‘It’s not the same.’
‘Would I be a better person in your eyes if I slept with many guys just like that, for the sake of it?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Yes.’
‘I don’t think so. At least I have a reason. I want to leave Russia, start a new life. Here I have no future. But, you, Martin, why do you do it? Why do you go around sleeping with women?’
I said nothing.
The kids by the pond ran out of bread. The ducks lost interest and swam away.
‘I didn’t sleep with anyone when we were together,’ Lena said. ‘I was so stupid. I thought you were serious about me. It was you who slept with other women.’
I didn’t know what Lena wanted to hear. I moved closer and took her hand.
Her eyes were fixed on the pond. ‘My friend who moved to London,’ she said after a few seconds, ‘she is dancing in a club. It’s very well paid. She asked her boss if I could work with her. I can move in a few weeks and stay in her flat while I save enough to rent my own place.’
‘A strip club? Is that what you want to do?’
‘What I want is to leave Moscow. I’ll dance in a club if that’s what it takes, until I get something else. It’s a great opportunity. My friend is treated with respect. It’s very civilised over there, not like Russia. Being a dancer in London is like a normal job. Customers don’t even touch you. All I’ll have to do is dance and show my tits. And I can earn a few hundred dollars a night.’
‘Pounds.’
‘Money.’
I put my arm around her. She leaned her head on my shoulder. For a couple of minutes, we sat in silence.
‘Remember when you took me to the Chinese tearoom?’ I said. ‘The small underground place in Kitay-gorod.’
‘Of course. The day after we met.’
‘We were lying there among the cushions for hours, just drinking tea and listening to sitar music. It was dark.’
‘I remember,’ she said.
‘You told me there’s no place in the world like Moscow, that Moscow has a special energy. You were right, Lena. Moscow is the best place on Earth. Why would you want to leave? Believe me, compared to Moscow, London is a dead city. Moscow is alive, changing fast, full of opportunities.’
‘Not for me,’ she said. ‘You like Moscow because you are an expat and you know you’ll leave one day. For you, this is nothing but a fun phase in your life. For people like me, there is no future in this city. I’ve had enough of it. There is nothing, no one, holding me back.’
She stared at the water. ‘You Westerners are so full of prejudices,’ she said, ‘so hypocritical. You all go around saying you’re so open-minded and tolerant but then you can’t accept other people’s choices when they don’t follow your own views of the world.’
‘If you stayed in Moscow,’ I said, ‘you could finish your degree. Become a teacher, or find a well-paid job in a Western firm.’
‘Martin, I can’t even meet a decent man in Moscow. There are too many beautiful women around. Here I’m just an average girl. Like when we met. Why would you want to be with me when there are so many beautiful girls you can be with?’
‘Lena, you are very beautiful.’
‘Not enough. In Moscow men don’t appreciate women. There are too many of us.’
‘There are plenty of women in London as well.’
‘Western women are fat and ugly,’ she said. ‘That’s why Western men love Russian girls. I’m sure I can find a man in London who’ll take good care of me. I don’t plan to be a dancer for ever.’
A young man passed by, pushing a boy on a bicycle. I wanted to tell Lena about Tatyana and the baby. About the joy of starting afresh. Get it off my chest, show her that my life had changed and I was now a better man.
But when I looked at her, Lena was crying.
I said nothing.
She stood up, pulled her skirt down, readjusted her jacket.
We started to walk slowly out of the square, in silence, towards Mayakovskaya. When we reached the entrance of the metro I put my arms around her, pulled her body with all my strength against my chest. We hugged in silence for two or three minutes. People pushed past around us. I felt her tears on my neck.
‘Lena, you won’t be happier if you leave Moscow.’
‘You don’t understand,’ she said, smiling, wiping her tears with her hand. ‘There is so much more to life than being happy.’
I tried to kiss her but she had turned away.
The last time I ever saw her she was walking down the stairs, swallowed by the metro, lost among the crowd.
62
IN NOVELS, CHARACTERS ARE often presented with a critical dilemma, the resolution of which will tell us something about their moral composition. These dilemmas — and the choices the characters make — constitute pivotal moments in literature. Pushkin’s Tatyana decides to stick with her husband. Tolstoy’s Karenina decides not to. Dostoyevsky’s Raskolnikov decides to murder the old pawnbroker. Turgenev’s Liza decides to link her fate to that of Lavretsky.
These characters are given a clear choice, act upon it, live with the consequences. Yet, to exploit their full dramatic potential, life-shattering choices in literature must be relevant, visibly so — and the transcendental nature of the ensuing consequences must be recognisable.
In real life, things don’t work like that.
That morning I could have bought a pair of tickets for a play at the MKhAT, or perhaps the Stanislavsky, or any of the theatres scattered across central Moscow. Or, maybe, after finishing my sandwich and coffee in Kamergersky, I could have returned home by a different street — through Bolshaya Dmitrovka, as was my habit. Or even, after I’d passed the ticket kiosk and thought about treating Tatyana to a musical, I could have bought tickets for another day — say Thursday, instead of Wednesday. Thing is, these were all random, unimportant decisions. Choices that involved no moral considerations.
‘Two tickets for Wednesday’s show,’ I say. ‘Centre stalls, please.’
The front and sides of the kiosk are completely covered with posters and calendars, Sellotaped to the inside of the glass. Through a tiny front window, a young man whose face I don’t see grabs the money and hands me the pair of tickets. I walk home, thinking about Tatyana’s smile when she finds the tickets on the kitchen table. In my head she’s thanking me, kissing me, and I can visualise the entire night out — Tatyana spends time in the bathroom doing her make-up, then slips into a fancy tight dress, perhaps her black one with tiny faux-diamonds around the neck. We take a cab on Tverskaya, cross the city southwards. Her high heels sink into the theatre’s soft carpet. She says something about the wonderful seats we have, so close to the stage. Then she sits upright, concentrating on the musical, her curls tied up in a loose knot, or perhaps dangling over her shoulders, her perfume mixing with that of the other women in the audience. We enjoy the songs and the dancing and the joyful atmosphere. Then we take a cab home.
I think often about that cab we never took, the ride home that was not meant to be. That’s the thing with real life. Unlike literary characters, our future is mostly shaped by small, trivial choices — seemingly insignificant, but deceptively fateful.
63
‘I SWEAR TO GOD, WE desire death more than you want life.’
The handsome bearded man was sitting on the floor, his legs crossed, wearing a black winter jacket and a black beanie. He stared into the camera. ‘We’ve come to Russia’s capital to stop the war, or to die in the name of God.’ His voice was serene. His dark complexion and Caucasian accent called to mind a Moscow taxi driver. The TV titles said he was the leader.