“I thought you’d forgotten me. Let’s get out of here.”
Mother and Masha rushed off to hail a cab while Antosha and Misha collected his bags. A few minutes later the two brothers walked out of the station with the porter. Nestled in the crook of Antosha’s arm was one of the cat-monkeys, which, to Masha’s astonishment, he deposited in her lap.
“This is Svoloch. Don’t look at me like that, Mamasha. I didn’t name him. One of those foul-mouthed sailors did. Now he answers to it. What can we do?”
Mother blinked at the creature, as unable as Masha to believe him.
Antosha took his place beside Masha. “He’s a mongoose. He’s tame, though I can’t say the same for his spouse.”
Svoloch. Bastard. It perfectly described this mingled species. Antosha had bought him during a stopover on his long homeward journey, in a dusty roadside market in Ceylon. Later he went back for the wife so he wouldn’t be lonely. She was presently hissing in the basket Misha was loading in the cab.
“What possessed me? I’m terrified of matrimony. These two? Well, you’ll see. They’ve reinforced my fears. But how are you all? What’s the news? Talk to me, but don’t mind if I close my eyes. I have a headache. Stop crying, Mamasha. I’m home.”
In her lap, the mongoose busily fingered Masha’s coat buttons, then leapt across to investigate Misha. Masha won him back by pulling off her hat, every inch of which, fur and lining, Svoloch inspected before climbing inside to test its purpose. Spotting her comb, he stood and reached for it. They were face to face then, the mongoose’s ochre eyes bright with curiosity, the pupils horizontal slits. His musky smell filled her nose.
Off they drove, Antosha sagging exhaustedly against Masha. Yet she barely noticed his weight. She was entranced by Svoloch entranced by her comb, turning it over and over in his clever paws, as though it were the most precious thing he’d yet seen in this strange cold world.
Act Two
1891–1892
Masha: You must help me. Help me, or I’ll do something stupid, something that’ll make a mockery of my life and mess it up. . . . I can’t go on like this . . .
1
BROTHER?”
His eyes flew open.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Wheelbarrows,” he told her dully. “But now that my eyes are open, I have to wonder about these sparks. They’re beautiful, but also excruciating. Much like life.”
“Should I make a compress?”
“No. Don’t leave me.”
Most of January he spent in this wincing recline, exhausted, coughing, too ill to leave the house. At Epiphany they had to put off sorting his correspondence. Correcting lessons in the evening, Masha would glance over to where he lay and be gripped by an irrational fear that he’d expired, with her mere steps away.
What had he seen that sickened him like this? She dared not ask. He would speak about it when he was well again, or ready. Or perhaps he never would. He never spoke of Father. Perhaps she would have to wait to read about it. Meanwhile, Svoloch merrily went about his mongoose business: digging up the plants, uncorking bottles, disembowelling cushions. He kept Masha so busy it was impossible to feel low herself.
At first Svoloch was the only one to coax Antosha into smiling. Then one evening the little brother came, and during the course of the visit brought over a photograph from the sideboard, the one their landlord had taken the morning Antosha left for Sakhalin Island. All of them arranged on the stairs, including the hen in Misha’s lap that had strutted past as they were posing. Masha’s determined scowl.
Misha put on his lawyer’s voice. “Now tell me the truth, Anton Pavlovich. Rumours are circulating. Please clear them up. Were, or are you, the betrothed of anyone in this photograph?”
“Yes.” Antosha put his finger on the hen.
Then he smiled, but not because of his joke. Because Lika was in the picture too. The smile lingered on his face even after Misha put the picture away.
Since Masha’s visit to the Arbat flat last autumn, an awkwardness had attached itself to her thoughts of Lika, separate from these tedious marriage rumours. That day Masha had felt pitied, and pity was something she couldn’t abide. She’d learned this from Antosha—hold your head high, outreach your class. No one would guess then that they were of serf stock. Meeting Lika at Sophia’s salon a few weeks later had only deepened the awkwardness. Lika had seemed so different. She’d crossed the room and spoken to Masha with friendliness, but also as a society habituée would speak to a—what? A wallflower?
But then Masha remembered that strange cross-purposed conversation in Lika’s parlour. The way she’d hugged herself. The tight fingers of Masha’s pride loosened.
