He came here as a very elderly man, too. With a cane, and wearing a canvas jacket with a pocket stretched by a massive case for his glasses. People recognized him, as in days past. As in days past, they stepped aside, making way for him, and took deep bows for the coins he gave them. He walked with the special firmness of one striving to maintain his balance (occasionally he swayed anyway). At times he would stop, place both his hands on his cypress cane, and inspect the toes of his shoes. Sometimes he would sit on a bench in the yard and observe from the shadows, businesslike, as people carried infants into the church, straightening lacy bonnets along the way. Observe how, in the far corner of the church grounds, water from a hose moistened dust and the first drops that fell on the asphalt turned to steam. In those moments, his face lacked all expression and seemed to be falling away. It brought to mind a mask that had been removed, and came to life only with the old man’s barely noticeable chewing.
Looking at the general, it was difficult to grasp whether he noticed everything happening around him or if, according to the words of a poet unfamiliar to him, his eyes were addressing other days. Those who observed the general in those moments (including in the line of duty), confirmed afterwards that they did not consider his gaze to have halted, despite the motionlessness of his face. That gaze might be categorized as unlifelike, unlit, or unearthly, but not at all halted.
Yes, General Larionov’s eyes were addressing other days. Even so, nothing escaped their attention. Through the para-military guise of paupers, vintage 1920, wearing uniform tunics with holes instead of epaulets and through carts that delivered barrels of water to the church (they were rolled from the carts onto the earth along twenty-inch boards), the general’s eyes undeniably saw trolleybuses that drove
noiselessly along the former Autskaya Street behind the church fence, carrying 1970s female worshippers, and saw women taking neatly folded headscarves from their bags in front of the church and hurriedly tying them. They used their thumbs to tuck in strands of hair that came out. Why were there hardly any men there?
When Solovyov showed up at Zoya’s on Monday morning, none of the others were in the apartment. After closing the front door behind him, Zoya lowered the huge hook with a clang. ‘That’s just in case,’ she said.
Solovyov remembered the pail he and Leeza used to set out as a signal but did not mention this memory. He was experiencing excitement of a completely different kind now.
With a calm motion that was somehow even expert, Zoya turned the key in Kozachenko’s door, opened it, and gestured to Solovyov, inviting him inside. Solovyov initially wanted to make the same gesture but then he crossed the threshold after realizing that gallantry was out of place in this situation.
The first thing he saw in the room was the oak cabinet with the two-headed eagles. The elder Kozachenko had knocked his head on one of those heads. The double bed was the center of the drama that had played out. And so Kozachenko the younger had not thrown away the furniture. In the corner, displayed below a decorative Ukrainian towel, was a cross-stitched portrait of poet Taras Shevchenko. To the right of the portrait (and how about that—Solovyov did not even grasp this at first) were two photographs of Zoya. Zoya in the kitchen at the general’s table with a vase of chrysanthemums in the background. Zoya at the beach. The bottom of her bathing suit slightly slipping off a bone covered with taut skin. Solovyov thought the life of a bachelor in the company of photographs like that could not be easy. Even under Shevchenko’s supervision.
‘Is he in love with you?’
Zoya shrugged. Standing at the bureau desk, she pulled out drawer after drawer, looking through the contents. Zoya’s calm in conducting this quiet search surprised Solovyov, who was, at the very least, extraordinarily agitated, even though he was not shaking. Her thumb inspected stacks of paper (blank, as a rule), sliding along the edge of the sheets. The sheets generated a light fan-like sound at the motion, reminiscent of the rustling of a deck of cards being shuffled before a deal. Sometimes there was jingling, sometimes there was clicking. Zoya would lay items on the desk then put them away after she had finished looking through yet another drawer.
Solovyov confined himself to examining Taras’s scanty book selection. The majority of them were devoted to the city of Alupka and the Vorontsov Palace. It was emerging that Taras had a one-track mind. The only book unrelated to the palace was a publication describing various alarm systems.
‘What does he do for work?’
‘He’s a guard at the Vorontsov Palace.’
Zoya looked through piles of linens, plunging her hand deep under each sheet. The linens were shabby. There were holes and frayed spots even on the folds. It inopportunely occurred to Solovyov that they could even be the result of Kolpakov’s activeness. Objects frequently outlive those who have used them. Bed linens with Chekhov’s embroidered initials had been preserved, too. The bed in the museum was still made with them. Although… Maybe these holes were the consequence of the love-struck Taras’s insomnia? Solovyov cast another glance at the photographs.
‘I found it.’
Zoya said that with the same calm that she had been searching, but Solovyov flinched. Was that really possible? Contrary to Solovyov’s absolute lack of faith in success (and he himself did not understand why he had gotten mixed up in all this) there were yellowed sheets of paper, with fine writing, between two flowery duvet covers.
‘It’s my mother’s handwriting.’
Solovyov lifted the top part of the linen pile and Zoya pulled the papers out of the cabinet with a magician’s gesture. This was a victory. Despite the dubious method of achieving it, it remained a victory, and what a victory! In the end, Taras had no rights whatsoever to the manuscript. In the end, his parents had simply stolen this manuscript… Researcher Solovyov’s brief history, which had unfolded primarily in libraries and archives, had made an obvious salto mortale and transformed into a detective story. Never before had the search for scholarly truth seemed so gripping to him. The dramatism of research, something unknown to the world, took on visible forms when it came out into the open. Solovyov stood by the window and held the sheets of paper on his outstretched hand. He was not reading them. He simply inspected Zoya’s mother’s minute handwriting, sensing Zoya’s breathing at his temple. From time to time, little bird-like figures appeared over the handwriting, introducing additions and edits in another hand, one very familiar to Solovyov. Meaning the general had worked on the dictated manuscript later… From somewhere in the very depths of those lines—and Zoya’s hand was squeezing his elbow—Yekaterina Ivanovna’s sad eyes slowly surfaced.
Yekaterina Ivanovna was standing on a little metal bridge that had been built to reach the terrace of the next house (a bed’s headboard served as its railing); she held a grocery bag and was wordlessly watching Solovyov through the window glass.
They left Kozachenko’s room. Zoya locked it with the key and hurried to unhook the front door. Pressing her back to the door of her own room, she listened to Yekaterina Ivanovna’s heavy steps in the entryway, reminding Solovyov in some sense of Princess Tarakanova in her dungeon. Zoya quietly let Solovyov out of the apartment after Yekaterina Ivanovna entered her own room.