Happiness is Possible (12 page)

The moral of this story is simple: never argue with the city. If Felix had chosen the first alternative and become a normal Moscow street bum, he just might have still been alive today.

And by the way, on the subject of the departed. I think I've realised why our suburban train has got stuck here at the goods station. Two people in white coats are carrying a stretcher with a body, covered by a blanket, out of the traffic controller's box that I've been contemplating all this time. I assume it's Raisa Grigorievna's body. She has passed away suddenly at her place of work, so there's a temporary hitch in traffic on the railway. But I'm sure the city will find a replacement for her in a minute or two and we'll be on our way.

Today we have an unexpected visitor: Tamara. Almost before she says hello, she has inspected the flat and taken a firm grasp of the floor cloth.

Phil and I huddle into a corner, gazing at Toma's implacably advancing backside and saying nothing, partly out of surprise, partly out of cunning. And really, after all, let her wash the floor for us if she wants to.

‘Feet!' the command rings out, and Phil and I make a dash for the divan.

I look at Toma's feet and the legs above them: firm, well-groomed, tanned in the tropics.

‘And stop ogling me,' she growls without turning round.

I laugh.

‘What makes you think we're ogling you?'

‘I know you two.'

Tamara straightens up. Her face is slightly flushed; she has a stray wisp of hair on her forehead.

Okay, so she knows us. But then why is she provoking us? I should ask her straight out . . . but something tells me I won't get an honest answer. Well, a person can feel drawn to the old places, can't she? To wash the floor, and whatever . . .

‘When was the last time you bothered to look in here? What a nightmare!'

Still on her knees, Toma presses her body against the floor and reaches an arm under the wardrobe. A supple arm . . . No, I have to put an end to this cleanup.

‘That's enough,' I say, ‘stop mocking me, will you. Let's go and have some tea instead.'

It's good to entertain a lady guest when that lady will tidy up the kitchen herself. It's good when you know in advance what she takes with her tea. In general it's good to entertain a lady who is your ex-wife. The only bad thing about it is not having a clue what her plans are. But anyway, for the time being I can chat about this and that. Ask how our Dmitry Pavlovich is getting on. Ah, so he's gone off to Yekaterinburg! A smart man, constantly expanding the business. And how is she doing (Tamara that is)? As far as work's concerned, there haven't been any changes for a long time; perhaps she has reached her ceiling. Clear enough . . . But what has she come round to my place for . . . No, better leave that for a while. In fact the situation clarifies itself. Since Dmitry Pavlovich is in Yekaterinburg, Tamara has come to stay the night. The only question is what we're going to do: will we watch TV together, as in the old days, or abandon ourselves to passion, as in the even older days? Or will we weep on each other's shoulders and complain that there is no happiness in life? Possibly, recalling the temporarily absent Dmitry Pavlovich, Tamara would prefer the third option, while I am inclined towards the second. But the important thing is not what we are going to do tonight. The important thing is that today Toma is with me. Dmitry Pavlovich is in Yekaterinburg, and she is with me. Now we'll take Phil and go to buy something for supper. And then,
que sera sera
; I'm even prepared to watch TV.

Any street is beautiful, if you walk along it arm-in-arm with a woman. Birdies coo as they peck at the asphalt and children prattle: they launch their little ball into the air and it comes straight to our feet. Right, now we'll pass it back . . . Thwack! Hey, where's it gone flying off to . . . ‘Clueless, mister!' cries a voice as tender as a flute. Too right, kid, right now this mister really is clueless.

At moments like this I recall those characters of ours, the ones to whom I once denied simple human happiness. Come to me at such moments, all who have been abandoned and aggrieved by me without due cause, and I will do what I can to help you. But hurry, because such moments are brief.

