by Andrei Bitov
If anyone was happy, they were. How they loved HIM! How they congratulated him! Somewhere they found a towel. And promptly found a glass of chacha, too. HE sopped up the chacha like a sponge. “Verily I say unto you: you have your reward.” HE had earned it.
The rest happened of itself. Adidasov and Dragamashchenka arrived leading the man who had been “waiting for us here.” He was solid gold: his chain, his tooth, his watch, his watchband. Not a man—a ring. He was solid white: his shirt, his suit, his shoes, his face. He was pompous and annoyed, though it was hard to tell the one from the other. We boarded the Rafik together, however, and the Rafik filled with deodorant, and we immediately braked by an entrance gate. It was the entrance to the old-age home, and he was its director. A little old man, staggering under the weight, brought us yet another box. The box kept clinking. Adidasov exchanged a handshake with the annoyed director. Our old lady and her drunken goat happened along.
She called me aside. I had no more money, but that, it turned out, wasn’t what she had called me aside for. “Be patient another year or so. You should’ve seen ’em jump off the mausoleum!” The old lady turned away, shyly wrapping her giggle in her kerchief. “It was awfully funny. God forgive me!” She had seen a vision: St. George on a white horse in Red Square. The way he rode at the mausoleum! The way he brandished his lance! They all went jumping off the grandstand helter-skelter, losing their hats. “You should’ve seen ’em!” the old lady said merrily, pointing at the director, who was trying to herd her and her goat back into the poorhouse.
And we drove on. The Rafik surmounted increasingly steep hairpin turns. Last year there had been an unheard-of snowfall here. It had been impossible to get through. That was when their tails got frostbitten—it had been impossible to help. Whose tails? Why, where we’re going. Ah, so we’re going to the monkeys after all … I didn’t want to go to the monkeys. HE wanted to. Why hadn’t I had a heart attack when HE was trying his strength with the rock? “Died of the rigors of travel”—a wonderful epitaph! “Two men … ”
The shady, overgrown road led us up a ravine. On the left, deep below us, seethed a river: the smell of water reached us. So did the smell of moldering leaves. These smells mingled, giving rise to a smell of earth—newly dug. Small stones sprayed from under the wheels and plunged gaily down into the abyss. We, too, had a chance of plunging down after them, into that fresh grave. But the river was not for that purpose. Its purpose was to divide free monkeys from unfree people. Previous experiments had shown that monkeys must not be settled anywhere near man. Underfed monkeys destroyed crops, and peasants naturally killed them off. Here the river divided them from people and formed a reservation for them, between itself and the mountains. Hydrophobia, the fear of water, fenced the monkeys off from man. No, not all monkeys are hydrophobic, but the ones who live here are.
Conversation in the rear:
“Excuse me, of course, but how many r’s do you have in your language, please?”
“What do you mean?”
“Just the letter r.”
“Hard r … soft r … trilled r, r-r-r … Three, I guess.” “Then our language is more ancient than yours: we have four.” The theory proved somewhat doubtful, but not devoid of … That the first letter was r—a development from the growl—and that forms of the letter r were the first language. And Dragamashchenka supported this by the example of his monkeys.
“Then your language isn’t more ancient, it’s more primitive,” Givivovich said in a conciliatory tone but with finality, for he was rather stung that he had one r less. Either way, though, he considered himself more ancient, inasmuch as he had been a Titan priest in a previous birth. He remembered this for sure—the next incarnation was the one he was hazy on—but all the same he was an internationalist as a result. He had come to a remarkable conclusion: we would keep being reborn in each other, until every people had been every nationality! In what sequence? … And Givivovich took revenge: “Other nations are reborn any old way—some even as Estonians. The Armenians alone are just Armenians.”
“And the Jews?”
“Oh, the Jews … ”
“And the Abkhazians?”
And again the conversation turned on 1978 … Oh, where is the beginning of that end! … “You got your television?” (Valery Givivovich’s voice.) “We gave you the university?” “You? gave? us? twenty minutes you gave us! one department you gave us! you didn’t give, we took!” “You didn’t take, we gave!” A discordant chorus.
Whose was the land?
It was Armenian first. No, Georgian. No, Abkhazian. No, Greek. Whose was the land—his who came earliest, or his who came latest? The Russian driver and I exchanged glances: the land, of course, was Russian.
