Pushkin Hills / Заповедник. Книга для чтения на английском языке

I walked into the main office. Galina was beset by tourists. She motioned me to wait.

I picked up the brochure Pearl of the Crimea from the shelf and took out my cigarettes.

After collecting some paperwork, the tour guides would leave. The tourists ran after them to the buses. Several “stray” families wanted to join a group. They were being looked after by a tall, slender girl.

A man in a Tyrolean hat[25] approached me timidly.

“My apologies, may I ask you a question?”

“Go ahead.”

“Is that the expanse?”

“What do you mean?”

“I am asking you, is that the expanse?” The Tyrolean dragged me to an open window.

“In what sense?”

“In the most obvious. I would like to know whether that is the expanse or not? If it isn’t the expanse, just say so.”

“I don’t understand.”

The man turned slightly red and began to explain, hurriedly:

“I had a postcard… I am a cartophilist…”

“Who?”

“A cartophilist. I collect postcards. Philos – love, cartos…”

“OK, got it.”

“I own a colour postcard titled The Pskov Expanse. And now that I’m here I want to know – is that the expanse?”

“I don’t see why not,” I said.

“Typical Pskovian?”

“You bet[26].”

The man walked away, beaming.

The rush hour was over and the centre emptied.

“Each summer there’s a larger influx of tourists,” explained Galina.

And then, raising her voice slightly: “The prophecy came true: ‘The sacred path will not be overgrown…’[27]!”

No, I think not. How could it get overgrown, the poor thing, being trampled by squadrons of tourists?.

“Mornings here are a total clusterfuck,” said Galina.

And once again I was surprised by the unexpected turn of her language.

Galina introduced me to the office instructor, Lyudmila. I would secretly admire her smooth legs till the end of the season. Luda had an even and friendly temperament. This was explained by the existence of a fiancé. She hadn’t been marred by a constant readiness to make an angry rebuff. For now her fiancé was in jail…

Shortly after, an unattractive woman of about thirty appeared: the methodologist. Her name was Marianna Petrovna. Marianna had a neglected face without defects and an imperceptibly bad figure.

I explained my reason for being there. With a sceptical smile, she invited me to follow her to the office.

“Do you love Pushkin?”

I felt a muffled irritation.

“I do.”

At this rate[28], I thought, it won’t be long before I don’t.

“And may I ask you why?”

I caught her ironic glance. Evidently the love of Pushkin was the most widely circulated currency in these parts. What if I were a counterfeiter, God forbid?

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Why do you love Pushkin?”

“Let’s stop this idiotic test,” I burst out. “I graduated from school. And from university.” (Here I exaggerated a bit; I was expelled in my third year.) “I’ve read a few books. In short, I have a basic understanding… Besides, I’m only seeking a job as a tour guide…”

Luckily, my snap response went unnoticed. As I later learnt, basic rudeness was easier to get away with[29] here than feigned aplomb.

“And nevertheless?” Marianna waited for an answer. What’s more, she waited for a specific answer she had been expecting.

“OK,” I said, “I’ll give it a try. Here we go. Pushkin is our belated Renaissance[30]. Like Goethe was for Weimar[31]. They took upon themselves what the West had mastered in the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Pushkin found a way to express social themes in the form of tragedy, a characteristic of the Renaissance. He and Goethe lived, if you will, in several eras. Werther is a tribute to sentimentalism. Prisoner of the Caucasus is a typically Byronesque work. But Faust, for instance – that’s already Elizabethan and the Little Tragedies naturally continue one of the Renaissance genres. The same with Pushkin’s lyricism. And if it’s dark, then it isn’t dark in the spirit of

Byron[32] but more in the spirit of Shakespeare’s sonnets, I feel. Am I explaining myself clearly?”

“What has Goethe got to do with anything?” asked Marianna. “And the same goes for the Renaissance!”

“Nothing!” I finally exploded. “Goethe has absolutely nothing to do with this! And ‘Renaissance’ was the name of Don Quixote’s horse[33]. And it too has nothing to do with this! And evidently I have nothing to do with this either!”

“Please calm down,” whispered Marianna. “You’re a bundle of nerves… I only asked, ‘Why do you love Pushkin?’”

