Solovyov and Larionov
Page 24
(Solovyov suddenly realized this in all its clarity), more than anything, he felt tired of Zoya. This was the start of the second reel of some strange film he did not even seem to
have agreed to be involved in.
They walked half a block and ended up in a dark vaulted
basement. A chandelier shaped like a steering wheel hung
from an enormous hook where the basement’s vaulted
ceiling came together.
‘This little joint reminds me of “Gambrinus”,’ said Dunya.
‘I discovered it yesterday.’
Solovyov ordered two coffees with Chartreuse. The liqueur
was served in faceted vodka glasses. Dunya poured half her shot into her coffee and drank the other half in one swallow.
‘When will academician Grunsky speak?’ asked Solovyov.
‘I think it’s actually right now. Alas, neither academician Likhachev nor academician Sakharov will be here today. So
you can relax.’ Dunya lit a cigarette and the smoke began
rising prettily toward the steering wheel. ‘I’d advise you not to get caught up in the academicians, the title has depreci-ated a lot. And Grunsky’s just plain stupid.’
‘Then how’d he get to be an academician?’
‘He had enough maneuverability. Connections.’ She blew
out smoke in a thin stream. ‘Well, and he was brownnosing
everybody in charge at the Academy.’
Dunya’s attitude seemed too categorical to Solovyov but
he kept quiet. He refused to imagine a stupid academician.
The break was ending when they returned. The theater
was crowded and the attendees’ muted buzz reminded him
of an intermission at an operetta. Scenery of a medieval
castle in the mountains intensified that impression. The
580VV_txt.indd 221
22/08/2018 15:38
222
E U G E N E V O D O L A Z K I N
gothic scene swaying in a draft might not have fit the conference theme but the organizers thought it created a pacifying, romantic backdrop.
Solovyov could see a small fat man on the stage, to the
left of the castle wall. The man stood at the chairman’s
table, half-facing the auditorium, with one hand thrust in his pocket (not a flattering pose for the short-legged). Using his free hand, he carefully piled hair on his bald spot. The name card on the table said, ‘Acad. P.P. Grunsky.’ Nothing that Dunya had reported was mentioned on the card.
There was something unnatural—in the sense of theat-
rical—about even the conference attendees’ appearances.
Despite the hot spell, they were strolling around in suits and running their hands along the lapels of their outmoded jackets again and again. This wasn’t even because of the
hot spell; the suits were blatantly out of character for their owners. And for their faces, which were rough and devoid
of expression. These people pressed their arms to their
torsos as they walked timidly around the theater. Looked
at themselves in the mirror in the foyer. Dampened their
combs in the little fountain outside the theater and fixed their hair. These were cannery employees, sent by their
bosses to lend the event a more mass scale. According to
the conference organizers, very broad swaths of the popu-
lation should hear papers about the general.
Two cannery employees approached Grunsky and asked
for his autograph. This was audible thanks to the numerous microphones that equipped the stage. They were all over
the place, dangling from somewhere above, like motionless
black lianas. Grunsky led the requestors to the table and
wearily, but with visible pleasure, signed the two programs 580VV_txt.indd 222
22/08/2018 15:38
S O L O V Y O V A N D L A R I O N O V
223
they held out to him. This was the first time in his life he had been asked for his autograph.
Solovyov and Dunya took seats in the parterre. Solovyov
removed the program from his folder. Leaning toward his
shoulder, Dunya ran her fingernail along the second surname listed after the break.
‘Tarabukin’s a terrible pain but he gets a lot done. One
of the few who’ll say anything relevant here. He’s sitting to my right.’
Solovyov slowly turned his head. The left-handed Tarabukin was nervously noting something in a folder of papers lying on his knees. His gnarled fingers and their countless knuckles might have made an even bigger impression than his left-hand-edness. Tarabukin was chewing the fingernails on his right hand and kept examining them pensively.
‘Before lunch . . .’ Grunsky tapped his fingernail on the
microphone and the hall shook with a deep, drumming
sound. ‘. . . we have one more paper before lunch, so I ask you to focus. The floor goes to Professor Tarakubin with
the paper “Larionov and Zhloba: a Textological Collision”.’
‘Tarabukin, if you will,’ protested Tarabukin, but his
voice was drowned out by the general noise.
Dunya shook with silent laughter. Meanwhile, Tarabukin
was already energetically making his way to the stage. He
gestured as he walked and his entire appearance expressed
indignation, either from the incorrect pronunciation of his surname or the impossibility of making his way to where
he was to speak.
‘Quiet, please,’ Grunsky tapped at the microphone again.
‘One more paper before lunch. The speaker prepared handouts, they’ll be distributed now.’
580VV_txt.indd 223
22/08/2018 15:38
224
E U G E N E V O D O L A Z K I N
Tarabukin clambered up the little stairs onto the stage,
continuing to gesture, and walked under the hanging micro-
phones.
