I couldn’t fall asleep. It was morning anyway. It was light outside, and despite the blinds the room was bright. I lay still in bed, petting Kaliam, stretched out between us, and listened to Irina’s even breathing. She always slept deeply and with great pleasure. There was nothing so bad in the world that it would give her insomnia. At least, so far there hadn’t been.
The sickening sense of impending doom that befell me the moment I read and finally understood the telegram had not left me. My muscles were in cramps and inside, in my chest and stomach, was a huge, shapeless cold lump. Once in a while the lump moved, and then my skin crawled.
At first, when Irina fell asleep in mid-word and I heard her even breathing, for a moment I felt better. I wasn’t alone. Next to me was the person nearest and dearest to me. But the cold toad in my chest stirred and I was horrified by that sense of relief; so this is what I’ve sunk to; they’ve reduced me to this: I can be happy that Irina is here, that Irina is in the same foxhole under fire with me. Oh no, we go for her ticket first thing in the morning. Back to Odessa. I’ll push everyone aside, I’ll chew our path through the lines to the ticket office.
My poor little girl, how she suffered because of those bastards, because of me and that lousy interstellar matter, all of which isn’t worth a single wrinkle on Irina’s face. And they got to her, too. Why? They needed her for something? The bastards, the blind bastards. They hit anyone who is in firing range. No, nothing will happen to her. They’re just using her to scare me. They’re playing on my nerves, one way or another.
Suddenly, I pictured dead Snegovoi—walking along Moscow Boulevard in his striped pajamas, heavy, cold, with a clotted bullet hole in his thick skull; coming into the post office and getting in line at the telegram window; a gun in his right hand, the telegram in his left; and nobody notices. The girl takes the telegram from his dead fingers, writes out a receipt, and, forgetting the money, calls out: Next.
I shook my head to dispel the vision, quietly got out of bed, and padded to the kitchen in my underwear. It was sunny in there, the sparrows were making a racket in the yard, and I could hear the janitor’s broom. I picked up Irina’s purse, fished out a crumpled pack with two broken cigarettes in it, sat down, and lit up. I hadn’t smoked in a long time. Two, maybe three years. Proving my willpower. Yep, brother Malianov, you’ll need your willpower now. Hell, I’m a lousy actor, and I don’t know how to lie. Irina must know nothing. She has nothing to do with it. I have to do this alone. No one can help me, not Irina, no one.
And what does help have to do with it, anyway? Who’s talking about help? I don’t tell Irina my problems if I can at all avoid it. I don’t like making her sad. I love making her happy and hate making her sad. If it weren’t for all this crap I would have loved to have told her about the M cavities, she would have understood immediately, even though she’s no theoretician and is always putting down her own abilities. But what can I tell her now?
There are different problems, however, different levels of problems. There are minor ones that it’s no sin to complain about, that are even pleasant to kvetch about. Irina would say: Big deal, what nonsense, and everything would get better. If the problems are bigger, then it’s just unmanly to talk about them. I don’t tell Mother or Irina about them. And then there are the problems of such magnitude that it becomes a little unclear. First of all, whether I want it or not, Irina is in the firing line with me.
Something very unfair is happening here. I’m being battered to death, but at least I understand for what, can guess who’s doing it, and know that I’m being battered. These are not stupid jokes and not fate; they’re aiming at me. I think it’s better to know that they’re aiming at you. Of course, it takes all kinds, and probably most people would rather not know, but my Irina is not one of them. She’s reckless; I know her. When she’s afraid of something she rushes headlong right into her fear. It would be dishonest not to tell her. And in general, I have to make a decision. (I haven’t even tried to think about that yet, and I’ll have to. Or have I already chosen? Have I made my choice without knowing it?) And if I have to choose—well, let’s assume the choice itself is up to me alone. We’ll do what we want. But what about the consequences? One choice will lead to their tossing atom bombs, instead of plain ones, at us. Another choice—I wonder, would Irina have liked Glukhov? I mean he’s a nice, pleasant man, quiet, meek. We could get a television, to Bobchik’s everlasting joy; we could ski every Saturday, go to the movies. One way or the other the decision will affect more than just me. Sitting under a shower of bombs is bad, but finding out after ten years of marriage that your husband is a jellyfish is no picnic either. But maybe it would be all right. How do I know what she sees in me? That’s just it, I don’t. And maybe she doesn’t know either.
