Alexander Abramov, Sergei Abramov. Journey Across Three Worlds

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     Translated from the Russian by Gladys Evans
     Mir Publishers, Moscow, 1973
     OCR: http://home.freeuk.com/russica2 │ http://home.freeuk.com/russica2
     Original title: "Хождение за три мира"
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        PART ONE. THE STRANGE STORY OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE, TOLD ANEW ...


     No, this was a different
     Mr. Golyadkin, absolutely
     different, but at the same
     time absolutely similar
     to the former...
     F. Dostoevsky, The Double


     Nil admirari! Be astonished at nothing!
     A proposition borrowed from the philosophy of Pythagoras

     ___________________________________________________

        WHO AM I?

     I was returning home by way of Tverskoi  Boulevard, walking up from the
Nikitskie Vorota. It was somewhere around five o'clock in the afternoon, but
the  Saturday crowds usually teeming the streets at this  hour by-passed the
boulevard, and the side-alleys were as deserted and quiet as they are in the
morning. The September  sky, utterly cloudless of a  sudden, gave no hint of
the nearness of autumn.  Not  one  yellow  leaf rustled underfoot and, after
last night's rain, even the faded late-summer grass between the trees seemed
as luxuriantly green as in May.
     I strolled leisurely along an alley, hesitating at every bench with the
vague idea of sitting down.  Finally I did, stretching  out my legs; and the
very  same  second  I  felt  as if  everything around  me  was slipping  off
somewhere, fading out and  spinning in  circles. I  don't usually have dizzy
spells, but now I gripped the  bench so as  not to fall. Everything opposite
me  on the  boulevard  -  trees and passers-by - vanished  in a lilac-tinted
mist. Exactly  like  in  the mountains  when clouds  creep to  your feet and
everything  around  disintegrates  and  melts into  the thick, wet,  cottony
flakes. But this  was no rain: a  pure dry mist swooped down, lapped all the
green from the boulevard, and then vanished.
     Literally vanished. In the blink of an eye, the  trees and bushes  were
back again,  like a repeated  sequence in a colour cinerama  film. The bench
opposite, with  its  deep seat, was  again in place and the girl in the blue
coat -  so  almost  listed missing -  sat  there  with her book.  Everything
looked,  ostensibly, as  before;  but  only  ostensibly  -  some inner voice
instantly  doubted it.  I  even looked around me to check my impressions and
contentedly reflected: "Nonsense, it's all the way it was. Exactly...."
     "No, not exactly," reflected that other inner voice.
     Was it another voice? I was arguing  with myself, but my conscious mind
seemed to be split in half for the argument was more like a dialogue between
two utterly unidentical and dissimilar egos. Any  thought that arose  was at
once countered by another which intruded from somewhere or  from somebody by
suggestion, but was aggressive and masterful.
     "The benches are the same."
     "They are not. On Pushkin Boulevard they're green, not yellow."
     "The alley walks are the same."
     "These are narrower. And where's the granite kerb?"
     "What kerb?"
     "And there's no lawn."
     "A lawn?"
     "Beside the court. There used to be a tennis-court here."
     "Whe-ere?"
     By  now  I was  looking  around with a  feeling  of  growing alarm. The
double-ego  feeling  disappeared. I  suddenly  found  myself  in a  new  and
strangely altered  world. When you  walk along a street where  everything is
dear to you and familiar to the  eye, you do not notice  the little  things,
the details. But  let  them suddenly disappear, and  you  stop, caught by  a
feeling of confusion  and  alarm. The surroundings were only similar to, but
not exactly  the  same as  those I  knew  - I, who  had  strolled  along the
boulevard walks a thousand times or more.  Even the trees, apparently,  were
somewhat  different;  the  bushes weren't the  same; and for  some reason  I
called the boulevard Pushkin instead of Tverskoi.
     From  habit I looked at my watch, arid my arm froze in mid-air. Even my
jacket was different  from the one I'd put on that morning. As a  matter  of
fact,  it wasn't my jacket,  nor was  the watch mine, and a scar curved  out
from beneath the band, yet only about a minute ago no scar had been there at
all. But this  was an old scar, healed  long  ago, the track of a  bullet or
shell splinter. I looked down at my feet - even the shoes weren't mine but a
stranger's, with ridiculous buckles on the side.
     "What if my appearance has changed, and my age is not the same? What if
I'm not ...  me, at all?" came the burning thought.  I jumped to my feet and
ran, rather than walked, along the alley toward the theatre.
     The theatre stood in the  same place, but it was a different one,  with
an altered entrance and other billings. I did not  find one title I  knew on
the  list of its repertoire. But in the dark glass doors, unlit from inside,
a familiar face was reflected. It was my face. So far, it was the only thing
in this world that was mine.