“To love publicly is obscene!” I yelled. “There is a special term for it in sexual pathology!”

With a shaking hand she extended me a glass of water. I pushed it away.

“Have you loved anyone? Ever?!”

I shouldn’t have said it. Now she’ll break down and start screaming: “I am thirty-four years old and I am single!”

“Pushkin is our pride and joy!” managed Marianna. “He is not only a great poet, he is also Russia’s great citizen…”

Apparently this was the prepared answer to her idiotic question.

And that’s it? I thought.

“Do look at the guidelines. Also, here is a list of books. They are available in the reading room. And report to Galina Alexandrovna that the interview went well.”

I felt embarrassed.

“Thank you,” I said. “I’m sorry I lost my temper.”

I rolled up the brochure and put it in my pocket.

“Be careful with it – we only have three copies.”

I took the papers out and attempted to smooth them with my hands.

“And one more thing,” Marianna lowered her voice. “You asked about love…”

“It was you who asked about love.”

“No, it was you who asked about love. As I understand, you are interested in whether I am married? Well, I am!”

“You have robbed me of my last hope,” I said as I was leaving.

In the hallway Galina introduced me to Natella, another guide. And another unexpected burst of interest:

“You’ll be working here?”

“I’ll try.”

“Do you have cigarettes?”

We stepped onto the porch.

Natella had come from Moscow at the urge of romantic, or rather reckless ideas. A physicist by education, she worked as a schoolteacher. She decided to spend her three-month holiday here. And regretted coming. The Preserve was total pandemonium. The tour guides and methodologists were nuts. The tourists were ignorant pigs. And everyone was crazy about Pushkin. Crazy about their love for Pushkin. Crazy about their love for their love. The only decent person was Markov…

“Who is Markov?”

“A photographer. And a hopeless drunk. I’ll introduce you. He taught me to drink Agdam[34]. It’s out of this world[35]. He can teach you too…”

“Much obliged. But I’m afraid that in that department I myself am an expert.”

“Then let’s knock some back one day! Right here in the lap of nature.”

“Agreed.”

“I see you are a dangerous man.”

“How do you mean?”

“I sensed it right away. You are a terribly dangerous man.”

“When I’m not sober?”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.”

“I don’t understand.”

“To fall in love with someone like you is dangerous.”

And Natella gave me an almost painful nudge with her knee.

Christ, I thought, everyone here is insane. Even those who find everyone else insane.

“Have some Agdam,” I said, “and calm down. I want to get some rest and do a little work. I pose you no danger…”

“We’ll see about that.” And Natella broke into hysterical laughter.

She coquettishly swung her canvas bag with an image of James Bond[36] on it and walked off.

I set off for Sosnovo. The road stretched to the top of the hill, skirting a cheerless field. Dark boulders loomed along its edges in shapeless piles. A ravine, thick with brush, gaped on the left. Coming downhill, I saw several log houses girdled by birch trees. Monochrome cows milled about on the side, flat like theatre decorations. Grimy sheep with decadent expressions grazed lazily on the grass. Jackdaws circled above the roofs.

I walked through the village hoping to come across someone. Unpainted grey houses looked squalid. Clay pots crowned the pickets of sagging fences. Baby chicks clamoured in the plastic-covered coops. Chickens pranced around in a nervous, strobing strut. Squat, shaggy dogs yipped gamely.

I crossed the village and walked back, pausing near one of the houses. A door slammed and a man in a faded railroad tunic appeared on the front steps.

I asked where I could find Sorokin.

“They call me Tolik,” he said.

I introduced myself and once again explained that I was looking for Sorokin.

“Where does he live?”

“In the village of Sosnovo.”

“But this is Sosnovo.”

“I know. How can I find him?”

“D’ya[37] mean Timokha Sorokin?”

“His name is Mikhail Ivanych.”

“Timokha’s been dead a year. He froze, havin’ partaken…”

“I’d really like to find Sorokin.”

“Didn’t partake enough, I say, or he’da[38] still been here.”

“What about Sorokin?”

“You don’t mean Mishka, by chance?”

“His name is Mikhail Ivanych.”

“Well, that’d be Mishka all right. Dolikha’s sonin-law. D’ya know Dolikha, the one that’s a brick short of a load?”

