Briefly he hesitated, then caught up. “Here,” he said, “let me.”
“Oh.” A small laugh escaped her. “Thank you, Serezha. Lots of homework today.”
For some time they walked in silence. Damp snow slapped at his eyes, flew into his mouth. “It must be tedious for you,” he said at last. “Waiting in that line day after day.”
“It’s not too bad. I come in the afternoons, as soon as my classes are done. I’m worried, of course, that they’ll deliver the tickets in the morning, but starting in March, two of my mornings will open up. Of course, it will be before then for sure—who’s ever heard of a line lasting two months, you know—but just in case. Emilia Khristianovna is in line also, we’ve been talking about working something out between us, covering for each other—”
“Sure, that sounds reasonable,” he said, not listening. “Look, Anya, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something for a while, but I haven’t had a chance at home—”
She smiled uncertainly. “We eat supper together every night.”
“Yes, well,” he mumbled. “It just keeps slipping my mind, I guess. Anyway, you know I was hoping to get a ticket myself, to go to the concert, that is, but with my new schedule, I can never get to the kiosk on time, and, well”—she was descending a short flight of steps now; he followed—“I was thinking, since you’re in line anyway, you might be able to, you know—”
She reached the door at the bottom of the stairs, turned toward him. Shadows gathered here, the streetlamp above leaking in blotchy dribbles; he could see only her hands, pressed against her rough gray coat as if in prayer, and, in the twilight of her face, her eyebrows, glistening with tiny droplets of melting snow, lifting like the wings of a nervous bird.
“But Serezha,” she said quietly, “they’ll sell only one ticket per person, you know that. I promised mine to Mama.”
“Of course,” he said, “but it’s obvious that she—”
“I’m sorry, I must buy some bread… See you at home?”
“I’ll come with you,” he offered quickly. “Anyway, it’s obvious that she doesn’t—”
She pushed the door open. It was suffocating inside; in the bakery’s hot yellow light, a throng of middle-aged women milled about, prodding loaves with pairs of bright tongs, calling to one another. He hurried after her, sweeping away cobwebs of conversations, blinded by the lamps, disoriented by the heat, by the hubbub, still talking rapidly into her neck, “Look, we both know your mother doesn’t really need this ticket, she doesn’t—”
“Black or white?” she asked, glancing back at him.
“What?… Oh, I don’t care, whichever kind you like… She doesn’t intend to go, she never even leaves the house, she—”
She had already moved away, not having heard, repeating, “Ah, it smells so good in here.”
He tried to stay close but got tangled in a gaggle of noisy schoolgirls rushing toward the cashier; when he caught up at last, she was greeting an acquaintance. All at once he felt frantic, for it had to be now; the walls in their apartment were paper-thin, and with her mother always hovering a breath away, he would never dare to ask her again.
“Anya,” he said, placing his hand on her sleeve. “Do you think, maybe, this ticket—”
The acquaintance had meandered off.
His wife stood looking at him now, pressing the white loaf tightly to her chest, her fingers crushing its crust, her face oddly still—and he knew that she had heard him all along.
“Serezha,” she said. Her voice was pleading. “I can’t. Mama asked me.”
And for one moment, suspended in this warm, well-lit, close place, amidst the bustle of women, amidst the buns of bread, amidst all the hot, moist, rich smells of domesticity from which he felt eternally cut off, he wondered, in a kind of desperation, what he could possibly say to make her understand the immensity of his longing. He could tell her, perhaps, about that piece he had played as a child thirty-seven years ago—or else his trouble at work—or how, even though he had so wastefully squandered his best decades, he saw in Selinsky’s music his chance to start living at last, to become something more than he was, to try summoning into existence the notes he could almost imagine flowing from the tips of his fingers—
“Oh, don’t be upset,” she said gently. “There will be other nice concerts.”
He stared at her; then, without speaking, turned and walked out into the frozen darkness. Minutes later she came running behind him, gathering up the hems of her coat. She kept saying things, apologizing, promising something. He was silent on the way home, silent in the elevator, silent in the kitchen. “Please, don’t worry about it,” he said as he switched off the light on his nightstand. “Sleep well.”
He said little else in the coming days, practicing away his evenings, flooding the hush of their bedroom with his instrument’s hoarse respirations. One afternoon in mid-February, his two sole workshop students quarreled, and the older one smashed his tuba over the younger one’s head. The boys were sent home, and, finding himself with some daylight hours to spare, he came to the familiar street, took his place at the end of the line, and, his eyes closed, stood still for a while, listening to the voices that trudged, muffled and weary, through the day’s early shadows.
“Pardon me, if I may disturb you for a moment, what might they be selling here?”
“Concert tickets.”
“And would you be so obliging as to tell me what kind of concert, please?”
“The do-re-mi kind.”
“Indeed, but—”
“Listen, intelligentsia, do you want me to break your glasses for you? What are you bothering me for? Beat it.”
“For God’s sake, can’t you just answer the poor man, don’t you see how old he is?”
“Fine, then, it’s the Northern Nightingales. Happy now?”
“I’m sorry, I’m not quite familiar with—”
“See what I mean? He doesn’t know the Nightingales! There’s education for you.”
“Don’t mind him, grandpa, maybe his wife ran off with the plumber. It’s a group from the North. They wear beautiful costumes and sing about the friendship of the peoples and the happy tomorrow. It’s very soulful.”
“Oh, I see, thank you for your kindness, I suppose I’d better be—”
“Well, go on, woman, tell him about the symphony too, that will be more up his alley!”
“Pardon, did you say ‘symphony’?”
“Yeah, I forgot, there’s some symphony, but it won’t be until next New Year’s Eve, they haven’t sold any tickets for it yet. It’s some fancy composer, Vselensky, I think—”
“The name’s Solyonsky, you illiterate!”
“Not Solyonsky, Selyodsky!”
“Terribly sorry to interrupt, but… Not Selinsky, certainly? Not Igor Selinsky?”
“That’s just what I’m saying, or are you deaf? Selinsky, Selyodsky, whatever—”
“Wait a minute, Selinsky, Selinsky, I remember something… That’s right, wasn’t he the turncoat who traded his country for a life of ease Over There? I’ll tell you what I think, no decent person would want to watch some dusty aristocrat in a bow tie prance about with a baton!”
“And I’ll tell you what I think, such traitors to our Motherland should be shot. Just like that, with no trial. Bam, and that’s the end of it. What say you, Professor?”
“What, old man, swallowed your tongue? The fellow’s talking to you!”