I finished the cigarette and flipped the butt into the garbage. A passport lay next to the can. Nice. We had cleaned up every last scrap, every penny, but there was her passport. I picked up the gray-green book and looked at the first page distractedly. I don’t know why. I broke out in a cold sweat. Sergeenko, Inna Fedorovna. Date of birth: 1939. What’s this? The photograph was of Irina—no, not Irina. Some woman who looked like Irina, but wasn’t. Some Sergeenko, Inna Fedorovna.
I carefully put the passport on the edge of the table and tiptoed to the bedroom. I broke out in another sweat. The woman lying under the sheet had dry skin, pulled taut on her face, and her upper teeth, white and sharp, were exposed, either in a smile or in a martyred grin. That was a witch there under my sheets. Forgetting myself, I shook her by her naked shoulder. Irina woke up immediately, opened her huge eyes, and muttered: “Dmitri, what’s the matter? Does something hurt?” God, it was Irina. Of course it was Irina. What a nightmare. “I was snoring, right?” she asked in a sleepy voice and went back to sleep.
I tiptoed back to the kitchen, moved the passport away from me, took out the last cigarette, and lit up. Yes. That’s how we live now. That’s what our life will be now. From now on.
The icy animal inside me stirred some more, and then was still. I wiped the disgusting sweat from my face; I had an idea and started digging through her purse. Irina’s passport was in there. Malianova, Irina Ermolaevna. Date of birth: 1933. Damn! All right, why did they need to do that? This was no accident. The passport, the telegram, Irina’s difficult journey, the fact that she had to fly in a plane with coffins—all that wasn’t accidental. Or was it? They were blind, Mother Nature, brainless natural elements. That’s a good case for Vecherovsky’s theory. If it was the Homeostatic Universe quelling a microrebellion, that’s just how it should have seemed. Like a man swatting a fly with a towel—vicious, whistling blows cutting through the air; vases tumbling from shelves; lamps breaking; innocent moths falling victim to the blows; the cat, its paw stomped on, making a beeline for the couch. Massed power and inefficiency. I mean, I really don’t know anything. Maybe somewhere on the other side of town a house collapsed. They were aiming for me and hit the house instead. And all I got was the crummy passport. And all this because I thought of the M cavities the other day? To think that I could have told Irina about them!
Listen, I probably won’t be able to live like this. I never thought of myself as a coward, but living like this, without a moment’s peace, terrified by your own wife because you’ve taken her for a witch. And Vecherovsky despises Glukhov. That means he’ll stop seeing me, too. I’ll have to change everything. Everything will be different. Different friends, different work, a different life. Maybe even a different family. “Since then crooked, roundabout, godforsaken paths stretch out before me.” And you’ll be ashamed to look at yourself in the mirror when you’re shaving in the morning. The mirror will reflect a very small and very tame Malianov.
Of course, you can get used to it, you can probably get used to everything in the world. To any waste. But this would be no little waste. I’ve spent ten years working toward this. More than ten years—my whole life. Since childhood, since the school science club, since the homemade te
lescopes, since the calculations of Wolfe’s numbers according to someone’s observations. My M cavities, I really don’t know anything about them: what I might have done with them; what someone else might have done with them after me; continuing, developing, adding to it and passing it on to another age, the next century. Probably something not so minor might have come of it; I was losing something not so minor if it could lead to revelations that the universe itself is trying to stop. A billion years is a long time. In a billion years a civilization develops from a blob of slime—
But they’ll squash me. First they won’t let me live in peace, they’ll drive me crazy, and if that won’t work, they’ll simply squash me. Oh boy! Six o’clock. The sun was broiling already. And then, I don’t know why, the cold animal in my chest disappeared. I stood up. Moving calmly, I went into the room and got my papers and a pen from the desk. I went back to the kitchen, settled down, and started to work.
