Indeed! In his later years Gogol had become convinced that God had abandoned him. Tortured, half-crazed, he burnt his remaining manuscripts only days before he died. As though the promise of man’s redemption must perish with him. He claimed the Devil had tricked him into doing so. He’d been only forty-one.
Glukharyov closed the book and, extending his hand toward Bulgakov, welcomed him forward. “Follow that!” he said. The command was spoken with admiration. The expectation of the room seemed to lift him to his feet.
Under the light, Bulgakov unfolded his pages. From the darkness, one laughed. “Bulgakov will keep us until breakfast.” He shook his head—no, no. He was still uncertain what to read. His opening chapter was likely of the best quality. Further, there was the scene of his burgeoning romance with the Margarita of his story. Of this he was less certain; he might have read this had she come, but even then questioned this strategy. Now in her absence, he could set this aside.
The door opened and Margarita appeared. She slipped past the others and took the empty seat on the sofa. She struggled to remove her light jacket; the woman beside her helped, and she folded it across her lap and clasped her hands on top of it. Another voice called from the shadows. “Are you going to read something tonight or are we only to appreciate the spectacle of your dumbfounded wonder?” Even Margarita smiled in the warm room, dropping her eyes a little.
She’d come! He rifled through his pages again. He could impress her with the wit of his satire, his knifelike caricature. The idiocy of entrenched Moscow; the amusements of the Devil’s entourage. She would be dazzled for his genius. She was watching him, waiting with the others, her eyes shining.
In 1931 when Gogol’s body was exhumed he was discovered to be facing downward. The writer had had a terrible fear of being buried alive, so much so that he’d willed his casket be fitted with a breathing tube as well as a rope by which to sound some external bell if needed. Sadly, such wishes were viewed as the paranoia of a madman and were not implemented.
Gogol’s voice came back to him. Did you know I had a terrible infatuation of Pushkin? I called him my mentor but I wished he was otherwise. He had a most beautiful chin. I dreamt of taking it into my mouth. Alas, his life’s purpose was to catch a bullet with his spleen. I only wanted love. Is it possible that is all any of us desire?
Bulgakov began to read.
“One hot spring evening, just as the sun was going down, two men appeared at Patriarch’s Ponds…”
At its conclusion, his audience sprang from their seats, the applause was explosive. Margarita seemed to have been swallowed in their midst. He searched for her even as he was repeatedly thumped on the back, congratulations pummeling his ears. Where was she? Then he saw her! Glukharyov had pulled her to the side and was speaking intently. Bulgakov studied his lips but the voices around him were overwhelming. Yet she was there, watching Bulgakov as she listened, as though he was the only person in the room.
What was Glukaryov saying? He seemed overly serious, his hand on her arm, unwilling to spare her his prognostication. Would he convey some warning? Persuade her to look askance at writers? She looked anxious and Bulgakov parted the crowd, stepping over furniture, trying to make his way toward her. Only then did Glukharyov’s words find him—dangerous writing. Not so, Bulgakov wanted to protest. Then, so much worse—foolish risk. It was too late. He came up to them ready to drive Glukaryov into the wall.
“Well?” said Bulgakov, breathless for his emotions.
Glukharyov shook his hand; he seemed not to register Bulgakov’s acute dismay. “Great work, great work.” He leaned in. “My friend, you realize it’s not publishable.” His face was gathered in concern and apology.
Bulgakov’s exhilaration crested with this. Should he believe that Glukaryov was expert in such things? Should she believe him? Did she think she might be better off with a lesser writer? She could not! What was the point of all of this if it didn’t matter?
What did she want? She looked worried for him, but she could not retreat. She would believe whatever he wanted to believe.
But what if it was true? Bulgakov couldn’t think it!
“I’ll let you take those words back when you have a signed copy in your hands,” said Bulgakov.
Glukharyov drew up for a moment, then bowed, and the room opened before them. Bulgakov took her hand. She didn’t resist. They would step into that abyss together.
CHAPTER 13
The play was ruined. Bulgakov returned home in the middle of the afternoon, too angry to remain at the theater, this thought repeating itself like some evil chorus. In the streetcar that ran the length of Tverskaya Street, the gentleman on the bench beside him only perused his newspaper. When he then nearly missed his stop, jumping up from his seat, the paper fell to the floor and Bulgakov handed it to him, adding with empathic gravity that he understood how easy it was to become distracted when they, with both great arbitration and little thought, destroyed one’s art. The man could only thank him as the tram was starting to move again.
He opened the door to his apartment. Margarita was kneeling on the table that she’d pushed against the window; various tools were laid out around her. The room was sweltering and though she wore her hair off her neck, some had escaped and lay in damp tendrils along her skin. When the window latch had failed and the window would not stay open, she’d found a neighbor willing to lend her the required tools and spent the evening and then this next day taking the mechanism apart and rebuilding it, replacing the broken bit with one she took from a basement window. Similarly when the toilet would not work she’d enlisted a plumber to repair it in exchange for tutoring sessions with his son who was sitting for university entrance examinations. Bulgakov told her how grateful he was for her, for her resourcefulness. She let him kiss her as he said these things.
The afternoon light through the dirty glass was particularly generous to her. She frowned at some part of the metal workings in her hand that would not cooperate.
Her friend Lydia sat in the armchair, her legs dangling over its side. She was an attractive girl, though she spurned all make-up and dressed severely in only trousers and shirts. As though the world need not make any excuses for her. He didn’t like her very much. It had occurred to him that Margarita might take on some of her tendencies and he was vaguely watchful for this, though what he might do if this were to happen he had no idea. Lydia fanned herself slowly with one of his magazines.
“Lydia,” he said.
“Bulgakov.” She mirrored back his cool acknowledgment. Only the magazine moved.
“Are you pretending to supervise?” he asked her. “Or do you actually know something useful to contribute?”
Margarita seemed amused by their sparring.
“I know many things,” said Lydia. “Alas, my dear friend doesn’t listen to me.”
“Lydia,” said Margarita; it was a low growl of warning.
“But I must fly now,” she added airily and pushed up from the chair.
“Care to borrow our broom?”
She ignored him and kissed Margarita. “Think about Tuesday night,” she said. She held her chin for a moment.
“I’ll think about it,” she said.
She waved a hand at Bulgakov as she passed as though batting an insect. The door closed behind her. “What’s Tuesday?” he asked.
Margarita was back at work. “Some meeting.”
“She doesn’t like me,” he said.