After the meeting, Vera asked me to help carry the files to the office. This was unfamiliar: for twelve years, I had regarded helping as part of family life and had therefore seldom waited to be asked. Now the request had come, but the family no longer existed.
We spread the papers across the desk. On top lay the application naming Vera Mikhailovna Klimova as programme director.
"Do you really want to run this on your own?" I asked.
"Not on my own. In my own name."
"I can announce the decisions if you don't want the public part."
"That is precisely what I don't want any more."
She sat opposite me. Wet snow was falling outside; two desk lamps and my poster on the wall were reflected in the window. Vera had once suggested taking it down because the production had not been performed for eight years. I replied that the theatre's history was not obliged to coincide with its current repertoire.
"It suited me to have you do the talking," she said. "You walked into an office, charmed people and got them to promise something they had refused five minutes earlier. If it worked, everyone praised you and I did the work. If it didn't, they blamed you and I put it right."
"I took the blows."
"Yes. And took the credit."
"You could have stepped forward yourself."
"I could have. I didn't. It was easier to tell myself you were keeping me back than to be refused, just once, under my own name."
She said it calmly, without the usual file in her hands. Her defensive arguments always began with deadlines, figures and clauses in the contract. All three were on the desk now, but she made no use of them.
"Then we're both to blame," I said.
"Not equally, and not for the same things. Don't keep score."
"What about us?"
"We separated."
"Is that final now?"
"Lyonya, you left your keys and went off to another woman. I am not also obliged to set the lights so everyone can see how final it is."
I looked at the lamps reflected in the glass. The light really was overhead and unflattering.
"I'm not asking you to come back," Vera continued. "I'm asking you not to make me your representative under the new scheme. If I'm accountable, I sign the decision. If I make a mistake, I explain it. If the city refuses, the refusal will be mine."
"And my role?"
"Artistic. Large. Loud. Without the final key."
"Are you sure you can manage?"
"No."
She smiled. Not at a spreadsheet or a ready-made solution. At the possibility of making her own mistake.
We agreed on the structure of the council, the coordinators' shifts and Leonid Granov's right to stage scenes without overriding anyone else's consent. Vera took the application home so that she could bring it to the lawyer in the morning.
At the door, she asked:
"When are you collecting your things from the flat?"
The same question had been asked on the evening I left and had then seemed unworthy of the drama. Now shirts, books and a winter coat depended on it.
"Saturday."
"I'll pack your mother's crockery separately."
"Thank you."
That was the end of our marriage. The work continued.
On Saturday, I came to collect my things.
Vera opened the door and went straight into the kitchen. Three boxes stood in the hall. The first was labelled "BOOKS", the second "CLOTHES" and the third "SORT IT OUT YOURSELF". The third was the heaviest.
"Why do I have seven candlesticks?" I asked.
"Because you bought them."
"We bought them."
"Once, I stood beside you and carried the bread."
The box contained programmes, letters, two theatrical masks from Venice, a broken metronome, a stone from the Black Sea coast and a bronze hand I had been given for my contribution to the city's cultural life. The hand held an apple. I had always regarded the piece as a metaphor for generosity. Vera called it an ashtray, although no one in our home smoked.
My jackets were laid out on the bed. I tried on the grey one, because the mirror in the staff room showed only my head and part of the door. The grey fitted well. Vera looked in from the corridor.
"Take both blue ones too."
"They're identical."
"One is for special occasions."
"How can you tell?"
"You don't button the special one."
I took off the grey jacket and folded it. Badly. Vera silently refolded the sleeves, then snatched her hands back as though she had caught herself performing an old duty.
"Leave it," she said. "It'll survive the journey."
In the bottom drawer lay a photograph from our first opening night. We stood on the stage after the curtain call: I was in the centre, Vera at the side with a bouquet Raya had handed her. I remembered every detail of that evening except that Vera had joined the curtain call. On the back, in her handwriting, were the words: "Twelve calls to the fire brigade, full house."
"Take it," she said.
"It belongs to both of us."
"Then leave it."
I left it.
Before leaving, I took two boxes. I had to come back for the third. Vera stood at the window checking an estimate. She did not help and did not watch me go. As I descended the stairs for the second time, the bronze hand broke through the bottom of the box and hung there by its apple.
At the theatre, Stas fixed it to the wall of the staff room. It now held my belt.
I wanted to say that some symbols needed time to discover their purpose. Stas said the nail was old and had been sticking out anyway.
On Monday, Vera signed a directive as programme director for the first time without showing me the draft. It concerned a small matter: the laboratory was moving a meeting from Thursday to Saturday because of a municipal water shut-off. I learnt about it with everyone else from the general message.
"You could have warned me," I said.
"The message is the warning."
"Me separately."
"Why?"
I found three reasons: there was a rehearsal on Saturday, I was the artistic director, and the change altered the rhythm of the week. All three had already been taken into account in the attached schedule. The fourth reason was this: Vera had always told me first.
"Before, I asked how you were going to announce it," she said. "Now I'm announcing it myself."
The meeting went normally on Saturday. The water came back on early; five fewer people attended because two were working and three had confused the time. Vera apologised, recorded the absences and did not try to describe partial attendance as a new format. No one demanded someone with a more persuasive voice.
After the meeting, she sat in the foyer and dealt herself with a woman who had arrived on Thursday because of the old message. The woman spoke loudly; Vera spoke quietly. She reimbursed the woman's taxi fare, offered another date and acknowledged the mistake in the notification. The woman did not soften, but took the money and left.
"You should have called me," I said.
"She didn't want a performance."
"Audience members aren't the only people I know how to talk to."
"I know. That was what made it so convenient."
She folded the receipt. The mistake remained hers; it did not become a family matter or pass into one of my successful scenes. Vera's fingers trembled as she fastened the file, but her face was calm.
I realised that I had wanted to protect her not only from the woman, but from the moment when she herself was refused under her own name. I did not protect her. Vera survived.
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