The Tool & the Butterflies Page 11

  He never talked to me, or any of his other customers for that matter—not one word in thirty years. The Greek wasn’t mute, though. He had a reputation as an exceptionally proud man, and he did not care to bandy words with the masses. But what if he had to buy a ticket to Prague? Well, he didn’t go anywhere. He actually lived in his shop, and there was nothing in Prague he needed … But I know where Antipatros used to live, way back …

  In the early evening, I visited Ms. Senescentova, an Honored Actor of the Soviet Union. I could often be found at her home, drinking linden-blossom tea and listening to her stories about what life used to be like in the theater world.

  I might very well have been the only one who visited the old actress. I chased away the scam artists who tried to take advantage of her in the troubled nineties—and punished them severely. Everyone had forgotten about her service to the people, convinced that Senescentova must have long since departed this world, like a wondrous angel, but she just stopped appearing in any productions, much less in other public spaces, in ’64, and stopped answering calls from journalists and film studios. She preferred that the audience remember her as young and beautiful.

  She was childless, purportedly an old maid for all her former beauty, always wearing powder and a touch of scarlet lipstick. She called me her nephew, and I liked that. When I answered her questions, I would unfailingly use the simple address “auntie.” That was very much to her liking as well. For example, when she would ask me if I had been at some interesting gathering, be it the theater, the cinema, or the zoo, I would answer, “No, auntie, can’t say I have,” or, “Yes, indeed, auntie.” Yes, our conversations were full of mutual affection.

  “And how have you been doing, my dearest nephew?”

  “Well, how to put it, auntie … Same as always.”

  “I went to the cemetery yesterday. Everything is in order …” Senescentova pulled a burial contract out from under the tablecloth and indicated the blue official stamps. “I’ve already paid for six months of upkeep on the grave.” She handed it to me. “Here!”

  “Oh auntie, don’t you think this is a little premature! Have mercy!”

  “You promised!”

  “I know, I’m not saying no. But you’re rushing things, auntie! Come now, life is not a 100-meter dash!”

  “My dearest nephew, I will give you my icon of the Mother of God this instant and sign a deed of gift!”

  “Not the icon, anything but that! Count me out! Come on, auntie, what’s got you so worked up? You’ve still got years ahead of you!”

  “We’ll have no more of that, young man! I know that it will be soon. I will be one hundred and three years old in March!” She rose from the table, strode over to the buffet, opened a little drawer, and fished out an elegant cigarette holder. “Take this, if the icon is not to your taste! It’s a classic art deco piece, made of ivory with platinum inserts. Sell it and buy yourself something new—it is a little worn out, though, look.”

  “Elegant indeed,” I agreed, accepting the cigarette holder and examining the seal. “Raymond Templier …” I securely secreted it in my shirt pocket. “Alright, let me have your documents.”

  “They are to bury me in the dress from Timid Night,” Senescentova said, beaming and beginning to enumerate the instructions that I had known by heart for twenty years. “You know the one, when I exited with Tsyganov in the final scene. Remember? A simple coffin, nothing extravagant, but my face simply must be covered with white, translucent chiffon. Come to my requiem at Donskoy Monastery completely alone. This is positively not to be a society function. And no tears are to be shed, my dearest nephew!”

  “Certainly not, auntie!”

  “All the paperwork for the apartment has been taken care of …” She paused, suddenly remembering something. “By the way, I saw that acquaintance of yours at the cemetery. He’s quite an imposing fellow, and the lady with him—goodness, she was miraculously beautiful—highborn!”

  “What acquaintance?” I asked, pricking my ears up.

  “Iratov, of course! And do you know the most startling thing? He recognized me. He kissed my hand and spoke so very earnestly and tenderly. A very pleasant gentleman!”

  “How do you know him?” Something jolted in my stomach. I could feel some kind of knot in my guts.

  “Through you, you silly goose! It was you who told me about him! And do you know, he did not look as unsightly as your descriptions led me to believe.”

