Just before he leaves the room he sees Lika’s letter on the bedside table and now he remembers why he went to bed so angry and why he slept so badly. He picks it up and folds it away in his jacket pocket. She was trying to tell him something, in her cryptic way, but he needs some coffee before he can attempt to decode her flirtatious chatter.
In the breakfast room no plates have been laid out and the lamps are not lit. In the kitchen he can hear Mariushka shouting at someone. Roman? No, Efim – he’s not fed the chickens…
Olga, the kitchen maid, comes in and gives a little cry of shocked surprise seeing him sitting there at the table.
What’s wrong, Olga? he says, keeping the irritation out of his voice. She moves around the room lighting the oil lamps.
Oh, I just didn’t expect to see you, sir.
Did you know I was in the house?
Of course, sir, you came a week ago.
And when I’m here do I not come in for breakfast every morning?
Yes, sir, you do.
So, in the morning it’s not unreasonable to say that you might expect to see me sitting here waiting for my breakfast.
I don’t understand, sir.
Be a good girl and fetch me some coffee.
He takes out Lika’s letter and spreads it on the table in front of him.
‘Dear naughty uncle, dear gentle daddy, I beg you on my knees to come to Paris where your adoring and adorable Lika needs to see you –’
A scratching on the floor, like a few seeds in an empty gourd, and he looks up to see Quinine, his dachshund, waddle into the room from the kitchen.
Hello, fatso, he says and clicks his fingers. Quinine wanders over and sniffs at his fingers and looks at him resentfully because there is no food on offer.
Have we ham, Mariushka? he calls into the kitchen.
No ham.
Have we veal?
Veal, yes, sir.
Bring me some bread and cold veal with my coffee.
Quinine stands there, his front feet bowed and his paws splayed, and then yawns.
You shall have food, he tells his dog, just be patient.
‘Dear naughty uncle, dear gentle daddy…’ He has asked her many, many times not to call him uncle. But now ‘daddy’ – even though she’s only twenty-four, this is intolerable. He begins to compose his reply in his head: ‘My dearest toddler, my darling little munchkin…’ but he could already hear Lika’s low and hearty laugh. How she would find this amusing – strapping Lika, with her broad shoulders and small, soft breasts, her flaxen hair, her lazy, hooded eyes that looked as if she were perpetually about to fall asleep. ‘Flaxen’, that’s the word for her hair: its blonde exuberance, its preposterous, curling mass…
He hears his father kick off his boots at the kitchen door and pad across the floor.
Oh, it’s you, his father says as he enters, have you calmed down yet?
What is the man talking about? he thinks as he watches his father cross the room searching his pockets for something.
Olga comes in with the coffee.
There you are, sir, hot as lava.
Thank you, Olga: now what about some milk, some bread, some cold veal? She’s running back to the kitchen. And a damn cup!
He stares at the pot of coffee. There’s a small bunch of cherries painted on the side. Or are they tomatoes? What is it Potapenko calls me? King of the Medes.
Still in a bad mood, eh? says his father, filling his pipe. If you go to sleep angry it can ruin your digestion for a week. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
In the yard Roman is stacking new pairs of cart shafts. He looks round.
Morning, sir, wonderful morning. They talk about the weather, how last week’s rain ruined the clover.
He asks Roman: who ordered these cart shafts?
I did, sir.
Are the old ones finished? Broken?
Oh, no, they’re fine, sir.
So why do we need new ones?
We always order new cart shafts before the summer haymaking.
He looks round and notices Quinine, fortified with veal, snarling at the yard dog.
Have you seen my sister? he asks Roman.
In the vegetable garden, sir.
He walks through the yard and around the side of the house past the veranda towards the vegetable garden. He can see Masha earthing up the young potato shoots, but urgently, furiously, as if a flood were coming or a tempest and this was her last chance to complete the task. Everybody in a sour mood today, he realizes.
