The Flight

by Gaito Gazdanov

  Liza feared Sergey Sergeyevich. She, even she, did not ultimately know what his typical official condescension masked. He was capable of much malice; he had every opportunity, but not once in his life had he ever used it against Olga Alexandrovna or Liza. Yet he always guarded them jealously, holding on to them throughout his life, able to release them at any moment; this threat, which he would never carry out (he would have laughed, had anyone ever suggested this to him), was within his power, but one way or another it was never enacted. Liza knew that his goodness stemmed rather from ambivalence than from anything else; he was never gripped by strong passions. She understood perfectly, however, that Sergey Sergeyevich—if one were to admit the possibility that hatred could suddenly flare up in him—could be more dreadful than any other man. And what an absurd idea: to have given his son his own name! Yet that other name—“Seryozha”, so ostensibly like the first—carried intonations that were impossible to intuit; it seemed incredible that a single word could at first contain only resounding emptiness and expectancy, while the other one, his real one… What was it in that other one? A stream, green grass, a distant silver bell, a light breeze on the water’s surface—the finest, purest love. The burden of the past: was that not what Sergey Sergeyevich was forever mocking? With a strange clarity, Liza suddenly saw the Crimea glittering far away in the sunlight, Simeiz, the red clay of a tennis court, a white dress covering her naked body, Sergey Sergeyevich’s white suit and his mocking eyes, which never under any circumstance lost their lustre, but remained bright, always catching what was going on—and it was in a fit of candour that Olga Alexandrovna, her own sister, as though she herself were unaware of this, had told Liza one day that she had asked Sergey Sergeyevich:

  “Do you always see everything, understand everything?”

  “Always, Lyolya, but with enduring benevolence,” had been the answer.

  “Do you always see everything, always understand everything?” Liza had asked him another time.

  “I see your eyes, which is truly to see everything,” Sergey Sergeyevich had said.

  Then, several days later, holding Seryozha, who had just turned two, Liza said: “Is it possible that he’ll turn out just like you?” And the child’s quick eyes gazed intently at the aunt, and its small chubby hand gripped her cheek.

  “I very much hope so,” said Sergey Sergeyevich. “Just look how handsome he is.”

  Seryozha began to bounce up and down in his aunt’s arms.

  That was almost fifteen years ago. The burden of the past? Yes, then there was a musician from Berlin, flowers at a concert, a night in a hotel and a conversation that decided everything, that he was made for art and could not tie down his life… Only later did he learn that Liza was Sergey Sergeyevich’s belle-sœur,‡ that he had let slip, perhaps, a lot of money, and so took to writing letters that she never answered, for to do so would have gone against her nature. Next came a Swiss student, such a marvellous skier, such a wonderful athlete and such a surprisingly poor lover, who knew this and was all the shyer for it—Liza always felt sorry for him. Then there was an Englishman, an officer in the navy, who died during a fire on board a merchant ship on which he was travelling as a simple passenger, returning from India to Europe, where Liza was waiting for him, having spent an excruciating week in a London hotel, on the ground floor, past the window of which, perfectly oblivious, had walked Sergey Sergeyevich one day, having come to England for a couple of days and gone out for a stroll with the former British ambassador at Constantinople, a keen walker—Sergey Sergeyevich knew him from his days in Turkey. Liza had retreated quickly from the window. Yet another broken life; it was September, and the weather was foul: rain and cold. Then she returned to Paris, to Sergey Sergeyevich’s apartment, which immediately seemed empty and lorn, although Robert (for that was his name) had not only never visited it, but did not even know of its existence. At home everything was as it had always been: Olga, forever in love with some admirer, ringing up, going away, sending page-long telegrams; Seryozha with his sweet face and lovely, pure eyes—he was twelve at the time and reading Wells’s The Time Machine; and that emotional headache (she could find no other words to describe it) occasioned by Sergey Sergeyevich’s presence. How many times in their long history had she tried to love him properly without ever succeeding? He understood everything too well, he was too good-looking, too kind, too well disposed, too scornful—and always resolvedly so. That ingenuous, almost puerile mixture of the motherly and the childlike within Liza could not reveal itself; when dealing with him, it would always seem inappropriate, and so, to protect herself from this, Liza always made out as if she too were scornful, like him, that she too took nothing seriously in her relations with him, that she too regarded everything with an Olympian indifference. Perhaps without desiring it, for many years he had slowly and mercilessly contorted her life and forced her always to play out the same comedy, always feigning, always unconsciously lying. This man’s whole life was built on lies. Lying was a mark of his goodness; lying was a mark of his magnanimity; lying was a mark of his love. The only thing that wasn’t a lie was his scorn. Yet it is indeed impossible to build a life, as it is entirely impossible to build a love, on this one negative quality. For all that, had it been blood that flowed through his veins—normal human blood, and not that ideal physiological preparation imbuing his strong, lithe body which knew no fatigue—he would have been the stuff of dreams. But this was not the case. It was impossible to interpret rationally: you could only intuit it, and only if you were a woman, and only if you were his lover. The sisters, Olga and Liza, knew this. Perhaps Olga had forgotten it; she had given up relations with her husband too long ago. Liza, however, knew that Sergey Sergeyevich did indeed love her—that is, Liza. Seulement ce n’était jamais grand-chose;§ it was the incomprehensible paltriness of spiritual riches accorded to him by nature. And this too contained a riddle: Liza was certain that Sergey Sergeyevich would do everything in his power for her, and he could do an awful lot—why was it, then, that this left her cold? Was it that everything that came to others through hard work and sacrifice came to him easily and required no effort? Liza was certain that Sergey Sergeyevich had been faithful to her, but this was no achievement in itself: he did not have to fight temptation since he had none. He explained it to her; it was, he said, the result of lengthy physical training, of a well-functioning body—yes, probably just like the Swiss student’s; yet the Swiss could in no way be compared with Sergey Sergeyevich: the former suffered from a physical shortcoming, the latter from one of the soul. Thus did he bring up Seryozha, who, himself, had never taken to sport; however, even at the age of five, Sergey Sergeyevich threw him into the water at a deep spot. Liza cried, “You’ve gone mad!” She got ready to jump in after him, but Sergey Sergeyevich’s calm hand held her back.

