The Nomadic Soul: The Story of a Modern-day Anna Karenina: v. 22 - Brossura

Muravyova, Irina

Brossura

ISBN 10: 571720048X ISBN 13: 9785717200486

Casa editrice: Glas New Russian Writing, 2000

Riassunto

The nomadic soul traces the dramatic history of several generations of an upper-class family during the First World War and the Civil War in Russia. Historical events, providing a background for the narrative, are depicted not directly but rather as seismic shock waves overturning and transforming the lives of ordinary people.

Lala, Natasha, Toma. Three heroines are close friends, all from formerly affluent families stripped of their wealth and status by the Revolution and now struggling for their very survival in Soviet Russia.

Philemon and Baucis. A married couple who live to a ripe old age in idyllic love and harmony during the perestroika years. Through flashbacks to their earlier life it becomes apparent that the husband has been the commandant of a women's labor camp in the 1930's and enjoyed the confidence of Stalin himself.

Su questo libro

Informazioni sull?autore

Irina Muravyova, born in 1952 in Moscow, is a philologist by training. In 1985 she emigrated to the USA and currently lives in Boston where until recently she has been editing the Boston Marathon, a Russian-language literary gazette.
Her body of work includes a great number of short stories and novels.
Her precise and poetic stories explore the impact of Russian history on the lives of ordinary people. The Revolution and Civil War, the purges of the 1930s, and two world wars still resound in the struggles of present-day Russians in a vastly changed society. Irina Muravyova is one of the finest women authors today. Her prose is poetic and precise, always on the lookout for the precious grains of love and kindness in a hostile world.

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The Nomadic Soul

By Irina Muravyova

Glas

Copyright © 1999 Irina Muravyova
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9785717200486

Excerpt

Part One

The beach at Lynn was empty, apart from some seagulls dottedabout the smooth sands. There was a smell of rotting seaweed.

    How had I come to be here? Quite simply: by driving halfan hour from Boston.

    But seriously: what was I doing here? What chance windhad brought me to this provincial American seaside town with itsclapboard houses, and to Rabbi Zaychik's synagogue?

    There was a concert taking place in the synagogue. It wasrather stuffy in there, with stout Russian ladies sweltering in theirbest flocks. A boy of about seventeen was singing a romance towords by Sasha Chorny, clenching his fists with the effort as heintoned in an unsteady bass voice:

Sleep, my son, your Mummy's gone ?
Gone to Paris, little one ...

    Stop! Who was this Mummy? Why Paris? And why did it allsound so strangely familiar ? as if at some time I myself hadbeen that tearful mother abandoning her curly-haired child torun off to Paris with her lover? No, don't call him that. But what,then? What was he? Could you really say he was everything in theworld to her? What about that boy (christened Nikolay, but knownin the family as Koko) ? that boy with the fair eyelashes whosepiercing cries of `Mummy!' rang through the house every morning:wasn't he everything in the world to me?

    But what have I got to do with all this this, for heaven'ssake? It was another woman, do you hear ? another woman whohastily gathered together a few essential items and, her face redwith the effort, fastened all eleven buttons up the back of her greytravelling dress. It was she, not I, who went into the darkenednursery, bent over the cot, kissed that little face redolent of milkand made the sign of the cross over it, then closed behind her thefront door of the large detached house in the Arbat that was herhome.

    Yet the day before ... Yes, it was only the day before that theyhad lingered in his study with its leather upholstery and odoursof stale tobacco. Outside the windows a heavy May downpourwas in full spate, breaking off twigs of lilac. She was sitting on thesofa, while he stood with his back against the glass doors of abookcase and its colourful array of bindings. His face was whiteand quivering, his eyes wild.

    `I ask only one thing: that we keep up the appearances ofmarital life, so that our child can grow up in a normal family, sothat he ...'

    Perhaps it was me after all? Perhaps it was me, shielded fromthe cold May rain by the walls of that house in the Arbat?

    At that moment I felt nothing but detestation for his voice,for that hand with its thin wedding ring; yet I understood thatthey would always be with me, that I should never manage to ...