Hydrophobia or geography? The natural boundaries of mountains, seas, and rivers had not sufficed to keep men from killing one another—nor would church boundaries suffice. Whose was the church?
His who had built it? His on whose land it was built? His whose faith had been accepted here? And again, not what is within us …
And yet again: Whose kingdom was earliest? Of what nationality was the king, or of what nationality his subjects?
Tamara wasn’t an Armenian? Why did you remove the Armenian stone from Jvari!
Melancholy … “For in thy sight shall no man living be justified. And again he saith: I humbled myself and he did save me … For the heart is a Pharisee, who hath not preserved virtue but magnifieth himself concerning corrections and exalteth himself over the most idle, for he knoweth not what is written of him: Boast not yourselves, he saith, speak not of heavenly things in your pride, nor let empty verbosity issue from your lips.”
We stopped at a very pretty spot on the bank of a small river and started to unload the boxes. I had already guessed, of course, that the monkeys would be absent. But I certainly hadn’t supposed that it would be to this extent. That they would be this absent, the monkeys.
No, we didn’t immediately set about demolishing the contents of our cartons. The show Givivovich had staged for me wasn’t over yet. Four of us, Givivovich, the alpha male, the drummer, and I, crossed the Hydrophobia River by a ropeway. The bucket was rated for one occupant, so we did this four times. First the alpha male, then I went. It was fun putting on the work gloves, going hand over hand along the rope, looking down from on high at the white waters and whirlpools of the alpine monkey river Hydrophobia. It was scary, of course—I understood the monkeys. They wouldn’t even go near the river. In any case they weren’t there when I dismounted. Even so, I was very excited—if we had not attained our end, we had reached an end point. I dismounted on the bank, and the alpha male greeted me by sounding a gong. The gong was a rusty rail, which hung on a convenient branch of a convenient tree.
“We’re a bit too late,” Dragamashchenka explained. “They waited for us until one o’clock.”
My skepticism was justifiable. The monkeys may have been here at some time—board huts the size of beach cabanas stood in a row like exaggerated beehives—but on each little door hung a rusty padlock. A long counter stretched in front of the huts, perhaps a high bench, or a low table—completely empty. Yes, not without reason had everyone else stayed on the bank. They knew. Givivovich couldn’t leave me alone; Dragamashchenka was in on this, though possibly the drummer was not.
“Hurry, hurry!” Dragamashchenka shouted, as though to the monkeys who had departed into the forest, but actually he was also hurrying the two men who were following us across, as well as those who had stayed on the other bank to engage in what subsequently proved to be our main business.
“Hurry, hurry!” he shouted in a repugnant alpha-male voice, and beat on the rail. The sound waves raced up the knolls and foothills, penetrating the forest and alarming the phantom monkeys. Then Dragamashchenka grew tired and lit a cigarette. “They’ve gone far,” he lamented.
He was pretending that they usually came by one o’clock, on the chance that someone would bring feed. But if no one was here, they
would go back and graze: acorns, nuts, roots … I grinned. Sure: mushrooms, berries … That’s summer, now it’s fall, he explained. I asked Dragamashchenka what was man’s first garment, and he couldn’t answer me. Givivovich became very interested, and I got him to say that it was a holster. The drummer took up the topic and stated as a certainty that the first music, and the first art in general, had been the drum. Why, even the drummer turned out to be an interesting person. He and I talked a while about the great Tarasov. Givivovich pricked up his ears: “Vladimir Petrovich?” Ah, I had forgotten that I mustn’t name names!
“Hurry! Hurry!” Dragamashchenka muezzined again. The drummer and I had stepped aside, away from Givivovich, and were chatting about ecumenism. For convincing effect, Dragamashchenka strolled along the huts and shook the padlocks. It’s still warm now, we’ll open them toward winter, he said apologetically, catching my glance. So that I would believe him, he opened one of the padlocks, took a handful of something like—as he explained—“granules” from an empty sack, and scattered them on the monkeys’ empty bar with a generous gesture. Then he thought a moment and scattered another small handful. “Is that enough?” I asked. “Enough for now,” he said. “For the time being, pasturage has to suffice them.”
