I was reading the scenes in which Natalya Rostova made an appearance. At the beginning of the book Natalya is only twelve, but she already shows the features of a full dyevushka in the making. She’s lovely, Natalya, and gracious — the pure embodiment of youth. I had read somewhere that Tolstoy had fallen in love with Natalya’s character and I could see where that theory came from. Although she was not described as being particularly attractive, she was depicted in a special light. Was she Tolstoy’s ideal woman? Unlike Pushkin’s Tatyana, who was too good to be true, Tolstoy’s Natalya felt real, alive. Natalya Rostova was capricious, coquettish and, in her own early nineteenth-century way, a bit of a tease. She would certainly fit in modern-day Moscow.
I was absorbed by these thoughts, taking some notes, when Colin walked in, holding a copy of The Exile that he had picked up at the entrance. He shook the snow off his coat.
‘Beautiful morning,’ he said as he placed the newspaper on my table and his coat on the nearby rack. He was wearing a black turtleneck sweater. ‘Saw you through the window. Another cup of coffee?’
‘Sure.’
When he came back with two mugs of fresh coffee, I shared my thoughts about Natalya Rostova.
Colin listened attentively, stirred his coffee and took a sip. His face was as red as a beetroot. ‘If you had to choose between Natalya Rostova and Anna Karenina,’ he said, ‘who would you rather fuck?’
‘Do you mean who’s my favourite among Tolstoy’s female characters?’
‘I mean, who would you take to bed.’
I thought about Colin’s question, trying to picture both Anna and Natalya as sexual partners.
‘Natalya,’ I said, ‘towards the end of the book.’
‘Why?’
‘She’s more lovable than Karenina.’
‘I think Anna Karenina would be a better fuck,’ Colin said.
‘How could you possibly know?’ I said, for some reason annoyed by Colin’s disdain for Natalya. ‘You’ve never read War and Peace. What do you know about Natalya?’
‘Who’s read the entire book? True, I don’t really know Natalya Rostova, but I feel Karenina is more my type of woman.’
‘Unfaithful? Suicidal?’
Colin thought about it for a few seconds. ‘Strong, determined.’
‘Natalya is more unpredictable,’ I said. ‘More fun.’
Colin took a sip of coffee. ‘Is Natalya honest? Faithful?’
‘Not entirely,’ I admitted. ‘When it comes to men, she’s rather fickle.’
‘All Russian women are,’ Colin said. He was sweating, pulling on the neck of his black sweater to let some air onto his chest. ‘In the end, if you look at it, they are all unfaithful. Anna Karenina, Natalya Rostova—’ Colin took another sip of coffee and looked out of the window, giving himself more time to think of the names of other unfaithful Russian characters. ‘You know,’ he said after a while, ‘all of them.’
‘Russian women are unfaithful. Is that your insight of the day?’
Colin turned his head both ways, as if checking that nobody could hear us. ‘That’s what makes them more interesting and challenging. It’s their culture. They’re always looking for the next thing.’
‘That’s not true,’ I said. ‘Look at Pushkin’s Tatyana. She was a faithful and devoted wife.’
‘Pushkin is Pushkin,’ Colin said.
A tall dyev with red boots walked into the café and glanced around, as if looking for a friend. Colin waved at her with a smile. He did that often with female strangers — as far as I could tell, with no results. She returned the smile politely, turned and walked back out to the street.
Colin opened The Exile and started to flip the pages. He always went straight to the club reviews to check if there were any new ratings to disagree with.
‘Karenina’s infidelity is not her main feature,’ I said, recalling an article I’d read on Tolstoy’s work from a feminist point of view. ‘Her decision to abandon her husband is about escaping conventions, about breaking free from the choices society had made for her.’
‘Whatever,’ Colin said. ‘In the end, look at Moscow today. You meet a dyev and you know she’s already looking for someone else, better-looking, wealthier. They can’t stay put.’
‘Neither can we.’
‘That’s different. We’re males. Ours is a biological need. Theirs is a materialistic pursuit. That’s the thing, if you scratch the surface, Russian dyevs are incredibly materialistic. All they want is someone to provide for them, buy them expensive clothes, holidays abroad and all that shit. They expect men to open their doors, help them with their coats. They don’t believe in equality. Not there yet.’
‘That’s crap,’ I said. ‘They’re just a bit more traditional.’
‘You know why Russian wives are so popular back in the States? Because they’re the embodiment of the American dream of the 1960s, taking care of themselves and their husbands, always perfect make-up and hair. Both servile and sensual.’
The snowflakes outside seemed to become smaller.
‘Look,’ Colin continued, ‘even when you take a dyev to a restaurant, she doesn’t give a fuck if the food is fine or cow dung, as long as it’s expensive.’
‘Maybe you meet the wrong dyevs,’ I said. ‘I know girls who search for romance.’
‘It’s not romance,’ Colin said, finishing his cup of coffee. ‘For Russian women, relationships are nothing but a transaction. They always expect something in return. That’s why it’s easy for them to become prostitutes, because they always feel you owe them something anyway. So they cross the line and ask for money.’
‘Four years in Moscow,’ I said, ‘and you still have such a stereotyped view of Russian women.’
‘I’m not doing a PhD on the subject,’ Colin said, tapping my red notebook, ‘but I’ve met my share. Believe me, sooner or later dyevs want something from you. That’s how they value how much you care, by figuring out how much you spend. Clothes, flowers, restaurant bills, they add up everything in their heads.’
‘I’ve met girls who just wanted to have fun,’ I said. ‘They didn’t expect anything in return.’
‘You don’t know what’s in their heads.’
‘I certainly don’t.’
‘Anyway,’ Colin said as he stood up. ‘I’ll leave you with your books, I need to go to a meeting. McCoy tonight?’
‘Sure.’
Colin put on his coat, shook my hand and stepped out into the street. Through the glass I watched him walk away under the snow.
40
THEN, AT THE END OF winter, I met Tatyana.
As temperatures rose, the roofs of Moscow began to drop enormous blocks of ice that crashed with force onto the pavement, shattering into a million ice cubes and killing — I was told — about a dozen unfortunate Muscovites every year. To stop this urban massacre, city workers were sent up the buildings to poke at the ice, provoking controlled avalanches over the streets below, after they’d cut off pedestrian traffic with yellow plastic tape. When you saw the yellow tape, you knew spring was around the corner.
‘We’re meeting the real estate agent by the Chekhov statue,’ Colin said, as we walked down Tverskaya. ‘Outside the MKhAT theatre.’
It was a bright morning. I was trying to focus on the pavement, avoiding the sludge and the slippery puddles that had frozen during the night. We turned left into Kamergersky. Anticipating the change of season, some restaurants had claimed chunks of the walkway and set up outdoor terraces — with mushroom gas-heaters and blankets draped over the chairs. All the tables were empty.