The Kukotsky Enigma: A Novel

by Ulitskaya, Ludmila

  For all their disagreements—which over the course of the many years of their conversations constantly, like a cat in a bag, made themselves known—Pavel Alekseevich and Ilya Iosifovich coincided unconditionally in one regard. They shared a clear sense of the hierarchy of knowledge, of which raw data collection (weight, shape, color, number of chromosomes or legs or veins on the wing) was the most primitive but also formed the very foundation. In the ancient and descriptive science of data collection, approximation was not allowed, and answers had to be unequivocal: yes or no … Speculation of a theoretical nature—about the cosmic clock or the evolution of some biological species—had to build precisely on reliable knowledge measured with a ruler, a thermometer, or a hydrometer … And so, Goldberg based his calculations and speculation about genius on levels of uric acid in blood. Goldberg’s new ideas struck Pavel Alekseevich as interesting, but completely unfounded. Goldberg insisted that the construction of a model of a process was also in many cases its proof. Pavel Alekseevich did not want to hear anything of the sort.

  After three terms in the camps, having lost the intelligentsia’s innate sense of guilt before nation, society, and Soviet power, Goldberg had arrived at his latest idea: that over the course of fifty years of Soviet power the sociogenetic unit formerly, before the revolution, known as the “Russian people” had ceased to exist as a reality, and the current population of the Soviet Union that bore the proud name of the “Soviet people” was in fact a new sociogenetic unit that differed profoundly from its predecessor in a variety of parameters—physically, psychophysically, and morally …

  “Okay, Ilya, I am prepared to agree that in physical appearance great changes really have occurred: hunger, wars, the massive displacement of peoples, miscegenation … Ultimately, it is possible to conduct anthropometric research. But how can you measure moral qualities? No, that’s rubbish. I’m sorry, but it’s unprofessional …”

  “I assure you, there are ways. They’re indirect still, but they exist.” Ilya Iosifovich defended his theory. “Suppose the human genome consists of one hundred thousand genes; that’s a plausible figure. They are distributed across twenty-three pairs of chromosomes, right? Although we know a lot about the various mechanisms of intrachromosomal exchange, we still have grounds for dividing all genes into twenty-three groups by chromosome affiliation. Well, of course, that’s impossible to do today, but a hundred years from now, I assure you, it will be doable. And just imagine: the gene responsibility for, say, the blue color of the iris is located in direct proximity to the gene that determines cowardice or bravery! There’s a good chance that they will be inherited together.”

  “One gene for one quality, you’re saying?” Pavel Alekseevich objected. “It seems unlikely that such a powerful and diverse quality as courage would be determined by a single gene.”

  “What difference does it make: let it be ten genes! That’s not the point! The point is simply that eye color could turn out to be linked to another gene. Crudely put, a blue-eyed person has a greater chance of turning out to be heroic,” Ilya Iosifovich raised his index finger.

  “Great idea, Ilya,” Pavel guffawed. “A blue-eyed blond is brave, while a black-eyed brunet is a coward. And if the black-eyed fellow also has a hook nose, then he’s a Judas, for sure! Genetically speaking …”

  “You’re a typical provocateur, Pasha!” Ilya Iosifovich wailed. “I had something totally different in mind. Listen! In 1918 the White Army—nearly three hundred thousand healthy young men of reproductive age—left Russia. The aristocratic, select part of society—the more educated, the more honest, and unwilling to compromise with Bolshevik power!”

  “Where are you going with that? Ilyusha, that’s going to get you a fourth term!”

  “Don’t interrupt!” Ilya Iosifovich dismissed him. “Nineteen twenty-two. The year they deported all the professors. Not that many, around six hundred, it seems. But again: the select! The best of the best! With their families! The country’s intellectual potential. Further: the anti-kulak campaigns claim millions of peasants, also the best, the hardest working. And their children. And their unborn children as well. People disappear and take their genes with them. They remove them from the gene pool. Party repressions knock out whom? Those who have the courage to express their own opinion, to object, to defend their own point of view! The honest ones, that is! The most honest! Priests were systematically exterminated over the entire period … The bearers of moral values, teachers and educators …”

  “But at the same time, Ilya, they were also the most conservative people, no?”