     I was only now aware that my head ached. I rubbed my temples - it still
ached. I  remembered that somewhere near by, on the square I believed, there
should be a chemist's shop. Perhaps it had been spared, if I were lucky. The
square was already visible through the flashing interstices between the line
of  cars passing by,  and I hurried ahead, continuing to glance behind me in
confusion and alarm.  I could  not exactly  recall  the buildings that lined
Pushkin Boulevard, though these did not appear to be different -  except the
lamps over the doorways weren't the same eye-smacking ones and, what's more,
the street numbers were changed.
     Where  the green river of the boulevard flowed  into  the square, I was
literally turned to  stone: its mouth  was  empty.  Pushkin was gone. For  a
moment,  I thought my  heart stopped beating. The  naked  stone bald-spot in
place of the  monument  frightened me now, rather than alarmed. I  closed my
eyes, hoping the  delusion would pass. At  that moment, somebody passing  by
bumped  into me,  perhaps accidentally, but so hard that I was spun round on
my heels. The delusion really did disappear. I saw the monument.
     It stood far back in the square. Pushkin looked just  as thoughtful and
severe as  ever, his winged cloak negligently thrown over his shoulders - an
image dear to me from childhood. Even if it were in a different spot, it was
Pushkin! I began  to breathe more freely, though behind the monument I could
see an utterly unknown building, quite modern, with the huge letters ROSSIYA
across its facade.  Hotel  or  cinema? Only  yesterday,  there  had  been  a
six-teen-storey  building  here, with  the  Cosmos restaurant on  the ground
floor, and flats above. Everything  was  similar,  yet  dissimilar, familiar
down to the smallest detail, yet it was the details most of all that altered
the familiar  look. For instance,  I found  the  chemist's  shop in the same
spot,  the salesgirls  stood  behind the counters  wearing  the  same  white
smocks, identical  queues  crowded  round  the cashier's  booth,  and in the
optical section they  were  still selling  eyeglasses with  the  same  ugly,
uncomfortable  frames.  But when I asked  a  girl for  some pyrabutan  for a
headache, she gave me a puzzled grimace.
     "Pardon?"
     "Pyrabutan."
     "Never heard of it."
     "Well, for a headache."
     "Pyramidonum?"
     "No," I muttered vaguely. "Pyrabutan."
     "There's no such thing."
     My stupidly foolish look drew a pitying smile.
     "Take  these  3-in-one tablets." And  she threw  a small packet on  the
counter - a box I'd never seen before.
     In  my trouser pocket  I  found a handful of silver  coins -  the money
could hardly  be told  from ours.  Later, sitting on a  bench by the Pushkin
monument, I made  a thorough search  of all the pockets in the suit bestowed
on  me by  a whim of fate. The  contents would  have stumped any  detective.
Besides  some change  I found a few one- and  three-rouble  notes that  were
quite different  from ours, a crumpled tram ticket,  an  excellent  fountain
pen, and an almost new pocket-notebook with only a few pages torn out. There
were no documents or identification cards  to give me a hint  as to  what or
who my double was.
     I  no  longer  felt any  fear: there  remained  only  a  sharp, nervous
curiosity. I tried not to  dwell  on how long my  intrusion into  this world
would  last, or how it would  end - all kinds of conjectures, even the  most
terrifying, could be made on the subject.  But what was I to do  while I was
on this free trip  into the unknown? I wouldn't be let  into  a hotel. Where
could  I spend the night, if my sojourn was a long one? Perhaps at home,  or
with friends - after all, the owner of the suit must live somewhere,  and he
probably  had friends. The  cream of the joke would be if they turned out to
be my friends. What  if the whole thing were a dream? I slapped the bench as
hard as I could - it hurt! So it wasn't a dream.
     For a brief moment I  thought I saw a face I knew. Sauntering past went
a broad-shouldered, brawny  fellow carrying a cine-camera. I recognized  the
tuft of hair falling over the forehead, the massive shoulders and iron neck.
Could it be my neighbour, Zhenka Evstafyev, from flat 5? But why did he have
a cine-camera? He had never snapped a picture with any kind of camera in his
life.
     I jumped up and ran after him.
     "Excuse me," I stopped him,  staring at the  familiar face. "Aren't you
Zhenka? ... Evgeny Grigoryevich?"
     "I'm afraid you're mistaken."
     I blinked my eyes  in  perplexity: the  likeness was perfect.  Even the
timbre of the voice matched.
     "Well, am I like him?" laughed the stranger.
     "It's amazing."
     "It happens," and he shrugged and went his way, leaving me in a turmoil
of confusion.
     It still seemed to me that all  this  was some kind of game, or a trick
of fate. In a moment Zhenka would come back  and we should have a good laugh
over it. But he didn't.
