The Summer Guest Page 6

  Then why write about her? What can possibly be edifying or—

  But dear lady, I’m not trying to edify or instruct or above all pass judgment. I’m merely describing a frequent human dilemma. Not all women act as . . . irresponsibly, or freely, depending on your point of view, as Sofya Petrovna, but I defy you to find me a married woman who has not had thoughts of behaving like that.

  And do you really believe we are all so . . . base in our emotions?

  Here he paused and answered with a question of his own: You find her desire base?

  It is self-centered, irrational, ungoverned—

  And that is base? Are you applying your own opinion or that of society? Imagine if your own dear sister, Natalya Mikhailovna, for example, were in such a situation, bored and unhappy with her husband, and the opportunity presented itself—in the form of a handsome, devoted man of the law—to create a new life, full of mystery and discovery. Would you condemn her, find her base?

  I felt my cheeks redden, lifted my fingertips to my face.

  He laughed again and said, Forgive me, Zinaida Mikhailovna, I have spoken quite out of turn. These are delicate matters. I have witnessed in my own family—my eldest brother, to give just one example—such instances of desire and the havoc they bring. Such struggles with nature, as my lawyer in the story calls them. They are almost always tragic and yet terribly comical at the same time. When we know what bitter disappointment comes after so much passion. Such banality. Such emptiness.

  He paused, then asked, I assume you’ve read Anna Karenina?

  Yes. But there is so much that is tragic and terrible in that book.

  My heroines do not go that far. As in life; again, if we all had Anna’s desperate soul, the world would descend into a chaos of tragedy. That was Tolstoy’s vision for the novel, based on a true incident—so such things do happen. But most often . . . banality. Which is why I prefer to err on the side of comedy. Otherwise life would be altogether too hard to bear, don’t you think? If love always led to train platforms? All this passion tearing people apart, sending decent women out into the night without so much as a bonnet on their head?

  He must know that such matters no longer concern me, that, if anything, my life is hardly a comedy and should be too hard to bear, and yet he drew me into his argument, into his vision for the sake of that argument. I smiled. You are quite the magician, Anton Pavlovich, I said.

  Ah, yes. I have a special fondness for white rabbits and ladies sawn in half.

  He lowered his voice and said very earnestly, I’ve started, Zinaida Mikhailovna.

  Started what?

  The novel.

  I grasped his wrist; he placed two fingers there in warning.

  Don’t say a thing or I’ll never hear the end of it. Agreed?

  Of course! I’m very pleased for you. Do you have a title? No, I’m silly, of course it’s too soon—

  Too soon for anything: no plot, not a clue where the vehicle is taking me, just a few sketches with a few idle characters standing about waiting for cues. But it intends to be a novel.

  And how many pages?

  Don’t ask, Zinaida Mikhailovna, don’t ask! There is only: I’m progressing. Or I’m not progressing. Today I have been progressing.

  Good, good. I’m very glad to hear this.

  At that moment Monsieur Pleshcheyev called to him, and our conversation ended.

  But now, before turning in, I reexamine my long-ago feelings for the shiftless Andryusha. How I would have liked to respect those feelings and honor them, had he been at all honorable. What part my own urging, then, what part nature, and what part society pulling me—or even him—the opposite direction, toward convention and propriety? Andryusha did not pursue me, because I was neither wealthy nor beautiful enough for his image of the way his life should be; but my own nature had left me utterly open and vulnerable for a brief moment. I could picture the girl I once was, setting off into the night without her bonnet on her head.

  So these are the things Anton Pavlovich likes to discuss in his stories—or should I say, rather, describe. He does take an interesting point of view, standing back with his arms crossed (I suppose) and throwing the characters together so that he can watch what happens.

  THE WIND KEPT ANA housebound. She tried to watch the Winter Olympics, but all the nationalistic fervor left her unable to enjoy the sport for its own sake.

  She turned back to the biographies of Chekhov she’d ordered, eager to find the period described by Zinaida Mikhailovna reflected in the printed pages.

  Oddly, the biographical material—thus far, at least—had not provided any evidence of a novel written that summer in Luka. Or of any novel, for that matter, unless you counted The Shooting Party or The Duel or My Life: a youthful pastiche, two novellas. Not a hefty Russian novel of the kind people—including Ana—imagined.

