THE REUNION

LEV had a brother, Serafim, who was older and fatter than he, although it was entirely possible that during the past nine years—no, wait … God, it was ten, more than ten—he had got thinner, who knows. In a few minutes we shall find out. Lev had left Russia and Serafim had remained, a matter of pure chance in both cases. In fact, you might say that it was Lev who had been leftish, while Serafim, a recent graduate of the Polytechnic Institute, thought of nothing but his chosen field and was wary of political air currents.… How strange, how very strange that in a few minutes he would come in. Was an embrace called for? So many years … A “spets,” a specialist. Ah, those words with the chewed-off endings, like discarded fishheads … “spets”…

There had been a phone call that morning, and an unfamiliar female voice had announced in German that he had arrived, and would like to drop in that evening, as he was leaving again the following day. This had come as a surprise, even though Lev already knew that his brother was in Berlin. Lev had a friend who had a friend, who in turn knew a man who worked at the USSR Trade Mission. Serafim had come on an assignment to arrange a purchase of something or other. Was he a Party member? More than ten years …

All those years they had been out of touch. Serafim knew absolutely nothing about his brother, and Lev knew next to nothing about Serafim. A couple of times Lev caught a glimpse of Serafim’s name through the smokescreen grayness of the Soviet papers that he glanced through at the library. “And inasmuch as the fundamental prerequisite of industrialization,” spouted Serafim, “is the consolidation of socialist elements in our economic system generally, radical progress in the village emerges as one of the particularly essential and immediate current tasks.”

Lev, who had finished his studies with an excusable delay at the University of Prague (his thesis was about Slavophile influences in Russian literature), was now seeking his fortune in Berlin, without ever really being able to decide where that fortune lay: in dealing in various knickknacks, as Leshcheyev advised, or in a printer’s job, as Fuchs suggested. Leshcheyev and Fuchs and their wives, by the way, were supposed to come over that evening (it was Russian Christmas). Lev had spent his last bit of cash on a secondhand Christmas tree, fifteen inches tall; a few crimson candles; a pound of zwieback; and half a pound of candy. His guests had promised to take care of the vodka and the wine. However, as soon as he received the conspiratorial, incredible message that his brother wanted to see him, Lev promptly called off the party. The Leshcheyevs were out, and he left word with the maid that something unexpected had come up. Of course, a face-to-face talk with his brother in stark privacy would already be sheer torture, but it would be even worse if … “This is my brother, he’s here from Russia.” “Pleased to meet you. Well, are they about ready to croak?” “Whom exactly are you referring to? I don’t understand.” Leshcheyev was particularly impassioned and intolerant.… No, the Christmas party had to be called off.

Now, at about eight in the evening, Lev was pacing his shabby but clean little room, bumping now against the table, now against the white headboard of the lean bed—a needy but neat little man, in a black suit worn shiny and a turndown collar that was too large for him. His face was beardless, snub-nosed, and not very distinguished, with smallish, slightly mad eyes. He wore spats to hide the holes in his socks. He had recently been separated from his wife, who had quite unexpectedly betrayed him, and with whom! A vulgarian, a nonentity.… Now he put away her portrait; otherwise he would have to answer his brother’s questions (“Who’s that?” “My ex-wife.” “What do you mean, ex?”). He removed the Christmas tree too, setting it, with his landlady’s permission, out on her balcony—otherwise, who knows, his brother might start making fun of émigré sentimentality. Why had he bought it in the first place? Tradition. Guests, candlelight. Turn off the lamp—let the little tree glow alone. Mirrorlike glints in Mrs. Leshcheyev’s pretty eyes.

What would he talk about to his brother? Should he tell him, casually and lightheartedly, about his adventures in the south of Russia at the time of the civil war? Should he jokingly complain about his present (unbearable, stifling) poverty? Or pretend to be a broadminded man who was above émigré resentment, and understood … understood what? That Serafim could have preferred to my poverty, my purity, an active collaboration … and with whom, with whom! Or should he, instead, attack him, shame him, argue with him, even be acidly witty? “Grammatically, Leningrad can only mean the town of Nellie.”

