Julie Himes - Mikhail and Margarita

Pyotrovich had said that manuscripts don’t burn. Yet people disappear. Whole countries of them.

Bulgakov went to his desk and gathered the final chapters. He knelt by the fireplace. He arranged some of the pages on the andirons; in the darkness, they seemed unaware of their new bed. With a match, he lit a corner. The paper held the flame poorly at first and he moved the match along its edge. As the flames caught, the orange light illuminated the words; he recognized a particular passage. He sat back a little; the flames progressed along the perimeter; then, growing, they leaned inward, cupping the pages. The edges darkened and curled; lifting up, fragmenting, more life to them than they’d ever known. He added more; again, the flames illuminated first, then consumed. The characters who’d lived there were gone. This seemed more than right. They should all disappear.

Ilya had told her they were traveling to Irkutsk. There they would board the train for Mongolia.

He’d had false papers made for them. They were stopped only once. They sat in the car as the soldier reviewed them. Ilya maintained an air of disinterest and boredom. When the soldier bent down to look at her Ilya placed his hand high on her thigh, as if in absent gesture. The soldier straightened, his head disappearing, and concluded his business with them. Ilya’s hand slipped away. She looked out the window and the car started forward.

Later she asked to see them. She made a face at the typeset of her new name. “Who picked this?” Maryanka Vasileyna Solovyova. Ilya didn’t answer right away. He was driving.

“You don’t like it?” He sounded sheepish and in part apologetic. It somehow pleased her that she could do that.

“It sounds like the name of an unattractive girl.”

“No it doesn’t.” He looked to see if she could be serious.

“And you?” she said.

“Boris. Mikhailovich Solovyov.”

So she was married. As though she’d dressed that morning in someone else’s clothes. Of course, it was only paper.

“That is the name of a blacksmith,” she said.

“Perhaps in my next life, Marya.”

She stared ahead. The sky was a hard, steady blue.

“Are you all right?” he said after a moment.

She nodded. “The sun hurts my eyes,” she told him, by way of explanation.

She could hear the voice of Anyuta in her head. It seemed a nuisance memory replaying itself. The girl had been talking on and on about nothing and Margarita had just wanted some quiet to think. You’re not as nice as you look, Anyuta had told her, marching away. Was it a person’s responsibility to live up to the promise of their appearance? An hour later, it’d been forgotten, Anyuta chatting endlessly, but the memory refused to leave her.

She asked Ilya what he thought would happen to Vera and her husband. When at first he was silent, she thought he was considering the question. Then she saw his acute discomfort.

“They had no idea what they were doing,” she said.

“Some effort will be expended to find out if that is true.” He sounded coldly technical, though perhaps self-conscious for that.

She remembered the sound of her feet on the stairs to Vera’s apartment. The wear of the banister under her hand. All of the times she’d joined her at lunch. All of the ways she’d appealed to her nature. Criminal acts, every one.

“You spent time with them too,” said Margarita.

“Any information they provide will put the authorities on the wrong track. At least for a while.” He paused. “If they are forthcoming it might give us an advantage.”

She could still feel Vera’s arm around her waist. Speaking of the daughter she’d always wanted.

He stared at the road as he spoke; it was straight and unambiguous. As though to look instead at her would be a cruel thing. It seemed then he was taking them both to some terrible destination.

They slept in the car at night. Other than that first kiss he’d not touched her. She lay awake under the layers of fur and listened to his restless breathing.

Why writers, he had asked long ago. She’d asked it of herself.

The memory of a particular afternoon came back to her. It’d been raining and Bulgakov had returned to their apartment carrying its chill in the folds of his damp clothes. At first it’d seemed she wanted only to relieve him of his coat, but the fabric of his shirt beneath clung to him in a way that made him startlingly vibrant. She didn’t stop at his coat, his shirt; she wanted to feel the warmth of his skin. He let her; he held his arms slightly apart and quietly watched. He was both passive and complicit. Then she pulled off her own clothes.

Later, she told him he wasn’t such a genius. She was being playful.

“Actually, I am,” he said. He was smiling.

She stopped teasing and became thoughtful. “You’re a genius about people.”

He wouldn’t take her seriously. “I just pay attention. How else does one write?”

“Even the villains have their chance,” she said

“Well—don’t they?”

She reached across the dark car toward Ilya; her fingers stopped short of him.

Why Bulgakov? She thought back to Patriarch’s Ponds—had she known then? Before everything, had she known of those things of which she could be capable? She withdrew her hand.

Write your most flawed character, she wished to him so far away. She squeezed her eyes shut until the darkness turned red. She strengthened her prayer. Take all of your humanity and write your grandest villain, your most foul sinner. Write as though mankind depended on this. And render some parcel of that humanity for me.

The next day shortly before noon, they came upon a line of wagons stopped on the road. The reason wasn’t immediately apparent. The day was fine; the sky promised no difficulties. Much of the snow had melted; clover grew everywhere. Children played along the roadway, chasing each other between the stopped vehicles; mothers stood in the shallow ditch and chatted in small groups. Ilya slowed as they entered the queue, then stopped the engine. Faces turned to them, the car a relative novelty, before returning to other conversations.

