“Hmmm,” I said and thought: Weingarten and Gubar have nothing to be proud of anymore, and as for me, that’s still moot.
And then, reading my mind once more, she said:
“And it’s really not important what you decide. The important thing is that you’re capable of such discoveries. Will you at least tell me what it’s about? Or is that forbidden too?”
“I don’t know,” I said and thought: Is she just trying to console me or does she really feel that way; is she so terrified that she’s trying to talk me into capitulating; is she merely trying to sweeten the pill that she knows I’ll have to swallow? Or is she trying to get me to fight, is she getting my dander up?
“The pigs,” she said softly. “But they won’t break us up. Right? That, they’ll never do. Right, Dmitri?”
“Of course,” I said and thought: That’s the whole issue, darling. That’s what it’s all about.
The storm was abating. The cloud was floating north, exposing a gray, misty sky from which fell a soft, gray rain.
“I brought the rain,” Irina said. “And I was hoping that we could go to Solnechnoe on Saturday.”
“It’s a long way to Saturday,” I said. “But maybe we should go.”
Everything had been said. Now we had to talk about Solnechnoe, bookshelves for Bobchik, and the washing machine, which had conked out again. And we did talk about all that. And there was an illusion of a normal evening, and in order to extend and strengthen that illusion, we decided to have some tea. We opened a fresh pack of Ceylon, rinsed out the teapot with hot water in the most exacting and scientific manner, triumphantly placed the box of Pique Dame candies on the table, and watched the kettle, waiting for the moment of rolling boil. We made the same old jokes and set the table, and I quietly took the order blank from the deli and the note about Lidochka and I. F. Sergeenko’s passport, crumpled them up, and stuffed them into the wastebasket.
And we had a marvelous teatime—it was real tea, an elixir—and talked about everything under the sun, except the most important thing. I kept wondering what Irina was thinking about, because she seemed to have been able to forget the whole nightmare—she told me everything that she thought about it and now had forgotten it with relief, leaving me alone, once again one on one with my decision.
Then she said she had to do the ironing and that I should sit with her and tell her something funny. I started clearing the table and the doorbell rang.
Humming a little tune, I headed for the foyer, giving Irina one quick look (she was very calmly wiping the chairs with a dry rag). Unlocking the door, I remembered my hammer, but it seemed melodramatic to go back for it, and I opened the door.
A very young tall man in a wet raincoat and with wet blond hair handed me a telegram and asked me to sign for it. I took his pencil stub, leaned the receipt against the wall, wrote the date and time at his prompting, signed it, returned the pencil and receipt, thanked him, and closed the door. I knew that it was nothing good. Right there in the foyer, under the harsh 200-watt bulb, I opened the telegram and read it.
It was from my mother-in-law. “BOBCHIK AND I LEAVING TOMORROW MEET FLIGHT 425 BOBCHIK SILENT VIOLATING HOMEOPATHIC UNIVERSE LOVE MAMA.” And a strip of paper was glued on below: “HOMEOPATHIC UNIVERSE STET.” I read and reread the telegram, folded it in four, turned out the light, and went down the hall. Irina was waiting for me, leaning against the bathroom door. I handed her the telegram, said “Mama and Bobchik arrive tomorrow,” and went straight to my desk. Lidochka’s bra was draped across my notes. I put it neatly on the windowsill, gathered my notes, put them in order, and stuck them in my notebook. Then I got a fresh manila envelope, put everything inside, tied it, and, still standing, wrote on the face: “D. Malianov. On the Interaction of Stars and Interstellar Matter in the Galaxy.” I reread it, thought a bit, and blacked out the “D. Malianov.” Then I put the envelope under my arm and left. Irina was still by the bathroom door; the telegram was pressed to her chest. As I walked past, she made a feeble gesture with her hand, either to stop me or to thank me. I said, without looking at her: “I’m going to Vecherovsky’s. I’ll be back soon.”
