The Monastery, page 62
“… I will never again shake his hand,” Artiom promised himself in a fit of inexplicable disgust, looking at Vasilii Petrovich through the crack between the bed-boards. “He’s truly gone insane, that wormy head of his…”
Vladychka returned to his place and quietly ate the porridge, taking such a long time that it seemed he had not one spoonful but thirty-three; he even smacked his lips a few times.
“I remember in childhood,” Vasilii Petrovich shared, “I read the Lives for hours, couldn’t calm myself down. At night, I’d throw off the blanket from my body — I’m lying there, freezing for the glory of God… until my father would come in. I was mad at him for covering me up with a blanket. And now, go ahead and lie here, freeze all you like, no one will cover you. But now I don’t want to.”
Vladychka’s breathing quickened — not that he was laughing exactly, but rather supporting the story with his breathing.
“… In military school,” Vasilii Petrovich continued, “after finishing our two-year course, we arranged a joke-funeral of a student. We put him on a door and carried him out. Before the coffin, dressed-up ‘clergy’ walked, behind, the wailing family… Oh, how we thought it was funny. The choir sang, the candles burned and went out… they put tobacco in the censer. We couldn’t stop from joy, until the authorities suddenly showed up, and then, dropping the laughing dead man, we ran away… Like children, really… sometimes I close my eyes here and wait for the commanding officer from my school to walk in… and it’ll all be funny again, and we’ll all run away, bursting from laughter.”
Vladychka ate his eternal porridge and grew silent.
“Free will, the gift of the All-good God, is the most important gift of all,” Vasilii Petrovich whispered to him. “I always knew about this freedom. It lay in my inside pocket.” He touched his chest with his hand, holding an invisible bundle — “it lay as an immutable proof of the right to my moving about freely during my whole life. With this document, I always remembered that I could always hide from death behind a bush, run back… surrender, finally, and it would have pity on me and let me go again. But here I feel that I’m caught, and my soul aches and trembles.”
“… You wail, you executioner,” thought Artiom. A feeling seized him inexorably, like nausea, that it was Vasilii Petrovich who killed Afanasiev, and now he was sitting there as though nothing had happened, rummaging about in other people’s underwear. Maybe he had taken it off Afanasiev?
This feeling of hatred and disgust was a hundred times stronger because Vasilii Petrovich was saying aloud the same things that Artiom was afraid to tell himself.
That nausea was not only because of the underwear, because of the shaking head underneath him, but because of fear — a fear that had never yet grabbed Artiom so mercilessly.
Vladychka whispered words of consolation to Vasilii Petrovich, unheard by Artiom. He didn’t even want to hear them, but only watched the quivering of Vasilii Petrovich’s head, as he was listening, as though not believing anything. But at the same time, it was clear that Vasilii Petrovich agreed with Vladychka on all points, he just couldn’t get enough of his words and wanted to hear more and more thoughts about mercy, goodness and inevitable salvation.
It’s possible that Artiom also needed those thoughts, so that this horrible, sticky nausea would abandon him. But he didn’t want these thoughts to be the same for him as for that head, quivering in constant tremors.
He would have cracked it like a raw egg, so that the birds could peck out that villainous brain.
Because… because… where was Afanasiev now? Who would console him?
Afanasiev was no longer creating poems, nor was he seeking the music within himself.
But how did he cease creating it, how did he stop listening to the music, what could have happened to him? Was it possible that a single, two, three bullets could pierce such a young body and it would break immediately? What was he? A phonograph? Was he worse than a phonograph? What, you couldn’t just change the needle? To put on a new record, and then Afanasiev — fine, let him continue stuttering on his ‘s’s’ — would once again tell him about the cards, Sekirka, poems, and the salty sea-breezes of Solovki.
Because Afanasiev was somewhere — he couldn’t just disappear, right? He’s probably lying somewhere, exactly the same as an hour ago, only now he’s quiet. How is he feeling? Did they already cover him with earth? And what? Is he lying there in the ground?
