Every evening, at the same time, a strange old couple, holding hands, trudged in the snow along the deserted streets of Paris. Some curious neighbors had their astonished faces glued to their windows, watching them until their looming silhouettes would merge with buildings, trees and finally disappear somewhere behind the veil of the heavy snowfall. Sometimes, the quivering streetlight would snatch out their stooped figures, wrapped in the blanket of snow, while they still stubbornly continued their journey along some meandering streets and into the mystery of the wintry Paris. They ventured to take their evening promenade every day, except for Saturdays, without any excuses, and paying no attention to snowstorms or deluge of rain, or even to the boiling summer nights.
Their small but cozy flat on the top floor of the four-storey building was the main attraction for the Russian literary exiles. It was rumored that at a young age Madam Zina was “the it girl” in her time. She used to have an angelic face and a slim figure, but now, she was just an emotional “near-literary,” slowly waning wizen witch, lanky, stooping, half-deaf and half-blind with a very distinctive interest in young poets. However, Madam Zina had been reputed for her sharp tongue, brilliant intellect and zest for life. Although her body aged, she still remained young at heart. “Not to love” and “not to be loved” meant to her “not to live”. She believed strongly in eternity, the eternity of both, love and life.
Her husband, Andrei Michailovich, a used-to-be famous philosopher and poet, was still in love with his strong-willed wife. He was an indefatigable worker, getting up every morning at five. He had never trifled away his precious time, and during the next three hours, he regularly scribbled something in his fat notebook until his eyelids would become heavy. At eight, he would take a two- hour nap, and then, three cups of hot tea with French toast. He had been doing this every morning during his lifetime, never breaking his rules.
Andrei Michailovich was a corpulent man with a short, shabby body and a protruding belly. A small, sparse beard accurately framed his bashful face. His big square head harmoniously grew into his shoulders, while his long, thin white hair with a patch on the crown fell graciously down in attempt to create a bohemian image of a Russian decadent and philosopher, a tragic figure forgotten in the foreign soil.
Every Saturday, their invited guests climbed to the fourth floor of the old brick building to relive a bit of their past. Madam Zina, in a long green velvet dress, reminding of an old heavy curtain, usually greeted them at the door. The dress elegantly draped her wizen body in attempt to bring back her faded beauty. Her husband jealously watched his wife, indulgently stretching her pale withered hand with such a courteous exasperation that her guests couldn’t avoid kissing her trembling fingers. Cunningly smiling, she paid everyone a compliment of an expert: “I have read your new poem. You wield a formidable pen. It’s absolutely beautiful.” Or: “I have just finished reading your work. You do have a gift, my friend, but you need to invest more work into your talent.”
Altogether, something demoralizing, spiritually decaying characterized this pair, the literary atmosphere of freedom and creative impulse attracted young people to this charming couple and their evening gatherings.
Today, their mostly male guests clustered around a small fireplace. Some hollow, cheap French candles were burning on the round table next to expensive wines and tiny sandwiches. The discussion halted irregularly between two topics – life and death. The room was humming with the voices of the large number of guests. Recently, among the Russian émigrés, the amount of suicides had dramatically increased. It was 1928, and all their hopes of returning back to their motherland with time had whittled away. Life lost its meaning, their future became vague and impalpable.
Andrei Michailovich poured wine into glasses, approached his favorite armchair and plopped deeply into its puffy cautions. Madam Zina emerged from the kitchen, and pathetically wrapped his knees into an old woolen throw. A sudden hush crawled into every corner of the room when Andrei Michailovich, stroking his light beard, began talking, adding some pathos to his speech. In his bony, still strong fingers, he usually held a cheap cigar, somebody’s present, but he had never inhaled it. He spoke in the same manner as he used to read his poetry—with a monotonous tune at the beginning, but then slowly accelerating his speech, panting for breath and raising the inflexion at the end of his long sentences. While talking, he was seized by the power of his own spontaneous flow of words, carried away to the unknown, to the land of his recent past.
