Happiness is Possible (11 page)

‘So, Marinochka, why don't you really take a look round my flat?'

She shrugged one slim shoulder.

‘What for? You're not selling, are you?'

‘Ah, that's where you're wrong. I very definitely am selling. Only I still haven't decided which agency to use.'

‘Really?' Marina laughed.

‘On my word of honour!'

She looked hard at me, thought for a moment and sighed.

‘All right, show it to me. Nobody's answering at Kozlov's place anyway.'

Oh, well done, that man! I even turned away to conceal my triumphant expression. And they say you can never hoodwink an estate agent! However, the door of the cage had not yet slammed shut behind the little bird . . .

Marina and I finished our coffee and went to look round my accommodation. I had a two-room flat with the standard lay-out, designed for a standard building. But Marina studied everything carefully, even the balcony, making notes all the time on a sheet of paper. I informed her that I was single, in the sense that I was the only owner of the flat – she recorded that fact too. When the inspection was finally completed, Marina put the sheet of paper covered with writing away in her pink file.

‘Well then,' she said, lowering her eyelashes. ‘I suppose I'll be going now . . .'

Going! In my place only a total blockhead would have let her go. Her nearness was so thrilling.

‘Oh no, Marinochka,' I protested tenderly. ‘I won't let you go just like that.'

Her eyelashes shot up.

‘What do you mean to say by that?'

‘Why, that you still haven't seen everything. You've seen the building and the flat, but what about the surrounding area? We have a wonderful large park not far away – it seems to me that having something like that close by should add to the property's . . . what do you call it . . .'

‘Capitalisation.'

‘Precisely.'

Marina looked at Phil as if she was expecting advice from him.

‘Close by, you say? That's interesting.'

Five minutes later the three of us were already downstairs. I pushed open the mighty door and let my companions out of the entrance into the air, into the sunshine. Outside Nasir was striding to and fro, smoking and screwing up his eyes against spots of sunlight reflected from the glossy flanks of a small yellow car that had almost driven up onto the steps.

‘Yours?' I asked Marina.

‘Yes. How did you guess?'

‘It looks so pretty. Only why isn't it pink?'

Marina lowered her eyes.

‘There weren't any pink ones in the showroom.'

The little car was so yellow and shiny, I felt like licking it, but Phil limited himself to delicately sprinkling one little wheel.

The weather that day was just what I would have ordered, warm and sunny. For our part, Phil and I tried to make Marina's walk as pleasant as possible. In the park he ran ahead of us on patrol and I fanned my female companion with a small branch so that no gnat or mosquito would dare to land on her delicate, gently freckled little shoulders. On a couple of occasions I was even fortunate enough to carry her over small pools of water.

And then we watched the River Moscow and the city of Moscow from the high riverbank. The greenish river looped through the endless plantations of real estate, only every now and then shuddering slightly, as if it was feeling chilly. Having tickled the river, the light breezes flew on to us and caressed the exposed areas of Marina's body. We stood on the steep bank and gazed at the distant prospects of Moscow. With an estate agent's practiced eye she identified the recent residential developments and unerringly distinguished reinforced concrete from solid brick facing. I listened to Marina and feasted my eyes on her. So slim, so luminously orange against the light, during those minutes she seemed like a little sister to the sun that was already preparing to set.

The day was coming to an end. Moscow, with its new developments, chimneys and historical districts was gradually dissolving into an off-white haze. Evening blurred the beautiful features of the city's face, covering them with a smog as subtle as gossamer stockings. Marina's ginger-haired brother, the sun, bade us an affectionate farewell as he gradually sank down onto the roofs of the city, soon to seep through them, steal into the buildings through the chimneys and fragment into the light of a thousand windows.

It was time for Marina and me to be going. We'd had a very successful walk; she hadn't even got her slippers wet. All the way back the girl held my hand and I could practically feel my personal capitalisation growing. Phil plodded along as good as gold beside us, without barking at anyone or jerking on the lead even once. We didn't even notice that we had reached my building, didn't realise that we had been standing there under the canopy of the entrance for a long time already. Marina was the first to wake from the trance.

