Masha sipped the too-sweet tea. “I need a new coat. Maybe I’ll just wrap myself up in an old curtain like she does.”
Lika shifted very slightly away from Masha’s rudeness. Mother always complained that Masha never apologized, only excused herself, which wasn’t the same. Antosha never apologized either, but he was immune from maternal disapproval. Now Masha turned her glass around in her hand and, instead of taking back her words, thought of Georgi. Really, it was a form of madness. She’d never forgive herself if she ended up snivelling among Lika’s ashes and petals and crumbs. Meanwhile, she could feel those questioning five-kopek eyes on her.
“Are you still angry with me?” Lika asked.
“Why would I be angry?”
“You seemed so the day Antosha left. I wasn’t sure what I’d done. Whatever it was, I’m sorry. I suppose Misha told you I’ve been running around with him. We’re just friends.”
“I wasn’t angry with you,” Masha told her. “I didn’t want Antosha to go, that’s all. And I don’t care what you get up to with Misha.” But saying it, she did sound angry, even to herself. What was she doing here?
“After Antosha left, I cried for a week. I only let Misha drag me out because I wanted to hear about Antosha. He never shuts up about him. He hates that Antosha won’t praise his stories.”
“It’s just brotherly rivalry. They’d do anything for each other.”
Lika sighed again, precipitating an awkward silence, while Masha thought of Georgi. Maybe she should kill herself.
“How’s your funny father?” Lika asked.
Masha looked at her. “Funny?”
“I think he is.” She set her glass on the table. “Masha, what’s wrong? You seem crushed.”
This was why she’d come. She lowered her gaze to say it. “An awful thing happened.” When Masha looked up, Lika had paled.
“To Antosha?”
“No,” Masha said. “Me.”
Emotion swamped her. When Lika pulled the glass out of her hand and hugged her, Masha imagined Georgi’s arms, the rise and fall of his chest. He’d blown his tea breath in her face and made a wish on her eyelash. For what? How wonderful that they didn’t love each other! What a fool she was.
“Did he make promises?” Lika asked.
Of course, she guessed it was a man. Masha must have looked boiled when she untangled herself from Lika’s embrace. “No.”
Lika only made everything worse then, shifting and bobbing her head, trying to insinuate her sympathy into Masha’s sights.
“I can’t speak about it,” Masha told her. “I wish I hadn’t mentioned it. Let’s drop it.”
“So it was bad.” Lika stopped trying to force eye contact and hugged herself instead. “It only hurts that much the first time.”
Falling in love, Masha thought she meant.
Lika rose and went over to the piano. No, no, no, Masha thought, but predictably, she began to play something horribly sad. Why hold back, Lika? She played with feeling, swaying and dipping her blond head. If not for Georgi, who also spoke through music, Masha would have found Lika’s performance overblown, especially when she abruptly closed the fallboard. Petals from the vase rained onto the lid. Elbows propping her up, she hid her face. “And yet we run after them,” she said.
“I didn’t.”
Lika turned a contorted face to Masha. “Worse, then. Did you even know him?”
Confusion descended on Masha, confusion as to what they were actually talking about. They stared at each other, Lika twisted on the piano stool. Gradually her expression changed. She folded it up and put it away.
“You must miss Antosha terribly,” she said.
DID YOU EVEN KNOW HIM?
There were times, despite growing up with five brothers, that Masha felt terribly naive. She used to overhear their sniggering and, not understanding, bristle with indignation. They meant to keep her ignorant.
Lika thought Masha had slept with Georgi, that was clear. Later that evening, she recalled the moment and let out a sour laugh, causing Mother to look up from the letter she was writing. They were both sitting at the dining table, Masha correcting her girls’ first compositions.
She was sensibly chaste. Why take a risk? They’d suffered enough ignominy with Father’s bankruptcy and Kolia’s drunkenness. Aleksander was alcoholic too, but a functioning one. He could hold a job, though not his temper. What would the papers say about Antosha if his sister disgraced herself?
