She’s pretty smart. That’s important for a person like Innokenty. She’s emotional. Maybe overly emotional, which can be annoying sometimes. In our case, however, that quality of Nastya’s is most likely a plus. Innokenty is growing accustomed to his new time thanks to her active help.
Basically, Russian women are surprisingly lively. I, a German, like that about them.
Nastya’s also practical. Not tight-fisted, not sparsam,[3] but practical. Since Germans have already come up, that quality is, of course, German. It manifests itself in her with certain details and phrases.
For example, we run across a watermelon stand on the street. Sure enough, Innokenty wants to buy a watermelon right then and there. Nastya announces that the watermelons are better in the nearby supermarket. And cheaper. But the thing is that he wants to buy the watermelon here and now. He likes that life itself is revealing its riches to him. And a supermarket is, well, excuse me, another matter. Here it’s a find, there it’s procurement.
There’s nothing bad in her practicality. It’s simply a little unexpected for her age and mentality. How does that go along with her emotionality?
Or maybe that’s the style of this era? A generation of lawyers and economists.
Only where, one might ask, is the dream?
Where is the flight?
TUESDAY [INNOKENTY]
After Anastasia died, I asked myself if my relationship with Nastya is not infidelity. Not in the sense of man/woman but in the most absolutely human dimension possible. If I am to be entirely frank, that question came about even before Anastasia’s death and before my relationship with Nastya, but I was afraid to ask it. Even of myself. Because I could guess where this course was heading. Then, after asking that question, I was afraid of answering it in the first weeks after Anastasia’s death, though it was already impossible to set aside.
What is difficult to do under ordinary conditions sometimes works out easier on paper. Or on the computer, in my case. I answer the question about whether my life with Nastya amounts to being unfaithful to Anastasia with a firm ‘No.’
The main proof is Nastya’s pregnancy. Anastasia and I should have had a child but we no longer could have a child. Nastya is carrying Anastasia’s flesh within herself, which means that the child she and I will have is partially Anastasia’s child. If Russian history were not so pitch black, then Nastya would have been Anastasia’s and my granddaughter. Is this just a matter of history, though? And is it worth piling all the blame on history?
Just recently, I have noticed that in Russia people have come to like a phrase about how history has no subjunctive mood. Phrases come up now, too, as in my time, and people repeat them whether or not they have relevance. History, you see, does not have… Maybe it does not, it’s just that there are cases when it grants something like a second attempt. This is repetition and simultaneously non-repetition of what already was.
Otherwise, how can you explain that I was granted one more chance for life? That I – if we are to call things by their real names – have risen? That Anastasia lived long enough to see me in that late meeting? That I met Nastya, whom I love and who loves me? Could all that simply be separate cases or, even, chance? Of course not. Nastya and I (and Anastasia!) are dealing with pieces of the same mosaic because when many chance things come together in one common picture, that amounts to a consistent pattern.
I cannot force myself to go to Anastasia’s grave. I am afraid of believing she has died.
WEDNESDAY [INNOKENTY]
Now, as life is settling into a routine little by little, happiness shows through everything, through the most common everydayness, no matter what I do. Everydayness is essentially happiness: to go where you want, read what you want… And, finally, to simply live. But my main happiness is in Nastya and in expecting the child. In the evenings, when I sit with Nastya on the sofa, I caress her belly. Where the changes are still almost unnoticeable. But what is supposedly noticeable – or so Nastya says – is only the fruit of my imagination. Well, fine, she knows better: no matter how you look at it, she knows her belly better.
I think about the little one constantly. I wrote ‘the little one’ just now and it almost seemed as if I was identifying the baby with the male gender. That is not actually how I see things. It even seems that I might want a girl more. She would continue that series: Anastasia, Nastya… It is unclear, however, how she should be named. It’s inconvenient when an entire family carries the same given name.
WEDNESDAY [NASTYA]
Platosha’s favorite topic is the child. That’s a bit unexpected… Where did a man get so much motherliness? It would be more correct to say fatherliness but somehow that doesn’t sound as good. He started caressing my belly in the evenings and it’s ticklish. He asks why I tense up when he touches me. I shrug but I do know why: so I don’t laugh from the ticklishness; the laughter would probably offend him. I’m also afraid of farting. Gas has been bugging me during my pregnancy, especially after supper. I think the gas makes my belly larger and my Platonov takes that as the baby’s growth.
We kept thinking about which apartment it would be better for us to live in now, mine or Platonov’s. We decided on Platonov’s. We – that’s Geiger and I – decided and Platonov didn’t interfere, the sweetheart. Geiger said it’s best for a thawed person to live in familiar surroundings. He’s a real pro so it’s best not to argue with him about the life of the thawed. There’s no need to argue anyway: the apartment on Bolshoy Prospect is better and more comfortable. We can rent out my apartment; why let it sit empty? Although Geiger did wheedle support for Platosha out of the government, it’s already clear now that we can’t get by on that alone. Because our government’s support is pretty listless.
Platonov will have lots of new expenses now he’s a celebrity here. He’ll be quite the awesome partier: just about everybody wants to meet him now. I want for him to be the best. A real social lion, not a Kunstkamera exhibit. The baby and I will just be here for him; we don’t need more than that.
THURSDAY [GEIGER]
I just read that calendar dates reside in linear time but the days of the week are in cyclical time.
Linear time is historical but cyclical time is a closed system. Not even time at all.
Eternity, one might say.
It works out that the history set forth by the three of us isn’t aspiring to go anywhere. It’s the most reliable history.
Maybe it’s not even history.
FRIDAY [INNOKENTY]
Marx. He taught drawing. He was imposing and, yes, there was a striking resemblance to the author of Capital. As a professor of art, he could not help but understand that. Did he hope that the new authorities would not touch a person with an appearance like that or something? Did he joke? Protest? I cannot recall his first name so why not simply call him Marx?
He walks past the easels, swaying. Squeaking the parquet floor. His fat finger scratches a little at his beard. He says:
‘Form floats on the sheet. It is essential to take charge of that format in its entirety and construct a world in it.’
Construct a world. A voice that is muffled, from deep within. As if there is someone else there inside that person, sitting and giving orders.
SATURDAY [GEIGER]
I was at the Platonovs’ today. I’m going to call them both that, even though their marriage is unofficial for now. It’s a good name. Everything that the name Plato comprises carries within itself a shading of wisdom.