They take sips of the cognac and chew on servilat, the bitter and salty tastes mixing on her tongue.
“To fight, that was the goal. It sounded so heroic, the opposite of the filth we all waded through. Remember the poem Mayak wrote when Yesenin killed himself?
“In this life
It’s not difficult to die.
To make life
Is more difficult by far.”
She remembers. They all read it in Marik’s mother’s literature class, Andrei two years prior to her. Their teacher ranked Yesenin’s poetry higher than Mayakovsky’s, maybe because her son preferred it or maybe because Yesenin’s writing was more lyrical and less confrontational, a bandage for a woman’s heart, as Grandpa used to call it.
“Do you ever think about Marik?” she asks, because she knows that mentioning Yesenin has brought Marik up in his mind, too.
For a minute or so, Andrei doesn’t answer, frozen over his glass.
“I think of him all the time.” She answers her own question. “Of that day, of how if I had stopped him, he would still be here. That day still haunts me. I’ve blamed myself; I’ve blamed you. I’ve even blamed Marik. But maybe it was just the war, those shells buried under the loam, I don’t know. Or maybe it was all of our faults.”
The tar of the night seems to press harder on the windowpane, as if it wanted to enter the room and warm its black gut with their cognac, or maybe to ooze through the cracks and flood the kitchen, crushing them into the walls and squeezing all the air out of their lungs. She sees Andrei take a breath, sees his chest rise in what she hopes is preparation for letting out the words she wants to hear. She needs him to feel as guilty as she feels about Marik’s death, a guilt that will somehow unite them, solidify their love by sharing the moment that defines them.
“I can never forgive myself,” he says, and she empties her lungs of air, as though all the time he was silent, she has been holding her breath, waiting for something significant to announce itself. “I was stupid and young, but I should’ve known better even back then.” Andrei pauses. “I was so jealous of him. Of your bond with him, of those books you both read. Even of your piano lessons.” He drives the butt of his cigarette into the saucer they are using for an ashtray. “There were two of us and only one of you. It was as simple as that.”
Two of them and one of her. But was it really that simple? The one of her had chosen Andrei, even back then. The one of her walked away and allowed the unexploded shell to blow up the lives of all three of them, forever. Maybe the cognac is to blame, but everything has loosened up inside her, and when she presses her hand over her eyes to keep the tears from bursting out, it is of no help at all. She sniffles and whimpers into her palm. Then she feels Andrei’s hands on her shoulders, and she is grateful for his touch and the smell of his skin, for being able to cry into the hollow of his neck, for hearing him stifle his own sobs.
“I didn’t know you were so good onstage,” Andrei whispers into her ear after their tears have begun to dry up. The night is still pushing against the windows, but she knows it will soon begin to dissolve into streaks of gray and then pink, so she is no longer afraid of it pressing its heft into the kitchen and suffocating them. “I completely believed it wasn’t you,” he adds, a statement that would have compelled her teacher to give her an A for acting. I believed it wasn’t you is the highest praise Andrei could give her.
So maybe she didn’t spend three years in Moscow for nothing after all, learning the art of real make-believe, as opposed to the phony pretense of their history books with their heroic valor and pretend radio broadcasts Grandpa probably still listens to every morning. Maybe she has actually learned something: maybe she has learned to act by pretending to be someone else, and this pretending, paradoxically, has become more truth-telling than their real life.
In the three years they haven’t seen each other, Sasha has learned a lot about make-believe and Andrei has learned a lot about real life, or is it the other way around?
He pours what’s left in the bottle, and it fills their glasses one more time. After the performance, after reuniting with Andrei, after reliving the fateful day in the woods, there is an emptiness inside her, just like after every performance, and she is grateful they have cognac to fill it. The alcohol, now warm, oozes down her throat, makes her dizzy, and fills the void. She is in her kitchen with Andrei, who smells just as he did back in Ivanovo, who has just allowed her a glimpse of his pain.