NOW
He returned from the army before his term ended, after the hospital. He served in the rocket units and one night he got under strong radiation; it happened at night during the training alert. He was twenty years old. In the half-empty train on his way back home, he spent a lot of time in the dining car, drinking wine and smoking. A pretty young woman who traveled in the same compartment wasn’t embarrassed by his presence at all and undressed before going to sleep, standing in front of the mirror on the door, and he saw her reflection, and she knew he saw it and smiled at him. During the last night of the journey, she called him to come down to her, but he pretended to be asleep, and she guessed that and laughed at him quietly in the darkness of the stifling narrow compartment, while the train shouted and flew through the black blizzard, and the gloomy stations along the way absentmindedly waved their dull lamps after it. He spent the first two weeks at home—paged through books, looked at earlier, high-school photos, tried to make some decision for himself, and quarreled endlessly with his father who lived on a substantial military pension, didn’t believe even one word he said, and considered him a faker. Financial assistance given to him by the regimental accountant ended and he had to look for a job. He wanted to be a driver for the hospital nearby, but there, in the hospital, he was offered something else. Now, after the army, at the end of the snowy winter, he became an orderly in the hospital morgue. He was paid seventy rubles per month and this was enough for him because he wasn’t going out with girls and only occasionally went to the park, rode the Ferris wheel, and watched how unfamiliar people danced in the dance hall with transparent walls. Once he noticed there a girl with whom he used to go to the same school. She came to the park with some young man in a sports car, and the orderly, hiding in the darkness of large trees, watched how they danced. They danced about half an hour, then slammed the doors and drove deeper into the park along the illuminated alleys. And a few weeks later, in May, a man and a woman who crashed somewhere outside of the city were brought to the morgue, and he didn’t recognize them right away. Later he recognized them, but for some reason he couldn’t remember her last name and he kept looking at her thinking that three or four years earlier, before the army, he loved this girl and wanted, wanted very much to be with her constantly, while she didn’t love him, she was too pretty to love him. And now, thought the orderly, all this has ended, ended, and nobody knows what will happen next . . .
3. SAVL
BUT VETA doesn’t hear. During the night of your arrival in the Land of the Lonely Goatsucker, the thirty-year-old teacher at our school, Veta Arkadievna, the strict teacher of botany, biology, and anatomy, dances and drinks wine in the best restaurant in the city with some young, yes, relatively young man—funny, smart, and generous. Soon the music will end—drunken violinists and drummers, piano players and trumpeters will get off the stage. The restaurant with dimmed lights will calculate the bills of its last guests and that relatively young man, whom you have never seen and will never see, will drive your Veta to his apartment and there he’ll do with her everything he wants. Don’t continue, I got it, I know, there, in the apartment, he’ll kiss her hand and then he’ll take her home right away, and in the morning she’ll come here, to the dacha, and we’ll be able to see each other; I know, we’ll see each other tomorrow. No, wrong, apparently you don’t understand anything, or pretend not to, or you are simply a coward, you’re afraid to think about what will happen with your Veta in the apartment of the man, whom you’ll never see, even though, of course, you’d like to look at him, am I right? Obviously I would like to meet him; the three of us would go somewhere together: Veta, he, and I—to some city park, to an old city park with a Ferris wheel; we would ride the wheel and talk; it’s really interesting, I’m saying: Interesting, it would be interesting for the three of us. But perhaps that man isn’t as smart as you are saying and then it wouldn’t be so interesting and we would have lost an evening for nothing, it would be an unsuccessful evening, nothing else, that’s all, but at least Veta would understand that it’s much more interesting to be with me and she would never again go on dates with him, and on the nights of my arrival in the Land of the Lonely Goatsucker she would always come out to answer my call— Veta Veta Veta it is me the student so-and-so of the special school come out I love you—as before. Trust me, she always came out to answer my call and we used to spend time together in her attic until morning, and after that, when it became light, carefully, in order not to wake up Arkadii Arkadievich, I would descend the outside spiral staircase to the garden and return home. You know, before leaving, I usually petted her simple dog and usually played with it a little so it wouldn’t forget me. This is nonsense, why are you making up all this nonsense; our teacher Veta Arkadievna never came out to answer your call and you never were in her attic—either during the day or at night. After all, I’m watching your every step—as Dr. Zauze advised me. When we were being discharged from there, he advised me: If you notice that the one, whom you call he and who lives and studies with you, goes somewhere, trying to remain unnoticed, or simply runs away, follow him, try not to lose