Kolia (6 page)

A RISING STAR

THE ACT WAS A HIT.
Bounine had shortened his monologue and, in the end, the public had come to adore Kolia's character. The sight of this silent pickpocket deftly manoeuvring about the ring in a coat that was several sizes too big for him was simply endearing. The fact that he didn't say a word made everyone curious to hear Kolia's voice. Rumours began to circulate that he had been born in the notorious Kolyma camp, and that his parents both died there. The rumours didn't hurt the popularity of the act one bit. Every night was standing-room only. The authorities didn't make any trouble, and everyone was happy. The troupe, in a savvy move, decided to neither confirm nor deny the rumours.

Kolia had become an object of public curiosity. The mystery surrounding his silence could easily have fed the flames of damaging speculation over every breakfast table in the city, but, for the moment, things seemed to be okay. Pavel and Bounine continued to make media appearances, as they had always done, but Kolia was not permitted to appear on television or radio, and all magazine and newspaper interviews were turned down. The troupe feared that an appearance out of costume, and out of the ring, could demystify everything that was working in his favour — particularly if he opened his mouth and said the wrong thing. For his part, Kolia didn't care one way or the other.

He was getting used to reading about his confreres in the newspapers and seeing them on television. One night, while Eva was visiting her parents outside the city, Kolia took over babysitting duties and found himself in front of the TV. Masha was half asleep beside him, her head propped up against an exotic Turkish pillow. Pavel and Bounine were being interviewed by a Slovak journalist. They were on tour as a duo and had performed in Bratislava the night before. While the camera crew buzzed around their hotel room, they diligently responded to all the journalist's questions and described everything that went into a typical day's work for a performing clown. Kolia fell asleep just as Pavel was describing how he had first met the young man who was now the third member of the Bounines. “It was right after his performance in a play put on by the local workers' drama club,” Pavel said with a straight face. Just a little white lie.

Kolia spent many of his evenings and an increasing amount of his spare time at Tanya's apartment. She had come to see him in a different light, now that he was a fully fledged member of Bounine's troupe. One evening, after a little too much vodka with dinner, she began telling him about Iosif's childhood and how he didn't read as a young boy.

“He only became interested in books after we arrived in Moscow.”

She talked about Switzerland, and how her mother had returned there shortly after Kruschev had come to power. She missed her mother. She missed her brother, too. This sudden wave of nostalgia surprised Kolia. He had never heard her speak of Iosif this way. She rarely showed emotion, and she hardly ever brought him up in conversation.

Then Tanya mentioned that Iosif had not died in the camp and that he hadn't been killed either. She had received a letter from a man in 1955, which stated categorically that although he was unable to say exactly where Iosif had gone after leaving the camp, or whether he was still alive, Iosif had not died in custody, nor as an escapee. With a single blow, Tanya had destroyed every possible scenario that he had invented to replace the official version of Iosif's “disappearance.” His surprise blurted out of his lips in French.

“When you arrived in Moscow, I couldn't tell you. You were too fragile,” Tanya said in Russian.

He thought about the official in the camp who had given him Iosif's personal effects. Then he remembered the man Pavel had promised to introduce him to four years ago, someone who could have helped him find Iosif, or at least, find out what had happened to him. Pavel had forgotten about the promise and Kolia hadn't wanted to risk mentioning it to him for fear of damaging their relationship. He still couldn't believe his luck at having been admitted to the troupe. But maybe now it was time to broach the subject with him again.

“You seem positively happy now. The circus, all your new friends . . .” Tanya's voice was tinged with sarcasm.

Kolia jumped up from the table, barely controlling the urge to slap her across the face, but not the urge to spit in it. He stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him with enough force to wake up the entire building. Whatever it was that Tanya screamed behind him, he didn't hear it. It would be a long time before he would see her again.

