Vladimir Savchenko: Self-discovery

The sun was setting. Kravets got up, brushed off his trousers, and went up the path, not knowing where or why. Loose change jangled in his pockets. He counted it: enough for a pack of cigarettes and a very light supper. “And then?” Two young coeds, comfortably studying for exams on a bench in the bushes, looked with interest at the handsome young man, shook their heads to dispel evil thoughts, and went back to their notes. “Mmm… I guess I won’t be completely lost. Should I go see Lena? But she’s probably under surveillance, and they’ll catch me….”

The path led out onto a quiet, uninhabited street. Branches heavy with ripening cherries hung over the fences. At the street’s end, a cloud blazed, underlit with red.

It was getting dark fast. The evening coolness was creeping up under his shirt, onto his bare chest. On the opposite side of the street, a half block away from Victor, two men in caps walked out of the shadows. “Police!” Kravets ducked into an alley. He ran a block and then stopped to calm his heart.

“To think of it! I’ve never run from anyone in twenty years, and now I’m like a boy chased out of somebody’s yard.” His helplessness and degradation made the desire for a cigarette unbearable. “The game is lost. I just have to admit that and leave. Follow my feet. After all, everyone of us has experienced the desire to get away from some situation or other. Now it’s my turn, damn it! What else can I do?”

The alley led out into the glow of blue lights. The sight brought on a wave of animal hunger: he hadn’t eaten in twenty — four hours. “Hm… so there are restaurants still open. I’ll go. Nobody’s going to look for me on Marx Prospect.”

The concrete posts extended their snake — headed street lights over the pavement. In the store windows elegant dummies stood in casual poses; radios, televisions, and pots and pans shone brightly; bottles of Sovetskoe Champagne beckoned, and cans of fish and preserves tumbled in artful disarray. Under the blazing neon sign that read: “Here’s what you can win for thirty kopeks!” glistened a Dniepr refrigerator, and Dniepr — 12 tape recorder, a Dniepr sewing machine, and a Slavutich — 409 automobile. Even the trimmed lindens along the wide sidewalks looked like industrial products.

Victor stepped out onto the most crowded area, the three — block stretch between the Dynamo Restaurant and the Dniepr movie theater. There were plenty of pedestrians. Unkempt young men, trying to pass for bohemian artists, walked stiffly down the street, their eyes glazed. Elderly couples moved at a dignified pace. Dandies, arms around their girl friends, headed for the park. Men with bangs over their shifty eyes darted in and out of the crowd — the kind who don’t work anywhere but have connections. Girls carefully balanced their various hairdos, including such masterpieces of tonsorial art as “cavewoman,” “after a ladies’ free — for — all,” and “let them love me for my mind.” Young singles wandered around, torn between desire and shyness.

Kravets first walked around circumspectly, but then he became angry.

“Look at all of them walking around, to show themselves off and to see others. It’s as though time has stopped for them, and nothing is happening. They used to stroll down this street when it was called Gubernatorskaya, before the Revolution — wearing out the wooden sidewalks, checking out fashions and each other. And they strolled after the war — from the ruins of the Dynamo Restaurant to the ruins of the Dniepr Theater under the lights hanging by a single wire, cracking their sunflower seeds. They’ve paved the avenue, dressed it in high rises made of concrete, aluminum, and glass, lit it up, planted trees and flowers — and they stroll around, sucking caramels, listening to their transistors, proving the indomitability of the consumer spirit! Show themselves off, look at others, look at others, and show themselves off. Take a walk, drop in at the automat, consume a meat pie, walk around, drop in at the well — tended toilet behind the post office, take care of their needs, take a walk, have a drink, meet someone, take a walk… an insect’s life!”

He circumvented the crowd that had collected on the corner of Engels Street near the lottery ticket vending machine. The machine, made to look like a cyborg, played music, hawked customers with a recorded voice, and for two five — kopek pieces, after wildly spinning a wheel made out of glass and chrome, dispensed a “lucky” ticket. Kravets gritted his teeth.

“And we, we idiots, decided to transform people with mere laboratory technology! What can we do with these consumers? What has changed for them is the fact that there are taxis instead of hackney cabs, semitransistorized tape recorders instead of accordions, telephones instead of “face — to — face” gossip, and synthetic raincoats to wear in good weather instead of new rubber galoshes? They used to sit around their samovars and now they spend evenings around the TV.”

He heard snatches of conversation from the crowd: “Just between us, I can tell you frankly: a man is a man, and a woman is a woman.” “So he says ‘Valya? and I say ‘No. He says ‘Lusya? and I say ‘No.

He says ‘Sonya? and I say ‘No. “Abram went oh a business trip, and his wife….” “Learn to be satisfied with the present moment, girls!” “And what will change as a result of progress in science and technology? So the store windows will overflow with polyester clothes, atomic wristwatches that never need winding, and with solid — state refrigerators and microwave ovens. Luminescent plastic moving sidewalks will transport pedestrians from the 3 — D Dniepr Theater to the fully automated Dynamo Restaurant — they won’t even have to use their legs. They’ll take strolls with microelectric walkie — talkies so that they won’t even have to turn to their friends or risk tiring their voices to exchange such brilliant gems as:

‘Just between us, I can tell you frankly: a robot is a robot, and a mezzanine is a mezzanine! ‘Abram went off to an antiworld, and his wife….

Team to be satisfied with the present microsecond! “And a vending machine made to look like a space ship will sell ‘Greetings from Venus! postcards: a view of the Venerian space port framed by kissing doves. And so what?”

Harry Haritonovich Hilobok paraded past Kravets. A girl weak with laughter was hanging from his arm. The assistant professor was busy amusing her and didn’t notice the fugitive student duck into the shadows of the lindens. “Harry has a new one,” thought Kravets, laughing. He bought some cigarettes at a kiosk, lit one, and moved on. He was engulfed in such anger that he lost his appetite, and if he had fallen into the arms of the operatives, there would have been quite a brawl.

There was no room at the Theater Hotel either. The arrival walked along the prospect in the direction of the House of the Collective Farmer, grumpily observing the people around him.

Walk, walk, walk… every city in every country has a street where the populace walks in the evenings, back and forth, the crowd becoming a single entity. Show themselves, look at each other. Walk, walk, walk — and the planet trembles under their feet! It must be some collective instinct that lures them here, like the swallows to Capistrano. And others sit in front of the TV. How many of them are there, people who have relegated themselves to rot away? (‘We know how to do something; we make good money; we have everything we need; we live no worse than others — so leave us alone!) Solitary people, afraid to be alone with themselves, confused by the complexity of life and unwilling to think about it. They remember the one rule of safety: to be happy in life you must be like everybody else. So they walk around and look to see how everybody else is. They expect a revelation.