Portraits without Frames Page 18
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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