Russian Winter

by Daphne Kalotay

  Zoltan took a sip from his Styrofoam cup. “Excellent coffee here, Grigori. You really must try it.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have much time. You said you had something to discuss.”

  “Yes! Very important. I would like to ask you, respectfully and with friendship, to be my literary executor.”

  It was nothing he had expected.

  “Thaddeus Weller had agreed to do it, you know. An excellent chap. But I’ve recently had the sad news that he’s passed away.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Grigori had never heard of him.

  “Tragic, really. Barely sixty years old. He never did write the brilliant novel he had inside him. You could practically see it there, in his gut, bursting to get out. Others simply called it a beer belly. I asked myself, when I heard the news, Who else do I know who truly understands me—without, of course, there being any odd tension between us? That’s the problem, you know, with my fellow poets. There’s competition, rivalry. Envy, you know. With you that’s not an issue. Even though you’re not a poet, as a translator you understand poetry thoroughly and emotionally. Not to mention that your translations are superb. And then, you and I, we have a common sensibility.”

  “Well,” Grigori said, “this is quite a flattering surprise.” Normally such a job might have gone to the writer’s offspring or spouse, but Zoltan had neither. (Nor had Grigori and Christine had children; Christine’s pregnancies had never lasted past eight weeks.) “I’m very honored. Although I am curious to know just what you see as our ‘common sensibility.’”

  Zoltan leaned forward on his elbows. “You have that past buried inside you that most people can’t see.” He nodded. “I was older than you when I left my country, but I think the upheaval of starting over, with that other history still a part of you, that heavy weight, is something we have in common. Don’t you?”

  Grigori thought of how this country, one that offered a fresh start to all who washed up on its shores, had somehow diminished not just Zoltan but Grigori’s parents, too—in a way that the other countries along their trajectories had not. Lessened their authority, muted their brilliance; fine qualities of the mind simply were not as appreciated in this home of the brave. Looking into Zoltan’s eyes, for a frightening moment Grigori felt that rare but seizing impulse: a distinct, nearly physical, longing to tell his story. Yet all he said was, “A common sensibility. Yes.”

  “Which doesn’t mean, of course,” Zoltan said quickly, “that you have to agree to be my executor. There’s no need to decide right away. No rush. Although this is of course something I need to take care of. It’s not an enormous oeuvre, by the way. The poetry collections, various essays, and the untranslated works—I realize you’ll need help with those. My journals are in English, though I don’t know that you’ll want much to do with them.” He gestured toward a thick faded hardcover notebook on the table. “Twenty-three volumes. But they’ve been extensively pillaged these past few years, by yours truly, in service of the memoir.”

  “Any good dirt?”

  “Oh, a divine lot. State secrets, broken hearts…” He laughed. “I look forward to your decision, Grigori. You’re just the man, you know. I hope you know how much I admire your work. You’ve brought a long-dead poet’s words to life again. And in a whole new tongue.”

  A snatch of Grigori’s own rephrasing flew through his thoughts: Black velvet night, pinned wide and high by pinprick stars…“I just did it for myself, really.”

  “The best reason, of course. The best writing happens that way.”

  Patchwork shade, pine needle carpet, ocher-resin drops of sun. The air hums…

  “If I weren’t writing for myself,” Zoltan continued, “I wouldn’t bother at all.” Though his first and second books had been translated into various languages, none of his subsequent volumes of poetry had found life outside of the Hungarian. Grigori supposed it must pain Zoltan to think that his most mature work, the fullest blossoming of his talent, happened to have been composed in a tongue that, despite its beauty, many viewed as a linguistic joke.

  “Yes, well, I suppose there’s no sane way,” Grigori said, “to account for the hours we devote to these obsessions.”

