White Walls: Collected Stories by Tatyana Tolstaya

Author:Tatyana Tolstaya
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Classics, Short Stories
ISBN: 9781590171974
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2007-04-16T23:00:00+00:00

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. . . The countryside around this cluster of dachas was marvelous—oaks everywhere and under the oaks, lawns, and on the lawns people playing volleyball in the reddish evening light. The ball smacked resonantly, a slow wind passed through the oaks, and the oaks slowly answered the wind. And Makov’s dacha was also marvelous—old, gray, with little towers. Amid the flower beds, under the damp evening-time wild cherry tree, his four sisters, mother, stepfather, and aunt sat at a round table drinking tea with raspberries and laughing. The aunt held an infant in her arms, and he waved a plastic parrot; to the side a harmless dog lay endearingly; and some kind of bird walked unhurriedly about its business along the path, not troubling, even out of courtesy, to become alarmed and flutter off at the sight of Denisov. Denisov was a little disappointed by the idyllic scene. It would have been pointless, of course, to expect that the house and garden would be draped in mourning banners, that everyone would walk on tiptoe, that the mother, black with grief, would be lying motionless on the bed, unable to take her eyes off her son’s ice axe, and that from time to time first one, then another member of the family would clutch a crumpled handkerchief and bite it to stifle the sobs—but all the same, he had expected something sad. But they had forgotten, they had all forgotten! Then again, who was he to talk, arriving with a bouquet, as if to congratulate them? . . . They turned to Denisov with perplexed, frightened smiles, looked at the bunch of carnations in his hand, crimson like a sunset before foul weather, like clotted, bloody scabs, like memento mori. The infant, the most sensitive, having not yet forgotten that frightening darkness from which he had recently been called, immediately guessed who had sent Denisov; he kicked and screamed, wanted to warn them, but didn’t know the words.

No, there was nothing sad to be seen, the only sad thing was that Makov wasn’t here: he wasn’t playing volleyball under the slow oaks, wasn’t drinking tea under the wild cherry tree, he wasn’t shooing away unseasonably late mosquitoes. Denisov, having firmly resolved to suffer in the name of the deceased, overcame the awkwardness, presented the flowers, straightened his mourning tie, sat down at the table, and explained himself. He was the envoy of the forgotten. Such was his mission. He wanted to know everything about their son. Perhaps he would write his biography. A museum, but if that wasn’t feasible, then he could at least arrange a corner of a museum. Display cases. His childhood things. His hobbies. Maybe he collected butterflies, beetles? Tea? Yes, yes, with sugar, thank you, two spoonfuls. He’d have to get in touch with glaciologists. It’s possible that Makov’s climb was in some way important for science. Immortalization of his memory. Annual Makovian readings. Let us dare to dream: Makov Peak—why not? The Makov Foundation with voluntary donations.

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