The Summer Guest (7 page)

THE WIND KEPT ANA
housebound. She tried to watch the Winter Olympics, but all the nationalistic fervor left her unable to enjoy the sport for its own sake.

She turned back to the biographies of Chekhov she'd ordered, eager to find the period described by Zinaida Mikhailovna reflected in the printed pages.

Oddly, the biographical material—thus far, at least—had not provided any evidence of a novel written that summer in Luka. Or of any novel, for that matter, unless you counted
The Shooting Party
or
The Duel
or
My Life:
a youthful pastiche, two novellas. Not a hefty Russian novel of the kind people—including Ana—imagined.

Was it as he explained to Zinaida Mikhailovna: lack of time or concentration? Or was it, in the long run, a question of disposition, the appropriate use of his talent?

Unable to find an answer, she turned to writing chatty emails, catching up with friends. Some of them answered, newsy, superficial, and she wondered if the loss of depth in her relationships was proportional to time and distance.

Yves was the only one who wasn't far away, and he suggested the best remedy.
Brave the cold,
he wrote,
and come into Geneva for lunch
.
Live dangerously. I've got a new brasserie for you to try, my treat. Just get yourself over here. Are you free on Friday? Don't drive, you'll never find parking, but you can read on the bus, or eavesdrop on people on their cell phones and see how many different languages you can collect.

They had known each other a very long time. Yves worked
primarily as an interpreter but also translated the occasional novel into French from Russian or “American,” as the French called it. He liked to joke that, growing up, he couldn't decide whether he wanted to be a cosmonaut or an astronaut. He and Ana had met in Moscow during the summer course for foreigners, but it was only much later that their acquaintance had blossomed into a sudden wild friendship, based on everything Ana had never found with the straight men she had dated, lived with, traveled with, and eventually married (Mathieu had been irrationally jealous of Yves): laughter, irreverence, lightheartedness. Open emotions. Trust.

She envied him. With admiration. His long-term relationship with Yiannis. Their sensible lifestyle: They had separate apartments and saw each other a few times a week. There were adventures on the side from time to time, discreetly, rarely shared with the other partner. Over time, he told her, they had felt less need to go elsewhere, more need for each other. They traveled widely and rekindled. That was how Yves put it,
We went to Copenhagen and rekindled.

The first time she corrected him:
You need a direct object after a transitive verb.

Not with you I don't,
he said calmly, raising an eyebrow.

Now they were sitting in his brasserie, Les Négociants. The windows were steamed up; waiters glided like a corps de ballet in black aprons and red ties from one side of the room to the other, as if carrying not hot dishes of
suprême de pintade
or
souris d'agneau
but rations of warmth and cheer against the winter chill. Yves described his latest rekindling trip—to the Azores—then asked what she was working on. She cocked her head and said mysteriously, Anton Chekhov.

You're translating Chekhov?

No, the diary of someone who knew Chekhov. (It sounded so reductive that she almost blushed.)

She felt a faint twinge of guilt to be talking about her project despite the Kendalls' injunction—but then she reasoned that they hadn't responded to her email regarding Zinaida Mikhailovna's punctuation and the proper way to refer to Crimea and Ukraine, and above all Chekhov's presence in the diary, and when she'd last checked, she hadn't been paid her advance, either. So she shared this information with Yves, but the more she told him about the actual project, the more enthusiastic they both became, until Yves reached across the table to grab her hand and kiss it.

Here lies Trigorin,
he said in Russian
. He was a good writer but inferior to Turgenev.

You know it by heart!
Seagull,
right?

Act Two, yes. Some of it. It was the way we learned languages back then, wasn't it, by rote. Remember Lyudmila Nikolayevna, with that stick she had to scan the meter?
Tovarishchi! Vnimanye!

My God! I still know that poem by Pushkin we had to learn. I felt rebellious at the time, but now I'm glad.

Go on, then.

Ana cleared her throat and recited the poem in a hushed voice, while Yves listened thoughtfully and chimed in at one point. When she had finished, he looked at her and said, To get back to my initial misunderstanding—you
should
translate Chekhov.

But there are literally hundreds of translations already. Where's the glory in that?

Ana, you're not doing it for the glory. There's never any glory for any of us, you know that. You would do it for the love of it, no?

I would hope to.

You could find something he wrote during that period, and it could be published along with Zinaida Mikhailovna's diary. Write to the publisher.

That's what I thought, briefly, but they're hopeless. They don't answer my emails.

Don't let that stop you. Try anyway.

There is talk of a novel . . . I mean, Chekhov refers to writing one, starting one, already in what I've translated so far. But I have no idea if it exists.

Yves scraped pensively with a small spoon at what was left of the crème brûlée, then looked up, spoon paused in midair. Imagine, Ana, he said, sighing, if you could translate that novel. It would be perfect.

