Black Snow

PART ONE

Chapter 1

How It All Began

It was the 29th of April, and Moscow had been washed clean by a thunderstorm; the air had become fragrant, somehow mellowing the heart, and making life seem worth living.

Wearing my new grey suit and a reasonably respectable coat I was walking along one of the main streets in the centre of the capital heading for somewhere I had never been to before. I was going there because of a letter that I had unexpectedly received and that now lay in my pocket. Here is what it said:

Highly esteemed Sergei Leontyevich!

I have so wanted to make your acquaintance, as well as talk to you about a confidential matter which could be of considerable interest to you.

If you are free, I would be very pleased to meet you at four o’clock on Wednesday in the Drama Academy of the Independent Theatre.

With greetings, X. Ilchin

The letter had been written in pencil, with the following words typed in the left hand corner of the paper:

Xavier Borisovich Ilchin,

Director, Drama Academy,

Independent Theatre

I had never come across the name Ilchin before, and knew nothing of the existence of the Drama Academy. And although I had heard of the Independent Theatre and knew of its outstanding reputation, I had never been there.

My curiosity had been greatly excited by the letter, particularly since nobody was writing to me at all at the time. It should be said that I am employed in a minor capacity at the Shipping Gazette publishing house. I was then living in an unpleasant but independent sixth-floor room in the Red Gates area of the city, not far from Khomutovsky Close.

So there I was, walking along breathing in the fresh air, wondering whether the storm would return, and also how Xavier Ilchin had learnt of my existence, how he had found me and what he could possibly want of me. But however hard I racked my brains, the reason for this last point escaped me, and I finally decided it was because he wanted to exchange rooms with me.

I should have written to Ilchin of course, asking him to come and see me, since it was he who had business with me, but I have to say I was ashamed of my room, its surroundings and my neighbours. I am rather a strange person, and a little afraid of other people. I could just imagine Ilchin coming in and seeing my divan with its torn cover and protruding spring, the table lamp with its shade made out newspaper, the cat roaming about the place and Annushka swearing away in the kitchen.

I went in through some wrought-iron gates, past a little stall where a grey-haired man was selling badges and spectacle frames. I leapt over a fast-diminishing stream of muddy rainwater and found myself in front of a yellow building. It occurred to me that this building must have been built a long, long time ago, long before either Ilchin or I were born. There was a black board proclaiming, in gold letters, the building to be the Drama Academy. As I went in, my way was immediately barred by a small man with a little beard. He was wearing a jacket with green lapels.

Who have you come to see, citizen? he asked suspiciously and spread out his hands as if wanting to grab hold of a chicken.

I’ve come to see the director, Ilchin, I said trying to sound superior.

In front of my eyes, the man underwent an extraordinary transformation. He dropped his hands down to the seams of his trousers and gave me a sycophantic smile.

Xavier Borisovich? Of course, sir, immediately. May I take your coat? No galoshes?

The man took my coat as reverently as if it had been some precious ecclesiastical garment.

As I climbed the metal staircase I could see bas-reliefs of helmeted warriors in profile above fearsome swords, and ancient Dutch-tiled stoves with air vents polished to a burnished gold.

The building was silent, not a soul about, except for the man with the lapels plodding behind me. Whenever I looked round, he soundlessly indicated his feelings of attention, respect, devotion, love and absolute joy that I had come and that, although he was behind me, he was leading me to the place where I would find the solitary and enigmatic figure of Xavier Borisovich.

Then, suddenly, the light faded, the stoves lost their oily gleam, and everything went dark: outside the thunder started to crash again. I knocked on the door and walked in. In the gloom I finally saw Xavier Borisovich.

My name is Maxudov, I said in a dignified voice.

At that moment, far outside Moscow, there was a flash of lightning, illuminating Ilchin in a phosphorescent glow.

Ah, you’re here, my dear Sergei Leontyevich, Ilchin said with a sly smile. Then he put his arm round my waist and led me to an identical divan to the one that was in my room—it even had a protruding spring in the middle, just like mine.

To this very day I have no idea why the fateful meeting should have taken place in that particular room. Why was that divan there? What were the sheets of music lying scattered on the floor in the corner? Why was there a pair of scales standing on the table with those cups? Why was Ilchin waiting for me in that particular room, and not, for example, in the large adjoining room, on the far side of which, in the gloom of the thunderstorm, I could dimly see the outline of a grand piano?

And then, to the accompaniment of the growling thunder, Xavier Borisovich said ominously:

I have read your novel.

I shuddered.

