catch it and it quickly dove back into the murky past.
“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I’m not quite…” he murmured, attempting to smile back.
The man looked at him closely across the ensuing silence, and all of a sudden his beard started to quiver and his spectacles commenced to slide off his nose. Gasping with laughter, he threw himself at Sukhanov and crushed his sides in a vigorous embrace.
“Ah, Tolya, Tolya, you really had me going there for a minute!” he cried into Sukhanov’s shoulder.
What the hell, thought Sukhanov, struggling to extricate his chin from the hollow of the stranger’s back—and at that precise moment Nina walked into the hallway, a cup of tea forgotten in her hand.
“Was that anyone—” she began, and stopped abruptly.
At the sound of her voice, the man released Sukhanov and dashed toward her, tearing off his hat once again and exclaiming warmly, “And this must be the lovely Nina Petrovna! Such a pleasure to meet you. Nadezhda Sergeevna has told me so many things about you.”
“Nadezhda Sergeevna,” Sukhanov repeated dully.
As the man enthusiastically reached for Nina’s hands, he dropped his hat. Smiling a puzzled smile, she tried to help him catch it and, with the predictability of a slapstick routine, accidentally let the cup slip out of her grasp. The porcelain hit the parquet and shattered into a hundred white and golden shards, splashing tea onto Sukhanov’s pants.
“Would you… would you excuse me…” he then said faintly. “I’ll only be a minute, I… Nina, why don’t you offer our guest some tea or something, I just have to…”
And leaving Nina and the profusely apologetic visitor to collect the remains of the cup, Sukhanov ran down a corridor, which seemed strangely unfamiliar, with lurid red roses leaping into his face off ugly wallpaper, and darted into his study as if being chased. Slamming the door behind him, he pressed a shaking hand to his forehead, then took a few steadying breaths and dialed his mother’s number.
She answered on the seventh ring; he was counting.
“Mother, listen, something completely absurd has just—”
The connection was bad, full of fuzziness and booming echoes, with occasional snippets of shadowy conversations crossing over from some parallel dimension.
“Tolya, is that you? Tolya, speak louder!” Nadezhda Sergeevna was saying from an immeasurable distance. “You what?… Who?… Ah, Fyodor! Well, I’m so glad he’s finally with you. I’m sure you’ll like him, he is such a nice young man. So thoughtful of him to give me my Malvina.”
“Malvina? That silly canary?” Sukhanov shouted against the noise. “You got your canary from that man? Just who the devil is he?”
His mother’s voice dipped into a static-filled chasm, replaced by a rich baritone that said, very close to his ear, “And don’t forget to make sure your boots have no leaks.” Then Nadezhda Sergeevna hazily surfaced again.
“… and no need to swear,” she said disapprovingly. “I should think that after all these years you’d be glad to see your cousin again.”
“What on earth do you mean, cousin?” he cried. “I don’t have any cousins!”
Dipping in and out of the fog, Nadezhda Sergeevna talked rapidly.
“Don’t you remember… Irochka, I called her… grandmother’s cousin’s only daughter… used to live in Moscow, and once we even… Surely you remember how… But then they moved to… She died a few… her husband also, and Fyodor is their only… an educated man… at a museum there, and now he is writing… Very interesting, he’s told me all about… I’m sure you’ll be glad to get to know him during his stay, he’s such a nice…”
“What was that last thing?” Sukhanov gasped. “Did you just say that this Dalevich fellow will be
There was another unnatural, creaking stillness, and then the same baritone announced heatedly, “No, listen, it’s better to dig for fresh worms once we get there.”
“… shouldn’t mind too much, since it’s only for a week or two,” his mother’s voice returned from afar. “Well, give my regards to Fyodor.
“A
The line went dead. Seething, he dialed her number again, and got a busy signal.
When Sukhanov returned to the kitchen, he found his dubious new cousin presiding at the table in his place, heartily devouring the inedible cutlets and between bites drawing sinuous shapes on a napkin. Nina and Ksenya were following the quick movements of his hand with interest; Vasily sat frowning, tapping his spoon against a saucer. “Most people think that the window carvings are purely ornamental,” Dalevich was saying, “but in fact, many of them are symbolic designs going back to pagan times. This one, for instance, is believed to bring good luck and prosperity, and this one, to ward off—”
Noticing Sukhanov on the threshold, he hastily put down the pen.
“Your family has been most kind in indulging me,” he said with a flustered smile. “Northern architecture is one of my favorite subjects and I could bore you all for hours, but I really should be going now. Tolya, I can’t tell you how sorry I am for barging in on you like this. It appears that you never did receive my letter. I simply can’t imagine how… But no matter, I won’t burden you any longer, you’ve been too patient with me as it is. Nina Petrovna, thank you for the most delicious supper. Now, where did I put my hat?”
Sukhanov had to restrain himself from laughing with relief.
“Oh, no bother at all, Fyodor!” he said expansively. “It’s always nice to see family. In fact, if you are staying in Moscow for the next few days, why don’t you drop by again sometime—”
“But Fyodor Mikhailovich,” said Ksenya, “where exactly are you going?”
Dalevich had already stood and was fussing with a lock on his suitcase.
“Please don’t worry about me,” he said earnestly. “I have an acquaintance or two in Moscow, they’ll find a corner to spare. Here, Tolya, before I go, I brought you a little something—just a souvenir from the Russian North, nothing special.”
And he pulled an elaborate lace tablecloth out of his suitcase.
“But it’s lovely!” Nina exclaimed.
“Yes, very pretty,” Sukhanov said uncomfortably. “You really shouldn’t have. If you need my help getting in touch with your friends, I could—”
“Surely you see that we can’t let him leave,” Nina interrupted with a withering look at her husband. “Fyodor Mikhailovich, it’s already past nine o‘clock, so why don’t you just stay with us tonight, and we’ll figure out what to do tomorrow.”
“Oh, that’s so terribly nice of you,” Dalevich mumbled in visible confusion. “I wouldn’t like to presume, and I do feel awful about that letter…. But perhaps, if you had a couch somewhere…”
“You can have my room,” Ksenya said impulsively.
Dalevich’s words stumbled once or twice and sank under the weight of his gratitude. A brief silence fell. Then Vasily emphatically put down his cup and rose, scraping his chair against the floor with a long, nasty sound.
“How touching,” he said with a disdainful smile. “Long-lost relatives reunited and all that. I suppose this is the moment when I offer my room as well, and then we all sit arguing about it for another hour, wallowing in the pleasant glow of familial kindness.”
“Vasily!” Nina said sharply.
And then Sukhanov felt that the day was running circles around him, and that all of this—Vasily’s derisive remark, Nina’s chastising reply, the hollow sensation in his stomach after the unsatisfactory meal, the strange yellow-bearded man apologizing effusively, the burnt smell lingering in the air—all of this had happened before, had, in fact, happened repeatedly, and he was forever trapped in a nightmarish cycle of domestic disasters. Bleakly, without interfering, he watched his son leave the kitchen, as if hoping that with his departure the vicious circle would somehow break and normal life would return. When a door slammed a corridor away, Sukhanov sighed, shook off his immobility, and excusing himself, walked out as well. Growing fainter behind him, Dalevich’s voice was imploring Nina not to be angry, the young man’s feelings were understandable, it was all really his, Dalevich‘s, fault, he should never have imposed like this, he could not tell her how sorry… Sukhanov had a sudden
