by Janet Fitch
Perhaps we would save each other, Anton and I. Stranger things had happened.
49 Masquerade
Despite the absence of firewood, the breath-pluming cold, the thinness of our rations, the desperate state of our clothes and our shoes—or perhaps because of it—the House of Arts came alive that winter with lectures, talks, demonstrations, exhibitions, theatricals, concerts, something happening every night, and if not with us, then at the House of Scholars, or the Poets’ Guild, or the IZO, the Department of Visual Arts. In the midst of this excitement, Mayakovsky arrived from Moscow.
“It’s because Chukovsky told him you had a billiard table,” said Oksana during our literary circle.
“What do you have against billiards?” Anton said.
The poet, staying in the House library, took pleasure in being difficult, jabbing the members for their politics, joking that in Moscow we were known as the House of Slime. He saw us as a nest of bourgeois aesthetes and backsliders, accused us of not having fully embraced the revolution. Yet he couldn’t completely dismiss us either, not with Shklovsky living here, and Anton Chernikov, as futurist as anyone in Moscow. Yet I saw too that Mayakovsky still wanted the approval of his peers here, while at the same time belittling them. A more complex man than he appeared. Anton spent much time with him, and therefore, so did I.
We gathered one December afternoon in the library of the House, surrounded by those red-painted bookcases dotted sparsely with books, to hear him read from his new long poema, 150 Million. He seemed nervous, loud and aggressive, glancing over at his girlfriend, the elegant Lilya Brik, for reassurance or disapproval, it was hard to tell which.
I couldn’t help but examine her, the famous muse. The night I’d heard him read “A Cloud in Trousers” at the Stray Dog Café, I had wondered what kind of woman would be capable of withstanding such a volcano. Brik was rather cool, very modern looking, with red hair and dark, savage eyes. She and Mayakovsky and her husband, Osip Brik, the critic, all lived together à trois, and had for years. As I watched her, listening, I wondered if we too would be remembered for our romantic geometry. Genya and Anton and me. Was this where we would be in ten years, in the hall of mirrors called love? Still be in the same room, stepping on each other’s shoes? Or would there be a fourth and a fifth in the crystal formation of love, sex, politics, boredom, and other unnamable ties? This red room, the glass bookcase, Anton by my side, the afternoon light the only warmth. We junior members arranged ourselves against the walls, Anton on my left, the hyperkinetic Arseny Grodetsky on my right, bouncing on his toes with the excitement of standing in the presence of the glowering genius.
The poema began leadenly. It was Mayakovsky’s most thunderous mode, heroic without a scrap of levity. Most absurdly, it claimed to be anonymous. Though who else would write:
150,000,000 is the name of this poem’s creator.
Its rhythm—a bullet.
Its rhymes—a spreading fire.
…
Who can name the earth’s brilliant designer?
And so
it is
with my
poem—
work of no single writer.
As if that voice could belong to anyone else. The first selection was sheer bombast, but the mood lightened in the second. Mayakovsky in the end could not resist his own laughter, couldn’t help it even in propaganda. His urge to tip over into comedic hyperbole was deeply a part of him. Here he’d portrayed a mythic battle between an electrified Woodrow Wilson as a top-hatted giant of Chicago, and the colossal, Neva-armed peasant Ivan with his 150,000,000 heads wading across the Atlantic to meet him—the folk gigantism was irresistible. Well, it was never the job of propaganda to tell the truth, to discern and make exceptions. Propaganda was a peasant lubok print—its outlines bold, its colors crude, and cheap to make.
But I found myself missing the other Mayakovsky, the cloud in trousers. I knew he was there somewhere. I could only hope that other poet would reassert himself someday. The civil war was over—the forces of Denikin had finally evacuated from the Crimea, Wrangel defeated. This kind of broad caricature would soon be a museum piece.
I wondered mostly at the relationship between Mayakovsky and Lilya Brik. I saw him watching her as she flirted with the Petrograd poets, and her watching him watching her. You torment us, so we sing all the sweeter.
