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Authors: Sergei Dovlatov
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just asphalt after the rain…
Then I asked:
“How are your mother and father? They must be worried.”
For fifteen years I’ve been asking pretty women this stupid question. Three out of five say:
“I live alone, so there’s no one to worry about.”
And that is precisely what I want to hear. An old adage states: it is easier to fight a battle on enemy territory…
“I have no parents,” glumly replied Tanya.
I felt embarrassed.
“I am sorry,” I said, “it was tactless.”
“They live in Yalta,” she added. “Father is a local district committee secretary.”
A taxi pulled up.
“Where to?” asked the driver without turning around.
“Dzerzhinsky Street, number 8.”
The driver shrugged his shoulders in annoyance.
“You could’ve walked.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll square up,” I said.
The driver turned to me, punctuating every word:
“My gratitude, kind sir! We shall never forget your generosity…”
We drove up to Tanya’s building. Its brick façade protruded from the general rank by a few feet. Four wide Victorian windows were connected by a railing.
The driver made a U-turn and left, saying:
“ Auf Wiedersehen… ”
The shallow steps led to a heavy, tarpaulin-covered door.
I’d been in this situation a thousand times before and yet I felt nervous. Now she will walk up the steps and I’ll hear:
“Thank you for seeing me home…”
You must leave after this. To loiter about the entrance is unseemly. To ask for “a little nightcap” is contemptible!
My friend Bernovich used to say:
“It’s a good thing to go when you’re invited. It’s horrible when you’re not invited. But best of all is when you’re invited and you don’t go…”
Tanya cracked open the door:
“Thank you for the roof!”
“You know,” I said, “what I feel bad about? There was a lotof alcohol left… Back at the studio…”
And, as if unintentionally, I crossed the threshold.
“I have wine,” said Tanya. “I hide it from my cousin. He shows up with a bottle and I sneak half of it into the cupboard. He has a bad liver…”
“You’ve intrigued me,” I said.
“I hear you,” said Tatyana. “I have an uncle who is a chronic alcoholic…”
We entered the elevator. A small light blinked at every floor. Tanya was looking down at her sandals. An expensive pair, by the way, with the Rochas label…
I could see an obscenity scrawled in chalk behind her. An insult without an addressee. Expression of pure art…
Then we tiptoed very quietly, almost furtively, down the corridor. My sleeves swished against the wallpaper.
“You are huge,” whispered Tanya.
“And you,” I said, “are observant.”
We found ourselves in a surprisingly large room. I saw a clay head ofNefertiti,* a foreign wall calendar with a woman in a pink brassiere and a poster for a transatlantic airline. Balls of wool glowed scarlet on top of the desk…
Tanya produced a bottle of dessert wine, an apple, halva and some curled-up sweaty cheese. I asked:
“Where do you work?”
“At the Leningrad Engineering Institute, in the administration office. And you?”
“I’m a reporter,” I said.
“A journalist?”
“No, a reporter. Journalism is style, ideas, problems… A reporter reports facts. A reporter’s primary goal is not to lie. That is the essence of his job. For a reporter, the epitome of style is silence. It contains the fewest lies.”
The conversation was becoming serious.
I generally preferred not to talk about my literary affairs. In this sense, I was keeping my so-called innocence. By gently putting down my work I was achieving the opposite effect. At least so I thought…
The wine had been drunk, the apple was cut into pieces. There was a pause, which in a situation like this could be fatal…
As strange as it may seem, I was feeling something like love.
Where did it come from? From what pile of garbage? From what depths of this wretched, miserable life? In what empty, barren soil
Then I asked:
“How are your mother and father? They must be worried.”
For fifteen years I’ve been asking pretty women this stupid question. Three out of five say:
“I live alone, so there’s no one to worry about.”
And that is precisely what I want to hear. An old adage states: it is easier to fight a battle on enemy territory…
“I have no parents,” glumly replied Tanya.
I felt embarrassed.
“I am sorry,” I said, “it was tactless.”
“They live in Yalta,” she added. “Father is a local district committee secretary.”
A taxi pulled up.
“Where to?” asked the driver without turning around.
“Dzerzhinsky Street, number 8.”
The driver shrugged his shoulders in annoyance.
“You could’ve walked.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll square up,” I said.
The driver turned to me, punctuating every word:
“My gratitude, kind sir! We shall never forget your generosity…”
We drove up to Tanya’s building. Its brick façade protruded from the general rank by a few feet. Four wide Victorian windows were connected by a railing.
The driver made a U-turn and left, saying:
“ Auf Wiedersehen… ”
The shallow steps led to a heavy, tarpaulin-covered door.
I’d been in this situation a thousand times before and yet I felt nervous. Now she will walk up the steps and I’ll hear:
“Thank you for seeing me home…”
You must leave after this. To loiter about the entrance is unseemly. To ask for “a little nightcap” is contemptible!
My friend Bernovich used to say:
“It’s a good thing to go when you’re invited. It’s horrible when you’re not invited. But best of all is when you’re invited and you don’t go…”
Tanya cracked open the door:
“Thank you for the roof!”
“You know,” I said, “what I feel bad about? There was a lotof alcohol left… Back at the studio…”
And, as if unintentionally, I crossed the threshold.
“I have wine,” said Tanya. “I hide it from my cousin. He shows up with a bottle and I sneak half of it into the cupboard. He has a bad liver…”
“You’ve intrigued me,” I said.
“I hear you,” said Tatyana. “I have an uncle who is a chronic alcoholic…”
We entered the elevator. A small light blinked at every floor. Tanya was looking down at her sandals. An expensive pair, by the way, with the Rochas label…
I could see an obscenity scrawled in chalk behind her. An insult without an addressee. Expression of pure art…
Then we tiptoed very quietly, almost furtively, down the corridor. My sleeves swished against the wallpaper.
“You are huge,” whispered Tanya.
“And you,” I said, “are observant.”
We found ourselves in a surprisingly large room. I saw a clay head ofNefertiti,* a foreign wall calendar with a woman in a pink brassiere and a poster for a transatlantic airline. Balls of wool glowed scarlet on top of the desk…
Tanya produced a bottle of dessert wine, an apple, halva and some curled-up sweaty cheese. I asked:
“Where do you work?”
“At the Leningrad Engineering Institute, in the administration office. And you?”
“I’m a reporter,” I said.
“A journalist?”
“No, a reporter. Journalism is style, ideas, problems… A reporter reports facts. A reporter’s primary goal is not to lie. That is the essence of his job. For a reporter, the epitome of style is silence. It contains the fewest lies.”
The conversation was becoming serious.
I generally preferred not to talk about my literary affairs. In this sense, I was keeping my so-called innocence. By gently putting down my work I was achieving the opposite effect. At least so I thought…
The wine had been drunk, the apple was cut into pieces. There was a pause, which in a situation like this could be fatal…
As strange as it may seem, I was feeling something like love.
Where did it come from? From what pile of garbage? From what depths of this wretched, miserable life? In what empty, barren soil
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