The Doomed City

  “Honestly?”

  “Only it’s rusty, completely covered in rust—”

  “Don’t even think of cleaning it!” Andrei shouted, bouncing up and down on his chair. “Bring it just the way it is—you’ll ruin everything, your hands are like grappling hooks . . . And it’s not a pistol, it’s a revolver. Where did you find it?”

  “In the right place to look, that’s where,” said Izya. “Just wait, on the expedition we’ll find so many you won’t be able to lug them back home.”

  Andrei put down his coffee cup. This aspect of the expedition hadn’t occurred to him, and he instantly felt his mood lift tremendously as he imagined a unique collection of Colts, Brownings, Mausers, Nagants, Parabellums, Sauers, Walthers . . . and moving further back into the depths of time, Lefaucheux and Lepage dueling pistols . . . immense boarding pistols with bayonets . . . magnificent homemade specials from the Far West . . . all those indescribably valuable items that he hadn’t even dared to dream of having as he read and reread the catalog of the private collection of the millionaire Brunner, which had ended up in the City in some miraculous fashion. Cases, crates, warehouses of firearms . . . Maybe he’d get lucky and find a Česká zbrojovka, with a silencer . . . or an Astra 900, or maybe even, dammit, a “Number Nine”—the Mauser 08, a real rarity, a dream of his . . . Yesss . . .

  “Do you collect antitank mines?” Izya asked. “Or culverins, maybe.”

  “No,” Andrei said, smiling joyfully. “I only collect personal firearms.”

  “Well, there happens to be a bazooka on offer,” said Izya. “They don’t want much—only two hundred tugriks.”

  “You’d better offer the bazooka to Ruhmer, brother,” said Andrei.

  “Thanks. I’ve been at Ruhmer’s place before,” Izya said, and his smile froze.

  Ah, dammit, thought Andrei, feeling awkward, but fortunately just then Heiger came back in. He was pleased.

  “Come on then, pour the president a cup,” he said. “What were you talking about here?”

  “Art and literature,” said Izya.

  “Literature?” Heiger took a sip of coffee. “Come on then, out with it! What exactly do my counselors say about literature?”

  “Oh, he’s just babbling,” said Andrei. “We were talking about my collection, not literature.”

  “And what’s suddenly got you interested in literature?” asked Izya, giving Heiger a curious look. “You’ve always been such a practical president.”

  “That’s why I’m interested, because I’m practical,” said Heiger. “Look at the figures,” he told them, starting to count on his fingers. “In the City we publish two literary journals, four literary supplements to newspapers, at least ten regular series of rubbishy adventure stories . . . and I think that’s all. And also about fifteen books a year. And in all that there’s nothing that’s even halfway decent. I’ve spoken to people who know about these things. Neither before the Turning Point nor after it has a single even slightly significant work of literature appeared in the City. Nothing but trash. What’s wrong?”

  Andrei and Izya exchanged glances. Yes, Heiger could always spring a surprise, no denying that.

  “I don’t quite understand what you’re saying here,” Izya told Heiger. “What does it matter to you anyway? Are you looking for a writer so he can write your life story?”

  “Just drop the jokes, will you?” Heiger said patiently. “There are a million people in the City. More than a thousand are registered as writers. And they’re all third-rate hacks. That is, I don’t read them, of course.”

  “Third-rate hacks, third-rate hacks,” Izya said, nodding. “The information you’ve been given is correct. No Tolstoys or Dostoyevskys anywhere in sight. Neither Leos nor Alexeis . . .”

  “But seriously, why aren’t there?” Andrei asked.

  “No outstanding writers,” Heiger continued. “No artists. No composers. No . . . what are they called . . . sculptors either.”

  “No architects,” Andrei put in. “No movie directors . . .”

  “None of all that,” said Heiger. “A million people! At first I was simply surprised, and then, to be honest, I felt alarmed.”

  “Why?” Izya immediately asked.

