People assert themselves, sink their hooks in, refuse to go— it’s only natural! Take the recording of a concert, for example. A hush falls over the hall, the piano thunders, the keys flash like lozenges gone berserk, lickety-split, hand over fist, wilder and wilder; the sweet tornado swirls, the heart can’t stand it, it’ll pop right out, it quivers on the last strand, and suddenly: ahem. Ahe he kherr hem. Khu khu khu. Someone coughed. A real solid, throaty cough. And that’s that. The concert is branded from birth with a juicy, influenza stamp, multiplied on millions of black suns, dispersed in all possible directions. The heavenly bodies will burn out, the earth will become crusted in ice, and the planet will move along inscrutable stellar paths like a frozen lump for all time, but that smart aleck’s cough won’t be erased, it won’t disappear, it will be forever inscribed on the diamond tablets of immortal music—after all, music is immortal, isn’t it?—like a rusty nail hammered into eternity; the resourceful fellow asserted himself, scribbled his name in oil paint on the cupola, splashed sulfuric acid on the divine features.
Hmmm.
Denisov had tried inventing things—nothing got invented. He had tried writing poems—they wouldn’t be written. He started a treatise on the impossibility of Australia’s existence: He made himself a pot of strong coffee and sat at the table all night. He worked well, with élan, but in the morning he reread what he had written, tore it up, cried without shedding tears, and went to sleep in his socks. It was soon after this that he met Lora and was nourished, listened to, and comforted many a time, both at his place in Orekhovo-Borisovo, where the captain of course drenched them in a golden rain, draining his Kingston valves again, as well as in her messy little apartment, where something rustled in the hallway all night.
“What is that,” asked Denisov, alarmed, “not mice?”
“No, no, go to sleep, Denisov, it’s something else. I’ll tell you later. Sleep!”
What was there to do? He slept, dreamt nasty dreams, woke up, thought over what he’d dreamt, and dozed off again, and in the morning he drank coffee in the kitchen with the sweet-smelling Lora and her widower father, a retired zoologist, a most gentle old man, blue-eyed, a bit on the strange side—but who isn’t a bit strange? Papa’s beard was whiter than salt, his eyes clearer than spring; he was quiet, quick to shed tears of joy, a lover of caramels, raisins, rolls with jam; he bore no resemblance to the noisy, excitable Lora, all gold and black. “You know, Denisov, my papa’s wonderful, a real dove of peace, but I’ve got problems with him, I’ll tell you about it later. He’s so sensitive, intelligent, knowing, he could go on working and working, but he’s retired—some ill-wishers schemed against him. He gave a paper in his institute on the kinship of birds and reptiles or crocodiles or something—you know what I mean, right?—the ones that run and bite. But the research director’s last name is Bird, so he took it personally. These zoologists are always on the lookout for ideological rot, because they haven’t decided yet whether man is actually a monkey or if it just seems that way. So they sacked poor Papa, bless his heart, now he stays at home, cries, eats, and popularizes. He writes those, you know, notes of a phenologist, for magazines, well, you know what I mean. On the seasons, on toads, why the cock crows, and what it is that makes elephants so cute. He writes really well, none of that wishy-washy puffery, but like an educated person, plus he’s lyrical. Poppykins, I tell him, you’re my Turgenev—and he cries. Love him, Denisov, he deserves it.”
His head lowered, sad and humble, Lora’s snow-white papa listened to her monologues, dabbed the corners of his eyes with a handkerchief, and shuffled off to his study with little steps. “Shhhhh,” whispered Lora, “quiet now…he’s gone to popularize.” The study is silent, desolate, the shelves are cracking, the encyclopedias, reference books, yellowed journals, and packets with reprints of someone’s articles are all gathering dust—everything is unneeded, disintegrating, grown cold. In a corner of the necropolis, like a solitary grave, stands Papa’s desk, a pile of papers, copies of a children’s magazine: Papa writes for children; Papa squeezes his many years of knowledge into the undeveloped heads of Young Pioneers; Papa adapts, squats, gets down on all fours; noise, exclamations, sobs, and the crackle of ripping paper issue from the study. Lora sweeps up the scraps, it’s all right, he’ll calm down now, now everything will work out. Papa’s on the wolf today, he’s tackling the wolf, he’s bending him, breaking, squeezing him into the proper framework. Denisov looked distractedly at the swept-up scraps:
“The Wolf. Canis lupus. Diet.”
