‘To the success of our searches,’ said Zoya.
The wine’s unusual properties stunned Solovyov. Its full body and bouquet reminded him of a liqueur, but still it remained wine. After drinking some, Solovyov imagined what the contents of amphorae had been like. He sensed the flavor of a nectar he had read about when studying ancient sources. The young historian had no doubt that the ancients had extolled this very liquid. It was this very liquid the Greek gods had tasted during their rare forays into the Northern Black Sea Region.
Zoya saw that he liked the wine. She herself was drinking it in small swallows, first as a lady, and, second, as a person spoiled by a divine beverage. Plucking off the grapes, Zoya brought them to her mouth without hurrying, then placed them between her front teeth. The grapes held that position for a few moments, offering a demonstration of both the elegant form of Zoya’s teeth and their whiteness. Then the grapes disappeared in her mouth and rolled around behind her cheeks for a while. The Petersburg researcher found this transfer of grapes erotic but could not bring himself to say anything aloud. Solovyov’s helper was, without a doubt, a connoisseur of the grape.
‘Taras knows we were in his room today.’ Zoya did not change her pose or stop eating grapes as she announced this. ‘Yekaterina Ivanovna told him everything.’
Solovyov leaned against the back of the chair. The old-fashioned lampshade was stratifying in their faceted glasses, blending its dark-pink light with the wine’s burgundy color.
‘How will you…’ Solovyov took hold of his glass (the colors disconnected again). ‘How will you go home now?’
Zoya shrugged. ‘Who the hell knows what that Taras will do? You can never guess what to expect from someone timid like that.’ Zoya plucked yet another grape. ‘They told me he was beside himself.’
‘You can’t go home today. Stay with me.’
The grape in her teeth stayed there longer than usual and Solovyov knew Zoya was smiling.
‘I think that would look strange. No. I’ll crash at the train station today and tomorrow the whole thing will be forgotten. Everything gets forgotten in the end.’
‘You’re spending tonight at my place.’
Zoya fell silent. She took a sip of wine and used an easy football-like motion to roll a stray grape along the table. They could hear nocturnal cars driving past outside the window, on the former Autskaya Street. The shaven-headed Crimean elite was racing around at high speed in imported cars with blinding headlights. The baleful sighs of a trolleybus were occasionally audible when silence set in. The trolleybus would slow down, its crossbars clicking somewhere up among the junctions of the overhead wires, and then the vehicle would gather speed again. Cafeteria workers—tired and untalkative, with bulging shopping bags at their feet—were riding the dimly lighted trolleybus. Young Yaltan ladies, their faces made up, were riding. Veterans of various wars, intoxicated by alcohol, were riding; they had put on their medals beforehand so the police would not beat them. The veterans swayed along when the trolleybus turned and their decorations produced a quiet, melodic jingle.
Zoya went to bed on the couch, Solovyov on a folding cot. The only sheets (the same ones Solovyov had been sleeping on) were given to her. Zoya herself expressed readiness to accept them. The guest also assigned sleeping spots. Solovyov was fairly happy that everything was resolving itself without his involvement. Even so, when Zoya flicked the light switch, it was not without sadness that he acknowledged he had assumed events might develop differently. But it turned out this assumption of his was unacceptable for the girl from the Chekhov Museum.
‘Good night.’ There was the sound of a T-shirt being pulled off.
‘Good night.’
Lying in the dark, Solovyov listened, futilely, for Zoya’s breathing. The silence in the room felt unnatural to him. He thought that perhaps Zoya was purposely not moving because she was listening for him. He was afraid even to inhale loudly: the fold-out bed let out a savage screech at the slightest motion. He did not know what time it was, though all he would have to do to find out was turn toward the lighted electronic clock. But Solovyov did not turn. He was afraid even to open his eyes.
When he opened them, the room turned out to be less dark. Meaning not absolutely dark. Whether it was the moon or the coming dawn, the outlines of objects could be seen fairly clearly. The bottle’s silhouette on the table. An uneaten bunch of grapes resembling Mount Ayu-Dag. The glisten of Zoya’s belt buckle on the chair. Solovyov caught his breath: that glisten intensified his feelings to their limit, just as the motion of a train had in another time. Perhaps even more strongly. He tried to figure out if Zoya was sleeping. Her head was dark on the white spot of a pillow; her arms were behind the back of her head. Nobody sleeps like that… The fold-out bed squeaked as Solovyov touched the bottom of his belly and sensed moisture. Whether Zoya was sleeping or not—for some reason, Solovyov did not doubt this—she was lying there completely naked.
Cool air was beginning to waft through the open window. That meant it really was dawn.
‘I’m cold,’ Zoya said, as calmly as if she were continuing a conversation.
‘I can close the window,’ said Solovyov, not moving.
‘I’m cold.’
In that repetition there was no apparent point and there was no intonation—there was nothing there but rhythm. Solovyov recognized that rhythm flawlessly. With a feline motion, he leapt off the fold-out bed without a single squeak. He went over to Zoya’s bed and pressed his legs into her. He felt Zoya’s hair on his damp skin. A moment later he was lying next to her.
‘Hold on…’
As if out of nowhere, she took a condom and placed it in Solovyov’s hot hand. As he put on the condom, Solovyov had no time to be properly surprised that it had appeared.
A second later, Zoya’s legs had entwined behind his back with unexpected strength. This was no comparison for Leeza’s bashful love. There had never before been such energy, flexibility, and passion in his life. Never before had Solovyov felt such powerlessness over his body. Never before had the image of a boat amid waves been so close for him. That image was the last thing that flashed through Solovyov’s mind before his final plunge into the abyss. A hurricane had been hiding behind the museum employee’s outward phlegmatism.
10
The next morning (which began late), they realized that this was the day Solovyov had promised to read his paper about General Larionov. The reading was to be held at Zoya’s house. Despite recent events, Zoya thought the reading was appropriate; this puzzled even the lecturer himself. He was even more surprised that evening when he was coming into the entryway of the communal apartment and ran straight into Taras. Taras was absolutely calm, even courteous. He was the first to greet the guest, after which he backed away, toward the kitchen, and continued standing there, leaning against the general’s cabinet. He was not invited to hear the paper.
The attendees were the same as the first time: the princess plus Shulgin and Nesterenko. It occurred to Solovyov that the fact of the powerful Nesterenko’s presence might also be restraining Taras from repeating yesterday’s hysterics. In any case (Taras’s face expressed its usual shyness), Zoya’s neighbor was fully able to calm down naturally. Solovyov himself gradually calmed down, too. Coming here was not nearly as simple for him as he had led Zoya to believe that morning.