But Yves, if he did write one, where is it? Chekhov never finished a novel. Published a novel. That we know of.

He paused, licked his spoon. Are you sure?

Well, as sure as anyone else. I haven't finished the journal, so I don't know—

How did the publisher find this thing?

I don't know. I have a file in Word, that's all, typed by someone called Olga Ivanova. I suppose there's a Russian edition planned as well.

Perhaps they also have Chekhov's novel.

Don't be absurd.

Why absurd? Stranger things have happened. Remember the Némirovsky manuscript in the suitcase in the Paris attic? Maybe they found your two manuscripts together, the diary and the novel, in an attic in Saint Petersburg. Or Moscow. Or Kiev. Or Smolensk. Don't you love the sound of it, Smolensk? Sma
-lyensk.

Ana was briefly and irrationally thrilled by the way he said
your two manuscripts,
but she felt she had to be skeptical. I don't think Chekhov went to Sma-
lyensk
.

On his trip to Sakhalin, then, maybe he left the manuscript in Irkutsk or Krasnoyarsk. Or Blagoveshchensk.

You're making fun, Yves. You didn't know Chekhov never wrote a substantial novel, and yet you remember his itinerary across Siberia?

Idle curiosity and a love of geography. And words. In Chekhov's letters, there's one sent from Blagoveshchensk. That's where he
met the Japanese whore who says “ts!” It's priceless. Who could ever forget a Japanese whore who says “ts!”

She said “ts” because she couldn't pronounce Blagoveshchensk.

They laughed quietly, happily, a small rush of complicity, then Yves said, Keep reading, Nastyenka. I'll bet you anything— I'll bet you a live mongoose there's a novel for you in there somewhere.

On the bus home, what Yves had said kept chiming, a silly refrain, but as insistent as an earworm:
I'll bet you a live mongoose there's a novel for you in there somewhere.

What would I do with a live mongoose? she mused. They're nasty creatures, anyway, what could have possessed Anton Pavlovich to adopt one? The pleasure of proving others wrong? To show them that they are not such nasty creatures after all, that they can form attachments to human beings and make unusual pets?

But if there were a novel, the mongoose would be for Yves. Let him worry about its angry little teeth. Ana would have a novel to translate.

Elena asked Anton Pavlovich and me to go with her to the village clinic to examine the young woman from Velikaya Chernechina who has the tumor. Her name is Nadya. According to Elena, she has lost a great deal of weight and is terribly pale, in a fair amount of pain. Elena diagnosed a cancer; it would seem far more virulent than my own at this point. And yet because there are no visible symptoms other than her weight loss and discomfort, Nadya retains a terrible hope.

The tumor on her neck, however, can be felt. For a moment I placed my fingers where Elena's hand led me, as if between the two of us we hoped a touch might discover a change, something to grasp at. Her skin was warm; I could hear her quiet breathing. How she trusted us! I had to lift her long, heavy hair out of the way; I imagined it a russet color. Her hand grazed mine as she helped move her hair to one side.

Anton Pavlovich joined us at that moment and placed his fingers on the spot I had indicated. Our fingertips touched. We examined Nadya, then sent her into the other room while we discussed the diagnosis. Elena hoped that Anton Pavlovich might have a miracle cure to propose, something he had learned at the university in Moscow, or at least a more favorable prognosis, but he could only agree with what she had said.

And suddenly, Elena—calm, level, good Elena—was overcome. She reached out for my arm and grasped it, hard, and I could tell she must be crying from the trembling in her voice, and while her words were for Nadya and for her inability to offer any hope, I knew she must be thinking of me as well,
and letting some of her sadness find its way out under the guise of her concern for Nadya. (We have agreed never to talk of my illness, only to deal with it as needs arise.) Yet it was astonishing that she did this in Anton Pavlovich's presence. As doctors, we learn to separate our human reactions from the task at hand: the understanding of the pathology, the diagnosis, the prognosis, the prescription, the treatment—science, all of it, rational.

Why must she die, cried Elena softly, when I go on living and can't help her! Oh, I'm no good at this, no good at all! God in heaven! Who do I think I am,
Doctor
Lintvaryova!

There was a moment of strained silence, then Anton Pavlovich said gently, You must increase the dose. That's all you can do. Make her comfortable. Do you agree, Zinaida Mikhailovna?

Yes, I murmured, touched that he had consulted me. I squeezed Elena's hand; she withdrew at once.

Later, Anton Pavlovich walked me back to the main house. We were subdued; he told me that he had seen Nadya's family—they were all there waiting outside—father, mother, husband. I thought he was going to say something about how sad it was or what a difficult profession we have sometimes, but instead he took a deep breath and said, Your sister is an excellent physician—an excellent person—but in our profession, it doesn't do well to take things to heart as she does. Don't you agree?

