The Summer Guest Page 18

  He is always welcome, of course, but yes, if he shows up unannounced, I’ll let you know.

  We discussed the matter no further.

  This morning Natasha came and sat by me on the veranda. I could sense she was restless: The creaking of the wicker told me as much. Finally, she said, They’re leaving soon.

  I know.

  It will be so dull here without them.

  I was silent, acquiescing. Then I encouraged her: But you will have your classes soon, the children.

  I know, but I shall miss Masha even then—we have so many ideas and stories to share.

  I’ll listen, you know I will.

  She made a small noise between a laugh and a sigh, and said, What do you and Anton Pavlovich talk about all the time?

  Oh, life. You know. Do we philosophize? Not exactly, nothing that grand.

  (I did not want to talk about his novel; it was our secret.)

  About what?

  I laughed at her persistence. There is nothing worse than trying to relate an abstract conversation, and besides, I did not want to surrender the thoughts Anton Pavlovich and I had shared in confidence to Natasha’s impatient curiosity. So I used a tool, I am ashamed to say, that would cut her short.

  About death. About my illness. Why me. That sort of thing.

  A short intake of breath, then: But that’s terrible! I always see the two of you laughing and whispering as if you’re plotting to storm the Winter Palace! She was silent for a moment, then said in what was almost an outburst of pique: He’s such an odd man!

  In what way?

  Masha says he has no end of women throwing themselves at him. He could have the princess of the ball. And yet he does not marry. Does he ever talk about love?

  Love? No.

  He is so secretive. Masha told me he was briefly engaged to a Jewess two years ago, then just broke it off, no explanation.

  I paused, as this was something of a shock to me. Anton Pavlovich has never mentioned it, obviously, since we do not talk about such things. I suppose I have been regarding him as someone who is above the everyday frivolity of romance, despite the fact that Masha has told me of his multiple flirtations. Here he does not flirt. But perhaps I have simply been trying to believe something else about him all along. So I imagine him being rowed around the pond of medicine and literature by friends who speak of earnest worldly things. I did not let my surprise show, or at least I hope not, and reached for what I thought might be rational excuses on Anton Pavlovich’s behalf.

  Well, Natasha, you know he has a lot of work, not much time for affairs of the heart. And with a mother and sister who are there to take care of things, it’s not a wife he needs, not any time soon.

  Yes, but love—that’s the point! Why doesn’t he fall in love? Can he govern that, too?

  I suppose. Some people can. They begin to fall in love, then they reason their way back out of it. Men especially.

  How would you know?

  Natasha, it’s common knowledge. As for Anton Pavlovich, perhaps he’s been in love, but it wasn’t the right time or there were problems.

  He hasn’t told you anything?

  No, Natasha. I’m not his confessor.

  After a long pause she said, I do envy him his freedom. The Crimea, the Caucasus, traveling here and there. It must be wonderful.

  And yet he wants nothing more than to find a farm chez nous!

  That is absurd, she said, a hint of awkwardness in her laugh.

  Just think, Natasha, if he were our neighbor—along with Masha and Ivan—we would never find it dull at Luka. At least not in the summer.

  We were quiet for a long time. Then she said, You’ve been happy this summer, haven’t you, Zina?

  I nodded. It relieves the burden on Mama, on you, on Elena.

  What burden? No, I say, you’ve been happy—we all have.

  Yes. We all have.

  Anton Pavlovich has given me a cloud.

  We were sitting by the pond at dusk, and I told him how I missed seeing clouds. He joked at first, saying clouds all looked like him and his brothers as hoary old men. Then he said, Forgive me, Zinaida Mikhailovna, I haven’t been paying attention. It’s actually rather extraordinary: There is one fat little cloud sitting above the pond, gorged with the light of the departing sun. Everywhere else, night has fallen, but across the surface of your pond, like the reflection of a path to the moon, there is an insolent burst of cloudlight.

  I am so often alone. I know the change that will come with autumn. Natasha will return to her school. Our guests will depart. The veranda will fill with dry leaves, and it will be too chilly to sit here. Georges will leave for Petersburg and take his music with him.

