Loe raamatut: «The Treehouse & Other Stories», lehekülg 2

The Russian Teacher

Summer blazed in Moscow – late August, a couple of months after his mother's funeral in Blighty. It was a sultry day in the Russian capital with blue skies and high cumulus clouds over the Kremlin. John Stevens was walking fast from the metro at the bottom of Tverskaya Street towards Red Square. Looming to his left was the massive block of the Four Seasons hotel; on the right a series of semi-circular domes caught the eye. They reminded John of flying saucers. They were, in fact, light sources for the huge subterranean Okhotniy Ryad shopping mall: retail outlets on three underground floors. Streams of shoppers were going in and out, like ants to and from an ant hill.

He passed the statue of General Zhukov and strode into the shade of the slope leading up to the Resurrection Gate and into Red Square. The heat rose from the molten asphalt. The sun flashed in the Kremlin's windows. But, despite the humidity, he felt energized; he was glad to be back in Moscow.

John enjoyed his status as an Englishman in Russia. He felt like an actor on a stage in a brand-new production of himself – a reinvention, like the hero of Somerset Maugham's The Moon and Sixpence. Here, he was an exotic person, with new possibilities and opportunities – a new man. Adolescent excitement gripped the foreigner when he wandered the city's streets. He was still relatively fresh off the boat and the novelty of being in Moscow made every outing unfold in a spirit of adventure and romance. He discovered the city and uncovered its charms and hidden places by taking long walks. He remembered the thrill of strolling in Patriarch Ponds for the first time and seeing where Bulgakov had set the first scene of The Master & Margarita; and being on Red Square on his second night in Moscow, marvelling that he was actually standing in this iconic place. His walks were not the lacklustre plods he used to take through his hometown's familiar streets. Even the bleak areas on the outskirts of the city with their grim blocks and wide windy boulevards were fascinating, bold, and impressive in their utilitarian starkness.

John took care to be well groomed and dress well when he was out and about. He ate modestly and his marathon walks kept him in shape. Looking at the slim 55-year-old figure wearing a well-cut summer suit, slipping through the Resurrection Gate, you might have given him forty-five years, or perhaps a little younger. Near the entrance to the History Museum, he saw Stalin and Lenin, milling about – plotting in a huddle! John was hurrying to a rendezvous with his new Russian teacher. They had arranged to meet near the statue of Kuzma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky outside St Basils Cathedral.

When he got to the middle of the square, with Lenin's Tomb on the right and the ornate sprawling façade of the GUM shopping centre on the left, he stopped and looked at the crowds. He lit a cigarette and observed the scene. He saw another Stalin and Lenin having their photo taken with a trio of excited Chinese tourists who wielded their selfie-sticks like swords. Red Square was a photo opportunity, and many people were snapping away. He saw a couple kissing, passionately. The girl was trying to hold her mobile at the required angle to catch their snog. She looked at the result but was dissatisfied. So, they had to do it all over again; the boy didn't seem to mind. John looked towards the cathedral, wondering if he would be able to pick Natasha out. He had only seen a poor passport-type photo of her on the language school's website.

Then he saw what he thought must be her: a small figure, in a light grey jacket, out in the sun, looking towards the river that flowed behind the Kremlin. A slim slip of a girl wearing sunglasses. She looked tiny next to Ivan the Terrible's brainchild with its garish confection of coloured domes. He glanced at the big clock on the Spasskaya Tower. He was on time. He stopped about 25 paces in front of her. He had an odd feeling that he would remember this moment forever. The scene was a picture, a postcard, a poem: a girl standing in a pool of sunlight next to Saint Basil's Cathedral, its iconic candy floss domes etched like mad balloons against a clear blue sky. Boats were going by on the river. They were filled with sightseers gawping at Moscow resplendent in the late-afternoon sunshine.