    `Let me go. I'll come back in a month. One month, that's all.You yourself suggested we keep up appearances, and I shall dothat, I promise. But now that we've finally clarified matters ... Justone month, I beg you ...'

    `Very, well. He won't notice anything, he can stay at the dachawith my sisters and his nanny. You can go ? and may God abovebe your judge!' There was a dull glint from his wedding ring as hegestured with his hand towards the ceiling.

    The heavens showed no sign of themselves. Outside thewindow there was no sky at all, just rain pouring down: drivingrain that filled the city with the fresh, heady fragrance of grass.

    It was dry in Paris, though. Our hotel room smelled oflavender. The warmth of our hands was held by the lavender-scentedsoap as it slowly dried out. For the first time I woke upnext to someone who for me was ... what? That boy with the faireyelashes ? the curly-headed boy whose penetrating cry of`Mummy!' rang through the house every morning ? wasn't heeverything in the world to me?

    What chance wind took her there? Most likely the same windwhich brought me today to this stuffy synagogue in the seasideresort of Lynn and, puffing out its white fluffy cheeks, depositedme on a chair next to a stout lady sweltering in her best frock.Soul drifting freely through ethereal mists, today belonging tome and beating your tiny wings so painfully against my ribs, butyesterday assigned to her who stood unmoving in the doorway ofthat house in the Arbat: who would be so rash as to say whatwind bears you, my free, tearful soul, through a world startledinto wariness as you brush against it on your passage, seeking,like a shadow cast on water, your own time and space?

    * * *

    `... No-one else might notice it, but I say there's an incrediblelikeness there. Of course, Lydia was pretty as a picture, whereasthis one has her father's features, more's the pity. But her smile,her mannerisms! And her eyes! Just like her! I even find itunnerving sometimes, the way she fiddles with her plait when shegets worked up. Exactly the same gesture! How do you explainthat? You could understand if she were her granddaughter, thenat least she'd be directly related, wouldn't she? But Lydia was ...what, her great-aunt.'

    `Did Lydia die in Paris, then?'

    `No, what gave you that idea? She came back just before thewar broke out. She'd dragged out that month she promised tocome back after. Of course, she must have taken leave of her senses,leaving her husband and running off with a lover like that. Like insome cheap novelette! Not that there was anything the least bitbohemian about her, mind you ? she was more your conventionalhousewife, your home-loving type ... She was just so besotted shecouldn't think straight any more. And then there was that idioticobsession with truthfulness that she had! How many women areunfaithful to their husbands, but keep quiet about it? But shewasn't like that ... Still, what else would you expect from someoneeducated at the Smolny Institute? La crume de la crume, theywere. As for that drip she ran off with, I can't to this day imaginewhere she could have picked him up. How could she, with herupbringing, consort with him openly like that, with the wholecity looking on? And then Paris ... That was all her idea, you know:he wasn't to blame at all, poor fellow. Do you think he wanted tocome between her and her husband? Do you think he wanted toshoulder all that burden? As for her, she couldn't take it ? crackedup, she did. No, I often think to myself: God forbid that my girlshould ever suffer a fate like hers! And that likeness to her issomething we could well do without.'

    `Oh, come on ? outward likeness can be a matter of purechance!'

    `What are you saying, Anya? In that case everything in theworld could be pure chance, ourselves included. Tell me: isn'tmarriage a matter of pure chance, then?'

    `It depends which marriage you're talking about ...'

    `I'm talking about any marriage, for heaven's sake! Youremember how close my husband and I were for all those years?But then if you look at it like that, our marriage really does seemto have happened purely by chance ...'

    * * *

    She was still in Paris, although she should long since havereturned to Moscow, where the man with the plump white facesat for hours at a time in the darkened nursery, his eyes, reddenedby sleepless nights, fixed on that little face redolent of milk. Sheshould long since have returned to Russia, where following onfrom the rain, powdery snow had whitened houses and fences inthe space of a day, and where now a cab encrusted with icy flakesdrove up through this first snow to halt outside a corner houseon Bolshaya Dvoryanskaya Street.

