Fresh Mint with Lemon Read online

  * * *

  Sergei removes the silver paper from the triangle-shaped piece of cheese. He puts the cheese into his mouth. He licks his fingers. The cheese sticks to them. He cleans it off with his tongue. With disgust. He feels like spitting out the cheese. But he has to eat something. He is weak. And by eating only bread and potatoes he is making himself weaker. And he needs his strength! To keep on sewing the purses. To keep going. Three years still to go! Then … Then he will go and look for brown-eyed Zlatovlaska. He will find her, and everything will change.

  He is daydreaming. He looks at the trembling flame of the oil lamp and imagines a summer storm. Zigzagging lightning flashes, the thunder; little Vadim hides under his blanket, he’s afraid.

  It was then … that he came back from Prague. From the tank. From then on, when he played with Vadim, it was as if he wasn’t there. And Vadim noticed it. One day, his wife came back from the library with a book covered in dust. They were fairy tales, and she read them to Vadim. One of the stories was about Zlatolavska. Sergei also listened to it breathlessly. And, later, he told it to Vadim some evenings at bedtime. Then he would come alive. His eyes would grow moist. They would fill with tenderness. Vadim often asked him to tell him a story before he went to sleep. He knew that it would be the story about Zlatovlavska. That was their ritual.

  Later, in some old Moscow newspapers, Sergei found a news item about the trial of five Russian intellectuals. Just after the invasion of Czechoslovakia, these five people organized a demonstration in Red Square in Moscow. They were protesting against the invasion. They were brave. Much more so than he. Sergei admired them.

  The item was dated mid-October, 1968:

  Four days after the occupation, on August 25th, the demonstrators met up on Red Square, right in the heart of Moscow, in an attempt to attract people’s attention by shouting and other actions that were offensive to the dignity of Soviet citizenry.

  It was then that everything that he had suspected was finally confirmed. Everything that he already knew. He knew it because he had seen the Czechs. He knew it because he had seen Zlatovlaska. His strength, although he was crying. He was losing his strength. He walked like a ghost.

  One day, his friend Mitya brought him an article. He had cut it out from an English-language newspaper. Printed in the period in which the two of them had been in Prague and the cannon of the tank had been threatening one of the wide, black buildings. Mitya translated the contents of the article to him. The poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko sent a telegram to the heads of the Soviet state, to Brezhnev and Kosygin; it was a protest against the invasion of Czechoslovakia:

  “I can’t sleep,” said Yevtushenko, “I do not know how I can go on living. I know only that my moral duty is to express my feelings to you. I am firmly convinced that the action we have undertaken in Czechoslovakia is a tragic mistake and a terrible blow not only against the friendship of the Soviet and Czechoslovak peoples, but also against the Communist movement worldwide. This action has diminished our prestige in the eyes of the world and in our own. It is a terrible blow for all progressive movements, for world peace, and for the dreams of the human race for future fraternity. Moreover, it is my personal tragedy, because in Czechoslovakia I have many close friends and I do not know how I shall be able to look them in the eye. I am a modest heir of the traditions of Russian literature, of writers such as Pushkin, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Solzhenitsyin. This tradition has taught me that to remain silent can be shameful.”

  Again, Sergei felt that everything he had suspected had been confirmed. He walked like a shadow. His strength was fleeing from him. Energy was escaping from him like air from a punctured football. With an effort, he could barely get through his daily eight hours of work. In the evening, he stretched out on the sofa and stared at the ceiling. Now he only saw the hand with the stone on rare occasions. Zlatovlaska didn’t visit him very often either. He was empty. Like a punctured football.

  Sergei knew that the armies remained in Zlatovlaska’s country. A fair proportion of them, at any rate. Sergei felt as if he had kicked over the castle that his son had built with so much care, as if his boot was still standing on the ruins. A boot that was like a reproof. Like a threat. Like a symbol of humiliation. He humiliated his son with his kick, and the instrument of humiliation, the boot, remained.

  One day, when he was telling Vadim the story about Zlatovlaska, his attention was drawn to the part about the girl’s father. When the latter, who was a blacksmith, saw that he simply couldn’t go on, he went out into the woods with a rope to hang himself. That evening, Sergei didn’t finish telling the story. He stretched out on the sofa and stared at the ceiling.