sight of him, be close to him if possible, as close as you can, look for an occasion to come so close to him that you’re almost able to merge with him in a common action, common act, make it so that one day—such a moment will inevitably come—you’ll merge with him forever into one whole, individual being with indivisible thoughts and ambitions, habits and tastes. Only then, claimed Zauze, will you find peace and freedom. Therefore, wherever you went, I followed you and from time to time I was able to merge with you in a common act, but you chased me away immediately the moment you noticed it and I was alarmed and even horrified again. Generally, I was afraid and I am afraid of many things, only I try not to show it, and it seems to me you’re no less afraid than I am. For instance you’re afraid that suddenly I’ll start telling you the truth about what that relatively young man did with your Veta in his apartment on the night of your arrival. But I’ll talk about it regardless because I dislike you for your unwillingness to merge with me in a common act, as the doctor advised. I’ll also tell you what other young and not so young men did with your Veta in their apartments and hotel rooms during those nights when you slept at your father’s dacha or at home, in the city, or there, after the evening injections. But first I should convince you that you never were in the attic of the Akatovs’ dacha even though on late evenings you used to run away to the Land of the Lonely Goatsucker. You looked at the lit windows of the house through the cracks in the fence and dreamed of entering the garden and walking down the alley—from the gate to the front porch; I do understand you; you wished to walk down the alley, effortlessly and naturally, and, while walking, to touch with your foot two or three of last year’s pinecones, pick a flower from the flower bed, smell it, stand for a while next to the gazebo—just so, looking at everything that surrounds you with a slight squint of your deep, all-understanding eyes, then stand for a moment under the tall tree with the starling house, listening to the birds—oh, I understand you well; I would gladly do the same myself, even more: I would walk down the alley of the Akatovs’ garden (or park—nobody knows what to call his property, so people just say whatever comes to mind), play with their wonderful simple dog, and knock on the front door: Knock-knock. But now I’ll make a confession: To be honest, I, like you, we’re both afraid of this big dog. And if we weren’t afraid of it, if, let’s assume, there was no dog at all, would we be able to do all these things, is the dog the only reason we can’t knock on the door? That’s my question for you; I’d like to talk about it a little bit more because I’m terribly fascinated by this topic. I think you’re pretending again; is all that really so interesting or are you just trying to distract me because you don’t want me to tell you the entire truth about Veta, about what these young men, whom you’ll never see, did with her in their apartments and hotel rooms well why tell me finally why you or why I why both of us or each of us separately is afraid to talk about it there�
��s a lot of truth in all this why why why yes a lot you know but you know if I don’t know I know nothing and you know nothing and we know nothing about it we don’t know so far or already what can you tell me or you if you like me didn’t have even one woman we don’t know how it happens in general we’re just guessing we can only be guessing we only read we only heard from others but the others also don’t know what they’re talking about we once asked Pavel Petrovich if he had women it was in our school at the end of the hall behind a narrow door where it always smells of smoke and chlorine yes in the rest room in the toilet Savl Petrovich was smoking he was sitting on the windowsill it was between classes no it was after classes I stayed after classes to prepare for the next day’s lessons no we were detained after classes to prepare for the next day’s math lesson we are bad students our mama was told particularly in math it’s very difficult you get tired it’s very painful not good with some problems for some reason they give us too much homework we have to draw various shapes and think too much they force us Savl Petrovich for some reason they torment us with examples they seem to say that one of us after finishing school will go to the institute and one of us some of us a part of us a few of us will become engineers but we don’t believe it nothing like that will happen because Savl Petrovich you yourself suspect you and other teachers that we’ll never become engineers because we’re horrible fools isn’t that true isn’t this school special that is not specially for us why are you lying to us about these engineers who needs all that but dear Savl Petrovich even if we suddenly became engineers there’s no need no obligation I don’t agree I would petition a commission that I don’t want to be an engineer I’ll sell flowers and postcards and toy plastic fans on the street or I’ll learn how to sew boots or saw plywood with a fretsaw but I won’t agree to work as an engineer until the highest and biggest commission assembles here and clarifies the problem of time isn’t that right Savl Petrovich if confusion with time exists does it make sense to do anything serious for instance to draft documents with different designs while the time is not behaving as it should that is it’s not behaving well at all but very strangely and foolishly you obviously know that yourself you and the other teachers.
