Eugene Vodolazkin - The Aviator

‘Where, if you don’t mind my asking, were you drinking?’

‘I don’t mind, my dear. At Serafimov Cemetery, with Ostapchuk.’

‘So who’s this Ostapchuk?’ ‘Ostapchuk, my darling, is deceased.’

He kissed me and then sat for about another hour and a half at the computer.

[GEIGER]

I understand very little of what’s happening.

I’m not capable of affecting it.

I’m terrified.

Today I dreamt that an automobile is hurtling along at very high speed. And I’m at the wheel of the automobile. Only there’s bad luck: there’s basically no steering wheel. Or even brakes. You don’t need an interpreter to understand that dream.

Yes, I know that cell die-off is the result of the extended supercooling. Only that doesn’t give much information. I don’t have an answer to the question of exactly how it’s all happening.

Why did the cell degradation begin only a half-year later? After all, if a cell is damaged, it’s logical to suppose it won’t ‘wake up’ in the first place. But it did wake up and stayed wonderfully awake for half a year!

And what if I were to allow that the degradation began right away and acquired its avalanching character only now? But that’s not it, no: Innokenty has been under very thorough monitoring.

One might suppose that we’d changed rehabilitation methods and provoked cell death. But the methods haven’t changed. They haven’t changed!

My brain is in overdrive.

[NASTYA]

Time magazine named Platosha ‘Man of the Year.’ The name of the magazine is appropriate for him, and it’s a nice title, too, but there’s obviously little joy. Even a week ago, we would have been happy and arranged a celebration, but ugh…

Platosha looks at us from the magazine cover and from all the billboards and advertising kiosks, too: Time has great advertising. They found an excellent photo: the subject of the shot obviously doesn’t know he’s being photographed while he’s talking with someone, smiling. Of course the photo is black-and-white and the lighting’s amazing, but the nicest thing about it is the wrinkles formed by his smile. Platosha’s like a movie actor.

My pace slows involuntarily at every kiosk. Handsome. Oh-so handsome! And I think: nothing can happen to him, to someone like that. There is surely some kind of logic in events! It’s one thing for an elderly monk with a drab gaze, someone worn down by life… but here’s someone who looks like a playboy (nobody knows he’s not a playboy, after all), some kind of Brad Pitt – how, you might ask, does this picture fit together with ‘cell die-off’?

[INNOKENTY]

First I read Robinson Crusoe , then the New Testament, the parable of the prodigal son.

I once told Nastya that mercy is higher than justice. Just now I thought: not mercy but love. Love is higher than justice.

[GEIGER]

After work I stopped by to see Innokenty.

He was at home by himself. I was seeing him for the first time one-on-one since the sad news about his condition.

It was easier in Nastya’s presence. She doesn’t allow silence to hang, sprachfreudiges Mädchen. [12] Talkative girl (Germ.).

And here we were, silent half the time. Neither he nor I wanted to talk about the test results.

[INNOKENTY]

Nevsky Prospect. Aviator Frolov’s funeral. Seva and I have come to see that brave person off on his final journey. My parents are mourning the aviator, too, but at home. They didn’t come, so as not to cry in public: they knew they couldn’t contain themselves. Seva and I are crying, though, it’s fine. I, a twelve-year-old, am not ashamed to sit on his shoulders, so I can at least see something; many people are sitting like that. We agreed that he will sit on my shoulders later, but somehow it didn’t work out that way. It was forgotten. My hands are clasped under Seva’s chin and I feel Seva’s tears falling on them.

Now the funeral procession comes into view and seems to be riding past us yet again. I scrutinize that spectacle so greedily afterwards, replaying it in my memory so often that it remains iterative in my consciousness. The procession hurriedly returns to the top of Nevsky as if it were being filmed in reverse, then it again begins its majestic motion forward.

Officers with a cross, banners with Christ’s face, and wreaths come first. The cross is in the center, the banners are to the sides, and the wreaths are at the back. Behind them march two columns carrying the deceased man’s medals and honors. And there, finally, is the hearse with a high canopy rising over the procession. Under the canopy is a closed coffin. In the coffin is the departed, who is dear to all of us. Icarus, as is written on one of the wreaths.

All that drifts slowly toward us. Shouts and conversations go quiet around us. Only the clip-clop of horses harnessed to the hearse is audible. I am grasping at Seva’s hair but he doesn’t notice. I’m attempting to imagine Frolov in the coffin, his arms crossed on his chest with an icon, a paper band on his forehead. Pale. The smell of tobacco from his lips. The aroma of his final cigarette, smoked thanks to me.

We’re standing with our backs to Gostiny Dvor, and the huge crowd is flowing past us, like a sea, in the direction of Alexander Nevsky Monastery. The sea is viscous; it envelops everything that crosses its path: the cars of the horse tram, carriages, streetlights. Everything that falls into this stream is immovable to an equal degree, regardless of its own nature.

Finally, I dismount and we join that crowd because it is only possible to move in one direction: toward Nikolsky Cemetery. We walk along Nevsky, past Yekaterinsky Garden, along Anichkov Bridge, through Znamenskaya Square, and, well, consequently, we walk all the way to the monastery. I do not understand why I have yet to visit Aviator Frolov’s grave at Nikolsky Cemetery.

So that’s the picture. I do not remember the season. On Nevsky – if, of course, there is no snow – one cannot discern the season anyway. You will hardly find any trees here and people dress somehow incomprehensibly, without concern for the season. When it comes down to it, there just aren’t seasons here. There is a wintertime and a nonwintertime, and everything else is lacking in our part of the world.

[NASTYA]

The other day, Platosha said we should get married. I realized what that means. He wants to move our relationship into the realm of eternity. He believes it’s no longer possible to trust time. That his days are numbered. He doesn’t say that directly, but a sort of mosaic came together from individual phrases he’s thrown out on various occasions. I’m the only one who sees it because I interact with him constantly. Well, maybe Geiger, too. Yes, Geiger, too, of course.

Geiger doesn’t know about the proposal but he senses Platosha’s general condition well. And I sense Geiger’s. I think he’s suffering no less than us, but he doesn’t discuss the illness, either with Platosha or with me. I’d been waiting for comforting words from him but they haven’t come. At first that was very hurtful but then I realized what the deal was. Geiger’s a rational person and simultaneously honest in the German way. He doesn’t know what’s going on with Platosha, so he finds no comforting words. I think comfort that’s not based on facts would not only seem pointless to him but also immoral. He’s strongly mistaken about that, though.

Platosha, by the way, isn’t saying anything either, for different reasons. He’s a courageous person and prefers to keep everything to himself. He’s afraid of traumatizing me. He’s not afraid of traumatizing Geiger, but they’re concurring here that there’s no point in discussing the incomprehensible. So everybody stays silent. When I attempt to bring it up, neither of them keeps the conversation going.