Morning, he says. I’d offer to help but I’d drop down dead.
Which might be best for all of us, Masha says.
I refuse to respond to this, he thinks.
We have to get rid of that yard dog, he replies instead. He’ll eat Quinine for lunch one of these days.
Masha says nothing.
What have I done, Masha? Tell me and I’ll make amends.
It’s what you’re not doing that outrages me, she says, finally turning to face him.
He sighs. But I like Potapenko, he’s my friend.
Your ‘friend’ is having an affair with your mistress. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you but you should know.
Of course I know, I’m not that stupid. Anyway, Lika’s told me. She wrote to me about it.
Masha balances her fork on its tines, lets go and watches it fall to the ground.
That is possibly the most disgusting thing I’ve heard.
Look, we’re all grown-ups. We’re not children –
It’s a grotesque betrayal of you, she says, of your friendship with him, and of our hospitality to him. How can you see him, how can you go travelling with him?
He’s excellent company. He looks after my affairs brilliantly.
Masha stamps past him out of the garden. Call yourself a man, she shouts over her shoulder.
I just want Lika to be happy, he yells after her. Life’s too short.
He goes to his study. As he clears a space on his desk he notices that someone has placed a sheet of paper on top of the manuscript of his latest story on which is written the title ‘The Man with the Big Arse’. He crumples it up with a smile. Potapenko. But then thinks: what was he doing in my study?
He tries to draft out a reply to Lika but finds it difficult going so he reads her letter again and senses his anger returning. ‘All the women in this hotel look at me askance as if they know some secret about me. Come and rescue me, daddy dear, and we will travel together – Switzerland, Sweden, Morocco. You would be well in Morocco with its palm trees and endless sunshine. Perhaps I’d let you have a dancing girl or two…’
He looks at the date at the top of the letter and makes some elementary calculations. Of course, Potapenko was in Paris too, now. So how could she write like this to him? Was she waiting for Potapenko to arrive or had he just left her?
In new acid-biting anger he picks up his pen. ‘Accept a farewell kiss from an old man, Lika, my darling. She who travels alone, travels furthest. Let me sit here on my estate with my memories and my problems. Kirghiz, the bay gelding, needs the horse doctor. We have only seventy ducklings this year. Last week’s rain has ruined the clover. Tell your smart Parisian friends of the things which preoccupy me –’ He crumples up the piece of paper. No: revolting self-pity. He must find a way of being careless and carefree, brilliant and witty. That’s what will wound her: his vast insouciance.
Lunch is eaten in almost silence. Masha refuses to respond to his few attempts at mollifying her. He compliments her on the white salmon, on the cucumbers, but she pays no attention. His father – who enjoys seeing his children quarrel – eats noisily with a smile on his face. His mother, who hates confrontation of any kind, seems to shrink into herself, often closing her eyes as if she’s at prayer. At the end of the meal his father belches and is careful to make a small sign of the cross in front of his gaping mouth.
He goes for a walk, longing to be alone. Quinine follows him for a minute or so then grows bored and waddles
back home. He skirts the orchard and strolls down the lane towards the river. A sudden, stiffish breeze combs the leaves of the willows – their silver undersides glinting in the sunshine like a flashing shoal of fish darting amongst weeds. Too complicated a simile, he thinks, admiring the graceful, supple willows nonetheless, as they bend and recoil to the invisible urgings of the wind. Across the watermeadows he can see the mill on the outskirts of the village. In the east heavy clouds build. More rain, just when the clover looked like it might recover. Yes, of course, he must talk about Potapenko. How perfect: a long letter to Lika about Potapenko and their plans for the Volga trip – from Iaroslavl to Nizhni and then down the Volga to Tsaritsyn and from there to Taganrog. Nothing could be more telling, nothing could better convey the scale of his utter indifference to her betrayal.
