Watson, Ian - Novel 11 (3 page)

 
          
“You’d
have to show Sophia Kuvshinnikova’s husband too,” said Felix. “Could get
complicated, eh?”

 
          
“Okay,
forget her. Of these friends, only the eccentric lady astronomer Olga Kundasova
carried on as far as
Perm.
Photo of a steamer on the
Volga
.
Or the
Kama
.”

 
          
“Carried
on?” Mikhail winked at Sonya. “Didn’t she just
?—
much
to Anton’s bewilderment. Oh, didn’t he understand the ladies beautifully in his
art? But in life, ah . . . perhaps he understood them all too well?”

 
          
Dr
Suslova made a great fuss of seating herself, on an overstuffed divan. She
plumped up and down, raising dust.

 
          
“Actually,”
Mikhail went on slyly, “in his opinion Kundasova ate like a horse. Chomp,
chomp, chomp: a machine for champing oats . . .”

 
          
The
FIRST boon of the post station was an authentic toilet, located off the
hallway. Amazingly there was even a supply of toilet paper; torn sheets of the
Siberian Herald
were spitted on a rusty
hook. Anton used two of these for their destined purpose and folded another one
into his pocket for later reference.

           
And that was all he took— because
stuff just didn’t seem to get nicked along the Road. Not if you were a
bona fide
traveller. Footpads and tramps
and escaping convicts murdered and robbed each other blind without a second
thought. They would kill an old peasant woman just to tear her skirt up for
puttees to keep their legs warm. But genuine voyagers seemed to be protected by
some ingrained instinct, though this could hardly be ascribed to a sense of
decency. Conceivably it all harked back to the time of the Mongols. Maybe the
yellow Asiatic overlords had decreed vicious tortures for anybody who
interfered with a tax route, and a folk memory lingered on. Maybe he could
write about this in his next article for Suvorin?

 
          
After
relieving his bowels and bladder, Anton hied himself round to the stables,
where three horses snuffled in their stalls. But there was no sign of any
decent carriage or buggy to hire for the next stage, only one wreck of a cart.

 
          
A
body lay snoring in the straw. The ostler’s head was a beetroot, cropped to the
scalp because of erysipelas. In vain Anton nudged the man with his boot. Having
failed to kick life into the fellow, he returned to the post station to kick up
a fuss instead.

 
          
Which he did as to the manner born, blustering and cursing for a
full fifteen minutes.
In the end he conceded that he might
just
be prepared to pay a little extra
to winkle out some proper transport from wherever it was hidden. Emerging, he
discovered that all his baggage had already been dumped in the street outside
the door.

 
          
Volodya
he found in the inn next to the post station. The old codger was trying to
wheedle a drink out of the bloated innkeeper. The innkeeper, disdaining him,
was shouting at his serving slut to dig herself out from behind the kitchen
stove.

 
          
Cockroaches
scuttled everywhere on the dining room walls.
Though in other
respects this place was a paragon of cleanliness, compared with Great Russian
inns.
It didn’t stink of sweat, fart, vomit and rancid sunflower oil.
Conceivably, too, the army of cockroaches was a hygienic improvement—they fed
on bugs.

 
          
What’s
more, the innkeeper didn’t belch into Anton’s face; he merely yawned.

 
          
“There
ain’t a scrap to eat,’’ the man protested. “We’re cleaned out. I dunno why
you’re bothering me!’’

 
          
However,
Anton had learned the style. After a few days’ travel in these parts, all your
brain seemed capable of was rancour and malice. Promptly he lounged in a chair,
hoisted his feet up on the table and began to roll a cigarette.

 
          
“I’m
not shifting from here till you serve me something—so you might as well get
your skates on!’’

 
          
“That
last lot cleaned us out, the greedy pigs. Well, they
did,
an’ all.”

 
          
Anton
stared meaningfully at the innkeeper’s swollen belly. Obviously the man was a
hog, who kept all the best food for himself.

 
          
“I
could manage some tea,” conceded the hog.

 
          
“I’m
not drinking brick dust,
d’you hear
? You can stuff it.
How about some hot soup?
With some fresh bread?
What
have you got, eh? Just leave out the corned beef!”

 
          
“Well,
I could manage some milk soup—maybe with an egg whipped in it.”

 
          
“You
can stuff that, too! Haven’t you got any fresh meat, man?

 
          
Fish,
fowl, I don’t care. It took me all eternity to get here, and don’t think for a
moment that I’m going to ask you for a bed with its zoo-full of wild life. I’m
riding on. But not until I’ve swallowed something better than milk soup!”

