“I was told they have some sort of ‘truth serum’ that they sprinkle in your food,” Ilya ventured.
“I could believe that. You know yourself that they’re professionals, and we’re absolutely defenseless against them. And we’re just as defenseless against the common criminals. I thought about Mandelstam a lot when I was inside. What it was like for him … to die there.
“But don’t imagine that they feel any lack of moral justification! In fact, they feel they are morally superior. For them, breaking a person with ideals is a special pleasure. It’s like we all have the same face to them. Like we’re all Chinese; or like we’re all weaklings who wear glasses. Before I was transported from prison to the camp, one of the jail bosses smashed my glasses. He got such a charge out of it, it was such a thrill to him to hear them crunch underfoot. I really can’t see a thing without them, as you know. I only received a new pair three months later—Anna Alexandrovna sent them to me. Chernopyatov, by the way, also wears glasses.”
“Yes, I photographed Chernopyatov a few years ago. It was a good portrait.”
No, Ilya didn’t feel any guilt about that whatsoever. What a bunch of motherfuckers was what he was thinking.
“Well, I’m just thinking about the ways in which he was vulnerable, that’s all,” Mikha said, explaining something that Ilya already knew perfectly well. “Maybe they made him drink something, or broke him in some other way … I just don’t want you to say anything bad about him. One has to feel sorry for him, on top of everything else. He wasn’t thinking of Alyona. How will this affect her? And all the people who’ve surrounded him all these years.
“I think the price he has already paid is so high that he is worse off than everyone else. How will he ever live this down?
“You helped me so much, Ilya, before my arrest. I’ll always remember what you said to me: ‘Every word you say will work against you. Keep silent. The best thing is to say nothing.’ And that’s what I did. But you know yourself, Sergei Borisovich is a big talker—an orator, even. He said too much, and then there was no going back. Or maybe his strength and willpower gave out. I’m not going to be the one to judge him.”
* * *
Mikha’s words were feverish and disconnected, but Ilya understood everything. In silence, Ilya poured them each another glass, and then drank, saying: “Me neither.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do for work now. It turns out that working with the deaf children was the best thing I’ve done in my life.”
“We’ll think of something,” Ilya said, with less confidence than usual. “Have you ever thought about emigrating?” This was the first time Ilya had ever brought this up directly with Mikha.
“Emigration—only to save my skin. The most terrifying thing for me is the prison camps, Ilya. I won’t survive them a second time. But emigration … I’m from here, everything I know and love is here. Friends, Russian, my work.”
“Work? What kind of work?”
Mikha seemed to wilt.
“But how—without work?”
Ilya didn’t know either. For him it wasn’t a matter of a single job, but of various kinds of work. A multitude of tasks.
“You know, let’s take one step at a time. First we’ll find a job for you. Then we’ll try to take stock of the situation, and think about where to go from there. I’ve already asked around. My friends are keeping an eye out for some kind of job for you. Start with your personal life, putting your own house in order.”
“That sounds like one has to make a choice—between one’s personal life and society.”
“Your head’s full of romantic rubbish. Why a choice? What kind of choice? That’s just childish thinking. There’s no choice—you wake up in the morning, brush your teeth, drink your tea, read a book, write your poems, earn your money, gab with friends—what kind of choice does that involve? At a certain moment, you start to feel—there’s something dangerous here. So you don’t touch it. You stay away from it. There’s always a boundary line. But we’ll figure that out when we come to it. You’re not going to go around asking for trouble! Sometimes you can’t help it. But you learn to move to the left, move to the right, so they don’t grab your ass. Of course, there are those who love to bask in glory, to be in the limelight. Sergei Borisovich is ambitious that way. He wanted fame, influence. He wanted to play a role. But there are others—Vladimir Bukovsky and Tanya Velikanova, for example. Sakharov. Valera, Andrei, Alik, Arina … many of them! They never choose between personal life and social life. They just live how they live, from morning till night. They don’t play at life…” Ilya said, sounding certain and knowledgeable. It was difficult to counter him. But there was something in his reasoning that didn’t add up. Mikha jumped on it.
“You’ve got to be kidding! You’ve just named all the ones who actually did make a choice. Not all of them have served time in prison yet, but their time will come, you’ll see. And I won’t survive another term in prison. I know that about myself. I won’t make it.”
But, as it turned out, Mikha didn’t have to make a choice after all. Everything happened of its own accord.
* * *
There were bad days and good nights—so bright and brilliant was the unprecedented love that finally took hold between Alyona and her husband that it illuminated the gloomy days. Only now, Mikha sensed, was Alyona finally able to respond to his loving ardor. They were in corporeal dialogue with each other, something that had never happened before now. Something had shifted in the depths of her body—or was it her heart? Or perhaps the birth of their child had opened something like a sluice gate? And some natural gravity drawing a woman toward a man had fallen into place. Their sleeping daughter warmed them with her presence, and she gave great meaning to their unfolding happiness.
Their intimate life flourished and filled the gaps of their impoverished existence. But what happened in the world outside the small circle of their love for each other gave no cause for comfort or hope. There was no job, no money, no meaningful activity of the kind that had occupied him before he was imprisoned. Their home, which had always been full of friends, both Muscovites and Central Asians, was now empty. Either they were afraid for themselves, or they were staying away because they feared for Mikha and Alyona.
Even Sanya almost stopped dropping by. He was feeling both relieved and slighted: Alyona had seemed to have dropped him like a thing she no longer needed. Now he was perplexed. Had he imagined all the emotional pressure that Alyona put him under during the three years that Mikha was gone? He was hurt that Maya so easily and quickly withdrew her affection from him. She no longer clung to his neck or tickled his ears. Were all women in it together?
Sanya even began to think vaguely about some colossal struggle of women against men, similar to the class struggle. Only Nuta never took part in that struggle: she loved boys. Most of all she loved her own grandson, of course; but she had also loved Mikha and Ilya. He wondered how it had been with her husbands and lovers—but it was unlikely she had waged war on them.
Perhaps the problem was one of age? In youth, there is conflict; then a truce is declared; and, finally, in old age men and women become invulnerable to each other.
I should discuss it with Nuta, he thought by force of habit. But this thought came up against the feeling of injury toward Alyona and Maya, who (both of them!) had loved him so importunately, so onerously, for three years; and then, after Mikha’s return, within a matter of a few weeks all that love had dried up and disappeared, as though it had never been …