    `Liza, come quickly and look, Mr Lopukhov's just arrived!The barrister I told you about, do you remember? The one whowas at the Aseyevs' last summer? From St Petersburg? He's settingup in legal practice here, you know ? his estate's about fifteenmiles from Mummy's. Come here, Liza!'

    She went over to the window, hunching her thin shoulders.She had a black ribbon tied in her plait and was wearing a blueand white plaid dress. Her hair, she herself had to admit, was thinand nothing special to look at ? pigtails. Now Lydia's hair ? thatwas something different! Lydia was in Paris, for heaven'ssake. Was she out of her mind? Mummy and Daddy had beentalking about her again yesterday, and Mummy had been crying.Last month Daddy had been to Moscow and seen NikolayVasilyevich and Koko, and he'd brought back some photographs:Koko sitting sad-eyed on a little white horse. Lydia must havebeen out of her mind. So that was Lopukhov, was it? He wassettling up with the cab driver. Quite a young-looking face, hehad. His moustache gleamed silver, as if powdered. Now he'dgrabbed his bag and bounded up the steps to the front door. Whatwas he so full of beans about?

    All the following day in class she was absent-minded, as if ina dream. Fat Nadya Subbotina handed her a little album boundin velvet. It was the leavers' class, and they were all writing eachother little mementos in verse. Nadya Subbotina had no plans toenrol for women's higher education: she was going to marry hercousin. They'd applied to the Synod for a special dispensation,which had been granted. What an idiot Subbotina was! She'd getmarried, have children and spend all her time quarrelling with thecook. That wasn't for Liza: in August she, Lala and Musya wouldbe off on the train to Moscow ? off to the women's French coursein Moscow! Off to hear Shalyapin! Blok, Bely and Severyaninwere all there. Lydia had told her all about it. Three Sisters at theMoscow Art Theatre! No-one would even suspect that she camefrom the provinces. As for that Lopukhov, there was nothingspecial about him. Musya said he was a hard drinker, and that hegambled at cards. And she said he went out to the gypsy camp tohear the gypsies sing. Well, Daddy used to do that when he wasyoung, but Musya said Lopukhov had a gypsy woman as hismistress. He sounded just like the character in that story byTolstoy, A Living Corpse!

    `Write something,' said Subbotina, indicating the album withher eyes. What an idiot she was! Every last space in her albumtaken up, yet still she wanted more. God, who'd come up withthis priceless gem?

When the earth in evening's shade is lurking,
I'll wait for my doorbell to give voice.
Dear friend, your duty you'll be shirking
If to visit me then is not your choice.

    She turned the page to avoid being contaminated by suchdrivel and wrote out in a sloping hand:

My soul is like a nest where, fluttering
And struggling to be free, young fledglings sing, ?
Bur, when the last of these has learned to fly,
Will be to an abandoned house akin,
With doors ajar, through which the autumn sky
Sends the first snow, and fallen leaves drift in.

    Odd that this poem of Alexander's should have lodged sofirmly in her memory. He'd given it to her last summer at theirdacha: taken it out of his waistcoat pocket and presented it to her.That morning they'd picked water-lilies at Chudin Pond. There'dbeen a lot of people there, but only one rowing boat, and thatwas leaky. Alexander had been invited to stay with them by herbrother, Sasha. In her mind she conjured up a picture of herbrother: thin, stooping, with long arms, and wearing the uniformof a railway engineering student. One couldn't even say he lookedall that young. In fact, for a twenty-four-year-old his face didn'tlook young at all, with its sallow complexion and enormousbulging eyes. He'd contracted tuberculosis as a child, and Mummy(who had just buried her eldest daughter ? another Lydia, afterwhom our Lydia was named) had dropped everything and whiskedhim off to various health spas for a year. She'd put him on a dietof fresh German milk straight from the cow, pumped him full ofsea air, and nursed him through it. Even so he'd continued tosuffer poor health. The slightest thing would bring on a feverishchill. How on earth did he cope with studying in St Petersburg,built on those marshes? Nanny always said, `Children bring theirparents nothing but woe,' and she was right. Sasha coughing,Lydia in Paris ... What did all that do to Mummy? Oh, if it weren'tfor the French course she wouldn't leave her for anything in theworld, she'd never go to Moscow! After all, she could get marriedtoo if she wanted, to Alexander. For hadn't he fallen in love withher then, after the water-lilies? `He's handsome, a real PrinceCharming,' Nanny had said. A prince he might be, yet he'd blushedto the roots of his hair when he'd given her that poem! He hadn'tsaid anything about being in love, though. Only before he wasdue to leave had he knocked at the door of her room, his jacketbuttoned up, his hair neatly parted and gleaming.

