by Andrei Bitov
“O Lord, if Thou art, and I am not a formula, is this not too much for happiness?”
“That was when it all happened,” I recalled, my tires crunching along the highway. The desert stretched on. The sand flew coarser and coarser, struck the windshield more and more ringingly. And then, as I compared that silence and this one, that rustle of fallen leaves and this whisper of sand, that sense of expectation and this, and found them identical, I realized that I was waiting, and for what. In my unmilitary mind, the insight was blinding: I had never seen them free, the tanks, any more than I had seen the monkeys … I realized that the tanks had traveled down the highway ahead of me. They had ground up the asphalt and sent dust and sand rising to the sky.
Yes, that was when it all happened. HE was struggling to get to the other bank with a box of groceries, to feed the monkeys. Pavel Petrovich was teaching Doctor D. to puke, Valery Givivovich had his arm around Million Tomatoes … But I was seeing a flaming tower, with fire shooting from all its holes, and that tower was—the Hotel Abkhazia. Manuscripts burn splendidly, and the conflagration was starting from a manuscript! Especially with such a lot of plywood around it …
On the way back, Pavel Petrovich babbled some more nonsense about a descended God: Since we had not fulfilled our purpose, and He had already given us freedom of choice, He was no longer able to interfere or correct, but neither did He divest Himself of responsibility. He sent us His Son and we didn’t understand, we assigned the heavens and the churches to Him and carried on as before. He had no choice but to share our lot, to descend to us and dissolve in us. In this sense, He is among us. And is even, perhaps, one of us. And we never know with whom we are dealing—every time we meet a man, not inconceivably we are meeting Him …
But I understood that all was over. Not just the hotel had burned, and not just my manuscript, but live souls. The empire had ended, history had ended, life had ended—I didn’t care what happened next. Didn’t care in what sequence the debris and burning brands went flying, or at what velocity.
Somehow everything had become too clear about the future.
It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter what happened now. Because what had been would never be again. When what has been vanishes, what would have been vanishes also, along with it, because not even an atom of what has been will be contained in what will be. You will not be. What’s the difference.
Both when I finally saw the first tank and when I saw the burning Abkhazia, both when I came up against that armored dune and when the heat of the fire stopped me, perhaps the sand got in my eyes, or the smoke, but I cared so little, pitied myself so little, that I started to cry.
“And you privately think you’re free of vainglory?” It was HIS sickening voice.
“Vainglory!” My blood boiled. “What’s that got to do with it!”
“You don’t regret your labor. When did you ever labor? You regret the lottery ticket—which might have been a winner, at last. Anything could suddenly happen … and suddenly didn’t. By the way, you abuse that little word ‘suddenly.’ ”
Oh, HE knew how to get me! I blew up. “Who are you to say this to me! Purulent pederast!”
“Fie! Intelligent, the man thinks he is. An intellectual.”
So much poison HE put into the one root …
“Who, me—an intellectual?” I said indignantly, just like HIM.
“But I’m not,” HE parried regally.
I couldn’t argue with that.
“And then,” he said, resentfully and smugly. “Judge for yourself, how could I be gay?”
“Did I say it, or did you? In your opinion, if someone’s intellectual he’s homosexual?”
“What, aren’t they synonyms?”
“You know the word ‘synonym’?”