  The days are getting shorter. Warmth recedes from my skin; birds sing earlier in the evening. The buzz of insects is fading. Less song on the roads, on the river. Grigory Petrovich grumbling more. Anton Pavlovich has come twice today, just briefly to ask something of Mama or Pasha. I sense his nervousness, his awareness of departure. He apologized that he could not stay; there was suddenly so much to do.

  They came to fetch me for one last ride in the carriage with Roman and Anton Pavlovich, as far as Olshanka. There was a good open breeze: I leaned forward on the seat, drank in the air. I’ve kept my recollection of his description here, too. It might serve again in the future.

  The road is leading into the distance, the distance where we are going and which we cannot see; there’s a slight rise, toward the horizon of tall grass and a long line of poplar trees. It’s deserted, we have the whole world to ourselves; the tall grass is bending to the breeze. The air is the color of candlelight on an icon. The sun has almost reached the horizon. There’s not much time, and yet you feel, with so much space around you, that nothing could ever change: not the sun, or the tall grass, or the road into the distance.

  September 1, 1888

  This is goodbye for now, and we shall meet again in the spring.

  Yes, Anton Pavlovich.

  I shall—he lowered his voice—come back with my novel. And a play I plan to write.

  Do you think you’ll manage to finish the novel by springtime?

  I don’t know. We shall see how much time the demons of Moscow leave me for the things that matter in life.

  Demons?

  Critics and littérateurs, ladies, my own procrastinating self . . . He let out a sigh that turned to a short laugh.

  Embarrassed, I said quickly, And your stories?

  Of course I shall continue to write them. Bread on the table, as we said, and the satisfaction of a moment seized on the wing; none of the hand-wringing this novel is giving me. A story is like Luka, small, contained, a world unto itself—the pond, the river, Grigory Petrovich shuffling along with a scratchy tune in his throat, the ladies sipping tea. Whereas the novel . . . Is it from here to Irkutsk or here to Mongolia? I can’t see the horizon.

  But isn’t that the point? To travel into the unseen distance until you can see the horizon?

  I talked quickly, a bit breathlessly; I did not want to leave time for thoughts of parting to steal my words or seize my throat. I could not see my own horizon. But his was made of words and mine of days.

  He did not answer my question but reached over and squeezed my hand. Sometimes, Zinaida Mikhailovna, I am just tired. I would like to throw it all in and sit by the river with my fishing pole for the rest of my days. Can you imagine that?

  I nodded.

  He could not deceive me; I welcomed his trust. I did not need to encourage him; he came to me for something else.

  He continued, And sometimes I feel that fine enthusiasm drain away. I wonder—why do I do it? Then I know why, and it’s not that the enthusiasm returns, but there is something that enables me to sit before the page—sheer pigheadedness, perhaps, and then there is a kind of quiet joy, meeting those characters for the first time, throwing them together on a road or in a garden or a drawing room. I suppose it is their life that carries me.

  He paused; I nod
ded, waiting for him to continue.

  He laughed gently. I’m boring you, Zinaida Mikhailovna. You’ve heard it all before. You would surely rather hear about our last expedition with Artyomenko. I told him he must bring you some crayfish from time to time after I’ve gone. I said, As the Lintvaryovs’ appointed purveyor of riverine victuals, I shall be sorely missed, and he asked me to translate.

  I smiled. I wanted to say he was right, that he would be missed, but I couldn’t speak. So I nodded and hoped he knew what my odd head-bobbing signified. I knew he must leave very soon; already the others were coming from the next room with Mama and my sisters and brothers. I could hear Mama talking quickly, tripping over her own words, her voice full of tears and recommendations for the journey. Hastily, Anton Pavlovich kissed my hand, and we embraced briefly, and my arms were empty for a long moment until Masha was there, full of emotion, with her light voice carrying the echo of her brother’s, and there were promises to write, and to meet Pasha and Georges when they went up to Moscow, and entreaties to keep an eye on the miller’s daughter (she must marry only a very handsome Ukrainian fellow, no dreary Russian landowners!). And to look after the water bittern, which we still have never seen, and the pigs, and more entreaties on our side not to forget us in the splendor of the big city, and to keep looking for a farm. Above all, there were the mutual promises of spring: Come back, we’ll be back, after the last frost, with the first buds.

