The Summer Guest Page 5

  I stopped, and heard his silence and the birds and the terrible echo of my blunt words. It is at times like this, thankfully not frequent, that I am particularly sorry to have lost my sight, for I could not see his expression or understand what effect my words might have had on him. On the other hand, perhaps that is a blessing, for it keeps me honest.

  Very briefly and surprisingly, his fingertips grazed my wrist, and he said, Dear Zinaida Mikhailovna, we have just met, but people are rarely as honest with me as you have just been. You are quite right that I must not make excuses to delay what I genuinely want to do—perhaps I am afraid after all. You know, a novel is rather like a marriage, committing oneself to months or years of work, whereas a story is, yes, rather like—

  He paused. I finished his sentence: A flirtation, an affair?

  He laughed. You don’t know me, but you know me well.

  Like you, Anton Pavlovich, I am a doctor; perhaps it has nothing to do with art, but one develops a certain ability to diagnose not only the body but also the spirit, don’t you think?

  Very true, Zinaida Mikhailovna.

  We were silent, then he changed the subject, asked about my medical studies and Dr. Chudnovsky, where had I been practicing, when had I stopped?

  I’ve been completely blind for over a year now. It isn’t getting better, clearly. Nor will it, I’m afraid.

  And did any of the doctors—or you yourself—have any explanation for your illness?

  I bent my head as if I could see my hands folded in my lap. No, Anton Pavlovich, alas, there is no explanation; why does lightning strike the oak and not the birch? Some religious person might point to a long-ago sin, but we are not like that in my family. The random cruelty of nature, that is all.

  I am sorry.

  You needn’t be. You’re a doctor, you know what life is.

  The prognosis? Treatment?

  I waved my hand. I am strong, I have always been in good health, I might live for a long time. But there is no treatment. Family. Luka.

  Again I waved my hand to include everything I could no longer see.

  I must apologize again, Anton Pavlovich, for my bluntness just now, my illness has made me too honest, on occasion to the point of rudeness, although I try not to—

  Don’t apologize, Zinaida Mikhailovna. You are right. I’m going to give serious thought to starting a novel. I know you will be an ally. But please don’t mention it to the others—my sister Masha, or my friends when they arrive. They’ll only badger me, in their way.

  Rest assured, I’ll say nothing.

  We sat pleasantly for a while longer, talking of more trivial things. He is very impressed with our porcine menagerie. He has never seen robust pink and brown pigs wandering in and out of a human dwelling. He wanted to know their names so that he could tell his friends. I begged him not to make fun of us and our country ways. What is wrong with treating well-behaved porkers with the same respect you give to the dogs and cats?

  He began to laugh uproariously. I should have been annoyed, for Pasha’s sake—his prize pigs—but I could not help myself. I saw myself and my family as if we were onstage, seated around the samovar, talking about literature and politics, suddenly visited by our grunting beasts, the dogs running after them, eager to nab them by the ear.

  Elena seems to have made quite an impression on Anton Pavlovich today.

  They went out on house calls around the countryside, Anton Pavlovich very cheerful and teasing as they departed—how sad I was to be left behind! This was once my daily life, too, in almost any weather. We would take the sleigh in winter, and there was such a light across the fields at dusk, pink and golden on the snow; steam of the horses’ breath, blankets across our laps . . .

  But this is summer, and they took the small trap with Roman driving, just one horse, a new one that Pasha bought in the spring at the fair. Roman says the horse is the nervous sort, and he’s of the opinion that Pasha has wasted his money and there’ll be no end of problems with this mare, Agrifina. I remember the fuss at the time. Pasha countered that she’d be an excellent brood mare and would calm down in due time. Why they took her today, I have no idea—perhaps Grusha was lame or overworked—in any event, the mare grew skittish on the road between Luka and Tokari in the typically mysterious way of animals, we don’t know why there, more than elsewhere, but Elena suspects there must be a bull in the fields to the north of the road. Agrifina stopped this side of the small bridge over the stream and would not take another step. Roman made some Romanish groans and shouts and was reaching for the whip when Elena jumped down and went to the nervous mare, stood by her with one hand on her neck and the other on her nose, and just talked to her. In a calm, sweet voice, as if speaking to a child, was the way Anton Pavlovich described it, and after a minute of Roman grumbling and Anton Pavlovich offering to help and being told she could manage on her own, Elena took Agrifina by the reins, close to the bit, and led her over the bridge, talking all the while, looking back at the two men as if we were useless children, sighed Anton Pavlovich, and then she climbed back up into the trap and took the reins and drove them the rest of the way.

