ened the first stage to the second,
every time it looked like a fight scene from a Hong Kong blockbuster to me.
After completing this complex job eight times, he would fall on his back and
kick up hard with both legs, pushing the invisible second stage away.
Ivan Grechka was our second stage, he came a couple of months after
Syoma. He was a blond blue-eyed Ukrainian, taken here from the third year of
the Zaraisk Academy, so he still was not too sure on his feet. But he
possessed a certain inner clarity, a perpetual smile directed to the outside
world, which endeared him to everyone he met. He and Syoma became very close
friends. They would needle each other jokingly and compete for the fastest
time and cleanest separation of their respective stages. Syoma was, of
course, much quicker, but then Ivan only needed to undo four latches, so
from time to time he did come ahead.
Our third stage -- Otto Pluzis -- was a rose-cheeked introspective
Baltic(41) who, as far as I can remember, never joined Syoma and Ivan in
their practice sessions in the dorm; it seemed that the only thing he ever
did was crossword puzzles in the "Red Warrior" magazine while lying on his
cot (he would always cross his legs in shiny boots on the gleaming
nickel-plated bedframe). But seeing the way he disposed with his portion of
latches on the mock-up it became crystal clear that if any of the systems in
our rocket were reliable at all, the third stage separation was it. Otto was
a little on the weird side -- he loved to tell stupid stories after "lights
out", like those kids scare each other with in camps and on sleepovers(42).
- So this one time this mission is going to the Moon, - he would say in
the darkness. -- They fly like really long time. So they're almost there.
And then the hatch opens and all these people in white scrubs come in. So
these cosmonauts are, like, "We're flying to the Moon!". And those in the
scrubs go: "Sure, sure you are. Just don't get so excited. We'll have a shot
of this really nice medicine now..."
Or something like this:
- So these people are going to Mars. And they're almost there, so they
look out the window. Then they turn around and see this man, short and
dressed all in red, and he's got this huge switchblade in his hand. "So,
guys, - he asks, - you want to go to Mars, don't you?"
Mityok and I finally were granted access to our hardware when the
training of the guys from ballistics turned up a notch. Syoma Anikin was
almost unaffected by the change -- the altitude of his heroism was only
three miles, so he would just put a cotton-filled overcoat on top of his
uniform. It was harder for Ivan, since the moment for his march into
eternity came up at thirty miles, it was cold up there and the air was
pretty thinned out, so he had to train in a fur coat, fur boots and oxygen
mask which made his entry into the narrow porthole on the mock-up really
tight. Otto, surprisingly, got it easier -- they were supposed to outfit him
with a special spacesuit with electric heating system fashioned by the "Red
Hill" factory seamstresses from several American high-altitude flight suits
we took in Vietnam, but the suit was not ready yet, so he was training in
scuba gear; I still have before my eyes an image of his reddened, sweaty
poke-marked face behind the glass mask rising over the edge of the porthole.
Upon emerging he would say something that sounded like "Zweigs!" or
"Tsveiks!"(43).
The general theory of the space automation was taught in turns by
mission chief and colonel Urchagin.
Mission chief's name was Pcadzer Vladilenovich Pidorenko. He was born
in a small Ukrainian village of Pidorenka, and so the name was inflected on
the first "o". His father worked in CheKa as well, and gave his son a name
constructed from the first letters of "Party Committee for Agriculture of
Dzerzhinsky region"; besides, the names "Pcadzer" and "Vladilen"(44)
combined to give exactly fifteen letters -- corresponding to the number of
Soviet republics. But he couldn't stand being addressed by name anyway, so
his subordinates linked to him through varied work-based relations either
called him "comrade lieutenant-general" or, like Mityok and I, "comrade
mission chief". He pronounced the word "automation" with such dreamy and
pure intonation that the Lubyanka office to which we ascended to listen to
the lectures resonated like a soundboard of a giant piano for a moment;
however, even though the word itself popped in his speech quite often, he
never conveyed any technical knowledge to us, relating instead stories from
his life or reminiscing about the times he was conducting guerilla
operations in Belarus during the war.
