TUESDAY [GEIGER]
They didn’t invite Nastya to see the governor. Innokenty stated this complaint to me after the fact.
Originally, he said nothing of the sort. From this it follows that the complaint originated with the uninvited herself. Innokenty requested that in cases like this I mention Nastya separately.
She’s been walking around looking pale. It’s obvious that the pregnancy is not progressing very easily. The nerves are from that.
About the outing to the governor, by the way. While we were waiting, Innokenty told me that the other day he finished reading a book about heroes of outer space. Oddly enough, of the multitude of heroes, it was the dogs, Belka and Strelka, that made the greatest impression on him. He spoke anxiously about them.
TUESDAY [NASTYA]
Platosha and Geiger went to see the governor but nobody invited me. It’s not that I especially wanted to see that governor guy – in theory I couldn’t care less about him – it’s just that, according to etiquette, the invited’s wife should be with him. The thought likely didn’t occur to Geiger but Innokenty Petrovich could have considered it. At first, I didn’t tell him what I thought on that score but then I said it when we were making love. He: oh, that is pretty embarrassing, I didn’t figure things out right away, it didn’t even cross my mind.
It’s too bad it didn’t. That’s all, I don’t feel like writing more today.
THURSDAY [INNOKENTY]
I studied the GPU rapist’s routes. I didn’t so much study them – because how could I follow someone who moved about the camp freely? – I simply worked at the repair workshop, not far from where those routes ran. The GPU man’s surname (I found this out fairly quickly) was uncomplicated: Panov. As for his routes, they weren’t elaborate, either: they led to the command-staff bathhouse that stood behind the workshop.
Panov usually appeared on Saturdays with his entire GPU shift; sometimes he came in the middle of the week. At first I thought this character was meeting with ladies there, but it became clear that he preferred arranging those meetings for home. Panov went to the bathhouse so often solely because he loved steaming a while. He valued bodily enjoyment in the broader sense, but steaming was the most important thing to him. It seemed to me that the way our paths crossed in that huge place (it happened on its own!) was not accidental. It definitely convinced me that I would finish off Panov after all, as I had schemed.
There wasn’t even any need for me to run after him: he himself walked past me and I saw him through the workshop’s dulled window. One time I took a bucket with a rag and washed the window. They all laughed, wondering why. I cannot (I said) stand dirt on window glass. This is still a habit of mine from home. Well, if it’s from home (they were laughing anyway) that’s another matter. For all that, I could now see Panov welclass="underline" walking back and forth. He sometimes went back alone, from which I could conclude that on those occasions he was the last one in the steam room.
One time, he moved wearily (head lowered, finger in his nose) past the window, and I slipped out of the workshop through the back door and made my way to the bathhouse without going out to the road. There was no light in the changing-room window. The door to the bathhouse was locked. I soon discovered the key under a wooden grate by the door but left it in place. I had found out the most important thing: Panov stayed in the bathhouse after it was supposed to be closed and staff were to leave, under camp regulations. They left him the key and he closed the bathhouse on his own.
I could have already left but I lifted the wooden grating again. It was knocked together roughly, with large gaps between the slats. I pulled a hacksaw blade out of my trouser leg. One end was sharpened and the other was wrapped in coarse fabric. I placed the blade in the gap between the boards and it settled well. I pressed two fingers on its edge. It sank all the way between the gaps, not counting the small end it could be pulled out with. But it was impossible to notice if you didn’t know about it. Only I knew about it. And that secret made my life easier.
FRIDAY [GEIGER]
They called me from the presidential executive office. They announced, in ceremonial terms, that Innokenty and I are invited to Moscow to receive state awards.
I remembered right away: they’d called me a couple months ago. They’d asked who, besides me, was worthy of an award for a brave scientific experiment. I answered that, to begin with, I don’t know if I’m worthy of that. They politely interrupted and proposed that I think about it anyway. Wahnsinn…[8]
If taking part in the experiment was brave for anyone, it was Innokenty. I named him.
This time, it was my interlocutors who expressed doubt. They were concerned that Innokenty Petrovich was, in some measure… the object of the experiment.
‘No,’ I retorted, unexpectedly fervently. ‘No, no, and no.’
He was the most genuine subject, if they could appreciate what those words meant. He entered the experiment consciously and was its subject.
And so it turns out that people in the president’s executive office are capable of listening. They gave awards to both me and Innokenty. Though I’ll receive the Order of Honor and he’ll receive the Order of Courage. On his side, they valued courage over all else. Which, as I told him when I informed him about the award over the phone, certainly begets honor.
Innokenty regarded that news impassively. He asked only if Nastya was invited to the ceremony. No, she wasn’t. And it’s doubtful I could change anything here.
FRIDAY [INNOKENTY]
Geiger just telephoned me and told me something strange about awards. It’s not so much that I don’t believe it (oh, the things I’ve had to believe after being thawed!) but that it’s a poor fit. What is more, Geiger found out that invitations to the Kremlin don’t include relatives. Nastya will be offended again. Or maybe it was just a prank, I mean about the awards? I have read about cases like this.
FRIDAY [NASTYA]
The tenants are moving into my apartment tomorrow. Today I went there to sort out a few final things and took the honorable award-winners with me. Thus, we went by taxi: Honor to the right on the back seat, Courage to the left, and I in the middle, as who knows who. Well, let’s suppose Motherhood: could I become a Mother Heroine? Yes, no problem.
They’re bashful because I wasn’t invited to the ceremony but I console them as much as I can. With all my heart, I do not want to go to Moscville. It’s one thing to go for a ride to the Smolny with a baby in your belly but another to be caught in traffic in a foreign land. It’s gratifying, though, that they both remembered me this time. I do love them both, even that dorky Geiger!
We put the apartment in relative order, gathered up four bags of things that I’m hesitant to leave among people I don’t know, and brought them to Bolshoy Prospect. The statuette of Themis seemed like a particularly valuable object to me, left to my grandmother by Platosha’s mother. Themis’s scales were broken off: at my husband’s hand, according to lore. I purposely took Themis down in his presence – ceremonially and unhurriedly – but he didn’t react. He nodded listlessly when I placed her on the cabinet in the dining room.
‘What can be higher than justice!’ I shouted, to wake this person up.
He thought for a minute and said:
‘Probably only charity.’