Portraits without Frames Read online

before that, in the Chamber Theater.

  I once saw Koonen walking down Tverskoy.

  Her movements were slow and melodic,

  befitting a tragic actress.

  This was after the theater’s last show,

  after all the applause,

  after all the afters.

  This was after the letters

  her husband, Tairov, had sent

  up to the highest powers—

  down into that deep

  irresponsible abyss

  from which

  there was never

  response.

  It was a gloomy, windswept day,

  with clouds gathering over the theater.

  The night before, Koonen had played

  Adrienne Lecouvreur once more.

  And now—never again.

  The night before, she had watched in pain,

  although she had tried not to look,

  as the curtain fell

  one last time—

  as if a pall

  were falling on her life,

  as if the little sash

  inside the crematorium were drawing closed,

  and the deceased were entering the flames.

  There would be no more Adrienne,

  no Anita, and no more Phaedra,

  no Abbie, no Emma Bovary.

  Ah, the life of an actor!

  The roles one plays,

  but most of all—

  the roles one never plays.

  One longs for them.

  They hurt, these unplayed roles,

  like phantom limbs.

  Koonen is walking down the boulevard.

  Some passerby abuses a guitar.

  Some lady comes along, carrying a parrot.

  Koonen? Is it really Koonen?

  Yes, it’s Koonen! No mistake. It’s Adrienne!

  The theater’s banned now. The stage is boarded up—

  crossed planks across the door. But life goes on,

  as does that voice—an echo from an empty well.

  Koonen is walking down the boulevard.

  Yes, right before my eyes . . .

  Coming to meet her

  (yes, seeking her, drawn towards her

  all the way through life),

  a man is hurrying along, not quite at a run.

  This never changes. He is slightly stooped,

  dressed smartly, but he looks shaken.

  Approaching Koonen carefully, he bends forward,

  kisses her hand. This never changes—

  throughout his life. Gray locks of hair aspire to cover

  the ivory bald spot on the maestro’s head

  but cannot cover it completely. Life

  has been ruptured. But it’s Tairov, isn’t it?

  There’s no one like him now. And he had wanted

  to stage Macbeth. And his Macbeth

  went straight to hell.

  Tairov walks up to Koonen

  as if for the first time

  after a long, long separation. He’s in love—

  a love that’s mad, tender, hopeless.

  He speaks so quietly. She doesn’t say a word.

  She doesn’t blink. She simply looks at him

  intently, sadly, with surprise.

  He makes a little turn, as if inviting

  her to dance. But it’s no time for dancing.

  He takes her by the arm. And off they go—

  slow, sad, melodic.

  I cannot tear my eyes away.

  Yes, really, this all happened—

  before my eyes.

  There they go—quite real—a couple,

  there they go—half real—a vision,

  off they go—unreal—a dream.

  Off they go into the fog, forever,

  into the distance,

  into what can’t

  be known or measured.

  Translated by Boris Dralyuk

  GALINA ULANOVA (1910–1998) was one of the greatest ballerinas of the twentieth century. She was married to Yury Zavadsky, a famous actor and director. The critic Arnold Haskell wrote about her:

  My memories of Ulanova are, to me, a part of life itself, bringing a total enrichment of experience. To me, hers are not theatrical miracles but triumphs of human spirit. Where Pavlova was supremely conscious of her audience and could play upon its emotions as upon an instrument, Ulanova is remote in a world of her own, which we are privileged to penetrate. She is so completely identified with the character she impersonates that nothing outside exists.

  GALINA SERGEYEVNA ULANOVA

  You’ve never been to Lake Seliger?

  You really should go.

  It’s not difficult.

  By train to Bologoye,

  and then it’s not far to Ostashkov

  and Seliger. The upper reaches

  of the Volga. Valday

  and its bells. Peace, beauty;

  more space than your eyes

  can take in. In the morning

  I got on a little steamer.

  A handsome man was sitting on deck.

  He looked healthy, well nourished, as if

  he took good care of himself. But a little pale,

  hair graying and thinning.

  Heavens! It was Yury Zavadsky.

  I was on my way to a holiday camp.

  And Zavadsky? That will become clear

  in due course. In the morning I took a dinghy

  and I was tacking between the islands,

  the wonderfully green little islands

  of which there are so many on Lake Seliger.

  More than once I encountered

  two other dinghies, one pink

  and the other light blue.

  In one of them sat Galina Ulanova,

  and Yury Zavadsky was enthroned in the other.

  Ulanova’s smiling seriousness,

  and Zavadsky’s unsmiling

  seriousness. Everyone understood

  what was going on.

  No one said a word

  about what was going on.

  But I was just a student on holiday

  and I’d broken my glasses.

  Shortsighted, I was groping

  my way through life,

  and many of the world’s joys

  were, for the time being,

  lost to me. I was saved

  by my ear, my musical ear,

  which knew what was what

  in the world of sound. Come twilight,

  an ear for faraway sounds

  goes a long way.

  On the edge of the forest

  was a wooden stage

  where everyone met up in the evening—

  Muscovites, people from Petersburg,

  people from Tver.

  (Bologoye lies halfway, you see,

  between Moscow and Petersburg.)

  My friend Dmitry, whom I knew well,

  took me by the arm

  and led me ceremoniously

  to this sheltered spot

  where the spirited Zara Karageorgievna

  was infusing everyone with her spirit,

  calling them forward

  to the brightest of tomorrows.

  Her words were drowned

  by great waves

  of tangos, fox-trots, the occasional waltz.

  There was a small orchestra,

  augmented by amateurs

  from among the many

  professionals on holiday there.

