Love Is Never Past Tense... (13 page)

“In fact, I married a girl in ‘76 too, in Kiev. I too, got acquainted with her on vacation on the sea, on the Caspian Sea. And then, we continued to live in different cities, and divorced easily without shouts and tears.” Suddenly an idea came into his head that he never thought of before. Precisely. In fact Tanya, his second wife, very much resembled his first, Janna. She too was tall and long-legged, with long black hair. But she was without that vital spark which was, and in the course of time probably only, developed in Janna. “Certainly, I tried, obviously not realizing, to find a copy of Janna. To revive Janna, but in another person. The attempt did not go right, because another woman like Janna does not exist in this world.”

“Fool!” is an inherently insulting word, but when she said it somehow softly with some kind of vexation the word found material embodiment and grew in meaning. “What have you done for the past six years?” he asked himself. “What have you achieved? You already lost two wives. You remain without children. What do you have, except for these felt boots and a short fur coat? With whom do you communicate? With boys and little girls who never held books in their hands? Who have you surrounded yourself with here? What do you wish to fish out from this?”

With such cheerless ideas, Serge returned to the dorm and fell on the creaking cot.

It is quite probable that this call was a catalyst. Serge began to gather his things and soon returned to his publisher …

***

Some more years passed. Serge got up to his ears in the business of constructing youth-inhabited complexes—it was really alive work during the musty years of the early 80s. Janna let him know about herself again. He found out that she divorced, but she did not dwell on the details or the reasons, at least with him. Anyway, she was free again. Serge was also free, and in the summer of ‘84 both of them vacationed in Crimea. They were absolutely close to each other: she was in Koktebel, and Serge was near Sudak. She called him to come, but he did not move in her direction.

***

“Well why, why, why?” the old man moved his lips, unscrewing the top from the bottle. “What or who stopped you? That passion from which you were then on vacation? But in fact, you left her as soon as you arrived in the Moscow station. Did you believe that it is impossible to glue together a broken vessel? Or, were you stopped by the fact that this woman already had a child? No. All these reasons are nonsense. You have not moved from your spot due to your laziness, and you could not recognize where your happiness is. And it was next to you, just a few kilometers away. You could have met, and the warm sea, the hot sun would revive old feelings. In fact you remember the good. The bad is forgotten. How to know, in any case, that back then, it was not too late …”

The old man inserted the neck of the bottle into his mouth and greedily drank the bitter liquid. He frowned and rinsed an apple in the seawater …

***

Several more months passed. Serge received a letter:

My daughter has a warm nose. She is like from an animated cartoon. This person is the purpose of my life. She sits down at the piano, and plays and sings a simple song. I am happy.

And when I distract myself from haste and hurry, I notice sometimes the blue sky, the sun, and it becomes sad. Why? Is it necessary to explain it on paper? I wrote you in my thoughts, many letters, but on paper they would seem so banal. And here is this one. Shall I send it in 1973 or in now? And what if someone laughs about it, and what if it seems ridiculous or sentimental?

Your eyes appear unexpectedly; they appear from there, from ‘73, they appear with sea drops on eyelashes … Everywhere: on the face of a clock, in a trolley bus, on a beach, in a hurry. I talk to you, but I speak, and for the answer, I do not wait. Then I banished you to an eleven-year distance, but not for long. How have you lived all this time, then? What didn’t you love, and what did you love? It seems to me, I know the answers to these questions. Somehow, you said that it is necessary to wait for two years. I agreed and I waited eleven years. And for what? Simply, for a conversation with you. Maybe you are the one, with whom it is possible to conclude a phase of life—in fact these 11 years are a whole eternity. All of us are afraid of banalities, but in fact life consists of them. And the clean bed and the tasty meal is not everything that is necessary for a two-legged. And the fact that from our gorgeous head fall curls of gold, is just that firstly, you have not seen me for a long time, and secondly, that our globe spins, and we are spinning together with it, and moreover, we try to overtake its rotation with personal and public transportation and we do this so diligently—that some add one year—and others immediately add eleven.

I am torn by a desire to meet; that is why I play out different possibilities. Do you wish to take part in this game?

It seems to me that our meeting would not be a return to the ashes. Can you understand all this in the Moscow vanity?

I was glad to write to you, remaining with the surname of my first husband.

Janna

***

Yes they met. But both were late. Serge had already married a third time, and with his wife, waited for the birth of a child. He did not tell Janna this.

Janna was more than beautiful. The years did not show on her. She was graceful, but she was already a mature woman, lush and stunning. Serge looked at her and understood that in the Moscow hurry he wasted eleven years when he could have lived them with this smart and strong woman. And to live them absolutely differently and for sure his life would be full, and he would be more joyful than he was all these past years. But now, he entered the next phase of his stay on this ground, and he was already keen for the creation of a new family in which he already would have children.

They sat in his sister’s apartment, and they gradually talked about everything. However, Serge tried to imagine the opportunity of a reunion … What has climbed into his inflamed head? That the child won’t be born or that he would leave his wife with the child? Timidity and cowardice—they caused this delirium. He sat on the sofa, and his heart was broken from regret that they lived different lives, instead of one joined. And the reason for it was only his cowardice. He, now as a man, was attracted to this woman. He wouldn’t mind recalling once more the warmth of her body and then leaving, perhaps forever. But at this time she appeared more strong than he, and overcame in herself the desire for closeness. Although, who’s to say, maybe she did not want it anymore. This meeting seemed so sad—like from an orchestra pit, sounded the coda.

But life ordered that many years later they would hear from each other again.