  “I won’t deny that. But allow me to point out that nowadays conditions in Russia are such that a conservative—traditional, that is—mentality presents less danger than a revolutionary one,” Goldberg noted with a haughty smile. “Let’s keep going. World War II. Exemption from military service is granted to the elderly and the infirm. They’re the ones given an extra chance of surviving. Prisons and camps consume the larger part of the male population, depriving them of the chance to leave offspring. Do you sense the degree of deformation? Now let’s add to that Russia’s famous alcoholism. But that’s not all. There is one more extremely important consideration. We’re constantly discussing whether or not evolution is a directed process, whether it has its own goals. Within the current time span, a very short one from the point of view of evolution, we can observe an exceptionally effective mechanism of directed evolution. Insofar as the evolution of a species is aimed at survival, we are within our rights to put the question as follows: which qualities offer the individual greater chances of surviving? Brains? Talent? Honor? A sense of self-esteem? Moral resolve? No! All of these qualities have impeded survival. The carriers of these qualities either left the country or were systematically exterminated. And which qualities facilitated survival? Caution. Caginess. Hypocrisy. Moral irresolution. Lack of self-esteem. Overall, any illustrious quality made a person conspicuous and immediately put him at risk. Gray, average, C students, so to speak, found themselves at an advantage. Take a Gaussian distribution. Remove the center, the area of more pronounced carriers of any quality. Now, taking all these factors into consideration, you can construct a map of the gene pool that claims to be the Soviet people. And you say?”

  “In view of the general atmosphere these days—five to seven years,” Pavel Alekseevich commented.

  Ilya Iosifovich laughed. “That’s what I’ve been saying: the nation has become flatter, the chimney lower, the smoke thinner … Before it would have been worth ten to fifteen …”

  Pavel Alekseevich always liked his friend’s wit and fearlessness, although inside he often disagreed with the results of his high-keyed mental work. The brutal picture of national degeneration Ilya Iosifovich had drawn demanded verification. Pavel remembered perfectly his father’s social circle in the last years before the revolution. In a certain sense, Ilya was right: the doctors of the highest rank, university professors, and leading clinicians at the time were people with European educations and broad interests extending beyond the bounds of their profession. Among the people who visited their house there had been military men, lawyers, and writers … He had to admit: it had been a long time since Pavel Alekseevich had encountered people of the same intellectual level … But that didn’t mean that they didn’t exist … They could exist—in secret, without announcing their existence … “No, no, that’s nonsense,” Pavel Alekseevich cut himself short. That only supports Ilyusha’s idea: don’t stick out, hide in a corner, and that means denying your own identity … A serious objection lies somewhere else … Of course, with children. In newborn children. Each is marvelous and unfathomable, like a sealed book. Goldberg’s ideas are too mechanistic. According to him, if you subtract a couple dozen genetic letters from a hundred thousand, new children—the daughters and sons of informers, murderers, thieves, and perjurers—who carry their parents’ qualities alone, will populate the world … Rubbish! Each infant holds enormous potential; it represents the entire hu
man race. When you come down to it, Goldberg himself wrote a whole book about genius and should have noticed that genius, that rare miracle, can be born of a fisherman, a watchmaker, or a dishwasher …

  The natural greatness of mountains and oceans with all that they contain—their fish, their birds, their mushrooms, and their people—stands above Ilyusha’s reasoning, and the wisdom of the world surpasses all, even the most outstanding, human discoveries. You can sweat, pant, stand on your toes, and strain yourself to the limit, but all you’ll get is a mere reflection of the true law. Of course, those hundred thousand genes are a great puzzle. But that puzzle does not contain the whole truth, just an insignificant portion of it. Its entirety lies inside the newborn still slippery with vernix, and even if each of them bears all one hundred thousand potentials, it cannot, it must not be, that nature intended some massive aberration that would turn an entire nation into an experimental herd …

  Pavel Alekseevich said something of the sort, in short, to Goldberg, but the latter resisted.