I went up the stairs slowly, step by step, hitching up the envelope, which kept slipping out from under my arm. For some reason the lights were out on the stairs. It was dim and very quiet, and I could hear through the open windows the water dripping from the roof. On the sixth-floor landing, by the garbage chute, where the lovers had been kissing, I stopped and looked out into the courtyard. The huge tree’s damp leaves glistened black in the night. The yard was empty; the puddles shimmered, rippling in the rain.
I met no one coming down the stairs. But between the seventh and eighth floors a pathetic little man sat hunched up on the steps, with an old-fashioned gray hat next to him. I walked around him carefully and continued on, when he spoke:
“Don’t go up there, Dmitri.”
I stopped and looked at him. It was Glukhov.
“Don’t go up there now,” he repeated. “Don’t!”
He got up, picked up his hat, straightened slowly, holding his back, and I saw that his face was smeared with something black—dirt or soot—his glasses were askew, and his lips were compressed tightly, as though he were in real pain. He fixed his glasses and spoke, barely moving his lips:
“Another envelope. White. Another flag of surrender.”
I said nothing. He hit his hat against his knee, shaking off the dust, and then tried to clean it with his sleeve. He was silent too, but he didn’t leave. I waited to see what he would say.
“You see,” he said finally, “it’s always unpleasant to capitulate. In the last century, they say, people shot themselves rather than capitulate. Not because they were afraid of torture or concentration camps, and not because they were afraid they’d crack under torture, but because they were ashamed.”
“That happens in our century, too,” I said. “And not so rarely.”
“Yes, of course,” he agreed. “Of course. It’s very unpleasant for a person to realize that he’s not at all what he thought he was. He wants to remain the way he was all his life, and that’s impossible if he capitulates. And so he has to … And yet there’s still a difference. In our century people shoot themselves because they’re ashamed before others—society, friends … In the last century people shot themselves because they were ashamed before themselves. You see, for some reason, in our century, everybody thinks that a person can always come to terms with himself. It’s probably true. I don’t know why. I don’t know what’s going on here. Maybe it’s because the world has become more complicated? Maybe it’s because now there are so many other concepts besides pride and honor that can be used to convince people.”
He looked at me expectantly, and I shrugged.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“I don’t know, either. You would think I was an experienced capitulator, I’ve been thinking about it for so long, about nothing else, and I’ve come up with so many convincing arguments. You think that you’ve come to terms with it, you’ve calmed down, and then it starts up again. Of course there’s a difference between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But a wound is a wound. It heals, disappears, and you forget all about it, then the weather changes, and it hurts. That’s the way it’s always been, in all centuries.”
“I understand,” I said. “I understand it all. But a wound is a wound. And sometimes another person’s wound is much more painful.”
“Dear God!” he whispered. “I’m not trying to … I would never dare. I’m just talking. Please don’t think that I’m trying to talk you out of it, that I’m giving you any advice. Who am I? You know, I keep thinking, what are we? I mean people like us? We’re either very well brought up by our times and our country or else we’re throwbacks, troglodytes. Why do we suffer so much? I can’t figure it out.”
I said nothing. He pulled on his funny hat with a weak, flabby gesture, and said:
“Well, good-bye, Dmitri. I guess we’ll neve
r see each other again, but it doesn’t matter, it was very nice meeting you. And you do make excellent tea.”
He nodded and started down the stairs.
“You could take the elevator,” I told his receding back.
He didn’t turn back and he didn’t answer. I stood and listened to his footsteps, descending lower and lower, listened until I heard the door squeak open far below. Then it slammed shut, and everything was still again.
I readjusted the envelope under my arm, passed the last landing, and, holding on to the banister, completed the last flight of stairs. I stood and listened at Vecherovsky’s door. Someone was in there. I could hear voices. Unfamiliar ones. I probably should come back another time, but I didn’t have the strength. I had to finish it. And finish fast.
I rang the bell. The voices went on. I waited and then rang again, and didn’t let go of the buzzer until I heard footsteps and Vecherovsky asking:
“Who’s there?”
For some reason I wasn’t surprised, even though Vecherovsky had always opened the door to everyone without ever asking anything. Like me. Like all my friends.
“It’s me. Open up.”
“Wait.” There was silence.
