Uncertain Weights and Measures Page 16

  And then I was aware that I was not alone. I had the feeling of having been caught.

  The chandelier clicked on; its filaments jumped to life.

  I stood up.

  Sarkisov walked slowly around the other side of the exhibits, picking up a chair from the opposite wall, dragging it behind him, slowly, as though it were made of lead and he were exceptionally tired. The chair caught on an uneven square in the parquet flooring and righted itself with a small jump. All of this happened in a regular amount of time, that is to say, quite quickly, yet I noticed every small thing about the way he was moving, the sweep of the chair, its arc as he swung it around him, and how he sat down and motioned for me to sit squarely in front of him, so close our knees were almost touching.

  I was still beneath the chandelier, but now its lights were glowing and I felt very much on display.

  It must be difficult for you, he said, to be here without Dr. Bekhterev. He leaned forward, as if looking for a sign. All this time, the two of you together, teacher and student, he trailed off, waiting for me to respond.

  I realized that I’d never particularly looked at him, never noticed the deep creases that cut down his cheeks, nor the wrinkles across his forehead — none of these lines the result of joy.

  Yes, I said, looking down at my hands, wondering if he was being kind to me or if the knot in my gut was some sort of instinctual response to a legitimate threat. The institute would be different now. The edges of the room receded and the corners on the exhibits sharpened. Like any other worker, I would need to prove myself. Like any other worker, I could fail. All this was communicated to me across the silence Sarkisov and I shared.

  He was an important mentor to you, a kind of father figure. I know he was very fond of you. He went on, Did you know he thought you were very gifted?

  I looked down at my lap, almost happy with this news but wary nevertheless. He was asserting himself, explaining that he’d seen my special status under Bekhterev — and that now it was gone.

  It is a shame that he fell ill so suddenly, he said, leaning back, crossing his arms over his chest.

  Because everything he said was not declarative — not a statement of fact, but investigative, a probe into me and my capacity to work without Bekhterev— I knew not to react. Yet inside, I was imagining myself at the deathbed, at the moment of sickness, at the moment of passing. I’d not been able to imagine it before because Bekhterev was unassailable. When he moved to St. Petersburg from the countryside at the age of sixteen, he had suffered what he called a mental derangement. He’d told me about it in the context of something else, but all I’d ever thought about it was the strength he’d shown: an unwillingness to succumb to pressure — even when it came from within. He’d diagnosed himself with severe neurasthenia and healed himself within a period of twenty-eight days. Despite that strength, ever since he’d told me about the incident, I’d watched for its recurrence, worried that I was wrong, aware that everyone was vulnerable in some way or to something. I’d gotten old enough to know that.

  And to have died, despite all the medical attention he received, Sarkisov went on.

  Oh? I asked, looking at him.

  He looked up at the chandelier. The warm light had softened the lines on his face, making him appear younger.

  I looked up as well and noticed that one of the lights in the chandelier had burned out. Perhaps it had never worked to begin with.

  He sat up straight and said categorically, I was there, of course. As was Prozorov, Professor Blagovolin and, on the request of the Health Commissioner, a close colleague of Bekhterev’s, Professor Ilyin was called.

  I knew some of those men.

  We didn’t leave until we were certain he would pull through. It was a great shock, then, to hear that he had died the next day. Sarkisov coughed into his hand and said, But we move forward.

  Yes, I said.

  He stood up and moved behind his chair. Again, I noticed his height. Holding on to the chair back, he said, I have a special task for you — a way that you can recognize the special contribution that Dr. Bekhterev made.

  Anything at all, I said. I’ll do anything.

  I thought so, he said, clapping his hands loudly and then rubbing them together, producing a sound that was chalky, as though they were both exceptionally dry and exceptionally soft.

  He began, then, to question me about my experience at the institute. To what degree had I worked on the exhibits? Had I prepared the specimens? Despite the fact that I hadn’t, did I feel as though I had acquired enough knowledge to prepare a good specimen? If not, did I know who to ask? Would Anushka be of help? What about Zhanna? Did I know, for example, about the particularities of the microtome that Dr. Vogt had left with us, and had I familiarized myself with the locations for purchasing a new blade and was I, as it were, on good terms with Dr. Vogt, and could I not, perhaps, be in touch with him directly with any questions I might have about the microtoming of our newest acquisition. This was how I found out, or it would be more precise to say that this was how I realized — and it made me sick, I’ll admit it, though only briefly — that we would be displaying Dr. Bekhterev’s brain; I had at once the feeling that this was as it ought to be, and yet it was terrible, terrible, terrible.

  When the corners of my eyes itched with the first threat of tears, I coughed and made a display of sniffing so that there might be some other reason for any emerging redness in my eyes. There was no question of sentimentality with Sarkisov. Was I, he asked, familiar with Dr. Bekhterev’s biography? Might I feel equipped to write up a sort of memorandus, and would I know people with whom I could speak in order to gather further information about his life, his commitments, his activities, such as they were. He said this in a tone I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Perhaps I might be able to ascertain whether or not he was a true Communist, perhaps I might find out if he had ever attended the rallies, the meetings, the speeches, and, if he hadn’t — and here Sarkisov raised his eyebrows pointedly — I might find out why.