  Was it as he explained to Zinaida Mikhailovna: lack of time or concentration? Or was it, in the long run, a question of disposition, the appropriate use of his talent?

  Unable to find an answer, she turned to writing chatty emails, catching up with friends. Some of them answered, newsy, superficial, and she wondered if the loss of depth in her relationships was proportional to time and distance.

  Yves was the only one who wasn’t far away, and he suggested the best remedy. Brave the cold, he wrote, and come into Geneva for lunch. Live dangerously. I’ve got a new brasserie for you to try, my treat. Just get yourself over here. Are you free on Friday? Don’t drive, you’ll never find parking, but you can read on the bus, or eavesdrop on people on their cell phones and see how many different languages you can collect.

  They had known each other a very long time. Yves worked primarily as an interpreter but also translated the occasional novel into French from Russian or “American,” as the French called it. He liked to joke that, growing up, he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to be a cosmonaut or an astronaut. He and Ana had met in Moscow during the summer course for foreigners, but it was only much later that their acquaintance had blossomed into a sudden wild friendship, based on everything Ana had never found with the straight men she had dated, lived with, traveled with, and eventually married (Mathieu had been irrationally jealous of Yves): laughter, irreverence, lightheartedness. Open emotions. Trust.

  She envied him. With admiration. His long-term relationship with Yiannis. Their sensible lifestyle: They had separate apartments and saw each other a few times a week. There were adventures on the side from time to time, discreetly, rarely shared with the other partner. Over time, he told her, they had felt less need to go elsewhere, more need for each other. They traveled widely and rekindled. That was how Yves put it, We went to Copenhagen and rekindled.

  The first time she corrected him: You need a direct object after a transitive verb.

  Not with you I don’t, he said calmly, raising an eyebrow.

  Now they were sitting in his brasserie, Les Négociants. The windows were steamed up; waiters glided like a corps de ballet in black aprons and red ties from one side of the room to the other, as if carrying not hot dishes of suprême de pintade or souris d’agneau but rations of warmth and cheer against the winter chill. Yves described his latest rekindling trip—to the Azores—then asked what she was working on. She cocked her head and said mysteriously, Anton Chekhov.

  You’re translating Chekhov?

  No, the diary of someone who knew Chekhov. (It sounded so reductive that she almost blushed.)

  She felt a faint twinge of guilt to be talking about her project despite the Kendalls’ injunction—but then she reasoned that they hadn’t responded to her email regarding Zinaida Mikhailovna’s punctuation and the proper way to refer to Crimea and Ukraine, and above all Chekhov’s presence in the diary, and when she’d last checked, she hadn’t been paid her advance, either. So she shared this information with Yves, but the more she told him about the actual project, the more enthusiastic they both became, until Yves reached across the table to grab her hand and kiss i
t.

  Here lies Trigorin, he said in Russian. He was a good writer but inferior to Turgenev.

  You know it by heart! Seagull, right?

  Act Two, yes. Some of it. It was the way we learned languages back then, wasn’t it, by rote. Remember Lyudmila Nikolayevna, with that stick she had to scan the meter? Tovarishchi! Vnimanye!

  My God! I still know that poem by Pushkin we had to learn. I felt rebellious at the time, but now I’m glad.

  Go on, then.

  Ana cleared her throat and recited the poem in a hushed voice, while Yves listened thoughtfully and chimed in at one point. When she had finished, he looked at her and said, To get back to my initial misunderstanding—you should translate Chekhov.

  But there are literally hundreds of translations already. Where’s the glory in that?

  Ana, you’re not doing it for the glory. There’s never any glory for any of us, you know that. You would do it for the love of it, no?

  I would hope to.

  You could find something he wrote during that period, and it could be published along with Zinaida Mikhailovna’s diary. Write to the publisher.

  That’s what I thought, briefly, but they’re hopeless. They don’t answer my emails.

  Don’t let that stop you. Try anyway.

  There is talk of a novel . . . I mean, Chekhov refers to writing one, starting one, already in what I’ve translated so far. But I have no idea if it exists.

