I’d intended to write to you at respectable length, but these matters do not really befit a letter. If you accept the tone of my communication and my good will, please telephone me at my place of work. [Here followed the book-216
shop s telephone number.] I will tell you some things that I can’t even mention to Vladik himself.
You might be relieved to know that I’ll speak with total objectivity because I have no ‘designs’ on Vladimir. And that I’ll deeply sympathize with your position: that of a woman who has sacrificed for her country and her son — for mankind in a very real way - and wants to embrace what she has achieved. Of all life’s tragic trials, none demands more courage than watching one’s child step forward on his separate rocky road. Perhaps I can help.
With great respect, with genuine feelings,
Oktyabrina Vladimirovna Matveyeva.
‘What ... do you . . . think?’ she stammered. She was blowing her stuffed nose; I was letting my grin go at what was new in her, and what would never change.
‘What is your professional opinion , vox populi American as? To save you embarrassment, my epistle wasn’t penned as a joke.’
‘I think it’s very serious. Very beautiful.’
‘And won’t change anything. But I might know more about change than you think. . . . Give me an impressive envelope, please. I feel better already.’
She looked better too, and her appetite materialized. After the meal, she went to the mirror and laughed at her costume: the salesgirl’s sweater was now positively ratty, but she’d rejected a subsidy from Gelda and couldn’t afford even a good scarf on her salary.
‘Don’t think I’m in pain from this sacrifice,’ she said. ‘Vladimir’s like you in a way - he never beats his women.’
‘Or takes them to supper? Listen: if you come to supper with me, I’ll buy you a fantastic new dress.’
‘Yes!’ She ran to the mirror again to stroke an imaginary gown. ‘Let’s be happy again, Zhoe.’ Then her face fell. ‘Don’t be hurt, dearest: our revel must be postponed. I’ve come this far, you see - now I’m obligated to wait. For a reply to the epistle, I mean. Or maybe the young man him-
self will make some attempt.
Later, we walked down Petrovka to where she would mail her letter and catch a bus. It was snowing again and the wind burned our faces. The pole with the bus-stop sign also displayed a poster announcing the usual Saturday evening political lecture in a local club. ‘SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY IN THE LIGHT OF THE DECISIONS OF THE SEPTEMBER PLENUM OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION’.
I stepped round the corner to look for Oktyabrina’s bus. When I returned, she d crayoned a simpler message on the poster: Brinchka loved Vladik? Guess!’ She frowned at her handiwork and vigorously blacked it out, leaving a crayoned rectangle in the shape of a coffin.
Oktyabrina flung the crayon across the street. ‘Between you and me,’ she said solemnly, ‘my doodles were in bad taste. Think of Vladimir’s distaste for exposing our intimate emotions on that kind of poster. . . . That’s what I admire most about him, actually. He s the most superbly creative young man in keeping everything in its proper place.’
Vladimir s mother did not respond. From Vladimir himself there was a telephone call during which he was so upset that Oktyabrina had trouble understanding him. He called from a telephone booth — not for the reasons foreigners do, but in case his mother came home early.
What disoriented him most was not the loss of Oktyabrina but of a girl - any girl, the comfort of having one. Finally Oktyabrina calmed him with a promise that they’d be friends for ever and that he d have a fine girl in a year or two - he was only now entering the period of his most powerful attractiveness to deserving women. She splurged a week’s wages to send him a lacy plant, suitable for his mother. Then she called me to arrange our ‘revel’.
When Kostya heard our news, he insisted that he was due at the opera that evening — the premiere of something new
called “Red Star over White Moon’” - and that we use his 218
room. He canceled all appointments with his lassies, decorated the room with a handsome little spruce tree fes-tooned with birthday candles - he called it a ‘Maypole manque’ - and left two bottles of champagne between his windows, together with a whole side of smoked salmon, procured from the director of a warehouse for export foods. We ate the tangy fish with fresh black bread.
‘There are tons of fish in the sea, you can’t catch them all,’ said Oktyabrina. ‘Who needs a saying to explain that? If you’re happy, you love what you have.’ She winked and handed me a fat sandwich.
It was one of the rare evenings devoted to gaiety that surpass their promise. Kostya’s blowzy room was transformed by the candlelight. Oktyabrina wore a gypsy-like dress with a long skirt and puffed sleeves, and laughed happily when I asked when she’d found time to make it.
‘But I didn’t sew a stitch. A fairy godmother waved her wand - your godmother, Zhoe, because she wanted me refined , for you.’
We drank the champagne from Kostya’s souvenir ram’s horn because my godmother had forgotten to transform Oktyabrina’s old shoes into slippers. Oktyabrina proposed an affectionate toast to Kostya, praising him for leaving champagne instead of vodka and for his ‘occasional inspired insights into human nature’.
When the subject of Vladimir came up, Oktyabrina was ardent but unmannered. ‘That role simply wasn’t me. And why do I require roles? What are we afraid of, Zhoe? Why can’t I just be myself ?’
She was asking in earnest. ‘I think we’re afraid that our real selves look foolish or feeble,’ I said. ‘I happen to know something about that. The paradox is that the fear often sires creativity - your kind.’
‘But I’m not frightened with you, you know - I never have been. Because - well, it simply feels right. . . . Did you know I’m tendering my resignation from the bookstore soon? I want to do something suitable just for the change . 7
We danced to the tape recorder in the two square feet of floor space. I remembered a line from a Chekhov story called Champagne’: a middle-aged man reminiscing about himself recalls that 'at that time, I was young, strong, lusty, extravagant and stupid’. That story, or perhaps our own champagne, made me think, and when we sat down again, something remarkable happened: I was telling childhood stories that I d forgotten myself. The humiliation of an uncle s prison record and of a long illness of my mother. These memories had been stifled for decades, first by shame, later because they sounded like apologies. Then I began to talk about my marriage. Oktyabrina reached for my hand.
'Don’t stop, Zhoe. Somewhere inside me, I have the capacity to understand. Somewhere, somehow, I have the ability to love. Really love - I know I have. . . . But these things may take years. It may be a very, very long time
before I flower into the woman you deserve. Will you wait?’
My throat constricted again. Perhaps she was playing — but I saw her lead and knew I would bungle it again.
Dearest Oktyabrina, I m more than twice your age and I feel it. When we turn on the fights, you may notice that I can pass for an antique.'
She blew out a candle. 'A mature man’s worth a hundred saplings - it’s one of my most antique sayings. Now answer the question.’
But I did not. I was trying to picture us together in another country - to make the decision of my fife.
'How old are you, Zhoe? The gospel truth, if you please.’
‘Forty-four.’
Goodness me - why do you pretend one foot’s in the grave? What’s this role you cherish?’
Long minutes passed - a silence that could not be broken by a joke.
Of course 111 wait,’ I said. ‘I’m used to waiting. I can stick to it until you flower into the kind of woman you 220 *