    `I do not venture to ask for your hand in marriage, Liza,'he'd said to her, `for I know I should be refused. Yet permit me,as they say in uplifting books, to hope. Permit me to wait.'

    And he'd kissed her hand, elegantly and with old-worldgallantry. That evening, unable to keep it to herself, she'd toldher mother all about it. Her mother had laughed at first, but thenshe'd looked sad. Of course, she'd remembered Lydia. Most ofher thoughts revolved around Lydia these days.

    It was really embarrassing having to walk around with asatchel on her back like some little schoolkid. She was grown-upnow, a young lady, soon to be a student on a women's highereducation course. But Mummy didn't want her to develop a stooplike Sasha and wouldn't let her carry a bag.

    He came out of his front door just as she was approachinghers on the opposite side. The street was empty, and sparse flakesof dry snow fluttered in the bright sunlight. He paused for aninstant, glancing at her absent-mindedly. Their eyes met. Therewas nothing special about him. Lopukhov by name, Lopukhovby nature, she thought. He smiled as he pulled his gloves on.She frowned, unable to decide whether he'd smiled at her or not,and stood watching him go with her mouth half-open, quiteforgetting that this was not at all the done thing for a grown-upyoung lady, soon to be a student. Her shoulders were aching fromthe satchel. He had set off down the road at a brisk pace, almostrunning, with flakes of dry snow settling on his back as he went.

    * * *

    `... I have a craven fear of returning home, even thoughthoughts of Koko torment me more than ever. If you can,Mummy, if I may ask your forbearance at least in this, then donot condemn me. The thought that my whole life is finished fillsme with horror. I have recurring dreams about locked gates: Ihave only to fall asleep to see them in front of me. NikolayVasilyevich would take me back at once, but the very thought ofresuming our senseless life together throws me into despair. Iknow what you will think when you read this letter, Mummydear: you will think of my selfishness, my terrible self-absorption,and no doubt you will be right. Otherwise, would all this havehappened? However that may be, I hope that my health willrecover, and that three months from now I shall embrace you allagain, and that you will find it in your heart to forgive me ...'

    * * *

    I returned to Moscow just before the outbreak of war. By astrange coincidence it was pouring rain. Rivulets ran down thedark-green signboard with its black lettering: Dr N.V. Filitsyn.Nervous and psychiatric disorders. The front door opened, andsomeone came out, putting up a silk umbrella as he went on hisway. My legs felt like jelly as I stepped forwards, out of the rainand into the darkened hallway.

    He was standing in the doorway of his study, not looking atme.

    Stop! What is this? I'm getting confused here. What have Igot to do with it? I'm sitting in this synagogue in the provincialseaside resort of Lynn, brought here by a wind that puffed up itswhite cheeks and blew, drying my grey travelling dress on theway.

    How many years have gone by ... No wonder it's dry ...

    She removed her hat and sank down on a chair. Neither ofthem said anything for a while, and he did not look at her.

    `Where's Koko?'

    He did not turn his head or alter the direction of his rigidgaze.

    `I said, where's Koko?' she repeated in a faint voice, frightenednow.

    `Koko's with his aunts,' he replied calmly. `They're bringinghim here tomorrow. I thought it would be better for us to discussmatters in his absence.'

    `I'm not prepared to discuss anything, I've just come back tobe with Koko. I can't imagine how we're going to sort things outbetween us, because ...'

