12
In the first frosty days of November 1918, Slavkin came to one of our evening meetings with a request.
‘My dear ones,’ he said diffidently, ‘you understand that what I am asking you now is quite outside the daily demands made on you as members of this commune. If any of you don’t want to take part in this enterprise, I understand. It is for you to choose.’
He produced a piece of paper and began to read from it: ‘Tin sheeting, iron bars, copper wire, acid – these are some of the materials that I will need for my new project. If you could help me to assemble them, I assure you you’ll be performing a great service for the Revolution.’
We gazed at him without a word. I expect our mouths dropped open. Was it possible that he had not noticed the state of the city outside the house on Gagarinsky Lane? Moscow was returning to the Neolithic age, people were eating rat, and he was talking about bringing home iron bars? Railings all over the city had already been sawn off and carted away, first for one war and then the next. It was a capital offence to steal firewood, let alone the things Slavkin was after.
‘I already have a basic engine, which will need modifying, of course, and I have a good part of the metal necessary. What I list here is perhaps 25 per cent of the total,’ he went on, looking hopefully at us.
‘Is this for the Socialisation Capsule?’ asked Sonya.
‘Yes. It’s about the size of a bathtub. Rather a long one, with a lid - you lie down in it,’ replied Slavkin. ‘There is one more thing, too, that I need. Something that I know we can get hold of quite simply.’
‘What’s that – Lenin’s balls?’ Volodya said, laughing. ‘Camel, you’re quite something, you are. Even if by some miracle you get hold of this stuff, we’ll all be shot on the spot for harbouring it at home!’
‘Oh, no, that’s something I’ve taken care of,’ he said. ‘I have a licence here for my workshop from Lunacharsky. You remember he complimented me on my work at the Centre? I went to him and asked for support. Any work I do here will be listed on the jobs list of the Narkompros. He’s including it, in fact, in the anniversary celebrations for the October Revolution – as a way to allow us to requisition scarce materials. He was very accommodating.’
‘But what is the other thing you want us to pilfer for you?’ asked Fyodor.
‘Well, it’s nothing we haven’t managed to obtain before – just a little iridium.’
Iridium had an almost mystical significance for him, a fascination that had begun in childhood. The success of the Socialisation Capsule seemed to depend entirely on its properties – its extreme density, its resistance to any kind of manipulation, heat or corrosion. He would often talk of it as ‘noble’, in the alchemical sense: ‘Most true and noble metal, essence of metal, ideal element,’ he wrote. ‘With a shield of iridium, my Capsule will withstand any pressure. It will be invincible.’
*
Increasingly fantastic accounts of Slavkin’s childhood have appeared in the years since he became the Vanishing Futurist. It’s been claimed that he was a child prodigy who made his first inventions as a toddler; that he was the son of Bolshevik exiles in Siberia – even the son of Stalin. He never talked a great deal about it to us – just the occasional remark – but he did write his ‘Revolutionary Development’, that I suppose must now be a rather valuable document. Here, in his own words, he briefly describes his early years. Far from being acclaimed as a prodigy, he was formed by hardship, loneliness – and iridium.
Revolutionary Development
Nikita Slavkin
In the village. Dirt, darkness, old bearded fellows, bitter women, fights breaking out on holidays. Poor, tired mother – babies hanging off her like leeches. Black-faced father, beard like a goat.
Age six I wander into the taiga for the day. Wide open skies, Siberian beauty and wildness all around. Happily eat raspberries, fall asleep by a brook. At home my father is waiting with a whip. My mother screaming at him not to kill me. I lie in bed for a week. At school my teacher – Alexei Yurievich Samarin – a political exile, intelligent fellow, teaches me to fish. I hide at his house many times. Gain the idea that education + intelligence = escape from Father.
Every Sunday to church. My family are Popovtsy, Old Believers. Endless droning choir, deathly boredom. I gaze out of window, dream of fishing. They beat me for not paying attention. Next week I fix my eyes on iconostasis – ugly, gloomy. Only one thing I like in that church – a strange cup, dark silvery metal. Priests carry it to and fro, I don’t know why. It gleams in an odd way. Cannot stop staring at it. Later am rewarded by Mother for good behaviour – a candied plum.
