Jennifer duBois - A Partial History of Lost Causes

“No,” said Ivan, resigned to answering rhetorical questions. “What was the funny thing?”

“The funny thing, Ivan, is that I finally started to wonder if I actually was mad. You’d think I’d have a pretty good handle on my own sanity, but not so. Having everybody treat you as though you’re crazy is an interesting psychological experiment. Everyone should try it sometime. And wondering whether I was crazy made me crazy. I started to get obsessed with my own language, with forming words perfectly. I rehearsed what I’d say to the nurses in my head all day, writing it down, getting it right. I pored over sentence construction and grammar. I had it in my head, see, that this problem of mine — this failure to communicate — was just a sort of mechanical malfunction.”

Ivan shook his head and pressed his soaking fingers against his temples. Nikolai glared at the green light above Misha’s head. Aleksandr stared straight at Misha, trying to form his jumbled face into a shape he might someday remember.

“But when I tried to talk to the nurses at the end of the day,” said Misha, “they blinked at me. Or they petted me cruelly, like I was a stupid dog that the whole family loves to make a joke of. I started to chew my hands. After that, I stopped trying. I stayed very quiet and still and mostly spent my days looking out the window. I made up mental games to pass the time: in my head, I’d replace all the greens in the courtyard with reds, and all the browns with blues, until I created a new design to look at. I counted the words spoken to me in a day — let it be known, friends, that it wasn’t that many. When my bedmate addressed me as Stalin, I started to answer.”

Ivan brought his hand to Misha’s shoulder, to the place where the reef of his clavicle disappeared under his thin shirt.

“Eventually, once they’re quite sure all your mental resources are spent, they’ll come invite you to talk. Everything is up to you, they’ll say. Do you like coffee, tea, meat? Let’s go get some, shall we? We might be able to find civilian clothing in your size. That Ukrainian you room with? You know how much he hates Russians? You have a real shot at rehabilitation, Misha. The others, no — but you, you’re special. And then they’ll take you out, and maybe you’ll say some things, and maybe some of them will be about your Ukrainian roommate, and maybe they’ll be true or maybe they won’t be, but it won’t matter to you anymore. You care only about this promised tea. It becomes the highlight of your week. You wait for it like a schoolgirl waiting for her young man. You wait for it like a dog waiting for his bell.

“And so when I was released — abruptly on a Tuesday, with no warning, just handed the clothes I’d come in wearing and given a discharge form and no responses to my questions — I found myself clinging to the bars of my bed. It was just past lunchtime, you see, and I’d been looking forward to my pill. So you’ll have to forgive me if I’m somewhat skeptical about your efforts here. Your discretion. All due respect, Vanya, of course.”

Aleksandr looked to see what Nikolai and Ivan would do. Nikolai gulped the last of his vodka. Ivan pressed his hands into Misha’s shoulders as though offering some kind of atheistic benediction, then removed them.

“Well,” he said. “I suppose I can see your point.”

In the apartment the following week, surrounded by great stacks of waxy carbon paper, Aleksandr told Ivan what Elizabeta had said, and Ivan told Aleksandr to stop worrying. “Look,” he said. “If they want to get us, they’ll get us.”

Misha had gone to stay with his mother, who cried when she saw him and tried to buy him all the potatoes that were left at the market. Work on the next issue had been suspended for a few days. Nikolai and Ivan skulked around Ivan’s apartment looking shifty and depressed. Aleksandr spent most days that week sitting in a corner of Ivan’s apartment, pretending to play a game of chess against himself but really thinking secret thoughts about Elizabeta. After a week Ivan stood up, slapped himself lightly on the face, and said enough was enough. They had to keep working, he said, if only because none of them had anything better to do.

Ivan placed a sheet of carbon paper in the typewriter and started to recopy the issue. The copying required attention, but almost nothing could keep Ivan from talking when he wanted to. “They’ve probably got bigger problems than us. More expedient examples to make,” he said. The typewriter issued a shuddering whinny. “Goddammit.” He tore the paper from the typewriter, tossed it in a parabolic arc toward the trash, then looked at Aleksandr, who was sitting on a pile of books and stroking Natasha with his toe. “Honestly, I don’t know what I pay you for.”

“You don’t pay me.”

“Oh. That’s right. I knew there was a reason.” Ivan inserted a new piece of paper, and his typing became rhythmic and impressively fast, as though he were playing a sonata on the typewriter. “Where did you hear this, anyway?”

“Elizabeta. My friend. What? She lives in my building. What?”

“ Who is this woman?”

“In my building. Like I said.”

“Something you want to tell me, Alyosha?”

“No.”

Ivan’s face was awash with glee, and Aleksandr knew that was a bad sign. “I trust you’ve been following the recent reports on sex in the Soviet Union.”

Aleksandr shook his head miserably.

“You haven’t? Oh, how have you missed it? It was in all the papers. The Party has found that premarital sex causes impotence, neuroticism, and frigidity. The Party has determined that the ideal length of the sex act is no longer than two minutes. I think it very wise that you consult these findings before getting to know your friend any better.”

“Stop it.”

“At least you’re not living in an Intourist hotel where all the prostitutes are KGB.”

“You need to stop it, please.”

“Okay. For now. So, you heard this from your friend Elizabeta. And how did she hear it?”

Aleksandr swallowed and pulled at his thumb. “From someone she knows.”

“An official?”

“I don’t know.” The cat issued a high-pitched protest, and Aleksandr realized he’d been stroking her too hard with his foot.

Ivan raised his eyebrows and let a small percentage of the amusement go out of his voice. “Okay,” he said. “And how did she figure out you were involved?”

“Because of the chess essay. Because of my schedule.”

“She must be paying very close attention to your schedule.”

Aleksandr swung off the book pile he was sitting on and stood up. “I guess so.”

“They know. Of course they know. But I don’t flatter myself that we’re worth the trouble yet.”

The typewriter clicked and whirred.

“Seen Misha lately?” Aleksandr said after a moment.

“I brought him a tart yesterday. He’s still furious, still crazy. He keeps raving about these big plans to do something serious, something disruptive. They took away his internal passport, you know, and gave him a wolf ticket. He’ll never work. His poor mother just sits and tries to get him to stop talking. He still weighs about six kilos. I think he’s developed a morphine addiction. I don’t know how he manages to keep talking as much as he does.”

“Aren’t you worried about it?”

“I don’t worry, if you’ve noticed. Misha’s not going to do anything that gets him put back there.” Ivan stood up quickly and turned on the television. It was Vremya. It was always Vremya. A sour-faced anchor issued a battery of talking points. Ivan turned down the volume and handed Aleksandr a sheaf of papers. “Here. There are five. Do Vasilevsky Island, and when you come back, I’ll have five more. And Aleksandr? It probably makes sense for you to try to ask your friend Elizabeta exactly where she heard this. Just for security purposes.” Ivan winked.