Page 128 of Pioneer Summer
“Last year I went to Kharkiv. I didn’t find you. I went to the address that you always wrote me from, but there were new people living there, in your apartment. They told me you’d moved to Germany a long time ago.
“You did the right thing, Yura. What you did was right. If you didn’t take the letters, it’s because you don’t need them. If you didn’t leave me an address, it’s because you don’t need me. It’s probably for the best ... It wouldn’t have worked out for us anyway ...”
Yura was so frustrated, he hit the air with his fist, almost tearing the letter:I left my address! I wrote them, I asked them to give him the address, I asked them to pass on the letters. Why did I ever rely on other people!
He shouldn’t have. He should have written his old neighbors himself, a letter every month; even if nobody was living in his old apartment, he should’ve piled on the letters anyway. But he hadn’t.
“I screwed everything up!” he moaned out loud.
He didn’t want to keep reading, but he couldn’t stop now: “But what I keep wondering is this: Why did you go looking for me that time, then? Why did you go to Tver? And how did you even find my cousin’s address?”
Yura had been about to quit reading this letter and move on to the next one, but then he thought:Cousin?!So that Vova really had been Volodya’s cousin!
Yura turned his face away. But the letter drew his gaze back, like a magnet. Volodya’s handwriting, the even lines, the compact letters—it was a vivid reminder of what they’d had ... and of what they might have had.
Yurka, I was in despair when I found out that the connection between us had been good and truly lost. I’m bouncing from one extreme to the other: I know it’ll be better this way, but I can’t make myself accept it. I’m still in despair now, which is why I’m writing this letter, even though I know there’s nowhere for me to send it. Writing letters to nowhere ... it’s a way of dealing with stress. I read about it in psychology books back when I was still at the institute, but the first time I tried it was in the army. The idea is that you write down your thoughts and worries and then you destroy them. That’s how you get some of the weight off your chest. It really helped me in the army. I was assigned to headquarters, so every so often I was able to find time and space to write.
By the way, my unit was basically fine. The guys I served with were good, I made friends with a lot of them. I heard stories, you know, about the kind of awful things that can happen during army service, but I didn’t get that—I didn’teven get hazed. I had a different problem ... you know what I mean. So I poured out my emotions into letters. Letters I didn’t send. I wrote to you in them, even though the guidelines of the exercise say you should write to yourself. If you only knew how many confessions I made, how many loving words I said there! And then I burned them all, because I couldn’t risk anybody finding out about something like that. But now I’m home, and there’s no need to burn everything ...
I’m feeling really bad right now. But I’m very glad for you. I hope things are better for you there. I hope everything is better ... the people, and your life ...
My two years of service went by, and I came back home, but it feels like I came back into a completely different world. The world really has changed. The country has changed. My father started another business. He says I have to help him, but I just can’t seem to get back to normal after the service. That’s pretty common, though, Vovka was telling me that after his two years it took him six months to recover. Oh, by the way: Vovka!
When he told me some guy had come to his apartment asking about a troop leader from Camp Barn Swallow, and he didn’t even let the guy into the entryway, I tore into him and we had a huge fight. I know, I should’ve warned him you might show up, but honestly, it never even occurred to me you might go see him! I get where Vovka was coming from: he knew about my father’s problems, he knew we’d left because we were hiding from some criminals, so he didn’t tell you anything ... But I still can’t get over the idea that there was hope we wouldn’t lose each other, and we did anyway!
The times I’m living in now aren’t good either, Yur. Something bad started happening in Tver and they’re pressuring my father again. My parents want to move again. To Belgorod now; they say it’ll be quieter in the outskirts, near the Ukrainian border. But the border’s where all the contraband is, so there’s no way it’ll be quieter for us, and I can’t seehow they don’t understand. My dad won’t budge; he refuses point-blank to be partners with a bunch of bandits. Come on—does he think there’s none of them in Belgorod and that they won’t pressure him there, too?
I had a big fight with my dad about all of this. I’ve been telling him that we have to get not only out of town but out of Russia. It’s not that you can’t run an honest business here: it’s that with my father’s principles—which I actually do share, by the way—you can’t run a business at all. I can’t get through to him that you just have to take those expenses into account in advance, just make them a line item in the budget. But he will do whatever he wants. I, at least, can do something useful while he’s beating his head against the same old wall.
