Uncertain Weights and Measures Read online

  Bekhterev poured another round. The clouds of smoke hanging from the ceiling made the atmosphere seem thicker, especially once the lights were dimmed for the show.

  Do you play chess, Dr. Bekhterev? asked Luria.

  Never had time, he said. Do you?

  I’ve never even learned to castle, said Luria.

  That’s the most fascinating move, I said.

  This is what they tell me, said Luria.

  It only happens once in the game.

  Both Bekhterev and Luria were watching me. I set out our three glasses on the table and named them castle, king, castle.

  It only happens once and when it does, these two, I pointed at the king and the castle, change places, making it two moves in one.

  I picked up the pieces and passed them over each other in a neat arc.

  Seems like a good deal, said Luria.

  Ah, but who is the king of the Americans? said Bekhterev, now lost, or at least, somewhere else. I’d had their attention, but it didn’t last.

  The Duke, I said, which was how I’d heard Rima refer to him.

  Jazz is their single triumph, said Bekhterev.

  I’m surprised neither of you play, I said.

  I’m surprised you do, said Luria.

  Luria stood to go to the men’s room. While he was gone, Bekhterev left. The room was now so full that people lined the walls.

  I sat there with our coats and bags and listened to the music that sounded strangely like two things at once: a parade and a funeral march.

  Luria and I left the bar together.

  Want to walk a bit? he asked.

  October is a nice time for walking. The leaves had fallen, littering the streets, and the sound of them shuffling beneath our feet made me feel like we had company, though we were alone. Remnants of the anniversary celebrations were everywhere — tired red flags hung from balconies, the streets glittered with candy wrappers and broken glass, and wrapped around street poles and gathered in the nooks of doors were heaps of crumpled up flyers. It had been years since I’d spent any time with Luria, but walking through the streets that night we talked about anything and everything, as though we’d always been close friends, or at least should have been. I can’t remember if we’d been walking for ten minutes or an hour when Luria admitted that something had bothered him about the opening.

  I know, I said. I could tell.

  He glanced at me with a small smile. He was pleased. Pleased that he’d been noticed, even if it also meant, in a way, that he’d been caught.

  Did you see Bogdanov there? asked Luria.

  Why?

  We’d come to the Kitay-gorod. The vendors were all hanging about, drinking and talking after their day. It was illegal to sell things on the streets, so they pretended they weren’t vendors when the police were in view and pestered everyone when they weren’t. They whispered their offerings as we passed. It was the same everywhere, which lent all street transactions the feeling of criminality, something quite comical since what they were selling were onions, hand tools, or suits. That they whispered indicated something that didn't occur to be then but does now: they whispered because they could tell who were police and who weren’t. Now, there’s no telling.

  Luria didn’t like him being at the opening.

  Where else would he possibly be? I asked. His institute is in the building, too.

  Luria hadn’t realized this. Luria didn’t understand that Bogdanov cast a spell on everyone he met, so I tried to explain.

  There was something incredible about Bogdanov. Everyone wanted him around. He seemed to glow. Not in a spiritual way, not exactly, but as if he were his own source of power, as if electricity flowed through him in the way everyone used to be afraid of. His mind raced with the most exquisite thoughts. Get close to him once, and he’d change your thinking on the working man’s connection to vitalism; get close to him again, and he’d tell you how to rob a bank. Then he’d explain the politics of the plot — robbing a bank was not stealing, it was expropriation: liberate the funds so that they can finally go out and do some real good in the world! As I spoke, I got caught up in the thrill of him.

  I told Luria I just wanted to hand Bogdanov a gun and say shoot! Get rid of anything that will hold us back, and I imagined he’d do it and no one who would regret it would still be standing.

  But you know, said Luria in his measured way, there was a time when, if you’d done that, it would have been Lenin who would have been shot.

  Lenin was shot, I said, practically yelling, and anyway, that’s not what I mean!

  I’d had too much to drink.

  What held us back was half-way thinking, the tendency to want change that wouldn’t actually change anything at all. The angle I’d chosen for displaying Lenin’s brain and then replicated for all the others might have had something to do with the gunshot. We didn’t know why, exactly, the black had taken over that part of Lenin’s brain, but the gunshot might have been to blame.