  Really Viktor Elsin’s poems had been a pleasure to translate. His language was simple, his imagery rarely ambiguous. Grigori hadn’t had to spend much time grappling with linguistic puzzles or ponderous questions of meaning and intention. Except for the final two poems: “Night Swimming” and “Riverside.” Those, too, Grigori had once viewed as clues—like the Hello magazine, and the black-and-white photographs, and the hospital certificate with the Soviet emblem at the center. Like the letters and the stunning piece of amber…

  That tawny resin, slow-motion tears, as if the tree itself knew the future.

  All of those things Grigori could have offered to Nina Revskaya—had tried to, once, had made his best effort, years ago, at her doorstep and in the slightly pleading letter he then sent her. But what could they prove, really? Just as the photographs contained other people, too, no way of verifying that they belonged to her or that they were not someone else’s duplicates (though surely, Grigori told himself, she would recall their origin), the letters were cryptic, with their nicknames and initials and at times vague phrasing, so clearly aware of the censors. The letters were the only items Grigori had ever shown to anyone other than Christine—proving what a mistake it was to show them to anyone at all.

  …cool and delicious, the checkered shade of those branches. I sometimes think, that is what I live for, days like that, perfect.

  Back then he was twenty-one years old, and never had he been quite so proud of any paper he had written. It was with real excitement that he handed over “The Pines Weep: A Reinterpretation of Viktor Elsin’s ‘Night Swimming’ and ‘Riverside’ Sequence, Based on an Unpublished Letter.”

  He was in his first year of graduate school. His professor was a short, big-eared fellow with a Mongol last name, which Grigori later erased from memory. It was with trembling hands that Grigori handed him the paper he had typed, feverishly, on his Brother typewriter.

  “Thank you,” Big Ears had said, without even glancing at the cover page. “I’ll let you know when I’ve read it.”

  Grigori had waited and waited, though really it was less than a week later that the phone rang in the hallway outside his rented room. Big Ears had just one question, he said, but it was a significant one: Where is this letter whose text you’ve included?

  “I’ll show it to you,” Grigori said, eager, delighted, and just the slightest bit apprehensive.

  When he handed him the handwritten pages (photocopied from the original), Big Ears read for a while before saying, “How interesting…” Grigori couldn’t help looking over his shoulder at the first paragraph.

  My dear, please forgive me. I don’t suppose you believe me when I say I love you. And yet you know I do. You understand what it means to be overtaken, that big net so wide and inescapable—like the sun on the lake that day, when all we wanted was to take refuge under a tree. And then the ground was damp and you worried you wouldn’t get the sap out of your skirt. I can still smell the pine needles, winter hidden in them, cool and delicious, the checkered shade of those branches. I sometimes think, that is what I live for, days like that, perfect. But of course there was the tree sap staining your skirt. That tawny resin, slow-motion tears, as if the tree itself knew the future.

  As Big Ears continued to read the letter, Grigori paced the room, his heart thrumming.

  “Fascinating, yes,” Big Ears said when he had finished. And then, “But what makes you think Viktor Elsin wrote this?”

  “He signed it.”

  “Yours and yours alone” was how the letter was signed, but Grigori had no trouble making the mental leap.

  “There’s no name, Grigori. This could be anyone. And we don’t even know who it’s addressed to.”

  “Well, that would be his wife,” Grigori said. “They often corresponded by mail. She
was frequently on tour, and he traveled, too. And often stayed in his cottage at Peredelkino.” The writers’ village outside of Moscow; Grigori had done the research to prove it.

  Big Ears nodded, but he was frowning. “The problem is, how do we know that Viktor Elsin wrote this letter? Really, Grigori, anyone could have written it.”

  “But…the paper I just wrote. That’s the whole point. I was showing how the same things he refers to in the letter are in the poems!”

  “Because you were looking for them, Grigori. Don’t you see? It’s not difficult to draw parallels when one tells oneself they’re there. You’ll need more than a few related words or similar phrases to convince me that these images are the same exact ones. Or that someone hasn’t simply cribbed from Elsin’s work.” He gave a deep, impatient sigh.

