Because there are no friends in these pitiable circumstances.
People shied away from Zoshchenko on the street, just the way they 27 1
had from me. They crossed the street, so that they wouldn't have to say hello. And they smeared Zoshchenko even more at hurriedly arranged meetings, and it was his former friends who did it the most, the ones who yesterday had praised him the loudest. Zoshchenko seemed surprised by it all, but I wasn't. I had gone through it at a younger age and the subsequent storms and 'bad weather had hardened me.
Akhmatova was undercut by Stalin for the same reason: envy of her fame, black envy. Sheer madness. There are many losses and blows in Akhmatova's life: "my husband is in the grave, my son in prison." And yet the Zhdanov episode was her hardest trial.
We all had different destinies, yet we shared some common traits.
Strangely enough, for Akhmatova, as for me, it was easiest during the war. During the war everyone heard about Akhmatova, even people who had never read poetry in their lives. While Zoshchenko had been read by everyone always. It's interesting that Akhmatova was afraid to write prose and considered Zoshchenko the highest authority in the field. Zoshchenko told me about that later, with a laugh but with some pride.
After the war an evening of readings by Leningrad poets was given in Moscow. When Akhmatova came out, the audience rose. That was enough. Stalin asked, "Who organized the standing up ?"
I had met Akhmatova a long time before, in 1 9 1 9, that "unforgettable year," or perhaps in 1 9 1 8, at the home of Dr. Grekov, the surgeon, a famous man and a friend of our family. He ran the Obykhovskaya Hospital. Grekov is worth telling about; he did many things for us, for my father and for me. When Father was dying, Grekov spent the night at our house, trying to save him. It was Grekov who removed my appendix, even though he often said, "It's not much fun cutting up someone you know." Grekov was a large man and he smelled of tobacco. Like all surgeons, he was gruff-that's a professional trait.
I hated Grekov. Every time I left his house, I found food for my parents in my coat pocket. I choked with anger,--was I a beggar, were we beggars? But I couldn't refuse. We really did need the food, desperately. But I hate handouts, and I don't like to borrow money. I always wait until it's urgent and then I pay it back at the first opportunity. That's one of my major faults.
Grekov liked to boast, of course. I remember one famous operation 272
of his. He had to do something with a girl who wasn't growing. Grekov decided that if he widened her hips, everything would proceed normally. He moved her hipbones and the girl grew broader and taller, and even had a child.
Grekov's wife, Elena Afanasyevna, dabbled in literature. She was a talentless scribbler who would probably have died from her unrequited love for literature. But from time to time, Grekov, who had money to burn, published some work of his wife's at his expense, and thereby prolonged her life. The Grekovs also had a sort of literary salon. They gave receptions, the table groaned with food. Writers and musicians came to eat. I saw Akhmatova at their house. She grazed there periodically. She came to the salon for the spread, of course. It was a hungry time.
The Grekovs had a grand piano, and I was part of the entertainment, working off the food in my pockets. But I don't think that Akhmatova was too interested in music then. She created a field of majesty about herself, and you had to freeze within two yards of her. Her behavior was worked out to the smallest detail. She was very beautiful, very.
Once my friend Lenya Arnshtam and I dropped in at a writers'
bookshop. Akhmatova came in and asked the clerk for one of her books. I don't remember which, either White Flock or Anno Domini.
The clerk sold her a copy, but Akmatova wanted to buy ten copies.
The clerk grew angry and said, "No, that's unheard of. The book is selling very well, and there might be a request for it at any moment. I have to satisfy my customers and I won't sell ten copies to just anyone.
What will I say to my other customers? Hah ?"
He was rather impolite and Akhmatova looked at him in amazement, but she didn't seem to want to speak up. Arnshtam spoke up.
Don't you know this is Akhmatova herself? Why be impolite to the famous poetess? Especially since it's her own book you're talking about?
Akhmatova gave us a dirty look, meaning that we were sticking our nose in her business, destroying her majesty, blowing her regal incognito, and she immediately left the bookstore.
Later on, Akhmatova attended the premieres of my works and she must have liked them, since she wrote poems about them. Basically I can't bear having poetry written about my music. I also know that 273
Akhmatova expressed her displeasure over the "weak words" I used for the vocal cycle From Jewish Folk Poetry. I don't want to argue with the famous poetess, but I think she didn't understand the music in this instance, or rather, she didn't understand how the music was connected to the word.
I was always put off by conversation with Akhmatova, because we were such different people. Yet we both lived in the same dty and were equally devoted to it, we had the same world view, and common acquaintances, she seemed to respect my music, and I esteemed her work highly, both her early poems and her late ones, and of course, the Requiem. Particularly the Requiem; I honor it as a memorial to all the victims of the years of terror. It's so simply written, without any melodrama. Melodrama would have ruined it.
I would greatly love to set it to music, but the music exists already.
It was written by Boris Tishchenko, and I think that it's a marvelous work. Tishchenko brought to the Requiem what I think it lacked: protest. In Akhmatova, you feel a kind of submission to fate. Perhaps it's a matter of generations.
And so, despite our mutual likes, I had trouble talking with Akhmatova. I bring this up apropos of "historic meetings." A special historic meeting with Akhmatova was arranged for me in Komarovo, near Leningrad, and it turned out to be quite embarrassing. We were all tieless out there-it's the country, after all. They tried to talk me into dressing more appropriately for a meeting with the celebrated poetess, and I just said, "Come off it. A fat old woman is coming, that's all." I was very light-hearted about the whole thing. I didn't put on a good suit or a tie. When I saw Akhmatova, I felt nervous. She was a grande dame, quite regal. The celebrated poetess, dressed with great thought.
You could tell that she had paid attention to her clothes, prepared for the historic meeting, and behaved in a manner commensurate with the occasion. And there I was, tieless. I felt naked.
We sat in silence. I was silent and Akhmatova was silent. We said nothing for a while and then parted. I heard that she later said, "Shostakovich came to see me. We had such a good talk, we talked about everything."
That's how most historic meetings go, and then the rest comes in the memoirs. I said to him, and he said to me, and then I said . . . It's all 274
lies. I wonder if the public knows how historic photographs are taken.