 
          
A
cunning sneer appeared on the innkeeper’s face.

 
          
“Would
your honour care for
duck
soup?”

 
          
Anton
allowed himself, once again, to be gulled.

 
          
He
sustained himself on nips of vodka till the soup arrived, approximately an hour
later. The serving girl actually spread a tablecloth and brought the soup bowl
without sticking her thumb in it. She also brought bread: a crisp, golden,
fluffy dream!

 
          
Alas,
the soup was
a gruel
of mud with raw onions floating
in it. He spooned around: only the chopped-up gizzard and unwashed rectum of
the duck seemed to be included in the recipe.

 
          
True
to form, as soon as he had taken his first foul sip, a driver arrived from the
village with news that his honour’s carriage was awaiting him, this very
moment. Snatching up some bread to sustain him through the coming fray, Anton
hurried outside—and was confronted by a farm cart with a bed of dirty straw,
harnessed to two nags.

 
          
He
raged. “I’m not riding in that bloody thing! I need a proper carriage with a
seat! A buggy will do fine.”

 
          
“It’s
all there is, Sir.”

 
          
“Liar!
You’re wasting your own time, never mind mine. Go and
get a decent vehicle this moment. I know there’s one—that layabout in the
stable told me.”

 
          
This
couldn’t go on! It was plain as the nose on his face that he would be forced to
buy his own rattletrap in
Tomsk
, at ruinous cost to his finances . . .

 
          
In
the end he agreed to a price which was sheer robbery; and off went the
villager, whistling as he led the nags away, no doubt to the knacker, while
Anton tramped indoors again to his soup. And of course all the duck grease had
congealed by now. A layer of fatty ice lay upon an undrinkable cold pond.

 
          
Staring
into this wretched mirror, his thoughts drifting, Anton found himself
remembering . . .

 
          
The
Novel. . . Ah yes, that novel he was supposed to be writing!
The
Big One.
Tales From the Lives ofMy
Friends
.
.
.A young chap condemned to
Siberia
for
armed rebellion; a police chief who despised his uniform; numerous atheists ...
a cast of dozens. Would he ever finish it, even as a set of separate stories?
The embryo book seemed as far distant as the Moon right now. From this wretched
inn he saw it through the wrong end of a mental telescope; the last few weeks
had shrunk this magnum opus into insignificance.

 
          
Thrusting
the soup aside, he stuffed his mouth with bread and filled his pockets,
removing his notebook from one of them. While he waited for the villager to
come back he scribbled the truth about Siberian post stations—so that he could
mail the piece to
New Times
from
Tomsk and pay off a bit more of his advance from Alexey Sergeyevich Suvorin . .
.

 
          
PRESENTLY OSIF, THE
caretaker and
general factotum, brought in the tea. His arrival prompted Sonya to leap up and
rush to the window, as if this action would automatically bring a taxi into
view.

 
          
“I
really don’t know what’s keeping the Doctor,” she said, quite superfluously,
when nothing occurred.

 
          
Mikhail
cleared his throat. “Dear lady, punctuality is a form of hysteria . . .

 
          
“I
mean,” he went on blithely, “it’s hysterical to be exactly on time, ain’t it?
Take me for instance: last week I promised to meet this guy Ilya at the
People’s Palace. So I turned up on time, just a couple of minutes late. Of
course Ilya didn’t turn up so sharpish. I puffed one cigarette then another,
and by the time he
did
show up—and he
was only twenty minutes late—I was in such a stew that I just walked straight
past the poor sod without a word. You ought to have seen his face! You remind
me of him.”

 
          
Sonya
realized that she was staring in dumb wonder at this handsome young man with
the high forehead and the whispy beard. She flushed with chagrin.

 
          
“What
is time, anyway?” rhapsodized Mikhail, his hands spread wide. “What is time to
a lump of rock hurtling between the stars?” He smirked. “Don’t panic, I’m just
doing my Antosha trick. Wait till I get my pince-nez on! Did you know that he
was short-sighted in one eye, and far-sighted in the other one?
Goodness, that
must account for a lot! Oh, and don’t let’s
forget this little scar up here.” He tapped his forehead. “Collected this
souvenir when I was a kid, I did.
Bashed my noddle on a rock,
diving into the
Black Sea
.”

 
          
Sonya
gazed at Mikhail’s flawless brow, trying to perceive what wasn’t there.

 
          
“I
do wish you’d stop going on about ‘Antosha’,” complained Sergey. ‘‘The Siberian
trip marks the transition from the frivolous young hack, Antosha, to the mature
artist Anton. The trip was a rite of passage.”

