Happiness is Possible (3 page)

Have you ever found yourself in the Central Administrative District of Moscow on a fine Sunday in summer? Probably not, because, like all normal people, you spend days like that at the
dacha
. I would be out at Vaskovo too, and wouldn't have a clue about what's going on here in the CAD, if not for a certain important circumstance. Which is that today I have been invited to do a radio interview. Generally speaking, I'm not very fond of interviews of any sort. They say some writers have a yen for publicity that is even more powerful than their sex drive, but that's not me. However, if I have to give an interview, I prefer it to be on radio. On TV they always start powdering your nose just before you go on, and the trouble with a newspaper is that print immortalises all the stupid things you've said, augmented by the interviewer's own inanities. So radio is best: it doesn't matter what you look like and anything you happen to blurt out will simply evaporate into the ether and be forgotten, even before the next programme starts.

I have been invited by a radio station that is small but reputable. Its studio is tucked away somewhere round here, not far from the centre of Moscow, in a flat in one the buildings. If I can find it, and you can hook this particular station out of the FM ocean, in half an hour you'll be able to hear my muttering going out live. I still don't know what we're going to talk about, but that doesn't matter anyway. The important thing about a radio interview is not to lisp, blow your nose or leave any long pauses. If everything goes well, the interviewer will give me a thumbs-up, but you, the listeners, won't be able to see it.

Such is the serious reason I have for being here now, right smack in the middle of Moscow on this hot summer noon. As I walk along, I have to stick to the shady side of the street, and let me tell all of you out there at your
dachas
that you wouldn't recognise your city at this moment. Imagine a whale, cast up on the seashore and drying out in the sun. All those who sailed on it, who inhabited the folds of its vast skin, have scattered, creeping off to save their own little lives. Where are the usual crowds of people? Where are the legendary Moscow traffic jams? The streets are as empty as a writer's head before an interview. Only a small number of the megalopolis' most devoted parasites remain in its skin, those who are fated to live and – if it comes to the crunch – to die with it. Who are they, these most urban of urbanites? For the most part, they are Individuals of No Fixed Abode and various kinds of beggars. The Abodeless Individuals sleep or wander wherever the mood takes them – today they are as free as the cockroaches in the kitchen when we go out. But the beggars have a simple way of amusing themselves – to keep their skills well-honed, they cadge handouts from each other. There aren't many other people about: apart from writers who have come to be interviewed, most are probably burglars, plying their trade in the flats that you, dear
dacha
-lovers, have abandoned.

I don't know this area very well, but I can sense that I'm going in the right direction. I have never once lost my way in Moscow while in a sober state, and if I'm feeling slightly squiffy at the moment, it's only because of the sultry heat. As I wander through the unfamiliar side streets, an angel flies ahead of me, showing me the way. And right now he prompts me to turn left, then right, then jump over a section of subsidence or, perhaps, excavation, and I find myself . . . yes indeed, I find myself in the courtyard that I need. Everything's right: the street name, the number of the building and, most important of all, the sign with the name of my radio station by the entrance. Only the time is wrong: I was told to arrive twenty minutes later. As you already realise, this is very un-Muscovite, arriving somewhere ahead of time. The girls in the office will have to give me coffee and make idle conversation with me. And every now and then they'll go running off on some urgent matter or other, leaving me alone with my own embarrassment. And apart from that, in our Moscow editorial offices you never know beforehand whether you can smoke or you have to go out onto the stairs.

All these considerations are expounded to me by my other angel – the angel of reason. I take his advice and decide to spend my last few non-public minutes sitting on a bench in the courtyard. I sit down, light up a cigarette and, for want of anything better to do, start gazing around. It's a normal Moscow courtyard, the standard four walls. Except that the item standing at the centre of it is not a transformer shed or a pumping station, but a large cubic structure with gill slits in its sides. Warm, insistent winds blow out of these slits in all four directions with a steady drone, saturating the courtyard in an aroma well known to every inhabitant of the capital. I don't even need to summon the angel of reason to know that this structure is a Moscow Metro blowhole. Apart from that, everything is the way it should be in an ordinary courtyard: children's swings, sandpits, benches for those who wish to sit. And all this is empty just at the moment – not because of the currents of suffocating air emerging from the blowhole, but because, let me remind you, it is a Sunday in summer.

