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.Mother spent the night counting the money she has kept over the years in the porcelain elephant.Her outbreak of shingles seems to have calmed even without the tomato cure.She recalled for me her first ever meeting with Father.She seemed briefly happy, as if the memory propped her up.It was in the Central House of Culture of Railroad Workers, when he put a pinch of snuff up his nose.He had been talking of Mayakovski, quoting “Glory be to our beloved Motherland.” Then of course he sneezed in the middle, which embarrassed him terribly.She recalled how Father bought her the porcelain elephant the next day.I tried to ask him about it but he didn’t remember.He shooed me away like a fly.I cannot wait to tell Ilya these stories tomorrow.He says he doesn’t care about Rudik, that I am the only one who interests him.Happiness!November 14They have once again delayed the committee meeting.We went to the Big House again.Rudik, in London, was weeping, and I felt momentarily sorry for him.He is convinced he has made a mistake.They put pressure on him, and every day he appears in the newspapers.He says he cannot walk down the street without a photographer jumping from the bushes.He kept mentioning a dancer’s name—I believe he was trying to hint at something—but I couldn’t make out what he was saying.The stenographer gave me a rude look.November 16I have been working on a cardigan for the newborn next door.It is almost finished but not quite as good as I wanted it to be.It has four buttons but needs a fifth.A walk in the snow with Ilya.He mentioned how he would someday like to have children.I wondered what I would call a child.Not Rudolf certainly.Maybe after Father.And what if it was a girl? For school; prepare letters to be sent to Brezhnev for his birthday.November 20A knock on the door and it scared us so! Suffering birds! The woman was nervous.Blond hair.Finnish.She said she was a dancer.I believed it from her body.She did not give her name.She said she was a friend of a friend who had come in through Oslo, she didn’t explain how.She asked to be let in but Father refused.Then she got desperate.She had driven all the way from Moscow! Two full days! She said that Rudik had made friends with ambassadors in different countries and they had been able to bring things back.She had some items for us.We were convinced at first it was a ruse.Father told her it was against the law of the land.She flushed bright red.Then Mother asked her to leave.We kept looking up and down the street for the Driving School car, but it was not there.The woman pleaded but still Father said no.Finally the woman left the large package on the doorstep.She was crying with fear.It was terribly dangerous.We left the package there but before dawn Mother got up in her nightgown and brought it in, a light coating of snow upon it.November 21The package lay on the table.We could not bear to leave it unopened any longer.November 22Father drank a thimble measure from the bottle of brandy.Mother wore her new fur-lined coat, though only in the dark since she did not want the neighbors to see.When she put her hands in her pockets she found a note which said, How I miss you.Your loving son.I pondered what to do with the dress he sent me.It was far too tight at the hips.At first I thought I might burn it, but why? I decided instead to let the waistband out and wear it to the Motherland cinema next week with Ilya.November 23Father remembered that the dancer had said we are due another parcel, perhaps in the New Year.Next time I am sure we will open the door to her.Unless it is a ruse.We will find out soon enough.Father felt a certain measure of guilt, but he knows returning the parcel would mean even more trouble.Mother said, Yes, it is wondrous, but a new coat does not replace him.She was sitting in the armchair rubbing the fur collar.November 26Father was nostalgic and raised a glass to Rudik, and for the first time I heard him say, My dear son.* * *Hereby we report that on June 16, 1961, NUREYEV Rudolf Hametovich, born 1938, single, Tatar, non-Party member, formerly of Ufa, artist of the Leningrad Kirov Theater, who was a member of the touring company in France, betrayed his Motherland in Paris.NUREYEV violated the rules of behavior of Soviet citizens abroad, went out to town, and came back to the hotel late at night.He established close relations with French artists among whom there were known homosexuals.Despite talks of a cautionary character conducted with him, NUREYEV did not change his behavior.In absentia he was sentenced in November 1961 to seven years hard labor.Furthermore, it has been decreed that, following the January 21, 1962, public disavowal by Hamit Fasliyevich NUREYEV, vehemently denouncing the actions of his son, he will be allowed to remain a standing member of the Party.—UFA COMMITTEE ON STATE SECURITYFEBRUARY 1962* * *Six months before Rudi defected, Iosif came home to our room along the Fontanka, carrying a bottle of cheap champagne.At the doorway he kissed me.Yulia, he said, I have wonderful news.He removed his spectacles, rubbed the black semicircles beneath his eyes, and guided me to the table in the corner of the room.He opened the bottle, poured two cups, drank one immediately.Tell me, I said.His eyes drooped, and he quickly drank a second glass of champagne, pursed his lips and said: We have a new apartment.For years I had cultivated our communal home along the river.The kitchen and toilet were down the hallway and our room tiny, old, ruined, but it felt majestic: an ornate fireplace, an intricate medallion in the center of the ceiling from which a yellow lampshade hung as a reminder of other days.Imagining the history of the chandelier that once hung there wasn’t so much bourgeois sentiment as a quiet nod to my father’s life.I had fixed all the window sashes and arranged the curtains so they didn’t obscure the view to the Fontanka.Most of all it was the sound of the water I adored.In summer it gently lapped against its walls as the canal boats passed with their wares and in winter the ice crackled.Where? I asked.In the sleeping quarters, he said.The sleeping quarters were in the outskirts of Leningrad, where tower blocks met tower blocks, a place where I’d always felt that our country housed whatever was falling apart.Calmly I took a sip of my drink.Iosif said: It has an elevator, hot water, two rooms.My silence made him shift in his seat.I got the permits through the university, he said.We move next week.I startled myself by saying nothing, rose slowly from the chair.Iosif grabbed my hair and yanked me across the table.I attempted to pull away, but he slapped my face: You’ll start packing tonight.I thought about telling him that he slapped like an academic, but that would only have invited his fist.I watched as he poured himself another glass of champagne.As he tipped it back his double chin disappeared, and in a chilling way he looked briefly attractive.Good night, I said [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]