  Yves scraped pensively with a small spoon at what was left of the crème brûlée, then looked up, spoon paused in midair. Imagine, Ana, he said, sighing, if you could translate that novel. It would be perfect.

  But Yves, if he did write one, where is it? Chekhov never finished a novel. Published a novel. That we know of.

  He paused, licked his spoon. Are you sure?

  Well, as sure as anyone else. I haven’t finished the journal, so I don’t know—

  How did the publisher find this thing?

  I don’t know. I have a file in Word, that’s all, typed by someone called Olga Ivanova. I suppose there’s a Russian edition planned as well.

  Perhaps they also have Chekhov’s novel.

  Don’t be absurd.

  Why absurd? Stranger things have happened. Remember the Némirovsky manuscript in the suitcase in the Paris attic? Maybe they found your two manuscripts together, the diary and the novel, in an attic in Saint Petersburg. Or Moscow. Or Kiev. Or Smolensk. Don’t you love the sound of it, Smolensk? Sma-lyensk.

  Ana was briefly and irrationally thrilled by the way he said your two manuscripts, but she felt she had to be skeptical. I don’t think Chekhov went to Sma-lyensk.

  On his trip to Sakhalin, then, maybe he left the manuscript in Irkutsk or Krasnoyarsk. Or Blagoveshchensk.

  You’re making fun, Yves. You didn’t know Chekhov never wrote a substantial novel, and yet you remember his itinerary across Siberia?

  Idle curiosity and a love of geography. And words. In Chekhov’s letters, there’s one sent from Blagoveshchensk. That’s where he met the Japanese whore who says “ts!” It’s priceless. Who could ever forget a Japanese whore who says “ts!”

  She said “ts” because she couldn’t pronounce Blagoveshchensk.

  They laughed quietly, happily, a small rush of complicity, then Yves said, Keep reading, Nastyenka. I’ll bet you anything— I’ll bet you a live mongoose there’s a novel for you in there somewhere.

  On the bus home, what Yves had said kept chiming, a silly refrain, but as insistent as an earworm: I’ll bet you a live mongoose there’s a novel for you in there somewhere.

  What would I do with a live mongoose? she mused. They’re nasty creatures, anyway, what could have possessed Anton Pavlovich to adopt one? The pleasure of proving others wrong? To show them that they are not such nasty creatures after all, that they can form attachments to human beings and make unusual pets?

  But if there were a novel, the mongoose would be for Yves. Let him worry about its angry little teeth. Ana would have a novel to translate.

  May 25, 1888

  Elena asked Anton Pavlovich and me to go with her to the village clinic to examine the young woman from Velikaya Chernechina who has the tumor. Her name is Nadya. According to Elena, she has lost a great deal of weight and is terribly pale, in a fair amount of pain. Elena diagnosed a cancer; it would seem far more virulent than my own at this point. And yet because there are no visible symptoms other than her weight loss and discomfort, Nadya retains a terrible hope.

  The tumor on her neck, however, can be felt. For a moment I placed my fingers where Elena’s hand led me, as if between the two of us we hoped a touch might discover a change, something to grasp at. Her skin was warm; I could hear her quiet breathing. How she trusted us! I had to lift her long, heavy hair out of the way; I imagined it a russet color. Her hand grazed mine as she helped move her hair to one side.

  Anton Pavlovich joined us at that moment and placed his fingers on the spot I had indicated. Our fingertips touched. We examined Nadya, then sent her into the other room while we discussed the diagnosis. Elena hoped that Anton Pavlovich might have a miracle cure to propose, something he had learned at the university in Moscow, or at least a more favorable prognosis, but he could only agree with what she had said.

  And suddenly, Elena—calm, level, good Elena—was overcome. She reached out for my arm and grasped it, hard, and I could tell she must be crying from the trembling in her voice, and while her words were for Nadya and for her inability to offer any hope, I knew she must be thinking of me as well, and letting some of her sadness find its way out under the guise of her concern for Nadya. (We have agreed never to talk of my illness, only to deal with it as needs arise.) Yet it was astonishing that she did this in Anton Pavlovich’s presence. As doctors, we learn to separate our human reactions from the task at hand: the understanding of the pathology, the diagnosis, the prognosis, the prescription, the treatment—science, all of it, rational.

