kiev. She worried for them, those young people with a future. But she supposed they thought they had no future; she could see that, too. Their desperation had once been hers.

A message from the translator. Why must the journal be kept confidential? That had been Peter's idea; she did not agree. The world already knew Chekhov had been to Luka in 1888 and 1889. She did not care if word got out; in fact, the more people knew about it, as far as she was concerned, the better. Peter had a plan, he said. A
marketing
plan. The translator had asked about that, too. Katya was not sure what Peter intended to do; they had never been good at marketing, that was part of the problem. He had been so evasive over these last weeks, and not just about the Sumy diary. But then she was being evasive as well.

Let Peter answer the translator. It was out of her hands. From now on she would peel potatoes and look out her kitchen window at the London sky, such as it was. She was not sorry; she had been as active in the press as Peter until only recently; a perverse side of her was grateful to the bankers, to the crisis, for providing her with this excuse to cut down. Peter did not want her at the office, she could tell. He was finding it difficult to speak to her of the practical problems—the falling sales figures, the rising costs, the loans. Letters from the bank, impersonal, mildly condescending. Form letters, but still. He brooded. Clutched at straws, calling tour operators, Russian literature departments, émigré journals in the United States. Anyone who might be interested in their list. Pleaded with Bertrams, with Gardners, with Amazon and
Waterstones for better terms. There were no better terms, he was told; everyone was taking a hit. This was business, after all.

He'd had to let their assistant go, after fifteen loyal years. She moved back to Poland, where the economy was booming. Relatively.

Under communism, Peter's publishing house would not have existed. He never would have known this gnawing fear and loss of pride. Other fears, yes. He would have been a mild-mannered professor of literature somewhere, struggling to convey ideas not through a market but through a screen of ideology. A screen set up to keep an elite in power. Were the banks any different?

She went to the bathroom to put a plaster on her finger. Glanced in the mirror. Still noble, Katya. That aristocratic tilt of her head. Fellow students, their voices lilting with doubtful irony when, even in jest, they called her Comrade. No, she had not been a good comrade, with her personal poems. She had left on Peter's arm in 1986 for the right to say as much. Though soon after, when the Wall came down, it no longer mattered to anyone; thankfully, in her case, love had prevailed. She was grateful for that. It helped now, knowing what they would go through in the months ahead, even if she felt some estrangement at the moment. Her childhood experience of pride, stoicism, and the blurred image of Soviet womanhood she had carried with her would help. Her own mother's example. Who else had kept the country together, fed the children when the men were off fighting wars or nursing at the vodka bottle? She smiled at the cliché—Peter would scold her—but there must be some truth in it.

She heard the key in the lock, sighed, took a deep breath.

Today it rained, briefly, a gentle spring rain that left a damp fragrance upon the air. Anton Pavlovich and Evgenia Yakovlevna sat with Mama and me for tea, as did Georges when he wasn't interrupting or disappearing again. There was some practical talk between Evgenia Yakovlevna and Mama regarding Anya and the meals (a gentle complaint that she has made them the same
polonaise
sauce for three days now) and between Anton Pavlovich and Georges regarding the fishing—the pike is best by the old willow, or the roach downstream with the boat, opposite the church in the distance, and just after dawn is best for perch, often between the islands. Or something like that. Then Mama asked Anton Pavlovich what he was working on, and he gave a gruff little laugh and replied, A Treatise on the Best Hours for Fishing on the Noble Psyol, and Mama laughed, we all did, but I could tell she was a little bit put out, she insisted she was interested in his creative energy, as she calls it, for she has been reading about electricity and magnetism and so on and wonders if there are any parallel phenomena to be observed in the minds and souls of creators. I listened for Anton Pavlovich's expression in his voice—did he think she was foolish and naive or merely curious—but he is very polite: He replied, too self-deprecatingly, I am sure, that inspiration and electricity had nothing to do with it, that it was merely the size of the pile of bills to be paid that drove him to his pen and paper. I see, said Mama, then she laughed and said, At least he is honest and doesn't put on airs! Did Georges and I remember that dreadful impostor from Petersburg who claimed to be a poet? He would
sniff the air and wiggle his head as if depositing inspiration for poetry from the scent of our Ukrainian cows. Divine! he would exult. Your countryside is divine! What absolute rubbish, said Georges. He was an insolent bore, I added, half in jest. We all laughed, and Anton Pavlovich concluded, Unfortunately, you do sometimes encounter such individuals in this profession, which is why I avoid Petersburg, where they tend to want to be seen.

There was a moment of silence, then he continued, But your impostor poet was right, it is divine here. Even with the rain; your nature is blessed, unspoiled, abundant—you have found paradise.

He paused until I heard him say in a quiet, intense voice, as if speaking to me alone—he was sitting next to me—This is a place not only for poetry or stories or plays. It is a place for writing novels—on that scale. I should like to write a novel, of course, if only I had the time.

But you will have the time, surely, I ventured.

I'm afraid I'm always in demand, Zinaida Mikhailovna. Today it's the pike and perch, tomorrow my dear friend, and your relation, Ivanenko, will be arriving, and soon after that another dear friend, Aleksey Nikolayevich Pleshcheyev, and in a week or two the rest of my family will descend upon me like a cackling flock of birds, demanding I provide them with entertainment, conversation, vodka, and the company of women—and why not a few short stories, posthaste, while I'm at it, to fill the coffers. Where is the time for novels?

