Eugene Vodolazkin - The Aviator

Work was in full swing at Nikolsky Cemetery. Illuminated by powerful floodlights, two roaring earthmovers had extracted soil from the graves (so it seemed to me) and piled it in areas of open ground. No, it was not from the graves. When I walked closer, it was clear the vehicles were working on the small road: they had dug a trench. I could also see that overlooking the trench were not just mounds of black earth but also several coffins that had been raised to the surface. Over the long course of their existence, the rows of graves had ceased being rows and some burial places took up nearly half the little road. Those graves had obviously needed to be dug up.

I remembered that Terenty Osipovich’s grave protruded, too, and the thought that it might have to be disturbed in order to extend the mysterious trench – well, yes, that thought flashed. After walking along the trench, which stretched past the second earthmover, I stopped (a pertinent image), as if rooted to the ground: Terenty Osipovich’s coffin was already standing on a small hill of fresh earth. Of course I could not be certain it was actually Terenty Osipovich lying in the coffin but the coffin was hanging over his grave: who would be there if not him?

I walked right up to the coffin. One of the boards on its side had fallen off but the illumination from the floodlights did not reach the gap that had been left. Nothing was visible through it. One could not be convinced that this was Terenty Osipovich without opening the lid. But how could you do that?

As I was pondering, a flexible pipe extended from the vehicle that had arrived. It slithered from a giant reel that rotated with an un-expectedly high-pitched sound. Water lines were being laid through the cemetery at night so as not to disconcert anyone. They neatly placed the pipe in the bottom of the trench. Everyone watched as if entranced while city authorities turned to the departed after having provided a water supply to the living. Without the others noticing, I stepped toward the coffin and laid a hand on the lid’s half-rotted wood. I groped around the edges. There turned out to be a small gap where the lid came together with the coffin. I dug my fingers into it and pulled the lid upward with force.

The force was unnecessary: the lid lifted easily. I again cast a glance at those around me: they were all observing the laying of the pipe, as before. In one motion, I raised the lid slightly and moved it to the edge of the coffin. A person’s remains became visible in the beam beating down from the floodlight. That person was Terenty Osipovoch. I recognized him immediately.

Gray hair was stuck to his skull. Solemn dress uniform, almost untouched by rot. He was, essentially, like this in life. True, he lacked a nose and two black holes gaped instead of eyes but other than that Terenty Osipovich resembled himself. For an instant, I waited for him to appeal to me to go intrepidly but then I noticed that he also had no mouth.

[GEIGER]

Nastya is in the hospital.

They didn’t let Innokenty in to see her today; they ordered him to come tomorrow. He called and told me about it. He also asked me to find a description of the aeroplane ‘Farman-4.’

I asked:

‘Why?’

He said:

‘Since we’re restoring a general picture of life as it once was, let’s have it. Add it to our other texts.’

I’ll add it, that’s not complicated. Just open the encyclopedia and write.

But. I feel uncomfortable. I don’t know if it’s worth supporting endeavors like these.

And so, ‘Farman-4’ is a biplane, with two pairs of wings. Two-seater. Manufactured during 1910–1916. Engine: sixty-five horsepower, propeller diameter 2.5 meters. Weighed 440 kilos, capable of lifting 180 kilos. Fuselage made of pine, wings and wheel covered with creamy-yellow canvas. Sehr raffiniert. [13] Very refined (Germ.). Frolov flew in a Farman (that sounds like a little verse). Unfortunately, he also crashed in one.

I don’t know why I’m writing all this. It’s not easy to do. Even so, it’s easier than writing about the results of Innokenty’s tests.

[INNOKENTY]

Last night I wrote until I fell asleep right at the table. I dreamt of Frolov’s aeroplane. In my dream, I even remembered what it was called: ‘Farman-4.’ Now that is memory: it even preserved the ‘4’ – who would have thought? I dreamt that his plane was running along the airfield but just could not take off. The aviator sees that there are all kinds of leaves, grass, and flowers under his shoes, and it all blends into a dark-green mass. Maybe it would be better not to take off… He could just keep riding and riding – what’s wrong with that? He could just bounce on the hummocks, the wings trembling occasionally.

But that’s not what we loved him for.

[ ]

I stayed the night at Innokenty’s. We talked until around three.

He took out the vodka, first one bottle, then another. I didn’t think of objecting: what kind of objections could there be here? We did drink both bottles.

I was basically afraid he would start asking me about his health. He didn’t.

Nastya’s health worries him far more now. He’s very afraid the baby will die.

The conversation somehow slid on to how life is structured these days. Innokenty called it anarchy. I noted that authoritarian rule usually comes after anarchy. Which is essentially very sad.

But Innokenty – Innokenty who did time! – said authoritarianism may be a lesser evil than anarchy.

He compared the populace of a country to deep-sea fishes. They can only live under pressure, he said.

I attribute that statement to the quantity of vodka consumed.

An unpleasant discovery: during the time we sat around, Innokenty choked several times. Some sort of swallowing disorder, and this is not a matter of the throat. It’s a problem with the brain.

[INNOKENTY]

I went to see Nastya today. She is ill and looks it: she’s pale, even green. I have never seen her like this. I sat with her until late in the evening, until they showed me out. During lunch, I ate nearly her entire portion because she couldn’t eat. Her attending physician is of the opinion that this is due to toxicity in her body.

Put bluntly, the food is not from the Metropol. This is what I think: the cooks here aren’t especially trying to make lunch not taste good, right? They just don’t put in everything that’s called for: stated simply, they steal. They’re our people. They just cannot help themselves.

But Geiger says you cannot control these people, or anyone else, by coercion. He and I argued half of last night about the advantages of democracy. I see those advantages even without his comments. They might be natural and appropriate in some places, but they just cannot seem to develop in our country. In Geiger’s ancestral motherland, for example, they can, but not here.

I think the whole issue is personal responsibility. Per-so-nal. Individual. When that’s missing, there needs to be some external corrective action. If, for example, a person has problems with his spine, they put a brace, a fairly severe thing, on him. But it holds up the body when the spine cannot. That is exactly what I’m going to tell Geiger. I cited a marine example but now I’ll cite a medical one.

[GEIGER]

I examined Innokenty the other day and noticed that his arms and legs have become slightly thinner. The reason: decrease in muscle mass. This testifies to problems with the spinal cord.

Innokenty had a positron-emission tomography scan today. There is little joy. Why did I regard this as limited to the brain, anyway? It was to be expected that the cooling would affect the entire body. Including the spinal cord. But what, what, exactly, was the effect? If only I could understand that…