  Then they were gone, and we all sat quietly, a bit stunned, until their voices had faded and we heard the carriages setting off at last for the station.

  Late October 1888

  Should I be writing more often? Are there rules of journal writing to be obeyed, even when one is blind and full of headaches?

  With the autumn chill, my headaches and seizures seem to have gotten worse. There is a tingling, too, in my extremities. Sometimes it is hard to hold the pen. All reasons not to write.

  But the greatest reason is dullness. There is little to relate. My greatest joy is little Ksenia; I cannot see how she grows, but Pasha and Tonya let me touch her and hold her, and I can gauge her growing in gurgles and jiggles.

  Poor Pasha, he came home so disheartened from Moscow. He has not been admitted to the Agricultural and Forestry Academy. He had such high hopes. But even Mama was shaking her head when he left for the train. It’s his wretched politics, she said, he’s wasting his time, they’ll not want the likes of him.

  At least he was able to see Anton Pavlovich and bring us greetings that hadn’t been mussed up by the tsar’s censors.

  Before he left, Anton Pavlovich and I had agreed that he would not write to me, because his message would have to pass through the censorship of my mother or sisters; not that he minded, really, but he wouldn’t be able to write what he truly wished to write, knowing that others would read it. And I told him I would be happier if he kept that time for working on his novel. He did something he had never done: He squeezed my chin between his thumb and fingers and bobbed my head in approval.

  But Elena has had a letter from Anton Pavlovich. He tells her he has received a very prestigious prize for literature, the Pushkin Prize, for the collection he read to us this summer, In the Twilight. Of course he jokes about it and says, It must be because I caught crayfish. I am very happy for him. He says he feels like he’s in love. What a satisfaction that must be, to see one’s work so justly rewarded. All that grumbling and joking about writing for money, all the modesty and refusal to take himself seriously—well, he may not, but clearly, others do!

  Will this change him? I wonder. Might he decide to give up medicine and devote himself to his writing—and the novel? Or will this mean a greater obligation to the writing circles of Saint Petersburg and Moscow, giving lectures and going to soirees and being seen with the right people at the Slavyansky Bazaar?

  To which he adds that his memories of the summer are fading, as here they fade. The last flowers are dying, leaves are falling, the birds have begun their migration. There is a silence in autumn, a long breath of farewell, still looking back, hoping to keep some part of the summer.

  Then Anton Pavlovich describes the Museum of Things His Friends Forgot from the Summer—Barantsevich’s breeches, Pleshcheyev’s nightshirt—signifying their desire to return? And he adds a long strange farewell, his own and Othello’s: Farewell summer, farewell crayfish, chub, sharp-nosed rowing boats, farewell my languor, farewell little blue suit.

  Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content!

  Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars,

  That make ambition virtue! O, farewell!

  I asked Elena to read it three times, and I puzzle over it still. Perhaps it is some private joke between the two of them. Her voice was quite flat and neutral as she read it.

  There was no mention of his elder brother in Petersburg.

  I have my own Museum of Memories My Friends Have Left Me With. Less prosaic than nightshirts and breeches, to be sure. And they do not need to come and claim them—only to bring more.

  Early December 1888

  I tried to write to Anton Pavlovich on my own but gave up. Elena says my writing is becoming illegible, that Anton Pavlovich is too busy to sit down and decipher it. So we wrote the letter together. We had a reply from him not long ago. As I feared, he spends a great deal of time socializing; he says that nevertheless he is writing. But still he wishes he could come to the country and hibernate until spring. Does he really mean it, or is it to make us long for him in some way?

  We have had snow. I can sense the stillness when I wake. I remember the brightness and purity. Pasha took me out in the sleigh for a ride. He said the color came back to my cheeks. There was the silence of the countryside, only the sound of the runners and bells and the horses’ snorting, their striving in the cold.

