Mikhail and Margarita

by Julie Lekstrom Himes

  He signed such documents every day.

  The outer door in the adjacent room opened. Two people entered but there was only the voice of the guard. He’d typically wait as long as a quarter hour, but he could not help but think: She is here. He opened the door. They had just settled into their chairs and immediately they rose.

  She was thinner than before. She appeared surprised to see him and this unsettled him. He looked away, not wanting to know more until they could be alone. He’d carried the stack of reports with him. He grumbled of being too harried and pressed for time. He put them on the table; the pen beside them, and took a seat.

  “You may leave now,” he told the guard. If the guard felt this was irregular, he gave no indication. He departed and the door closed. Ilya pretended to focus on the reports. He heard the other chair shift as she took her seat.

  He turned the pages one by one as if they required some careful inspection. The text rippled across the page; he read none of it. She was silent; not even the wisp of her breath could be heard. There was only the sound of moving paper. He sniffed, then rubbed his brow as though something he read had pained him. He cleared his throat but still said nothing. All seemed staged, only he’d been given no dialogue. He was at a loss as to how to begin. The reports offered nothing. He reached the end and started to page through them again.

  Her hand rested on the table. Her skin seemed translucent.

  A phrase on the page caught him: The prisoner smells of lavender today, the source of which is inexplicable.

  He knew then. She’d not survive that first year in prison. As though she already carried her contagion dormant in her chest, biding its time. Across the steppe, then into the Urals, as roads became trails, then paths, it would awaken. As food and supplies dwindled, as the cold took its turn, the entity would grow. It would break down her tissues and rebuild them to its own specifications. After a time, after much suffering, whatever remained would stiffen in an unmarked grave.

  Even in the stale, overwarmed air of his office, this future was as real as if it’d already occurred. Behind her shining eyes, he saw dead ones staring back at him. As if there were two of her, the second in the background, waiting, certainty giving it patience; its turn would come. The hopelessness of the moment rose in him.

  “You’re to be sentenced tomorrow,” he said quickly, his voice deepened. “It’s more of a formality, in truth. The decision’s been made.” He pushed the disposition letter forward. He watched her read it. Her expression didn’t change from the start of it to the finish, as if she’d expected it.

  She placed her hands in her lap. He had the sense she’d withdrawn not in anger or regret, but rather so as not to taint him. He could not see what she was doing below the tabletop; if she was praying, or wringing her hands in despair. He wanted to take one hand back in his, he wanted to separate it from the other as if apart they’d be easier to persuade.

  “How long?” she said. It was the only sound in the room, yet it seemed he strained to hear her.

  “Eight years.”

  She lifted her hands to the tabletop as the drowning might, as if to steady herself on a piece of flotsam.

  He weighed the expanse of this for her. His words were soft.

  “This is exile.”

  All things she knew and loved, all freedoms both cursed and enjoyed, would disappear. The tips of her fingers whitened where they pressed down.

  Those hands would look different after a few months.

  “Why wasn’t he arrested?” She asked this without rancor. It was the most natural question.

  How could he answer? His frustration with her dissipated a little into a more general disquiet with the rest of the world. Her arrest made his unnecessary.

  He tapped the paper. “This doesn’t have to happen. If you give them something, something to indicate you’re willing to work with them, they will make an arrangement instead.”

  “An arrangement?”

  “Something that happens here every day. Many times a day. For many, such as yourself.” He was given to a vision of Muscovites, thousands of them, walking the streets, looking over their fellow citizens in the stores, in the parks, on streetcars, evaluating their deeds, their words, their hearts. Listening. Always listening. Knowing better than to speak themselves.

  “I’d make a terrible informant,” she told him.

  It seemed like a small thing, in exchange for her life. “Do you think that you are protecting him?” he said.

  Her face held not an answer to this, but a different question. If she took this offering, how was she to return to Bulgakov? Now with the ability to destroy him? With the expectation to do so? Perhaps she’d already envisioned this darker future. Perhaps she thought she was saving herself.

  He wanted to tell her that no one escapes these kinds of choices.

  She took the disposition letter and reread it. “You can sign this,” she said, as though it was her permission to give.

  He didn’t want her permission. He certainly didn’t need it.

  “I don’t want to sign it, but I will,” he said. “When you leave this room, when this meeting has ended, I promise you.” His words had become threatening; he wanted her to feel threatened. He got up and paced. Behind her chair, then back again. “This is real,” he went on. He couldn’t see her expression. It was easier this way. “They will load you on a train like livestock. Worse than livestock. Livestock they care about, you they won’t.” There would be typhus. Disease. He would never see her. Did she care about such things? “I won’t be able to help you. Do you understand?” He picked up the pen and threw it across the room. It hit the wall and scuttled to the floor leaving a mark.

  “Don’t do this to me,” he said.

  He thought he was prepared for this outcome.

  Something he’d said had set her in motion. She seemed at a loss over what to do with her hands. She slid them high under her arms, trapping them; her arms pressed tight into her sides. As if she was trying to hold herself together.