Lika has a kind and generous heart. She’d been kind to Masha that day.
That evening Masha wrote her. He’s home. Ill, though I think he’d like to see you.
ONCE LIKA BEGAN VISITING, THE AWKWARDNESS MASHA had felt—or imagined—was replaced by gratitude, for every time she arrived, Antosha would call out, “Jamais!” and finally summon the strength to push himself out of his apathetic recline. Such a relief to see him upright.
One day, after Antosha’s headaches had been diagnosed as myopia and cured with a pince-nez, Lika brought a packet of cords he’d asked for. With both he and Misha wearing a pince-nez now, Svoloch had taken a hungry liking to these cords.
Lika placed the packet on the floor and lightly stepped away. A moment later, Svoloch appeared out of nowhere, sleek in his glossy furs. “I knew it!” she cried. “Look at his little hands. He’s actually pulling the string.”
Masha laughed too, as Svoloch dragged the paper packet around the room. He pounced, shredded it, then tossed about the contents.
“Just what I need,” Antosha said. “Thank you. It’s all right when I’m lying down, but see what happens when I’m not?” He shook his head. The pince-nez fell into his lap.
Lika sat beside him, drew one of the cords out of the bundle and handed him the rest. Svoloch, standing on hind legs, one paw on Antosha’s knee, reached for them.
“What is the attraction of pince-nez cords?” he asked Svoloch, who had eaten the original one. “Shoe strings would be more economical. Masha?”
“He thinks they’re snakes.”
She took the spare cords and, with Svoloch scampering after her, went to look for a safe hiding place. Not a cupboard—that he could open. There was Antosha’s strongbox, but no doubt Svoloch would soon learn to use the key. A drawer in the pantry would do.
When Masha returned, mongoose in tow, Lika was fixing the pince-nez cord to Antosha’s buttonhole while he looked tenderly down at her, his hovering arms an arrested embrace. Then he did something that Masha was coming to recognize as a pattern. Though he was obviously glad to see Lika—he’d roused himself for her—as soon as she sat beside him, he used his precious energy to tease.
He told her, “With a pince-nez, I look as intelligent as my younger brother. Maybe you’ll want to be seen with me too now. When I’m well, of course.” He gave her a nudge, and reluctantly, Lika stood to give him room to stretch out again.
Masha came and plumped the cushion behind his head.
“It shouldn’t be too long,” he assured Lika, who looked confused. “I’ve embarked on a new treatment. Mongooseopathy.”
Father stuck his head in the door. “Is she there?”
“Jamais?” Antosha asked.
“The wife.”
Father meant Mrs. Svoloch, whom they rarely saw. Her habits were nocturnal and arboreal, her preferred hiding spot curtain rods.
“Lika and I aren’t married yet,” Antosha told Father. “She has so many other suitors, she can’t make up her mind.”
At Antosha’s quip, Lika’s shoulders slumped. Meanwhile, Father went from window to window checking for Mrs. Svoloch, who, a few nights earlier, had hunted him down in his bed and bit his large toe. Assured she wasn’t crouching in wait, he greeted Lika. Masha filled a saucer with tea for hi
m.
“Anyway, she won’t come out with him around.” Antosha gestured to the mongoose perched now on his chest. The only time the unloving couple had crossed paths, fire tongs had to be used to separate them.
Father did a double take. “Antosha! I thought you were Misha.” To Lika he said, “I can’t get used to his pince-nez. He came home with sparks in his eyes. We thought he had a tumour like Zinaida Lintvariova, God have mercy on her.” He leaned in. “The things Antosha saw on Sakhalin Island affected his sight.”
“Father?” Antosha said. “If looking at unpleasant things affected our eyesight, we’d be a country of blind men.”
Father slurped his tea. “They shackle them to wheelbarrows.” Spoken with approval, it seemed. He smacked his lips.
How had he found that out? Masha wondered. Pressed Antosha for details? She glanced over at Antosha just as a wave of revulsion crossed his face.
“Will he object if I smoke?” Lika asked Masha.
“Father?” How Masha hated him at that moment. Actually, she hated him most of the time but usually managed to keep her feelings below a boil. “You can do no wrong,” she told Lika.
