Eugene Vodolazkin - The Aviator

When we happened upon one another the first time, Anastasia begged my pardon for her appearance: she thought everyone was asleep. I answered that she needn’t worry – somehow I answered excessively ardently and she cast me a surprised glance. When we happened upon each other after that, Anastasia would be in her nightshirt then, too, but not beg my pardon again. She probably already understood that we were not happening upon one another by chance. And also understood that the nightshirt became her very nicely: it was silky, flowing from her angular shoulders.

She would stand with her back to the kitchen cupboard, pressing her palms into the counter. Her fingers stroked the brown wood (long fingers). This is how our nighttime conversations began; there had never been quieter conversations in my life. We spoke in whispers in order not to wake anyone. Whispering – to say nothing of nighttime whispering- is a special kind of communication. Even if you’re speaking of usual things in that manner, they begin to look utterly different. And we were speaking of unusual things.

Gazing at Anastasia’s smooth skin, I remembered the watermelon rinds again. Surprising myself, I asked her:

‘Do you not fear growing old?’

She was not surprised. She shrugged.

‘It’s not old age I fear… It’s death. It’s scary to not be.’

‘So would you be prepared to not die but instead keep aging and aging?’

‘I don’t know.’ Anastasia smiled. ‘But why must one keep aging in order not to die?’

‘Well, everything has its cost.’

‘Not everything. A gift has none. If I were given the gift of not dying, without any conditions at all…’

‘Then what?’

‘Then I’d live!’ She said this with a laugh, almost shouting, then was scared and pressed a finger to her mouth. ‘Everybody will come running now…’

Nobody came running.

SATURDAY

My normal temperature has held these last three days, so Geiger decided to arrange an outing for me in the hospital courtyard. They dressed me for a long time, painstakingly. The main thing is that they dressed me unusually. In a jacket of incomprehensible material; Geiger called it a puffer jacket. It looks a little bit like what people going to one of the poles wear. Boots with a zipper fastener. That fastener resonated within my memory but not being sewn on boots. I tried fastening and unfastening it several times – it’s splendid. Geiger is very afraid of exposing me to coldness or disease. According to him, this is one of the reasons my contact with the outside world is so extremely limited. On the other hand, if everything goes smoothly, daily outings are to be expected.

I panted from the sharpness of the air when I went out into the courtyard. Tears came. I saw several pairs of eyes at the hospital windows, looking at me. They hid when I raised my head. That means there are people here after all.

The snow crunched. I could see my breath. I took off my gloves and rubbed my face with snow (Geiger had requested I wear gloves). I swung a maple branch, creating snowfall. We stood – Geiger, Valentina, and I – covered in snow. Laughing.

And I don’t even like snow. On the island, the snow would often stay for as long as half the year. You’d walk around in it wearing cloth shoes tied up with twine (what kind of boots with zippers could we have had there?) and nobody was particularly interested in whether or not you came down with a cold. And there was snow to the waist if you were the first in your brigade to walk along an untrodden path. Even if people walked there yesterday, drifts formed again during the night. You strode as broadly as possible in order to conquer as much distance as possible in one stride. Pitch black, advancing by feel, always knocking a foot into stumps that have drowned in the snow. And there was a two-handled saw in your hands. If you caught a foot on a stump, you and the saw would fall, and you’d think: if snow could somehow dust the top of me, so they don’t find me until spring. And I could not be held accountable: what would be left of me in the spring?

I had seen the corpses they found in the spring – they were called snowdrops – their eyes pecked out and their ears gnawed off. In order, one might think, that even the dead would no longer see the group being escorted, no longer hear the foul language. One time or other, I had to drag a frozen person to the trench containing the corpses. I held him under the arms (by then I was not squeamish) but his feet bounced on the hummocks. I dragged and was a bit envious of him: this life no longer concerned him but it still concerned me.

There were times when people froze in the forest. Not through some decision that had matured, but from exhaustion. They’d walked off to the side a little, sat on the ground with no strength left, and freezing was probably easier for them than standing and continuing to work. The sleep-deprived sat for a quick rest… and fell asleep. And froze, since sleep is no hindrance for death. Snow drifted over them quickly: just try and find them later. They generally didn’t search much for people like that, understanding they had frozen rather than run away; there was nowhere to run to on the island. They knew they’d find them in spring.

Geiger said that if the outing went well, I’d go out every day. As I looked at him, I thought about how he probably lies with Valentina the same way I do. Meaning not exactly the same – oh, no, not exactly the same, I can guess how… A hospital is good for romances because it has many beds.

SUNDAY

Today they installed a television in my room. Geiger explained for a long time about how it’s constructed and how to handle it. I learned fairly quickly. I think Geiger was slightly disappointed when he watched how confidently I pressed the remote. He had counted on my surprise being great. Yes, it is essentially great. But moving pictures had surprised me more back in the day, not to mention that the screen was immeasurably larger then. Though it had no sound.

‘The word is cumbersome,’ I told Geiger about the television.

‘Call it TV,’ he said.

There’s something veal-like about that, so I’ll think a little more about whether it’s worth saying or not. Geiger and I watched a story about the news. I hardly understood anything, largely because I was thinking about the sounds the television made: words, music, the wail of sirens. Yes, it’s a completely different matter with sound…

‘What’s a default?’ I asked.

‘Money was devalued last summer.’

‘And what can be done now?’

‘Probably steal less. But that’s impossible in Russia.’

This is already the second time I’m hearing from him about stealing. People have always stolen, though: in 1999, in 1899, and in all the other years, too. Why does that offend him so much? Because he’s German? Germans, I think, don’t undertake that on such a scale, so they’re surprised it’s possible to steal so wholeheartedly. That’s surprising for us, too, but we steal.

There are buildings on the television screen. There’s none of the past monumentality about them, they’re somehow light; it’s surprising they’re even standing. There’s a lot of glass and metal. Sometimes one cannot understand the architectural way of thinking – it’s something glassed-in. I feel Geiger’s gaze.

‘Do you like it?’ He’s asking about the buildings.

‘I’m used to masonry buildings,’ I answer. ‘I’m used to a sloping roof.’

‘Well, this is Moscow they’re showing. Everything’s the way you like it in Petersburg. You’ll see for yourself when you start going outside.’

When will I begin going out? I wanted to ask.

I did not ask. I pretended to be fascinated by the television.