  “But how did you know what he looks like?”

  “Now I remember!” The old woman looked concerned as her mind raced into the past. “He’s the architect of my building! Back in ’88, when the Union of Cinematographers gave me an apartment here, he spent six months going around to all the residents and asking if everything in the building was alright. Evidently, he was feeling a little anxious—after all, it was his first project, as I understand it … He had linden-blossom tea with me, just like you! There I was thinking you meant the other gentleman of that name … There are a great many Iratovs!”

  “The man with black hair?”

  “That’s the one, my dearest nephew! Long, black hair, with one gray streak—and it looks most handsome!”

  “But what was he doing there, auntie?”

  “I couldn’t tell you,” Senescentova shrugged. “Presumably he wanted to visit some grave or other. Tell me, nephew, what else would one do at a cemetery?”

  “Wasn’t there anything else you noticed?”

  “Well, I was rather preoccupied! I was outside when he addressed himself to me, and then I went inside to warm up. It was bitterly cold yesterday!”

  “I see … I see …” I muttered to myself.

  “Oh, no!” The ancient Senescentova slapped her hands together. “I remember now!”

  “What, auntie?” I nearly jumped out of my chair. “What is it?”

  “Here’s what, my dearest nephew. He was there to meet a young man. Your friend Iratov stepped about ten yards away from his young lady and exchanged greetings with a young man. Then they had a conversation—and a rather brief one. That’s why I forgot for a moment there!”

  “What did the young man look like?” I was in a real frenzy. My guts tied themselves tighter and tighter.

  “Not terribly tall, not terribly short …” Senescentova said, trying to recall. “Very thin, like a sugarcane plant—and his face was much like Iratov’s—as if he were his own son! Is that who he is? Pale, like he was ill, and all in black, like an undertaker!”

  “What did they talk about?”

  “Oh, take pity on your auntie! My hearing is not what it once was … and I am not generally disposed to eavesdrop.”

  “Damn!”

  “Why are you in such distress?” the former actress asked in surprise. “That’s not like you! They had a conspiratorial look about them, though …”

  “That snake …” I hissed.

  “Just what is going on?!”

  “Do you recall what I told you about Iratov’s younger years, auntie?”

  “I perfectly recall the unfortunate story of that talented youth. But such were the times! The law was firm with those who trespassed against it! But … his trespasses are permitted now, if memory serves …”

  “That is not the point, auntie! My story hardly scratched the surface, and I softened some details so as not to trouble your frayed nerves! My tale was told for your amusement!”

  “What do you mean? What did you not impart?”

  “Not now, auntie.” Senescentova was curious, like all old ladies without social connections, the ones who have outlived their girlfriends and the devotees their talents won them. She was as thirsty for information as an astronaut is for oxygen … but she didn’t like watching TV.

  “But what happened?” She scurried over to the old buffet and then put a box of sweets on the table. “Chocolate-covered marshmallows! Korkunov brand!” she declared. “And there’s some gummies here! In just a moment, the kettle will start to sing, and we
’ll sit down with our linden-blossom tea, and I hope you’ll calm down, my dearest nephew, and save me from my boredom. And he who saves shall be saved!”

  “Well then, auntie!” I said, making up my mind. “If you wish to know the whole truth, I’m at your service!” I collected myself, bit into a chocolate-covered marshmallow, and began.

  … Iratov was not as I described him earlier. More precisely, he was a different entity entirely! If my tale has heretofore been a lighthearted one, that is due to the author lacking the literary prowess necessary to depict the cruel, coarse, contradictory character of the man in question. But I will try.

