The Summer Guest Read online

Anton Pavlovich has complained there are no boats for fishing. Mama apologized; there have been other priorities, the boats are upriver in the woods with a forester, she explained.

  He looked so disappointed, said Natasha. He just stood there speechless. Mumbled something about going off to find Artyomenko and Panas.

  Mama sighed when he was gone. I should not mind, she said, but I have a feeling it will be a long summer. Long—not in the good sense.

  I must congratulate you on your prize, Anton Pavlovich.

  My prize for catching crayfish? Or for writing stories with both hands tied behind my back?

  Both. I laughed. After a pause: But I am sure it’s well deserved. And we feel honored that you have come back to Luka when we know you could have gone to Abbazia or Biarritz. And you know, during the winter, Natasha read all the stories to me again. They improve with each reading.

  Zinaida Mikhailovna, you will wear them out with so much reading. They won’t survive ten years, believe me. By then everyone will have forgotten about me. Or at best they’ll say, Remember that doctor who went and buried himself in Kharkovsky Province, and he thought he was a writer because they gave him a prize? What was his name, Antoine Shponka?

  False modesty, Anton Pavlovich! You must enjoy your success, not belittle it. If you won a prize, it was for a reason.

  He sighed and said in a more serious tone of voice, It seems like too much good fortune. Should I not be superstitious of it, Zinaida Mikhailovna? Don’t you think I’m too young for such an honor?

  No, you deserve it, and it will help you to feed your family, as you have often said. Don’t forget you have a farmstead to buy.

  Yes, this will be the year for finding my farmstead. Then I can retire from writing and be a doctor.

  Which would be a fine thing, too, Anton Pavlovich, but I for one should miss your stories. Not to mention your novel.

  Yes, please don’t mention it.

  Will you work on it this summer?

  I can’t think that far ahead. I’ve got Nikolay to look after, so until Masha arrives— She sends you her greetings, by the way.

  I’m looking forward to seeing her.

  She will be glad of some real attention for her own sake. She was getting quite cross in Moscow, being invited here and there merely because she was the writer’s sister, as they called her.

  Goodness, has your fame spread even to your sister?

  But it’s ridiculous, Zinaida Mikhailovna! Imagine, people come up to you for all the wrong reasons—for their own sake, for one, to be able to tell others they have met you, and impress their friends; and then for the very things in yourself that you least respect. They don’t come to you as one human being to another; they come to you to feel your glorious shadow over their stooped shoulders, and they’re not the least bit concerned about your ingrown toenail or your unpaid bill at the stationers’, they merely want a piece of your glory, as if it would make them beautiful or immortal or richer than Croesus. You begin to feel like a planet, spinning dizzily from the heat of the sun.

  But how are you to get around it, Anton Pavlovich? You deserve recognition for your stories—I suppose it is human nature to admire and be admired—better this than to be admired for your pretty face, with which you had nothing to do.

  How do you know I have a pretty face?

  I smiled. My sister, your dear Nata-chez-vous, as you call her, told me so.

  She’s quite mistaken. I believe I told you I look like—

  A cross between one of your crocodiles and a boa constrictor?

  Precisely.

  I do wish I could see you.

  You see me, Zinaida Mikhailovna.

  Our conversation has given me much hope for the summer. It is true, Anton Pavlovich’s fame has spread. Even the peasants line up once again outside our gate to consult the doctor from Moscow.

  (He does not charge them a kopeck, either, Elena told me; and he often buys their medication for them.)

  I sit in the sun, soak up the warmth and strength. I have headaches nearly all the time: I defy them with the laudanum, and I try to think of other things. I wait for Anton Pavlovich, but he doesn’t come. Barantsevich is here; he reads to me from a story he has written. He tells me again about the time he met Georges on the tram. That was more amusing than his story.

  Georges will be coming home soon. There will be music; Ivanenko will join us again, and this year he will be bringing his friend Marian Semashko, the cellist.

  Anton Pavlovich came this morning with Nikolay. He has spells, he tells me, where he has strength. He needs to get out, it’s good for him.

