Ignatiev burned his father’s tea-colored shirt; its ashes fall on the bed at night, depression sprinkles him with it, softly sowing it through half-shut fist. Only the weak regret useless sacrifices. He will be strong. He will burn everything that erects obstacles. He’ll grow into the saddle, he’ll tame the evasive, slippery Anastasia. He will lift the claylike, lowered face of his beloved, exhausted wife. Contradictions won’t tear him apart. The benefits will balance clearly and justly. Here is your place, wife. Reign. Here is your place, Anastasia. Rule. And you: smile, little Valerik. Your legs will grow strong and your glands will stop swelling, for Papa loves you, you pale city potato seedling. Papa will be rich, with pens. He will call in expensive doctors in gold-rimmed glasses with leather cases. Carefully handing you from one to the other, they will carry you to the fruity shores of the eternally blue sea, and the lemony, orangey breeze will blow the dark circles away from your eyes. Who’s that coming, tall as a cedar, strong as steel, with his step springy, knowing no shameful doubts? That’s Ignatiev. His path is straight, his income high, his gaze confident. Women watch him pass. Shoo!… Down a green carpet, in a red dress, Anastasia floats toward him nodding through the fog, smiling her shameless smile.
“I’ll at least get started on the paperwork. That takes ages,” Ignatiev said. “And then I’ll see.”
Ignatiev’s appointment was for eleven, but he decided to go early. A summer morning chirped outside the kitchen window. Water trucks sprayed brief coolness in rainbow fans, and Life cheeped and hopped in the tangled tree branches. Behind his back, sleepy night seeped through the netting, whispers of depression, foggy pictures of misery, the measured splash of waves on a dull deserted shore, low, low clouds. The silent ceremony of breakfast took place on a corner of the oilcloth—an old ritual whose meaning is forgotten, purpose lost; what remains is only the mechanical motions, signs, and sacred formulas of a lost tongue no longer understood by the priests themselves. His wife’s exhausted face was lowered. Time had long since stolen the pink flush of youth from the thousand-year-old cheeks and their branched fissures…. Ignatiev raised his hand, cupped it, to caress the parchment tresses of the beloved mummy—but his hand encountered only the sarcophagus’ cold. Frozen cliffs, the jangle of a lone camel’s bridle, the lake, frozen solid. She did not lift her face, did not lift her eyes. The mummy’s wrinkled brown stomach: dried up, sunken, the sliced-open rib cage filled with balsamic resins, stuffed with dry tufts of herbs; Osiris is silent. The dry members are tightly bound with linen strips marked with blue signs: asps, eagles, and crosses—the sneaky, minuscule droppings of ibis-headed Toth.
You don’t know anything yet, my dear, but be patient: just a few more hours, and the shackles will burst and the glass vessel of despair will shatter into small, splashing smithereens, and a new, radiant, shining glorious Ignatiev will appear to the boom and roll of drums and the cries of Phrygian pipes, wise, intense, complete; will arrive riding on a white elephant on a rug-covered seat with colored fans. And you will stand at my right, and on my left—closer to the heart—will stand Anastasia; and white Valerik will smile and reach out, and the mighty elephant will kneel and gently swing him in his kind, ornamented trunk, and pass him to Ignatiev’s strong arms, and Ignatiev will raise him above the world—the small ruler, intoxicated by heights—and the exulting nations will cry: ecce homo! Ecce ruler from sea to sea, from edge to edge, to the glowing cupola, the blue curving border of the gold-and-green planet earth.
Ignatiev came early, the hallway outside the office was empty, there was only a blond man hanging around, the one with the ten o’clock appointment. A pathetic blond with shifty eyes, biting his nails, nibbling his cuticle, stoop-shouldered; sitting down, then jumping up and examining closely the four-sided colored lanterns with edifying medical tales: “Unwashed Vegetables Are Dangerous.” “Gleb Had a Toothache.” “And the Eye Had to Be Removed” (If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out). “Give the Dysentery Patient Separate Dishes.” “Air Out Your Home Frequently.” An entry light went on over the door, the blond man groaned softly, patted his pockets, and crossed the threshold. Pathetic, pathetic, miserable man! I’m just like him. Time passed. Ignatiev squirmed, sniffed the medicated air, went to look at the pedagogical lanterns; Gleb’s story interested him. A sick tooth tormented Gleb, but then let up; and Gleb, cheerier, in a jogging suit, played chess with a school friend. But you can’t escape your fate. Gleb suffered great torments, and bound up his face with a cloth, and his day turned to night, and he went to the wise, stern doctor, and the doctor did ease his suffering: he did pull Gleb’s tooth and cast it out; and Gleb, transfigured, smiled happily in the final, bottom illuminated window, while the doctor raised his finger in admonition, bequeathing his time-honored wisdom to new generations.
Behind him came the rattle of a dolly and stifled moans, and two elderly women in white coats drove a writhing, nameless body, wrapped in dried-up bloody bandages—face and chest— only the mouth was a black hole. Could it be the blond?… Impossible… After them came a nurse with an IV, frowning, who stopped when she noticed Ignatiev’s desperate signals. Ignatiev made an effort and remembered the language of humans:
“The blond?”
“What did you say? I didn’t understand.”
“The blond, Ivanov?… He had it, too?… Extracted it, right?”
The nurse laughed grimly.
“No, they transplanted it into him. They’ll take yours out and put it in someone else. Don’t worry. He’s an inpatient.”
“You mean they do the reverse, too? Why such…”
“He’s doomed. They don’t survive it. We make them sign a disclaimer before the surgery. It’s useless. They don’t live.”
“Rejection? Immune system?”
“Heart attack.”
“Why?”
“They can’t take it. They were born that way, lived their whole lives that way, never knowing what it is. And then they go and have a transplant. It must be a fad or something. There’s a waiting list, we do one a month. Not enough donors.”
“So, I’m a donor?”
The nurse laughed, picked up the IV, and left. Ignatiev thought. So that’s how they do it here. An experimental institute, that’s for sure… Ivanov’s office door opened, and a golden-haired someone strode out, haughty, pushy; Ignatiev jumped out of the way, then watched him go… the blond… A superman, dream, ideal, athlete, victor! The sign over the door was blinking impatiently, and Ignatiev crossed the threshold and Life rang like a bell in his trembling chest.
“Please sit for a minute.”
The doctor, Professor Ivanov, was writing something on a card. They were always like that: call you in, but they’re not ready. Ignatiev sat down and licked his lips. He looked around the office. A chair like a dentist’s, anesthesia equipment with two silvery tanks, and manometer. Over there, a polished cupboard with small gifts from patients, harmless, innocent trifles: plastic model cars, porcelain birds. It was funny to have porcelain birds in an office where such things were done. The doctor wrote and wrote, and the uncomfortable silence thickened, the only sounds the squeal of the pen, the jangle of the lone black camel’s bridle, and the stiffened rider, and the frozen plain….