Urchagin never touched any technical subjects either; he would chuckle
and shell sunflower seeds into his mouth(45), or tell us something humorous.
He asked us, for example:
- How do you break farts in five parts?
When we told him we didn't know, he gave the answer himself:
- You got to fart into a glove.
And broke out in high-pitched giggles. I was astonished by the constant
optimism of this man: blind, paraplegic, bound to a wheelchair -- but still
carrying out his duty while never failing to take enjoyment in his life. We
had two morale officers in the Space Academy, who we called political
instructors sometimes behind their backs -- Urchagin and Burchagin, both
alumni of the Korchagin Military-Political Academy, both looking very much
like each other. They had only one electric-powered Japanese-made wheelchair
among them, so while one of them was busy conducting the morale-boosting
activities, the other one would lie quiet and motionless on a bed in a tiny
room on the fifth floor -- in uniform, with the blanket drawn up to the
waist to obscure the bedpan from prying eyes. Sparse furnishings of the
room, a special cardboard pattern for writing with narrow slits for lines,
the invariable glass of strong tea on the desk, white blinds on the windows
and a potted plant -- all that moved me almost to tears, in those minutes I
even stopped thinking that all communists are cunning, double-crossing
calculating bastards.
Dima Matyushevich was the last to come on board, assigned to be in
charge of the lunar module. He was extremely introverted and his hair was
completely gray despite his young age. He always carried himself very
independently; the only thing about him that I knew was that he served in
ground forces. Upon seeing the posters with nighttime landscapes above
Mityok's cot which he ripped out of the "Working Woman" magazine, Dima
pinned up a piece of paper over his cot, with a picture of a tiny bird and
large printed letters:
OVERHEAD
THE ALBATROSS
Dima's arrival coincided with introduction of a new learning subject.
It was titled like that movie -- "Strong In Spirit". This wasn't a subject
in the normal sense of the word, even though it featured prominently in the
curriculum. We got visited by people for whom heroism was in their job
description -- they told us about their lives simply, without any pathos,
their words were plain as talk around the kitchen, and because of that the
essence of heroism appeared to grow out of the mundane, from the little
everyday things, from that gray cold air of ours.
Among all the strong in spirit I remembered one retired major best,
Ivan Trofimovich Popadya(46). Funny name. He was tall, a regular Russian
warrior (his forefathers fought in the battle of Kalka River(47)), his face
and neck all red, covered in whitish beads of scars, and with a patch over
his left eye. He had a very unusual life story: he started out as a simple
ranger in a state wildlife preserve, where Party and government bosses used
to hunt, and his responsibility was to drive the animals -- bears and wild
boars -- onto the shooters behind the trees. Then the disaster stroke. A
mature male boar jumped the pennant line and mortally wounded with his tusks
a member of government, who was hiding behind a birch. He died en route to
the city, and the conference of the government officials decided to prohibit
the top brass from hunting wild prey. But such necessity, of course,
continued to arise -- and so one time Popadya was called to the Party
meeting at the preserve headquarters, they explained everything to him and
said:
- Ivan! We cannot order you -- and even if we could, we wouldn't, such
is the nature of the offer. But you see, we really need this. Think about
it. No one is going to force you.
Popadya thought long and hard, all through the night, and the next
morning went back to the Party committee and told them he agreed.
- I never expected anything less from you, -- said the local secretary.
Ivan Trofimovich was issued a bulletproof vest, metal helmet and a
boar's skin, and thus began his new line of work -- which could be justly
called daily heroism. He was a little apprehensive the first couple of
times, especially fearing for his exposed legs, but then he kind of got used
to it; also the government members (who knew what the deal was) tried to aim
for his sides, protected by the vest, under which Ivan Trofimovich always
placed a little pillow for softness. Naturally, from time to time some
enfeebled Central Committee veteran would miss, sending Ivan Trofimovich
onto disability pay; he used the time to read a lot of books, including one
that became his favorite -- memoirs by Pokryshkin(48). To give you an idea
just how dangerous his job really was, comparable as it was to armed combat,
his Party membership card that he carried in the internal sewn-in pocket had
to be replaced every week because it would be riddled with bullet holes. In
those days that he was seriously wounded other rangers would step in, his
own son Marat among them, but Ivan Trofimovich was still considered to be
the most experienced worker, so the most important cases would fall on him,
and they even held him back if some insignificant regional committee was
coming for a routine hunt (each time that happened Ivan Trofimovich took
offense, just like Pokryshkin when denied a sortie with his own squadron).