  Grigori closed his eyes slowly. Perhaps when he opened them…“But—”

  “How is it, again, that you have this letter? I see it’s a photocopy. Did anyone actually tell you that it was Viktor Elsin who wrote it?”

  “I figured it out myself.” But Grigori’s voice, instead of sounding proud, seemed hurt.

  “How did you figure it out?”

  “It belonged to his wife, and then—”

  “Really? Well, now, that’s good and concrete. If you can just provide some sort of testimonial from her, then—”

  “No, I don’t think I can.”

  Big Ears made a face. It was the face that Grigori would see again and again, for years to come, each time disappointment assailed him. Big Ears letting his eyes droop into mock sadness, his mouth pinched into a small, demeaning pout, the way one might approach a small child who has made an adorable mistake.

  “Grigori.” He shook his head. “Without any evidence, this letter could be written by…anyone. My uncle Vassily could have written it! Or some old lady neither of us knows. How do we even know which came first, the poem or the letter? The writer of this letter might simply have read Elsin’s poems and borrowed some images.” Seeing Grigori hanging his head, he added, “Listen, Grigori, your paper is very well written, an excellent example of clearly explained textual analysis. I’ve given it an A.”

  Grigori’s rage bubbled up. An A? Was that all this would ever come to? An A?

  “Please,” Big Ears continued. “Accept my congratulations on a job well done. But I do suggest that you leave it at that. Until you find some more concrete way to support your supposition about this most interesting document.”

  Grigori had thrown the essay away, in the smelly trash bag filled with empty cans of the beef stew his housemate always ate.

  Yet the letter—along with the other one in his possession—meant as much to him as before, even the parts that had nothing to do with the poems.

  I like to close my eyes and remember. Kissing in the park where that scrawny policeman came and scolded us. The hours, the days and weeks, were nothing but markers—between each chance I would have to kiss you.

  Our dear V. says you might take a friendly jaunt together. Lucky we are, to have such friends! But please, dear, only if the weather is clear. And don’t forget to bring ID. A song keeps running through my head, the one about the husband missing his wife like a wave misses the shore—over and over again. That’s how I miss you.

  It had all made sense when he explained it to Christine. From the very first moment that he showed it to her, she had believed him.

  As for the amber, I used to doubt I would ever meet the woman who could move me to pass these things on to her. Little glimpses of sunshine…The earrings especially. Each piece has its own little world inside. They remind me of the dacha (all those insects!) and the sun in the late evening, the way it would just drop right into the lake. The impossible perfection of that summer…I was waiting for the perfect moment to give them to you. I wish I hadn’t waited so long.

  Seated in the drafty booth, Grigori tried to dodge the thought, that same old recollection. Across from him, Zoltan was saying that poetry was one of those paradoxes: “Something seemingly useless that people nevertheless continue to create, unbidden, all the time.”

  “Well,” Grigori said, “I’m honored by your proposal. I can’t see why I wouldn’t agree to it.”

  Zoltan smiled, clearly pleased. Even now, viewed from a certain angle, one could still find the dandy there, as much as he might blend in with the other dubious characters who whiled their time away at the Dunkin’ Donuts. “Think about it first. Although I do hope you’ll say yes.”

  As Grigori stood to button his coat, the bag lady who had been sitting at the table behind Zoltan rose and shuffled past. Beyond her, from its perch on the wall, the television showed a perky dark-haired newscaster going on about some local transportation debate. Then, as if noticing Grigori there, she said brightly, “A famous ballerina, a jewelry auction, and a mysterious necklace. Join News 4’s own June Hennessey for an exclusive interview with dancer Nina Revskaya. Tonight at six, only on News 4 New England.”

  Good god, it was inescapable. Grigori found himself avoiding the newscaster’s eyes, even as the image switched to some other announcer and a menacing stream of words moved relentlessly across the bottom of the screen: Shoe bomber sentenced to life in prison. Weapons inspector says Iraq not cooperating. Grigori pulled his gloves on. “All right, Zoltan, I’m off.”

