My Several Selves, Imaginary and Real 18 страница
‘There’s ice in it,’ said Mavra, as she shook water off her large, red hands. ‘The water’s as thick as beer.’
Zena and I had watched it hopefully for days. Then one Sunday morning we saw that the water was no longer moving.
‘It’s frozen!’ Zena shouted, rushing down the steps to take a closer look.
I followed her. From the landing stage we each stretched a foot to test the motionless brown surface. It was hard! But would it take our weight?
‘We can try,’ 1 said.
We raced back to the house for our skates. But Aunt Katia proved unexpectedly adamant in refusing to let us use them until the frost had held out for at least three days. Zena was in tears. Her mother’s eyes turned on me with an unmistakable reproof. I knew that, as usual, she held me responsible for Zena’s increasing zest for more adventurous play.
I went out again and talked to Stan who was in the yard, sawing wood for the stoves. He told me that he had crossed the river on the ice this morning and that it was quite thick. I kept my knowledge to myself until lunch time when my uncle noticed that Zena’s eyes were red and asked her what was the matter.
‘Mamma won’t let us skate!’ Zena burst out passionately.
‘Why not?’ My uncle did not look at his wife when he asked this, and she did not reply.
‘She says we must wait three days for the frost to hold out,’ said Zena with tears in her voice.
‘Why three days?’ my uncle asked again. This time no one answered him. Aunt Katia looked ruffled like a small angry hen, while tears began to trickle down Zena’s cheeks. I proffered my piece of information about Stan crossing the river this morning, and was rewarded by an immediate hopeful look on Zena’s face, but stabbed by a wrathful glance from Aunt Katia. My uncle decided we should be allowed to skate but not to go beyond the limits of the estate, and that Stan should be on the look-out in case anything happened.
For the whole of the following week while the frost held out and the snow continued to hold off, skating possessed us. As soon as we got home after school, out came our skates and down we raced to the river, despite Aunt Katia’s protests that we should have our meal first. We simply could not afford to waste this last half-hour of winter daylight.
I was even more of a beginner on skates than Zena, and at first we staggered along, clinging precariously to one another. Then I discovered that if I ran as fast as if I had no skates on, I could keep my balance, and, at the end of the run, coast a long way without losing my grip on the ice. Stopping was the hardest thing of all, and often the easiest way was to fall. I fell so frequently that I soon had two large permanent bruises on my knees.
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It grew dark more quickly by the landing stage where the river was overshadowed by a high bank and the trees. Farther down the stream the ground flattened out into open meadows, and there it remained light considerably longer. We preferred to skate on that part of the river although it was outside my uncle’s property. The child Hovra was usually sent out to summon us home. She would stand on the landing stage under the dark trees and call out in her shrill little voice, telling us to ‘come quick’ because she was cold and afraid. But, heartlessly keen on our pleasure, we pretended not to hear her. In the end Stan would be sent along, or my uncle himself would come to the edge of the bank and in his hoarse voice demand how many times we had to be called before we came? Then we knew we had to come, even though I told myself that ‘Uncle could do nothing to me’, and Zena asserted that she ‘wasn’t afraid’ of her father. We clambered up the steps with our skates still on, and came into the dreary dining-room — our stockings damp to the knee, our hands numb, but our bodies and hearts glowing with exertion and the joy of it. For the first time since I had come to live with this family I saw Zena looking happy.
On Sunday we skated all day, coming in only for meals. We ventured some way along the river, discovering regions hitherto unknown and inaccessible because they lay at the back of other people’s property. On our side of the river there were orchards and kitchen gardens, but on the opposite bank the countryside seemed uninhabited, with birch woods climbing up the low hillside. The trees had lost all their foliage and the pale-blue sky shone gently through the delicate tangle of their boughs. The ground below was a patchwork of gold, brown, faded green and the silver of frost. The air was sharp and sonorous: it carried the swish of our skates and the sound of our laughter over the top of the trees — or so it seemed to us. The pain of early rising for school, the drudgery of sums, the grumbles of Aunt Katia were forgotten — the snow was going to hold off for ever!
