Eugene Vodolazkin: The Aviator

But Platonov is not here, reports the class monitor, he stayed home due to influenza. I dare say they are reading Robinson Crusoe to him. It’s possible a wall clock is audible at the house. His grand mother, continues the monitor, is pressing a pince-nez to her nose so her eyes look large and bugged from the lenses. That is an expressive little picture, agrees the teacher, let us call this the apotheosis of reading (animation in the classroom).

In short, the essence of what happened, says the monitor, boils down to the following. A frivolous young man sets off on an ocean journey and is shipwrecked. He is washed up on an uninhabited island where he remains, without means for existence and – the most important thing – without people. There are no people at all. If he had conducted himself sensibly from the very beginning… I don’t know how to express this, so as not to slip into an instructional tone. It is a sort of parable about a prodigal son.

There is an equation (yesterday’s arithmetic) on the classroom chalkboard; the floorboards retain moisture from the morning cleaning. The teacher vividly imagines Robinson’s helpless floundering as he strives to reach the shore. Aivazovsky’s painting The Ninth Wave helps him see the true scope of the catastrophe. Not one interjection breaks the shaken teacher’s silence. Coach wheels are barely audible outside the double windows.

I myself read from Robinson Crusoe rather often, but you don’t read a whole lot during an illness. Your eyes smart, the lines float. I follow my grandmother’s mouth. She raises a finger to her lips before turning a page. Sometimes she gulps cooled tea and then a barely noticeable spray flies on Robinson Crusoe. Sometimes there are crumbs from rusks eaten between chapters. After returning to health, I carefully page through what was read and brush out dried, flattened particles of bread.

‘I remember many various places and people,’ I nervously announced to Geiger. ‘I remember some sort of statements. Even if my life depended on it, though, I do not remember exactly who said which words. And where.’

Geiger is calm. He hopes this will pass. He does not consider this consequential.

And maybe this truly is not consequential? Perhaps the only thing that matters is that words were uttered and preserved, so questions of ‘where’ and ‘by whom’ are further down the list? I will have to ask Geiger about this; he seems to know everything.

WEDNESDAY

This can happen, too: a picture is completely intact although the words have not been preserved. A person, for example, is sitting in the dusk. He is not switching on the light even though there is already half-darkness in the room: is he economizing or something? A sorrowful immobility. Elbow resting on a table, forehead in repose on palm of hand, little finger sticking out. It is visible even in the darkness that his clothes are in folds, all brownish, to the point of colorlessness, and his face and hand are the only white spot. The person appears to be musing, although in reality he is not thinking about anything, only resting. Maybe he is even saying something but the words are inaudible. In any case, his words are not important to me: who is there for him to talk with, himself? He does not know, after all, that I am observing him and if he happens to be saying any thing, it is not to me. His lips move; he looks out the window. Drops on the glass reflect the luminescence of the street and sparkle with glimmers from carriages. The vent window squeaks.

Up until now, I have seen only two people in my room: Geiger and Valentina. A doctor and a nurse; who else, in actuality, is necessary? I gathered my strength, stood, and walked over to the window: the yard was empty, the snow was knee-deep. One time I went outside my room into the corridor, holding on to the wall, but Valentina appeared immediately: you’re on a bed-rest regime, go back to your room. A regime…

By the way: they both look like they’re from the old regime. When Geiger is not wearing a white coat, without fail he wears a three-piece suit. He reminds me of Chekhov… I kept thinking: who does he remind me of? Chekhov! And he wears a pince-nez, too. Of those alive today, I think I have only seen one on Stanislavsky, but he is a person of the theater… Then again, I would say there is some sort of theatricality in the pair that is treating me. Valentina is every bit the war-time sister of mercy. 1914.I don’t know how they’ll regard this impression of mine: Geiger will read this, we agreed to that. After all, it was he who asked me to write everything down, openly: what I notice, recall, and think, so that’s how I’m writing.

My pencil lead broke today, so I told Valentina. She took something akin to a pencil out of her pocket and held it out to me.

‘That’s funny,’ I say, ‘metal lead, I’ve never seen anything like it.’

Valentina blushed and quickly took the thing back. She brought me another pencil later. Why did she blush? She doesn’t blush when she takes me to the toilet or pulls down my drawers for injections, but come now!, this is a just pencil! There are masses of minor riddles in my life right now that I am powerless to unravel… But she blushes charmingly, to the tips of her ears. Her ears are delicate, elegant. I admired them yesterday when her white kerchief fell off. More precisely, one of them. With her back to me, Valentina leaned over the lamp and the light shone pink through her ear; I wanted to touch it. But dared not. And had not the strength anyway.

I have the strange sensation that I have been lying in this bed for an entire eternity. There’s pain in my muscles when I move an arm or a leg, and my legs feel like jelly if I stand without someone’s aid. Then again, my temperature has lowered a bit: 38.3.

I ask Geiger:

‘So what happened to me, anyway?’

‘That,’ he answers, ‘is something you need to recall, otherwise my consciousness will replace yours. Do you really want that?’

I myself do not know if I want that. Maybe I will turn out to have a consciousness that could stand replacing.

FRIDAY

Regarding the question of consciousness: I lost mine yesterday. Geiger and Valentina had quite a fright. I saw their perturbed faces when I came to: it seems they would have been sorry to lose me. It’s nice when people need you for some reason, even if the reason is nothing personal but only, as they say, pure love of one’s fellow man. Geiger did not return my papers to me all day yesterday. He was apparently afraid I had strained myself with my writings the day before. I lay there, watching flakes of snow fall outside the window. I fell asleep watching. The flakes were still falling when I woke up. Valentina was sitting on a chair beside my bed. She wiped my forehead with a damp sponge. Kiss, I wanted to say, kiss me on the forehead. I did not say that. Because it would have worked out that she had been wiping my forehead before she kissed it. In any case, it’s clear who is kissed on the forehead… I took her by the hand, though, and she didn’t take it away. She just placed our joined hands on my stomach so as not to hold mine hanging. Her palm covered my hand like a little house, the way they teach holding one’s hand to play the pianoforte. If I know things like this, most likely I was taught that at one time, too. After turning my hand over, I drew my index finger along the ceiling of that little house and sensed it jolt, collapse, and sprawl over my palm. And I sensed its warmth.

‘Lie next to me, Valentina,’ I asked of her. ‘I have no indecent thoughts and I am completely harmless, you are aware of that. I simply need for someone to be next to me. Right next to me, other wise I will never warm up. I cannot explain it, but that is how it is.’