Ivan Trofimovich was cherished. In the meantime, he and his son studied the
behavior and vocalizations of the wild inhabitants of the forest -- bears,
wolves, boars -- and thus improved their skills.
It was already some time ago that the capital of our Motherland was
visited by an American politician Kissinger. He was participating in a
crucial round of negotiations on a nuclear arms reduction treaty -- made all
the more important by the fact that we never had any, but our adversaries
were to never find out. Because of all that Kissinger was cared for at the
highest state level, all branches of service were involved -- for example,
when it became known that the sort of women he likes most were voluptuous
short brunettes, four of such exact swans floated in formation over the Swan
Lake of the Bolshoi in front of his turtleshell-rimmed eyeglasses gleaming
in the darkness of the government luxury box.
Negotiations were easier to conduct amidst a hunt, so they asked
Kissinger what kind of prey he prefers. Apparently attempting a fine
political joke he said that he'd like to bag a bear, and was quite surprised
and frightened when the next morning he was indeed taken hunting. On their
way there he was told that the round was closed on two bruins for him.
These were Ivan and Marat Popadya, communists, the best special rangers
of the entire preserve. The guest felled Ivan Trofimovich with one
well-aimed shot, as soon as he and Marat emerged from the forest on their
hind legs growling; his carcass was hoisted by specially designed loops
attached in the fur and dragged to the truck. But the American couldn't
quite get at Marat, even though he was firing almost point-blank while Marat
was deliberately moving as slow as he possibly could, squaring those broad
shoulders of his against American's bullets. And suddenly the unexpected
happened -- the rifle of our guest from over the ocean misfired and he, even
before anyone was able to understand what was going on, threw it into the
snow bank and charged at Marat with just a knife. A real bear would have
disposed of such a hunter in no time, but Marat remembered the grave
responsibility he was entrusted with. He lifted his paws and roared, hoping
to scare the American away, but instead Kissinger -- whether he was drunk or
very brave, who knows -- ran closer and struck Marat in the stomach with the
knife, the thin blade penetrated between the strips of the vest. Marat fell.
All of this happened in full view of his father, lying just a few yards
away, Marat was dragged to him and Ivan Trofimovich realized that his son
was still alive -- he was moaning softly. The blood trail he was leaving
behind on the snow was not a special fluid from a hidden container -- it was
real.
- Hold on, son! -- Ivan Trofimovich whispered, choking on tears, - hold
on!
Kissinger was beyond himself with excitement. He suggested to the
officials accompanying him that they should share a bottle there on the
"mishki"(49), as he said, and then sign the agreement right away. They put
the Employee Of The Month board taken off a nearby rangers' hut on top of
Marat and Ivan Trofimovich, forming a makeshift table, with their
photographs among others right there on the board. All Ivan Trofimovich
could see over the next hour was the multitude of feet shuffling about, all
he could hear was drunken foreign talk and quick babbling of the translator;
the Americans dancing on the table almost crushed him. When the darkness
fell and the horde has left, the agreement was signed and Marat was dead. A
thin thread of blood was dripping from his muzzle onto the bluish evening
snow, and on his fur a golden Hero's star(50) glistened in the moonlight,
put there by the chief ranger. All through the night the father lied across
his dead son crying, not ashamed of his tears.
Suddenly the words "There is always a place for heroism in our lives"
that looked at me every morning from the wall of the training facility,
after having lost their meaning and becoming stale long ago, filled with
fresh significance for me. It was not some romantic gibberish anymore, but
instead a precise and sober statement of the fact that our Soviet life is
not the instance of reality but instead a kind of a forechamber to it. I
don't know if that was clear or not. Take America, for example. Nowhere
between the sparkling shop window and a Plymouth parked at the curb is there
a place for heroism, and there never was, if you don't count the moments
when a Soviet intelligence agent passed by, of course. And here, you can
found yourself standing by an exact same window, on exact same curb -- but
the times around you are going to be either post-war or pre-war, and right
there the door leading to heroism is going to crack open for you, even
though it is actually going to happen on the inside.