Konstantin and Ludmila. When they were here recently I refused, but now I've changed my mind. After studying their case file more closely I realise that all is not lost for them. Believe it or not, it turns out that they once studied at the same college, at the same time, in the same department. This fact was established, of course, with the help of the Internet – a new site was set up recently, called ‘classmates' (or ‘college friends' – I don't remember). Although this site is relatively new, it has already become immensely popular. Not because all the old classmates or college friends have suddenly started missing each other badly, but because they all want to see how much each of them has aged. Naturally, even here the public employs a certain degree of cunning, especially the ladies. Not to the same desperate extent as on the dating sites, but even so . . . On her page, for instance, Ludmila has posted an old portrait which only the most benevolent of observers could possibly recognise as her present self. Konstantin has acted more honestly – he has at least posted a recent photo in ‘classmates', although the expression on his face is the moody, Byronic one that he only uses for seducing girls.

That's why Ludmila hasn't identified his photo. I have decided to compromise my principles slightly after all and arranged for them to take a ride in the lift together (it's not important how; let's say I made Ludmila stay on late at work). And from that a simply incredibly cascade of coincidences has followed. A couple of hours later the man with whom Ludmila had travelled in the lift was gazing out at her from a computer screen. Gazing at her with a moodily Byronic expression and informing her on his page that he studied at the Publishing Trade College – that is, in the same place and at the same time as she did. Ludmila's memories came flooding back. She remembered, or seemed to remember, that yes, she had been in love with him at one point in her course, and he had shown certain signs of interest himself. But, as she recalled, he wasn't from Moscow, and neither was she, she was from Mariupol. And then someone else had turned up, a registered Moscow resident, who had ruined Ludmila's life, but resolved her accommodation difficulties. Ah, if only she hadn't been so practical when she was young, if only she had followed the promptings of her heart, then . . . but what would have happened then? Ludmila started pondering: she wondered how life would have worked out if she had married this one then, instead of that one. Where would they, both non-Muscovites, have gone to after college? To her home in Mariupol? And now they'd be living on Ukrainian
hryvnias
 . . . No thank you very much. Or would they have gone to his home, somewhere out in Ivanovo? But that wasn't much better. Here in the capital, she had at least made a career; she'd had to walk over dead bodies to do it, but she had done it. Now Ludmila was the deputy personnel manager – and soon, perhaps, would be the manager – in a rather large holding company . . . But then, from the look of things, this Byron was no slouch either, otherwise what would he be doing here in Moscow, in Ludmila's lift? And then it jumped out at here: What was he doing? He was going home! Of course, he was her neighbour, since he rode in the same lift as her. Ludmila re-read Konstantin's entire page avidly. Star sign . . . studied . . . ta-tee-ta-tee-ta . . . aha! Divorced; divorced – that was great. And as for the address, which Konstantin didn't provide, Ludmila almost knew it already, the building and the entrance, that is. She went to bed very late that night.

Konstantin, on the contrary, fell asleep as usual. He hadn't recognised Ludmila since, as I already said, she had posted an old portrait photo in ‘classmates'. And apart from that, he never switched the computer on in the evening, because he'd had enough of it at work. If someone in his dream had called him ‘no slouch', Konstantin's inner face would probably have assumed the same expression as in his photo. But he actually found that expression hard to maintain. He had managed to hold it just long enough to seduce a certain professor's rather appetising, although stupid, young daughter, but not long enough to keep her. In his heart of hearts Konstantin was a straightforward, normal individual, even if he did work as a senior editor. But no one, apart from his son Seryozha, valued these qualities in him.

And so, they both fell asleep – he a bit earlier, she a bit later – separated by no more than a few concrete floor slabs. But that was not the end of the ‘classmates' story. The next day Ludmila deliberately stayed on at work for a while, without any help from me. She took her time walking from the metro to the high rise, casting stealthy glances at the men overtaking her and for some reason stopping altogether at her own entrance as if she was pondering something, but then the concierge saw her on the CCTV, decided that she was looking for her key and opened the door. Ludmila started, walked in, thanked Nasir for being so thoughtful, and walked over to the post boxes. She stood by the post boxes for a few more minutes, during which time no one came into the entrance apart from one man with a dog (that was me and Phil). Then Ludmila sighed, got into the lift and rode up to her own floor.