     Later, when I recalled this day, what came to mind first of all was the
feeling of perplexity  and  confusion.  And one thing more  - the unbearable
loneliness  of  being in a city where  I'd known every stone from childhood,
yet which had wholly  changed during a few seconds of dizziness. I  gazed at
the faces of the passers-by in the vain hope of seeing one I knew. What for?
Probably he  wouldn't  have recognized me any  more than Evstafyev  had  ...
besides, what could I say to anyone who did?
     And exactly that happened.
     "Sergei! Sergei Nikolaevich!" A medium-tall, grey-haired man hailed me.
He was wearing a suede zippered  jacket. (I had never seen this man before.)
"Come here a minute."
     I got up. My name really was Sergei, and even Sergei Nikolaevich.
     "Just  listen to the latest." He took me  confidentially by the arm and
said softly: "Hang on to yourself. Sichuk stayed behind."
     "What Sichuk?" I asked, surprised. "Mikhail?"
     "Who else? We've only one Sichuk. All the worse for us."
     I had known Mikhail Sichuk  during the war at the front.  Now he worked
either as a photographer or as a  news cameraman. We weren't  friendly,  and
never got together.
     "What do you mean - stayed behind?"
     "What do I mean? He  was touring  Europe on the Ukraine.  You  get  it,
don't you...?"
     I  didn't get  it at all.  But,  sensing  the  circumstances,  I  acted
surprised.
     "At the last foreign  port he stayed behind, skipped - the scum! Either
in Turkey or  West Germany: don't  know which way they were heading,  to  or
from Odessa."
     "The scoundrel," I said.
     "There'll be trouble."
     "For whom?"
     "Well,  those who  vouched for him, and so on," laughed the man  in the
suede coat. "Fomich is fit to be tied; he made a beeline for head office. It
has nothing to do with you, of course."
     "I should hope not," I said.
     The unknown released my arm and gave me a friendly jab on the back.
     "You look a bit sour, Sergei. Or maybe I'm butting in?"
     "In what way?"
     "Are  you  in  throes  of composition ... or waiting for  somebody? Why
aren't you at the editorial office?"
     I was  not attached to any  editorial office. I  had  to break off  the
conversation somehow - it was getting a bit too hot to handle.
     "Business," I said vaguely.
     "You're  up to something, old  fellow," he said with a wink.  "Well, so
long."
     He vanished from my life as quickly as  he had come into it. And like a
man thrown for the first time into deep water begins to learn the motions of
a swimmer,  I also began  to find  my bearings in the unknown. Curiosity got
the better  of fear and  alarm. What had I found  out so far?  That  here my
appearance was  the  same,  and my  name too. That Moscow  was  Moscow, only
different in detail. That  there  existed an  Odessa, Turkey and a  Germany.
That the  S.S. Ukraine, as in our world, made runs around Europe. That I was
connected with  a certain editorial office, and  that in this world  Mikhail
Sichuk was also a rotten bit of scum.
     So I  was  not  much surprised when, going  down  the steps towards the
Rossiya cinema - as I had already guessed, the building was a cinema - I ran
into  Lena.  I was  bound to meet somebody who knew me,  both here  and from
whence I came.
     Elegant as ever,  Lena was walking  along in  her usual absent way, but
she knew me at once and was even a bit embarrassed, or so I thought.
     "Is that you? Where are you coming from?"
     "Just off a camel. Well, how are things over there?"
     "Where?" she asked, surprised.
     "At the hospital, of course. Did you just get off?"
     She was even more surprised.
     "I don't understand, Sergei. What are you talking about? I've only been
in Moscow three days."
     I had seen her this morning in the office of the Head Doctor when I was
telephoning the  Brain Institute. Before that, we  met every day  or  almost
every  day when  I happened to be in the  therapeutic department.  So I  was
silent,  painfully  seeking  a  way out  of  what  was  a  clearly  critical
situation. The road into the unknown certainly teemed with pit-falls.
     "Sorry, Lena,  I'm getting awfully  absent-minded. And besides ... it's
so unexpected, meeting you...."
     "How are  you  getting along?"  she asked, with  what  seemed to  me  a
metallic note.
     "So-so," I answered cheerfully. "I manage to get by."
     She was silent a long time, taking a good look at me. Finally, she said
dryly: "What an odd conversation. Very odd."
     I realized  she would  leave me  in  a minute, and  my  only chance  of
finding a place to  put down anchor  here, for at  least  twenty-four hours,
would disappear with her. My incursion into the unknown could scarcely  last
longer than that. I had to take a stab at it. And I did.
     "Look,  I've got  to talk  to you, Lena. I really have  to. Something's
happened, you see...."
     "What, exactly?" Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.
     "I can't talk about it  on the street." I hurriedly searched for words.
"Where are you ... living now?"
     She was slow in answering, apparently weighing something or other.
     "At present I'm at Galya's."