“As you all know, the history of Russian literature is a deep reflection of the Russian history itself. Our drama, I mean the drama of Russian intelligentsia, had become the drama of a single human individual, of every one of us.”
He stopped to catch his breath and then continued, “When in 1921, one of the greatest Russian poets, Nikolai Gumilev, was executed, followed by the death of Alexander Blok, the ‘execution’ of the literary creative process has taken place in Russia. We all left our motherland with one goal – to save our freedom of creativity. However, I am still hoping to return one day to my beloved country.”
He stopped for a moment and surveyed the room. The young people listened to him with bated breath.
He went on, “The question of survival is very important for a Russian poet living outside of his habitual environment. I understand that every one of you approaches this problem differently, in your own way, often looking inward at your own consciences.”
He coughed and sipped from the glass of wine, making a short pause. The stillness mantled the air when suddenly a young man, a newcomer, in a highly agitated voice broke the silence. He spoke, swaggering about the room like an aide-de-camp at a review.
“I think a man can withstand any suffering, but only when they have meaning. For such ‘raison d'etre’ we are searching in our writings. The circumstances pushed us into a corner, and this short moment, when we struggled to survive, has stretched into eternity. We relinquished our last hope of return. The only way out of this impasse is death.”
He finished and looked around. The fire in the fireplace ominously puffed and slowly hived off. A whiff of cold air flashed into the room and fear swept over the young people.
With anxious smile, Madam Zina directed her rapt look towards the last speaker. Her big heart stopped beating for a second, and she felt a sudden push, a dark premonition.
“May I ask your name, young man?” Madam Zina’s raspy voice cut the air.
She was prone to forget names. He smiled at her with the gentle smile of a martyr, as if he knew much more about death than anyone in this room, including Madam herself.
His name was George Meanin, also a writer and a poet. He was not famous yet, but he was well known among his friends as a writer who had a distinctive flair for dark, strange novels, mostly about passionate love affairs, that he used to paint with tragic colors. As for his poems, they were full of supernatural mysticism, dark emotions and evil power. Nobody knew and even could explain why the supernatural faculties of demonic forces had a certain attraction for him. Nevertheless, his writings were not lacking some kind of bewitching charm. His friends were saying that he could probably cajole the devil himself. By nature, Meanin was a passionate gambler and a lover who would be willing to give up his earthly existence for just one minute of vehement and wild adventures.
The young man was tall, slim with long curly hair and a refine face. His brown eyes, large and tragic, were set deep in their sockets. He did make an impression of a man with whom any closeness could not have been possible. Naturally, he had too many enemies and not many friends at all. His brief, but passionate talk was colored with strong emotions and superiority, leaving an unpleasant sensation on everyone, except Madam Zina, that he had long known how ephemeral their happiness was. He also made an impression that he foresaw his own not distant death.
At such uncertain times, when life in the foreign soil was an everyday struggle, and the creative process was just an escape, it was not so difficult to predict the future awaiting them all. Therefore, during the wintry fury, this small island of passionate discussions, wine-drinking and heart-rending poetry-readings warmed their souls and inflamed their tired hearts with creative impetuses and eagerness to write and philosophize, and to continue living with hope that one day they would be able to return to their happy life in their own motherland.
The poetry-reading was the next part of their gathering. Again, Madam Zina kindled the fireplace and now the logs joyfully crackled, breathing out the warm air and illuminating their wan faces with red sparkles. They read their poetry in turns, pouring out their foremost feelings, their inner self. Madam Zina was the first one to bare her soul with the help of her poetic, cryptic language. Her poetry, too, was imbued with strong emotion:
I bid farewell. It is bitter and sad,
It is time to wake up, but I want to go back,
I still mourn my youth and my memory.
I mourn in my dream with no path of return . . .
The mute night created its mysterious silent music. Everyone in the room, plunged in his own emotional experience, glanced deep into his inner world, far away from reality, uncertainty, from the minor scores of his life.