‘I suppose I'll be going, then . . .' she whispered, glancing round at her little car.

It was dozing serenely, its little face nuzzled up against the steps.

‘But what about your file?' I protested. ‘It's still up in my place.'

‘Then . . . then let's go up.'

‘For the file?'

Marina sighed.

‘For the file.'

I'm certain the scene of our non-parting was observed by Nasir, because the entrance door squealed invitingly before I could press my tab-key against it. We went up to my flat and found the pink file. Marina took ‘my' sheet of paper out of it and immediately noted down the information gathered during the walk.

‘Before I forget,' she said with a bashful smile.

What happened after that? After that Marina sighed and agreed to have supper with me. The supper was romantic, with a bottle of Chilean wine. I drank and she drank too so, sighing apart, Marina couldn't drive in any case. After dinner she went to the bathroom and I went to the bedroom, to set the stage for the bedroom scenes.

The majority of readers are familiar with the nature of bedroom scenes, so I shall omit all stage directions and merely reproduce our dialogues.

Scene one

Marina (blissfully): What a glorious client I've found.

I: Better call me a partner.

M: Of course, we're partners. Your flat will sell – don't even worry about it.

I: Darling, let's talk about personal matters . . .

M: I am talking about personal matters. I feel so at ease with you . . . You can't even imagine what a hysterical lot our clients are: all nervous and suspicious, never knowing what they want . . .

I: But I know what I want!

Scene two

I: (blissfully): What a glorious agent I've found!

M: Say it again . . .

I: What a glorious . . .

M: What sweet words . . . you should hear the things people say about us estate agents.

I: They don't know your best side.

M: Can you imagine, they even confuse us with property developers! They think we're scroungers, getting fat on rising real estate prices.

I: You haven't got a single spare centimetre.

M: Thank you . . . They think they can do everything themselves, without our help.

I: But I only want to do everything with you. Come here . . .

Scene three

M: (blissfully): Tired?

I: A little. How about you?

M: This isn't tiredness. Sometimes I get home squeezed out like a lemon, and I think: What do I want with all of this . . . It's the chains that really do me in.

I: What chains, darling?

M: Deals that involve lots of swaps. This flat for that flat, that flat for another one . . . Loads of subtle nuances that you have to tie together. If one link comes unstuck, the whole chain falls to pieces.

I: What strong nerves you need to have!

M: We're not supposed to have any nerves at all. Just you try drawing up a statement of agreement from the agencies of child guardianship and custody if you have any normal human nerves! Can you imagine, sometimes the same procedures are governed by quite different rules in districts next door to each other!

I: I suppose you have to give bribes?

M: What do you think? We live in the real world.

I: I lose my sense of reality with you.

M: And I do with you.

Scene four

M: (joking drowsily): That's it, don't call me again . . .

I: I'll give you a buzz later.

At that the curtain fell, and no more scenes were played out that night.

There was also the scene of parting – the next morning, immediately after breakfast. Phil and I went down to see our guest to her car. As we said goodbye, Marina scratched my dog behind his ear and looked into my eyes for a long time with her hand set on my shoulder. Then her glance accidentally fell on her watch, she came to her senses, ducked into her car and slammed the little door shut. The little yellow automobile came to life and its motor started murmuring. It gave out a smell, but not of petrol, more like perfume or confectionery. I even felt sad at the thought that I would never see that likeable inanimate creature again.

Two hours later Phil and I were already decamping from the flat to the
dacha
, I stayed out there at Vaskovo until October with my mobile phone switched off. In time, of course, Marina realised that she had been mistaken about me, but evidently I had found my way into some kind of estate agents' database, because even now I still get calls from women with pleasant voices, enquiring if I would like to sell my flat.

