The following day you once again take the path leading to the white house, through the vineyards. You place an envelope into the slit of the mailbox, wait, and let it drop from your fingers.
In the envelope is your business card, on which you have written some verses:
The moon and the flowers
aren’t there anymore.
And I sit,
with a glass in my hand,
all alone.
Friday at seven in the evening, in the shade of a mulberry tree.
* * *
You don’t even ring the bell. On the way back, you sit under an olive tree, whistle a tune, and hear how you are accompanied by the trembling chime of a cricket. He must be resting there, in that thicket of dry grass. You ask yourself … What happened yesterday evening, how could you have allowed Radhika to leave, disappointed and in a bad mood? You’re like Christ, Noli me tangere, no one must touch you. Are you about to turn yourself into someone who is untouchable for women? For Radhika, at least … The flight of a white convertible cuts through the air; you see the blonde hair that pursues Patricia through space like a smoke trail from a plane, you see her hand with a cell phone against her ear … And you congratulate yourself on the fact that you are sitting under a tree, listening to the chirping of the cicadas, and savoring the breeze that is caressing your shirt. All that rushing around seems useless to you, now that the cicada is singing. You whistle an old tune, you get up, and you set off, slowly … Maybe now Patricia is reading the verses that you wrote on your card … The moon and the flowers aren’t there anymore … They aren’t there anymore, that’s for sure. The real ones and the other kind. Well, so what? So they’re not there. On the other hand, the blackberries are getting ripe!
* * *
Sergei crumbles the slice of bread over the table. He eats the crumbs, one by one. Without realizing it. Without tasting it. He eats little. He is thinking about something else. About what happened over thirty-three years ago. He sees it as clearly, as if it has just happened. As if thirty-something years haven’t gone by. What has he done, really, in all that time? Live … Live? Really? Live … like a parasite, like weeds in a field of corn. He has been a parasite, he has lived off that which is better than he is. Off that which is good and useful. One August day, thirty-three years ago, he turned into a parasite.
* * *
Sergei feels exhausted. He sits on the tank. The tank has come to a halt; it is still. Sergei’s eyes are burning. They become moist. And he sees, through the mist, a crowd of people. He wipes his face and his eyes with his sleeve. Now he sees them. It is a group of young people. They are arguing. Someone says something to him, Sergei. Another attacks him in an irritated voice, but Sergei doesn’t understand him. Everyone is talking in Czech and Sergei only catches one word, which is repeated constantly: “Proc.” With a languid melody. With a questioning look. “Proc.” Do they want to find something out? What? A blonde girl looks at him, Sergei. She stares at him with wide eyes. Brown eyes. And she also says, “Proc.” “Proc?” A few young people yell at him. And Sergei slowly begins to understand. They, the Russians, are not the liberators. They have done something wrong. Sergei doesn’t know what. They have destroyed something. Some building that will never be reconstructed. No, they are not liberators, Sergei can see that quite clearly now. And he also sees the stone in the hand.
A moment later, the hand ceases to be there. There is just a melee of people who are howling. And crying. Inside Sergei, something breaks.
No, he mustn’t cry, the blonde girl is looking at him. He turns a little to wipe his nose with his fingers. Mitya, sitting next to him, hands him a handkerchief. Sergei wipes his eyes. Now he can see her better. A very short miniskirt, a tight, short T-shirt. Hair down to her waist. She looks like … she looks like Zlatovlaska, from the Czech fairy tales. The nymph with the golden hair. He hears the girl’s voice one more: “Proc.” Now Sergei is sure that the arrival of the Russians has brought nothing good. He feels like the father who, with a single kick, demolishes the tower that his son has spent the whole afternoon making with his building blocks. Once, years later, Sergei himself did that at home. Just so. Little Vadim had built a medieval castle with dozens of towers, out of the colored pieces that came with his construction set. He, his father, stamped on the castle with his boots, as if he hadn’t seen it. And not only that, but he also kicked it. Violently, with anger. When it was over, his three-year-old son spent the whole night in tears and didn’t say a word to him for days.