He takes out her letter and a pencil to make some notes and his eye is caught by a few phrases: ‘This is a cold unfriendly city of secrets and whispered rumours. Your poor Lika eats pastries to console herself and is turning into a giantess. Will you still love me if I’m fat, beloved intolerant uncle? They say it helps you sing better which is why all opera singers are fat. When I’m back with you I’ll sing you a lullaby –’
Then the thought comes to him: it’s not all about Lika… After all, there’s the prospect of the three-week holiday in the company of Potapenko, a holiday in the full knowledge of what has gone on between him and Lika. Perhaps the Volga trip’s not such a good idea after all… But he has to meet Potapenko in Moscow, anyway: they have to sort out that business with Suvorin. He walks on, absentmindedly hitting out with his stick at the nettles and burdocks growing alongside the river path. He should see Aleksandra in Moscow: lithe, dark Aleksandra who wants him so fervently. That last letter had been extraordinary – with its talk of heat and ardour and French kisses… Which reminds him: he has to talk to Blago-veshchensky about establishing a proper post-office at Lopasnia. That would mean letters every day, and parcels too, without having to go all the way to Serpukhov –
He hears his name being called and looks round to see Efim running towards him, a piece of paper fluttering in his hand.
He is glad of the summons, he tells himself. Whatever nonsense it may portend at least it’s some kind of a distraction – take his mind off Lika and Potapenko.
Beside him, Roman taps Cossack Girl, the new mare, on her haunches with the end of his whip and whistles at her through his teeth.
Come on, Cossack Girl, show the master how fast you can go. Come on, my lovely girl.
She tosses her head and mane, the flies bothering her, and plods along steadily.
Why has she got no bridle? he asks Roman.
She can’t take the bit, sir.
So you just harness her with rope? It doesn’t look very smart.
If I put a bit in her, sir, we’d be off the road in a second.
Did you know this when you bought her?
Oh, yes. Yes, yes.
They have reached the outskirts of Talezh. Roman gently wheels Cossack Girl into a right turn and the railway station comes into view.
Where are you going?
To the school, sir.
We’re going to the new school, not the old school.
Ah, right. And where would that be, sir?
Behind the courthouse.
Roman heaves on the reins, dismounts and leads Cossack Girl round in a 180-degree turn before climbing back on board. They set off again.
He sits patiently outside the headmaster’s office, waiting. The headmaster’s secretary is heating up the samovar so they can have some tea. She brings him a plate of small sugary cakes. He declines. She apologizes for the third or fourth time and says the headmaster will be with him in a matter of minutes.
While she busies herself with the samovar he takes out Lika’s letter and smoothes it on his knee. ‘You mustn’t be cross with me, ogre-ish daddy-monster. I hardly see Potapenko because his wife is here with him and we must keep our secret. To everyone in this horrible hotel I’m a married lady. So write to me as Madame and not Mademoiselle and don’t be angry with your lovelorn, getting-fatter-every-day, sweet-toothed, not-so-little Lika…’
‘Secret’. How many times had she used the word ‘secret’? A sudden, aching image of her comes into his mind as he reads this. That time when they spent three days at the Hotel Loskutnaia. He had come back unexpectedly and, wanting to surprise her, had tiptoed through the hall and peered round the door of the sitting room. She was standing in her nightdress looking out through a gap in the muslin curtains at the street, a wand of sunlight setting her hair ablaze. But her eyes were unseeing: she was thinking, frowning, as if she were trying to remember some elusive fact, her lips pushed forward in a pout, one hand idly caressing her plump left breast. He watched her for twenty seconds before he coughed politely and she turned to greet him, the frown and the pout erased by a widening smile on her broad, beautiful face.
He follows the headmaster down the wooden stairway (creaking like a caveful of bats) towards the courtyard.
Are these new stairs?
Everything is new, sir.
Then this joinery is lamentable.
We cannot find the craftsmen, sir. They’ve all gone to the cities, looking for money. We do our best with the dross that remains.