“I’m not from around here.”

“Not from Opochka, by chance?”

“From Leningrad.”

“Ah, yeah, I heard of it…”

“So how do I find Mikhail Ivanych?”

“You mean Mishka?”

“Precisely.”

Tolik relieved himself[39] from the steps deliberately and without reservation. Then he cracked open the door and piped a command:

“Ahoy! Bonehead Ivanych! You got a visitor!”

He winked and added:

“It’s the cops for the alimony.”

A crimson muzzle, generously adorned with blue eyes, appeared momentarily.

“Whatsa… Who?. You about the gun?”

“I was told you have a room to let.”

The expression on Mikhail Ivanych’s face betrayed deep confusion. I would later discover that this was his normal reaction to any question, however harmless.

“A room?. Whatsa. Why?”

“I work at the Preserve. I’d like to rent a room. Temporarily. Till autumn. Do you have a spare room?”

“The house is Ma’s. In her name. And Ma’s in Pskov. Her feet swolled up.”

“So you don’t have a room?”

“Jews had it last year. I got no complaints, the people had class… No furniture polish, no cologne… Just red, white and beer. Me personally, I respect the Jews.”

“They put Christ on the cross,” interjected Tolik.

“That was ages ago!” yelled Mikhail Ivanych.

“Long before the Revolution.”

“The room,” I said. “Is it for rent or not?”

“Show the man,” commanded Tolik, zipping his fly.

The three of us walked down a village street. A woman was standing by a fence, wearing a man’s jacket with the Order of the Red Star[40] pinned to the lapel.

“Zin, lend me a fiver,” belted out Mikhail Ivanych.

The woman waved him away.

“Wine’ll be the death of you. Have ya heard, they got a new decree out? To string up every wino with cable!”

“Where?!” Mikhail Ivanych guffawed. “They’ll run outta[41] metal. Our entire metalworks will go bust…”

And he added:

“You old tart. Just wait, you’ll come to me for wood. I work at the forestry. I’m a Friendshipist!”

“What?” I didn’t understand.

“I got a power saw. one from the ‘Friendship’ line. Whack – and there’s a tenner in my pocket.”

“Friendshipist,” grumbled the woman. “Your only friend’s the big swill. See you don’t drink yourself into the box…”

“It’s not that easy,” said Mikhail Ivanych almost regretfully.

This was a broad-shouldered, well-built man. Even tatty, filthy clothes could not truly disfigure him. A weathered face, large, protruding collarbones under an open shirt, a steady, confident stride. I couldn’t help but admire him.

M ikhail Ivanych’s house made a horrifying impression. A sloping antenna shone black against the white clouds. Sections of the roof had caved in, revealing dark, uneven beams. The walls were carelessly covered in plywood. The cracked window panes were held together with newspaper. Filthy oakum poked out from the countless gaps.

The stench of rotten food hung in the owner’s room. Over the table I noticed a coloured portrait of General Mao[42], torn from a magazine. Next to him beamed Gagarin[43]. Pieces of noodles were swimming in the sink with dark circles of chipped enamel. The wall clock was silent: an old pressing iron, used as weight on the main wheel, rested on the floor.

Two heraldic-looking cats – one charcoal-black, the other pinkish-white – sauntered haughtily about the table, weaving past the plates. The owner shooed them away with a felt boot that came to hand. Glass smashed. The cats fled into a dark corner with a piercing howl.

The room next door was even more disgusting. The middle of the ceiling sagged dangerously low. Two metal beds were hidden under tattered clothes and putrid sheepskins. The surfaces were covered with cigarette butts and eggshells.

To be honest, I was at a bit of a loss[44]. If only I could have simply said: “I’m afraid this won’t work…” But it appears I am genteel after all. And so I said something lyrical:

“The windows face south?”

“The very, very south,” Tolik affirmed.

Through the window I saw a dilapidated bathhouse.

“The main thing,” I said, “is that there’s a private entrance.”

“The entrance is private,” agreed Mikhail Ivanych, “only it’s nailed shut.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” I said.

“Ein Moment” said the owner, took a few steps back, and charged the door.

“What’s the rent?”

“Ah, nothing.”

“What do you mean, nothing?” I asked.

