Eugene Vodolazkin - The Aviator

‘I’m your contemporary, too,’ I laugh. ‘Who else do you need?’

He didn’t laugh, though.

‘Well, various people,’ he says, ‘who aren’t very important compared to you. Minor witnesses to my life.’

I snuggled up against him and he kissed my forehead. I love his kisses on the forehead. I love his other kisses, too, but the ones on the forehead are something special, even friendly, fraternal. That’s what’s lacking, more often than not, even in the very best lover. I understand now why my grandmother prized him so much. And, when it comes right down to it, she remained faithful to him her whole life. And I love him no less. I didn’t used to say things like that, either to myself or to him. Today I said it before going to bed. Standing half-turned toward him. He placed his hands on my shoulders and turned me to face him. We stood like that for a long time. Silent.

They’re doing tomography tests tomorrow. This worries me.

FRIDAY [INNOKENTY]

Today was the scan Geiger arranged. What’s happening with me does not gladden him (or me, either, to tell the truth) and so there we were at the consultation center. Geiger was somehow unusually solemn. He said we need to clarify my fortune. I noted that I squandered my fortune long ago. The joking looked like pathetic cheering-up. Geiger was not laughing. And nobody assigned to the scanning machine was laughing.

Before getting down to work, they asked me if I suffer from claustrophobia. What can someone who lay so many years in an icy, insulated container say? It’s interesting that I began doubting if I did not as soon as they asked me about it. I doubted as I took off my shoes. I had no answer as I lay down on the scan table, either. This was the first time that question had come up for me. And I answered ‘no.’

When the cover closed over me, and the table and I began slowly riding into some sort of tube, I thought that I probably should have said ‘yes.’ This reminded me too much of coffins traveling into a crematorium: they had shown that on a TV show. And the apparatus’s cover reminded me very much of a coffin cover. No wonder the doctor asked me to close my eyes. Why did I not close them?

The last thing I saw as I rode into the tube was the doctor hiding behind a metal door. Metal! And I was not to budge in that tube. I imagined what Gogol must have sensed, if it’s true what they say about him… A quiet panic seized me. I closed my eyes right away. Imagined the starry vault of heaven over my head. It eased. Something began buzzing and mechanically creaking, then went quiet. And began buzzing again. That smart machine was imaging my brain. I am certain that the dearheart will see why my legs are buckling and why I have become forgetful. It will report everything, calmly and impartially.

I rode out of the tube. As I laced my shoes, I saw Geiger taking the image from the doctor’s hands and looking at it against the light. Based on Geiger’s face, it wasn’t clear if he was satisfied or not. He said goodbye and left for his clinic. With the image under his arm.

[GEIGER]

A catastrophe.

I don’t know how I held myself together in Innokenty’s presence. It’s a genuine catastrophe – that became clear even from a cursory glance at the image.

I scrutinized everything at the clinic, clutching at my head. The amount of dead cells is beyond description.

The scariest thing is that I don’t have the slightest notion of the direct reason for cell death in Innokenty.

Of course it’s clear in general terms that it’s the freezing, but what’s the mechanism? What’s the specific mechanism for what is happening? Intervention is impossible without a distinct understanding of that.

And it all began as a ‘success story’…

Everything was in perfect order after the thawing. They did tomography on Innokenty when he was still unconscious. The tomography machine was in working condition then…

An important question: what to say to the Platonovs?

Or not say? And if I say something, should it be to both of them? One of them?

To whom?

[INNOKENTY]

I went to the archive today. They practically greeted me with ceremonial bread and salt. They apparently feel a kinship with me: I myself am nearly an archival phenomenon. They inquired as to what historical period interests me. It’s not a historical period that interests me, it’s people. Plus the sounds, smells, and manners of expression, gesticulation, and motion. I remember some of those things, but have already forgotten others. Definitely forgotten. When I said that, they coughed a bit and smiled. It’s possible they thought I had not yet fully thawed. They asked me to clarify the years. Well, I say, roughly 1905 through 1923. For Petersburg. And 1923 through 1932 on Solovki. They sent a red-headed employee with the surname Yashin into the storeroom for ‘cartons.’

A carton is a large box with archival materials. Yashin brought several of them, concerning various periods. In each carton there lay an inventory. I opened the inventory of the first carton and got lost in it. There were listings of institutions and their employees, archives of clerical offices, instructions from the powers that be, and even a selection of newspaper clippings. After delivering all that, Yashin continued to stand some distance away, and I felt his sympathetic gaze on the back of my head.

His sympathy turned out to be enterprising. In the end, Yashin approached me and offered his help. He asked what names interested me most of all.

‘For you these names won’t –’ I began but Yashin interrupted.

‘Write a list and the estimated years of activity for those people. How about a list of ten people to start?’

What were Terenty Osipovich’s active years? Everything is, however, more or less clear about Terenty Osipovich: his journey ended at the Nikolsky Cemetery. And my strange comrade Skvortsov? Skvortsov who was banished from the line in starving Petrograd. The same age as the century. And Voronin from the Cheka? I felt his activity to the fullest, with every cell in my body. Skvortsov and Voronin, two dissimilar birds who flew through my life… I wrote down ten names and gave them to Yashin.

TUESDAY [NASTYA]

I keep thinking about Platosha’s health. I’m feeling anxious. These fears seem almost funny to me during the day but at night, not so much. What actually causes them? Nothing. Nothing! Geiger has some concerns that I hope will come to nothing. But they’ve scared me.

This morning I went to ‘brush my teeth’: I shut myself in the bathroom and sobbed soundlessly. I turned on the water to be sure it couldn’t be heard. I even blew my nose without trumpeting sounds – I just quietly wiped off the snot – because people blow their noses when they cry.

Although they also blow their noses for no particular reason.

[INNOKENTY]

Yashin called and said he had found information about Ostapchuk.

‘Write this down.’

‘I’m writing.’

Ostapchuk, Ivan Mikhailovich. Born 1880. Worked as a watchman at Pulkovo Observatory from 1899 until 1927.

(In 1921,I add for my part, he and I were knocking together display boards at no. 11 Zhdanovskaya Naberezhnaya. While lying on pieces of wood, we drank murky homebrew sent to him from his wife’s relatives in the village.)

And so, in 1927, he leaves for that same village: Divenskaya, which, by the way, is located not far from Siverskaya. He is leaving, I think, from pure fear, because he has a presentiment of the Terror. It apparently seems to Ostapchuk that it is easier to survive the Terror in the village. If that is the case, then Ostapchuk was laboring under a misapprehension.

Several months later, they arrest him in the village for anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda. One of the pieces of evidence of that activity was the knocking together of agitational display boards on a sunny May day in 1921. It turns out that materials declared by the investigation to be anti-Soviet had been hung on those boards later. I, too, could have fallen within the investigation’s field of vision by taking part in preparing the display boards, but somehow I did not. Was it because I was incarcerated for murder by that time? Doubtful. If I were the investigator, I would have done the opposite, connecting one case with the other since a murderer is without doubt the best candidate for pursuing anti-Soviet agitation.