  Hadn’t he written books on materialism? I wondered.

  All this information would permit of a larger goal, said Sarkisov, one which would become clear, but only in due time. Of course, a report would be required, a report that could condense the memorandus: we would condense it, he said, emphasizing the we, and all of this must be finished quickly and efficiently because our public will expect to see Dr. Bekhterev’s wishes fulfilled, and soon.

  I looked disoriented, I suppose, because he clarified that Bekhterev had willed his brain to the institute, a statement that seemed to be Sarkisov’s final attempt, a conclusive effort, to upset me. And again, I willed myself to remain blank. I felt ill-equipped for the task, felt that I owed that much to Bekhterev, but hoped also that Sarkisov had chosen me for a reason, seeing in me some innate skill I didn’t know I had.

  Good, then, he said, and left me sitting there with my hands knotted up in my lap, as if they been tightly holding onto something, though there was nothing.

  That night I met Sasha at Max’s, a small bar near his old studio. On the phone, I’d left a message telling him to meet me, telling him we’d be celebrating because if I was going to move on, it would be like that — in celebration. I was no longer an assistant; I was in charge. Before too long, I thought, it would be my photograph that would be taken.

  Nothing about Max’s had changed over the years except that when we’d first gone there, the ban on alcohol meant we’d had to fill our glasses under the table. Now we could order drinks directly. The place didn’t have more than five tables, but it was packed. Smoke clouded the room. When I first got in, I couldn’t see Sasha anywhere, and then I found him, hidden in the back at a corner table. The barmaid he liked so much was there talking to him, standing between him and the door so he didn’t see me when I entered. When he did, he straightened up and she slipped away, taking a glass with her. The ashtray overflowed with his smashed-up cigarettes.

  I was about to take off my coat when
Sasha stood and said, Let’s go.

  I imagined telling him the good news, describing the assignment from Sarkisov as a kind of promotion. A recognition and a challenge. I thought that Sasha and I would order cognac, or maybe go home, and how maybe somewhere in the apartment he’d hidden a bottle of something, saved it for a special occasion. We’d bring it out and set out our two good glasses and pull on our warm socks and smoke cigarettes and laugh and feel like things would get better. Feel like we had felt when we were younger.

  But when we left the bar, he walked ahead of me, and too fast for me to keep up. In the conversation we were going to have, I was going to ask him about his day. How was your work? I would have asked, and Sasha would have told a funny story. The more I thought about what I wanted to have happen and then put it up next to the dark image of his figure hurrying ahead of me, the sadder I got.

  When he lifted up his arm to hail a taxi, then stepped out onto the street before it had properly slowed, and in doing so, almost got himself run over, I knew that something was quite wrong. We couldn’t afford taxis.

  What’s the big news? he asked, once we were both inside.

  I told the driver where we were going. Do you have money for this? I asked Sasha, reaching across his body to look in his pockets for change.

  What are we celebrating? he asked, stretching out the words, making them taut and strange, because he was feeling sarcastic and didn’t want to celebrate at all.

  His pockets were empty and we had only made it halfway home.

  We need money for this, I said, and told the driver to stop. I gave him all I had, but it wasn’t enough and he cursed at me as he drove away.

  Sasha’s arm draped across my shoulder, transferring all of his weight onto me. From the level of the street, up over the worn curb, and clean across the whole sidewalk, lay a continuous sheet of ice. If I’d ducked out from under his arms, he’d have fallen.

  So what’s going on? I asked.

  Nothing, he said.

  I let go. A nearby lamppost took hold of him and held him up.

  All that week, Sasha seemed to be home earlier than me, something which didn’t solidify into anything strange, until he told me that he’d lost his job.

  On this night, Sasha was sitting on our couch when I walked in. I’d been at the institute far too late, completing a preparation that Anushka had started but had gotten too tired to finish. Ever since the conversation with Sarkisov in the grand salon, I’d felt more and more responsible for what happened at the institute, for what would happen to it now that Bekhterev was gone. I’d made myself a tea down the hall in the kitchen before continuing to our apartment.

  He’d been reading, which was something he’d decided to do more of lately, but he put the book down and got up when I came in. Beside him there was a collection of teacups stacked precariously, one on top of the other on the ledge of the balcony door, a spoon sticking up out of the top one. The air smelled stale.

  How are you? I asked, handing him my tea so I could take off my boots.

  Thinking, he said, blowing on the tea to cool it down for me.

  When my boots were off, Sasha handed it back.

  Do you ever think about the Osorgins? he asked. I mean, wonder where they are? Or what really happened?

  Sasha was nostalgic for something that had never happened — the conversations he’d wished we could have had at their place, with them or without them, in the bookshop or afterwards at the bar down the street. That place gave him ideas, he said, in a way that hardly anything else did. This was why he was reading again, trying to get it back.

  Whenever he got like this, thinking about the past all the time, he got an aura about him that enveloped me, pulled me in.

  I always used to feel, he said, as if the messages on the blackboard had been written specifically with me in mind.