I couldn’t think well—my head was stuffed with cotton and my eyelids burned—but I carefully went through my notes, throwing out everything that was no longer necessary, put the rest in order, and copied it all into a notebook, slowly, with pleasure, carefully choosing my words, as though I were writing a final draft of an article or a report.
A lot of people don’t like this stage of the work, but I do. I like polishing my terms, savoring the choice of the most elegant and economic turns of phrase, catching the mistakes hidden in the notes, plotting graphs, preparing tables. This is the scientist’s noble dirty work—the summation, a time for admiring oneself and one’s handiwork.
And I admired myself and my handiwork until Irina was next to me—hugging me with her bare arm and pressing her warm cheek against mine.
“Huh?” I said and straightened my back.
It was my usual Irina, and not that pathetic scarecrow she resembled yesterday. She was rosy and fresh, clear-eyed and jolly. A lark. She’s a lark. I’m an owl, and she’s a lark. I’d read about a classification like that somewhere. Larks go to bed early, sleep readily and with great pleasure, and wake up fresh and happy and start singing right away, and there’s nothing in the world that will make them sleep until noon.
“You didn’t sleep at all again?” she asked, and without waiting for an answer went to the balcony door. “What are they hollering about?”
I only then realized that there was a ruckus in our courtyard—the kind of crowd noises heard at the scene of an accident after the police have arrived and before the ambulance.
“Dmitri!” Irina shouted. “Look! Talk about miracles!”
My heart fell. I know those miracles. I jumped up …
Excerpt 19.… some coffee. And Irina announced cheerfully that everything had worked out marvelously. Finally, everything in the world was turning out marvelously. She had gotten sick of Odessa over those ten days because this summer it was more crowded than ever. She missed me and had no intention of going back to Odessa, particularly since she’d never be able to get a ticket, and her mother was planning to come to Leningrad in August; she could bring Bobchik then. Now she was going back to work, right now, as soon as she’d had her coffee, and in March or April we’d go skiing together in Kirovsk as we had planned.
We had a tomato omelet. While I cooked it, Irina combed the whole apartment looking for cigarettes, didn’t find any and got a little blue, made more coffee, and asked about Snegovoi. I told her what I knew from Zykov—carefully avoiding all sharp angles and trying to present it as the usual tragic story. I remembered the beautiful Lidochka in the middle of my tale and almost brought her up but bit my tongue.
Irina was saying something about Snegovoi, remembered something, and the corners of her mouth drooped sadly (“… now there’s nobody to borrow a cigarette from!”), and I sipped my coffee, thinking about what to do next. Until I decided to tell Irina or not, it was probably better not to mention Lidochka or the grocery order since that whole matter was rather unclear, or should I say very clear, since in all this time Irina hadn’t said a word about her friend or her grocery order. Of course, Irina might have forgotten. First of all, all that anxiety, and second of all, Irina always forgets everything, but for the time being—Satan, get thee behind me—it was better to skirt the issues. Well, maybe it was better to send out a small trial balloon.
Choosing an appropriate moment, when Irina had stopped talking about Snegovoi and had gone on to cheerier topics, how Bobchik had fallen into a ditch and my mother-in-law after him, I asked casually:
“Well, and how’s Lidochka doing?”
My small trial balloon turned out to be on the huge and clumsy side. Irina’s eyes bulged.
“Which Lidochka?”
“You know, your school friend.”
“Ponomareva? What made you think of her?”
“Oh, you know,” I mumbled. “Just thought of her.” I hadn’t anticipated that question. “You know, Odessa, the battleship Potemkin. Just remembered her, that’s all. Why the third degree?”
Irina blinked a few times and then said: “I ran into her. She’s so beautiful now, has to beat men off with a stick.”
There was a pause. Damn it, I just can’t lie. Some trial balloon. Got it right between the eyes. Under Irina’s inquisitive gaze, I put my empty cup on the saucer and said in a phony voice, “I wonder how our tree is doing?” and went over to the balcony. Well, it was all clear about Lidochka now. Definitely. And how was our tree doing?