‘. . . ucking smarty pants, what are you talking about,
handouts? In Russian . . .’
Tarabukin stopped short when he heard he was on the
air. Now he silently crossed the stage—small and rumpled—
without a shadow of regret about what he had said. After
Tarabukin had taken his place behind the lectern (at his
height, he truly proved to be behind it), a heavyset woman with braids arranged on her head started making her way
toward the stage. She moved slowly, placing her feet heavily on the steps, and reminding Solovyov of his high school
principal, a woman nicknamed Bigfoot. Judging from the
hand she extended in Grunsky’s direction, she was saying
something to him, but her words were inaudible.
‘Who’s the co-chair?’ Grunsky asked again, into the micro-
phone. ‘You’re the co-chair? Where were you before?’
The women answered him again after conquering the
final stairs. The academician shrugged and glanced at the
program.
‘Nobody said anything to me about co-chairing.’
The woman who had come up on stage turned to the
audience and pointed out someone on the parterre for
Grunsky. Despite her gait, she certainly was not Solovyov’s high school principal.
‘So, may I begin?’ Tarabukin asked sarcastically, but
nobody was paying attention to him.
‘She’s corresponding member Baikalova,’ said Dunya. Her
face expressed delight. ‘Fiesta with a bullfight.’
‘There’s not even a second chair here,’ said Grunsky,
580VV_txt.indd 224
22/08/2018 15:38
S O L O V Y O V A N D L A R I O N O V
225
slightly lifting his chair by
its back to illustrate. ‘I don’t know where you’ll sit.’
‘One of us should prove to be chivalrous, Petr Petrovich,’
said Baikalova.
She was already within range of the microphones. Grunsky
threw up his hands, ‘Well, that’s a fine how-do-you-do!’
Baikalova bowed low, from the waist, to Grunsky and
turned to face the audience. Tarabukin, suffering, rolled his eyes. The cannery workers smiled shyly.
Grunsky approached the edge of the stage and signaled
to someone to bring a second chair. A man in a pensioner’s shirt with patch pockets jumped out of his seat and shook
it, demonstrating to Grunsky that they were fastened not
only to the neighboring seats (everyone sitting in that row shook) but also to the floor. Grunsky gestured his understanding and returned to the table.
Two men in overalls hurried up the steps to the stage.
They disappeared behind the curtains but reappeared a
minute later, dragging a massive throne with a scraping
sound. They pulled it up to the table and explained some-
thing to Grunsky, who was grasping the back of his own
chair as a precaution. Grunsky nodded and showed Baikalova the throne with a gallant gesture. She sized up Grunsky
with a malicious gaze and moved heavily across the stage.
Baikalova had to ascend to the throne—which did not
look out of place by the castle—in a literal sense. She first climbed onto a step attached to its base and then, holding the lion heads on the armrests, clambered up to the seat,
which required some effort. Since the throne was not an
item envisaged for use by someone sitting at a table, it
turned out to be rather high. Baikalova’s legs did not reach 580VV_txt.indd 225
22/08/2018 15:38
226
E U G E N E V O D O L A Z K I N
the floor, swinging slightly instead, like shapeless sausages, under the thin tabletop. Further beneath the tabletop—this was visible to the audience, too—the academician’s feet
were moving chop-chop, as if he were in the homestretch.
There was no question he had won this little competition.
‘Please, go ahead, colleague,’ said Grunsky, turning to
Tarabukin.
‘Yes, do,’ said Baikalova, looking down on Grunsky.
‘Thank you very much,’ Tarabukin responded. After
thinking, he uttered it in pieces. ‘Thank you. Very much.’
Leaning against the armrest furthest from Grunsky, Baikalova rested her cheek on her hand. Her lips stretched apart, forming a raspberry-colored diagonal line along her face.
Tarabukin huffily began his paper. He uttered the intro-
ductory phrases—which in and of themselves contained
nothing nasty, offering a listing of sources he had used—with a bitter, almost denouncing, intonation. It was they, his
sources, who took the blame for the scholar’s disrespectful treatment of the scholar. It was they who answered for his mangled surname, for his ridiculous waiting on the stage, for everything that had thrown the scholar utterly off balance.
Even in this difficult frame of mind, though, the presenter spoke in particular about two sources he had studied.
The first of them was General Larionov’s Notes for an
Autobiography, in Dupont’s edition. Only when turning to that did Tarabukin forget the offenses committed against
him. In characterizing Dupont’s publication (and speaking
of it with the highest praise) the speaker switched to an
unusual tone, as if he were anticipating an important statement. Which is how things turned out. What Tarabukin was
thinking about was the second source he had used: a here-
580VV_txt.indd 226
22/08/2018 15:38
S O L O V Y O V A N D L A R I O N O V
227
tofore unknown report by Dmitry Zhloba about his troops’
entry into Yalta in November 1920. Tarabukin himself had
found this source in the Archive of the Ministry of Defense.