 
          
‘‘So
that’s what it was?” And Mikhail stage-whispered lugubriously across the room
to Sonya:
‘‘But
I
am
frivolous—that’s the trouble, from a dramatic point of view. I ain’t
no
Meyerhold, see?
Just the spit’n’image
of old Anton Pavlovich.”

 
          
‘‘But
you’ll do, so long as your talent can be augmented?” Sonya nodded. ‘‘I
shouldn’t worry about it. Dr Kirilenko has augmented talents which people
didn’t even know they possessed. He hypnotised a policeman to believe he was
Tchaikovsky—and now the man has entered the Conservatoire. Honest! Dr
Kirilenko’s method is a wonderful means of showing how every human being has
such . . . such
capacities
.”

 
          
Mikhail
giggled; and Sonya hoped that her eyes hadn’t shone—that would be
too
much.

 
          
‘‘It
isn’t a matter of improving his acting talents
per se
,” Felix said. ‘‘That isn’t the idea, Dr Suslova. It’s more a
question of—”

 
          
‘‘Of becoming Chekhov, to put it in a nutshell.”
Mikhail
grinned at Sonya. “Ably assisted in this brave enterprise, I dearly hope, by
you, my sweet little melon.”

 
          
“What
on earth do you mean, ‘melon’?” she cried indignantly.

 
          
“Never
fear!
Just one of old Anton’s jocular endearments.
Addressed to lady friends who yearned for him in vain... He was a bit
under-sexed, you see, so he preferred badinage to libido.
Not
that he didn’t spend one well-documented night in the arms of Aphrodite!
And he managed to fuck Olga Knipper when he finally married her. She had a
miscarriage, so that proves it. But he wasn’t exactly one of your hot lovers.”

 
          
“My hot lovers?
Really!”

 
          
“Infinite apologies!
I guess I’m still a bit coarse to be a
proper ascetic Anton, ain’t I?”

 
          
“I
don’t know about ascetic!” said Felix. “He liked a booze-up now and then. And
caviare and soft carpets.” The Director rubbed his hands appreciatively.

 
          
“Hardly
surprising,” said Mikhail, “given all his ailments.”

           
“Ah, but he
knew
what caused his ill health.” Sergey wagged his tea about and
spilled some. “Youthful
poverty,
and the fight for
survival! But the Siberian journey rejuvenated him. Fresh air!
And more important, a clear social goal.”

 
          
“What
a load of bunk.” Mikhail winked at Sonya. “Let me tell you, my luscious cantaloupe,
as far as politics was concerned I might as well have been living on Mars.
Didn’t I once define Socialism as a nervous disorder? Symptom:
over-excitability? Though maybe it was
guilt
that sent me on my trip? Psychiatry knows all about guilt, eh?”

 
          
Sonya
looked embarrassed, so Felix came to her aid.

 
          
“It’s
true enough that the critics were sniping at him for not seeming committed
enough.
All those Toads of the Inquisition’!”
Sergey
glanced at the Director, meaningfully. ‘Et tu, Felix?’ his expression seemed to
say.

 
          
Mikhail
sniggered. “Actually, I’d say I was heading for a nervous breakdown back in
’89. My brother
Mikhail,
snuffed it.
Critics slamming me.
Ivanov
, a flop.
My piles were right buggers. I was spitting
blood.”

 
          
Sonya
hesitated. “So you prescribed a change of life for yourself?” “Equally, I
fancied myself as the Great Russian Novelist, didn’t I?
Sad,
really.
Me, the ultimate cameo artist.
Hadn’t
the space in my head for a novel, had I? But off I went to
Siberia
searching for space. Not for literary copy,
mark you.
For infinity.”

 
          
Felix
nodded happily. “Yes: space. That’s the ticket.”

 
          
“And
by experiencing space first hand, I purged myself of this fatuous ambition.
How’s that for a diagnosis, Doctor Suslova?” Sonya shook her head non-committally.

 
          
“It
was really daft of me to take on the infinite in
Siberia
. It just ain’t possible to know the whole
caboodle. Only idiots and humbugs tell you otherwise. Life’s too foggy. Like my
plays.”

 
          
Felix
clapped ironically.
“Vintage stuff, Mike.”

 
          
“Oh,
come on,” snapped Sergey. “You adopted a modern
scientific
approach in your plays. You believed in evidence. Life
was your laboratory. So you wrote scientific drama and scientific fiction. Damn
it, I mean
he
did! Chekhov did.”
Sergey sounded confused—uncertain as to whether he was addressing Mikhail
Petrov or Anton Chekhov.