In the days that followed, Kolia wrote a sketch for the trio that Bounine deemed as painfully mediocre. It was clear that he should concentrate on something he excelled at, and he retreated into his room intent on developing his talents as a magician to the fullest. He had refined his pickpocketing skills at the circus school and had also picked up a number of magic tricks that were guaranteed to amaze the crowd. The public loved to hand over money for the pleasure of being duped. He continued his education by studying the techniques of street kids and their bosses who stole for real on train platforms and streetcars and in the subway and public parks. In the ring, to distract the attention of a volunteer from the audience, he would make an elegant arc with his right hand and then a flurry of half-circles, while the left accomplished the inevitable and perfect theft.

Soon he was testing his abilities on unwitting volunteers outside the ring — the occasional passerby in a park, someone standing in line at a store, or a fellow passenger on the streetcar — but only to relieve them of a handkerchief. He began to develop a taste for it. It was risky, but Kolia had acquired an intuitive sense of how reality could be deformed, how the barrier between what exists and what might exist was as porous in the real world as it was in the ring. The first thing was to size up the victim and analyze his clothing. Then, without looking directly at the pocket or wrist in question, wait until he was distracted by something in the environment. At that point, Kolia would accidentally bump into the victim, express an apology, and execute the theft. He pickpocketed subtly and judiciously, never stealing money or documents, and limiting himself to worthless objects only. That was at the beginning. Soon the feeling of exhilaration that came from practising this innocuous sleight of hand in public began to wear off, and he started stealing in earnest, but still for the sheer pleasure of it. Afterwards, he would faithfully return the item he had just stolen, feigning the concern of a good Samaritan.

“Excuse me, comrade, you forgot this.”

“Comrade, you dropped your bag.”

“Excuse me, comrade, I think you lost your wristwatch. It must have come undone. There you go. Be more careful next time.”

He would inevitably look like a prince in the eyes of the comrade concerned.

Kolia wanted for nothing thanks to his employment with the circus, which provided him a level of material comfort he had never known. The store shelves in Moscow rarely featured luxury items, and even the availability of most staples was hit and miss. But Pavel had access to the
closed stores
, a privilege only extended to those who held foreign currency. In Pavel's case, it was money acquired while touring, which required authorization and a visa. Kolia was denied both, but through Pavel, he gained access to the bounty of these stores, whenever the opportunity presented itself.

When his idle but potentially lucrative pastime eventually slipped into full criminality, he began helping out with the grocery shopping by paying with rubles he had received in exchange for his stolen loot. But Kolia had yet to reach that point.

A PROMISE KEPT

Comrade,

I first met Ilya Alexandrovich in the army, a little after '17. We spent a lot of time drinking together, and we drank only the best. Even back then, Ilya had the gift that has brought him so much success — he could make people laugh. We wrote a lot of bad poems together, and some of them were even read by Mayakovsky. He thought they were awful, as you can well imagine. Ilya almost came to blows with him. What a time we had! I have followed his career with the circus all these years, and I have a great admiration for him. My wife simply adores Ilya, and soon I will have the honour of introducing him to my grandchild who will be born in the spring. But I'm getting away from the matter at hand. Ilya spoke of you several years ago, but I can't recall the exact date. The delay is entirely my fault. I have been slow to respond and, for that, I offer my apologies. I have not been well and I was instructed to rest. But I did not forget you — Ilya is my friend. I know that you have been searching for this book since you left your native Siberia. You stated that it was printed in 1953 and belonged to a government official posted to Kamchatka. You will be glad to know that I was able to identify the owner of the book, and I can tell you that it accompanied him into the army, as you may know, but I'm afraid that the last record of the book shows it was somewhere near Kiev in 1954. There is nothing more recent than that.

However, the government official in question now resides in Zagorsk. You are free to contact him. As you will appreciate, I cannot arrange an introduction. His situation has changed. He now lives on the ground floor, which, I'm sure you'll agree, provides a view that is much less advantageous than the one he had from the top floor.

