can’t go back, and I can’t go back either. And I do not devote myself to the cult of the tombs of my ancestors or to any other kind of relic in order to bolster myself during difficult moments. I give no importance to family or blood relations, and I live without defenses and without weapons, as I haven’t got a skin as thick as that of a hippopotamus or the claws of a tiger.”
“You have your lover. Look how he has taken your hand. He only has eyes for you; he sleeps every night in your arms. It is easy to talk then. Whereas I . . . I have the feeling that I always have to fight against something and that wears me out.”
“Marina, isn’t it rather that it is difficult to bear up under the weight of your desire to always look different, to be a stranger everywhere?” asked Vladislav.
“Vladislav is right, Marina,” said Sergey Efron in a quiet voice, “although—”
“The poet always bears the special mark of discontent. Why is that so difficult for you to understand?”
“I understand perfectly well what you mean, Marina,” I interrupted her, more than anything because the hysterical tone of her exclamations was getting on my nerves. “I also feel that the forces that I am fighting against are impossible to define. We are faced with something difficult to describe, with enemies that have no concrete form.”
“I have loved everything in life,” said Marina, quietly, slowly, as if only addressing me, “but each love has been a confrontation rather than a friendship, a farewell instead of a meeting, a breaking off rather than a union, death rather than life. That is how I am.”
“If you really need a homeland, Marina, look for it in what you write,” I answered her in a low voice.
“But in exile I have lost my readers! Only in Russia can they understand!” she exclaimed with desperation in her voice.
“And us, your friends?” said Vladislav while he stroked her hand.
Marina laughed in a crazy way, at something only she understood. Then she switched off the light. In the darkness she threw herself at me, caressed me, hugged me.
The lights were put on again. Someone knocked at the door. On the threshold Roman Jakobsen appeared. He had come to talk with Vladislav about metaphors and metonymies.
Prague is a majestic city, as inaccessible as its castle with its towers that point, black, toward the sky. We felt like strangers there. At the eating house for the Russians, people turn up with coupons; dozens and hundreds of Russians who go there to eat watered down borscht.
We went to Venice. Vladislav would relive his youth there.
“Zhenia.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Zhenia.”
“You mean Nina.”
“Here, you are Zhenia to me. Zhenia Muratova. Zhenia, my first love, my great love.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Don’t you like being both my past and my present?”
“The past never has the same value as the present. Not even my own past does. Only the present is important.”
“Zhenia, this time I won’t let you go. No, Zhenia, you are everything to me.”
A few days later, I found out that Zhenia had been the first wife of our mutual friend, Muratov.
“Nina, I’ve written a poem about you here, in Venice.” Vladislav said in a reconciliatory tone. When he decided that it was time we made up, he expected me to accept it all without a protest. But I remained silent. Vladislav went on: “A poem that speaks of your arrival at the Piazza of San Marco and of the doves that take flight at your presence.”
I said nothing. But I was excited by the poem. Vladislav took it badly that I hadn’t made up with him as soon as he offered me the possibility. In Venice he never stopped talking about Zhenia. The exile always lives like a sub-letter. In love, too, my fate was that of the exile—to live like a sub-letter.
We reached Rome, where we wanted to see some Russian friends, especially Muratov. Vladislav felt more defeated with each day that passed. He showed me the remains of ancient Rome and said, “These ruins will soon collapse completely, like me. What am I, if not a ruin? What are we if not that, you and I?”
“I would rather say that you and I will remain standing for a long time, like these ruins,” I said lightly.
Each morning, Vladislav got up fearing the disasters of the afternoon. Each evening, I looked forward eagerly to the joys of the day to follow.
“Which subject do you prefer