Now this girl is looking at him with her eyes full of resentment and stubbornness and asks “Proc?” “Proc” … Why? Sergei has understood what the word means. He tries to explain. He puts together some shaky sentences. He chokes. He feels frustrated, because he knows that he won’t be able to convince the girl of anything. Nothing is true, except death. Right now, even he isn’t sure of anything. He doesn’t understand anything, everything has lost its meaning. In his head, his thoughts are all mixed up with the images of what he is seeing here, in Prague. Chaos is buzzing in his head, just as it is here, in the streets.
The fists of the people in the crowd are raised, tight and tense. People are crying over the dead bodies covered in flags. The blonde girl is his salvation, Sergei feels. He keeps looking back at her. He has the feeling that they are connected by an understanding that goes beyond words. If Sergei speaks, it is only to feel her eyes on his face.
The young people who are surrounding him say something in a threatening tone. A couple of young people embrace. With passion. They almost make love in front of Sergei. Mitya whispers to him that he can’t take much more of this. He wants to get inside the tank but in the end he remains seated. He observes the crowd around him. He knows that they are putting on that show of passion just for him and Sergei. But Sergei’s eyes are fixed on only one place. On the blonde girl’s face. Now it is she who is saying something to him. She is gesticulating, moving her head forward and backward, moving all the muscles of her face. She wants Sergei to understand clearly what it is she has to say. Now she makes a hysterical gesture of desolation. Very slowly, Sergei nods his head. Then he shakes it as if he can’t understand a thing. And then, finally, he nods again.
One of her Czech friends grabs the blonde girl by the hand. He turns her toward him. He kisses her, almost violently. He brings her body close to his. He puts his arms around her. He caresses her body all over. He follows the line of her body under her T-shirt. He raises her miniskirt. And while he embraces and kisses the girl, he observes the two Russians with cold, wide-open eyes. With eyes full of hate. He wants to see if he has hurt them enough. If he has had enough revenge. Sergei retreats, little by little, into the tank. Mitya sees—and later tries to explain it to his friend—the blonde girl’s look when the young man lets her go. Her adoring eyes. On the other hand, the young man, without showing her any more interest, turns to his friend. The blonde follows him with a passionate look. Mitya also lowers himself into the tank. Sergei says to him, “Do you know the tale about Zlatovlaska? It’s a Czech legend. Today I have found my Zlatovlaska. With tearful eyes.” Tearful, like his, Sergei’s. Mitya, however, doesn’t idealize reality. He doesn’t know how to. Mitya sees, and later tries to communicate this to Sergei, that they, the Russians, have attacked a foreign country. Just like Napoleon did with Russia. Like Hitler. The Russian invasion has been a disaster for the foreign country. The Russian invasion has caused Sergei’s happiness. He has found Zlatovlaska.
* * *
A little vodka! To warm himself up? Or to get his memory going, to set off his imagination, his dreams? No, he won’t do that. He has to work. He’d promised himself that he would sew two more purses. Well, one. But … and if he has just half a glass? His wife has gone to the forest to deliver the purses that are finished to the middleman. It’s late. She’s already on her way back. His wife. She’s already in front of the door. She opens it. She looks concerned. Sergei can see that even in the shadows. He can read it in her steps, her movements. In her breathing. They’ve paid her very little for them. So he won’t have time for a sip of vodka. But in the morning, before he goes to bed, he’ll have a double measure, that’s for sure!
It was out of weakness that, years ago, he kicked over the castle that his son had built with the pieces from his construction set. Vadim cried, cried in silence. He was weak too. Although he was stronger than his father. Because he was in the right. The Russians, when they burst into Czechoslovakia, felt strong. But it was a false strength. Beneath it lurked weakness. Only a very weak man kicks over something built by a child.
That summer evening took place over thirty years ago. Maybe thirty-five. Zlatovlaska. A Czech friend kissed her. He, Sergei, wouldn’t have been able to kiss her. He was her enemy. Outwardly. However, on the inside … They cried together. He knows that, and that is enough for him. Afterward, he got into the tank. And Mitya, after him. He was saying strange things. Sergei tried to get him to shut up. He didn’t want to hear anything. He had found his Zlatovlaska. He didn’t need anything else. Tomorrow she’ll be back, he thought on that day.