Savl Petrovich sat on the windowsill and smoked. The bottoms of his bare feet rested on the radiator or, as this device is also called, on the heat battery. Outside the window was autumn, and if the window hadn’t been painted over with a special white paint, we could have seen a fragment of the street swept by the gusts of a moderate nor’wester. The wind carried leaves, the puddles rippled, the passersby, dreaming about turning into birds, diligently rushed home, ready to talk about bad weather in case they met their neighbors. In short, it was a typical autumn, the middle of autumn, when the coal was already brought and unloaded from the trucks in the schoolyard and the old man, our stoker and watchman, whom no one among us called by his name because no one among us knew that name, since it made no sense to learn and remember this name because our stoker would not be able to hear and respond to this name as he was deaf and mute—well, he had already heated up the boilers. It got warmer in school, although—as some teachers complained, shivering and hunching up their shoulders—cold drafts were still blowing from the floor and, it seems, Savl Petrovich was right to drop in to the restroom occasionally to warm up the bottoms of his bare feet. He also could’ve warmed them up in the teachers’ room or in class while he was teaching, but apparently he didn’t want to do it too openly, in public; our teacher Norvegov was a bit shy. Maybe. He sat on the windowsill with his back to the painted window and his face to the stalls. The bottoms of his bare feet were on the radiator and his knees were raised high so that the teacher could comfortably rest his chin on them. And then we looked at him, sitting this way, from the side, from profile: It was a publisher’s logo, ex libris, the series, book after book, a silhouette of a youngster sitting on the grass or on the ground with a book in his hands, the dark youngster on the background of white dawn, sitting lost in dreams, a youngster dreaming about becoming an engineer, a youngster-engineer, if you wish, curly, quite curly hair, book after book, he’s reading book after book on the background, free of charge, ex libris, at the publisher’s expense, the same thing over and over, all the books at once, very well-read, he’s very well-read, your boy—Cafeteria, the teacher of literature and Russian language both written and spoken, told our good, beloved mother—even too well-read, we would not recommend everything in a row, especially the Western classics, they distract, overload the imagination, he’s insolent, keep them under lock and key, no more than fifty pages a day, for middle-school age, The Boy from Urzhum, The Childhood of Tema, Childhood, House on the Hill, Vitia Maleev, and this: A man is given only one life and he should live it in such a way as. And more: To strive, then, and to seek, to find and not to yield, to reach a better lot, comrades in common fight, with bayonets and shot we’ll clear a path to light—songs of Russian revolutions and civil wars, the hostile whirlwinds, in the orchard or in the garden, when at our gates, ah you, entrance hall, and then we would recommend music lessons, any instrument, moderato, therapy, not to feel excruciating pain, otherwise, you know, coming of age, it is such a difficult time, well yes, bayan, well yes, accordion, violin, fortepiano, and better piano than forte, so then, let’s begin: E-e-e Barcarole three-quarters in B minor treble clef avoid pitfalls don’t confuse it with puffballs they’re semi-poisonous should be boiled e-e-e to the beat of the boxcars at the station that is on the same branch as e-e-e on the Veta willow branch alarming sleepy passengers you’re crying in the railcar over love and the trifles of life Mama it’s raining on the other side of the window do we really have to go in such a slush yes my dear a little bit of music will be good for you we made an appointment maestro will be waiting today it’s inconvenient, it’s Sunday, and afterwards we’ll go to see grandma. The station, bushes, noon, it’s very wet. However, here comes winter: The platform is covered with snow; the snow is dry, fluffy, and sparkling. By the market. No, first is the overpass with iced-over squeaking steps. Screaking, Mama. From the word screak. Be careful up e-e-e when you see below a passing freight train covered with chalk inscriptions or the clean express with starched collars of the curtains try not to look or your head will start spinning and you’ll fall with your arms akimbo on your face or on your back and the sympathetic passersby who haven’t yet managed to turn into birds will surround your body and someone will lift your head and start slapping your cheeks poor boy probably something’s wrong with his heart no it’s vitamin deficiency anemia a woman in a peasant dress a vendor with baskets hold