Eugene Vodolazkin: The Aviator

They give us hot milk with honey before bed. I don’t really like hot milk but it evokes no protest after the flight over the gulf, after the sea breeze in my face. Seva and I – despite the fact that the milk has barely begun cooling – drink it in big, loud mouthfuls. A Finnish milkmaid brings the milk and it truly is very delicious, especially when it’s not hot. The Finnish woman gets tangled up in her Russian words as she praises her cow. I imagine that the cow resembles the milkmaid herself: huge and unhurried, with wide-set eyes and a taut udder.

Seva and I share a room in a turret. It has a panoramic view (forest behind, sea ahead), something that is not unimportant for experienced aviators. The weather can be evaluated at any time: fog over the sea means a likelihood of rain, whitecaps on the waves and the rocking of pine-tree tops mean a gale-force wind. The pines and the waves change their appearance in the dusk of a white night. It’s not quite that a threat appears in them, no: they simply lose their daytime kindness. It is akin to experiencing anxiety when watching a smiling person who has become pensive.

‘Are you already asleep?’ Seva whispers.

‘No,’ I say, ‘but I plan to be.’

‘I saw a giant outside,’ says Seva, pointing at the window opposite the sea.

‘It’s a pine tree. Go to sleep.’

A few minutes later, I can hear Seva’s loud breathing. I look at the window Seva pointed to. And I see a giant.

MONDAY

Monday is a rough day… That’s one more set phrase from my poor head. Are there many more of them in there? I wonder. There are no longer people or events, but words remain, there they are. Words are probably the last to disappear, especially the written word. It is possible Geiger himself does not completely understand what a profound idea this writing is. Maybe it’s words that will turn out, at some point, to be the thread that will manage to drag out everything that happened? Not just with me but everything there ever was at all. A rough day… I, however, am feeling a lightness, even a sort of joy. I think it’s because I am expecting to see Valentina. I attempted to stand up but felt dizzy and then the lightness disappeared. The joy did not disappear, though.

Valentina pinched my cheek when she entered, which was very nice. Surprising aromas, completely unfamiliar to me, emanate from her. Perfume, soap? Valentina’s natural properties? It is awkward to ask and unnecessary, too. Everything should have its secrets, especially a woman… That’s a set phrase, too. I can sense it is!

Here’s another one I liked very much: ‘Metal conducts heat quickly.’ It may not be the most prevalent phrase, but it’s one of the first I heard. We’re sitting who’d know where or with whom, stirring tea with little spoons. I’m about five years old, I think, no more, and there’s an embroidered pillow on the chair under me (I can’t reach the table) and I’m stirring tea like an adult. The glass itself is in a metal holder. The spoon is hot. I drop it into the glass with a jingle and blow on my fingers. ‘Metal conducts heat quickly,’ says a pleasant voice. Beautifully, scientifically. I repeated that in similar circumstances until I was about twelve.

No, that is not the earliest. ‘Go intrepidly,’ that is the earliest. We are entering someone’s house at Christmas. A taxidermied bear stands on its hind legs by the staircase, holding a tray in its front paws.

‘What is the tray for?’ I ask.

‘For visiting cards,’ answers my father.

My fingers plunge into the dense bear fur for a moment. Why does the bear need visiting cards (we’re walking up the marble steps) and what are visiting cards? I repeat those two words a few times and slip, but I’m dangling on my father’s arm. As I swing, I contemplate the runner rug on the marble: it’s fastened with golden rods and it’s a little curled on the sides and swinging, too. My father’s laughing face. We enter a brightly lit hall. Christmas tree, round dance. My hands are sticky from someone’s perspiration; I think it’s repulsive, but I cannot unclench my hands and cannot leave the round dance. Someone says I’m the smallest in attendance (we are now already sitting on chairs around the Christmas tree). He somehow knows I can recite poems and asks me to say one. And all the others ask loudly, too. An old man wearing an ancient uniform appears next to me; there are medals under his split beard.

‘This,’ they say, ‘is Terenty Osipovich Dobrosklonov.’

An empty space forms around us. I look silently at Terenty Osipovich. He’s standing, leaning on a cane and bending slightly to the side, so the thought even flashes that he could fall. He does not fall.

‘Go intrepidly,’ Terenty Osipovich advises me.

I run from the invitation, through an enfilade of rooms, my head bending and arms spread wide, noticing how my reflection flashes in the mirrors and crockery clinks in cabinets. A fat cook lady catches me in the final room. She solemnly carries me out to the hall, pressing me to her apron (the nauseating scent of the kitchen). She places me on the floor.

‘Go intrepidly,’ Terenty Osipovich’s instruction sounds again.

I do not even go, I take off, ascending under someone’s efforts to a bentwood chair and reciting a poem for those gathered. I remember it was not long at all… Then the thunder of applause plus the gift of a teddy bear. What did I recite to them then? Happy, I make my way through a crowd of admirers, my gaze thanking those responsible for my success: the cook and Terenty Osipovich, who fortified me with words.

‘I did tell you,’ he says, his hand sliding along the two ends of his beard: ‘Go intrepidly.’

That was not always how my life worked out.

TUESDAY

Geiger likes my descriptions. He said the almighty god of details is guiding my hand. It’s a good image: Geiger can be poetic.

‘Maybe I was a writer before I lost my memory?’ I say. ‘Or a newspaper reporter?’

He shrugs his shoulders.

‘Or something else: an artist, for example. I would say your descriptions are very visual.’

‘So an artist or a writer?’

‘A chronicler of lives. We agreed, after all, that there won’t be any hints about the main things.’

‘And you reduced the staff to two people for that reason?’

‘Yes, so that nobody lets anything slip. The most reliable pair remains.’

He laughs.

Geiger leaves after lunch. I see him in the hallway when Valentina comes in – he is wearing his coat and has his hat in his hands. I hear his steps fade, first on this floor, then on the stairs. I have not asked Valentina to lie down with me for two days, though I have dreamt of it. Despite Geiger’s permission (or contrary to it?). But now I ask.

And here she is, already next to me, her hand in my hand. A lock of her hair tickles my ear. The thought that we might be caught at this would be difficult for me. Something else – wrong, maybe even indecent – would not be awful since indecent is the first thing that would be expected but at this… After all, everything is so subtle here, so timid and inexplicable, and the feeling won’t leave me that this already happened at some time. I ask Valentina if she has done anything like this before, if she has any blurry recollections on that score, not recollections even, but guesses. No, she answers, I haven’t, basically nothing like this has ever happened, where would the recollections come from?

That’s how it was for me, after all: I truly had not just thought it up. We had been lying like that on the bed, motionless, hand in hand, temple to temple. I could not swallow my saliva right then; I was afraid she would hear the sound of swallowing, so I purposely coughed to justify that sound; that is how nonmaterial our relations were. I would also be afraid a joint would crack: then all the airiness, all the fragility, of our relations would be ruined immediately. There was nothing bodily about them. Her wrist, her little finger, the nail on that finger – as small as a flake of pearl, smooth, pearlescent – that was enough. I write and my hand shakes. Yes, it is from weakness, from fever, but it is also from the great strain of feelings. And also because my memory is hiding everything else from me. What was that?