An abundance of discoveries befogged the heads of my former contemporaries who made atheism a fashion, too. Even then, they were reminiscent of a ladybug on the highway who’s charmed by her own motion and crawls a dozen meters. The ladybug seems to think she’s learned and grasped everything. She will never find out, though, where the highway begins and where it leads. I shared this comparison with Geiger. He narrowed his eyes:
‘The ladybug is God’s creature, though, despite her arrogance. And God allows varying views.’
A cunning Teuton; you can’t get the upper hand.
‘Of course the ladybug is God’s creature, which is why she was granted wings. An insect needs only to fly up into the sky to see the entire road, don’t you see? There was a children’s song about that.’
‘Why “was”?’ he laughs. ‘There still is.’
Geiger finally reported to Platosha about Voronin. Gradually, after preparing him, but he told him. Platosha raised his eyes to Geiger and looked at him for a long time. I thought (feared) he’d rush to Voronin’s right away but he didn’t. He asked calmly when we’re going to see him.
From this, one might think at first that Platosha was somehow reacting inappropriately to the news. I think Geiger had that impression. But it seems like Platosha goes through the most significant things in silence. Although… Geiger offered him his hand as he was leaving. Maybe he expected some sort of inference or something about news that stunned us. But then Platosha suddenly said:
‘If it’s no trouble, Geiger, describe weapons stopped at the station in Siverskaya. They’re being transported on open, flat-bed cars. Autumn 1914. Fog changing to mist.’
Autumn 1914. Fog changing to mist.
The weapons’ barrels are raised upward. Dark green, gradually emerging from grayness. Pensively aiming into the sky, the splendor of their matte luster.
Drops flow down them and fall heavily below. The drops flow along the metal platforms, along wheels that shine in the places they touch the rails.
A kingdom of motionless metal; God forbid it budges. It rattles and shakes softly, answering the military trains passing through.
Sooner or later, they’ll pull the wheel wedge out from under the foremost car and bring over a steam engine. Everything will start into motion. Sorrowful motion to the west.
All that harsh metal will oppose the softness of the human body. Its – the body’s – oneness. It will scatter into small pieces.
The weapons will lose their pensiveness and perhaps even dry off. They will shoot unceasingly, both hitting their targets and missing. Actually, they can shoot when they’re wet, too.
After Nastya went to the university, I read. Later I watched the news on TV but quickly shut it off. I took the photograph of Professor Voronin off the chest of drawers and examined it. There’s the professor sitting in an armchair, legs crossed. His elbow is leaning into a small table with a pile of books. There’s a cane in his hand (he never carried a cane). His hair is combed back; there are symmetrical islands of gray on a beard that is still mostly black. A particular academic chic. I search the professor’s eyes for traces of future suffering – that happens in old photographs, it’s discovered in hindsight – but no, there seems to be none of that… Could he really not have foreseen it? Or was he conforming to the photographer’s expectations and looking at himself through the photographer’s eyes?
The wrenching motionlessness of pre-revolutionary snapshots. Nastya, it occurs to me, never saw her great-grandfather in motion. But I saw. And, incidentally, I see. I freely enter the silver frame and observe the professor setting the cane aside and rising slowly from the chair. It is possible there’s even a sigh or, let’s say, a crack of the joints, since the person has been sitting motionless in that photograph for nearly a century. His gait is slightly pigeon-toed and I could have showed that to Nastya, but that would not be the same thing. No matter who or what I might show, it would be my portrait.
I take the album about Solovki from the bookshelf. I open it to page seventy-seven (I even remember the page!) and see a photograph of a person with the exact same surname: Voronin. You cannot say his face is ferocious; Nastya confirmed this, too, when I showed him to her. I wanted him to have a sharply sloping forehead and fangs coming out of his mouth. Reflecting his inner substance. But no: he has a high forehead, well-proportioned features, neatly combed hair, and is smoothly shaven. He turned out to be tenacious, like all vampires. With his appearance, he could have worked as an assistant school principal or the director of a club and nobody would have discovered his inclination for bloodsucking. He and I will meet tomorrow. I am astounded at my calm. Perhaps that is because the news about Voronin is too unbelievable.
I have always been surprised that one name is capable of denoting such various entities. It works out that Voronin can be this way and this way. How did he become who he is, anyway? That’s a good question.
We headed to Voronin’s in the evening: Platosha, Geiger, and me. I just went to be with them since the agreement was only for Geiger and Platosha. Yes, plus some Chistov From-the-Organs. Voronin insisted on the presence of this Chistov. But, well, anybody in Voronin’s position would have proceeded that way. Only would just anybody end up in his position? So this one’s actually fearful for his worthless life now. The louse. What was it my grandmother said about Zaretsky? That she put out a contract on him? I think, in the Zaretsky case, that was my grandmother’s delirium. But on Voronin, I’d put out a contract. I know you can’t talk like that, but I’d do it if I knew where and how. All I’d have to do is imagine how he’d tormented Platosha…
And so we – meaning the three of us – went to see Voronin and I was thinking: well, how about that, Voronina going to see Voronin, though we’re not exactly birds of a feather! I’d even forgotten I’ve been Platonova for a little while. I held back a bit, watching them walk. There was wind, almost a hurricane – the right sort of weather when you’re going to meet a villain: so here I am! My companions were walking, bent forward, fighting a wind mixed with leaves and large but still sparse raindrops. The collars of their raincoats fluttered in their fingers. That, it occurred to me, is how the arrival of payback might look, although of course there was no talk of payback.
Chistov was already waiting for us by the front door. When we entered the hall, he took a paper out of a binder and asked Platosha to sign it. It was a release form saying Platosha has nothing against Voronin and isn’t planning to prosecute him. Chistov pulled an expensive pen out of his pocket, placed it and the paper on the binder, and froze, holding it all in front of Platosha. A pause hung.
‘Without this, Innokenty Petrovich,’ said Chistov, ‘you and I aren’t going to see Mr. Voronin.’
Innokenty Petrovich pensively took the pen.
‘What’s in the pen?’
‘Ink, imagine that.’