He now works as a janitor at a library somewhere in Zagorsk. His name is Igor Pavlovich Orlov.

Please tell Ilya Alexandrovich that he'll be seeing me very soon!

My warmest regards, comrade,
Anton Pavlovich Joulev

*

In Zagorsk, Kolia finally found the man he had been looking for. Orlov was old and very thin. His face was blotted with liver spots, and he took little time to disclose that he had been diagnosed with inoperable cancer. Here was the man who had helped Iosif — the “book” that Joulev had referred to in his letter — the same man who had handed him Iosif's few belongings. Kolia didn't recognize him. The passage of so many years and the natural urge to forget anything that could be forgotten had effectively erased his memory of the man. But Orlov recognized him right away.

Kolia had waited for him at the entrance to the library where the discredited apparatchik eked out a living while he waited to die. He repeated his full name for the man, but it didn't register. It was Kolia's face — which had remained in Orlov's memory, bolstered by Iosif's vivid descriptions of the boy — that was unmistakable. Yes, he remembered the boy, but not so much the teenager — there were so many in the camp. Kolia walked with him back to his room. Orlov looked down at his shoes the whole way.

“You used the word ‘disappeared,'” Kolia said. “I know he didn't just disappear.”

“That's the way it was.”

The old man felt the cold more than Kolia.

“His sister told me that you found a spot for him in the army.”

“It was his only chance,” the man said, trying to warm his hands under his armpits.

“Was it you who told his sister?”

“Told her what?”

“The truth.”

“About the army? Yes, it was me.”

“Why did you do that?”

“I was hoping that his sister knew more than I did. I thought he might have returned to Moscow. He was a very clever guy.”

“And?”

“And nothing. It looks like he really did just disappear.”

They were standing in front of his building, and it was clear that man wanted to go inside. “Do you want to know anything else?”

“Yes . . . I mean, no.” Kolia hesitated to say anything further, and instead pulled two tickets to the circus from inside his jacket and offered them to Orlov.

“I stopped going to Moscow years ago. But that's very kind of you. I will offer them to someone else.”

Orlov turned around slowly and began to climb the stairs to the entrance, grasping the railing firmly. He caught his foot on one of the steps and stumbled slightly, almost tearing the sole off his shoe. When he finally disappeared inside, Kolia was still holding the tickets in his hand.

BRANDY

BY THE 1970S, THE BOUNINES
were on a roll. They were playing to packed houses every night, and wowing the crowds just like the original duo had done. Together, the three of them had established a tight-knit relationship in the ring — a relationship which Pavel's bad habits began to test. As long as he kept his drunkenness within the confines of a tavern or his own apartment, while Masha was at school, Bounine could put up with his vices, but Pavel had begun to consider the ring as just another barroom. During rehearsals, he would sneak swigs of brandy, and in performance his breath was heavy with the smell of the alcohol he had consumed that day. The technical crew were all aware of Pavel's drinking and, although they initially felt sorry for him, soon they began to complain openly about it.

Kolia's absence from the act during the tours outside the country had weighed on him heavily, so much so that on some nights he had staggered into the ring and performed blind drunk. Bounine had just been named the People's Artist of the Soviet Union and he continued to draw big crowds. But he was seventy years old. Increasingly, Pavel found himself having to carry the act alone, while standing in front of an audience that had paid to see at least two members of the Bounines, and not just him. And, back in Moscow, things got worse. Pavel's darkening mood and faltering judgement cost him an appointment to the directorship of the school. He began to drink with the determination of someone who was trying to drink himself to death.

One morning, at the beginning of their collaboration as a trio in 1965, Bounine showed up at Kolia's dressing room, sporting his trademark wry smile.

“There's someone here to see you. He's waiting over by the women's dressing room.”

“Who?”

“A director. The one who gave Yuri a part in his film.”