The drummer had found places on the rail that he could hit for three notes and was picking out a monkey variation on the “Dog Waltz.”
By now people were calling from the other bank.
“They must have gone too far,” Dragamashchenka said apologetically.
“It’s probably not worth waiting for them any longer,” Givivovich agreed.
“No, let’s wait,” I declared firmly, and started off to meet the monkeys.
“Stop! You can’t go there!” Dragamashchenka shouted. “Without me, they’ll tear you to pieces!”
“Who will?” I could restrain myself no longer.
“Why, the monkeys! You’ve no idea how strong they are. You mustn’t go one step closer to them than the alpha male does.”
“Where do you see any monkeys?” I continued.
“Why, they could appear at any moment!”
“You don’t say? … ”
I took another step and froze. Something stopped me. I began to listen. Nothing. Or so it seemed. But something hung in the air, like yet another silence. It tensed, tautened like an invisible barrier, and sagged in my direction. I peered into the thinning foliage of the small oaks that ran uphill, and in the configurations of the branches I spied a monkey, as in the Nabokovian picture riddle of my childhood: Find the sailor and the little boy. I saw them outlined, first there, then there, suspended in uncomfortable poses, waiting, perhaps, for us to leave. We were waiting for them, they for us. By now there was a monkey hiding behind every tree trunk. But how they could wait! Not a twig stirred, not a leaf crackled. The whole slope was strewn with these shrilling leaves—you couldn’t set foot here without a deafening rustle. How had they sneaked up? …
I wasn’t going anywhere. Period. Not until they came. And since they would never come now, since Givivovich and the fake alpha male were displaying the crudeness of their scheme with increasing urgency, openly inviting me to play their game, since there was no sign of any monkeys—all the more would I see them come! All the more! I wasn’t going anywhere, ever! Again I wanted to die, as a way to live. Right here!
And this was the third temple in which … The closed church without Tornike, the hole-riddled church with the old lady, and this one. In the end, on this very day, for the second time in my life, I was without sin! And how was this any less than a temple, when …
When around me—here was the all. The all! Whether you understand or not, it’s all! … Just everyone go away. Everyone go away, for Christ’s sake! In Christ’s name I beg you, for the last time: go away! leave me alone! eat and drink on the other bank, if you’re impatient … Vanish, scatter … Get thee hence!
O Lord, with what gold Thou hast showered my last step! What Dutchmen painted this landscape for me, in colors instantly three hundred years old, in paint not yet dry! how this brown dusk shines! Hallowed be Thy Name! What silence Thou hast draped upon these branches! Yes, Thy Kingdom come! Oh, shut up, you bastard, forget words! pray, you bastard! Hurry, hurry! Pray, you son of a bitch! Weep, laugh, sob, exult, you senseless pig … Thy will be done!
The silence was swollen and saturated with expectation, like a sponge. What downpour would be disgorged from this invisible storm cloud of silence? …
And I heard the silence break, with a distinct minus-sound, giving birth to the next, still riper silence.
I waited. Soon now. Just a little longer. Hurry, hurry!