The next night the tables were turned, and we read for Vladimir Vladimirovich. Ballads were the order of the day. Gumilev read “The Lost Tram,” which I thought was the best thing he’d ever written. Zamyatin and his group read short prose pieces. But most of the elders—Khodasevich and Blok and Kuzmin—declined to read, so it was up to us, the younger members of the House, to shine. Anton recited one of his own and one from Genya’s new collection. I’d been tempted to do “Alice in the Year One”—as defiant as any Mayakovsky poem—but instead, I did “The Trees at Kambarka.”
Mayakovsky sat with his arm draped around Lilya Brik’s chair, his face heavy as always with the potential for storms, like a line of thunderheads. I couldn’t tell if he understood it was a message for him. That our lives weren’t lived on the plane of 150 Million. A reminder to remember the human scale.
Anton came to me in the crush afterward. “He wants to meet you.” A little nervous, but also proud, he led me over to Mayakovsky, who was drinking tea with Shklovsky and Kuzmin, Lilya and, yes, her husband, Osip. Anton introduced me as one of the Squared Circle, and I noticed that he didn’t mention my connection with Genya, whom Mayakovsky knew in Moscow. We had our own relationship now.
Mayakovsky took my hand in his enormous paw and gazed at me with depth and understanding. Then I knew he still had his man’s heart in there among the 150 million heads and Neva-long arms. His soulfulness, alas, was something my new lover could never know. Anton stood with us, stiff and aggressive as a tall, skinny cock, pleased that Mayakovsky had recognized one of his protégés, but not much liking the way the poet was still holding my hand. It was Lilya Brik who waltzed him away from me, flashing a smile—You still have much to learn about men, little fox. I would never know as much as that woman, not if I lived seven lifetimes.
I wrote a poem for Mayakovsky that night, just for him, and managed to slip it into his pocket before he left for Moscow.
The Buried Miner
To VM
The mine collapsed.
The great timbers could no longer hold
against the weight of the whole earth
Crushing the hundreds who dug there
In the soft seam of Donbass coal.
And yet by a miracle
one miner still lives.
Down the black miles
his leg caught in the rock
he lives
and lives.
Is it a miracle?
Or hell?
The lone miner sings
to keep himself company.
He recites a prayer he once knew,
but doesn’t believe.
Then remembers an old poem
from schooldays.
He whispers it over and over.
Sometimes a man must be alone.
Sometimes no comrades soften his days.
Sometimes there is only despair.
I have been that lone miner.
Love is not enough.
When the weight of the earth falls,
there is only you, and a poem.
And sometimes, only the poem.
Gorky had missed Mayakovsky’s visit. I wondered if it had been intentional, to avoid any more embarrassing brawls like the one during Wells’s stay. Universal Literature was his main concern. But he appeared one evening at the House of Arts before a lecture by Zamyatin, to give us all a report on developments in Moscow. From the gossip, we knew that Narkompros—the Commissariat of Enlightenment—was being reorganized, and why, and by whom. It wasn’t good news.
Gorky spoke about his ongoing battle to defend his institutions—Universal Literature, the House of
Arts, and the House of Scholars—against the “elements of the Left” who wanted to take over the future of Russian literature. He looked terrible, smoking and coughing and drumming the lectern with his restless fingers, stroking his drooping moustache.
“Russian literature has always been judged by its politics,” he said to the crowd. “It’s the reason we’ve endured such terrible work and are enduring it now. Literature should be judged only by literary standards.” A spontaneous round of applause. This was also a criticism of Mayakovsky. “Insistence on political conformity will be a disaster for literature and for the development of the Russian proletariat as well. These days, we hear that a writer must be a Communist, first and foremost. If he is, then he must be good. If not, he must be bad. That’s no standard for literature. Why must it be that only the panderers, the Smerdyakovs, are being encouraged today?”
