by Olena Jennings
Olga was performing at the Stray Dog Cabaret in the basement of building No. 5 St. Michael’s Square, not far from Nevsky Prospect. Anna was going to the Stray Dog and was just as excited as she was when she was going to the Tower for the first time.
The bright walls were painted with unidentifiable birds that flew into geometric flowers and became them, wings bleeding into petals. The flowers were all scarlet, burgundy, sky blue, and the transparent green of gooseberries. The flowers of evil. The artist had given his composition a Baudelarian theme. Paper lanterns hung over naked walnut tables.
When Anna arrived, a man beat the drum that welcomed everyone as they walked down the staircase. Anna could feel the pounding in her chest.
Alexey was also there. In Anna’s bestiary, he was the walrus. A pipe steamed from his mouth, a solitary tusk.
Suddenly Mayakovsky, the poet renowned for his performances, was beside them. Mayakovsky kissed her hand. Then he took Anna’s small hand in his large hand. “What fingers! What fingers! So beautiful.” She frowned and turned away so that she could cease to notice he was much taller than she was. He was a bear with a bristly face and dark clothes.
Alexey was also there. In Anna’s bestiary, he was the walrus. A pipe steamed from his mouth, a solitary tusk. The hair peeked unevenly out from the skin above his lips. An ostrich feather stuck from his wife Sofia’s hat, adding a half meter to her height.
Count Zubov was another guest. He came dressed as Pushkin’s Onegin. He wore silk pantaloons that made his legs into red blossoms. Shiny buckles decorated his shoes.
The recitation of the dog’s hymn that Vsevolod had written started off the performance. Oddly, Vsevold was nowhere to be found. By the time everyone barked its end, “Ruff! Ruff!” they had lost themselves. After the hymn, the room filled with laughter and loud voices, accentuated by the clink of glass. Mikhail was at the piano, playing wispy music. Hardly any light was focused on the stage area. Sergey, who had returned from Moscow, sat near the stage, using his breath to push confetti from his palm. Olga came into view as the thick smoke from the men’s pipes dissipated. Underneath her light blue coat trimmed with swan’s feathers, she wore a black ball gown. The satin glistened like a mermaid’s scales as she began to move. Her large eyes looked out onto the audience. She performed a short excerpt from a play in which she proclaimed, “I am the soul of vaudeville, carried to the Stray Dog Literary Cabaret on the wind. I am the candle flame that the musicians light when they compose, the glitter in the eyes of women who have just fallen in love, and the glistening of the tassels that hang from a soldier’s epaulettes, giving him a sense of dignity before war.” Then, she danced a traditional mazurka. The audience laughed. Where was her embroidered shirt, the wreath of flowers she was supposed to be wearing around her head, and her heavily painted smile?
“Hey, hey, hey!” Everyone clapped as Olga did a spin. Some of the swan feathers flew into the audience and created clouds.
‘…I am the candle flame that the musicians light when they compose, the glitter in the eyes of women who have just fallen in love, and the glistening of the tassels that hang from a soldier’s epaulettes, giving him a sense of dignity before war.’
It was the first time that Anna was seeing Olga perform. Her reverence for Olga, or rather jealousy, burned. She had smoked her cigarette down to its end and she could hardly feel the hot tip in her hand. Olga belonged in that cabaret. Her body bled into the wall. She was one of the flowers.
A stranger sitting next to her quickly handed her another cigarette.
Anna was in love with someone who could overpower her. She was in love like she couldn’t love God.
Boris announced, “Anna Akhmatova will read Nikolay Gumilev’s poems from the place where it is summer in January. Yes, my friends, he is in Africa again, collecting poems and artifacts.”
Anna went up to the stage. She paused for a moment to let the imaginary neck of a giraffe stretch itself out before her, as it would have on one of the pretend safaris she used to take with Nikolay. “Today, I notice,” she began with an untitled poem, “The look on your face is especially mournful.” As she read, she felt her distain for Nikolay’s adventures blossom.
“Wonderful,” Vladimir said, his white teeth glowing. “Wonderful.”
“Everyone loved it,” Boris told her. “Thank you.”
“Have you noticed,” Vladimir began, “That Vsevolod isn’t here?”
“He must have made other plans for New Year’s,” Boris said. “Maybe he fell in love,” he added. Anna turned to him, shocked.
I think I could sit for ten years in the same chair with Sergey,” Olga whispered to Anna as they went to finish off their evening in Olga and Sergey’s apartment.
“I should leave you two alone,” Anna said as they emerged from the dark basement of the Stray Dog.
There was an intimacy about going home with a couple in love. Anna unraveled herself more from Nikolay each time he traveled, and she convinced herself she no longer knew what love felt like.
A deep quiet overcame Anna. She worried that the quiet might be making her invisible, but Olga grabbed her hand. Olga’s other arm was wrapped around Sergey, her hand on his waist, hip bone cupped in palm. That night she seemed to feel she had something to prove by mentioning her love for him every couple of minutes.
Her reverence for Olga, or rather jealousy, burned. She had smoked her cigarette down to its end and she could hardly feel the hot tip in her hand.
Then there was the quiet of the young poet and solider Vsevolod. Anna could not help but worry that he was too young to understand that Olga was playing when she proclaimed her love for him. Why hadn’t he been at the Stray Dog that night when he knew Olga would be performing?