  Why must she die, cried Elena softly, when I go on living and can’t help her! Oh, I’m no good at this, no good at all! God in heaven! Who do I think I am, Doctor Lintvaryova!

  There was a moment of strained silence, then Anton Pavlovich said gently, You must increase the dose. That’s all you can do. Make her comfortable. Do you agree, Zinaida Mikhailovna?

  Yes, I murmured, touched that he had consulted me. I squeezed Elena’s hand; she withdrew at once.

  Later, Anton Pavlovich walked me back to the main house. We were subdued; he told me that he had seen Nadya’s family—they were all there waiting outside—father, mother, husband. I thought he was going to say something about how sad it was or what a difficult profession we have sometimes, but instead he took a deep breath and said, Your sister is an excellent physician—an excellent person—but in our profession, it doesn’t do well to take things to heart as she does. Don’t you agree?

  I suppose you’re right. She’s young still and . . . she cares about people. That is why she became a doctor.

  That’s all well and good, but she must find a way to detach her emotions from her consulting, or she’ll have a miserable time of it. And perhaps not be as effective. Does she often react like that?

  Oh, no, I assure you.

  This was not true. I remember when I was still practicing, she often came in on an evening after a long day of house calls, and she would sit down and ask Grigory Petrovich to pour her a dram of vodka. Just a small one, mind, she’d say, and then with her elbows on the table and her face in her hands, she would allow her tension to dissipate in the gloom. Once or twice she wept; often she asked me what I would do in her shoes. I was the older sister, the first physician in the family. I must have said things not unlike what Anton Pavlovich had just said: that she must remember her training, must distinguish the person from the body, etc., and yet whenever she concluded with a sigh, But we grew up with these people!, I would find myself unable to offer any other comfort or advice. And we would sit on in the gloom until Pasha or Georges or Natasha
roused us from our apathy.

  Anton Pavlovich delivered me to my armchair and took his leave with these words for Elena: I would advise her, too, to be less conservative with her prescriptions. Can you tell her that, with all due respect? To obtain maximum effectiveness. Just a thought; it might help. He paused, then added, You yourself seem far more dispassionate, shall we say. It must have been easier—when you practiced, I mean—to keep the demons at bay.

  Yes, I generally seemed well suited to the scientific angle, so to speak—why is the body ill? Not why do we, as human beings, tend to react to illness with such terrible anxiety and distress . . . How are we to live, otherwise? I smiled and added, It’s just altogether too much if you don’t take your distance.

  He placed his hand briefly on my forearm and said, Quite so. Good night, Zinaida Mikhailovna.

  May 28, 1888

  Tonya came to see me today. She is tired of being isolated in their cottage and is terribly worried that Elena and Pasha might be away when her time comes. I reassure her that if worse comes to worst, which it won’t, I can deliver the baby with my eyes closed (so to speak) and a bit of help from Mamochka.

  She’s a lovely girl, Tonya; Pasha has been fortunate to find her. She is hardworking and doesn’t mind his politics—in fact, I believe she shares them. She doesn’t mind that he dresses like a peasant and works like one, or that he has embraced the Marxist cause. She has taken an interest in his farming methods and helps him a great deal. He has set her up with a loom, and she weaves tablecloths and useful things for us all—rough and full of small mistakes that she apologizes for, pointing them out when you’d never have noticed them otherwise. I used to help her choose the colors. Now I run my fingers over the weave, looking for the irregularities, as if they told a story.

  I shall be an aunt soon. It’s a strange thought.

  I suspect Elena wants children, although she’s never actually said as much, at least to me. When your chances of marriage are slim, you don’t discuss children. I don’t doubt she would have them without a husband if the world allowed it. She doesn’t get along with Tonya, and I think it’s because she’s envious. Or jealous. She’s always had a soft spot for Pasha, he is more her little brother than mine, they used to go riding and fishing together as children; and now she’s both confused and elated that Pasha is about to become a father. I shouldn’t be writing this, I know Elena might read it someday, but perhaps I lack the courage to tell her to her face that she must wish them well, that I’m sure they’ll let her spend all the time she likes with the baby, but she mustn’t make things awkward for them with her stormy behavior.