The tree was in place. The crowd was thinning. There was only the doorman, three janitors, the plumber, and two cops. There was also a yellow patrol car down there. All of them (except for the car, of course) were looking at the tree and exchanging opinions on what to do and what it meant. One of the cops had removed his cap and was wiping his shaved head with a handkerchief. It was getting hot in the yard, and the familiar odor of heated asphalt, dust, and gasoline had a new strain in it—woodsy and strange. The shaved cop put his cap back on, put away the handkerchief, and dug his finger in the fresh dirt. I stepped away from the balcony.
Irina was in the bathroom. I cleared and washed the dishes. I was terribly sleepy, but I knew I wouldn’t fall asleep. I probably wouldn’t sleep until this whole thing was over. I called Vecherovsky. As soon as I heard the ring, I remembered that he wasn’t supposed to be home today, he was giving exams to graduate students, but before I could hang up he answered.
“You’re home?” I asked stupidly.
“What can I say?” Vecherovsky replied.
“All right, all right. Did you see the tree?”
“Yes.”
“What do you think?”
“I think so.”
I glanced over toward the bathroom and, lowering my voice, said:
“I think it’s me.”
“Yes?”
“Uh-huh. I decided to bring my notes into order.”
“Did you?”
“Not completely. I’m going to try to finish up today.”
Vecherovsky was silent.
“What for?” he asked.
I was stumped.
“I don’t know, I wanted to clean it all up, all of a sudden. I don’t know. Regret, I guess. I felt sorry for my work. Aren’t you going out today?”
“I don’t think so. How’s Irina?”
“Chattering and chirping,” I said. I smiled involuntarily. “You know Irina. Like water off a duck’s back.”
“You told her?”
“Are you kidding? Of course not.”
“Why ‘of course’?”
I sighed.
“You see, Phil, I keep thinking about it myself. Should I tell her or not? I can’t figure it out.”
“When in doubt,” Vecherovsky declared, “do nothing.”
I was going to tell him that that was a piece of information I had learned without him when I heard Irina turn off the shower. I mumbled into the phone:
“Okay, I’m going to work now. If there’s anything, call me, I’ll be home.”
Irina got dressed and mad
e up, kissed me on the nose, and hopped off. I lay back on the bed, cradling my head, and started to think. Kaliam appeared immediately, climbed up on me, and spread out along my side. He was soft, hot, and damp, and I fell asleep. It was like passing out. My consciousness disappeared, and then suddenly reappeared. Kaliam was no longer on the bed, and someone was ringing the doorbell. With the signal ta ta-ta ta-ta. I stood up. My head was clear, and I felt particularly scrappy. I was prepared for mortal combat and death. I knew that a cycle was beginning, but there was no more fear—just reckless, angry determination.
It was only Weingarten. A completely impossible thing: He was sweatier, messier, sloppier, and more unkempt than yesterday.
“What’s that tree?” he demanded right in the doorway. And another impossibility: He was whispering.
“You can speak up,” I said. “Come on in.”
He came in, stepping gingerly and looking around, shoved two shopping bags with manuscripts into the closet, and wiped his wet neck with his wet hand. I pulled Kaliam back in by the tail and shut the door.
“Well?” Weingarten said.
“As you see,” I replied. “Let’s go to my room.”
“Is the tree your work?”
“Mine.”
We sat down. I sat at the table, Weingarten in the chair next to it. His huge hairy stomach peeked out from under his net T-shirt and unbuttoned nylon windbreaker. He wheezed, puffed, dried himself off, and then contorted his body, getting at the pack of cigarettes in his back pocket. And he muttered a chain of curses, directed at nothing in particular.
“The battle goes on, then,” he finally said, exhaling thick streams of smoke through his hairy nostrils. “Better to die standing up, ta-ta, than on your knees … and all that. Jerk!” he shouted. “Have you been downstairs? You idiot! Did you at least see how it’s growing? It was an explosion! And what if it happened under your ass? Boom, ka-boom, and ta-ta!”