The Last Station: A Novel of Tolstoy's Final Year (2 page)

From the garden, well hidden by trees and bushes, came the gay strains of my favorite opera,
La Muette de
Portici
. Lyovochka rushed to my side, drawing me into his arms for a brief public display of strong affection. I could feel the pressure of their eyes upon us as we kissed. But I did not mind. ‘Just one dance – before dinner?’ Lyovochka asked me. I dipped my eyes, shyly, to the floor, but I danced beautifully in those days, before my knees were stiffened by too many damp mornings in the country.

Over his shoulder, I saw that Marya Ivanovna was looking into her empty plate. This occasion, I think, ended her little obsession with my husband. It was a lance thrown into her chest by Lyovochka himself!

After dinner, the real dancing began. Only the aged aunts and their wizened friends refused to join us whirling on the stone terrace, spinning in celebration of the Martyrs.

Lyovochka insisted, as always, on the
kamarinskaya
, a dance with intricate, quick steps. A few tried to sit it out, but he would have none of it. Lyovochka was the ringmaster, driving us – especially the younger officers – into ever more wild and lavish gestures.

Long before the others left, I was led by Lyovochka to the bedroom. Our abrupt departure was almost embarrassing, but I didn’t mind. One of the young officers caught my eye as we left; I knew what he was thinking, and it terrified me slightly.

Before I could even undress, Lyovochka was kissing me frantically on the neck and shoulders. I lay back on the broad bed and let him do what he had to do. It was not unenjoyable then, as it would become. Soon his trousers were down about his knees. I closed my eyes when his large red hands reached under my dress, the flat palms pressing hard on my nipples. And I let him take me, as he would, quickly. I wished he understood about these things, but I could not tell him. I let him fall asleep, half dressed, nuzzling into my shoulder.

When the dawn broke over Zasyeka Wood, he was gone. He had taken himself, as usual, to his study. I found him there later, his lips pursed, the candle still burning in the daylight. His quill dug deep letters in the page; his eyes flickered with a wild energy that I loved. He did not notice me, even when I put my hands on his shoulders and breathed, softly, on the back of his broad, white neck.

‘But sex?’ asked Chertkov, rubbing his forehead with the palm of a hand disfigured by eczema. ‘You are only twenty-four.’ He leaned forward across the desk. ‘Not an easy age for abstinence.’

I withdrew the smile that had formed on my lips against my will. Vladimir Grigorevich Chertkov has no sense of humor. Apart from his plumpness and bad skin, this humorlessness is the most noticeable thing about him.

‘I know that Count Tolstoy does not approve of sexual relations.’

‘He despises them,’ Chertkov replied. ‘And, if I may advise you, he does not use his title. He renounced it years ago.’

Chertkov unnerved me. I felt uncomfortable not using Tolstoy’s title. I had been brought up in polite company, taught to defer to those with power. It annoyed me that Chertkov imagined I wouldn’t know about the renunciation of that title. I know practically everything about Tolstoy that can be learned from his writings, and much else besides. There is a thick smoke of gossip surrounding the name of Leo Tolstoy, and I had inhaled that smoke on every possible occasion.

‘You must call him Leo Nikolayevich, like the rest of us,’ Chertkov added. ‘He prefers that.’

Chertkov’s chameleonlike skin puffed loosely about his bald, pear-shaped head. I could almost see through his forehead to the frontal lobes of his brain. He spoke stiffly, tapping his puffy fingers on the bare table. ‘I take it you have read
The Kreutzer Sonata
?’

I nodded, though I hoped we would not discuss this particular work.
The Kreutzer Sonata
is Tolstoy’s one failure, as I see it. Is there anything in common between Pozdnyshev, the hero of that tale, and Leo Tolstoy? I cannot believe it. It’s the story of a man who murders his wife. Many readers – I don’t go this far myself – consider it a tract against marriage, a missile of hate, a vile book. It is so unlike
Anna Karenina
, where Tolstoy celebrates the marriage of Kitty and Levin, raises it like a banner across the cold Russian sky. But Pozdnyshev!

‘I don’t want to belabor the point of chastity, but I arranged for a servant last year who proceeded to ruin two young housemaids who had been with the Tolstoy family for many years. It upset Leo Nikolayevich terribly. I want to make it clear that this won’t be a problem.’

I shook my head in outward assurance but inwardly was horrified that I should be classified with a servant. I think my anger showed in my cheeks. I tried to cover them with my hands.