Although . . . I beg your pardon, I didn't spot the old woman sitting diagonally across from me in the shadow of a tree. Perhaps she was left behind by someone when they were packing their things for the
dacha
 . . . She isn't smoking, or feeding the pigeons, or reading a book. Just sitting on a bench, with the wind from the metro stirring her grey locks. ‘She's probably not right in the head,' I think. ‘These Moscow grannies can be very weird.' We're sitting a long way apart, so I can't make out her face. In five minutes' time I'll go to tell the listeners about myself and my art. I'll forget about the old woman and never discover that she and I are actually very, very old acquaintances.

Her name is Marina Mikhailovna and she's not entirely a Moscow granny. At least, her pre-dotage years were not spent here in the Central Administrative District but on suburban trains on the Vaskovo route: sixty kilometres in each direction; for forty-five years and a few months. Aunty Marina lived in the little house next to ours and, of course, she also had a plot of land – the standard 400 square metres – but it was my mother who had to cultivate it, because Aunty Marina herself had no time. She worked in the Moscow Metro. To thank us for helping her, she used to bring us sweets from the Babaev Confectionery Factory and she once took me to Moscow for a children's New Year party. I remember her always being dressed in good taste, with a beret on her head, but she never found happiness as a woman. How could she possibly organise any kind of happiness, when she spent half her life travelling? Of course, lots of men walk by in the metro, but who, can you tell me, is going to stop and flirt with the woman operating the escalator? My mother and I once happened to be at Aunty Marina's station during her shift. When my mother recognised her, she was delighted, but Aunty Marina merely nodded to us severely and turned back to her microphone: ‘Move along, citizens, don't crowd at the turnstiles!'

It wasn't as if it was difficult to find a job in Vaskovo in those days. The chemical plant was smoking away like billy-o, not to mention the reinforced concrete and timber-processing plants. My parents just couldn't understand why our neighbour put herself through the torment of that daily journey to Moscow. It couldn't be just so that she could eat sausages and Babaev chocolates every day. My father, a blunt man, said it straight out: ‘That Marina's not all there'. ‘But where else could she be?' I wondered to myself. ‘There aren't two of her are there?'

In those years, naturally enough, I was under my father's influence, but in my heart I liked Aunty Marina's metropolitan style. I didn't know then that in a few years' time I would come down with her ailment and discover for myself what love is. For me, it wasn't Moscow in general, but only one of its inhabitants, who cast her spell on me, made me love her and ruined my life. But that's a different story.

Moscow remained indifferent to Marina's selfless love. This woman paid for her brief trysts with the city with arduous shifts deep underground. She walked with the stride of a Muscovite, she dressed like a Muscovite and she bought sausages at the delicatessen – a nicely judged three hundred grams. But it was all in vain. In the evenings Marina saw the warm glow appear in the windows of the Moscow high-rises, but not a single window belonged to her. In all this vast and magnificent agglomeration of living space, there was not a single square metre for Marina. The trams clanged invitingly as they bore off the genuine Muscovites to their legally registered addresses, but her way led back to the railway station. The dirty, smoke-filled suburban electric train, crammed with other non-residents like herself, screeched like a sick rooster as it carried Marina off and away into the dark and cold.

And so it went on, year after year. It's a commonplace to compare human life with a journey, but in Aunty Marina's case, the route was very specific: Vaskovo-Moscow, followed by Moscow-Vaskovo. I don't know if there were ever any occurrences or events worthy of note on this route of hers. She and my mother occasionally whispered together about something or other, but my father and I were not in the habit of listening to women's talk. Practically nothing changed in Aunty Marina's life until she retired. And when her professional journey came to an end and she was obliged to settle down in Vaskovo, we all thought she had reached the end of her line. There were no more sausages and Babaev sweets, and it saddened us to see how quickly our neighbour grew old when she was separated from the object of her undivided passion.

