Lora’s gold boots squeaked, her raincoat rustled, her eyes shone from beneath the hat, her eyebrows smelled of roses and rain… while at home, in the stale smoky room, under the wet ceiling, squeezed between dislocated layers of time, Aunt Rita and her comrades thrash about; she perished, the sash tore, the perfume spilled, and the fair hair rotted; she didn’t accomplish anything during her short life, only sang in front of the mirror, and now, lifeless, old, hungry, and frightened, she rushes about in the realm of dreams, begging: remember me!… Denisov tightened his grip on Lora’s elbow and turned toward her house, driving away the fog: they shouldn’t split up, they should remain together always, united inside one pair of equation brackets, inseparable, indivisible, indissoluble, merged, like Tristan and Isolde, Khor and Kalinych, cigarettes and matches.
The cups had been stolen, so they drank tea from glasses. Snow-white Papa, cozy, like a Siberian tomcat, ate doughnuts, shutting his eyes in contentment. We, too, are like those three —the old man, the woman, the fat man—thought Denisov; we, too, have banded together high above the city; seen from the outside, what unites us? A little family, we need each other, we’re weak and confused, robbed by fate: he’s out of work, she’s out of her mind, I’m out of a future. Perhaps we should huddle even closer, hold hands—if one of us trips, the other two will hold him up—eat doughnuts, and not strive for anything, lock ourselves away from people, live without raising our heads, not expecting fame… and at the appointed hour close our eyes a bit tighter, tie up our jaws, cross our hands on our chests… and safely dissolve into nonbeing? No, no—not for anything!
“They took all the curtains, the creeps.” Lora sighed. “What do they need my curtains for anyway?”
The fog settled, or perhaps it hadn’t risen to the sixteenth floor, that light summer fog. Pure blackness and the jeweled lights of distant dwellings looked into the naked windows, and on the horizon, in the Japanese-lacquer dark, the orange half-circle of the rising moon swelled, looking like a mountaintop that had pushed through, illuminated by fruit-colored morning light. Somewhere in the mountains Lora’s classmate Makov, who had risen higher than everyone and remained there forever, slept an eternal sleep.
The rose-colored summit grows lighter, the cliffs are dusted with snow, Makov lies there gazing into the firmament; cold and magnificent, pure and free, he won’t decay, won’t grow old, won’t cry, won’t destroy anyone, won’t become disillusioned by anything. He is immortal. Could there be a more enviable fate?
“Listen,” Denisov said to Lora, impressed, “if those jerks of yours didn’t know anything about this Makov, then maybe his coworkers do?… Couldn’t a museum be organized or something? And why not rename your school in his honor? After all, he made it famous.”
Lora was surprised: what museum, good Lord, Denisov, a museum, why? As a student he was nothing to brag about, he dropped out of college, then he went into the army, did this and that, and in recent years worked as a stoker because he liked to read books. He drove his family crazy, it was awful, I know from Ninka Zaitseva, because her mother-in-law works with Makov’s mother. There’s no way the school can be named after Makov anyway, because it’s already named after A. Kolbasiavichius. And his story isn’t all that straightforward either, because, you see, there were two Kolbasiavichius brothers, twins, one was killed by Lithuanian partisan rebels in ’46, and the second was a rebel himself and died from eating bad mushrooms. And since their initials were the same, and even their own mother couldn’t tell them apart, an extremely ambiguous situation arises. You could say that the school is named after the hero-brother, but at one time local hero-trackers came up with the theory that the hero-brother infiltrated the rebel den and was perfidiously killed by the bandits, who saw through the substitution and fed him poisonous soup, while the bandit-brother realized the error of his ways and honorably went to turn himself in, but was accidentally shot. Do you get it, Denisov? One of them is a hero for sure, but which one hasn’t been established. Our director was just going crazy, she even filed a petition to have the school’s name changed. But there can’t even be any question of naming it after Makov, I mean, he’s not some steelworker, right?
There you have it, human memory, human gratitude, thought Denisov, and he felt guilty. Who am I? No one. Who is Makov? A forgotten hero. Perhaps fate, shod in gold boots, is giving me a hint. Stop tossing and turning, Denisov—here is your goal in life, Denisov! Extricate this perished youth from nonbeing, save him from oblivion; if they laugh at you—be patient, if they persecute you—stand firm, if they humiliate you—suffer for your idea. Don’t betray the forgotten, the forgotten are knocking at our dreams, begging for alms, howling in the night.
Later, as Denisov was falling asleep in the pillaged apartment high above Moscow, and Lora was falling asleep next to him, her dark hair redolent of roses, the blue moon climbed in the sky, deep shadows fell, something creaked in the depths of the apartment, rustled in the foyer, thumped beyond the door, and softly, evenly, slowly—click-clack—moved along the corridor, skipped to the kitchen, made a door squeak, turned around, and—clack-clack-clack—went back again.
“Hey, Lora, what is that?”
“Sleep, Denisov, it’s nothing. Later.”
“What do you mean, later? Do you hear what’s going on?”
“Oh Lord,” whispered Lora. “Well, it’s Papa, Papa! I told you I had problems with Papa. He’s a somnambulist—he walks in his sleep. I told you that they kicked him out of work, well, it started right after that. What can I do? I’ve been to see the best doctors! Tengiz Georgievich said: He’ll run around a bit and stop. But Anna Efimovna said: What do you want, it’s his age. And Ivan Kuzmich said: Just thank your lucky stars he’s not out chasing devils. And through Ruzanna I found a psychic at the Ministry of Heavy Industry, but after that session it only got worse: he runs around naked. Go to sleep Denisov, we can’t do anything to help him anyway.”
But how could he possibly sleep, especially since the zoologist, judging by the sound, had skipped back to the kitchen, and something fell with a crash.
“Oh, I’m going to go stark-raving mad,” Lora said, growing anxious. “He’ll break the last glasses.”
Denisov pulled on his pants and Lora ran to her father; shouts could be heard.
“Now what is he doing? Lord almighty, he’s put on my boots! Papa, I’ve told you a thousand times…. Papa, for heaven’s sake, wake up!”
“Warm-blooded, ha-ha!” shouted the old man, sobbing. “They call themselves warm-blooded. Mere protozoa, I say. Get your pseudopods out of here!”
“Denisov, grab him from the side! Papochka, Papochka, calm down! I’ll get some valerian…. His hands, hold his hands!”
“Let me go! There they are! I see them!” The sleepwalker broke away, and somehow he mustered incredible strength. His mustache and beard seemed like wintry, woolly things on his naked body.