Eugene Vodolazkin - The Aviator

I cannot force myself to go to Anastasia’s grave. I am afraid of believing she has died.

WEDNESDAY [INNOKENTY]

Now, as life is settling into a routine little by little, happiness shows through everything, through the most common everydayness, no matter what I do. Everydayness is essentially happiness: to go where you want, read what you want… And, finally, to simply live. But my main happiness is in Nastya and in expecting the child. In the evenings, when I sit with Nastya on the sofa, I caress her belly. Where the changes are still almost unnoticeable. But what is supposedly noticeable – or so Nastya says – is only the fruit of my imagination. Well, fine, she knows better: no matter how you look at it, she knows her belly better.

I think about the little one constantly. I wrote ‘the little one’ just now and it almost seemed as if I was identifying the baby with the male gender. That is not actually how I see things. It even seems that I might want a girl more. She would continue that series: Anastasia, Nastya… It is unclear, however, how she should be named. It’s inconvenient when an entire family carries the same given name.

WEDNESDAY [NASTYA]

Platosha’s favorite topic is the child. That’s a bit unexpected… Where did a man get so much motherliness? It would be more correct to say fatherliness but somehow that doesn’t sound as good. He started caressing my belly in the evenings and it’s ticklish. He asks why I tense up when he touches me. I shrug but I do know why: so I don’t laugh from the ticklishness; the laughter would probably offend him. I’m also afraid of farting. Gas has been bugging me during my pregnancy, especially after supper. I think the gas makes my belly larger and my Platonov takes that as the baby’s growth.

We kept thinking about which apartment it would be better for us to live in now, mine or Platonov’s. We decided on Platonov’s. We – that’s Geiger and I – decided and Platonov didn’t interfere, the sweetheart. Geiger said it’s best for a thawed person to live in familiar surroundings. He’s a real pro so it’s best not to argue with him about the life of the thawed. There’s no need to argue anyway: the apartment on Bolshoy Prospect is better and more comfortable. We can rent out my apartment; why let it sit empty? Although Geiger did wheedle support for Platosha out of the government, it’s already clear now that we can’t get by on that alone. Because our government’s support is pretty listless.

Platonov will have lots of new expenses now he’s a celebrity here. He’ll be quite the awesome partier: just about everybody wants to meet him now. I want for him to be the best. A real social lion, not a Kunstkamera exhibit. The baby and I will just be here for him; we don’t need more than that.

THURSDAY [GEIGER]

I just read that calendar dates reside in linear time but the days of the week are in cyclical time.

Linear time is historical but cyclical time is a closed system. Not even time at all.

Eternity, one might say.

It works out that the history set forth by the three of us isn’t aspiring to go anywhere. It’s the most reliable history.

Maybe it’s not even history.

FRIDAY [INNOKENTY]

Marx. He taught drawing. He was imposing and, yes, there was a striking resemblance to the author of Capital. As a professor of art, he could not help but understand that. Did he hope that the new authorities would not touch a person with an appearance like that or something? Did he joke? Protest? I cannot recall his first name so why not simply call him Marx?

He walks past the easels, swaying. Squeaking the parquet floor. His fat finger scratches a little at his beard. He says:

‘Form floats on the sheet. It is essential to take charge of that format in its entirety and construct a world in it.’

Construct a world. A voice that is muffled, from deep within. As if there is someone else there inside that person, sitting and giving orders.

SATURDAY [GEIGER]

I was at the Platonovs’ today. I’m going to call them both that, even though their marriage is unofficial for now. It’s a good name. Everything that the name Plato comprises carries within itself a shading of wisdom.

Does this couple carry that shading within, too? To some degree, yes. Innokenty by virtue of the circumstances of his life. By the number of things he’s lived through. Nastya by virtue of innate qualities.

I don’t mean to say that Nastya’s wise: it would be silly to say that about a girl. What I have in mind is that she’s arranging their life together rationally. A feminine wisdom or something.

Basically, wisdom is experience more than anything. Experience that’s processed, of course. If there’s no processing, then all the bruises you get are useless.

When I spoke about that out loud, Innokenty objected, saying that processing can happen without bruises, too. That sounds authoritative from the mouth of a person with such baggage in his life. If there aren’t any bruises, though, it’s unclear what to process. Innokenty didn’t really clarify this, and I didn’t even begin to ask.

Then there was a wonderfully tasty supper. Candlelit, by the way. Nastya secured the candles in two holders she’d brought from home. She explained that they were her grandmother’s and asked if Innokenty recognized them. He made an indefinite gesture. Nastya, I think, wanted very much for him to recognize the candleholders.

Of course, he could have recognized them. At least as gratitude for the supper.

After supper they sat on the sofa. I was in a chair. Innokenty didn’t take his hand off Nastya’s belly. I inferred from that that Nastya’s pregnant. I asked about it, as if I were joking. They answered completely seriously: yes, she’s pregnant.

That makes me happy. Very happy. I congratulated them.

At Innokenty’s suggestion, we played lotto. People played that in his day. People don’t play it now but does that really matter? Particularly since it’s so nice to play. So cozy.

As I played, I thought about how Innokenty had earned this coziness like nobody else.

I was also thinking that if I were president, I would make the population of the Russian Federation play lotto in the evenings. Of everything that the authorities could undertake right now, that seems like the best thing.

SUNDAY [INNOKENTY]

We had a nice evening with Geiger yesterday. He became very animated when he learned of Nastya’s pregnancy. Well, yes, it is always pleasant for a natural scientist when someone in his care reproduces: that speaks to good vitality. I am joking. Our relationship with Geiger is human first, then doctorly and all the rest. That has become even more obvious since I left the hospital. He might look a bit aloof but I do know him. He’s a very heartfelt person in his own way.

Geiger’s characteristic love for truisms is another matter. This is, rather, his love for a formula, perhaps even for a phrase. Well, things such as the blood pressure increasing after coffee or, let’s say, punishment following crime. And I read the other day that it turns out that coffee does not always raise blood pressure, far from it. I won’t even speak of crime and punishment.

Geiger recently said of Nastya that she is surprisingly pragmatic for her age, that young people grow up fast. Someone on the outside might think that’s praise but I have already studied Geiger pretty well. He regards this quality of Nastya’s as paradoxical and he does not like paradoxes. He is no friend of paradoxes. I even imagine, roughly, what kind of phrase phrase he’s using as a starting point here: romance is characteristic of youth or something of that sort. The thought that romance can combine with a businesslike attitude irritates him to the depths of his soul.