Week after week gaze at this cup (despite no more plums). At last can’t stop myself – I have to touch it, know how it feels. At end of service, sneak through forbidden door in iconostasis, reach up to take cup from altar . . Shrieking, hollering begins. I run for my life through village to Alexei Yurievich’s house, hide there for four days. Great scandal of village, neighbourhood, whole world, apparently. Boy profanes Holy Grail!
Alexei Yurievich and I go to my father to apologise. He slams the door in our face. ‘He’s no son of mine.’ I live with Samarins for two years until begin Gymnasium (secondary school) in Yekaterinburg.
Until I go away to school, my mother meets me secretly each week. I plan to take her away with me when I am grown up. I am thirteen when I receive a letter from my aunt: ‘Your mother’s dead . . .’ Something about the Lord’s Will.
In the town museum of Yekaterinburg I see the silvery metal again: ‘Iridium. The second-most-dense metal on earth, and the most resistant to corrosion, common in meteorites but very rare on our planet – because, being so heavy, it sank into the molten core of the earth during its early stages of development. Iridium can withstand temperatures of up to 2,000 ºC, is nearly unmalleable and very hard.’
I meet Socialists in Yekaterinburg, good people, like Samarins. Science and the Revolution fuse in my mind. I train myself to study eighteen hours a day and eat only once. No warmth in my life until I arrive in Moscow. The great city, traffic, shops – for some months my mouth permanently open. I discover stale rusks, half a kopeck a bag. I meet Mayakovsky, Burliuk – stop myself from pinching them to check they are not statues.
At last, Pasha Kobelev swims at me out of the crowd. ‘How about an ice-cream?’ At the ice-cream stall, advertisements – ‘Duchess papyrosy – as smooth as satin’, ‘Negro coffee – the exotic taste’ – we laugh like idiots. I never saw the need of a friend before – limited, perhaps, but efficient. I move in with the Kobelevs. Life begins.
*
The first anniversary of the October Revolution was to be celebrated with all the scale and pomp that the actual event had lacked. The Commissariat of Enlightenment planned a blaze of red flags, great crowds of singing schoolchildren, increased rations and free meals for the people, the hammer and sickle everywhere, and the face of Lenin against snowy roofs and buildings.
Pasha reported on the preparations to us in the evenings – the frenzy at Narkompros as entertainments were commissioned, rejected and re-commissioned by competing organising committees; and artists appeared flourishing designs for the huge sets and floats in the Constructivist style; and performers demanded props, fur coats and bottles of cognac without which their acts would ‘simply breathe their last gasp’. An astonishing amount of money had been made available – several million roubles for Moscow alone – and, what’s more, the organisers had been given the right to requisition scarce materials, as Slavkin had already discovered.
On the day itself, the IRT and the Propaganda Machine took part in the Smolensk district procession. Slavkin repositioned the gramophone to blare Stravinsky out into the street, and each of us, dressed as a capitalist, a general, an aristocrat, etc., minced up to the back of the machine. One by one, we were pushed inside by Dr Marina, dressed as Revolution with a flaming cardboard torch and a sword. Once inside the idea was that we would wriggle out of our costumes and emerge jub
ilant in simple workers’ clothes with cloth caps.
I have never been much of a performer, and my mood was not improved by the fact that the crowds lining the route watched stolidly, only showing excitement when an aeroplane flew overhead scattering propaganda leaflets. ‘Cigarette papers, lads!’ I heard them shouting. I had spent over four hours that morning standing in line to receive the commune’s extra two pounds of bread and fish and half-pound of butter and sugar per person, and I could feel the beginnings of a chest cold.
They were beginning to light the bonfires – there was a huge one on the Lobnoe Mesto, the execution place on Red Square, with a figure of a kulak on top – and fireworks were promised. As the light faded the crowds became more lively; drunken Red Guards shoved and jostled the people as they passed. At last we arrived at the old Governor General’s mansion for the free meal provided for participants – a bowl of thin borscht and some kind of meat rissole, we didn’t enquire too closely what kind of meat. I looked up and down the long tables, at the people ruminating over their miserable food – just like the soup kitchens in Tsarist times. It all felt a long way from any genuine progress.
