Then they went out to the garden (out to the garden, Solovyov whispered). Walking past bamboo planted by Chekhov, Zoya led her visitor to two benches that formed a right angle in the very corner of the garden. At Zoya’s suggestion (a restrained presidential gesture), they each sat on a bench, as if they were in negotiations. Solovyov explained again the aim of his stay in Yalta, this time more calmly and lucidly.
Zoya listened to him, almost leaning against the back of the bench but not quite resting against it. Solovyov recalled that in the cadet corps this was customarily done to improve one’s posture. He reported on his trip to Yalta’s City Hall, too, though he kept quiet about the details relating to Zoya personally. At the story about Nina Fedorovna’s return from the maternity hospital, Zoya interrupted him, ‘His room was completely ransacked when my mother and I came home. The new resident greeted us wearing the general’s slippers.’
Zoya turned out to be very observant for a person who was wearing a newborn’s pink ribbon when she arrived.
The Kozachenko family had moved into the general’s room. They were not Yaltans. The Kozachenkos had landed themselves in the Russian Riviera from some remote place or other; they were from around either Ternopol or Lvov. On its own, life in the middle of nowhere was probably incapable of prying them from that spot: that life did not burden them. As it happened, Petr Terentyevich Kozachenko, a civil defense specialist, had taken ill with tuberculosis, an uncharacteristic illness for specialists like him; it was even a bit bohemian.
While undergoing treatment in Alupka, Petr Terentyevich managed to determine that the Magarach Wine Institute in Yalta had an urgent need for a specialist of his type. He was accepted quickly after offering his services and returned to his historical motherland as an employee of the wine institute. Petr Terentyevich’s new employment turned out to be completely unexpected for his family. His wife, Galina Artemovna, was astounded at her husband’s abuse of power and flat-out refused to move. In the family scene that followed, she inserted their son, Taras, between herself and Petr Terentyevich. Pointing at Taras, she accused Petr Terentyevich of irresponsibility. Ten-year-old Taras looked off to the side, plentiful soundless tears rolling down his cheeks.
It is possible that Petr Terentyevich might have backed down (meaning he very likely would have backed down) under different circumstances, but the struggle over the move seemed like an unexpected struggle for his very life. He exhibited an inflexibility that did not really typify his relationship with his wife. He had his name removed from government registries (for which his wife cursed him, daily), resigned from his previous job, and anxiously groped at the lymph nodes around his armpits.
Galina Artemovna, who had already mourned her husband mentally, even before his Crimean trip (she regarded his illness in all seriousness), was perplexed by Petr Terentyevich’s obstinacy. The hope of maintaining the housing that was provided to him as a civil defense representative (and, according to rumors, an employee of certain other government agencies), reconciled her to her husband’s possible death. Frightened by his feverishness to move, she stealthily clarified her right to their aforementioned living space and bitterly established that in the event of her husband’s death or departure, the real estate would automatically return to the government. Galina Artemovna’s stance softened as a result. She preferred departure to death.
The Kozachenko family initially received only a room in a dormitory through the Magarach Wine Institute. Vexed, Petr Terentyevich began seeking out support from other government agencies and even offered to compile reports regarding intellectual ferment within the establishment that had hired him. Those government agencies reacted fairly listlessly. According to information from senior employees who had contact with Petr Terentyevich, all that was fermenting at the Magarach Institute was young Massandra wine. The intellects at the institute resided in a state of complete serenity. In and of itself, however, Petr Terentyevich’s vigilance was acknowledged as laudable and so, as a form of incentive, he was assigned a room that had freed up in a communal apartment.
‘And they moved in with us,’ sighed Zoya.
She straightened her sheer dress and Solovyov’s gaze settled unwittingly on her knees. The first evening breeze touched the crown of the Chekhov cypresses.
The Kozachenkos had packed light for their move. They sold their furniture in their native Ternopol before heading into the unknown. All they carried into the general’s spacious room was three folding beds, several basins of various sizes, and a ficus purchased at a Yalta flea market. They hung a portrait of Ukrainian poet Taras G. Shevchenko (1814–1861) in the corner furthest from the window, underneath Ukrainian towels embroidered in traditional red and draped on the wall. A great deal of empty space remained.
The sense of expanse was enhanced because their neighbor Ivan Mikhailovich Kolpakov had removed all items from the general’s room the day before the Kozachenko family moved in. This operation for seizing the deceased’s property was conducted with military rapidity. One night, Ivan Mikhailovich unglued from the general’s door the strip of paper bearing an official seal and, with his wife, Yekaterina Ivanovna Kolpakov, aiding and abetting, transferred everything into their room, right down to the general’s glasses and Grigory V. Ursulyak’s book The Stone Foot. Back in the day, the general had agreed to browse through the book, at Nina Fedorovna’s request.
An oak cabinet with carved two-headed eagles presented particular complications: the couple found themselves unable to lift it. After an hour and a half of fruitless efforts (a blow was inflicted upon Yekaterina Ivanovna’s back, for her lowly lifting capacity), they managed to drag out the fairly mutilated cabinet after placing plastic lids under it. Yekaterina Ivanovna meticulously swept the floor in the general’s room.
Needless to say, the actions undertaken by the couple ended up being too naïve not to be disclosed. However, they ended up being disclosed, at the very least, because of the cabinet’s magnitude: the door to the Kolpakovs’ small room would not close. The newly visible area contained stacked beds and bundles of books, which the Kolpakovs never read. Yekaterina Ivanovna’s concluding attempt to cover their tracks certainly could not have deluded anyone.
The civil defense worker’s inquisitive mind imagined what had happened in detail. After accusing the Kolpakovs of appropriating property that had been transferred to the state, he announced that he intended to inform the state of the loss inflicted. The undiplomatic Kolpakov immediately inflicted a blow upon Petr Terentyevich’s face. The boy, Taras, who was standing in the doorway of the allocated room, began to cry. Infliction of serious bodily harm was added to appropriation of government property.
Ivan Kolpakov felt cornered and drank himself into a stupor. And, oh, was he amazed when Petr Terentyevich himself woke him up in the morning, a glass of beer in his hand. Kolpakov might possibly have considered his neighbor an extraterrestrial when he looked at the iridescent bruise around his eye. At first, Ivan Mikhailovich even deflected the hand holding the glass. Only after drinking the beer and coming to grips with his initial agitation did he prove capable of hearing out Kozachenko.