Solovyov and Larionov
Page 30
‘Then the skull’s contours show through only after death.’
It was darkening outside. Kologrivov spoke of blood
circulation. In front of him was a yellowed diagram of lesser and greater blood circulation. Arteries were denoted in red, veins in blue. The general liked this combination of colors.
He unbuttoned one of his tunic sleeves and examined his
blue veins. This did not escape the pharmacist’s gaze. He
continued his story about blood: a person has an average
of five or six liters. It is pumped by the heart, (weight: around 300 grams), which consists of two halves, left and
right. Each half has an atrium and a ventricle. Kologrivov circled them with the pointer. The atrium received blood,
the ventricle pushed it out.
‘Cold metal pierces my living heart . . .’ the general softly declaimed.
‘The most perfect pump in the world.’
‘Piercing something so well thought-out,’ said the general, choosing his words, ‘a creation so refined and vital, is that not a crime?’
‘Instant unnatural death.’
‘What could be more unnatural . . .’
The general fell silent. He discovered there was a double
‘n’ in the last word he had uttered.
Pharmacist Kologrivov explained briefly about the diges-
tive system and the nervous system. At the general’s request, he moved on to examine natural death. Now there were
posters in the foreground depicting the body at various ages.
After hesitating slightly, Kologrivov took out a depiction of 580VV_txt.indd 278
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a person’s development in the womb and hung that along-
side the others. He scratched the back of his head.
‘I don’t see the one about conception,’ said Kologrivov.
‘You want to say that conception is the beginning of
natural death?’
‘Perhaps. I suspect our delivery boy took that one.’
Kologrivov talked about conception without the poster.
Addressing the time in the womb, he showed the embryo’s
position. This pose was familiar to the general. His soldiers sat this way in Perekop during autumn 1920. The general
ordered them to use their last supplies of kindling wood to light fires. He forced the soldiers to jump over them. He
raced around that icy desert like a madman, saving the
remnants of his army. He attempted to rouse his soldiers,
prodded them under the ribs, pounded their cheeks . . .
Could an embryo be roused? As he listened to pharmacist
Kologrivov, the general felt an understanding coming to him in hindsight. His soldiers had no longer thirsted for victory.
They were not dreaming of women. Or money. They were
not even dreaming of warmth. Their exhaustion was deeper
than wishes like those. More than anything on earth, his
soldiers wanted to return to their mothers’ wombs.
The transformation of a pink, wrinkled creature into a
child. Adolescent age. Pubic hair growing in, enlargement
of the member (for men), change of voice. Awakening of
sexual instincts.
‘That was the age I suddenly realized I would die, too,’
said the general. ‘This was the time of first nocturnal emissions.’
‘Immortality leaves along with innocence,’ said the phar-
macist. He moved the pointer again from the Adolescent 580VV_txt.indd 279
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poster to the Child poster. ‘Children don’t believe they’ll die.’
Complete rebuilding of the body. Intense growth of the
skeleton and muscle mass. Changes in the hormonal realm,
the metabolism, etcetera. The body begins having a smell,
especially the soles of the feet. Socks have to be changed as frequently as possible. Pimples. Under no circumstances should they be squeezed with dirty hands. A child’s soft
features sharpen, cheekbones become prominent. A beard
and mustache begin growing (primarily for men). The
human body develops—Kologrivov approached the image
of David—until around the age of thirty.
‘And then?’ asked the general, admiring.
‘It develops then, too, but in the opposite direction.’
Kologrivov sighed and pointed to the poster Person at age 40–50 years (Male. Frontal View). The fat layer under the skin thickens. The skin stretches. The face becomes flabby and
bloated. The body accumulates stores of fat, particularly in the stomach and hips. The torso seems disproportionally
large, even caricature-like, compared to the legs. Round fatty lumps begin forming on the legs and arms. On other parts
of the body, too. They distort the former rigor of its lines and speak of metabolic troubles. Increased growth of hair
on the back, chest, brow ridge, and in/on the ears and nose.
It goes from bad to worse. Hair grays. The smell of an
old person’s bitter sweat appears. The skin withers and
bunches up in wrinkles. The body’s aging is accompanied
by sclerotic thickening of the arteries. They become tight and fragile, and threaten to rupture. The teeth gradually
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but even a measure such as this is not capable of breaking the general negative tendency. Discs flatten between verte-brae, the spine loses its elasticity and settles. The person shrinks in height. The organs become impossibly worn out.