Natasha wore her black hair in a bob. She had a Slavic cast to her chiselled face, the high cheek bones of an eastern European woman. She was standing still, (in John's fancy, a statue of a small Russian girl), processing the people coming and going. She was looking for him. He noticed she was wearing a red blouse, buttoned to the throat. A pendant with a silver cross caught the sunlight – a slanted Orthodox cross. She wore a light grey skirt to match her jacket. Her slender brown legs were bare. On her feet she wore stylish open-toed sandals with a high wedge. John noticed that her toenails were painted black. He thought that a little strange. Natasha looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties, certainly not some agonised Emo teenage girl. Didn't women usually go for brighter colours?

She looked in his direction, scanning the people until her gaze fixed on him. She took off her sunglasses and waved. A man selling ice cream from a stall winked at John as he went forward to greet the girl. Perhaps the ice cream man thought she was his lover.

'You must be Mr. Stevens!' said Natasha, speaking Russian, looking up intently into his face.

'Yes,' he said, showing his passport, stabbing a finger at the gruesome photo. 'Here! Believe it or not, that really is me.'

'I don't need your passport!' she said brusquely.

John thrust his passport back in his jacket pocket. 'And you're Natasha Blishko from Donetsk, a post graduate student specializing in Russian literature, aren't you?' he said. There was a pause in which Natasha looked speculatively at John. He spoke Russian correctly, if a little formally. 'It's okay,' he continued. 'I'm not clairvoyant. It's on the school's website.'

'Yes,' she said. 'I am from Ukraine, eastern Ukraine – Donbass!' She emphasized 'Donbass'.

They stood in silence for a few moments. Some monks hurried with odd hopping steps into the cathedral. They reminded John of crows. He recalled that crows were ill-fated creatures in Russian folklore; in English, of course, it's a murder of crows! Perhaps an inappropriate image for a benediction of monks! He didn't know what to say. It was too complicated to explain in Russian. He shook her hand. 'On the phone, you said you'd recognize me.'

'Of course! You don't look or carry yourself like a Russian man. And you shook my hand. A dead giveaway.'

'Was that a bad thing to do?'

'No. it's nice. Respectful, I suppose. But Russian men don't shake women's hands; they only shake other men's hands.'

'Yes, I've noticed that, but I don't see why hand-shaking should be restricted to one sex.'

Natasha sucked on the temple-tip of her sunglasses and looked him up and down. Her expression was serious and critical, like a casting agent. 'And you look very English,' she said, with a note of sarcasm. 'Quite tall, good carriage, an immaculate tailored suit, white shirt, crisp and clean, nice shoes, and certainly not a Russian face.'

'Well, I try to look alright,' said John, lamely.

'You look like you're out on a date,' said Natasha curtly. 'How clean-shaven and how sweet-smelling you are! What aftershave is that?'

'What?' said John, taken aback.

'It smells expensive.'

'Expensive?' he echoed stupidly.

'Look, you should understand, Mr. Stevens, I am not your date – I will possibly be your Russian teacher.'

John stared at her. She had wrong-footed him. Natasha looked stern, almost hostile. 'Horosho? Ponyuli?' she said.

'OK, understood,' he said holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender. She smiled and thawed a few degrees. Natasha wasn't used to meeting someone who looked and sounded like a character in a foreign movie. And he spoke Russian well, a little stiffly and deliberately, but with a charming British musicality to his pronunciation. She was in truth a little overawed by this suave Englishman, so she had gone on the attack, accusing him of something predatory and male. Also, Natasha Blishko was somewhat prejudiced when it came to Westerners these days.

'I teach English here,' said John, breaking the awkward silence. 'To business people. So, I suppose I dress like them.'

'Were you going to bring me a rose?'

'What?' said John, landing on another wrong foot.

'I thought that was what a British gentleman did.'

'But you're my Russian teacher,' he said, regretting that he hadn't brought a rose, carried a copy of The Times and sported a black brolly with a decent rosewood handle. Natasha had not answered the question: 'Will you be my Russian teacher?'

'Perhaps, I will agree to be.'

They started to walk back across the square. Natasha wondered how old John was. Forty-three, perhaps? Again, he broke the silence. 'Is it customary to bring a rose to one's Russian teacher?'

