Arkady Strugatsky - Definitely Maybe

Excerpt 1…. the white July heat, the hottest it had been in two hundred years, engulfed the city. The air shimmered over red-hot rooftops. All the windows in the city were flung open, and in the thin shade of wilting trees, old women sweated and melted on benches near courtyard gates.

The sun charged past the meridian and sank its claws into the long-suffering bookbindings and the glass and polished wood of the bookcases; hot, angry patches of reflected light quivered on the wallpaper. It was almost time for the afternoon siege, for the furious sun to hang dead still in the sky above the twelve-story house across the street and fire endless rounds of heat into the apartment.

Malianov closed the window—both frames—and drew the heavy yellow drapes. Then, hitching up his underpants, he padded over to the kitchen in his bare feet and opened the door to the balcony. It was just after two.

On the kitchen table, among the bread crumbs, was a still life consisting of a frying pan with the dried-up remains of an omelet, an unfinished glass of tea, and a gnawed end of bread smeared with oozing butter.

“No one’s washed up and nothing is washed,” Malianov said to himself.

The sink was overflowing with unwashed dishes. They hadn’t been done in a long time.

The floorboard squeaked, and Kaliam appeared out of nowhere, mad with the heat; he glanced up at Malianov with his green eyes and soundlessly opened and closed his mouth. Then, tail twitching, he proceeded to his dish under the oven. There was nothing on his dish except a few bare fish bones.

“You’re hungry,” Malianov said unhappily.

Kaliam immediately replied in a way that meant, well, yes, it wouldn’t hurt to have a little something.

“You were fed this morning,” said Malianov, crouching in front of the refrigerator. “Or no, that’s not right. It was yesterday morning I fed you.”

He took out Kaliam’s pot and looked into it—there were a couple of scraps and a fish fin stuck to the side. There wasn’t even that much in the refrigerator itself. There was an empty box that used to have some Yantar cheese in it, a horrible-looking bottle with the dregs of kefir, and a wine bottle filled with iced tea. In the vegetable bin, amid the onion skins, a wrinkled piece of cabbage the size of a fist lay rotting and a sprouting potato languished in oblivion. Malianov looked into the freezer—a tiny piece of bacon on a plate had settled in for the winter among the mountains of frost. And that was it.

Kaliam was purring and rubbing his whiskers on Malianov’s bare knee. Malianov shut the refrigerator and stood up.

“It’s all right,” he told Kaliam. “Everything’s closed for lunch now, anyway.”

Of course, he could go over to Moscow Boulevard, where the break was from one to two. But there were always lines there, and it was too far to go in this heat. And then, what a crummy integral that turned out to be! Well, all right, let that be the constant… it doesn’t depend on omega. It’s clear that it doesn’t. It follows from the most general considerations that it doesn’t. Malianov imagined the sphere and pictured the integration traveling over the entire surface. Out of nowhere Zhukovsky’s formula popped into his mind. Just like that. Malianov chased it away, but it came back. Let’s try the conformal representation, he thought.

The phone rang again, and Malianov found himself back in the living room, much to his surprise. He swore, flopped down on the sofa, and reached over for the phone.

“Yes.”

“Vitya?” asked an energetic female voice.

“What number do you want?”

“Is this Intourist?”

“No, a private apartment.”

Malianov hung up and lay still for a while, feeling the nap of the blanket against his naked side and beginning to drip with sweat. The yellow shade glowed, filling the room with an unpleasant yellow light. The air was like gelatin. He should move into Bobchik’s room, that’s what. This room was a steambath. He looked at his desk, heaped with papers and books. There were six volumes just of Vladimir Ivanovich Smirnov. And all those papers scattered on the floor. He shuddered at the thought of moving. Wait a minute, I had a breakthrough before. Damn you and your stupid Intourist, you stupid blockhead. Let’s see, I was in the kitchen and then I ended up in here. Oh yes! Conformal representation! A stupid idea. But I guess it should be looked into.

He got up from the bed with a low groan, and the phone rang again.

“Idiot,” he said to the phone and picked it up. “Hello?”

“Is this the depot? Who’s on the phone? Is this the depot?”

Malianov hung up and dialed the repair service.

“Hello? My number is nine-three-nine-eight-zero-seven. Listen, I already called you last night. I can’t work, I keep getting wrong numbers.”

“What’s your number?” a vicious female voice interrupted.

“Nine-three-nine-eight-zero-seven. I keep getting calls for Intourist and the depot and—”

“Hang up. We’ll check it.”

“Please do,” Malianov said to the dial tone.

Then he slapped over to the table, sat down, and picked up his pen. So-o-o, where did I see that integral? Such a neat little guy symmetrical on all sides… where did I see it? And not even a constant, just a plain old zero! Well, all right then. Let’s leave it in the rearguard. I don’t like leaving anything in the rear, it’s as unpleasant as a rotting tooth.

He began rechecking the previous night’s calculations and he suddenly felt good. It was pretty clever, by God! That Malianov! What a mind! Finally, you’re getting there. And, brother, it looks good. This was no routine “figure of the pivots in a large transit instrument”; this was something that no one had ever done before! Knock on wood. This integral. Damn the integral, full speed ahead!

There was a ring. The doorbell. Kaliam jumped down from the bed and raced to the foyer with his tail in the air. Malianov neatly set down his pen.

“They’re out in full force,” he said.

Kaliam traced impatient circles in the foyer, getting underfoot.

“Ka-al-liam!” Malianov said in a suppressed but threatening tone. “Get out of here, Kaliam!”

He opened the door. On the other side stood a shabby man, unshaven and sweaty, wearing a jacket of indeterminate color that was too small for him. Leaning back to balance the huge cardboard box he was holding, muttering something incomprehensible, he came straight at Malianov.

“You, er…” Malianov mumbled, stepping aside.

The shabby fellow had already penetrated the foyer. He looked to the right, into the room, and turned determinedly to the left, into the kitchen, leaving dusty white footprints on the linoleum.

“Er, just a…” muttered Malianov, hot on his heels.

The man put the box down on a stool and pulled out a batch of receipts from his pocket.

“Are you from the Tenants’ Committee, or what?” For some reason, Malianov thought that perhaps the plumber had finally shown up to fix the bathroom sink.

“From the deli,” the man said hoarsely and handed him two receipts pinned together. “Sign here.”

“What is this?” Malianov asked, and saw that they were order blanks. Cognac—two bottles; vodka… “Wait a minute, I don’t think we ordered anything,” he said.

He saw the tab. He panicked. He didn’t have money like that in the apartment. And anyway, what was going on? His panic-stricken brain flashed vivid pictures of all kinds of complications, like explaining this away, refusing it, arguing, demanding, phoning the store, or maybe even going there in person. But then he saw the purple PAID stamp in the corner of the receipt and the name of the purchaser—I. E. Malianova. Irina! What the hell was going on?