I once told Nastya that mercy is higher than justice. Just now I thought: not mercy but love. Love is higher than justice.
[GEIGER]
After work I stopped by to see Innokenty.
He was at home by himself. I was seeing him for the first time one-on-one since the sad news about his condition.
It was easier in Nastya’s presence. She doesn’t allow silence to hang, sprachfreudiges Mädchen.[12]
And here we were, silent half the time. Neither he nor I wanted to talk about the test results.
[INNOKENTY]
Nevsky Prospect. Aviator Frolov’s funeral. Seva and I have come to see that brave person off on his final journey. My parents are mourning the aviator, too, but at home. They didn’t come, so as not to cry in public: they knew they couldn’t contain themselves. Seva and I are crying, though, it’s fine. I, a twelve-year-old, am not ashamed to sit on his shoulders, so I can at least see something; many people are sitting like that. We agreed that he will sit on my shoulders later, but somehow it didn’t work out that way. It was forgotten. My hands are clasped under Seva’s chin and I feel Seva’s tears falling on them.
Now the funeral procession comes into view and seems to be riding past us yet again. I scrutinize that spectacle so greedily afterwards, replaying it in my memory so often that it remains iterative in my consciousness. The procession hurriedly returns to the top of Nevsky as if it were being filmed in reverse, then it again begins its majestic motion forward.
Officers with a cross, banners with Christ’s face, and wreaths come first. The cross is in the center, the banners are to the sides, and the wreaths are at the back. Behind them march two columns carrying the deceased man’s medals and honors. And there, finally, is the hearse with a high canopy rising over the procession. Under the canopy is a closed coffin. In the coffin is the departed, who is dear to all of us. Icarus, as is written on one of the wreaths.
All that drifts slowly toward us. Shouts and conversations go quiet around us. Only the clip-clop of horses harnessed to the hearse is audible. I am grasping at Seva’s hair but he doesn’t notice. I’m attempting to imagine Frolov in the coffin, his arms crossed on his chest with an icon, a paper band on his forehead. Pale. The smell of tobacco from his lips. The aroma of his final cigarette, smoked thanks to me.
We’re standing with our backs to Gostiny Dvor, and the huge crowd is flowing past us, like a sea, in the direction of Alexander Nevsky Monastery. The sea is viscous; it envelops everything that crosses its path: the cars of the horse tram, carriages, streetlights. Everything that falls into this stream is immovable to an equal degree, regardless of its own nature.
Finally, I dismount and we join that crowd because it is only possible to move in one direction: toward Nikolsky Cemetery. We walk along Nevsky, past Yekaterinsky Garden, along Anichkov Bridge, through Znamenskaya Square, and, well, consequently, we walk all the way to the monastery. I do not understand why I have yet to visit Aviator Frolov’s grave at Nikolsky Cemetery.
So that’s the picture. I do not remember the season. On Nevsky – if, of course, there is no snow – one cannot discern the season anyway. You will hardly find any trees here and people dress somehow incomprehensibly, without concern for the season. When it comes down to it, there just aren’t seasons here. There is a wintertime and a nonwintertime, and everything else is lacking in our part of the world.
[NASTYA]
The other day, Platosha said we should get married. I realized what that means. He wants to move our relationship into the realm of eternity. He believes it’s no longer possible to trust time. That his days are numbered. He doesn’t say that directly, but a sort of mosaic came together from individual phrases he’s thrown out on various occasions. I’m the only one who sees it because I interact with him constantly. Well, maybe Geiger, too. Yes, Geiger, too, of course.
Geiger doesn’t know about the proposal but he senses Platosha’s general condition well. And I sense Geiger’s. I think he’s suffering no less than us, but he doesn’t discuss the illness, either with Platosha or with me. I’d been waiting for comforting words from him but they haven’t come. At first that was very hurtful but then I realized what the deal was. Geiger’s a rational person and simultaneously honest in the German way. He doesn’t know what’s going on with Platosha, so he finds no comforting words. I think comfort that’s not based on facts would not only seem pointless to him but also immoral. He’s strongly mistaken about that, though.
Platosha, by the way, isn’t saying anything either, for different reasons. He’s a courageous person and prefers to keep everything to himself. He’s afraid of traumatizing me. He’s not afraid of traumatizing Geiger, but they’re concurring here that there’s no point in discussing the incomprehensible. So everybody stays silent. When I attempt to bring it up, neither of them keeps the conversation going.
Oh, and Zheltkov called to congratulate Platosha on ‘Man of the Year.’ I was gesturing to Platosha: invite the guy to tea, he loves it. He didn’t invite him.
[INNOKENTY]
Zheltkov called twice this week, once when Nastya was here, once when she wasn’t. I didn’t tell her anything about the time she wasn’t here. He said then that he had an interesting political project for me. That I, as a person who’s been around for ages (is he implying the liquid nitrogen means I’m from the Ice Age?) could be useful… I didn’t let him finish. Above all, I said, I am a nonpolitical person.
‘But you,’ he objected, ‘you didn’t even listen to the gist of my project!’
‘And it’s a good thing I didn’t. What if it’s a state secret and I have to live with it after turning it down?’
‘Well, not that much of a secret,’ growled Zheltkov. ‘Fine, we’ll make do without any projects. It would be better to have tea, right?’
He burst into the same laughter as during the tea party.
Why does Nastya think that laugh is sincere?
[NASTYA]
Today Platosha went to see Geiger at the clinic for yet another blood test, and I went to St Prince Vladimir’s Cathedral. I walked through the park that they say used to be the church cemetery. There were maple and poplar leaves on the paths here and there, but not yet a complete covering. I suddenly realized it’s already the beginning of autumn. Slight fading but not yet an avalanche.
We’d gone to the cathedral together before this but here I was walking by myself; something sank inside me. Will the day really arrive that I’ll come here alone? If those had been only thoughts, I could have somehow driven them away, but then it proved to be autumn, too: a sort of overall departure. As I was walking by the church gates, past the panhandlers, they didn’t even pester me, they just followed me with their eyes; that’s the sort of look I turn out to have.
The evening service was underway – I don’t know what it’s properly called. The church was in half-darkness, illuminated only by candles. After entering, I headed for the left side altar where there’s an icon of St Panteleimon, the great martyr and healer. A prayer to him hung by the icon and I read it. Then I pressed my forehead to the icon’s glass, standing there a very long time. I told Panteleimon about Platosha. About how much he suffered and agonized during his life but the most important thing is that we’re now expecting a child. Alongside me, people were kissing the icon and the glass under my forehead was no longer cool, but I kept telling and telling. Soundlessly moving my lips. The warmth of the glass I had heated transformed into Panteleimon’s warmth for me. Quiet prayers wafted to me and calmed me.
Then I stood by the Savior, by the icon ‘Joy of All Who Sorrow.’ Never before have I had a conversation like this, but now it happened. This was a genuine conversation, though only I spoke. The answer to me was hope, which came to replace despair. A special joy of the sorrowful.