  “Pavel, human beings stopped being governed by the laws of nature long ago. A very long time ago! Already today certain natural processes are regulated by humans, and within a hundred years, I assure you, humans will learn how to change the climate, control heredity, and discover new forms of energy … Soviet man will also be reshaped, the lost genes reintroduced. And, in general, imagine: a young couple have decided to have a child—that’s your field—and they are able to designate in advance their child’s genetic makeup, combining the parents’ best qualities with desired qualities absent in the parents’ genome!”

  “It wouldn’t be a bad idea to ask the child.” Pavel Alekseevich frowned.

  Ilya Iosifovich was angry: Why couldn’t the old gynecologist understand such simple things? Why didn’t he share his joy for the inevitable beauty of a future world enhanced through science with precise calculation and without all the pesky imperfections of a marvelous design?

  “When are you going to resurrect the dead?” Pavel Alekseevich quipped.

  “Not yet, but life expectancy will increase at least twofold. And people will be twice as happy,” Ilya Iosifovich claimed with exaggerated passion. All his discoveries and ideas required a dispute; without polemics they lacked something …

  “Maybe twice as unhappy? No, no, that kind of world is not for me. Then like Ivan Karamazov, I’ll return my ticket …”

  Father and daughter, stepfather and stepdaughter, had not grown so far apart from each other after all.

  4

  Elena’s Second Notebook

  I NEED TO JOT DOWN MY NOTES AT THE SAME TIME EVERY day and to tell Vasilisa to remind me. I used to keep a notebook like this, but I don’t remember where it’s disappeared to. For absolute certain I hid it somewhere, but I don’t remember where. I tried looking for it, but couldn’t find it anywhere. I remember well what it looked like: a general-purpose school notebook on some subject that Tanya had started and then abandoned. Light blue.

  Today my head is clear, and my thoughts are in order. Sometimes there are days when I can’t think a single thought to the end and I lose it. Or I lose words, and everything is filled with black holes. What a disaster!

  At first the doctors thought that I had some sort of disease that affected the blood vessels in my brain. Then PA took me to the Burdenko Institute, and they tested me with all their various apparatuses. PA didn’t leave me for a second, and he looked so lost. He’s too good for words. There, at the Burdenko Institute, they said that my blood vessels weren’t great, but that nothing terrible was happening to them. It turned out that in fact they had been looking for a brain tumor and were happy not to have found one. Of course, there wasn’t supposed to be one. I am absolutely sure that there’s nothing in my head that shouldn’t be there; just the opposite, something necessary is missing. A psychiatrist examined me as well. He also found no disease. Still, I spent a month and a half on sick leave, then went back to work. Everyone was very glad to see me, Galya and Anna Arkadievna as well. Galya had been doing all my work and says that she’d had a rough time. Kozlov brought his drafts and asked me to do final copy. As always, I found lots of mistakes in his work. It’s just amazing: he’s such a talented engineer, but has absolutely no spatial imagination.

  I feel best at my drafting board: I don’t forget anything, and my work, as always, consoles me.

  Tanechka of late has become more kind. Although basically nothing has changed: she isn’t looking for work and quit the university. PA says that I shouldn’t pester her about that. He says that she’s an intelligent girl and we should trust her judgment. Yesterday (or the day before?) Tanya dropped in on me in the evening when I was already in bed. She kissed me, sat down on the bed, and asked if I remembered how we had all gone to Timiryazevka to ride the horses. We spent a long time recollecting that winter day. I remember all the details: how PA’s nose kept dripping. (He’d forgotten his handkerchief at home and kept asking us to turn away, blowing his nose soldier-style between his two fingers. With a trumpeting sound.) How happy we were in those days! I remember perfectly all the details of that day, the kind of car we rode in, what kind of coat Tanya had on, even that famous purebred black horse with the small head. Only I couldn’t remember its name, and Tanya reminded me: its name was Arab. I don’t remember why PA was so cheerful that day. He still didn’t drink then.