  While everybody else slept, he took a sip of vodka. Yes, it was then that he began to drink a few glasses and then switched on the gas oven. He didn’t light it. He placed his head on the aluminium tray inside. He drank a little more, from the bottle, and fell asleep.

  * * *

  Click-click-click … One stitch … another … Slowly. He doesn’t feel like working. He has eaten some boiled potatoes. He longs for a sip of vodka. His stomach has settled with the food. But not his head. Not his brain. Vodka. With it, Zlatovlaska will come. Potatoes with salt and a few pinches of cumin. And water. Now, in the autumn, well, in fact it’s now winter, it is icy cold. The water from the fountain. Today his wife has brought it again. Sergei barely gets up now. Only to take a sip of vodka. It spreads though his head. It dances in his head. And, when he’s finished, the flashlight: if he focuses it on the wall, in a corner or on the ceiling, it makes a tunnel of light. After drinking, along that tunnel, Zlatovlaska comes to him. Proud. Happy even when she cries. Euphoric.

  Only those who are in the right can be happy. Those who aren’t don’t have any right to happiness. But, were they not happy, the lords and masters of Russia at that time, over thirty years ago? Yes, they were, because they lied to themselves. About serving Russia. About serving the people. Their endless struggle for power was hidden under the idea of serving. They had convinced themselves of their great mission. Those priests before the altar, on which they had placed the future, mankind, and other abstract concepts. They also put Communism there, that incomprehensible concept. Absurd. Those gentlemen had enough with their mission. They didn’t need individuals, people. People got in the way. They irritated them when they were carrying out their mission. That’s why they swept them far out of the way, those priests with bloodstained hands.

  Sergei knows all that, now. The boy with the stone in his hand opened Sergei’s eyes. And Zlatovlaska. Sergei now knows that the individual is in the right. The individual doesn’t need the state. Doesn’t need to serve it. Or anything else that goes beyond the human. An individual needs to eat, to love. And to believe: in someone, in something. And if they take these basic needs from him, he will throw himself against whoever denies them to him, with a stone in his hand. Or with tears in his eyes.

  Sergei gets up to get some vodka. But immediately he slumps back down in the chair. What happened that time … No, he doesn’t remember exactly. He doesn’t recall what happened thirty something years ago. The oven, the gas … One thing is clear enough. That, since then, Vadim has looked at him with different eyes. Now they’re … Well, they’re different, they’ve changed. Vadim was just a child. He, Sergei, was twenty-five years old, more or less. He woke up in the hospital. Later, they moved him to the psychiatric wing. Twenty-four hours a day in bed, when you’re perfectly healthy. If he protested, they gave him injections. Afterward he lay asleep for hours and hours. He woke up completely stupefied. When he was awake, he felt as if he were drunk. Or rather, as if he had a hangover. Always, without a change, a never-ending hangover. That didn’t get any better. He trembled from anxiety, he couldn’t help feeling afraid. Like he does now. But now his fear is justified. He is afraid of going to jail.

  And Vadim … Vadim went on growing up. And the more he grew, the more he irritated Sergei. In the beginning, when Sergei came out of the psychiatric hos
pital, Vadim represented a kind of hope. Almost a salvation. Sergei had given him a name that seemed different. Unusual. Practically aristocratic. Vadim. And then … He couldn’t stand the sight of him. When he did see him, he immediately thought of the other child. The one in Prague. The one with the stone. With the raised arm. The arm that, a second later, wasn’t there anymore. And there was he, Sergei, safe and sound. He, who hadn’t grabbed the steering wheel. He, who hadn’t pulled the brake. He, who hadn’t stopped the tank. He, who hadn’t prevented the boy’s death with his body. He, who lived. And, when he saw Vadim, he felt puzzled. He felt a mixture of remorse and fear. Anguish. Shame, Panic.

  Later, the regime changed. They fired him. The state company he worked for had to go into liquidation. He couldn’t find another job. He left Leningrad—yes, probably at that time his city was still called Leningrad—for Moscow. Nothing. He came back.

