Alexander Kan
Alexander Kan is a Russian writer of scripts and fiction of Korean origin. He was born in Pyongyang (North Korea) in 1960. In 1961 after political repressions his incomplete family removed to Soviet Union—to St. Petersburg, and then to Almaty, Kazakhstan. He graduated from Gorky Literary Institute in Moscow in 1993, and the next year was winner of the "New Names" competition for the literary magazine Novy Mir. In 1999, he was awarded a literary residency with NIPKOW PROGRAMM Film Academy, and in 2003, became the winner of a worldwide script competition organized by the Korea Foundation (Seoul). His novels, poems, and essays have been published in Russian as well as international newspapers and literary magazines. Some of his novels and essays have been translated into English, German, Swedish and Korean.
Costumier
I.
Kan found it hard to understand why his father had suddenly begun to act like a train, or, more precisely, to become a train, several times a day, whenever he managed to tear himself away from the woman in his room. His father came out of his room and moved along the corridor with small steps, issuing lingering horn sounds, presumably to signal a departure, forcibly parting the space with his elbows, and at the end of the corridor he turned around and returned, without stopping, strictly following a designated path. Perhaps he should have expected it, Kan reflected painfully, since the whole of the old man’s life had been spent on trains, in search of an unfaithful wife. A person had to become something at some time—according to the strange logic of things—and Kan would at some point become clothing, since he worked as a costumier in the theater. A costume. But whose? Nobody, not even the costumier, could answer that. Before he became a train, his father had been, quite simply… a cuckold. Yes, it was written in those damned telegrams that arrived from one place and another: “Hey—cuckold! I am here with your faithful wife… and she sends you an ardent kiss…” His father would grow furious, tear the paper to shreds, run to the closet, pull clothes from it, tear them and scatter them around our rooms, and the next day leave on the train for the address specified in the telegram.
Nobody knew how many lovers there had been—a whole army or just one, one mad one, madly sending his mad telegrams. Perhaps the addresses given didn’t even exist. His father would come back each time without a word and fall to his knees from exhaustion. Kan would then approach him, encompass him in an embrace, press his father to himself so that it seemed they were together, one, and that he, the son, had clothed his father with himself, leaving not a gap or a crack between their bodies. It should have been the reverse: Kan on his knees and his father clothing him in an embrace. This never happened. But when his father finally brought his mother home, a gray-haired zombie, or more precisely, when he dragged her, since she could no longer move by herself, “Oh my God!” escaped from the costumier’s breast. “Father, is it her?” When his father dragged that woman into the house, he immediately fastened himself to her, overflowing, with either happiness or madness, and embraced her more completely than he had ever embraced anything.
His father forgot about everything right then—about his son, about their long awaiting, about the telegrams that had pursued them all those years. All Kan could do now was spy on the ancient pair through a tiny chink in the door—it’s strange, they didn’t talk , but then whatever could they talk about? Their faces were planted upon each other’s shoulders. They didn’t even look into each other’s eyes, as if they were afraid of some terrible secret known only to them, which would flash through from beneath their gaze and melt their eyes with an impetuous and furious fire. Then came the train. The old man needed to go somewhere sometimes, not just sit always in his room, but it was best to stay close, near enough to her so that, God willing, she wouldn’t run away again—although, where could she run away to?
Kan often waited for his father at twilight, leaning against the wall: “Father, you…” he addressed him, “Father, are you sure…”
“Toot toot!” his father signaled to him—to him or to some invisible person in the twilight.
“Father, are you certain that it’s her?” Kan whispered in the dark and was frightened by his own question.
“Chug chug chug,” the father muttered, passing him by: unscheduled stops weren’t permitted on his route.
Then, in the midst of the reigning peace of their home, there came a knock at the door sounded: knock knock knock. Oh, why didn’t he manage to get there first! His father stood at the door, clutching a piece of paper with his shaking hands. He wasn’t actually clutching the paper but trying to throw it back, to reject it, but it wouldn’t come loose from his hands.