“Just that. Bring six bottles of poison and the space is yours.”

“Can we agree on something a little more specific? Say twenty roubles? Would that suit you?”

The owner fell to thought:

“How much is that?”

“I just said – twenty roubles.”

“And converted to brew? At rouble four apiece?”

“Nineteen bottles of ‘Fortified Rosé’. A pack of ‘Belomor’ smokes. Two boxes of matches,” spat out Tolik.

“And two roubles for moving expenses,” concluded Mikhail Ivanych.

I took out the money.

“Do you care to examine the toilet?”

“Another time,” I said. “Then we’ve agreed? Where do you keep the key?”

“There’s no key,” said Mikhail Ivanych. “It got lost. Don’t go, we’ll make a run.”

“I’ve got some business at the tourist centre. Next time…”

“As you wish. I’ll stop by the centre this evening. I gotta give Lizka a kick in the butt.”

“Who’s Lizka?” I asked.

“She’s my woman. Wife, I mean. Works as a housekeeper at the centre. We be broken up.”

“So then why are you going to beat her?”

“Whatsa? Hanging her’s too good, but a mess to get into. They wanted to take away my gun, something about me threatening to shoot ’er. I thought you were here about the gun.”

“A waste of ammo,” threw in Tolik.

“You don’t say,” agreed Mikhail Ivanych. “I can snuff ’er with my bare hands, if need be. Last winter I bump into her, this and that, it’s all friendly, and she screams: ‘Oh, Misha, dearest, I don’t want to, let me go…’ Major Jafarov summons me in and says, ‘Your name?’ And I say, ‘Dick on a stick.’

“I got me fifteen days in the clink, without smokes, without nothing. Like I give a shit. Just kicking back. Lizka wrote to the prosecutor, something about puttin’ me away or I’ll kill ’er… But what’s the point in that?”

“You won’t hear the end of it,” agreed Tolik. And added:

“Let’s get going! Or they’ll close the shop.”

And the friends set off for the housing development, resilient, repulsive and aggressive, like weeds.

I stayed in the library till closing.

It took me three days to prepare for the tour. Galina introduced me to the two guides she thought were the best. I covered the Preserve with them, paying attention and taking a few notes.

The Preserve consisted of three memorial sites: Pushkin’s house and estate in Mikhailovskoye; Trigorskoye, where the poet’s friends lived and where he visited nearly every day; and finally the monastery with the Pushkin-Hannibal burial plot[45].

The tour of Mikhailovskoye was made up of several parts. The history of the estate. The poet’s second exile. Arina Rodionovna, his nanny. The Pushkin family. Friends who visited the poet in exile. The Decembrist uprising[46]. And Pushkin’s study, with a brief overview of his work.

I found the curator of the museum and introduced myself. Victoria Albertovna looked about forty. A long flouncy skirt, bleached locks, an intaglio[47] and an umbrella – a pretentious painting by Benois[48]. This style of the dwindling provincial nobility was visibly and deliberately cultivated here. Its characteristic details manifested themselves in each of the museum’s local historians. One would wrap herself tightly in a fantastically oversized gypsy shawl. Another had an exquisite straw hat dangling at the back. And the third got stuck with a silly fan made of feathers.

Victoria Albertovna chatted with me, smiling distrustfully. I started to get used to that. Everyone in service of the Pushkin cult was surprisingly begrudging. Pushkin was their collective property, their adored lover, their tenderly revered child. Any encroachment on this personal deity irritated them. They were hasty to prove my ignorance, cynicism and greed.

“Why have you come here?” asked the curator.

“For the rich pickings,” I said.

Victoria Albertovna nearly fainted.

“I’m sorry, I was joking.”

“Your jokes here are entirely inappropriate.”

“I agree. May I ask you one question? Which of the museum’s objects are authentic?”

“Is that important?”

“I think so, yes. After all, it’s a museum, not the theatre.”

“Everything here is authentic. The river, the hills, the trees – they are all Pushkin’s contemporaries, his companions and friends. The wondrous nature of these parts…”

“I was asking about objects in the museum,” I interrupted. “The guidebook is evasive about most of them: ‘China discovered on the estate.’”

“What specifically are you interested in? What would you like to see?”

