Julie Himes - Mikhail and Margarita

Between them lay a green worm, a moth larva. It had fallen from an overhanging branch to the table’s surface. Some unlucky turn of a leaf, a wisp of breeze, and a misstep had sent it from its universe of green. Neither of them spoke; it was something to brush aside. For a moment, its legs moved helplessly; then it curled inward to right itself. Immediately two black ants set upon it as if waiting for that opportunity. In their arms, the larva contracted reflexively, then ceased to struggle, paralyzed from their bites of formic acid. The ants hesitated at the table’s edge, burdened with their prize, then disappeared over the rim. Mandelstam maintained his gaze on that spot. His frown deepened.

The larva would not know a life of wings and air; it would not grieve that loss. To this larva, the meaning of its life was to provide food for ants.

“I’ve done things—will you take an old man’s confession?” Mandelstam looked away again. “God—it’s beautiful today.” Despite his words, his expression was of one who mistrusted what he saw.

“You have nothing to confess,” said Bulgakov. He tried to sound assured of this.

“I’d always considered the possibility of arrest,” said Mandelstam. “I had believed it was only a matter of time.” He inhaled from his cigarette. His hand visibly trembled and he lowered it quickly.

“I’m not sure what you want to hear. The physical details aren’t important, I suppose. At first you live for your release. That is the composition of your hours. When you will see the sky again—the trees, the sun. Your wife. You live for things you never gave thought to. You believe if you can be strong, you can withstand them. You believe such strength is possible.”

“You are strong,” murmured Bulgakov. “The strongest man I know.” This part he felt truly.

Mandelstam lowered his voice; he seemed anxious to continue. “I don’t know if it’s the beatings. Or the isolation. Maybe something else. At some point you stop living for your release. You stop thinking of your wife, of your future. You stop thinking.” He paused. “You only live. Questions are asked and you answer them. There is food and you eat. There is pain and you cry openly. If your life were to suddenly end; you think this is how life is; this is how it ends.” He seemed to search Bulgakov’s face for comprehension. “You have no regret, no sense of loss. No care for those you leave behind. You do not consider that it could have happened another way.”

The loveliness of the afternoon grew deceptive. “Those are terrible circumstances,” said Bulgakov.

Mandelstam sat back a little. A piece of ash fell from his cigarette. He flattened it against the table with his thumb. “Questions were asked and I answered them.” He looked out over the pond. “Many questions. About a lot of people.” It seemed he was counting their number among those enjoying the afternoon as though it was this reckoning for which he was accountable.

“Who did they ask about?” said Bulgakov. His apprehension grew. What could they want to know?

“Among other things—the names of those who’d heard the poem.”

His poem—as though it was a contagion. For some diseases, the afflicted couldn’t be saved.

Mandelstam’s face remained impassive, unapologetic. Harsh experience had stripped all comfort. Truth would no longer be urged gently forward, to steal upon one as in the verse of a song. Truth would be delivered bare-boned. He had no desire for Bulgakov’s sympathy. He would dare Bulgakov to look away from his actions, to layer himself in kindness and pity and self-deception; he himself could do it no longer as though he lacked the appendages for it.

Mandelstam continued. “Then one morning a different door opens. You are pushed through it and there is sun, sky. Arms wrap around you. Slowly it comes back; names first: this is sun; this is sky. Slowly you understand whose arms are around you. Explanations are given for questions you haven’t asked. You’ve been released.” He seemed to struggle to continue. “Then the rest returns: your past, your future. You don’t know what burdens they are until you assume them again.” He looked at his arms, his hands, as if those things were visible to him. He studied his hands. “By them, you know what you’ve done.”

He leaned forward. “Do you know the moment I was most happy? Do you? Standing in the sun. Without pain. Without names. Without knowledge. That is death. A man should never know how pleasant death will be. A man should never learn this.”

Bulgakov recoiled. “Why are you telling me this?” The skin over the other man’s arm was thin, mottled; dark ecchymoses ran its length. He’d not perceived these before. From shackles? Beatings? Mandelstam’s fingernails were yellowed and overly long; Bulgakov noticed then that several were missing entirely.