     "Where's that?"
     "As if you didn't know."
     I certainly did not know. I didn't even ask what Galya she meant. But I
had to make her agree. It was my last chance!
     "Please, Lena...."
     "It's awkward, Sergei,"
     "My God, what nonsense!" I cried, thinking of the Lena I knew.
     But this was an utterly  different Lena, who watched me  guardedly, not
at all like a friend.
     "Well then ... come on," she said at last.

        THE NEXT MOVE INTO THE UNKNOWN

     We walked in silence, hardly exchanging  a  word.  Apparently,  she was
nervous but tried not to show it; and withdrawn, perhaps even regretting her
bargain. From time  to time I  caught her giving me a  searching, suspicious
glance. What was she suspicious or afraid of?
     I immediately  recognized the house in Staro-Pimenovsky Alley. My  wife
had lived here once, before we became acquainted. Incidentally, her  name is
Galya too.
     To my disgust, my knees began trembling.
     "What are you looking like that for?" she asked.
     I continued to  look silently around the room. Like everything  else in
this  unknown world, it  was  both like and  unlike.  Or maybe I had  simply
forgotten.
     "Whose room is it, Lena?"
     "Galya's, of course. What strange questions you  ask,  Sergei.  Haven't
you been here before?"
     I had difficulty  swallowing.  Now I would  give  her  another  strange
question.
     "But hasn't she ... moved?"
     Lena gave me a somewhat frightened glance; she moved a bit away as if I
had said some monstrous absurdity.
     "Have you never met?"
     "Why do you ask?" I countered, uncertainly. "Of course we have."
     "When did you see her last?"
     I burst out laughing and blurted out: "This morning. At breakfast."
     But I immediately regretted saying it.
     "Don't lie. What  are  you lying for? She's  been at the institute from
yesterday afternoon. Worked all night. And she's still not back."
     "Can't a fellow joke?" I replied, foolishly, realizing I was getting in
more and more of a muddle.
     "Strange way of joking, I'd say."
     "Maybe  we're not talking  about the  same person?" I put in, trying to
improve matters.
     She wasn't  even  angry, she  merely frowned  like  a doctor who  sees,
without quite understanding, the symptoms of a disease under observation.
     "I'm talking about Galya Novoseltseva."
     "Why 'Novoseltseva'?" I asked, genuinely surprised.
     The cold eyes of a doctor now looked at me with professional interest.
     "You've lost your memory, Sergei. They were already registered to marry
when war broke out."
     "Never  mind,"  I  muttered,   wiping  a   perspiring  brow.  "I   only
wondered...."
     "What  I'm  doing here  with the  woman who  stole my chap, right?" she
laughed,  losing for a  moment the curiosity of a professional doctor. "Even
then, I didn't feel hurt, Sergei. Imagine the  luck - my chap  left  me. But
now ... why, it's even funny.  It was so long ago.... And my next after that
- you know..." she sighed. "I'm not lucky in love, Sergei."
     It is hard to map  out every  step  you take in an unknown world. And I
put my foot in it again, forgetting where I was and who I was.
     "Who's in your way now, with Oleg?"
     "Sergei!"
     There was so much horror in that cry, I involuntarily shut my eyes.
     "Something's wrong with your memory, Sergei. One  doesn't forget things
like  that.  Galya  received the  official  death  notice  as  far  back  as
forty-four. You couldn't help but know that."
     What did I know, and what didn't I? Dare I really tell her?
     "You're  either pretending,"  she said, "or  you're  sick.  And I think
you're sick."
     "Then go ahead and  ask me what day of the month  it  is, and the year,
and so on."
     "I still don't know what I should ask you."
     "So  tell me the diagnosis,"  I  shot back, getting angry. "Gone crazy,
that's all!"
     "That's not the medical term for it. There are various kinds of psychic
disorders.... What did you want to talk to me about?"
     By now I had no desire to.  If I told her the  truth, she would send me
off to the lunatic asylum at once. I had to wriggle out of this somehow.
     "You see,  the  thing is..." I began a hurried improvisation. "A simply
deplorable thing happened.... The most deplorable...."
     "You've already said that. But what?"
     "As a matter of fact, I've left home.  Left my wife. I  shan't  go into
the reason. But I need shelter. Just for the night. Nox lodgus, vulgaris, to
put it coarsely...."
     I fell silent. She said nothing either, only examined her fingertips.
     "Haven't you any friends to go to?"
     "To some  I can't, and with others  it's  inconvenient. You know how it
is, sometimes...." I tried not to look at her.
     "What if you hadn't met me?"
     "But I did."
     She was still wavering. "It's awkward, Sergei."
     "Why?"
     "Can't you see that for yourself?"
     "You  know what?" I  was getting angry again. "Call a  psychiatrist. At
any rate, I'll get put up for the night."