Ilya stared over the top of the steering wheel; he seemed certain yet tentative. Perhaps it was nothing. “Stay here,” he said. He looked like he might say more but instead got out and began walking toward the front of the line. Effortlessly he took on the gait of a more common man, ambling, broad-based. He passed a group of children; he ran his hand over the head of one of the older boys playing. The boy glanced up, unperturbed; the old man appeared no different from any of those from his village. She thought—they needed to be forgettable. To disappear among the others. Perhaps he thought that she, like the car, was incapable of such.

There was a knock on her glass. A woman only slightly older bent low and beckoned her, smiling. Margarita lowered the window.

Had she brought something for dinner? asked the woman. Someone had suggested a picnic. The woman eyed the back of the car greedily. Surely someone driving such a vehicle would have something worthy to share. “I’ve never seen a car like this before,” she said.

There was Vera’s food. They couldn’t spare any yet this would be a way to disappear—even for a few hours.

“Is that your husband?” said the woman.

Ilya was returning.

His hands were in his pockets. He appeared to give off a casual air, yet Margarita sensed the urgency in his stride. Something was wrong. She shook her head at the woman. “We didn’t bring anything.” She tried to seem disappointed.

The woman straightened. “How did you find yourself such a pretty young wife?” she said to Ilya.

“Ah,” said Ilya. “But in the meantime I starve. She cannot cook.”

“She will learn,” said the woman. She smiled again at Margarita. “We all do.”

Ilya got into the car and the woman drifted toward the wagon ahead of them.

“They’re searching vehicles,” he said. “I’m not sure for what.” He looked at her then as though cataloguing her every feature. He paused at her midsection. “Can you make it so you appear pregnant?”

He reached into the backseat and gathered some clothes loosely in one of the pillowcases. She undid the clasp of her skirt and tucked the bundle under her waistband and blouse. She settled back in the seat.

Her arms circled the mound. It was a remembered gesture; a remembered loss. It was her younger self that seemed difficult to recall.

He nodded. “Try to look a bit more matronly.”

Ahead, soldiers moved from wagon to wagon.

The occupants stood to the side while their belongings were examined. When finished, the soldiers moved to the next. They had not yet found what they’d come for.

“Try not to speak,” he said as they watched.

The soldiers went through the cart in front of them. Several had climbed into the back, over irregular forms covered in tarps. They opened crates and bags of various sizes. Off to the side at the verge of the ditch, the woman from before stood watching. Several children clung to her. One of the soldiers broke away, walking toward their car. His rifle slung over his back, he didn’t appear threatening. He knocked on Ilya’s window. Ilya lowered it and the man’s face appeared.

“This is quite a car,” he exclaimed. He grinned openly. He’d get to talk about it for the next few days.

He was Margarita’s age. Startlingly handsome. Eyes that were sharp blue. His hat was pushed back slightly on his head. He looked at Ilya first, then at her. His expression changed slightly. She was the type of girl he’d have pursued. She saw his recognition of this, then his slight puzzlement. Why was she here, with this much older man? He noticed her midsection then, and returned his attention to Ilya as though it’d always been there. “You’ll need to step out,” he said. The car was forgotten.

Margarita opened the door. Ilya’s arm reached across her.

“Would it be all right if my wife remained?” Ilya patted her belly. “I think the midwife is overly concerned, but she wants her to stay off her feet as much as possible.”

Ahead, the woman watched them. Would she notice the change should Margarita get out?

The soldier nodded; of course, if that was necessary.

Ilya opened his door and the steppe’s breeze moved between them as though eager for the chance; it shifted her clothes. She cradled the bulk in her arms protectively.

The soldier asked a question about the car. Ilya got out and closed the door. She didn’t hear his answer.

Several other soldiers approached. She listened to the muffled conversation. The more senior one wanted all of the vehicle’s occupants removed in order to search properly. Ilya tried to appear apologetic, yet shook his head.

She got out of the car. “It’s all right. I’ve been sitting too long.” She hugged the bundle to her. They’d not fastened it in any way and she risked losing it.

The handsome soldier looked concerned for her.

“What an amazing day,” she said to him brightly.

“It is,” he said. As if they were anywhere but along this road.

She sensed Ilya watching this scene, disapproving.

She could tell the soldier that she wasn’t really pregnant. That it was Ilya who’d made her disguise herself. Ilya who’d told her not to speak. Yet she could speak. She could say that all that had happened was his doing. The soldier would believe her. He would believe she was blameless.

The woman ahead saw her; even at that distance, Margarita could see her surprise. She lifted her arms away from the children as though to take a step toward them.

A whiff of fear rose through her. Then she thought, Come to me.

There was a cry from the back of the wagon ahead of them. One of the soldiers standing on the bed had straightened, holding a dark sack, and the soldiers left the car. The woman and her family were surrounded and escorted on foot toward the front of the column. Ilya motioned to Margarita to get in.

“Black market,” he said, once the doors were closed. He seemed relieved, then he looked at her. “Leave that in place until we get past them entirely.”

She touched the mound. It was as if she was incapable of disobedience. Her mouth, her hands were subordinate to him; she could hate them for that.

The column of vehicles began to move. Ilya followed the others. It was a slow exodus.