I suppose you're right. She's young still and . . . she cares about people. That is why she became a doctor.

That's all well and good, but she must find a way to detach her emotions from her consulting, or she'll have a miserable time of it. And perhaps not be as effective. Does she often react like that?

Oh, no, I assure you.

This was not true. I remember when I was still practicing, she often came in on an evening after a long day of house calls, and she would sit down and ask Grigory Petrovich to pour her a
dram of vodka. Just a small one, mind, she'd say, and then with her elbows on the table and her face in her hands, she would allow her tension to dissipate in the gloom. Once or twice she wept; often she asked me what I would do in her shoes. I was the older sister, the first physician in the family. I must have said things not unlike what Anton Pavlovich had just said: that she must remember her training, must distinguish the person from the body, etc., and yet whenever she concluded with a sigh, But we grew up with these people!, I would find myself unable to offer any other comfort or advice. And we would sit on in the gloom until Pasha or Georges or Natasha roused us from our apathy.

Anton Pavlovich delivered me to my armchair and took his leave with these words for Elena: I would advise her, too, to be less conservative with her prescriptions. Can you tell her that, with all due respect? To obtain maximum effectiveness. Just a thought; it might help. He paused, then added, You yourself seem far more dispassionate, shall we say. It must have been easier—when you practiced, I mean—to keep the demons at bay.

Yes, I generally seemed well suited to the scientific angle, so to speak—why is the body ill? Not why do we, as human beings, tend to react to illness with such terrible anxiety and distress . . . How are we to live, otherwise? I smiled and added, It's just altogether too much if you don't take your distance.

He placed his hand briefly on my forearm and said, Quite so. Good night, Zinaida Mikhailovna.

May 28, 1888

Tonya came to see me today. She is tired of being isolated in their cottage and is terribly worried that Elena and Pasha might
be away when her time comes. I reassure her that if worse comes to worst, which it won't, I can deliver the baby with my eyes closed (so to speak) and a bit of help from Mamochka.

She's a lovely girl, Tonya; Pasha has been fortunate to find her. She is hardworking and doesn't mind his politics—in fact, I believe she shares them. She doesn't mind that he dresses like a peasant and works like one, or that he has embraced the Marxist cause. She has taken an interest in his farming methods and helps him a great deal. He has set her up with a loom, and she weaves tablecloths and useful things for us all—rough and full of small mistakes that she apologizes for, pointing them out when you'd never have noticed them otherwise. I used to help her choose the colors. Now I run my fingers over the weave, looking for the irregularities, as if they told a story.

I shall be an aunt soon. It's a strange thought.

I suspect Elena wants children, although she's never actually said as much, at least to me. When your chances of marriage are slim, you don't discuss children. I don't doubt she would have them without a husband if the world allowed it. She doesn't get along with Tonya, and I think it's because she's envious. Or jealous. She's always had a soft spot for Pasha, he is more her little brother than mine, they used to go riding and fishing together as children; and now she's both confused and elated that Pasha is about to become a father. I shouldn't be writing this, I know Elena might read it someday, but perhaps I lack the courage to tell her to her face that she must wish them well, that I'm sure they'll let her spend all the time she likes with the baby, but she mustn't make things awkward for them with her stormy behavior.

If only Pasha had a friend who might take an interest in Elena. Perhaps one of Anton Pavlovich's numerous brothers . . . Who knows, I haven't given up hope for her. It's children she wants, really, more than a husband.

She needs to believe in something being born, growing, prospering. She sees too much of the other, and loses her faith in life.

As for me . . . did I want children? I don't think so. I never loved a man enough to begin to imagine binding with him not just to create a child—that is easy enough even without love—but above all to raise it and love it and bring it to adulthood with an aptitude for life. I loved many children as a doctor, and I am glad I have that to think of.

I'm sitting by the riverbank. Natasha brought me here to my favorite spot, above the willow (where the pike bite), overlooking the bend in the river and the three small islands like heavy rivercraft drifting toward a town where there will be dancing . . . I convert the rays of the sun to images in memory—of course I see nothing but I see everything, because I know it hasn't changed. The smell of warm earth and lilac and the acacia trees, the tang of the Psyol . . . on the far side, the domes of St. Vladimir's reflect the sunlight. There are several small boats in among the islands, I can hear the fishermen calling to each other, can almost tell the distance between them; perhaps Anton Pavlovich is in one of them with his friends. He has adopted a young lad from the village whom he takes with him everywhere. Panas. The boy is very quiet in my presence, and as soon as the two of them go off together, I can hear all the questioning and fascination in his voice as he asks what's wrong with me. My sad eyes, remembering Panas as a small, mischievous boy, always carrying a stray puppy under one arm.

