There were some pronounced changes with respect to the Kozachenko pair. This might have been characterized as estrangement, if, of course, they had been close before. But they had not been close. Definitively caught up in his illness (which was not, by all indications, as scary as the couple initially thought), Petr Terentyevich made the rounds of Yalta’s pharmacies after work. He compared medicine costs, attempting each time to ascertain their wholesale prices.
On one of those evenings, Ivan Kolpakov subjected Petr Terentyevich’s wife to an unexpected sexual advance: in his state of drunkenness, he had thought she was his own wife. Galina Artemovna’s lack of resistance confirmed his delusion and he did with his neighbor all that his modest fantasies directed. Kolpakov’s mistakes began repeating regularly after that, with the only difference being that now it was Galina Artemovna herself who prompted him with regard to little novelties she had never seen from her civil defense specialist.
Petr Terentyevich, who suspected nothing, continued his platonic relations with Nina Fedorovna. At Petr Terentyevich’s request, he was retold the play The Cherry Orchard, which vividly reminded him of his favorite Taras Shevchenko poem, ‘The Cherry Orchard by the House.’ Once he even asked Nina Fedorovna to show him the Chekhov Museum because he’d heard so much about him (Chekhov). His wife was copulating with Uncle Vanya (Kolpakov) as Petr Terentyevich stood in Chekhov’s study with a group of museum visitors. Tears in his eyes, he hearkened to the story of Chekhov’s deadly skirmish with the very same disease he had, feeling himself to be a bit like Chekhov at that moment. It is possible that in the depths of his soul, Petr Terentyevich also wanted to tell a German doctor, ‘Doktor, ich sterbe,’[2] but there were no German doctors in his life and could not have been.
After thinking about death at the Chekhov Museum, he decided to order himself a funeral with music. This was the only thing from the realm of the beautiful that he could permit himself. In the will he had prepared, five hundred Soviet rubles from an unshared bank book was allocated specifically for that purpose. That sum seemed to him like more than enough for a performance of Chopin in the open air. And though he was not really planning to die, the instructions he had made brought a certain tragedy and loftiness into his life.
His life did not end in a Chekhovian manner. When he returned home one day at an inopportune hour, he found an abominable love scene in his very own bed. That was the description that escaped from Petr Terentyevich. Beside himself with rage, he rushed at Ivan Kolpakov and proceeded to pepper him with punches. Being under the influence of alcohol, Kolpakov initially took the blows fairly meekly. In the end, he lost his temper and, cursing, flung Kozachenko away from him. As Petr Terentyevich fell, he hit the back of his head on one of the heads of the double-headed eagle carved on the cabinet and lost consciousness.
The ambulance doctor who arrived roughly an hour and a half after the call ascertained that the trauma to Petr Terentyevich was not consistent with enabling survival. Unable to figure out that wording, Ivan Kolpakov grabbed the doctor by the collar and demanded an answer to a simple question: is Kozachenko dead or alive?
‘Dead,’ the doctor answered curtly and left without saying goodbye.
Endeavoring to anticipate police questioning, Ivan Mikhailovich decisively enticed Galina Artemovna to his room. He persuaded her not to mention the true cause of her husband’s death. Strictly speaking, there was no real need to persuade her anyway. She had already long been experiencing doubts about Petr Terentyevich’s longevity so it was now only the mode of his death, rather than its fact, that could make much of an impression on her. The sobered-up Kolpakov displayed unexpected oratorical abilities. The first words he uttered ending up hitting the bull’s eye: he promised to marry the widow.
She complied with his requests, without wavering or even displaying any particular coyness. When the police came, they were told that Petr Terentyevich had been weak from illness and grown dizzy. Waving her arms around, Galina Artemovna showed how unfortunately her spouse had fallen. They sat the inconsolable widow on the bed (it was already made up with three plumped pillows, one on top of the other) and ordered the neighbors to give her enough valerian so she’d feel better. Taras, who was fourteen at the time, stood in the corner of the room, holding the broken-off eagle head in his hands. Big, slow tears dropped from his eyes.
Petr Terentyevich was not buried as he had dreamed. Galina Artemovna was extremely indignant to discover her husband’s unaccounted-for five hundred rubles; she buried him without music. In addition to Taras and Galina Artemovna, those walking behind the coffin were Ivan Mikhailovich, Nina Fedorovna and the little Zoya, and a representative of a certain organization (he mysteriously placed a finger to his lips at all questions) with which, it emerged, Petr Terentyevich’s entire conscious life had been linked.
It was this very organization that took care that the event was fittingly solemn. Taking into account that the deceased had been housed in the room of a White Guard general, Petr Terentyevich’s death from a two-headed eagle was assessed as almost heroic and, in the highest degree, anti-monarchical. The unknown person installed an aluminum tripod with a star and a pointed Red Army hat on Kozachenko’s grave. For some reason, no representatives from the deceased’s primary place of work were in attendance. Even so, the Magarach Institute allocated fifteen liters of wine for the wake, but, in light of Galina Artemovna’s cancellation of the wake, Ivan Kolpakov, who was secretly engaged to her, drank all fifteen liters.
As for Kolpakov, he was in no hurry whatsoever for what had been secret to become evident. Either he thought the danger of unmasking had been overcome or the cost of the issue itself seemed too high to him, but he simply stopped mentioning the promise he had made to the widow. Moreover, even the small bed-based joys that had bonded him with Galina Artemovna ceased shortly thereafter. Their contact was reduced to Kolpakov’s brief visits, for treating morning hangovers with Petr Terentyevich’s leftover medicinal alcohol.
Another abominable scene took place one morning and, in many ways, hastened a denouement. As she waited for Ivan Mikhailovich to vacate the washbasin (he was washing at great length, gargling, grunting, and clearing out phlegm), the widow remarked, reproachful, that other people needed to wash, too. Exclaiming, ‘Then wash!’ Ivan Mikhailovich Kolpakov splashed her in the face with water from a large tin mug that was nearby. The water was cold but clean.
Galina Artemovna felt insulted and demanded an explanation. She pointed out to the boor that actions of this sort were inadmissible, reminding him at the same time of his promise to enter into marriage with her. With his characteristic harshness, Ivan Mikhailovich led the wetted woman to the mirror and suggested she remember how old she really was. The breaker of the marriage promise recommended she think not about a wedding but about a funeral. In response to the threat of telling the police the whole truth, Ivan Kolpakov burst into Homeric laughter.
He underestimated Galina Artemovna. She did not, in fact, go to the police; after all, what could she have said there after her own eloquent statements? Ivan Mikhailovich’s line about a funeral sent her mind in an unexpected direction, though. After brief deliberations, she decided to die on the same day as her betrothed. Galina Artemovna waited for yet another visit aimed at hangover treatment (there was not much of a wait) and then dissolved her husband’s collection of toxic agents into his alcohol and handed the solution to Ivan Kolpakov. Several minutes later, Ivan Mikhailovich passed away in the arms of Yekaterina Ivanovna, his lawful wife, whom he just managed to reach. Convinced of the preparation’s efficacy, Galina Artemovna drank all that remained.