Olga was tall and stunning beside Anna. She placed her emerald colored boots clumsily against the street. They were all tired, drunk. Sergey wasn’t wearing a hat and his ears were shiny and red.
“I don’t understand the poems. I’ve never been to Nikolay’s Africa before. Much less Africa.”
“You separate the two?”
“Anything seen through Nikolay’s eyes cannot be itself,” Anna explained.
“Have you ever been tempted to go?” Olga asked.
Sometimes Anna found her own lack of desire incomprehensible. The treasures of a whole continent were spread out before her and she had no wish to inspect them. She had a tendency to ignore his souvenirs. She was content in Russia and needed to believe that true happiness was impossible.
“Never,” Anna answered. “As a matter of fact, I don’t know what Nikolay sees in travel. He only talks about the fevers, the sunburns, and the long rides on the backs of mules.”
“Imagine us riding around on mules,” Olga giggled.
“It would be a fairytale.”
There was an intimacy about going home with a couple in love.
After walking only a few blocks on Nevsky Prospect, they reached the building where Sergey and Olga lived. They walked through the tight space between buildings where they were almost in complete darkness, so that Anna had to grab onto Olga’s shoulder, letting Olga lead her.
On any other night if they walked up the back stairs, the dinner scents would have already settled into the pores of kitchens. Tonight, there was the smell of fish. Anna breathed it in, imagining a family still seated at their table for a holiday celebration. No doubt they would have been eating caviar, transparent red beads breaking between teeth, releasing their saltiness. There would have also been mandarin oranges stacked in bowls taken down from the highest shelves for the occasion.
Anna imagined the plates of cold cuts, thin pieces laid limply over each other, the cloudiness of the fat on the bacon. Of course, there were the salads, vegetables minced into tiny squares that sometimes made them unrecognizable. The squares of potatoes, ham, peas, and eggs were all the same size and smothered in mayonnaise. The cabbage rolls had probably all been eaten. Only a vaguely transparent tomato sauce, a lonely mushroom, and a dangly piece of cabbage would have been left on the plate. Dinner at the Stray Dog hadn’t included any of those delicacies. There, Anna ate a sour pickle and discreetly let a piece of meat slither into her mouth.
There was the chirping of the canary.
Then there was a shrill cry. Anna realized the sound of loose terror came from her own body. “He was here the whole time!”
“Shh,” Sergey said. “We don’t want the neighbors to know.”
Anna bent down, her tight dress resisting. She lifted Vsevolod’s head. Blood had already dried around his mouth and made her dizzy in her drunken state. Vsevolod had succeeded in doing what Anna had failed to do.
Olga was pressed against the wall. Her swan feathers were crushed against the cold stone.
“He committed suicide for you,” Anna wanted to say. The words echoed so loudly in her body it is as if she was actually saying them. She could feel their contours pushing up against her skin. “He is yours,” were words that never emerged from Anna’s mouth.
“Let’s go inside while I go get someone,” Sergey said and took Vsevolod underneath the arms, dirtying his New Year’s garb. Sergey left him in the front entrance, next to the umbrellas, the slippers, and a pair of Olga’s boots. Vsevolod faced his own reflection in the hall mirror. Olga lowered his eyelids so that he could no longer see himself.
The canary continued singing. Olga opened its tiny caged door and it flew out in a bright yellow splash. It landed on Vsevolod’s shoulder.
The canary continued singing. Olga opened its tiny caged door and it flew out in a bright yellow splash. It landed on Vsevolod’s shoulder.
“I’ll be right back, ladies,” Sergey said.
“You’ll catch cold,” Olga said, throwing herself into his embrace.
“What else is there to do?” he asked.
“The pistol is still in the hallway,” Olga said, the desperation in her voice making every word staccato.
“We’ll leave it there. I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Sergey said. “Obviously, the neighbors didn’t hear the gunshot,” he added.
“They probably thought it was the cork from a champagne bottle,” Olga giggled. Her shock was causing her to act opposite of what would be appropriate.
Sergey left, shutting the door quietly behind him. It was Olga’s fault. Anna felt more anger for Olga than she felt sorrow over Vsevolod.
“I’m tired, Anna,” Olga complained. “You know the moment when you would give anything for sleep.”
“Then sleep,” Anna whispered, her anger nearly extinguishing her voice.
Olga lay on the couch. She hadn’t bothered to take off her coat. They should have been prepared for another tragedy, ready to go in case Sergey came to whisk them away.
Anna reached to turn off the lamp. Her fingers brushed against the heavy crystal tassels. Wouldn’t it be best not to see Vsevolod or Olga? But she had to leave her eyes open to it all. Poets forced themselves to look without cringing.
She watched Olga’s breaths grow deeper. Her mouth was slightly open, but still retained the shape of a kiss. Then there was Vsevolod, his hair cut close to his head, parted in the middle, pressed to his scalp. She looked at his thick eyebrows and thin lips. He wore his officer’s uniform, perfectly pressed.
OLENA JENNINGS is the author of the poetry collection Songs from an Apartment and chapbook Memory Project. Her translation from Ukrainian of Iryna Shuvalova’s poetry collection, Pray to the Empty Wells, in collaboration with the author, was released in 2019 by Lost Horse Press. Her translation with Oksana Lutsyshyna of Artem Chekh’s Absolute Zero was released in 2020 by Glagoslav. Her novel Temporary Shelter is forthcoming from Cervena Barva Press. She is the founder and curator of the Poets of Queens reading series. Her website is olenajennings.com.