Lika went to the hall for her bag and came back with her cigarette lit. She looked pleadingly down on Antosha, who, feigning reluctance, made room for her to sit. Svoloch had fallen into a doze on his chest, but when Antosha shifted, he woke and became interested in Lika’s cigarette, then her ring.
“Put your little hand on my forehead,” Antosha told Lika. “Not the one holding the cigarette.”
Laughing, she changed hands and waved the smoke away. Wriggled the ring off her finger and tossed it on the carpet for Svoloch. No matter if the mongoose ate it; it would turn up later in Mariushka’s dustpan.
“I liked you better before, Jamais. You remind me now of Sophia’s salonists.”
“Shh. I won’t go any more.”
“Now there’s a picture worth the canvas.” Father nudged Masha and pointed at the two of them. “Go get your paints.”
Lika the Beautiful bent over the suffering hero. If Masha had painted them—would she ever feel the urge again?—she might have titled it “He Recovers.” Except he didn’t. Soon Lika left, and Antosha rolled to his side and lay with his face to the wall for hours.
EVENTUALLY HE DECLARED HIMSELF PHYSICALLY WELL enough to travel and went to stay with Alexei Suvorin. After Sakhalin Island, the thirty hours by train to St. Petersburg seemed close. Nobody begrudged him going. He had publishing matters to deal with, though to Masha he gave a different, disturbing reason. His soul was seething.
Olga hadn’t seen the new house, or Svoloch, so Masha invited her one night after Antosha left. The house didn’t interest Olga. That a dwelling had a roof, walls and a door deemed it sufficient, just as any clothes she put on were satisfactory whether or not they matched. The wallpaper Masha had chosen, her arrangement of the pictures—irrelevant.
Olga wanted to know what Antosha had said about Sakhalin Island.
“Not much.”
Svoloch bounded into the room then, made straight for the stranger and tried to climb her skirt. Olga shrieked and jumped to her feet. He scampered off, Olga glaring after him.
“Where’s the other one? The wife, as you call her?”
They went searching. Meanwhile, Svoloch found Olga’s hat on the chair in the vestibule and shat in it.
Mrs. Svoloch was crouching behind some tins on top of the pantry cupboard, eyes glowing in the dark. Masha held the lamp while Olga stood on a chair to get a better look.
“I don’t think they’re the same creature at all.” She stepped down.
“They’re male and female,” Masha said as they returned to the parlour.
“That’s your explanation?” Olga said. “She’s shy, but underneath simmers with savagery. He owns the place, beats her and annoys everyone. And this is because she’s female and he’s male?”
Masha poured Olga a glass of tea. “Isn’t it? Olechka, tell me how I’ve erred.”
“First, by not noticing that these creatures are physically and behaviourally dissimilar. Second, by swallowing false assumptions about your sex. Women are fearful because they have much to be afraid of. Also, since men like them that way, they oblige. And men are brutes because they get away with it. None of them are inherently so.” She gulped the scalding tea as though it weren’t even hot and held the glass out for more. “You surprise me, Masha. I thought you had brains.”
“I had no idea you thought that. Thank you.”
Olga was just reaching for her tobacco pouch when Father came in, red and annoyed behind his beard. Olga must have disturbed his prayers, or he’d heard and didn’t like what she was saying. Those two burned each other’s cheeks with their thoughts.
Olga waved away the proffered tea, said, “Good night!” and huffed out. A moment later, a stream of invective issued from the vestibule, over Svoloch’s misuse of her hat.
Yet just a few days later, she returned—in triumph—while Father was at church. She must have timed her visit with the ringing of the bells. She’d come directly from the library. Masha could hardly believe she was still wearing her singed and mongoose-soiled hat.
“Olga? I have numerous hats. May I give you one?”
“It’s fine. The stain’s inside. That’s not why I came. Mrs. Svoloch is not a mongoose. She’s a civet cat.”
Olga explained the differences. Being right and proving Masha wrong put her in such a jolly mood that when Masha offered her a meal, leftovers from their lunch, she accepted, as long as Svoloch stayed locked up.