It was unbearable.
“… When I worked in counterintelligence, I used to hold sugar in my mouth. It calmed me down…” Vasilii Petrovich was saying below.
Artiom stuck his face into the chink between the rare boards so hard that it crushed against his temples.
“Shut up, you old devil!” Artiom screamed almost into Vasilii Petrovich’s pate. “Shut up! Before I choke you!”
Vasilii Petrovich looked up in fear and locked gazes with Artiom. Vladychka couldn’t understand where the noise was coming from, and in his confusion, he kept looking from one side to the other.
Artiom, getting up for a moment, moving the boards aside and once again leaning down into the open space, but now not just with his head but with his whole chest and one hand, as though he were planning on grabbing that foul head by its mangy, small ear.
“He held sugar in his mouth, the sweet tooth… while he choked and smothered other people!” He yelled, swinging his hand at the recoiling face of Vasilii Petrovich and almost clacking his teeth.
“I never… not one person…” he bared his teeth and hissed through them.
“Yes!” Artiom croaked. “Never killed anyone. Only cut out small pieces! And always left the biggest piece for others in his generosity! Viper! Die, you viper!”
Understanding that by stupidly swinging from above, he would never reach anyone, Artiom turned with a racket and jumped down.
Vasilii Petrovich was no longer in place, as though he had dissolved in the half-dark of the church, but Vladychka appeared in front of him, not even saying anything, only quietly blowing at Artiom, as though he were a lit firebrand.
Artiom himself had complicated emotions — he could have pushed Vladychka aside, but he didn’t do that — not because he respected his status, he didn’t have a shadow of respect inside him — but also in fear that if he touched this person, his beard and hair would catch fire, and he would have to do something then… maybe even put the fire out so that it wouldn’t smell of burnt hair.
Making an angry gesture with his hand, meaning: piss off! Artiom turned back to the bunks and grabbed them as hard as if he were planning to tear them apart.
“I know that you, never pandering to anyone, seventy times seven forgave everyone,” Vladychka said. “Afanasiev, because of whom you went to the infirmary that time… and the dissolute women, with whom you did not sin in the infirmary… and Vasilii Petrovich, because of whom you are here right now… and all those who wanted to destroy you, you forgave them every time… why now, Tiomon’ka, in your most difficult hour, are you angry? Maybe your goodness can save you and give strength to those who are weak of spirit?”
Artiom turned back at Vladychka, extremely surprised.
“How do you know?” he asked, dumbfounded, “About Afanasiev? About… all this?”
Vladychka himself was genuinely surprised — what do you mean how? His whole countenance said, how could I not know all that? Its written black and white, I just read it.
“Does he know about my father?” Artiom asked himself in fear. “Does he know that I adored my father? That I considered him the best person on this earth? Eh?”
“There is no goodness here,” Artiom said, not waiting for an answer. “None! Got it, priest? I’m your failure.”
And once again he turned around.
“My dear, do you know how I feel?” Vladychka continued whispering, not moving away. “Solovki is the Old Testament whale on which the Christians settled. And this whale is going underwater. The black water is closing in over our heads. But while at least one head remains above the black water, there’s a chance for all the other perishable bodies to be saved, for all those gathered here not to be destroyed before their time. Don’t go under the water, my dear, don’t be covered in darkness. Everyone here is already there.”
“Go away,” said Artiom, feeling that he was about to throw up.
“He keeps talking to everyone about goodness,” he wound himself up with fitful anger, clenching his teeth with all his strength. “To every inmate here. And every one of them is an evil creature that dreams of snuggling into his own rotted-through jacket and waiting until everyone else around them dies off.”
Artiom stood there another minute, then looked around. Seeing no one there, he caught himself thinking that he had wanted to see Vladychka still standing there — why had he left? His mother wouldn’t have left? No matter how much he would have yelled at her! His mother would have still been standing there in expectation, waiting for her stupid son to call to her. A mother is kinder than God — no matter who you killed, she would still wait there with her warm hands. But that one, with the beard, promises the world — but he might not even wait it out! He might forget!”
