“I live alone, so there’s no one to worry about.”
And that is precisely what I want to hear. An old adage states: it is easier to fight a battle on enemy territory…
“I have no parents,” glumly replied Tanya.
I felt embarrassed.
“I am sorry,” I said, “it was tactless.”
“They live in Yalta,” she added. “Father is a local district committee secretary.”
A taxi pulled up.
“Where to?” asked the driver without turning around.
“Dzerzhinsky Street, number 8.”
The driver shrugged his shoulders in annoyance.
“You could’ve walked.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll square up,” I said.
The driver turned to me, punctuating every word:
“My gratitude, kind sir! We shall never forget your generosity…”
We drove up to Tanya’s building. Its brick façade protruded from the general rank by a few feet. Four wide Victorian windows were connected by a railing.
The driver made a U-turn and left, saying:
“Auf Wiedersehen…”
The shallow steps led to a heavy, tarpaulin-covered door.
I’d been in this situation a thousand times before and yet I felt nervous. Now she will walk up the steps and I’ll hear:
“Thank you for seeing me home…”
You must leave after this. To loiter about the entrance is unseemly. To ask for “a little nightcap” is contemptible!
My friend Bernovich used to say:
“It’s a good thing to go when you’re invited. It’s horrible when you’re not invited. But best of all is when you’re invited and you don’t go…”
Tanya cracked open the door:
“Thank you for the roof!”
“You know,” I said, “what I feel bad about? There was a lot of alcohol left… Back at the studio…”
And, as if unintentionally, I crossed the threshold.
“I have wine,” said Tanya. “I hide it from my cousin. He shows up with a bottle and I sneak half of it into the cupboard. He has a bad liver…”
“You’ve intrigued me,” I said.
“I hear you,” said Tatyana. “I have an uncle who is a chronic alcoholic…”
We entered the elevator. A small light blinked at every floor. Tanya was looking down at her sandals. An expensive pair, by the way, with the Rochas label…
I could see an obscenity scrawled in chalk behind her. An insult without an addressee. Expression of pure art…
Then we tiptoed very quietly, almost furtively, down the corridor. My sleeves swished against the wallpaper.
“You are huge,” whispered Tanya.
“And you,” I said, “are observant.”
We found ourselves in a surprisingly large room. I saw a clay head of Nefertiti,* a foreign wall calendar with a woman in a pink brassiere and a poster for a transatlantic airline. Balls of wool glowed scarlet on top of the desk…
Tanya produced a bottle of dessert wine, an apple, halva and some curled-up sweaty cheese. I asked:
“Where do you work?”
“At the Leningrad Engineering Institute, in the administration office. And you?”
“I’m a reporter,” I said.
“A journalist?”
“No, a reporter. Journalism is style, ideas, problems… A reporter reports facts. A reporter’s primary goal is not to lie. That is the essence of his job. For a reporter, the epitome of style is silence. It contains the fewest lies.”
The conversation was becoming serious.
I generally preferred not to talk about my literary affairs. In this sense, I was keeping my so-called innocence. By gently putting down my work I was achieving the opposite effect. At least so I thought…
The wine had been drunk, the apple was cut into pieces. There was a pause, which in a situation like this could be fatal…
As strange as it may seem, I was feeling something like love.
Where did it come from? From what pile of garbage? From what depths of this wretched, miserable life? In what empty, barren soil do these exotic flowers bloom? Under the rays of which sun?
Some art studios full of junk, vulgarly dressed young ladies… Guitar, vodka, pathetic dissidence… And suddenly – dear God! – love…
How wonderfully indiscriminate He is, this king of the universe!
And then Tanya said, so quietly I could barely hear:
“Let’s talk, just talk…”
A few minutes earlier I had taken off my shoes without Tanya noticing.
“In theory,” I said, “it’s possible. In practice – not really.”
Meanwhile, I was silently cursing the broken zipper on my sweater…
A thousand times I will fall into this pit. And a thousand times I will die from fear.
The only solace is that this fear lasts less than a smoke.
Then it was cramped, and there were words that were painful to think about in the morning. But most importantly there was a morning as such, and shapes were coming into focus as they floated from out of the darkness. A morning without disappointment, which I expected and dreaded.
I remember I even said:
“And morning looks good on you…”
She was plainly more beautiful without make-up.
And that’s how it all began. And lasted ten years. Just short of ten years…
I began to drop by Tanya’s place from time to time. For a week I’d work from morning till night. Then, I’d visit some friend. We’d sit around, talk about Nabokov, about Joyce, about hockey and black terriers…
Sometimes I’d get drunk and then I’d call her.
“It’s a mystery!” I’d yell into the receiver. “An honest-to-God mystery… I happen to call and each time you say it’s already two in the morning…”
Later I would stumble to her house. It visibly jutted out against the rest, as if taking a step towards me.
Tanya continued to surprise me with her silent compliance. I didn’t know what it was a reflection of – indifference, humility or pride.
She did not ask:
“When will you come over?”
Or:
“Why haven’t you phoned?”
She amazed me with her unfaltering readiness for love, conversation, fun. As well as with her complete lack of any kind of initiative in this respect…
She was quiet and calm. Quiet without tension and calm without intimidation. This was the quiet calm of the ocean, indifferent to the cries of seagulls…
Like most frivolous men, I wasn’t a very malicious person. I’d begin to repent or make jokes. I would say:
“Suitors can be in-patients or out-patients. I, for instance, am an out-patient…”
And then:
“What do you see in me? You should find yourself a good man! Someone in the armed services…”
“The incentive isn’t there,” said Tanya. “It’s not exciting to love a good man…”
What interesting times we live in. “A good man” sounds like an insult to us. “But he is a good man” is said about a suitor who is clearly an insignificant nobody…
A year had passed. I dropped in on Tanya more and more frequently. Her neighbours greeted me politely and took messages for me.
I began keeping some personal belongings there. A toothbrush in a ceramic cup, an ashtray and slippers. One day I fastened a photograph of Saul Bellow over the desk.
“Belov?” asked Tanya. “From Novy Mir?”
“The very same,” I said.
Very well, I thought, why not marry? Marry out of a sense of duty. Perhaps it’ll all work out fine. And for both us.
For all intents and purposes we are married and it’s going well.
A union divested of obligations. This being the guarantee of its longevity…
But what about love? What about jealousy and sleepless nights? What about the overflow of feelings? What about unsent letters with blurry ink? What about swooning at the sight of a tiny foot? What about Cupid and Amor and various other extras in this captivating show? And for that matter, what about the bouquet of flowers for a rouble thirty?
To be honest, I don’t even know what love is. I am wholly without criteria. Tragic love – that I understand. But what if everything is fine? I find that disquieting. There must be a catch to this sense of normality. And yet what’s even more frightening is chaos…