Kolia Page 6

  THE MAN IN WHITEFACE

  “A MIMEOGRAPH OF MACBETH . . . the complete text.”

  The school hadn’t acquired the new machine yet, and Bounine knew it. But he was eager to try out all sorts of teaching techniques on Kolia, and, a little sadistically, to have some fun doing it.

  “In English, it’s got to be in English!”

  Bounine attempted to defend his rather mean-spirited strategy to a perplexed-looking Pavel. He wanted to see how resourceful the little guy was.

  It was Mitya’s clandestine import–export business that helped Kolia fill Bounine’s order. “I asked for a mimeographed copy, not the book.”

  Bounine scowled when Kolia presented it to him. But he was impressed. Evidently, the kid was not stupid.

  When Kolia handed him a mimeographed copy the following day, Bounine looked at him with a newfound respect. He had taken less than two days to complete an impossible task — not only was paper a luxury, but possession of printing equipment by private citizens was illegal.

  Between 1961 and 1964, Kolia spent his days and nights mastering the art of the clown. He gradually pieced together a costume that was suitably modest and unassuming. It had to be clear that Pavel and Bounine were the stars of the show. “You’re being trained to be at our beck and call. You’re a lackey, nothing more,” Bounine was fond of saying, even though he had come to admire this young man who learned quickly by imitating everything he saw. Kolia now lived in the kommunalka with them, and they ate all their meals together.

  For the ring, Kolia created the persona of a mute thief — a character he had naturally absorbed under Fagin’s spiritual tutelage. He decided to perform in whiteface, just like Pavel, even though the traditional white-chalk makeup was rarely seen anymore. Instead of wearing a wig, he opted to shave his head like a zek, and accentuate his eyebrows. The tarot card reader had created an exact replica of the peacoat he had worn in the camp, and inside a false pocket Eva had placed the card representing the Magician. Pavel’s daughter, who had now reached the age of seven, demanded that he wear red shoes. Kolia thought it would be funny, and he agreed. Huge red shoes that made a lot of noise. And, with a nod to the traditions of the camps, he obediently shaved his legs. Beneath the peacoat, he sported a sailor’s shirt and a pair of faux-tweed shorts.

  Pavel wasn’t sure. Bounine, on the other hand, was convinced it would work. And with Kolia mute, the risk was purely symbolic. In any case, they could always get around it.

  The circus brought together an amalgam of exceptionally talented artists and athletes, some with conventional backgrounds and training, others who showed up out of nowhere. What they shared in common was self-discipline and commitment. The occasional refugee from the ballet or competitive gymnastics was sometimes accepted into the fold — mere mortals who had never risen to the level of accomplishment expected of them — but, in almost all cases, membership in the troupe was passed down from parent to child. It was in the blood. The troupe was a curious collection of human specimens, but it was a family. And, after a while, Kolia began to experience the same forthright friendship and healthy competition he had found in the workers’ hostel. But it couldn’t compare to the deep fellowship he had known in the camp. There was no comparison to be made.

  At the beginning of his apprenticeship, the others regarded him with suspicion. The word had spread that he’d spent time in the camps. Without makeup, his face would often scare the small children in the troupe. His forehead was traversed by a deep line, which was echoed on both sides of his face, with veritable fissures running down from his nose past his mouth, as well as down his cheeks. It looked like he was already wearing makeup. But in the ring, he was coming along well, and because of that, the others were willing to give him a chance. When Bounine finally announced that Kolia had been officially accepted as a member of the troupe, the others began to warm to him. By the end of his training program, during which Bounine relentlessly put him to the test, Kolia had proven that he was, indeed, an artist.

  Tanya came to see him perform for the first time in 1965. She was still living with the same man. He had proposed to her some time ago, but she kept postponing the date and dragging out the engagement. She wasn’t in love with him, but the relationship did afford her a somewhat privileged status and a certain level of protection. In the glare of the spotlight, Kolia was oblivious to the fact they were sitting in the front row. And that was probably a good thing.

  As a trio, the Bounines were no longer constrained to brief appearances between acts and were now performing a completely new routine that featured two full sketches. They came on right after the high-wire act and were followed by a group of young contortionists. Bounine played the role of an absent-minded schoolteacher; Pavel and Kolia were his unruly students. Juggling a blackboard eraser and a piece of chalk, Pavel spun around and simultaneously crossed the ring in a perfect diagonal. Meanwhile, Kolia, the silent pickpocket, whose outlandish costume spoke to the audience on his behalf, casually began to help himself to the contents of Bounine’s pockets. A watch, a wallet, some candies, a piece of chalk, a cigarette, a box of matches, a handkerchief, and — the final indignity — Bounine’s suspenders. Kolia then disappeared through a trap door in the floor. Another exit had been built into a small swimming pool erected in the ring. Pavel dove in and disappeared as well. Bounine, now alone before his adoring public, began a five-minute professorial soliloquy, without any props other than the small dog that sat obediently at his side. At the age of sixty-five, he was still Moscow’s most beloved clown.

  But the crowd hadn’t seemed as receptive to the newest member of the Bounines as he had expected. Kolia’s entrance had created a palpable disturbance in the stands. People started whispering, and it was only the children in the crowd who had laughed — fortunately, there were enough of them to prevent a total flop. It was a partial defeat that Bounine accepted begrudgingly. He finished his monologue, bowed, and headed backstage. The decision to admit Kolia into the troupe had been intended as a statement — a statement which had evidently gone right over the heads of the audience. “A bunch of morons,” he muttered to himself, removing his wig as soon as he was out of view. But that night, Bounine had claimed a small personal victory against the tyranny of the prison system.

  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.”