Darragh McKeon - All That Is Solid Melts into Air

“No, sir. I had other commitments.”

“Oh, yes. I see this. Yes, right here. It says you’re teaching English at the Lomonosov?”

“Yes, sir. Two nights a week.”

“A former journalist who spends two nights a week teaching English at the university. I read these facts side by side and they say something to me. Tell me, Mrs. Brovkina, do you think this work is beneath you?”

“No, sir. Of course not. It’s honorable work. I’m very proud of it.”

“Good. So why are you revisiting your former territories? Surely that life is past you now.”

She takes time to consider her answer; she can’t leave herself vulnerable to the criticism that she’s not placing enough emphasis on the progress of the plant.

“There is a shortage of English scholars. A former professor of mine requested that I help out in this area. I feel that it is my duty to aid our collective efforts in any way I can.”

“Mrs. Brovkina, as I say, your work cannot be faulted. But there are some who would question your commitment to this particular field.”

She says nothing. She waits to hear his conclusions. She knows he can’t ask her to revoke a job where they need her skills, even if it’s only a couple of classes a week. The name of the Lomonosov carries some weight in higher circles. Mr. Shalamov will no doubt be reluctant to get into an administrative spat with figures who may have more authority than he has.

“I have never asked about your activities previous to joining us here.”

The thing that every sanctimonious pen pusher will always be able to hang over her.

“No, sir.”

“I would be wary, Mrs. Brovkina. It may appear to some that you’re treading old ground, reigniting old contacts. Some would say you’re inclined to venture into areas you have been encouraged to ignore.”

“I wasn’t aware of how it may appear, sir.”

“No. Of course. If you had given it some thought you would have refused their offer of work.”

“As I mentioned, sir, there is a shortage of specialists.”

“Did you know, Mrs. Brovkina, that there’s a shortage of highly skilled engineering instructors? Perhaps your time might be better served pursuing, say, a degree in precision engineering. I understand that you have scant family commitments.”

Scant? Yes. If you call queuing for food for four hours every weekend scant. If you call cleaning the communal bathroom or the stairwells or delivering laundry to Alina’s clients scant. Then, yes, she doesn’t have any commitments.

Don’t argue, though. The way to deal with this is to agree and work out a strategy later.

“Yes, Mr. Shalamov. These are possibilities I hadn’t taken into account. Thank you for bringing them to my attention.”

His tone softens.

“Think of this as an opportunity, Maria Nikolaevna. A position as an engineering instructor is highly valued. In this plant we have a history of supporting those who have made mistakes in their past. They are often hungrier, more loyal. You are intelligent and possess an excellent work ethic. Perhaps it’s time to ask yourself: ‘What are my ambitions?’”

She stays silent. It’s already been decided. They’ll take away the one thing in her life that provides any interest. The one activity that reminds her who she is. Next spring she’ll be studying for an engineering degree; there’ll be years of night classes ahead of her, dredging through stultifying textbooks.

He writes a note on a piece of paper, then very deliberately attaches it inside her file. He nods.

“Fine. You can return to your station.”

“Thank you, sir.”

At her workbench she releases the emergency stop, turns on the machine, and switches her mind to neutral.

When she removes her glove to open the door, her hand always sticks. Just for the briefest of seconds. The heat leaves an imprint that recedes back into the brass.

Hunched men sit in the stairwells flipping cards into a bucket. They use an effeminate gesture, squeezing the card between two middle fingers then flicking the wrist outwards, displaying an open palm to the world. The cards twist in their high arcs, producing a crisply satisfying note on landing.

Maria opens the door to Alina’s place.

“What is one hundred and fifty-three divided by seven?”

“Again?”

“What is one hundred and fifty-three divided by seven?”

She’s been here for two years, even though it was supposed to be temporary, a couple of months to get herself settled after she split with Grigory. But she’s still coming home to the folding bed in the living room, always attempting to inhabit as little space as possible, storing her few possessions in a cupboard under the window.

Yevgeni still considers her to be the origin of all knowledge.

“Well, let’s find out. Give me your pencil.”

There’s a communal toilet in the hallway, with mould slowly edging its way down from the corner of the ceiling and the tiles peeling off. The light flickers on when you twist the door lock.

What are my ambitions?

His question has played in her head all the way home. She’s having difficulty reconciling herself to an honest answer and is glad of the consolation in her nephew’s struggle with an abstract problem.

Yevgeni works the pencil round his copybook, numbers bursting from their appointed squares. His flaccid scrawl sinks diagonally down the page, rotating towards the end so the figures lie almost horizontally. 2 resting on its arched back. 7 leaning on its elbow, legs pointed outward.

She missed most of his early years, too busy travelling around the country reporting the small victories of working life, writing them up as though the workers were living sainted existences, achieving the greatest deeds, when all she saw was squalor and cynicism.

The newspaper sent her on journeys to faraway places, hidden corners of the Union where life continued in the most extraordinary circumstances, often barely any heat or light, toughened people who understood how to subsist with the most meagre of resources, reminding her of deep-sea urchins adapting to an almost extraterrestrial environment.

She had acted as a priest of sorts. There were times on those trips when people would tell her their most delicate intimacies, staring deep into the embers of a dying fire. Of course, they all thought initially that she was with the KGB, there to draw truths from them. But a few hours in her company and they realized she was too real to be truly invested in the system. She was too loose with her talk, too self-deprecating, telling little stories on herself, dropping small comments that could be interpreted as criticisms; though they would also hold up as factual statements if she was ever reported.

Salt miners in Solikamsk, grinding out a day’s work in those crystalline tunnels. Or the sovkhozy—the state farms—in Uzbekistan, where the summer crops spread out past the curve of the earth, where she interviewed averagely built men with enormous, hoary hands, hands so roughened by the weather that the skin was separated into pads, like a dog’s paw. The grain silos, military in their bearing, gigantic cylindrical tanks from which biblical quantities of grain would pour into the bellies of vast trucks.

Everything enormous. That was the overriding sense that remained with her. The utter, mind-melting scale of the Union.

And how, in the wake of such experiences, could she not write of the reality of the lives she met? She sees now that she always knew, at least on some level, that such words would lead to a revoking of her privileges, a banishment from her profession.

Maria considers her nephew as he sits on her knee, warmth flowing from him, seeping through her overcoat, which she has not yet taken off.