Farewell! And he surfaces on his bed, on the sofa, he’s surfaced, the sheets are all tangled around his legs, he doesn’t understand anything. What nonsense, really, what is all this? If he would just fall asleep again immediately, everything would pass and by morning it would be forgotten, erased, like words written on sand, on the sea’s sonorous shore—but no, unsettled by what he had seen, he got up for some reason, went to the kitchen, and, staring senselessly straight ahead, ate a meat-patty sandwich.
A dark July dawn was just breaking, the birds weren’t even singing yet, no one was walking on the street—just the right sort of time for shades, visions, succubi, and phantoms.
How did they put it? “Give it to us”—was that it? The more he thought about them, the clearer the details became. As alive as you and me, honestly. No, worse than alive. The old man’s neck, for example, materialized and persisted, stubbornly incarnating itself, a wrinkled, congealed brown neck, as dark as the skin of a smoked salmon. The collar of a whitish, faded blue shirt. And a bone button, broken in half. The face was indistinct—an old man’s face, that’s all. But the neck, the collar, and the button stayed before his eyes. The woman, metamorphosing, pulsating this way and that, took the shape of a thin, tired blonde. She looked a little like his deceased Aunt Rita.
But the other man was fat.
No, no, they behaved improperly. That woman, how did she ask: “What’ve you got there, bread?” As if it weren’t obvious! Yes, bread! He shouldn’t have carried it in his string bag, but in a plastic bag, or at least wrapped in paper. And what was this: “Give it to us”? Now what kind of thing is that to say? What if he had a family, children? Maybe he has ten children? Maybe he was bringing it to his children, how do they know? So what if he doesn’t have any children, that’s his business, after all. He bought the bread, therefore he needed it. He was walking along minding his own business. And suddenly: “Give it to us!” How’s that for a declaration?
Why did they pester him? Yes, he did begrudge the bread, he did have that reflex, it’s true, but he gave them a bagel, and a flavorful, expensive, rosy bagel, by the way, is better, more valuable than black bread, if you come right down to it. That’s for starters. Second, he immediately came to his senses and rushed back, he wanted to set things right, but everything had moved, changed, warped—what could he do? He looked for them— honestly, clearly, with full awareness of his guilt; he banged on doors, what could he do if they decided not to wait and vanished? They should have stayed put, held on to the railings— there were railings—and waited quietly until he ran back to help them. They just couldn’t be patient for ten seconds, how do you like that? No, not ten, not seconds, everything’s different there, space slips away, and time collapses sideways like a ragged wave, and everything spins, spins like a top: there, one second is huge, slow, and resonant, like an abandoned cathedral, another is tiny, sharp, fast—you strike a match and burn up a thousand millennia; a step to the side—and you’re in another universe…
And that man, come to think of it, was the most unpleasant of them all. For one thing, he was very stout, sloppily stout. He held himself a bit apart, and although he was aloof, he looked on with displeasure. And he didn’t try to explain the way to Denisov either, he didn’t take part in the conversation at all, but he did take the bagel. Ha, he took the bagel, he pushed himself ahead of the others. He even elbowed the old man. And him, fatter than everyone. And his hand was so white, like a child’s, stretched taut and covered with freckles like spilt millet, and he had a hook nose and a head like an egg, and those glasses. A nasty sort all round, and you couldn’t even figure out what he was doing there, in that company. He obviously wasn’t with them, he had simply run up and hung around, saw that something was being given out—so, why not…. The woman, Aunt Rita… She seemed the hungriest of the three…. But I gave her a bagel, after all! It’s a real luxury in their situation—a fresh, rosy morsel like that…. Oh God, what a situation! Who am I justifying myself to? They don’t exist, they don’t. Not here, not there, nowhere. A murky, fleeting, nighttime vision, a trickle of water on glass, a momentary spasm in some deep dead end of the brain; some worthless, useless capillary burst, a hormone gurgled, something skipped a beat in the cerebellum or the hippocampus—what do they call them, those neglected side streets? Neglected side streets, paved thoroughfares, dead houses, night, a street lamp sways, a shadow flits by—was it a bat, a night-flying bird, or simply an autumn leaf falling? Suddenly everything trembles, dampens, floats, and stops again—a short, cold rain had fallen and vanished.
Where was I?
Aunt Rita. Strange traveling companions Aunt Rita had chosen for herself. If, of course, it was her.
No, it wasn’t her. No. Aunt Rita was young, she had a different hairdo: a roll of bangs on her forehead, fair, wispy hair. She would whirl in front of the mirror, trying on a sash and singing. What else? Why, nothing else. She just sang.
She must have been planning to get married.
And she disappeared, and Denisov’s mother ordered him never to ask about her again. To forget. Denisov obeyed and forgot. Her perfume flacon, all that remained of her, a glass one with an atomizer and a dark blue silk tassel, he traded in the courtyard for a penknife and his mother hit him and cried that night—he heard her. Thirty-five years had passed. Why torment him?…
What does the siege have to do with it, I’d like to know. The siege was already long past by then. That’s what comes of reading all sorts of things at bedtime…