Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
| | Chapter Six | | Chapter Eleven | | |
| Chapter Nineteen
"If one would live honestly, one must strain at the leash, get tangled up, fight, make mistakes, drop everything and start again and again, to be forever struggling and experiencing reversals." He held the notebook and read aloud what he had just written, Faustian! That was his assessment. He was exceedingly pleased with himself. Podly believed that where he had gone and what he had done on Christmas Eve had been motivated by an 11-year old desire surging inside him that was set in motion by his intake of a substantial amount of drugs and alcohol. It was simply destiny. He harbored within himself no surprise at what happened, nor any shame in what he had done. He had over four days to ponder the incident, to sort out what he actually did there in Moscow -- from what he thought he was doing at that time in Novgorod. He pretty much had all that straight in his mind. What was almost lost to him in recollection was what happened after he got up out of Zina's bed, and left the house at 120 Novokirovskaya. He next remembered waking up in his own bed around 2:00 a.m. on December 26. He knew that the Demon's Lair brothel on the Arbat had been a part of that time. And certainly, driving his car all over Moscow, entranced with the lights and with the movement and speed. Actually, Podly hadn't returned home and fallen asleep until around 2:00 p.m. Christmas afternoon. He slept for 12 hours, woke with a massive hangover, drank tea until around 5:00 p.m., and then went back to bed. By the time he woke up at 3:00 p.m., December 26, he felt that everything was just about normal. "I built the fire, Vasily Viktorovich," announced Elizaveta Fyodorovna. She seemed to Podly to appear from out of nowhere. Actually, she had been standing in front of him in the dining room for several minutes, patiently waiting for him to look up from his notebook. She would never have interrupted his train of thought. She had been Podly's housekeeper for five years. A ruddy-faced, lanky and robust woman of 65, Elizaveta Fyodorovna was very good at her job. She was also totally devoted to Podly, and as discreet as a spy. So loyal and discreet that the man who delivered Podly's package on Christmas Eve was her ex-husband. "Oh, yes ... splendid, Elizaveta Fyodorovna! I'm going in there now. Thank you. I'll fill my cup once more, then perhaps come to me in a half hour, and bring more, yes?" "Certainly, Vasily Viktorovich." Once Podly was seated in his chair in front of the fireplace with his tea on the little table to his left; and notebook, pen and ink on the little table to his right, he continued his meditations. The more Podly thought about the potent effects of the combination of opium, hashish smoke and vodka, the more he began to extol them in his mind. He marveled at the way he was able on Christmas Eve to move within the zone of all encompassing knowledge, that is, see things that were, that were to be, and that had been before -- all at once. It was a zone akin to seers and prophets. Admittedly, Podly was at the time of the incident, seemingly able to only comprehend the past -- convinced as he was that he was existing in Novgorod, Christmas Eve 1910. But he remembered begging Zina's forgiveness for what he did to her, how he behaved with her. Perhaps that could be considered future time. Her forgiveness would bring about a change in their relationship. He begged her forgiveness in the present, there that night, in Novgorod ... which was really Moscow ... confusion began to set in. Podly was making little charts and columns in the notebook. He was not used to thinking like that. His plotting with his chessboard and its pieces was one thing, it gave him practice with a certain type of mental process, certainly; but it was not the same thing as the situation he pondered there in front of his fireplace. And besides, powerful chemicals were involved, substances that altered consciousness, intensifying the experience, and distorting time. Podly needed to do some reading on that subject. Surely, books were available. In retrospect, an important question that occurred to Podly was that of the identity of the woman with the baby, who at that time appeared to Podly to be the Madonna. He knew within his heart that it was not Zina. That woman's height and build convinced him of that. That stature, and with that baby -- anyone under the circumstances could have mistook them for the Madonna and child. But really, who? The obvious choice was Zina's friend, Anya Drugo. For some reason, she was there to watch the child. As far as Podly knew, no one else was in the apartment ... the thought of Zina being dead ... that feeling at that moment ... of emptiness ... of loss. Podly still felt the scare of that, sitting in his armchair in front of the roaring fire. How did he decide to leave that apartment at the precise moment he did? Fear! ... The tomb ... suddenly the room was