Naturally, her plot of land was the most neglected on our street. She hated the chickens that she had bought on my mother's advice; in fact she was afraid of them. They responded in kind and ran away whenever an opportunity arose. We were the only people she spoke to, because the other neighbours disliked her and referred to her derisively as ‘the Moscow woman'. A headscarf and knitted cardie certainly didn't suit Marina Mikhailovna, but now she deliberately went around all got-up for days at a time, as if she was expressing her contempt for our entire wretched village.

However hard Marina Mikhailovna's previous life might have been, those years were the most joyless for her. What could be sadder than a lonely old age? Just sitting there, fading away, and if you go scampering after a chicken, the thought of how the sprint might end is terrifying. How would it all have ended for Marina Mikhailovna? Most likely in a stroke or a heart attack. The answer to this question seemed close at hand already . . . but, as things turned out, it was unexpectedly postponed.

My own good parents were instrumental in bringing about a surprising and fortunate turning point in Marina Mikhailovna's fate. Her happiness came knocking at our gate first, in the form of a polite little old man who enquired if he could rent a room from us for the summer. In those days, that was all in the order of things: Muscovites rented
dachas
from the local residents instead of building their own. At first, for a moment, my mother was delighted. A household can always do with more money, and her son's room (that is, mine) was free, because he (that is, I) was living in Moscow then. The son, however, sometimes came home for a good feed, or simply for the weekend, and when he saw that his room was occupied, he might take offence, who could tell? But on the other hand the son was no pampered toff and the house had a veranda where he could be accommodated quite easily . . . Basically, my mother was in urgent need of my father's advice. My father listened to all her reasoning, then went outside to take a look at the old man. The two of them chatted for about ten minutes, then my father came back into the house to speak to my mother – so that the visitor wouldn't hear:

‘He's no good for us. Far too tedious. You know what . . . fix him up with Marina the Moscow Woman.'

And he went off again to watch the television. There was no point in arguing with him, so my mother took the lodger to our neighbour's house. It was easy enough to see why my father hadn't taken a shine to the old man: if a man doesn't drink at all, doesn't smoke and doesn't play chess, it's simply not possible to live under the same roof with him, even if he is paying for it.

But, strangely enough, the old man settled in well at Aunty Marina's house. Or perhaps she had her eye on him right from the start – women are great strategists in such matters. However that may be, this granddad not only stayed with her for the whole summer, paying punctually, but at the end of the season he offered her his heart and his hand. Exactly how Marina Mikhailovna had captivated the old Muscovite is a secret that he took with him to the grave, but we don't even need to ask why she accepted his proposal. The young couple didn't have a grand wedding, but they completed all the due procedures at the register office.

Of course, you've already guessed what happened after that. The little old non-smoker, whose name we can't even recall now, died soon afterwards – they say he ran after a chicken. And Marina Mikhailovna didn't think for too long before selling her ‘country estate' and taking up residence in his Moscow flat.

Many years have passed since then. Possibly Marina Mikhailovna herself has forgotten the name of her transient spouse, but that's not important. She's happy; she'll live for a long time yet . . . but I don't have time to invent that life right now, I have to go to my meeting with the radio girls and you . . . When Marina Mikhailovna eventually does die, Moscow – the love of her life – won't even notice.

Night. Patchy with cloud, the yellow-white sky sags down over the city like a slack cinema screen. Streaks and patches of light ramble across it, and the glow-worms of various flying-machines add to the interest with their slow, soundless movement. But there's no film tonight or, rather, this is the only one on the bill, a free psychedelic show for the inhabitants of Moscow's high-rises. Not exactly an action movie, it must be admitted, but strangely enough this final performance attracts quite a lot of viewers. All the seats here are economy class and smokers are welcome.