“What is it?” the costumier approached him earnestly. “Go on, give it here,” and his father threw it into his hands with pleasure. “It turns out…” Kan turned away and hunched over from the unexpected burden. “Papa, this is a misunderstanding,” he could only manage a whisper. “It’s not to us, it’s for someone else, for a different address, perhaps, it’s come here late. I mean, it’s something to do with time if not with the address. The problem is with time, it’s because of the mail, they always confuse everything, they send last year’s mail today, and send yesterday what was meant to arrive in several years. I will sort it out with them, it’s an organizational disgrace—what kind of time are they living by anyway? Where do they get these things? There are probably three idlers sitting there in boredom—one composes these things, another writes them down, and the third sends them to any old address—it's postal roulette. My God, Papa, I will sort this out…”
While Kan said all this, his father slowly sank to his knees as he used to, from exhaustion. Kan did the same, also slowly, leaning his cold forehead against his father’s. It’s happened, it’s his turn now. Yes, they are on their knees, and it’s not as he had wished it would be—he had hoped there would be a third being, greater and stronger than they, which could cover them or at least part of them, but not leave them in such a helpless pose. And this third being wasn’t slow to appear—whether it was the sky, or the ceiling, or a hurricane, it swept them away as soon as the door opened and the mail carrier entered with yet another piece of paper.
At the post office they wanted to have nothing to do with Kan and looked at him as if at an idiot. “You are not a mail service, you are torturers,” Kan muttered with tears in his eyes, the white pieces of paper in his hands shuddering. “Why are you teasing him?” He was led out of the offices by an ordinary woman, tender, warm, with a thick bag on her belt, full of new letters for people, who told him, “Don’t worry, everything is okay, maybe, really, it was done by hooligans—or perhaps in another post office, this piece of mail got lost, then someone found it and was frightened, so hastily sent it accidentally to your address—that happens sometimes.”
Yes, exactly, the costumier cheered up, he knew there was something wrong with the timing. Like a bullet, he shot home. “Father, I told you, there was a problem with timing.” His father nodded, and continued moving along his route, lengthways down the corridor, with his own thoughts, with his timing, which, alas, did not coincide with his son's. Kan understood when he glanced into his father’s room: he didn’t enfold that woman in embraces anymore; he slowly and carefully inspected her from all aspects. Thankfully, she didn’t seem to notice this at all—first her face, her hands, her shoulders, then he stood back and examined her from the side, then came closer again… he wanted to wave a hand before her eyes—but she was not a patient, and he wasn’t a doctor or neuropathologist. Now Kan knew that his father had a plan, because after each journey along the corridor, he entered the room in a proprietary way and efficiently rubbed his hands like a surgeon before an operation, then he closed the door firmly, and there was complete silence.
II.
The main thing was that his father didn’t become despondent, Kan reflected painfully, sitting in the wardrobe department, that he didn’t wave off all those years of painful waiting, and that he wouldn’t start again to look for her, she who had left them many years ago. What a load of nonsense, the costumier placated himself, his father was already of an advanced age, and truth be told, both health and persistence had been removed from him during these years, and so too his memory, and instead of a memory, there is a black hole into which his father could disappear in search of some other woman. Then Kan could shout after him as much as he wanted, into the hole, as if to say What am I supposed to do with this extraneous woman who waits for you in the next room? What am I supposed to do with the next one you bring in? And: Who will give me a guarantee that more of these damned telegrams won’t fall down on our poor heads?
Costumier, what are you doing? The imperious voice of the stage manager brought him back from the black hole, and Kan seemed to wake up (though he couldn’t sleep much anymore). Now I’ll remember—what am I doing? Yes, he was standing there and considering a dress that had been brought to him, covered with holes, corroded by a moth. To restore it! It will be done. The costumier joyfully switched to his work. Whatever he had, he had his work. Yes, it was his work, not his house, with its two old people who were convulsively hugging each other: who was hugging whom? Really, who was hugging whom? Was he hugging this dress or was this dress hugging him? Stitch by stitch, Kan was an excellent costumier, he performed his work accurately, and when he tried a costume on himself, it was clear who turned into whom. Yes yes, in essence, that’s all people did, dressed up and undressed as each other. Kan had understood this long ago—ever since the time his father brought the gray-haired woman into their house, clothed her with himself—and everything would have been fine if not for those damned telegrams. The truth was that costumes brought him chagrin as well. More precisely, it was not the costumes, but the actors acting in them. Sometimes, after a premiere, there’s a banquet—and what would it cost just to change clothes? But instead actor so-and-so gets directly into a car, in his royal clothes, goes around the city, to a restaurant. I am not so-and-so, I am King Oedipus, ooh the widespread admiration, here is Oedipus! And for Oedipus there is champagne. Bottoms up, Oedipus, but where’s your Jocasta? The next day, or even later, upon the return of the costume, Kan reprimands the actor. Kan is strict and relentless though he secretly feels sorry for the violators, really, who they are in real life, and as the prophets of Tiresias. Surveying the costume in front of him now, Kan returned to the horror of it, these ordinary jaunts did them no good—a thread with a needle, patches, and if there wasn’t enough time, he would take the work back home. On one such sleepless night some time ago, he sat over a costume, the nocturnal horn-sounding behavior in the corridor had started already, the telegrams still came in the mornings—and suddenly Kan figured it out: in effect, he and his father were doing just the same all their lives—sewing some strange dress that was supposed to suit that one lady, the desired one, the only one, the unique one, sitting on the other side of the wall, as she was now, but it was not her, but—oh answer me!—who is she, and who is not she? And if he wanted the real one and not this one, then he shouldn’t have let her go from the very beginning, maybe for a moment or two, but not for so many years. Just as the costumier didn’t let his costumes go out, and he was right there in pursuit of the violator, step by step, stitch by stitch—late into the night.
