TO MY WIFE. WHO WAS RIGHT
At twelve, we approached Luga. We stopped at the station square. The girl-guide changed her elevated tone to a more earthly one:
“There’s a little spot to the left…”
My neighbor leaned forward with interest:
“Meaning—a restroom?”
He had been tormenting me the whole trip: “A bleaching agent with six letters?… An endangered ungulate?… Austrian downhill skier?…”
The tourists stepped out onto the brightly lit square. The driver slammed the door shut and crouched by the radiator.
The station… A dirty yellow building with columns, a clock, neon letters trembling, bleached by the sun…
I crossed the vestibule with a newspaper kiosk and massive cement urns. I intuitively located the buffet.
“Through the waiter,” the waitress said listlessly.
A corkscrew dangled on her sloping chest.
I sat down by the door. A minute later, the waiter appeared with huge felt sideburns.
“What would you like?”
“I would like,” I say, “for everyone to be benevolent, modest, and amiable.”
The waiter, oversaturated with the variety of life, remained silent.
“I would like one hundred grams of vodka, a beer, and two sandwiches.”
“With what?”
“With sausage, probably…”
I took out cigarettes and lit one. My hands were shaking terribly. Must not drop the glass… And then two intellectual old women sat down nearby. Seemed like they were from our bus.
The waiter brought a small carafe, a bottle, and two candies.
“The sandwiches are finished,” he said with false tragedy.
I paid. I picked up the glass and immediately put it down. My hands were shaking like an epileptic’s. The old women examined me fastidiously. I tried to smile:
“Look at me with love!”
The old women flinched and moved to another spot. I heard inarticulate critical interjections.
To hell with them, I think. I wrapped both hands around the glass and drank. Then I rustled open a candy.
It felt a little easier. A deceptive surge of mental energy was beginning. I stuffed the bottle of beer into my pocket. Then I got up, nearly knocking over the chair. Or rather, the duralumin armchair. The old women continued to stare at me, frightened.
I went out onto the square. The park fence was covered with warped plywood shields. Diagrams promised mountains of meat, wool, eggs, and other intimacies in the near future.
The men were smoking near the bus. The women were noisily taking their seats. The girl-guide was eating ice cream in the shade. I stepped up to her:
“Let’s get acquainted.”
“Aurora,” she said, extending a sticky hand.
“And I,” I say, “am the tanker Derbent.” The girl wasn’t offended.
“Everyone laughs at my name. I’m used to it… What’s wrong with you? You’re red!”
“I assure you, that’s only on the outside. Inside, I’m a constitutional democrat.”
“No, really, are you feeling unwell?”
“I drink a lot… Want a beer?”
“Why do you drink?” she asked. What could I answer?
“It’s a secret,” I say, “a little mystery…”
“Decided to work in the Reserve?”
“Exactly.”
“I figured as much.”
“Do I look like a philologist?”
“Mitrofanov was seeing you off. An extremely erudite Pushkin scholar. Do you know him well?”
“Well,” I say, “on the wrong side…”
“What does that mean?”
“Don’t pay it any mind.”
“Read Gordin, Shchegolev, Tsyavlovskaya… Kern’s memoirs… And some popular brochure on the harmfulness of alcohol.”
“You know, I’ve read so much about the harmfulness of alcohol! I decided to quit… reading forever.”
“It’s impossible to talk to you…”
The driver looked in our direction. The tourists were seated.
Aurora finished her ice cream, wiping her fingers.
“In the summer,” she said, “they pay quite well at the Reserve. Mitrofanov earns about two hundred rubles.”
“And that’s two hundred rubles more than he’s worth.”
“And you’re mean, too!”
“You would be mean, too,” I say. The driver honked twice.
“Let’s go,” said Aurora.
The Lvov bus was cramped. The calico seats were hot. The yellow curtains intensified the feeling of stuffiness.
I was flipping through Aleksei Woolf’s Diaries. Pushkin was mentioned amicably, sometimes condescendingly. There it is, that proximity so destructive to vision. Everyone understands that geniuses must have acquaintances. But who will believe that their acquaintance is a genius?!
I dozed off. Some irrelevant information about Ryleyev’s mother vaguely reached me…
I was awakened already in Pskov. The freshly plastered walls of the Kremlin evoked melancholy. Above the central arch, designers had affixed an ugly, Baltic-looking, forged emblem. The Kremlin resembled a huge-scale model.
The local travel bureau was located in one of the outbuildings. Aurora certified some papers, and we were taken to “Gera”—the most fashionable local restaurant.
I hesitated—should I have another drink or not? If I have another, tomorrow will be completely terrible. I didn’t feel like eating… I went out onto the boulevard. The linden trees rustled heavily and low. I have long been convinced: as soon as you start thinking, you immediately remember something sad. For instance, the last conversation with my wife…
“Even your love for words, that insane, unhealthy, pathological love,”—is false. “It’s just an attempt to justify the life you lead. And you lead the lifestyle of a famous writer without having the slightest prerequisites for it… With your vices, you need to be Hemingway at the very least…”
“Do you really consider him a good writer? Maybe Jack London is a good writer too?”
“My God! What does Jack London have to do with it?! My only pair of boots is in the pawnshop… I can forgive everything. And poverty doesn’t frighten me… Everything, except betrayal!”
“What do you mean?”
“Your perpetual drinking. Your… I don’t even want to say it… You can’t be an artist at the expense of another person… That is vile! You talk so much about nobility! And yet you yourself are a cold, cruel, evasive person…”
“Don’t forget that I’ve been writing stories for twenty years.”
“You want to write a great book? That only happens to one in a hundred million!”
“So what? Spiritually, such a failed attempt is equal to the greatest book. If you like, morally it is even higher. Since it excludes reward…”
“Those are just words. Endless beautiful words… I’m tired… I have a child I’m responsible for…”
“I have a child too.”
“Whom you ignore for months. To you, we are strangers…”
(In a conversation with a woman, there is one painful moment. You bring up facts, arguments, and points. You appeal to logic and common sense. And suddenly you discover that she is repulsed by the very sound of your voice…)
“I didn’t do anything evil on purpose,” I say.
I sat down heavily on the sloping bench. I pulled out my pen and notebook.
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