Viktor looked at his watch, took his statement out of the drawer, stuffed it into his pocket, and looked at his watch again.
He could go to the meeting and not say anything… No… If he did go, it would be wrong not to speak – and if he did speak, he would have to repent. But if he didn't go at all, if he just burnt his boats…
Yes, he knew what people would say – 'He didn't have the courage… openly defying the collective… a political challenge… after this we must adopt a different language in dealing with him…' Once again Viktor took his statement out of his pocket and put it back without reading it. He had read these lines dozens of times: 'I have realized that in expressing a lack of confidence in the Party leadership I have behaved in a manner incompatible with what is expected of a Soviet citizen, and therefore… Also, without realizing it, I have deviated in my researches from the central tenets of Soviet science and involuntarily opposed myself…'
Viktor kept wanting to reread his statement, but as soon as he picked it up, every letter of it seemed hatefully familiar… Krymov was in the Lubyanka and he was a Communist. As for Viktor – with his doubts, with his horror of Stalin's cruelty, with all he had said about freedom and bureaucracy, with his lurid political history – he should have been packed off to Kolyma long ago…
These last few days, Viktor had felt more and more frightened: he was sure they were coming to arrest him. There was usually more to an affair like this than just being fired from one's job. First you're taught a lesson, then you're fired – and then you're arrested.
Viktor looked at his watch again. The hall was already full. People were sitting there, looking at the door and whispering: 'Still no Shtrum…' One person said: 'It's already midday and Viktor's still not here.' Shishakov sat down in the chairman's place and put his briefcase on the table. A secretary was standing beside Kovchenko; she had brought him some urgent papers to sign.
Viktor felt crushed by the impatience and irritation of the dozens of people waiting in the hall. There was probably someone waiting in the Lubyanka too; the man in charge of his case was saying to himself: 'Is he really not going to come?' Viktor could see the grim figure from the Central Committee saying: 'So he's chosen not to show up, has he?' He could see people he knew talking to their wives and calling him a lunatic. He knew that Lyudmila resented what he had done: the State that Viktor had challenged was the one that Tolya had given his life for.
Previously, when he had counted the number of his and Lyudmila's relatives who had been arrested and deported, he had reassured himself with the thought: 'At least I can tell them not all my friends are like that. Look at Krymov – he's a close friend and he's an Old Bolshevik who worked in the underground.'
So much for Krymov. Maybe they'd interrogate him in the Lubyanka and he'd tell them all Viktor's heresies. But then Krymov wasn't that close to him – Zhenya and he had divorced. And his conversations with Krymov hadn't been that dangerous – it was only since the beginning of the war that Viktor's doubts had been so pressing. If they spoke to Madyarov, though…
The cumulative force of dozens of pushes and blows, dozens of fierce struggles, seemed to have bent his ribs, to be unstitching the bones of his skull.
As for those senseless words of Doctor Stockmann's: 'He who is alone is strong…!' Was he strong? Looking furtively over his shoulder with the pathetic grimaces of someone from a shtetl, Viktor hurriedly put on his tie, transferred his papers to the pockets of his new jacket and put on his new yellow shoes.
Just then, as he was standing fully-dressed by the table, Lyudmila looked into the room. She walked up to him silently, kissed him and went out again.
No, he wasn't going to recite these stereotyped formulae! He would tell the truth, he would say what came from his heart: 'My friends, my comrades, I have listened to you with pain; I have asked myself with pain how it is that at this joyful time, the time of this great and hard-won breakthrough at Stalingrad, I find myself alone, listening to the angry reproaches of my comrades, my brothers, my friends… I swear to you – with my blood, with my brain, with all my strength…' Yes, yes, now he knew what he would say… Quick, quick, there was still time… 'Comrades… Comrade Stalin, I have lived falsely, I have had to reach the edge of the abyss to see my mistakes in their full horror…' Yes, what he said would come from the depths of his soul. 'Comrades, my own son died at Stalingrad…'
He went to the door.
Everything had been resolved. All that remained was to get to the Institute as quickly as possible, leave his coat in the cloakroom, enter the hall, hear the excited whispering of dozens of people, look round the familiar faces and say: 'A word if you please. Comrades, I wish to share with you my thoughts and feelings of the last few days…'
But at the same moment, Viktor slowly took off his jacket and hung it on the back of a chair. He took off his tie, folded it and placed it on the edge of the table. He then sat down and began unlacing his shoes.
He felt a sense of lightness and purity. He felt calm and thoughtful. He didn't believe in God, but somehow it was as though God were looking at him. Never in his life had he felt such happiness, such humility. Nothing on earth could take away his sense of rightness now.
He thought of his mother. Perhaps she had been standing beside him when he had so unaccountably changed his mind. Only a minute before he had sincerely wanted to make a hysterical confession. Neither God nor his mother had been in his mind when he had come to that last unshakeable decision. Nevertheless, they had been there beside him.
'How good, how happy I feel,' he thought.
Once again he imagined the meeting, the faces, the speakers' voices.
'How good, how light everything is,' he said to himself once again.
He seemed never to have thought so deeply about life, about his family, about himself and his fate.
Lyudmila and Yevgenia came into the room. Seeing him there without his shoes and his jacket, with an open collar, Lyudmila said: 'Good God! You're still here. What will become of us now?' She sounded like an old woman.
'I've no idea.'
'Maybe it's still not too late.' She looked at him again and added: 'I don't know – you're a grown man. But when it comes to matters like this, there are other things to think about than your principles.'
Viktor just sighed.
'Lyudmila!' said Yevgenia.
'All right, all right,' said Lyudmila. 'Whatever will be, will be.'
'Yes, Lyudochka,' said Viktor. 'One way or another, we'll get by.'
He put his hand to his neck and smiled. 'Forgive me, Zhenya. I haven't got a tie on.'