A Sea of Flames by Walter Lucius

Author:Walter Lucius [Lucius, Walter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781405921442
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2021-10-22T00:00:00+00:00

3

Paul

2009

His mobile phone still in hand, he lingered in the corridor of Pirogorov hospital and cursed himself for how he pushed everyone he loved away. With that same powerless feeling he returned to Anya’s side, looked at her just lying there. He could touch her, but she remained unbearably far away. He couldn’t take it. After a kiss on her forehead he walked out of the room.

A taxi took him to Ulitsa Arbat, the former aristocratic and literary district of Moscow, dotted with antique shops, boutiques and small cafés, all once full of self-proclaimed philosophers, bohemians and intellectuals. Here in this intricate network of alleyways and side streets he’d walked with Anya and at one point she suddenly stopped and pointed upwards like an excited child.

‘Look!’

He’d followed her finger in the direction of an old building with a narrow Juliet balcony. There her favourite writer Rybakov had written The Children of the Arbat, the story of an idealistic young communist, Sasha, who was sentenced to three years of hard labour in a Siberian work camp because he’d published a newspaper.

‘Here we are!’ she’d roared in the direction of the balcony. ‘The Yank and me … ready to take on the world.’

On the street corner they’d listened to the poignant lament of a folk singer and an accordionist.

Oh Arbat, my Arbat, you are my destiny, you are my happiness and my sorrow.

She’d wrapped her arms around him as if she’d never let go again.

FRIENDSHIP it said in large Cyrillic letters above the weathered door of the antiquarian bookshop. When he went inside, an old-fashioned bell let out a dull ring above his head. He inhaled the smell of musty paper. Every horizontal surface was covered with books. Art and literature, encyclopedias, Marxist-Leninist classics, reference works on history and politics. On the wooden counter, sagging under the weight of a heavy copper cash register, stood an ivory bust of Pushkin in addition to classic editions of Chekhov and Turgenev. Shostakovich’s The Dawn of Humanity playing on an old suitcase gramophone filled the gloomy, dimly lit space, which seemed bereft of other customers.

A small, stocky man appeared from one of the aisles. His bald head was covered with strands of grey hair comically combed to one side. With a cigarette butt between his lips he stared at Paul as if he were seeing a ghost. ‘What can I do for you?’

Paul found himself enveloped in a haze of tobacco and alcohol. ‘I’m interested in For Merit to the Fatherland by Sergey Kombromovich.

The man grimaced and smacked his lips ‘Our first national hero, Grigori Michailov. Forgotten Knight in the Order of Glory.’

‘Forgotten?’

The wilful look in the shopkeeper’s eyes turned to melancholy. ‘You know, hardly any young people come to my shop any more. They’re no longer interested in their past. What they don’t realize is that you can only let go of your history once you’ve given it a good hard look.’

He gestured that Paul should follow him and marched ahead through narrow aisles between the metres-high bookcases, which were all packed to capacity.

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