    `Because you persist in being another man's mistress!' hesuddenly yelled, fixing his bloodshot eyes on her face. `How Ihate you! Yes, I hate you,' he repeated in a loud whisper, savouringthe words. `You have no right to return to this house, you haveno right to touch our child with hands that have touched ... HowI hate you!'

    `Then why did you allow me to return?' she whispered.

    `Why? Because I love him, because he is everything to me! Ihave nothing, nobody apart from him. If it weren't for him Ishould have strung myself up long before now. Yes, strung myselfup from the nearest hook, without a second thought! He may beonly six years old, but he understands everything, everything! Onlyhe can reconcile me to this sordid life. And you're his mother,more's the pity for him and me. Do you really think I could deprivehim of his mother, of what is his by right? Just the fact of askingwhy I allowed you to return shows your complete and utter lackof understanding!'

    `What do you want me to do now, then?' she asked quietly.`Wait, don't shout at me ? for the sake of all that's holy, don'tshout at me, hear me out. The fact is, I'm not well, there'ssomething wrong with my heart. Let me finish! I don't ask forpity of any kind, because in this terrible mess we're in you willalways be in the right and I shall be the guilty party, but I ...'

    `I don't give a damn for your ailments! Not a damn, do youhear? I prayed to God to send you at least some punishment forall we've been through, for all that my son has had to suffer in hispoor little heart!'

    `Very well, I shall say no more. Even if you wish me dead ...'

    `I don't wish you dead. I don't wish anything for you, it's alla matter of complete indifference to me. You can stay here as ladyof the house, in full charge of domestic arrangements. I'm wellaware that your inborn depravity gives you no choice but tocontinue with this sordid liaison or even seek out some new one.You're no more to blame for your proclivities than my patientsfor their hallucinations and obsessions. Your psyche has justbecome enslaved by the flesh: it's not uncommon. I even feel sorryfor you, if that makes you feel any better ...'

    My arms and legs had gone dead. All I could feel was thisbird fluttering in my throat, constantly struggling to spread itswings and escape, and so allow me to draw breath. But its wingswouldn't spread, and I couldn't get any air ...

    ... and then came her automatic response, filling the silencethat had fallen in the hallway: `What proclivities? Why do youhave to insult me like that?'

    `My God, you're so naive I could laugh!' he said, and gave arapid burst of laughter. `Can't you see what I'm talking about ? whatI became aware of during the very first months of our marriedlife? You were still practically a child, but I saw through youcompletely! You never loved me, you were as cold as a fish towardsme, and yet your instinctive depravity gave birth to this quiteoutstanding artistry, this awful seductive allure ? even in yourrelations with me, for whom you had no feelings of love! Do youthink I don't remember the way you used to smile at me at nights?You even contrived to turn your pregnancy into a kind of display.In the final month, when you started to walk with that duck-likewaddle, you even managed to flaunt that in such a way as to makeeveryone ogle you and your body!'

    `I feel unwell. I shall go to my room if you have no objection.'

    `You do that.' And with a cough he made way to let her pass.

