And one can use those prudently saved brain cells for pondering whether failures of memory are not just a mute voice of one's suspicion that we are all but strangers to one another. That our sense of autonomy is far stronger than that of unity, let alone of causality. That a child doesn't remember his parents because he is always outbound, poised for the future. He, too, presumably, saves his brain cells for future use. The shorter your memory, the longer you live, says a proverb. Alternatively, the longer your future, the shorter your memory. That's one way of determining one's prospects for longevity, of telling the future patriarch. The drawback, though, is that patriarchs or not, autonomous or linked, we, too, are repetitive, and a Big Somebody saves His brain cells on us.
39
It is neither aversion to this sort of metaphysics nor dislike of the future, evidently guaranteed by the quality of my memory, that keeps me poring over it in spite of meager returns. The self-delusions of a writer, or the fear of facing the charge of conspiring with the laws of nature at the expense of my father and mother, have very little to do with this also. I simply think that natural laws denying continuum to anyone in concert with (or in the guise of) deficient memory serve the interests of the state. As far as I am concerned, I am unwilling to work for their advancement.
Of course, twelve years of dashed, rekindled, and dashed- again hopes, leading a very old couple over the thresholds of numerous offices and chancelleries to the furnace of the state crematorium, are repetitive in themselves, considering not only their duration but the number of similar cases as well. Yet I am less concerned with sparing my brain cells this monotony than the Supreme Being is with His. Mine are quite polluted, anyway. Besides, remembering even mere details, fragments, not to mention remembering them in English, is not in the interests of the state. That alone can keep me going.
40
Also, these two crows get a bit too brazen. Now they have landed on my porch and loiter about its old woodpile. They are pitch-black, and although I avoid looking at them, I notice they differ in size somewhat from each other. One is shorter than the other, the way my mother was up to my father's shoulder; their beaks, however, are identical. I am no ornithologist, but I believe crows live long; at least ravens do. Although I can't make out their age, they seem to be an old couple. On an outing. I don't have it in me to shoo them away, nor can I communicate with them in any fashion. I also seem to remember that crows do not migrate. If the origins of mythology are fear and isolation, I am isolated all right. And I wonder how many things will remind me of my parents from now on. That is to say, with this sort of visitor, who needs a good memory?
4 1
A mark of its deficiency is that it retains odd items. Like our first, then a five-digit, phone number, which we had right after the war. It was 26^39, and I suppose I still remember it because the phone was installed when I was memorizing the multiplication table in school. It is of no use to me now: in the same way as our last number, in our room and a half, is of no use anymore. I don't remember it, the last one, although for the past twelve years I called it almost every week. Letters wouldn't go through, so we settled for the telephone: it is evidently easier to monitor a phone call than to perlustrate and then deliver a letter. Ah, those weekly calls to the U.S.S.R.! ITT never had it so good.
We couldn't say much during those exchanges, we had to be either reticent or oblique and euphemistic. It was mostly about weather or health, no names, a great deal of dietetic advice. The main thing was hearing each other's voice, assuring ourselves in this animal way of our respective existences. It was mostly non-semantic, and small wonder that I remember no particulars except Father's reply on the third day of my mother's being in the hospital. "How is Masva?" I asked. "Well, Masya is no more, you know," he said. The "you know" was there because on this occasion, too, he tried to be euphemistic.
42
Or else a key is thrown up to the surface of my mind: a longish, stainless-steel key which was awkward to carry in our pockets, yet which fit easily in my mother's purse. This key would open our tall white door, and I don't understand why I recall it now, for that place doesn't exist. I doubt that there is any erotic symbolism to it, for among us we had three replicated versions. For that matter, I don't understand why I recall the wrinkles on my father's forehead, and under his chin, or the reddish, slightly inflamed left cheek of my mother's (she called it "vegetative neurosis"), for neither those marks nor the rest of their bearers exist any longer either. Only their voices somehow survive in my conscience: presumably because my own blends them the way mv features must blend theirs. The rest—their flesh, their clothes, the telephone, the key, our possessions, the furniture—is gone, and never to be found, as if our room and a half had been hit by a bomb. Not by a neutron bomb, which at least leaves the furniture intact, but by a time bomb, which splinters even one's memory. The building still stands, but the place is wiped out clean, and new tenants, no, troops, move in to occupy it: that's what a time bomb is all about. For this is a time war.
497 I In a Iioom and a Half 43
They liked opera arias, tenors, and the movie stars of their youth, didn't care very much for painting, had a notion of "classical" art, enjoyed solving crossword puzzles, and were bewildered and upset by my literary pursuits. They thought me wrong, worried about the way I was going, but supported me as much as they could, because I was their child. Later on, when I managed to print something here and there, they felt pleased, and at times even proud; but I know that should I have turned out to be simply a grapho- maniac and a failure, their attitude toward me wouldn't have been any different. They loved me more than themselves, and most likely wouldn't understand my guilt feelings toward them at all. The main issues were bread on the table, clean clothes, and staying healthy. Those were their synonyms for love, and they were better than mine.
As for that time war, they fought it valiantly. They knew that a bomb was going to explode, but they never changed their tactics. As long as they were vertical, they were moving about, buying and delivering food to their bedridden friends, relatives; giving clothes, what money they could spare, or refuge to those who now and then happened to be worse off. They were that way always, for as long as I remember them; and not because deep down they thought that if they were kind to some people, it would somehow be registered on high and they would be treated one day in kind. No, this was the natural and uncalculated generosity of extroverts, which perhaps became all the more palpable to others now that I, its main object, was gone. And this is what ultimately may help me to come to terms with the quality of my memory.
That they wanted to see me before they died had nothing to do with a desire or an attempt to dodge that explosion. They didn't want to emigrate, to live their last days in America. They felt too old for any sort of change, and at best, America for them was just the name of the place where they could meet their son. It was real for them only in terms of their doubt whether they could manage the trip should they be allowed to travel. And yet what games these two old, frail people tried to play with all that scum in charge of granting permission! My mother would apply for a visa alone to indicate that she was not intending to defect to the United States, that her husband would stay behind as a hostage, as the guarantee of her rehirn. Then they would reverse roles. Then they wouldn't apply for a while, pretending that they had lost interest, or showing the authorities that they understood how difficult it was for them to make a decision under this or that climate in U.S.-Soviet relations. Then they would apply just for a one-week stay in the U.S., or for permission to travel to Finland or Poland. Then she would go to the capital, to seek an audience with what that country had for a President, and knock on all the doors of the foreign and internal ministries that there are. All was in vain: the system, from its top to its bottom, never made a single mistake. As systems go, it can be proud of itself. But then inhumanity is always easier to structure than anything else. For that job, Russia never had to import the know-how. In fact, the only way for that country to get rich is to export it.