“The wolf’s diet is varied.”
“The wolf has a varied diet: rodents, domesticated livestock.”
“Varied is the diet of the gray one: here you have both rodents and domesticated livestock.”
“How varied is the diet of the wolfling cub—our little gray dumpling tub: you’ll find both bitty baby rabbits and curly little lambs….”
Don’t worry, don’t worry, Papa, my darling, write on; everything will pass. Everything will be fine. Denisov is the one destroyed by doubts, worm-eaten thoughts, cast-iron dreams. Denisov is the one who suffers, as if from heartburn, who kisses Lora on the top of the head, rides home, collapses on the sofa under the map of the hemispheres, his socks toward Tierra del Fuego, his head beneath the Philippines. It’s Denisov who sets an ashtray on his chest and envelops the cold mountains of Antarctica in smoke—after all, someone is sitting there right now, digging in the snow in the mighty name of science; here’s some smoke for you, guys—warm yourselves up; it’s Denisov who denies the existence of Australia, nature’s mistake, who feebly dreams of the captain—time for another drenching, the money’s run out—and whose thoughts again turn to fame, memory, immortality….
He had a dream. He bought some bread, it seems—the usuaclass="underline" one loaf, round, and a dozen bagels. And he’s taking it somewhere. He’s in some sort of house. Maybe an office building—there are hallways, staircases. Suddenly three people, a man, a woman, and an old man, who had just been talking with him calmly—one was explaining something, one was giving him advice about how to get somewhere—saw the bread and sort of jerked, as if they were about to attack him but immediately refrained. And the woman says: “Excuse me, is that bread you have there?” “Yes, I bought it—” “Won’t you give it to us?” He looks and suddenly sees: Why, they’re siege victims. They’re hungry. Their eyes are very strange. And he immediately understands: Aha, they’re victims of the siege of Leningrad, that means I’m one too. That means there’s nothing to eat. Greed instantly overwhelms him. Only a minute ago bread was a trifle, nothing special, he bought it just like he always does, and now suddenly he begrudges it. And he says: “We-ell, I don’t know. I need it myself. I don’t know. I don’t know.” They say nothing and look him straight in the eyes. The woman is trembling. Then he takes one bagel, the one with the fewest poppy seeds, breaks it into pieces, and hands it out; but he takes one piece for himself all the same, he holds it back. He crooks his hand strangely—in real life you couldn’t bend it that way—and keeps the piece of bagel. He doesn’t know why, well, simply… so as not to give everything away at once…. And he leaves posthaste, leaves these people with their outstretched hands, and suddenly he’s back at home and he understands: What the devil kind of siege? There is no siege. We’re living in Moscow anyway, seven hundred kilometers away—what is this all of a sudden? The refrigerator is full, and I’m full, and out the window people are walking around contented, smiling…. And he is instantly ashamed, and feels an unpleasant queasiness around his heart, and that plump loaf oppresses him, and the remaining bagels are like the links of a broken chain, and he thinks: So there, I shouldn’t have been so greedy! Why was I? What a swine… And he rushes back: Where are they, those hungry people? But they aren’t anywhere to be found, that’s it, too late, my friend, you blew it, go look your heart out, all the doors are locked, time has opened and slammed shut, go on then, live, live, you’re allowed! But let me in!… Open up! It all happened so fast, I didn’t even have time to be horrified, I wasn’t prepared. But I simply wasn’t prepared! He knocks at a door, bangs on it with his foot, kicks it with his heel. The door opens wide and there is a cafeteria, a café of some sort; tranquil diners are coming out, wiping well-fed mouths, macaroni and meat patties lie picked apart on the plates…. Those three passed by like shades lost in time; they dissolved, disintegrated, they’re gone, gone, and will never come back. The branches of a naked tree sway, reflected in the water, there’s a low sky, the burning stripe of the sunset, farewell.