Mandelstam folded his fingers into his palms.

“Perhaps,” he went on. As though this was what he’d intended all along. “You should consider that you would have done the same.”

Mandelstam’s words found him as easily as if the poet had touched his shoulder. Had he known of Bulgakov’s meeting with Stalin? Had he listened for Bulgakov’s pleas on his behalf and heard only silence? Would he point out Bulgakov’s nails, his teeth: they were whole, unbroken. Instruments of torture hadn’t been required. Bulgakov wished he would never have to see Mandelstam again, as if in this manner such memories could be rooted out; at the same time he wanted to cry out for that loss.

Mandelstam looked toward his wife. “There is my heart,” he said. He lifted the cigarette to his lips. His tremor had lessened. “She believes I’ll be better someday.”

Margarita remained a short distance away. A group of children came upon her, kicking a faded ball. They swarmed her, then maneuvered the ball along the path away from her. With them gone, she looked more vulnerable. He could blame Mandelstam for this, but in some anticipatory way, he already blamed himself.

“Nadya has us packed,” Mandelstam went on. “I think she is happy to go.” He was signaling the end of their time together. He met Bulgakov’s eyes only once more. There was no regret with this. Like Bulgakov, he had no wish to see him again.

Mandelstam stood, holding the edge of the table until he took the cane. He passed Margarita as he moved off to join his wife. The two clasped hands and set off on the path together. Neither of them looked back.

Bulgakov imagined them walking the landscape of Cherdyn. It was a new town, utilitarian and bold, rising from the dark and freshly turned tracts of bulldozers. A glowing city on the steppe, the sun shattered and amplified by glass and steel. It would be hard to see in the continuous glare.

Mandelstam would only need to see the spot of land before him, that place where he would next set his foot. He would pray for no greater vision than this. They could all pray for blessed shortsightedness.

Margarita sat down next to him. Her face had warmed in the afternoon heat; it glowed with the faint sheen of perspiration. She seemed as young as the children who’d crowded her. She touched his arm and asked if he was all right. Her hand remained there, hopeful. “He said you’d be like this,” she said.

She should know better then.

She looked out over the pond; the swans were well-behaved under her watch. She still held his arm, but it seemed different now. The sense of her fingers was weightless. He could easily escape her, but he was reluctant.

“I didn’t think you’d come today,” she said.

But he had.

The skin she touched seemed more human than before, as if she had applied this quality with her fingertips. She believed that someday he’d be better, too.

He kissed her hand. Then he laid his cheek against it. He could try to keep her there.

Though perhaps then things would not end well for her.

There came again the slow beat of the swan’s wings from across the pond; it seemed a pulse in the air, better felt than heard.

He could pull his head back into Stalin’s rabbit hole. He glanced at the sky.

First Margarita had a deadline to complete. Then there were plans with someone else. A girlfriend, she added, as though she could sense the panic in his silence. The following evening she had a head cold. “It feels like I’m carrying a ball on my neck.” She sounded annoyed that this required explanation but perhaps it was just the cold. Bulgakov wanted to know how this could come upon her so fast, but how could that be asked? “I hope it leaves as quickly as it came,” he said, trying to sound confident. The line went dead and he reasoned she needed her rest. Shortly thereafter he went to her apartment anyway. He would say it was to check on her. He would bring something, a gift. Isn’t that what a friend would do? He looked around his apartment, then slipped the empty saltcellar from his table into his pocket.

He knocked twice before the door opened. She was in a bathrobe and looked disheveled from sleep. She didn’t question his appearance, though neither did she welcome him and instead returned to her bed. He came in and closed the door.

“This looks worse than a head cold,” he said, as if to provide good purpose for himself. She only hugged the pillow and rolled toward the wall. He sat down; first on the saltcellar, then removed it from his pocket. “I brought you something.”

She rolled back; she tried to focus on the object in his hand, then reached for it. He was at once sorry; he could have gone without this further embarrassment. She seemed to find the gift no odder than his appearance at her door. She put it on the table beside her and rolled back again. Shortly she was sleeping.