  Vadim was studying. He had to be fed. Then, Sergei and his friend Mitya asked the bank for a loan and went into business. With Georgian wines. Mitya knew about wine. Sergei didn’t. Their business lasted for half a year and then collapsed. They didn’t get ahead because they didn’t know better. Vadim couldn’t finish his studies. He started to earn his living selling computers. Sergei had to go into hiding. So far, the neighbors haven’t found his hiding place. Or so it seems. A few more years of living like a mole.

  The flame of the oil lamp trembles. Sergei hears a series of gentle, metallic taps. Tick-tick-tick-tick. His wife is knitting. Making socks, perhaps, for him. Can she see what she’s doing? He beckons her to sit closer to the oil lamp, and to himself. She does so, happily. How can he forget about her so often? In the end, she’ll be like a piece of furniture. Now he takes hold of her elbow. It makes him feel strange: her elbow is so fragile! He feels moved. His wife smiles, surprised. And he realizes that the fabric of her blouse, which he can now feel between his fingers, this fabric is the same as the kind she was wearing then. A long time ago, when they started to go out together. When they were students. It is the same blouse! When she was a girl, she often wore it. Yes, she often wore this pink blouse with white flowers!

  What is the sun? Sometimes he looks, through a gap in the window, but that hurts his eyes. The light, the seasons … he imagines them from his eternal land of shadows. In the trembling of the flame of the oil lamp, he sees a bright summer’s day. And when he drinks, Zlatovlaska visits him.

  Vadim went away. Who knows where. Sergei doesn’t remember where Vadim went. But he knows, he remembers, that he had to go through Prague. And Sergei told him to look for her. To find her. Not to come back without her. Vadim hasn’t come back. Autumn is here already and he hasn’t come back. He probably doesn’t want to come back without bringing Zlatovlaska with him. Quite right.

  In the distance he hears footsteps, someone is walking with effort through the mud. The snow must have melted. They’re still a long way off, those footsteps. He must turn off the oil lamp. But first, another sip of vodka! From the bottle. There is no time to go and get a glass. Three, four sips. One more. And the last one. Good. Now Zlatovlaska will surely come and see him!

  THE AFRICAN GODDESS OF FERTILITY

  You walk in the dark. You cannot see the stars or the moon; the sky must be clouded over. You observe some distant lightning, a far-off peal of thunder keeps you company. Going along the path that leads over the fields, you stumble against roots and stones, but you avoid the main road: you don’t want to see or hear the speed and the noise of the traffic. The last peal of thunder sounded pretty close. You feel like seeing what’s in the box. That’s not a very smart idea: any second it might start raining and the rain could damage the fruit, the box, and the sketches in the envelope. But you can’t resist; you find a tree you like and lean against its trunk. Now, sitting on a stone, you get ready to open the box. You feel a round, rough object. Another peal of thunder. You smell the dry grass and the figs you are carrying in the basket. And something else, maybe the humid air, charged with electricity … A round, rough object. There’s a slit, an opening. A ceramic piggy bank! It is a handmade piece by a craftsman from some village here on the coast. You admired it in Patricia’s house, it looks like a human head. In fact, it’s not that it looks like one, but you’ve always imagined it as the head of an African goddess; the goddess of fertility.

  The atmosphere is charged with electricity, you can feel it with every pore of your skin. You walk on, increasing your pace. There is more and more lightning, and a strong wind is blowing. Gusts shake the branches of the olive trees and the carob trees with so much force that the trees roar like a forest of tall pines in a storm, far away, in the north, where you come from. But you walk lightly, the stones you tread on don’t bother you. You have a gift from Patricia! You suddenly feel that life has given you all that it has to give. You would like to surround yourself with all the objects that Patricia has given you, to sit once more under a tree, on a stone. Yes, on a stone, as if you were in an armchair, and hold the piggy bank—the apple—in one hand, and in the other, what would you hold instead of the scepter? A blade of grass, yes. And like that, you would turn into the king of the universe!