empty, the Madonna and child had departed and Podly was left in ... Zina's tomb, or in some circle of hell ... for what she did ... for what he had forced her to do! Podly was scared out of his wits, and tore out of there, gasping for fresh air. He remembered gasping for his breath a great deal when he was in that room. "What next?!" he wrote in the notebook. Certainly he wanted to experiment more with "the chemicals." Perhaps begin a systematic study, noting dosages, trying to remember and document times and events, thoughts, impressions ... in effect, make it as scientific as possible. "Anya Drugo," he wrote in the notebook. Podly wanted to confront her with what happened, if she was the one. She had to be! He had to formulate a plan to determine the certainty of his suspicion, and then, speak to her about it. A very luscious secondary idea occurred to him ... to compromise her in some way, and get her into his bed. But then there was her husband, Drugo, who could be dangerous. Caution had to be exercised in that regard. "Z . . . i . . . n . . ." he couldn't finish writing her name. It wasn't right. It was too sacred. I can't cope with her directly just now, just yet. Maybe when I experiment again with the chemicals. Podly buried his face in his hands. He began to sweat. He looked up. He stared across the archway of his hands in front of him. I must at this point approach her obliquely ... like one does with God through a saint: intercession. Podly wrote, "intercession," in his notebook. Anya could be the intercession point, the terminus of desire as it swung from the world of blood to the world of pure idea, from the abstract to the organic. Another bit of strategy that Podly could employ was to sabotage the current economic good fortune of Zina's father, S. A. Ostavlyavich. That man's drunkenness and indigence as well as Zina's hatred for him had always been central to Podly's plan. It shouldn't be too difficult to have him removed from his position, thought Podly. The head of NEP, Doverovich, yes, Natalya ... what is her patronymic? ... I can't remember. I'll have to put her on my list of people to see.
She spent quite a bit of time with the Futurist poet, Vladimir Mayakovsky and his entourage. That group was the merriest of the Red Rooster's patrons that night, as usual; and were involved in several altercations, including a near-brawl caused by Mayakovsky's impromptu poem about a heavy-set woman at an adjacent table to the Futurist gang. On the Red Rooster's stage, Mayakovsky presented a scene from a comedy he was working on. Zina knew Mayakovsky from her first years on the Moscow scene. Dmitri, a devotee of Blok's classical style of verse, had no time for Futurism or Mayakovsky. Dmitri thought Mayakovsky to be nothing more than a vulgar, phrase-producing machine, sweating too profusely, giving off far too much steam than what he actually said called for. Dmitri was also jealous of Mayakovsky's fame, and Zina's interest in him. Around 2:00 a.m., Mayakovsky suggested that his group take the festivities elsewhere, to a more private setting. He asked Zina to come along. Dmitri wanted to go home, he had drunk too much, and felt ill. "I'm just getting started, Dmitri, and you want to end it all! Isn't that fine! Isn't that just the way it always is! Go home. Home to the baby! I'll be there when I feel like it. Do you think I've had enough of this fun yet?" "But Sasha must be fed. You must think of him!" Zina felt like slapping Dmitri. She felt like saying, "To hell with the baby, and you, and all of this!" But she did not. Anya Drugo pulled Zina aside to try and calm her down. Mayakovsky came up to Zina's table. His yellow peasant shirt was spotted with wine. He shouted at the top of his voice. "Zina exudes the poetry of linseed oil and turpentine! For a poet, nothing short of a queen or dream is acceptable. The adoring power he's been born with requires perfection. Exquisite, as upon a marble pedestal; impassive as a mannequin; belonging to a 'period' of her own. An artist of her talent gathers experiences faster. And those experiences are those that can be reached in the deepest levels of sensibility. That picture of hers hanging on the wall there -- if we could see it through all the smoke -- a great rain of opaque particles of light fall upon nests of concentrically-shaped wedges! ... Well, Zina, the concertina, we'll be at Somronov's, just beyond the University, Rutansky, 200 something. Take your old man home if you have to! Then, join us. We'll sing the sun up! Then, we'll kick it back down again!" roared Mayakovsky. And he and his gang left the Red Rooster. Zina glared hatefully at Dmitri. Then she sat down at the table with Anya and some other people. Dmitri, nauseous, and disgusted with the entire evening went back to the washroom area behind the stage, and vomited. About a half hour later, the Dumatskoys took a cab back to 120 Novokirovskaya. They sat in silence the entire way, except for the sound of Zina's occasional sobbing.
