But what if it’s not settled after all? Or what if (as we suspect) settled is merely death’s best-decorated antechamber? What if we refuse to settle, Ma? What if we refuse to settle for this life as we find it, these rites and rituals, this government, these gods, this ever-growing herd of golden calves? What if we will not settle for the derisory covenants of this disreputable age?
I’m with you, Ma. I refuse.
I have no great plan, I cannot even summon a coherent point of view, but I will not back down. I will stand here and I will say, I see through you, I see through you, and what you believe in is a lie, and what you have become is a falsehood.
Yes, it’s true, Ma: your great indignity is now mine. That last time we spoke, you were passing it on to me, weren’t you, Ma? One more time, just for good measure. As if it weren’t already thrice inscribed in the double helix of my every single cell.
I refuse.
Give us the counterpoint and you can keep the tune. Isn’t that right, Ma? Give us the contrapposto and you can keep the straight and narrow. Give us the counterintelligence and you can keep your presentations and your pulpiteers. Give us the counterlife. Every time.
But where does my refusal lead me, Ma? And where did it leave you?
I see it now: your courage and your loneliness and your despair. And I feel it: they do not ebb and flow, but they remain constant, like radiation, gravity, and death.
You were lonely and powerless in that old house, stranded in a foreign country with so faithless and selfish a man while your pride and your dreams were year by year mocked and belittled.
I refuse.
Count me for the living, not the dead.
REVOLUTSIYA
45
The Gift
For Arkady Alexandrovitch, the moment had arrived. He did not care to question or to understand. The truths within lies, the lies within truths, thoughts within feelings, feelings within thoughts—they were all so many beguiling matryoshka dolls to him. And now that it came right down to it, he was revealed at the last to be his mother’s son. This discovery he did not recognize or consciously acknowledge. Rather he felt it, he experienced its expression, and its expression was stamina. His entire being was certain that whatever fate had in store, he could endure. His mother’s most eloquent and effective gift was passed on silently, secretly, inarticulately, and without her agency. Yes, now that it came right down to it, life turned out to be mostly about not flinching. Keeping going. And he knew that it had come right down to it. He could feel it, tingling in his fingers and hanging out there in the cowardly weather that would neither rain nor snow but hovered between the two.
He had not been idle. He had printed a map that showed everything, however generally, on one page. He had talked to everyone he could—fellow Russians, fellow East Europeans, fellow men and women. It started at the hostel. One contact led to another and to another. He had borrowed a cheap anorak (against the endless rain) from one of the Moldavians, and with them he had visited building sites in Harlesden. From there to Hammersmith to meet an electrician. From there back up to King’s Cross to a go-cart track, looking for a mechanic. From there, three cafés in Fitzrovia; they’d need a short-order chef before too long, they always did. And thus he had spent the week walking, his boots forever devouring the pavement. He moved by general direction, learning his way as he went. He stayed clear of drugs, but everything else he investigated. Nightclubs, escort agencies, hotels, minicabs, restaurants, pubs, shoe booths, florists, hairdressers, Finsbury Park, Neasden, Golders Green, Stock-well, Vauxhall, Ealing, and Bow. District by district, he must have covered more than fifteen miles a day. He listened and he learned. He was on a dozen job waiting lists. Turn up here at six-thirty, whatever day you want, they said, and there will be labor. He stopped worrying about the police altogether, his identity, or his papers. He drank water from the tap. He stole fruit from the outside racks whenever he passed a fruit shop. He had one hot meal—a baked potato with tuna and sweet corn—every night in the café that the junkies used farther up on the Harrow Road. Besides that, he spent no money at all.
Even so, thanks to the cost of his bed alone, he was now down to his last one hundred and twenty dollars. And he owed four more nights—the maximum debt they would allow, even with his passport. So already there was a shortfall. Time to be moving on.
He placed the borrowed anorak on one of the Moldavians’ backpacks with a half-full carton of cigarettes he had stolen. He picked up his own pack and went quietly into the narrow corridor. Carrying his boots, he walked down the stairs as far as the second floor. Luck was with him: the woman on the desk downstairs was having a cigarette and her back was turned as he crossed the landing behind her. He squeezed into the tiny, filthy shower room, which stank of mildew. The sleet was thrashing and the wind was blowing as he loosened the catch. He dropped his pack out the window into the alley below. He threw his coat out after it, stuffed inside two plastic bags.
He put on his boots. But came out of the shower room quietly, only beginning to make a noise as he stepped down the flight of stairs to the desk. He took the cigarette from behind his ear, stuck it in his mouth, and asked the witch for a light in his friendliest English.
“I owe you for four nights,” he said. “And I want to stay two more, please. I am going off to the bank now—I need my passport for identity. Is it okay?”
She looked at him suspiciously. “You’ll get soaked to the skin in your shirt. It’s raining like the end of the world out there.”
He blew smoke toward the nicotine-stained ceiling. “I will run.”
She tutted. “Where’s your coat?”
“I left it upstairs. Locked in the room. It’s not good for the rain.”
“What’s your name?” She bent down, disappearing from view, and he heard her opening up the safe.
He leaned over the counter. “Arkady Kolokov.”
She reappeared. “Okay. I need your room key until you come back.”
He handed her the key.
She handed him his passport.
Once outside, he walked right, out of sight of the desk, and then slipped down the alley. He ground the unwanted cigarette beneath his boot and unpacked his coat, leaning against the side of the building. The sleet hacked down relentlessly.
He carried his pack in his hands in case he was challenged as he came out. But the weather had emptied the street. So he walked swiftly away from the hostel without looking back. Right, then left. He walked fifty yards farther with his pack still in front until he reached the twenty-four-hour shop, where he ducked beneath the awning. Ignoring the supplications of yet more bullshit homeless people, he fished out a black garbage bag that he had stolen from the cupboard by the toilet. Then he retrieved his cap from one of the side pockets and slung the pack onto his shoulders, loosening the straps to accommodate the bulk of his coat. He made a hole in the bag, took off his cap a moment, and pulled the thing over his head. Then he put his cap back on and set off, his feet warm in his boots.