Julie Himes - Mikhail and Margarita

“I wanted to thank you—for last night. For taking care of me.” She added this part, as though conscious of other possible interpretations. “It was kind of you.”

Behind her hurt, an infatuation was revealed. He hadn’t anticipated this; and she looked away quickly, not wanting to show that this was the real reason for her being there. “I hadn’t expected that.” She sounded embarrassed. Perhaps she was surprised as well. She put the book on the shelf.

He felt badly about his behavior. Her concern for him was genuine and well-meaning. “You’re feeling better then?” he asked. She nodded.

“When I saw this place,” she said, “you can imagine what I thought.” Then her tone changed. “You’re completely soaked through.”

He took off his jacket and hung it on the doorknob. “I had a driving lesson,” he said.

“A driving lesson? I might believe a swimming lesson. It’s as if you took a bath fully clothed.”

“It was raining.”

“In the car?”

The afternoon light had set her aglow. Her hands rested on her hips. She was radiant and undeniable. She believed none of it.

He sank into the chair. “I’m sorry.” He rubbed his face. “I’m sorry, I’m exhausted. Forgive me.”

As quickly as she had challenged him, she softened again. She pressed his shoulder briefly; fatigue required no forgiveness. Explanations could wait. “May I fix you some tea?” she said.

He shook his head. “No, it’s all right.” He looked at her hand, wishing to hold it. Wishing for the possibility of a different life.

“Vodka, then?”

He smiled at their reflected conversation. “What—no coffee?” He took her hand then. He rubbed his thumb over her fingers. Their texture was that of a child’s.

“I find vodka more effective for my purposes,” she said.

She had hope for them, and in that, he could see the trajectory of their future. Their potential was real and if followed carried the certainty of affection and love and lovemaking. Only the man who’d left her that morning was not the same as the one with her now. She did not know this yet.

Her fingers interlaced with his, willingly.

Perhaps they need not speak of Osip; perhaps they could set aside that part of their lives, move on from it together. Perhaps he could be allowed to forget certain things.

He brought her hand to his cheek.

They could go away. Together—perhaps even emigrate. With time and distance they would both forget. Someday he would tell her what he’d done. She would understand. She would say it’d been so long ago. It’d been a different time. A dangerous time. At such a distance who could recall the missteps of youth?

“I have news,” she said. “They are allowing Nadya to see Osip. Not alone, of course, but nevertheless.”

Mandelstam would have no knowledge of his betrayal. Bulgakov need not dread their brief reunion, as though through it his shame might be revealed. No one need know.

He looked at their hands clasped—so many fingers, he thought.

“When did she hear this?” he asked.

“Not long ago. She’s beside herself with happiness.”

What did it mean? “I’m surprised they’re allowing it,” he said.

“Nadya believes Bukharin arranged it.”

Was it really a happy coincidence? Or had his meeting with Stalin determined some other outcome? If the poet’s dearest friend was not willing to speak for him, why should Stalin believe that others might? Was it now easier to execute the troublesome poet?

“Do you wish it was you?” he said. “Instead of her?” He wanted to ask if she was still in love with him. Not out of jealousy, but somehow it seemed necessary to pace out the dimensions of his own offense. Did it include her?

Her reaction was unexpected. She looked embarrassed.

“What you saw at the Union restaurant,” she paused, as though still searching. “It wasn’t what it seemed, I think. We’d been apart for some time. Both of us—neither of us had been particularly satisfied. Not for a long time.”

She wanted to allay his concerns that should Mandelstam be released, she’d go back to him. That her heart wasn’t being honest with his. She thought this was what he was asking.

He remembered the restaurant at the Writers’ Union and Mandelstam’s exceeding generosity and he felt a sudden rise of emotion. The eve of his arrest, possibly his last night of freedom in this world, and he’d chosen to spend it with him.

“Do you think he’ll be released?” he asked her. This now seemed so unlikely as to be impossible and his asking of it all the more desperate, as though he had been the one who’d doomed Mandelstam. As though her optimism could save him. And in saving Mandelstam, save him as well.

