Galina once told me I was the only gentleman of her acquaintance. I fear she was badly mistaken.
A true gentleman should be gallant and chivalrous and never abandon a damsel in distress, especially if that distress takes the form of a desperate desire to kiss him.
When I explained to Nina that I had to return to Moscow out of duty to a friend, she tried to talk me out of it. “Stay here! After all, you love me, don’t you?”
Then, with unforgivable rudeness, I announced that I love my wife—that is the old Nina. Now, she is another man’s spouse. It seems she sees marriage rather like a joint stock company: if her husband doesn’t put in his share in time, she begins to shift her assets and make investments elsewhere. Alas, that isn’t what I want at all.
This made Nina angry.
“You was the one who kissed me first!” she reminded me.
A gentleman in my place would have said something about her charms or about the power of Cupid’s arrow or something else appropriate, but instead, I did something outrageous. I told her that I had had a choice: either to hear details of all her infidelities or to pay Oscar back in kind and to cuckold him just as he had cuckolded me. The second course seemed to me the more interesting one.
“But I told you,” Nina cried, “I’m not going back to Reich!”
“Well, that’s a shame,” I said. “Of course, you could stay with Elkin and be the wife of a country blacksmith for a while, but I imagine that wouldn’t be a very good deal for you.”
Then all hell broke loose. Nina is not only passionate in matters of love; she has a fearsome temper too. She poured such a torrent of abuse at me that I’m afraid I’ll never manage to clear my name.
I was listening respectfully to all this when she suddenly stopped mid-flow and announced that in any case, I would not escape her. She would get ahold of a ticket and come back to Moscow after me, sinner that I am.
Now, I am full of curiosity about what she is planning to do. After all, I haven’t had the holiday I was hoping for, so I’ll have to find my amusement in some other way.
I think I have hit on the right way to handle my relations with Nina. We need less drama, more pragmatism, and a sensible approach to our affairs. We should behave like relatives with shared family concerns. After all, I did want Nina to take a role in bringing up Kitty. If she can get herself settled in Moscow, then we can be on friendly terms.
I am very grateful to Seibert for whisking me away from Koktebel in the nick of time. I came very close to crossing a line I must never cross.
25. THE HOUSING PROBLEM
Alov was woken by the rattle of the lid on the coffee pot.
“Dunya, my dear,” he heard Valakhov saying on the other side of the dresser, “do you know why it is that only twenty-five percent of the overall membership of the Young Communist League are women? It’s because they have to stop taking part in public life after they’re married. Look at you, for instance. What are you doing now? Making breakfast for your husband. But you could be using that time to go to a party meeting.”
Dunya said nothing. The only sound that came from behind the dresser was the measured tapping of her knife against the breadboard as she cut something.
“Everyday domestic chores will turn even the most principled women into empty-headed housewives,” Valakhov continued. “With your talent, you should be acting in movies, and you’re wasting the best years making sandwiches and washing dishes.”
Alov sat up in bed. I’ll smash his face one of these days, I swear! he thought for the thousandth time. But he knew it was impossible. Valakhov was the star of the OGPU wrestling team while Alov was unable to manage even a single pull-up on the crossbar.
“Get some portraits done by a photographer and give them to me,” Valakhov said eagerly. “One of my friends is a director, and as it happens, he’s looking for a girl just like you.”
“Don’t listen to him!” Alov barked, poking his head around the side of the dresser. “It’s all lies!”
Dunya was bustling about in their “kitchen,” a small area next to the window sill. On the sill stood two primus stoves and a breadboard with shelves underneath for storing food. The top shelf was for Dunya and Alov, and the bottom shelf for Valakhov.
Dunya thrust a sandwich and an enamel mug of ersatz coffee under her husband’s nose. “Here’s your breakfast.”
Valakhov was lying on the sofa, his muscular white arms flung behind his head. Alov stared at Valakhov’s faded underpants with disgust. What kind of man walked about in his underwear in front of another man’s wife?
“Good morning to you!” Valakhov waved cheerily to him. “What’s the health forecast today then? You were coughing so loudly last night you just about deafened me. Seriously, it was louder than artillery training.”
“Knock it off,” spat Alov, seething with impotent rage.
Dunya fastened a white headscarf around her head, planted a kiss on Alov’s unshaven cheek, and ran off.
Every day, she went out to a theatrical agency looking for work. Sometimes, she would land a role and bring back a fee of five rubles. For children’s matinees, she would get three rubles, and for pageants, no more than one and a half.
Valakhov knew that Dunya would do anything for a genuine role and exploited the fact shamelessly. And if Alov made any objection, he would just mock him.
“Dunya, my dear, it looks as if your husband wants to keep you locked away between these four walls—or should I say two walls?”
The dresser between the Alovs’ corner and the rest of the room did not count as a genuine wall.
Alov dreamed of one thing above all else—a room of his own. One day, he had been present during the interrogation of a biology professor who had come out with a comment that had left a deep impression on Alov. The professor had argued that the surest way to make people unhappy was to cramp them together and leave them no way out.
“You’ve packed us into crowded trams and communal apartments,” the professor had harangued his interrogators. “And you know what will happen now, don’t you? All-out war when neighbor fights against neighbor for living space—the same way as animals fight for their territory.”
He’s right. That’s exactly how it is, Alov had thought. Though it had not stopped him leafing through the professor’s personal file, which contained a note of his address. Alov had known that this counter-revolutionary would be sent off to the camps and was wondering who would get their hands on the professor’s accommodation.
Alov often dreamed that he and Dunya had got a permit for a room of their own, and he told her of these dreams in which they would pack their belongings into pillowcases, say goodbye to Valakhov, and set off by tram to their new house.
He imagined having a place of his own with tall windows, a stove, and an extra big windowsill. And underneath it, three shelves, every one of them belonging to the Alovs.
Listening to him, Dunya always laughed. “Stop your nonsense! It’ll never happen.”
But Alov’s idea to send Galina with Seibert had borne fruit: she had got hold of information that might win him not only a room but also a promotion. Alov was sure his chief would snap up the story and make something big of it.
Once, when they had been drinking, Drachenblut had told Alov about Stalin whom he frequently visited in the Kremlin.
Stalin had never been sociable, but he had now become a complete hermit, surrounded by “courtiers” who brought him information about ill-wishers both within and without his circle. He was obsessed with coded messages and secret files and demanded absolute vigilance from his subordinates.