“I don’t know, personal effects, if such exist…”

“To whom are you addressing your grievances?”

“What grievances?! And certainly not to you! I was only asking.”

“Pushkin’s personal effects? The museum was created decades after his death.”

“And that,” I said, “is how it always happens. First they drive the man into the ground and then begin looking for his personal effects. That’s how it was with Dostoevsky, that’s how it was with Yesenin, and that’s how it’ll be with Pasternak[49]. When they come to their senses, they’ll start looking for Solzhenitsyn’s[50] personal effects…”

“But we are trying to recreate the colour, the atmosphere,” said the curator.

“I see. The bookcase, is it real?”

“At the very least it’s from that period.”

“And the portrait of Byron?”

“That’s real,” beamed Victoria Albertovna. “It was given to the Vulfs… There is an inscription. By the by[51], you’re quite pernickety. Personal effects, personal effects. It strikes me as an unhealthy interest.”

I felt like a burglar, caught in someone else’s apartment.

“Well, what kind of a museum,” I said, “is without it – without the unhealthy interest? A healthy interest is reserved strictly for bacon.”

“Is nature not enough for you? Is it not enough that he wandered around this hillside? Swam in this river? Delighted in these scenic views…”

Why am I bothering her, I thought.

“I see,” I said. “Thank you, Vika.”

Suddenly she bent down, plucked up some weed, pointedly slapped my face with it and let out a short nervous laugh before walking off, gathering her maxiskirt with flounces.

I joined a group headed for Trigorskoye.

To my surprise, I liked the estate curators, a husband and wife. Being married, they could afford the luxury of being friendly. Polina Fyodorovna appeared to be bossy, energetic and a little conceited. Kolya looked like a bemused slouch and kept to the background.

Trigorskoye was in the middle of nowhere[52] and the management rarely came to visit. The exhibition’s layout was beautiful and logical. Pushkin as a youth, charming young ladies in love, an atmosphere of elegant summer romance.

I walked around the park and then down to the river. It was green with upside-down trees. Delicate clouds floated by.

I had an urge to take a dip[53], but a tour bus had pulled up just then.

I went to the Svyatogorsky Monastery. Old ladies were selling flowers by the gate. I bought a bunch of tulips and walked up to the grave. Tourists were taking photographs by the barrier. Their smiling faces were repugnant. Two sad saps with easels arranged themselves nearby.

I laid down the flowers at the grave and left. I needed to see the layout of the Uspensky Monastery. An echo rolled through the cool stone alcoves. Pigeons slumbered under the domes. The cathedral was real, substantial and graceful. A cracked bell glimmered from the corner of the central chamber. One tourist drummed noisily on it with a key.

In the southern chapel I saw the famous drawing by Bruni[54]. Also in there glared Pushkin’s white death mask. Two enormous paintings reproduced the secret removal and funeral. Alexander Turgenev[55]looked like a matron…

A group of tourists entered. I went to the exit.

I could hear from the back:

“Cultural history knows no other event as tragic… Tsarist rule carried out by the hand of a highsociety rascal.”

And so I settled in at Mikhail Ivanych’s. He drank without pause. He drank to the point of amazement, paralysis and delirium. Moreover, his delirium expressed itself strictly in obscenities. He swore with the same feeling a dignified older man might have while softly humming a tune – in other words, to himself, without any expectation of approval or protest.

I had seen him sober twice. On these paradoxical days, Mikhail Ivanych had the TV and radio going simultaneously. He would lie down on the bed in his trousers, pull out a box marked “Fairy Cake” and read out loud postcards received over the course of his life. He read and expounded:

“Hello Godfather!… Well, hello, hello, you ovine spermatoid… I'd like to wish you success at work. He’d like to wish me success. Well, fuck your mama in the ear! Always yours, Radik. Always yours, always yours. The hell I need you for?”

Mikhail Ivanych was not liked in the village. People envied him. I’d drink, too, they thought. I’d drink and how, my friends! I’d drink myself into a motherfuckin’ grave, I would! But I got a household to run. What’s he got? Mikhail Ivanych had no household. Just the two bony dogs that occasionally disappeared for long stretches of time, a scraggy apple tree and a patch of spring onions.

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.[56] The master of the house ran errands[57] 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[58]. 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.