 
          
“My
dear chap, you make me sound like Jules Verne. But I’ll grant you one thing: I
was a master of indeterminacy—if that’s what you mean by modern science.”

 
          
“Not
by modern
Soviet
science! Nowadays
we’re much closer to knowing everything. It’s only a question of time.”

 
          
“Only
fools and humbugs, I repeat!”

 
          
Fortunately
they all heard the growl of a car labouring uphill; its wheels spun on the ice,
but on it came. Once more, Sonya rushed to the window.

 
          
Victor
Kirilenko was a burly gentle giant, with a puckish smile. His massive head was
adorned with a bush of black curls, but his nose was thin and insignificant,
with the result that his dark close deep- set eyes seemed to be burrowing
together—to fuse perhaps into one cyclopean eye eventually. Under his charcoal
suit he sported the biceps and chest of a muscle-builder; he looked as if he
could hold chairs at arm’s length for half an hour.

 
          
Osif
had trailed into the room in Dr Kirilenko’s wake, still carrying the Doctor’s
doffed overcoat with gloves stuffed in the pockets, as though to imply that
this fellow was uncultured enough—compared with
artists
—to be keeping his coat on indoors. Osip peered down at
Kirilenko’s patent leather shoes for any trace of melting slush, then sniffed
and wandered off.

 
          
“Honoured!
It’s very kind of you,” Felix murmured. Gripping
Kirilenko’s hand deeply between thumb and forefinger, he thought to minimise
the chance of having his own hand crushed. However, the handshake was soft and
Kirilenko glanced down at Felix’s deep grip in amusement.

 
          
“We
are none of us what we seem, Felix Moseivich!” Only then did he relinquish
Felix’s hand. “In fact, we’re all more than we seem. Much, much more! If that
wretched taxi driver could have thought he was a great explorer, he’d have
penetrated the mysteries of the route in a flash!’’ His eyes twinkled. “But I
couldn’t really risk hypnotising him, could I? Suppose a policeman stopped us
and asked my driver his name, and he replied, ‘Alexander Humboldt, at your
service’! Dear me!’’

 
          
“So there are perils involved in your theory of ‘superknowledge’,
eh?’’

 
          
“No,
no: ‘Sup
stability'
is the proper
term. Any‘knowledge’ has to come from the person in the trance. There’s no point
in persuading somebody that they’re Leonardo or Levitan if they don’t know a
scrap about them. Whereas
you”
and
Kirilenko fixed unerringly on Mikhail, “you know a good deal about Chekhov,
eh?’’

 
          
The
actor toyed with his moustache.
“That’s as maybe . . . When
you come down to brass tacks, we really haven’t the foggiest about old Anton.’’

 
          
“In
which case, it’ll be up to
you
to
select the true interpretation. And it’ll be the true one because it’ll be
based upon your unconscious perceptions—those are a whole lot keener than your
conscious faculties. Some people still find it hard to credit, but a trance
isn’t an
inferior
mental state. Not a
bit of it! The encephalograph proves the contrary. A trance is actually a far
more active mental state than ordinary waking life. So it’s your
‘super-perception’ which we’ll bring to the surface—recreating Chekhov in the
process.’’

 
          
“Then
/ can polish off a decent script.’’ Sergey stood up and shook hands. “I’m
Gorodsky, by the way. It was I who spotted your stimulating piece in
Knowledge
is
Power.
So I drew it to the attention of Felix Moseivich. Of course, I’m fully aware of
your line of work: what the popular journalists like to call ‘Artificial
Reincarnation’.’’ A superior smile played across Sergey’s lips. “You seem to
have taken it a step further than most.’’

 
          
Kirilenko
was aware of a certain edge in the man’s voice. A writer wouldn’t normally
expect to take dictation from an actor—but in this instance a writer had taken
steps to ensure this very thing! So was Mr Sergey Gorodsky entirely confident
of his own creative ability? Or had he cleverly found the perfect pretext for
exempting him from responsibility?

 
          
Actor
Mikhail’s bearing and tone seemed a lot more nonchalant. From the little he’d
said so far, and from what Kirilenko had already heard about him, the man
seemed devoid of artistic egotism. This Mikhail wasn’t a star, with a star’s
personality, and prestige at stake. Excellent! In that case the superability
channel wouldn’t be blocked by competing signals . . .

 
          
“Well
naturally Dr Kirilenko has gone a step further!’’ Sonya enthused. “You usually
need a whole series of trances before the acquired skill filters through and
stabilises. Usually the trance subject wakes up and promptly forgets all about
being Tchaikovsky or whoever.’’