We often liken a city to a living organism. And that's right, because it has arteries, organs and nerves. The arrangement of a city, like that of all living things, is inconceivably complex. It breathes, feeds, produces waste – and therefore it really is a creature of nature. But if that is so, then a city cannot, as some assert, be a creation of human genius, even cumulatively. Firstly, man is not capable of creating anything natural and, secondly, there is no such thing as cumulative genius. There are only various different institutions and organisations, which themselves do not always know how they function.

True, they do say that a certain genius, although not of the cumulative kind, once used to live in Moscow. He was a unique specialist on sewerage networks, a sorcerer and magician of his trade. In some incredible manner he could sense waste pipes under the ground, even the ones that weren't shown on any plans or diagrams. No one ever started digging a foundation pit in Moscow without consulting with him first. But then the specialist got old and retired, and there wasn't another one like him. Let us note, however, that even this unique individual only understood the sewerage system and, after all, there are many other systems and services in the city, under and on and above the ground, even all the frequencies of the airwaves are occupied.

If we acknowledge that a city is a living organism, we must acknowledge its place in creation. And in so doing, we shall be obliged to cede our priority and accept that it is not we human beings who are the crown of creation, but the city. Because although we are also organisms, we are only small particles of the city, and a part cannot transcend the whole. It is not we who are godlike, but our city. It is the arbiter of our destinies and the master of our wills. Without it we will perish or, at best, revert to the wild. Without it we would not be who we are. Yury Mikhailovich Luzhkov would not have become mayor, Vasily Stepanovich would not have become a trolleybus driver, I would not have become a writer. And you, dear readers, would not have become readers, since without the city the metro would not exist.

It was also the city that was responsible for Vasily Stepanovich's wife, Raisa, going to work as a railway traffic controller. As a child Raisa had dreamed of managing the roundabouts in Gorky Park, and then of being someone else, but certainly not a traffic controller. However, as is the way of things, the city had its own plans for her, and in order to realise these designs, it chose to house Raya and her mum and dad close to the railway goods station. Her parents themselves were not railway workers (they both worked in some kind of factory) and they died early. But shortly before her demise, mum gave her daughter some useful advice.

‘Raya,' she said, ‘you go and work at the station. It's so convenient. Five minutes and you're home.'

If her dad had not already died by then, he would not have been likely to advise her any differently. But even without mum and dad's advice, everything had already been decided, as I said, by the city. Regardless of her aspirations and dreams, Raya, was a ready-made railway employee, without even being aware of it. She was well-acquainted with the smells of creosote and coal smoke from the tea urns in long-distance carriages. The clanging of the buffers, the swishing of the points and the whistling of the shunting engines did not disturb her at night, just as a villager is not disturbed by dogs yapping, or a fisherman by the murmuring of the sea. Raya could follow the meaning of the traffic controllers' echoing, rumbling speech. She just didn't know that she was destined to inherit that rumbling.

And then the moment came for what had been ordained to be accomplished. In order to prevent any possible mishaps, the city bolstered mum's advice and the aforementioned predisposing territorial circumstance with additional causative factors. It introduced Raya to Vasya, a young trolleybus driver with the temporary right of residence in Moscow, and in the dense growth of one of its parks it provided the conditions for the expeditious conception of their future child. Most importantly of all, it arranged for there to be no free places for the child in any of the municipal nursery schools nearby. There were places in the railway department's nursery schools, but for a child to be accepted there, one of the parents had to be employed by the department and Raya, who had only just turned eighteen, was not employed anywhere yet. Faced with this situation, what do you think the young woman did?

You guessed. Raya went to the railway division, or whatever it is they call it, to ask for a job. She was a strong-looking girl and, of course, she prudently said nothing about being pregnant. I don't know how she fooled the medical examining board, but she was taken on as an assistant coupler. This is a rather interesting profession in its own right, lively and responsible work, involving physical exertion and the danger of catching cold. Couplers are the people who connect up brake hoses and ride on the step boards of wagons; they used to have whistles, but now they have walkie-talkies.