'Only on the first of September. And probably better a bunch, not a single rose.'

'It's still August,' said John.

'Yes,' she said, looking straight ahead at the red brick heap of the History Museum. 'Flowers must be given to school teachers on the first day of the school year, which is on the first of September.'

'Does every child bring flowers?'

'Yes, it's compulsory. God knows what they do with them all.'

'Open a florist?'

'Don't you think there are enough of those in Moscow?' said Natasha, without a trace of irony.

'I suppose so,' said John, laughing. 'They're on every street corner!' The number of florists in Moscow was one of the first things John had noticed about the city. Flower shops, dentists and beauty salons were ubiquitous. If there wasn't one on this corner, there would be one on the next. What had also struck him about Moscow was the number of stunningly beautiful women there were. He played a game in the metro, on the escalators, to see how many beauties he would spot – whether he was going up or down. The count often got into double figures. It seemed you couldn't walk ten paces without encountering a goddess who looked as though she had stepped straight from the pages of Vogue. Perhaps the proliferation of florists and beauty salons was in direct proportion to the abundance of beautiful women in the city.

As they strolled along, they discussed the terms of his lessons and what his precise requirements were. John had thought about it: improve his speaking, extend his vocabulary and get to grips with some Russian poets. And some recent Russian history, events in Ukraine and so forth. He was happy to be back in Moscow. The last few weeks in the UK had been wearing with the funeral and the general atmosphere of the place; it had left him feeling exhausted.

'How long have you been living here?' asked Natasha.

'18 months and three days,' said John.

'So precise! Are you a spy or something?'

John stopped and looked her. She met his gaze with an even look without a trace of irony. Staring into those dark, inscrutable Slavic eyes caused John's throat to tighten. He couldn't tell if she was joking. He decided she must be and responded: 'A spy?' he said, coughing a cigarette cough. 'Yes, I am! I'm spying on you right now, here on Red Square. And you know what? – the man over there selling ice cream is really my contact. That flower in his lapel is actually a camera. If you like, we could have our picture taken with Lenin and Stalin, and you could use it in evidence against me.'

'Lenin and Stalin?' said Natasha, seriously, scanning the square for the notorious duo. Was there a flicker of a smile? She turned back and fixed John with piercing eyes, which he felt himself being drawn into for just a fraction too long. Natasha smiled. 'Are you teasing me with your British humour?'

John pointed out Comrades Lenin and Stalin who were shambling about their iconic station, waiting to have their picture taken for posterity, an image that would possibly be framed by the proud owner and which might sit and gather dust on a mantelpiece in Shanghai or Stockholm. John said he thought it strange that such towering historical figures were reduced here, on this fulcrum of history, to posing and strutting for tourist snaps. The same happened in Saint Petersburg in the great square in front of the Winter Palace, where a number of Peter the Greats were a perrenial feature, stalking about in high black boots and three-cornered hats, hunting down tourists for photo ops.

'Even Lenin has to make a living,' said Natasha. A shadow of a smile hovered like a reticent break in the clouds on her face. John was glad that behind her apparently steely exterior there was a hint of a sense of humour. 'Lenin lives!' he said.

'You speak Russian well, Mr. Stevens.'

'Just call me, “John”, please.'

'Alright. You speak pretty good Russian, John!'

'I'd like to speak it better,' he said. 'That's why I came to you.'

John told her that he had studied history at university. He had always been fascinated by Russia and particularly its past 100 years or so. He had also been a student of the language for more than 25 years. And he was a poetry addict. English poetry, mainly, but also Russian verse. He fumbled between translations and the originals. He recited his loves: 'Pushkin, Blok, Mayakovsky, Yesenin, Akhmatova, Pasternak…'

'And etcetera,' said Natasha, cutting him off. 'So, you understand something of the Russian soul?' There was a hint of derision in her voice.

'You will have to be the judge of that.'

