“I’ll take it,” I said, and pushed the manuscript across the table. “Here, I want you to have a look at this.”
Lev scanned the title.
“‘Surrealism and Other Western “Isms” as Manifestations of Capitalist Insolvency’?” he said disgustedly. “Surely you don’t expect me to waste my time on such—”
“Just read it, will you?”
He shrugged, took an unhurried sip, and flipped the page. I studied the patterns of melted snow forming at my feet on the yellow-and-black-checkered linoleum, watched a befuddled out-of-season fly stumble drowsily on the windowsill, drank the unpalatable vodka. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lev glance at me once or twice in the beginning; then he lifted his head no longer and sat silently rustling the papers and frowning. A half-hour passed, then another ten minutes. He slammed the last page against the table.
“What is this shit?” he said. “Who wrote it?”
I finished my drink at a gulp. My insides were burning.
“I did,” I said. “I wrote it.”
His eyes narrowed. “Tolya,” he said slowly. “Is this a sick joke of some sort?”
“It’s not a joke, it’s going to be published. I wanted you to read it first, so I could explain… No, hold on, just listen for a minute, will you?” My face was burning too now. “I’ve been thinking more about Khrushchev closing our show. And you know what I realized? When he shut us down he wasn’t acting as a representative of the state cracking down on a handful of outspoken artists. He was acting as a representative of the people, our people, who do not understand—cannot understand—the alien things we stand for. The Russian people do not want our art, Leva. Never did, never will. They dislike seeing Filonov’s tormented faces, Chagall’s flying beasts, and Malevich’s black squares—they have enough tragedy, surrealism, and emptiness in their daily lives. In the past they wanted soothing icons; now they want the pseudo-art of someone like my father-in-law—a pat on the head reassuring them that their future is bright, a slap on the back letting them know that they are part of an important whole, that their toils have a purpose—”
The fly buzzed sleepily against the windowpane; in the bluish haze beyond, oblique snow was falling. Lev was looking at me, and there was a new expression in his heavy gaze. I talked for a long time—talked about the dim, oppressive centuries of Russian art struggling against Russian history, about the walls of silence destined to surround each and every one of us forever, about casting our pearls before swine, about our fates condemning us to this dark, ungrateful soil, leaving us no other choice but to step away into anonymity, into comfort, into the minute preoccupations of an uninspired, private existence…
And then Lev spoke.
“You’ve said so many clever things here,” he said quietly, “but do you know the only thing I’ve heard? Fear —nothing but fear. Well, I understand fear, I’m afraid too….” He was silent for a few heartbeats. “Tell you what, Tolya. Everyone has unworthy moments, and you are my best friend. Let’s go out onto the landing, throw this abomination page by page into the trash chute, come back to finish the bottle, and I’ll promise you never to mention any of it again. Agreed?”
The pool of water at my feet had dried out. The snow was still whirling in the sky. The fly had ceased buzzing, falling back into its winter stupor of sleep. I rose, gathered the pages scattered about the table, and walked into the corridor. Lev ran after me, and when I turned at the front door, I saw that his face was transformed by that special, warm, radiant smile I loved so much. Quickly I looked away, unable to watch the light go out of his eyes. In silence, I groped on the counter for my hat, put on my coat, opened the door, and still keeping my gaze averted, stepped across the threshold and closed the door behind me. And then, though he did and said nothing to stop me, for a whole long minute, my heart beating painfully, I lingered outside on the landing, knowing that in three weeks the article would be published, knowing that Lev would never speak to me again—and still I stood there as if waiting for something, as if hoping that a miracle was somehow possible, that the door would open again at any moment, and that he would smile his wonderful, forgiving smile, and say, “Please, Tolya, come in….”
“Do come in,” Belkin repeated. “Watch your head, the ceiling is a bit low.”
Sukhanov gingerly squeezed inside the gallery’s tiny foyer. The air smelled of glue, dust, and transience; posters advertising past exhibitions were stacked on the floor in one corner.
“Not too impressive, I’m afraid,” said Belkin jovially, “but it’s a beginning. This way.”
They passed into an adjacent room. There were canvases hanging here, most of them smallish urban landscapes done in a bright impressionist manner: a view of a slanting street with green balcony railings and a blossoming lilac bush; a single yellow leaf on a glinting bench and, in the background, passersby with purple and red umbrellas; an evening skater flying over the blue sheen of an icy pond, surrounded by merry orange windows lit in nearby buildings. Sukhanov slowly circled the walls, read a few labels:
A voice behind him spoke with a nervous chuckle: “My abstract phase didn’t last, as you see, though I’m still experimenting with styles”—and Sukhanov suddenly became aware of an urgent need to say something, anything at all, about the paintings before him.
“Very lyrical,” he offered hastily, “the skater especially. This night scene too—the Moscow River, isn’t it? Really, congratulations, Leva, this is great. Sorry Nina and I couldn’t make it to the opening, we wanted to, but you know how it is….”
“Of course, of course, don’t mention it,” said Belkin, looking uncomfortable. “Well, this is all there is. Very modest, as you see… A cup of tea, then?”
“A cup of tea would be good,” Sukhanov said.
The narrow, windowless space in the back—hardly more than a closet—was crowded with a desk and two chairs, their surfaces littered with crumbs of long since digested meals, tattered remnants of aged newspapers, and a nondescript overflow of paintings and sculptures from previous shows, a few price tags still dangling from pedestals and frames. While Belkin busied himself with rinsing and filling two yellowed glasses at a sink in the corner and sliding heating coils into the cloudy water, Sukhanov cleared one chair of its accumulations, sat down, and surveyed the mournful debris of bypassed art—a portrait of a man in a sailor suit with a grinning cat perched on his shoulder, a still life with a matchbox and a half-eaten herring, a number of multicolored cubes resembling children’s toy blocks gathered in a flock on the desk… The sight of the cubes stirred some hazy recollection in his mind, and mechanically he picked one up, turned it over in his hand.
The cube was upholstered in black and purple, and the label on its side read: “A soul. Don’t open or it will fly away.”
And then, unexpectedly, there it was, descending on him—the whistle of a remote train, the creaking of logs in the fireplace, the motes of reflected light dancing in a glass of red wine, and Nina’s quiet voice speaking into the shadows.
For a minute Sukhanov stared at the small, light object on his palm, fighting the desire to crush it. Then, setting the cube down, he slowly moved his eyes around the room until they rested heavily on Belkin.
Belkin must have felt the gaze.
“Patience, only a moment longer,” he said cheerfully, glancing up. “I can’t find the cakes, but the water’s already—”
Noticing the expression on Sukhanov’s face, he stopped uncertainly.
“Nina…” Sukhanov said in a halting voice. “Nina was here, wasn’t she?”
Belkin hesitated briefly, then nodded.
“She was. She came to the opening last Wednesday.”
“I never told her about your opening, Leva,” said Sukhanov stonily.
Belkin placed the glasses of pale tea on the desk, dropped a sugar cube into each, pushed one glass toward Sukhanov, and pulled up a chair.
“I know,” he said. “But you did tell her you ran into me, and she called me the next day—got my new phone number through Viktor Yastrebov. As it turns out, both of us have been visiting him from time to time, bringing him food and such, now that he is old and sick and all alone…. Anyway, we met that same Sunday for a stroll, and I