Bounine had nothing but contempt for movies. As far as he was concerned, the camera only debased an artist's performance, and wound up attracting the lazy and the narcissistic. Kolia was stunned by Bounine's announcement.

“He's got a part for me? That's a laugh! I've never said a single word in the ring.”

On the set, Kolia was told that he didn't have any lines, in other words, he wouldn't be acting. He was to strip off his clothes and run through the forest with a torch in his hand, and then walk into the river at the end of a collective pagan ritual, danced in absolute abandon. The camera would film them from a distance, and the music that had been chosen to support this scene of pagan free love — transpiring under the watchful eye of Andrei Rublev, a monk and painter of icons — would be unbearably bizarre. The director, a young man with a head full of stiff black hair and a brow that tensed into a deep crevice whenever he leaned in to his camera, had given his instructions. Stark naked and standing on his mark, Kolia began to wonder if Bounine wasn't behind the whole thing.

Andrei Rublev
premiered in
Cannes, but was banned in the Soviet Union. The ban lasted for five years before it was lifted and the film officially rehabilitated. When it finally made its debut in Moscow in 1971, there was no mention of Kolia in the credits. A bureaucrat in the directorate responsible for censorship, who had followed Kolia's career with great interest, had taken care of that. It was this man who sent Kolia an official invitation to perform at a Party function. Kolia politely turned him down; he would be on tour with the troupe in Kiev at that time. The official verified Kolia's statement and found it to be true. “Until next time,” he said.

Six months later, Kolia received another invitation from the same man, but this time it had the tone of a summons to appear. He racked his brain for a way to get out of this one, too, and came up with the not-so-bright idea (according to Pavel) of being fitted with a cast and faking a broken leg. It would lend the necessary credence to his most sincere apologies.
I'm terribly sorry. The doctor has ordered me to rest.
And with the help of Berine, the doctor who had treated the various ailments of the troupe for many years, that's exactly what he did. After downing a stiff drink, Berine got to work, openly and heartily expressing his disdain for pencil-pushing apparatchiks. He was just the right man for Kolia's little ruse.

Pavel flatly berated him for being so bullheaded and for taking such a risk. For a full month, he refused to even speak to Kolia, unless it was absolutely necessary. Bounine, rather than criticizing him, suggested that it would probably be a good idea for him to limp a little more than he usually did, once the cast was removed. Someone would undoubtedly be keeping an eye on him.

Kolia put in a completely credible performance. The official from the censorship directorate sent him flowers and even offered him a week of recuperation by the sea. As obsequiously as he could, Kolia turned the offer down, citing the Bounines' daily rehearsals, which he was duty-bound to attend.

Then he received another letter, advising him that the next official function would be held at the end of June. Kolia was giddy and started thinking up another pretext which would allow him to avoid what was now clearly his duty to the Party. But this time, the old master put his foot down and demanded that Kolia accept the invitation.

“It won't kill you,” Bounine admonished, making it very plain that if he kept on acting like a smartass, he'd wind up in a two-bit circus. “I don't want to lose you. I'm too old to start all over again with a new student.”

Kolia bowed to his wishes. His broken leg healed right on schedule, and when June arrived, solely out of respect for Bounine, Kolia dutifully clowned around on stage for an auditorium full of the Party faithful. As he moved through the lobby, which was swarming with Party bigwigs, he simply couldn't pass up the opportunity to acquire a few watches. The clown, camouflaged in a tuxedo, hardly raised an eyebrow.

As he walked home that night, Kolia concluded that performing in the ring was a lot more satisfying than mounting a frontal attack on an army of inebriated, rosy-faced apparatchiks. Stealing the watches (which he had happily forgotten to return to their owners) had made the whole ordeal much more agreeable. As he crossed over the Moskva, he gaily jettisoned the watches into the river. They weren't worth a damn thing to him. He already had a watch, and he didn't need another one.

When he finally opened the door to the apartment, Masha was playing cards in the salon. He decided to do something useful with himself and teach her how to cheat.