The brain starts to contain excess amounts of water, making its work more difficult. In the end, it becomes hard for the person to live. He dies.
The horns of the evening’s last boats sounded outside
the window.
‘Does that mean,’ asked the general, ‘that life is the fundamental reason for a person’s death?’
Pharmacist Kologrivov sat on a chair and looked calmly
at the general. ‘One might, Your Excellency, say just that.’
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1 5
Solovyov arrived in the regional capital early in the morning.
They told him he would be unable to reach the Kilometer 715 station by rail. Even local trains no longer stopped there.
Solovyov took a bus.
The bus was old, just like in his childhood. Solovyov had
not even seen vehicles like this in Petersburg. When the bus went over potholes, it shook for a long time, convulsively, as if it had an asthmatic cough. When the doors opened at
the stops, the bus made a sound like glass being pressed.
Solovyov got out at the village where his school was. He
would need to go the rest of the way on foot.
Solovyov began heading along the familiar road but then
he stopped, turned, and walked briskly toward the school.
A padlock hung on the front door. Summer vacation,
Solovyov remembered. It was vacation. He walked up to
one of the windows and pressed his forehead to the glass.
The Russian literature room developed, hazily, behind
poplars reflected in the glass. The seats were flipped up.
Any answer began with those seats clattering; it ended with clattering, too.
‘Why is the military trilogy titled The Living and the Dead?
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So . . .’ and the teacher’s finger would search the list in the grade book, ‘Solovyov!’
Solovyov’s seat flipped up. In actuality, the general had
only two folders. When he learned that everyone he had
attended school with had died, he transferred them from
the Dead folder to the Living folder. And that was that. Would Solovyov himself have done the same? That was another
question entirely. But his classmates’ absence behind the
desks gaped. It was like death. Worse than death because
in their distinct absence, his classmates were simulating their existence somewhere (most likely not far away). Their
shadows were visiting the glass factory. Or a cowshed penetrated by drafts. Maybe the tractor-repair station that served local collective farms.
‘Whose side is the author of And Quiet Flows the Don on?
Does anyone have any thoughts in that regard?’
Nobody did. They did not know for certain whose side
the author was on. Or who, basically, the author was. The
grade books and textbooks were on the teacher’s desk. There were fat folders on the Materials for Distribution shelf. Were there any Living and Dead folders there? Did the school maintain records like that?
Without even realizing it himself, Solovyov had walked
to the library. He stood on the front steps for a few minutes.
What could he even begin talking about with Nadezhda
Nikiforovna? He could tell her about what happened
yesterday. Or maybe a week ago. It was impossible to tell
a life. Several years in Petersburg had changed him a lot but to her he was his previous self. Previous. Solovyov felt awkward remembering his childhood dreams. He decided
not to go in.
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He went in anyway. A young woman was sitting in
Nadezhda Nikiforovna’s place. Solovyov did not know her.
‘Would you like to register?’ she asked.
‘I’m already registered.’
The woman nodded, unsure, and Solovyov realized she
had not been here long. There was no cameo ring on her
hand. There was a small ring with an emerald. It would not make a good sound when touching a shelf. Just a quiet
plasticky sound.
‘What are you interested in?’
Solovyov was interested in where Nadezhda Nikiforovna
was, but he did not say that.
‘Do you have Captain Blood: His Odyssey?’
Solovyov waited for her to vanish behind the cabinets
before he left the library on tiptoe. He was afraid the new employee would announce Nadezhda Nikiforovna’s death
to him as she handed him the book.
He walked toward the forest; the Kilometer 715 station lay beyond it. In the woods, he was surprised that the formerly two-lane road was in disrepair and had narrowed, transforming into a path. The ferns beside the road, which always used to be trampled and stunted, had grown tall. They
swayed in a warm breeze that carried the smell of the
collective farm. Solovyov and Leeza had walked to school
along this road. Very few people walked along it now, that was obvious.
Solovyov could walk here with his eyes closed. He could
easily repeat all the words he and Leeza had said in this
forest. He remembered precisely, down to every fir tree he saw, what had been said where. Or rather he had forgotten, but he remembered when he saw the trees. It seemed to
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him that at one time he had left those words to hang here, and now he was simply gathering them from the fluffy
boughs as he walked along.
Solovyov was thinking about what Leeza would say when
they met. He sensed his own guilt for his silence but his
feeling for her was so complete that he was experiencing
no fear at all before their meeting. The ardor that was rising in waves within Solovyov’s chest was capable of—he had
no doubt of this—melting away both his guilt and her
possible feeling of offense. Possible. Deep down, Solovyov did not even think that Leeza might be offended at him.