  I see her: head held high, back arched, arms ramrod-straight before her, a proud nervousness about her, and something she would share with the animal before stepping aside for the men. I did not say as much to Anton Pavlovich, but clearly, he had never seen a woman so capable with a trace horse, and he even said as much. Then you haven’t spent much time in the country, I countered, and he protested that he had spent many summers outside Moscow and had grown up in a fairly provincial sort of town where the countryside was never far away, but the ladies were generally afraid of horses and not about to deal with an animal’s fear in addition to their own.

  To me, Elena’s behavior was not at all unusual; I have seen her react with equal courage and determination on numerous occasions. We have grown up with our beasts, we live with them. I felt a moment of bemused sympathy for Anton Pavlovich, that he was so poorly acquainted with this rich world of country life, or knew it only for tea parties and fishing expeditions. I think he was rather annoyed when I said, It’s only normal, it’s what we do here. There was a moment’s silence, and then he said, Well then, Zinaida Mikhailovna, if I write a novel and it is a success, I shall buy my own country estate and cultivate an understanding with my equine fellows, just as your sister has done.

  He went on to tell me he’d met our regular lodger Artyomenko, the one who works at the Kharitonenko factory who is an avid fisherman; they would be going that evening to explore the waters around the islands. A grand fellow, he called him.

  Before taking his leave, he asked me about the water bittern. Like many visitors to our region, he is intrigued by the bird’s peculiar call and wonders if I know what it looks like, as he would like to see it while he is here. I tell him that it is difficult to get a proper sighting; moreover, if he asks the peasants, each one will describe the most fantastical creature, something like the Firebird, the Zhar-ptitsa, but never two versions alike.

  May 20, 1888

  Monsieur Pleshcheyev has arrived, and he has brought some scores for Georges! So in addition to poetry, we shall have new works by Tchaikovsky. When Anton Pavlovich learned of Georges’s talent and his love of Tchaikovsky, which he says he shares, he wrote ahead and arranged for Monsieur Pleshcheyev to bring the scores.

  Georges wants a few days to practice, and then we shall have an evening of words and music. Mama is terribly excited. I believe she feels all of Saint Petersburg—the good side, that is—has come to our drawing room.

  Natasha, bold as ever, said to Anton Pavlovich that if we were to have Pleshcheyev and Tchaikovsky, then we must surely also have Chekhov. He gave a short laugh, and there was a moment of silence until he agreed that he would read a story from a collection he had just had published, called In the Twilight.

  Later she told me he seemed almost annoyed, but flattered in a way as well, that he looked down at his feet before agreeing, as if request
ing the consent of his toes.

  THE DELIGHT OF SOFT padded envelopes, waiting for her in the crisp February air, in her mailbox. Three biographies, in addition to the volumes of stories (multiple translators) and the major plays, some on DVD with eminent British actors.

  For several days of foul weather, Ana stayed in and read about Anton Chekhov. She found the obvious references, which, like Masha in black, had become clichés: the rambling, crumbling estates with their bumbling servants and samovars in the garden; the three sisters. But those familiar elements had to come from somewhere: They were a way of life, his everyday reality. An immense country with an educated, bored middle class; women whose lives were stunted and circumscribed by society and tradition. Zinaida Mikhailovna and her sisters, Elena and Natalya, stood out, anachronisms; they belonged, Ana learned, to the inaugural generation who attended the Bestuzhev Courses in Saint Petersburg, which for the first time in Imperial Russia offered higher education to young ladies of means.