‘Come,’ said Slavkin, jumping up suddenly. ‘There’s something I want to show you.’
‘Oh, Nikita, we’re too tired,’ cried Sonya.
With relief I joined in. ‘Yes, let’s go home . . .’
But he glowered at us, almost shoving us in front of him. ‘It won’t take long. Really, you must trust me.’
We followed him down a side street to a tiny church. The gold had been stripped off its domes, no light shone in the windows, but Slavkin led us to a side door and knocked three times – paused – and knocked three times more. The door opened and Slavkin motioned us inside. The door swung shut behind us, leaving us in darkness. I breathed in incense and wax, smoke, old cloth; at last, I made out some shapes around me.
I put my hand out and felt Nikita’s sleeve; he took my arm and tucked it tightly under his, and we shuffled forwards until we were obviously in front of the altar. I looked around quickly; Sonya was somewhere behind, standing alone. A figure – a priest one assumed – was moving about; the swish of his skirts and the occasional clink of one vessel against another suggested that he was performing the offices of the Mass. A shiver passed through me. By a faint glimmer of light from the window behind him we watched him move about behind the altar, mouthing the words. He raised the Host and after a moment signalled for us to kneel. Without a word we did as we were told, one by one. Nikita and I sipped the watery wine, the first time I had taken communion for years; like me, he seemed to shudder with emotion as he swallowed. It burnt my throat and spread out through my body as though it were neat alcohol. My miserable mood evaporated and I was wildly happy. I squeezed Nikita’s hand as we stood and retreated from the altar.
‘Batiushka.’ Beside me, his voice echoed out suddenly. ‘Light a match, would you, Pasha? Father, we mean you no harm, but we must ask you to give us something.’
‘I know you, don’t I?’ The priest approached, peering into Slavkin’s face. ‘You’re the boy from Alekseevo . . .’ His voice quavered. ‘Yes, the son of . . . I don’t remember. I knew your father, didn’t I?’
As quickly as it had come, the happiness left me, and I felt queasy.
‘Yes, I’ve come to see you again, with my friends this time,’ said Slavkin. ‘We need something that you have. Give it to us, and we’ll not disturb you again.’
‘What can I give you? I have nothing left—’
‘I want the cup. Not that one, the other.’
The priest let out a feeble cry. ‘But this is the Host! I cannot give it to you – a mortal sin!’
‘Then we shall take it, and spare you the sin,’ said Slavkin calmly. He stepped forward and removed the cup from the altar. ‘Come, everyone, let’s go.’
The cup, as Slavkin knew, was another of those made of iridium. It had probably come from the same region of Siberia. On the way back he was jubilant, hopping from foot to foot. ‘Now we can build the Future, don’t you see?’
When we arrived home he disappeared immediately into his workshop. I lay awake in my bed through all the jagged night, listening as the wind stripped the last leaves off the trees. Even now the old priest’s sobs in the darkness sometimes come back to me.
*
‘Don’t give up,’ Slavkin used to say. If you were feeling discouraged, before you’d even uttered a word – just at a look or a sigh, he’d come close to you, take your face in his hands and say it very gently but with tremendous force. It felt loving but absolute. I find myself repeating it now, as I try to marshal my thoughts: don’t give up in the face of the mass of detail, the thunder of voices all competing to tell the story of Slavkin’s life. Don’t give up, despite the horrors. I promised that I’d tell Sophy everything.
In November 1918, just as Slavkin was starting work on the last great scientific achievement of his life, our world was almost drowned by a flood of distractions. Nikita, Pasha and I came home one evening to find our little gatekeeper, Kolenka, sobbing in the street.
‘Sovdepy – Soviet deputies – they broke down the gate!’
Prig stood at the front door, hands on his hips.
‘Good evening, comrades,’ he said smoothly. ‘As you know, due to the compression of living space throughout the capital, this house is due for resettlement.’