     I looked into  her eyes: the professional-doctor look  had disappeared.
Now there was only a frightened woman.  The incomprehensible is always a bit
terrifying.
     "The room isn't mine," she spoke gently. "We'll wait for Galya."
     "And what if she spends the night at the institute again?"
     "I'll phone her. The telephone's in the hall.  Take a seat while you're
waiting."
     She  went  out, leaving  me alone  in  a room where  everything  seemed
familiar,  down  to the least  detail. I had  left  this  room to go to  the
Registry Office to be married. From  this room? No, not this one. The  whole
thing  was  something  like  in similar triangles:  certain  lines coincide,
others don't.
     I picked up a pencil from the table and wrote in my notebook:

     If  anything  happens  to  me,  advise  my  wife,  Galina  Gromova,  43
Griboyedov Street. Also  inform  Professors  Zargaryan and  Nikodimov at the
Brain Institute. Very important.

     I underlined the words 'very important' three times, pressing  so  hard
that the pencil broke.
     So whatever else I intended to write remained unwritten.
     After putting the notebook away in  my pocket, I realized I had flubbed
again. My Zargaryan and  Nikodimov would never get this letter. And here, in
this world, Galya Gromova bore a different surname.
     A ring sounded from the  front  hall, and  through the half-open door I
heard the click of a lock. Then Lena cried: "At last. I was just ringing you
up."
     "What's the matter?" asked a voice - agonizingly familiar.
     "Sergei Gromov's here."
     "Well, that's fine. We'll have tea."
     "But  look, Galya ... he's sort of strange...."  Lena lowered her voice
to an inaudible whisper.
     "What's wrong, is he crazy?" were the words that reached me.
     "I don't know. He says he's left his wife."
     "Lord, what  nonsense.  He's playing a joke on you, Lena, and  you fall
for it. I saw her only half an hour ago."
     The door was  flung open. I  leaped to  my  feet, but couldn't move. My
wife stood in the doorway.
     The same face, the same  age, even  the  hairdo  was the same. Only the
ear-rings  were  unfamiliar,  and  I'd never seen her wear that kind of suit
before. I stood speechless, repressing my excitement by sheer force of will.
     "What did you make up all this for?" asked Galya.
     I was silent.
     "I just saw  Olga. She's gone home and expects you for supper. She said
you were going to take her to see the Leningrad Ballet."
     I was silent.
     "What kind of joke is this? And to play it on Lena. What for?"
     I  could  find  no  words  to  answer her.  Everything was ruined. What
explanation would satisfy them? The  truth? Who, in  my position, would dare
to tell the truth?"
     "Lena  says you're sick,"  Galya continued, giving me a searching look.
"Maybe you are really sick?"
     "Maybe I am," I repeated.
     I did not know my own voice: it seemed alien and far away.
     "Well  then," I  added,  "you  must excuse me. I guess  I'll  just  run
along."
     "Where?" asked  Galya, with  a start. "We won't  let you go alone. I'll
take  you home." She looked out the window. "My cab's still there. Run after
it, Lena. Maybe you'll manage to hold it."
     Now we were alone.
     "What does all this mean, Sergei? I don't understand it," said Galya.
     "I don't either," I replied.
     "But even so?"
     "You're  a physicist,  I believe, aren't  you,  Galya?" I threw out  at
random.
     She was sharply alert. "So what?"
     "Can you picture  the notion of a plurality of  worlds? Worlds existing
side by side?  Being at  the same  moment  both mysteriously remote and  yet
amazingly close?"
     "Let's suppose that. Such hypotheses do exist."
     "Then  just suppose that one of these worlds right next door is similar
to  ours. That it also has a  Moscow, only a wee bit different. Perhaps even
the  same streets,  but  with other ornamentation.  Sometimes, the very same
house but with a different street number. And that you are there, and I, and
Lena - only our relationships differ...."
     She  still didn't  get  it. But  I  had got fed  up with the  spiritual
masquerade long before. So I dared to open up.
     "Let's  suppose  that  in  that  other  Moscow  your  name isn't  Galya
Novoseltseva, but Galya Gromova. That six years ago you and I left this room
to be married at the Registry. And today a miracle happened: I broke through
the membrane barrier ... and looked  into your world. There you have a devil
of a problem for our limited brains."
     Now she looked at me with real fright. Probably  she was thinking along
the lines of Lena: a sudden madness, raving.
     "All right, let's leave  it  lie," I  said wryly. "Take me wherever you
wish, I  don't care. And don't be  scared  - I won't choke  you or kiss you.
There's Lena waving at us. Come on."

        WHO IS JEKYLL AND WHO HYDE?

     Even  in  this world, Galya must have possessed her  usual  control.  A
minute later she was quite calm and collected.
