Pravda (6 page)

Henry looked up. "I cannot believe you mean what you say, Arkasha." He sometimes used the customary Russian nickname for Arkady, though he was careful never to say it with any hint of saccharinity. "Otherwise, why would you practice ten hours a day? But ... well, even if everything
is
bullshit, I am afraid that the great dictatorship of the here and now continues. And as outraged and ill-equipped as we are, humanity is nonetheless commanded to get on with it. We have no other choice." Henry glanced toward where his friend lay. "What time are you supposed to be there tonight?"

"I feel like a Swedish wankpit."

"Around seven?"

"And it's going to rain again."

"What time are you supposed to be there tonight?"

"Half past ten."

"I'll walk with you—if you are going to walk."

Arkady batted off the newspaper and placed his cap firmly over his face.

Henry smiled his anemic smile again and wandered over to the window to take stock of the weather: immediately to the left, the other tower blocks; below, street squalor, gray decay, refuse; to the right, acid-rain-stained concrete and a tall crane, like some oddly skeletal single finger; directly ahead, rusted docks that had never taken themselves seriously; disrepair and dilapidation on all sides, and yet none of it detained the eye for more than a moment—because spread across the wide horizon beyond was the sea, light-spangled and sapphire-glorious in the still commanding sun. And now—just now—the beauty was truly extraordinary: the sea, angle-lit from the south and here-and-there sparkling, was nonetheless shading darker and darker, slate to a bluish black, as that resolute line of bruised purple clouds low-scudded in from the west. The island of Kronstadt and the dam had already vanished, and in a few minutes those clouds would obscure the sun altogether.

It happened like this. Though son and mother never did see or speak to each other again, Henry found himself acting for Arkady while Zoya continued to work for Maria Glover. Perhaps some sense of a secular mission prompted Henry to intervene. Or perhaps it was
some new and bold reckoning in his dispute with the God from whom he could not quite flee. Either way, the deal had been struck.

Many an intention had blurred since then, but even at the time, more than two years ago, Henry had chosen not to examine his motives too closely—were not most human interactions thus shaded? Just the same, were he capable of being honest with himself on the subject, Henry had sensed then (as he sensed still) that desire was down there, lurking and smirking among the innocents, if ever he had mind enough to look. And yet he could not face bearing his torch so deep, for fear of discovering who or what held sway in these darkest crypts. Besides which, when he was in his lighter mood, such thoughts seemed like huge misapprehensions, echoes of a daydream from a time long ago, before he canceled himself out, before he shut down his sex drive and opened up his veins.

In any case, theirs began as a straightforward friendship. Henry had been out with a group of mainly English expatriates at one of Arkady's Magizdat gigs at the JFC Jazz Club. A veteran of a thousand classical concerts and five times as many recordings, he had thought that he recognized something exceptional in the Russian's playing. Later, Arkady had joined the table—there was talk of gigs in Vilnius and Tallinn—and Henry had translated. Though it was no business of his, Henry had then offered to teach Arkady English at half his normal rate—out of an unmediated eagerness to assist such talent in any way he could. But perhaps Arkady surprised him by taking his offer seriously, turning up twice a week at eight in the morning at Henry's old flat behind the Nevsky, well prepared and with the vocabulary learned. And perhaps Henry was pleased to be thus surprised.

Indeed, for the next six months, Arkady studied with the tenacious application of a last-chance student—far harder than the rest of Henry's pupils. And within a few months they were practicing English conversation. Initially Arkady told Henry only the barest outlines of his circumstances—that he knew nothing of his parents and that he had grown up in Orphanage Number 11, called Helios, and that it was "like a house for the fucking of pigs." But over the weeks Henry coaxed out the greater part of his history. (As so often happened, Henry noticed, Arkady was far more relaxed and open in his emerging second language. Curious, too, how quickly the Russians mastered obscenity.) Like a thick central pillar which alone supported the roof and around which everything else revolved was the main fact of Arkady's life: that he had trained as a classical pianist. This confirmed what Henry had felt must surely be the case when he first heard him perform—though "trained" hardly described the experience that Henry discovered Arkady to have undergone. His various teachers had well and truly made him a pianist—fashioned him, beaten him, worshipped him, forced him, encouraged him, praised him, hounded him, persecuted him, pushed him, cajoled him, inculcated him, taught him his art in the least compromising and most effective of all teaching methods: old-school Soviet style. For as long as he had been able to read, Arkady had been reading staves. It was not Russian that was Arkady Alexandrovitch's first language at all—it was music.