It was dangerous stuff, to attack the programmatic Left, the Proletcult faction—the organization calling for proletarian art, created by proletarians to the exclusion of all else—in a public venue. But I still remembered what Alexei Maximovich had told me when my father was in the Peter and Paul Fortress. All you could do when you were in a trap was continue on as honestly as you could and let the blow fall if it would. Moura shifted nervously beside me. Gumilev sat with his legs crossed elegantly, nodding, whispering to the pretty student next to him. I wondered if there was anyone here from Krasnaya Gazeta, taking this down. Or perhaps one of Zinoviev’s spies. The blockade had at last been lifted, but now it was the House of Arts under siege, we could feel it. Every mention of us in the popular press included slurs like snobbism and elitist—pointedly ignoring all we were doing for the city, the public events we offered, the classes we taught, the open evenings like this.
Everything that kept a roof over our heads was in danger. I approached Moura afterward. “How did Moscow go?”
“Lenin’s begging him to leave,” she said, “for his health’s sake. But there’s more than one kind of health, as you well know.” Think of your father, she didn’t have to say. Lenin wanted to protect Gorky from political typhus. Yes, I well knew the consequences of having the revolution turn on you. But Gorky, leaving? Everything he had achieved would crumble without him. He was the only one who had Lenin’s ear.
“Will he go?” I watched him talking to Zamyatin and Chukovsky. He looked grim. My skin prickled, my throat felt as if someone had gripped it in one hand. How fast would the Bolsheviks close us down and throw the writers into the street? My last home in the world. “He’s not considering it, is he?” Just knowing Gorky was in the world was an anchor I could not imagine living without.
“I don’t know. His health really is awful. Look at him.”
He leaned against the wall, sweating, his breathing labored.
“You haven’t met my friend Anton.” I waved him over, but he clung to the far wall like a barnacle. His pride was so convoluted, he would not even deign to meet Gorky, who had saved my life, my soul, put a roof over all our heads. He considered it kowtowing. Love had done nothing to disentangle his twisted heart. He was just Anton with a wound, it hurt him no matter what I did.
In January our rations were cut again. The writers went out all day, scrambling for food. I stood in line at the Petro-Soviet with Korney Chukovsky to try to get a saw to cut firewood for the House. The city was allowing the destruction of another fifty houses for wood. Soon Petrograd would be nothing but rubble. “I’ve heard the House of Scholars has gloves. Do you think I have any chance of getting over there before they’re gone?” he asked me. “My wife’s gloves are in tatters.” His own were out at the thumb.
Thus was literature produced in the winter of 1921.
The elders—Kuzmin and Blok, Gants and Shklovsky, Gorky, Gumilev and Zamyatin, Chukovsky and so on—met again and again, trying to find a solution to the ongoing political threat to the House. You could feel the tension in the hallways. I kept my head down, taught my classes, collected my mouse-sized rations at the House of Scholars and tried to bring the The Valley of the Moon to a close. If the House of Arts died, where would I go? How would I live?
Yet despite the grim conditions—cold and malnutrition, worse among the old people, who were dying before our eyes—there was also great camaraderie, a defiant gaiety that winter. Masked balls were the craze—most of the arts organizations threw one, giving us a moment to step outside fear and shabbiness to ascend into an imaginary world of our own delight. It reminded me of the Ionians and the Great Feast of the Golden Egg.
What would we wear? dominated conversations the week beforehand—a shallow concern, but better than worrying about the fate of the House. I took Anton to Gorky’s to select costumes from Maria Andreeva’s extensive theatrical wardrobe. Moura and Valentina Khodasevich were there, and Anton grudgingly allowed himself to be introduced. Moura’s eyes flashed in amusement. So this is your new lover? Is he always like this? I nodded. She didn’t even understand—this was him on good behavior.
We thumbed through the rack of wizards and princesses, clowns and devils, and I assembled an outfit from a kokoshnik crown with blond braids attached, a gypsy skirt and jacket with bells, a pair of red ballet slippers that nearly fit. After much cajoling by Valentina and me, Anton eventually accepted a false beard with a curled moustache, a crown of thorns, an eye patch, and a long Spanish cape. “I’m Western literature,” he said. “A half-blind courtier with a Christ complex, wrapped in darkness.”