Raya, however, was not a coupler for long – only three days. On the fourth day she fainted, and almost fell under the wheels of a diesel-electric locomotive. The girl was promptly taken to the medical unit, where her secret was revealed. When they learned that personnel had let in a pregnant girl, the bosses swore profanely, but there was nothing to be done: the Labour Code didn't allow Raya to be sacked. She was transferred to the position of assistant traffic controller, and thus she came to the job appointed for her by destiny – or the job came to the Raya appointed for it.

Many years have passed since then, but Raisa Grigorievna is still at her post. From her high box she confidently controls the traffic within the limits of the goods station and the movements of workers pottering about on the lines in those orange waistcoats that make them look like fans of some football team. She communicates by radio most of the time now, of course, and only rarely makes use of the PA system, but if a loud clarion call should suddenly rumble and echo across the station and its surroundings, know that this is the voice of Raisa Grigorievna. ‘Attention, locomotive shunting on line six!' – that's her.

Raisa Grigorievna is a reliable, experienced railway employee. For her services to the sector she has been awarded diplomas and a badge that was presented to her by the head of the division himself, a man holding the rank of General of Traction. Raisa Grigorievna knows her professional duties off to a T – there can be no doubt about that. And yet there are many things about a railway that she doesn't know and never will. Because there's not a single person in the world who
could
know everything about a railway. Raisa Grigorievna doesn't know about the structure of a locomotive, and an engine driver, for instance, doesn't have much idea about the work of a traffic controller. A General of Traction supposedly possesses information about both these things, but only in the most general terms. And I, for instance, am a total ignoramus in all of these matters, even though I am a passenger of long standing and wide experience. Through the window of my suburban train I see only an incomprehensible tangle of rails and cables, carriages crowded together on sidings and the stroboscopic flickering of trains going in the opposite direction. If my train suddenly gets stuck, like now for instance, at an inappropriate spot like this goods station, all I will do is gaze obtusely at the traffic controller's box that has popped up unexpectedly nearby and puzzle over unprofessional questions like: Why are we standing here and what could it mean?

One other thing Raisa Grigorievna has learned is the way home from the traffic controller's box. The concrete slab fence enclosing the station's territory has a break in it at one point. By using this break, she can shorten her journey so that it is exactly as long as her mum said: five minutes. At home or, more often, on the bench beside the entrance, Raisa Grigorievna is met by Vasily Stepanovich, who is retired on a disability pension. He drove his trolleybus honestly for thirty years and repaid his temporary resident's debt to the city in full. But five years ago there was an unfortunate accident: Vasily Stepanovich's own trolleybus gave him a severe electric shock. It didn't kill him, but medical science confirmed partial paralysis of the right side of the body. The incident was discussed at the trolleybus depot and it was decided to write them both off, the trolleybus to the scrap heap and Vasily Stepanovich to a pension. Vasily Stepanovich is of no benefit to the city now. However, since he still possesses control of the left side of his body, he participates to the best of his ability in family affairs, in particular by minding his grandson.

Raisa Grigorievna's and Vasily Stepanovich's grandson was produced for them by their son Kirill, the same child who was first placed with the railway nursery school, and then with the railway kindergarten. The grandson Alyosha is still, so far, an obedient little boy, but Raisa Grigorievna has problems with his father. The trouble is that Kirill, in his own opinion, has still not really found his place in the world. Well, his life just hasn't worked out. Despite the fact that, like his mother, he grew up close to the station and also received a departmental pre-school education, Kirill flatly rejected the path of the railway, without explaining his reasons. Nor did he wish to fill the driver's seat in a trolleybus, but that was understandable: after all, he was a native Muscovite. But apart from that he wasn't offered work anywhere except, perhaps, with the militia. As a native resident, Kirill took offence when no interesting vacancies could be found for him in the whole of Moscow, and entered into an ongoing dispute with the city. In simple terms, he became a drop-out, getting involved in all sorts of dubious business and even – oh, horror! – at one time almost becoming a drug dealer. That's all in the past now, though; Kirill is married and he works in some theatre or other, lugging the stage flats about. But he still nurses a grievance against the city, although the city, as you understand, couldn't really give a damn.