The dark is falling thick at night
On shelves and on a vintage desk.
The room is losing its moonlight.
In mystic shadows it rests.
A paradox of art –
To lose a moment and mystery of time,
To cease a minute,
But to agree with future and its meaning.
And at this instant flash of cries
To rediscover death
And fever of demise.
The next poet monotonously recited, creating the atmosphere of intimacy, closeness, uniting their fates under one roof called “solitude.”
By the rite of hospitality, the evening ended in Madam Zina’s dining room. They drank hot tea from the samovar with pastries and cookies bought by the hostess in the near-by Russian bakery. Through a small window of their flat, the curious moon listened to their poetry with a kind smile, dispersing its glimmer all over the evening sky.
* * * * *
The young men left the apartment and stepped onto the cold winter street, inhaling the evening air. The air in Paris was unique—pure, transparent and fresh, like in the paintings of Claude Monet. The cold penetrated under their light jackets, but they could hardly feel it, continuing their discussion about life, love and death. A stiff wind blew suddenly from the north, and the street lamp swayed with the blast, creating a queer shadow on the friable snow.
George Meanin shuddered from the cold, thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his coat, and moved away from the crowd. He took direction toward his apartment, enjoying the air, the moon, the feeling of freedom, as if some new vital sources flowed into his veins. He feverishly rushed home to sit at his desk and write. His dream was to finish his novel as new ideas propped into his head. The heavy snow began to fall, embellishing the streets with the white lacey covers, drifting over his tracks, as if he had never existed, or even walked along these lonely Parisian streets.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, Madam Zina cleaned the table, washed the dishes, hardly noticing what she was doing. She was thinking about Meanin. His image invaded her mind, his melodious voice still wafted on her ear like music; his magic poetry touched her heart.
There is no end to joy and even grief
When life and death are fighting at the duel.
And nothing left to live for and believe
When love for me has always been so cruel.
She couldn’t fall asleep, submerging into her thoughts; she spun in her bed, disturbing the peaceful sleep of her snoring husband. Finally, Madam Zina got up and made some halting steps towards the window. The dark canvas of the nocturnal sky was embroidered with tiny sparse stars, dispersing their feeble light and illuminating the path, her long and painful path to infinity. The sleeping Paris, spangled with dim yellow light, breathed heavily. Madam Zina roamed around the house for some time, and then, on silent feet, went back to bed, and slowly began to drift into slumber.
Her dream was spotty, crepuscular and misty. Like tiny snowflakes, the stars flew to earth and melted on her lips. She stood in the middle of nowhere, but far away, through the shroud of the nocturnal darkness, she could see the looming silhouette of St. Petersburg, the city of her childhood. But then, the sky began to lower and all the stars, splintering off its surface, began to spill onto earth, tearing asunder with their rays the veil of night. And through this firework of stars, she saw the beguiling face and the tragic smile of Meanin.
She woke up with heavy weight on her heart, trying to shrug off her night vision. She was gripped with a powerful mixture of emotions. The name, Meanin, pulsated in her temples, and she felt suddenly faint. She craned her head—her husband didn’t sleep, he lay doggo, his blue eyes, too closely set together, devoured her.
“Are you okay, dear? You look so pale. Maybe we should stop these gatherings, they leave you completely exhausted,” he said, throwing a rueful look at his wife.
“I am really fine, honey,” she replied in a sepulchral voice, getting up slowly from her bed, trying to avoid his intensive gaze.
All of a sudden, her peaceful world collapsed, and an all-forgotten sensation from her past pierced her heart. She knew this feeling very well—Madam Zina was in love. As always at such moments, she felt sad and lonely, disconnected from reality, choked in her moods, disoriented. She didn’t carry any sense of guilt owing to the nature of her love, subtle and pure, and for this love alone, she was not afraid to take a drastic step. After all, never in her long life had she preached any kind of morality.
