Kologrivov welcomed the general. He was a quiet, gray-haired man with a fleshy nose—the end of his nose looked bulbous. Blue eyes. The general came here to relax because he found Kologrivov’s calm pleasant. The general usually sat in the chair behind the dressing screen and listened as Kologrivov sold medicines. Those who came to the pharmacy required iodine, Vishnevsky ointment, diarrhea remedies, cotton wool, bandages, dried chamomile, condoms, and Condy’s crystals. Rarer: castor oil and fish oil. They required advice. Pharmacist Kologrivov gave it in a soft voice (he never raised his voice). This gave General Larionov a sense of coziness. He felt as he had in childhood when he would hide among the coats and furs in the entryway, listening to the servants’ leisurely discussions. Sometimes he would fall asleep. Sometimes the general fell asleep and Kologrivov would speak with clients in a half-whisper, so as not to wake Larionov.
It was nine in the evening. Kologrivov locked the pharmacy and invited the general into the adjoining room. There were educational posters hanging there, depicting the human body at various ages. Michelangelo’s David divided the ages up to thirty and the ages after thirty. Separate visual aids there highlighted the circulatory system, digestive system, nervous system, and male skeleton (front view). With pointer in hand, pharmacist Kologrivov intended to talk about each of the systems but began his story with the skeleton.
The skeleton, which supports everything, is composed of 206 bones. The skull—which had always seemed, to the general, to be something seamless—has 29 (for a total of 235, the general mechanically noted). As Larionov attempted to imagine himself as a skeleton, he groped at his eye socket with a finger. This was far from the first time he had acted this way, something the pharmacist was aware of.
The general interrupted Kologrivov, ‘People say the skull’s contours show through on a person’s face before his death.’
‘That happens when death sets in by natural means.’
The general nodded and looked pensively at the skeleton.
‘And what if death sets in by unnatural means?’
‘Then the skull’s contours show through only after death.’
It was darkening outside. Kologrivov spoke of blood circulation. In front of him was a yellowed diagram of lesser and greater blood circulation. Arteries were denoted in red, veins in blue. The general liked this combination of colors. He unbuttoned one of his tunic sleeves and examined his blue veins. This did not escape the pharmacist’s gaze. He continued his story about blood: a person has an average of five or six liters. It is pumped by the heart, (weight: around 300 grams), which consists of two halves, left and right. Each half has an atrium and a ventricle. Kologrivov circled them with the pointer. The atrium received blood, the ventricle pushed it out.
‘Cold metal pierces my living heart…’ the general softly declaimed.
‘The most perfect pump in the world.’
‘Piercing something so well thought-out,’ said the general, choosing his words, ‘a creation so refined and vital, is that not a crime?’
‘Instant unnatural death.’
‘What could be more unnatural…’
The general fell silent. He discovered there was a double ‘n’ in the last word he had uttered.
Pharmacist Kologrivov explained briefly about the digestive system and the nervous system. At the general’s request, he moved on to examine natural death. Now there were posters in the foreground depicting the body at various ages. After hesitating slightly, Kologrivov took out a depiction of a person’s development in the womb and hung that alongside the others. He scratched the back of his head.
‘I don’t see the one about conception,’ said Kologrivov.
‘You want to say that conception is the beginning of natural death?’
‘Perhaps. I suspect our delivery boy took that one.’
Kologrivov talked about conception without the poster. Addressing the time in the womb, he showed the embryo’s position. This pose was familiar to the general. His soldiers sat this way in Perekop during autumn 1920. The general ordered them to use their last supplies of kindling wood to light fires. He forced the soldiers to jump over them. He raced around that icy desert like a madman, saving the remnants of his army. He attempted to rouse his soldiers, prodded them under the ribs, pounded their cheeks…
Could an embryo be roused? As he listened to pharmacist Kologrivov, the general felt an understanding coming to him in hindsight. His soldiers had no longer thirsted for victory. They were not dreaming of women. Or money. They were not even dreaming of warmth. Their exhaustion was deeper than wishes like those. More than anything on earth, his soldiers wanted to return to their mothers’ wombs.
The transformation of a pink, wrinkled creature into a child. Adolescent age. Pubic hair growing in, enlargement of the member (for men), change of voice. Awakening of sexual instincts.
‘That was the age I suddenly realized I would die, too,’ said the general. ‘This was the time of first nocturnal emissions.’
‘Immortality leaves along with innocence,’ said the pharmacist. He moved the pointer again from the Adolescent poster to the Child poster. ‘Children don’t believe they’ll die.’
Complete rebuilding of the body. Intense growth of the skeleton and muscle mass. Changes in the hormonal realm, the metabolism, etcetera. The body begins having a smell, especially the soles of the feet. Socks have to be changed as frequently as possible. Pimples. Under no circumstances should they be squeezed with dirty hands. A child’s soft features sharpen, cheekbones become prominent. A beard and mustache begin growing (primarily for men). The human body develops—Kologrivov approached the image of David—until around the age of thirty.
‘And then?’ asked the general, admiring.
‘It develops then, too, but in the opposite direction.’
Kologrivov sighed and pointed to the poster Person at age 40–50 years (Male. Frontal View). The fat layer under the skin thickens. The skin stretches. The face becomes flabby and bloated. The body accumulates stores of fat, particularly in the stomach and hips. The torso seems disproportionally large, even caricature-like, compared to the legs. Round fatty lumps begin forming on the legs and arms. On other parts of the body, too. They distort the former rigor of its lines and speak of metabolic troubles. Increased growth of hair on the back, chest, brow ridge, and in/on the ears and nose.
It goes from bad to worse. Hair grays. The smell of an old person’s bitter sweat appears. The skin withers and bunches up in wrinkles. The body’s aging is accompanied by sclerotic thickening of the arteries. They become tight and fragile, and threaten to rupture. The teeth gradually fall out. This can be partially rectified with false teeth (if made carelessly, they make pronunciation whistle slightly) but even a measure such as this is not capable of breaking the general negative tendency. Discs flatten between vertebrae, the spine loses its elasticity and settles. The person shrinks in height. The organs become impossibly worn out. The brain starts to contain excess amounts of water, making its work more difficult. In the end, it becomes hard for the person to live. He dies.
The horns of the evening’s last boats sounded outside the window.
‘Does that mean,’ asked the general, ‘that life is the fundamental reason for a person’s death?’