  I held Nikolay’s hand briefly. It was hot and dry, he must be feverish. I could hear how he struggled against his cough. At the same time he was excited, telling us about an idea he has for a painting. The work he hopes to do this summer. Until suddenly he turned away, walked to the end of the veranda, coughed and coughed, and finally called for Anton Pavlovich: Take me home.

  Natasha is beside herself. Aleksey Suvorin is staying at the guesthouse for a week on his way to the famous Biarritz. Don’t let that man in our house! she barks. Elena and Pasha support her. Their politics tire me. Anton Pavlovich has always said Aleksey Sergeyevich was not merely his publisher but a friend, a true gentleman who supports the arts, and who has helped his career greatly.

  This means that we will not see Anton Pavlovich all week.

  Dogs howling in the village keep me awake. Others complain about them; I do not mind. The dogs tell me it is night. They are my eyes, they show me my deep yearning, give it voice. They are berating the moonlight for its false promises.

  May 12, 1889

  Sometimes I hear voices in the distance. As long as Suvorin is there, I fear Anton Pavlovich will not come. I could go to them, but I feel shy on my own; Natasha and Elena both refuse to meet Suvorin.

  We argued again at dinner. Pasha started it; I could hear how he was clenching his teeth. He said, The man is the worst sort of capitalist, the kind who publishes absolute rubbish to oppress the workingman, let alone the innocent peasant. Lies and ignorance.

  Have you met him, Pasha dear? said Mama calmly.

  I don’t need to meet him. I saw the carriage he hired in Sumy to get here. He wants to shame us.

  It’s pathetic, said Natasha. I cannot believe Anton Pavlovich is friends with such a man.

  We know why, Pasha said, laughing. He publishes him, he’s making him rich. Ten years from now Anton Pavlovich might be pulling up in that same carriage. If he even condescends to visit us by then.

  Shame on you, Pasha, said Mama, he’s not like that.

  But we don’t know, do we, said Elena very calmly. We don’t know his politics. He doesn’t say anything. None of them does, actually.

  Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov is a simple merchant, said Mama somewhat sententiously. His father was a serf, did you know that? Perhaps it takes several generations for our good people to develop their sens politique.

  Oh, Mamochka, do you hear yourself? Speaking French and all, please, said Natasha, before swearing in Ukrainian.

  I waved my hand and broke in, Do they have to profess an opinion? Just because we do?

  Well, it makes it awkward when they invite someone like Suvorin to stay. What will Vorontsov say, or Yefimenko, if they find out? said Mama.

  Do you care, Mama, really! said Natasha.

  It’s more complicated than that, said Elena. I work all day to try to better the lot of our former serfs, might I insist—and whom did they belong to?—not just to heal them, not just to teach them cleanliness so they don’t fall sick. I’m trying to make them take an interest in their world, to possess their world at last, after centuries. What am I to say if they understand that we are hosts to someone like Suvorin, who literally does possess the world with his newspapers and books and fancy carriages? It’s hypocrisy! Anton Pavlovich should never have invited him, for my sake!

  Hear, hear, said Pasha and Natasha.

  He had no choice, I
said.

  Why are you always defending him, Zina? asked Natasha.

  Yes, why? echoed Elena.

  It’s a terrible choice, isn’t it, between politics and art? I said weakly.

  Pasha began to howl with laughter.

  Zina, you have remained a wonderful idealist, said Natasha. You think it is solely to produce his art that Anton Pavlovich has embraced Suvorin’s friendship?

  Well, isn’t it? He does publish him. And his brother works for him.

  They have no choice, said Pasha. Natasha’s right. They don’t have the courage of their convictions because they have no convictions. They have just enough money to live with a minimum of comfort. Eat, travel, go to the theater. They’re like most middle-class people in our country, and the tsar and the ruling class are very happy to keep them ignorant and well fed. And if they join our cause, which some of them do, that’s because it’s fashionable.

  And what about us? I asked. Aren’t you very fashionable, Pasha, both Marxist and Tolstoyan? Look at your rubashkas, made from cloth that you have Tonya weave for you on her loom, as if she didn’t have enough to do already. You’re not displeased with that side of things, are you? Even though you are helping the peasants and improving their lives at the same time, so I can’t really fault you for that, at least you are doing something.

