The café was filled with the usual old-timers, who sat drinking their coffee in small gulps, quietly savoring old memories. In one corner, where several tables had been pushed together, the young men were conversing with the noisy exuberance of youth.
I sat down at one of the tables, hanging my string bag on the back of my chair.
“Sweet or semisweet?” asked the waiter, nodding his head with the benign expression of some Oriental wise man. As he caught sight of my fish, a look of approval flashed across his round face which seemed to have been browned by sun and coffee alike.
“Semisweet,” I replied as usual.
I felt pleasantly exhausted after all my rowing, and at the moment I could imagine nothing more appealing than a cup of hot Turkish coffee topped with its fine brown foam.
So it is that I bring to a close my true story of the goatibex. And if I purposely omit any further reference to the girl whom I met on the pier, I do so not only to prove how elusive and self-controlled I can be, but also for the simple reason that her vacation had come to an end and she had already returned home to resume her studies. More to the point, she belongs to another chapter in my life—one which I’m happy to say has absolutely no connection with goatibexes.
The southern night came on quickly. I looked up at the sky, trying to locate the constellation which had once reminded me of the goatibex. But ever since that evening with Valiko, try as I might, I had never found anything even slightly resembling it. So too on this occasion: the sky was full of constellations, but the goatibex was nowhere in sight.
I sat there sipping my coffee, and each time I raised the cup to my lips and sucked in a hot, thick mouthful, I would feel at my elbow the gentle pressure of my string bag full of fish. It was as if my own dog were sitting behind me, thrusting his cold, moist nose into my elbow as a subtle reminder of his presence. The sensation was a pleasant one, and I didn’t change my position until I had drained the contents of my cup.
*What follows is an ironic fictional portrait of the Soviet biologist and agriculturalist Trofim D. Lysenko (1898–1976). Using the name of the famous Russian horticulturalist Michurin (1855–1935), Lysenko was able to impose his theory of “the inheritance of acquired characteristics” on the Soviet scientific community from the late forties until some years after Stalin’s death. While Lysenko was to remain a powerful figure throughout the Khrushchev era, by the early sixties other more widely-accepted views on genetics were once again able to be heard. ( Translator’s note.)
* A Caucasian maiden of such legendary beauty that even the devil was haunted by her charms. She is the heroine of Lermontov’s poem The Demon (Trans.)
* An inhabitant of Kakhetia, a district in eastern Georgia. (Trans.)
* A Caucasian dish consisting of kidney beans topped with a spicy nut sauce. (Trans.)
* In his drunken haze the narrator makes a false association between the Russian word for “ibex” (tur) and the abbreviation for “tourist,” as it appears in the word “tourist camp”(turbaza). (Trans.)
* Most Soviet citizens are required to carry internal passports which contain their name, address, age, nationality, marital and civil status as well as their complete employment record. (Trans.)
* The Russian word for “victory.” (Trans.)
* A district in northwest Georgia, inhabited by an ancient Caucasian people, the Svans. (Trans.)
* A spicy Caucasian condiment. (Trans.)
* A spicy lamb dumpling popular in southern Russia and the Caucasus. (Trans.)
* A major Russian poet of the early twentieth century and the leading exponent of Russian Futurism. In official circles Mayakovsky has consistently been regarded as Russia’s greatest poet of the Revolution. (Trans.)
* In one of Pushkin’s well-known fairy tales a golden fish grants a number of wishes to a kindly fisherman who has freed her from his net and returned her to the sea. (Trans.)
* In the Soviet Union local buses often operate on the honor system. The passenger drops his coin into a fare box located at the back of the bus and takes his own ticket without any supervision from the driver or other attendant. (Trans.)
* Another reference to Lysenko. (Trans.)
* An ancient Caucasian stringed instrument somewhat smaller than the guitar. (Trans.)
* Russia’s commanding general during the Napoleonic invasion of 1812 and a figure well-known to readers of War and Peace. (Trans.)
The Goatibex Constellation Page 17