‘I’m sorry to bring up a delicate subject,’ Chertkov said. ‘One can never be too specific, I always say.’

‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘I understand.’

The job seemed to slip away from me, and I panicked. More than anything, I wanted to be Tolstoy’s private secretary.

Chertkov circled the desk and stood beside me. He put a cold hand on my wrist. ‘I have heard only good things about you from Makovitsky and the others. And I have read carefully what you have written about Leo Nikolayevich. So has he. It is somewhat … youthful. But quite sound.’

‘Tolstoy has read my essays?’

Chertkov shook his head in confirmation. I beamed. It appeared that everything would fall, amazingly, into place.

‘I don’t want to prejudice you against Sofya Andreyevna, but it would be impolitic of me not to mention her disagreements with Leo Nikolayevich,’ Chertkov went on. ‘It has been an unfortunate marriage – for him.’ He began to pull his silky black beard, drawing it to a point beneath his chin. The beard gives him the look of a Tartar. ‘Frankly,’ he continued, ‘she is not one of us. I would go so far as to say that she despises us and would do anything in her power to see that her husband’s work does not go forward.’

‘But they’ve been married for nearly fifty years! Surely, this …’ I was not sure what I meant.

Chertkov leaned back against the desk and smiled. ‘You are an honest fellow, Valentin Fedorovich. I see why you came so highly recommended. Dushan Makovitsky is not overly intelligent, but he’s a good judge of character.’

‘I have heard about these problems between –’

‘Don’t let any of this trouble you,’ Chertkov said. ‘But remember that she will say dreadful things about me.’ He seemed uncomfortable saying this and shifted. ‘Sofya Andreyevna and I have not always been on bad terms. When I was first exiled, she protested to the tsar. And she often wrote to me in England, passing along news of Leo Nikolayevich. Now she does not want me near her husband. It made her furious that I bought the house at Telyatinki, even though I am not allowed to live there.’

‘Disgraceful,’ I said, surprised at my own vehemence.

‘I’m what you might call living contraband,’ he said, smiling. It was the first time he had smiled since I’d called on him. He reached out again, taking my hands in his.

‘My dear Valentin Fedorovich, you have been offered a great gift. You will see Leo Nikolayevich every day. You will take meals with him. You will walk in the forest by his side. And you will find your soul warmed daily by his fire. I hope that you will love him as I do. And that you will learn from him.’ He let go of my hands and walked to the window, parting the curtain to look at the falling snow. ‘What he says will ring in your head forever.’

I don’t know why, but I began to think of my father as he spoke. My father has been dead for a year. He often spoke to me in his soft, guttural voice, delivering fatherly advice. I took none of it seriously, but I appreciated his efforts. He knew that, since my conversion to Tolstoyism, I was hungry for God, hungry to learn, to discuss ideas, to perfect my soul. My father admired all of this, but he said I had to be careful. A civil servant for thirty years, he had managed to avoid thinking about anything. But I refuse to accept his intellectual bankruptcy as my legacy. I want to become, like Chertkov, a disciple.

A servant in a rough wool jacket entered. This deficiency of proper attire is Chertkov’s compromise with Tolstoyan values. He is not a willing member of the class into which he was born, though he has not relinquished all the trappings. Krekshino is a fine house, with spacious grounds and several outbuildings for horses. I had seen perhaps half a dozen servants – and assumed that a dozen more hid themselves in the bowels of the kitchen, or elsewhere on the grounds. The furniture in the house is unpretentious but solid – mostly English and French. I did not like the heavy velvet curtains that darkened the rooms.

‘Tea, sir?’ the young man asked.

I accepted a steaming glass of China tea with a nod of appreciation.

‘Come here,’ Chertkov said, motioning me to the large leather chairs beside the fire. I watched as he dropped to his knees and worked a large, old-fashioned bellows, fanning the logs in the iron grate to a flame. The chimney seemed to roar, inhaling the sparks. ‘We must become friends,’ he said. ‘We have so much to accomplish, and there are many enemies.’

His cheekbones flared when he spoke, and he seemed always to be repressing a burp. Dressed in a fresh muslin blouse with a shiny leather belt, he looked like other Tolstoyans I have met. His boots were unstylish but well made – a gift from Leo Nikolayevich, he told me. ‘He made them with his own hands – a craft he has learned in recent years. He makes boots for everyone.’

