" 'To your good health, and good luck, my little one,' the young golden
bird, understand, eh?, sang as it flew from the oak tree and vanished in
the bright spring sky, understand. The little baby will be born to you,
brave Seroyzhya."
As he spoke Sergey Andreevich Ostavlyavich was pounding on the back of some
man at the bar of The Soldiers and Sailors Hotel on Chiloveki Street. He
had been drinking there all afternoon. The man sitting next to him was the
latest unfortunate soul to be subjected to his soliloquy. Ostavlyavich was
a rusty, creaking hinge of a man.
"And who was that baby, eh? Understand - my beloved Zinochka, the finest
student at the Cathedral of Saint Sofya School in Novgorod; and showed the
most talent in drawing and painting, a regular Rubleev, understand!"
The other man abruptly moved down the bar to another stool.
Ostavlyavich continued talking, directing his speech in front of him toward
the mirror behind the bar.
"The revolution, the devil take it, understand, eh? I'm sympathetic,
understand, there is no more loyal citizen, comrade, party member, etc.,
than brave Seryozhya, none whatsoever! But the career I had, the money,
the prestige, understand, business, more that I could keep up with. Honey
and fur, that's all I dealt in, specialized, understand. Then those
Bolsheviks! The devil take them! I love them, understand, every single,
leather-jacketed son of a . . . And Lenin, a saint, by God, understand."
This went on for some time, until there wasn't a single kopeck left
in his filthy pockets. He was 61 years old, but somehow looked younger.
He was tall; and thin, somehow, in spite of all the beer and vodka he
guzzled. But then, again, he seldom ate. Short-cropped brown hair,
without a touch of gray, and an unkempt beard; penetrating blue eyes that
never seemed to blur or redden from spirits. His gait gave him away. He
stepped off the barstool and rocked from side to side like a ship on stormy
waters as he moved toward an empty table in the back. He fell into a chair
just as he was about to stumble over his feet.
Ostavlyavich had a good business as a honey and fur merchant in
Novgorod before he met Preskovia Stepanova, the woman he was to marry in
1897. Their first child, a boy named Semyon only lived five days,
succumbing to a constant high fever. Zinaida Sergeevna was born in 1900.
Ostavlyavich was a shrewd and knowledgeable businessman, independent, proud
and hardworking. He had always been a big drinker. He took Semyon's death
very badly, drank much more than usual, and became sullen and moody. When
Preskovia Stepanova died of pneumonia in 1906, Ostavlyavich went to pieces.
The business began to fail. He became a drunkard. He loved his daughter,
Zina, but could not care for her under the circumstances. His sister and
her husband wanted to help raise the girl, or even take her as their own,
but Ostavlyavich would have none of that! He was the father, the provider.
He could take care of his daughter without anyone's help. But he could not
take care of her! By the time she was ten in 1910, she was practically
left on her own. She inherited her father's pride, wile, and independence.
She grew up quickly, and learned not to rely on anyone for her needs.
In 1908 Ostavlyavich had moved from the house he had built on the
outskirts of Novgorod to a crowded little apartment in the city. It lay in
the shadow of the old Kremlin, and near the Cathedral of St. Sofya and its
affiliated school. Zina was left alone often. She had to cook and clean.
She was taken places by Ostavlyavich and abandoned because he was too drunk
to remember where he had left her. He had sold what was left of his
business and was quickly drinking up all the money that they had. He began
to sweep-up in the taverns he frequented, and washed dished and glasses
just to keep himself in vodka. The little money he managed to save for
birthday and Christmas presents for Zina would get swallowed up instead.
Teachers in Zina's school soon discovered her artistic talent. She
could draw anything she saw. Her sense of color and proportion were far
beyond her years. And she was advancing rapidly in her skill levels. She
also had a find singing voice and keen musical aptitude. She was chosen
for the children's choir of the Cathedral of St. Sofya in 1909. The choir
was then under the direction of V. V. Podly, the same man who was the
Housing Commissar of Moscow in 1921. Podly considered Zina his best singer
and would often accompany her home to insure her safety, knowing that her
father would seldom be able to pick her up at the Cathedral, or be there at
the apartment when she arrived.
"Buy this old sailor and soldier a drink, comrades, a couple of
vodkas for the old Bolshevik, understand, eh?" He petitioned people at the
tables around him in The Soldiers and Sailors hotel bar. A young woman
nearby tossed some coins on his table.
"May the Christ child, the child of the holy Bolsheviks bless you!
Ah, such a pretty face, like my Zina." He began sobbing quietly, "Devil
take that revolution! A good thing, a holy thing, understand. Sixteen
years old, she runs away from home, leaves our lovely home on the Volkov.
The lakes, understand, the rivers and marshes, our dear wooden churches,
the history, Oleg, etc, leaves it all. Makes her way to Moscow, a cursed
place, a wonderland, understand, like heaven, eh? How does she do it?
Sixteen years old! And why, I ask you? Her mother, gone to be sure, my
lovely bride, gone a long time, so young. Zinochka! Her birthday,
yesterday? The day before? I can't remember now, understand, the date.
Can't remember. . . she won't see me, won't take gifts, wouldn't spit on me
I'll wager, understand. Who'll buy this old hero of the war a drink? For
the sake of Christ!" He threw down another vodka. He made the sign of the
cross.
"A perfect childhood, anything she wanted. How could she be so
unhappy?"
