Eugene Vodolazkin - The Aviator

Will Platosha like what I wrote?

I felt an urge to draw – that hadn’t happened in a long while. I set Themis on the dinner table and moved a lamp from the desk to the bookshelf after removing the books. The lighting came out fairly well, with a shadow. I set up the easel, took a sheet of paper and a graphite pencil, and began drawing. Even before much had appeared on the sheet, I felt like the drawing would come out. After all my numerous attempts, today my hand suddenly recalled the motions. It found confidence with each stroke and I was no longer thinking about the rules of drawing: my hand knew everything on its own.

When it was finished, I turned on all the lights and carefully began examining the drawing. There were many shortcomings in it but that wasn’t important. I had managed to draw something sound for the first time in the months after thawing. My main complaint was probably about the shadow. I remembered that they had taught me not to blacken it, not to fill the paper’s pores with graphite. The paper should shine through slightly, even through the strokes. According to a definition from Marx, from blessed memory, it is better to ‘not quite’ than to ‘overdo.’ I could apply that definition to art in general.

I took the sheet from the easel and laid it on the table. I went to the kitchen and opened the breadbox. Next to the fresh bread there lay some stale pieces Nastya had not thrown away, saving them for the pigeons. I was lucky: among dried-out bread as black as tar there was a stale little piece of white bread. I crumbled it finely on the drawing. Using circular motions and pressing lightly, I rolled the crumbs along the surface of the drawing until they absorbed the extra graphite. I carefully brushed the blackened crumbs on the floor with a wide brush. I blew away the finest ones.

All the lines remained but they had become much paler. I took the pencil and went over the drawing again. It was slightly different now: the accents had changed positions. And I liked it better this way. I felt joy. It also occurred to me – no, it did not occur to me, it simply jabbed: despite the massive mortality of my poor cells, does this mean that some were restored?

July 1913.

Moderately warm evening rays cut through a barbershop. Dust swirls in the rays.

Barber number one – a bald, middle-aged man – is preparing to cut the hair of someone middle-aged but not bald. Empty snipping of scissors in the air. He shifts into work mode: the full-fledged sound of hair being trimmed.

Barber number two is also aging and bald. He lights the spirit lamp and passes a straight razor over it. He goes over the client’s cheeks with a shaving brush.

Keeping in mind possible complexes and envy, can one entrust one’s hair to a bald barber? It’s a question…

Both clients answer in the affirmative. The second client risks less because he is only being shaved. In this case, it’s impossible to inflict much damage to the appearance. Only to cut the cheeks.

The barbers converse with one another.

They’re having a long discussion – maybe over an entire day – about the prices of provisions. They can’t bring clients into the conversation, other than with regard to opinions about individual products. But the clients can’t be brought into the fullness of the conversation.

They repeat individual words and even phrases one after the other. Pensively, several times.

The clients can’t repeat like that. To do that, they would need to acquire the special rhythm of cutting hair. Its special tranquility. And that is only accessible to professionals.

Yashin from the archive called as I was writing that. He said Voronin turns out to be alive.

I didn’t even understand immediately who he was talking about. When I realized, I didn’t believe it. That camp scum Voronin is alive! That uncommon swine is alive!

This was the first time Yashin called me instead of Innokenty. This is a special case, he said, the doctor should decide.

Yes, it’s special. And it’s not very clear what to decide here.

Geiger examined me yet again. He requested that I close my eyes, extend my arms, and touch the tip of my nose with each hand. I couldn’t. Meaning I could but not on the first try; as I understand things, that doesn’t count.

‘That doesn’t count, does it?’ I ask.

He smiles listlessly. Put another way, he appreciates that I’m such a cheerful guy. True, he suspects that this cheeriness is from hysteria and he is not so far off the mark.

Whence shall I begin to weep over the deeds of my cursed life? I was reading the ‘Great Canon of Repentance’ aloud to Nastya. There is an astonishing phrase there: When God wishes, nature’s order is overcome. We repeated that many times.

Innokenty and I were talking about higher justice. He loves that expression.

So take the way they pinned Zaretsky’s murder on him and dragged him off to Solovki. Where, I ask, is the higher justice in that undeserved punishment? And he answers that – from the perspective of higher justice – there’s no such thing as undeserved punishment.

That sounds lovely, though not especially convincing. What’s called then punish them both …

And then there’s that other matter: that the GPU man Voronin, scum to end all scum, surfaced the other day. There are no evil deeds he hasn’t committed.

It’s becoming clear he safely reached the age of one hundred. That he retired with the rank of general back in his day and is receiving a special personalized pension. He’s living in the Kirov building on Kamennoostrovsky Prospect.

I wonder what Innokenty will say about that when he finds out. What will he say about higher justice? Innokenty who, to the contrary, is catastrophically losing his health.

All that I’m doing now is stating the changes in his body. And unfortunately there are many. Too many.

If everything continues developing at this speed…

Yes, I’m giving Innokenty certain medications. Yes, they ease the course of the illness. But they don’t affect its causes. As before, those causes remain hidden.

Why are the cells dying? Why is that only happening now? Why is it only certain groups of them? Nobody knows the answers.

Only God, as Innokenty formulates it. And since my relations with the heavenly sphere are pretty troubled, no information is passed on to me.

When God wishes, nature’s order is overcome . Platosha read to me out loud from the ‘Great Canon of Repentance’ and we discovered those amazing words for ourselves. No, not ‘amazing,’ that’s somehow too cheap for them. Words filled with joy and hope. Their meaning has long been obvious to me, but I couldn’t express it that well. Of course I’m relying on Geiger, too – he’s not exactly the lowliest person in medicine – but I rely far more on Him, in Whose hands there is medicine, and Geiger and Platosha and I.

We can only receive His help through the power of faith in Him, meaning through the power of our plea. Two things have to come together here: faith and the desire to recover. Not only the ill person but also his loved ones should display them both. The loved ones, I think, to an even greater degree because they have more strength (they’re the healthy ones) and the ill person is prone to depression.

On another topic. The sudden resurfacing of Voronin, whom Geiger has already contacted. First off, this person I share a surname with is, contrary to expectations, in his right mind. Also contrary to expectations, Voronin isn’t against meeting with a former zek: I was sure he wouldn’t agree. According to Geiger, he reacted without particular sentimentality, just saying, ‘Let him come.’ Now Geiger wants to prepare Platosha. To lead up to it cautiously: what if, say, Voronin happens to be alive…