Pushkin Hills (5 page)

One rainy evening he and I got talking:

“Misha, did you love your wife?”

“Whatsa?! My wife?! As in my woman?! Lizka, you mean?” Mikhail Ivanych was startled.

“Liza. Yelizaveta Prokhorovna.”

“Why do I need to love ’er? Just grab her by the thing and off you go…”

“But what attracted you to her?”

Mikhail Ivanych fell silent for a long time.

“She slept tidy,” he said. “Quiet as a caterpillar…”

I got my milk from the neighbours, the Nikitins. They lived respectably. A television set,
Kramskoy’s
Portrait of a Woman
on the wall…* The master of the house ran errands from five o’clock in the morning. He would fix the fence, potter around in the garden… One time I see he’s got a heifer strung up by the legs. Skinning it. The blade gleamed clearest white and was covered in blood…

Mikhail Ivanych held the Nikitins in contempt. As they did him, naturally.

“Still drinking?” enquired Nadezhda Fyodorovna, mixing chicken feed in the pail.

“I saw him at the centre,” said Nikitin, wielding a jointer plane. “Laced since the morning.”

I didn’t want to encourage them.

“But he is kind.”

“Kind,” agreed Nikitin. “Nearly killed his wife with a knife. Set all ’er dresses ablaze. The little ones running around in canvas shoes in winter… But yes, other than that he’s kind…”

“Misha is a reckless man, I understand, but he is also kind and noble at heart…”

It’s true there was something aristocratic about Mikhail Ivanych. He didn’t return empty bottles, for example; he threw them away.

“I’d feel ashamed,” he’d say. “How could I, like a beggar?”

One day he woke up feeling poorly and complained:

“I’ve got the shakes all over.”

I gave him a rouble. At lunchtime I asked:

“How goes it, feeling any better?”

“Whatsa?”

“Did you have a pick-me-up?”

“Huh! It went down like water on a hot pan, it sizzled!”

In the evening he was in pain again.

“I’ll go see Nikitin. Maybe he’ll gimme a rouble or just pour some…”

I stepped onto the porch and was witness to this conversation:

“Hey, neighbour, you scrud, gimme a fiver.”

“You owe me since
Intercession.”*

“I’ll pay you back.”

“We’ll talk when you do.”

“You’ll get it when I get paid.”

“Get paid?! You got booted for cause ages ago.”

“Fuck ’em and the horse they rode in on! Gimme a fiver
anyway. Do it on principle, for Christ’s sake! Show them our Soviet character!”

“Don’t tell me, for vodka?”

“Whatsa? I got business…”

“A parasite like you? What kinda business?”

Mikhail Ivanych found it hard to lie; he was weak.

“I need a drink,” he said.

“I won’t give it to you. Be mad, if you want, but I won’t give it you!”

“But I’ll pay you back, from my wages.”

“No.”

And to end the conversation Nikitin went back into the house, slamming the heavy door with the blue mailbox.

“You just wait, neighbour,” fumed Mikhail Ivanych. “You wait! You’re gonna get yours! That’s right! You’ll remember this conversation!”

There was no sound in response. Chickens maundered about. Golden braids of onions hung above the porch…

“I’ll make your life hell! I’ll…”

Red-faced and dishevelled, Mikhail Ivanych bellowed:

“Have you forgot?! Have you forgot everything, you snake? Clean forgot it?!”

“What’d I forget?” Nikitin leant out.

“If you forgot, we’ll remind you!”

“What’d I forget, eh?”

“We remember everything! We remember 1917! We whatchamacallit… We dispossessed you, you scummy scrud! We’ll dispossess your whole Party lot! We’ll ship you off to the
Cheka… Like Daddy
Makhno*… There they’ll show you…”

And after a short pause:

“Hey neighbour, lend me a fiver… All right, a trey… I’m begging you, for the love of Christ… you larder bitch!”

Finally I mustered up the courage to start work. I was assigned a group of tourists from the Baltics. These were reserved, disciplined people who listened contentedly and did not ask questions. I tried to be brief and was not entirely sure I was being understood.

Later I would be given a full overview. Tourists from Riga are the best-mannered. Whatever you say, they smile and nod in agreement. If they do ask questions, then they’re always on the practical side: how many serfs did Pushkin own? What was the revenue from Mikhailovskoye? What was the total cost of renovations to the manor house?

The Caucasians behaved differently. Generally, they didn’t listen at all. They talked among themselves and laughed loudly. On the drive to Trigorskoye they lovingly gazed at the sheep. Evidently they were able to identify their potential as kebabs. And if they asked questions, it was always something entirely unexpected. For instance:
“What was the duel between Pushkin and Lermontov about?”*

And as for our compatriots, they must be differentiated. Labourers needed a concise and simple account. Office workers required some concentration; some of them were quite erudite. They’ve read a lot of
Pikul, Rozhdestvensky, Meylakh… Gleaned ludicrous facts from Novikov…*

The intelligentsia were the most contentious and cunning. They would do their homework in preparation for their touristic voyage. Some random fact would get stuck in their memory. A distant relative. A curious escapade, rejoinder, incident… An inconsequential reference… And so on.

On my third day of work a woman with glasses asked me:

“When was
Benckendorff* born?”

“In the Seventies,” I replied.

Uncertainty was discernible in my answer.

“And more precisely?” she pressed.

“Unfortunately,” I said, “I’ve forgotten.”

And I thought to myself, why am I lying? Why not simply admit: “Who the hell knows?” There’s no great thrill in Benckendorff’s coming into the world.

“Alexander Christopherovich Benckendorff,” the woman reproached, “was born in 1784. In June, incidentally…”

I nodded, letting her know that I valued this information.