  But Zina, said Natasha, it does sound as if you’re taking Anton Pavlovich’s side, why is that? What sort of nonsense has he been feeding you during your secretive little meetings?

  No nonsense at all, I said hotly. He’s not here to defend himself, and I believe he finds politics boring. So, yes, he has chosen art, although if you asked him, I am sure he would not put such a fine point on it.

  No, he’d start talking about the fish in the Psyol or the miller’s daughter, said Natasha.

  Ah, yes, sighed Pasha, the miller’s daughter.

  We all laughed, and the tension lapsed slowly to the ground like a net lowered over our prejudices.

  But for all that, my family refuses to speak to Alexey Suvorin.

  It is so hot already. Pasha says they all go swimming. How I would like to go, too, even just to sit by the river in the shade, but the heat makes the headaches worse. I stay on the veranda and pray for a breeze.

  Yesterday Natasha walked by and said, What are you writing? The page is blank, poor sister!

  It is so hot that the ink dries in the inkwell.

  Even my thoughts evaporate. Nothing stays. There is the electricity of storms in the air, but no storms come. Grigory Petrovich grumbles: With no rain, he has to find ways to water the flowers from the well, the river. Even so, they are going brown, he says. The air smells of burning sunlight, parched earth.

  Barantsevich is kind. He comes every day with a story. He, too, feels uncomfortable around Suvorin. He’s not a bad sort, he says, but clearly, he is used to staying in grand hotels. I think he finds Kharkovsky Province rather backward. He complained to the cook about the soup.

  Soup! Why is she making soup in this weather? He has every right to complain.

  Well, no, she made cold borscht, and that is what Monsieur Suvorin does not like. He maintains you feel cooler after hot soup.

  How is Nikolay Pavlovich?

  He keeps to his room. Tatyana from the village brings him fresh milk every day. He talks of getting better, promises to work. He has ideas, plans!

  Is it tuberculosis? Already last year Elena suspected—

  Anton Pavlovich won’t confirm a diagnosis. He said it was typhoid in Moscow; now he calls it a laryngeal infection. Your sister, indeed, just stared at Anton Pavlovich when they were talking about it. Then she shook her head and got up and left. That was before Aleksey Sergeyevich arrived, obviously.

  Everyone is so irritable in this heat. I sighed. All winter I longed for summer, and now . . .

  When I get too hot, in Petersburg—which isn’t often in our wretched northern climate, but sometimes in the tram—I imagine a mountain, in the Alps, say, and pine forests, and a glacial little river. Not that . . . I mean, I’ve only ever seen such landscapes in paintings.

  I laughed. And does it help?

  Briefly. Distracts me from all those sweating bodies and the smell of cabbage.

  But how am I to distract myself from this oppression? I try to smile, I am patient, I am good. I watch the dose of laudanum, not to overdo it. Elena says it is already too much.

  And at night, the air breathes again, toward dawn, while the mosquitoes feast.

  May 14, 1889

  At last. Suvorin is gone; perhaps the summer can begin. Georges is back, Mama says he has put on weight, and his beard has grown thicker. I wish I could see him.

  Last night he played for me—some pieces by Mussorgsky—until he said the keys were sticky, damp from the heat, from his sweating fingers. We talked so long and late, I am exhausted. He helped me to bed, gave me a cool damp cloth for my forehead. I slept well, no dogs barking, and few mosquitoes, or anyway, I did not notice them. I awoke today with a good feeling. We shall have visitors, I am sure.

  May 15, 1889

  I was sure of visitors yesterday; I was wrong. Only Evgenia Yakovlevna, briefly, to see Mama; she wept. My son, he’s coughing his soul out, she said. Then she remembered about me, which in all fairness I wish she hadn’t, but I was sitting right there. She said, At least she doesn’t cough! Mama did not know what to say, where to turn—such an awkward silence in the room. Evgenia Yakovlevna began to apologize clumsily until I said to her, It doesn’t matter, Evgenia Yakovlevna, really, it doesn’t. She hurried away, poor woman, she only came for comfort, and now she’d made herself feel worse.

  May 18, 1889

  What do you think, Zinaida Mikhailovna, with your sixth sense—will there be a harvest this year?