He pictured Serafim, his meaty, sloping shoulders, his huge rubbers, the puddles in the garden in front of their dacha, the death of their parents, the beginning of the Revolution.… They had never been particularly close—even when they were at school, each had his own friends, and their teachers were different.… In the summer of his seventeenth year Serafim had a rather unsavory affair with a lady from a neighboring dacha, a lawyer’s wife. The lawyer’s hysterical screams, the flying fists, the disarray of the not so young lady, with the catlike face, running down the garden avenue and, somewhere in the background, the disgraceful noise of shattering glass. One day, while swimming in a river, Serafim had nearly drowned.… These were Lev’s more colorful recollections of his brother, and God knows they didn’t amount to much. You often feel that you remember someone vividly and in detail, then you check the matter and it all turns out to be so inane, so meager, so shallow—a deceptive façade, a bogus enterprise on the part of your memory. Nevertheless, Serafim was still his brother. He ate a lot. He was orderly. What else? One evening, at the tea table …

The clock struck eight. Lev cast a nervous glance out the window. It was drizzling, and the streetlamps swam in the mist. The white remains of wet snow showed on the sidewalk. Warmed-over Christmas. Pale paper ribbons, left over from the German New Year, hung from a balcony across the street, quivering limply in the dark. The sudden peal of the front-door bell hit Lev like a flash of electricity somewhere in the region of his solar plexus.

He was even bigger and fatter than before. He pretended to be terribly out of breath. He took Lev’s hand. Both of them were silent, with identical grins on their faces. A Russian wadded coat, with a small astrakhan collar that fastened with a hook; a gray hat that had been bought abroad.

“Over here,” said Lev. “Take it off. Come, I’ll put it here. Did you find the house right away?”

“Took the subway,” said Serafim, panting. “Well, well. So that’s how it is.…”

With an exaggerated sigh of relief he sat down in an armchair.

“There’ll be some tea ready in a minute,” Lev said in a bustling tone as he fussed with a spirit lamp on the sink.

“Foul weather,” said Serafim, rubbing his palms together. Actually it was rather warm out.

The alcohol went into a copper sphere; when you turned a thumbscrew it oozed into a black groove. You had to release a tiny amount, turn the screw shut, and light a match. A soft, yellowish flame would appear, floating in the groove, then gradually die, whereupon you opened the valve again, and, with a loud report (under the iron base where a tall tin teapot bearing a large birthmark on its flank stood with the air of a victim) a very different, livid flame like a serrated blue crown burst into life. How and why all this happened Lev did not know, nor did the matter interest him. He blindly followed the landlady’s instructions. At first Serafim watched the fuss with the spirit lamp over his shoulder, to the extent allowed by his corpulence; then he got up and came closer, and they talked for a while about the apparatus, Serafim explaining its operation and turning the thumbscrew gently back and forth.

“Well, how’s life?” he asked, sinking once again into the tight armchair.

“Well—you can see for yourself,” replied Lev. “Tea will be ready in a minute. If you’re hungry I have some sausage.”

Serafim declined, blew his nose thoroughly, and started discussing Berlin.

“They’ve outdone America,” he said. “Just look at the traffic. The city has changed enormously. I was here, you know, in ‘twenty-four.”

“I was living in Prague at the time,” said Lev.

“I see,” said Serafim.

Silence. They both watched the teapot, as if they expected some miracle from it.

“It’s going to boil soon,” said Lev. “Have some of these caramels in the meantime.”

Serafim did and his left cheek started working. Lev still could not bring himself to sit down: sitting meant getting set for a chat; he preferred to stand or keep loitering between bed and table, table and sink. Several fir needles lay scattered about the colorless carpet. Suddenly the faint hissing ceased.

“Prussak kaput,” said Serafim.

“We’ll fix that,” Lev began in haste, “just one second.”

But there was no alcohol left in the bottle. “Stupid situation.… You know, I’ll go get some from the landlady.”

He went out into the corridor and headed for her quarters.— Idiotic. He knocked on the door. No answer. Not an ounce of attention, a pound of contempt. Why did it come to mind, that schoolboy tag (uttered when ignoring a tease)? He knocked again. Everything was dark. She was out. He found his way to the kitchen. The kitchen had been providently locked.

Lev stood for a while in the corridor, thinking not so much about the alcohol as about what a relief it was to be alone for a minute and what agony it would be to return to that tense room where a stranger was securely ensconced. What might one discuss with him? That article on Faraday in an old issue of Die Natur? No, that wouldn’t do. When he returned Serafim was standing by the bookshelf, examining the tattered, miserable-looking volumes.

“Stupid situation,” said Lev. “It’s really frustrating. Forgive me, for heaven’s sake. Maybe …”

(Maybe the water was just about to boil? No. Barely tepid.)

“Nonsense. To be frank, I’m not a great lover of tea. You read a lot, don’t you?”

(Should he go downstairs to the pub and get some beer? Not enough money and no credit there. Damn it, he’d blown it all on the candy and the tree.)

“Yes, I do read,” he said aloud. “What a shame, what a damn shame. If only the landlady …”

“Forget it,” said Serafim, “we’ll do without. So that’s how it is. Yes. And how are things in general? How’s your health? Feeling all right? One’s health is the main thing. As for me, I don’t do much reading,” he went on, looking askance at the bookshelf. “Never have enough time. On the train the other day I happened to pick up—”

The phone rang in the corridor.

“Excuse me,” said Lev. “Help yourself. Here’s the zwieback, and the caramels. I’ll be right back.” He hurried out.

“What’s the matter with you, good sir?” said Leshcheyev’s voice. “What’s going on here? What happened? Are you sick? What? I can’t hear you. Speak up.”

“Some unexpected business,” replied Lev. “Didn’t you get my message?”

“Message my foot. Come on. It’s Christmas, the wine’s been bought, the wife has a present for you.”

“I can’t make it,” said Lev, “I’m terribly sorry myself.…”

“You’re a rum fellow! Listen, get out of whatever you’re doing there, and we’ll be right over. The Fuchses are here too. Or else, I have an even better idea—you get yourself over here. Eh? Olya, be quiet, I can’t hear. What’s that?”

“I can’t. I have my … I’m busy, that’s all there is to it.”

Leshcheyev emitted a national curse. “Good-bye,” said Lev awkwardly into the already dead phone.

Now Serafim’s attention had shifted from the books to a picture on the wall.

“Business call. Such a bore,” said Lev with a grimace. “Please excuse me.”

“You have a lot of business?” asked Serafim, without taking his eyes off the oleograph—a girl in red with a soot-black poodle.

“Well, I make a living—newspaper articles, various stuff,” Lev answered vaguely. “And you—so you aren’t here for long?”

“I’ll probably leave tomorrow. I dropped in to see you for just a few minutes. Tonight I still have to—”

“Sit down, please, sit down.…”

Serafim sat down. They remained silent for a while. They were both thirsty.

“We were talking about books,” said Serafim. “What with one thing and another I just don’t have the time for them. On the train, though, I happened to pick something up, and read it for want of anything better to do. A German novel. Piffle, of course, but rather entertaining. About incest. It went like this.…”

He retold the story in detail. Lev kept nodding and looking at Serafim’s substantial gray suit, and his ample smooth cheeks, and as he looked he thought: Was it really worth having a reunion with your brother after ten years to discuss some philistine tripe by Leonard Frank? It bores him to talk about it and I’m just as bored to listen. Now, let’s see, there was something I wanted to say … Can’t remember. What an agonizing evening.

“Yes, I think I’ve read it. Yes, that’s a fashionable subject these days. Help yourself to some candy. I feel so guilty about the tea. You say you found Berlin greatly changed.” (Wrong thing to say—they had already discussed that.)

“The Americanization,” answered Serafim. “The traffic. The remarkable buildings.”

There was a pause.

“I have something to ask you,” said Lev spasmodically. “It’s not quite your field, but in this magazine here … There were bits I didn’t understand. This, for instance—these experiments of his.”

Serafim took the magazine and began explaining. “What’s so complicated about it? Before a magnetic field is formed—you know what a magnetic field is?—all right, before it is formed, there exists a so-called electric field. Its lines of force are situated in planes that pass through a so-called vibrator. Note that, according to Faraday’s teachings, a magnetic line appears as a closed circle, while an electric one is always open. Give me a pencil—no, it’s all right, I have one.… Thanks, thanks, I have one.”

He went on explaining and sketching something for quite a time, while Lev nodded meekly. He spoke of Young, Maxwell, Hertz. A regular lecture. Then he asked for a glass of water.

“It’s time for me to be going, you know,” he said, licking his lips and setting the glass back on the table. “It’s time.” From somewhere in the region of his belly he extracted a thick watch. “Yes, it’s time.”

“Oh, come on, stay awhile longer,” mumbled Lev, but Serafim shook his head and got up, tugging down his waistcoat. His gaze stopped once again on the oleograph of the girl in red with the black poodle.

“Do you recall its name?” he asked, with his first genuine smile of the evening.

“Whose name?”

“Oh, you know—Tikhotski used to visit us at the dacha with a girl and a poodle. What was the poodle’s name?”

“Wait a minute,” said Lev. “Wait a minute. Yes, that’s right. I’ll remember in a moment.”

“It was black,” said Serafim. “Very much like this one.… Where did you put my coat? Oh, there it is. Got it.”

“It’s slipped my mind too,” said Lev. “Oh, what was the name?”

“Never mind. To hell with it. I’m off. Well … It was great to see you.…” He donned his coat adroitly in spite of his corpulence.

“I’ll accompany you,” said Lev, producing his frayed raincoat.

Awkwardly, they both cleared their throats at the same instant. Then they descended the stairs in silence and went out. It was drizzling.

“I’m taking the subway. What was that name, though? It was black and had pompons on its paws. My memory is getting incredibly bad.”

“There was a k in it,” replied Lev. “That much I’m sure of—it had a k in it.”

They crossed the street.

“What soggy weather,” said Serafim. “Well, well.… So we’ll never remember? You say there was a k?”

They turned the corner. Streetlamp. Puddle. Dark post office building. Old beggar woman standing as usual by the stamp machine. She extended a hand with two matchboxes. The beam of the streetlamp touched her sunken cheek; a bright drop quivered under her nostril.

“It’s really absurd,” exclaimed Serafim. “I know it’s there in one of my brain cells, but I can’t reach it.”

“What was the name … what was it?” Lev chimed in. “It really is absurd that we can’t … Remember how it got lost once, and you and Tikhotski’s girl wandered for hours in the woods searching for it. I’m sure there was a k and perhaps an r somewhere.”

They reached the square. On its far side shone a pearl horseshoe on blue glass—the emblem of the subway. Stone steps led into the depths.

“She was a stunner, that girl,” said Serafim. “Well, I give up. Take care of yourself. Sometime we’ll get together again.”

“It was something like Turk.… Trick … No, it won’t come. It’s hopeless. You also take care of yourself. Good luck.”

Serafim gave a wave of his spread hand, and his broad back hunched over and vanished into the depths. Lev started walking back slowly, across the square, past the post office and the beggar woman.… Suddenly he stopped short. Somewhere in his memory there was a hint of motion, as if something very small had awakened and begun to stir. The word was still invisible, but its shadow had already crept out as from behind a corner, and he wanted to step on that shadow to keep it from retreating and disappearing again. Alas, he was too late. Everything vanished, but, at the instant his brain ceased straining, the thing stirred again, more perceptibly this time, and like a mouse emerging from a crack when the room is quiet, there appeared, lightly, silently, mysteriously, the live corpuscle of a word.… “Give me your paw, Joker.” Joker! How simple it was. Joker.…

He looked back involuntarily, and thought how Serafim, sitting in his subterranean car, might have remembered too. What a wretched reunion.

Lev heaved a sigh, looked at his watch, and, seeing it was not yet too late, decided to head for the Leshcheyevs’ house. He would clap his hands under their window, and maybe they would hear and let him in.