Евгений Водолазкин - Solovyov and Larionov

Solovyov had forgotten to bring dry underwear with him so he had to put on his shorts right over his wet swimsuit. He was, after all, a person without the slightest bit of beach experience. After Solovyov sat down to buckle his sandals, the contour of his swimsuit developed on the back of his shorts, as if on wrinkled photographic paper. He, however, was unable to see that. He picked up his rucksack and pensively headed in the direction of the embankment.

As he walked along the waterline, Solovyov looked up and slowed his pace in surprise. Someone was sitting at the very end of the jetty in a chair that closely resembled the one he had seen in the photograph. That someone was a lady. And though the distance did not allow Solovyov to make out all the details, it was obvious that the lady was getting on in years. She was sitting motionless, like Larionov, with her legs crossed, and the breeze was lightly stirring the hem of her long dress. This woman undeniably knew the value of effective poses.

Solovyov was initially moved to approach the woman, but he did not make that move. He could not imagine what he could ask her or how to begin speaking with her. He did not even have a notion of how one should approach ladies like her. Should one immediately kiss her hand or was it enough to bow slightly? It was entirely possible that this case called for a smart clicking of the heels along with a simple tilt of the head. Solovyov might have decided to draw nearer to the unknown woman but when he wiped his sweaty hands on his shorts, he discovered that they, for their part, were wet, too. By now, the trace of the swimsuit had also managed to make its mark distinctly in the front. His clothing, frivolous in the first place and now dampened besides, excluded any possibility of introducing himself to her. After wavering for an instant, Solovyov dashed home to change his clothes.

The stairs were so surprised as he flew up that they managed not to produce a sound, whereas the key, slipping along the plate nailed around the keyhole, produced an inconceivable scrape. After managing to unlock the door, Solovyov flung his rucksack into the corner, tossed off his shorts and swimsuit, and left the house a second later wearing white, completely dry, pants.

He had hurried in vain. Even from the embankment, it was obvious that the jetty was deserted. Continuing to walk by force of inertia, Solovyov was puzzled that an older lady in such a long dress could have slipped away in such a short time. And with a chair, too. Now he was not even certain he had seen her. Solovyov stopped. Today was August 2, the day on which General Larionov had died. The date had arisen just as suddenly as the unknown woman on the jetty. Had she truly been sitting there? In a certain sense, it would have been simpler for Solovyov to regard her appearance as an optical illusion. At least that would have been less upsetting. Considering the date of the incident, Solovyov preferred in the end to give it a metaphysical explanation. He resolved to consider what he had seen to be the general’s spirit visiting the jetty.

Solovyov decided to stroll along the famous Yalta embankment before returning home. Twilight was falling and the first lights were burning on the embankment. These were old-fashioned streetlamps, in the spirit of the thirties through the fifties, with domed globes sprouting from sprawling cast-iron branches. Though not an admirer of the fanciful Soviet Empire style, Solovyov nevertheless had an interest in it, almost a fondness for it. Buildings in that style, which simultaneously resembled nothing but were reminiscent of everything on Earth, had outlived their empire. From time to time, guesthouses, camps for Young Pioneers, and centers for artists gazed out of the coastline’s greenery, looking like elders who had lost their way. These were the last structures initiated into the secrets of labor union leisure, and they alone remembered steelmakers’ placid benders, procedure nurses’ hale and hearty voices, and party activists’ laborious orgasms. The full complement of people who had filled those walls had departed for nonexistence, just as everyone who had made their way into the aging General Larionov’s peripheral vision—policemen wearing white shirts secured with belts, medal-wearers in defiantly wide pants, sellers of hot spiced honey drinks, Pioneer-camp counselors, hip dressers, and ex-cons—had departed from the Yalta embankment, heading in the same direction.

When he looked at objects characteristic of the epoch, Solovyov often yearned for times he had not seen; this surprised even him. He did not aspire to live in those times and he did not consider them either gentle or even interesting, but still he felt a yearning. There was not, however, any reason for this feeling to surprise the young man; this was a yearning over something other , a burning desire to make it his own, because that something other was now forever deprived of those who had known it at one time as their own. Unaware of this, Solovyov experienced the paternal feeling of the historian who has adopted another time.

As he walked along the embankment, Solovyov observed its reflection in the meek sea. Neon signs, amusement rides, and streetlamps quivered in the evening’s ripples, and were occasionally severed by boats, with the penetrating sounds of karaoke in the background. Awaiting him under fabric awnings were vendors of ice cream, popcorn, and glowing bracelets. Photographers with apathetic monkeys on leashes waved to him from beneath palm trees. Waitresses in black skirts and see-through snow-white blouses greeted him at every restaurant. Solovyov certainly liked the south but he was a reserved young man. He did not visit one single restaurant or purchase one single glowing bracelet.

Solovyov stopped at the Central Grocery and bought a stick of cured sausage. After some thought, he also bought bread, cheese, butter, olives, and two bottles of beer. Instead of walking home along the embankment, he took a quiet parallel street: Chekhov Street. Past the Lutheran church. Past an unusual building in the Mauritanian style. Past an adult store covered over in red paper. Being an adult, Solovyov wavered by the store but quickly pulled himself together and walked on by. Visiting that sort of establishment was a pursuit he considered unworthy of a historian. Back at home, Solovyov first washed his hands. After the stuffy, hot street air, the water felt unexpectedly cold. It flowed from the tap with a pressure surprising for the south, as if it were the Uchan-su Waterfall, which was unknown to Solovyov, though while on the embankment he had received several invitations for excursions to see it. After drying his hands with a holey but clean towel, he got down to eating.

Solovyov’s dip in the sea and walk had given him a healthy appetite. He ate up one little sandwich after another, washing them down with unrefrigerated local beer. The radio he’d switched on was broadcasting local advertisements. It hung on the wall like a black formless box and offered ( rototillers for sale, reasonable prices ) large non-resort objects rather like itself. It spoke in an aging female voice with a barely detectable southern Russian accent. The radio in Solovyov’s house at the Kilometer 715 station had spoken in roughly the same voice. Only occasionally (when leading morning exercises and reading the national news) did it shift to shameless Moscow tones. It even looked roughly the same: ebony and clumsy; sometimes speaking, sometimes singing. The main thing was that it was never silent.

Solovyov began the next morning with a visit to Yalta’s Executive Committee. He set off for No. 1 Soviet Square with his graduate student identification. A calm, plump woman with a large bust met him at the Cultural Department. She sat in front of Solovyov, positioning her bust on her arms and her arms on the table. The firmness of her position, apparently reflecting the positions culture had conquered in Yalta, was pacifying. Solovyov forgot all his prepared phrases and stated the aim of his visit in an informal manner. The plump woman did not interrupt. After some thought, he told the story about his studies of the general and—surprising himself—even about graduate student Kalyuzhny, whose dreamy inaction had cleared the way to these studies for Solovyov.