He burst out laughing. “Who can say what burned in the library at Alexandria? Were there many masterpieces? Maybe Bulgakov destroyed it so that he could speak his famous phrase?{106} Was Heraclitus all that good, apart from the quotations? Gogol … It’s definitely the masterpieces that burn. Easier for us that way. How inconvenient without a conflagration—we have to lose our manuscripts by the suitcaseful, like Hemingway … So let me tell you: that’s definitely your masterpiece burning now. Live Souls! Why Soldiers of Empire? I’d advise you to rename the book. Stick to this version. Even better, burn with it. A most happy finale! Right away you’ll be a genius. Myth is a splendid advertisement. People will start reading you, finding out what burned, your unrealized potential … Who can say that it wasn’t vast? You have to leave a trail of potentialities, not texts. It’s not enough to be better than others. Takes too long. Much easier to get what doesn’t belong to you, all at one go. Death—and right away your whole future, entire. And you don’t have to stick your neck in a noose, shoot yourself, burn your masterpieces, or lose your suitcases … That’s not your work or worry anymore—they will take care of the mourning and the money. They, too, have to exist somehow. They’ll work! For you, by the way. Just leave it to them. Give in. Walk away. Why keep on existing and existing? Make widows of them, go ahead, do it! Let them screw on your grave with the gravedigger—now, that’s recognition! Real recognition. Glory. And it has nothing to do with the tsar, or society—it was fate, the elements! A better co-author … No. Drunken nobodies get hit by a tractor, the great man never!
I dare you!”
I lunged toward the fire so that HE would stop me, and he did: “ ‘Co-author,’ ‘tractor’—do they rhyme?”
“As you wish,” I said, slain. “Better, ‘provocateur.’ Is it true that none of them ever perished in an accident?”
“Unclaimed by fate. That’s why they dramatized it.”
“Just now my text is in flames—this is no dramatization.”
“What do you think, did the rats and cats manage to escape?”
“What the … ”
“Because you’ll be the culprit in their death. Maybe one of them was a Copernicus.”
“Not Copernicus. Giordano Bruno.”
“What difference does it make? Even people bother you less than your manuscript. But don’t worry—nobody burned.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s no special trick. I observe life. There’s just one man who can still burn in this historic conflagration—”
“It just won’t be you.”
“Again, notice: I’m the boor, but you’re the one who always makes rude remarks. Always to me, moreover. You’d be scared of a boor.”
“I’m not scared of you!”
“Very clever. Even you can sometimes reply without fishing in your pocket.”
“Only my breast pocket.”
“Why are you always so afraid you’ll be suspected? Take pride. You’ve whipped up a pretty fierce fire—even if not worldwide. When Gogol cremated his dead souls, he froze for good.{107} Never did get warm.”
“He himself burned, as a live soul.”
“You think so?”
“I don’t think anything! It’s my novel that burned.”
“Your baby?”
“Exactly!”
“Your favorite?”
“You don’t understand these things.”
“These things, those things … What do you understand! Have you ever once given thought to anyone? understood anyone? You call me ‘HE’ and yourself ‘I’—is that fair? When we drink vodka, it’s us together, but when we puke, it’s me? What’s the big surprise if I don’t care … Your novel can go to blue blazes! That’s fair. Have it your way: I didn’t write it, you did. No skin off my nose. I should have your problems, Teacher.”
“That’s … how a master of old jokes would write it!”
“I can’t write.” His voice was unexpectedly gentle.
“You don’t say! Well, at last. You admit it.”
“I don’t mean in your sense. Not in the writer’s sense. I can’t sign my own name.”
“You’re kidding!”
But I knew HE wasn’t kidding this time.
“Well, so you’ve helped me in other ways. You might have observed things. Remembered them. Since you’re so observant. Or you might have read a book about monkeys and told me about it—”
“I can’t read.”
“That either? You’re logical, though, in your own way.”
“Yes,” he said smugly, “character is my prerogative.”
“Prerogative … Where have you picked up these words. Like old jokes.”
“There you go again. I’m your wastebasket. But actually, that’s all you have left now, the crumpled things from the wastebasket that I’ve smoothed out.”
“You saved those!”
“Why, of course! Rough drafts—they’re a high for me. I can make them out without reading them. Like claim checks. Like streetcar tickets.”
“Do you really love me so?”
“So … ” HE said scornfully. “Why must I love you so? Like loving a Jew. Can’t I just love? Is that too little, not enough? I hate you! But always more than you hate me. After all, I’m not as unfeeling—”
“As I am … Listen! Remember in that marvelous Georgian town, the time you got so drunk … the time you and I got so drunk … the time I and you … oh, anyway, the time we got drunk and I was dying, I’d been beaten up by the local Armenians for my pro-Georgian speeches, which they perceived as anti-Armenian … Remember?”
