The Flight

by Gaito Gazdanov

  Yegorkin smiled.

  “I’m always in need of money, Seryozha. Only you don’t owe me anything.”

  “No, no,” Seryozha quickly put in. “You misunderstand me, Leonid Semyonovich. You see, Papa would doubtless buy the paintings from you, so does it really matter who pays for them?”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “Wait a moment,” said Seryozha. “I’ll be back shortly.”

  “Wait, where are you going?”

  But Seryozha was already gone. He had run upstairs to his room and opened the drawer of his bureau. Of the thousand francs that he had changed the previous week, there were only two notes left: one for five hundred and the other for one hundred. He took the five hundred francs, but, heading towards the doors, stopped, went back, took the remaining hundred as well, and ran downstairs. In the bright moonlight he could see the artist sitting by the side of the road, watching the sea. On hearing Seryozha’s quick steps, he lifted his head:

  “What splendour,” he said in a booming voice. “For all my years, I never tire of seeing it.”

  “Here, Leonid Semyonovich,” muttered Seryozha, handing him the money. “Take this for now… If you need any more, just let me know.”

  Yegorkin slowly unfolded the money, then firmly shook Seryozha’s hand.

  “Thank you,” he said as if deep in thought.

  “I’m sure Papa will buy your sketches.”

  “Of course he will,” said Yegorkin. “And if I brought him a piece of wood, he’d buy that, too, unless I’m much mistaken. Sergey Sergeyevich knows I appreciate it. Some people are given so much, others so little. Well, goodnight, Seryozha.”

  He walked off briskly. Seryozha went indoors. The sand crunched beneath his slow footsteps. He paused for a second and recalled the sound of his steps on that same sand—on that first night when he and Liza had gone out for a walk together and he had fainted after she kissed him. A whole lifetime seemed to have passed by since then. In order to comprehend the enormous, incomparable—as Seryozha thought—happiness, he doggedly sought an explanation as to how all this could happen and how it turned out that everything that had gone before this seemed like a prelude to his current existence. Everything Seryozha had known and loved before now seemed to be eclipsed by Liza’s slender shadow, just as it had when one night she got out of bed and went over to the open window, and as he was beginning to doze off, Seryozha vaguely marked her naked body in the dark, airy bay window. He got up and walked over to her; beyond her back and shoulders, down which her black tresses cascaded, slowly and unexpectedly the sea, a tree-lined shore, the still evening leaves, a low star in the distant sky and a quivering strip of moonlight on the sea came into view. Even now, he could see what had hitherto separated the two of them: his mother, his father, the sensation of warm bathwater, long ago, when he was little and Liza’s dark hands had lifted him out of there, her peculiar voice saying: “Now, then, Seryozhenka, it’s time for bed.” What else was there? There were strange childhood things: castor oil, salt, which he had been forbidden to eat but was so wonderfully delicious, then imaginary journeys through books and atlases: the Tierra del Fuego, Guiana, Tahiti, the banks of the Missouri, Alaska, Australia, Madagascar, Siberia and the Russian north. Then more books, a great variety of them, then the lycée, football, running, swimming, then walks through Paris with his schoolmates, the cinema, a silver-screen beauty with eyes half a metre wide and glycerine tears, then his father’s visitors, among whom numbered the famous and the well-respected, music, the resonant air of the concert hall, and, after all this, as always, his mother, his father and Liza.