The nightingales were not singing. The absence of their voices, the silence that was so obtrusive upon his arrival there nearly caused Dmitri's heart to stop beating. Everything else was the same. The endless expanse of meadow with its hills and valleys in the distance, the vineyards, crop fields, and animals, the deep blue sky, blazing sun and immovable pure white clouds. But no nightingale voices could be heard! The hideous silence reigned. Dmitri walked. He took steps that were tempered by fear and a foreboding of doom. There on the path ahead of him he saw a nightingale lying with its throat torn open. Somehow, it had almost a human look of agony on its little face. Dmitri became sick to his stomach. He vomited. As soon as his stomach settled somewhat, he walked on in a daze. The further he walked the more nightingales he found on the ground. They were all dead. They were all in various stages of mutilation. Some were nothing but bare bones, picked clean of skin and feathers. There were hundreds, thousands of slain nightingales! In some places, in the vineyards, or in corn or barley fields, or next to a copse of oak trees -- nightingales were piled up as high as Dmitri. Soon, all Dmitri saw around him were mutilated nightingales! He began vomiting again. He felt as though a deep black cave was at the pit of his stomach. Vertigo seized him and everything in his space began to swirl and whirl around him. It was as though he spun in the middle of a cyclone. Just before he lost his balance, lost consciousness and fell to the ground everything became still and solid like a painting. In front of him, perched on a large, thick limb of an oak tree was a huge, brown, snarling vulture, its eyes blazing furiously, blood, flesh and feathers around its hideously chewing mouth, and on its terrible razor-sharp claws... Forward to Chapter Twenty Back to Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four |Chapter Five  Top of Page  |
n the dining room of his house on Krasnopresnenskaya just after 7:00 a.m. on December 29, V. V. Podly was pouring himself a cup of strong tea from the samovar that his housekeeper, Elizaveta Fyodorovna, had prepared for him. He sat down at the table to drink. He was alert, well rested, and eager to begin the day. He thought, perhaps he might go into the office today although business would not officially (or unofficially) resume again until Wednesday, January 2nd. He assumed a very business-like demeanor as he sat there sipping tea. He took a cigarette out of a mahogany box inlaid with white speckled stones from Novgorod. He lit the cigarette and began smoking. Podly was imprisoned for life within himself and his thoughts. There was the ongoing dream that ceased neither night nor day. It was circling motion and central stillness. It was opening the door many times and never finding the one he sought in the room. He was a traveler and the one who waits at home. He was the one of energy and flux, and also of morbid paralysis. It was all Zina. She was the chaste wife, seductive witch, deadly siren. She had a foothold in both the celestial and infernal regions at once. She was the ever-changing object for which Podly longed from across the abyss of consciousness. Into a little notebook after dipping a goose quill pen into a bottle of ink, he wrote thoughtfully: 
ina was in a low-cut, calf-length, heart-blood red dress, nylons and high-heeled red shoes; a strand of cultured pearls with matching earrings. The gold wedding band on her finger -- and her outfit was complete. Wherever she went, other women in proximity appeared dragged-down and drained of vitality by their clothes. Zina's body always seemed to swim in the fluidity of what she wore. She spent that night of December 1 at the Red Rooster Cabaret like there was no tomorrow! She talked and laughed; danced and flirted with countless men. Her gaze, heavy with mischief, altering the pictorial values of her face, set out on a searing journey of inspection. No other woman there that night was looked at, or talked about more than Zina. She spent very little time with Dmitri. 
mitri wanted to go to his place. Again, just as it happened every time he tried to go there within the last few months, he experienced the phenomenon of having to search for the space for what seemed like an agonizingly long time. Each time he tried to go, the search seemed to take longer and longer. Finally, as with all the other times, he found it. But Dmitri was immediately assaulted with a profound sense of horror. The panic he felt each time he had to search for the place was nothing compared to the hideous despair that gripped his being, held it, and would not let him go.