     "I hope  we  won't start in on science fiction in front of  the cabby?"
she asked, on the way to the taxi.
     "So you consider it scientific?" I couldn't resist saying.
     "Goodness knows!"
     I  could  not  read  anything  special  on her  face. Her behaviour was
ordinary,  that  of  a clever woman  -  Galya's  way  with people  who  were
strangers  and  yet  whom  she found interesting. Attentive eyes, respectful
attention to a companion, unconsciously coquettish, mocking.
     "Why do you have Pushkin's  monument in  the  middle of  the square?" I
asked, as we drove past.
     "Where do you have it?"
     "On the boulevard."
     "You're lying about everything. Just as you lied about our going to the
Registry. And why did you say six years ago?"
     "Fate," I laughed.
     "Where was I six years ago?" she wondered, thoughtfully. "In the spring
I was in Odessa."
     "So was I."
     "Why do you lie? You never even came with us."
     "In your world I didn't, but in ours - on the contrary."
     "That's funny," she said, pronouncing every syllable. And added  with a
critical look at me: "But you don't give the impression of being a lunatic."
     "Nice to hear it," I wanted to say, but I didn't. A dark squall  hit me
right in the face. Everything went black.
     "What's  wrong?" I heard Galya's frightened cry, and  then her hurried,
excited words: "Driver, driver, pull  up somewhere by the pavement. He feels
bad...."
     I  opened my eyes. The  mist  of bewitchment was still  swirling  round
inside the car. And through this fog a woman's face was staring at me.
     "Who is it?" I asked hoarsely.
     "Do you feel bad, Sergei?"
     "Galya?" I said, surprised. "How did you get here?"
     She did not answer.
     "Did  something happen  to  me  there ... on the boulevard?"  I  asked,
looking around me.
     "Yes, it did," said Galya. "We'll talk about it later. Can you go home,
or do you need a doctor?"
     I stretched,  shook my  head, and sat up straight. Clearly  I  could do
without a doctor.  While we  rode, I told Galya about walking along Tverskoi
Boulevard, about my  dizzy spell, and how I tried to talk  to myself in  the
midst of a lilac fog.
     "And afterwards," Galya asked, with sudden interest -  before  that she
had been listening now with distrust, now with indifference. "What  happened
afterwards?"
     I shrugged in bewilderment.
     "Don't you remember?"
     "I don't remember."
     I  really didn't remember, and only on returning  home  did I find  out
from Galya what had happened at her place.
     "It was delirium," I said.
     With her love for expressing things precisely, Galya now  corrected me:
"For delirium, it's  very  consistent. Like playing  a well-rehearsed  role.
People don't rave like that. Besides,  delirium is a symptom of illness, yet
you don't give mo that impression."
     "But the fainting spell on the boulevard?" broke in my wife, Olga. "And
in the taxi?"
     As a doctor  she searched for a medical  explanation. But Galya  was as
doubtful as before.
     "Then what happened between the fainting spells?"
     "Some kind of somnambulistic state."
     "What do you think I am - a lunatic?" I told her, offended.
     "If it was a dream, then it  must have been a day-dream," put  in Galya
with  amusement, insistent on accuracy.  "Besides,  we saw the dream and not
Sergei. Speaking of dreams, do you still have them?"
     "What  have dreams got to do with it?"  I burst  out. "I fainted, and I
didn't see any dreams."
     I realized  only too  well that  Galya never played jokes on anyone. So
her  story about my wandering around  like a sleepwalker  - the only  way my
behaviour could  be described - seriously alarmed me.  Before, I  had  never
fainted or walked along the edge of a roof in the moonlight, nor had loss of
memory.  However, I could  find no explanation of the event that answered to
common sense.
     "Maybe it was the result of hypnosis?" I suggested.
     "Then who hypnotized you?" Olga frowned. "And where? At the office?  On
the boulevard? Nonsense!"
     "Right. Nonsense it is," I agreed.
     "Are you, by any chance, writing a  science-fiction story?" Galya asked
suddenly. "Your very intelligible  observation about the plurality of worlds
even aroused my interest....  Can  you  imagine,  Olga?"  she  laughed. "Two
adjacent  worlds in  space,  like similar  triangles. Both there and  here -
Moscow; there and here, a Sergei Gromov.  But you weren't there- -  instead,
he was married to me."
     "So the secret's out,"  joked Olga. "And the sleepwalker, of course, is
a visitor from another world in Sergei's likeness."
     "He explained it to me like this. Moscow, he said, was the same, only a
little bit  different. Pushkin's monument is on the square in our world, but
on the boulevard in theirs. I almost burst out laughing."
     Olga,  apparently, was thinking hard. "And you know what  might explain
things?" she asked,  suddenly animated, still seeking a rational explanation
even as I  was. "Look here,  didn't  Sergei know that the monument had  once
been moved? He did. So perhaps this  information, stored away in his memory,
became fixed in  his delirium? Some stimulation triggered  the  signal - and
there you are: the myth about an adjacent, similar world."