  Heiger indecisively chewed on his lips. “It’s hard to explain,” he confessed. “I personally don’t know what it’s all needed for, but I’ve been told that every decent society has all this. And if we don’t, it means something’s out of order . . . That’s the way I think about it. All right, then: before the Turning Point life in the City was hard, it was a shambles, and let’s assume no one had any time for the fine arts. But now life is basically coming together—”

  “No,” Andrei interrupted pensively. “That has nothing to do with it. As far as I know, the greatest artists in the world actually worked in incredibly messy circumstances. There isn’t any general rule here. An artist could be a beggar, a madman, or a drunk, or he could be a really prosperous man, even rich, like Turgenev for instance . . . I don’t know.”

  “In any case,” Izya said to Heiger, “if you’re planning, for instance, to abruptly improve the living standards of our writers—”

  “Yes! For instance!” said Heiger taking another sip of coffee. He licked his lips and started looking at Izya through narrowed eyes.

  “Nothing will come of it,” Izya said with some satisfaction. “And there’s no point in hoping it will.”

  “Hang on,” said Andrei. “Perhaps artistic and creative people simply don’t end up in the City? They don’t agree to come here?”

  “Or, let’s say, they’re not invited,” said Izya.

  “No way,” said Heiger. “Fifty percent of the City’s population are young people. On Earth they were nobody. How would it be possible to tell if they were creative types?”

  “Maybe it is possible to tell,” said Izya.

  “Even so,” said Heiger, “there are tens of thousands of people in the City who were born and grew up here. What about them? Or does talent have to be inherited?”

  “Yes, that really is rather strange,” said Andrei. “The City has excellent engineers. And pretty good scientists. No Mendeleyevs, maybe, but solid, world class. Take Butz, for instance . . . There are heaps of talented people—inventors, administrators, craftsmen, professionals . . . all sorts of applied specialists, in fact.”

  “That’s just it,” said Heiger. “That’s what surprises me.”

  “Listen, Fritz,” said Izya. “What do you want with unnecessary hassle? Say talented writers do appear here, and say they start lambasting you in their brilliant works—you, and the way you do things, and your counselors . . . Then you’ll have really bad problems. First you’ll try to persuade them, then you’ll threaten them, then you’ll have to jail them.”

  “And why would they definitely lambaste me?” Heiger asked indignantly. “Maybe just the opposite—they’d sing my praises?”

  “No,” said Izya. “They won’t sing your praises. Andrei already explained to you today about the scientists. Well, great writers are always grouching too. It’s their normal condition, because they are society’s sick conscience, although society doesn’t have the slightest suspicion that they even exist. And since in this case you are the symbol of society, you’ll be the first one they start throwing tin cans at.” Izya giggled. “I can just imagine what a roasting they’ll give your Ruhmer!”

  Heiger shrugged. “Of course, if Ruhmer has shortcomings, a genuine writer is obliged to depict them. That’s what a writer does: he heals the open sores.”

  “Writers have never, ever healed any open sores,” Izya objected. “A sick conscience simply hurts, that’s all—”

  “But after all, that’s not the question,” Heiger interrupted. “You give me a straight answer: Do you consider the current situation to be normal or not?”

  “Well, what do you take as the norm?” Izya asked. “Can we regard the situation on Earth as normal?”

  “Away he goes!” Andrei said, scr
ewing up his face. “You’re being asked a simple question: Can a society exist without creative talents? Have I got that right, Fritz?”

  “I’ll ask even more precisely,” said Heiger. “Is it normal for a million people—it doesn’t matter if they’re here or on Earth—not to produce a single creative talent in decades?”

  Izya said nothing, absentmindedly plucking at his wart, and Andrei said, “If we judge by ancient Greece, for example, it’s very far from normal.”

  “Then what’s wrong?” asked Heiger.

  “The Experiment is the Experiment,” said Izya. “But if we judge by the Mongols, for instance, then everything here is in fine shape.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Heiger asked suspiciously.

  “Nothing special,” Izya said in surprise. “Just that there are a million of them, or maybe even more. We could also take the example of the Koreans, say . . . and almost any Arab country . . .”

  “Why not take the gypsies?” Heiger asked peevishly.

  Andrei suddenly brightened up. “Yes, by the way, guys,” he said. “Are there any gypsies in the City?”