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This bliss lasted a week. It was a dark morning when we were roused from our sleep and saw the garden, the yard and the surrounding fields obliterated under a white pall which had fallen on them during the night. The branches of the birch trees drooped under its weight, and it started falling again as we drove to school. It was our first sleigh ride of the year and Pinky wore a collar of little bells, but this distracted us only briefly from the distressing thought of ‘no skating from now on!’
The snow continued to fall, off and on, throughout the week. The overcast sky made the daylight short and it was dark by the time we got back from school. We waited impatiently for Sunday. If the snow were light and dry, Zena could perhaps persuade her father to let Stan sweep a track for us on the river ice. But it was damp and sticky, only fit for making snowmen with. Zena’s toboggan would not run on it down the gentle slope from the house to the gate.
During lunch my uncle teased Zena about her miserable looks. ‘Perhaps now you’ll find time to do some homework!’ he said. She burst into tears. Aunt Katia looked daggers at her husband.
‘Cry-baby . . . ’ he muttered and stalked out of the room.
When we returned from school on Monday we noticed that something had been happening in a small meadow at the side of the entrance gate. The blanket of snow which covered it had turned grey and looked hard and shrunken. Stan had talked in riddles as he drove us home: there was going to be a surprise for us, he said, not tonight, but perhaps tomorrow or the day after — that is, if God sent us some hard frost during the night . . .
A day or two later the layer of snow on the meadow, watered several times over, was transformed into ice. It was not so hard or smooth as the ice on the river, but it could be swept easily and it provided us with a quarter of an acre of skating space for the rest of the winter. I could hardly walk up the staircase at school for the pain in the calves of my legs.
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All schools like to show off their pupils and Russian schools were no exception. Preparations for a ‘spectacle’ to take place just before the Christmas holidays had been going on for some weeks. Girls were chosen from the higher classes to sing, recite poetry, play the piano and act a scene from a play. At the end of the show there was to be a tableau vivant in which some of the younger girls, dressed as flowers, angels, or butterflies, were to appear.
When Anna Avdyéevna told me I was to be one of these, I was thrown into a state of apprehension mixed with a feeling of being flattered by her choice. The apprehension was much stronger than the pleasure, and the more I thought of the prospect the more I dreaded it.
I have never quite understood why it is that some children — or adults for that matter — are paralysed with fear at the thought of facing an audience, however small, even if they have to do a minimum of talking or acting. What are the threats that haunt them on a subconscious level? A primitive memory of the power of the evil eye? A suspicion of a sneer behind the benevolent smiles of the spectators? A striving after impossible perfection and the fear of falling below the high standards one sets oneself? Whatever it is, it has had me in its grip for as long as I can remember, and it took me many years to learn to control it.
On this particular occasion I hoped to make my aunt’s lack of cooperation a pretext for not accepting the honour of being chosen. But, to my surprise and dismay, Aunt Katia declared herself quite willing to make my dress of goffred paper, stipulating only that I should be dressed as a bluebell, not as a forget-me-not, as Anna Avdyéevna wanted. It was easier to make, she said, and it would not matter from a distance so long as the colour was blue. Anna Avdyéevna agreed, and my fate was sealed! Not so long before, Zena would have been jealous of the attention her mother was giving to my affairs and envious of my being chosen to appear in a show. But now she was pleased on my account, wanting to help in the making of my dress and eager to see me on the stage. This made me feel that, having won her to my side by conquering my hostility towards her, I should be able to win another victory over myself and make myself look forward to my ordeal. I might have succeeded better if this occasion for enjoyment had not become overnight the cause of a new discord, as often happens in unhappy families.
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Zena wanted her mother to come with us to the school show. Aunt Katia declared that she had nothing to wear for such an occasion and refused to come. Uncle Vladímir grumbled about sending Stan and the horse to town twice on a winter night: he could not possibly be kept waiting for two or three hours to bring us back. Zena was quickly reduced to tears and I felt I was being blamed for bringing it all about. In the end my uncle decided he had to come with us, and on the night of the show we drove to town — the three of us squeezed into a sleigh meant for two - feeling not elated but miserable, and burdened with a large cardboard box containing my dress on our laps.