I wanted to say that if he were a member of my family, we would work together, make an effort to ensure he had all the time and space he needed, but naturally, I could not say this, it would reflect badly on Evgenia Yakovlevna, who seems, from the little she has said, or that I have gleaned from Elena's impressions, to be a hardworking and long-suffering woman who lives solely for her family. (Though one might argue that my
family is exceptional in enabling women to have lives of their own.) I thought, too, that I idealize my family overmuch, that to others we might seem far too radical, or merely eccentric, or even self-centered in our way.

So I said nothing, and not long after that, they took their leave, as it seemed the sun had come out, but I kept my thought for the next time we would meet and I could ask him what else novel-writing might require.

I have had one of my bad headaches. I don't know how long I have been asleep. Perhaps days, drifting from daylight to darkness, unaware. My body seems to have lost its timepiece; I am not hungry. From time to time I sensed a presence in the room, soft steps, an odor; a hand on my shoulder, or a voice asking something.

In the bed I inhabited a warm, safe place. The sound of my breathing lulled me into memory: childhood. Papa, before. With us still. Outings to the islands on the river. Games in the field. Snowdrifts against the house where we hid. Sleigh rides. The thaw, Easter. The kulich and paskha and brightly colored eggs; the days of feasting and dancing. The priest blessing the house. The visitors, telling us how we'd grown.

There was no difference between sisters and brothers; we were all free, and Luka was our shared kingdom. We invented stories with three wishes, and wise travelers and handsome princes, and the dreaded Baba Yaga if we did not do our schoolwork or preferred some mischief to obedience. We drifted with the islands on the Psyol, gave them different names from year to year. Bali, Java, Borneo; Saint-Pierre and Miquelon and the Île-aux-Chiens. We looked at maps and argued, learned the geography of the real world. Of which Luka was the center, with its willows and poplars and oaks; and the upper field, the lower
field, the hayricks like fragile fortresses for endless summer evenings; the slow procession of the women's kerchiefs through the wheat and their voices in song or laughter; the snuffle and rattle of the horses passing, laden with the harvest. That was my childhood, the generosity of it, the sureness of it.

I hear music now. Georges is playing; there is a flute, too. Yes, our cousin Sasha Ivanenko has arrived. The notes are sweet and fresh, they soothe my tired brain and try to make it whole again. It must be evening. I am tired, I'll stay in my bed and listen to the music. There are other doors that open, that restore me. To the present moment. That much I can do; there I can live. A house full of doors, with music in each room.

I've been feeling better. Georges and Sasha took me for a drive into Sumy. To buy writing paper for our eminent summer guest the writer; he must be working on a novel, they whispered conspiratorially.

I waited with Roman in the trap while they went into the stationer's. It was terribly warm, and they seemed to be taking forever. All around me was a dark confusion of crowds and traffic—clatter of harness and carriage, sound of hooves, vendors shouting their wares. Someone singing with an accordion.

I heard my name, a woman's voice calling. I did not recognize her voice, perhaps a former patient or a fellow student or classmate. I realized she was calling insistently because I had not
recognized
her; she must have been on the other side of the street. I poked Roman urgently and discreetly: Did he know the woman calling to me? He did not. Could he describe her? Normal, a round face and blond hair. What was I to do? Why didn't she come to me? Is she alone? I asked Roman. No, mistress, she's with a small boy . . . and a servant, a dusty sort of fellow. She seems to want for you to join her,
mistress, she's outside the tearoom, he muttered, she's waving for you to go over there, mistress.

I felt a horrid, shaming moment of panic. I could not shout, in the middle of Sumy marketplace, to a woman I did not
recognize,
and say that I was blind and could she oblige me by crossing the street? Should I send Roman? Ignore her? Clearly she did not know of my affliction; perhaps she had moved away from Sumy and now had come back on a visit. Oh, who was it? If I knew her voice, I could call her name and urge her to cross the street!

At that moment Georges and Sasha returned from the stationer's. I asked them if they saw a woman calling to me from across the street and would they be so good as to go and explain my situation, perhaps accompany her back to the trap so I might talk to her?

Sasha kindly undertook to be my emissary. We waited for a minute or so, and then he returned.

Well. Her name is Ekaterina Kirillovna Smetanina, she said she once stayed at the neighboring estate with her mother and brother. She was quite flustered that you hadn't greeted her, but when I explained why, she went beet-red. She sends her humble regards.

Andryusha's sister, I thought.

And is she staying here? Does she want to call?

She didn't say. I suppose not.

Now I would not have news of him. Perhaps it is just as well.

The market sounds seemed to fade then, and for a moment I feared the onset of a seizure, until I realized it was the violence of a memory obliterating the present moment: I was by the riverbank, with Andryusha, and that irretrievable moment had offered itself to me not as a summoned memory, like the one I have recorded above in these pages, but physically, imperatively. A flush of warmth and pleasure and fear all at the same time.
I almost gasped, and my face must have betrayed me, because Sasha turned to me on the seat and said, Are you all right, Zina? I nodded and the sensation faded, leaving only what I assumed was a puzzled smile on my face.

After stopping to buy a crate of Santurini wine for Anton Pavlovich, we headed back to Luka.