  Seryozha always found his father inscrutable; to him it seemed strange how someone could lead such a life—always joking, laughing about absolutely everything, never worrying, never getting upset. There was a period when Seryozha thought that Sergey Sergeyevich—it was an uncharitable idea, but he did love him dearly—simply never reflected on anything; everything that concerned others, everything that would cause them to fall ill, age and die, would pass him by; having never known want or hardship of any kind, he simply lived with a sense of satisfaction, never making use of his leisure time, even for reading. This distressed Seryozha; he wanted his father to be on top of everything, while thus far Seryozha had only managed to uncover a competency in commercial matters and stock prices, things of which Seryozha had no knowledge at all. Although there was sport, too: specifically, Sergey Sergeyevich knew every world record. One day, however, Seryozha overheard a conversation between his father and a well-known, wizened old man about the development of religious philosophy, and it was quite clear that Sergey Sergeyevich felt just as at ease on this subject as he did on sport. After that, Seryozha gave up trying to understand who his father ultimately was. He knew that his mother called him a machine, that whenever Liza spoke of him either her irony or her temper would slip ever so slightly through her usual composure. What could they have against this charming man, with whom there was never a dull moment, and who would always agree to everything? Herein lay a paradox: the people who loved his father were essentially those who did not know him—the maid, Nil (who esteemed Sergey Sergeyevich greatly) and Yegorkin—while his mother and Liza regarded him coldly, which for them, generally speaking, was uncharacteristic. And why did his mother always remain a stranger to him? And when she would say, “We’ll have to tell Sergey Sergeyevich,” or “We’ll have to ask Sergey Sergeyevich,” why did it always sound as if she were speaking about a friend? And why was it that Sergey Sergeyevich, the master of his household and the owner of such a fortune, was looked upon by his friends not as an active participant in their lives, but as a valuable and, admittedly, rather pleasant advisor on various matters, but without whom, essentially, they would have got by? Seryozha very much wanted to talk to Liza about his father, but for the moment it was impossible, since it would have touched upon what was happening right now, and Seryozha feared this—all the more so because Liza had thus far not uttered a single word about what was ultimately the most tragic problem they both faced. The idea that Liza was his mother’s sister was unable to ingrain itself in Seryozha’s consciousness as it should have done; rather, it remained on the surface, and later somewhere deep, deep within him, where he sensed its disturbing presence and instinctively avoided thinking about it. Sooner or later, of course, the matter would have to be resolved, but until that point there was, perhaps, a long way to go.

  So, for the first time in his life, Seryozha found himself facing the question of his own fate, of his role in events. Until now, he had almost been invisible in Sergey Sergeyevich’s house as an independent entity—in the sense that his life and his presence could not in any way influence the general course of events or the relations between members of the family. Sergey Sergeyevich might have been discontented (though only in principle, since in actual fact he never showed his discontent); Olga Alexandrovna in turn might have quarrelled with Liza, and Liza might have been angry with Sergey Sergeyevich; however, the interests of Seryozha never factored in these situations. Irrespective of what went on, all three of them treated Seryozha with that invariable affection to which he had been accustomed since youth; only Sergey Sergeyevich occasionally poked fun at him, but only in those instances when he knew he would not cause offence.

  Yet one day, that same Sergey Sergeyevich had listened sympathetically to Seryozha’s forty-minute speech on the international situation. It happened as follows: Sergey Sergeyevich was walking past Seryozha’s room, the door of which was ajar, and from within he could hear his son’s booming voice:

  “Donc je crois, messieurs, que nous sommes tous d’accord en ce qui concerne ce côté du problème. Mais pour être efficaces, les mesures que nous envisageons…”*

  Sergey Sergeyevich knocked at the door; silence descended, and then a very different, almost childlike, voice said:

  “Please, entrez…”†

  “Who were you talking to, Seryozha?” asked Sergey Sergeyevich, taking a seat on the di
van.

  “Oh, it was nothing.”

  “Tell me, all the same.”

  “You see,” said Seryozha confidingly, “I was imagining that I was the foreign minister, you know, making a speech at a plenary session of the League of Nations.”

  “Aha. On what subject, exactly?”

  “Mainly on the international situation.”

  “Very well,” said Sergey Sergeyevich. “If you can imagine that you’re the foreign minister, then look upon me as the noble assembly—which is no more far-fetched. You give your speech, and I’ll oppose it.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Yes, I’m serious.”

  “All right, I’ll continue. In which language?”

  “Which country are you the minister of, exactly?”

  “I hadn’t actually thought about that,” said Seryozha candidly.

  “All right, it doesn’t matter. Let’s have you speak French, then, and I’ll reply as a representative of the Foreign Office—that is, in French, but you must forgive my accent. Well, let’s have it.”

