Tatyana Tolstaya - White Walls - Collected Stories

His friend explained their visit. He was visibly nervous: even though they had been at college together, all those pens… N. was clear and precise. Get all possible analyses. Chest X rays—profile and frontal. Get transferred to the institute by your local hospital, without making a fuss, put the reason: for tests. And at the institute, go to Dr. Ivanov. Yes, Ivanov. Have one hundred fifty rubles ready in an envelope. That’s basically it. That’s what I did. There may be other ways, I don’t know.

Yes, quick and painless. I’m satisfied.

“So, they cut it out?”

“I’d say, tear it out. Extract it. Clean, hygienic.”

“And afterward… did you see it? After the extraction?”

“What for?”

N. was insulted. Ignatiev’s friend kicked him: indecent questions!

“Well, to know what it was like,” Ignatiev said embarrassedly. “You know, just…”

“Who could possibly be interested in that? Excuse me…” N. lifted the edge of his cuff: a massive gold timepiece was revealed. With an expensive strap. Did you see, did you notice? The audience was over.

“Well, what did you think?” His friend peered into his face as they walked along the embankment. “Are you convinced? What do you think?”

“I don’t know yet. It’s scary.”

Headlights splashed in the black river waves. Depression, his evening girlfriend, was creeping up on him. Peeking out from behind the rain gutter pipe, running across the wet pavement, blending into the crowd, watching constantly, waiting for Ignatiev to be alone. Windows were lighting up, one after another.

“You’re in bad shape, Ignatiev. Decide. It’s worth it.”

“I’m scared. This way I feel bad, the other way I’m scared. I keep thinking, what happens later? What comes after? Death?”

“Life, Ignatiev! Life! A healthy, superior life, not just chicken scratching. A career. Success. Sport. Women. Get rid of complexes and neuroses! Just look at yourself: what are you? A wimp. Coward! Be a man, Ignatiev! A man! That’s what women want. Otherwise, what are you? Just a rag!”

Yes, women. Ignatiev drew Anastasia and grew lonely. He remembered her last summer, leaning toward a mirror, radiant, plump, her reddish hair tossed back, putting on carrot-colored lipstick, her lips in a convenient cosmetic position, talking in spurts, with pauses.

“I doubt. That you’re. A man. Ignatiev. Because men. Are. Decisive. And-by-the-way-change-that-shirt-if-you-have-any-hopes-at-all.” And her red dress burned like a flower.

And Ignatiev was ashamed of his tea-colored short-sleeved silk shirt, which used to belong to his father. It was a good shirt, long-wearing; he had gotten married in it and had welcomed Valerik home from the hospital in it. But if a shirt stands between us and the woman we love, we’ll burn the shirt—even if it’s made of diamonds. And he burned it. And it helped for a short while. And Anastasia loved him. But now she was drinking red wine with others and laughing in one of the lit windows of this enormous city, he didn’t know which one, but he looked for her silhouette in each one. And—not to him, but to others, shifting her shoulders under the lace shawl, on the second, seventh, sixteenth floor—she was saying her shameless words: “Am I really very pretty?”

Ignatiev burned his father’s tea-colored shirt; its ashes fall on the bed at night, depression sprinkles him with it, softly sowing it through half-shut fist. Only the weak regret useless sacrifices. He will be strong. He will burn everything that erects obstacles. He’ll grow into the saddle, he’ll tame the evasive, slippery Anastasia. He will lift the claylike, lowered face of his beloved, exhausted wife. Contradictions won’t tear him apart. The benefits will balance clearly and justly. Here is your place, wife. Reign. Here is your place, Anastasia. Rule. And you: smile, little Valerik. Your legs will grow strong and your glands will stop swelling, for Papa loves you, you pale city potato seedling. Papa will be rich, with pens. He will call in expensive doctors in gold-rimmed glasses with leather cases. Carefully handing you from one to the other, they will carry you to the fruity shores of the eternally blue sea, and the lemony, orangey breeze will blow the dark circles away from your eyes. Who’s that coming, tall as a cedar, strong as steel, with his step springy, knowing no shameful doubts? That’s Ignatiev. His path is straight, his income high, his gaze confident. Women watch him pass. Shoo!… Down a green carpet, in a red dress, Anastasia floats toward him nodding through the fog, smiling her shameless smile.