Our spirits rose a little when we saw the brightly lit windows of my school and were met outside by the porter Kondratiy who carried in my cardboard box and held the door open for us.
In the entrance hall Klementiy greeted us and told us that ‘the young ladies who take part in the show’ were ‘requested to report at the ladies’ common room’, while the visitors had to ‘proceed to the second floor hall’. Zena gave me an encouraging smile as we parted on the first floor landing.
In the women teachers’ common room, some of the older girls were helping the young ones to dress. There was already quite a cluster of ‘flowers’ and a few ‘angels’ ready to take their place on the stage when the time came. Mílochka was there, demanding attention, complaining that her wings would not stay upright. One of the ‘seniors’ quickly slipped my paper dress over my head and used some hairpins to fix my crown of artificial bluebells, specially ordered in a shop recommended by the school. Remembering the many occasions on which reality proved very different from what I had imagined, and anticipating disappointment, I allowed myself only a brief glance into a looking-glass. To my surprise and pleasure I hardly recognized myself — so much had my appearance been changed by my fluffed-up hair which Aunt Katia had put into paper curlers the night before. We were told that we could listen to the recitations and piano numbers from the back of the stage so long as we did not show ourselves — but the admiration I felt at the courage of the performers did not have the effect of increasing my own, any more than the contemplation of other people’s misfortunes makes our own easier to bear. Inexorably, the testing moment came. The curtains closed on the last piano player and we were hustled on to the stage and arranged in tiers. The angels had to stand on forms and the flowers were clustered in front and at the sides. We were told to stand absolutely still and try not to move even our eyes while the tableau was being displayed. I thought I felt my paper dress rustle with the thumping of my heart.
Slowly the curtains parted. I saw row upon row of faces, smiling faces, whispering lips . . . Were they laughing at us? . . . Talking about us? . . . The Headmistress and the Director were in the front row side by side. She was beaming and he, too, looked very pleased. Even Vera Petrovna, the stem French mistress, was smiling, while Anna Avdyéevna wore one of her coy expressions, her chin down, her eyes searching and coming to rest on me. In one of the middle rows I could see Zena craning her neck, and my uncle beside her — short, greying hair, coppery complexion, a fleshy nose. For the first time it struck me that they looked alike.
The tableau lasted two minutes: it felt like an eternity to me. As soon as the curtain was drawn, fond parents and friends burst on to the stage from the sides, praising and petting their offspring. I suddenly felt sad, deflated: there was no one there to make a fuss of me. Zena was too shy to come behind the scenes.
One of the older girls asked me whether I wanted to change, adding that we could keep our fancy dresses on if we wanted to.
‘I should keep yours on: you look very nice in it,’ said a voice I knew well behind me. I flushed with gratification as I turned to look at Anna Avdyéevna, who added: ‘There’s an empty seat beside me. You can, if you like, watch the end of the performance from there . . . ’
Undiplomatic, and thinking only of Zena’s disappointment if 1 failed to join her, I murmured that I had a cousin and an uncle in the audience.
‘Oh . . . ’ said Anna Avdyievna, her chin going up, her eyes becoming veiled. ‘You’d rather be with them ... of course.’ And with a swish of her skirts she left me standing there, feeling more forlorn than ever.
The drive back was even more unpleasant than the drive out. There was a head wind and it was snowing: the wind forced wet snow into every gap and chink in our bonnets and overcoats, melting inside them and finding its way to our bare wrists and necks. I was thinking of Anna Avdyéevna, of her displeasure and my embarrassment, wondering how I could have behaved differently without offending her or hurting Zena. Pinky went at a snail’s pace and we got home very late. My aunt was sitting up for us, her face colourless like an unleavened bun.
‘Well, what was it like?’ She addressed herself to Zena and me, ignoring her husband as usual.
‘We-ell . . . ’ said Zena, dissatisfied. ‘We saw Leda only for two minutes!’
‘How long did you expect a tableau vivant to last then? Half-an-hour?’ her lather scoffed.
Zena flushed and went out of the room with her eyes full of tears. Aunt Katia followed her. My uncle grunted and, with a shrug, withdrew into his own room. Left on my own, I picked up the glass of milk and a slice of rye bread left for me on the table, took it to my room, and, as I ate it, pondered on this depressing ending to an exciting day. It could have been so different if my uncle and aunt had been different people. Zena, I knew, was changing, but her parents remained stubbornly the same. Could grown-up people ever change?
