The Russian Affair - By Michael Wallner Page 0,151
looked at him for the last time, the city was colored a gleaming pink. The man’s dark silhouette was outlined against it. He turned his back to her and thrust his hands into his pockets.
THIRTY-NINE
How hot it was. In heat like this, Anna felt sorry for the fat woman rolling the hot blacktop smooth. Wearing black overalls, the worker sat in her steamroller and drove back and forth over the closed-off stretch of Bolshaya Sadovaya Street, always close behind the tank car, which poured out its contents in a stinking rivulet. The expression on the steamroller driver’s face wasn’t peevish, only concentrated; Anna spotted a pretty wedding ring on her dirty hand.
It was really too hot. Minutes earlier, when they’d come walking along the river, they’d seen thousands of half-naked people lying on the ground, even though the sun was hidden behind veils of haze. It was getting close to seven-thirty, but people didn’t want to go home yet. The day had been enchantingly beautiful, the sun-drenched city gleaming in the hot air. Women wore their lightest clothes; older ladies kept handkerchiefs in their sleeves, ready to dry off forehead and neck from time to time. Ice-cream stands and eau de cologne vendors were doing a booming business, and laughter was everywhere in the streets.
“It’s getting close to seven-thirty,” Viktor Ipalyevich said, putting his hand inside his open shirt, where gray fuzz grew high on his chest.
“We have enough time.” Anna liked the breeze her skirt stirred up when she swung her legs. Given the occasion, she had hesitated no longer to buy the desert-colored dress with the strawberry print; the price was, of course, an impertinence; on the other hand, nobody else had a dress like that. At the next corner, a little girl was running around without paying attention to the traffic. She wore a white kerchief, and she was pursuing a paper airplane that someone had thrown. Instinctively, Anna held Petya’s hand more tightly. Wearing his only suit, the boy trotted along beside his mother and grandfather.
“We should have taken the subway.” Tsazukhin wiped droplets of perspiration from his beard. “When I get there, I’m going to be covered in sweat.”
“On a day like this, nobody goes underground voluntarily.” Anna checked the armpits of his light-colored suit jacket for stains. “A festive day, a day in your honor,” she said, teasing the poet. “And all Moscow is invited.”
“All right, all right, that’s enough.”
They reached the boulevard and strolled toward the Conservatory building. Suddenly, Viktor Ipalyevich slowed down. “Hasn’t anyone come at all?” he asked anxiously. “What did I tell you? Nobody wants to sit inside and listen to contemporary poetry on a fine June day.”
Secretly, Anna feared he might be right. When snow was piled a yard high and only narrow paths were shoveled clear, when light had been absent from the city for months—that was the best time to enter interior worlds, to be edified by literature, music, or theater. Who would go to the Conservatory to hear poems in June?
“They’re probably all inside already,” Anna said, encouraging her father.
“Nonsense. On a day like this, they’d stay out in the evening air until the very last bell.”
A pale-faced Doctor Glem leaped out at Tsazukhin. “My dear Viktor Ipalyevich,” he cried, his voice implying trouble. The chairman of the artistic board was wearing a light-colored suit identical with the poet’s, but enlivened by a red breast-pocket handkerchief.
“What is it, Doctor Glem? What’s wrong?” Viktor Ipalyevich tried to adopt a patronizing tone. “There’s no audience, is that it? I told you to reserve one of the smaller halls. Who needs a big stage for a book of poems and—”
“You’re here at last!” Glem cried, interrupting him. “We called you and called you, and then we even sent someone in a car to fetch you. Where have you been?”
“We went for a walk in the delightful summer air,” the poet said in self-defense.
“You went for a walk on the evening of your great occasion? A thousand and more are waiting for Tsazukhin, and he’s taking a leisurely stroll!”
“A thousand and more? How can that be, a thousand and more?” He stared at Glem in confusion. “We’re not supposed to start until eight o’—”
“Seven-thirty, Viktor Ipalyevich, seven-thirty!” cried the chairman of the artistic board, relieved to see the muddle cleared up so easily. “Didn’t you read the invitation to your own reading?”
“Seven-thirty?” He turned around. “Anna, did you know … seven-thirty? We were just loitering around, and I thought it