On the balcony I breathe life into my little spark, and similar sparks glimmer on the balconies and loggias of the buildings nearby. Every year, until the frosty weather sets in, we nocturnal smokers broadcast our indecipherable light signals to each other and the sky. We ourselves cannot be seen – we're like that dark cosmic matter, the existence of which can only be inferred indirectly. Who are you, my nocturnal fellows, lurking in the crepuscular cavities of your loggias? What philosophical and metaphysical heights have you scaled while gazing at the Moscow sky? Perhaps some of you have far outstripped me in your intellectual development . . .

An aeroplane probes the air with its searchlight like a feeler as it topples towards the airport. These days all the airlines are economising on fuel, so the landing will be precipitous, but even so the passengers will fight off their nausea and applaud. The cigarette butt that flew past my nose only a second ago will land sooner than that and without any applause; the anonymous smoker who lives somewhere above me clearly does not belong to any advanced civilisation.

The cigarette butt lands on the ground and slowly fades. It could have landed on the roof of a car parked for the night or the head of a teenager drinking beer, but it lies there on the asphalt, dying slowly without disturbing anyone – and there's another one! Asphalt is the basic ground of the city and deposits like this accumulate on it. I don't know exactly what asphalt is brewed out of, or how, but I have heard that its substance is organic in origin. That gives me pause for thought. I certainly know people are wrong when they claim that nothing grows on asphalt. There's a group of youngsters bawling away below me at this very moment, exuberant growth that has sprung up on asphalt. And I grew on it too, as a person and as a writer.

I wouldn't wish to sound like some kind of urban idealist, but life in a city really is rather comfortable. Sleeping to its quiet clamour at night and hearing the refuse truck churring considerately in the morning as it assists your building's collective intestinal tract to void itself. Passing the day swaddled in urgent concerns, with breaks for nourishment, and in the evening enjoying a well-earned dose of relaxation, according to your own taste. What could possibly be better? You're afraid of the dark, but in the city it's never dark, even at night. You're afraid of the distant stars and outer space, but you won't see them here. And if you should wish to give your nerves a subtle
frisson
before bed, you can watch the news of the city on TV.

I enjoy watching the Moscow news sometimes – especially the crime news. Especially the news about scores being settled in the upper echelons of power and business, and about celebrities' limousines being stolen. At moments like that it feels good to know that you are poor and obscure. There is no better defence than being small and unimportant. A tiny creature can hide more easily and it doesn't hurt itself when it falls over. Say what you will, it feels good to be inconspicuous, and what else, if not the city, can bestow this snug, secure feeling upon us?

Of course, we little people also weep, and there is drama in our life too. Our life has all sorts of amusing twists, never mind that they don't make it into the news bulletins and are immediately consigned to oblivion or, in the very best case, are assimilated by second-rate novelists. Actually, before you fall asleep, I just wanted to tell you a story about a woman I know, a perfectly ordinary city-dweller. In fact, she's a school-friend of my ex-wife, but a close acquaintance of mine too.

Her name is Lida Surkova. That is, her first name is Lida and Surkova is her school name. I won't say maiden name because that's an archaic and imprecise term these days. After Surkova she bore the surname Lyubokhiner (only very briefly), and then Barbotkina. There's nothing unusual about this; with the dynamic pace of modern life everything wears out very quickly. And every now and then, women have to change their surname or – to use the contemporary term – rebrand themselves. Lida was rather unfortunate in this respect, but that's not so unusual either. Her story remains fairly typical overall, with the possible exception of the happy ending.

