Petr Terentyevich let it be known too that there were potential options in the matter. The deceased’s items that were crammed into the Kolpakovs’ room—Kozachenko’s hand soared over the alienated belongings—should be divided evenly among the conflicting parties. As a prominent item, the cabinet should be given to the state, to avoid a scandal. In addition (and here Kozachenko’s voice took on a prosecutorial tone), the general’s books were being transferred from the Kolpakovs’ portion to the Kozachenko family, as compensation for the maiming that had been inflicted.
Kolpakov approved Petr Terentyevich’s draft treaty unconditionally. The items were divided in half, the Kozachenkos took full possession of the books (with the exception of The Stone Foot, whose title had intrigued Kolpakov), and the cabinet was offered to the state.
The state initially displayed interest in the cabinet but was forced to refuse it in the end. The cabinet had been brought in before the apartment was renovated to accommodate more residents and now the cabinet simply was not fit for removal. It turned out that the entrance to the apartment had diminished during the elapsed decades of the Soviet regime. Kolpakov refused to keep an item that hindered closing the door, and it was reinstalled in its previous territory after Petr Terentyevich’s lengthy doubts concerning the presence of the two-headed eagles.
The fate of the trophy literature proved more complex. After determining that there was not one single edition of Taras Shevchenko among the general’s books, Petr Terentyevich lost interest in them and furtively brought them to a second-hand bookstore. He kept sulkily silent afterwards, when Nina Fedorovna returned and persistently questioned the neighbors about the general’s books. When the truth came out later, Nina Fedorovna rushed off to the bookstore, to at least buy up what was left. Unfortunately, not very much remained.
As for The Stone Foot, Ivan Kolpakov attempted to begin reading it but was quickly disenchanted. Being unfamiliar with the basics of versification, he could not comprehend why the texts inside were arranged in columns. Ursulyak’s imagery turned out to be equally unfamiliar to him: it was, as a matter of fact, pretty unadorned. Finally, he could not ascertain why the publication that had found its way to him had been given its name. Without making any arrangements with Petr Terentyevich, he brought the book to the secondhand bookstore where, it would seem, its story came to an end, but habent sua fata libelli.[1]
One fine day, Ursulyak stopped by the second-hand bookstore, saw The Stone Foot on the shelf, and read the personalized inscription written in his own hand. Poet and director Ursulyak purchased his own book and gave it to Nina Fedorovna once again, pronouncing that every person should have something that cannot be sold. This was not, in fact, the first incident of the sort in his poetic practice: at second-hand bookstores, he sometimes bought up books he had once inscribed, returning them to their remiss owners with the notation Reissued. He developed a knack for determining the presence of The Stone Foot as soon as he stepped inside. Sales clerks knew that and readily took The Stone Foot on consignment.
‘Zoya, we’re closing,’ came a shout from somewhere beyond the garden.
‘We’re closing,’ Zoya corroborated sadly.
After opening the gate, she waited for her Petersburg guest to exit, then closed it with a clang already familiar to Solovyov. She entered the administrative building without saying a word. Solovyov huddled sheepishly by the gate. He had not been invited to enter the building, but nobody had said goodbye.
He did not want to be pushy. He did not want to ask if he could see Zoya home, though of course he wanted to see her home. On the other hand, it would have been strange and even disagreeable if Zoya herself had asked for that.
‘You’re still here?’ Zoya asked, though she did not look at all surprised.
Solovyov nodded and they made their way out. Zoya was not headed toward the stairs, down which Solovyov had walked from the square to the museum. After going around the corner of the administrative building, they walked out toward another gate. From that gate, a path looped between the buildings of a sanatorium and led them out.
‘And what happened to the memoirs the general dictated to Nina Fedorovna?’ Solovyov asked. ‘Were they in the general’s room, too?’
The young woman shrugged absent-mindedly. ‘Probably… it was such a mess then.’
They went down to the Uchan-su River, walked along it for about fifty meters, and ended up on a stone bridge. Leaning her elbows on the railing, Zoya observed the Uchan-su tirelessly fighting its way toward the sea, through cobblestones and chunks of wood. She looked calmly at Solovyov.
‘Are those memoirs very important to you?’
‘Yes.’
There was a small bazaar on the other shore. At Zoya’s suggestion, they bought a watermelon and took it to a nearby park. After settling on a bench, Zoya took a Swiss pocket knife from her purse. This woman always carried the essential items.
After cutting the watermelon in half, Solovyov placed one half aside, on a plastic bag. From the second half, he cut thin, neat semicircles, divided them into smaller segments, and spread them out on the same bag. There was something primordially masculine in his handling of the knife, something that was undeniably expressed in Zoya’s gaze, which was following his hands. Solovyov himself could see that he had been very deft; it surprised him a little. The watermelon was truly sweet.
‘Your mother didn’t lay claim to the general’s property?’
‘She didn’t have any official rights.’
‘But how did she keep living with the people who…’
‘…Who robbed her? It was fine. That’s life.’
Life dealt worse things, too. Nina Fedorovna found it challenging not only to lay claim to the property but even to express the offense she had felt. One could do that if seeing the offenders in court or perhaps only meeting them every now and then on the street. But having them alongside oneself every day, using a communal toilet with them, and leaving a pot of soup in a shared kitchen—that was utterly impossible. Most likely, the hurt that Nina Fedorovna felt did not so much pass as dull. The sight of the general’s various small items (many of which she had given to him) popping up with one of the couples, reignited that feeling, though, overall, it was deemed to have faded.
Moreover, oddly enough, Petr Terentyevich began striking up conversations with her in his time away from his medical procedures. After half-sitting on a kitchen table that had been handed down to him, he told Nina Fedorovna about constructing a respirator under home conditions and applying splints to bone fractures, about antibacterial injections and the effect of chlorine vapors on the upper airways. Despite having never given a gift to anyone in his life, he suddenly gave her the evacuation map for a factory that manufactured reinforced concrete as well as a model of the ventilating opening of an emergency exit that he made himself. He even wanted to give his collection of toxic agents to Nina Fedorovna for her birthday, but Galina Artemovna opposed that adamantly when, by chance, she learned of her husband’s intention. She quickly made a mental note of her husband’s contact with their female neighbor. Galina Artemovna looked upon that ironically but did not speak up at all. Sometimes she even gave the impression that this state of things suited her.
In actuality, the work-related topics that so agitated Petr Terentyevich had always left Galina Artemovna indifferent. Neither highly detailed classifications of nerve agents, which he had mastered to perfection, nor his ability to determine the type and size of a gas mask with his eyes closed made any sort of impression on her. It is possible that he turned to Nina Fedorovna—who heard him out politely—to see out what the specialist lacked in his own family. Most likely, Petr Terentyevich’s sympathy for Nina Fedorovna’s late motherhood played a role, reminding him that he and Galina Artemovna, too, had been able to have a child when they were nearly forty.