  Anton Pavlovich, we have not known it to be this hot and dry since 1876. The harvest failed that year. It is very likely, I’m afraid. But perhaps if it rains in the next few days . . . Did Monsieur Suvorin enjoy his visit?

  Very much so, thank you.

  I apologize for my family’s . . . principles.

  You should never apologize for your principles, Zinaida Mikhailovna, if they are important to you. Otherwise, they are not principles, just whims, passing fancies.

  I smiled. Of course, Anton Pavlovich. What I meant was the uncustomary lack of hospitality.

  You have always shown my family the most generous hospitality. We’ll leave Aleksey Sergeyevich out of it. He has more than enough hospitality wherever he goes. And now he is on his way to Biarritz. He is not to be pitied.

  There was a long moment of awkwardness that spoke of all the time elapsed since our last true, warm conversation. Finally, to say something, I asked, more a statement than a question: I suppose, with his visit and your brother’s illness, you have not had time to write?

  He let out an exasperated sigh. Very little, only intermittently. Did I tell you I’m also working on a play? Somewhat inspired by my time here—the setting, that is, not the characters.

  Indeed, what a relief. I would not like to find myself in a play.

  There was a faint tapping sound, as if he were consulting his fingertips in hesitation, deliberation. Finally, he said, Zinaida Mikhailovna, I have a very odd request to make of you.

  Yes?

  I need to put the novel aside for some time. I cannot concentrate—my brother is ill, it is hot, there are all these visits—and yet everyone from my publisher to my friends and family continues to ask me about it. I put them off, tell them I’m working on it, tell them it will be ready in November or in March, give them all sorts of eloquent excuses. Masha has been begging to read it, she will arrive soon, she . . . In short, I need a safe place to store the manuscript for a time. It’s such a responsibility, carrying all that paper around, worrying about nosy family members or journalists from Piter or stagecoach robbers. Do you have a safe place, may I leave it with you? Forgive my presumption, but I know you cannot read it, and I trust you implicitly not to shar
e it with Natalya Mikhailovna—

  Anton Pavlovich! Of course you may entrust it to me. I have a hiding place where I keep my journal. There is room. A niche designed to withstand Napoleon’s armies. Our secrets will converse en toute tranquillité.

  That’s good, then! Thank you, Zinaida Mikhailovna, thank you from the bottom of my heart!

  I heard a certain unnatural politeness in his voice. He seized my hand, kissed it briefly. I’ll bring it to you in the next day or two, if you can arrange to be alone.

  Come Tuesday. Mama goes in to Sumy on Tuesdays. No one will be here except Georges, and we can send him on an errand or ask him to play for us.

  This morning Anton Pavlovich brought me a heavy box.

  You have written a great deal, I whispered as he handed me the box to feel its weight.

  Georges was already playing, at our request. I motioned to Anton Pavlovich to follow me from the veranda to my room. He waited by the door while I knelt and struggled to put the manuscript in the hiding place where it would not be in the way of my journals. I could not manage it, so he in turn knelt by the bed and followed my instructions. When the box was safely stowed behind my journals, he got to his feet.

  You are dusty, Zinaida Mikhailovna, and so am I. Do you have a cloth, a towel?

  The dust would give us away, wouldn’t it, I laughed. I groped about for some towels at the washstand.

  When I returned, he gently wiped the dust from my sleeves and my skirt. You must scold the housemaid, she’s not doing her job properly.

  She is a treasure and helps me to wash and to dress, and she does my hair; Ulyasha is irreplaceable. Simply, she’s not allowed to dust hiding places and Napoleonic niches. She might be a spy for the New Times.

  He laughed and thanked me again. We returned to tea, and Georges was none the wiser.

  Now at night, I lie awake over his words. I think of last summer—how different it was, how true our complicity was then, not one of childlike conspirators, hiding things, but of gentle friends. Time has taken that away. Anton Pavlovich has given me a great gift of trust, which I cherish, and which is based upon our time last summer; but I regret more bitterly than I can say the change I have perceived in our conversations. He seems distracted, absent, too polite; spontaneity and ease are gone. I know he is preoccupied by his brother’s health. Perhaps there are other things I do not know.