The crowd at the aerodrome went silent all at once. Everyone already knew the aviator was flying to his own death. He was somehow flying for an unbelievably long time and the aeroplane’s spinning looked comical, thus especially frightening. Each time the machine turned its upper part toward us, Frolov was visible, sitting in his pilot’s seat, and his hands were arranged differently each time: he was likely pulling desperately at various levers, attempting to draw the machine out of its tailspin. The moments of his flight kept lasting and lasting, and I had time to think that this was extending his life and that I was seeing him alive now and an instant later he would be dead and everybody knew it: both he, tearing at the machine’s levers, and we, frozen in speechlessness… I prepared to catch that dreadful moment of the transition from life to death but, of course, caught nothing.
When the aeroplane’s nose plunged into the ground (the wooden crack of its structure), the silence exploded into the crowd’s thousand-voiced scream. The human mass rushed toward the aeroplane from all sides, instantaneously flooding the airfield with itself – just as spilt coffee spreads over a tablecloth. People were already prepared to run, too, and the aeroplane’s strike into the earth served as their starter. I rushed along with them, foretelling the aviator’s condition based on the machine’s broken wings. I ran and shouted but slowed my run without realizing it myself, falling further back from the first row, and deserting those who needed to be the first to approach the person who had been smashed. And the slower I ran, the louder my scream became, as if I was attempting, with that desperate scream, to make up for my absence in the forward line.
When I finally did see Frolov, his appearance turned out to be less frightening than I had feared. Cleaved forehead, stream of blood from the mouth, hand unnaturally turned. That hand had taken the matches from me. It had shaken my hand, firmly, until it hurt. Now it was not fit for any handshakes, even the weakest. I recalled that hand later, when I read this well-known verse by Blok:
More dead than a lever: I knew the cost of that detail.
WEDNESDAY [NASTYA]
I watched the report from the Kremlin on TV. My guys were on fire today. Award-winner Platonov found the opportunity to speak about Belka and Strelka during the ceremony – I think it was very appropriate and showed a love for nature. Geiger was pretty good, too: he tossed out a quick ‘thank you’ and returned to his place. Without glancing at the supreme commander-in-chief. He doesn’t like him very much; well, what’s to love about him if you come right down to it? Long story short, I was proud of both award-winners.
WEDNESDAY [GEIGER]
Innokenty and I are on the way back from Moscow. We’re in a train compartment: we decided to take the train after all.
He doesn’t handle flying well. He has memories of some aviator who perished. Perished before his eyes.
I’m writing.
Innokenty is examining our medals. He put the two little cases in front of himself: Honor in one, Courage in the other. Pensively chews at his lips. He has the look of a person stricken by bewilderment. It’s amusing to watch him.
This morning they gathered us at the presidential executive offices on Staraya Square. I knew all the future award-winners, or almost all.
Shortly thereafter, they loaded us on a bus and brought us to the Kremlin. We waited for the ceremony in a hall with a low ceiling. We ate pastries and drank juice.
A manager from the protocol service was going around the hall. He offered to take gifts for the president. One is not to present anything to the president oneself.
He approached us, too, but Innokenty and I just threw up our hands. We weren’t planning to present anything to anyone. Disappointment flashed over the manager’s face.
Innokenty was in the lavatory when the manager invited everyone to go ahead to the ceremony. His disappointment deepened.
Innokenty was called first from our pair. After glancing at a paper, the president praised his courage and compared him with Gagarin.
‘I’m afraid I do not deserve the comparison with Gagarin,’ Innokenty said dolefully, ‘because my courage was forced. It is probably more akin to the courage of Belka and Strelka, who also had no other choice. So it would be better to compare me with them.’
There was applause in the hall and the president smiled uncertainly. He joined the general applause. He obviously had not expected anything about Belka and Strelka.
Innokenty just put on both medals. I see them on his chest through bottles of mineral water. They suit him.
FRIDAY [INNOKENTY]
Geiger and I returned from Moscow yesterday. An unusual trip. As I walked through the Kremlin, I thought: if I had found myself here in the twenties or thirties, I could have met one of those who…
All our hopes and all our hatred rose like steam, to the top of the world, right here. They warmed themselves in that here, inhaled it. And if one truly could have ended up at the Kremlin during those years, then told them to their face about all the thoughts we had about our life… Of course it’s funny: you can’t even manage to open your mouth, nothing, not one word; you do well if you simply manage to cast a glance. Just to catch a passing glimpse of them: that’s something in itself already. To die from heartbreak but catch a glimpse.
But I looked at the current one: my heart did not break. It did not even beat faster. And not because he’s this way or that way but simply because this is not my time, it isn’t native to me: I sense that, so cannot become close to this time. I experience nothing but an abstract interest in what’s happening. It’s just the same as if I had been presented to the president of, let’s say, Zimbabwe: yes, it’s the president, yes, it’s captivating, but nothing responds inside. And you can tell him everything you want, but… that doesn’t tempt you. It isn’t interesting.
After the ceremony, they invited us for a glass of champagne. I drank the Kremlin champagne and suddenly thought to myself that this is the drink of power. I am always having ideas like that. I imagined power and the ability to conquer being poured down my throat along with the champagne, and, most importantly, with these attributes, a certain special responsibility for the country that transforms a bureaucrat into a ruler so that the country’s business becomes his personal business and the country itself becomes a part of his own ‘I.’
I shared my reflections about the beverage with Geiger but he didn’t approve of my line of thinking:
‘Where there’s a good bureaucrat, there’s no need for a ruler.’ Wonderful. A European view. I lifted my glass to Geiger’s glass. ‘And where have you seen a good bureaucrat in Russia?’ We clinked and the glass slipped from my hand. I watched as it flew, as if in slow motion, and knew that in an instant it would spray champagne and shards in all directions, and it kept flying and, there, it finally fell and the spray flew all over, just exactly as I imagined it. I had become a witness to some sort of strange time phenomenon: not real time and even more so not the past – maybe the future? After all, I saw that picture for an entire eternity before the glass smashed. Several staff members ran over, suggesting I not worry. Essentially, I wasn’t worrying anyway.
SATURDAY [GEIGER]
I keep recalling my trip with Innokenty.
Especially the conversation over champagne, which he likened to a beverage of power. What a strange fantasy! That drink, he says, transforms a bureaucrat into a ruler.