The headmaster steps into the courtyard and turns to face him. He is a lean man of average height and horribly bald – little tufts of hair around his ears and above his neck. He has let the whiskers on his cheeks grow long in compensation and consequently looks like a monkey. An oriental monkey – what were they called? Macaques? Gibbons?
There you have it, sir, the headmaster says ruefully. What should we do?
He looks around the courtyard. Three storeys: the ground floor stone, the top two wood. The bust of Count Nicolai Khobotov on its granite plinth squarely in the middle. The headmaster raises a pointing hand, dramatically.
At the level of the eaves a net has been strung covering the entire area of the courtyard below. In the middle of the net a pigeon is trapped fast, its wings askew, its feet splayed, almost as if it were trying to turn on to its back but had been frozen halfway through the manoeuvre.
He steps out into the courtyard and looks up at the hapless bird. A pink claw paddles the air.
It’s alive, he observes.
Very much so, the headmaster says. That is our problem.
Why did you have the courtyard netted like this?
Against the pigeons. They would perch on the statue, you see. They defecated on the statue. After a weekend the statue would be grey with pigeon filth… The headmaster lowers his voice, takes the soft right wing of his whiskers in the fingers of his right hand and draws it to a point. Count Khobotov is our honoured patron, the honorary chairman of our school board, the headmaster explains. He most honourably allowed us to name the school after him. He honours us with impromptu visits –
– Does he live near here?
One of his estates is close by. He comes each summer.
I never knew that.
Imagine if he came and saw his statue despoiled… The headmaster swallows, and places his hand on his throat. The net was the only solution. Have you any idea how much a net of this size costs? Or of the price demanded to fix it to the eaves, to hold it stretched securely in place, summer and winter, spring and autumn?
I’ve no idea.
Close to a thousand roubles.
He looks at the headmaster and feels sorry for this troubled, nervous man. But something is nagging at the back of his mind. Why have you asked me to come here?
Because of your gift, sir. My gift?
He remembers: last year he had given the new school at Talezh money to buy text books.
How much did I give you?
A thousand roubles, sir.
He paces around the courtyard waiting for Roman to return. Pacing around the courtyard under his very own net, he realizes. A thousand-rouble net that he has paid for to prevent the bust of Coun
t Khobotov being shat on by pigeons…
He has suggested to the headmaster that they take down the net and free the trapped bird, but he has been assured that the cost of finding workmen to do this job and then to replace the net securely would be prohibitive. It was clear to him, in his further discussions with the headmaster, that he was there to take responsibility. The headmaster’s logic ran in this manner: his gift had purchased the net, therefore he should take responsibility for the resolution of the current net/pigeon problem.
The headmaster appears and asks him if he would like more tea and cakes. He declines.
Has this ever happened before? he asks the headmaster.
Once. Last autumn, the headmaster says.
And what did you do?
Nothing. A pigeon was trapped and we couldn’t reach it. The bird died and we left its corpse there. Unfortunately it took many months before it decomposed and ultimately disappeared. Some of the younger pupils were distressed… The dead pigeon was very visible from the upper classrooms, you see. Week after week, month after month.
And what with Count Khobotov taking up his summer residence…
Precisely. That’s why we sent for you, sir. As it was only thanks to your generosity that we were able to fit a net in the first place.
Yes.
We felt you should be consulted.
Roman comes into the courtyard with the shotgun.
Shall I do it, sir? He asks.
No, no, I insist. This is my net after all. Whose gun is this?
A friend of my brother, sir. He’s a blacksmith. Lives right by the church.
He breaks the gun and checks that there is a cartridge in each barrel. Then he steps into the centre of the courtyard and aims upward. The bird suddenly begins to try and flap its pinioned wings as if somehow it knows it has only seconds to live.
He aims and he fires – both barrels simultaneously. The pigeon disappears in a cloud of feathers and shredded flesh and bone. There is a hole in the net the size of a man’s head.