  I related that Iratov’s genitrix spent her whole life teaching English. As the daughter of an émigré who had lived in the English city of York until he died, she grew up listening to endless stories from her father, Count Rymnikov, about how leaving revolutionary Russia in 1924 had been the most horrendous mistake of his life. He deserted his country, for God’s sake! Since that day, his life had been no life at all, just a square of film depicting foggy Albion. Her father had remarkably dark hair until the day he died—he either had Georgian roots or had mixed in some taboo blood somewhere along the line …

  His daughter Anna was scarcely twenty when his lordship passed on prematurely, having never come to terms with his nostalgia, and was buried in York’s municipal cemetery. A month and a half later, the young maiden, who did not remember her mother because of the latter’s early death, went to the embassy with a petition to be granted Soviet citizenship as an ethnic Russian. Her petition was soon granted, and she moved to Russia, where she was awarded a room in a communal apartment on Tverskoy Boulevard and the title of English instructor at a nearby school in Moscow, the capital of her new Motherland. Anna almost immediately realized that leaving Great Britain had been a mistake, but, not wishing to lead an exiled life of constant grief for her lost country, like her father, she soon adapted and learned to masquerade as a simple Soviet citizen.

  Time marched on, and the young English teacher became acquainted with a young man studying construction at the nearby technical school—Andrei Iratov—whom she married a year later. She never regretted that decision, since her spouse proved to be a kind, considerate man. He was striving to better himself through education, so he minded his wife’s words and made good use of his season pass to the conservatory.

  A few years later, the couple had a son named Arseny.

  “Who’d he get that black hair from?” asked the surprised young father, who had a full head of reddish hair.

  “His grandpa!” said the delighted mother, as she nursed him. “My father!”

  Before he had even reached his third birthday, the boy could speak fluent English and Russian. He matured into a wondrously handsome and intelligent young man, did pretty well in school, and would have been a delight to his parents in all things if it had not been for his utter lack of interest in his future. Not a single one of the disciplines he studied at school touched his spirit. Everything was featureless, boring, mundane.

  “Perhaps you would like to join the diplomatic service?” his mother inquired. “Your English is better than mine! You’ve read so many books in the original! What’s the Shakespeare play with Orsino, the Duke of Illyria?”

  “Twelfth Night, or What You Will … But I’m the grandson of an émigré duke; do you really think they’ll let me study international relations?”

  “Good point … How about being a translator? An interpreter! God knows you have the memory for it! Yes, Twelfth Night, of course …”

  “Next you’ll be telling me to become some rotten school-teacher!” said the peeved sophomore Iratov.

  “Why not?” His mother wasn’t letting up. “I’m satisfied with my lot!”

  “Well, I’m not! Why the hell did you leave England and come to this idiotic country run by a bunch of senile paraplegics? You left Britain! The United Kingdom! Maybe it wasn’t democratic enough for you?”

  “If I hadn’t left, I wouldn’t have met your father!”

  “Big deal! I could have had a different one!” Arseny just kept getting angrier and angrier at his mother.

  “But you wouldn’t be here,” she said, shocked.

  “Yes I would! Just with an English father!”

  “You should be ashamed of yourself!” his mother reproached him, tears welling up in her eyes. “Your father gave up his whole life for you! He works all day and then sketches all night! And this is how you thank him?!”

  “Did I ask him to do any of that? And what’s all that hard work got him? We live in a tiny apartment and eat what we can get from the corner store! We can’t even afford to go to the movies! We’re the family from Gogol’s ‘Overcoat’!”

  “Have you no shame?”

  “Leave me to my overcoat, mother!”

  Arseny’s father, Andrei Iratov, was a quiet man who was wounded by every harsh word, every glance full of ill will—that’s how delicate his sensibilities were. To hide from the gray mundanity of the real world, he would seal its sounds out with earplugs and sketch architectural designs all night, for buildings so improbable and fantastical that they looked silly and absurd, like something straight out of Alice in Wonderland. Looked silly to whom, though? His wife and son, of course!

  Anna supported her husband’s passion, like any wife should support her husband in everything, but, deep down, she saw her husband’s hobby as bizarre yet touching. Mushroom-shaped apartment blocks? Really? She imagined a giant boletus mushroom next to the Kremlin, people walking in and out of the stalk and living on the cap, and broke into a shy smile. She loved her husband and didn’t shoot down his latest pipe dream; instead, she just kissed him as tenderly as she had once kissed their infant son’s rosy cheeks.

