Viktor hadn't expected Lyudmila to go into Tolya's room at first, but he was wrong. Looking flushed and anxious, she said to him: 'Vitya, put the Chinese vase on Tolya's bookshelf. I've just given the room a good clean.'
The phone rang again. He heard Nadya answer.
'Hello! No, I haven't been out. Mama made me take the rubbish down.'
'Give me a hand, Vitya,' Lyudmila chivvied Viktor. 'Don't just go to sleep. There's still masses to do.'
A woman's instinct is so simple – and so strong.
By evening the chaos was vanquished. The rooms felt warmer and had begun to take on something of their pre-war appearance. They ate supper in the kitchen. Lyudmila had baked some biscuits and fried up some of the millet she had boiled in the afternoon.
'Who was that on the phone?' Viktor asked Nadya.
'Just a boy,' said Nadya and burst out laughing. 'He's been ringing for four days.'
'What, have you been writing to him?' asked Lyudmila. 'Did you tell him we were coming back?'
Nadya looked irritated and shrugged her shoulders.
'I'd be happy if even a dog phoned me,' said Viktor.
During the night Viktor woke up. Lyudmila was in her nightgown, standing outside Tolya's open door.
'Can you see, Tolya?' she was murmuring. 'I've managed to clean everything now. Little one, to look at your room now, no one would think there'd ever been a war.'
25
On their return from evacuation, the University staff met in one of the halls of the Academy of Sciences. All these people – young and old, pale or bald, with large eyes or small piercing eyes, with wide foreheads or narrow foreheads – were conscious, as they came together, of the highest poetry of all, the poetry of prose.
Damp sheets and the damp pages of books left for too long in unheated rooms, formulae noted down by frozen red fingers, lectures delivered in an overcoat with the collar turned up, salads made from slimy potatoes and a few torn cabbage leaves, the crush to get meal tickets, the tedious thought of having to write your name down for salt fish and an extra ration of oil – all this became suddenly unimportant. As people met, they greeted each other noisily.
Viktor saw Chepyzhin standing next to Academician Shishakov.
'Dmitry Petrovich! Dmitry Petrovich!' Viktor repeated, looking at the face that was so dear to him. Chepyzhin embraced him.
'Have you heard from your lads at the front?' asked Viktor.
'Yes, yes, they're fine.'
From the way Chepyzhin frowned as he said this, Viktor realized that he already knew about Tolya's death.
'Viktor Pavlovich,' Chepyzhin went on, 'give my regards to your wife. My sincerest regards. Mine and Nadezhda Fyodorovna's.'
Then he added: 'I've read your work. It's interesting. Very important – even more than it seems. Yes, it's more interesting than we can yet appreciate.'
He kissed Viktor on the forehead.
'No, no, it's nothing,' said Viktor, feeling embarrassed and happy. On his way to the meeting he had been wondering stupidly who would have read his work and what they would say about it. What if no one had read it at all…?
Now he felt certain that no one would speak of anything else.
Shishakov was still standing there. There were lots of things Viktor wanted to say, but not in the presence of a third party – and certainly not in the presence of Shishakov.
When he looked at Shishakov, Viktor was always reminded of Gleb Uspensky's phrase, 'a pyramid-shaped buffalo'. His square fleshy face, his arrogant, equally fleshy lips, his pudgy fingers with their polished nails, his thick silver-grey crewcut, all somehow oppressed Viktor. Every time he met Shishakov, he caught himself thinking, 'Will he recognize me? Will he say hello?' He would then feel angry with himself for feeling glad when Shishakov's fleshy lips slowly pronounced a few words that somehow seemed equally fleshy.
'The arrogant bull,' Viktor once said to Sokolov when Shishakov was mentioned. 'He makes me feel like a Jew from a shtetl in the presence of a cavalry colonel.'
'Just think!' said Sokolov. 'What he's most famous for is failing to recognize a positron on a photograph. All the research students know the story. They call it "Academician Shishakov's mistake".'
Sokolov very rarely spoke ill of people – whether from caution or from some pious principle that forbade him to judge his neighbours. But Shishakov irritated him beyond endurance; Sokolov couldn't help but ridicule and abuse him.
They began to talk about the war.
'The German advance has been halted on the Volga,' said Chepyzhin. 'There's the power of the Volga for you – living water, living power.'
'Stalingrad, Stalingrad,' said Shishakov. 'The triumph of our strategy and the determination of our people.'
'Aleksey Alekseyevich, are you acquainted with Viktor Pavlovich's latest work?' Chepyzhin asked suddenly.
'I know of it, of course, but I haven't yet read it.'
It was by no means clear from Shishakov's face whether he really had heard of it.
Viktor looked for a long time into Chepyzhin's eyes; he wanted his old friend and teacher to see all he had been through, all his doubts and losses. But he saw sadness, depression and the weariness of old age on Chepyzhin's face too.
Sokolov came up. Chepyzhin shook him by the hand, but Shishakov merely glanced carelessly at his rather old jacket. Then Postoev joined them and Shishakov's large fleshy face broke into a smile.
'Greetings, greetings, my friend. Now you're someone I really am glad to see.'
They asked after each other's health, and after their wives and children. As they talked about their dachas, they sounded like grand lords.
'How are you getting on?' Viktor asked Sokolov quietly. 'Is it warm in your flat?'
'It's not yet any better than Kazan,' answered Sokolov. 'Masha said I must give you her regards. She'll probably come round and see you tomorrow.'
'Splendid! We miss her. In Kazan we got used to seeing her every day.'
'Every day! It seemed more like three times a day. I even suggested she move in with you.'
Viktor laughed, but was conscious of something false in his laughter. Then Academician Leontyev entered the hall, a mathematician with a big nose, an imposing bald skull and enormous glasses with yellow frames. Once, when they had both been staying in Gaspre, they had gone on a trip together to Yalta. They had drunk a lot of wine in a shop and staggered back to the canteen in Gaspre singing a dirty song. This had alarmed the staff and amused the other holiday-makers. Seeing Viktor, Leontyev smiled. Viktor lowered his eyes, expecting Leontyev to say something about his work.
Instead, Leontyev seemed to be remembering their adventures at Gaspre. With a wave of the hand he called out: 'Well, Viktor Pavlovich, how about a song?'
A young man with dark hair came in. He was wearing a black suit. Viktor noticed that Shishakov greeted him immediately.
Suslakov also approached the young man. Suslakov was an important man on the Presidium, though the exact nature of his duties was rather obscure. But if you needed a flat, or if a lecturer needed to get from Alma-Ata to Kazan, then Suslakov could be more useful than the President himself. He had the tired face of a man who works at night and his cheeks seemed to have been kneaded from grey dough. He was the sort of man who is needed by everyone, all the time.
They were all accustomed to the way Suslakov smoked 'Palmyra' at meetings, while the Academicians smoked ordinary tobacco or shag. And he didn't get lifts home from some celebrity; no, he would offer the celebrities a ride in his Zis.
Viktor watched the conversation between Suslakov and the young man with dark hair. He could tell that it wasn't the young man who was asking a favour of Suslakov – however gracefully a man asks for a favour, you can always tell who is asking and who is being asked. On the contrary, the young man seemed quite ready to break off the conversation. And he greeted Chepyzhin coolly, with studied politeness.