The Soviet Union collapsed into the many pieces that were its components. Republics became separate states. Moldavia became Moldova, and represented something distant and almost inaccessible. Somewhere there was Janna, and Serge remained in Russia, which was pulled as with a vacuum cleaner, into the days that were extremely vague. Both above and below,
³⁸
clearly no one knew what to do. They needed to develop market relationships, or in other words to revive capitalism. It seemed to many, that having thrown off communistic fetters, life would immediately improve, would develop the creativity of the masses and cause the sun to blossom above the country once again. But the reality was far from this vision. Almost all branches of the national economy began to decay and wither. Business life almost stopped. The budgetary sphere received a deep crack. People had no money, yet strangely they wished to eat, drink, equip their dwellings, travel, and in general have everything that enters into the concept of a full-blooded life. And people, on any step of the hierarchical ladder that they found themselves on during this muddy time, began to reach for this full-blooded life independently, as their own conscience allowed. It was like sharing a vast pie, which was previously called the material and financial base of the great country. But rules on how to divide it did not exist. Under the law of the jungle, tidbits go to the strongest. Gangster factions bred like mushrooms. They were at war among themselves and with the authorities, although the authorities were not strong enough to oppose them. Racketeering prospered. Everyone who tried somewhere, somehow to earn money, had to pay a tribute irrespective of whether you stood in a bazaar and you traded, or you sold, or you tried to be involved in private enterprise or commerce.

Strangely enough, in this initial period Serge
was fortunate. He became occupied with the then-popular tourism that placed foreign guests with families. There came mostly Germans, English, and Americans, to gape at this strange country that had been closed by the Iron Curtain. Foreigners paid several tens of dollars for accommodation with families—for them a trifle, but for us, huge money. They drove around Moscow by taxi, paying with packs of
Marlboros
—and everyone was happy. Serge was happy too. His family did not starve. And he managed to carry his wife and then still small children “on excursion” to Hungary (which also at that time shed its communistic skin), and to visit almost all the countries of Europe, and even to go to America.

But one day Serge thought that he could earn more with construction, since he was a certified and registered engineer, and he opened his own business. Once again, he forgot that from the good you do not search for better. But he made this step, and it subsequently led to his best years of blossoming, spent in the continuous struggle against debt and poverty …

The beginning, though, did not foretell anything bad. Orders were coming in. The firm grew. Serge equipped his office and sat there at the head of a long table. Everything was as it needed to be: a secretary, an accounting department, a marketing department, a supply group, and working brigades. And during this period, somehow a phone rang. It was Janna. She zeroed in on him again, though she called from the USA where she had recently moved for permanent residence. Outside it was 1992. Janna suggested that he trade with America, and sent a list of prices on foodstuffs. In fact, hungry Russia needed to eat something. But why should he engage in a business unusual for his firm, when his business was booming? The contact faded, but the shining skin on Serge’s face was barely wrinkled from the surging memories. “Well,” he thought, “why is she not here, next to me, or why am not there? In fact, together we could move mountains. She has a bloodhound’s nose to sniff out the direction of where and what you need to move. This is how … she moved to America, taking with her both her daughter and her mother! Amazing!”

“And you, as a matter of fact, are alone. You have assistants that will run away in a moment if something scares them. You sit, and become snobby. But for certain, something is not right; you make mistakes and you do not notice …”

The mistakes did not take long to be shown. The whole year of 1993, the dollar
stood
as dead: prices grew, but the rate of the dollar was constant. Everyone who was engaged in import grew rich, by leaps and bounds. Everybody bought the goods for one thousand dollars. They sold for rubles under the increasing prices. They exchanged rubles at a cheap and stable rate. They were selling it to their seller, not forgetting to leave, “some extra money” overseas, or here, in Russia. Serge lamented his shortsightedness. “What did you reject? Janna was offering you, this very thing, as if she could predict favorable market conditions. But you had agreements based on the dollar. It was good for the customer—you bring them dollars, you change them for a cheap rate, and then run to the market to buy materials that are rising in price every day. That's all. It's done. Failure is waiting for you. When Janna offered prosperity … she again stretched her hand out to you. She herself was in serious need of money. Aren’t these preconditions for a strong alliance? Well big deal, she is your former wife. That’s even better. It is not necessary to explain to each other who you are.” But Serge missed this chance, by his own foolishness and because of his own conceit.

“Trouble has come—open the gate.” And literally, on the threshold of his office gangsters appeared …

It was July 9th, 1993. And on July 8th Serge in the circle of his whole family, celebrated his mother’s 65th birthday. He was still a little tipsy when he arrived at his office. He got out of the car, and was immediately surrounded by enforcers. Yes, they were gangster drones. They ransacked the city in search of rich dealers who were not yet “protected”. (Almost all the businessmen already had a “roof” or gangster, either bandits or FSB.
³⁹
These “protectors” included former Afghan soldiers, and sportsmen, and my god, everybody was in …)

They did not introduce themselves. They said that they would arrive tomorrow for conversation, because now they didn’t have time. They offered friendship and services: shaking off debtors, resolving problems with pig-headed customers—in short, they had the kindest of intentions. “And as a token of friendship,” they said, “Give us cigarettes.” And Serge gave. How could he have known, being raised in an intelligent family, that in gangster rules this step was referred to as the purchase of “the right of the first night”? You have given money; it is unimportant how much. You have given, so you have invited them to visit you. You have subscribed under the certificate of “cooperation.” Nobody else, according to the thieves' rules, could do anything more to this client—he was already under a roof.