  Mama keeps my room warm. I sleep a lot; the doctor—Elena—has given me laudanum. It makes things better. Dreamy, hesitant, less painful, as if hope were real.

  I am learning to write more slowly, more clearly, so that Ksenia will be able to read this someday. I asked Elena to check; because of the laudanum, I suppose, she says my handwriting looks as if I were drunk. But legible, that’s all that matters.

  Heavy snow. We were housebound for three days. Pasha chops wood with Grigory Petrovich. Like the rhythm of days, ax on block.

  Another letter from Anton Pavlovich. He was in Petersburg. He saw Georges. That we knew; now Anton Pavlovich says he will arrange an introduction with Tchaikovsky for Georges.

  The music from the summer: the notes traveling along the corridors of our old house, on out into the garden. They echo even now in my mind. All around me is silence; is it day or night? I hardly know. A sleepless time, that is all.

  My little brother, walking down the Nevsky Prospekt, meeting young musicians, meeting Anton Pavlovich and his friends, concerts, dancing, Tchaikovsky. Luka is reduced to snow and walls, to the chopping of firewood, then silence.

  Natasha reads to me. An anthology arrived with a story by Anton Pavlovich, “A Nervous Breakdown.” At first we laughed, and Natasha is very good at imitating the way he reads, but as she went further, her voice became more somber, until we understood the story’s serious import. It left me quite oppressed, and Natasha was in a terrible mood for two whole days.

  January 17, 1889

  Christmas and the New Year have passed. Quiet festivities; Mama paid special attention to the food, for my sake: kutya, borscht, varenyky. Georges returned briefly from Piter, bringing a bustle of cafés and culture with him. He met Tchaikovsky, who was kind and modest and shared his cigars. Georges’s studies are going well, and he has seen old friends. Barantsevich on his tram, no less, quite by chance! For a split second Kazimir Stanislavovich stared at Georges, certain that he knew him, but incapable of remembering where he had last seen him, and when he realized, he laughed and exclaimed so loudly that the passengers turned around to stare. Georges also saw Monsieur Pleshcheyev, who is doing well, rosy-cheeked in the cold;
he took Georges to dinner with Gypsies and caviar. Anton Pavlovich is much in demand since his prize, everyone comes up to him and stops him on the street; half of Petersburg seems to know him already. But Georges said he didn’t look all that well—awfully pale, with a dreadful cold, but he confirmed that he’d be returning to Luka at the end of April to continue looking for a farmstead and to go fishing, and Saint Petersburg and Moscow be damned.

  Georges brought us some novels. Germinal by Zola, and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by a Scotsman, Robert Louis Stevenson. You and Elena will appreciate the medical angle in this one, he explained. And he had some new scores of music. Briefly, the house came alive again. I slept better than I have in weeks. The music brought warmth and serenity, each note settling upon me with its weight of comfort until I was blanketed and could not move for the peacefulness of it.

  THE SECOND SUMMER

  April 26, 1889

  Natasha walked with me to the guesthouse.

  I am aching all over, and in my heart.

  It is hard to write. I must be brief, spare my energy.

  Anton Pavlovich has arrived with his mother and Nikolay Pavlovich.

  We sat inside, in the guesthouse. Evgenia Yakovlevna fussed over the tea. Anton Pavlovich seemed distracted; Natasha confirmed that he could not sit still. His brother is in bed: Through the wall, we could hear him coughing, like a small relentless animal. I’m here, said Anton Pavlovich, because he is not well. I was invited to Biarritz with Suvorin, but I must stay here. He paused, realized how that must sound to us, then said in a subdued, sad voice, We are so close, he and I—I cannot leave. How could I travel all the way to the Atlantic Ocean and know he is lying here sick while I’m drinking champagne and staring at seagulls? I could never forgive myself if something were to happen while I was away. He needs me here.

  On the way back to the main house, Natasha squeezed my hand. Masha will be here in a few weeks, she said. Then things will be like before.

  April 28, 1889