Friendship with Anastasia and her father brightened the following months for me. We gathered in their room and drank tea nearly every evening. Properly speaking, this was not tea (one could not obtain tea then) but dried herbs and berries that preserved the aroma of summer. Anastasia had gathered them. Every now and then – after insistent persuasion – my mother would come. She was shy. She considered it very important to maintain a distance when sharing a common area. Her consideration seemed correct to me.
Sometimes, yes, Averyanov, the same one I recalled recently, would sit with us, too, his head inclined on his shoulder, the lenses of his glasses thick. When he came, he would sit in an armchair and sink into it. He spoke little. He smiled but he laughed more frequently. He laughed loudly, as if from excess sincerity. He was Voronin’s fellow employee at the Theological Academy, also a professor. Just now I saw him in the chair (a cricket from a coloring book) and recalled everything about him. As Geiger would say, neural contact was restored. When Voronin was arrested that winter, Averyanov provided the primary evidence – of counterrevolutionary activity – against him. They arrested Voronin based on Zaretsky’s denunciation but built the case on Averyanov’s evidence. Zaretsky could not have articulated the word counterrevolutionary.
SATURDAY
Yesterday we went to Siverskaya. I wanted to go by train but Geiger objected. He said there are viruses on trains and my body’s resistance is weakened. I think he was exaggerating. My body resisted so much back in its day that a train trip would be a mere trifle for it. But Geiger makes the decisions, not I.
We went by car. As before, Geiger was at the wheel and I was in the seat next to him. Strapped in by a seatbelt. A contemporary automobile (better to say car, Geiger advised me) gathers unbelievable speed. That’s not so noticeable on city streets but it takes your breath away when you leave the city. When we began passing other cars, I felt my hands grasping at the armrests on the seat. Geiger noticed that, too, and reduced the speed. And what Russian is there (he smiled) who doesn’t love fast driving… I smiled, too. I thought about how if we crashed into something at that speed, my body would be smashed to pieces, regardless of resistance. And Geiger’s body, too.
The cars ahead of us raised wind-blown snow and spattered us with clumps of mud that kept fogging the windshield. It now let in neither wind nor light. The ingenious Geiger sprayed water on it and cleaned it with windshield wipers. After having learned to lower the windows, I began pressing the button, but such a whirlwind burst into the car that I closed the window right away. Yes, that’s better, nodded Geiger. That’s better.
We parked by a railroad station that I did not recognize. Rather, I seemed to recognize one of the station’s buildings that has now become a store. So that’s how you are now, Siverskaya… When we got out of the car, Geiger asked me to wear a gauze mask. I shrugged and put it on. In the end, he’s the important person here, and I am accustomed to complying. But the Siverskaya air, which is like nothing else, made itself felt even through the gauze. We set off in the direction of the dam, along a street with wretched five-story buildings.
It became obvious in Siverskaya that winter was ending. There’s a particular smell of spring, after all, that comes about when there is still snow lying everywhere. Not a smell – perhaps it’s more a sort of softness in the air.
And where is Baron Frederiks’s dacha?’ My voice sounded muffled, even somehow accusatory, because of the mask.
‘It hasn’t remained intact.’
The snow was already crumbly; it didn’t squeak.
‘Why hasn’t it remained intact?’
There was Geiger’s vague gesture signalling no further ‘whys.’ We walked down toward the dam. Ruins standing by the water were chock-full of rubbish. We delighted in how frothy streams of water rushed out from somewhere underneath us. I had never been here in the winter, after all, and that made me feel a little better. The town’s winter condition could, if desired, explain the fact that Siverskaya bore little resemblance to itself. Everything could come back in the summer, though. Absolutely everything, including Frederik’s dacha.
And there it was, the road: it was along this road that we ascended back then, crossing the dam. Red cliffs. My father was alive then, and my grandmother, too. And my mother. I kept thinking about my mother and I didn’t want to ask Geiger how she was doing there. There. It was obvious, after all, that she died long ago but, well, I was afraid to hear it.
We began walking along Tserkovnaya Street, though the signs say Red. If they have in mind the Devonian clay, then that’s entirely appropriate. I soon glimpsed our house. The roof and color had changed and it had become boxy or something, but was instantly recognizable. Geiger lagged tactfully behind. I took hold of the gate and carefully examined the house. This was it. I turned to Geiger and he nodded. Even the light in the window was yellowish, as before.
An elderly person came out of the house and headed toward the gate. He slowed his stride when he saw me. He stopped.
‘We used to rent this dacha,’ I said. ‘A very long time ago.’
The man shook his head:
‘I inherited this house from my father. Neither he nor my grandfather ever rented it.’
‘Maybe your great-grandfather?’
After looking at my mask, he politely asked:
‘Are you here for treatment?’
‘In a certain sense, yes.’
He nodded. He came out to the street, pushed his hand through the slats of the gate, and closed the inner latch. He walked off toward the dam, unhurried.
The light inside the house did not go off when he left; someone must have stayed there. Perhaps my family. All I would have to do is go inside to see all my dear ones (so you’ve come back, my chum) and grasp that everything but their out-of-time sitting at the table was a dream and delusion, and I would burst into tears from a flood of happiness, just as then, the day of my solitary wanderings. But I did not go in.
SUNDAY
This ancient stanza came back to me but it’s unclear what it has to do with anything.
Perhaps this is about me?
MONDAY
In the winter we rose at six o’clock and day broke toward noon. Morning seemed like the scariest part of the day to me. Even if by evening I felt like I was dying of pain, exhaustion, and the cold, at least in the evening there was hope of nighttime rest. In the morning, though, I would open my eyes with the thought that everything would start all over again today. Often I could not wake up. I would open my eyes and stand (they beat you with a stick for a one minute delay) but not wake up. I slept in formation as they led us to our workplace: it is possible to sleep while walking, too. We did not wash up, there was no time; sometimes we could wipe our faces with snow or damp moss when we were already at work. All we managed to do was eat a piece of bread and drink it down with water. They brought boiling water to the brigade but it turned almost cold when they poured it. Not that it mattered: there was nothing to brew in it anyway. And there was nothing to drink down with it. I dreamt of only two things on earth: eating my fill and a good night’s sleep.
TUESDAY
They came for Professor Voronin in the evening. They were sullen and focused, as befits those representing tremendous force. Who had not come on their own behalf. They were unhurried while searching the room. Fingers unaccustomed to turning pages examined book after book. After they tired of paging, they took the books by the binding and shook them energetically. Bookmarks and postcards fell out; a prerevolutionary ten-ruble note even flew out at one point, whirling. They looked at linens just as thoroughly. Standing in the hallway, I saw their fingers groping the sheets on which Anastasia slept.