She noticed none of this. She was coldly analytical in her reply.

“I don’t know. A lesser writer would be exiled, I think. But he is well known. It’s hard to predict if this will save him or—quite the opposite.”

He remembered the recitation in the street. If it’d been written on a building, they’d knock it down to destroy such words. They’d decide it wasn’t such a wonderful building. They’d build a lesser one in its place and proclaim it a palace.

“You don’t think they’ll let him go?”

“Why should they? Why would they risk whatever else he might say?”

“But if he promised—not to write?”

“Is that any different than locking him up?”

And if he promised not to speak? Bulgakov could hear Mandelstam’s voice recite the lines. No one would be saved.

He had released her hand; he wasn’t certain when he’d done this, at what point during her speech. The sensation of her fingers remained. How long before that would pass?

She crouched beside the chair and cocooned his hand within her own. As if he needed to be made still in order to listen. “Please understand—I think what you’re doing is—well, it’s brave. You’re not pretending that there wasn’t a crime committed here.” She paused. “I’m proud of you.”

She was thinking about the letter he was to write; believing this was his concern. He wanted to tell her that the letter had already been delivered; that its work was done.

“Don’t say that,” he said.

“But I am proud.”

He remembered the empty slate of the theater’s white marquee. What if he were never to publish again? He could tell her everything; confess his fears, his transgressions. She could redeem him. She had that power. If she could love him as a lesser man, perhaps he could tolerate himself.

“I’m certain whatever I do makes little difference,” he said. He tried to sound as though he believed this. He tried to sound weary of it all. As though he’d pushed against the world and the world was resolute. Tell me, he silently begged. Say there was nothing I could have done.

“It makes all the difference.” She took his face in her hands. “You know this.”

And even if she loved him, even if she forgave him, she’d never be dissuaded from that bedrock of faith. And he could never survive on that shore.

“I think—I’m tired,” he said. Her fingers slipped away.

“Of course.” She patted him on the shoulder, then kissed him lightly on the head. She said something about buying some food for them, preparing dinner.

He didn’t know what to tell her. Then he thought of a lie.

“I will be out later,” he said.

“That’s fine,” she said. “Whenever you return.”

“I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

He didn’t know what she’d registered from this. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her. The room was quiet. Then, after a moment, as though she’d come to some greater understanding, her words took on more certainty. “That’s fine.”

She made some excuse for her departure. He didn’t press her. He suspected whatever her reasons, they were truthful; she would not leave with even the smallest lie between them.

He nodded and closed his eyes.

The latch clicked softly. He listened to her steps on the stairs; to the outer door close. The building seemed abandoned.

He was free to do whatever he liked. He was free to do nothing.

He opened his eyes. A sunny room awaited him.

Outside Bulgakov’s apartment, she turned left rather than right, which would have taken her toward the streetcars on Tverskaya Street. This seemed a kind of act of defiance, though of what or who seemed vague. After several blocks she came upon Patriarch’s Ponds. Any other day, she’d have continued past, not being one to sit idly in a park. She ignored the path and cut across the damp grass; she took an empty bench. The afternoon was already hot again despite the recent rain. The sun, low over her shoulder, seemed directed solely upon her. The water before her occasionally rippled; from the random fish, she guessed; there was no wind. The seat was uncomfortable. No one else was around.

An orange beetle crawled near her thigh. She offered the tip of her finger and it climbed onto it. As she lifted it, it raised its capelike wings and took to the air.

Why writers, she thought. Why did she think they might be actual human beings?

A man came from behind and sat on the end of the bench. She straightened a little; the slats of the seat were uneven and pressed anew. She recognized him as the man from the restaurant. What was his name? She wished he would go away. If she had wanted to cry, and she wasn’t certain she did, she couldn’t now.

If he noticed her displeasure, he said nothing of it.

She remembered: Ilya Ivanovich.