“Nah,” he said. “I don’t remember.”
“You don’t? You’re kidding … I lay there in my hotel room, dead drunk, beaten to death, dying. My heart kept stopping. I counted. It beat again after all. And now it failed to beat. I had died. No light, no corridor, no tunnel … A warm, nauseating darkness, like terror. Like being stuffed back into the womb. And then I was lying naked and washed, on my belly, but I saw the whole room, as if I were on my back. And I saw myself, me, hovering at the ceiling … Was that YOU?”
Now HE turned his other side to the conflagration, partly to cool the current side, partly to warm the previous one …
“I remember a yellow lightbulb, with YOU circling around it. The light was peculiarly yellow, like a body … like YOUR body. And like mine. You were watching with such curiosity! As if seeing for the first time … Whom did you see?”
“Why are you trying to shake me, like a detective in a movie … ” HE retorted lazily.
“Was that you or me? Did you return me to life, or did I return you?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You were flying above me, and you were very excited. And I was dead.”
“Sure. ‘Then in the desert you lay dead … ’ ”{108}
“That fits—that’s how it looked. Only worse. In the bed. Or more accurately, on the bed. Because this was a corpse. The live man lay in the bed, the dead man on the bed. Don’t you agree?”
“We didn’t finish high school.”
“It’s not the grammar. I mean, there were two of them, identical, like twins, like two peas. A dead man and a live one. And they merged. It grew dark. I opened my eyes. It was dark. The dead don’t open their eyes. I groped in the darkness. And the first thing I felt was this object … Round, warm, and elongated. Hard. Standing upright. Don’t you remember?”
“I don’t do that, myself.”
“Fool. The object wasn’t part of my body.”
“Well, all the more, then!”
“Fool! It was the neck! The neck of a clay jug, filled with red wine!”
“Well?” He was interested. “And what happened?”
“What do you think happened? I touched it caressingly.”
“Well?”
“And applied myself!”
“And threw up.”
“No, I didn’t, I drank my fill and was resurrected. I turned on the light. Note that it wasn’t on. Note that it wasn’t nearly so yellow. But I was stark naked, and I’d been bathed, and the jug hadn’t been there before! Did you bring it?”
“The Georgians sent it to you, for your anti-Armenian speeches.”
“No, it was YOU!”
“Typical delirium.”
“Delirium … Illiterate, but how you pick up the words.”
“From you. But tell me, what happened next?”
“Next … Next I summoned you, and you drank the rest.”
“Better you’d croaked,” he said, resentful again. “This whole act, who’s it for? What’s this role you’ve assigned to me? You create, you write and read, you’re as spiritual as Beethoven … Me, I just drink and sleep and … Why, you’re like Venichka, you don’t even go to the bathroom. And I haven’t even got a proper name! Slavery. That’s the only thing your kind have managed to invent! Slavery!”
“My kind?”
“People!”
“And what are YOU?”
“You know.”
“Not an angel?”
“I never said that … ”
“Did you think that up yourself, about slavery?”
“I suppose you did? Where would you get MY experience? You always talk down to me, but in fact you hold me down. To the role of pig, drudge, scum. I swear, it’s like you’re taking revenge.”
“Why?”
“You know.”
“I don’t know!”
“Because I’ve got spirit, and you don’t! Because I’ve got talent, and you don’t! Because I’m the one the women love!”
“So that’s why we’re quarreling. A woman!”
“I’m not about to quarrel with you. You’re no rival of mine!”
“That’s a fact. Strange … It just occurred to me! Listen! Why is it we’ve never fallen in love with the same woman?”
“Your women never appealed to me. And you were shy with mine.”
“Do you think so?”
“What’s to think.”
“Well, but was there never one who would have suited us both?”
