Free The Suitcase by Sergei Dovlatov Page A

understated elegance and luxury.

    We greeted each other. She asked, “They say you’ve become a writer?”
    I was bewildered. I wasn’t prepared for the question to be put that way. Had she asked, “Are you a genius?” I would have answered calmly and affirmatively. All my friends bore the burden of genius. They called themselves geniuses. But calling yourself a writer was much harder.
    I said, “I write a bit to amuse myself…”
    There were two people in the reading room. Both were looking our way. Not because they recognized Cherkasov’s widow — they could probably smell French perfume.
    She said, “You know, I’ve been wanting to write about Kolya. Something like a memoir.”
    “You should.”
    “I’m afraid I don’t have the talent. Though all my friends like my letters.”
    “So write a long letter.”
    “The hardest part is starting. Where did it begin? Was it on the day we met? Or much earlier?”
    “That’s how you should start.”
    “How?”
    “‘The hardest part is starting. Where did it begin…’”
    “You have to understand, Kolya was my whole life. He was my friend. He was my teacher. Do you think it’s a sin to love your husband more than your son?”
    “I don’t know. I don’t think love has sizes. It either is or isn’t.”
    “You’ve grown smarter with age,” she said.
    Then we talked about literature. I thought I could guess her idols without asking – Proust, Galsworthy, Feuchtwanger… But it turned out that she loved Pasternak and Tsvetayeva.*

    Then I said that Pasternak lacked sufficient good taste. And that Tsvetayeva for all her genius was a clinical idiot…
    So we moved on to art. I was convinced that she adored the Impressionists. And I was right.
    Then I said that the Impressionists had preferred the moment to the eternal. That only in Monet did generic tendencies predominate over the specific…
    Cherkasova sighed softly, “I thought you had got smarter.”
    We spoke for over an hour. Then she said goodbye and left. I no longer wanted to edit the memoirs of the conqueror of the tundra. I thought about poverty and wealth. About the pathetic and vulnerable human soul…
    When I was a guard, some of the prisoners in the camp were important members of the nomenklatura. They kept up their leadership manner for the first few days. Then they dissolved organically into the general mass.
    Once I watched a documentary about Paris during the Occupation. Crowds of refugees streamed down the streets. I saw that enslaved countries looked the same. All ruined peoples are twins…
    The shell of peace and wealth can fall from a person in an instant, immediately revealing his wounded, orphaned soul…
    About three weeks passed. The phone rang. Cherkasova was back from Paris. She said she would drop by.
    We bought some halva and biscuits.
    She looked younger and slightly mysterious. French celebrities turned out to be much more decent than ours. They received her well.
    Mother asked, “How are they dressed in Paris?”
    Nina Cherkasova replied, “As they see fit.”

    Then she told us about Sartre and his incredible outbursts. About rehearsals at the Théâtre du Soleil. About Yves Montand’s family problems.
    She gave us presents. Mother got a delicate evening bag. Lena a make-up kit. I got an old corduroy jacket.
    To tell you the truth, I was taken aback. The jacket clearly needed cleaning and repair. The elbows were shiny. It was missing buttons. I saw traces of oil paint on the lapel and sleeve.
    I even thought, I wish she had brought me a fountain pen. But I said, “Thank you. You shouldn’t have bothered.”
    I couldn’t very well shout: “Where did you manage to pick up this rag?”
    The jacket really was old. If Soviet posters are to be believed, the unemployed in America wear jackets like that.
    Cherkasova looked at me strangely and said, “That jacket belonged to Fernand Léger. He was about your size.”
    I repeated in amazement, “Léger? The