The House of Arts ball, though sparse in food and heat, was a success in every way. It was a less formal affair than some, as it was sponsored by the younger members—our leaders had weightier problems on their minds. It wasn’t as elegant as the one at the Zubov Institute, but we had the old Eliseev lackeys in their wigs and white gloves to hand out the pastries and sausage rolls, the saccharine tea. We opened the ballroom, and poets from all over the city came, young people and artists in their constructivist costumes. Sasha painted all our faces cubo-futuristically. I had a large letter M over one eye, and Anton a red square set at an angle under his eye patch.
The men outnumbered the women, and I had no shortage of partners for dancing. I danced with everyone but Anton, who held up the wall, scowling, as if it were all beneath him. I danced with translators and poets, scholars and painters, studio students, the old and the young, even Bely, dressed as a holy fool in rags. He was a very jazzy foxtrotter. Who would have guessed? It’s Him! I kept thinking, making myself laugh, and ignored Anton’s glare whenever I happened to look in his direction. What did he think, I’d hold up the wall with him all night?
I found myself having a glass of tea with Bely—Bely! Telling him of Ukashin and Ionia. I was giddy enough to make light of it, and I knew he would be interested—when a tall Harlequin joined us, embracing the fool. It was Blok. As Harlequin! What could be more appropriate? Bely turned to introduce me, but he had forgotten my name. “Have you met our…Columbine?”
If Bely had forgotten my name, Blok had not. “So good to see you again, Marina Dmitrievna.” He shook my hand as the band struck up a waltz. “Would you care to dance?” I turned to Bely but he gestured, Go on. I may have been mistaken, but I thought I saw a smile exchanged between the old friends. As Bely had once courted Blok’s wife…We moved onto the dance floor as if heralded by trumpets, my hand on his forearm—both of us the product of childhood dancing lessons. I’m from Petersburg…
If I ever had grandchildren, I would tell them that on the evening of January 23, 1921, I danced with both Andrei Bely and Alexander Blok. Yes, me. Your old babushka, milaya…
It was exquisite to move in his arms. His touch was light, and he possessed a perfect sense of rhythm and motion—just as you would expect from his poetry. He towered over me, yet unlike many tall men, he knew exactly where all his limbs were at any moment. The absurd complement of musicians—oboe, guitar, piano, and accordion—somehow pulled together in unexpected harmony. Everything around Blok was like that. “I’ve heard excellent reports about
your factory class,” he said, swirling me around, as natural as breathing. “They say your students love you. What is it that you do with them?”
I felt drunk, though I had imbibed nothing stronger than roasted oat tea. Blok had heard about me! I knew that Blok didn’t believe poetry could be taught, so his curiosity was thrilling. “I try to imagine what it would be like to be a gluer,” I said, flying in his arms. “Doing the same thing all day. I ask myself, what would I look forward to at the end of my shift? I’d want to enjoy myself, surprise myself. Use my mind instead of just my hands.” I thought of Dinamo, of his longing to be more than the flesh.
“But is it poetry?”
“Mostly not.” I thought of my women, their leathery stained hands, their toothaches, their worries. Not waltzing with Blok tonight. “One of the Skorokhod women is fairly talented. But that’s not the point. It’s something that doesn’t require ration cards, a propusk. It makes them value themselves more.”
How bewildered he looked. For him, for us, poetry was vital, its seriousness absolute. The idea of poetry for the untalented simply for the pleasure of making it was nothing short of blasphemy. Like a musician watching you use a flute to pound a nail. Then, a tiny smile formed on his wide mouth. “You must be a remarkable teacher. Look, even I understand you. Maybe I’ll take your class.”
It was ludicrous, and lovely. “It’s Tuesday afternoons. The committee room at Skorokhod. On the Obvodny Canal.”
He laughed. “You just might see me there.”
Magical Blok. How lucky I was to have crossed his path on the street near the telephone exchange. He’d given me my life back—no, not my life. A new life. He bowed when we were done, the reflex of a lifetime’s habit. I imagined the scent of his genius clung to my hands as he returned me to Anton. A smell of raw silk and geraniums.
