Julie Himes - Mikhail and Margarita

Mandelstam continued. “Then one morning a different door opens. You are pushed through it and there is sun, sky. Arms wrap around you. Slowly it comes back; names first: this is sun; this is sky. Slowly you understand whose arms are around you. Explanations are given for questions you haven’t asked. You’ve been released.” He seemed to struggle to continue. “Then the rest returns: your past, your future. You don’t know what burdens they are until you assume them again.” He looked at his arms, his hands, as if those things were visible to him. He studied his hands. “By them, you know what you’ve done.”

He leaned forward. “Do you know the moment I was most happy? Do you? Standing in the sun. Without pain. Without names. Without knowledge. That is death. A man should never know how pleasant death will be. A man should never learn this.”

Bulgakov recoiled. “Why are you telling me this?” The skin over the other man’s arm was thin, mottled; dark ecchymoses ran its length. He’d not perceived these before. From shackles? Beatings? Mandelstam’s fingernails were yellowed and overly long; Bulgakov noticed then that several were missing entirely.

Mandelstam folded his fingers into his palms.

“Perhaps,” he went on. As though this was what he’d intended all along. “You should consider that you would have done the same.”

Mandelstam’s words found him as easily as if the poet had touched his shoulder. Had he known of Bulgakov’s meeting with Stalin? Had he listened for Bulgakov’s pleas on his behalf and heard only silence? Would he point out Bulgakov’s nails, his teeth: they were whole, unbroken. Instruments of torture hadn’t been required. Bulgakov wished he would never have to see Mandelstam again, as if in this manner such memories could be rooted out; at the same time he wanted to cry out for that loss.

Mandelstam looked toward his wife. “There is my heart,” he said. He lifted the cigarette to his lips. His tremor had lessened. “She believes I’ll be better someday.”

Margarita remained a short distance away. A group of children came upon her, kicking a faded ball. They swarmed her, then maneuvered the ball along the path away from her. With them gone, she looked more vulnerable. He could blame Mandelstam for this, but in some anticipatory way, he already blamed himself.

“Nadya has us packed,” Mandelstam went on. “I think she is happy to go.” He was signaling the end of their time together. He met Bulgakov’s eyes only once more. There was no regret with this. Like Bulgakov, he had no wish to see him again.

Mandelstam stood, holding the edge of the table until he took the cane. He passed Margarita as he moved off to join his wife. The two clasped hands and set off on the path together. Neither of them looked back.

Bulgakov imagined them walking the landscape of Cherdyn. It was a new town, utilitarian and bold, rising from the dark and freshly turned tracts of bulldozers. A glowing city on the steppe, the sun shattered and amplified by glass and steel. It would be hard to see in the continuous glare.

Mandelstam would only need to see the spot of land before him, that place where he would next set his foot. He would pray for no greater vision than this. They could all pray for blessed shortsightedness.

Margarita sat down next to him. Her face had warmed in the afternoon heat; it glowed with the faint sheen of perspiration. She seemed as young as the children who’d crowded her. She touched his arm and asked if he was all right. Her hand remained there, hopeful. “He said you’d be like this,” she said.

She should know better then.

She looked out over the pond; the swans were well-behaved under her watch. She still held his arm, but it seemed different now. The sense of her fingers was weightless. He could easily escape her, but he was reluctant.

“I didn’t think you’d come today,” she said.

But he had.

The skin she touched seemed more human than before, as if she had applied this quality with her fingertips. She believed that someday he’d be better, too.

He kissed her hand. Then he laid his cheek against it. He could try to keep her there.

Though perhaps then things would not end well for her.

There came again the slow beat of the swan’s wings from across the pond; it seemed a pulse in the air, better felt than heard.

He could pull his head back into Stalin’s rabbit hole. He glanced at the sky.

First Margarita had a deadline to complete. Then there were plans with someone else. A girlfriend, she added, as though she could sense the panic in his silence. The following evening she had a head cold. “It feels like I’m carrying a ball on my neck.” She sounded annoyed that this required explanation but perhaps it was just the cold. Bulgakov wanted to know how this could come upon her so fast, but how could that be asked? “I hope it leaves as quickly as it came,” he said, trying to sound confident. The line went dead and he reasoned she needed her rest. Shortly thereafter he went to her apartment anyway. He would say it was to check on her. He would bring something, a gift. Isn’t that what a friend would do? He looked around his apartment, then slipped the empty saltcellar from his table into his pocket.

He knocked twice before the door opened. She was in a bathrobe and looked disheveled from sleep. She didn’t question his appearance, though neither did she welcome him and instead returned to her bed. He came in and closed the door.

“This looks worse than a head cold,” he said, as if to provide good purpose for himself. She only hugged the pillow and rolled toward the wall. He sat down; first on the saltcellar, then removed it from his pocket. “I brought you something.”

She rolled back; she tried to focus on the object in his hand, then reached for it. He was at once sorry; he could have gone without this further embarrassment. She seemed to find the gift no odder than his appearance at her door. She put it on the table beside her and rolled back again. Shortly she was sleeping.

He had dozed off in the chair because he awoke to her voice. She was on her side, her head propped on her arm. He couldn’t tell how much time had passed. She seemed in better shape than him. “I’m not sure this makes sense,” she said. His head cleared immediately; what had come before this pronouncement? What didn’t make sense?

