A Ghost Among the Ruins

"For example, in ‘New World’ (No. 10) there is ‘a narrative in stories’ by Yevgeny Rein called ‘A Ghost Among Ruins.’ However, it’s not only about youth (with Akhmatova and Brodsky), but also about comparatively recent times (with Dovlatov and Brodsky). What stands out is the plot about an accidental meeting of a very young Rein with Vissarion Sayanov. Rein greets a venerable poet he doesn’t know. The poet is surprised. Rein, in response, reads an early poem by Sayanov. The poet is delighted and invites the ‘boy’ to have a drink. At the café ‘Quisisana,’ Sayanov’s drinking companions are waiting; Rein asks the maestro who is currently the best Russian poet (it’s 1954). Sayanov brushes off the question. And after the café closes, he asks Rein to walk him home. ‘- How could you be so careless? In a drunken company? Do you even know these people? <…> You asked me who our best poet is, and they know—so they’re watching how I answer, and lying is shameful. Why couldn’t you wait until we were alone?’ Rein still got an answer. ‘And then, on a completely empty embankment of a canal, Sayanov looked around, leaned toward me, and clearly whispered into my ear:—Pasternak.’ The chapter—in my view, the best one in the ‘narration’—is called ‘Something about Fear.’ ‘The subject itself is such that you can’t define its boundaries. Wherever I poke among memories of my former literary life, everywhere one word is written: FEAR. The clarity of that inscription varies—sometimes it’s painted with a mighty brush on a fence, sometimes it barely shows through a pale carbon copy. But I can’t recall ever seeing its complete absence’…