I have the dogs with me for company, Rosa and Pulka; they sit beside me panting in the heat, then run off to explore. It seems quiet, almost lonely, until I hear them scrabbling back up
the embankment to splatter me with their doggie happiness and water from the Psyol.

It is so warm! I have opened my parasol and balance it against my shoulder as I write. I should like

Later.

I cannot remember where I left off at that moment; Anton Pavlovich
stopped by,
so to speak, to admire me on my throne above the river. He startled me and apologized; he was alone, stretching his legs before going to join the others. I was not to worry, Natasha had come to find them and would return to me shortly, and in the meantime he would hold my parasol and ward off bandits and highwaymen.

With the parasol? I asked.

With my charm and wit. Bandits are particularly fond of charm, and highwaymen literally go to pieces over a chest full of wit.

I'm in good hands, I see.

He sat down beside me. I sensed he must have been wearing a hat and now was fanning the air with the brim. What a peaceful view, he said simply. I should come here to write, as you do. He paused, then said, My brother Nikolay is a painter. When he comes, I'll bring him here, to this very spot. Perhaps you could sit for him, just as you are, with the parasol and your notebook on your lap. You inhabit your own world, with your notebook.

I blushed and said, It keeps me occupied.

Please don't write anything libelous about my hat. It fell in the river, and I rescued it at great risk to my person and my dignity. I imagine it must smell of water sprites and crocodiles.

I shall write exactly what you just told me.

Do that. And you're not to confuse crocodiles with alligators.

Or water sprites with
rusalki,
or good Ukrainian peasants with amateur fishermen from Moscow.

No risk of that.

There was a moment of comfortable yet searching silence. As if there were much he wanted to say but did not dare. So I went first, boldly: And your novel, Anton Pavlovich? How is it coming along—or have you been using the drafts for bait?

Ah, you're teasing me. I don't answer teasing questions.

I smiled, then said with an excess of indulgence, I don't mean to belittle your work. On the contrary, it's very important, and—

But now you do belittle me.

What do you mean?

Implying it must be important.

But it is!

Medicine is important. Building schools is important—what Natalya Mikhailovna is doing. Writing stories, on the other hand, is negligibly lucrative and entertaining, that's all.

You don't really believe that.

There was a pause, and a scrabbling sound as if he were pulling a handful of grass and tossing it beside him, then he gave a slightly scoffing laugh and said, No.

We need novels somehow, don't we? I asked. And why? We need literature and poetry the way we need music or the view of the Psyol—which I have lost, and which makes literature more important to me than ever. Perhaps I've answered my own question. But
why
literature, Anton Pavlovich? Why words? You must know?

Ah, I suppose it's like anything, Zinaida Mikhailovna, like religion or, as you say, music. Is there really an answer? Do we want an answer? For some mysterious reason, a story—and all the more so a poem—finds an echo in one's spirit, first of all. It can entertain, as I said, then it can console, as you said, and obviously, it helps us to see and understand the world. And it asks questions, helps us to find answers—and beauty. Not to forget beauty. And like any other form of art, I suppose literature
can—something your mama would like—literature can be
uplifting—
although I do not like the word, I feel I'm being put in a basket and hoisted on pulleys to some mountain monastery where an unwashed monk will be waiting to take receipt of me along with a side of bacon and some smelly cheese.

Yes, I see what you mean, I laughed. Although I suppose it's not the same for everyone.

Not everyone has access to it—too heavy for the basket, perhaps. Take Anya, for example, with her round bottom. I believe her appreciation of art stops at the difference between
sauce
à la polonaise
and
sauce à l'ukrainienne
. She's not been educated beyond that. That is why we need schools, to give everyone the wherewithal to appreciate art. Well, you know what I'm getting at, I'm sure.

Yes. And surely you don't need Anya to read your stories. You have enough appreciative readers.

My voice glowed more than I intended, but I continued: And the novel, then—I mean, your novel?

The novel, the novel . . . Yes, I have started, but what I have thus far amounts to no more than a story without an ending. How am I to find the time and continuity to turn it into a novel, between fishing at dawn, and breakfast, and strolling about with Pleshcheyev and Vata, and soothing Mamasha's grievances, and helping your sister, and meeting my friends at the station—

But if you can find time for the stories, surely for the novel it is just a question of perseverance.

Indeed. So it may be my own fault, not the circumstances. With a story, my character arrives with a flourish, waves his smelly hat at me, says, Here's the dilemma, how do I dry my hat? Get that down on paper. And strides off again. Out of my life, and it's done. But how does one deal with a complicated, irascible, endearing landowner or professor with a flighty wife and five
brats and two dogs striding into one's life for a whole year of smelly-hat flourishing?