  I mean, said Luria, Lenin would have died if you’d given Bogdanov a gun. Bogdanov’s friend wasn’t such a good shot.

  This was supposed to be a black mark for Bogdanov, the fact that he’d turned against Lenin, but it wasn’t for me. Lenin couldn’t have been killed in that moment, even if Bogdanov had been the gunman. What had happened was the Social Revolutionaries had lost and the Bolsheviks had won, and not everyone agreed about which one was better. But it was Lenin who was considered a genius, not Bogdanov, and it was Lenin we’d remember. Disagreement was a good thing. It meant we were alive. It meant we were thinking.

  I’m not sure about you, said Luria.

  This was the difference between science in the universities and science in the institutes. In the institutes our mandate was to do something big. Marx had been clear: philosophers have only explained the world, but the point was to change it. That was what we would do. We would change the world. Science was a fortress; scientists were an army. We were fighting the good fight. Science was lighting the world on fire.

  After we parted, I walked along Pirogovskaya and thought of Bekhterev, of the pall that had clung to him throughout the night, and of the institute and how well it ought to have fulfilled everything he had hoped for. I thought of what Luria had said and of Rima, of all the nights she and I had stumbled down that very street, and it seemed almost possible that I could run into the two of us, drunk, on our way into the city, and that if I did, neither of us would be surprised to see time intersecting like that. I’d see my earlier self, my young drunk self who wanted to catch up to Rima, who wanted to stop in the park, who wanted to vomit, who wanted to go home. I wished I could see Rima, but it was too late; her husband, Yuri, would be angry, and Sasha would be expecting me.

  In the park near our home, I saw the familiar figures in their usual spots. The three huddled together under the chestnut tree were kids, probably between the ages of ten and twelve. The kids were scrawny, so they looked younger than they were, but they were mean, which made them look older. They scared me. They would light a fire later and try to hide it by doing it in a metal cylinder, rolled over from somewhere, but it wouldn’t work.

  A few benches away, a man I knew as Tobias was smoking a cigarette. He greeted me with a nod, but I needed to get home and he could tell. He was one of those who hadn’t transitioned well; he’d lost everything, whatever that was, and never found a way to get anything back. Sasha and I had met him some years previous on a hot summer’s night, when the whole city seemed to gather around whatever water it could find. Tobias was already living on the streets back then, and so he bathed in water fountains whenever he got a chance. He’d impressed us because he’d developed a dignified method of going about it. He’d strip down to his underwear, folding his clothes neatly on the fountain edge, and then wade in, scrupulously avoiding the area of the fountain where the children played because, in his estimation, no parent would want their kid mingling with the likes of him. He carried a small cake of soap with him wherever he went,
and on that summer night, after he’d bathed, he sat with us to talk. Back then, he was still relatively healthy. Dirtier than the students and workers who hung around the park during the day, but he ate and didn’t smoke so much. He drank, sure, but it wasn’t killing him.

  When I got home, I stood beneath the window to the apartment Sasha and I had moved into just after we married. On the day we were supposed to pick up our key from the concierge, we’d stood right there, looking at each other, both afraid, but laughing, as though the realness of our decisions had suddenly hit us. We were as surprised as we were delighted. All housing was allocated by the state, but the fact of it being allocated to us as a couple gave it a special allure — it was the first thing that was ours. It was small, just two rooms, but we had a balcony to ourselves, and it was out there that we sat on nights that were warm enough, smoking cigarettes and sharing our days. The lights were off now, but I knew he wouldn’t be sleeping, not soundly at least. A part of him would be awake, waiting for me.

  The building’s concierge only stayed awake until eleven at night, after which he’d lock the building with the only existing keys. The first year we were there, we’d rush home for our curfew, always getting back just as the lock was being turned. Then we got comfortable and started to push the limit, always assuming the concierge would be there, that he liked us, that we were special enough and young enough and charming enough for him to wait. Then one night we were locked out. We stood there bickering — me blaming Sasha, Sasha blaming me — until we saw one of our neighbours come home, casually knock on a ground-level window, wait a few minutes for it to open, and then climb his way in. After that, we made sure one of us got home before eleven, so as to let the other in later. At the beginning, it had usually been me letting Sasha in, but now our roles had reversed.