From his excessive anger, Artiom was suddenly seized by weakness.
At first, he sat down on Vasilii Petrovich’s bunk and sat there in a half-daze.
Then he barely managed to gather his strength and climb back up to his bunk. Somehow he moved the boards back, curled up as much as he could, pulling his legs up to his stomach, hugging himself.
Exhausted by hunger, his whole body felt an eternal tickling.
His feet were completely frozen and his wool socks weren’t helping.
As he fell asleep, Artiom felt as though his feet were no longer his own, but Afanasiev’s — he had warmed his feet in these socks, after all… and even now, his dirty, twisted toes were still in there.
His smallest sepulchral toe, bluish and revolting, started to grow until it became a complete person, and now Artiom felt his whole self as though he were that little toe, and his face was as though a child’s bloodless toenail.
Then he dreamed of a person who was shot through. The bullet was stuck in the bones of his ribcage.
The person was in a coffin.
It was impossible to understand whether that was Afanasiev or Artiom, because the person was rotting.
He was falling to pieces, then the pieces became dust, and one time inside the coffin for the first time — and for the last time for the eternal years — a meek sound was heard — from under the bones, freed by the rotted flesh, the bullet rolled out and fell to the bottom of the coffin — plunk!
That fallen bullet — that was the most frightening sound in the world! The thought boomed in Artiom’s consciousness — the most frightening! The most frightening in the world from the very creation of mankind! It was impossible!
From the falling of the bullet, something moved — and a small cross worn on the chest, which had fallen through the ribcage, began to swing back and forth on its chain.
In the darkness of the tomb, the crucified Christ swung on the copper cross as on a swing set.
When Artiom woke up, he was unsurprised to see a few new inmates in the church — they had driven in another group of unfortunates.
Father Zinovii, with whom he had been in the infirmary that time. His eyes were inflamed, he took a place far away from Vladychka, and kept fingering his camlet cassock, which was shredded as though by wild beasts…
There was a homeless boy — also, through all his dirt, he seemed familiar…
Grakov, skinny and with a face as though bent. His mouth slipped somewhere down, losing its place.
Artiom had neither the strength nor the desire to speak with anyone. He sometimes caught himself in a faint spiritual rift — he wanted to sit up like a bird and watch the room with a single eye, his head cocked. Somewhere here Afanasiev was supposed to be. Why wouldn’t he be? If he would correctly align his consciousness and his vision, he might see him. Or at least hear him.
Closing his eyes, Artiom listened in on the voices — very soon, he was sure to hear Afanasiev’s laugh… or some kind of poetic joke, invented for audacity’s sake, or even for bawdiness.
Once, Artiom remembered, they had left the twelfth brigade with Afanasiev. It was a July morning, very transparent — “Look at how the church is standing, all in morning dew, like a gentle girl who had just washed…” said that insane red-head. Artiom’s shoulder twitched, and he had answered nothing. And now he suddenly thought — how much youth and purity were in that stupid phrase that in no way demeaned either the church or the girl.
But Afanasiev’s voice didn’t appear.
Everyone was oppressed and quiet.
Audibly, though quietly, only Vasilii Petrovich talked, again saying something pathetic and, judging by Artiom’s heart’s reaction, odious. Artiom recognized that he was speaking completely not out of any compassion for those killed and tortured here, but only to prove to himself that he was still alive — while he spoke, his life continued.
But, even while speaking, Vasilii Petrovich was listening, and nearly everyone was also listening, because any new sound could touch each of them with a hand of death.
Someone accidentally clanged his spoon and Artiom felt how everyone’s hearts skipped a beat at the sound. Everyone thought the same thing — the bell was coming again.
The guilty party was revealed, and he found himself surrounded by a multitude of frenzied looks, and he quickly hid his spoon somewhere in his chest, where it could never clang against timid human flesh.
Father Zinovii wandered throughout the church, asking for a little sugar, a little salt, a little bread. They didn’t even answer him.
