She immediately wanted to live there, wanted to exhale frosty steam in the small lanes, clear little paths in the snowdrifts, wear loose, ample blouses untucked, drink tea with hard round pretzels purchased in a little, ruddy, golden shop.
Elated by the strong morning air, by Moscow’s slapdash shabbiness, by the smoldering geranium lampposts in low windowsills, Natasha awoke, threw her arms open wide, laughed, and fell in love—swiftly and uninhibitedly, on meeting the bearded, sandy-haired Pyotr Petrovich from the city of Izium, who had come to Moscow to go shopping. Happy, she laughed, leaning her chest on the table of the dumpling shop, and watched with shining eyes as Pyotr Petrovich heartily tossed the steaming white blobs into his large mouth; she trotted around to stores with the cheerful Iziumer like a dog, waved from long lines, helped him lug blue shoeboxes, elbowed her way through to the steep Eliseevsky counter windows, and in the crowd accidentally pressed her cheek to the wide, fragrant back of that beloved sheepskin coat.
And Pyotr Petrovich, unaware, laughed joyfully, turned around toward Natasha as he swayed in the roaring surf at the counters of Children’s World, and in a booming voice called through the storm of heads: “Miss! Over here, Miss! Give me a tabletop ring toss.” And from afar he raised his victorious hands and linked them over his head, nodding to Natasha: I’m alive, alive, I bought it, await me on the shore….
And at the station, near the train to Izium, he shook Natasha’s hand joyfully: Thank you, you’re a wonderful woman, come visit Izium, you’ll get on splendidly with my wife, you’ll meet my children….
Pyotr Petrovich sank, Natasha howled like a wolf after the departing green train, and her howl—a wartime, train station howl—flew over the ringing rails, over the redbrick barracks, over the cruel, bitter-cold earth. And behind Natasha, holding her firmly by the shoulder, stood old age, like a stern, patient doctor who has prepared his usual instruments.
She began to like gray goosedown scarves, to be pickier about her shoes: were they well-cut, did they pinch? She went to visit old lady Morshanskaya, and inspected her boxes of homeopathic remedies: sulfur iodine, salvia, hamamelis. For the old woman’s birthday she gave her an enema bag: light blue, cheerful, with a relief drawing: little bouquets of lily of the valley against a sunrise. Konkordia Benediktovna returned from visiting her sister in Paris and brought Natasha a red plastic spoon. The widower Gagin would drop in with a crossword puzzle: Now then, Natasha, this is your territory—a river in Kazakhstan, five letters, ending with “sh”?
At New Year’s, Gagin drank champagne and offered Natasha his heart and hand; Natasha laughed, Gagin laughed too; he was a jovial old man, and every year his drunken Santa Clauses and pedigree milk-cow Snow Whites turned out cheerier and cheerier.
Natasha moved the buffet and remembered Konovalov; at first he flared like a blue spark in the dark, then he flew in more and more often, hovered in the air, blotted his nose, and timidly disappeared if someone knocked at the door. While canning tomatoes, throwing the whole weight of her body onto the stiff lids of the jars, Natasha imagined how Konovalov, gratefully surprised, would fish out a soft, cool, dripping ball with two fingers, and ask for seconds.
Asleep in Serafimovsky Cemetery, Grandmother approved of Konovalov, but she’d gone and taken his address with her. Natasha flipped through the phone book: Konovalovs multiplied like cards in a deck, they scattered about the city like ants, their little black numbers blinked—one lived here, on Liteiny. It was easy to say: find Konovalov…. A copper bell with a round inscription: “please turn.” Brrring, brring, brrriiinngg! Silence.