From that moment on an ironic smile did not leave her. As if my indifference towards Benckendorff betrayed my complete poverty of spirit…

And so I started working. The methodologists usually don’t listen to your first tour. They give you a chance to feel your way around, to get comfortable. And that is what saved me, because this is what happened.

I successfully navigated through the vestibule. Pointed out the drawing by the land surveyor Ivanov. Talked about Pushkin’s first exile. Then the second. I made my way to
Arina
Rodionovna’s room: “The only person who was truly close to the poet was his nanny, a serf…” It was all going smoothly. “She was both forgiving and curmudgeonly, naively religious and exceptionally businesslike…” Bas-relief by Seryakov…* “She was offered freedom, but refused it…”

And finally:

“The poet often turned to the nanny in verse. For instance, everyone knows these heartfelt lines…”

For a second I lost my train of thought, and shuddered at the sound of my own voice:

“Still around, old dear? How are you keeping?

I too am around. Hello to you!

May that magic twilight ever be streaming

Over your cottage as it used to do.”

I was mortified. Any moment someone would cry out:

“You fool and ignoramus! This is Yesenin – ‘A Letter to Mother’…”

I continued reciting, feverishly trying to come up with something to say.

“Yes, comrades, you are absolutely right. Of course this is Yesenin. Yes, his ‘Letter to Mother’. But please note just how close Pushkin’s intonation is to the lyricism of Sergei Yesenin. How organically it is realized in Yesenin’s poetics…” And so on.

I continued reciting. Somewhere at the end
a Finnish knife flashed ominously…* “Blah-blah-blah in a drunken tavern scuffle, blah-blah-blah a Finnish knife into my chest…” An inch away from this shining, menacing blade I was able to stop. I
waited for a storm after the ensuing silence. But everyone was quiet. Their faces appeared impassioned and stern. Only one elderly tourist pronounced weightily:

“Yeah, there were men…”

In the next room I attributed
Mnemosyne
to Delvig.* Then called
Sergei Lvovich “Sergei Alexandrovich”.* (Evidently, Yesenin had firmly occupied my subconscious.) But these were mere trifles. And I won’t even mention the three dubious literary speculations.

At Trigorskoye and in the monastery the tour went well. I had to think up logical transitions between the rooms. Find the so-called links. For a long time, I had difficulty with one particular passage – between Zizi’s room and the parlour. Finally I came up with this lacklustre tie-in and used it unfalteringly:

“My friends! I see it’s a little tight in here. Let’s move into the next room!”

At the same time, I would listen to other tours and in each find something interesting for myself. I befriended guides from Leningrad who for many years had spent their summers in the Preserve.

One of them was Volodya Mitrofanov. He was the one who sold me on the idea and came here right in my footsteps. More must be said about this man.

During his school years, Mitrofanov was known for his “photographic memory”, as they say. He would memorize entire chapters from textbooks with ease. He was presented as a miracle child. What’s more, God had blessed him with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. His was a combination of
limitless curiosity and phenomenal memory. A brilliant career in the sciences awaited him.

Everything interested Mitrofanov: biology, geography, field theory, ventriloquism, stamp-collecting,
Suprematism,* the fundamentals of animal training… He read three serious books a day. He graduated from school triumphantly and was accepted to the philology department at the university without any effort.

His professors were stumped: Mitrofanov knew absolutely everything and demanded new information. For his benefit, distinguished scientists spent days in libraries, poring over long-forgotten theories and science disciplines. Concurrently, Mitrofanov attended lectures on law, biology and chemistry.

The combination of a unique memory and an immeasurable thirst for knowledge worked wonders. But a shocking circumstance came to light: Mitrofanov’s personality was completely and fully exhausted by these qualities. He possessed no other attributes. He was born a genius of pure learning.

His first paper was left unfinished. Or rather, he put down only the first sentence. Actually, the beginning of the first sentence. Specifically: “As we all know…” At this juncture, the brilliantly conceived work was cut short.

Mitrofanov grew into a fantastic sloth, if one can call lazy a man who had read ten thousand books.

Mitrofanov did not wash his face, did not shave and did not attend Communal Work Saturdays. He did not repay his debts and did not lace his boots. He was too lazy to put on a hat. He simply laid it on top of his head.

He failed to appear for mandatory work placement at a
collective farm. He just didn’t show up, without explanation.

The university expelled Mitrofanov. His friends tried to find him a job. For a short while, he was a personal secretary to the academic Firsov. At first everything was perfect. Mitrofanov spent hours at the Academy of Sciences library, gathering research material for Firsov. And he readily shared the information already stored in his memory. The elderly scholar came to life. He offered Volodya a partnership in the development of his diatonal geomorphogenetic theory (or something like that). The academic said:

“You will do the writing. I am short-sighted.”

The next day Mitrofanov was gone. He was too lazy to take notes.

For several months he did nothing. He read another three hundred books and learnt two languages: Romanian and Hindi. He ate at his friends’ homes, repaying them with brilliant, wide-ranging lectures. People gave him their old clothes.

Friends tried to get him a job at the Lenfilm Studios. What’s more, a special position was created just for him: Consultant on All Matters. This was a rare stroke of luck. Mitrofanov was familiar with the costumes and customs of every era. He knew the fauna of every corner of the globe and the tiniest details in the flow of prehistoric events. He remembered paradoxical statements made by secondary government officials, the number of buttons on
Talleyrand’s waistcoat and the name of Lomonosov’s wife…*

Mitrofanov failed to fill out the application form. Even its
sections that read “underline where applicable”. He was lazy…

Finally, friends got him a job as a watchman at a movie theatre. It was a night job, so you could sleep if you wanted, or read, or think, if you were so inclined. Mitrofanov had but a single responsibility – after midnight he had to flip on some sort of switch. And he’d forget to do it. Or was too lazy. He got fired…