  “Tant que l’Allemagne,” Seryozha continued, “restera meurtrie, que les puissances européennes se désintéresseront complètement ou presque complètement de sa situation intérieure, nous ne pourrons aucunement compter sur elle comme sur un facteur de l’équilibre européen, ce même équilibre au rétablissement duquel nous avons sacrifié des millions de vies humaines et au nom duquel la plus atroce des guerres s’était déclenchée…”‡

  “Je me permets de rappeler, Monsieur le Président,” said Sergey Sergeyevich with a pure English accent, “que c’est bien l’aveugle et criminelle politique de l’Allemagne qui a provoqué la guerre.”§

  “Messieurs,” boomed Seryozha, “nous ne sommes pas ici pour analyser les causes de la guerre ni pour chercher le coupable. La vengeance de l’Histoire, d’ailleurs, a été impitoyable. Mais je tiens à vous rappeler que nos efforts ne doivent pas être ménagés pour la construction de l’Europe nouvelle qui—je suis le premier à l’espérer—ne ressemblera nullement à celle qui s’est ensevelie sous les ruines fumantes, dans le sang et la souffrance.”¶

  Having debated the international situation from every angle, Seryozha smiled, watching Sergey Sergeyevich as he left, and was very pleased to have found a worthy opponent.

  How long ago all that had been! Now everything had changed: instead of historical and philosophical problems, instead of the Sergey Sergeyevich, the Olga Alexandrovna and the Liza of former days, something new had emerged, something infinitely more significant, more vital, whose existence had unwittingly and irrevocably eclipsed this whole precious and now distant world. Seryozha had witnessed an instantaneous dissociation: everything seemed to have remained in its proper place—the people were the same, as was the mark on the floor of his room (which had been made because the nanny at the time, stepped out for a moment, leaving an electric iron there, and returned only half an hour later), the smooth dark lustre of the banister on the staircase, Nil, the Italian woman; yet nevertheless Seryozha, despite the outward semblance of all this, felt as if these people and objects now surrounding him belonged to a distant age, of which he could but regret the passing—and this regret was one of the elements of his happiness, this flight into an unknown land where God only knew what awaited him. However, in order to comprehend this happiness, he had to compare it with what had gone before it, and only then, only in so doing could he see the singularity of it. Liza’s shadow never left him; even when she was not there, everything was imbued with her presence and the expectation of her return: the air was full of faint echoes of her voice, the music was full of her intonations, the water was suffused with her rippling reflection, and in the caress of the sea breeze Seryozha distinctly felt the approach of her lips, now forever half open, to his face. This constant intense presence of hers—the unconscious fatigue of which would send Seryozha into a deep sleep every night—required everything, irrespectively, to be sacrificed in its name. This avid happiness brought with it the permanent necessity of some sacrifice; to be worthy required the relinquishing of something very important and precious. And since no change in Seryozha’s life had yet come about, a sense of having lost the world in which he was still living developed.

  Seryozha, however, had little time to think about all this; most likely, these thoughts had not even managed to lodge in his consciousness, just like the notion that all this would end in what was, perhaps, the most significant decision in his life. He must have known this, but he did not think about it. He remembered the past and felt the present; it was impossible to foresee what would come later, if only because until then, in his current state, he had known nothing of the like; the life he was now living was entirely new to him.

  The single, albeit insistent, reminder of what had gone before this period in his life was the memory of his mother, which could not eclipse even Liza’s ever-present shadow. Seryozha adored his mother; although by now he knew that her private life was far from without reproach, this knowledge remained abstract and could in no way besmirch the image of his mother. She was still that same lovely, gentle mother, with her endearing quick patter and tender hands, and yet she was also the woman she was to others, strangers, who would frequently quit her house, husband and son—this woman bore no relation to his mother, although theoretically both she and his mother were one and the same person.

  “Seryozha, my darling. Seryozha, my little boy. Seryozha, my little fair-haired one,” he remembered suddenly. And when he then reflected that Liza was his mother’s sister, he was gripped for a moment by despair, an unsettling, distant chill within him; what would she say when she found out about this?

