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Zarnitsky Again
- Slavica Publishers
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Zarnitsky Again I had left suddenly, without warning. Mama, my brother Pavel, and his daughter remained in Ivan Aleksandrovich’s care for some time. I left all my things—excuse me, down to my brassieres—at home where they lay un-‐‑ touched. My underwear, my black gloves, the hat with little plumes that Ivan Aleksandrovich so proudly showed off to his mother, and all my other things lay in a box in the big armoire in the room that we shared. Ivan Aleksandrovich was very gloomy and depressed. On my birthday he brought home a huge bouquet of red roses as he had always done. Some-‐‑ how he had found them even in the winter. Mama saw how he went to the armoire, opened the box of my things, began to tear off the rose buds and threw them in. Then he threw in the open flowers. He stripped the stems, threw them in as well, and closed the box. Then he saw Mama standing in the doorway. His face was twisted and she was sure he was about to weep. That seemed a bad omen to her. Terrified, she yelled “What have you done? Are you preparing to bury her?” “Yes, for me she has died.” And he quickly left the house. Mama threw open the box to look for his pistol. It was gone. About a year later, mid-‐‑1932, I came to Rostov to fetch Mama and Pavel’s daughter Agulya. They had already moved away from Ivan Aleksandrovich’s house and Mama was taking care of Agulya. “Ah, what have you done, Aga!” Mama was grieving. “He almost shot himself.” “Let’s go to see Ivan Aleksandrovich,” I said gaily. It was his birthday. Ivan Aleksandrovich was shaved and nicely dressed, as if he had been ex-‐‑ pecting us. And really, he greeted me with a smile and calmly said, “I was sure that you would come.” While the table was being set, while Mama was busy arranging things and Pavel played with his little daughter Agulya, Ivan Aleksandrovich and I went to our former bedroom. Nothing had been moved. Everything was just as it had been on the day I left. Ivan Aleksandrovich said to me, “Aga, it all happened too quickly to be solid, serious.” And he began to ask me to return to him. ZARNITSKY AGAIN 45 “I simply can’t live this way; I didn’t shoot myself because I believed that you would return to me.” Tears ran down his cheeks. He grabbed my hands and began to kiss them. He, who was normally so restrained, so proper. At that moment I just couldn’t say “no,” I couldn’t kick a person in that condition. I was also upset. I had stirred up the past. So I said, “I have to think about it, Musha. Maybe I’ll come back.” He had said, “It all happened so quickly.” So of course he thought it was a frivolous impulse, a whim. He knew nothing of my six-‐‑year “underground apprenticeship,” of my six-‐‑year deception. I left for Alma-‐‑Ata. I was pursued by a thick, pleading, passionate letter. I didn’t return. Once again I betrayed him. Everything, everything, everything that I later suffered, that I endured— all of that paid me back for treating him so wickedly. Almost ten years later Mirosha was arrested. I carried packages to him in the notorious Lefortovo prison. Then they stopped accepting packages, we—a crowd of wives—spent the night waiting to hear how our husbands had been sentenced. All of us got the same news: “Ten years without the right of corre-‐‑ spondence.” In other words they were to be shot! Suddenly I received a letter from Ivan Aleksandrovich. “I know that your husband was arrested, that you are alone. Come back to me! I live with an-‐‑ other woman, but I love only you, I will leave her and we will be together again.” My old friend Susanna brought me the letter. I answered it through her, “How can I think about that when my husband is in prison?” Once again I betrayed Ivan Aleksandrovich. I was already seeing Mikhail Davydovich, Mirosha’s cousin. Several years later I met with Ivan Aleksandrovich again. I was already married to Mikhail Davydovich, and I had come to Rostov to stay with rela-‐‑ tives. He heard about it and came to see me. When he was preparing to leave I said, “I’ll...