At first, this seemed fun. We sat in a circle on top of our luggage, as if gathered around a campfire. We munched chocolate and chatted.
Climbing up into the carriage was especially entertaining. There was no step or ladder of any kind and, since our car was toward the rear of the train, it always stopped beyond the end of the platform. You had to lift your foot almost to the height of your chest and then lever yourself up while those already inside seized hold of your arms and pulled.
But all this soon lost its appeal. The stations were empty and dirty. The signs, looking as if they had been nailed up in a hurry, were written in Ukrainian, and the unexpected spelling and unfamiliar words made everything seem like the work of some practical joker.
New to us as it was, this language seemed as inappropriate for official use as, say, the language of a Russian peasant. As surprising as if, in some official Russian institution, you were to see a sign saying, “No barging in without prior announcement,” or, inside a train carriage: “Don’t stick your mug out,” “Don’t lean your noggin against the glass,” or “All tittle-tattle strictly prohibited.”[37]
But even these entertaining signs and notices ceased to amuse us.
The train moved slowly, and the stops were many and long. The station buffets and cloakrooms were all closed. It was evident that a wave of popular fury had swept through these parts and that the newly enlightened population had not yet returned to the mundane tasks of everyday life. There was filth everywhere, and a vile stench, and the authorities’ appeals to “misters” and “missies” to observe the wise old rules of station etiquette had clearly gone unheeded. These now liberated souls were above such concerns.
I don’t know how long all this lasted. I remember that we managed somehow to get hold of a lamp. But the fumes were unbearable: “the stench of hellfire,” as Gooskin put it.
So the lamp was put out.
It began to get cold. Wrapping myself up in my sealskin coat, which until then I had been lying on, I listened to the hopes and dreams of Averchenko and Olyonushka.
It’s not for nothing that I just mentioned my sealskin coat. A woman’s sealskin coat represents an entire epoch in her life as a refugee.
Were there any of us who did not have a sealskin coat? We put these coats on as we first set out, even if this was in summer, because we couldn’t bear to leave them behind—such a coat was both warm and valuable and none of us knew how long our wanderings would last. I saw sealskin coats in Kiev and in Odessa, still looking new, their fur all smooth and glossy. Then in Novorossiisk, worn thin around the edges and with bald patches down the sides and on the elbows. In Constantinople—with grubby collars and cuffs folded back in shame. And, last of all, in Paris, from 1920 until 1922. By 1920 the fur had worn away completely, right down to the shiny black leather. The coat had been shortened to the knee and the collar and cuffs were now made from some new kind of fur, something blacker and oilier—a foreign substitute. In 1924 these coats disappeared. All that remained was odds and ends, torn scraps of memories, bits of trimming sewn onto the cuffs, collars, and hems of ordinary woolen coats. Nothing more. And then, in 1925, the timid, gentle seal was obliterated by invading hordes of dyed cats. But even now when I see a sealskin coat, I remember this epoch in our lives as refugees. In freight cars, on the decks of steamers, or deep in their holds, we spread our sealskin coats beneath us if it was warm or wrapped ourselves up in them if it was cold. I remember a lady waiting for a tram in Novorossiisk. Cheap canvas shoes on her bare feet, she was standing there in the rain, holding a little baby in her arms. To make it clear to me that she wasn’t just anyone, she was speaking to the baby in French with the rather sweet accent of a Russian schoolgirclass="underline" “Seel voo ple! Ne plur pa! Voysi le tramvey, le tramvey!”
She was wearing a sealskin coat.
Seals are remarkable beasts. They can endure more than most horses.
The actress Vera Ilnarskaya once almost drowned wearing her sealskin coat.[38] She was on the Gregore when it sank off the Turkish coast. None of her belongings could be salvaged, of course—apart from the sealskin coat. The tailor to whom she then took it declared that, since the seal is a sea animal, immersion in its native element appeared only to have made the coat better and stronger.
Dear, gentle beast, comfort and defense in difficult times, banner of our lives as refugee women: A whole epic could be written about you. I remember you and salute you.
So, there we all were, being jolted about in a freight car. Wrapped in my sealskin coat, I was listening to the hopes and dreams of Averchenko and Olyonushka.
“First of all, a warm bath,” said Olyonushka. “But just a quick one, followed immediately by a roast goose.”
“No,” said Averchenko. “First, some appetizers.”
“Appetizers are piffle. And anyway, they’re cold. We want something hot and filling straightaway.”
“Cold? No, we’ll order hot appetizers. Have you ever had the toasted rye bread with bone marrow they serve in the Vienna? No? In that case, your opinion’s hardly worth listening to. A wonderful little dish, and it’s certainly hot.”
“Is that something like calves’ brains?” Olyonushka asked in a businesslike tone of voice.
“No, it’s not like brains, it’s bone marrow—the marrow from inside a bone. You really don’t know very much about anything, do you? And then at Kontan’s, on the counter with the appetizers, there on the right, between the mushrooms and the lobster, they always have some hot vorschmack[39]—it’s amazing. And in Alberto’s, on the left, near the mortadella, they have an Italian salad… And at Medvedev’s, right in the middle, in a small pan, they have those little… those little dumplings with mushrooms, they’re hot too.”
“All right,” said Olyonushka. “But that’s enough about appetizers. So, all these little dishes from all of these restaurants will already be on the table, but I think we need roast goose too, with cabbage. No, with buckwheat, buckwheat’s more filling.”
“Not with apples?”
“I said buckwheat’s more filling. You love to argue with me, but you really don’t know very much about anything. At this rate we’re never going to find anything we can agree on.”
“And where will all this take place?” I asked.
“Where? Oh, somewhere…” Olyonushka replied vaguely, then resumed her businesslike manner. “We can also get some Kislovodsk-style kebabs, from Orekhovaya Balka.”
“Now you’re talking,” Averchenko agreed. “And in Kharkov I once had some very tasty tomatoes with garlic. They’ll be perfect with the kebabs.”
“On our estate they used to make burbot pie. Let’s have that too.”
“Excellent, Olyonushka.”
Something dark and bulky stirred in the corner. It was Gooskin.
“Excuse me, Madame Teffi,” he asked in an ingratiating tone. “I’m curious… do you like domplings?”
“What? Do you mean dumplings? What kind of dumplings?”
“My mama makes fish domplings. She’ll make you some when you come to live with us.”
“Live with you?” I asked, my heart sinking under the weight of terrible forebodings. “When am I going to live with you?”
“When?” Gooskin answered calmly. “When we get to Odessa.”
“But you said I’ll be staying in a hotel, at the London!”
“Yes, of course you will. Who’s saying anything different? Nobody’s saying anything different. You’ll be staying at the London, but in the meantime, until the luggage… the cab driver… until we’re done with all those shysters, you’ll just have a little rest at Gooskin’s and Mama will give you some of her domplings.”
37
In an article published in Kiev in January 1919, Teffi is more critical of Russian condescension towards the Ukrainian language. Many of the Ukrainian words that Russians find so risible, she points out, are in fact more Slavonic than their Russian equivalents, which are often borrowings from French or German. She continues, “I cannot understand why they are so irritated by the free existence of the Ukrainian language. […] What has happened? Is it really so terrible to have to learn the couple of dozen words one needs to get by in the Ukraine? Far more terrible are all these mindless ‘orientations,’ ‘evacuations,’ ‘demobilizations,’ and ‘democratizations’ that now litter our Slav speech.” (
38
The actress Vera Ilnarskaya (1880–1946) was married to Lolo, a writer with whom Teffi sometimes collaborated. She published the journal
39
A salty East European dish made from minced meat, anchovies, or herring, together with onions.