  Chekhov, on the other hand, earned his success. He was able to work his way up from relative poverty because he was talented, but also because his childhood had taught him that life was a struggle. As a boy, he and his brothers were thrashed repeatedly by their pious shopkeeper father; later, the whole family fled to Moscow to escape their creditors, leaving the young Antosha alone in Taganrog to finish secondary school. He wrote short, humorous stories, initially to finance his medical studies and help his family. What started as the source of a student’s supplemental income evolved into a body of work, turning him, not even ten years after his summers at Luka, into an author and playwright whose stature was almost mythic. Ana studied the photographs, let her mind wander as they told the stories the words could not. He completely looked the part: tall, handsome, youthful, funny—mediagenic, in today’s parlance. The props, most of which came long after his summers at Luka, were inimitable: the goatee, the pince-nez, the walking stick, the dachshund—when it wasn’t the pet mongoose he brought back from his travels to the Far East. (Apparently, he despised cats.) It would seem that Chekhov hated his celebrity status, the shaking of hands and dealing with gushing admirers on the waterfront at Yalta—even though many of them were women—and going to receptions, being seen in the right places. But for all that, he knew how to enjoy the benefits of his success. He befriended Tolstoy, Gorky, Diaghilev, Rachmaninov; he married late and, on the whole, well—the actress Olga Knipper; he bought villas and dachas and traveled to France and Italy, and he didn’t have to go on author tours or give signings or spout witticisms on a social network to keep himself in the public eye.

  She learned in an interesting, oddly relevant footnote that Chekhov’s paternal grandmother was Ukrainian, and late in life he claimed that as a small child he had been able to speak Ukrainian.

  Ana was beginning to feel genuine affection for the blind narrator and her story; that sentiment would show through, surely, in the excellence of her translation. As if it were a book she had written herself. This was her chance. And she felt sure it would lead to other things.

  She looked out the window of her attic study. In winter, when the trees were bare, she could see as far as the lake and the mountains beyond. The sky had cleared, and there was a pink wash of sunset on the white peaks. The tree in her neighbor’s yard wore a sleeve of ice. She opened the window, let a breath of frost into the room.

  May 22, 1888

  For two days Anton Pavlovich has not come. Natasha tells me he is terribly busy with Monsieur Pleshcheyev. She went over to the guesthouse to invite them for this evening—Georges has been practicing and is ready to play for us, and perhaps the gentlemen will share some of their literary work.

  Our young cousin Vata is visiting us for a few weeks, so Natasha took her along to meet them, and she tells me Vata was very impressed by the great poet. Naturally, he could be her grandfather, but she is in awe of his stature, his fame . . . Natasha says Vata has grown into a silly, provincial little thing; she hides her hand behind her back to keep from sucking her thumb; we are supposed to be trying to give her some culture, some finish, as the English say—now she meets her first poet and goes quite dotty.

  And what about Anton Pavlovich? I ask Natasha. He must be more handsome than Pleshcheyev—he’s quite young, isn’t he?

  I think he frightens Vata, said Natasha. She amuses him, so he says teasing, wicked things, practically drives her into Pleshcheyev’s arms for refuge. Pleshcheyev pats her on the head and says, There, there.

  And with you?

  Who, with me?

  Anton Pavlovich?

  She laughs her short, chiming laugh. With me? He knows I’ll only return the compliment, so he’s terribly circumspect. For the moment he respects me, which is almost a pity. I rather like that teasing side of his.

  After a pause I ask, And he’s not engaged to be married?

  It seems not. It’s odd, no? He’s got his mother and sister to look after him, so he’s obviously in no hurry, but given his looks, you’d think—

  What does he look like?

  Tall and lanky, thick dark hair and a little beard, and very nice eyes that don’t miss a thing. Rather more like an eternal student than a doctor, a bit like our Pasha without the politics. Or at any rate, whenever we try to pin him down on his politics he evades the issue.

  And Monsieur Pleshcheyev?

  Elderly, white beard, portly . . . With Anton Pavlovich, they share a certain—how to describe it—gentleness. I cannot decide in the case of Anton Pavlovich whether it is because he is a doctor or a writer. There is something about men who work with words—poets, writers—do you suppose it makes them different?