  “I’d like to go now,” she said. She glanced around the room as if to escape.

  “Give me something. Any bit of information. You don’t know what will happen to you.” He stopped there. It was difficult to continue.

  Her shoulders were square; her hair hung past her shoulders, no different than before. Not a strand moved. She would not be moved. It was no use.

  “I’m so very angry with you,” he said quietly.

  He picked up the pen and signed the letter. He dropped it against the table as if it’d done this thing on its own. He pushed the page away.

  “Goddamn you,” he said.

  He suddenly felt old and filled with regret for impossible things. Their impossible situation. Was he flattering himself to even call it a situation? He would never see her again. He combed his fingers through his hair. “I’m old enough to be your father,” he said. Where had those words come from? Those were the last he’d intended. How did she cause him to reveal himself? Did she think of him in that way? What could those unfathomable eyes see? In truth he was afraid of them. He was afraid he’d see only a tepid sympathy for an old man’s unrequited affection. He was afraid he’d see nothing.

  From behind, her head seemed immutable. Perhaps she had no feelings for him. Perhaps all had been imagined.

  He sat down, weary. His hands rested loosely on the table near hers. They were so unlike his own.

  She touched a finger to his. Then drew it lightly over his skin. He sensed her gaze. Was this only sad kindness? He looked up from her hand.

  She’d heard his confession for what it was. He saw her understanding, perhaps even her reluctant acceptance of it. It seemed on her to be a kind of miracle.

  Love was a wholly selfish thing. He would not give this up.

  He turned over the ashtray onto the table and spread out the ash. A thin mi
st of grey hovered above. He traced words as he spoke.

  “Your sentencing is scheduled for tomorrow. It would have been easier for you, Comrade, had you chosen to help us root out these enemies.” He paused, intent on his writing. “But you did not.”

  In the ash, he’d traced They are listening.

  Her head tilted as she read it. He wiped the ash back through the words and continued.

  “Our actions may seem capricious to you, but I assure you, they are not. There are those who would thwart our efforts to build a sound and worthy nation. They are cowards: selfish and lazy and morally destitute.” His last word was drawn out, as he scrawled through the ash again. There was an awkward pause for any listener beyond their room. When he was finished he drew his finger across the table under his words.

  She read his words and nodded. He passed his hand over them and began to write again.

  “I am no different than you,” she said. She watched his finger work across the table. “I want a healthy and productive country, like all good citizens. I love my country. Of those few you mention, if I knew any, I would certainly hand them over to you.”

  He smiled at her words. They sounded like a terribly written radio play. She leaned her head toward him and tried to read as he wrote.

  “Then it is a shame you were less than convincing for your interrogators.” He moved his hand away so she could read. His fingers were thick with the dust. “You will be an example to others. May you spend your years in Siberia hoping that other citizens will learn from your error.”

  He saw in her face a fresh despair. He went to wipe the words away as if they were the cause, but she held his hand back. He felt immobilized.

  I will find you

  Hold this close

  Then, at the bottom, in the faintest layer of ash, he’d added:

  Believe in me

  Her fingers tightened around his hand.

  PART IV

  MIRACLE, MYSTERY, AND AUTHORITY

  CHAPTER 27

  Ticket sales for Molière had tapered off. Bulgakov attended one night; he guessed that a third of the seats were empty. Those who were there, however, appeared engaged, and their applause was sincere. He said this to Stanislawski backstage after the performance. The director looked grim. Bulgakov gave an interview for Crocodile and sales showed a nice bump. Stanislawski hosted a lavish after-party at the Writers’ Union. Several committee members attended. Rumors were started, no doubt by Stanislawski, that the lead actor and his co-star were having an affair. The following week, Pravda ran an article, and afterward reservations could only be made months in advance.

  Bulgakov received a telegram from Stalin, congratulating him on its opening as well as offering a dacha for his temporary use. When he returned, the telegram read, they would discuss a new project for the writer. One that would cement his name in history. There was no mention of Margarita.

  It seemed to suggest that he might consider forgetting her too. Come back in three months as fat as a whale. He wanted to talk to Ilya; he would know more of her fate. He took a chance that Annuschka’s route had not changed, that she’d not been dismissed from her position, that she would be working that night; indeed, that they were still neighbors; and he walked to the stand near Lubyanka and waited. Several trams passed before he saw her. She didn’t notice him amongst the crowd and he sat in the back of her car until another driver took over at the end of her shift. He followed her to a run-down apartment building.

  The outside was hemmed in by toppled trashcans and loose trash. Foodstuffs hung in tattered cloth bags from every window though this was expressly forbidden by law. It seemed an unlikely residence for the agent. The mailboxes in the entryway gave little indication of the occupants. He wandered down the first-floor hallway. He paused, listening for Ilya.

  A door opened and Annuschka appeared. Her hopeful face immediately soured at the sight of him. Her head disappeared but her door remained ajar. The light from the room shone into the hall and he went toward it, mothlike.