- You've got it, - said Urchagin when I confided my thought in him, -
but be careful. The door to heroism does open from the inside, but you
accomplish the actual feat on the outside. Don't let yourself slide into
subjective idealism. Otherwise right away, in a blink of an eye, your path
upward, so high and proud, shall have lost its meaning.
9
It was May already, some of the peat bogs around Moscow were on fire
and the sun, pale but hot nonetheless, was looking down from the smoggy sky.
Urchagin gave me this book by a Japanese writer who was a kamikaze pilot in
WWII, and I was amazed to no end by the similarities of the state of being
he described to my own. Just like he did, I never took time to think about
that which was waiting for me, lived only in the here and now, lost myself
in books, forgot about everything when looking at the movie screen flashing
with explosions (every Saturday night they showed military-historic films to
us), was really upset about my not-too-high marks for training. The word
"death" was always present in my life in a way of a reminder note stuck to
the wall -- I knew it was there in place, but I never looked at it long
enough. I never discussed this topic with Mityok either, but when they told
us that our equipment training is finally about to start we looked at each
other and seemed to have felt the first breeze of the icy storm imminently
gaining on us.
At the first sight the lunokhod looked like a large metal clothes
hamper put on eight heavy wheels resembling those you find on streetcars.
Its body featured loads of assorted protuberances, differently shaped
antennae, robotic arms and other stuff -- none of it functional; it was
there just for the sake of TV cameras, but made a profound impression all
the same. The roof was sporting diagonal serrated notches -- this wasn't
done on purpose, it's just that they used the sheetmetal for the subway
station floor where it meets the escalators, and it's always like that
there. Nevertheless, it made the machine appear even more mysterious.
Strange are the depth of the human psychology! First thing it needs is
detail. I remember when I was young, I would often draw tanks and airplanes
and show them to my friends. They always liked those pictures where there
were lots of superfluous lines, so that I would even put more of them all
over. So was the lunokhod -- a convincingly complex and clever piece of
machinery.
The lid swung away -- it was hermetically sealed, with rubber gaskets
and several layers of thermal isolation material. There was some space
inside -- approximately like in the turret of a tank, and fastened to the
floor was a slightly modified frame from the "Sport" bicycle, complete with
pedals and two gears, one of them welded carefully to the rearmost axle. The
handlebars were your regular semi-racing "horns"; by means of a special
transfer case they could be used to wiggle the front wheels slightly, but as
they told us there should not be any need for that. The walls were equipped
with shelves, but those were empty for now; the space between handlebars was
occupied by a compass, and on the floor there was a tin box painted green --
a transceiver with a phone. In front of the handlebars in the wall there
were two tiny lenses, like the fisheyes they put into the doors; if one
looked through them, he could see the edges of the front wheels and the
pretend manipulator. A radio receiver hung in the back -- just a common
mass-market brick of red plastic, with a black volume control handle (the
mission chief explained to us that in order to prevent the psychological
separation from our country every Soviet spacecraft is designed to receive
"Mayak"(51) programming). The large convex outside lenses were covered on
top and sides by metal shielding, giving the front of the lunokhod an
appearance of a face -- or rather a muzzle, quite agreeable in fact, like
the ones they draw on watermelons or appliances in children's comics.
When I installed myself inside for the first time and the lid clicked
shut over me I thought that I would never be able to endure such cramped and
uncomfortable surroundings. I had to dangle over the frame, distributing my
weight between the hands clutching the bars, feet pushed against the pedals
and the saddle which did not so much accept its share of weight as determine
the posture my body was forced to assume. The cyclist leans in this fashion
when developing higher speed -- but then he has an opportunity to flex back
which I did not have, since my head was already pressing against the lid as
it was. However, truth be told, a couple of weeks after the training started
I did get used to this and it turned out that there was quite enough space
inside for one to forget for hours on end how little space there actually
was.