They had reached Manege Square. They turned left through the great wrought iron gates into Alexander Gardens. John stopped and looked to the left, at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier by the Kremlin's walls. There was a guard standing stock-still in that frozen attitude only guards and certain street artists can achieve. For something to say, John explained that the remains of unknown soldiers killed in the Battle of Moscow in 1941 were relocated to the Kremlin Wall in 1966 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the battle.

'History is a bitch!' said Natasha, interrupting him sharply.

John nodded, agreeing that it was indeed a bitch. Natasha said she was more interested in the history of recent dark events, which, she added, were 'a fucking bitch'. John was surprised by her sudden use of mat, a curse word: fuck – not in super polite use. Otherwise, she spoke very clean and articulate Russian with few of the parasitic phrases that are common in everyday speech: the taks, the vots and the kagbes.

They turned right and ambled down towards the Neglinka, a subterranean river that surfaced in the gardens. Along this stretch there were a number of statues of characters from Russian fairy tales, culminating in an impressive ensemble of horses and a fountain representing the four seasons. There was a lot of shrieking coming from youngsters messing about in the spray near the horses. They were static, yet potent and impressive statues caught by the sculptor in bold leaping attitudes.

'Ah look,' said John. 'Pushkin's magic golden fish!'

'You want to study Russian fairy tales?'

'Not particularly. I've read a few of them.'

'In Russian?'

'Of course!'

'Good,' said Natasha. 'But these are difficult times and I doubt fairy tales will help us.'

'Actually, I'm more interested in Russian poetry, and you're an expert on the subject.'

'It's a big subject. There's a lot of it. What have you read most from your list?'

'Pushkin, I suppose. Although I speak Russian well enough, the language of poetry is another matter – it's difficult. The syntax is dense. Translations can be awful. Usually pale imitations of the originals, like a cartoon of the Mona Lisa!'

'OK,' said Natasha. 'Choose a poem you like and we'll talk about it next time.'

'So, you agree to teach me?'

'I suppose I do.'

They strolled on in silence through the fragrant gardens. A warm breeze blew through the chestnut, magnolia and acacia trees. A bride and groom were cavorting on the lawn near one of the magnolias. They were having their picture taken by an harassed photographer who was shouting at them to stand still, and pose. How charming, thought John. Natasha eyed the scene and clicked her tongue dismissively. She again resorted to a curse word and said something that might be translated as: 'Fucking brides, what are they like!' John was about to say that the bride would be… by the groom in a few hours, but thought better of it – not the sort of the thing for a middle-aged English gentleman to say to a young Russian woman during a first meeting. And, anyway, he would not stoop to using mat – curse words in Russian.

They stopped in front of a huge flower bed, where a kaleidoscope of astra, gardenia and jasmine swayed in the breeze. Natasha was pocket-sized – about five foot two inches tall, slender and frail-looking as the flowers, but John sensed steel beneath her petals: a dymovuska with attitude – a small lady who packed a punch. Her face was beautiful but not in any conventional, sweet and soft feminine way. She was no ethereal nymph; there was a hardness in her face that implied a steely pride. Her dark eyes telegraphed melancholy. And she was forthright: what was on her mind came straight out of her mouth, undissembled.

'You have to go now,' she said, breaking the silence. She sounded brusque, like a schoolteacher.

I have to go?' said John. 'Where to?'

'How should I know where to? I'm meeting someone here in a few minutes.'

'Oh, I see,' said John. 'Well…'

'Meet me here on Monday at 11 am and we'll begin our odyssey through Russian verse.' She made shooing motions with her hands. 'Off you go!'

John left her by the flower beds.After walking 60 metres or so, he stopped and loitered near Pushkin's famous fish. He was looking in the direction of Red Square, but then he couldn't resist turning his gaze to where he had just left Natasha. He saw that a large, untidy-looking young man with a wild mane of hair was talking to her. He was gesticulating violently, shooting his arms up in the air, as if imploring some implacable god who remained deaf to his pleas. John couldn't hear what he was saying but the young man seemed agitated. Suddenly, Natasha hit him hard in the stomach, at which the man picked her up and swung her round as if she weighed no more than a bag of flour. He put her down and they started walking off, still arguing, in the direction of Christ the Saviour. John watched them go. They made an odd couple: a large man and a small woman receding in the hazy light of the gardens, arguing. And then it struck him: it was very possible that, during the course of a brief stroll and short conversation with his new Russian teacher, he had fallen or was falling in love. He idled a while longer in the gardens and then headed towards the metro. There are just too many pretty girls in this town, he thought.