‘Prig!’ exclaimed Pasha. ‘This household is not just any old house—’
‘Comrade,’ snapped Prig, ‘I would remind you that such forms of address are not suitable nowadays. I assure you, there’s nothing special about this house.’
There was a pause.
‘Please let me explain, Comrade Prigorian,’ Slavkin started. ‘We are running an experiment in communal living here that, if successful, will be a model to replicate all over the country. If on the other hand we are now swamped by people who do not understand our aims, the whole project will be destroyed. What’s more, we have a scientific workshop on the premises that comes under the control of the Narkompros – I will show you the order from Commissar Lunacharsky—’
‘I already know about the workshop. Finished, boys?’ Prig called to his men. ‘Come on—’
‘I myself also have special status as a key worker for the Revolution that permits extra living space, and—’
‘I know about your status too. However, we have inspected the premises and ascertained that there is at least 500 square metres of unused space.’ Prig and his boys clattered across the yard. As they rounded the corner he said, ‘I would have thought you would welcome the genuine narod, the people, into your experiment.’
I saw Pelyagin the next day for his lesson and told him of our troubles. We had long ago smoothed over the incident at the Café Pittoresk. He had a tendency to see things in black and white, but there was something touching about him, the way his feet barely touched the floor when he sat in his chair, the little, faintly pleading look he gave me as he peeped over the Illustrated London News – I couldn’t help liking him.
‘I will see what I can do,’ he promised, nodding seriously at me. He seemed flattered to be asked, which rather reduced my faith in his ability to help.
*
Within days a total of forty-two people had arrived at the doors of Gagarinsky Lane dragging cartloads of belongings and pouncing on every inch of space. Our little Kolenka pounced with them, securing for himself the official papers to a small storeroom off the kitchen. Volodya, Vera and I stayed at home for the whole day in order to fight our corner, but nonetheless we ended up with only three rooms between the thirteen of us – the study, Slavkin’s workshop and the old ladies’ bedroom. This caused some friction, as Nikita was adamant that his workshop must not be used for any purpose other than the Socialisation Capsule, while the rest of us resisted the idea that we should make do with just two rooms for all the other activities of the commune.
‘Nikita,’ Marina snapped, ‘where are we to do the Model T, now it
is almost winter? Where are we to eat communally? Have you gone mad? We are abolishing the private, and you are trying to keep to your ivory tower? I simply don’t understand.’
‘I know this work of yours is important,’ said Fyodor, ‘but surely even you can agree that the commune needs more than two rooms.’
‘The advance of Science must take precedence,’ Slavkin dismissed us.
A metalworker and his family moved into the dining room, seven of them. They told terrifying stories of life in the Volga region under the boots of one, then another army occupation, while they lay in a dugout with the trapdoor closed over their heads and ate beechnuts. At last the Whites were driven out and the local Bolshevik commander gave him a travel pass to Moscow as a worker with a skill useful to the Revolution. His children looked like five tiny old people, eyes shrunken in their yellow faces. Without consulting the others, Vera and I gave them dried apples and pickles from our stores.
Upstairs seven families of factory workers moved in. Servile and monosyllabic to our faces, they were aggressive filchers of any morsel of firewood, any utensil, any scrap of clothing behind our backs. The sign saying ‘Institute for Revolutionary Transformation’ was taken down by the cadres, and our decorations in the hall – ‘Come On, Live Communally!’, and the portraits of Marx and Engels in red paint – were covered over with decrees from the Soviet. We fixed locks and chains to our doors, but that didn’t stop someone from forcing open the window and stealing our cooking pots and soap. Volodya, Fyodor and I marched into the bedrooms and took back everything of ours that we could identify, although one woman – a dark, mustachioed termagant with arms like Christmas hams – had the gall to cling on to one of our mixing bowls, howling so loudly that she was being robbed, that we left her to it.
The main bedrooms at the front of the house were taken over by a group of ex-soldiers who made all our lives a misery with their constant drinking, fighting and ripping up pieces of the house to burn in their fireplace.
The Vanishing Futurist Page 12