The round "eyes" were located right in front of my face, but the lenses
distorted the view to such an extent that it was utterly impossible to make
sense of anything beyond the thin steel of the machine. On the other hand,
the spot just in front of the wheels was enlarged and in sharp focus, as was
the edge of one of the toothed antennae; everything else disappeared in
zigzags and patches, as if you were staring into a long dark corridor
through the glass of a gas mask.
The machine was really heavy, and it was hard to cause it to move -- so
that I even started doubting that I would be able to conquer the entire
fifty miles of the lunar surface in it. After just one spin around the yard
I got winded, my back was aching, the shoulders hurt too.
Now every other day, taking turns with Mityok, I took the elevator to
the surface, stripped down to my underwear, climbed into the lunokhod and
started my regimen of turning circles in the yard to strengthen my leg
muscles, frightening the chickens and even squashing them from time to time
-- I was not doing it intentionally, of course, but I found it absolutely
unrealistic to distinguish a wayward chicken from a piece of an old
newspaper or, for example, some laundry stripped from the line by a wind
gust, and in addition I could never put on the brakes in time to avoid them.
At first colonel Urchagin would drive in his wheelchair in front of me,
showing me the way -- he looked like a greenish-gray blob through the
lenses, - but then I got the knack for it and could go around the entire
yard with my eyes closed -- one only had to dial an exact turn into the
handlebars and machine described a sweeping circle all by itself, returning
to the starting point of the journey. I didn't even have to peer through the
"eyes" most of the time; I just worked my muscles and mulled my own
thoughts. Sometimes I would remember my childhood, sometimes -- imagine how
the rapidly approaching moment of my departure into eternity was going to
feel like. From time to time I also tried to wrap up some of the older
conundrums which started surfacing again in my consciousness. For example, I
would start thinking -- who exactly am I?
It has to be said that this question bothered me since I was a kid,
usually early in the morning when I woke up and found myself staring at the
ceiling. Afterwards, when I grew up a little, I began asking it at school,
but all I got in response was that consciousness is a property of highly
organized matter consistent with Lenin's theory of reflection. I couldn't
quite catch the meaning of those words, so I kept wondering -- how come I
could see? And who is that "I" that is seeing? And what does it actually
mean -- to see? Am I seeing something on the outside or just looking within
myself? And what is "outside" or "within"? I often felt right on the
threshold of solution, but when I tried to make the last step towards it I
would suddenly lose the "I" which was just now standing on that threshold.
When my aunt went to work she often asked our neighbor to look after
me, an old woman whom I also pestered with all those questions, taking
delight in seeing her struggle with the answers.
- You, Ommie boy, have a soul inside you, - she'd say, - it peers out
from you through your eyes, and it lives in your body, like your hamster
lives in the pot. This soul is a part of God, who created us all. So you are
this soul.
- Why would God have me sit in this pot? - I asked.
- I don't know, - said the old woman.
- Where does he sit himself?
- Everywhere, -- the old woman answered, showing with her hands.
- So I am also God?
- No, - she'd say. -- A man is not God. But he is divinely inspired.
- Is the Soviet Man also divinely inspired? -- I asked, having trouble
with the unfamiliar words.
- Of course, - said the old woman.
- Are there many gods? -- I asked.
- No. He is one.
- Then why does the dictionary say there are many? -- I asked pointing
at the Atheist's Encyclopedia on the aunt's bookshelf.
- I don't know.
- Which one is better?
But the woman answered again:
- I don't know.
And then I asked:
- Can I choose for myself?
- Go ahead, Ommie boy, - the old woman laughed, and so I buried myself
in the dictionary, where they had stacks of different gods. I particularly
liked Ra, the god in whom ancient Egyptians put their trust many millennia
ago -- I liked him because he had a hawk's head, and pilots, cosmonauts and
other heroes in general were often called "Motherland's hawks" on the radio.