And so, from the beginning. Once upon a time there was a girl called Lida with the (nominally) maiden name of Surkova. A quite normal young woman, a good student, rather attractive. They say she had a pleasant singing voice too. And she had the simple, maidenly fears that everyone understands: she was afraid of thunder and lightning, abortion, unhappy marriage and getting fat. In other words, she was afraid of the inevitable. One summer Zhora Lyubokhiner, the son of a student friend of Lida's father, was staying at their home. Zhora had come from Dnepropetrovsk and he intended – or was pretending that he intended – to enrol in some college or other. Then one day, when Lida's parents were not at home but Lida and Zhora were, an appalling thunderstorm broke out over Moscow. Frightened to death, Lida sought salvation by flinging herself on Zhora's breast. Manfully maintaining his composure, the youth covered her with his body in order to protect her more effectively. And then, casting caution aside, the girl conceived to the accompaniment of thunder and lightning. When Lida's father discovered what had happened, he gnashed his teeth and wanted to throw the rascally sponger out immediately. But Lida and her mother exclaimed in chorus: ‘Anything but an abortion!' Preparations for a wedding were set in motion. A host of Lyubokhiners and their relatives arrived from Dnepropetrovsk, all speaking Russian with a fricative ‘g'. The young couple drove to the register office in a Chaika automobile, but a bus (manufactured in Lvov) had to be hired for the relatives. These vehicles delivered everyone to the cafe where tables were laid for the wedding feast, and there the Chaika was let go, while the bus drove round the corner and halted to await the eventual conclusion of the festivities. The refreshments were adequate. Some of the Lyubokhiners might possibly have been expecting more, but many of the invited guests and, especially, the uninvited were perfectly satisfied. Vodka and champagne flowed into mouths and gushed back out in honey-sweet speeches. By popular demand, the young couple kissed on the lips, and everything was going just as it should. But then, following the main course, Lida, feeling slightly squiffy, lowered her little head onto her husband's shoulder. No, that's not quite right . . . She lowered her little head, but the shoulder wasn't there. Lida looked and Zhora wasn't there either. ‘Well,' she thought, ‘he's slipped out somewhere.' But a quarter of an hour went by and her husband still hadn't come back. Lida started to get worried, hoisted up her crinolines and set off to look for him. She walked round the entire cafe and even glanced into the men's toilet, but Zhora was nowhere to be seen. Lida went out onto the porch, where several men were smoking. She glanced into all their faces, but didn't recognise any of them as her husband. ‘Have you seen Zhora?' she asked. One of the men pointed round the corner and said: ‘I think he went that way'. The bus made in Lvov was standing there, just round the corner. One of its doors was open and the driver was striding up and down beside the bus with a cigarette clenched in his teeth. ‘Have you seen my husband?' Lida asked again. It was a ludicrous question to ask – how could the driver know who was whose husband? ‘No, I haven't and I don't want to!' he replied angrily. ‘My bus isn't some shagging-shed for you lot – I'm leaving, I've had enough!' At that very moment, Lida's ears were assaulted by moans of passion. I specifically mentioned earlier that the bus was made in Lvov, because those LAZ buses had a large, undivided seat at the back that was warmed by the motor and came in very handy for a quick spot of how's-your-father. (They don't export those buses to Russia any more.) When Lida glanced in through the door from which she had heard the moaning, she uttered a moan and fainted away. And then it all came out: Zhora was in the bus with his cousin Rosa (who had always wanted it), and she had come to Moscow especially in order to put one over on Lida and get a Moscow residence permit for herself. So the abortion was arranged after all – it still wasn't too late. However, these events transformed Lida's father into a radical anti-Semite; and the saddest thing of all was that Lida started putting on weight as a nervous reaction.

Lida's next official nuptials did not come soon – only about fifteen years later. But don't get the idea that she spent all those years sleeping in a crystal coffin. No, she suffered a lot and thought a lot. She had various sexual partners. Despite her sumptuous figure, or perhaps even because of it, Lida was always in demand. But, of course, she dreamed of true feelings.

She was quite frank with her old school-friend Tamara.

‘If I came across one like that,' she dreamed out loud over a glass of Cinzano, ‘loving and genuine, I'd go running after him. No matter what.'

‘No matter what?' Tamara asked doubtfully. ‘What if he turned out to be a sloppy engineer with holes in his socks?'