I’m still planning on leaving for the States someday, but there’s no way I can do that right now. I’ve got to finish my degree, to start with; I’ll reenroll in the Institute and finish up by correspondence course, and then we’ll see. I remember what you thought of my efforts to become a Communist, get into the Party, and earn a good reputation. I remember it and smile: you were so right when you said none of it mattered. Because that’s right, now it’s all meaningless.
Well, I should finish up this letter to nowhere, my hand is starting to hurt ...
Yura looked back over the letter hungrily. “If you only knew how many confessions I made, how many loving words I said there! And then I burned them all,” he reread aloud. “If you only knew!”
So many years had gone by, but now it was like he was being sent back to that time. While Volodya had been pouring out his feelings onto sheets of paper he then burned, Yura had been waiting for news from his old friend from his building back home. But then he had indeed begun to forget Volodya as he got into a relationship with Jonas. He felt guilty for letting everything fall through his fingers and for not keeping his love alive longer, and it tormented him as he opened the next letter. Volodya had written it almost a year later, in April 1994.
I haven’t written one of these letters in a long time. I don’t think I especially need to; I just felt like it. I’ve recovered from my army service and I’m finishing my degree. I’ll get my diploma this June. I’m helping my father with the business, so I’ve had to postpone my plans for moving to the U.S. Maybe the place I end up going won’t even be America. Or will I even go anywhere at all? Right now I definitely don’t have time for that. I have things to do. I’m helping my father. He finally learned to listen to me. We buy up land and old uninhabited buildings, mostly in rural areas or on the outskirts. I found a legal loophole that allows us to resell it at two or three times the price.
Another letter was dated February 1995. Yura was flabbergasted as he read the first few lines:
Get this: I moved to Kharkiv! How ironic! Even though I was the one who dreamed of hightailing it out of the country, you’re the one who actually did. But now I live in your city! My father got Ukrainian citizenship and officially registered the company here. We ended up choosing Kharkiv, but not because of my sentimentality—it’s just that Belgorod is on the border of Kharkiv Oblast, and by the time we were going to move, we’d bought several plots of land in Kharkiv Oblast, and we already had a small client base established here.
I’m getting Ukrainian citizenship too. There’s no such thing as honest business here, either, of course, but I think my old man’s finally admitted it’s time to send his principles packing.
It’s so strange to walk the same streets that you once walked! It’s almost as strange as writing you these letters knowing you’ll never read them.
I really like your city, Yura. It resembles Moscow in some ways, but there aren’t as many people. It’s quieter and calmer. I go on walks whenever I get the chance and try to guess whether you also took walks in the same places. I looked for the Kharkiv conservatory for two months before I found it.How was I supposed to know that, even though you called your alma mater “the conservatory,” it’s actually called the Kotlyarevsky Institute of the Arts? As I was walking past one of the buildings, I heard someone playing the piano. It was such a nice feeling, as though you were the one playing, although I also knew there was no way it could be you. It’s sad. It’s like I got a little closer to you while remaining as incredibly far away as before.
Know what? I met a girl. Her name is Sveta. She’s really nice. And she’s just like her name—“light.” She really is a bright light in my life! She was the leader of a city tour I went on, and she showed us how the main Lenin statue in the city, there on Freedom Square, is pointing toward the public toilets. I don’t know why that struck me as so funny, but I laughed about it for a long time. And I remembered how you used to talk to the bust of Vladimir Ilych back in our theater.
I like Sveta. She’s very positive and cheerful. I’m not getting my hopes up, because I know all I’m feeling for her is friendly affection, but being with her is pleasant. Maybe I could fall in love with her?
Yura smiled, remembering the statue of Lenin and the city where he was born and raised. Was Volodya really living in Kharkiv now? After all this time, he couldn’t think of anything more ironic. And Volodya—how old had he been in ’95? Twenty-seven? And he still thought he could become normal! Nobody had ever told him that he was normal his whole life, actually, because what would be abnormal for him would be if he did just the opposite and fell in love with a girl ...
Maybe Volodya’s comment that he wanted to fall in love with Sveta was a joke, but Yura sensed the hope in his words. And he felt something else, too, buried way down deep in his heart: jealousy. It wasn’t very strong—he barely felt it—but he smiled as he realized how silly it was to feel that now.
He kept reading. The next envelope had April 1996 written on it.
