Once I met him in the cemetery where I sometimes go to pay a visit to my ancestors. Dressed, as always, in black, he was picking his way gingerly over the red earth. I asked him if he had relatives here. He laughed and, without looking at me, murmured that nobody remembers those who died fifty years ago, no, not twenty, not even ten years lasts the memory of the dead … He walked away slowly, before I could tell him that I was proof to the contrary. I visit and remember two centuries of dead people.
Another summer I ran into him in the shopping mall by the Hyatt Regency, where his old-fashioned mourning clothes were in sharp contrast with the neon lights, the electronic games, the movie marquees. I saw he was very tired and I took his arm; the up-to-date flashiness of the mall, the heat outside, the artificially cooled air inside, seemed too much for him. It was the only time we sat down to talk. He told me about his Russian past, about working as an actor and set designer, how he couldn’t be several things at once, which was why he left Russia, they wouldn’t let him be all he wanted to be, they wanted to compartmentalize his life, here the actor, here the citizen, here, very secretly, the sensual man, the father, the keeper of memory … He made the remark on that occasion, as he incongruously ate pistachio ice cream, that, no matter what, asylum is temporary, one always goes home again, despite popular sayings: —Remember, Gospodin Hull, our past is always with us.
He was playing with a strip of I.D. photos, still damp, waving them gently to dry them. I told him with understandable awkwardness that he was certainly welcome in the United States. He replied that he was tired, very tired.
I reminded him that I was a doctor; if I could help him, he shouldn’t hesitate … I didn’t look at the photographs when he finally put them on the table. But I did notice, out of the corner of my eye, that they weren’t pictures of him but of someone else — I could not see clearly — who had long dark hair. Man or woman? It was during that unisex period when one couldn’t be sure. Another reason to avoid an indiscretion.
He shook his head and acknowledged my kindness not simply by declining my offer but by responding in the same tone: he said no, his problem was not the kind a doctor could cure. He smiled pleasantly.
— I understand — I told him — the distance, the exile. I could not live far from the United States. More precisely, far from the South. As a young man, I studied in Spain, and I love that country. But I could only live in my own.
— Ah—. Mr. Plotnikov looked at me. — And living in your country, do you look back to the past?
I told him that I thought I had a fair sense of tradition. He looked amused and said that North American history seemed overly selective to him, it was the history of white success, but not of the other realities. The Indian past, for example, or the black, or the Hispanic … All that was left out.
— I am not a chauvinist — I told the old Russian a little defensively. — I think that amnesia has a price. But at least our society has been a melting pot. We have admitted more immigrants than any nation in history.
He shook his head good-naturedly to show that his observations were not meant as a reproach. — No, Gospodin Hull, I myself am the beneficiary of that generosity; how can I criticize it! But I’m talking about — he stopped manipulating his spoonful of pistachio ice cream for a moment — I’m talking about something more than physical immigration, I’m talking about accepting the memory of others, their past … and even their desire to return one day to their homeland.
— Why not? That’s the way it is.
— What you don’t understand is how hard it is to renounce everything, to face the loss of all that we are, not just our possessions but our physical and intellectual powers as well, to leave everything behind like a suitcase and begin anew.
— I hope that everyone who comes to our country feels that we want to give them, in our own way, the strength to make a new beginning.
— And also a grace period?
— Pardon, Mr. Plotnikov?
— Yes, I’m not talking about starting over but of earning a reprieve, do you understand? I’m talking about someday receiving, as a gift, an extra hour of life. Yes, exactly that: don’t we deserve it?
— Yes, of course — I agreed emphatically — of course.
— Ah, that’s good. — Mr. Plotnikov wiped his lips with a paper napkin. — Yes, that’s good. You know, after a while one lives only through the lives of others, when one’s own life has run out.
He put the photos in his jacket pocket.
That was not the first or the last time, over many years, when an unexpected snowfall would cover the red earth of the cemetery or when thunderstorms would turn its paths to mud, that I chanced upon my neighbor the actor Plotnikov walking along the cemetery paths, repeating a sort of litany of names that I sometimes caught snatches of, as he passed near me … Dmitrovich Osip Emilievich Isaac Emmanuelovich Mikhail Afanasievich Sergei Alexandrovich Kazimir Serafimovich Vsevelod Emilievich Vladimir Vladimiro …
3
Now it was August and Mr. Plotnikov (Monsieur Plotnikov, I sometimes call him; whether out of respect, a sense of difference, or mere affectation I know not) came (I remember: it was an unannounced visit) to tell me of his death, but neither the heat of summer outside nor the heat of the hell that according to popular legend awaits actors, who are denied burial in consecrated ground, neither of those seemed to oppress that gentleman, white as a transparent host — white skin, white hair, white lips, pale eyes — but dressed entirely in black, in a turn-of-the-century-style three-piece black suit, a Russian overcoat too big for him, as if another actor had given it to him, with the hem dragging through the dust, the Coca-Cola cans, and the chocolate Mars Bars wrappers. He managed all this with dignity. Making a unique concession to the climate, he carried an open umbrella, black also, as he proceeded with slow and dusty tread: I noticed his sharp patent-leather shoes with little bows on their tips, a detail that gave Mr. Plotnikov the air of a perverse ballerina.
— Gospodin Hull — he greeted me, pointing his umbrella in my direction like a bullfighter taking off his hat to salute the fatal act that will follow the formula courtesy. — Gospodin Hull, I have come to say goodbye.
— Ah, Monsieur Plotnikov — I replied, half asleep — you’re going on a trip.
— You are always joking—. He shook his head disapprovingly. — I have never understood why Americans are always making jokes. This would be very badly received in St. Petersburg, or in Paris.
— Pardon us, sir. Blame all our failings on our being a country of pioneers.
— Bah, so is Russia, but we don’t spend our time guffawing. Bah, you act like hyenas.
I decided not to respond to this last allusion. Mr. Plotnikov snapped his parasol shut, very theatrically, so that the mid-afternoon sun shone straight down on him, accentuating the cavities of his narrow, transparent skull, barely covered by skin growing ever thinner, like a worn-out envelope, finally to reveal the contents of the letter within.
— No, Gospodin Hull, I have come to say goodbye because I am going to die, and I feel it is a basic courtesy to say goodbye to you, who have been a courteous and polite neighbor, in spite of everything.
— I’m sorry that, living right next door, we never …
He interrupted me without smiling: —That is what I am thanking you for. You never imposed unwanted formulas of neighborliness on me.
— Well, thank you, then, Mr. Plotnikov, but I’m sure, to paraphrase a more famous American humorist than me, that you greatly exaggerate the news of your death.