She certainly would have kissed Georgi, had he taken the initiative. Thinking about it (continuously) was uncomfortably pleasurable. Throbbing beads of sensation she yearned to press and rub even now. But that was madness, or would lead to it.
“What are you sighing about?” Mother asked.
Masha smacked the pile of papers before her. “My pupils. They’re hopeless. Isn’t it cold in here? Did Mariushka light the fire? What a drafty place we’ve moved to.”
She rose and went off rubbing her arms, a ruse to get away. But it reminded her of how Lika had hugged herself earlier that day, and at other times too. When she talked about her mother having lovers, for instance.
Things happened to girls. In Taganrog, convict gangs were sent out as dogcatchers. They grabbed the curs with hooks, then beat them to death.
“That would be preferable,” Mother had warned her, “to what would happen should some man catch you on your own.”
MASHA DID GO TO SOPHIA’S SALON, WITH MISHA. SOPHIA and her husband, a police doctor, lived in a precinct watchtower on the edge of a slum where the flophouses and brothels serviced the open-air labour exchange. The sort of neighbourhood they’d lived in when they first arrived in Moscow. Dr. K. tended to the district’s unending stream of crime victims.
They took a cab. On the way, Misha recounted a long, boring story about once having his coat stolen in a local den of iniquity. Masha only half listened between thoughts of Georgi. It was dusk, and the bells were ringing for evening service. They passed the square where the jobless were still milling, smoking and talking in listless groups.
“Careful,” the driver told them as they climbed out of the cab. “You’re right in front of the police station, and still they’ll rob you blind.”
Sure enough, a man staggered over to accost them. But he was only begging. He could have been Kolia, Masha thought. They turned their backs.
Sophia answered the door in a black dress brightened by a wide crimson sash and ropes of coloured wooden beads. “How exquisite that you came!” She shook Misha’s hand, then Masha’s. “Did you bring something to show, Masha? Yes?”
Masha had not.
“You’re like your brother. Anton, I mean. Not this one.” She poked Misha’s arm, which he took as encouragement to reach into his coat and pull out a roll of pages.
He waved them. “A new story. Finished today. I’m ready to read.”
“See?” Sophia told Masha. “Anton we have to beg and beg.”
She stepped aside to let them in. Masha started, for just behind stood the crane. As tall as Sophia’s hip, it was grey with black and white flourishes. The featherless patch on its head matched her sash. Its amber eyes scrutinized them as Sophia had. Then the crimson patch began to bob.
“Look, Masha. Grus-grus likes you. Of course, she generally likes who I like.”
They followed Sophia up the stairs, her velvet skirt swaying, Grus-grus stepping woodenly behind her, jerkily lifting stick legs and hopping.
The room they entered first was as Lika had described, tented with tacked-up fabric and hung with Sophia’s paintings and sketches—quite good. She would have to be to consort with Isaac. A folksy miscellany hung on the walls: Oriental parasols, bast shoes, even a rusted sickle.
A spiralling iron staircase took them to the next level in the tower. This room was larger and even smokier, crowded with guests. A table covered with a rug stood in the centre with an album lying open on it.
“Masha, please. Bring your spirit and artistry to this altar of
the muses. Draw something. Or write. And we’ll want to hear your brother’s news.”
“There is no news,” Masha said.
“Oh, look! Lensky’s arrived. Where’s our Lika?” Sophia rushed off to greet the Maly director.
Misha had fallen behind, probably waylaid by someone he knew, despite promising to stay with her. Masha turned a few pages of the album. Sketches, poems. A pastel caricature of Sophia in evening dress, hair a black meringue of curls. Pressed flowers fell out. Sophia and Isaac went on painting excursions along the Volga River every summer. Did the husband know about their affair? Masha glanced around, trying to spot him. The fat, pouch-eyed man Sophia was fawning over was Aleksander Lensky. And there was Isaac, pontificating. He hadn’t seen her yet. No Misha. She gave up and took a seat on one of the clever sofas and wished she were dead.
