Pharmacist Kologrivov sat on a chair and looked calmly at the general. ‘One might, Your Excellency, say just that.’
15
Solovyov arrived in the regional capital early in the morning. They told him he would be unable to reach the Kilometer 715 station by rail. Even local trains no longer stopped there. Solovyov took a bus.
The bus was old, just like in his childhood. Solovyov had not even seen vehicles like this in Petersburg. When the bus went over potholes, it shook for a long time, convulsively, as if it had an asthmatic cough. When the doors opened at the stops, the bus made a sound like glass being pressed. Solovyov got out at the village where his school was. He would need to go the rest of the way on foot.
Solovyov began heading along the familiar road but then he stopped, turned, and walked briskly toward the school. A padlock hung on the front door. Summer vacation, Solovyov remembered. It was vacation. He walked up to one of the windows and pressed his forehead to the glass. The Russian literature room developed, hazily, behind poplars reflected in the glass. The seats were flipped up. Any answer began with those seats clattering; it ended with clattering, too.
‘Why is the military trilogy titled The Living and the Dead? So…’ and the teacher’s finger would search the list in the grade book, ‘Solovyov!’
Solovyov’s seat flipped up. In actuality, the general had only two folders. When he learned that everyone he had attended school with had died, he transferred them from the Dead folder to the Living folder. And that was that. Would Solovyov himself have done the same? That was another question entirely. But his classmates’ absence behind the desks gaped. It was like death. Worse than death because in their distinct absence, his classmates were simulating their existence somewhere (most likely not far away). Their shadows were visiting the glass factory. Or a cowshed penetrated by drafts. Maybe the tractor-repair station that served local collective farms.
‘Whose side is the author of And Quiet Flows the Don on? Does anyone have any thoughts in that regard?’
Nobody did. They did not know for certain whose side the author was on. Or who, basically, the author was. The grade books and textbooks were on the teacher’s desk. There were fat folders on the Materials for Distribution shelf. Were there any Living and Dead folders there? Did the school maintain records like that?
Without even realizing it himself, Solovyov had walked to the library. He stood on the front steps for a few minutes. What could he even begin talking about with Nadezhda Nikiforovna? He could tell her about what happened yesterday. Or maybe a week ago. It was impossible to tell a life. Several years in Petersburg had changed him a lot but to her he was his previous self. Previous. Solovyov felt awkward remembering his childhood dreams. He decided not to go in.
He went in anyway. A young woman was sitting in Nadezhda Nikiforovna’s place. Solovyov did not know her.
‘Would you like to register?’ she asked.
‘I’m already registered.’
The woman nodded, unsure, and Solovyov realized she had not been here long. There was no cameo ring on her hand. There was a small ring with an emerald. It would not make a good sound when touching a shelf. Just a quiet plasticky sound.
‘What are you interested in?’
Solovyov was interested in where Nadezhda Nikiforovna was, but he did not say that.
‘Do you have Captain Blood: His Odyssey?’
Solovyov waited for her to vanish behind the cabinets before he left the library on tiptoe. He was afraid the new employee would announce Nadezhda Nikiforovna’s death to him as she handed him the book.
He walked toward the forest; the Kilometer 715 station lay beyond it. In the woods, he was surprised that the formerly two-lane road was in disrepair and had narrowed, transforming into a path. The ferns beside the road, which always used to be trampled and stunted, had grown tall. They swayed in a warm breeze that carried the smell of the collective farm. Solovyov and Leeza had walked to school along this road. Very few people walked along it now, that was obvious.
Solovyov could walk here with his eyes closed. He could easily repeat all the words he and Leeza had said in this forest. He remembered precisely, down to every fir tree he saw, what had been said where. Or rather he had forgotten, but he remembered when he saw the trees. It seemed to him that at one time he had left those words to hang here, and now he was simply gathering them from the fluffy boughs as he walked along.
Solovyov was thinking about what Leeza would say when they met. He sensed his own guilt for his silence but his feeling for her was so complete that he was experiencing no fear at all before their meeting. The ardor that was rising in waves within Solovyov’s chest was capable of—he had no doubt of this—melting away both his guilt and her possible feeling of offense. Possible. Deep down, Solovyov did not even think that Leeza might be offended at him.
The forest became sparser and Solovyov saw the first houses: his and Leeza’s houses. The road led to them. In another minute or two, four more houses came into view on the right, and the station platform was on the left. Solovyov noticed there was no longer a Kilometer 715 sign on the platform. None of the passengers on long-distance trains could now learn exactly what station they were riding through.
Solovyov began walking more slowly as he left the woods. The path disappeared completely right at his house. Tall grass wound around his legs and caught in the buckles on his sandals. It was attempting to hold him there. To prevent his unexpected return. What awaited him beyond the tightly drawn, sun-faded curtains? He stopped and looked at his house. He had not been here for six years.
The little gate would not open; Solovyov had to climb over it. When he found himself on the other side of the gate, he began pulling up the grass and thistle that had grown between the bricks in the path. Solovyov stomped on the thistle then took the broken stalks with two fingers and carefully tossed them aside.
Once he was able to open the gate, Solovyov dragged his bag into the yard. The yard had turned into a jungle. The plants stood as motionlessly as if they were in a photograph, and even the freight train passing by (his feet sensed the earth’s trembling) did not disturb their peace. Solovyov remembered a children’s book, The Land of the Dense Grasses. He had read it on the recommendation of Nadezhda Nikiforovna, who might also have turned to grass. Solovyov trampled tall, fragile August stems as he made his way to the front steps. The dandelions’ white parachutes flew out from under his feet.
Wild cherry was growing on the front steps. It had fought its way through separated boards and had already spread its branches to the railing. Solovyov touched the sapling’s trunk, drawing his index finger along it. The trunk was soft and smooth, as if it had been polished. Quiet set in after the train left. This was full, absolute quiet; anything further would be non-existence. Solovyov sensed himself growing into nature. His house and yard had already become nature. His turn was coming now. Solovyov pulled out the sapling with one tug and felt like a killer. He understood he had no other option.
Solovyov fumbled behind the door jamb and took out a key. He did this before he remembered this was where the key lay. His hand remembered this motion. The key worked. At first it spun emptily, unable to handle the lock’s rusted mechanism, but then a familiar click sounded on the second rotation and the door creaked open.