  No, that’s not right. I’m mistaken: that was precisely the year he started to drink. He keeps worrying about my health, but he ought to think about himself. He can’t drink that much at his age. But I can’t say anything to him. Still he’s the best. Despite the fact that we’ve lived as if we’ve been divorced for ten years. Or not divorced?

  Another memory slip again. This time at work. During lunch I was in the cafeteria. I was eating salad when I suddenly couldn’t figure out what was in front of me: some red pieces of something that I had no idea what to do with … I came to, like last time, the next day in my bed. Then Anna Arkadievna came and told me what had happened to me. I stayed in the cafeteria with my salad until the cafeteria lady said that it was time for her to close, but I didn’t answer her. She even got scared. And so on. Anna Arkadievna didn’t call an ambulance, but got a cab and drove me home. She says that I was very obedient but didn’t respond to questions.

  PA resigned me from my job. He speaks very tenderly to me, but unnaturally, as with a little child. I have tried to explain to him that I am absolutely healthy, that certain pieces drop out of my memory, but that in all other respects everything’s the same. I am not insane, and I understand perfectly what’s happening to me. I really can’t go to work in this condition, but I would like to get work from the institute to do at home. We have an arrangement for people who work at home. Otherwise, I’ll just be bored. It’s not like Vasilisa and I are going to start making soup together. So he and I made an agreement.

  Yesterday Tomochka said that she’s planning on entering trade school. Good girl! She’s also very tender with me.

  This morning I drank tea, ate a piece of bread with cheese, and then forgot and went back to the kitchen to have breakfast. Vasilisa yelled at me, saying that I got in the way of her making dinner. I said that I wanted to have breakfast. She said that I had already eaten breakfast. What a nightmare! I’m turning into an old woman who never walks away from the refrigerator, like Anna Arkadievna’s crazy mother-in-law. I’m going to have to write down what I did and didn’t do.

  I ate breakfast. I ate dinner. I worked after dinner. The doctor from the polyclinic came by. It’s cold in my room.

  I ate breakfast (or was that yesterday?). PA came home and scolded me for not taking my pills. Now Vasilisa is going to give me my pills three times a day because I forget. That’s very funny. It would be hard to find anyone less suited for that assignment. Today she woke me at six in the morning—to take my medicine. “My dear, why so early?” I asked her. “Later I’ll be busy and forget!” It’s so funny you want to cry! This isn’t a family; it’s a
madhouse. Poor PA, what will happen to him if I lose my memory entirely?

  I ate breakfast. I couldn’t remember if I washed up or not. I went to wash up, but my towel was wet. That means I’d already washed. There was dinner: vegetable soup and chicken for the main dish. Was there chicken yesterday too? And the day before?

  They brought my drafting table from work. It fills half my room. I asked if it couldn’t be moved. It turned out that they had brought it last week. I was amazed. I didn’t tell them the worst of it: it turns out that I had already done some work, drafted something, but I don’t remember a thing. And it would be awkward to ask. I’m trying hard to behave correctly. Because I’m afraid of constantly revealing my memory lapses I’ve almost stopped talking with people at home and try to answer with as few words as possible. I watch TV more. Reading gives me no pleasure. I picked up my old volume of Tolstoy. It’s probably the only reading that doesn’t depress me. I know his work so well that I don’t have to strain.

  Today my head is exceptionally clear. I had Vasilisa change my bedding. She has never liked to change bedding. If you don’t remind her, she’ll never do it on her own. I took a bath and washed my hair. While sitting in the tub I remembered a recent dream with an enormous amount of water in it. Suddenly I realized that I had not stopped having dreams; I’d simply stopped remembering them. I have to try to write everything down.

  PA sat with me for a long while in my room. I feel so good with him. He simply sat down in the armchair next to me and said nothing. Then he took me by the hand and played with my fingers for the longest time. I love him very much. He probably knows that.

  I ate breakfast. I took my pills. I ate dinner. Kozl. has two mistakes in his drafts. It’s much more plesnt working with constructors. They have mch more competent staff.