GALINA SEDOVA’S BULGAKOV. IV.

Galina Sedova’s Bulgakov.

 The Spy Novel Continues.

 

Well, I have no idea what Natasha’s apartment number is going to be, wherever she is going to, but as for the apartment number in Moscow where the espionage activity, depicted in the novel, is going on,--- we know it quite well. That’s the infamous apartment #50 in a large six-storey building on Sadovaya Street. Some time ago it belonged to the jeweler M. De Fouger, but, as everyone knows, this jewelry business is a dangerous one, and although we do not know what exactly happened to him, we may reasonably suppose something awful. No matter what, tenants from this apartment kept disappearing, while M. De Fouger’s widow, in all probability, went on with his business as usual, right until she “disappeared” herself.

All these “irregularities” started two years before, and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that if not Woland in person, then at least his “retinue” appeared in Moscow also two years ago. (I will be writing about all this in my Fantasy Novel of Master and Margarita.)

As of the moment of interest to us, that is, on the eve of Russian Easter, Berlioz, resident of apartment #50, has just been killed, and his apartment neighbor Stepa Likhodeev has been dispatched to Yalta by Woland’s gang.

The apartment is finally empty, and Koroviev, “interpreter to the person of a foreigner” [Woland], who, as we already know has no need for a translator, rents the apartment #50 from Nikanor Ivanovich, and complains to him thus:

“‘Here’s where I have them, these foreign tourists!’ complained Koroviev, sticking his finger into his veiny neck. ‘Frazzled my soul out of me, if you can believe that. He comes… spies all over, like a sonuvabitch…’”

And here is how the “visiting artist” Woland confesses to the buffet vendor Andrei Fokich Sokin:

“I will reveal a secret to you: I am not an artist at all, but I just wanted to see the Muscovites in numbers, and the most convenient way of doing it is in the theater. I was just sitting there, looking at the Muscovites.”

That selfsame Koroviev tells Margarita:

“Not in the least will I misstate my case if I mention a whimsically shuffled deck of cards… There are cases where even frontiers between states have no validity.”

Woland echoes the tune:

“Yes, Koroviev is right. How whimsically has the deck been shuffled!”

So, what does this tell us?

Woland does confess that he is no artist. Everything is upside down. It wasn’t the Muscovites who came to see the “magus” and his tricks, but he, the “magus,” the “visiting artist,” gathered the Muscovites to have a chance to look at them himself. Koroviev confesses that foreigners come to “spy,” like some sonsuvbitches.

In Margarita’s case, everything is simple. She joins Woland’s gang as a very important member (honestly speaking, not so much because of who and what she is, but primarily because of who she is married to). The gang was missing a queen, to form a royal flush, and now there are five of them at last.

I will be writing about Margarita’s genealogy in the fantastic novel and also about how Bulgakov arrived at this idea, which, incidentally, has nothing to do with any French Queens, ancient or modern.

I shall be giving the most realistic view of who Margarita is in my chapter on Bulgakov. Until that time, let us make a pause in that discussion.