Евгений Водолазкин - Solovyov and Larionov

‘Are you going to fly?’

The bird hesitated a little and flew over to the windowsill. Solovyov took several cautious strides toward the window. The bird could not stride. After starting to jump around the windowsill, it moved closer to the open window. Sat on the window frame as if it were a picture frame. Froze like a tiny yellow paintbrush stroke. In the mix of air currents behind the bird, there quivered towers of light and, under them, the stadium’s pseudo-classical columns. Down below, right by the window frame, the cadets were flowing like jelly over the bridge that led to the stadium. Ignoring the laws of physics—and the danger threatening them—they continued their drumming and collective marching on the bridge. The surprised bird turned its head several times. It flew away, without waiting for the bridge to collapse from the force of all those marching feet coming down at once.

When Solovyov arrived at the Institute, they told him that some woman or other from Moscow had been asking for him. She was now sitting in the institute library. Solovyov started off for the library but ran into Temriukovich along the way.

‘Listen, Solovyov…’ said Temriukovich, but then Tina Zhuk came up behind him and interrupted.

‘Not bothering you, am I? I just wanted to say…’

Temriukovich’s hand unexpectedly landed on Tina Zhuk’s lips.

‘Just for your information: you have a very loud voice. Intolerably loud for an academic establishment.’

Temriukovich turned and began shuffling down the corridor. Zhuk made a ghastly grimace and dashed off after Temriukovich.

‘Loud and unpleasant,’ Temriukovich sighed to himself. ‘With a voice like that, it’s better to keep quiet.’

‘I wanted to say that the academic secretary was looking for you,’ Zhuk uttered defiantly.

But the academic secretary himself was already approaching Temriukovich. He took the academician by the elbow and whispered something fiercely in his ear. Temriukovich continued moving, ferociously looking over the academic secretary’s head every now and then. They stopped by the library door.

‘Did you hear about how our senile one caused a stir at Cinema House?’ Tina Zhuk asked Solovyov.

She was not even trying to speak quietly.

‘Fine, what do you need from me this time?’ Temriukovich asked the academic secretary with irritation, freeing his elbow.

The academic secretary walked around the academician from the opposite side and took him by the other elbow. He was speaking to Temriukovich in an emphatically patient way. Solovyov gathered that he would not be able to get into the library so was now looking for an opportunity to get rid of Tina.

‘He barged in on a closed screening at Cinema House where they were only letting in people with membership cards…’ Zhuk rolled her eyes.

When they reached the men’s room, Solovyov excused himself and went in. Tina Zhuk did not come in. Oddly enough, thought Solovyov. Oddly enough. He stopped at a sink and turned on the water. He looked at his reflection in the mirror and wet his hands. Swept the hair off his forehead. Temriukovich raced in as Solovyov was about to leave. Temriukovich rushed for a stall without noticing Solovyov, slamming the door behind himself with a bang.

‘The only place at the institute where it’s easy to breathe,’ carried from the stall.

The end of the sentence was accompanied by furious watery burbling.

Solovyov left the men’s room and headed for the institute library. Other than the elderly librarian (how very little she resembled Nadezhda Nikiforovna!), only Murat was sitting in the reading room. He lifted his head when Solovyov appeared and Solovyov greeted him.

‘You looking for someone?’ asked Murat.

After hesitating, Solovyov told him about the researcher from Moscow.

‘There was someone,’ confirmed Murat.

The door to the reading room opened and Temriukovich came into sight. He froze silently on the threshold, not letting go of the door handle. The librarian smiled. Temriukovich went out, leaving the door open.

‘I heard a good story about him,’ said Murat. He took a box of mints out of his pocket. ‘Want one?’

‘No, thanks.’

‘So there was a premiere at Cinema House. Something of a crush at the entrance. Everybody’s showing their membership cards and invitations… Sure you don’t want one?’

Solovyov shook his head. Murat scooped out a few mints with three fat fingers and popped them in his mouth.

‘And then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere… Anyway, long story short, Temriukovich turns up. Gets in without any explanations whatsoever. “Member at Cinema House?” they ask him as he goes by and he says, “No, I have it with me”…’

Solovyov glanced at the librarian—she was laughing. There sure were all kinds of librarians.

‘Do you happen to know where that researcher might have gone?’ Solovyov asked them both.

Murat shrugged.

‘Most likely for lunch,’ said the librarian. ‘She left her bag here.’

Solovyov stopped as he was nearing the institute café and heard Tina Zhuk’s voice. Ultimately, he was not sure he needed to meet with the Moscow researcher. But he went in anyway.

Solovyov saw Tina first. She was sitting and telling a story at a table with an institute guard and two women who worked in the modern history department. The women were laughing hard. Judging from their faces, the history was extremely modern. The guard was sitting half-facing Tina and listening with dignity, as befit a strong person. Every now and then, he brushed crumbs off his camouflage uniform.

The Moscow researcher was drinking tea at the next table. She was the only person in the café that Solovyov did not know. She was around fifty. Wearing a sleeveless jacket. There was an unmotivated bow on her head. When Solovyov approached her table, she herself asked if he was Solovyov. Solovyov confirmed it. The researcher gave her name as Olga Leonidovna (an invitation to sit down) and said she worked at the Rumyantsev Library. She had brought him some materials about the Civil War.

‘I left them in the reading room,’ Olga Leonidovna smiled. ‘I’ll just finish my tea, okay?’

‘No rush.’

Solovyov smiled, too. Essentially, the bow suited her.

‘Leeza Larionova sent them for you. As I understand it, you must know her.’

A chair pulled away from the next table and Solovyov felt like the chair’s motion was floating in his eyes now.

‘And I have mine with me, too, by the way,’ said the guard, standing up.

He straightened his pants and winked at everyone there. Tina Zhuk’s other two neighbors got ready to go after him. A window floated slowly along the wall.

‘You saw Leeza in Moscow?’

‘She and I work in the same department at the library.’

‘And… how is she?’

‘She applied to the philology department last year but didn’t get in. She was working at some factory…’

‘They say it costs eight thousand green ones to get into college in Moscow,’ said Tina Zhuk. ‘Minimum.’

Olga Leonidovna looked at Tina with surprise.

‘She obviously didn’t have eight thousand.’

‘Obviously,’ said Tina, putting on lipstick in front of a little mirror, then standing up. ‘Greetings, everybody.’

The reading room was empty but Olga Leonidovna switched to a whisper.

‘This year Leeza was accepted at the correspondence course division and got a job with us. She sorts through the new acquisitions in the Manuscript Department.’ She pulled a plump folder out of a plastic bag and extended it to Solovyov. ‘It’s a photocopy. A certain something that arrived recently for the collection.’

‘Thank you.’

Leeza had held this folder in her hands. Leeza.