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light/01
Vladimir Esenin recalls his old sofa, private behind the partition of a family bookcase, and falling asleep staring at the nymphs. Atop the bookcase there were three of them, all very nude, cast in plaster miniature to dance in a circle of interlocked arms. It was just the sort of dance nymphs would get up to: hands caressing, legs crossing legs. Their heads of half-caught hair were thrown back, such that each maiden seemed to cast her glance on the wall above. Just there, nailed up in the cramped span between nymphs and ceiling, hung an heirloom icon of the Nativity. Its shepherds echoed the nymphs with upturned faces, gazing at the Star of Bethlehem. The pathology of this spatial arrangement had always smacked of Esenin's mother, though she made no secret of hating the icon, claiming it triggered her memories of the air-raids.
"Flinging itself right into my sight," she'd mutter now and then, convinced her husband would succumb to attrition. Or, "I'm betting it's worth a lot by now."
Veteran behind an expanse of Izvestiya, Arkadiy Fyodorovich Esenin usually preempted her with, "My foot is down," before settling into a silence worthy of Ivan the Terrible. In the green days of the household there was much planting of feet, though Arkadiy Fyodorovich was weak to daughters and often lost his balance. Things might have gone worse for his son, except Esenin never questioned his father's views, convinced that only a deep stream of inward emotion could drive someone so unsentimental. This also explained the hurricane of Arkadiy Fyodorovich's excesses, which eventually upturned the family and dumped them into a waiting room at the VBGM. At the time Esenin was in a state to mistake the medical language, and so perceived without wonder that his father had died of "a sudden crime of the heart." He'd hang on to that absurdity for years, until it marked him as much as anything that came after. Good thing his perspective on religion, further biased by his perspective on family heirlooms, ensured that Esenin would never confuse this attitude with faith. Technically, it was the opposite.
His acceptance papers arrived on the second day of the Space Age, by evening post, late enough to have the impact of a pardon. The day had been overcast, but livened towards the end with wind-gusts that confiscated paper and laundry at random. Half the tenement was out of doors, scanning the cloud-breaks for the promised satellite; only Esenin slouched by the mailboxes with eyes down, gutting his classified packet. All the way across the yard it beat at his hands like a dove. How ridiculous just then was the Esenin of three months prior, sweating on the tramvaj after his interviews, manning up to either hang himself or leave Moscow forever. For that Esenin poised to live out his days on samogon and mushrooms, the present Esenin had only the saintliest of pities.
He rode the wave of accolades into the evening, glutted as a tomcat, gracious even when his sister Pear broke a teacup. But that night, stretched beneath the nymphs, he quickly fell prey to the thing that was not faith, and could not sleep.
In the fifth hour of the morning a seeming lack of air drove him into the communal kitchen, where he liberated a liter of his uncle's malt and uncapped it noisily against the countertop. He was scrupulous about the lamp, but even in the dark nursed a half-hope that someone would come to berate the pride of the family for crashing about in grey underwear, swigging stolen liquor and scratching his belly. A true member of his clan, Esenin craved the solace of a hearty disagreement. In the same spirit he even considered phoning his old friend Lyonka Samuelov, though the morning was far too cold to work up a good drunk. Only on the way back to bed was Esenin obliged by the first bars of a piano etude, and given the satisfaction of thumping the wall. His mother and sister barely stirred in sleep, but the maestro next door reconsidered. The sofa springs groaned like an old man staving off the grippe. Above the bookshelf, the nymphs and shepherds continued to marvel at the rising star, the falling shell.
"Flinging itself right into my sight," she'd mutter now and then, convinced her husband would succumb to attrition. Or, "I'm betting it's worth a lot by now."
Veteran behind an expanse of Izvestiya, Arkadiy Fyodorovich Esenin usually preempted her with, "My foot is down," before settling into a silence worthy of Ivan the Terrible. In the green days of the household there was much planting of feet, though Arkadiy Fyodorovich was weak to daughters and often lost his balance. Things might have gone worse for his son, except Esenin never questioned his father's views, convinced that only a deep stream of inward emotion could drive someone so unsentimental. This also explained the hurricane of Arkadiy Fyodorovich's excesses, which eventually upturned the family and dumped them into a waiting room at the VBGM. At the time Esenin was in a state to mistake the medical language, and so perceived without wonder that his father had died of "a sudden crime of the heart." He'd hang on to that absurdity for years, until it marked him as much as anything that came after. Good thing his perspective on religion, further biased by his perspective on family heirlooms, ensured that Esenin would never confuse this attitude with faith. Technically, it was the opposite.
His acceptance papers arrived on the second day of the Space Age, by evening post, late enough to have the impact of a pardon. The day had been overcast, but livened towards the end with wind-gusts that confiscated paper and laundry at random. Half the tenement was out of doors, scanning the cloud-breaks for the promised satellite; only Esenin slouched by the mailboxes with eyes down, gutting his classified packet. All the way across the yard it beat at his hands like a dove. How ridiculous just then was the Esenin of three months prior, sweating on the tramvaj after his interviews, manning up to either hang himself or leave Moscow forever. For that Esenin poised to live out his days on samogon and mushrooms, the present Esenin had only the saintliest of pities.
He rode the wave of accolades into the evening, glutted as a tomcat, gracious even when his sister Pear broke a teacup. But that night, stretched beneath the nymphs, he quickly fell prey to the thing that was not faith, and could not sleep.
In the fifth hour of the morning a seeming lack of air drove him into the communal kitchen, where he liberated a liter of his uncle's malt and uncapped it noisily against the countertop. He was scrupulous about the lamp, but even in the dark nursed a half-hope that someone would come to berate the pride of the family for crashing about in grey underwear, swigging stolen liquor and scratching his belly. A true member of his clan, Esenin craved the solace of a hearty disagreement. In the same spirit he even considered phoning his old friend Lyonka Samuelov, though the morning was far too cold to work up a good drunk. Only on the way back to bed was Esenin obliged by the first bars of a piano etude, and given the satisfaction of thumping the wall. His mother and sister barely stirred in sleep, but the maestro next door reconsidered. The sofa springs groaned like an old man staving off the grippe. Above the bookshelf, the nymphs and shepherds continued to marvel at the rising star, the falling shell.