  I knew I was about to make a terribly banal suggestion, but I went ahead with it. Natasha can be so abrasive at times, she doesn’t always take the time to understand why people are this way or that, so I said, since she had asked, Well, perhaps they spend more time examining what it is that makes us human in an immaterial way—emotions, language?

  Oh, well said, Zinochka. I must read more poetry, then. Improve my soul, in other words.

  It wouldn’t hurt, I said with a smile.

  She reached over and stroked my cheek. After a pause, with a touch of mischief in her voice, she said, But did you know that this same Monsieur Pleshcheyev, who could be anybody’s cozy grandfather, was a revolutionary in his youth and was sent to Siberia for ten years? He was in the Petrashevsky Circle with Dostoyevsky. Condemned to hang, then pardoned.

  How extraordinary!

  Pasha and Tonya can’t get enough of him and keep pressing him to tell them about his youth, but he keeps changing the subject. I’m an old man now, he says, and chuckles, my time for revolutions is past. I’ve come here to write poetry.

  She had lowered her voice in a passable imitation of a contented old man. Then I heard her get to her feet. I grabbed her wrist. Don’t go just yet. What else? What other news?

  Elena is treating a bad case at the moment, or should I say a very sad case. Do you remember the young woman from Velikaya Chernechina with the tumor on her neck? She’s much worse, she’s terribly pale and thin, wasting before your eyes, says Elena, who is very upset there’s nothing she can do for her. She’s asked Anton Pavlovich to have a look at her.

  The poor man is supposed to be on holiday, is he not?

  And he’s meant to be writing. He wasn’t joking about that. He supports his family, entertains his friends, agrees to help Elena, writes stories, goes fishing—

  Has he caught anything?

  Pike and chub, he said, and an old shoe.

  I laughed. He needs to have something to throw at you when the time comes.

  Georges’s recital moved me to tears. My eyes still weep, as if seeing my reduced world through hammers and strings and Tchaikovsky’s notes.

  Natasha would surely laugh at me again for my emotional apprehension of the world. I was not always this way—we have always tried in our family to be realists, pragmatic and rational—but my illness has shown me th
e resources of the spirit’s more inexplicable manifestations. That music and words (even when they are no longer legible) are valuable, potent spectacles in their own right; that for all the pleasure I once took in color and dance and visual beauty, there were many things I did not see which now are visible to me. Language, too: So much of it is based on sight that I find it hard to find the words for what I have been seeing with this new vision. Perhaps there are no words; is Georges’s playing, Tchaikovsky’s music, not a language of its own?

  And Monsieur Pleshcheyev’s poetry: I heard him use words in ways that surprise and confuse me. At times I would like for him to repeat what he said, so I could better grasp the sense. I must ask him for a volume of his works so my patient family can read the poems to me again and again.

  Anton Pavlovich read from his collection, In the Twilight, as promised. A rather bold story about a woman, one Sofya Petrovna, who determines almost on a whim to leave her husband for an admirer. A quite terrible story, really; the woman, according to the narrator, did not really love the man, but she was bored with her husband, with her life; she was made giddy by the admirer’s adoration, and above all, she felt an urge stronger than anything, irrepressible and alluring. While admiring his description of her state of mind, I could not help but worry that Mama or even Monsieur Pleshcheyev—or Elena, for that matter—would be shocked by the story. There was a moment of stunned silence at the end when the narrator says, What drove her on was stronger than shame, reason, or fear, and we all knew what Monsieur Chekhov was referring to; then Natasha—incorrigible, bold Natasha—began to applaud and laugh somewhat nervously, and we applauded and all began to talk at once.

  Anton Pavlovich came over to me later, and I asked him if he believed most women were like Sofya Petrovna, and if he found her behavior commendable or reprehensible.

  He laughed and placed his fingers on my forearm. My dear Zinaida Mikhailovna, if all women were like Sofya Petrovna, we would not be here tonight. The world would be an utter shambles.