The forest became sparser and Solovyov saw the first
houses: his and Leeza’s houses. The road led to them. In
another minute or two, four more houses came into view on
the right, and the station platform was on the left. Solovyov noticed there was no longer a Kilometer 715 sign on the platform. None of the passengers on long-distance trains could now learn exactly what station they were riding through.
Solovyov began walking more slowly as he left the woods.
The path disappeared completely right at his house. Tall
grass wound around his legs and caught in the buckles on
his sandals. It was attempting to hold him there. To prevent his unexpected return. What awaited him beyond the tightly drawn, sun-faded curtains? He stopped and looked at his
house. He had not been here for six years.
The little gate would not open; Solovyov had to climb
over it. When he found himself on the other side of the
gate, he began pulling up the grass and thistle that had
grown between the bricks in the path. Solovyov stomped
on the thistle then took the broken stalks with two fingers and carefully tossed them aside.
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Once he was able to open the gate, Solovyov dragged his
bag into the yard. The yard had turned into a jungle. The
plants stood as motionlessly as if they were in a photograph, and even the freight train passing by (his feet sensed the earth’s trembling) did not disturb their peace. Solovyov
remembered a children’s book, The Land of the Dense Grasses.
He had read it on the recommendation of Nadezhda
Nikiforovna, who might also have turned to grass. Solovyov trampled tall, fragile August stems as he made his way to
the front steps. The dandelions’ white parachutes flew out from under his feet.
Wild cherry was growing on the front steps. It had fought
its way through separated boards and had already spread
its branches to the railing. Solovyov touched the sapling’s trunk, drawing his index finger along it. The trunk was soft and smooth, as if it had been polished. Quiet set in after the train left. This was full, absolute quiet; anything further would be non-existence. Solovyov sensed himself growing
into nature. His house and yard had already become nature.
His turn was coming now. Solovyov pulled out the sapling
with one tug and felt like a killer. He understood he had
no other option.
Solovyov fumbled behind the door jamb and took out a
key. He did this before he remembered this was where the
key lay. His hand remembered this motion. The key worked.
At first it spun emptily, unable to handle the lock’s rusted mechanism, but then a familiar click sounded on the second rotation and the door creaked open.
He entered a chilly dimness. Everything remained the
same as on the day he left. Everything but this: the ideal cleanliness found only in abandoned houses. Solovyov had
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left hastily six years ago. He was going to take his entrance exam
s and packed up a suitcase, just tossing aside unnecessary things. Leeza stopped him when he began stuffing
everything into cabinets. She said she would tidy it all up.
She looked at him, half-sitting on the windowsill. Solovyov remembered the motion of her fingers, touching the boards
on the windowsill one by one, as if they were playing a
piece nobody could hear.
He walked into the room and drew open the drapes.
There were neither spiders nor cobwebs in the corners of
the ceiling (they had been swept away by a twig broom
wrapped in gauze). Because there were no flies. Solovyov
realized that when a fly flew in from outside, buzzing. It was the only living being he had encountered thus far at
Kilometer 715. The fly flitted uncertainly around spots on the tablecloth that had not come out in the laundry and
then flew over to the doorknob.
A sturdy rag looped around the knobs on both sides of
the door: Solovyov’s grandmother had tied rags on the doors so they closed firmly and would not blow open in a draft.
She had placed cardboard under wobbling table legs. Glued
strips of newspaper to cracks in the glass. This was the
inventiveness of old age. The resourcefulness of debility. Of an overall debility, of an inability to change anything in life.
When Solovyov left the house after his grandmother’s death, he was leaving that inescapability, too. He was afraid he
would inherit it, too, along with the house.
There was a sound of shuffling shoes on the front steps.
They were purposely loud, striving to attract attention. That was superfluous in the ongoing quiet. Solovyov turned
slowly, ‘Yegorovna!’
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‘You came back, my dear one . . .’
Taking tiny steps, Yegorovna walked into the room and
pressed herself against Solovyov. Awkwardly, without
bending, he caught her with his arm and felt an old person’s cool tears running down his neck.
‘How’s life treating you, Yegorovna?’
‘Life?’ she pulled away, puzzled and almost offended.
‘We’re living it out! Yevdokia Firsova and I. Remember
Yevdokia?’ Her chin, fuzzy with little gray hairs, began
trembling. ‘We’re the two waiting for death. Just two at the whole station.’