Sophia lauded each arrival, then moved through the room, cigarette first, offering unctuous seconds of praise. Now and then Grus-grus pecked and had to be reprimanded. A man with pheasant tiepin and dandruff came over and asked if she was Antosha’s sister. He was standing, Masha sitting. The view up his nostrils was to a void. He’d been to the house; Masha remembered the pin. It struck her that ninety-nine out of a hundred men had no brains.
“Any news?” he asked before calling to someone. “Anton’s sister is here!”
Anton’s sister. Her great claim to fame, the only reason she’d been invited, and presumably why Georgi had even tolerated her presence. There was something she could write in Sophia’s album: The great writer’s sister came tonight. Felt like a dolt. Left.
Masha didn’t notice Lika until her admirers thinned enough for them to spot each other. She waved and came right over, holding a cigarette. Masha pointed out Lensky.
“There’s your future director.”
Lika shrugged. “I got on at council. I just found out this morning.” She took a drag on the cigarette, which made her look worldly. Masha remembered the shy flapping girl in their parlour, flying across the room to greet Antosha. A woman now. And look at the admired hostess from that night, cowering on a tea crate covered with a tattered Turkish rug. A furnishing fit to spark another Crusade.
“When did you start smoking?” Masha asked.
“It seemed a prerequisite. And Antosha? Still no news?”
If only everyone would stop asking! Thankfully the party reached the saturation point for arty argument, and the entertainment began.
First to play was a flautist. Grus-grus began to dance, and everyone pressed the walls to make room. She stretched out her wings, flapped, hopped, croaked. Her feathery bustle shook. There seemed something obscene about a wild creature dancing uncoerced in a smoke-choked room. She simply danced. Her true nature had been destroyed, and they watched it as entertainment, like they might watch dancers in a brothel.
“Brava, Grus-grus!” Sophia cried, leading the applause.
A melancholy cellist played next; the crane ignored him. Lensky recited a passage from Richard II, bare cheeks jiggling as he intoned. Then Lika sat at the piano. Masha really couldn’t stand it a moment longer. Was she to go through life avoiding pianos? Almost everyone had one. She spotted Misha, sprang up and went to him.
“We can’t go now,” he told her. “It would be rude.”
Lika played and unintentionally made herself a dozen more admirers. After that, the artists were supposed to place their work on one of the easels set up around the room and lecture on its significance. Or they could draw something on the spot. Isaac stepped forward; he would do the impossible and draw a portrait by feel.
Laughter and scoffing while Sophia produced one of her bright kerchiefs, blindfolded him and set him fumbling among the guests. Unsurprisingly, his hand fell on Lika. He could probably see through the weave of the fabric.
A circle formed around them, Lika stiff with embarrassment while Isaac’s hands explored her face. Eventually Sophia gave an uncomfortable laugh and, pulling him off her protégée, put a stick of charcoal in his hand.
“The book is here, Levitan.” She led him to it. “Ladies and gentlemen! Gather round!”
Before they could, the doors to the dining room swung open on a burly man with a goatee like grey moss hanging from his chin. He held a knife and fork. “Ladies and gentlemen? Refreshments are served.”
Sophia rushed over, took his face in her hands. “Friends, just look at this man’s face. So kind and expressive. Oh, my darling!” She kissed him, then they all stampeded into the dining room.
Masha grabbed the little brother by the arm.
“Why did you come if you didn’t want to stay?” Misha grumbled as they started down the iron spiral. “I’m starving. They put on an amazing spread. Oysters and caviar. I don’t know how. What does a police doctor earn? It can’t be much.”
They stepped into the gloom and set off in search of a cab, passing clusters of indigents on the way, menacing in the half-light. One ruffian turned and boldly stared; Misha gripped her arm and picked up his pace.
“Do cabs even come down here?” he asked. Ahead, light from a pub divided into six panes. It stretched across the pavement. Carousing inside. “Shit. I just stepped in some.”
Then a drunk fell out the door, stiff as a plank, and landed in front of them, feet still inside. An eddy of dirt and fallen leaves swirled around his head. Misha steered her roughly around him.