There were no more voices, only the sound of someone many flights below opening the garbage chute. I remembered Glukhov’s warning about going there now. “Don’t go there, Warmold. They want to poison you.” What was that from? Something terribly familiar. The hell with it. I had nowhere else to go. And no time. I heard footsteps behind the door again and the lock turning. The door opened.
I reeled back involuntarily. I’d never seen Vecherovsky like that.
“Come in,” he said hoarsely, and stepped aside to make way.
CHAPTER 11
Excerpt 21.… So you brought it anyway,” Vecherovsky said.
“Bobchik,” I said and put my envelope on the table.
He nodded and smeared the soot on his face with his dirty hand.
“I was expecting it,” he said. “But not so soon.”
“Who’s here?”
“No one,” he replied. “Just the two of us. Us and the universe.” He looked at his dirty hands and made a face. “Excuse me, I’ll wash up first.”
He left, and I sat on the arm of the chair and looked around. The room looked as if a cartridge of black gunpowder had exploded in it. Black soot spots on the walls. Thin strings of soot floating in the air. An unpleasant yellow tinge on the ceiling. And an unpleasant chemical smell—sour and acrid. The parquet floor was ruined by a round, charcoal-dirty depression. And there was another one on the windowsill, as though they had lit a campfire on it. Yes, they really had given it to Vecherovsky.
I looked at the desk. It was heaped with papers. One of Weingarten’s folders lay open in the center, and the other, still tied up, was next to it. And there was another one, an old-fashioned one with a marbleized cover and a label on which was typed: “USA-Japan. Cultural Interrelations. Materials.” And there were pages covered with what I took to be electronic schematic drawings, and one was signed in a scratchy, fuddy-duddy handwriting, “Gubar, Z. Z.,” and below it in block letters: “Fading.” My new white envelope was on the edge of the desk. I picked it up and put it on my lap.
The water in the bathroom stopped running, and a little later Vecherovsky called me.
“Dmitri, come in here. We’ll have some coffee.”
But when I came into the kitchen, there was no coffee; instead, there was a bottle of cognac and two exquisite crystal glasses. Vecherovsky had not only washed up, but he had changed his clothes. He had replaced his elegant jacket with the huge hole under the breast pocket and his cream pants with a soft suede lounging outfit. And no tie. His washed face was unusually pale, which made his freckles stand out even more, and a lock of wet red hair fell over his knobby forehead. There was something other than the paleness that was unusual about his face. And then I realized that his brows and lashes had been singed. Yes, they had really given it to Vecherovsky.
“A tranquilizer,” he said, pouring the cognac. “Probst!”
It was Akhtamar, a rare and legendary Armenian cognac. I took a sip and savored it. Marvelous cognac. I took another sip.
“You’re not asking any questions,” Vecherovsky said, looking at me through his glass. “That must be hard. Or is it?”
“No, I have no questions. For anybody.” I leaned an elbow on my white envelope. “I do have an answer. And it’s the only one. Listen, they’re going to kill you.”
He raised his singed eyebrows out of habit and took a sip from his glass.
“I don’t think so. They’ll miss.”
“Sooner or later they won’t miss.”
“A la guerre comme à la guerre,” he countered and stood up. “All right, now that my nerves are soothed, we can have some coffee and discuss the whole thing.”
I watched his rounded back and his mobile shoulder blades as he ministered to his coffee apparatus.
“There’s nothing for me to discuss. I have Bobchik.”
And my own words suddenly made something click for me. From the moment I read the telegram, all my thoughts and feelings had been anesthetized; now they suddenly defrosted and started working at full blast. The fear, loathing, despair, and feeling of impotence came back, and I realized with unbearable clarity that from that moment a line of fire and brimstone that could never be crossed was drawn between Vecherovsky and me. I would have to stop behind it for the rest of my life, while he went on through the land mines, dust, and mud of battles I would never know and disappeared in the flaming horizon. He and I would nod hello when we ran into each other on the stairs, but I would stay on this side of the line with Weingarten, Zakhar, and Glukhov—drinking tea or beer, or chasing vodka with beer, and gabbing about intrigues and promotions, saving up for a car, and eking out my existence over some dull, official project. And I would never see Weingarten and Zakhar either. We’d have nothing to say to each other; we’d be too embarrassed to meet, nauseated by the sight of each other, and we’d have to buy vodka or port wine to forget the embarrassment and nausea. Of course I’d still have Irina, and Bobchik would be alive and well, but he would never grow up to be the man I had wanted him to be. Because I would no longer have the right to want him to be that way. Because he would never be able to be proud of me. Because I would be that papa “who could have made a major discovery, too, but for your sake …” Damn that moment to hell when those stupid M cavities floated up in my brain!