Mariushka served. Mother came in to say hello then left again while Masha fondly watched Olga chomp through her pork and fried mushrooms like a horse eating oats, the appalling hat beside her plate now. Did she even taste anything? Her views on food were the same as her views on clothes and shelter; they were necessities, not enjoyments. What did she enjoy besides arguing and calculating the movements of the stars?
Olga dispatched the meal in less time than it had taken Mariushka to carry it from the kitchen. She tossed the napkin down.
“I wrote Antosha in Petersburg. He didn’t answer.”
Masha was trying to ignore the complaining mongoose in the other room.
“Why did he go away again?” Olga asked.
Masha looked at her unkempt friend. Months ago she’d considered seeking Olga out to confide her fears about Antosha. Now Olga had come to her for the same reason.
“Olechka, he went to Sakhalin because he said he needed rousing. It had the opposite effect.”
“Naturally it did. I tried to tell him that on the train.” When she’d journeyed on with him, she meant.
“What did he say?”
Olga shrugged. “Joking is his default when things get personal. I switched to silence. He prefers it to sympathy.”
As in the storehouse in Taganrog. He never wanted Masha’s comfort, just her presence. She would sit on the floor listening to him breathe. But Olga was speaking of a different time, much later, when she was enrolled in Guerrier courses and Antosha in medical school. Before she proved herself to be such a difficult proposition. Had he told her about their childhood?
“We watched the countryside out the window,” Olga went on. “He loves the country. I hate it. I love the city, where intelligent people aren’t so vastly outnumbered by idiots.”
Masha laughed. Maybe she loved Olga because she thought worse things than Masha did. Meanwhile, Svoloch was scratching at the door now as well as crying.
“I’m going to have to let him out,” Masha said.
“He has a scar here, just under his hairline. I never noticed.” Olga pointed to the place on her own head.
Masha winced, for she remembered how Antosha got it. A memory as unbearable as Svoloch’s complaints, which resembled a baby’s crying. She opened the pantry door. Olga stood and defensively snatched up her hat.
After she left, Mother came back as though she’d been waiting for Olga to go.
“Masha, can’t you take Olga to the baths? She looks a fright.”
“She likes to frighten people,” Masha told her.
MASHA HATED TO THINK OF TAGANROG, THOUGH IT was pretty with its shallow harbour and cascade of stairs leading down to the tree-lined promenade. The Greek merchants’ houses were as grand as in any town. Beyond, fields of sunflowers, then the beautiful steppe.
Better to keep her thoughts on the present. Antosha had insisted that Svoloch’s havoc wasn’t vandalism, but scientific enquiry, so she made her own.
HYPOTHESIS: Unattended articles will be put to alternative use where a mongoose resides.
METHOD: Offer no warning to guests who leave their hats in the vestibule.
OBSERVATIONS: Mongoose knocks hat to floor. Mongoose inspects hat. Mongoose uses hat as chamber pot. (Guests speechless. Mother mortified. Father enraged. Cook appealing to God for protection.) Hypothesis proved.
She laid a trail of interesting objects—a coin, a spinning top, a dented cigarette case, a spoon—then raced barefoot and nightdressed up the stairs. From her bed, she pictured his elastic bounds from gift to gift. Heard the tap, tap, tap of each one tested.
Waiting at the end was the egg she’d managed to sneak past Mariushka. He must have smelled it, for the moment the door pushed open, he darted over, chirring his song. Rolled it to the wall, about-faced, then in one smooth motion flicked it between his legs with the precise force to crack just the shell. Now his tongue had a point of entry. He sucked out the viscous contents, warbling with pleasure.
Masha drummed her fingers on the floor. Svoloch left the empty shell and came and climbed her arm. He burrowed in and let her cradle him.
“Ladies and gentlemen, look at this intelligent face. Oh, my darling Svoloch.”
2
MASHA GOT TO THE SKATING POND FIRST. IN the crackling cold, she watched a pair of young girls skating, their mittened hands reaching for each other, then their friendly woollen clasp. They made her think of her pupils, but somehow not herself. She had friends, of course, many from her Guerrier days, yet few from before, not even from their early years in Moscow. Childhood was a story. Once upon a time. There had been some joy. Sitting on a barrel in Father’s shop playing with the guillotine that cut the sugarloaf.
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