  “It’s all right, Lizochka, this is the way to do it. I won’t let him drown, you may rest assured.”

  And indeed Seryozha floundered but managed to keep himself afloat in the water. But how could he look on calmly at his child’s plaintive eyes, full of tears? It began to seem to her that Sergey Sergeyevich was bereft of human feeling; and, pondering this, she imagined that he, like the hero of some fantastical novel, was the fruit of an improbable and cruel fantasy, a being with a quick and uncommonly developed intellect, who would immediately grasp what cost others tears and suffering to comprehend. He required none of this. He understood, for example, that Yegorkin should be pitied and not mocked; Liza admitted this theoretically, but standing between a theoretical understanding and her own feelings was a lifetime of experience, which she was unable to set aside; while on the other hand Sergey Sergeyevich had a glittering void containing not a single spectre. And thus it was in all matters.

  Recalling Sergey Sergeyevich over the course of these years, Liza was surprised to think that he had never seemed to express excitement, anxiety or joy—no matter what happened. A very long time ago, when the Civil War was drawing to a close and Sergey Se
rgeyevich, after his ostensibly dramatic adventures and the total collapse of that world in which his life had really existed, arrived in London, where his family had long already been living, he turned up, clean-shaven and laughing, wearing a beautiful, just-pressed suit and carrying brand-new travelling cases—those gay dark-blue eyes, that dazzling white collar—as if he had just been away on a short business trip; and when talk of Russia began and Olga Alexandrovna said, “God, how awful, Seryozha!”, he said (Liza recalled the phrase very well): “Yes, yes, such a pity about those poor, sweet generals.”

  After an attempt on his life in Athens, when the police detained the assailant—who had missed literally at a distance of two paces—Sergey Sergeyevich told Liza: “You know, it was so nice to see among those Greek brigands’ swarthy physiognomies such a sweet-looking Russian face—the bulbous nose, the eyes of a desperate fool—an unadulterated pleasure.”

  “That’s beside the point!” said Olga Alexandrovna to Liza. “Don’t you see, Lizochka, that all he does is talk and pass life by, like some smirking lunatic who thinks he knows it all!”

  To tie her fate to this man, everything, her thirst for true love, her eyes that wanted to melt in another’s gaze, her powerful and lithe body, her hands with their long fingers and rose-coloured nails, to sacrifice everything for this machine?… And so, now that this Liza who was made for a glittering and incomparable love finally discovered what it was that she could no longer live without, it was as if she wanted to go to Seryozha but, suddenly, at the door, saw a familiar, broad silhouette, and a metallic, lifeless arm spanning the width of the door, barring her way. How many times had Liza been stopped in her passions by Sergey Sergeyevich, in her finest feelings, in her finest moments—just as she was, for example, when she quoted to him those favourite lines of hers, lying next to him and gazing into his eyes. “Do you remember this, Seryozha?

  We are two horses; our bit is held

  By one hand, stung by the same spur,

  Two eyes we have, of but one gaze,

  Of one lone dream, two trembling wings.

  “How splendid it is, Seryozha!”

  “Yes, indeed.”

  “Is that all you have to say?”

  “It demonstrates a regrettable inexactitude; but then, in poetry—”

  “Come, Seryozha…”

  “No, it’s true, Lizochka: how is it that we have two horses but only one spur? Only horsemen in the artillery have only one spur. And then there’s the ‘bit’; the bit is not the reins, Lizochka. The bit goes in the mouth of the horse, not in the hands of the rider, one spur or not. Why such thrift in equipment? Why instead of four spurs just one? However, the last two lines are inspired.”