“I’m not blaming you,” she said. She picked up the saltcellar and fidgeted with it. “Perhaps I’m skeptical of love in general.”

He wanted to tell her she was young for such an attitude, but thought it would sound judgmental. When instead he wanted to touch her.

She laid her head back on her pillow, and stared at the glass piece as she turned it over. “Love is no different than any other relationship. At its core, it seems to be more about power.”

Was it not obvious that she had all the power? “I couldn’t disagree with you more,” he said.

She turned toward him. Again with her hand under her head. She was utterly divine for all of her disarray. “At the very moment I fall in love with you, you will cease to be captivated by me.”

She could imagine loving him! He should be overjoyed by this. But she had been hurt before. Perhaps by Mandelstam. Possibly himself. There were lesser men who’d be enthralled with her until their dying breaths. Let her find one of that species, she seemed to be saying. Let her be with one for whom she was never intended.

She smiled then, and it was as if to break his heart. “Isn’t this the way it tends to work for you?” With other women, she meant. She’d added this last part carefully, not wanting to hurt him.

“Come to my reading tomorrow,” he said.

She looked surprised. He put his hand to his heart. He could feel it knocking.

Her face seemed to empty of all expression. She asked how she could say no. Later he would wonder if she’d actually expected an answer to her question.

Bulgakov arrived at the apartment of the playwright, Alexei Glukharyov, early the following evening. Glukharyov met him at the door, half-dressed and apologizing that there were no spirits to be had. He insisted he’d forgotten though Bulgakov guessed that it was his wife who was not completely approving of these get-togethers and had scotched the idea, who’d wisely predicted that hosting an evening of liquored-up writers would end at a much later hour. Bulgakov told him he’d invited someone. He then sat on the sofa and waited for others to arrive. He had one cigarette remaining. It would calm his nerves, but he feared smoking it too soon. Perhaps someone would think to bring a bottle and he stared at the door as though he could will this to happen. A roll of pages was pressed between his shirt and suit pocket. He’d been unable to decide what to read, uncertain of what she might like, and he vacillated between telling himself it mattered not at all and that his future happiness depended on this choice. Glukharyov had disappeared behind the curtain that hid the bedroom; he was arguing with his wife. At some point in their past they’d found sufficient interest in one another to register their union, to sign the required documents. Was love an elusive thing or this banality? Was it as Margarita had predicted? More writers arrived; one had brought wine and glasses were passed. Perhaps she wouldn’t come; then he could read anything.

Chairs, cushions, an ottoman, and the sofa were arranged in a rough circle. When these were filled, the rest sat on the floor. Lights were dimmed save one and it was beside this that each writer would stand, the illuminated page drawing all eyes like a torch. Four had brought pieces that evening. The press of bodies, the room made smaller by its dark corners, provided the gathering with a sense of propitiousness. Theirs was art; each had a special duty to listen. Glukharyov provided a short introduction for each reader, fanciful and humorous, and the air stirred with short bouts of laughter and applause, as Glukharyov revealed (then demonstrated) how the first, a poet, had been a former actor who’d been forced to give up the stage because of narcolepsy. Another had been a member of the first expedition to the South Pole. Tragically, the Norwegian herring had given him terrible gas and the Vikings sent him home before achieving their destination. In such ways, these lucky ones had escaped the grip of fame. Bulgakov watched Glukharyov’s wife in the shadows. She laughed as the others did, and he imagined how she might see her husband anew and remember the initial spark of faith that had caused her to slip her hand in his. It would feel like taking another breath.

Bulgakov was the final reader. As the applause for the one preceding diminished, Glukharyov stood to give his preamble, only Bulgakov wasn’t listening. Margarita had not come and it seemed a well of disappointment had closed around him. He tried to imagine any number of reasons. His instructions had been poor; her illness had worsened; yet he felt it was none of these. She was alone in her apartment. She was aware of the time and the place. She had found some way to say no.

Glukharyov’s introduction was different from the others. He took up a volume of Gogol and began to read. It was the opening paragraphs from Dead Souls and the arrival of Chichikov, Seliphan, and Petrushka to the provincial town of N—. He was an excellent reader and took his time over the winding passages. Bulgakov knew these words well and it seemed as though Glukharyov and perhaps all in attendance knew of his disappointment, and it was in this way that they sought to arouse him from it.

Gogol himself would speak to Bulgakov, his voice reaching across the decades. Do these words sound familiar, he went. Like a coat one might don? Dare you—dare you?

Indeed! In his later years Gogol had become convinced that God had abandoned him. Tortured, half-crazed, he burnt his remaining manuscripts only days before he died. As though the promise of man’s redemption must perish with him. He claimed the Devil had tricked him into doing so. He’d been only forty-one.

Glukharyov closed the book and, extending his hand toward Bulgakov, welcomed him forward. “Follow that!” he said. The command was spoken with admiration. The expectation of the room seemed to lift him to his feet.

Under the light, Bulgakov unfolded his pages. From the darkness, one laughed. “Bulgakov will keep us until breakfast.” He shook his head—no, no. He was still uncertain what to read. His opening chapter was likely of the best quality. Further, there was the scene of his burgeoning romance with the Margarita of his story. Of this he was less certain; he might have read this had she come, but even then questioned this strategy. Now in her absence, he could set this aside.