The Guitar

The guitar stands in the corner, in shadowed gloom. A venerable old lady. Sad and neglected in her widow's weeds of dust and cobwebs. He hasn't touched her for months, not since the accident. Her strings have oxidized and gone black. The frets are as dusty as old railroad tracks. Sometimes he picks the guitar up and cradles her as though he were embracing a woman. He goes to her now, plucks a desultory, out-of-tune chord, sighs, and stands the guitar back in its corner.

He has left his soul in that beautiful box. God knows! He has shed blood and pints of sweat on its steel strings. Not to mention tears. He remembers they had to live on baked beans for months when he bought her. 4,000 bucks! Hells bells! It cleaned him out. But Marie had encouraged him to buy it, wanted him to buy it, needed him to buy it.

'You got to have a good guitar, Mike,' she said. 'The tone on that Japanese thing kind of sucks. It's too thin and jangly.'

'Yeah, you're right. But 4,000 bucks?'

'You like the guitar, right?'

'Honey! I love it. The tone is so rich and she plays real nice. She's a dream machine, almost as beautiful as you.'

Marie smiled at that and flashed her eyes at him. 'Buy it!' she said, emphatically. 'In fact, I order you to buy it. We need a good instrument for recording our songs.'

So he bought it and they lived on baked beans for a while. Marie kidded him that he paid more attention to his beloved guitar than to her. But she was pleased. She loved to listen to him picking, and his playing really blossomed on that guitar. Furthermore, she needed a professional tone to sing to, one that would complement the golden phrases she conjured out of her mouth. And she had that in Mike's new guitar – a thoroughbred that became a workhorse.

She is indeed a magnificent guitar: a Martin D-28, a big bodied acoustic, known as a dreadnought: solid spruce top, turned a rich orange colour with age, with sumptuous East Indian rosewood back and sides. A richly resonant beast of an instrument. She made a hell of a noise in his hands. This noble machine, built by C. F. Martin & Company of Nazareth, Pennsylvania, would resound with gorgeous bursts of fingerstyle that blossomed from his fingers like wild and wonderful flowers; but now, she is reduced to the status of a dust-blown ornament.

Sometimes, at night, when he is lying in bed, the silhouette of the guitar catches his eye. She looks so lonely there, cast off in the corner, as if she were saying, 'What happened? Why have you forsaken me?' While his guitar was gently weeping, he would turn over and think about Marie and life on the road. At one time, they were going places. Literally. Tonight, Abilene, tomorrow Kansas City, the next night St Louis, and so on. And the guitar went, too, of course. Without her, it wouldn't have been possible. After all, Mike had to speak through her to make the music.

He has hardly played the Martin for almost 18 months now. When he picks her up, all he can hear is a golden voice soaring in his mind in perfect counterpoint to the plucking and strumming of the strings. He used to play everything on that D 28: ragtime; old country tunes; the blues; a little bit of jazz; neo-classical; Irish and English folk tunes; the Beatles; Bob Dylan, and their own songs.

He goes to a shelf and pulls out a CD. He stares at the cover: a boy and a girl. The boy holds a Martin D-28, trying to look cool, like Johnny Cash, in front of the camera; the girl wears a black cowboy hat and blue jeans like the boy. She is slim and beautiful. Her long hair cascades from her hat in luxuriant chestnut waves over her shoulders. She is smiling at the camera. Her eyes are the colour of desert sands. The legend on the CD reads: Mike and Marie.

He remembers the recording sessions they did for a small independent label in Nashville. Half the songs were their own compositions and half were standards, such as Somewhere Over the Rainbow. He recalls Gerry the sound engineer weeping when he was mixing. She has the voice of an angel! Gerry kept saying that as he mixed the tracks.