I felt sorry for Zena, and my pleasure at the approach of Christmas was somewhat dimmed by picturing her sad and alone on her skates, without me to keep her company.
This second Christmas at home from school was made memorable by two events: I was able to hold my own on the skating rink, and I met my sister’s devoted man friend for the first time. My sister, my brother and I went to the skating rink together. I remembered it as a magical place where I was taken as a young child and given rides in a sliding chair by my reluctant elder brother. The clockmaker’s shop where the tickets were sold was a huge glass box up a flight of steps, and it was full of clocks which went on swinging their pendulums and ticking away at different speeds and paces, just as they did before. There was the same amiable little man with a round face and a pair of round spectacles behind the counter, and, as before, you could not hear what he said to you for the noise made by the clocks. The rink, enclosed by high banks, had the same greenish-blue ice, only it looked somewhat smaller and the trees around it taller than they had been. Everything was much the same as before except myself - because now I could skate!
My sister and I skated together, our hands linked, our arms crisscrossed. My brother skated separately: he had always been self-conscious about family groups. There were not many people at the rink: we had plenty of room to ourselves.
Vova glided up to us as we were turning round at the far end.
‘See who’s come,’ he told my sister. ‘Kolia Avílov. He’s just put on his skates.’
I suddenly felt my sister holding back, making my progress more difficult, and I glanced at her in surprise. She looked flurried. Was it because of the young man whose arrival my brother had announced? He now skated up to us, checking his speed smartly as he took off his cap.
‘Maroossia! How nice to see you! May I introduce myself to your sister? Your brother and I have already met.’
Kolia was a tall, plumpish young man with very fair hair, rather pasty complexion and kindly, tired-looking eyes behind thick spectacles. He was wearing a short black tunic with green piping and small epaulettes, the uniform of a student of the Institute of Rail and Road Engineering, one of the most selective schools for Higher Education. I knew that young men had to pass stiff examinations and be extremely good at mathematics before they could be accepted as students at that Institute. When they qualified they earned some of the highest salaries in the professions.
Kolia spoke to my sister softly, with a smile, saying something about skating in Petersburg. She shook her head, as if rejecting whatever it was he was offering. She accepted his arm however for a turn round the rink, and I, left on my own, ran forward and began practising ‘eights’ in the middle of the rink. Skating, I felt, was the nearest approximation to flying . . .
Kolia accompanied us to the house, and I wondered whether my sister would ask him in. She seemed to hesitate. Just then our sleigh drove up bringing my mother with her shopping. Maroossia had to introduce our companion. My mother invited him in to tea. He accepted — and stayed to supper. This kind of thing happened quite often at our house and other similar houses in Russia: people who ‘dropped in’ were asked to stay to a meal in the middle of the day and the invitation was frequently extended to tea and supper. There seemed always to be food to spare, even in quite modest households.
That night I asked my sister whether she liked Kolia. She replied: ‘His eyes are always red like a rabbit’s . . .’ and left me puzzled, wondering what it was she really felt for him.
During that Christmas holiday Kolia Avílov ‘dropped in’ quite often at our house. So did Shoora Martynov. It was left to my sister and myself to entertain them. As it happened, Shoora frequently entertained us all by reading extracts from his favourite poems. One of these was Alexéy Tolstoy’s satire on Russian history. Alexéy Tolstoy was a contemporary of Tsar Alexander II, and had been his childhood companion in play and study. This, however, did not prevent him from growing into a freethinker and an iconoclast. He was a ‘Westerner’: much that had happened in Russian history angered and disgusted him. He had no patience with the Slavophils who toned down and romanticized the barbarities of Russian life before Peter the Great. The poem Shoora liked reciting dealt in a burlesque vein with various events which in text books on Russian history were represented as highly creditable and even glorious; it emphasized their brutality, stupidity or falseness; and Shoora’s reading made every point tell, though he often spoiled the effect by gloating too obviously over the hypocrisy of the official version.
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