     These arguments only annoyed me.
     "It  makes  me  sick listening  to  you. Some kind  of  new variant  of
Stevenson's tale. A regular  Dr. Jekyll and  Mr.  Hyde. Only which is Jekyll
and which is Hyde?"
     "It's perfectly clear  who," parried Galya. "You wouldn't hurt yourself
in choosing between them."
     Olga did not understand, and asked: "Who are you talking about?"
     "About  international  imperialist  spies,  Olga,"  I  said  jocularly.
"Parachuted here from an unidentified plane."
     "I'm serious."
     "So am  I. Look, there is  a certain English writer, Stevenson by name.
Usually,  you read his  stuff when you're a teenager. However, even  doctors
do. For them, by the way, his  story is almost like a  course in psychiatry,
for Jekyll  and  Hyde,  in reality,  are the  same  man. To be more exact, a
quintessence of  the  good and  evil inherent in one person. By drinking  an
elixir that he discovered - medically speaking, a particular  combination of
sulphanilamide and  antibiotics  - the noble Dr.  Jekyll turned himself into
the scoundrel Hyde. Is that precise enough for you?" I asked Galya.
     "Quite. Search your pockets,  maybe  Hyde left some clues behind during
his temporary transmutation."
     I dug into  my pockets  and  threw on the  table a packet  of  headache
tablets.
     "That must be one clue. I certainly never bought them."
     "Perhaps you put them there?" Galya asked Olga.
     "No. More than likely he bought them on the way home."
     "I didn't buy  anything,"  I put  in angrily. "And,  for the  record, I
didn't go into the chemist's."
     "That means Hyde did. Is there anything else he left?"
     I mechanically felt the inside pocket of my jacket.
     "Wait.  This  notebook doesn't belong here." I pulled it out and opened
it. "Something's written here. Where are my glasses?"
     "Give it here." Galya grabbed the notebook and read aloud: 'If anything
happens to me, advise my  wife,  Galina Gromova, 43 Griboyedov Street.  Also
inform Professors Zargaryan  and  Nikodimov  at the  Brain  Institute.  Very
important.' "The  'very important' is  even underlined,"  she laughed.  "And
Galina  Gromova, that's me, of course.  I already told you  his delirium was
consistent. Only  why Griboyedov Street? There's  Staro-Pimenovsky, and  now
it's Medvedev Street."
     "But have we  a Griboyedov Street?" asked Olga. "Somehow, I never heard
of it."
     "There is," I  interrupted.  "It used to  be  Maly  Kharitonevsky. Only
there's no building  on it  with  that  number. Apparently, Hyde had in mind
some avenue, rather than street."
     "But who's this Zargaryan?" Galya said, full of curiosity. "I know of a
Nikodimov.  He's a physicist, a rather famous one, by the way. Only he's not
at the Brain Institute, but at the Institute of New Problems in Physics. But
who this Zargaryan is, I really don't know."
     "But  Sergei  didn't write this!" cried Olga  suddenly.  "It's  not his
handwriting ...  though the 'v' has the same flourish and the down stroke in
the 't' is the same. Look for yourself!"
     I found my glasses and read the note.
     "The handwriting's  similar.  I wrote that way as a student. Working on
the paper spoiled my writing. I don't write like that now."
     I rewrote the lines  in  the notebook.  They differed  greatly from the
first.
     "Ri-ight,"  drawled  Galya. "No  need  for  a handwriting  expert.  But
perhaps the handwriting changes when you're in a somnambulistic state."
     "I   wouldn't  know,"  said  Olga.  "Somnambulism's  in  the  field  of
psychiatry. It's a sort of  psychic upset that comes like lightning. I can't
explain it any other way. And I don't like all this, not at all."
     "Nor do I," Galya conceded.
     She read  and  reread  both  memorandums  in  the  notebook.  Her  face
reflected  not only concentrated  thinking  but repressed  anxiety.  Galya's
clear, logical mind did not want to give in to the inexplicable.
     "I  simply  can't explain it. Either scientifically or logically,  from
the standpoint of common sense, so to say. A person of absolutely sound mind
-  and  suddenly  he  turns  sleepwalker.  Of  course,  a  fainting  fit  is
understandable: a doctor  could find an explanation. But this raving about a
plurality of  worlds - that's  more like  something out of a science-fiction
story. And then his asking for a night's lodging,  for a roof over his head,
when the man has his own private flat."
     "Apparently my Hyde was  looking for  shelter," I laughed. "He couldn't
go to a hotel, d'you see."
     "Here's what I don't  like. The hypothesis about  Hyde explains it all.
