At last I caught the signal. ‘Gelda?’ I said. ‘You mean you’ve been with Gelda all this time?’
‘And when you compare me to my former state - no, I don’t like even to think about it. The past is a receding nightmare.’
‘When did you pick up with Gelda again, Oktyabrina? Do you still answer to Oktyabrina?’
This pleased her visibly, but she controlled her old
triumphant- smile - that - can’t- quite -be - contained expression and gazed over my shoulder, into the distance.
‘You never understood her inner nobility; I shan’t attempt to describe it. I simply can’t convey what Gelda stands for -certainly not to someone lacking our feminine instincts.’
I waited the required moments for the dramatic pause. Oktyabrina’s voice was like a radio announcer’s describing a steel plant. ‘Gelda is a beautiful person. A woman who’s learned that all women are used - and, in the end, remain alone. And she’s taken me under her loving wing again.’
We had nearly reached the car when Oktyabrina stopped short. ‘ Spooks! I’ve forgotten it!’ she exclaimed, and dashed back into the cemetery. When she returned, my old Maxwell House can was clanging against her dust-pan. She used to use it for storing hair-pins and rubber bands. Now it seemed to contain small worms - for Gelda’s fish? - but Oktyabrina concealed it behind her hip.
We drove past the zoo towards the center of town, stopping only to buy ice-cream. Oktyabrina gazed at the wet, somber streets as if in wonder.
‘It’s no longer simply Moscow that enthralls me,’ she sighed. ‘Life itself is so wholly intoxicating. My waking hours are literally an orgy of happiness.’
‘What’s the secret?’ I asked. ‘I’d like to write a story about it.’
‘The secret is simply to be yourself , with people who truly love you exactly as you are. Which stops life from being a mass of meaningless trivia.’
‘I suppose you’ve found the elusive inner peace that puts everything in its proper place.’
‘Exactly. For example, this very minute. The insides of my boots happen to be soaked with freezing mud, but I’m absorbing autumn’s beauty and hardly even notice it.’
The illogicality of this was so blatant that we both chuckled. ‘It happens to be true, Zhoseph, and I only wish it could be for you too. There are lots of ways a person can 184
change, but self-understanding’s the only real one.’
‘I’m very happy for you. And that happens to be true too, even if you want to make fun of it.’
‘Life’s so odd, isn’t it? Like when you return to a familiar place years later and stand there all dizzy because so much has changed-yet you’re still somehow you. I know perfectly well you sometimes worried about me. And here I am now, worrying about you.
Oktyabrina sucked the last of her ice-cream, the noises demonstrating that at least one part of her hadn’t changed at all.
‘And what about you, Zhoseph?’ she asked in an artfully casual voice. ‘Working hard?’
‘Not very. The usual.’
‘And still living all alone?’
‘ Still living all alone.’
‘I suppose you still see Kostya,’ she said in a harder tone. ‘How is our old exponent of the ethos of the bull?’
‘Same as ever. No - something seems to be leaving him. Somewhere he’s very sad, you know.’
‘I’m afraid there’s no hope for Kostya. To attain selfunderstanding and a sexual reality, I mean. But give him my . .. compliments .’
‘They’ll make him very happy. I’m sure he’ll want to throw a big reunion celebration.’
‘No,’ she said sharply. ‘I can’t meet Kostya yet.’ She lowered her voice, hinting renewed trust. ‘I won’t be coy with you about the reason why, Zhoseph. I’ll speak with utter forthrightness out of consideration for our old . . . well, association. Whatever it lacked in genuine understanding, I’m certain you never intentionally misled me. But I simply can’t consort with you two again. Say I’m not yet strong enough for social intercourse with notorious lady-killers, if you like. You know the rules for a reformed alcoholic.’
‘Only at second hand. I know the rules are very rigid. But I’m very happy for you, Oktyabrina. You’re obviously
deep in something invaluable. I wouldn't dream of interfering.'
This clearly disappointed her. She gazed serenely out of the window again - which meant, of course, that she was trying to think fast.
‘And yes,' she said at last, ‘there's a more crucial reason -I'm not ashamed of it. If you must know, I’d go to any lengths to conceal our renewed association from Gelda. It would shatter my last chance irretrievably. To become a real person, I mean.'
‘Quite right you are too. I admire people tremendously who sacrifice everything for their last chance.'
Then I resorted to one of her own favourite ploys — the purposefully ambiguous statement. ‘You've sacrificed even more than you know for this chance,' I said, and squinted as if following a distant thought. ‘You're one of the rare women who've defeated the tyranny of petit-bourgeois drives.'
She scrutinized me, but suppressed the question on her lips.
‘It's funny how things work out for the best,' I continued. ‘For months I’ve been trying to track you down just to give you the very thing you've resolved to renounce for ever. Now I see it would be sheer hell for you to have it.'
She sniffed my bait from every angle, like an old bass in a farmer's pond. When she finally signaled she was ready to hear what her sacrifice had been, and I revealed it was a flight bag of cosmetics and trinkets that I'd brought her from Rome, she affected annoyance over the ‘teenage trivia'.
‘Exactly,’ I agreed. ‘I’d hate myself if I'd actually tried to foist the stuff on you.'
‘Zhoe darling, stop clowning. Precisely what do you propose to do with that flight bag?'
‘What can I do? Empty it in the trash can, I suppose. Bit by bit, to avoid charges of hoarding deficit goods for black market speculation.'
Suddenly she slipped her foot past mine and jabbed the brake. ‘Zhoe, this means “Stop" to your buffoonery!'
The car careered dangerously. Oktyabrina yanked back her foot in a fright, whacking her knee on the steering wheel. Pain and embarrassment somewhat tempered her subsequent speech.
Of course she didn’t want that vulgar rubbish for herself. But it would be an absurd gesture, the very kind of theatrical posturing she’d been striving to shed under Gelda’s patient guidance, actually to waste the materials. ‘You see, I could very easily distribute the contents of that bag in an orphanage somewhere. Orphan girls absolutely adore that kind of thing - I can tell you myself.
In return for this, it was decided that Oktyabrina would not withdraw from my life again, but that we would resume a relationship of old friends who had lived through a certain disappointment, and therefore had a better understanding of each other’s inner needs. To seal the new pact, I made two promises: never to allude to any erotic adventure of her past in Gelda’s presence, and to shield them both from men on the make.
20
The next day, Oktyabrina escorted Gelda to my apartment. It was Artillery and Missile Warriors’ Day, which was a comic touch because of Alexander, whose graduation from the Academy probably took place that very morning to coincide with the holiday. A grimmer touch was the arrest of a husband and wife in Red Square.
The young couple had tried to mark the ‘holiday’ by protesting against the occupation of Czechoslovakia. From start to quick finish, their venture was a pathetic failure: plain-clothed KGB officers seized them before they could fully unfold their ‘Hands off Czechoslovakia’ banner. They had won no understanding, not to mention sympathy, from ‘the people’ they’d hoped to enlighten. Pedestrians uttered