  You run up to the boardinghouse as the first drops splash on the pavement, like little frogs that someone has poured out of the sky. You sit on the bed and impatiently unwrap the piggy bank: it’s painted! Patricia has shared your fantasy and has painted, with black strokes, two great almonds—the eyes, with curling eyelashes—and a little mouth around the fine opening for the coins; and there are tiny ears and some hair: small circles. Then it strikes you: why did you take a step back when she put her fingers on your head? Why did you step back, like you were about to run from her? Immediately you saw that she got frightened and took her hand away. Why? Because … because that, that gesture, was exactly the one you have always wanted her to make. That she should feel your head. And, when the moment finally came, the sensation was so strong that you couldn’t bear it.

  What a coincidence … you saw the piggy bank at Patricia’s place, above the fireplace, and you saw it as an African goddess … Did Patricia see it through your eyes, then? Today Patricia read in your eyes that you didn’t betray her. You don’t feel like thinking about what happened earlier, about the person who told her certain things about you or what things she said; you just want to do nothing, to give yourself up to the sweetness of the sensation without thinking about it. And that’s all. Patricia is a sorceress. On the shelf and on the table, you place the head of the African woman and the sheets of paper with the drawings, respectively. You stretch out on the bed and, slowly, with pleasure, you fill your mouth with the honey-sweet pulp of the figs.

  Slowly, you fall asleep, but you wake up a little later, in the middle of the night. You put on the light to admire your treasures. Yes, they’re here, no doubt about it! It wasn’t a dream. You eat a fig and look at the sketches. You ignore their erotic elements, you concentrate only on the tender expression of the women, one in particular. She looks like a muse. A smile is trembling on her lips, or rather the illusion of a smile. With a single line, Patricia has managed to draw a mysterious half-smile better than anything Raphael did with all the colors of his palette. Ah, enthusiasm! You fill your eyes with the movement of this beautiful woman’s lips and you go back to sleep, but half an hour later you wake up again, and then a third time. This excess of inner energy, which you feel each time you visit the house with the cypresses, prevents you from sleeping, today more than ever. This excess of energy that is called bliss.

  In the morning a few drops are still falling, but soon the sky is clear. The sun is different today than on other days: bright as ever, certainly, but yellow. You make out each little wave on the sea, each grain of sand on the beach, everything is visible as if seen through a microscope or painted by the precise brush of a Sunday painter. You have breakfast at your usual café and then walk along the shallow edge of the sea, close to the beach; on your walk, you pick up the stones that catch your eye and imagine t
hem decorating Patricia’s studio … where you haven’t yet been, even once. You don’t walk: you skip and hop, you play and throw yourself at the waves, and if the beach wasn’t full of people, you would shout for joy. And, afterward, you emerge from the waves like Venus transformed into a monkey. You grip the basket full of stones and an irresistible force attracts you to Olivella. You whistle a rhythmical tune, you swing the basket to the beat, the stones rise and fall and you feel like Little Red Riding Hood taking a basket of food to her grandmother. It doesn’t occur to you to phone Olivella; Why! You don’t call first when you’re going to your own home, do you?

  * * *

  “Patricia isn’t in!” Radhika announced victoriously, her belly naked. “What are you carrying in the basket?” she asked, and approached Vadim, swaying her hips voluptuously, like a rocking chair. “With that basket, you look like Little Red Riding Hood!” she crooned.

  And, disgusted, Radhika took the stones that Vadim—in a state of ecstasy, without thinking about Radhika for even a moment, picked up that morning—out of the basket. Each stone was a little sculpture, Vadim thought, imagining Patricia’s dark, wide-open eyes; in his mind’s eye, he saw the painter taking stone after stone and looking closely at the veins on each one.

  “Empty the basket here, next to the dog house,” Radhika said with a yawn, turning her back to him, “I’ll throw them at the stray cats, to keep them at bay.”

  So Vadim emptied the contents of the basket onto the ground, because he was ashamed to confess the real reason for bringing those little colored stones. But one of them, the green one, he hid in his pocket. As a souvenir.

  “I know you haven’t come to see me,” the woman said in a voice full of malice, still swinging her hips.

  “What makes you think that?”

  “It’s written right here!” she grabbed Vadim’s nose with two fingers.