The fact is…

Chapter 2

An Attack of Nerves

The fact is that, hating my job as a lowly proofreader on the Shipping Gazette, I had written a novel, sitting in my attic room and working through the night, sometimes right through to dawn.

The idea had come to me one night after waking from a sad dream. I had been dreaming of my native city, of snow, winter time and the civil war… I had dreamt of a raging yet soundless blizzard, and then there had been an old grand piano, next to which were some people who are no longer alive. I dreamt I was overcome by a feeling of loneliness, and I began to feel sorry for myself. When I woke up I was in tears. I turned on the light, a little dust-covered lamp above my table, illuminating my poverty-stricken existence—the cheap ink-well, a few books, and a bundle of old newspapers. I had a pain in my left side from the protruding spring, and I was overcome by a feeling of terror. As I sat there at the table I felt I could die at any moment, and this wretched fear of death made me so depressed that I groaned and anxiously looked around, seeking help and protection from death. And help was forthcoming: my cat, which I had found one day in a gateway and brought home, gave a quiet mew. It was alarmed. A moment later it was sitting on the pile of newspapers looking at me with its round eyes, asking me what the matter was.

The emaciated, smoke-coloured little animal very much wanted nothing to have happened. After all, would there be anyone to feed it in its old age?

It’s just an attack of nerves, I told the cat. It’s begun already, and it will get worse and swallow me up. But, for the time being, I’ll be able to carry on living.

The whole house was asleep. When I looked out of the window, there wasn’t a single light to be seen on any of the five floors. Suddenly it was no longer a house, but a multi-decked ship sailing along under a motionless black sky. The thought we were moving cheered me up, and I calmed down—as did the cat, which closed its eyes.

So I began writing my novel. I set about describing the blizzard in my dream, but I failed when I attempted to describe the side of the piano gleaming in the light of the lamp with its lampshade. I didn’t give up, however. During the day I did all I could to spend as little energy as possible on the job I hated so much, working purely mechanically, without racking my brains over it. Whenever possible, I tried to absent myself from work, pretending I was ill. No one believed me, of course, and life started to become unpleasant. But I simply put my head down and gradually got used to the situation. I waited for night time like a young man waiting impatiently to meet his girl. By then, the damned room had become quiet. I sat down at my table. The cat sat on the pile of newspapers, but it was very interested in my novel and kept trying to move across from the newspapers onto the sheet of paper I was writing on. Each time I would pick it up by the scruff of its neck and return it to its place.

One night I looked up in astonishment. The ship had stopped sailing along, and the house was in broad daylight, totally still. The light from my lamp had become quite useless and was now simply an irritating nuisance. I turned it off, to reveal my revolting room in the dawn light. Tomcats of every colour were padding furtively and silently around the asphalt courtyard. I could make out every letter on the sheet in front of me, without any artificial light.

My God! It’s April! I exclaimed, and unaccountably afraid all of a sudden, I wrote the words The End in large letters. The end of winter, the end of blizzards, the end of the cold. Over the course of the winter I had lost touch with my few acquaintances, had shut myself away, had gone down with rheumatism, and partly cut myself off from the world. But I had shaved every day.

With all these thoughts running through my head, I put the cat outside, returned to my room and slept a dreamless sleep—for the first time, it seemed, since the start of winter.

A novel needs a lot of correcting, with many passages having to be crossed out and hundreds of words changed. It is a great deal of work, but it has to be done!

Yet I had only corrected the first six pages when I was tempted back to the world of people outside. I invited some guests, including two journalists from the Shipping Gazette,* employees such as myself, their wives and two writers. The first of these was a young man who astonished me with his unique skill as a short-story writer, and the second an elderly person who had seen the world and who, on closer acquaintance, proved to be the most appalling swine.

That evening I read them about a quarter of my novel. The women were so numbed by it all that I began to feel pangs of conscience. But their husbands and the two writers were made of sterner stuff. Their criticisms were honest, almost as if I were their brother, somewhat harsh and, as I now realize, justified.

It’s your language! shouted one of the writers (the one who turned out to be a swine). It’s your language that’s the problem. It’s no good.

He downed a large glass of vodka, and ate a sardine. I poured him a second glass. He drank it and started on a piece of sausage.

Metaphors! he shouted, biting into his sausage.

Yes, agreed the young writer politely. Your language is a bit weak.

The journalists said nothing, simply nodding in agreement and taking a drink. The women neither nodded nor spoke, but drank vodka, studiously ignoring the port I had bought especially for them.

How can it be anything other than weak, shouted the elderly writer. Metaphors, I’d have you know, don’t just come of their own accord when asked, like pet dogs. And without metaphors it’s naked. Naked! Naked! Mark my words, old man!