Vecherovsky set the cup of coffee before me, sat down opposite me, and with a precise, elegant motion poured the rest of his cognac into his coffee.
“I’m planning to leave here,” he said. “I’ll probably leave the institute, too. I’ll hole up somewhere far away. In the Pamirs, maybe. I know they need meteorologists for the fall-winter period.”
“What do you know about meteorology?” I asked dully, while I thought: You won’t get away from it in any Pamirs; they’ll find you in the Pamirs, too.
“It’s not a difficult profession,” Vecherovsky countered. “There’s no special qualification for it.”
“It’s stupid,” I said.
“What is, precisely?”
“It’s a stupid idea,” I said. I did not look at him. “What good will it do if you become a routine technician instead of remaining a mathematician? Do you think they won’t find you? They will, and how!”
“And what do you suggest?”
“Throw it all in the incinerator,” I said, barely able to talk. “Weingarten’s revertase, and the Cultural Exchange, and this.” I pushed the envelope toward him across the smooth tabletop. “Throw it all away and concentrate on your own work.”
Vecherovsky looked at me in silence through his powerful lenses, blinking with his singed lashes, then knitted the remains of his brows and stared into his cup.
“You are a top-notch specialist,” I said. “You’re the best in Europe!”
Vecherovsky was silent.
“Y
ou have your work!” I shouted, feeling my throat constrict. “Work! Work, goddamn you! Why did you have to get mixed up with us?”
Vecherovsky gave a long, deep sigh, turned sideways to me, and leaned his head and back on the wall.
“So, you misunderstood,” he said slowly, and there was an unusual and totally out-of-place smugness and satisfaction in his voice. “My work …” Without moving, he squinted an eye in my direction. “They’ve been after me for two weeks because of my work. You have nothing to do with it, my little lambs. You must admit that I have remarkable self-control.”
“Drop dead,” I said, and stood up to leave.
“Sit down!” I sat.
“Pour the cognac in the coffee!” I poured.
“Drink.” I drained the cup, tasting nothing.
“You actor,” I said. “There’s a lot of Weingarten in you sometimes.”
“Yes, there is. And of you, and Zakhar, and Glukhov. There’s more of Glukhov in me than of anyone else.” He carefully poured some more coffee. “Glukhov. The desire for a quiet life, for irresponsibility. Let’s become the grass and the bushes, let’s become water and flowers. I’m probably irritating you?”
“Yes.”
He nodded: “That’s only natural. But there’s nothing you can do. I want to explain to you what’s going on. You seem to think that I’m going to face a tank empty-handed. Nothing of the sort. We are dealing with the laws of nature. It’s stupid to fight the laws of nature. It’s shameful to capitulate before them and, in the long run, stupid, too. The laws of nature must be studied and then put to use. That’s the only possible approach. And that’s what I plan to do.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will in a minute. This law did not manifest itself before our time. To put it more accurately, we had never heard of it. Though it may be no accident that Newton got caught up in interpreting the Apocalypse and Archimedes was cut down by a drunken soldier. Anyway, those are random thoughts. The problem is that the law manifests itself in only one way—through unbearable pressure. Pressure that threatens your mind and even your life. But nothing can be done here. After all, that’s not unique in the history of science. There was the same danger in researching radioactivity, defusing storms, in the theory that there are many inhabited worlds. Perhaps with time we will learn to channel this pressure into harmless areas, and maybe even to harness it for our own goals. But there’s nothing you can do now, the risk must be taken—I repeat, not for the first and not for the last time in the history of science. I want you to understand that there is basically nothing new or unusual in this situation.”