They launched the CD to some critical acclaim. One writer repeated what Gerry had said. It was published in black and white for all the world to read: Marie Shines has the voice of an angel. They began to get radio play. They trailed round the country singing their songs, promoting their album. It was an adventure out there on the road. They were young, in love, and in the groove with their music. A repertoire and a reputation were being built. Mike and Marie had a bright future.

He is sitting on his bed looking at the guitar, remembering her rich, ringing tones: solid bass response, bell-like trebles and clear, mud-free mid-tones. The guitar is staring back at him. The sound hole resembles an agonized rictus, a mouth screaming. Suddenly, a blackbird flies in the open window. Strangely, it doesn't flap about the room, panic-stricken, like birds normally do in confined places. Instead, the bird alights straight on to the Martin's headstock. It stays there for a few moments, calmly regarding Mike. It seems like the bird is appraising him. A musical reflex starts him singing, Blackbird singing at the break of day… The blackbird cocks its head and flies out of the window.

He lies back on the bed, hands clasped behind his head, and ponders this startling event. Was it a sign? An omen of some kind? Was the universe trying to tell him something? Perhaps there was no significance to it. A blackbird had simply flown into his room and back out again. Just a random, meaningless event.

However, the next thing that happens makes him think the universe is actually yelling at him. The radio is playing. One song finishes and another begins. Instantly recognizable, it stabs at his heart, sharp as a thrust from a dagger. He picks up the guitar and hugs it tight to his chest. There are tears in his eyes. Somewhere over the rainbow… The voice of an angel swells from the radio, an achingly beautiful soprano that touches his heart and ravages its strings.

He grabs the Martin, and quickly tunes the old dreadnought into some semblance of order. On the dull and lifeless strings he tries to play along with himself and Marie on the last verse. He realizes he is rusty and out of practice – as dull as the strings from which he is attempting to coax some tone. He plays the final Ab chord and tears splash on the rosewood. He gets up and puts the guitar back in its corner place.

But for one bum piece of ice!

It was a refrain that kept going round in his head – a needle stuck in a groove repeating the phrase over and over. In a minor key. Plangent and bleak – Black ice. It was a song title. Marie would have written the words and he would have set her poetry to music. For it was poetry she wrote, not silly pop lyrics. The words she sang so sublimely could be read as poems without any musical accompaniment. They were caviar versus bubblegum!

 
We were headed for Paradise
And the blacktop rode so nice
But for one bum piece of ice
 

On a winter's night, after a gig in Buffalo, he lost control of the pick-up, and slid off the road into a tree. And that, as they say, was that. He survived, and he suffers the guilt of the survivor every single day. For some fool reason, Marie hadn't been wearing her safety belt. Why hadn't he paid attention and forced her to wear it? But he hadn't. So, she and her angelic voice departed on the spot to join an angels' choir. For Mike, that was the day the music died.

For a few moments, he stands by the window, gazing at the park across the street. There are some kids clustered round the ice-cream stand at the entrance, jabbering their orders in excited squeals at the ice-cream guy. Mike watches them stream into the park, listening to their chatter and laughter slowly fading away. There is something infectious about their joyous enthusiasm. His face cracks into a broad grin, a rare thing these days.

It's a lovely spring day with fluffy flotillas of cloud drifting down the blue lanes of the sky, and a warm breeze is blowing, teasing the thin green curtains into a gentle sway. Too nice to stay indoors! Life was happening out there, exuberant, vital and bursting.

He leaves the small apartment and goes for a walk in the park, down to the pond with its willow trees wilting like mourners along its banks. But he doesn't feel like weeping with them. Not today! Yesterday, he might have. Today, he has a different feeling. He remembers that he and Marie would often stroll down to the pond and feed the ducks, speak duck language to them, quacking like fools, and then shriek with laughter. On fine days, they would bring the guitar and a picnic. They would gaze into each other's eyes and play a few tunes. On the way home, the universe whispers, and he stops at a music store to buy some new guitar strings.