“I’ll at least get started on the paperwork. That takes ages,” Ignatiev said. “And then I’ll see.”

Ignatiev’s appointment was for eleven, but he decided to go early. A summer morning chirped outside the kitchen window. Water trucks sprayed brief coolness in rainbow fans, and Life cheeped and hopped in the tangled tree branches. Behind his back, sleepy night seeped through the netting, whispers of depression, foggy pictures of misery, the measured splash of waves on a dull deserted shore, low, low clouds. The silent ceremony of breakfast took place on a corner of the oilcloth—an old ritual whose meaning is forgotten, purpose lost; what remains is only the mechanical motions, signs, and sacred formulas of a lost tongue no longer understood by the priests themselves. His wife’s exhausted face was lowered. Time had long since stolen the pink flush of youth from the thousand-year-old cheeks and their branched fissures…. Ignatiev raised his hand, cupped it, to caress the parchment tresses of the beloved mummy—but his hand encountered only the sarcophagus’ cold. Frozen cliffs, the jangle of a lone camel’s bridle, the lake, frozen solid. She did not lift her face, did not lift her eyes. The mummy’s wrinkled brown stomach: dried up, sunken, the sliced-open rib cage filled with balsamic resins, stuffed with dry tufts of herbs; Osiris is silent. The dry members are tightly bound with linen strips marked with blue signs: asps, eagles, and crosses—the sneaky, minuscule droppings of ibis-headed Toth.

You don’t know anything yet, my dear, but be patient: just a few more hours, and the shackles will burst and the glass vessel of despair will shatter into small, splashing smithereens, and a new, radiant, shining glorious Ignatiev will appear to the boom and roll of drums and the cries of Phrygian pipes, wise, intense, complete; will arrive riding on a white elephant on a rug-covered seat with colored fans. And you will stand at my right, and on my left—closer to the heart—will stand Anastasia; and white Valerik will smile and reach out, and the mighty elephant will kneel and gently swing him in his kind, ornamented trunk, and pass him to Ignatiev’s strong arms, and Ignatiev will raise him above the world—the small ruler, intoxicated by heights—and the exulting nations will cry: ecce homo! Ecce ruler from sea to sea, from edge to edge, to the glowing cupola, the blue curving border of the gold-and-green planet earth.

Ignatiev came early, the hallway outside the office was empty, there was only a blond man hanging around, the one with the ten o’clock appointment. A pathetic blond with shifty eyes, biting his nails, nibbling his cuticle, stoop-shouldered; sitting down, then jumping up and examining closely the four-sided colored lanterns with edifying medical tales: “Unwashed Vegetables Are Dangerous.” “Gleb Had a Toothache.” “And the Eye Had to Be Removed” (If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out). “Give the Dysentery Patient Separate Dishes.” “Air Out Your Home Frequently.” An entry light went on over the door, the blond man groaned softly, patted his pockets, and crossed the threshold. Pathetic, pathetic, miserable man! I’m just like him. Time passed. Ignatiev squirmed, sniffed the medicated air, went to look at the pedagogical lanterns; Gleb’s story interested him. A sick tooth tormented Gleb, but then let up; and Gleb, cheerier, in a jogging suit, played chess with a school friend. But you can’t escape your fate. Gleb suffered great torments, and bound up his face with a cloth, and his day turned to night, and he went to the wise, stern doctor, and the doctor did ease his suffering: he did pull Gleb’s tooth and cast it out; and Gleb, transfigured, smiled happily in the final, bottom illuminated window, while the doctor raised his finger in admonition, bequeathing his time-honored wisdom to new generations.