  * Therefore, I believe, gentlemen, that we are all in agreement regarding this aspect of the problem. However, in order to be effective, the measures we envisage…

  † Please, come in.

  ‡ So long as Germany remains ravaged and the European powers have absolutely, or almost absolutely, no interest in its domestic situation, we shall not in any way be able to rely on it as an element of European stability, that same stability for the recovery of which we have sacrificed millions of human lives and in whose name the most terrible of wars was triggered…

  § I would remind the president that it was the blind and criminal policies of Germany that provoked the war in the first place.

  ¶ Gentlemen, we are not here to analyse the causes of the war, nor are we here to point the finger. The vengeance of History has in any case been merciless. However, I would remind you that our efforts must not be spared in the construction of a new Europe that, I am the first to hope, will bear no resemblance to the one that is buried beneath smoking ruins, in blood and suffering.

  THEY LAY TOGETHER on the sandy bank of a small backwater. High above was the path that led past their house; to the right was a sheer, almost vertical cliff face; to the left, a little cove. It had gone eleven o’clock, and the sun was high in the sky. Seryozha rolled over several times and, when he ended up next to Liza, he said:

  “You see, Liza, you and I are alone now, nobody can hear us, and I feel the urge to tell you again that you’re the finest, the most extraordinary woman.”

  “You’re the silliest, the most mad,” replied Liza, mimicking him.

  “Liza, just look at how amazing it all is,” he said. “What matters is that it isn’t blind happiness. Just think, back there, in Paris, for example, tens of thousands of people suffocate, hate and die; a few thousand more are lying in hospital beds; more still are old men, and some have never in their whole lives known what love is. There are people who have never seen the sea. There’s a whole world inhabited by other people. And next to this, but apart from it, in such infinite and undeserved happiness, here I am, lying next to you. Isn’t it miraculous?”

  Liza stroked Seryozha’s wet hair.

  “You’re always so quiet, Liza. Why is that?”

  “It’s a good quiet, Seryozha, don’t worry.”

  “I don’t. Bu
t you know so much more than me, you’re so much more clever…”

  “No, Seryozhenka. We only know what has been. And what has been will never be repeated. When something new begins, you and I are equally defenceless. Later we shall know what it was, and we’ll either rejoice in it or regret it. But now we don’t know a thing, Seryozhenka; we feel. These are different things.”

  “No, I’m speaking objectively, Liza; not because I love you. Your whole life you’ve always been the same—just as pure, just as irreproachable and just as remarkable! You and only you. Do you understand? All your life, all your thoughts, everything, Liza, everything.”

  “My darling boy.”

  “I’ve always been selfish, Liza, you know that, but now it seems to me as though there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. If you and I were all alone, with no money, I would work for us both, I’d do everything I could—although not in the mines—and I’d be just as happy as before. I never knew there could be such things. You see, now I understand: Love came before the Creation, and I know why.”

  He smiled and shook his head.

  “There’s only one thing I don’t understand: different people love one another, they marry, suffer, and so on. It seems ridiculous to me: how it is possible to love anyone but you? Not one of them has the slightest thing in common with you—which is not, of course, my personal opinion, but simply a fact that can be verified.”

  “That’s only true for you, Seryozhenka.”

  “All right, it’s true for me. But I’m an average man, like the rest of them.”

  Now Liza smiled.

  “You aren’t a man, Seryozhenka, you’re still a boy.”

  “I was until recently,” said Seryozha, blushing, “but I’m a boy no longer, as you can see, and you know that perfectly well. Liza, wait! Where are you going?”

  But Liza had already stood up and gone into the water; then she floated on her back and swam, waving goodbye to Seryozha. Seryozha ran after her, dived in, and his head suddenly appeared from beneath the water at her shoulders. Liza then turned on her front and began to swim off; Seryozha swam beside her, stopped for a second and called in his sonorous voice: “You won’t get away, Liza, you’ll never manage, never!” When he shouted, he was two metres behind her, but then he caught up with her again, jumping in the water and turning a somersault like a dolphin.