I never even learned her name. Did I not want to? Did I think a mystery could not have a name?
We went to their library (really, all the rooms there were a library). Two armchairs on opposite sides of a round table. She turned around, stood behind the chair further away, and placed her hands on its back. I was regarding her for the first time: no, she was not a librarian. Not at all.
‘Here.’ I held the books out to her. ‘They asked me to give these back to you.’
She remained silent so I said:
‘Thank you.’
She smiled. Her face was astonishing: gothic with sunken eyes. And a vein twisting around her thin neck. And that limp… She answered:
‘You’re welcome.’
She did not offer me tea because tea was simply not compatible with her – what, would she boil water on a kerosene stove? But she did not even offer me a seat. A queen. I stood and looked at her. I imagined the happiness of pairing with her. Not happiness: it was something else. There cannot be happiness with a woman like this, there could only really be the sweetness of pain. She was particular and that particularity attracted. Everyone. There is a reason that even the animal-like GPU men hunted for her in the medical department. The soloist women from folk-dance ensembles no longer got them worked up. They, the bastards, wanted the ethereal.
She came to me that night at the camp after everyone left. She hobbled in. Crawled in. She remembered me from Petersburg back then, too, and had recognized me here. She sat on my bed and then lay down, because she could not sit. I caressed her hands. I caressed her hair: it was wiry, stiff with clotted blood. Silently. I already knew that I needed to be silent with her. But our touches were deeper than words. Toward morning, she pressed her lips to my ear:
‘Thank you.’
I wanted to answer her but she covered my mouth with her hand.
‘I would no longer exist otherwise.’
Her hand smelled of medicines.
Lying alongside me, she was Anastasia. When she left, I knew I would kill the GPU man. I felt at ease and fell asleep.
FRIDAY [GEIGER]
Yesterday they contacted me from the Smolny building. They said the governor is inviting me and Innokenty to meet with him. Since the question of Innokenty’s apartment had been decided at the gubernatorial level, I replied that I would ask Innokenty to come.
I called him. He had nothing against it. Basically, he regarded it very calmly.
We arrived there just before twelve today. We had to wait a little; the governor was meeting with someone. There were already journalists in the meeting room when they invited us in. They sat the conversation’s participants in armchairs by a round table.
The governor read a few phrases from a piece of paper. I can’t remember a single one of them now other than the final phrase. It said that Innokenty, like no one else, should understand the difference between democracy and dictatorship.
Innokenty thanked him. As I understand things, nothing more was required, but Innokenty decided to respond. Essentially, why not?
Innokenty said that the proportional level of evil is approximately identical in all epochs. Evil simply takes on various forms. Sometimes it presents itself through anarchy and crime, sometimes through the authorities. He, someone who has lived so long, has seen both.
The governor thought for a moment and asked how Innokenty feels.
The answer wasn’t formal here, either. The guest told the governor about changes in temperature and blood pressure. Of course that was unexpected. Aber schön.[7]
SATURDAY [INNOKENTY]
Yesterday they telephoned me from some political party and proposed that I join. I played at wavering. They explained to me that this was the governing party and that if I wanted to achieve anything… But I have Nastya, what else can I achieve? I thanked them and hung up. Then Geiger called with an invitation from the governor. And I agreed right away to go with him and for some reason didn’t even think about mentioning the party’s call. Because maybe it coincided with the invitation? What do they want from me? Advertising? Did they like my ads with the vegetables?
When the governor hosted us today, I had the opportunity to scrutinize him up close, imagine to myself what political authority looks like. And it looks, put bluntly, ordinary, nothing outrageous: large bald spots, a groomed and somehow simultaneously wrinkled face, spots on the skin. I looked at the governor and thought about how being near him caused me no agitation, the same as if his presence were televised. Yes, that’s the exact comparison: the object of observation is nearby and fully visible but there’s no contact with him: he’s on the other side of a screen.
And my life is on this side.
SUNDAY [INNOKENTY]
No, I will write about my cousin Seva after all. About Seva at the Kem transit point. About Seva in a leather jacket, wearing a service cap with a red star.
We zeks had already been standing in formation for more than two hours, waiting for the chief who would decide our fate. Rather, our fates, because even here, each person had his own. The chief appeared and he was Seva. He walked in the company of several Chekists. I cannot say I was very surprised when I saw him, at least after the first second. In essence, one might have expected something of the sort from him. He had found that big strength he was seeking and was now acting in its name.
He did not notice me right away. First he sat down at a table and poured himself some water from a pitcher. Drank it. And then raised his eyes and noticed. He appeared to be smiling but it only appeared that way. It was a spasm, not a smile. He immediately lowered his eyes to the paper on the table. After scratching his nose, he began reading it: surname and place for assignment. His voice shook, despite the forced severity. It began breaking as the letter ‘P’ approached.
‘Platonov!’
There was fear and entreaty in Seva’s gaze. He was undoubtedly thinking that his kinship to me would compromise him. That the Chekists would inform on him to the proper place right away.
‘Here!’ I answered.
Seva and I, two aviators. At the sea, an even more northern one now than before. Only this time he was the leader, all the strings were in his hands. Where were we flying?
‘Remain on Popovsky Island until my special instruction.’ His voice has become a wheeze.
‘Yes, sir, remain!’
I looked at the floor. The paint on the boards was peeling. A camel had formed there; it was just lying there on the floor. They do well, those camels, in warm regions. They can spit on everything. I sensed Seva’s relief even without seeing him: I did not let on that I knew him. I had enough sense to understand that a transit point was not the best place to recognize someone.
From that moment on, the hope arose in me that he would pull me out of the camp. Or, say, leave me here with light work. I expected that today or tomorrow he would somehow find me or simply summon me. To cheer me, for starters, and then – who knows? – to ease my lot.
None of that happened. Seva was not interested in either meeting with me or – even less so – in my staying constantly alongside him. With his mistrustfulness, I think he considered that too dangerous for himself.
Seva’s special instruction appeared twelve hours later. They sent me to the 13th Brigade of the Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp. That was one of the harshest places on Solovki. Had Seva set my destruction as his goal? I don’t know. I am certain only that he suffered in signing his instruction. Maybe he was remembering our argument over the locomotives of history.