Instead of sugar, there was only visible fear, which crunched like sand underfoot. Everyone chewed on his own fear, soundlessly breaking his own teeth.
Zinovii avoided the bunk of Vladychka, walking around him in an exaggerated angle.
From somewhere, the feeling emerged that all of this had already happened — Artiom had lived this life before at some point, with this chilling feeling of apathy, with these quiet and tedious voices of other people, with these ceilings, these bunks, sprinkled with whitewash — except he forget how the story ended.
If he had died, then how did he get here again? If he had survived, then why was he here for another round? He’s not a gull — to spend one summer on the wild hill, overgrown with full bushes, then another among the monoliths of Solovki, and so for all eternity.
Grakov walked past Artiom several times — evidently, he wanted to talk. Artiom always managed to close his eyes and pretend he was asleep, absent, disappeared without a trace.
He didn’t notice whether Grakov and Vasilii Petrovich had greeted each other. It’s possible that they nodded at each other… but they didn’t seem to be talking.
“The demons cover the earth with snares,” Father Zinovii was telling someone without waiting for either the salt or the sweet. “When I was walking here, I saw a bird in the skies. Its name is harbinger of woe.”
Artiom at first imagined a bird, then the sky, then the trees and the grass on the earth.
But you can eat grass, it seemed to Artiom. At first, it’s probably not good, but if you chew it a long time, chew, chew, then it’ll fill with human saliva, human warmth and it will become almost like soup. After all, they make nettle soup, they eat dill and onions — there’s probably some grass left, even in October, why don’t they let us out to eat it. Even dogs eat grass, after which they cough very curiously. Cows chew grass, then they give milk. That means grass is a healthy thing, since you get milk out of it.
Artiom went over and over these thoughts. They seemed very wise, and in his heart he wondered how he had never before thought to try eating grass, especially in the summer when there’s a lot of it and it’s green.
He even sat up and started to look through the chinks in the window-shield — was there any grass visible? He should tell Khasaev to make him an orderly, and when they’d be let out to carry the latrine outside, then he’d fill his pockets with grass. When all’s said and done, if it’s not as good as expected, you could always dress the gruel with it — the gruel is empty anyway.
His stomach contracted so powerfully that it was as though four hands were wringing out a shirt inside Artiom — the feeling of hunger began in the solar plexus and finished below the stomach, and from the constant wringing it became thicker, more painful, more insistent.
Sometimes, Artiom closed his eyes and began to pray to the plate of hot milk-soup. Then to a piece of bread with a piece of boiled meat. Then to a bowl with berries, and next to it stood a cup of cocoa. The prayers were debilitating.
No sooner had he seen that Artiom was sitting, Grakov, with a strange swiftness, ran up to him.
He couldn’t get out of it. Artiom silently looked at Grakov who stood below, not finding it necessary to greet him — they had already spent several hours in the same closed space. What was the point of saying hello now?
Below, the homeless boy spoke with Vladychka with a whiny voice, complaining, “They beat me harder than firemen beat the alarm bell. It’s not a childhood, but a funeral, uncle…”
“He’s lying about everything, the little creature,” thought Artiom dully, sensing all the while that the kid was uttering these words not for the first time by any stretch of the imagination.
Grakov took a step forward and put a hand on Artiom’s bunk.
“Have you been here long?” he asked with his mouth, which had slid to the side.
“… Why did they drive you here, snitch?” Artiom asked silently, looking Grakov in the eye.
Grakov didn’t hear the question and didn’t answer it.
“I don’t remember…” said Artiom unwillingly with a cracking voice. “A few days.”
Grakov clearly wanted to ask, “How is it here?” or even “Do they kill people here?” but he was shy, couldn’t, and only moved his face as though he wanted to return his mouth back to its rightful place.
“Come up here, tell me the news of the town,” said Artiom, feeling sorry for him. He had nothing else to do, except to listen to the maddening itch inside him and dream at least about the green, meaty, fleshy grass.
