It took Nora a week to make her preliminary sketches and to assemble a maquette of the stage. When he saw the building cranes, hanging virtually over the roof of the Prozorovs’ home, and the structures drawn on the backdrop resembling skyscrapers or Gothic cathedrals, Tengiz moaned with delight. The play seemed to stage itself. Anfisa enters and walks along in front of the closed curtain, wiping the floor; then the sounds of the construction site start blaring. The curtain opens, and the entire stage is thrown into an exaggeratedly industrialized mode of existence: the screech and thunder of metal, of pneumatic hammers, ring out, and the cranes start to sway. Then the commotion dies down, evaporates into air, and the Prozorovs’ home seems to materialize from behind a curtain of light. It is morning … The table has been set … “Father died exactly one year ago, on this very day, the fifth of May…”
Everything unfolded of its own accord, naturally, like grass growing in the yard, only very swiftly. Svistalov, the arrogant and influential production manager of this hallowed, distinguished theater, treated Tengiz with uncharacteristic respect, getting him a bit confused with Temur Chkheidze. He gave the green light to all the theater workshops and departments, and they got right down to work—there had never been a light so green! Everyone knew Svistalov’s character; he loved to throw his weight around. He had argued with Borovsky, had put obstacles in the way of Barkhin, and had even set the dogs on Sheintsis—in other words, he had played dirty and interfered with all, all of Nora’s favorite set designers … A miracle, it was just a miracle! Perhaps the administrator really was touched by Tengiz’s appearance, by outward considerations; for some reason, people in Russia did like Georgians, in contrast to Jews, Armenians, or Azeris …
They floated arm in arm, the two of them in a cloud of love, through the staff-only entrance. The doorman and the buffet servers smiled at them, and their happiness wove such a lovely cocoon around them that Nora felt, as they moved along in harmony with each other, that they were like figure skaters, or ballet dancers, and they were flying, flying …
The play was shut down on the eve of the premiere. They managed only to perform the dress rehearsal, all the sets in place. When their own people in the audience, relatives and close friends, began to disperse, and only the administrators and Party bigwigs, thirsting for blood, remained (they had come intentionally one day earlier than they had promised), it became clear that a scandal was brewing, and Tengiz went out onto the stage and requested that the dear members of the audience stay for a discussion of the play. But the ministerial special forces, the Party hacks, only grew more incensed at this, and it took them just fifteen minutes to kill the play.
Tengiz mounted the stage again, together with Nora, whom he led, very respectfully, by the hand, and said, in a loud voice livid with rage: “Respected guests! You allowed Efros to play his Three Sisters thirty-three times! Is our Three Sisters really that much better?”
Nora accompanied him to the airport. A gloomy spring, without a single sunny day, and a gloomy Tengiz. He seemed not to see Nora at all; no one smiled at them anymore; the love cloud had vanished. He was flying to Tbilisi, back to his wife and daughter, in a heavy metal airplane. He stood there dejected, unshaven, graying at the temples, with his sloping Neanderthal forehead, reeking of stale alcohol, sweat, and, surprisingly, tangerines. He took a tangerine out of his pocket, thrust it into her hand, winked, gave her a peck on the cheek, and hurried to the boarding area.
5 A New Project
(1974)
From the airport, Nora went straight to Mziya’s and collapsed onto the bed that still smelled of Tengiz. She didn’t budge from the little second-floor room for two weeks. For about ten days, all her bones hurt; then they stopped. Mziya brought her tea in the mornings. Nora pretended to be asleep, and Mziya would put the cup on top of a checkerboard tabletop next to her. Then she left, closing the door behind her. Almost every day at around noon, the sound of scales being played would drift upstairs: piano students had arrived. There were beginners, who played Czerny’s études; several advanced students; and one boy who came in the evening twice a week and played wonderfully well. Mziya devoted longer lessons to him. He had learned some Beethoven sonata, but Nora couldn’t recall which one it was. Definitely not the Tempest, and not any of the three final ones … Nora had quit music school when she was in the sixth grade. Though her abilities weren’t exceptional, she had inherited a good ear for music from her father.
Mziya’s instrument was adequate, but the sound was weak and muted. Nora didn’t feel the pain so much when she could listen to music. When she woke up, she told herself, Today I can’t get up; maybe tomorrow I’ll manage. But the next day she couldn’t make herself get out of bed, either. Sometimes Mziya came to the door and invited her to have something to eat. On the fifth day, Nora went downstairs. Mziya didn’t ask anything, and Nora was very grateful to her for that. Only now did she really perceive the cultivated expression on Mziya’s face, which was covered in tiny lines, her cheeks rouged. Her hair was dyed in the Caucasian style with thick henna and gathered into a bun at the back of her neck; her tiny feet, in their slender high heels, tapped out rhythms. While Tengiz was here, Nora had barely noticed his silent aunt. She hadn’t even paid proper attention to Mziya’s idiosyncratic, fancifully adorned apartment. Now she sat downstairs, at the table covered with wine-colored velvet, and Mziya put a plate before her with two sandwiches and an apple, peeled and sliced into small pieces.
“Since my husband died, I have never cooked a real meal,” Mziya said apologetically, and Nora felt that they were, most likely, kindred spirits.
I’ve never in my life cooked anything for my husband, Nora thought. She smiled for the first time in all those days and said, “Forgive me, Mziya, for dumping myself on you like this.”
“You can stay for as long as you wish, child. I’m used to living alone. I’ve been alone for a long time. But you don’t disturb me in the least.”
“I’ll just stay a few days longer, if that’s all right with you.”
Mziya nodded, and they didn’t talk anymore. About anything.
Nora lay around on Tengiz’s sheets until his scent had nearly faded away; only sometimes the pillow would still yield a hint of his body, and Nora would feel convulsed with pain.
It’s simply a molecule, a molecule of his sweat, Nora thought. And I have some sort of illness, a hypersensitivity to his smell. What is this unfortunate condition? Why do such momentary chemical transmissions leave such long, deep traces, such scars? What if he were just an ordinary lover, the sort you go on vacation with to the Crimea for a week, or an affair you have while you’re on tour? There was that wondrous young boy last year in Kiev, or even old Lukyanov, the actor, a skirt chaser, a connoisseur of niceties and detail, nearly twenty years her senior. Would I hurt just the same? But there was no answer.