Eugene Vodolazkin - The Aviator

My present hell is that death is far scarier here than on the island. Of course I clung to life there, inasmuch as I could, but I did not fear death. When the expanse of my life began shrinking to nothing, death nearly seemed like an exit to me. I felt my worn-out body hungering for it, but my spirit fought that desire. My spirit was awake.

Now I am fearful of death like never before. I have everything: a family, money, and my strange fame, but all indications say they will not be gladdening me much longer. Money and fame mean nothing in the face of death, that is already obvious. Parting with someone close scares me – my funny Nastya, whom it now feels I have known my entire life. And with Anna, who is living in her and is my continuation. Whom I might never even see. Understanding all that keeps the mind in hell. This speaks emphatically about the mind, about understanding using the mind. And using something else, too, so as not to fall into despair.

1916. A bicycle on a dirt road after the rain. It moves along with a quiet hiss.

The wheels raise moisture from the road, throwing it on the bicycle’s fenders. The moisture flows off them, to the ground, in large muddy drops.

Sometimes the wheels drive into wide puddles. The sound of water parting. Two waves diverge from the center of the puddle, toward its edges.

The bicycle jolts on tree roots from time to time. A bag with tools jangles. It bounces the cyclist on the seat’s springs.

It’s growing dusky.

The cyclist presses the small wheel of a hub dynamo to the bicycle wheel. There is light and buzzing. The movement of a small circle of light along the road.

Did bicycle lights exist in 1916? I don’t know.

I think they existed.

It doesn’t matter.

I am remembering ever less of what happened a minute, hour, or day ago. I feel uncomfortable when Nastya sees my obvious memory lapses: they are obvious, although – luckily – they are infrequent for now. In those situations, I remove the conversation far from contemporary life, to somewhere at the beginning of the century. Just as the hard of hearing ask their own questions instead of answering. In changing the topic yesterday, I took it upon myself to tell Nastya about a grammar-school staging of The Inspector General , in which, by the way, I participated. Nastya immediately saw through that but did not let on. She said that will be the basis of one of the descriptions she has taken on at my request. Yes, of course, that’s wonderful, I responded. I asked myself, though: but can she describe my life without that basis? Using only the feelings that inspire her? If she were to learn to find and describe things that fit with me, my life could continue in my absence.

A grammar-school staging of The Inspector General . Marya Antonovna and Anna Andreevna, from the neighboring women’s school, are rustling with dresses brought from the theater. The smell of mothballs accompanies the dresses from the wardrobe room to the school: the smell doesn’t get aired out as they carry them, it seems to grow even stronger in the fresh air instead. The way a wine’s bouquet begins to blossom, become fragrant in all its nuances, and gladden after the cork is removed. One is left thinking the dresses taken from the hangers were granted a similar characteristic: to the extent, of course, that all the nuances of mothballs are capable of gladdening.

There is hardly any scenery: a small marble table from the principal’s office, a candle burning on it. A bookcase (carried in from the library) with books; moreover, books a half-century old were chosen. Khlestakov approaches Anna Andreevna. The stage’s boards creak under his feet, and that’s very audible in the front rows: there’s a good reason that art demands distance. Anna Andreevna, says Khlestakov… He touches her with his hand. His hand shakes and his voice shakes. The character, it must be understood, isn’t nervous at all, but the boy playing him is nervous, sensing the girl’s arm through the dense material of the dress. He has yet to confess his love to anyone and uses this theatrical confession or, actually, finds it in that text… What, really, does he find in it? In rehearsal he uttered the text pretty sensually. It cannot be ruled out that he’s falling in love because of what he utters.

It’s stuffy in the school auditorium despite open windows; June has turned out to be hot this year. Outside, the tops of the poplars are covered in fluff and windlessly still, as if they were sketched. Anna Andreevna has beads of sweat on her forehead, as does Khlestakov, and everybody in the auditorium understands what is happening between them and they’re elbowing each other, waiting for how this thing will end. This tenderness was not envisaged by the play, but it’s so obvious. Everything’s noticeable for the spectators, you can’t hide anything from them. They’re attentive. They clap their inky hands at the end of the scene. My Platosha shows through in Khlestakov, but the 1914 model for Anna Andreevna was, I suspect, reduced to dust long ago.

I did not sleep last night: I was recalling Pushkin’s ‘The Shot.’ Where Silvio postpones his retaliatory shot for six years. He makes his appearance when the hero has married and is happy… Death did not touch me on the island. I was almost indifferent to it then. It has returned with its shot now, when joy appeared in my life. It waited a long time. Should it be understood that death’s shot is retaliatory?

Innokenty’s working memory has worsened even more noticeably.

Nastya tells me that constantly, describing situations. And I do see it myself, too.

He loses his train of thought. Catches himself not remembering where he was headed in the apartment.

He doesn’t remember anything that’s automatic, like did he brush his teeth or take his pills.

I prescribe a heap of pills for him. True, there’s little use in them. They’re not able to stop the primary thing: the loss of cells.

I’ve rethought and rechecked everything ten times, with no results. I’ve buried my nose in publications from the last decade. Nothing.

I’ve never experienced such powerlessness. It makes me sick. Sick because Innokenty is fading.

Maybe he should be sent abroad? To Munich, for example. I don’t think they know anything there that we don’t know here, but all the same… Another perspective is important, too.

I could say there would be less responsibility on me then, but that actually doesn’t worry me. My main responsibility is to him – I’m not afraid of any other responsibility.

There’s just one trouble. I feel like we don’t have much time for all the decisions. Zeit, zeit. [14] Time, time (Germ.).

He asked me:

‘What’s happening to you?’

I said:

‘I’m afraid of your death.’

We hadn’t said these things out loud until then. Although they had been thought. I lost my filters for a minute. He’s the only person close to me, the only one I can complain to. And now that close person is leaving. And the only thing left is to complain to him. I acted horribly.

I started crying and nestled up to him.

‘Forgive me for talking like that about death. That fear has eaten away at me inside and now it’s coming out in the open.’

‘Well, in the first place, I haven’t died yet…’

My God, then what can possibly be in the second place?

He was sitting, pale, thin. And my voice wasn’t minding me.

He said:

‘Death should not be seen as a farewell forever. It’s a temporary parting.’ He went silent. ‘The departed is, basically, outside of time.’

The departed. It sounds like a draft in a tunnel.

‘And the one who’s staying behind? That person is within it.’