them an accordion and mother where’s his mother he’s probably alone he takes music lessons look there’s blood on his head of course he’s alone God what’s wrong with him nothing he’ll be soon I’ll be soon Veta I’m alone I ask you to forgive me your boy your gentle student looked too long at the freight train covered with chalk inscriptions made by commissions but years later distances later your timid so-and-so will come to you overcoming the blizzards that stab a man with a dagger’s silvery fire and he’ll play a crazy czardas on a Barcarole and help us God not to go mad from turning into incinerating extracurricular passion knock-knock good morning Veta Arkadievna e-e-e here are chrysanthemums even though they finished blooming wilted even though but what will happen later will fully compensate for everything when will it be? In about ten years, perhaps. She’s forty, she’s still young, in the summer she lives at the dacha, bathes in the river a lot, and plays table tennis, Ping-Pong. And I, and I? Let’s count now. I’m so many or so many years old; I finished my special school and the institute long ago and became an engineer. I have many friends, I’m completely well, and I’m saving money for a car—no, I already bought it, saved enough and bought it; savings bank, use the services of the savings bank. Yes, precisely, you’ve been an engineer for a long time and you read book after book, sitting all day on the grass. Many books. You’ve become very smart and the day arrives when you understand you can’t wait any longer.
You get up from the grass, brush off your pants—they are perfectly ironed—then you bend over, stack all books into a pile, and carry them to the car. There, in the car, lies your good dark blue jacket. You put it on. Then you look at yourself. You’re tall, much taller than now, approximately by so many shaku. Besides, you’re broad-shouldered and your face is almost handsome. Precisely almost because some women don’t like men who are too good-looking, isn’t it true? You have a straight nose, dark blue eyes with a relaxed look, a determined and strong-willed chin, and tightly closed lips. As for your forehead, it’s unusually high, like, by the way, even now, and your dark hair falls on it in thick strands. Your face is clean; you shave your beard. After looking yourself over, you get behind the wheel, shut the door, and leave these grassy places where you’ve been reading books for so long. Now you’re driving straight to her house. And the chrysanthemums? You still need to buy them, need to stop somewhere, buy them at the market. But I don’t have even a centavo with me, I need to ask my mother: Mama, the thing is that a girl died in our class, no, of course not right in class, she died at home, she was sick for a long time, for several years and didn’t come to school at all, no student ever saw her except in a photo, she was simply there on paper, she had meningitis, like many others, well, she died, yes, it’s awful, Mama, awful, like many others, well, she died and she has to be buried; no, naturally, no, Mama, you’re right, she has her own parents, nobody can force anybody to bury somebody else’s children; I’m simply saying she needs to be buried, but without flowers it’s not customary, it’s awkward; you remember, even Savl Petrovich who was so disliked by teachers and the parents’ committee, even he had a lot of flowers, therefore, our class decided to take up a collection for a wreath for this girl, several rubles per person, more precisely this way: Those who live with their mother and father should bring ten rubles, and those who live only with their mother or only with their father should bring five; therefore, I owe ten, please give them to me, hurry up, a car is waiting for me. What car?—our mother will ask. And then I’ll answer: You understand, it so happened that I bought a car, I didn’t pay much but even so I had to go into debt. What debt, our mother will clap her hands, where would you get any money at all! And she will run to the window to look at the yard where my auto-mobile will stand. You see, I’ll answer calmly, while I was sitting on the grass and reading book after book, my circumstances changed in such a way that I succeeded in finishing school and later the institute; excuse me, Mama, I don’t know why but I thought it would be a pleasant surprise for you if I didn’t tell you about it at once but somewhat later, after some time went by, and now the time did go by and I’m announcing: Yes, I became an engineer, Mama, and my car is waiting for me. So how much time has passed, our mother will say, wasn’t it you who today in the morning went to your school with a briefcase and wasn’t it today that I walked you there and ran after you up the staircase almost to the second floor to slip sandwiches into the pocket of your coat, while you jumped every three steps and yelled that you’re not hungry and that if I keep bothering you with the sandwiches you’ll sew your mouth up with twine; hadn’t all this happened today?