“That’s called love.”
“Well, but have we never loved?”
“I have, but you haven’t.”
“Because you didn’t share with me. Kept it all for yourself!”
“Who, me? But all my efforts were on your behalf!”
“Oh, come off it! But don’t we have the same soul for both of us? She’s not yours or mine, is she?”
“Mine!”
“Exactly. Animal!”
“Computer!”
“Listen, aren’t you sorry for our gentle soul? We batter her, we’ve worn her out completely—”
“We tear her to pieces, crumple her, wipe our feet on her!”
“We’ve dragged her down, humiliated her—”
“Screwed her!”
“We should be sorry for her, not ourselves—”
“It’s too late to be sorry. We must save her!”
“A live soul—”
“Barely alive!”
“Not rejoicing, not exulting—”
“No wonder. Hardly breathing!”
“Is this good?”
“This is not good.”
“But who’s to blame?”
“You!”
“There you go again! When was the uprising of the slaves in Egypt?”
“Twenty-seven fifty B.C.”
“You remember!”
“How could I forget! Old Mr. Ivanov! When he wanted to pull a D up to a C, he always asked that question. And you were a D student, a lively little boy. It was only later that you became this slaveholding, self-righteous pain in the neck. This mediocrity.”
“Fool. I’m not the only one in trouble, you know—YOU are, too. What are we to do, if there’s one of her for two of us? Can’t have a duel! If I shoot you, I’ll hit myself.”
“You’ll miss. It’ll be suicide.”
“What are you doing, egging me on? Look out, I’ll shoot myself, so as not to miss—and hit YOU for sure!”
“Don’t you threaten me. My situation couldn’t be more solid! Yes, I’m scum. But I’m alive. I say my prayers. But you, what have you accomplished? What have you achieved, I ask you. Only in
difference. Do you imagine you’ve improved yourself, matured, shed vices? All you’ve done is shed unnecessary vice, because it fell off by itself. You haven’t become better—you’ve only become worse. You’ve covered up your ugliness, you don’t display the sore. You’re a mask. My mask.”
“Why do this today, when my novel has burned up, when at last I feel some sort of emotion, as you understand it—why be angry with me today, when at last you ought to pity me?”
“But when else could I say anything to you!? You don’t hear anyone! … Why have you told me this, why? As though you … you … ”
“Come now, come now … Don’t cry. It’s the other way around. More likely, YOU … ”
“I’m just your coat hanger. You’ll drape yourself on me, no ironing needed. You’ll drip dry, assume a shape, which, take note, you don’t have, by definition. You’ll start acting vain again, as if nothing had happened. Sanctimonious prig!”
“Without my sanctimoniousness, you’d be a drunken old sot!” “Thanks a lot. That’s just what I’m having no luck with! No way can I be a drunken old sot!”
“Now don’t go off half cocked.”
“Say, would you have any left?”
“I’ve been wanting to ask you—”
“You? Ask me? I don’t have any.”
“Look, I’m asking you who don’t have any … asking you as my conscience, my soul, not as my slave … did I, this time, write it well?”
“You! again you! always you! and once more you!”
“We. Did WE pull it off?”
“How to tell you … On the whole, it wasn’t bad.”
“On the whole … ! What do YOU know.”
“You forget, I simply can’t read. But I have to feel for both of us.”
“Have you reversed roles? Why, you are a slave! Give you freedom, and you’re already on my back!”
“See, you’re putting me down again.”
“You’re quick. Caught me. Well, I’m sorry. I agree. I know it myself. They’re not Dead Souls. Let them burn. Live ones give more heat.”
“Oh, don’t be intimidated by Gogol,” he said dreamily. “You had some glorious pages!”
“Truly? Do you think so?”
“I do. Dead souls are burned as firewood. Live souls burn with their own fire! This was the best thing we … you … You’ll see—this will be a historic conflagration! The Hotel Abkhazia is only the match. Someday you’ll say: I saw how it all began.”