So I decided that if I am indeed inspired by a god, let this be the one. I
remember I took a large notebook and scribbled this note in it, taken from
the dictionary:
"During the day Ra traverses the Celestial Nile in the Manjet-boat, the
Barque of Millions of Years, shining light on the world, in the evening he
transfers to the Mesektet-boat, the Barque of Night, and descends to the
underworld where he travels the Nether Nile fighting off forces of darkness,
and in the morning he appears on the horizon again."
The ancient people couldn't have known that the Earth was in fact
rotating around the Sun, it said in the dictionary, and this is why they
created this romantic myth.
Right under the article's text in the dictionary there was an ancient
Egyptian picture showing Ra's transfer from one barque to the other; it
depicted two identical boats side-by-side in which two girls were standing,
one of them passing to the other a hoop with a hawk sitting inside -- that
was Ra. Most of all I liked that the boats, in addition to a lot of other
stuff in them, contained what unmistakably was four Khruschev-era six-story
housing projects.
Since then, even though I continued to respond to the name "Omon", I
would always call myself "Ra", and that was the name of the main character
in my private adventures that I experienced before falling asleep, with my
face turned to the wall and eyes closed -- until the time, that is, when my
dreams have undergone the usual age-related transformation.
I wonder if anyone seeing the photo of the lunokhod in the paper would
be visited by a thought that inside the steel box, whose existence is
justified by its task to crawl fifty miles on the Moon and fall forever
motionless, there is actually a person peering out through its two glass
lenses? On the other hand, what's the difference. Even if someone does get
an inkling, they still would never guess that this person was in fact I,
Omon Ra, the true hawk of our Motherland, as the mission chief said once
embracing me by the shoulders at the window and pointing with his finger to
the glowing thundercloud in the sky.
10
Another subject that appeared in our curriculum -- "General Theory of
the Moon" -- was considered optional for everyone except Mityok and I. The
lectures were conducted by the doctor of philosophy (Ret.) Ivan Evseyevich
Kondratiev. For some reason I did not hit it off with him, even though there
was no clear rationale for my dislike; his lectures were, as a matter of
fact, quite interesting. I remember that the first meeting with us he
started in a very unusual fashion -- he read poems about the Moon to us from
scraps of paper for at least half an hour, becoming so touched himself at
the end that he had to wipe his glasses. I was still keeping notes at the
time, and this lecture left behind a nonsensical pile of quotational debris:
"And like a golden drop of honey The Moon is twinkling sweet and high... Not
long did moon's vain hopes delude us, Its dreams of love and prideful
fame... The Moon! how full of sense and beauty Is that one sound for Russian
heart!.. But in this world the other regions, By moon tormentedly beset...
And in the sky, resigned to everything, The disk of moon in shallow grin...
The flow of thought he was directing, and subjugated thus the Moon... This
uneasy and watery moonness..."(52). And two more pages in the same vein.
Then he became solemn and started speaking in authoritative voice, almost
chanting:
- My friends! Let us remember now the historic words of Vladimir Ilyich
Lenin, related by him in the year nineteen hundred eighteen in his letter to
Inessa Armand: "Of all the planets and celestial bodies, - he wrote, - Moon
remains the principal one for us."(53) Years have passed since then, many
things have changed in the world. But Lenin's judgment had lost neither its
incisiveness nor importance, the time having reaffirmed its validity. The
radiant fire of Lenin's words casts a special glow on the today's date in
the calendar. Indeed, the Moon plays an enormous role in the evolution of
the humankind. A prominent Russian scientist Georgy Ivanovich Gurdzhiev,
while still in the underground period of his activity, had developed the
true Marxist theory of the Moon. In accordance with it, Earth had five
different moons -- and this is the reason that the star, the symbol of our
great state, has five ends. The fall of each of the previous moons was
accompanied by social upheavals and catastrophes -- thus, for example, the
fourth moon which crashed onto our planet in 1904, becoming known by the
name of the Tunguska meteorite, caused the first Russian revolution, which
was followed closely by the second. The moons that fell before it led to
other changes in the socioeconomic formation -- though of course the cosmic
catastrophes were not affecting the level of development of the productive
forces, which formed independently of the will and conscience of the people
as well as influence of planets, but instead contributed to crystallization
of the subjective precursors of the revolution(54). The fall of the
contemporary Moon -- moon number five, the last one remaining, - shall usher
in the full and absolute victory of communism within the boundaries of the
Solar system. While studying this particular subject we will pay close
attention to the two major works by Lenin regarding the Moon: "Moon And The
Uprising" and "Advice From A Stranger"(55). We will start today's lesson by
addressing the bourgeois falsifications of the topic -- the views according
to which all organic life on Earth is nothing but food for the Moon, a
source of the emanations consumed by it(56). This can be proven wrong simply
by pointing out that the goal of existence of organic life on Earth is not
the nourishment of the Moon but instead, as Vladimir Ilyich Lenin amply
demonstrated, the construction of a new society, free from exploitation of
man number one, two and three by man number four, five, six and seven...