Slip-slap—footsteps. The bar clanks; squealing, a two-foot-long iron-smelling hook flies off; a chain scrapes. A suspicious old lady sticks a yellow, hairy nose out from the darkness, the smell of kasha wafts through the door: “Who do you want?”— “Konovalov.”—“He’s not home.” Bang!—the door slams shut. Maybe he lives in a new building, on Rzhevka, or Grazhdanka, or on Silvery Boulevard, all riddled with rusty wire?… “Who’s there?” “I’m looking for Konovalov, please….” A surprised wife —dark, thin—wipes her hands on her apron, perplexed: Come in, please, but… Behind her—an unfamiliar, alien apartment, their apartment, the unread story of a life that has passed without me…. Konovalov comes out, chewing: “Who are you?…”
No, but maybe he actually lives out of town? In some two-story wooden house…. A rooster wanders about the yard, tiger lilies bloom near the porch, the ground is trampled, packed down by feet…. A front door—like a dacha outhouse, and farther on, up a steep stair—a dark entryway, a hanging horse collar, wooden washtubs…. “It’s Konovalov you want? Upstairs, upstairs, knock on the door….” And he’s lying in his boots on the bed, a cigarette in his hand, flowers in the windows, a grandfather clock: ticktock, ticktock; the pinecone weight crawls down…. And what will I say to him? “Oh, Konovalov! If once you loved a green, unripe sapling, then won’t you now take autumn’s withering, rotting fallen fruit?…”
In the cemetery where old lady Morshanskaya was buried there was also a Konovalov, but that one was four years old, and in the last century for that matter; and besides, the little tombstone angel, pressing a green finger to his mossy lips, invited silence.
Natasha knitted Gagin a pair of socks: The old man’s room was damp. She mustn’t forget to caulk the windows for the winter. Some wonderful star pupils presented her with a colorful album for her birthday: Cats of Europe. The elevator began to break down more frequently. You can rarely buy good tea nowadays. Did you hear, there’s a cold front coming in tomorrow? Listen to that wind howl. And Natasha went to the window and listened, and nothing, nothing could be heard but the din of passing life.
NIGHT
IN THE mornings Alexei Petrovich’s mama yawns loud and long: hurrah, onward, a new morning gushes in through the window; the cactuses shine, the curtains quiver; the gates of the nighttime realm have slammed shut; dragons, mushrooms, and frightening dwarfs have plunged below the earth once again, life triumphs, the heralds blow their horns: a new day! a new day! Da-da-da da da-daa!
Mamochka combs her thinning hair oh so quickly with her hands, throws her bluish legs over the high bed frame—let them hang for a moment and think: all day they’ll have to drag around the 135 kilos that Mamochka has accumulated in the course of eighty years.
Alexei Petrovich opened his eyes: sleep slips serenely from his body; everything is forgotten, the last crow flies off into the gloom; the nocturnal guests, gathering their ghostly, ambiguous props, have interrupted the play until next time. A breeze sweetly fans Alexei Petrovich’s bald spot, the newly grown bristle on his cheeks pricks his palm. Isn’t it time to get up? Mamochka will give the order. Mamochka is so big, loud, and spacious, and Alexei Petrovich is so little. Mamochka knows everything, can do everything, gets in everywhere. Mamochka is all powerful. Whatever she says, goes. And he—is a late child, a little bundle, nature’s blunder, a soap sliver, a weed intended for burning that accidentally wormed its way in among its healthy brethren when the Sower generously scattered the full-blooded seeds of life about the earth.
Can I get up already, or is it early? Don’t squawk. Mamochka is carrying out her morning rituaclass="underline" She honks into a handkerchief, pulls her stockings, sticking and prickling, onto the columns of her legs, fastens them under her swollen knees with little rings of white rubber. She hoists a linen frame with fifteen buttons onto her monstrous breast; buttoning it in the back is probably hard. The gray chignon is reattached at Mamochka’s zenith; shaken from a clean nighttime glass, her freshened teeth flutter. Mamochka’s facade will be concealed under a white, pleated dickey, and, hiding the seams on the back, the insides out, napes, back stairs, and emergency exits—a sturdy dark blue jacket will cover the whole majestic building. The palace has been erected.