And it was no exaggeration to say that Arkady had been a child prodigy—the proud boast of Petersburg youth orchestras and the boy chosen to play for Gorbachev himself in 1984. "They love orphans for Soviet times, Henry. We do not have problem of mothers, fathers. We are heroes of the great state. No parents to take the glory away." Certainly by the time he was seventeen, everything was set for Arkady's smooth transition to the St. Petersburg State Conservatory and from there surely to Moscow and international stardom.

Then Mother Russia fell apart—again.

At first Arkady's rightful place was merely postponed for a year. "There were problems, so many problems, Henry You just had to wait—this was the way. Always in this bullshit country, we wait. For what? For nothing." He was nonetheless required to leave the orphanage and seek what work he could find as an electrician, the secondary training they had given him by way of Soviet-style existential comedy.

Then, when the long year had dragged itself reluctantly around the calendar, the place was arbitrarily postponed again. But still Arkady could not bring himself to face the facts: that the nature of bribery and corruption had undergone a complete reversal and that advancement was no longer about the Party system or Party sponsorship; that in the new Russia it was all about the money and the guns. In 1991 the orphanage shut down. In 1992 his piano teacher died. He lost access to the last good piano he had been using. The second year passed and he was told to apply to the conservatory all over again—through the new system. He did so, this time without a sponsor. By midway through 1993, he knew he wasn't going to make it. Even then it took him half a decade to abandon the greater part of his hope. And so he spent the last years of the millennium selling smuggled stereos around the back of Sennaya Square by day and (as
much as to sit by a functioning piano as to stay alive materially) playing bullshit music in the new hotel bars by night, hour after hour, his fingers aching like ten desperate would-be lovers trapped in ten deadly marriages for something real ... the
Hammerklavier
's embrace.

The shortage of playable pianos in Russia ... Ah, yes—besides the English lessons, there was a second reason for the deepening of Henry and Arkady's early association. Or perhaps it was the main reason. At any rate, a few months after Henry had begun teaching Arkady, he bought an upright C. Bechstein. Henry himself had once been a competent amateur, and maybe he did genuinely intend to pick up where he had left off at the age of eighteen—and yet, even as he and the seller's three handsome sons heaved the piano through his front door, Henry knew well that Arkady would be the first to sit at the keyboard. Sure enough, as soon as the Russian saw it, he asked if he could play, and—the quagmire of the verb "to be" happily abandoned for the time being—Henry spent the next two hours sitting still at his teaching table, utterly rapt. Thereafter Arkady came around three or four times a week, practicing for hours on end, regardless of the lesson schedule.

Nonetheless, these two circumstances—teaching and piano—might not have led to their present arrangement in tower block number two had it not been for two further eventualities: the dwindling of Henry s money and the unforeseen arrival of the woman whom Arkady referred to as "the stupid bitch." Maria Glover changed both their lives overnight.

They were some six months into the English lessons. Arkady was now playing Henry s piano several times a week. And yet Henry found out about the meeting between mother and son only some days after the event. The idea occurred to him more or less instantly, though: arrange for the woman to pay for Arkady to go to the conservatory. And get her to keep Arkady alive while he did so. Arkady would have to reapply, of course, and he would probably have to suffer the indignity of several auditions, but ... But if he could prove himself at least as worthy of the department s time as any of the adolescents he would be up against, then the main thing was the money. If need be, the woman, whoever she was, could pay in advance. Surely, Henry reasoned, it was worth a try. The problem was Arkady.

