I ordered two mushroom soups and two Caesar salads.
At first Tatyana wasn’t very talkative but, after a swiftly drunk glass of wine, she became more relaxed. She told me that she came from Novosibirsk and had been living in Moscow for six months. She liked Moscow but she missed her family, especially her babushka, who was the one who had really raised her. It felt good sitting in Café Maki with Tatyana. I imagined everybody around us would be admiring her blonde, curly hair and her eyes, so green and perfect. She was clearly unaware of it, but Tatyana was without doubt the prettiest girl in the café.
‘I’m happy that my aunt found me a job in Moscow,’ Tatyana said. The aunt lived in a small town two hours away by elektrichka and Tatyana dutifully visited her every weekend. ‘Back in Novosibirsk it’s impossible to find work that pays decently.’
What she liked best about the capital, Tatyana said as our plates of soup were laid in front of us, was the culture on offer.
‘There are so many things going on in Moscow’s theatres,’ she said. ‘The classics, but also very nice new musicals. If I had the money I would go every night.’ She smiled, her lips closed, probably conscious of the gap between her front teeth.
As Tatyana was talking about her interests, I took my red notebook out of my backpack and placed it to the right of my soup plate. I took some notes — Novosibirsk, babushka, aunt, theatre.
‘What’s that?’ Tatyana asked.
I told her about my research project, how it was not just about reading books, but also about getting to know what Russians thought about life.
‘But I don’t have any interesting thoughts about life,’ Tatyana protested.
‘That’s an interesting thought in itself,’ I said, scribbling in the notebook.
Tatyana smiled. Her face was red. ‘Can I have a look?’
‘Sure,’ I said, pushing the notebook towards her side of the table.
She turned the notebook round, glanced at it in silence. ‘But it’s in English.’
‘Of course.’
Then she started to read slowly, sliding her finger under the lines, in heavily accented English. She started from the top of the page.
‘“When you saw the yellow tape, you knew spring was around the corner.”
‘What does it mean?’
‘Just random thoughts.’
She continued reading.
‘“Black coat. Yellow woollen hat. Apple green eyes.”’ She laughed. ‘You are so funny.’
I kept refilling her glass of wine. When the salad arrived, I ordered a second bottle.
Tatyana wanted to know what I thought about Russia, as a foreigner.
When we were done with the salads I suggested we share a plate of blinis with preserved strawberries and mascarpone.
‘Davay,’ she said.
The blinis arrived and I slid the plate into the middle of the table.
‘I didn’t know what mascarpone was,’ Tatyana said, her mouth still half full. ‘But I like it, it’s just like thick smetana.’
After dessert, we finished the bottle of wine, I paid the bill and we walked out into the dark street.
‘Thanks for dinner,’ Tatyana said. ‘It was lovely.’
‘Let’s walk to the metro,’ I suggested.
She looked at her watch. ‘I think I’m a bit drunk.’
It was colder now and, as we walked in silence back towards Pushkinskaya, I had to repress the urge to put my arm around Tatyana. Reaching the square, we descended into the perekhod but, instead of going all the way to the metro entrance, we climbed the stairs out into the street again, and stood next to Pushkin’s statue, where we had met earlier.
I pointed to my block across the street. ‘That’s where I live.’
‘Above McDonald’s?’
‘On the other side of the block,’ I said. ‘You know the Scandinavia restaurant?’
‘Never heard of it.’
‘Would you like to come up for a cup of tea?’
‘I showed a flat in that block,’ she said. ‘A couple of months ago.’
‘It’s very central. I love it.’
‘Wonderful location,’ Tatyana said. ‘I don’t understand why you want to move somewhere else.’
I smiled, said nothing.
‘Is it noisy?’ she asked.
‘Not really. My balconies face the courtyard and I live on the top floor. There is a great view. I’ll show you. Let’s go up for a cup of tea.’
She stared at me in silence. For a few seconds we stood in the middle of the square. Cars piled at the traffic lights, expelling white fumes into the chilly night air. Muscovites rushed out of the metro, onto the street, cramming into McDonald’s, Café Pyramida, the Pushkin cinema. I could see the neon lights of the casino reflected in Tatyana’s eyes. Just above us stood Aleksandr Sergeyevich, leaning slightly forward, ready to descend from his pedestal. In the darkness of the night, Pushkin’s face revealed a soft smile.
Tatyana looked at her watch, then back into my eyes. She opened her mouth, as if about to say something, then closed it again without uttering a sound. I put my arm around her shoulder, squeezed her body against mine, gave her a kiss.
42
THE RAIN CAUGHT ME by surprise as I walked down from Mayakovskaya. I increased my pace, hoping to reach my apartment before the water soaked my clothes. A gust of wind came out of nowhere, flapping the advertising banners above Tverskaya with unusual strength. The sky dimmed to leaden grey, the rain thickened and — though only two minutes away from home — I had no choice but to take shelter from the storm. I stepped into the Stanislavsky theatre.
The entrance hall of the theatre was empty, aside from a babushka at the ticket booth. I smiled in her direction. She grumbled back. Waiting for the rain to clear, I began to study the posters on the walls. I noticed the babushka glancing my way above her thick glasses, frowning in a menacing manner — accusing me with her gaze of having entered her theatre under false pretences.
To dispel her suspicions, I approached the programme on the wall and ran my finger down the list of plays. After all, I could be a genuine theatregoer, interested in the shows the Stanislavsky had on offer. When I peeked back at the babushka I could see she was irritated, impatient, about to ask me to leave. Outside, the rain was battering the pavement with increasing force, forming lakes and flooding the asphalt. Realising that I would have to stay inside the theatre for a while, I approached the booth and asked the cranky babushka for the best pair of tickets available for the evening performance.
That night’s show turned out to be a play based on Bulgakov. I placed a thousand-ruble note on the counter and, after checking its validity against the light of a table lamp, the babushka relinquished the tickets and the change, still reluctantly, as if suspicious of my intentions.
When the rain eased off I rushed home. I changed into dry clothes, boiled some pelmenis for lunch and lay on the couch. Tatyana and I had agreed to meet that evening.
A month had passed since we’d met and Tatyana was now spending two or three evenings a week in my flat. After dinner, we would linger at the kitchen table, brewing tea with the samovar, and she would tell me about her day: how the price of real estate was going up, about the difficult clients she had, mostly expats who were looking for perfect apartments but were stingy with their budgets.
Tatyana’s angelic beauty — her blonde curls, soft smile, trusting green eyes — stirred something buried deep inside me. Even the gap in her front teeth, the only imperfection in her otherwise faultless face, made her real, provincial, likeable. For some reason, I often found myself picturing Tatyana and myself from an outsider’s point of view, as if we were actors in a film. Cooking at home, walking in the street. Every time Tatyana was next to me, I would pose for an imaginary viewer.