After hearing him out to the very end, Nina Fedorovna said, ‘But the general’s memoirs about his childhood were with us, at home. Why did you have to get into Kozachenko’s?’
Solovyov looked closely at Nina Fedorovna. She was not joking.
‘It’s just that Zoya said…’
‘Zoya’s a difficult girl.’ Nina Fedorovna smiled. ‘I was the same. You don’t believe me?’
Solovyov did not answer. After a pause, he said, ‘So that means none of the general’s memoirs are lost?’
‘What the general dictated to me was kept…’ Nina Fedorovna went silent. Her tone assumed further questioning.
‘So then what has been lost?’
‘Not long after the general’s death, his son came to visit. He asked what of his father’s was left. I gave him a notebook the general himself wrote.’ Nina Fedorovna leaned against the column and closed her eyes. The corners of her lips turned up.
‘And where’s his son now?’
‘I don’t know.’
Solovyov leaned against the column opposite her. Atlantis and a caryatid. His fatigue had returned.
‘I remember. He went to some little settlement. He left an address.’ As before, Nina Fedorovna kept her eyes closed. ‘Not even a settlement, a railroad station. A platform.’
Solovyov felt the column begin wobbling behind his back.
‘And what…’ he was already listening to himself from a distance, ‘what was the station called?’
‘I don’t remember. Some woman there took pity on him
so he stayed.’ Nina Fedorovna opened her eyes and her face grew serious. ‘She simply took pity on him.’
‘Maybe it was Kilometer 715?’
A street-cleaning truck emerged out from behind a bed of nasturtiums. A rainbow began developing in the droplets that hung over the flowers.
‘Maybe… May well be. That’s where he went.’
Solovyov went back into the hall. He listened inattentively to the other papers. The presenters and the conference and Crimea itself had suddenly lost his interest. He was thinking about the only spot on earth where everything that had been significant to him at varying times in his life had come together: the general’s manuscript, Leeza Larionova (Leeza Larionova!) and, finally, his own home. He was thinking about Kilometer 715.
Solovyov understood that this coincidence was not accidental. It was no longer a coincidence but a coalescence. The more unbelievable the joining seemed, the more non-accidental it became. This non-accident proved the correctness of the direction that had opened up for the searching, but its importance—the sudden realization of Leeza’s importance in his life made him shudder—was the main proof. On top of everything else (Solovyov remembered this in the final moment and felt drops of sweat on his brow) Leeza’s patronymic was Filippovna. This final proof was already unnecessary—it was superfluous—but Solovyov accepted it gratefully, too. He did not understand why he had not written to Leeza once in all those years. That was inexplicable.
No matter what a person studies, he is studying himself. Thus spoke Prof. Nikolsky. It fascinated Solovyov that the direction of his search was approaching, closer and closer, the line of his own life. He was stunned by the interweaving of material from his research and his own fate, and by their indivisibility and harmony. If he had ever genuinely loved Leeza, then that was what was happening at this very moment.
Stroking the armrest of his seat on the bus every now and then, Solovyov imagined her hand. He remembered the freshness of her lips as his temple sensed the coolness of the window glass. He thought only of Leeza the whole way to Yalta. He wanted her as never before. Wanted her as the general’s granddaughter. As the one to transform him into a relative of her important grandfather. And, of course, as Leeza, his first woman. The scholar’s coalescence with his material had reached its apogee.
What did he know about Leeza’s parents? Her mother was a railroad track inspector. A weary woman with hair as coarse as wire that was always coming out from under her headscarf. Melting snowflakes glistened on it when Leeza’s mother came in from the cold. Leeza had different hair. Very soft. Smelling of sweet smoke because she dried it over the woodstove. Leeza’s mother smelled of fuel oil. She did her rounds of the tracks depending on her mood. She could be out for the whole day. Or an hour. It was impossible to guess in advance how long she would be absent. It was he who had thought to place the pail by the garden gate as a signal. It could not be used all the time; it would have raised suspicion.
Her father… Solovyov remembered him vaguely. Remembered he was tall. Unshaven. He began all his sentences with well. Well, hello. Well, a blizzard. Not an especially distinguishing feature; nobody would have noticed it, if not for Solovyov’s grandmother. You don’t have to say ‘well’ all the time (she would say). He would smile. Ask for three rubles until payday. Don’t worry, everything will turn out well anyway (said Solovyov’s grandmother). She would give him three rubles. Moistening her fingers with saliva as she counted out each ruble. Rarely did she give just one bill, a three-note. Banknotes over one ruble made her leery. Sometimes change popped out of her fingers and he would gather it off the floor. Occasionally, he would ask permission to sit for a while on the bench. Well, I’ll rest a bit, okay? He smelled of alcohol. Solovyov did not yet know it was alcohol. It was the smell of Leeza’s father. Leeza’s father would not go home. He would sit down on the bench, not taking off his coat. His rabbit-fur hat would slide down his face. He would sleep and be calm. Finally, he disappeared somewhere. Completely disappeared.
Solovyov arrived in Yalta late that evening. It began to rain as he was standing at the trolleybus stop. It was raining even though there did not seem to be clouds in the star-strewn sky. Solovyov decided against waiting for the trolleybus and headed home on foot. The rain was nice after the afternoon heat. It was not a heavy rain; its fine drops reminded him of a thickly condensed fog. By the city market, Solovyov turned on Kirov Street, formerly Autskaya Street. Music carried from the embankment and every so often a spotlight beam appeared somewhere overhead. The beam slid along the tops of the cypress trees and the wet cupolas of the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral.
Everything on Palmiro Togliatti Street was just as it had been two days ago. The creaky staircase, the dim bulb under the canopy over the door. It occurred to Solovyov that this resembled a homecoming. After many years. Coming home as another person. He lingered as he was turning on the light in the room, as if he feared seeing something unexpected there. No, everything was the same. Everything.
Solovyov took the bag off his shoulder. It was heavy. The cannery director had handed him some examples of their products when they said their goodbyes. He had called Solovyov ‘the very same Solovyov’ again and said he was proud to know him. Neither the director nor Solovyov clarified the meaning of ‘the very same.’ Solovyov was, for himself, always ‘the very same.’ He had taken the cans so as not to offend the director. Now he decided to sample them.
Solovyov pulled out one of the cans at random and opened it. The right-angled can with the lid flying up over it reminded him of a grand piano. It was goby fish in tomato sauce.
Someone rang the doorbell.
It rang again. Solovyov continued looking, focused, at the fish. Their understated tomatoed existence seemed like the height of orderliness. It did not allow even the thought of having chaos in one’s life. But chaos existed. It had raced into Solovyov’s life and carried him away, into its vortex. Flinging him into the Kozachenko apartment, into the Vorontsov Museum, and into the insane nighttime rowing amidst raging waves. That chaos was Zoya. Solovyov had no doubt it was Zoya ringing. He stood and looked at his reflection in the china cabinet. Went to the door. After one more ring, he moved the bolt aside. Taras stood in the doorway, ‘I knew you were home. I’ve been watching the windows.’