In all his other dealings, as far as Henry could tell, Arkady was as
vulpine as everyone else in Russia, but on this one subject he was as silent and scornful as an anchorite. Henry pressed, but the Russian refused absolutely to contemplate a second meeting, refused to consider asking for anything through Zoya, refused even to talk about it. Eventually Henry offered to broker the question himself. Arkady merely shrugged—Henry could try if he wished, but it was nothing to do with him.

Thus meagerly enfranchised, Henry nonetheless set about his task with skill, a renewed sense of purpose, and no little interest, the only further Arkady-related difficulties being the finding of Zoya and the meeting with Maria Glover herself, for which he, Henry, was required to bring photographs of the Russian that he was forced (against his liking) to steal with the complicity of Polina.

In the event, the deal was relatively easy to secure. After a truly ferocious hour in the company of his friend s mother (during which he had to relate everything he knew about Arkady thrice over), Henry found Mrs. Glover suddenly tractable; she had been testing him, of course—interrogating him, or perhaps, as Henry later thought, mining him was a better way of putting it. Regardless, once her mood changed—abruptly, as if by a switch—she was more than ready to guarantee the funds in writing to the conservatory ahead of any audition. If Arkady won a place, she would not give the money to Henry (he did not ask for this, and he explained that Arkady would not accept it either), but she would pay the conservatory directly and in advance each term, the entire three years tuition as well as any dining, books, stationery, or other bills her son might incur. This without further question, Mr. Wheyland. I am not surprised to hear that you have trained as a teacher. And I further hope you will look out for my son for the duration of his studies. I trust you to do so. You will let me know immediately of his acceptance at the conservatory. Now that I have heard what you have to say, I am sure that he will be accepted. And from then on, he must have no other work or distraction until his career is made. You understand this?

She struck Henry in those moments—sitting in the casement window of her apartment, back to the light, face impassive, lips set—as a woman of great will, an exiled queen charging her courtier with the full authority of her divine right; and perhaps already inclined to duty, he felt her wish much as a command.

Of course he tracked down Arkady at his favorite pinball bar with the news that same afternoon, but the Russian never actually thanked him—not then, not ever. All the same, overnight, Henry' s
old place became a twenty-four-hour rehearsal room. Which was all the gratitude he needed.

Though nothing was left of Henry s former life (buried, loathed, forcibly forgotten) save for the ever-decreasing remains of the money, there was nonetheless something vaguely pastoral about what happened thereafter. For it was Henry who had suggested that they find somewhere cheap together so Arkady could practice whenever he wanted and thus make the very most of the chance he had finally been given. Arkady was going to need a piano, after all. Further, Henry offered to pay for most of their food, the bills, and the rent, so that Arkady could concentrate full-time and give up the nights in the bars.

After a fashion, the arrangement worked. Arkady practiced all day (and disappeared most nights). Henry listened and listened and continued to help the Russian improve his English. And in this lopsided symbiosis, they lived.

Henry met Maria Glover only once more, some six months later, at her flat on Griboedova, as before—though this time ostensibly to check on the efficacy of their arrangements. Perhaps Arkady's acceptance at the conservatory (communicated via Zoya) had furnished them both with the required validation—Henry to pursue his vocation more explicitly, Maria Glover to feel her obligation obliquely eased. At any rate, Henry found her that day in a lighter, more expansive mood. Perhaps glad of his Englishness too, she offered him tea and told Henry a little about herself, what she called "her second life" in London, her family there, her work on the newspaper of record. And thus charmed, Henry reciprocated by confessing something of his previous life too. That he had trained for the Catholic priesthood before abandoning the calling and becoming a full-time secondary school teacher, a job which, he explained, was these days almost impossible to do without incredible resources of stamina and insensitivity.

She asked him how he came to be in Russia. He explained that he had left his teaching job on his thirty-fourth birthday and that after his mother had died he had used the money from selling her small house in Reading to set off traveling. He described how he had come to Russia (after three years, mostly in India) overland, from the south, and fallen in love with Petersburg on his first visit.