And so forth. He spoke effusively and intricately, but what I
remembered best was an example that stunned me with its poetic quality: the
weight on the end of a string makes the clock go, the Moon is such a weight,
Earth is the clock, and life is the movement of gears and singing of the
mechanical cuckoo.
Quite often we would have some kind of medical evaluation -- naturally,
we all have been studied from head to toe and crosswise. This is why upon
hearing that Mityok and I had to pass something that sounded like
"reincarnational evaluation", I just wrote it off as another reflex check or
blood pressure monitoring -- the first word did not convey anything in
particular to me. But when I was called downstairs and saw the specialist
that was supposed to conduct the evaluation I was overcome with childish
fear, very out of place considering what I was destined for in the very near
future but insurmountable nonetheless.
It was not a doctor before me in white scrubs with stethoscope sticking
out of his pocket but an officer, a colonel, but not in uniform -- he was
wearing some kind of strange black cassock with shoulder patches. He was big
and fleshy, his face red, as if burned by hot soup. Around his neck I
noticed a nickel-plated whistle and a chronometer, and but for his eyes,
which resembled the visor hole of a heavy tank, he would look like a soccer
official. He conducted himself very amiably, though, laughing often, and by
the end of our talk I did feel more at ease. He talked to me in a small
office where there were only a desk, two chairs, an examination table
wrapped in plastic and a door into the next room. After filling out several
yellowish forms he gave me a measure of some bitter liquid to drink, put a
small hourglass on the desk in front of me and exited through the second
door, instructing me to follow him there when all the sand has fallen to the
bottom.
I remember myself looking at the hourglass, amazed at how slowly the
grains of sand roll down through the glass neck, until I realized that this
was happening because each grain possessed free will and did not want to
fall down, for this was tantamount to death for them. And at the same time
their eventual fall was inescapable, and both our and "other" world, I
thought, were very similar to this hourglass -- when all who lived die in
one direction, the reality turns upside down and they become alive again,
that is, begin to die in the other direction.
I was really sad about this for some time but then noticed that the
sand was not falling anymore, and remembered that I'd better go and show
myself to the colonel. I felt trepidation and at the same time an unusual
lightness; I recall trying for quite a while to reach the door behind which
they were waiting for me, that was odd considering it was two or three steps
away. When I finally laid my hands on the door handle I pushed it, but the
door did not open. Then I pulled it towards me and discovered that I was
pulling on a blanket instead. I was on my cot, Mityok was sitting at its
edge. My head was spinning slightly.
- So? How was it? -- asked Mityok. He was strangely agitated.
- How was what? -- I asked, pushing up on my elbows and attempting to
ascertain what had happened.
- The reincarnational evaluation, - said Mityok.
- Wait, - I said, recalling how I was pulling the door handle, -
wait... No. Can't remember a thing.
For some reason I was feeling empty and alone, like I had just traveled
across a barren autumn field, and the sensation was so peculiar that I
forgot about everything else, including the feeling of impending death,
ceaseless in the last months, though it had lost its edge by now, becoming
just a background for all other thoughts.
- I see. You signed it for them, didn't you?(57) -- asked Mityok with a
hint of loathing in his voice.
- Get lost, - I said turning towards the wall.
- These two burly corporals in black frocks haul you in, - Mityok
continued, - and tell me: "Here, take back your Egyptian." And your shirt is
all covered with puke. Is it really true you don't remember a single thing?