The clock on the wall showed five o’clock in the morning. Madam Zina drew the curtains, and the full faint moon, blanketed with heavy clouds, tried to send its greetings, but in vain. The heavy snowflakes fell on the ground, freezing on the windowpane, and the disappointed moon faded before the encroaching day.
* * * * *
While Andrei Michailovich worked on his manuscript, Madam Zina occupied herself with her own thoughts. She stood in front of the mirror for a long time, examining her own reflection—yellowish flabby skin, thin gray hair, faded blue eyes with drooped eyelids, haggard, puckered face—nothing, nothing was left from her glorious beauty. It maddened her, and Madam Zina crumpled up as she dragged herself to the kitchen with bitterness in her heart and the idée fixe on her mind. The plan was finally born and she decided to act. She almost choked at her own spirit's seethe. First of all, Madam Zina had to compose a letter to George Meanin. She fell into one of her old skittish moods. She wrote:
“Dear George,
Yesterday, for the first time, I heard you reading your poetry. I am overwhelmed with emotions and gratitude for the depth of your soul and the beauty of your verses. In return, I want to offer you my affection without any claims on your freedom. I can only offer you my loving heart, since I can see the loneliness in your smile and the sadness in your eyes, your withdrawal from the world around you. We all stand on the rippled soil, and I want to give you my hand in friendship and my love. Since yesterday, you have occupied a special place in my heart. I’ll be happy to see you for dinner tonight in our humble flat.
Yours,
Zinaida Ivanovna.”
At the beginning, she was a little uncertain about the way she wrote this letter. She had rewritten it several times before, finally, settling on the original version. She then pulled out of the drawer her husband’s antique golden watch, examined it with her short-sighted eyes, and put it on her wrist. Around ten o’clock in the morning, she took a pitiful look at the golden watch one more time, put on her gloves, and humming something under her breath, in elevated mood, Madam Zina left the apartment with a sheer determination to restore her discolored beauty.
* * * * *
She came back around two with a proud carriage of her head, and without seeing her husband she slithered thievishly through the door to the bedroom, and straight to the mirror. Her own reflection made Madam Zina exult over the success of her venture. She saw herself to be young and beautiful again, as her eyes for an instant grew dreamy with a vivid vision of her future adventure. “This watch has done one good thing for me,” she muttered, adoring her image in the mirror.
Andrei Michailovich tiptoed to their bedroom, looking everywhere for his wife, but when he saw her, he froze at the doorway completely numbed. He found her at the dresser, taking off an elegant straw bonnet with wide brim adorned with a feather. Her hair was dyed in a soft brown and was well outfitted in a red slinky dress. On the rail of their bed rested a glossy mink jacket.
She noticed her husband in the mirror and turned abruptly, her red-painted lips broke into an affable and almost apologetic smile. Caught by surprise, Andrei Michailovich could hardly restrain his smile which slowly stretched into something resembling a grimace. He could not utter a single word. However, when finally he managed to ask her about the meaning of this masquerade, Madam Zina perceived some hidden sarcasm in his question and this, certainly, infuriated her. Andrei Michailovich stared at his wife in bewilderment when she began to deliver her usual stream of indignation. Still shocked, he tried to make sense of her speech, but failed, and he withdrew without a single word, bashfully closing the door behind him.
* * * * *
For the rest of the day, Madam Zina trotted about in the kitchen, preparing her best dishes for the coming dinner, while Andrei Michailovich locked himself in his study. He sat there for a couple of hours, mulling over his wife’s odd behavior, smoking his cigar and drinking his whiskey. He still struggled to regain control of his scattered emotions, stunned by his wife’s sudden change of appearance. Soon, the smell of fried fish and onions reached his study, and he felt hungry.
Around six o’clock, the doorbell gave impatient sound. Andrei Michailovich just finished his whisky and opened the drawer, looking for his golden watch but all in vain, it was not there. The doorbell gave another dire sound, and still puzzled about the disappearance of his favorite watch, he rushed to check on an arriving guest. To his surprise, it was a courier delivering a letter addressed to his wife.