  The number eleven was drawn in nail polish on the door; a scarlet drop trailed from the first digit and ended in a small bubble. Bulgakov imagined her forming the numbers with an irreverent brush, its tip burning with the same red found on her still-damp nails. If the housing officer couldn’t take care of this small task, she’d manage it herself. From within, her disembodied voice called to him. “I suppose you’re going to want some supper,” she said. Despite the resignation in her words, she sounded pleased.

  He went in.

  She was a pretty girl. She had dressed in a short kimono robe and was reclined on a dilapidated couch, curled hair piled atop her head, her legs extended across the cushions—like a Venus, he thought. There were only a few pieces of furniture, mismatched and worn to the point of disrepair. The small table before her was set with a cup and a pot and a single plate with toast spread with goat cheese. Beside the plate, a glass acted as a vase for a clutch of dying daisies, their petals floating in the greenish water and dotting the table. She reached into another small table beside her and pulled from it a second cup. She blew into it then put it next to the other. She appeared to have no interest in serving.

  It wasn’t clear where he was supposed to sit. There were no other chairs.

  “When Ilya Ivanovich is here, I sit on his lap,” she said.

  Bulgakov squatted on the floor in front of the table and sat heavily. “In case he returns, then. You wouldn’t happen to know where he is, would you.”

  “No—do you?”

  The floor was gritty under his hands and he brushed them together before pouring the coffee. He poured her a cup as well. She rubbed her thumbnail with her finger, then frowned. Suddenly she looked at him.

  “I remember you,” she said. “You were with that woman that night.”

  “Yes—I think you went home early,” he said.

  “He sent me home.” She went back to her nails. “She is your girlfriend, your wife?”

  It was strange to hear her talk of Margarita. Mention of her in this place, by this woman, seemed irreverent. “We’re engaged,” he said.

  She made a small face as though he’d chosen an odd word. “He’d asked me what I thought of her,” she said. “I didn’t think much of her shoes.” She’d picked a piece of lint from the fabric of her robe and she dropped it off the edge of the sofa.

  “I was hoping to see him tonight,” he said.

  “I can tell when he’s home.” She tilted her head toward the wall behind her with an authoritative smile. Thin walls.

  “Perhaps I should check just in case.”

  She leaned forward. “I saw a ghost last night.”

  “Really?” He was amused by her announcement but didn’t want to offend her. Perhaps she knew more about the mysterious Ilya Ivanovich that could be helpful.

  “A girl killed herself in this building.” She let her eyes get big, then gestured to the ceiling. “They found her—dangling.” Annuschka shivered. “It was the building officer’s fault—everyone thinks that. The witch ordered the poor girl out without a thought. And she spies on us—all of us girls. Reports on us to the police, no doubt.” She giggled. “I probably have a file that thick.” She held up her finger and thumb spaced apart.

  “You? What could you have done? You’re still a youngster.”

  She seemed to like that. She turned onto her knees and reached into the space between the sofa and the wall. She produced a brightly colored fan which she opened and extended to him. A gift from a friend, she said. After he had complimented the thing, she fanned herself slowly with it.

  “You won’t tell him,” she said.

  He supposed she meant Ilya. He promised he wouldn’t.

  The coffee was terrible. Perhaps Ilya was back, he said. She shook her head. He’d have come to her apartment first. That’s what he usually did.

  “
Has he ever brought a woman back with him?”

  She frowned. Perhaps the walls weren’t so thin. “How would I know?” she said.

  “He doesn’t have a girlfriend?”

  “Ask him yourself,” she said, feigning disinterest. She then brightened again.

  “I’ll show you something, only you must promise never to tell. Do you swear?” She didn’t wait for his answer. Her lips parted as if she would continue to speak and what appeared to be the roof of her mouth dropped down; she cupped her hand at her chin and expelled a dental plate into it. It carried two teeth, lined along its rim like pearl beads. She closed her lips, still smiling, and extended her hand to show him. Her expression danced as if she’d demonstrated a magic trick.

  Bulgakov focused on her hand and its plate, trying to control his surprise and mild revulsion at the abrupt extraction. She was watching him, expecting his admiration and perhaps a certain awe of her resourcefulness. Who did he know in Moscow who wore a plate, she’d want to know. Not a one, she might wager. He sat back and did his best.

  “Well!” he said.

  It was clear she’d expected a more exuberant reaction. She pretended not to care and slipped the plate into her mouth. He felt he’d disappointed her; he could see she was determined not to show it.

  “I have a friend who’s a dentist,” she said casually, as if anyone could say such a thing.

  “But a plate—I don’t believe I’ve ever seen one.”

  She eyed him, as though suspicious of the compliment, then decided to accept it. “Well, now you have.”

  “I’m very impressed.”

  She believed him; after all, who wouldn’t be.

  “So—your girlfriend,” she said. “Are you going to marry her?” She picked up a piece of toast, broke off a bit, and popped it into her mouth. Crumbs scattered over the silk of her robe.

  “She’s been arrested,” he said. The newness of the words made him pause for a moment. “She’s been sent east—to a camp.”