  Dmitry began introducing me

  to the ladies. He kissed the hand

  of some, and kissed others

  demonstratively on the cheek.

  To one he said, “This young man

  is a friend of mine. His dream

  is to invite you to dance, but

  somehow he’s a little shy.”

  The young lady to whom Dmitry

  said these words was standing

  beside a lady called Timis,

  but her own name
went unmentioned.

  Very soon I was dancing

  a flowing tango with this nameless

  lady, my chief concern

  being not to step on her feet.

  Her dancing, I have to say,

  was exquisite. I could hardly

  even call it dancing.

  She was a piece of down

  in my hands, a teardrop,

  a snowflake brightening the air.

  Her body had canceled out

  everything bodily;

  it was as natural as a breath,

  as exultant as an exclamation

  over a wonderful dream.

  When the flowing tango was over,

  I took the lady back

  to where she had been before.

  I gave a deep bow.

  Then my friend Dmitry

  came up, took me by the elbow,

  and said quietly, to the strains

  of the next dance: “Do you realize

  who you were dancing with?”

  “She’s wonderful. She dances

  splendidly. Who is this downy

  snowflake?” “You were dancing

  with Ulanova. With Galina

  Sergeyevna Ulanova.” “No! Me—

  dancing with Galina Ulanova?

  Heavens above!” I rushed

  back to apologize: “I didn’t know,

  and if I had known, Galina

  Sergeyevna . . . Please forgive me

  my clumsiness and heavy-footedness.”

  “What do you mean? You dance

  very gracefully. You have

  an innate sense of rhythm.”

  It took me a long time

  to come back to my senses.

  It took me a long time

  to believe fate had granted

  me so unexpected a gift.

  Later, in my dinghy, out

  on the glassy lake, I passed

  close to those two most famous

  of sailors. I poured out apologies,

  regrets and repentances,

  never-ending, tedious

  apologies. Galina Ulanova

  simply waved an oar in the air

  with a charming smile

  and sailed on. I gazed

  in wonder

  at Giselle, at Prokofiev’s

  Juliet, swaying past

  in a simple dinghy.

  Translated by Robert Chandler

  FATHER

  He was a man with a family,

  but not a family man.

  A man of modest means,

  who’d pack a bag and knapsack

  full of bread, potatoes,

  meat, greens, and fruit,

  and take them round to people

  no one else would help.

  He’d help out if someone missed their train

  and had no money for another ticket.

  Sometimes people took advantage;

  they’d say they needed cash for a ticket

  but spend it on vodka instead.

  Father would come to watch

  these people board their trains,

  and if it turned out they’d been lying—

  it upset him.

  “Dad, what’s the matter? Are you ill?”

  Mother knew well enough,

  but she’d act dumb.

  Now and again she’d grumble:

  “A family, this man has a family,

  but what does he care?”

  Father had a special reverence for lonely old men

  and insisted I revere them too.

  “When you grow up . . . God forbid . . .”

  He walked the streets, head held high—

  chestnut curls, well-defined lips—

  while all around him

  lonely old men

  (or men pretending to be lonely)

  stumped and limped,

  smacked their gums,

  ducked and lisped,

  minced and cowered,

  moaned and groaned,

  wiggled and wobbled,

  cursed and fidgeted,

  sniffled and trudged along.

  They smelled of urine and tobacco.

  Father was used to this.

  He’d push his protégés into the public baths,

  and they’d come out demanding beer.

  “You don’t need beer—you can get by on tea.”

  Once a man came from Boyarka

  with a young lad on his shoulders.

  The boy’s legs were badly deformed.

  Father found a surgeon

  and the boy underwent a serious operation.

  One day, about fifteen years later,

  I was back in Kyiv on vacation

  and two men dropped in for a while:

  a stooped old man

  and his strapping young son.

  Father was invited to the wedding.

  I could see no trace

  in this young man

  of the boy with deformed legs.

  Father was always bringing back beggars,

  holy fools. At first, they were quiet

  and grateful, but then they’d grow brazen.

  Once there was a beggar who outstayed

  his welcome, a certain Timoshka,

  who always ate with zest.

  Chicken wings rejoiced in his hands.

  Noodles went whistling through his lips—

  the sound was captivating,

  like a flute. He was a jealous fellow.

  When father sat a colleague of Timoshka’s

  at the table, Timoshka quickly

  finished his food,

  wiped his plate clean with bread,

  laid his knife, fork, and spoon

  neatly down on the plate,

  then yelled, “Go find yourselves

  some other madman!”

  and stormed out.

  Father would ask:

  “What am I going to do with you?

  You’re a dreamer

  and shouldn’t be let out

  into the world.

  To say the world is terrible

  isn’t the half of it.

  You look on this world,

  this crazy fair,

  this bloody market,

  as if it were a dovecote

  or an orchard.

  For you, the whole earth

  is a field of dandelions.

  What are we going to do with you?

  Your eyes are always misty,

  like your mother’s.

  But when eyes like yours

  gaze at this world’s iron contours,

  those contours blur and soften

  into boughs of lilacs.

  What are we going to do with you?

  Other people become engineers,

  while you just keep writing and writing . . .”

  Tenderly, silently,

  my father was ready

  to take all my troubles—

  present and future—

  onto himself.

  It’s hard for me to speak

  about my father. Hardest of all—

  about how his life ended.

  Father rushed to help

  someone pleading for help

  and was slain

  by a bandit’s bullet.

  He answered the call—

  he was true to himself.

  Year after year I’ve dreamt

  of blocking his path,

  but I can’t.

  1995

  Translated by Irina Mashinski

 

 

 
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