“I wanted to read my story. It’s as good as anything he’s ever written.”
Masha’s feet turned to stone and stopped her. “Maybe you don’t remember what happened in Taganrog.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Fine. You were only six. But surely you remember who paid your school fees and your university fees at the cost of his own health. If you’re so talented, go back and read out your precious story. Then repay your brother for all he’s done for you.”
The pince-nez lifted. It took him a moment to think of a retort. “Do you think you’d arrive home intact?”
They stared at each other, both breathing hard. Then Misha said, “Let’s go.”
“Infant,” she muttered.
FINALLY, A LETTER.
Dated early October, it only reached them as November shut her doors. For three months, Antosha had travelled to every prison and settlement on Sakhalin Island, had spoken only to convicts and jailors, thought of nothing but penal servitude. But I’m well other than headaches, flashes of light in one eye and a heaviness all over. He was sailing back via the China Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, then the Black. He would disembark in Odessa and take the train from there. And then, oh my beloveds, this lonely, hemorroidal personage will be home . . .
Masha planned what she would do when he stepped off the train. Throw one arm around his neck and, as fast as she could, snake the other down his sleeve. There! Try leaving again with your sister attached to you like this. No doubt, she’d follow this with an explosion of relieved tears.
Nine months without him!
On the day of his arrival, several trains failed to deliver their loved one. Mother and Masha stood close enough on the platform to allow for bickering. Misha paced within earshot, but far enough not to be drawn in.
“Why hasn’t he arrived yet?” Mother asked for the thousandth time. “Didn’t he say twenty past one? It’s ten-to-two now. See?” She pointed at the station clock.
“The clock hangs in view of us all, Mother. No need to keep telling me the time.”
“Well, where is his train?”
“Do I control the railways?”
“I know you don’t, Masha. A good thing too, when you can’t even control your tongue.”
Masha heaved a sigh. If Antosha didn’t show up soon, she’d throw herself on the tracks like Anna Karenina. Where was he?
Mother belched into her glove. “My nerves are giving me gas. Misha!”
The little brother came over, looking agitated himself. Just then a sooty wind blew through, announcing another incoming train. They watched the tra
vellers disembark. After the gentry trickled out, they moved farther down the platform in case Antosha was in another class. A kerchiefed peasant woman with a basket stepped down last. A duck popped its head out from under the cloth and looked around. It was too much for Mother, who let out a wail and sank into Misha’s arms.
“I’ll go ask,” Misha told Masha, handing Mother over. He put on a lawyer’s strut all the way to the stationmaster’s office.
Five minutes later, he returned with a perplexed expression, the pince-nez hiking up his nose.
“His train was early.”
Masha let go of Mother’s arm and raced off to the refreshment room.
That a crowd had gathered was to be expected. She forced her way through. There he was, sitting at a table with two sailors, as long-haired as Ivan last Easter, bronzed from the homeward journey. Calmly he sliced into the cutlet on his plate; the fork delivered it. He ate so beautifully! Then his companions laughed at something he said. That meant he was happy, or at least able to make a joke. Or maybe he was just glad to be home. Masha was paralyzed with joy.
Around her people were hubbubbing. “But what are they? Monkeys?” Gradually, it registered that the crowd’s astonishment was unrelated to hers. In fact, no one seemed the least bit interested in the famous author, which might have been the true reason for his contentment.
Only then did she notice the pair. About the size of half-grown kittens, with small rounded ears placed low on tawny heads, they were catlike but not cats—not standing erect as they were, paws tucked neatly against their chests. One elongated himself enough to peer over the edge of the table. He snatched a scrap off a plate. The crowd applauded.
Misha pushed up beside Masha with Mother on his arm. “Antosha!”
Her brother leapt up, and Masha forgot the strange creatures. Forgot to force her way into his coat. Then the four of them were laughing and crying, kissing and patting each other all over to be sure they weren’t dreaming. How thin Antosha felt. How exhaustedly he turned his back to cough.
A Russian Sister Page 9