* * *
At night, he can’t sleep. The child with the stone in his hand comes back to him. He raises his hand even higher. In a flash, he will throw the stone. It’s heavy. Too heavy to reach the top of the tank. The child gives himself courage: he makes a violent grimace. He stretches out his free arm to mark his aim. He gets ready to act. He aims at the upper part of the tank. At him, Sergei. The officer of his tank points his machine gun at the child. To frighten him, to threaten him, thinks Sergei. The child stops getting ready to act. He is as straight as a statue. Now he leans his arm an inch further back. He is preparing for the attack. Is he really? Couldn’t it be that his arm has slipped back a little? They will withstand his attack, should it take place. They are strong. They are armed to the teeth. But the tank moves forward and the child doesn’t get out of the way. Out of the way! Sergei wants to shout at him. And at the same time he wants to yell “Stop the tank! Stop it!”
Stop it! he wants to cry out in his sleep. He wakes up.
* * *
Much later—by then he was at his home in Petersburg, then called Leningrad—he found something out. A few months after he left Prague, a young Czech burned himself to death. A student. About the same age as him, Sergei. The student did it to protest against the Russians. Against Sergei. Against the fact that when he, Sergei, opened his eyes, the boy with the stone in his hand wasn’t there anymore. A student burned himself to death. He killed himself, whereas he, Sergei, is alive.
After more than thirty years, he is still alive. The student killed himself because he, Sergei, had attacked his country. With a machine gun. With a tank.
In Prague he never stopped seeking out Zlatovlaska in the crowds. He sought her out so as to forget what was burning him up and hurting him.
The next day, Zlatolavska didn’t show up. And by then, his tank had moved to another position. There the houses were also black. But you could see that version of the Nevsky Perspective with its great Bronze Horseman, made of stone. The horse wasn’t leaping into the sky like the one on the Petersburg statue. The Prague horse was moving forward step by step, with its head down. It wasn’t trotting: it was stumbling. In Prague, everything was sad. Even Zlatovlaska had cried.
* * *
Click-click-click. The pedal of the sewing machine moves in waves. Sergei’s eyelids are getting heavy. The last purse, for today. It is starting to get light out. It must be nine o’clock, then. His wife, on the mattress, is breathing regularly. Sergei gets up quickly. He takes advantage of his wife’s deep sleep to help himself to a little glass of vodka. But then he stops himself and sits back down at the sewing machine. Click-click-click. Little by little. He hopes they won’t hear him. All he has to do is pay his debt and he’ll be free. He’ll go to Prague. He wants to solve the puzzle. The mystery of the child with the stone in his hand. What happened that day? Did the tank run him over? What should he, Sergei, have done? Jump on top of the driver? Stop the tank from advancing? Yes, he should have done all of that. Or did the officer shoot at the child from the window of his tank? Sergei saw the machine gun in his hands. Should he have snatched it from him? Yes, of course he should have. But he didn’t do anything, and for years he has regretted it. Like he was the main character in a contemporary version of Crime and Punishment. The person who watches a crime and does nothing to stop it is also a criminal. That occurred to him once and since then he hasn’t stopped repeating it to himself. He is more and more convinced that it is true. He repeats these words over and over to himself, just as he does with the scenes on the streets of Prague. Now he sees different ways of stopping the crime. But that day he closed his eyes. When he pays off his debts, he will go to Prague and live out that story once more. Only then will he be able to live again. Perhaps. He hadn’t stopped a crime. That is why he has a pain in his heart. That is why everything happened … everything that happened later. That was the punishment. Now he has found the justification for his suffering. Punishment.
Back home, back in Russia, he couldn’t think about anything else. A hand with a stone. This image followed him around by day and, above all, by night. It was there and suddenly it was gone. It was his fault. Like the student, of his own age, who suddenly wasn’t there. He set fire to himself, like the paper soldier in the well-known Russian song. Like the paper soldier who takes on the burden of other people’s guilt. Like Christ.