  Whoever does not wish to sink into the wretchedness of the finite is constrained in the most profound sense to struggle with the infinite. That was Kierkegaard. That was Sasha.

  I had thought about them that night on the landing, when Elisa first told us about their disappearance but since then, hardly at all.

  Of course I think about them, I lied. But they got sent to Berlin, didn’t Elisa say that?

  She said Finland.

  Elisa hadn’t said anywhere, but he didn’t seem to remember.

  I set the tea down on top of the bookshelf and opened a jar of jam, smelling it to make sure it wasn’t off before delivering two spoonfuls into my cup: extra sweet because I was so tired.

  Anyway they would have gone on to Berlin, I said to Sasha. That’s what everyone does. They would have found a life there.

  I guess, said Sasha.

  I walked over to him and opened the balcony door a crack.

  Does it smell in here? asked Sasha.

  Like a boy’s bedroom, I said, but he looked hurt so I added, Have you been here all day? I bent down to kiss him, but he was distracted.

  They’ve probably set up a new bookstore in Berlin, I said. It’s probably got the same name. Maybe they hired Schopenhauer.

  He’s dead, said Sasha.

  I set my tea down and stretched my arms back behind my head. The thing with winter was that its aches stayed with you even when you went inside. I was depleted, and Sasha was depleting me further. I could tend to his existential concerns for only so long.

  I lost my job, said Sasha.

  If I thought I felt tired before, it was nothing compared to the draining dismay I felt inside me then, thinking of how we’d have to struggle now, how being the youngest boy in a rich family meant he’d always be that child, thinking that someone, somewhere, ought to provide for him, and how now he thought it would be me. I’d always tried not to think of him as a type, but it was becoming harder to resist the idea that our types were so different that no amount of love could bridge the gap.

  Schopenhauer’s dead? I asked.

  Did you hear what I said? said Sasha.

  I sat down next to him.

  He’d had an argument with someone at work and had, as a result, been transferred from the studios on the second floor to working in the gallery on the first. The argument had been so bad that Sasha had been told to stay at home until the gallery needed him. He hadn’t been fired but he’d put it that way — worse than it was — so that I could get angry and then be relieved that it wasn’t as bad as it seemed.

  I’ll start next week. They have a big install coming up, he said in an optimistic tone, but I still felt so tired inside.

  What did you do? I asked.

  That’s nice, Tatiana.

  Well there must have been something, I said.

  A difference of opinion, said Sasha.

  The clock ticked. The two spoonfuls of jam had been a mistake. As the tea cooled, the mixture tasted more and more like cough syrup. At what point did a difference of opinion become a difference of values? And at what point did an ideological difference mean working with a friend was more like working with an enemy? Had he become someone’s enemy?

  He wasn’t happy with the transfer but he was powerless to do anything about it. The state provided everything except choice, but choice seemed to be what Sasha wanted most.

  What hurt was that Sasha had started to like his work in the studio. Not the work itself — he could never enjoy the aesthetic— but he liked the people. He liked having lunch with them, and going to Max’s at the end of the week.

  You’ll still see the people, I said. You’ll just be downstairs.

  I stood and added my teacup to his collection. I grabbed a cigarette from my bag and went back to the balcony door, pulling it open a little farther to let the smoke out and more fresh air in.

  I used to make art, Tatiana. Now all I’ll be doing is hanging it.

  This was the real problem. It wasn’t that he’d liked working with Rodchenko, nor colouring, nor any of that. No job would ever be a good job because he’d never wanted to have to have a job at all. He’d wanted
to be a painter, but nobody wanted that kind of painting now, and this meant he felt that no one wanted him.

  I thought these years were good for artists, I said, lighting my cigarette. I’d heard someone say that.

  No, said Sasha, these years are good for illustrators, not artists. Illustrators don’t have original ideas, but artists do.

  I wanted to ask what original thoughts he’d had lately, but, for the sake of marital peace, refrained. I knew him, though, and I knew that even if the new job wasn’t perfect, he’d make it work because although he was a rich kid at heart, he knew how to work things out. People had different ways of adjusting to change. Some people were resigned; other people complained. And some extraordinary individuals were able to turn a bad situation into a good one. That’s what Sasha had done with the colouring job. He was a guy who knew how to buy contraband cigarettes from a girl in a public square in the middle of Moscow. He knew how to find clementines. He would figure this out, too.

  It’s not that I want fame, he said. It’s that I’m not myself here. I can’t be myself.

  You’ll find a way, I said. And anyway, why can’t you be a part of something bigger than you? Why do you always have to be yourself? Why is it all about you?

  Don’t make it like that, he said. I’m not being selfish, I just want to feel like I’m more than just part of a machine. That’s how we’re treated here, like we’re nothing more than cogs in a wheel. Why don’t you hate the timekeepers as much as I do? he asked.

  I tried to find it in me to hate the idea that someone might be trying to make us more productive, but I didn’t hate it. I wanted to be more productive. I wanted to be more everything. Not only that, the timekeepers were a fixture in factories only — no one was really tracking the time it took Sasha to draw a line nor me to catalogue a figure. He only hated them on principle and he wanted me to hate them, too.