“That’s wonderful. How are your colleagues?”
“There are all kinds. We have one local guide here, Larissa, and every day she bawls over Pushkin’s grave. She sees the grave and then the waterworks come…”
“Is she faking it?”
“I don’t think so. A group of tourists once gave her a set of kitchen knives worth forty-six roubles.”
“I wouldn’t say no to that.”
Just then Galina called my name. A group of tourists from Lipetsk had arrived.
I turned to Tatyana:
“You can leave your things here.”
“I only have one bag.”
“And you can leave it here…”
We headed towards a blue bus spattered with mud. I said hello to the driver and found a seat for my wife. Then I greeted the tourists:
“Good morning! The administration, curators and staff of Pushkin Hills welcome our guests. They have entrusted me to be your guide. My name is… This is what’s to come…”
And so on.
Then I explained to the driver how to get to Mikhailovskoye. The bus started. The sounds of the radiogram drifted in as we rounded the bends:
Give the gift of fire, like Prometheus,
Give the gift of fire to big and small,
Do not begrudge the people,
The fire of your soul!
Going round the decorative boulder at a fork in the road, I said venomously:
“Pay no attention. It’s just for show.”
And whispered to my wife:
“These are Comrade Geychenko’s dumb ideas. He wants to create an enormous amusement park here. He even hung up a chain on a tree, to make it more scenic. They say students from Tartu stole it. And dropped it in the lake. I say, bravo Structuralists!”
I led the group, stealing a glance at my wife from time to time. Her face, so attentive and a little lost, struck me anew. The pale lips, the shadow cast by her eyelashes and mournful look…
Now I was addressing her. I told her about a slight man of great genius in whom God and the Devil coexisted so easily. A man who soared high, but ended up the victim of a common earthly affliction; who created masterpieces but died the hero of a second-rate romantic novel. And who gave Bulgarin* legitimate grounds to write:
“He was a great man, who vanished like a rabbit…”
We walked along the lake. At the foot of the hill loomed another boulder. It was adorned with yet another quotation in Slavonic calligraphy. The tourists circled the rock and began snapping pictures greedily.
I lit a cigarette. Tanya came up to me.
The day was sunny, windy and not hot. A band of tourists, stretching along the shore, was catching up with us. We had to hurry.
A fat man with a notepad approached:
“Terribly sorry, what were the names of Pushkin’s sons?”
“Alexander and Grigori.”
“The eldest was…”
“Alexander,” I said.
“And his patronymic?”
“Alexandrovich, naturally.”
“And the younger?”
“What about the younger?”
“What was his patronymic?”
I looked helplessly at Tanya. My wife did not smile. She looked sad and absorbed.
“Oh, right,” the tourist caught on.
We had to hurry.
“Let’s go, comrades,” I yelled out with pep. “Forward march to the next quotation!”
At Trigorskoye the tour went smoothly, and even felt a bit inspired. Mainly, and I repeat, due to the nature and logic of the exposition.
I was taken aback by one lady’s request, though. She wanted to hear the love song ‘A Magic Moment I Remember’. I told her that I couldn’t sing at all. The lady insisted. The fat man with a notepad rescued me. “Why don’t I sing it,” he proposed…
“Please, not here,” I implored. “On the bus.”
(On our way back the fat man did indeed sing. Turned out this dunce was a wonderful tenor.)
I noticed that Tanya was tired, and decided to skip Trigorskoye Park. I’d done this in the past. I addressed the tourists:
“Who’s been here before?”
As rule, no one has, which meant I could abridge the programme without any risk.
My tourists dashed to the bottom of the hill. Each rushing to be first on the bus even though the seats were plentiful and assigned. While we had explored Trigorskoye our drivers had used the opportunity to go for a swim. Their hair was wet.
“Let’s go to the monastery,” I said. “Take a left from the parking lot.”
The young driver nodded and asked:
“Will you be there long?”
“No more than half an hour.”
At the monastery, I introduced Tanya to the curator, Loginov. Rumour had it that Nikolai Vladimirovich was religious and even observed tradition. I wanted to talk to him about faith and waited for an opportune moment. He seemed happy and calm, and I was so lacking in that…
I concluded the tour in the southern vestry by Bruni’s drawing. The ending would have been more effective by the grave, but I wanted to let the group go. My wife stood by the railing for a bit and soon returned.
“All this is sad and absurd,” she said.
I didn’t ask what she meant. I was tired. Or rather, I felt very tense. I knew that her visit was no accident.
“Let’s have dinner at The Seashore,” I offered.
“I wouldn’t even mind a little to drink,” replied Tanya.
The room was deserted and stuffy. Two enormous fans sat idle. The walls were adorned with wooden reliefs. The few customers comprised two groups: the visiting aristocracy, in blue jeans, and the local public, much greyer in appearance. The visitors dined. The locals drank.
We sat by the window.
“I forgot to ask how you got here? I mean I didn’t have the chance.”
“Very easily, on a night bus.”
“You could have come with one of the guides, for free.”
“I don’t know them.”
“Neither do I. Next time we’ll arrange something in advance.”
“Next time you come to us. It is rather taxing.”
“Do you wish you hadn’t come?”
“No, not at all! It’s wonderful here…”
A waitress with a tiny notepad came to the table.
I knew this damsel. The guides nicknamed her Bismarck.
“Yeah, what?” she uttered.
And fell silent, fully debilitated.
“Is it possible to be a little more polite?” I asked. “As an exception. My wife is visiting.”
“What did I say?”
“I beg you, please stop.”
Then Tatyana ordered pancakes, wine, chocolates…
“Let’s discuss everything. Let’s speak calmly.”
“I won’t go. Let them leave.”
“Who are ‘they’?” asked Tanya.
“They are the ones who are ruining my life. Let them leave.”
“They’ll put you in prison.”
“Let them. If literature is a pursuit deserving condemnation then our place is behind bars. And anyway, they no longer send people away for literature.”
“Heifetz* hadn’t even published his work and yet he got put away.”
“That’s precisely why they got him: because he didn’t publish. He should have printed something in Grani. Or Continent.* Now there’s no one to fight for him. Otherwise they could have made some noise in the West.”
“Are you certain?”
“Of what?”
“That Misha Heifetz is of any interest to people in the West?”
“And why not? They wrote about Bukovsky. They wrote about Kuznetsov.”*
“These are all games of politics. We must think of real life.”
“I’m telling you again, I will not leave.”
“Can you explain why?”
“There’s nothing to explain. My language, my people, my crazy country… Imagine this, I even love the policemen.”
“Love is freedom. While the doors are open, everything is fine. But if the doors are locked from the outside, it becomes a prison…”
“But they’re letting people out now.”
“And I want to use this chance. I’m fed up. I’m fed up with standing in lines for all sorts of junk. I’m fed up with wearing stockings with holes. I’m fed up of getting excited about beef sausages… What’s holding you back? The Hermitage, the Neva River, birch trees?”