Ostavlyavich was nearly raving. He drank, cried, and continued his
soliloquy amid the gloom, heat, noise, and smells of that late afternoon on
Chiloveki Street.
here was a place that Dmitri Dumatskoy had all to himself. It was
a space within his mind beyond time. Whenever he moved into that realm,
everything was the same as it had been the last time he was there. It
never changed. It was like a painting, a still-life. He had, over the
years, the opportunity to visit that place a countless number of times.
Therefore, he knew every inch of its landscape, and had described it to
Zina on so many occasions and in such a great detail that she had decided
to begin an oil painting of the contents of that place.
Dmitri's place was a vast meadow, reaching to the horizon in all
directions. Everywhere in the distance gently rolling hills and lush
valleys were scattered. There were fields of buckwheat, corn, oats and
barley. There were deer, elk, goats and cows in the valleys; and wild bear
in the hills. Of the winged creatures, only the nightingales flew within
that space and they sang as only poets can sing, and they sang
continuously. The sky was blue, Novalis blue, Blok blue, like the sky the
day of Blok's funeral. Large pure white clouds were distributed evenly in
that sky. But they never moved, they never obscured the brilliant
never-ending shining of the sun, situated in the heart of the sky. The air
was clear, and as warm as a typically mid-July day in the Russian
countryside.
Russian countryside, yes! But in the midst of it - vineyards.
Acres upon acres of vineyards, red grapes and white grapes. Red -
dominantly Sangiovese, with some Canaiolo Nero; white - Malvasia and
Trebbiano. Those were the grape varieties used for the formula of
classical Chianti, as established in 1835 by Baron Bettino Ricasoli at his
Brolio Castle near Siena at Gaiole in the Tuscany Region of Italy.
In his space, Dmitri walked through chest-high grasses, up and down
beaten paths until the sweat flowed out of him like the onslaught of the
Volga when it was swollen from a winter of ice, or a spring of flooding.
Or Dmitri sat in the shade of one of the countless oak, linden, pine, elm,
maple, apple, or other fruit trees until the delicious aroma of all that
was living there; and the profound beauty of all that he saw there
intoxicated him into opening wide his heart, and peace reigned supreme in
his spirit. His thinking and feeling aspects were unencumbered by the
negative. There was a resounding, "Yes!" echoing throughout the continuum,
the flowing wholeness that was Dmitri and his place.
atiana Andreevna stood at the kitchen door. She was looking into
the yard through the little window at the top of the door that opened out.
She clutched in her left hand a telegram that had just been delivered to
her. She had been crying since she had read the words in the telegram.
She continued to cry. She couldn't stop crying. She was looking at her
son, Dmitri, who was pacing around in the yard, now and again stopping to
scrutinize the lay of the land. Tatiana knew that Dmitri must be furrowing
his brow, as he was deep in thought. Through her tear-blurred eyes and
because of the distance involved, it was impossible to clearly make out the
precise expression on his face. Dmitri was plotting his vegetable garden,
theorizing as to where the cabbage, beans, onions, beets and radishes would
be located.He had a little piece of paper in his hand to which he was
referring. It was a design of last year's garden. It was late March in
Starry Gorod, 1905. The mid-day sun was warm.
Tatiana cried even harder as she watched her beloved son, nearly 6'
tall and clumsy at age 16, and those large-sized boots all muddy from the
effects of a week of rain on the yard. That was the outside of her son.
Inside dwelled the spirit of a poet, a scholar. One of Dmitri's passions
was the history of Moscow. At that time, he was doing research and writing
on the city's beginnings. The 9th century fortified village on the left
bank of the Moscow River, it was the nexus of the north-south highways, and
waterways that linked it to the Russian Mesopotamia - The Volga and its
tributaries: The Oka and Kama Rivers. At any moment he would probably
think of something that reminded him of a line of poetry, or of a passage
from a book he had been reading. Tatiana knew that Dmitri had a copy of
Aleksandr Blok's, Poems About The Beautiful Lady, in his coat pocket. He
was never without it since it came out the year before. Blok was Dmitri's
favorite of all the new poets, the so-called: Decadents or Symbolists.
Dmitri read all of the latest journals. He had come across Blok's poems
when they were first published in the St. Petersburg literary journal, The
New Path in 1903.
How was Tatiana going to tell Dmitri what was written in that
telegram? Dmitri's father, Tatiana's husband, Pavel, Palushka, was so
strong, so brave, and yet so gentle. Tatiana never thought of him as a
soldier. How could he kill another man? But duty, honor! He promised
Dmitri and Tatiana that he would come back with medals when they all took
leave of each other at Moscow's Belorussia railroad station on February of
1904. Medals and accolades really meant nothing to Pavel. It was just
something a Russian man had to do - go off to war defending one's country.
A cold rain fell profusely on all their faces and blended with their hot
tears. The train eventually pulled slowly out of the station with hundreds
of Russian men leaning out of the windows and waving goodbye to the ones
that most of them would be leaving behind forever.
Tatiana froze in terror as she saw her son approaching the kitchen
door. Suddenly, she thought of tearing up the telegram and acting as if
nothing horrible, totally devastating, catastrophic - had happened. But
for the sake of God, how could she hope to carry out such a deceit! But
Dmitri stopped, and turned away from the kitchen, and walked out to the
limits of the Dumatskoy's property line to where a large potato mound
stood, just in front of where the Tsarist government-owned forest began.
Tatiana somehow got hold of herself. Duty and honor! She walked over to
the kitchen table where that morning she had put down several cloth towels
that were to be used for washing and drying the dishes. She picked up one
and carefully dried her eyes of tears as best she could. Duty and honor!
She opened the kitchen door and walked out into the yard with the telegram
in her hand.