- True, - I answered.
- Well then, wish me luck, - he said. -- It's my turn to go now.
- Break a leg, - I said. More than anything else in the world I wanted
to sleep, because I had a feeling that if I fall asleep fast enough, I would
wake up being myself again.
I heard the door squeak behind Mityok, and next it was already morning.
- Krivomazov! To the mission chief, on the double! -- one of our guys
shouted in my ear. I started to wake up, but managed to come to completely
only when I was already dressed. Mityok's cot was empty and undisturbed, all
the other guys were in their places, still in underwear. I was feeling a
certain tension in the air, everybody was stealing awkward glances at each
other, even Ivan was not shooting off his usual morning jokes, very funny
even though totally stupid. I realized something must have happened, and on
my way up to the third above-ground floor was trying to figure out what.
Walking down the corridor and squinting at the sun which tried to force its
way in through the drawn blinds I caught my reflection in an enormous dusty
mirror, marveled at the ghostly paleness of my face and realized that my
heroic feat had, for all intents and purposes, already begun.
The mission chief rose to greet me and shook my hand.
- How is your training? -- he asked
- Progressing, comrade mission chief, - I said.
He stared probingly into my eyes.
- Good, - he said after a while, - I see. Here's what I called you here
for, Omon. You are going to help me. Take this tape recorder, - he waved at
a small Japanese Walkman on the desk in front of him, - take the forms, a
pen, and go to room three twenty nine, it should be empty now. Have you ever
transcribed recordings?
- No, - I answered.
- It's simple. You cue the tape forward a little, write what you heard
and then cue it further. If you didn't catch something the first time, you
rewind and listen again, several times if you need to.
- Understood. Am I dismissed?
- Yes. Wait. I think you should understand why I asked you to do this
and not someone else. You will soon face questions, the kind that nobody
down there, - the mission chief pointed to the floor, - will be able to
answer for you. I would be within my rights not to answer you either, but I
think it's better for you to be in the loop. But keep in mind, neither the
morale officers nor the crew have to ever find out what you are about to
learn. What is happening now is a breach of protocol on my part. As you can
see, even generals commit those.
I silently took from the desk the recorder and several yellow forms
like those I saw yesterday, and went to three twenty nine. The shades were
drawn shut, the familiar metal chair with leather straps on the armrests and
legs was still standing in the center, but now some wires were going from it
to the wall. I sat behind the small desk in the corner, placed the ruled pad
in front of me and turned on the tape.
- Thank you, comrade colonel... Very comfortable, it's a recliner, not
a chair, ha-ha-ha... Of course I am nervous. This is kind of like a test,
right?... I see. Yes. With two "i"s -- Sviridenko...
I switched the recorder off. This was unmistakably Mityok's voice, but
it was strange, like someone have attached bellows instead of lungs to his
vocal cords -- he spoke sonorously and effortlessly, on a continuous exhale.
I rewound the tape a little, pushed "Play" again and did not stop the tape
anymore(58).
- ...test, right?... I see. Yes. With two "i"s -- Sviridenko... Thank
you, but I don't smoke. Nobody in our group does -- they'd throw you right
out... Yes, for more than a year now. I can't quite believe it myself. Since
I was a boy I always dreamed of going to the Moon... Of course, of course.
Precisely, only those with the soul that is crystal clear. To think -- with
the entire Earth below... About who on the Moon? No, never heard about it...
Ha-ha-ha, so that was a joke, you're funny... This place look weird, though.
Well, unusual. Is it like that everywhere or only in the Special Department?
All those skulls on the shelves, oh my God, standing like books. And
labeled, just look at that... No, no, not in that sense at all. If they're
here, it means they need to be here. Research, databases and stuff. I
understand. I understand. You don't say... So well preserved... And this
one, above the eye -- from a pickaxe(59)?.. That's mine. They had two other
forms there as well. The last check -- before Baikonur(60). Yes. Ready.
Comrade colonel, I have already described in detail... Just talk about
myself, starting from the childhood? No, thank you, I am comfortable...
Well, if that's a general order, sure. Why don't you install headrests, like
in cars. Otherwise the pillow is going