But I prefer  dealing with pure science, rather than science fiction. Though
everything  about it  is fantastic. Now why, Sergei, did  you  ask to  go to
Lena's? You didn't know she lives with me."
     "That's new to me, even now. I've not seen Lena for ten years. I  can't
even imagine what she looks like."
     My adventure  in Galya's story surprised  me  more than anything  else.
Lena and I  never met, never corresponded. We'd probably even forgotten each
other's existence.
     "Is she an old flame?" asked Olga.
     "All of us went  to school together before the war," replied Galya. "We
were all going to  enter the medical faculty. But nothing came of it: Sergei
and  Oleg went to the front, and I got a  yen for physics. Only Lena went in
for medicine. By the way, she really was in love with you, Sergei."
     "With Oleg," I said.
     "All the girls ran after him," sighed Galya. "But I had the worst fate:
I won and lost." She stood up. "Peace be to thy house, but it's high  time I
left.  The council of detectives is  closed and Sherlock Holmes proposes  to
make an excursion into the realm of physics."
     "Psychology, you mean to say."
     "No,  I mean  physics.  I'm interested  in Zargaryan and Nikodimov, and
what they're doing in the Institute of New Problems in Physics."
     "Whatever  for?"  asked  Olga  in  surprise.  "I   should  apply  to  a
psychiatrist."
     "And I would choose Zargaryan. Who is he?  What is he engaged in? Is he
connected with Nikodimov? And if he is, then in what field?" Galya turned to
me: "Did you ever hear of either name?"
     "Never."
     "Maybe you read about them somewhere and have merely forgotten?"
     "I've never seen the names anywhere, nor have I forgotten."
     "And that's  the most  interesting  point  in  all  your somnambulistic
story. Physics, my dear,  physics. The Institute of New Problems in Physics.
New, remember!" And Galya turned to Olga. "You know what? Call Zoya and find
out about Zargaryan. She knows everybody."
     We decided to call Zoya in the morning.

        THE SHEET FROM THE NOTEBOOK

     I fell asleep at once, and slept soundly right through till morning.
     Dreams, I might say, are  a peculiarity of mine that sets me apart from
other mortals. It wasn't by accident that Galya asked if I still had dreams.
I have them. They repeat  themselves, persistently, and are almost unchanged
in content, oddly like fragments of travelogue films.
     Naturally I also have ordinary dreams  in  which everything is confused
and foggy, both as to proportion and distortion, like in a Fun House mirror.
My recall of  such  dreams is so  vacillating and short-lived that they  are
hard to  recapture and describe. But the dreams I'm  talking  about  I shall
remember all my life, and I can describe them just as  precisely as I can my
flat.
     They are always in colour, and the colours  are as true  and harmonious
as in nature. In one I  see a spring-time meadow  appearing out of the night
mist,  flowering as profusely as  in real life.  Arid  I even  remember  the
designs on a girl's cotton-print dress that flashes for a moment through the
sunny dream. Nothing special happens in these  dreams: they do  not frighten
or  alarm me, but  have something  alluring about them, like  getting a tiny
peep into somebody else's life.
     The  one I see most frequently  shows a corner in a  strange  city, the
view of a  street which I've  never actually seen though  I can remember all
the details: the balconies,  shop  windows, the  lindens along the pavement,
the iron  grilles.  I can call them  all to mind as clearly as if I had seen
them but yesterday. I can even recall the  passers-by,  for  they are always
the same, even the black cat with white spots that  runs across the road. It
always crosses at one and the same corner, near one and the same house.
     Sometimes I see myself in  an arcade surrounded by shops  off galleries
like in Moscow's GUM  department store. But  the arcade has  only one storey
and  branches  off  into  numerous  side  alleys  that  run  lengthwise  and
crosswise. For  some  reason I am  always waiting  by  a stationery shop, or
slowly strolling  past a shop-window displaying  draperies and  miraculously
lit by  a sort of odd iridescent lighting. I  have never seen this arcade in
real life, yet  I not only remember the windows  but  even the shape  of the
goods, the tall glass archways and the coloured mosaic on the pavement.
     Sometimes the dream carries me into the interior of a town flat which I
have never been in, or else  into  an idyllic village landscape. Often there
is a road running  between naked earthen slopes  sparsely scattered here and
there with patches  of dusty grass. The road  runs down to a  blue  strip of
water, gay with golden water-lilies. Sometimes  a woman in white walks ahead
of me,  sometimes an old man with a  fishing-rod; but  neither of them  ever
turns round and  I  never  overtake  them.  I  see  only a strip  of  water,
embroidered with duckweed and water-lilies; but for some reason I know it is
a pond and that the road will now turn right along the bank,  and that I ran
here as a small boy  - though neither  the  pond nor the road belongs  to my
real childhood.
     It was  these dreams that awoke Olga's doubts of my psychic balance and