  He did not care for anything grand, anything heroic, anything that reached the lofty heights of human inspiration. He would find something amusing in everything that would permit him to examine it from on high. “What is this? A defensive reflex?” he might have said. “Or cruelty?” When he spoke of something, his first words would be: “What a charming man! What a charming woman!” Then he would add a few words about the most regrettable shortcoming of this man or this woman, and it would transpire that the former was a villain and the latter a fool. “But still, they’re the loveliest people.” “Lovely”, “charming”—these were his favourite words; however, no charm had any effect on him: it was utterly futile. For what did this man live? He lived—and suffocated the lives of others with his own. “Never, not for all the world! To find myself again in these tender embraces!” she thought. Not for all the world! He had ruined Olga’s life, he had almost ruined hers, and he could yet ruin Seryozha—but this he would not manage. He must not know anything; otherwise this machine would be set in motion and there would be nothing she could do to stop it.

  At the same time, had it been possible to breathe life into him, what a marvellous man he might have been! But she did not like to think about this. “What ever shall we do, Seryozhenka?” she whispered, bending over Seryozha. His eyes were closed, his breathing even; asleep, his face was that of a child. Liza recalled how she and her sister would leave the nursery on tiptoe after the boy had fallen asleep, and Lyolya would whisper:

  “Sleep, my love, sleep, my darling, sleep my little fair-haired one.”

  And then Sergey Sergeyevich would appear, saying:

  “Well, ladies, are we going to the circus or aren’t we? Just imagine, Liza, the famous Italian juggler Curaccinello will be performing with flaming torches while reciting Raskolnikov’s and then Svidrigailov’s monologues from memory. Would you like to go and see it?”

  And now, in place of this false, unreal existence—such a wonderful life with Seryozha. There were times when she wanted to cry out, to fight, to frolic, to run—in these moments she, who was usually so languid, would become unlike herself. One day, they stayed too late in the woods and had to hurry to dinner at the house, two kilometres away—down a twisting terracotta path—she and Seryozha ran all the way, and once more she felt as though she were eighteen, and again, as in those days, summer’s smell of hot earth and scorched pine trees, vivid and intense, struck her face as the path ran smoothly away beneath her feet. Beside her, keeping up the constant, impetuous pace, was Seryozha, taking her arm at the turnings; then long jumps from little ledges, momentary flights in the still air, and the scent of one’s own body, fresh and hot from the run. She loved everything: the constant shyness, Seryozha’s awkwardness, his inept kisses and how he would get hopelessly lost in her dress, while she could not hold back the laughter, hampering him in every possible way, taking him by the hands—her teeth would glisten in her moist smile. What foolishness—to have lived for so many years and know nothing of this. Together they dreamt aloud of how they would live on an island, in the forest, on the shore of a green lagoon with clear waters and sand at the bottom, how they would sleep in a cave, how they would take shelter there during a tropical downpour. They would spend the greater part of the day out of doors—in the sea or, after lunch, at Nice or Villefranche; in the evening, again, they would go for a stroll and, upon their return, everything in the house would be sound asleep. Only once did they spend the day without even going out onto the terrace. That morning Liza awoke because of the cold, got out of bed, went over to the window to close it and heard the powerful clatter of rain. As she lifted the wooden shutter, unending sheets of water streamed down before her; the rain was torrential. As far as the eye could see, everything was raindrops and damp fog; the wind howled softly and ominously. Amid this raw tumult, Liza could hear the shingle on the beach, and through the various noises came the rapid, simultaneous murmur of several streams; everything was there—the sobbing, the sodden squelch and smack of mouldering earth, and, cutting through the dank, leaden air, somewhere nearby a cockerel crowed. Liza could not step away from the window. Perhaps for the first time in her life, her perception of time had vanished; long ago, in the terrible abyss of vanished millennia, the very same event had repeated itself time and time again: that same violent whirl of rain, those same sounds, the noise of the vast earth and the shrill call of the cockerel—and if one were to imagine the mythical Titan, who fell sound asleep to the drumming of this rain and awoke, leaving the Stone Age behind and finding himself in the Age of Christ, everything would have been the same: the sheets of water, the damp fog, the piercing call of birds in a dank mist full of droplets. Seryozha awoke—however soundly he slept, he would always, after a short while, sense her departure—got up and went over to her.

  “Look, my little boy,” she said, placing her hand on his naked shoulder.

  They both stood there, shivering from the morning cold, and, unable to tear themselves away, just looked out of the window.

  “Do you know what it reminds me of, Liza?”

  “What, Seryozhenka?”

  “The creation of the world. That cosmic chaos, and there, a little above, the great shadow of the Lord of Hosts over this swirling, smoky world. Can you imagine it? All around Him, of course
, there’s no rain, but dryness; He’s in a colossal waterhole—do you see? Just look, Liza, perhaps He’s there? Peer into the distance, and you’ll see that far away, in the air, floats a mountain range—but those aren’t mountains, Lizochka, they’re His resting stone hand.”