  Sash, I whisper-yelled. Sasha!

  The wind had kicked up and his name was swept away on the gusts, indistinguishable from the sound of rustling leaves. I found a small pebble and tossed it upwards. I watched it dance across our window, and then the light came on.

  He would let me in via the window to the first-floor communal kitchen. That there were communal kitchens on every floor might sound like a lot, but they served the whole floor, meaning twelve apartments and however many people — legal or otherwise — were housed therein. The first-floor kitchen was always filthy, the insides of the window thick with cooking oil and fat. Only Mr. Cycan, who lived beside the kitchen, ever cleaned the windows. But he’d been ill, so they were covered with a semi-permanent smear that blurred whatever was happening inside.

  I waited in the cold, blowing warm air onto my fingers, trying to imagine Sasha’s movements, the precise moment when he would leave our apartment, close the door soundlessly behind him, amble down the two sets of stairs, and make his way to the kitchen.

  The kitchen light came on and I saw a dark shape move behind the window. Then the latch was released and Sasha’s sleepy face appeared.

  Hello my darling, I whispered.

  The legs of a chair came through the window, guided by Sasha’s hidden hands.

  I took the chair from him, stood on it, and climbed in. Once I’d made it inside, Sasha reached outside to pull the chair through the window, and then we guided it back through together to make sure it wouldn’t bang against the window frame. He was wearing only shorts and wool socks, and in his silent efficiency — he was almost never efficient — I could see that he’d been worried. We replaced the chair and Sasha padded out of the kitchen and down the hall, his shoulders pulled back, as if he were in the military, though they never would have accepted him even if he’d tried. I knew I should not laugh, but a snicker escaped my lips and he turned, quickly, as if about to say, So you think it’s funny, do you? But when he turned, he looked down at his feet, the socks slipping away from his toes like dogs’ tongues on a hot day. He turned back and kept going, but I’d seen him smile.

  Maybe Luria was right, I thought, as I followed Sasha down the hall, maybe we were a strange couple, but that smile, that smile had always made me feel like we belonged together. Sasha ambled up the stairs but I lagged behind because my body suddenly seemed to weigh thousands of kilos, and every step demanded all my strength. It was as though the warmth of our building and proximity to our bed had given me permission to feel the deep tiredness that had been building in me for weeks. Inside our apartment, Sasha took off my hat, scarf, coat, then sweater, dress, underthings. I closed my eyes and felt him kiss my neck, my collarbone, the side of my breast, and then pull my nightclothes onto my body as if I were a child. This, too, had become part of our nightly routine. Only when we were in bed and on the verge of sinking into sleep did he ask how it went, and I said very well, and he whispered that he was so glad.

  Sasha was a few years older than me, but when we met, we were both studying, so we seemed about the same age. We both were poor, but he was poorer. I received food rations; he had to work. I had my own room; he shared a room with another student. We didn’t talk about it, but I knew then that he was poorer because historically he had been richer. The art students got access to studios, though, and those small nooks and corners became their sanctuaries. Sasha’s was in an old warehouse that had been divided and subdivided so many times that going inside it was like entering a maze. Ever since going there the first time, that warren of rooms had been embedded in my psyche. It is a place I still return to in my dreams. To this day, I often find myself wandering in and out of the rooms, perceiving the spaces from strange angles — through a window I could never have accessed from the outside — or from above, as though I were an informer, vigilantly waiting for any kind of infraction, whispered or performed. The hastily built spaces had paper-thin walls, so we could hear even the slightest murmur in the studio next door. As I fell asleep that night, it was into that labyrinthian building that I fell.

  The first time he took me there was late spring of 1921. We had been to the theatre for the first time, and I remember feeling extravagant. The theatre was once free but in those years of NEP, it was suddenly expensive, even for students. I had worn one of my mother’s dresses because it seemed to me that going to the theatre was as much a performance for us as it was for the actors on stage. We could barely afford the tickets. I don’t remember the name of the play, but the set design made such an impression on me that I can see it now, as if I’d last seen it yesterday and not many years ago. When the curtain lifted to reveal something that looked like the inner workings of a clock mixed with the assembly line, I grinned at Sasha, thrilled at the idea that the Revolution had so transformed society that even the theatre reflected it. Against the theatre’s crumbling opulence, with its curved balconies and its not-so-plush red velvet seats, the sharp mechanical geometries that played out on stage looked to me like the future.