—our poor mother will ask in astonishment. And we, what will we answer our poor mother? We need to say the following: Alas, Mama, alas. Right, it’s necessary to use here the half-forgotten word alas. Alas, Mama, the day when you wanted to put sandwiches in my coat pocket and I didn’t want you to because I was not completely well, that day ended long ago; now I have become an engineer and a car is waiting for me. Then our mother will start crying: How the years are flying, she’ll say, how fast the children are growing up, you have no time to blink your eye and your son is already an engineer; who could have thought, my son so-and-so—an engineer! After that she’ll calm down, sit on a stool, her green eyes will turn strict, and the wrinkles, particularly the two deep vertical wrinkles around her mouth, will become even deeper and she’ll ask: Why are you lying to me? Just a moment ago, you asked me for money to buy a wreath for the girl with whom you were in one class and now you claim you finished school and even the institute long ago; is it possible to be an engineer and a school student simultaneously? And besides, Mama will add sternly, there’s no car in the yard, except the garbage truck standing next to the garbage bins; you made everything up; no car is waiting for you. Dear Mama, I don’t know whether one can be an engineer and a school pupil simultaneously; perhaps some people can’t, some people are unable, some are not capable, but I, who had chosen freedom, one of its forms, I’m free to act as I want and to be whoever I want together and separately, don’t you understand? And if you don’t believe me, ask Savl Petrovich and although he hasn’t been with us for a long time, he’ll explain everything to you: We have problems with time—that’s what the geographer, the man from the fifth suburban zone, will say. And as for the car—don’t worry, I let my imagination run free for a while, the car is really not there and never will be, but instead always, from seven to eight in the morning—every day and every year, during storms and during sunshine—the garbage truck, resembling a bedbug and green like a fly will stand in our yard next to the garbage bins. And the girl, Mama will inquire, did the girl really die? I don’t know, you should answer, I don’t know anything about the girl. Afterwards you should quickly go to the entrance hall where the coats, jackets, and hats of your relatives as well as your own coat are hanging—don’t be afraid of these things; they are empty and nobody is wearing them. Don your coat, put on your hat, and open the door to the staircase. Run from the house of your father and don’t look back because if you look back you’ll see sorrow in your mother’s eyes and you will feel upset, running on frozen ground during the second-hour break. Running during the second-hour break, you haven’t done your lessons again today, but if you were asked with compassion why this happened, you’d look through the window at the setting sun—the lamps of the city are turned on and are swinging over the streets like mute bells with torn-out tongues—and answer any teacher with dignity and without confusion. Answer: Since I consider myself an avid participant in the entomological competition announced by our respected academy, I dedicate my free time to collecting rare and semi-rare butterflies. Well, so what?—the pedagogue will interrupt. I dare to hope, you continue, that my collection will attract in the future considerable scientific attention, therefore, not being afraid of material or temporal expenditures, I believe it is my duty to fill it up with new unique specimens; for that reason don’t ask me why I didn’t do my lessons. What butterflies can we be talking about in the winter, asks the pedagogue, feigning surprise; what, are you crazy? And you reply with absolute dignity: In the winter we can talk about winter butterflies, called snowy; I catch them outside the city—in the forest and in the field, mainly in the morning—and the second of your questions I’m answering this way: Nobody doubts my insanity, otherwise I wouldn’t be held in this accursed school with other fools like me. You are insolent; I’ll have to talk to your parents. This should be followed by a reply: You have the right to talk to anyone you want, including my parents, but don’t reveal to anyone your doubts about winter butterflies; you’ll become a laughingstock and you’ll be forced to study here with us: there are no fewer winter butterflies than summer ones, remember that. Now put all the folios and manuscripts into your briefcase and slowly, with the weary gait of the aging scientist-entomologist, coughing, leave the auditorium.
A School for Fools Page 9