  “You can all go to hell!” Heiger said angrily. “It’s absolutely impossible to talk seriously about anything with you . . .”

  He was about to add something else, but at that point ruddy-cheeked Parker appeared in the doorway, and Heiger immediately looked at his watch.

  “Well, that’s it,” he said, getting up. “Got to go!” He sighed and started buttoning up his military tunic. “To your posts, Counselors!” he said, “To your posts!”

  3

  Otto Friese hadn’t lied to them: the rug was genuinely luxurious. It was black and crimson, with aristocratic tones, and it occupied the entire wall on the left of the study, opposite the windows. Hanging there, it gave the study an absolutely special look. It was devilishly beautiful, it was elegant, it was significant.

  Absolutely delighted, Andrei gave Selma a peck on the cheek, and she went back to the kitchen to give the maid orders while he walked around his study, examining the rug from every possible viewpoint, gazing at it straight on first, then at a steep angle with his peripheral vision. Then he opened his cherished cupboard and took out a massive Mauser—a ten-round monster, born in the special section of the Mauserwerke, which became famous during the Russian Civil War as the beloved weapon of commissars in dusty helmets, and also of Japanese imperial officers in greatcoats with dog-fur collars.

  The Mauser was clean and burnished to a high gleam—it looked completely combat ready—but unfortunately the firing pin had been filed down. Andrei held the gun, weighing it in both hands, then took hold of the rounded, fluted handle, lowered the gun, raised it again to eye level, and aimed it at the trunk of an apple tree outside the window, like Heiger at the shooting range.

  Then he turned to face the rug and started choosing a spot. It didn’t take long to find one. Andrei kicked off his shoes, climbed up onto the couch, and held the Mauser at that spot. Pressing it against the rug with one hand, he leaned back as far as he could and admired it. It was superb. He skipped down onto the floor, impetuously ran out into the hallway in his socks, pulled a toolbox out of the wall cupboard, and went back to the rug.

  He hung the Mauser, then a Luger with an optical sight (Tailbone had shot two militiamen dead with that Luger on the last day of the Turning Point), and he was fiddling with a 1906 model Browning—small and almost square—when a familiar voice spoke behind his back:

  “Farther to the right, Andrei, a little farther to the right. And a centimeter lower.”

  “Like that?” Andrei asked, without turning around.

  “Yes.”

  Andrei secured the Browning, jumped down backward off the couch, and backed away as far as the desk, surveying the work of his own hands.

  “It’s beautiful,” the Mentor said approvingly.

  “Beautiful, but not enough,” Andrei said with a sigh.

  Without making a sound, the Mentor walked over to the cupboard, squatted down, rummaged around, and took out a Nagant army revolver. “What about this?” he asked.

  “No wooden grips on the handle,” Andrei said regretfully. “I keep meaning to order some and I always forget.” He found his shoes, sat on the windowsill beside the desk, and lit a cigarette. “I’ll put my dueling arsenal at the top. Early nineteenth century. You come across some incredibly beautiful examples, with incised silver work, and the shapes are quite amazing—from tiny little ones like this to huge ones with long barrels . . .”

  “Lepages,” said the Mentor.

  “No, in fact the Lepages are small . . . And at the bottom, just above the couch, I’ll hang the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century combat weapons.”

  He fell silent, picturing to himself how beautiful it would be. The Mentor, squatting on his haunches, rummaged in the cupboard. Somewhere close by outside the window a motorized lawn mower spluttered. Birds twittered and whistled.

  “A good idea—to hang the rug here, wasn’t it?” Andrei asked.

  “An excellent idea,” said the Mentor, getting up. He tugged a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his hands. “Only I’d put the floor lamp over in that corner, beside the phone. And you need a white phone.”

  “I’m not entitled to a white phone,” Andrei said with a sigh.

  “Never mind,” said the Mentor. “When you get back from the expedition, you’ll have a white one.”

  “So I did the right thing by agreeing to go?”

  “Did you have any doubts about it?”

  “Yes,” Andrei said, and stubbed out his butt in the ashtray. “In the first place, I didn’t want to go. I just didn’t want to. And in the second place, to be quite honest, it’s a bit frightening.”