  Yet I’ve forgotten what happened in the play itself, perhaps because its fictional drama was upstaged by the real drama that took place in the house. Despite our officially classless society, a new social stratum had appeared. Almost as soon as we took our seats, a tangy sweet sunshine smell wafted throughout the theatre, making our mouths water with want. Heads everywhere turned to look. Up in the balconies, some NEP men were eating clementines and our mouths yearned for something as sweet, as juicy, as fresh. The NEP men and NEP women were the special class that emerged in those years. They were newly rich and their tastes were for anything extravagant, anything that glittered or sang or infused the air with desire. Sasha said they had no style; I thought they had no values. The NEP men and NEP women didn’t care what we thought. They had furs and nylon stockings. They had clementines. I looked at Sasha as if to say, I hate them, but what he understood from my expression was, I want one.

  In the intermission, Sasha disappeared for a few minutes. He slipped away, saying he’d be back in a minute, but it took more than a minute for me to make my way out of the theatre and across the salon towards the stairs that circled down to the milling crowds. I leaned on the balcony railing a
nd watched the people below, the way they tipped their wine glasses to their mouths, the way the glasses captured the glowing light of the room, the way the room was burgundy and gold, the colours of fire, and the deep blacks of a burned log after the fire had gone out. A bell rang to tell us the show would soon resume. This crowd knew how long they had, there was no rushI didn’t know how long. I straightened up and tried to find Sasha. After some minutes, the bell rang again. People were starting to return to their seats. I wondered if Sasha was sick. Had he gone to the bathroom? I wouldn’t ask; our relationship was still too new then, and I was too shy.

  Then, at the third bell, I looked down the stairs and saw Sasha, taking the steps two at a time. He paused at the landing and looked up at me, grinning, then back down to the lobby where a man and a woman seemed to have lost something. I shook my head because I knew he’d done something he shouldn’t. He kissed me on the neck when he was beside me again. It wasn’t until the show had resumed that an explanation emerged: he pulled two clementines out of his pocket and handed one to me. Even if he was poor in those days, he wasn’t afraid to say he wanted more, and when luxury appeared, like the clementine that night, he ate it as if he always had such things — no slowing down, not for anything. I savoured each segment and didn’t eat the last one until the curtain closed. It was both the sweetest thing I had ever put in my mouth, and, for a split second, the most bitter, because I was sure I’d never taste a clementine again.

  We left the crowds after the show and walked up Tverskaya beneath the deep blue sky that is so particular to late spring. Normally, Tverskaya is bustling no matter what time of day. Even at night, carriages and taxis troll the street, their drivers pestering those on the sidewalks for money or amusement or both. But on that night, it was quiet. All the city boulevards were strung with lights, which made night walking especially wonderful. Our faces slipped in and out of the warm orbs of light that emanated from each little globe. The trees bore all the signs of late spring, budding or already ostentatiously in leaf. The air was succulent and so fresh I wanted to drink it. The stores had closed early on account of a holiday, but some of the storefronts were still lit. We passed fur shops and bakeries and many remont shops whose signs were nothing more than an image of whatever they repaired: watches, suitcases, boots, and so on. We walked past the windows of Moscow’s most expensive stores and turned onto the side street that was home to his studio. Sasha and I seemed to walk at the same pace. Maybe this was because we were about the same height, or maybe it was because of the peculiar way every step he took implied a pause. Like he was waiting, mid-step, for me; waiting so that when our feet met the ground they would do so at precisely the same moment. It was a bit like dancing. With each pause I felt my insides jump, as if I couldn’t breathe. Maybe it was the dress, I thought. My mother had been smaller at the waist than me, so her dress held me too tightly there, but then, at the bust, too loosely. When Sasha and I got to his studio, I had to slow down, taking every single step. At any other time, I would skip steps because I liked leaping. Sasha took the steps at my pace, but every time after that we would race, and I would win.