by Oleg Pavlov
In his early childhood, Matiushin had an earache and the army doctor, accustomed to simplicity, performed an irrigation and an inflation, probably damaging Matiushin’s eardrum. At the time no one attached any importance to the fact that he became hard of hearing in one ear. However, many years later, at his first army medical exam, Matiushin was unexpectedly rejected because of his hearing. His loss of hearing was declared incurable, although he had grown accustomed to it in everyday life long ago, it didn’t cause him any problems, and he was healthier and stronger for his age than his peers.
When he learned that his son had been declared unfit for military service, Grigorii Ilich didn’t say anything for days, not even wishing to notice his son’s presence in his house. He broke his silence with the words:
‘He can’t serve! Then what can he do, the little invalid? I thought there was going to be an army doctor in the house, but we’ve got a sponger instead …’
When his father gave up thinking about him and stopped believing in him, for some reason Matiushin felt better. He was prepared simply to work, without being afraid of getting dirty, and not come first in everything – which his father had been afraid of all his life. For Matiushin, study and the path into the future were replaced by his job, but he chose the first trade that came to hand, a dirty and unattractive one – as a machine fitter. His father let him drop out of school without saying a word but despised him, jeering even when Matiushin gave his honestly earned wages to his mother.
‘Look here, our breadwinner’s home! To feed the lice.’
As for Yakov, their parents sent him thirty roubles a month and no reproaches were heard. Grigorii now recognised his own likeness only in his elder son – and in his heart he started growing attached to this thought, feeling an unexpected weakness for Yakov. In his final year Yakov didn’t visit Yelsk. He informed his father in a letter that during his leave he was going to join a construction brigade in order to earn some money. They were sending him money every month from home and he had a stipend at the college as well, and how much did anyone really need in a barracks? And so Grigorii Ilich grew dejected. In autumn another letter arrived: Yakov informed his parents that he had married. He sent a photo of the wedding and a letter in which he explained drily that he hadn’t wanted to involve his parents in the expense or to bother them, and that was why it had turned out this way.
In his heart, the father was glad that Yakov had reasoned like that. At that time Grigorii Ilich had developed a passion for saving money, amassing it in his Savings Bank book so that even Alexandra Yakovlevna didn’t really know how much of it had piled up. Everything was turned into savings which he was too greedy to spend unless it was on himself: on his beloved Japanese spinners and fishing line, and once a Finnish sheepskin coat was bought, because he was afraid of taking sick in the winter in his ordinary coat. By that time the family was living off the state: Grigorii Ilich received a special food allowance as a member of the Municipal Party Committee and an army ration too. Alexandra Yakovlevna took care of the household. She already had to do everything at home herself or with her son’s help – Grigorii Ilich strictly forbade her to use his soldiers, and if the question came up he would say:
‘You’ve got that deaf one, rope him in.’
A rather stingy money order was sent off in response to the newly-weds’ letter. No matter how closely they studied the photo that had been sent, the only person they could make out clearly was their son Yasha. They stood it in the china cabinet – yet another little icon that they could be proud of – and the young couple came to Yelsk and paid their respects to the father a year later.
‘Everyone, this is my Liudmila!’ Yakov thundered from the doorstep, and pushed his wife, who was displeased with something, into the parental home.
Liudmila seemed to be there entirely independently, on her own account. She was a tough woman, confident in her beauty, and her radiant body was curvaceously desirable, although she wasn’t twenty yet: not even Alexandra Yakovlevna could bring herself to call her ‘daughter’. The power of love that she held over Yakov was obvious immediately. He was lovesick and never left her side, but acted as if he was in charge. In the home Liudmila respectfully kept away from Grigorii Ilich. She listened indifferently when Alexandra Yakovlevna gave them her matronly instructions about the best way for them to arrange their room and how to do the bed.
In Liudmila’s presence Grigorii Ilich spoke only to his son, letting her know that Yakov was more important in their family, and pretending to look at the young woman in a quite ordinary way, although he felt uneasy as his glances scraped involuntarily over her breasts and thighs.
The summer field exercises were beginning, and the father was glad to take a break and set off for somewhere well away from home.
Everything had been arranged for the young couple – Yelsk was a deadly boring place, but every morning a little army jeep from the garrison drove up to the building and took them out of town to the river. Yakov and Liudmila started taking Vasenka with them for Alexandra Yakovlevna’s sake. For the first few days she had set out, with a childish kind of joy, to relax with her family, as she thought of them. She had her fill of joy and then grew rather weary of it, but for some reason she wanted the young couple to keep going to the river with the younger son, if not with her.
Matiushin felt drawn to Yakov: he felt proud of having a brother like that but he also felt timid in the face of Yakov’s happiness. Yakov, who was a bit on the pudgy side, lounged on the river bank just as if he was at home and kept an eye on Liudmila, but all he wanted to do was sleep, and she wanted to swim and sunbathe. The languorous trips that the three of them made together illuminated Matiushin’s life with such joy: new openness, the faith he was regaining in himself, in his life, in the immense world that had swung wide open. Without even realising it, this unfamiliar, grown-up woman suddenly became close and dear to him, undeniably unique. He could only turn his clammy, froggy skin inside out in his eagerness to submit to her. It seemed to him that now Liudmila was going to live with them for ever – and this summer suddenly rose up so bright and clear, so earthly and unearthly at the same time, as if it had sprung from under the ground.
Lounging on the bank, tired after swimming – and she liked to swim alone for a long time in the smooth water – Liudmila allowed him to knead and stroke her back and shoulders, which was pleasant for her and probably made her sleepy, although it set her young admirer trembling. But sometimes Yakov and Liudmila disappeared – Yakov took the little blanket and led his wife a long way away, to the tall field of maize, without saying anything to his brother, without even thinking of explaining anything. Sensing his little brother’s perplexed glances, Yakov grew more irritated by his presence, and once his irritation erupted and he reproached his wife loudly when Vasenka was giving her a massage on the river bank after her swim.
‘Don’t you understand, you stupid fool, he’s groping you!’
When they got home, Liudmila went dashing to pack her things. Yakov mocked her and flung everything out of the suitcase, and then, infuriated by her wilfulness, he suddenly lashed her across the face, as if he thought that would bring her to her senses. Little Liudmila stood there and burst into tears. Hearing her crying, Alexandra Yakovlevna ran into the room. Without a word, she flung herself at Yakov before he could gather his wits and clawed him as if she wanted to tear his throat out. Yakov froze to the spot in fear … Coming to her senses and recovering her strength, Liudmila put her arms round the mother from behind and, acting fearlessly and pitilessly, dragged the mother away from her husband as hard as she could. Her strength, seemingly passionate yet also somehow cold, free of any strife, immobilised the mother, who was thrashing about in floods of tears. With the same cold passion Liudmila nestled her lips against the back of the mother’s head, repeating that everything was all right between Yakov and herself, and that she, Liudmila, was to blame for everything. Alexandra Yakovlevna quietened down. Small and dry, like a spider, she went bac
k to the kitchen, into her web, where she felt glad that the peace of the home had not been destroyed. Liudmila took Yakov off for a walk and they disappeared until night-time.
The next day Grigorii Ilich got back from the exercises. No one in the house said anything. Oppressed by a feeling that the place had suddenly grown cramped, he laughed, as if in jolly mood, and bundled the young couple off to the dacha to finish off their honeymoon there, well away from home. A week later, Yakov and Liudmila returned. By that time, tickets for the return journey had already been acquired, to let them know their hosts were tired of having guests.
There were a few days left until their departure for Moscow. They didn’t go to the river any more. Out of basic indifference, Yakov ignored his brother’s presence in the home – during those days he had many conversations with his father. Large and lusty, chortling toothily as they discussed the future, they sat through the evenings, and the father instructed the son as to how he should conduct himself and what he should seek to obtain from the army, generously and willingly recalling incidents from his own life, when he himself was just getting started in the service. He couldn’t put a word in for his son; the border forces were under a different department, and Yakov would have to fight to be sent to the border he chose. Grigorii Ilich’s advice was that he should start with remote and distant places, where it was easier to fight your way up, where the men got weary of serving; if that was a risk, it meant there was also a chance to show what you were made of. The Far East or the North. If he started with the West, in the Baltic or in Belorussia, where things were cushier, they’d gobble him up, walk all over him – the kind of men serving there were only safeguarding their own cushy spot.
On the day of the young couple’s departure, no one saw them off – no one could violate the family custom. In their family people were only seen off as far as the doorway. But a long time was spent solemnly packing things for them to take with them.
All day long the mother piled up the hallway with boxes of jam, compote and pickles. With a soldier’s help, they just about managed to load them into the car sent by the father to round everything off. The same soldier – the father’s driver – had already been ordered to help them load up at the station, but Yakov suddenly announced that his brother would help them. It didn’t make any sense to the mother that they all had to squeeze into one car and bump along, squashed up by boxes, if there was a soldier. Without even arguing with her, Yakov nodded to his brother, and Matiushin clambered into the dark bowels of the familiar car, feeling as if he was falling somewhere. They reached the little station at breakneck speed and unloaded everything onto the empty, deserted platform. The station in Yelsk consisted of two asphalt platforms steamrolled straight into the ground. Liudmila went off to one side and started waiting for the train on her own. Yakov searched the little station with his eyes, strode off and walked into some place without saying a word. Setting off after his brother, Matiushin found himself in a dimly lit station bar with a hollow echo. Yakov asked at the counter for cigarettes and vodka, taking a glass of it, so colourless that it seemed empty, and stopping at the first table he came to.
‘How about you, don’t smoke yet?’ he said drearily.
‘Yes, I do,’ Matiushin confessed rather than answered.
‘Let’s have a smoke … Come on, it’s all right with me … Maybe I can get you a beer, or you’d like something stronger, maybe vodka?’
‘Yes!’ Matiushin blurted out. ‘Vodka.’
‘Mind now, you decide for yourself, I’m not your father.’
Matiushin didn’t say anything, and Yakov went for the vodka. He took a bit of salad on a little plate. And a bottle.
‘If we don’t finish it, there’ll be some left, I’m not greedy. Right then, here’s to the parting. Good health!’
Stunned by the ironic sneer he could sense in his older brother’s words, by the fact that Yakov seemed to be saying: you and I are strangers to each other and you’ll never be family to me, you little kid, Matiushin began pouring his heart out to his older brother in syrupy phrases, feeling as if he had divided up in the air of that bar and could see himself, like a reflection in a whole series of mirrors.
Yakov didn’t say anything, just poured himself another glass. He cringed when his brother recalled their childhood, but Matiushin had to recall it, so that Yakov would know how Matiushin remembered him and himself to this day – as if he loved and cherished him. Yakov didn’t want to understand that, or perhaps he couldn’t: he didn’t believe in that kind of retentive memory.
‘You fool, don’t you dare talk about all that, you’re not old enough yet,’ Yakov said intolerantly. ‘It’s all their fault! People like that shouldn’t be allowed to have children, they maimed my life. And I can’t make out who you think you are either. You say you remember me and you love me, but how can you love me, if I’ve hated you all my life? I started hating you as soon as you were born. I even remember the night when our mother and father fucked so they could have you. You don’t know what I know, what I’ve seen … Our mother made our father the way he is. And what about the way he beat her? Stood her against the wall and beat her, because he didn’t love her, because they’ve hated each other all their lives!’
‘Yasha, they love you!’ Matiushin whined drunkenly.
‘They love themselves. Maybe they loved you too, you’re a little mummy’s boy, the way she raised you for herself.’
‘I … I was never … It’s you who’s their pride and joy!’
Matiushin overcame his loathing for vodka and emptied his glass in gulps, right to the bottom, not knowing how to simply swallow it, flinging himself after his brother into the bleak, colourless abyss. At some unknown time he had convinced himself that his brother was unhappy, but maybe that was what he, Matiushin, had needed – not to see his brother as a strong being, but to see his pain and unhappiness through the strength and to pity him as he pitied himself. He even understood, now he suddenly understood, that he couldn’t love his brother, but he forced himself to love him and to listen.
Without any kind of pain, only growing angrier and angrier, Yakov had his say …
‘Our mother’s just plain ugly, as if she wasn’t a woman at all. She’s like a grey mouse – not good enough for our father. All his life he’s had women as easy as shit, any kind you like. But he never loved them. She knew that, so she wasn’t concerned, she wasn’t afraid, she let him stray. He beat her, he wanted to drive her to divorce him. He knocked her teeth out for that. But it was like they had a pact! When they had you, it wasn’t children, it was ten-ton weights they needed to go on living with each other … And is that a life anyway, the way we lived, the way they live now? What have they got in their life? The kids? Why, I hate them, you, myself, everybody … The things I’ve seen! What can I think about them? What am I? A son, or maybe a son of a bitch, some kind of foundling? I know if I’m dying none of you will come: that’s our custom – snuff it on your own. So I won’t come to you either, you can all snuff it here! I’ll live my life without them, without you: I don’t need anyone. And that’s the truth. There’s no other truth, there isn’t any truth.’
At that moment the earth staggered and a fine-splintered, jingling sound set the bar spinning. The glasses trembled and so did the huge-seeming, appallingly empty bottle. An inanimate rumbling was approaching out of nowhere, blow by blow. The air was already booming. Yakov grabbed his brother and dragged him out.
The Moscow train was trickling thickly into the little station. The ponderous carriages rolled along the sharp line of the rails, windows flickered, a greenish, dusty ground floated by. The train stretched itself out and stopped. Yakov swore and drove his brother and Liudmila over to the boxes that had been left on the platform. They all grabbed boxes, suddenly becoming misshapenly similar, and ran – only Yakov got away from them, running forward, on and on, along the sheer wall of carriages. But there were no conductors to be seen at any of the blindly battened doors.
Hi
s brother shouted and hammered. It was as if they were all dying, as if they wouldn’t let them in to breathe, to live! Suddenly a door opened in one carriage and the step was lowered with a clatter … A tipsy, condescending conductor looked down on them. Yakov tossed a box into the vestibule and jumped into its black opening, crowding the conductor. He yelled for them to hand up the rest of the stuff. Only his arms stuck out of the opening, as if they’d been cut off. Trying to keep up, not to fall behind, Matiushin jostled at the foot of the carriage, burned out from the vodka, breathing into Liudmila’s snow-white linen back – she was grabbing the boxes out of his hands and handing them up to her husband. But the train shuddered and slowly set off on its way as if it was plodding along. Liudmila dashed in fright to a travelling bag that was still on the platform. The carriage was rolling away faster and faster. Yakov sprang out of the darkness, shouting, hung out from the step, grabbed the bag, then grabbed up his wife who was running after the carriage and hoisted her off the ground.
For a few moments Matiushin’s eyes still clung to their carriage and he could see his brother, but Yakov vanished blankly into the opening, and the carriage disappeared in the smooth, even movement of others like it. He was still trying to run forward with the last box left in his hands, tramping loudly along the suddenly quiet platform, but he stumbled, went flying and collapsed three metres further on. When he came to himself, he could barely make out the train’s little semi-circular, cast-iron icon in the distance. Reddish-brown compote was pouring out of the box underneath him. He guiltily unglued himself from the asphalt and dragged himself away, not knowing where to, thinking only of getting home as soon as possible. The dangling belly of his shirt had turned reddish brown from the compote’s clammy wetness. Where the platform and the little world of the deserted station ended, all the paths and pointed-topped thickets of fences flickered in his eyes and the warm beehives of buildings glowed brightly – that was the suburbs of Yelsk, squat and broad, like the whole of the district. Two sober men who were striding along the street suddenly roared and started heroically chasing after him. Matiushin shied away from the men, alarming people walking towards him, and darted off into the courtyards and side streets, running until he got lost and then came to his senses in the middle of nowhere, in the twilight, on an empty lot overgrown with burdock.
