by Andrei Bitov
“I should have known that!”
“And this one? Where do fools fall to Earth from? Well? Four letters…”
“The Moon?”
“Good show! Moon. Where did you fall from so you could be with me?” Lili embraced him. “You can’t imagine how boring and tiresome it was here without you … What finally got me was a psychic current.”
“Me, you mean?”
“No, of course not! Nine letters.”
Urbino had been about to give way to vanity, but his spirits slumped.
“Well, and what is it, then?”
“Emanation. I really had to struggle over that one. Here, help me out now! Gas that blows its top.”
“Explosion!” Urbino bellowed.
“No, no x in this one.”
Urbino was stuck. There was no such gas …
“Do you memorize every single crossword?”
“Not every single one. Just the ones where I dispute or concur with the author. Sometimes there are really cool* ones.”
“Did you say ‘cool’?”
Lili laughed out loud.
“There are cool ones, you’ll see. ‘Cool’ is a word that Marleen likes.”
“Do you work on them together, too?”
“Sometimes. Here’s one, for example—the most beat-up thing on a nail. Don’t even try, you’ll never guess! It’s a hat.”
“True,” Urbino said, casting a sidelong glance at his fellow wordsmith. “But that would be for a woman. For a man it’s a head.”
Lili blushed.
“Here’s a nice riddle I had never heard before: Accepts the hand of all who come in and go out.”
“I have no idea what that might be. The hostess of a salon? A debutante receiving her suitors?”
“My, what a ladies’ man you are! A doorknob, of course.”
Finally, she found a fresh crossword that she hadn’t tackled yet, and they began to work on it together.
An occurrence that elicits surprise—this was phenomenon (Lili guessed it, and Urbino disputed the phrasing in every possible way, then started quibbling about ph, and why the sound wasn’t just spelled with an f, and finally concluded that in our crazy times the phenomenon is in fact the norm).
He did know without thinking twice that politics with bloody methods was terror. Lili showed no interest in that one.
The crossword certainly was a “cool” one. Urbino was especially proud of knowing that ascent in ancient Greece was descent. So he easily forgave himself for not knowing ancient Greek goddess of fate. Who knows who Moira is nowadays? They talked a bit about differences in mentality, then took a little breather. They were happy about descent. They needed the t for the next word: time-pusher. They thought of all manner of ways to measure time: calendars, watches, chronometers. They measured, but didn’t actually push. History was too long, birthday even longer. And the letters didn’t match up.
They thought of piston—a piston would have been far-fetched, but it did speed things up. Still, there were two letters too many. Last? No, no, that was for shoes. Shoes are timeless (though not as timeless as bare feet). Pram? No, the t was lacking.
Planet in the solar system … If Urbino could excuse himself for not knowing satellite of Uranus (they had to leave that one blank), he couldn’t afford to be so sanguine about a planet in our solar system. No siree! He combed his memory, trying to dredge up the dormant contents of his schooling; but Uranus, Saturn, and Pluto were no go.
“Perhaps they recently discovered another one?” Lili ventured to say.
“Perhaps,” Urbino said glumly. “I’m trying to finish one of my many unfinished novels. It’s called Back from Earth. It’s about an unfortunate Russian scientist who’s always a step behind in his breakthroughs. On top of that, he’s also an astrologer. He’s convinced that directly opposite Earth, behind the Sun, there is another planetary system, exactly like ours. We never see it, because its period of rotation around the Sun is parallel to that of Earth’s. So it always remains invisible to astronomers. It has a planet that is exactly like Earth, and it’s at the same distance from the Sun, but it’s always hidden behind it. Whether there is life on it or not we don’t know, but, astrologically speaking, we are linked to it and dependent on it. All of our disasters, our whole history, could depend on the state of affairs of that unseen planet.”
“I don’t believe it,” Lili said, wearily. “We already tried Venus, but it didn’t fit.”
“Not Venus; it’s Nevus—a birthmark. You see, Russians are very superstitious. They believe in all manner of signs and portents.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I have a Slavist friend who’s helping me.”
“Fine. We’ll put two of them on hold. There’s just one left.”
“Which one?”
“That planet.”
“What a cretin your crossword author is!”
At this point they began discussing the character of the author of the crossword. It became a kind of game for them to conjure up his personality. He was so ambitious and enthusiastic that he signed with a highly unusual name: Goreslav Kitsey.
Urbino suspected he was a Pole.
They fashioned a portrait something like this: he was rotund, bald, wore a sort of Tyrolean hat and checkered knee breeches, with a ski pole instead of a proper cane—some kind of half-Scotsman, half-Bavarian from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A widower. He kept canaries. He was a great beer lover, that was certain. They even started to like him.
“I could write some poems about him and his crosswords.”
“By all means, write! Don’t you think he must write poetry, too?”