But the researcher’s revelations did not just consist of
that happy finding; there was more. Propelled by a sixth
sense (without which, as we know, no discoveries are made), he revealed unbelievable things by juxtaposing Zhloba’s
report with General Larionov’s childhood remembrances.
A first glance at Tarabukin’s materials for distribution
made it obvious that the two texts were very closely
connected. The texts had been created by utterly dissimilar people and they described completely different times. That is what made their resemblance so striking. An astonished
buzz ran through the slightly hushed hall.
The most vivid coinciding occurrences in Zhloba’s report
and the general’s recollections were in the printouts (not wishing to utter the borrowed English, handouts, he called them handgrips) that the speaker offered. Enjoying the impression he had made, Tarabukin slowly read off the first of the coinciding spots:
Fragment No. 1
Gen. Larionov
D.P. Zhloba
Notes for an
Report Regarding Entry
Autobiography
into the City of Yalta
A group of young Tatars
. . . when we reached the
greeted us as we entered
city limits, a brigade on
the city. They were all on
horseback greeted us.
horseback, all dressed up.
Tatars everywhere, attire:
580VV_txt.indd 227
22/08/2018 15:38
228
E U G E N E V O D O L A Z K I N
Upon seeing our carriages,
national. They began firing
they shot into the air and
into the air upon seeing our
shouted something in Tatar.
armored vehicle. They didn’t
Maman and my governess,
understand Russian. I felt
Dolly, were very frightened
uneasy but our commissar,
but Papa explained to them
comrade Rozaliya S.
that the Tatars were just
Zemlyachka, explained that
welcoming us. Maman waved this was their way of
her hand to them. One of
greeting. Meaning, firing
them rode over to the ladies’ weapons. I saluted them.
carriage, unfastened
One of them rode over to
something from his saddle,
comrade Zemlyachka and
and handed it to the stunned handed her a canister. ‘It’s Dolly. ‘It’s kumys,’ smiled
kumys,’ said the Tatar.
the Tatar. ‘Drink to your
‘Drink to your health.’
health.’ Maman wanted to
Comrade Zemlyachka
pay for it but the Tatar only
signaled to him that we
flapped his arms. They shot
would receive the kumys
a little more and galloped
free of charge. The Tatar
off into the mountains,
flapped his arms. They
going about their Tatar
turned around and galloped
business. ‘ Charming,’
into the mountains. ‘Very
said Dolly.
nice comrades,’ said
comrade Zemlyachka.
Corresponding member Baikalova, who had not received
one of Tarabukin’s handgrips, was leaning heavily on the armrest closest to Grunsky and ostentatiously squinting to peer at the papers on the table. With exaggerated amiability, the academician pushed them in Baikalova’s direction but
580VV_txt.indd 228
22/08/2018 15:38
S O L O V Y O V A N D L A R I O N O V
229
they remained in place. Glancing at the audience, Baikalova threw up her hands.
‘You’re sitting up too high,’ Grunsky said, also to the
audience. ‘And therein lies your misfortune.’
There was absolute silence in the hall when Tarabukin
moved on to read the second excerpt.
Fragment No. 2
Gen. Larionov
D.P. Zhloba
Notes for an
Report Regarding Entry into
Autobiography
the City of Yalta
Many paupers gathered at
We found a lumpen element
the corner of Autskaya and
by the church at the corners
Morskaya Streets, by the
of Autskaya and Morskaya
Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. Streets. Predominantly of
This was a strange and
male gender. Everyone who
varied public. Alongside old
sat there was engaged in
women wrapped in black
panhandling. The appearance
there sat young women with of one of the aforementioned
children, tradesmen who
persons reminded me of the
had succumbed to drink,
proletarian writer A.M.
and the barefoot tramps whom Gorky. I will not allow the Gorky would describe later.
thought that this was
I would not be surprised if
comrade Gorky, given his
Gorky himself had been
location on the isle of Capri.
sitting there . . . They all
Everyone crossed themselves.
crossed themselves devoutly. Comrade Bela Kun warned
When leaving the service,
them strictly with regard to
Maman gave something to
crossing themselves and
all of them, without
seized change from their hats
580VV_txt.indd 229
22/08/2018 15:38
230
E U G E N E V O D O L A Z K I N
exception. Her favorite was
as unearned income. A
a tall, one-legged old man.
one-legged old man
He would sit, displaying his
particularly attracted comrade
peg leg for all to view.
Kun’s attention. He smiled at
When we walked down the
our comrades and waved to
stairs, out of the cathedral,
them with his crutch.