(Half an hour later our conversation resumes).
A year went by or maybe a little more… He was supposed to come and meet my family. I warned him that while my mother was easy to get along with, my daughter wasn't exactly… she was sort of… I couldn't guarantee how she'd behave with him. Oh, my Anka. (Laughs out loud). She put everything to her ear: toys, stones, spoons… Most children put things in their mouth, she put them to her ear — to hear the sound they made. I began teaching her music fairly early, but what a strange child, as soon as I put a record on, she would turn round and walk out. She didn't like anyone else's music, music by some silly composer: she was only interested in what sounded inside her. So then, Gleb arrived, very embarrassed, he'd had his hair cut too short, he didn't look particularly well. And he had some records with him. He started telling us something, about how he'd been walking along and happened to buy these records. Now Anka has a good ear… she doesn't hear words, she hears the intonations… She immediately took the records: «What brutiful records.» That's how their love, too, began. Sometime later she disconcerted me: «How can I keep from calling him Papa?» He didn't try to please her, he was just interested. They loved each other. I was even jealous sometimes, it seemed to me they loved each other more than they loved me. Both of them. Both Gleb and Anka. I don't think that's the way it was really. I wasn't hurt, I had a different role… He would ask her: «Anka, do you still stutter?» «Not as well as I used to.» It was never dull with the two of them. So: «How can I keep from calling him Papa?» We were sitting in the park, Gleb had gone off to get cigarettes. When he came back: «What are you two girls talking about?» I winked at Anka — don't tell him, it was silly anyway. She said: «Then you tell.» Well what could I do? I told him she was afraid she might call him Papa by mistake. Gleb said: «It's not a simple matter, of course, but if you really want to, call me Papa.» «Only you watch out,» my little miracle said in earnest, «I have one other papa, but I don't like him, and Mama doesn't love him.» That's how it's always been with Anka and me. We burn bridges. On the way home Gleb was already Papa. Anka ran ahead and called: «Papa! Papa!» The next day in kindergarten she announced: «Papa's teaching me to read.» «Who's your Papa?» «His name is Gleb.» The day after that her best friend had this news from home: «Anka, you're lying, you don't have a papa. He's not your real papa.» «No, the other one wasn't my real papa, this one is my real papa.» There's no use arguing with Anka. Gleb became «Papa», but what about me? I still wasn't his wife…
I had vacation. I went away again. Gleb ran down the platform, waving goodbye. But I began an affair almost immediately, on the train. There were two young engineers from Kharkov, also on their way to Sochi. My God! I was so young. The sea. The sun. We swam, we kissed, we danced. It was simple and easy for me, because the world was simple, cha-cha-cha and spin your partner, I was in my element. They loved me, worshipped me, carried me up a mountain on their arms… Young muscles, young laughter. An all-night bonfire… Then I had a dream. It went like this: the ceiling opened… And I saw the sky… Gleb… He and I were walking somewhere, along the shore, not over sea-polished pebbles, but over horribly sharp stones, thin and sharp as nails. I had shoes on, but he was barefoot. «Barefoot,» he explained, «you hear more.» «You don't hear more, it hurts more. Let's switch.» «What do you mean? Then I won't be able to fly away.» Then he rose up into the air, folded his arms like a dead person, and was carried away. Even now, if I see him in a dream, he's always flying. Only his arms for some reason are folded, like a dead person's, they don't look at all like wings…
God, I must be crazy, I shouldn't be telling you all this… I mostly have the sense that I've been happy in this life. Even after Gleb died. I went to the cemetery, and I remember thinking… He's somewhere here… Suddenly I felt so happy I wanted to scream. God… (To herself. Unintelligibly). I must be crazy… With death you're left one on one. But he died many times over, he'd been rehearsing death since he was sixteen… «Tomorrow I'll be dust and you won't find me.» We're getting to the most important part… So then… In love I slowly began to live, very slowly… In slow sips…
My vacation ended and I went home. One of the engineers saw me all the way back to Moscow. I promised to tell Gleb everything… I went to see him… A magazine was lying on the table, he'd drawn all over it, the wallpaper in his study was covered with scribbles, even the newspapers he was reading… Everywhere there were just three letters: s… i… o… Big, little, printed, script. Followed by three dots… I asked him: «What does that mean?» He translated: Seems it's over? Question marks, too, were everywhere… Like the clefs… In sheet music… Well, we decided to separate. Now we'd have to explain somehow to Anka. We went by to get her in the car, but before she could leave the house she always had to draw something! This time, though, she didn't have time. She sat in the car and sobbed. Gleb was used to her craziness; he considered it a talent. It was a real family scene: Anka crying, Gleb trying to explain something, and me in the middle… The way he kept looking at me… (Falls silent). I realized what a wildly lonely person he was. (Falls silent). Anka went on sobbing… A real family scene… Thank God, I didn't let him go… Thank God! We had to get married, but he was afraid. He'd already had two wives. Women betrayed him, were exhausted by him and you couldn't blame them… I didn't let him go… And I… He gave me a whole life…
He didn't like people to ask him questions… He hardly ever opened up, and if he did, then it was with a sort of bravado, so as to make the story funny and hide the starkness. That was his way. For instance, he never said «free», it was always «free-ish». «And now I'm free-ish.» The mood didn't often take him… But when it did, he told such delicious stories… I could just feel the pleasure he'd come away with: how he'd gotten hold of some pieces of a rubber tire and tied them to his felt boots, he and other inmates were being herded from one prison to another and he was so happy he had those tires. Once they came by half a sack of potatoes and then, while they were working outside the compound, someone gave them a big piece of meat. That night in the boiler room, they made soup: «It was so good, you have no idea! So delicious!» When Gleb was freed, he received compensation for his father. They said: «We owe you for the house, the furniture…» His father was a famous man… They gave him a large sum… He bought himself a new suit, new shirt, new shoes. He bought a camera, went to the restaurant in the National Hotel and ordered the best things on the menu: expensive fish, caviar, cognac, and coffee with cake. At the end, when he'd eaten his fill, he asked someone to take a picture of him at this, the happiest moment of his life. «I went back to the apartment where I was living and it dawned on me that I didn't feel happy. In that suit, with that camera… Why didn't I feel happy? Then I remembered the tires, the soup in the boiler room — that was happiness.» We tried to understand… So then… Where does that happiness live? He wouldn't have given camp up for anything, wouldn't have traded it. From the age of sixteen until almost thirty, that was the only life he knew. When he tried to imagine his life without those years in camp, he became terrified. What would have happened then? Instead of camp? What wouldn't he have grasped? What wouldn't he have seen? Probably the very core that made him who he was. When I asked: «Who would you have been without camp?» he always said: «A fool driving around in a red racing car, the fanciest there was.» Former inmates are rarely friends, something inhibits them. What? They can see the camps in each other's eyes, they're inhibited by the humiliations they suffered. Especially the men. Former inmates rarely came to see us, Gleb didn't seek them out…