  The young Iratov loved his father, like any son. He was a gentle, good-hearted man, always hunched over his drafting board, sketching his fantastic visions on Whatman paper, physically weak, with an unexpressive, smudged-looking face that elicited no respect from the teenaged boy, just occasional pity. Iratov often thought about that paradox. How could he simultaneously love someone and have no respect for him—even sometimes feel scorn for him?

  The young man could find no answer to that question at home, so he wound up on the street more and more often, where he got his kicks, smoked, and drank a little “port”—Caucasus or Solntsedar or what they called port in the Soviet days. He also amused himself with card games. There were always plenty of kids hanging out on the benches by their building, and boy did he sweep up the cash. Games of bura and seka brought him a tidy monthly income, most of which he put away for the future. He later studied an article about card tricks in Iskatel magazine, which brought him an even bigger income. Everything would have been fine, but then Interlopin, their twenty-two-year-old neighbor who had just been released from jail, paid the youngsters a visit. They’d sent him up the river for stealing a sparkling water machine. He set it up right in his apartment! The cops were cracking up when they arrested him, and they made that moron drag the two-hundred-pound article of evidence in question down five flights of stairs. He caught Iratov cheating and then deigned to inform the callow youth what the big fish did to people who tried pulling that stuff in prison.

  They all beat him up. Even the fat-assed, foul-mouthed Kielbasova, the only girl in their group, gave him a smack on the ear. The boys showed particular fondness for checking the strength of his ribs with the toecaps of their boots. They punched him in the stomach over and over again. They sampled many varieties of violence. It only stopped when Iratov’s face was round, swollen, and puffy from the repeated blows. His unseeing eyes had turned into Asian-looking slits.

  “Ooo, look at that mug!” Kielbasova laughed. “He’s got slanty eyes like a Yakut!” That nickname stuck.

  “That’ll do, fellas,” Interlopin commanded. “If you kill him, that’s an Article 102 offense! Get this dope on his feet!” They held the swindler up straight, since he could no longer stand, and his head, round as a
soccer ball, dangled on his thin, rooster-like neck. “You’re gonna give back all the scratch you took off these boys,” Interlopin ordered. “By tomorrow! Got it?”

  “Don’t have the money.” Iratov lisped with his bloody mouth.

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t have it.”

  “Where is it, Yakut?” Interlopin was bewildered by his temerity.

  “Gave it to my mom …”

  “Then take it back!”

  “Fuck you!” Iratov spat blood on the sadist’s shoes. “Fucking chump glass of flat water.”

  They beat him up again, and they hassled him the next day, and for a whole month after that. Every day after school, he would be cornered in the park and given a powerful blow to the nose, so the cartilage that had already been damaged by his first beating bent into different shapes like it was rubber.

  “Pricks!” Iratov unfailingly answered. They nailed him in the stomach, the old one-two punch: head, torso. Same answer anyway. “Pricks!”

  Then they left Iratov alone. The neighborhood gang just got tired of the same routine every day.

  What about his parents? Certainly, his mother was devastated that her son was suffering such an indescribable nightmare. She tried to go to the police, but she received such a barrage of anger from her son in response that all she could do was cry and apply lead lotion to his face.

  For Iratov, that was the first lesson of his life. The takeaway was simple: you have to be smarter and slicker than them, never crack, and never fess up …

  Now an upperclassman, he changed his tactics and only played cards with adults. In the summer, he’d go to Vodny Stadion, where Moscow’s suckers came to swim, tan, and slurp down the cases and cases of Zhiguli beer they’d stocked up on for the occasion. In the fall, he would play at the little tables in Gorky Park with everyday people who’d come to relax. He’d learned from his days of playing in his own neighborhood that he had to not win too much at one table and leave before they got suspicious.