The old man was clearly directed at me. I froze.

As they left, they agreed to come again. Within a week they were back, and I read another section of the novel. The evening was notable for the fact that the elderly writer suddenly started treating me in an overly familiar and unwelcome way, beginning to address me by my patronymic Leontich.

Your language is dreadful! But it’s compelling. Compelling, damn you (me, that is) to hell! he shouted, as he downed one of Dusya’s jellies.

On the third such occasion someone new appeared, another writer, with an evil face like Mephistopheles, unshaven, and a squint in his left eye. He said the novel was poorly written, but expressed the desire to hear the fourth and final part. Also present was some divorcée or other and a man with a guitar in a case. I learnt many useful things that evening. My unassuming colleagues from the Gazette gradually got used to the ever-increasing company and they too began to express their opinions, one of them saying that chapter seventeen was too long-winded, the other that the character of Vasenka was too shallow. Both comments were justified.

The fourth and final meeting took place not in my room, but in the apartment of the young man who was such a skilled short-story writer. This time, there were about twenty people present, and I made the acquaintance of the young writer’s grandmother, a very pleasant old lady, with only one unappealing trait—an expression of fear which for some reason never left her the entire evening. There was also their old nanny, asleep on a trunk.

When I finished reading the novel, disaster struck. Speaking as one, they all said it could never be published, as it would never get past the censor. That was the first time I had heard such a word, and it was only then I realized that, while I had been writing the novel, the thought of whether or not it would be allowed by the censor had never once occurred to me.

First to speak was one of the women (I found out later that she, too, was a divorcée).

Tell me, Maxudov, do you think your novel will get past the censor? she asked.

No, never! the elderly writer exclaimed. Never, under any circumstances! There cannot be any question of it ‘getting past’! Simply a hopeless idea. You can be sure about that, old man—it won’t get past.

It won’t get past, everyone echoed round the end of the table.

The language… the guitarist’s brother began to say, but he was interrupted by the elderly writer.

To hell with the language! he shouted, helping himself to salad. That’s not the point. The old boy can’t write, but the novel is gripping. You’ve got good powers of observation, you old rascal. Can’t think where that comes from, didn’t expect that at all. But… the content!

That’s right, the content…

Yes, exactly—the content, the elderly writer yelled, disturbing the sleeping nanny. You know what you need to do? No? Aha! Well, let’s see…

Taking a drink, he winked. Then he put his arm round me and kissed me.

There’s something not very nice about you, you know! he shouted. Not very nice at all. But I do like you, strike me dead if I don’t. He’s a sly old devil, this one! Got a sting in his tail! Did you notice chapter four, eh? What he said to the heroine? Well, I ask you…

Firstly, I don’t know what you’re talking about… I began to say, deeply upset by his familiar tone.

Firstly, you must give me a kiss, he shouted. No? I can see at once what kind of comrade you are! No, my friend, you’re not a straightforward person at all.

That’s right, not at all straightforward! echoed the second divorcée.

Firstly… I began again angrily, but to no avail.

Firstly fiddlesticks! shouted the elderly man. You have something of Dostoevsky about you, haven’t you! Yes, sir! All right, you don’t like me—God will forgive you for that and I won’t hold it against you. But we still love you sincerely and wish you well. As he said this, he pointed to the guitarist’s brother and to one other unknown person with a purple face who had arrived late, saying by way of apology he had just come from the central public baths. And let me, in all honesty, say this, he continued, for I am accustomed to telling people the truth to their faces: you, Leontich, don’t have a hope of getting anywhere with this novel. You’ll simply make life difficult for yourself, and we, your friends, will suffer knowing the torments you will have to go through. Please believe me! I am speaking from long, bitter experience. I know life! There you are, you see, he shouted in an offended tone, appealing to everyone with a gesture, look at him: he’s staring at me like some wolf. That’s the gratitude you get for being so concerned about someone! Leontich! he yelled in such a high-pitched voice that the nanny got up from her trunk behind the curtain, try to understand! Try to understand that the artistic merits of your novel are not so great (at this point a soft chord on the guitar was heard from the divan) that you have to go and sacrifice yourself on the cross. Do you understand?

Do you u—u—understand? sang the guitarist in a pleasant tenor voice.

So let me say this, shouted the elderly man. Unless you kiss me immediately I shall get up and leave all these charming people, because you have insulted me!

In inexpressible torment I kissed him. With the chorus rising to new heights, the soft unctuous voice of the tenor could be heard soaring above the others: Do you u—u—understand?…

I crept out of the apartment like a cat, clutching the heavy