Chertkov sipped his tea in an almost prissy manner. Although I very much admired him, liking him would require an act of will.

‘Here is a letter from Leo Nikolayevich,’ he said, handing me a sheet covered with Tolstoy’s messy scrawl. ‘He has not been well. You can tell from the unsteady hand. It is partly Sofya Andreyevna’s fault, I must tell you. She has destroyed his ability to sleep with her constant nagging.’ Anger bloomed in his chest. ‘She is a desperate woman. There is no telling what he might have accomplished were he married to a more suitable person, someone who shared his idealism and convictions.’

‘I have heard that she’s dreadful.’

He nodded gravely, soaking this in. ‘You will take many meals at Yasnaya Polyana, but Sofya Andreyevna makes few concessions to her husband and his friends.’

‘She isn’t a vegetarian?’

He shook his head with disgust. ‘Neither are her sons. Only Sasha can be trusted – among the children, that is. Confide only in her or in Dushan Makovitsky, your mother’s friend. He is a good man.’

‘Dr Makovitsky says that Sasha does much of her father’s secretarial work.’

‘She types everything for him. There’s a little room down the hallway from his study called “the Remington room.” You’ll doubtless spend a good deal of time there. Sasha needs help. The volume of letters seems to increase monthly with people frantic to get a word of advice from Leo Nikolayevich. He replies personally to most of them.’ Chertkov smiled again, revealing chiseled teeth with dark spaces between them. ‘Leo Nikolayevich adores his daughter, by the way. This drives Sofya Andreyevna mad.’

‘Does the countess type?’

‘No, but she used to copy all of his work by hand. She was so possessive about it – and meddlesome.’

I felt uneasy now. One does not like to come between married people, whatever the circumstances.

‘You will help with the secretarial work, of course – mostly filing and answering letters. The point is that Leo Nikolayevich needs a man with your intellectual gifts around him. Somebody, like yourself, who has read and understood his work. Gusev was invaluable that way.’

I had heard a good deal of Nicholai Gusev, who was Tolstoy’s secretary for some years. The government of Tula exiled him from the province, as they did Chertkov, for ‘subversive activities,’ a sentence that might well fall on my head one day. I do not mind. Exile is a great Russian institution. The Russian soul has been tempered, like blue steel, in Siberia.

‘Take these letters to Leo Nikolayevich, if you will,’ Chertkov said, handing me a small, tightly sealed packet. ‘One can’t be sure what gets through to him, I’m afraid.’ He bit his lip. ‘Sofya Andreyevna does not respect his privacy.’

‘She would actually intercept his letters!’

He nodded, suppressing a grin. ‘I have another little task for you. A secret task, I should say.’ He leaned forward in his chair. ‘I have instructed Sergeyenko, my secretary at Telyatinki, to give you several English notebooks constructed for a special purpose.’

I wanted to look aside but didn’t dare.

‘Sergeyenko will show you how to use them. In brief, you will keep a private diary for me. Write with an indelible pencil and use transfer paper. The interleaves can be torn out of the notebooks quite easily. Bring these weekly to Sergeyenko, who will send them to me here. I want to know exactly what happens at Yasnaya Polyana.’ A queer yellow light filled his eyes. ‘Let me know who is visiting Leo Nikolayevich. Tell me what he is reading, and make a note of what letters go out or come in. And let me know what Sofya Andreyevna has been saying.’

A long pause followed, during which I restrained myself from comment. ‘Naturally,’ he continued, ‘I’d like to know what Leo Nikolayevich is writing. Too much of his time, I fear, has been wasted on this anthology of his. You might help by taking on some of these editorial duties. Do more than he asks of you. Urge him to get back to his philosophical work.’

‘Is he writing another novel?’

Chertkov belched into a silk handkerchief. ‘Novels are for women, for pampered, bourgeois women who have nothing better to do with their time.’

‘But
Anna Karenina
–’

‘It’s a decent example, but still quite foolish.’

‘Vladimir Grigorevich, I …’

He stared at me with tiny eyes that did not seem human. They were the eyes of a weasel.

‘I liked
Anna Karenina
.’

‘You’re a young man, Valentin Fedorovich! Young men like novels. I did, many years ago. My mother, in fact, was a friend of Turgenev. Fiction is for people who have not yet properly begun their search for God. What subjects intrigue these novelists? I will tell you. Lust and adultery.’ His upper lip curled, exposing his teeth like alder roots in a swamp.