Eugene Vodolazkin - The Aviator

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Innokenty and Nastya married today at St Prince Vladimir Cathedral.

Innokenty asked me the day before if I would describe the wedding. I offered to film it for them. He took me by the arm and said:

‘No, please describe it in words. In the final reckoning, only the word will remain.’

A debatable statement. I kept silent. But I’m writing: I did promise to write.

The other thing is that I’m not the best describer in this case. I’m a stranger to the Orthodox service. And the Lutheran one, too, when it comes down to it. Though I was christened as a Lutheran.

And so, the wedding. It lasted about forty minutes: that’s the only thing I can say with certainty.

The meaning of its parts is beyond me, with a few rare exceptions. For example, when the priest asks each person if they are marrying of their free will. And when they both drink from the same chalice. That goes right to your heart.

When Nastya drank, Innokenty looked at her so marvelously. I can’t think of the words. As if inspired, perhaps. Yes, inspired.

It would have made a tremendous photograph. Sharp focus on Innokenty’s eyes and Nastya’s face slightly fuzzy. And the glimmer of the bronze chalice. Maybe a photo like that will appear. Someone was taking pictures there, some journalists.

Crazy thoughts kept creeping into my head. Things like, there’s Innokenty, born in 1900, and Nastya in 1980. That’s what you’d call an age difference.

Will Innokenty like my description?

I’m writing and thinking: maybe the wedding will pull him out of his depression?

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We didn’t go to bed the night after our wedding. We sat on the bed, nestled against one another. And didn’t utter a word. Not one. We held hands and felt the same thing. We lay down toward morning. Went right to sleep.

This afternoon, Platosha was watching TV and suddenly said:

‘How can invaluable words be wasted on TV series, on these wretched shows, on advertising? Words should go toward describing life. Toward expressing what hasn’t yet been expressed, do you see?’

‘I see,’ I answered.

I truly do see.

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What happiness that I met her.

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Innokenty and I talked over tea about the role of the individual in history. We had to talk about something other than medicine.

He repeated his favorite thought about political leaders. That the people find exactly who they need at that particular moment.

I cautiously said:

‘How do you picture that: everybody in 1917 needed the exact same thing? Old, young, smart, stupid, righteous, guilty? They all needed the exact same thing?’

‘And where do you see smart there? And, most important: righteous?’

Harsh. There was a time when the notion of universal guilt irked me in Pushkin. Find out, he says, who is right, who is to blame, then punish them both.

For Innokenty, that frame of mind is connected with his overall condition. Which is worsening.

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Geiger and I debated. In my opinion, he has a strange notion that someone is tossing the noose down upon us from above again and again. That we’re not the ones who braid it. Quite the defender of the Russian people… And at one time he was telling me about his hopes: there, he thought, Soviet power will go away and we’ll start living! And… so? Have we started living now? Soviet power has been gone for how many years now: did we start living?

And its arrival was not accidental: I do remember it well. The Bolsheviks are now called ‘a handful of conspirators.’ And how was this ‘handful of conspirators’ able to topple a thousand-year empire? It means Bolshevism is not something external for us.

So Geiger does not believe in a collective impulse for perishing and does not see rational reasons for it. But reasons can be irrational, too. All, all that threatens to destroy holds for the mortal heart a joy of inexplicable delight… That, of course, is not always how it is, and it’s not for all people (here, Geiger is right), though it is for a great number of them! For enough to turn the country into hell. My cousin succumbs to the oprichniks, my neighbor goes to snitch on Professor Voronin. Voronin’s colleague Averyanov gives monstrous testimony about him. Why?!

Well, who cares about him – my cousin – he’s a weak person, he wanted to establish himself. Averyanov, let’s say, was envious: a natural feeling for a colleague. But why did Zaretsky snitch? Out of considerations based on principle? But he had no principles (or considerations, either, I suspect). Money? But nobody was giving him money. He himself told me when he was drunk that he didn’t know why he snitched. I know, though: out of an overabundance of shit in his body. It – that shit – grew in him and waited for the social conditions to spill over. And they did.

In that case, though, maybe he is not to blame for snitching on Anastasia’s father? Maybe the social conditions are to blame? I think Geiger thinks so. But then it wasn’t social conditions that snitched on the professor, it was Zaretsky. That means he committed a crime and his getting bashed on the head turned out to be his punishment. The justified, I emphasize, punishment of a villain, though few knew of that. Everything looks more complex with respect to who bashed him. Is he a villain or an instrument of justice? Or both? How can all that be explained to Anna?

Sitting at the computer, Innokenty asked me:

‘Where is the Internet’s content located?’

At first I didn’t understand the question.

‘What do you mean where? It’s in the Internet…’

‘Can you name the specific place where it’s stored? Or am I to understand that it’s evenly spread around a network?’

‘There are computers that store the information. They’re housed in data centers –’

He didn’t let me finish.

‘So there’s nothing mystical about it and there are fully dedicated machines that store that content, right?’

Right. I didn’t understand what surprised him so much.

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Geiger explained to me how the Internet functions: its content is distributed in a series of computers. If you think about it, it would be pretty much impossible otherwise, but I had almost come to believe in some kind of special system standing over computers. Almost a special reality arising from the very fact of the connection between computers.

It suddenly occurred to me that this is a sort of model for public life. Which, when it all comes down to it, is not life but a phantom. Plunging into it is not without its hazards: it can sometimes become clear that there is no water in the pool. Life and reality are on the level of the human soul – that is where the roots of everything good and bad are located. Everything is decided by touching the soul. Probably only a priest works on such things. Well, and maybe an artist, too, if they’re successful at it. I was not.

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Platosha says he thinks all the time about Anna: that’s what we already call our little girl now. I know it’s early and we shouldn’t, but what can we do if she’s come into our lives? We already sense her character, for example. When she stamps her little foot in my belly, we understand there’s a feisty young woman growing. Platosha asks me to call to him when she’s kicking like that. One time we both saw my belly swaying from Anya’s little foot!

He wants Anya to know everything about him. That’s why he’s now planning to write much more thoroughly. I said to him:

‘Don’t make things more complicated for yourself. She’ll grow up a little and you’ll tell her everything.’

‘No,’ he answers, ‘I’ll write: everything’s firmer on paper, more reliable. Oral stories, you know, blur in the memory, but what’s written doesn’t change. And what’s important is that it can be reread.’