The Vanishing Futurist Read Free Page A

golden domes and palaces and the crowds of beggars at their doors. The architecture, with its strange excrescences and decorations, struck me as a wild attempt at grandeur that understood nothing of the true properties of beauty. Yet slowly I came to know its little courtyards, its secret gardens and alleys, its cool green boulevards cast in relief against the bustle and noise. It was impossible not to be charmed by the wooden houses and the bandy streets, the little churches squeezed into every corner. There was a sort of unexpected joyfulness about it all, unlike any other city I have known.
    Liza and Dima and I explored together, discovering the river with its busy traffic, the markets – the birds on Trubnoi Square and the flowers on Tsvetnoi Boulevard – and the grand new mansions decorated in the latest styles. Our trips often included a visit to the grocer Eliseyev’s to gaze at the displays and drink a glass of flavoured mineral water, which I allowed Dima to order.
    ‘Which syrup do you prefer, sir?’ the tremendously solemn, white-coated assistant would ask, using the polite ‘ Vy ’ .
    Dima would flush with pleasure. ‘Three lemon ones, please . . .’ And when the sparkling drink had gushed out of the silver siphon and the syrup was swirling in the glass, he might add, as one man to another, ‘I used to like the strawberry but I’ve grown out of it now.’
    The streets were always busy; hawkers stood on street corners selling knitted goods and garden produce, brushes and brooms, newspapers – there was an extraordinary array of different publications – hot pies, ice-creams, chestnuts. An increasing number of motor vehicles weaved noisily between the elegant carriages and the trams. In response to Dima’s urgent requests, we often passed by one or other of the grand hotels, the Metropol or the National, in the hope of glimpsing a chauffeur, in leather goggles and hat, in the act of cranking up his motor car, swiftly mounting his seat and roaring away, to the accompaniment of several deafening explosions.
    Dima was a straightforward little boy, happy as long as he was well exercised and well rested. Liza was more complicated, and I was glad of the opportunity, while walking, to encourage her to talk more openly. Her thoughts often shocked me.
    ‘I hate to eat,’ she told me one day. ‘I prefer to be hungry.’
    ‘But why, Liza?’
    ‘Look at my sister Sonya. She is fat, all she thinks about is clothes, and her marriage.’
    I couldn’t help agreeing that Sonya was not the most sympathetic of characters. She was making the arrangements for her marriage to Petya Ostroumov, the son of a prosperous manufacturer from St Petersburg, at the time. The plans seemed to result in tearful scenes with her father every other day, stamped feet, and the imploring figure of Mr Kobelev outside her bedroom door, begging her to be reasonable.
    ‘Well, I don’t like to hear such unkind remarks – but, Liza, you don’t have to be like your sister. You can study, and work, and you certainly don’t have to marry unless you want to. Your father has often said as much.’
    ‘What could I do?’
    ‘What would you like to do?’
    ‘I’d like . . . to look after animals.’
    ‘You could train to be a vet.’
    ‘A vet! Me!’ She was delighted by the idea, and still more so when, as a result of a conversation I had with her father, she was presented with a puppy. He was named Frank, and joined us on our walks as soon as he was old enough. Liza doted on him.
    The shadow of their mother’s illness fell over all her children, but Liza was the one, perhaps, who suffered most. She was four when her mother took to her room; no doubt it was hard to understand that her withdrawal was not deliberate. Dima had been too young to realise; he loved Nyanya with all his heart, and still occasionally fell asleep cushioned on her vast, wheezy bosom.
    *
    We were at the Kobelevs’ country estate, Mikhailovka, when the war began.