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| Antonin Procházka , "Still life with vase and flower" (1914-15) |
When real life is wanting one must create an illusion.
It is better than nothing.
– Uncle Vanya
.After leaving work I meet Anton Chekhov on the stairs
at Kensington Olympia Station. Salt and grit stalactite
the edges; the air is brisk and dark at half-past four.
He looks just as he does in that picture people post online
saying STONE COLD FOX but is wearing a furry hat,
of course. We pass as he goes downstairs to head north
while I go up to head south. I am the only one to recognise him.
He is taller than I imagined he would be, his cheeks surprisingly
pink. Is it really you? I ask. Father of Realism? Creator of Olga,
Masha and Irina, of Nina and Arkadina, of Sonia, of Anya,
Varya and Madame Ranevskaya? It is, he says, and coughs,
touches my arm. What is this place? Why so many people?
It’s the Christmas Fair at Olympia, I explain. Olympia? he asks.
No gods, just tinselly tat. Would you like to come with me
to Pizza Express? I ask. I’ll buy you doughballs and a Fiorentina,
which I think you’ll like. He agrees. We sit opposite each other
at a fake marble table with a fake candle juddering between us.
Tinny Christmas music plays. Let’s talk about our terrible
childhoods, I say. Over tiramisu, Chekhov asks me to marry him
and I say yes, of course. Separate houses and cities, I say.
Separate countries, he says, together a dozen times a year perhaps.
Perfect, I say. Outside, in the traffic on Hammersmith Road
he holds me and I clasp his coat collar as snow spits through
dipped headlights. The shining O of the Pizza Express sign hangs
on the dark like a moon. One day, he says, we will find out why
we suffer. If only we knew (his lips on mine), if only we knew.
Jo Bratten. Realism by Jo Bratten. Londres: The London Magazine, February/March 2025.
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