I think she was not entirely aware of what she was doing on that occasion. She could hardly have hoped for a repetition of the previous day's chance encounter. Trying to catch someone in the lift is a futile endeavour. On the contrary, the people you come across in the lift are usually the ones you don't want to meet for some reason, or characters who have breakfasted on garlic, or dogs who rub their moulting sides against your legs. Be that as it may, on that evening Ludmila was behaving strangely; even Phil and I could see that, from the way she was hanging about by the post boxes.

When she got home, Ludmila deviated from her normal schedule there as well. Firstly, she didn't eat supper. It wasn't that she had no appetite because her nerves were in a state, it was just that today, for some strange reason, she had decided to lose weight. Secondly, instead of sitting down as she usually did to relax in front of the television with a cup of tea, Ludmila took that cup of tea straight to the computer.

As was only to be expected, during the twenty-four hours or so that had passed, no changes had taken place in Konstantin's page; nobody had written anything new to Ludmila either. Clicking from Konstantin to herself and back again, she drank two cups of tea and pensively smoked two of her slim cigarettes. But, to be quite honest, I have no idea what she had found to ruminate on. What could possibly have been simpler than to go ahead and type ‘Hello,' and then something like: ‘Kostya, it turns out that you and I are neighbours; here's the number of my flat, call round and we'll reminisce about our young days'. Yes, that's what I would have done in her place; but women are mysterious creatures, even when they're only characters. In some places they're prepared to walk over dead bodies, but in others they suddenly display extreme infirmity of purpose. In affairs of the heart modern-day women are not much different from those who wore corsets, the same timidity and delicacy of feeling. Anyway, the outcome of Ludmila's ruminations was not a bold decision to write to Konstantin directly; instead, she limited herself to posting her full address on her own page, just in case.

Meanwhile, that is, while Ludmila was sitting at her computer, her daughter Masha came home. Engrossed in her own dubious thoughts, Ludmila didn't even hear that her daughter had not come home alone, but with Konstantin's son, Seryozha, who went to the same school and was, as they say, her friend. The young people went through into Masha's room, locked themselves in and spent some time in there quietly. After about an hour they got hungry and came back out. Masha glanced in through Ludmila's door.

‘Hi, ma!' she said in greeting. ‘Tell me, what can we eat?'

‘We, who's we?' Ludmila asked in surprise.

‘We – that's us . . .'

‘Hiya!' she heard Seryozha say, and his head appeared in the doorway.

‘Ah . . . Hello, Seryozha,' Ludmila said with a reserved smile.

‘Hey!' the youth suddenly exclaimed. ‘That's my old man.'

‘Where?' Ludmila asked with a start.

‘There, on “classmates”,' he said, pointing at the computer with Konstantin's photo glowing handsomely on the screen. ‘So you play around with that too, do you?'

Masha didn't like the way he grinned.

‘So what,' she said, coming to her mother's defence, ‘all the old people do.'

‘Like I said,' Seryozha agreed with a shrug.

While they bickered, a strange transformation took place in Ludmila. To Masha and Seryozha's immense surprise, she suddenly announced that she would make them supper. She led the children through to the kitchen and really did feed them, pouring their tea herself. She was especially affectionate with Seryozha, which might have embarrassed him, if only he had been capable in principle of being embarrassed.

And then, just as their tea-drinking was already drawing to a close, the doorbell suddenly rang in the hallway. Later Ludmila would claim that on her way to answer it, she already knew who was there outside the door; her heart, she would say, told her immediately. But I think that would be a case of rewriting after the event, although perhaps a forgivable one. Anyway, you've already guessed: it was Konstantin.

‘Hello. Are you Ludmila?'

He smiled, not Byronically but pleasantly, a slightly self-conscious smile.

‘It's an incredible coincidence, but I just logged on to ‘classmates', and what do you think . . .'

He never finished what he was saying or, rather, I never finished inventing it, because I've been distracted by Tamara. An urgent question: what are we going to buy for supper: pork chops or rib steak? I'm not sure which is more appropriate to the occasion, basically it's all the same to me, but it's nice that she asks my advice. And tomorrow, when I'm finishing off that meat on my own, it will be nice to recall how the two of us went to the shop together. And in general, how Tamara and I got together on the sly. Not an entirely sad story, you must agree.