No, no, no! Don’t even think about getting involved with him.
It was only Filin, untiring, who was capable of picking up, feeding, and amusing anyone at all—well, including us, too, of course! Oh, Filin! Generous owner of golden fruit, he hands them out right and left, giving food to the hungry and drink to the thirsty; he waves his hand, and gardens bloom, women grow more beautiful, bores get inspired, and crows sing like nightingales.
That’s what he’s like. That’s him.
And what marvelous friends he has…. Ignaty Kirillych, the pastry wizard. Or that ballerina he visits—Doltseva-Elanskaya…
“Of course, that’s her stage name,” said Filin, kicking his foot and admiring the ceiling. “Her maiden name was Dogina, Olga Ieronimovna. Her first husband was Katkin, the second Mousekin. A game of diminishing returns, so to speak. She was quite a hit in her day. Grand dukes stood in line, bringing her topazes by the sack. That was her weakness, smoky topazes. But she was a very simple, heartfelt, progressive woman. After the revolution she decided to give her stones to the people. She was as good as her word: she took off her necklace, tore the thread, poured them out on the table. There was a knock at the door: they came to move more people into her apartment. While they talked and so on, by the time she came back the parrot had eaten them all. Birds, as you know, need stones for their digestion. He’d devoured about five million’s worth—and he flew out the window. She followed. ‘Kokosha, where are you going? What about the people?’ He went south. She followed. She reached Odessa, don’t ask me how. The ship was taking off, the stacks smoking, shouts, suitcases—people fleeing to Constantinople. The parrot landed on the smokestack and sat there. He was warm. So this Olga Dogina, what do you think, she hooked her trained leg over the side of the ship and stopped the ship. And she wouldn’t let go until they got her the parrot. She shook everything out of it down to the last kopek and donated it to the Red Cross. Of course, they had to amputate her leg, but she didn’t give up, she danced in hospitals on crutches. Now she’s hundreds of years old, flat on her back, put on weight. I visit her, read Sterne to her. Yes, Olga Dogina, from a merchant family… Think what power there is in our people. So much untapped power…”
Galya regarded Filin with adoration. Suddenly he was clear to her—handsome, giving, hospitable… Oh, how lucky that mustachioed Allochka was. She didn’t appreciate him, turning her indifferent lemur-shiny eyes at the guests, Filin, the flowers and cookies, as if this were the usual order of things, as if this is just the way things should be. As if far away at the ends of the earth, Galya’s daughter, dog, and “Chilled?” were not languishing, hostages in the dark on the threshold of the aspen forest, quivering with rage.
For dessert they had grapefruit stuffed with shrimp, and the magical old man drank tea from his saucer.
A stone lay on her heart.
At home, in the darkness, listening to the glassy ringing of the aspens, the roar of the sleepless boundary road, the rustles of wolf fur in the distant forest, the slither of the chilled beet greens under their snow blanket, she thought: we’ll never get out of here. Someone unnamed, indifferent, like fate, had decided: this one, this one, and this one will live in a palace. Life will be good for them. And these, and these, and these ones, too, including Galya and Yura, will live there. No, not there, wa-a-ay over there, that’s right, yes. By the ravine, beyond the deserted lots. And don’t be pushy, don’t bother. End of conversation. Wait a minute! What is this? But fate has already turned its back, laughing with its friends, and its iron back is solid— you can’t get its attention by knocking. If you want, you can have hysterics, roll on the floor, kick your legs, if you want, you can lie low and gradually turn wild, collecting portions of cold poison in your teeth.
They tried clambering, tried switching, posting notices, turned the apartment exchange newsletter into Swiss cheese, gutting it, telephoned in humiliation: “We have a forest… wonderful air… it’s great for the child, and you don’t need a dacha… same to you. You’re nuts!” They filled notebooks with hurried notations: “Zinaida Samoilovna is thinking it over….” “Hana will call back….” “Peter Ivanych has to have a balcony.…” Miraculously, Yura found an old woman who had a three-room apartment on the second floor in Patriarshie Prudy, in the middle of Moscow, and she was willful and spoiled. Fifteen families got entangled in an exchange chain, each with its own demands, heart attacks, crazy neighbors, broken hearts, and lost birth certificates. They taxied the capricious old woman hither and yon, got expensive medications for her, as well as warm boots and ham, and promised her money. It was on the verge of happening, thirty-eight people trembled and grumbled, weddings were called off, summer vacations burst, somewhere in the chain a certain Simakov dropped out, bleeding ulcers—doesn’t matter, forget him—the ranks closed, more efforts, the old woman equivocated and resisted, under horrible pressure signed the documents, and just at the moment when somewhere in the cloudy skies a pink angel filled out the order with an air pen, bam! she changed her mind. Just like that— upped and changed it. And just leave her alone.
The howl of fifteen families shook the earth, the axis shifted, volcanoes erupted, Hurricane Anna wiped out a young underdeveloped nation, the Himalayas grew even taller and the Marianas Trench deeper, but Galya and Yura remained where they were. And the wolves giggled in the forest. For it was written: if you are meant to chirp, don’t purr. If you are meant to purr, don’t chirp.
“Should we denounce the old woman?” Galya said.
“But to whom?” Haggard Yura burned with an evil flame, it was sad to look at him. He figured this and that—no go.
Maybe complain to St. Peter, so that he wouldn’t let the lousy woman into Heaven. Yura picked up a lot of rocks in the quarry and went one night to her house to break her windows, but came back with the news that they were broken—they weren’t the only ones with the bright idea.
Then they cooled off, of course.
Now she lay and thought about Filin: how he folded his fingers into a tent, smiled, dangled his foot, how he raised his eyes to the ceiling when he talked…. There was so much she had to tell him…. Bright light, bright flowers, the bright silvery beard with the black spot around his mouth. Of course, Alisa was no match for him, and she couldn’t appreciate the wonderland. Nor did she deserve it. He needed someone understanding….
“Blah-blah-blah,” said Yura in his sleep.
…Yes, someone understanding and sensitive… to steam his raspberry robe… run his bath… do something with his slippers…
They’d divide their property like this: Yura could have the apartment, the dog, and the furniture. Galya would take their daughter, some of the linens, the iron, and the washing machine. The toaster. The mirror from the hallway. Mother’s good forks. The African violet. That’s all, probably.
No, that’s nonsense. How could you understand Galya’s life, Galya’s third-rate existence, the humiliation, the jabs at her soul? How can you describe it? How can you describe—well, how about the time Galya managed to get—through chicanery, bribery, and the necessary phone calls—a ticket to the Bolshoi—in the orchestra!—just one lousy ticket (of course, Yura wasn’t interested in culture), how she bathed, steamed, and curled herself, preparing for the big event, how she left the house on tiptoe, cherishing the golden atmosphere of the lofty and beautiful in herself—but it was autumn, it started to pour, and she couldn’t get a taxi, and Galya rushed around in the slush, damning the skies, fate, the city builders, and when she finally got to the theater she realized she had left her good shoes at home and her boots were full of mud and the soles had red cakes with clumps of grass sticking out of them—a vulgar bumpkin, a country creep, a local yokel. Even the hem of her dress was messed up.