After my meeting with the editor I began replying to our contributors with even less enthusiasm than before. Clenching my teeth and fuming with rage, I would cynically advise them to study the classics — and especially Mayakovsky.[11]
During this same period I had several out-of-town assignments, and each time I returned with an article, I knew in advance which sections would be to the editor’s liking and which would not. And for those sections which were destined for deletion I did what little I could, making them stylistically as attractive as possible.
Things were proceeding pretty much as usual when something occurred which, while in no way related to the goatibex, was nonetheless to have a certain influence on my life.
One evening I was sitting with some friends on top of the sea wall, gazing down at the double stream of smartly dressed people who kept passing one another on the street below. And perhaps because of their constant movement — their jostling and intermingling — there was an air of excitement about them which conveyed itself to us.
Black pants, pointed shoes, a dazzling white shirt, and a pack of Kazbek cigarettes stuck in one’s belt like a cowboy pistol — such was the summer attire of our southern Don Juans.
The evening promised nothing special, nor were we expecting anything out of the ordinary. We were simply sitting and enjoying ourselves, gazing idly at the passers-by and making the extravagant comments men usually make on such occasions.
Then she appeared — a young girl in the company of two elderly ladies. As they passed right beside us on the sidewalk, I managed to catch a glimpse of her charming profile and luxuriant, golden hair. She was a most attractive girl. Only her waist struck me as overly slender; there was something old-fashioned about it — something from the era of stays and corsets.
She was politely and submissively listening to what one of the ladies was saying. But I didn’t have much faith in her submissiveness; it seemed to me that a girl with such full lips was not likely to be very submissive.
I followed her with my eyes until she and her companions had disappeared from sight. Fortunately, my friends hadn’t noticed her. They had been so absorbed in watching the street below that they had failed to see what was right under their noses. I continued to sit there for a while, but my friends’ conversation no longer reached me. I was so immersed in my thoughts that their voices seemed to be coming from far away, as if across a broad expanse of water.
I couldn’t get the girl out of my mind. I wanted to catch sight of her again and as quickly as possible. Not that I feared any competition from our local dandies. With their languorous gait and silly cartridge belts stuffed full of half-empty cigarette packs, they were simply not her type — of that I was sure. No, in this case the challenge lay elsewhere. And what a pleasant challenge it would be to deliver her from under the overly protective wing of two elderly ladies.
Without further delay I took leave of my friends and started off down the street. The chances of finding her in such a mass of humanity seemed very remote, but by now she was fixed in my mind. And once a person is fixed in your mind, however slightly, you can be sure that somehow, somewhere your paths will cross. Well, I thought to myself, if this is the way I feel about this girl, I must finally be cured of the old one. The major had proved a good doctor, and now in my willingness to be afflicted once again I saw the sure sign of my recovery. I began to look for her.
Although I knew that I would eventually find her, I hadn’t the slightest idea what would happen after that. For the moment, I simply wanted to convince myself that she had in fact appeared before me and was not merely a figment of my imagination.
Suddenly, as I was approaching the small pier used by our local fishing and excursion boats, I saw her in the distance, leaning against the guardrail and gazing into the water. She was wearing a simple white blouse and a very full skirt which made her tiny waist look even tinier. She had the sort of figure which can be cut with a pair of scissors, as we say in Abkhazian.
Sitting on a bench nearby were the two ladies with whom she had walked so submissively along the embankment.
In connection with these ladies I should point out that many people have a distorted view of our region and of the Caucasus in general. Most of the rumors about girls being kidnapped, carried off into the mountains, etc., etc., are sheer nonsense. Nonetheless they continue to circulate and many people believe them.
Be that as it may, the girl’s lady companions were now sitting so close to her that if any abduction had been attempted, they could easily have reached out and grabbed the edge of her skirt without even rising from their seats. This same skirt was now flapping widely and freely around her legs like the flag of some independent but thoroughly reliable power.
Still debating what to do next, I made my way to the end of the pier. Then as I turned around and started back, I decided to throw caution to the winds and come to a halt beside her. In so doing, I would take advantage of the one tactical error committed by her escort: her seaward flank had been left unguarded.
The sea was my ally, and now as I made my approach, a light breeze began blowing at my back like a friendly hand urging me on to some daring act. All of a sudden a gust of wind lifted her skirt so high that I had the feeling she would fly off before I could reach her. I hastened my steps involuntarily. But now, without even bothering to look, she clapped down her skirt with her hand — as if she were merely closing a window to keep out a draft. Or perhaps this is the way one collapses a parachute. Although I myself have never parachuted and, needless to say, never intend to, for some reason the image of a parachute, and specifically a collapsed one, persists in my mind.
But how was I actually going to strike up a conversation with her? Suddenly it came to me! I would pretend that I too was a tourist. For some reason tourists usually trust each other more than they do the local residents. And as for her being a tourist — this was apparent at a glance.
And so I walked up and stood beside her. I stood there quietly and unobtrusively, as if I just happened to be out for a stroll and had decided to stop and have a look at the Black Sea splashing here in this out-of-the-way spot where there were no tourists to appreciate it. And not wanting to give any grounds for suspicion, I didn’t even glance in her direction.
Right beneath us, gently knocking against the iron ladder of the pier, was a small skiff which belonged to the fishing boat anchored a short distance away. It was this skiff that she was looking at. In retrospect one could say that she was staring Fate straight in the eyes, but at the time I didn’t know this. I noticed only that she was gazing at the skiff somewhat pensively, as if perhaps she were thinking of using it to make a getaway from her companions. Needless to say, I would have been happy to offer my services, if only as rower.
I stood beside her, growing stiffer by the minute and realizing that the longer I waited, the harder it would be to start a conversation.
“I wonder what kind of boat that is,” I finally mumbled, turning toward her — but only halfway, at a forty-five degree angle. It would be hard to imagine a more idiotic question. The girl gave a slight shrug of her shoulders.
“How strange,” I said, pursuing the same foolish line of thought, as if the sight of a skiff tied up at a pier were something to be marveled at. “They say that the border’s very close,” I continued boldly, at the same time wanting to bang my head against the guardrail.
11
A major Russian poet of the early twentieth century and the leading exponent of Russian Futurism. In official circles Mayakovsky has consistently been regarded as Russia’s greatest poet of the Revolution. (Trans.)