Free THE LUTE AND THE SCARS by Adam Thirlwell and John K. Cox Page B

as if he was listening for something, he strummed a few chords. Then he looked me in the eyes.
    “ A-minor, ” I responded.
    “ It ’ s cloudy outside: the humidity does it good. ”
    I continued visiting him for years afterward, long after I had moved out. When my spirits were low, or when I needed advice, I would look him up. I knew he was reading all my writing in the journals, along with the reviews of my books.
    “ Talent is a curse, ” he said to me. “ Pushkin suffered on account of his talent. People envy nothing so much as a divine gift. Prodigies are rare, while mediocrity is legion. It ’ s an unending struggle. And don ’ t you go bury yourself in books. Travel. Listen to people. And listen to your own inner voice. Now, Marija Nikolajevna is expecting to see you too. Don ’ t get upset if she scolds you from time to time. She ’ s sick. And unhappy. ”
    Marija Nikolajevna, wrapped in a threadbare woolen shawl, was sitting by the window. The window gave onto a gloomy courtyard surrounded by battered walls.
    “ I read in the newspaper, ” she said, “ that the theater company you work with is going to Russia. Are you going along? ”
    “ Yes, ” I answered. “ We ’ re going on a fifteen-day tour. ”
    “ That ’ s what the paper said. Could you do us a favor? ”
    “ I ’ d be happy to. ”
    “ I ’ ve written down two addresses for you here. The first one is my sister ’ s: Valerija Mihajlovna Š č ukina. The second is for Marija, like me, Marija Jermolajevna Siskova. That ’ s her best friend. Once she was my best friend, too. The last letter I received from either of them was in January of ’ 56. So, nine years ago. There ’ s a chance that they ’ re both still alive, or at least that one of them is. I assume that there would ’ ve been somebody to notify me if they had died. But just in case, take this — another name. Karajeva. Natalija Viktorovna. She ’ s the youngest of all of them. Let me write down her address for you, too. She could tell you what became of them, in the event you can ’ t find those first two. Would it be too hard for you to do this for us? ”
    On the second day after our arrival in Moscow, I was able to bribe the stern-looking caretaker on our floor. In front of the entrance to the hotel an invalid in a shabby army coat was standing propped up on crutches; he held out his greasy cap to the passersby. I gave him a bit of change. He tendered his thanks as though reciting a passage from Dostoyevsky.
    I had barely turned the corner when I came upon the taxi stand that I ’ d discovered the day before, during our official tour of the city. The taxi took me to a large apartment building with a grim entrance and long, cold corridors.
    I approached a couple of girls who were playing by the door. They looked at me, flabbergasted, and then scattered without a word. Finally a woman showed up and I read off the name and address to her.
    “ I don ’ t know, ” she said.
    “ Who else can I ask? ”
    “ I don ’ t know. There are a lot of tenants here. ”
    I didn ’ t intend to give up. Once inside the building I figured out how things were numbered and what the abbreviations in the addresses meant; they represented the doorways, floors, building wings, and then individual apartments. At last, when I ’ d figured out the note, I knocked on a door. After a long pause, I heard a woman ’ s voice: “ Who is it? ”
    “ I ’ m looking for Valerija Mihajlovna Š č ukina. ”
    “ She doesn ’ t live here. ”
    The voice came from just behind the planks of the door; I knew that the woman was observing me through the peephole.
    “ Maybe you know where I could find her? ”
    “ You ’ re a foreigner? ”
    “ Yes. A foreigner. ”
    I heard the woman unlocking the door. She stuck out her head.
    “ Let me have a look at it. ”
    I gave her the address. “ Do you know any of these three people? ” I asked.
    She shook her head.
    “ We ’ ve only been