  Hunched over his notebook, Zoltan paused to look up. “Good day to you, Grigori.” Already his gaze had returned to his notes. “To you, too,” Grigori said, and headed out the door.

  STEPHEN HAD ONE of those flat-screen televisions Drew had heard about but never seen. Since she possessed no television of her own, she went to his apartment straight from work to watch the Revskaya interview. In exchange she brought with her a bottle of the merlot Stephen liked, which he poured into two enormous wineglasses.

  “Cin cin,” he said, clinking his glass against hers, his expression one of simple happiness, at having Drew next to him on the sleek gray sofa. Drew felt a pang of guilt, that she could not love this man who wanted to love her.

  On the television screen a sixtyish woman in a bright red skirt suit, standing in the News 4 studio, gave a somewhat breathless introduction, speaking directly to the viewer:

  Nina Revskaya, the renowned Russian ballerina known as “the Butterfly,” has long been a fixture of awe and inspiration for balletomanes all over the world. A principal dancer with the Bolshoi Ballet, and wife of the populist poet Viktor Elsin, Revskaya became in 1952 the very first of what, in the decades after her escape from the USSR, was to become a string of Soviet dancers who defected to the West.

  A series of photographs briefly flashed: Nureyev, Makarova, Baryshnikov.

  Though Revskaya’s brief career with the Paris Opera Ballet was cut short by illness, after teaching in London she ultimately settled in Boston, becoming ballet mistress for the Boston Ballet at its inception in 1963, as well as artistic consultant, a role she held until 1995. She has been known as both a great patron of the arts and as the owner of a formidable jewelry collection.

  Now the woman gave a sly little smile as if to say that thank God there was something truly interesting to talk about. On the screen there appeared a photograph from the 1960s or so, of Nina Revskaya wearing a diamond necklace.

  New Englanders were awed to see her array of jewels—gifts from friends, fans, government envoys, and famous jewelers themselves—at the St. Botolph’s Club fund-raiser five years ago. Now Beller Auction House is auctioning the collection of over one hundred items, valued at close to one million dollars, with all proceeds going to the Boston Ballet Foundation. Adding to the excitement, last week it was announced that an anonymous donor had reunited a necklace of Baltic amber with a matching bracelet and earrings in Revskaya’s collection. I had the great pleasure of speaking to Nina Revskaya at her Back Bay home about her life and about the mysterious necklace.

  The screen shifted now to a prerecorded interview, Nina Revskaya and the woman together on a settee. Drew recognized the Commonw
ealth Avenue apartment and the displeased look on Nina Revskaya’s face. At the same time, she felt the keen curiosity that overtook her whenever she came upon celebrity interviews in magazines or the newspaper—the way she landed avidly upon this random fact and that odd aside, as if such minor confessions might somehow hand her the key to another person’s life. It was as much a search for clues, she knew, as her research for Beller—to glimpse how someone else had forged a life, what someone else had managed to carve out of this world. Really, Drew supposed, all that she read and researched, even her work for the Revskaya auction, fed that more general quest: for how to live, how to be.

  “This auction, to benefit the Boston Ballet, is extremely generous of you,” the News 4 woman began. “The arts are so underfunded. It must make a substantial difference in the dance world to have your generous support.”

  “That is my hope.” Nina Revskaya seemed to be looking away.

  The News 4 woman continued unfazed, admirably relaxed, as if she chatted on this settee all the time. “Now, many of these absolutely gorgeous gems were gifts from jewelers and admirers after your arrival in Paris and then London. But I think our readers will be interested to hear that a few of them came with you all the way from Russia.”

  Jaw tight, Nina Revskaya said, “Yes, some of them are very particular of Russia.”

  “She’s not going to make this any easier for her than for me,” Drew told Stephen.

  The News 4 woman nodded encouragingly. “It seems to me that in a way the value of these jewels is symbolic. They’re beautiful artistic creations that survived an authoritarian regime in the same way that you, a beautiful and talented artist, ultimately escaped oppression.”