Raisa Grigorievna believes that to stop Kirill growing up as a waster, he should have been given more discipline as a child. But she herself never raised her voice at home because a traffic controller has to take good care of her vocal cords, and Vasily Stepanovich simply didn't know how to be strict. He was a soft, weak-willed man: he never really settled into Moscow, he yearned for the Volga and the city of Kostroma that he had left behind. In his yearning he used to drink in secret with the attendants of the post and luggage carriages, and then feel guilty afterwards.

But I don't agree with Raisa Grigorievna, in my opinion it's not a matter of discipline, but simply the fact that the city needs people like her Kiriusha too. Not everybody can be attached to a job; there must be someone there just for fun, someone whose destiny can be toyed with – the city enjoys that sort of thing.

In my young days I had a sidekick who was a marginal drop-out. His name was Felix, his mother had a job at a printing works and at first he studied in college with me. To be precise, he stuck it out for a year and a half, and then gave up. He was right, too: he would never have made any kind of engineer. I realised the same thing about myself, only much later.

When he gave up college, Felix decided he was going to earn big money – he had the potential for it. In those days people who could work for the direct benefit of their own pocket, while sharing with the state, earned a lot: jewellers, for example, or cobblers. And Felix had been gifted by nature with clever Jewish hands, in the best meaning of the word. The trouble was that those hands were the only smart thing about him. He got himself taken on as an apprentice in various workshops and made a successful beginning everywhere, but as soon as he was allowed anywhere near hard cash, he immediately spent it on drink before he got around to sharing with the state. So he was given the boot. Not that Felix was an alcoholic, that is, he became one later on, but at that time he simply didn't know how to wait. The moment money appeared, no matter whether it was his or the government's, he used to call me at the student hostel: ‘Greetings, student! I've got dough in my pocket, let's hit a tavern!' Taverns, as he called them, were his passion. In those years Moscow was not as generously endowed with places of amusement as it is now, and an outing to a restaurant was almost the only way you could offload your ready cash. In one year Felix and I made the rounds of a host of Moscow restaurants, and in the breaks between restaurants we drank at his place, in order to keep our hand in. We drank industrial alcohol, with oily streaks in it, which Felix's mum brought from the printing works.

Fortunately, in the third year at college I met Tamara, and that drew me away from boozing with Felix. But he still carried on in the same old way: every now and then he got hold of some money, spent it, got himself sacked and sank into a state of penury. The city toyed with Felix, tossing him up and dropping him down, and Felix didn't like it: he felt resentful, like the aforementioned Kirill. The periods of penury gradually became longer and then merged together into a life of unrelieved gloom. Nobody would give Felix a job anymore. Without money, taverns were out of reach, and he switched to his mum's industrial alcohol. But even this final source dried up when his mum passed on (I suspect that she died of grief). In a short time Felix sold everything in his flat that was of any value, and then the flat itself. And when, having sold the flat, for the first time in his life he found himself with a decent sum of money on his hands, he started thinking seriously – also, perhaps, for the first time in his life. Felix was facing a choice: either to wander from one dubious acquaintance to another – and they, of course, would rob him blind – or to leave the capital, move to somewhere in the country and try to start a new life. Since he was so unused to serious thinking, Felix stupidly chose the second alternative. As was only to be expected, his subsequent career proved short. He temporarily gave up drinking, bought some kind of hovel in an outlying area of the Moscow region and got a job in a logging enterprise. But, say what you will, a non-drinking Jew in a team of Russian lumberjacks can only be a double misfit. Felix's new comrades couldn't do anything about his racial origins, but they could at least force him to ‘loosen up'. Felix got drunk once, then a second time, and the third time he got drunk in a hard frost and fell asleep under a fir tree in the forest. He fell asleep forever.