‘I’ve been talking to the people at Narkompros about an event for Slavkin,’ mentioned Pasha after a while. ‘A bigger hall, we’re thinking of the Polytechnic. Mayakovsky has said he will introduce him. Nikita needs to put across his views more clearly, to get public opinion on his side.’
‘The Camel’s lost it, you know,’ Volodya said.
I was shocked. ‘Volodya, no… don’t lose faith in him.’
‘Shut up, Volodya,’ interrupted Pasha coldly. ‘Don’t dismiss what you don’t understand.’
‘I’ll speak if I want! Can you understand how that piece of trash is going to work? No! No one can! It’s madness…’
Vera was tugging on his arm. ‘Leave it, darling.’
‘We’re going, anyway,’ he said, standing up. ‘We’ve got ourselves registered to a place on Taganka. It’ll be a bloody sight more harmonious than this place, I can tell you. Commune? It’s a joke. You can’t even bear to all be in one room together. Fyodor mincing around with his timetables, Pasha flopping about like a degenerate, Gerty giving the lovebirds in there the evil eye…’
‘You’ve got yourselves re-registered?’ I repeated. ‘That doesn’t happen overnight.’
‘Yes, well, you are not the only one with special contacts, Gerty,’ said Vera with a triumphant look.
Volodya reappeared, carrying their bags. ‘Well, thanks for everything, lads.’
Insomnia was my companion yet again that night, as it has been so many nights since. Sometimes it feels as if I have lived a whole second life lying awake in the darkness, wondering if things could have turned out differently. Remembering, too, how just a few months before, Volodya had adored Nikita.
‘The Camel – well, he uses a lot of complicated language, but underneath all of that, he’s just like one of those calculating machines at the fairground. You feed in the question, whatever it might be, and out comes the answer…’ Volodya used to laugh, full of pride. ‘Come here!’ He’d grab Nikita and put his head in an armlock, wrestle with him until Nikita was pink and tousled as a little boy, laughing helplessly. ‘Ekh, Camel, you’re a freak, you are, but I love you.’
Slavkin woke the IRT, and most of the rest of the house, at half past four the next morning by banging the gong.
I ran, my heart pounding. ‘What is it, Nikita? What’s the matter?’
‘Come on, come on, get up, up, up!’ His face was flushed, his eyes glittering with excitement. ‘We need to print posters, you know what a business that is. If we want to get them around town today we’ll have to be at the printer’s before nine!’
One of the factory workers came crashing out in the hall, threatening to punch Slavkin. Pasha laughed and embraced him. ‘This is about the talk at the Polytechnic, is it, you lunatic? Well, I’m glad you’re enthusiastic about my idea—’
‘Of course it’s about the talk!’ exclaimed Slavkin. ‘What else would it be about? Forget breakfast, we’ve no time to eat. Gerty, dear, you’ve got such an eye for proof-reading, come with me to the printer’s today, and we’ll need Vova to borrow that handcart he got hold of before – where is he?’
‘Er… he and Vera have gone away for a few days,’ put in Pasha hastily.
‘Oh?’ Slavkin was disconcerted. ‘Gone away? They didn’t tell me.’
‘No, it’s her condition, you know,’ improvised Marina. ‘I advised her to stay overnight at the hospital.’
‘Oh.’ He looked at us dubiously for a moment, then, with an effort, put the subject aside.
‘So! We must busy ourselves! This is a great opportunity, Pasha, I am much indebted to you. It’ll give me a chance to set all those fools at the Centre right. I want you to go to Narkompros today and settle a date – next week would be best, Thursday or Friday.’
‘It will be done, mein lieber Kommandant,’ replied Pasha, grinning and patting his arm, and Sonya laughed and sang, ‘Ach, du lieber Augustin, Augustin, Augustin…’ A favourite of Tatyana’s Day, the students’ drinking festival; the others immediately joined in, even Marina and Fyodor: ‘Ach, du lieber Augustin, alles ist hin! – Oh, my dear Augustine, all is lost!’
Slavkin jumped up. ‘I must get back to the workshop. Sonya, come with me, I need you.’
Pasha, Marina and Fyodor hurried out to work together and I, after tidying up the breakfast, returned to my bed. Rather without my admitting it, the number of private pupils I taught had been dwindling, week by week. Pelyagin had been the most regular and much the most lucrative. Now I found myself at a loose end and, without my usual occupations to distract me, tiredness overwhelmed me. I had been feeling nauseous for a couple of months; now my stomach was tender and bloated. Nothing surprising, when one considered our diet; this week we had been reduced to eating linseed cakes – cattle feed – that burnt the throat as one swallowed; yet now I promised myself that I would go to the doctor. However that day, and the next, I felt too weak and lethargic to do anything but rest. No one seemed to notice, for which I was glad: I did not want time to be wasted on my weaknesses.
Slavkin whirled through the week in a frenzy of preparations. I wanted to talk to him privately, but he was always busy. The lecture was arranged for the following Saturday at the Polytechnic, a huge hall where Mayakovsky had recently given several popular lectures. Posters were printed (without my attendance at the printer’s) and Sonya and Pasha stayed out late night after night, supervising a mob of street urchins whom they had employed to paste them up all over town. Marina lost her temper with Sonya. ‘You are underweight and anaemic. Yet you haven’t eaten for the past three nights! Don’t you understand, you’ll fall ill?’
‘Well, I’ve only got to keep going for another month or so. After that it doesn’t matter.’
‘What are you talking about?’ demanded Marina. ‘What does that mean?’
But Sonya did not reply, only grinning mischievously.
‘She’s talking about their experiment,’ said Pasha drily from a corner. ‘Apparently they’re going to disappear together – poof! – like a magic trick. Whisked away to a better place. Or something.’
‘Pasha…’ Sonya warned.
‘They’ll hear about it all at the talk, anyway, won’t they? What’s the secret?’
‘Leave it until then.’
Fyodor cleared his throat. ‘Incidentally, I’m moving out,’ he said suddenly in a thin voice.
We swivelled to look at him. He was scarlet in the face, always a sign of high emotion. ‘I’ve had enough of your childish secrets. Cliques and whispers.’
‘OK, spare us the speech,’ said Pasha. ‘We’re sick of you too, Fedya. Go on, get out now, before I knock you down the stairs!’ and Pasha leapt menacingly to his feet, fists ready, so Fedya jumped out of his way.
‘I didn’t think it of you, Pasha,’ he spat as he left.
‘Well, good riddance to you, you bureaucrat,’ shouted Pasha out of the door after him. ‘You bloody pencil sharpener! You… you tube of foot cream! You pallid mushroom, go and cover your nose with mud!’
We couldn’t help it, we started laughing, as Pasha still stood by the door yelling more and more ridiculous insults. ‘You rotten cucumber! You bulkhead! You plug!’
And at that, Sonya started to cry, and then we all did, half sobbing, half laughing at ourselves.
‘It’s pathetic,’ sniffed Sonya. ‘One by one, they disappeared…’
‘Who’s next? Gerty, is it you?’ asked Marina.
‘Gerty would never leave. She’s loyalty personified,’ said Pasha, with a certain dry tone that I couldn’t interpret.