When he went back home from Prague, to Petersburg—no, then it was Leningrad!—he looked for anything to do with the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia. First, he found the Literaturnaia Gazeta. A small number of Moscow writers spoke of those dramatic days:
“The writers of Moscow have been observing the events in Czechoslovakia closely, the battle that the counter-revolutionary forces are waging against socialist Czechoslovakia …,” wrote Arkadi Vasiliev.
“Everyone who loves peace and socialism will understand: they will understand that the Warsaw Pact forces entered Czechoslovakia as true friends and brothers, totally dedicated to the great work that is the building of socialism …,” wrote Ludmila Tatianycheva.
“The fraternal friendship between Soviet writers and the whole Soviet people, and the Czechoslovak people, has lasted for many years. But in recent months we have been concerned about the news we have been receiving from Czechoslovakia. No one will ever be able to tear Czechoslovakia away from the solidarity of the socialist countries. All of us give our most heartfelt approval to the wise step taken by the allies in order to offer their essential aid to our friends,” wrote Georgy Markov.
“Reactionaries of all colors dreamed of tearing Czechoslovakia away from the community of socialist nations, and making it dependent on capitalism once more. But these gentlemen have been proven wrong …,” wrote Berdy Kerbabayev.
And many others said similar things. After having read these articles, Sergei felt relieved. So it was all right to have burst in with tanks and machine guns. But then, immediately, in front of his eyes he saw that weak hand, with the stone. The hand that later disappeared. And Sergei also saw a torch, a student surrounded by flames, as clearly as if he had set light to him himself. And he saw Zlatolavska. Her anger. Her tears. Her mocking. Her strength. Yes, strength. Which came from the conviction that she was in the right. From truth. That is why the Czechs were strong. That is why the Russians were weak. Because they weren’t in the right. They didn’t have the right to do what they were doing.
They didn’t know it because nobody had told them. But they felt it. And that made them weak. They were apathetic. They didn’t walk with their heads high. The Czechs did.
Was it like that? After so many years it seemed to him that it was. He couldn’t think about anything else.
* * *
His wife wakes up. She comes over to him, half asleep. She puts her hand on his head. And she asks him what he is thinking about. Why did he, Sergei, have to reveal his thoughts to her? Women always ask such questions when they think that their man is hiding something from them. Sergei answers that he isn’t thinking about anything special. And why should he be? Is he an engineer? Or an inventor? Or a writer, or a philosopher? His wife answers that he never stops sighing. His sighs have woken her up. She is worried about him, she says. Sergei calms down. Why does he get so irritated with her? Isn’t his wife the only person he has left? The only person who loves him? His wife understands his thoughts and gently massages the back of his neck. She knows that his neck hurts. Then she drags herself, with her worn-out slippers, over to her chair. She picks up the knitting needles, the ball of wool is on her lap. Sergei watches her. His eyes are starting to close. He too is dozing off. He suggests to his wife that she goes to sleep. Yes, he too will get some rest soon, Sergei assures her.
* * *
“The moon and the flowers aren’t there anymore … What did you mean by that, Vadim?” asks Patricia’s voice on the phone.
You are forever trying to convince yourself that you are over your fascination with Patricia, to persuade yourself that all you feel for her is a friendly indifference. That you’re only interested in writing her biography. And that’s all. But now when you hear her voice on the receiver, you jump for joy. You don’t say much. Your voice is a touch emotional. Her voice, from time to time, trembles like the wings of a butterfly.
“The moon and the flowers aren’t there anymore. It’s difficult to talk about it over the phone,” you say.
“Will you explain it to me?”
“With pleasure.”
“When?”
“Today?”
“Come at three thirty.”
“Today?”
“No, tomorrow.”
“But … aren’t you working?”
“Recently I haven’t been very inspired,” Patricia says in a subdued voice.
“You’re not going through a period of tremendous inspiration?”
“No. No, not at all. I’ve had a few ideas, sure … I’ll tell you about them.”
“Oh, no? No? Hmmm … OK, then, see you tomorrow.”
“And don’t forget your verses.”
You oblige yourself to continue talking so as to lengthen the conversation. Stupid chattering, you tell yourself, happily. Yes, you feel like jumping, like a little boy who’s been given his first ball, simply because you have heard her voice, her voice that, today, for the first time, has come in search of yours.