    The sun lay like a delicate fan, red and low in the sky, onBolshaya Dvoryanskaya Street. He closed the door behind hislast client. That was it for today. He stretched until his jointsclicked and went over to the window. A cab had drawn up outsidethe house opposite, and he recognized the girl (really quite a younglady now) with a black ribbon in her hair who jumped downfrom the cab. A young woman in a light-blue striped dress and aboy of about seven in a traditional sailor suit stepped down afterher on to the dusty, dry pavement. As they stopped at the door,the woman clutched at her heart. The girl with the ribbon ruggedat the bell-pull for all she was worth, and the door was thrownopen. Behind the full figure of the housemaid he could make outthe dark-eyed girl's parents, with whom he already had a noddingacquaintance as neighbours. The two of them ran out together tothe woman, who was still clutching her heart, and supported herfrom either side. He caught a snatch of their distraughtconversation, something like: `... didn't let us know ... why not ...'and then the door was slammed shut. He guessed this was theelder daughter who had caused a scandal by going off in Parisand had now presumably returned. The boy in the sailor suit wouldbe her son. He hadn't managed to catch a glimpse of her facebeneath the dark-blue hat, but was struck by her gesture ofclutching at her heart in that way. If suddenly occurred to himthat life still had genuine feelings to offer. Pain, love ... Whoknows ... Love, he thought, not that animal passion he had knownwith Tanya, from which even now a certain irritated bitternessremained in his heart. Why didn't he just chuck it all in here andleave? No, that wasn't on: the practice was doing quite well, andhe needed the money. Still, he could wait a bit, get his sisters setup and see his mother right, and then chuck it all in, and goodriddance. He could go to Paris, too. Freedom! Yet he knew hewouldn't do it. He was only too aware of his own penchant forcompromise, which paralyzed the will and sustained in him acertain outward well-being that was in constant danger of collapse.He went over to the sideboard and poured himself a glass of vodka.`I shall be driven to drink through sheer boredom in this holeyet,' he thought, although he knew it was not true. A saying ofPushkin's suddenly surfaced in his memory: `Boredom is part ofthe baggage of any rational being.' What a curse to be well-read!Whatever thoughts you might have, they'd already been expressedby somebody else before you! You ended up recalling otherpeople's words as a kind of substitute for your own life. And whenwould his life begin, if ever? His head had started spinning slightlyfrom drinking the vodka on an empty stomach, and he made aneffort to hold on to his train of thought. Although it was certainlytrue that he'd never denied himself all that much, all the same lifeleft him with a monotonously aching sensation, as of water flowingpast just out of reach of his parched mouth. Tanya had been theonly drop to till directly on his lips. She had moistened them, butwithout quenching his thirst. He had just been stronger than thepassion, that was all, more rational, and this had stopped himfrom taking the decisive step. He knew that he often gambledagainst fate and tried to outsmart it, but that fate always won outin the end, forcing him to pay dearly for his own cleverness. Whatother explanation could there be for this emptiness, this oppressivesense of irritation? Best to shut himself in his office here and readPlutarch. It would be quiet and peaceful. The ancients hadunderstood the nature of things more clearly, had been closer tothe truth. Living in St Petersburg had opened his eyes a lot: he'dseen the emptiness of it all, the pettiness. How unaware they allwere of their own blinkered view of things, their obsession withephemera! Why were none of them nauseated by all the endlessposing? If there was one sickness from which Russia suffered aboveall, it was the sense of its own dramatic exclusivity. Every drunkenlout got a kick out of beating his chest and shouting exultantly:`Yes sir, I'm a Russian!' So what, one asked oneself. Perhaps itwas the overblown size of the country itself that aroused in themthis perverse sense of their own significance? Yet in spite ofeverything he felt sorry for them. None of them knew peace ofmind, none of them was happy. Any encounter with humanstupidity had always left him with a sharp sense of despair. As astudent he had taken a passing interest in politics and attendedthe meetings of a political discussion group for a while. But therehe had come across such opinionated stupidity, hardly excusableeven on the grounds of youth, that he had stopped going soonenough. He had sensed in his own mind that politics and talkingwere one thing, and human life something else completely. Therewas something in the nature of an unthinking game in thisuniversal passion for politics. No, none of that was for him. Bestto shut himself in his office here, say good riddance to everythingand read Plutarch.

    * * *

    Wait, rest for a while. Soon the war will begin, followed bythe revolution; the world of my house will collapse, and I shallhave to write of people forced to grow up too soon, of hungerand death. I shall have to feel for myself my family's weak rootsbeing loosened from the churned-up soil, then dried by a searingwind until they wilt and crumble, before finally being torn fromthe soil for ever.