‘You don't understand,' Lida laughed. ‘I told you – genuine.'

‘Genuine as in well-to-do?' I suggested.

Lida gave me a sideways glance.

‘Well, sort of . . . I've had enough of those types with holes in their socks.'

‘Sure, sure,' said Tamara, nodding understandingly.

In life, however, the loving ones and the genuine ones fell into mutually exclusive categories. The loving types brought their love to Lida in rusty old Zhiguli automobiles, while the genuine types drove her to restaurants in good cars, but they were never more than up for it. Things went on like this, I repeat, for about fifteen years. But one day Lida showed up at our place completely transformed.

‘Can I help you . . .' I muttered as I opened the door and only recognised her a second later. ‘Come in, Lida.'

She had a new hairdo and bright evening-style makeup and was even looking a bit slimmer, nothing like the Surkova who used to snivel about life in our kitchen.

‘I'm with someone,' Lida said with a bashful smile. ‘My husband.'

The husband, who was standing on the stairs, was immediately presented to us.

‘Mikhail,' he said, introducing himself without a smile. ‘Barbotkin.'

Tamara was glad for her friend. She hastily laid the table and we and the Barbotkins had a cosy supper in the twin couples format. When Mikhail went to the toilet to answer the lesser call of nature, Lida asked Tamara in a whisper:

‘Well, what do you think of him?'

‘Not bad,' Tamara whispered back. ‘But why doesn't he say anything?'

‘He's not a loudmouth like other men.'

‘Sure, sure,' said Tamara, nodding understandingly. ‘So what is he then – a genuine man?'

‘Of course. He's very well-off! I can't even imagine why two wives have left him.'

Mikhail finished answering the call and came back. We had coffee and soon after that said goodnight.

But a little while later, Lida realised why two wives had left Barbotkin, despite his being so very well-off. Mikhail really was a man of few words, so when at the end of their honeymoon, without offering any explanations or even saying a word, he attempted to take her in a perverted position, Lida was shocked. She certainly couldn't complain of any lack of pre-marital sexual experience, but the extent of that experience was quantitative rather than qualitative. For Lida the art of love consisted of shaving her bikini zone and assuming poses appropriate to the circumstances and the scene of action. What Barbotkin tried to make her do was beyond her comprehension. Lida attempted to distract her husband with exquisite haute cuisine, in which she was highly proficient. By deceitful means, she bore Mikhail a delightful daughter, hoping that the joys of fatherhood would counter his perverse tendencies. It was all in vain and two or three years later, their marriage was annulled by mutual consent. The female judge shook her head as she divorced them, and we can only share her amazement at the petty trifles over which good families sometimes fall apart.

Be that as it may, the taciturn Barbotkin disappeared over the horizon and I am glad that I never made friends with him. Once again Surkova was left alone, but with an appendage in the form of a small daughter. Other appendages, rather depressing ones, attached themselves to Lida in the region of her waist and buttocks. That, basically, is the full story of her two failed marriages, as I know it, mostly from what Tamara told me.

Now let me tell you about the third, successful marriage. But first a brief digression. Moscow, as everybody knows, is a very big city. A vast number of men live in it and visit it. But if you're an unmarried woman of middle age, then you know how difficult it is to find a genuine man, especially one who's not already taken, in order to build a serious, long-term relationship. I suppose that Dmitry Pavlovich, who snatched away my ex-wife, was one of the last remaining specimens. But unmarried women also know something else: large as Moscow may be, it is not the only inhabited world. While we nocturnal smokers gaze up into the murky Moscow skies, what do you think the unmarried ladies of Moscow are doing? They are sitting at their PCs, monitoring the inhabited universe, near and far, for all they're worth. The glow of the screen is reflected in their eyes; their right hands caress their mice. The ocean of dating sites is infinitely deep and broad . . . With how many men does the statistically average, unmarried Moscow lady spend the night? How many does she reject, how many does she mark as ‘selected'? This is not for us to know . . .