“It’s possible.” Urbino scowled.
He went up to his berth to work. In fact, he collapsed onto yesterday’s mattress, still lightly scented with Lili, and fell asleep on the first line: “Move your mind, stir your heart, lift your pen…”
* * *
He was awoken by Lili.
“I discovered a new planet for you.”
“All the same, it’s food I want. I’m starved.”
“Dinner is ready. Here’s your planet with spaghetti.”
“Hey, you’re already rhyming!” Urbino said with his mouth full. “So, what’s the planet?”
“Earth!” Lili said.
“Earth!” Urbino laughed. “The word came up so many times in our conversation and we couldn’t see it. He’s simply a king, this crossword man. He pulls words out of thin air. Now you see them, now you don’t. The world is his playground … Or should I say Earth. Maybe that’s why we didn’t guess it right away. There’s no earth under our feet here—you said so yourself. We’re on the bottom of the sea. Still, we do have another letter—a.”
“So what do we get?”
“In what sense?”
“The time-pusher. Think.”
“I’m stuffed. I have no more appetite for words. Fine, fine, just give me some coffee. Let’s see…”
Urbino gulped down his coffee and examined the bottom of the cup.
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“The word!”
“The past. A time-pusher: what propels time forward is—the past. Your crossword man is a genius!”
And Urbino fell into a brown study.
“Don’t look so dejected. You can’t be the only genius, you know.”
“A genius, eh? Well, how about this one: ‘Earth and the past crossed paths’—that’s already a line, isn’t it?”
“Then write it down.”
“I already have.”
“Then read it.”
“Not yet … Later.”
“I see here some sort of rain cloud … and lightning … Like a change in the weather,” Lili muttered over the evening’s cup.
“And I already began writing about yesterday’s ‘cup’ …”
“Recite it.”
“Well, it’s just a rough draft.”
“Recite it anyway.”
&nb
sp; “It’s called ‘The Death of the Bride.’”
“The bride? Let me hear it!”
1. ROUGH DRAFT
but death, as death, is easy,
and life cannot be mended …
river … hand … soft …
a piano without strings or keys.
(the river is dubious)
a hand without strings or keys …
lifeless hand …
but quicksilver is alive … (it can’t be alloyed)
and death, like quicksilver, lives—
the piano has no keys
and life is dead, like you—
you steer a rudder without a boat.
here’s a broken thermometer
and a small mirror in the hand—
blind quicksilver trembles,
like a sunspot on the ceiling …
(not “at” but “on” the ceiling)
the piano leads to a scale,
like a beam, the string vibrates,
and there is quicksilver in the amalgam.
one line is alive—
in an unclear drama:
“but death, as death, is easy” …
bright. round. and—amen.
2. WORD-FOR-WORD TRANSLATION
so, did he die?
(no one could think this—yet everyone did.)
a small plain daughter-mirror
she raised to her lips,
so that no one would begin first.
she looked into it
and
was reflected
in a dispersing cloud
and saw
herself—
but she did not recognize
herself.
no, it wasn’t a mirror she raised to her lips …
it was his life that looked in the mirror for an instant
and was reflected in it simply
as a girl,
sure that no one, not ever, would pass by,
and that it was not possible
to be younger and more charming,
so …
she only glances, almost unwillingly, to see
that everything is so
(and could not be otherwise).—
her shoulder flashes in it
like a beam
(or the chance flight of a butterfly),
and so flies past,
hardly touching its own reflection
leaving the shadow of its transparent movement
in the air,
like a falling veil,
that she weaves with her every moment
(each—a wreath,
together—a shroud) …
even now,
when no one was in the room
and there was no one to reflect off,
even for her,
because she was gone already—
there was only mist where she had just been,
because she had only just left,
and she can be found now in the garden
(a note made by the breeze of the curtain
was left in the room saying this,
an unread book
and a nibbled apple)—
she was there already
among the trees, under the stars
outlined
like cuneiform
on birch bark—
thus
she was not reflected
but
abandoned
the mirror …
no, the mirror was not touched by his breath
(or the breeze of her motion…)
it’s the mirror
they brought to the lips
it’s his life
for an instant
reflected in the mirror
and,
recognizing himself
recognizing
that it was she
who left him
with the same ease
as
breath on a mirror.
My God!
how brief!
This time Lili’s fortune-telling was very accurate and came true immediately: at first she grew gloomy as a storm cloud, then her gentle eyes flashed lightning. And there was a peal of thunder.
“You still love her!”
Wearied by the thought of trying to reproduce the contents of the rambling and lengthy dialogue that follows (it spans two or three pages), I will get right down to the gist of it. In fact, there wasn’t much substance to it, anyway.
“I can’t drink any more coffee,” Lili said. “These cups…” She was about to fling one to the floor but thought better of it and stayed her hand. “They are driving me mad! Do you want a drink?”
Urbino did.
To his delight, it turned out that she had half a bottle of whiskey. She preferred a glass of white wine.
Urbino was so relieved at the possibility of a truce that he quickly became tipsy, and at her sympathetic prompting, he told her without holding anything back how things had been between himself and Dika. He didn’t notice how carried away he was by his confession.
“Is that all?” Lili said evenly.
“That’s all. It was a sunny spring day, there were many birds, like there are here.”
“Like here?”
“Yes. Children were playing on the vacant lot in brightly colored jackets. I read a strange word on a fence: BIRDY. I made up a poem.”
“Read it!”
Urbino sobered up a bit and pondered, like he was trying to remember. Should he?
“I’m very drunk.”
Lili pursed her lips.
It was windy and birdy
Children blossomed in dust
Morning shining and dirty
Building Future from Past
We were left in the Present
With yesterday’s ties
To forget the last lesson:
How to die.*
“Birdy? Is that what you called her? The way you call me Little Fish!”
“No, of course not! Her name was Eurydika, and I called her Dika.”
* * *
That night was a sleepless one. She didn’t come up to his attic, and he tossed and turned in expectation.
At dawn he didn’t find her on the shore they’d visited the day before.
There was no one on the whole island—as if the island wasn’t there anymore, either.
Although he felt he might lose his mind over these matters of the heart, hunger got the better of him and he decided to visit the stateroom on his own.
3. Marleen’s Island
A very different person, the complete antithesis, met him at breakfast.
“Ah, the guest! You’re late.”
There could be no doubt that they were twins, although she looked significantly younger. With an almost clean-shaven head, excessively made-up, she was a blowsy brunette in a canvas robe, with a neckpiece like a dog collar. An unkempt little girl.
This was Marleen.
“Are you looking for Lili? You won’t find her. She weighed anchor this morning.”
“Why all of a sudden?”
“There was a storm warning on the radio. She was in a hurry to make it before the typhoon.”
“Make it for what?”
“First, to stock up. And second, to see a friend.”
“What kind of friend?” Urbino couldn’t help asking.
“Just a friend. Like most people have. Did you think you were the only one in her life?”
Urbino started hating the sister immediately. His love for Lili flared up in him with all the power of jealousy.
“So, did she let you out?”
“Of course not. I gnawed through the chain.” And with a monstrous smile, Marleen bared a row of blackened teeth.
The day was uncommonly still, as if a storm really was in the offing.
* * *
“Just don’t read me any poems,” Marleen said categorically. “They’re terrible. Especially those off-the-cuff numbers.”
“And I quite liked yours…”
“What, she showed you mine? The traitor!”
“What surprises me is that she showed you mine. When did she find time?”
“I was eavesdropping.” Marleen laughed raucously.
“How was that even possible, when you were locked up in the hold?”
“I have a special pipe, like a ninja.”
“What do you mean, a ninja?”
“You really don’t know?”
Marleen launched into an ecstatic account of this remarkable sect, to which she herself seemed to belong—according to Urbino, at least.
“And you already know that I can breathe underwater and escape from any chains. Hey, don’t be offended. Your poems aren’t all that bad. Only the impromptu one was atrocious.”
“Which impromptu one?”
“The one you dedicated to her.”
“Which of the two?”
“You dedicated two of them to her?”
“Well, yes. Although you wouldn’t have been able to overhear one of them.”
“I’m sure it was terrible, too.”
* * *
Strangely enough, the more he missed Lili, the more he enjoyed Marleen’s company. Being with her was simpler, more natural, as though she were not Lili’s sister but his own. That’s because I’m not trying to make her like me, he realized.
“I wish I had a sister, instead of the brother,” he said. “Life would be much easier.”
“If I only had a brother…” Marleen sighed. “One like you, in fact.”
“What would you do with him?”
“We could drink together, for instance.”
“Would that make me the girlfriend?” Urbino said.
“One more shot, and then—off to bed!” Marleen resolved.
He didn’t understand what happened next. Didn’t understand, or couldn’t remember?
“That’s just my variation. An overture. A variation on a theme from the overture to The Magic Flute. No, Mozart was just the beginning. Now this is going to be my flute. I am merely the performer, I just blow it.”
“You’re a true virtuoso!” Urbino cried. “I bow down before your rendition!”
And he fell to his knees at the slightest touch of her finger.
“And now, Wagner!” she said. “Which overture will you perform? I want The Golden Rhine … No, even better, the whole Ring of the Nibelung … Yes, just like that!”
“Listen, why do you shave it?”
“So you can see my tattoo … My turn: The Flight of the Valkyries!”
And she thrust her tattoo in front of his eyes.
But he saw nothing—he drowned.