    I am sitting on the short green grass of a vacant lot in thecentre of Boston, surrounded by an ever-shifting mesh of loudAmerican speech. Immediately in front of me a long crocodile ofblack children stretches across the dappled green. So that none ofthem get lost, the children are all rather comically linked togetherby one piece of string, one end of which is held by a tall, long-leggedblack woman. A shaggy dog with pointed ears lies downnext to me on the grass. Saliva drips from its mouth: it is hot. Asif on command the children turn their round, close-cropped blackheads. `Hi, doggy!' they say amiably. The long-legged blackwoman tugs at the string. `Come on, kids!' she calls, and the meekchildren with large heads and bright eyes quickly and obedientlyfall back in line. I watch this long black centipede in sandals ofvarious colours mount the slope, twisting its round heads thisway and that, and, linked by the piece of string, cross the road ...

    Through ethereal mists, across wide blue expanses, borne onthe white wind, by the power of blood, without stirring, withoutchanging position on the Boston grass, I return to my own soil,my own land.

    * * *

    `Of course we ought to get divorced, Mummy ? it's theonly thing to do, because it's wrong to live the way we are now!But how could we get divorced? What would we do with Koko?'

    Her hair had fallen down over her eyes. She was sitting atthe foot of her mother's bed, shielding her face from the nightlightwith outspread fingers. Although it was almost dark in theroom, she found even this light disconcerting and kept her headlowered so that it was screened by her hair. Her fingers, lit lemon-yellowfrom behind by the flame, were trembling.

    `My God, what on earth am I going to do?'

    `Lydia,' said her mother quietly, cautiously trying to lookinto her face, `what about that man? Your ...'

    `Mummy!' She let her hand fall on the bedcover and threwher head back sharply. `Mummy, he's got nothing to do with allthis. He has his life, and I have mine, and I don't expect anythingof him, anything at all. This whole thing is a cross I have to bear,do you understand? It's a cross, not a source of strength.'

    `But he does ... and don't get angry, now, I just want tounderstand: he does love you, doesn't he?'

    `Mummy, you're talking like a child! What does that mean:loves me? Does he love me, does he not, will he kiss me, will henot? Yes, he loves me, but those months in Paris when I was illwere absolute hell for him ? because of the commitment, becauseI seemed to be forcing him into a decision for which he wascompletely and utterly unprepared. He has his own family, forheaven's sake ? he still cares for them, and he's living with themagain, after all that's happened. After everything we've beenthrough he's gone back to his wife, just as I've gone back to NikolayVasilyevich! Only when I think about it all, I'm filled with suchhorror I can't even breathe. I just want to pinch myself hard andwake up ? although in fact I haven't been sleeping properly atall, I've been taking sedatives for a long time. I just wish I couldwake up and find it's all gone away, and there's just you, and Koko ...Dear God! As for him, I don't even know what he feels ... We don'teven talk about it, as if it were somehow not the done thing ...'

    She wept, sitting at the foot of her mother's bed: sobbeduncontrollably, stopping her mouth with wet fingers and wet locksof hair, her eyes shut, hiding from the light.

    `That's terrible, Lidochka ? but one can understand his pointof view as well, you know,' her mother said hesitantly. `After all,he has two sets of commitments ... It's a bit hard to demand clear-cutaction from someone in that position. I'ts only the mostprimitive types who find taking decisions easy, whereas ...'

    `Yes, Mummy, yes, you're right! But you asked me a question,and I gave you my answer, and that's all there is to it. God forbidthat I should ever interfere in his domestic life! What he's donefor me already is quite enough. No, I have to sort everything outfor myself ? everything! Only what am I to do with Koko ? leavehim again?'

    `Come and lie down, Lidochka, you're shaking all over! Mypoor dear girl, come and lie down!'

    She buried her wet, burning face against her mother'sshoulder, pulling over it the bedcover, her hair and a corner ofthe pillow, and wept, choking and murmuring something in ahoarse whisper, as if she had found at long last in this maternalshoulder and maternal warmth something to cling to; while hermother stroked her hair, her perspiring forehead, her wet hands,and said nothing.

Continues...

Excerpted from The Nomadic Soulby Irina Muravyova Copyright © 1999 by Irina Muravyova. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Dettagli dell?edizione

• Editore: Glas New Russian Writing
• Data di pubblicazione: 2000
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 571720048X
• ISBN 13: 9785717200486
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 240
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile