Every day there was a farmer’s market in the town square. If Svetlana saw a succulent cut of meat or a piece of fresh fish, she would call her husband to ask if he wanted it for his evening meal. Only today, when he answered the telephone, he claimed not to recognise her voice.
“Please stop messing around, Mikhail. You and your practical jokes. Now, would you prefer the seabass or the beefsteak?”
“Look, I really have no idea who you are. You accuse me of playing practical jokes, but you’re the crank. You’re the one who –”
“Enough. I refuse to play along a moment longer. I will buy the fish and a bottle of Tsinandali. If you get the chance – I know you’re busy marking exam papers today – could you please cut some fresh fennel from the window box?”
“What? How do you know such things? – my occupation, my current activities, my favourite wine? Who exactly are you? What is this all about?”
“Mikhail, it’s me – your wife. I’m on my lunch break. I’ve called to see what you would like to eat this evening, something I’ve done countless times before.”
“My wife? Don’t be absurd. I’m a bachelor. I live alone, and have done all my life.” He slammed the phone down.
Svetlana didn’t know what to make of such an odd and protracted scene. Briefly, she toyed with the idea of calling straight back, or, alternatively, heading home to see if Mikhail was all right. But memory of his past antics, his practical jokes, not to mention a pressing workload, compelled her to return to the office instead, without buying anything for their evening meal. The way she saw it, Mikhail would only have himself to blame if all he had to eat tonight was bread and cheese. As she left the town square, she began to see the funny side of the situation, how he would very much be made to suffer for behaving like an idiot.
By the time she reached the office, she had almost convinced herself the incident hadn’t been as worrying as it seemed. During the post-examination period, Mikhail was under a lot of stress. Maybe this was his way of letting off steam.
“Excuse me, madam,” said the security guard stationed at the main reception desk. “All visitors must sign in.”
Confused, Svetlana came to a stop and turned to face him. “But I work here. We spoke only this morning. It’s Pavel, isn’t it? We pass each other every day.”
“I’m sorry. But I’ve never seen you before in my life. And I’ve been employed here for around five years now.”
Before Svetlana could even begin to respond, one of her long-time colleagues, Fyodor Leskov, entered the building.
“Fyodor,” she called out to him. “Please, could you help me? There’s been some sort of misunderstanding here.”
But like the security guard, Fyodor stared blankly at Svetlana, as if he’d never seen her before.
“Do I know you? If we’ve met previously, I can only apologise. I’m a local government official and come across so many different people in my line of work.”
Svetlana couldn’t believe what she was hearing. First, the telephone conversation with Mikhail. Then, the security guard. Now, one of her oldest colleagues, someone she considered more of a friend than a co-worker, claimed not to recognise her.
“Fyodor, I don’t know what to say. Why are you all acting so bizarrely? Why are you making out that I’m a stranger to you? Off the top of my head, I could name any number of personal details about you that only a close friend could know. You live on Sovetskaya Ulitsa, for instance, at number thirty-nine. You’re married to Iva. Your twin daughters are called Irina and Maria.”
“What? How do you know all of this?”
“Because we’ve worked together for over a decade. Now, please, if this is national have-a-good-laugh-at-my-expense day, I didn’t receive the memo. If you’d be so good as to excuse me, I have to go now.”
“No, madam.” Pavel shot out from behind the desk and blocked her path. “I really am going to have to ask you to leave the building. You’re causing quite a scene.”
“Causing a scene? Me? I’m merely trying to get to my office. Let me pass, so I can carry on with my official duties, just like I have for the last ten years.”
But no sooner had she tried to sidestep his considerable frame, than Pavel grabbed her forearm.
“How dare you!” Svetlana cried. “This is outrageous. You try and play some stupid trick, then you have the audacity to manhandle me.”
At this point, Sergei Rostropovich, the deputy director, walked into the foyer with two younger employees, girls from the typing pool. Seeing that an altercation of some kind was taking place, Rostropovich – a man who never shied away from a confrontation – stepped forward of his companions.
“What’s going on here? Is there some kind of problem?”
Fyodor explained the situation.
“But, madam,” said Rostropovich, “I, like my colleagues, have never seen you before. What on earth are you doing here? Why are you making such ridiculous claims?”
“Mr Rostropovich, Sergei,” she said, “I have always had the utmost respect for you. We’ve always had an excellent professional relationship. If this is some kind of big practical joke that everybody is in on, then I ask you, most sincerely, to put a stop to it now.”
“There is no joke, I assure you. You seem like a reasonable woman. You are well-dressed and articulate. I don’t know why you have turned up here today, but perhaps there is something going on in your personal life that has caused some confusion. If there is a friend or family member we can call, or if we can help in any way, we are more than happy to do so. I would consider it my personal duty, in fact.”
“This is outrageous,” said Svetlana. “You all know who I am. I’ve worked here as the chief administration officer for years. I’m currently in the middle of a department-wide audit. Only this morning I entered your office, Sergei, and had you sign off a whole batch of performance-related statistics.”
“No, you’re mistaken. I assure you, none of that happened. You are not, nor have you ever been, employed in this office. Now, I have tried my best to indulge you, to offer my help, but if you don’t leave the premises immediately, I will have to call the police.”
“So be it. Telephone the police. I call your bluff. If you want to see this farcical scene through to the end, if you want to have your fun, be my guest. For I refuse to move an inch from this very spot.”
Svetlana looked on in disbelief as Rostropovich picked up the telephone and called the local police station. Even when he began to speak, she still expected him to put the receiver back down at any moment, burst into laughter, and tell her that everything had really, truly been a joke. Only he didn’t. He relayed all the details, thanked the officer at the other end of the line, and told them he would expect a squad car to arrive in ten minutes.
“I’m sorry it had to come to this,” he said, after finishing the call. “Like I said a moment ago, I have no idea what any of this is about. But the office is staffed by dozens of local government employees, whose welfare is very much my responsibility.”
“What do you mean, exactly? That you see me as some kind of threat to public safety?”
Rostropovich shrugged. “That I don’t know. I am merely attending to the situation in the most sensible manner possible. In ten minutes” – he checked his wristwatch – “you will no longer be my responsibility. But if you want to leave now, saving yourself from any unpleasantness, not to mention a possible police charge, I have no objection, as much as I hate the idea of wasting police time. We will say you simply ran off.” He half raised a hand in the direction of the main door, as if to politely usher her outside.
Svetlana hesitated. The last thing she wanted to do was run away from the situation, to, in effect, admit her guilt, to act in such a way as to suggest that she wasn’t who she claimed to be. But the whole scene had become so unpleasant and confusing, that’s exactly what she did. Without a further word, without looking back, she lowered her head and rushed out of the main door.
Immediately regretting the decision, she nonetheless retraced her steps from earlier. If she really had been the victim of a sick and elaborate joke, a cruel, senseless plot instigated by her husband, friends, and colleagues, it couldn’t possibly extend to people out of their close circle. Put simply, there was no practical, logical, or logistical way the whole town could be involved.
To put this theory to the test, Svetlana proceeded with the shopping tasks she had fully intended to carry out prior to her telephone conversation with Mikhail. Fortunately, the stalls had not yet been packed away for the day, if the stallholders themselves looked to be in the preliminary throes of doing so.
“Piotr,” she shouted to the fishmonger. “I’m glad I caught you. For one reason or another, I’m running a little late today.”
Piotr, who was then stacking a few empty crates at the front of his stall, turned and flashed the same crooked, brown-toothed smile she had seen countless times in the past.
“Of course, madam. No problem at all. What can I get you?”
His words were friendly if not overly familiar, particularly warm, that of a trader greeting a valued customer of many years standing.
“Earlier, I noticed some lovely-looking seabass,” she said, deciding not to push things, not to act strangely, to let the matter of ultimate recognition come about as naturally as possible. “You haven’t got any left, by any chance? You know how much my husband loves your seabass. He always says you can taste the ocean in every mouthful.”
“Ah! You’re in luck. I have two beautiful pieces left. Bear with me one moment and I shall fetch them for you.”
Ducking around the back of the stall, he quickly returned with the fish, weighed it on his scales, and relayed the price. But again, there was nothing particularly familiar about his manner.
“Piotr, can I ask you something?”
“Of course you can. I am, as always, at your service, as I am all my customers.”
But there was such good-natured kindliness shining in his old man’s eyes, Svetlana couldn’t bring herself to burden him with her problems, to describe such an unusual, complex, and unsettling situation.
“I just wanted to make sure you’ll be here on Friday. I’m planning on cooking something special for my husband.”
“Naturally, you can count on me. I’ll be here bright and early.”
It was much the same at the store on the corner, a convenient establishment well-stocked with alcoholic wares.
“Good afternoon, Elizaveta,” Svetlana said to the proprietor. “I’ll have a bottle of your finest Tsinandali. As you know, it’s a particular favourite of my husband’s.”
“Very wise, madam.” She winked. “It always pays to treat the man of the house every now and then.”
In breezy, singsong fashion, she took the requested bottle of wine from the shelf behind her, and asked if Svetlana would like the bottle wrapped or simply in a bag.
“A bag will be fine. And, Elizaveta, can I ask you a question? How long have you had the store? I mean, it’s been in your family for years, hasn’t it? I remember your mother serving behind the counter when I was just a little girl. And if I’m not mistaken, her mother, your grandmother, was often in the back room there, overseeing everything.”
“Why yes, my grandparents opened the doors at the turn of the last century. My parents ran the place for nearly fifty years. I took up the reins about ten years ago, when they finally decided to retire. This is most certainly what you’d call a family business.”
They both laughed, but for very different reasons. Genuine mirth on the shopkeeper’s part, and for Svetlana, a means to stop herself from bursting into tears. Because she could tell, no matter how pleasant their conversation had been, that Elizaveta didn’t recognise her, that she took her for a casual customer, a face in the crowd.
“Well, thank you. I’ll no doubt see you again later in the week.”
“God willing. Bye now, and thank you for your custom.”
Beyond dejected, Svetlana could think of only one possible course of action: to walk the short distance to her apartment. If she knocked on the front door and confronted Mikhail, her husband, the man she loved, and saw the same vacant look on his face as her colleagues from the office and Piotr and Elizaveta from town, a complete lack of recognition, then she would know she had truly gone mad, and everything she had up until that moment taken as fact, the constituent parts which made up her life – past, present, and future – was false, a delusion, no matter how vivid, detailed, and real it seemed to her.
Only venturing inside the apartment building itself proved difficult. Perhaps her fear and anxiety were such, she couldn’t face up to the prospect of finding out the truth. Consequently, she lingered indecisively across the street, staring up at the second-floor window. Even from a distance, she could see Mikhail seated at the table, marking examination papers. The simplicity of the scene, both fond and familiar, had such an overwhelmingly upsetting effect, she felt like sinking down to her knees and openly sobbing. It was only the sight of a near-neighbour, an elderly widow called Mrs Zoyonchkovsky, dropping one of her shopping bags directly outside the apartment building’s main entrance, that stopped her from doing so.
Svetlana dashed across the street. “Mrs Zoyonchkovsky! Let me get those for you.”
Ducking down, she scooped up some fallen fruit and vegetables, put them back into the bag, and then handed it to her neighbour.
“Thank you, dear. You’re so very kind. All of you, everyone in the building, has been so good to me since Lev died.”
Svetlana gave a start. For the first time that day, she was convinced that she was talking to someone who knew her, who recognised her, who saw her as a legitimate part of their everyday life, no matter how fleeting, remote, or far removed.
“No problem. Now, would you like me to help you inside?”
“Only if you have time. And only if you’ll let me make you a nice cup of tea, in thanks for being so considerate.”
Svetlana agreed without hesitation. Before she confronted Mikhail, she needed some time to compose herself.
When she entered Mrs Zoyonchkovsky’s apartment, however, and took a seat at the kitchen table, the old woman launched into a quite astonishingly bitter rant about her husband’s controversial suicide. A disgraced gynaecologist, he took his own life after being found guilty of touching patients inappropriately during vaginal examinations.
“It was all lies,” she hissed. “All of those women were fantasists. They made all those horrible stories up. Lev was one of the most distinguished physicians in his field. Never, in his forty-year career, had a complaint of any nature been made against him before this. It’s an outrage. How people can simply invent such spurious stories, ruining someone’s life, pushing them beyond the brink of despair.”
The longer it went on, the more Svetlana realised the old woman hadn’t recognised her in the street, after all. She was so eaten up by resentment, grief, and despair, she would’ve reached out to any stranger, in the hope they would sit down and listen to her impassioned defence of her husband.
“Mrs Zoyonchkovsky, I really am going to have to go now.” Svetlana got to her feet. “I have to –”
“Go? But I haven’t made the tea yet. And there’s so much more I need to tell you. I’m thinking about starting a campaign to clear Lev’s name. I’ve drafted some letters. Please, sit down. I will go and fetch them. You can offer a critique. You can tell me if I’m going about things in the correct manner.”
“No, really. It’s getting late. And I need to see my husband now. It’s a very busy time of year for him. I need to get back to my apartment.”
“But you don’t even live here. I’ve never seen you before in my life. You’re just like all the rest – liars, deceivers, cheats! I should never have let you into my home.”
“I’m sorry you see it that way. But like I said, I really am going to –”
“No.” Mrs Zoyonchkovsky pushed Svetlana back down into the chair. “You’re staying right here. You’re going to be made to pay for such impertinence.”
Shocked, Svetlana could only look on as Mrs Zoyonchkovsky raised a hand and slapped her hard across the face.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”
But it was just the beginning of an unremitting, hugely unlikely assault. Within seconds, Svetlana was knocked half-senseless and sent sprawling to the cold hard linoleum floor. Terrified now, she started to shout and scream, to both cry for help and plead for mercy. But Mrs Zoyonchkovsky didn’t so much as blink or pause for breath. She leapt upon Svetlana and began to slap her face again, to pull her hair, to claw and rip at her blouse. What had started out as an inexplicable attack, a frenzied outpouring of rage, was turning into something else, something far nastier.
“I will punish you for what you did to Lev! I will give you a taste of your own medicine.”
“No, stop, please! Get…get off me.”
As they grappled on the floor, the front door suddenly crashed open and Mikhail rushed into the kitchen.
“My God! What on earth is going on here? Mrs Zoyonchkovsky, stop! Have you lost your mind?”
He grabbed hold of the old woman and dragged her away from Svetlana.
“Sit over there.” He forced Mrs Zoyonchkovsky down into the nearest chair. “Don’t move, or I will call the police.”
Turning around, he carefully helped Svetlana up to her feet. In that one moment, she was almost overwhelmed with emotion, a sense of relief and gratitude.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ll take you to my apartment. We’ll get you cleaned up. You’ll be safe there.”
The next thing she knew, she was sitting on the familiar settee in her own front room, with her beloved husband knelt before her, tilting her head from right to left, inspecting her injuries.
“Wait here a moment,” he said. “I’ll go and fill a bowl of warm water and disinfectant. Your wounds all look to be of a minor, superficial nature, but it’s better to be safe than sorry and bathe them. That way, you won’t risk any infection.”
Feeling far more at ease now, Svetlana gazed around the room, taking in every piece of furniture, the trinkets on the mantelpiece, the pictures on the walls. Everything was just as she remembered it: an attractive figurine of a dancing girl bought on a romantic weekend away, a reproduction of Edvard Munch’s Madonna above the feature fireplace, the tasteful not to mention hugely expensive Persian rug a wealthy relative had gifted them on their wedding day. All of which strengthened Svetlana’s conviction that she was who she thought she was, this was her home, the interior of her domestic life, a place she had spent so many happy hours – for how could all of this be so familiar, how could the sight of so many personal belongings trigger a cascade of such unique, interconnected memories?
When Mikhail returned, he dabbed swabs of cotton wool bathed in disinfectant against her skin. But Svetlana was almost oblivious to the discomfort, the sharp, stinging sensation. She was far more aware of Mikhail’s subtle pinewood aftershave, the hint of citrusy shampoo he used each day, scents she encountered every time she kissed him goodbye in the mornings, and every time she embraced him on her return to the apartment after work. But whenever she caught his eye, whenever she looked at him for a moment longer than was necessary in the circumstances, she saw none of the old warmth and affection of before, confirming that she was a stranger to this man, no matter how many intimate memories she possessed of him.
“All done. I hope that wasn’t too unpleasant.” He got to his feet. “Right now, you look like you could use a stiff drink. Unfortunately, I can’t offer you anything stronger than a cup of tea. I’m up to my eyeballs in work at the moment.” He gestured to the thick pile of papers on the table by the window. “I haven’t been able to go shopping today. And I’m embarrassed to say I have no alcohol in the house.”
Svetlana was about to tell him tea would be fine, only she noticed her shopping bag on the floor by the low coffee table. Whether she or Mikhail had picked it up at Mrs Zoyonchkovsky’s apartment, she couldn’t recall.
“Wait,” she said. “I have a bottle of Tsinandali in my bag. Please, feel free to open it now. Like you said, I could really do with some alcohol to calm my nerves.”
“Tsinandali? Really? Why, that’s my favourite wine. Fantastic. I’ll go through to the kitchen and fetch some glasses and a bottle opener.”
He soon returned, poured out two generous glasses of wine, and handed one to Svetlana.
“Well, I wish we had met in happier circumstances, but cheers, your good health.”
As she took a sip of wine, the most curious of realisations dawned upon Svetlana. If none of today’s events had taken place, if Mikhail had recognised her voice over the telephone and simply stated a preference for meat or fish, she would have made the purchase, walked back to the office, finished her afternoon’s work, and returned home to sit on the settee and enjoy a glass of her husband’s favourite wine, in the exact same way and at the exact same time she was enjoying it now. Despite everything that had happened, all the unlikely and unpleasant encounters, the mental turmoil, where she had begun to question both her existence and sanity, her day had ended just how she envisaged it ending when leaving the house this morning, no matter how circuitous the route.
“Not to pry,” said Mikhail, “but could I ask you exactly what happened with Mrs Zoyonchkovsky? I heard all that shouting and screaming; I knew something very wrong was taking place. But when I rushed into the apartment, she looked like a wild animal. I could barely believe my eyes.”
Svetlana told him the whole story, how she had helped the old woman with her shopping bags, the offer of a cup of tea, the emotional rant about her husband, which had precipitated an attack so violent, it had taken her completely by surprise.
“My word. She’s always appeared so frail and sickly – even when her husband was alive and well – I didn’t think she had it in her. But don’t believe a word of what she told you about him. I have it on very good authority the accusations are well-founded. In fact, they don’t think they’ll ever get to the bottom of his crimes. At the last count, around two hundred women have made official complaints. In such cases, you often see a domino effect. Once one victim is brave enough to come forward, others feel confident their story will be believed.”
“That’s terrible. I always felt he looked like such a respectable man.”
“You knew him?”
“Vaguely,” she quickly countered, remembering the ambiguous nature of the situation. “And, of course, I saw his photograph in the papers when the scandal broke.”
This eminently feasible explanation satisfied Mikhail. Topping up their glasses, he seemed to relax, to be stimulated by her company. Svetlana recognised the signs – the way he crossed one leg over the other, the expansive hand gestures, the light infectious bursts of laughter, how he directed the conversation in a certain way, specifically to showcase favourite stories from his personal and professional life, amusing, anecdotal tales Svetlana had heard many times before, but never tired of hearing again. In this respect, Mikhail was a charming, eloquent man. He loved nothing more than talking with friends over a glass of wine. Knowing all the things closest to his heart, Svetlana was, in turn, able to ask him the kinds of questions which elicited lengthy and enthusiastic responses; she was able to encourage more stories and anecdotes, until they were both laughing, just like they had so often in the past.
A good hour must’ve gone by before Mikhail drained the last of his wine and placed his glass on the table.
“It’s been such a pleasure talking to you. But I fear I have detained you long enough with my silly tales.”
“Not at all,” she said, dreading the end of this blissful interlude, that Mikhail may simply ask her to leave now. “In truth, I’m still a little shaken up by everything that happened. I could really use the company. And if it doesn’t sound like the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard, I have two pieces of seabass in my bag. Maybe I could cook them here, to thank you for coming to my rescue.”
Svetlana knew this was a risky suggestion. Despite his affability, Mikhail was a very private man. He might not like the idea of a strange woman being so forward and presumptuous. But to her relief, he didn’t find this odd or in any way out of place. In fact, he appeared delighted by such a providential coincidence.
“You know, that is so strange. I’ve been receiving these crazy crank phone calls of late – a woman claiming to be my wife, asking me what I’d like for my dinner. Ha! And I’m sure she said something about seabass today. But to answer your question – yes, I would be delighted. Like I said, I haven’t really thought about supper. If you don’t mind navigating your way around a strange kitchen, you’d be doing me a great service. Plus, we can carry on talking.”
The only proviso was that she excuse him for a moment while he popped out to the shop on the corner to buy some more wine.
“Why of course. While you’re gone, I shall make a start.”
In yet another surreal twist to her day, Svetlana found herself in her own kitchen, wearing her own striped apron, opening and shutting drawers, igniting spluttering gas rings, deploying the sharp knife she had used so often before, scoring the fish, picking some fennel from the window boxes she herself had carefully nurtured and maintained. Within minutes, those familiar kitchen sounds and smells assailed her senses – the sizzling butter, oil, and garlic in the pan. Closing her eyes, she let all the pent-up stress and uncertainty from earlier leave her mind. She told herself to relax, to enjoy this moment, to live out a part of her old life, no matter how fleetingly or vicarious.
On his return, Mikhail put on some music, Maria Callas singing arias from famous operas, and proceeded to set the table.
“That smells delicious. You must be a dab hand in the kitchen. I can tell this is a meal I’m most certainly going to enjoy.”
When they sat down to eat, the conversation and wine flowed as freely as it had in the front room. In a garrulous mood, Mikhail continued from where he had left off, regaling Svetlana with some amusing snippets from his professional life.
“It really did border upon genius,” he said about a philosophy paper he had marked many years ago. “The question was so complex, so long, like an essay in itself – the nature of a question, what makes and defines a question, whether it is a purely linguistic artefact or must be a state of being, whether it requires a querent to be answered, whether that answer requires knowledge. In response, the student had simply written: ‘If that is a question, then this is an answer…’ And trailed off with a series of ellipses and left the rest of the paper blank.”
“Really?”
“Yes, a wonderful riposte, don’t you think? But in all seriousness, it caused me many a sleepless night. In the normal scheme of things, I should have simply failed the paper, allocating the lowest mark possible. Only something held me back. I sensed there was far more to this than a lazy, woefully underprepared student jotting down the first thing that came into their head, then fleeing the examination hall. And thankfully, my instincts proved correct.”
“How do you mean?”
“That I took the unusual step of contacting both the examiner who set the question and the examination board itself. In effect, my superiors. I made a direct appeal on behalf of the student. I argued that the answer was in fact quite brilliant. And after careful consideration, they agreed. They contacted the student in question – who, as it happened, was a hugely gifted young woman, one of the most outstanding students in her year – and made her an unprecedented offer. Like a second chance, I suppose. An oral examination on the theories discussed in the examination question. At which she excelled, thus gaining a place at one of our finest seats of learning.”
“Wow,” said Svetlana. “So, if you see something promising, if a little unorthodox, in a student’s paper, you can intercede?”
“Yes and no. It’s the one and only time I took such action. And it could’ve had dire ramifications for my career. If any link – no matter how tenuous – could’ve been made between myself and the student, it would’ve looked highly dubious to say the least.”
Svetlana knew this part of the story was untrue – there had been no question as to Mikhail’s integrity, no repercussions that could’ve affected his standing, or led to his dismissal. He was simply trying to impress her.
“But that’s enough about me. What about you? What do you do for a living? Where do you reside? How come you were in the area today?”
Svetlana answered with subtle evasion. For every question he asked, she managed to formulate one of her own in return, without it sounding as if she was trying to hide anything. In this manner, she both parried his questions and manoeuvred the conversation around to safer, more general topics.
“And how about you on a personal level, Mikhail? Have you ever been married or had children?”
“Not exactly. To let you into a secret, I lead what you might call a double-life.”
“Double-life? That sounds very mysterious. What do you mean?”
“Well, to the outside world, I may look like a boring, stuffy educational professional, a man who spends the vast majority of his time either devising examination papers or marking them. But I consider my real occupation to be my philological studies. Specifically, a vast opus, very much my life’s work, a study of the origin and development of language, human speech. It’s something I’ve been passionate about ever since I was child.
“Let me explain. When I was a young boy, I suffered from a terrible lisp, a speech impediment so severe, it made me feel like the most pathetic of simpletons. A nervous child, with a domineering, far from sympathetic father, I found it almost impossible to express myself verbally, without stuttering and stammering. I can’t tell you how much this tortured my childhood, how much psychic distress I endured.”
Svetlana felt a powerful stirring of emotions, as Mikhail had told her about this particularly painful period of his life, the teasing he suffered at school, the time he spent with a speech therapist, the endless repetition, the exercises in enunciation, even a long course of hypnotherapy. But he had never, in all their years of marriage, mentioned work on a book, or his, admittedly understandable, interest in philology.
“Did you know that we can actually chart the formation of language, the first words, if you will, to the necessity of sustenance? Primitive man, when seeking to communicate his hunger, a need to hunt or fish, would gesture, by putting a hand towards his mouth. This alone fascinated me. How, long before the physiological and evolutionary transformation of our voice boxes, the physical apparatus we require to form words, long before the development of more sophisticated speech patterns, the whole basis for future communication was rooted very much in satisfying our most basic human needs. And when you consider that as the basis of language itself, you can chart the development of us as a species, how new and dynamic forms of technology, for instance, articulate our ever-changing needs. Our desire to explore outer space, the universe beyond.
“In fact, I consider this early section of my great work to be amongst the finest in the book. Here. Let me show you.”
Mikhail left the room, returning a few moments later with a large cardboard box in his arms – so large, in fact, he struggled to not only carry it into the kitchen, but to find space for it at the other end of the table, away from the empty plates, bottle of wine, and glasses.
“Behold.” He took one thick bound manuscript out of the box, then another, then another. “This very much constitutes Part One of my study. As you can see, it’s a vast undertaking.”
“My word. You must’ve been writing for many years.”
“Ever since my student days, the idea for my great book has dominated my thoughts. At every opportunity, I travel the world to research different languages. Last count, I’ve visited sixty-four countries. Currently, I’m studying Mandarin. A most fascinating language, with five main branches, but almost two hundred regional dialects – all unique, almost like a separate language of their own.
“Make no mistake, this will be the most comprehensive study of the development and history of speech, language, our ability to communicate our innermost thoughts and feelings. There will be individual sections on all the branches of the arts and sciences, how we have refined this most wonderous of gifts into a sprawling body of written works, like manuals chronicling different epochs.
“When you asked me about marriage earlier, I perhaps answered a little disingenuously. Because I feel as if I am very much married to my work. It is my everything. It consumes me with a passion far more compelling than that of the flesh. Yes, granted, I sometimes think about what my life would’ve been like if I had a wife and children. But in all honesty, I don’t think I would ever have been willing to make that kind of sacrifice, that kind of compromise, to share my life with another person, that I would divide my rich intellectual existence up, that I would reduce myself, in a way, to be one half of another entity. For I feel it would detract from me, rather than make me whole or complete, as some couples claim.”
Of all today’s trials, Mikhail’s revelations had the most upsetting effect on Svetlana. Even if she was caught in a parallel universe, where nothing was as it had previously been, even if she was merely dreaming, she had just seen a side of her husband that she had never seen before, a glimpse into his true inner self, hopes and dreams he had not only never discussed with her before, but hopes and dreams her very existence rendered impossible.
“You’ve gone very quiet,” he said. “I hope all my boring book talk hasn’t ruined our pleasant evening.”
“No, no, not at all. I’ve found everything you’ve said to be fascinating. It’s rare to hear somebody speak with such passion and conviction these days. I sincerely wish you all the best with your book.” She raised her glass and toasted him. “It sounds like such an ambitious project.”
“True. But like I just said, it’s a path I have chosen for myself, a path I wouldn’t deviate from for anything in the world.”
Somewhat abruptly, Svetlana drained her wine and got to her feet. She felt as if she couldn’t stay in the apartment a moment longer now, knowing that the man she had dedicated so much of her life to no longer had any need for her, that any kind of relationship between them would only hold him back.
“But it’s getting late. I should go.”
“Really? Oh, oh I see. But I thought you didn’t have anywhere to stay. I thought you were in a bit of a bind.”
“No, no, you misunderstood me. I don’t want to take up any more of your time.”
“Not at all. It’s been an absolute pleasure. Impromptu, but a few hours I’ve most certainly enjoyed. As you probably gathered, I’ve never really spoken to anyone about my work before. You’re a fantastic listener. I almost feel as if we’ve met before, as if we were old friends.”
“I’m glad. And thank you for your hospitality.”
“My pleasure. Thank you for cooking and being such great company. Now, let me show you out.”
In the hallway, Mikhail helped Svetlana on with her coat and then shook her formally by the hand.
“Are you sure you’ll be all right? I’d hate to think of you all alone out there.”
🐟📚