Madam Zina appeared from the kitchen smiling and looking more gloriously than ever. Her long painted face wore a joyous expression. But it lasted only until her husband, with a look of perplexity, gave her the letter. No one uttered a single word. The silence was almost unbearable. Madam Zina stood still for a little while, her hands strangely shaking. She blindly examined the address for some time, but then the color of her face slowly changed into pallid. Gasping desperately for air, she turned around and quietly vanished around the corner, leaving behind her only the smell of her new, heavy perfume. On her way to the bedroom, Madam Zina felt that her feet were like lead. Closing the door behind her, she passed over in her mind various possibilities as to why George had sent her this letter. She watched through the window how the sun had gone down and a little wisp of a new moon appeared in the sky. The room became saturated with a pale, yellow moonshine. She switched on the light and opened the letter:
“Dear Zinaida Ivanovna,
Today I have lost George. Tomorrow you will probably read about his suicide in all the daily newspapers. He left your letter unopened on his desk where I found it next to the pistol that took his life. He probably came to the end of his tether because death had become his obsession. He considered it the only way out of his misery, a liberator from his suffering. I know what he would have replied to you if he would have only read your kind letter. He would have said to you that this was the first time in his short life that he met a woman of your literary depth. Your wit, your talent and your dedication shine like a diamond, while your kindness disperses light around you. He knew how to appreciate goodness and love, and even in evil he could find its charm. I don’t want to make this letter sound too official. I loved him, too.
Your humble friend,
Yvette”
The letter dropped from Madam Zina’s hands. Not a pant escaped from her chest. She felt a sudden pain and pressed her trembling hand to her heart. In a state of collapse, she slowly sank into bed, throwing her glossy mink coat on the floor. Her nerves were completely unhinged. His death didn’t surprise her but broke her weak heart and filled it with deep compassion. A sense of loss invaded her. She was now bereft of her last hope to have this anxious expectation to see her beloved, to feel his timid touches, his lips on hers. Would love from now on remain only in her remote past? Nothing would ever help her to restore her youth. She knew that “not to love” and “not to be loved” meant to her “not to live”. She suddenly remembered his poetry:
There is nothing where nothingness looms.
Whipping waves make my anguish flow,
A northern wind whispers death on the snow,
And I grasp for the air, and I cry for the moon.
Madam Zina stared into the ceiling with her skillfully penciled eyes and pondered over her life receding into obscurity, and the sudden, although so much predicted death of this young poet, incited by his lost hopes. The images from her past began to possess her burning mind. She painfully recollected her happy times, when surrounded by her admirers she had been charming and cruel, capricious and loving, witty and pretentiously foolish. Madam Zina had never loved her husband but valued his intellect and his passionate love for her. In her aching heart, she was always longing for more. She closed her eyes and all images slowly whittled away leaving her in the present and depriving her of her future.
* * * * *
Worried about his wife, Andrei Michailovich knocked at the door several times but she didn’t reply. At last, being annoyed by her silence, he gave up on her and inhaling the aroma coming from the kitchen, shuffled away to have his dinner alone. He was looking forward to the after-dinner quiet evening, drinking his whiskey and smoking his cigar in complete solitude. Such rare quiet evenings without his noisy wife were the happiest moments in his life.
* * * * *
Since that day, their disappointed neighbors had been waiting in vain by the windows to get a glimpse of this loving odd Russian couple, but never again did they see their merging silhouettes, rambling aimlessly through the deserted Parisian streets, slowly drifting into night quietude.
Yelena Dubrovina was born in Leningrad, Russia. Immigrated to the U SA in 1978. The author of two books of poetry, two books of short stories and a bilingual anthology “Russian Poetry in Exile. 1917-1975”. She co-authored a novel with Hilary Koprowski, entitled “In Search of Van Dyck”. The editor of two journals “Russian Poetry Past and Present” and “Russia Abroad Past and Present”. She is a bilingual writer, published in both Russian and American periodicals.
