Solovyov raised himself up on his elbow and looked around.
The whistling disappeared. There was nothing unusual in
the room. Solovyov lay down again and the whistling
resumed. He slid his feet into his slippers and went to the kitchen. He stopped in the kitchen doorway. A great
titmouse was sitting on the cupboard door.
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The bird was obviously watching him, though for some
reason it was not facing Solovyov. Only one of its eyes was visible, lending the bird an inappropriately coquettish
appearance. The bird had flown in through the high venti-
lation window, which had been opened for the night. Why
had it not flown out through the window? Unable to find
it? Or did it not want to? Solovyov thought that they might live together. He took a step toward the bird, who fluttered to the ceiling light fixture. The sound of wings was unexpectedly loud in the quiet of the kitchen. The thought even flashed through his mind that the word fluttered was onomat-opoeic. This was exactly how bird wings sounded.
Solovyov shrugged and walked over to the window. A
drum beat was streaming through the little window along
with the frosty air. Initially it was pure rhythm, barely
discernible and almost lacking sound. This rhythm was
resounding from Ofitsersky Lane, just in front of the Military Space Academy. It was located in the buildings of the former Second Cadet Corps.
Solovyov stood with his forehead pressed to the glass,
surprised at the unusualness of his current place of resi-
dence. Its markedly military-space orientation. He watched as a column of cadets moved, implausibly slowly, toward
the archway of his building. They probably wanted to salute the spot where engineer Los’s workshop had stood. After
all, they must want very much to go to Mars if they had
entered the Military Space Academy.
Despite their outward unhurriedness (and in this lies the
monumentalness of how the masses move), the forward
column had managed to cover a significant distance in the
murky snow. Solovyov had already discerned several drum-
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mers leading the column. A man with a banner was
marching ahead of the drummers. His legs rose to waist-
level and with each step that imprinted itself in the snow, a tassel on the banner’s peak flew up recklessly. Perhaps he wanted to go to Mars more than the rest.
A whistling sounded behind Solovyov’s back. The bird
was sitting on the cabinet again. This time the bird was not looking at him sideways. His bright yellow breast faced
Solovyov. Solovyov stood on tiptoe and opened the window
wider. Out of uncertainty, he spoke to the bird at full
volume, ‘If you don’t want to stay, then fly.’
He walked away from the window for effect and pointed
at the small ventilation window with his hand. Both the
gesture and his intonation felt utterly false. The bird
preferred not to move and if Solovyov were the bird, he
would not have flown away, either. When Solovyov
attempted to come closer to the cabinet, approaching from
the other side, the bird flew up toward the lower window
and hit the glass several times with a ringing thud. The bird fell to the floor, flew up, and struck the glass again. Solovyov rushed to the window and the bird flew off into the other
room, tracing a semi-circle around the kitchen.
Solovyov followed the bird slowly into the other room.
The bird was sitting on a bookshelf, prepared for a further encounter with the glass. Its eyes shone with the determination of a kamikaze. Solovyov stopped at the threshold,
leaning against the doorjamb. He pitied the bird. He pitied the glass that might not withstand it. But the sound of the bird striking the window was genuinely unbearable for him.
A prolonged, throbbing sound. The sound of live clashing
with unlive.
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‘Now listen, bird . . .’
Solovyov thought this was a voice for addressing someone
standing on a ledge. Someone who had strapped on explo-
sives. It was an unnaturally calm voice. A voice for difficult situations.
‘The big window’s taped up for winter. But I’ll open it
so you can fly away . . .’
The bird was listening. Solovyov slowly moved along the
opposite wall. After reaching the window, he forcefully slid the latch and pulled the window handle. The frame gave
way with a dry crackling. Shreds of loosened cotton wool
began fluttering in the wind. Holding his breath, Solovyov stole back to the doorway. Steam came out of his mouth
when he finally exhaled. The surprised bird observed snow-
flakes melting on the parquet floor. The first column of
cadets had managed to come through the archway and was
now drumming from the side of the house with the open
window.
‘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
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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, f
erociously 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.
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‘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.
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‘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.
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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.’
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‘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.
Solovyov left the institute and went to the train station.
He boarded a trolleybus but then got out at the very first stop and returned to the institute. In the clerical office, he requested a referral letter for the Rumyantsev Library. Just in case. When he got to the station, he learned that the
earliest train was leaving in three hours; he bought a ticket.
This was a very early train that arrived in Moscow at 4:30
in the morning; the library opened at nine. But Solovyov
preferred waiting in Moscow to waiting in Petersburg.
; Inactivity felt intolerable to him now. On top of that, waiting in Moscow was waiting near Leeza.
At home, Solovyov tossed the most necessary items into
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a bag. He thought for a moment, then also put in the folder he had received: he had not even had a chance to open it
yet. In memory of his trip to Crimea, he took a can of food.
Meat he had bought at a nearby store. For an instant, he
had the feeling he was leaving forever. Solovyov looked
around. He had everything he needed. He shut the door
hard and turned the key in the lock twice. It sounded like two distant gunshots in the echoing stairwell. Like an echo of Solovyov’s decisive actions. The clanking of the key had its own significance, even a point of no return, inasmuch, needless to say, as that descriptor could be attached to a key.
Solovyov caught a taxi outside. He rode up to the station a half-hour before the train’s departure.
He went into the entrance hall and bought a newspaper.
As he left the entrance hall, he put it in a trash bin. He took the can from his bag and gave it to a pauper. Went
out to the platform. Under bright spotlights, pipes on the carriages were belching smoke. Or steam. Most likely
steam: it disappeared instantly over the carriages’ roofs, which glistened with ice. Conductors wearing black felt
boots stood by the carriage doors. They blew into their
mittens from time to time, pressing their lips to their wrists.
Sometimes knocking one felt boot against another with a
muffled sound. Solovyov showed his ticket and went to his
compartment. He greeted the three women who were
already sitting there. They answered in chorus. It was nice for him that they were women, not men. The train began
moving.
Only after Solovyov had climbed up to the top bunk did
he remember the folder. He went back down, got the folder, and crawled back up with it. He turned on the lamp over
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his head. After getting used to the dim lighting, he opened the folder. He was flabbergasted.
After everything he had heard during the day, he had
found something now that was capable of stunning him.
There, in the poorly lighted bunk, Solovyov held in his hands the end of the general’s memoirs. He could recognize that
handwriting in any lighting. Yes, he was stunned. But not
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