Eugene Vodolazkin - The Aviator

SATURDAY

Yes, Anastasia and I met in 1921. And of course it was not at the rink. It was in a building at the corner of Bolshoy Prospect and Zverinskaya Street, where the Petrograd City Soviet settled my mother and me. They gave us a room in an apartment that was subject to densification. They were densifying the living space of Sergei Nikiforovich Voronin, a professor at the Theological Academy, and his daughter Anastasia. Accordingly, she was Anastasia Sergeyevna. Simply Anastasia, never Nastya. I don’t know why I always called her Anastasia, since she was, after all, six years younger than I. Maybe I especially liked her full name, which I pronounced with delight each time: Anastasia.

Geiger admitted to me that he had no idea how memory was returning in my case. Repeating the flow of events in life itself? Or, most likely, all mixed up, without any order at all? Or perhaps based on whether the events experienced were joyous or sorrowful? It’s characteristic for the consciousness to move the very worst aside, into the far corners of the memory, so when memory collapses, the bad is probably the first to perish. And the joyous remains. And so I remembered Anastasia from the very minute I came to. I could not yet say who she was or what she had been in my life, but I did remember. And simply pronouncing her name made me feel light.

All they left in the apartment for the Voronins was the parlor. The doors to the two adjoining rooms – to the right and the left – were boarded up in our presence. With brownish, unplaned boards over elegant ‘moderne’ doors. A yardman boarded them up as the Voronins, father and daughter, silently watched. My mother and I also stood and watched. The sound of the yardman’s hammer was sometimes deep and harmonious, sometimes surprisingly high-pitched. The yardman was drunk. He was not hitting the nails on the heads and when the nails bent, he would bitterly slam them into the wood as they lay there. Afterward, my bed stood by a boarded-up door and I would examine the embedded nails in the evenings. They irritated me very much. I wanted to exchange those boards for others but I could not come to the decision to tear them down. It was frightening to see the mutilated door under them.

They settled Nikolai Ivanovich Zaretsky, a sausage-factory worker, in the room to the right of the parlor. He was a quiet man but not particularly pleasant. He rarely washed and a persistent stale air emanated from him. In order that his socks not wear out, he didn’t launder them more than necessary, either, though he darned them fairly often, going to the kitchen for that. And so Nikolai Ivanovich primarily darned socks and conversed in the kitchen, eating exclusively in his own room: sausage that he brought from the factory.

They settled my mother and me in the room to the left. Part of Bolshoy Prospect and part of Zverinskaya, the street leading to Peter the Great’s menagerie, were visible out our windows. On the first evening, my mother and I stood by the large windows, gazing at the junction of the two streets. This was like the junction of two rivers, with pedestrians drifting past along the sidewalk and with the unhurried gliding of carriages and autos. The spectacle was entrancing; it was impossible to tear oneself away. A strong October wind was blowing and the window panes tensed under its pressure: the strain was visible. It truly seemed to me that if the wind were to press a bit stronger, the glass would not hold and would spatter an unrefreshing rain on the windowsill, floor, and pedestrians’ heads.

Darkness came gradually and we continued standing and watching as headlights were switched on in the roadway, transforming riders in cars to a stream of fireflies. I thought about how we now had a new view in our windows, that we now had neighbors. A female neighbor… What I had formerly feared (I had never lived with neighbors, after all) had turned into an unexpected joy, though I still had not admitted to myself that it was a joy. Put simply, the thought that Anastasia – whom I had seen – would always be near me now had spread through my body with a palpable physical warmth. On the first floor of the building across the way there shone the shop window of the bookstore ‘Life.’

SUNDAY

The church is standing but there is no service. And bells melted by fire are lying there: they fell from burned beams. In the middle is a large bell with a deep crack. The clapper of a small bell is fused to it, though the smallest bell is not there. You might wonder if it ran away. Seeing a shapeless ingot next to it, though, you realize: there it is, the small bell. And you think: today, then, is Sunday, and it’s too bad there’s no service, so you silently recite the Lord’s Prayer. There are traces of the fire on the church walls. It didn’t burn recently, though the smell of burning remains. There is a pile of scorched books by the stairway leading into the church: the smell most likely comes from them.

You furtively approach the pile: some of the books are almost untouched by fire, and everything is legible: Grant repose with the saints, O Christ, for Your servant’s soul, that there be no illness nor grief nor sighing… And what should be done for the living, for whom things are sometimes worse than for the departed? Who have sickness and sorrow? And sighing? You look: the altar book of the Gospels. Half-burned. You run your fingers through the ashes and then touch your lips to the book, unnoticed, as if kissing it.

‘Platonov, why are your lips black?’

Who’s asking? And why should he care about my lips?

‘No reason, they turned black from something. Maybe from life.’

I look around – there is such God-given beauty. Sea, setting sun. And if you climb the mountain, it is evident that this is an island. A piece of dry land surrounded by sky. No waves, the surface doesn’t stir, it’s as if it’s polished. This is what watery calm is. And the sun’s path on the water: angels flying. It’s frightening because as soon as the path disappears, everything will submerge into darkness and it is unknown to anyone what will commence in place of that beauty. And it is also unknown who will fly there instead of angels. That must be why daytime was not so bad for Robinson, but sunset was genuinely frightening. The very thought of descending into darkness is what clenches the heart like a vise – it is frightening and you restrain yourself with all your might so as not to scream.

Nurse Valentina ran into my room when she heard my scream. She embraced me and kissed my forehead. She took a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped my tears. She pressed another handkerchief to my nose.

‘Blow your nose, sir!’

‘But we agreed to speak informally…’

‘Then just blow your nose!’

I blew my nose. After all, it’s impossible to blow your nose into the hand of someone speaking to you in formal terms.

‘Did you have a bad dream?’ Valentina is looking at me, not blinking. ‘Did you have a dream? Tell me.’

‘I had a dream. Or maybe something was recalled.’

‘Something was recalled? Well, that’s important.’

‘An island. A weighty sensation.’

‘What island? Do you remember the name?’

‘Uninhabited. Don’t torment me. Lie down with me.’

Valentina lies down with me and strokes my hair.

‘Maybe you dreamt you’re Robinson Crusoe? Cases like this are not so unusual. When a person has few of his own life impressions.’

‘Maybe that’s what I dreamt. Be silent… Pray for me and be silent.’

MONDAY

In the evenings, Zaretsky quietly drank vodka and snacked on sausage. The sound of a hook-and-eye latch closing, the rustle of a newspaper spread out, the gurgle of fire water. A drunk Zaretsky once told me he carried sausage out through the guardhouse in his drawers. He girded himself with a string under his shirt. He tied the sausage, which was on a thread, to the string in the front and stuck it into his drawers.