But this couldn’t be explained to his father even when Kan waited for him in the corridor in the twilight, when a lump rolled and rose to his throat, and tears welled up in his eyes suddenly: “Oh, if only you understood, Father, that all this is senseless, that you can find a second wife—a third wife—a fourth, and fill the house with them, fill the whole world with them.” He blocked his father’s path, heard a quiet skidding in his father’s breast, he was nearly crying, this tired train. “But you will never find her, the one and only, because you, too, are him and yet not him—and furthermore, you are not a train, I’m sorry, Father, and not even a costumier, nor a costume—I don’t even know who you are…”
So yes, of course, he had work, work saved him, there was always too much work, and once, as he was leaving the wardrobe department, the assistant and the seamstress whispered to him: Listen, Costumier, it’s a disgrace—that actress from the The Idiot, her costume hasn’t come back to us for weeks, not even for a minute, what does it mean? Yes, we know her, and we don’t know her, she’s been invited from another theater, and yes, they’ve experienced some success, but you see…” The assistant inserted spitefully as she sewed: “But her success is beside the point, her costume, it’s just awful! I examined it closely when I came to the dressing room, made as if to greet her, ask her if she needed anything, how everything was in the capital, and I bend toward her like I’m correcting her collar, but I’m actually examining the dress—the horror! She has no accommodations, and how is it possible that such a rag goes onstage, it’s obvious she both sleeps in it and eats in it and so on. The boss took pity on her, permitted her to live in her dressing room until housing was found.” The costumier was taken aback, it really was a disgrace! Where was her dressing room? “Sh—over there!” the assistant and the seamstress hissed, and then they beat it, pathetic, helpless people. Kan beat a path down the corridor—with the steps of a commander—directly up to her door, brought up a hand, stood still for a moment—with women everything was always done differently, a woman either didn’t carry off a dress entirely, or she grew together with it into one being. Knock knock knock. “May I enter?” He entered, twilight all around, contours visible, the shine of hair. “Forgive me,” the costumier said, becoming puzzled, “A-are you playing the part of Nastasya Filippovna?… Right, I am playing the part of the costumier—um, more precisely, I am the costumier. I’m actually here concerning your dress, which…not sure whether you know, but there have been complaints, the dress should be kept in the costume department,” he blurted out and started sweating.
“Yes, all my admirers…they carry me right away by the hand, the wild people of your city…”
“But aren’t you afraid,” the costumier said suddenly and for some reason very much wanting to switch on the light so as not to talk to a darkness in the dark. “Afraid that among these wild people you will come across Rogozhin? … Just joking.”
“My God,” she moaned, “don’t touch the light switch, the light rips at my eyes, everybody needs something from me: for you, it’s my clothes, for my admirers, as it happens, my clothes aren’t needed—so perhaps you could peaceably share me between yourselves.” Boom! The dress went right into his face.
“There you go, have it, what disrespect…”
For a second time, the costumier turned to the door. “I won’t come to you again. You can come to me. It is not my responsibility…”
And he dashed out of the dressing room, though he could hear her saying something to him in response, requesting, begging, perhaps, asking him that he make an exception, that women will be women, after all. Might he become, for example, her personal costumier…?
It was a strange conversation, a conversation in the dark, and he hadn’t been able to make out her face, just the ghost of it. He didn’t love this whole spectacle, to be honest, maybe because actresses for the main role changed constantly, and it made hard work for him—to take in, cut out, let out—and all the capricious caprices with all the admirers. Another matter altogether was Savelyich, in the role of the Idiot, a constant member, a strong one, a thorough man without admirers and fans—he had a dacha, a wife, a car—it’s a strange business—whose idea was it to give him the role of the Idiot? Okay, the Idiot is an idiot, it’s not up to us, but Savelyich’s costume was always perfect, always came back on time.