I waited and didn’t want them to come. I wanted to wait like this eternally, impatiently, for monkeys who weren’t even there. The main thing was, I didn’t want … and even now I don’t want … this to end as it must end, in the way that it will inevitably end, according to the design, the plot, predestination, my weakness, and his inclination. I don’t want to go to blue blazes! I want to stand solidly, right here, on these same dry leaves, and I won’t shift my weight even once, won’t turn my head, except for turning my eyes now and then to see this same all all over again: the hidden monkeys stock-still behind Thy tree trunks, in Thy leaves. I myself will stand like a tree. May a little monkey hide behind me, too …
O Lord, take me at this very moment! Seize—I beg Thee, in God’s name—the moment! I don’t even ask of Thee what Goethe asked,{96} I don’t ask Thee to stop everything around me because, if you please, it’s beautiful, I ask Thee only and merely to stop me at this moment, so that I will pass when it does, if indeed it is fated to pass … Not eternal life—eternal death I ask, curse my tongue for saying so! “The soul itself taketh the name of publican, because it was created pure by God but hath become defiled in the body and doth not wish to behold heaven, but, being tormented in the bosom with conscience of wicked deeds, it crieth out with heavy sighs and unceasing voice: O God, freely have mercy upon me … ”
I peered and peered into the motionlessness of the leaves, which hung on the autumn oaks as still as in a funeral wreath. All around stood an indescribable silence: the river roared, the leaves rustled underfoot. Hurry! Hurry!” squealed the alpha male, hammering at the rail with all his might. “Hurry, hurry!” they shouted from the other bank, and the drummer beat an appropriate rhythm on the monkeys’ bar, as on a tom-tom. But suddenly, not even suddenly but within the word “suddenly,” something, or even not something but something located within the word “something”—happened, moved, occurred. The picture slid sideways as if coming unstuck, it hung by one corner, it rolled up, the heavens curled at the edges in the manner of a Chinese pagoda, the alpha male froze with the rusty bolt poised over the rail, the drummer failed to finish his rhythm, and even the river hushed. And within this very silence, and not the preceding one, was born another silence, it tensed and swelled like an immense bubble, like a vein on the Divine brow, and when it burst with a minus-sound, like a dehermeticized vacuum, it gave birth to a sound until then unprecedented in my life, alive, multiple and total, implacably nearing and growing, like a tree, like an avalanche, like a torrent, rushing at us—and nothing, well, exactly nothing changed before my eyes—nothing moved, not a leaf, but I couldn’t take my eyes off this indescribable sound … No words …
3. The Cock
… Have we already discussed this with someone, the nature of the indescribable? It wasn’t Pavel Petrovich, was it? None other. I seem to remember talking with him …
Now an indescribable terror grips you, now an indescribable ecstasy. You’ve taken up your pen, so write, if you’re all that much of a writer … But what to write about, if not the indescribable? The undescribed—anyone who happens on it will write about it. But the writer bumps against both these walls, of ecstasy and terror, as he forces his way down the narrow corridor of narration (narration is narrowtion, an Englishman once told me). We want to expand to full breadth: who has painted the sea? or
the mountains? the forest? the sky? Turgenev and Bunin tested their skill a bit, back when we had time. And again, Turner (as Pavel Petrovich suggested). Again, indescribable silence: the cicadas shrilled and the surf roared unceasingly, a violin string snapped in the fog, and someone blew plaintively into a bottle{97} … If it’s indescribable, we say, write it beautifully. The more indescribable, we say, the more beautifully. What, is the ugly describable? With the ugly, it simply seems permissible to write a little worse … All the same, the beautiful is like … and the ugly is like … We can’t do without the “like.” But language isn’t comparisons, it’s words. Words are encased in the dictionary. And we are encased in words. A fly, so to speak, in amber. So which is beautiful, the amber or the fly? Words vanish from the dictionary, precipitating out as if from a supersaturated solution. The indescribable animal, the horse, has at last been described: for his every joint we have chosen, with love, a primordially Russian word. And now what? The horse is leaving the dictionary, part by part. First the cannon bone, then the gaskin, then the fetlock, then the pastern, then the coronet—all that remains is the mane and hooves, his corneous integument. Also vanishing part by part, after the horse, are the cow, the house, the songbirds, and the grasses. What kind of collectivization is this? The commissars, we say, came and removed everything from the farmyard. But no, it wasn’t the commissars alone who did it. We did. And the words that have appeared in exchange—these are anonyms, not words. What do I get from “automation” and “disaggregation”? Not a kopeck. Well, “airplane” is a good word … What will I see if I look out the window, not of a house, but of an airplane? Not a fence, not a hen—I’ll see an indescribable beauty, which no one ever saw before the airplane. Rosy white, unbroken, whipped up, boundless, swirling, and above it a sort of, how best to express it? a deep, deep blue, azure, sky-blue, well, just like, oh, just like … just like the sky. But where are you? I’m flying in the sky. So what’s indescribable about it, if it’s the sky? What are the clouds like? Like cotton … And they’re nothing but cotton. The Arctic, the cosmos. Well, all right: An indescribable silence. All around stood an indescribable silence, I’ll write. A good Russian construction. No, better: All around stood silence. More pregnant, somehow. Stood like a pillar—another good idiom. Better yet, let the pillar stand like a silence. More fitting for the pillar. Silence. Maybe that’s enough. Silence—and it’s all there.