I am remembering ever less of what happened a minute, hour, or day ago. I feel uncomfortable when Nastya sees my obvious memory lapses: they are obvious, although – luckily – they are infrequent for now. In those situations, I remove the conversation far from contemporary life, to somewhere at the beginning of the century. Just as the hard of hearing ask their own questions instead of answering. In changing the topic yesterday, I took it upon myself to tell Nastya about a grammar-school staging of The Inspector General, in which, by the way, I participated. Nastya immediately saw through that but did not let on. She said that will be the basis of one of the descriptions she has taken on at my request. Yes, of course, that’s wonderful, I responded. I asked myself, though: but can she describe my life without that basis? Using only the feelings that inspire her? If she were to learn to find and describe things that fit with me, my life could continue in my absence.
A grammar-school staging of The Inspector General. Marya Antonovna and Anna Andreevna, from the neighboring women’s school, are rustling with dresses brought from the theater. The smell of mothballs accompanies the dresses from the wardrobe room to the schooclass="underline" the smell doesn’t get aired out as they carry them, it seems to grow even stronger in the fresh air instead. The way a wine’s bouquet begins to blossom, become fragrant in all its nuances, and gladden after the cork is removed. One is left thinking the dresses taken from the hangers were granted a similar characteristic: to the extent, of course, that all the nuances of mothballs are capable of gladdening.
There is hardly any scenery: a small marble table from the principal’s office, a candle burning on it. A bookcase (carried in from the library) with books; moreover, books a half-century old were chosen. Khlestakov approaches Anna Andreevna. The stage’s boards creak under his feet, and that’s very audible in the front rows: there’s a good reason that art demands distance. Anna Andreevna, says Khlestakov… He touches her with his hand. His hand shakes and his voice shakes. The character, it must be understood, isn’t nervous at all, but the boy playing him is nervous, sensing the girl’s arm through the dense material of the dress. He has yet to confess his love to anyone and uses this theatrical confession or, actually, finds it in that text… What, really, does he find in it? In rehearsal he uttered the text pretty sensually. It cannot be ruled out that he’s falling in love because of what he utters.
It’s stuffy in the school auditorium despite open windows; June has turned out to be hot this year. Outside, the tops of the poplars are covered in fluff and windlessly still, as if they were sketched. Anna Andreevna has beads of sweat on her forehead, as does Khlestakov, and everybody in the auditorium understands what is happening between them and they’re elbowing each other, waiting for how this thing will end. This tenderness was not envisaged by the play, but it’s so obvious. Everything’s noticeable for the spectators, you can’t hide anything from them. They’re attentive. They clap their inky hands at the end of the scene. My Platosha shows through in Khlestakov, but the 1914 model for Anna Andreevna was, I suspect, reduced to dust long ago.
I did not sleep last night: I was recalling Pushkin’s ‘The Shot.’ Where Silvio postpones his retaliatory shot for six years. He makes his appearance when the hero has married and is happy… Death did not touch me on the island. I was almost indifferent to it then. It has returned with its shot now, when joy appeared in my life. It waited a long time. Should it be understood that death’s shot is retaliatory?
Innokenty’s working memory has worsened even more noticeably.
Nastya tells me that constantly, describing situations. And I do see it myself, too.
He loses his train of thought. Catches himself not remembering where he was headed in the apartment.
He doesn’t remember anything that’s automatic, like did he brush his teeth or take his pills.
I prescribe a heap of pills for him. True, there’s little use in them. They’re not able to stop the primary thing: the loss of cells.
I’ve rethought and rechecked everything ten times, with no results. I’ve buried my nose in publications from the last decade. Nothing.
I’ve never experienced such powerlessness. It makes me sick. Sick because Innokenty is fading.
Maybe he should be sent abroad? To Munich, for example. I don’t think they know anything there that we don’t know here, but all the same… Another perspective is important, too.
I could say there would be less responsibility on me then, but that actually doesn’t worry me. My main responsibility is to him – I’m not afraid of any other responsibility.
There’s just one trouble. I feel like we don’t have much time for all the decisions. Zeit, zeit.[14]
He asked me:
‘What’s happening to you?’
I said:
‘I’m afraid of your death.’
We hadn’t said these things out loud until then. Although they had been thought. I lost my filters for a minute. He’s the only person close to me, the only one I can complain to. And now that close person is leaving. And the only thing left is to complain to him. I acted horribly.
I started crying and nestled up to him.
‘Forgive me for talking like that about death. That fear has eaten away at me inside and now it’s coming out in the open.’
‘Well, in the first place, I haven’t died yet…’
My God, then what can possibly be in the second place?
He was sitting, pale, thin. And my voice wasn’t minding me.
He said:
‘Death should not be seen as a farewell forever. It’s a temporary parting.’ He went silent. ‘The departed is, basically, outside of time.’
The departed. It sounds like a draft in a tunnel.
‘And the one who’s staying behind? That person is within it.’
He smiled.
‘Well, let that person work on something while waiting.’
So much time apart. It’s scary.
It required a lot of effort to successfully contact Zheltkov. I described Innokenty’s condition and asked him for help.
Zheltkov started mumbling something incomprehensible. Obviously bored. You see, I, uh, uh, uh, I’m not in charge of medicine…
Taken aback, I repeated that consultations abroad and expensive tests are required. In other words, bills will need to be paid. A lot of bills.
But our Zheltkov was in complete, purposeful denial. Unexpectedly so, I noted to myself.
Is this really because Innokenty wasn’t even considering Zheltkov’s political project?
I told one person in the know about that and he wasn’t surprised. He said that if Innokenty had become uninteresting for Zheltkov, then Zheltkov had already genuinely forgotten about my patient. He figured it won’t even be possible to get calls through to Zheltkov now.
I expressed cautious doubt:
‘Well, a person can’t be that shitty!’
‘What are you talking about!’ he laughed. ‘It’s easy to be.’
Scheisse… [15]
I told Nastya that separation because of death is temporary. I believe in that: anyway, it seems to me that everything is granted according to faith. If you want to encounter someone, you will definitely encounter them. True, I am afraid that’s feeble consolation for her now.
I wonder if there will be something to encounter there, other than people. Something that does not apparently constitute life’s fundamentals but something I feel would be difficult to part with. For example, the crackling of candles on a Christmas tree. How you pinch needles off the tree and carefully draw them to the flame. They give off a coniferous aroma when they burn: it’s vivid, like everything with farewells. There is the sparkling of flames in the evening and the extinguished dark, dark mass at night. When you wake up by chance after midnight, your first thought is of the tree. You make your way to it in a nightshirt. You walk almost by feel, most likely by the sound of the barely audible glassy ringing of garlands in a draft. Bare feet freeze on the parquet. You begin warming them once you reach the tree. Alternating your feet as you press their soles to your warm calves. Confetti that had stuck to them drops off. You hear someone has risen to go to the toilet. You press into the tree’s broad boughs and dissolve in them. As you wait out the sounds in the kitchen, you slip into cottony drifts at the bottom of the tree and truly do disappear there. Until morning… It seems that I would even get up posthumously to look at a tree with just one eye. If, of course, the eye is intact.