  “Oh, come on,” said the Mentor.

  “No, really. You—can you tell me what I’ll come up against out there? There, you see! Total uncertainty . . . A dozen of Izya’s terrifying legends and total uncertainty . . . Plus all the charms of life on the march. I know these expeditions. I’ve been on archeological expeditions, and all sorts of other kinds . . .”

  At this point, just as Andrei was expecting, the Mentor asked curiously, “What is it about these expeditions . . . how can I put it . . . what’s the most frightening thing about them, the most unpleasant thing?”

  Andrei really loved this question. He’d invented the answer to it a very long time ago, and even written it down in his notebook, subsequently using it repeatedly in conversations with various girls.

  “The most frightening thing?” he repeated, to pick up momentum. “The most frightening thing is this. Imagine it: the tent, the night, desert all around, absolutely no one, wolves howling, hailstones falling, a stormy wind . . .” He paused and looked at the Mentor, who was leaning forward, listening. “Hailstones, you understand? The size of a hen’s egg . . . And you have to go out to relieve yourself.”

  The tense anticipation on the Mentor’s face was replaced by a rather perplexed smile, and then he burst into laughter. “Very funny,” he said. “Did you make that up yourself ?”

  “Yes, I did,” Andrei said proudly.

  “Good for you, that’s funny . . .” The Mentor laughed again, wagging his head. Then he sat down in the armchair and started looking at the garden. “This is a nice place you have here, in the White Court,” he said.

  Andrei turned around and also looked at the garden: green foliage drenched in sunlight, butterflies fluttering above flowers, apple trees standing motionless, and about two hundred meters away, behind some lilac bushes, the white walls and red roof of the next cottage . . . And Wang in his long white shirt, striding along, calm and unhurried, behind the spluttering lawn mower, with his youngest toddling along beside him, clutching his trouser leg . . .

  “Yes, Wang has found peace,” the Mentor said. “Perhaps he really is the happiest man in the City.”

  “That could very well be,” Andrei agreed. “In any case, I wouldn’t say that about my other acquaintances.??
?

  “Well, that’s the circle of acquaintances you have now,” the Mentor rejoined. “Wang is the exception among them. I’d even say quite simply that he’s a man of a different circle. Not yours.”

  “Uh-huh,” Andrei drawled pensively. “But after all, there was a time when we toted garbage together, sat at the same table, drank from the same mugs . . .”

  The Mentor shrugged. “Everyone receives what he deserves.”

  “What he achieves,” Andrei muttered.

  “You can put it that way if you like—it’s the same thing. After all, Wang always wanted to be right down at the bottom. The East is the East. Beyond our comprehension. And so your paths have parted.”

  “The most amusing thing,” said Andrei, “is that I still enjoy being with him as much as I used to. We always have something to talk about, something to remember . . . When I’m with him, I never feel awkward.”

  “But does he feel awkward?”

  Andrei thought for a moment. “I don’t know. But probably yes. Sometimes I get the feeling he makes a great effort to keep well away from me.”

  The Mentor stretched, cracking his fingers. “But is that really the point?” he asked. “When you and Wang sit down with a bottle of vodka and you recall how things used to be, Wang relaxes, you must agree. But when you and the colonel sit down with a bottle of scotch, do either of you really relax?”

  “Relaxation’s irrelevant,” Andrei mumbled. “What relaxation? I simply need the colonel. And he needs me.”

  “And when you have lunch with Heiger? And when you drink with Dolfuss? And when Chachua tells you his new jokes over the phone?”

  “Yes,” said Andrei. “That’s the way it all is. Yes.”

  “Probably Izya’s the only one you’re still on the same terms with, and even then . . .”

  “Precisely,” said Andrei. “And even then.”

  “Uh-uh, there’s no question about it!” the Mentor exclaimed emphatically. “Just picture it to yourself: the colonel’s sitting right here, the deputy chief of staff of your army, an old English aristocrat from a glorious noble line. Dolfuss is sitting here, the counselor for construction, once a famous engineer in Vienna. And his wife, a baroness, a Prussian Junker. And sitting facing them is Wang. A caretaker.”