Definitely Maybe: A Manuscript Discovered Under Unusual Circumstances Read online

  PRAISE FOR

  DEFINITELY MAYBE

  “One of the Strugatsky brothers is descended from Gogol and the other from Chekhov, but nobody is sure which is which. Together they have now proved quite definitely that a visit from a gorgeous blonde, from a disappearing midget, from your mother-in-law, and from the secret police, are all manifestations of a cosmic principle of homeostasis, maybe. This is definitely, not maybe, a beautiful book.”

  —URSULA K. LE GUIN

  “Surely one of the best and most provocative novels I have ever read, in or out of sci-fi.”

  —THEODORE STURGEON

  “Provocative, delicately paced and set against a rich physical and psychological background, this is one of the best novels of the year.”

  —CHICAGO SUN-TIMES

  PRAISE FOR

  ROADSIDE PICNIC

  “It’s a book with an extraordinary atmosphere—and a demonstration of how science fiction, by using a single bold central metaphor, can open up the possibilities of the novel.”

  —HARI KUNZRU, THE GUARDIAN

  “Gritty and realistic but also fantastical, this is a novel you won’t easily put down—or forget.”

  —io9

  “It has survived triumphantly as a classic.”

  —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

  PRAISE FOR THE STRUGATSKY BROTHERS

  “The Strugatsky brothers demonstrate that they are realists of the fantastic inasmuch as realism in fantasy betokens a respect for logical consequence, an honesty in deducing all conclusions entirely from the assumed premises.”

  —STANISŁAW LEM

  “[In writing Gun, with Occasional Music], I fused the Chandler/Ross MacDonald voice with those rote dystopia moves that I knew backwards and forwards from my study of Ballard, Dick, Orwell, Huxley, and the Brothers Strugatsky.”

  —JONATHAN LETHEM

  “Successive generations of Russian intellectuals were raised on the Strugatskys. Their books can be read with a certain pair of spectacles on as political commentaries on Soviet society or indeed any repressive society.”

  —MUIREANN MAGUIRE, THE GUARDIAN

  “Their protagonists are often caught up in adventures not unlike those of pulp-fiction heroes, but the story line typically veers off in unpredictable directions, and the intellectual puzzles that animate the plots are rarely resolved. Their writing has an untidiness that is finally provocative; they open windows in the mind and then fail to close them all, so that, putting down one of their books, you feel a cold breeze still lifting the hairs on the back of your neck.”

  —THE NEW YORK TIMES

  DEFINITELY MAYBE

  ARKADY (1925–1991) and BORIS (1933–2012) STRUGATSKY were the most acclaimed and beloved science fiction writers of the Soviet era. The brothers were born and raised in Leningrad, the sons of a critic and a teacher. When the city was besieged by the Germans during World War II, Arkady and their father, Natan, were evacuated to the countryside. Boris remained in Leningrad with their mother throughout the war. Arkady was drafted into the Soviet army and studied at the Military Institute of Foreign Languages, graduating in 1949 as an interpreter from English and Japanese. He served as an interpreter in the Far East before returning to Moscow in 1955. Boris studied astronomy at Leningrad State University, and worked as an astronomer and computer engineer. In the mid-1950s, the brothers began to write fiction, and soon published their first jointly written novel, From Beyond. They would go on to write twenty-five novels together, including Roadside Picnic, which was the basis for Andrei Tarkovsky’s film Stalker; Snail on the Slope; Hard to Be a God; and Monday Begins on Saturday, as well as numerous short stories, essays, plays, and film scripts. Their books have been translated into multiple languages and published in twenty-seven countries. After Arkady’s death in 1991, Boris continued writing, publishing two books under the name S. Vititsky. Boris died on November 19, 2012, at the age of seventy-nine. The asteroid 3054 Strugatskia, discovered in 1977, the year Definitely Maybe was first published, is named after the brothers.

  ANTONINA W. BOUIS has translated many Russian writers, including Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Tatyana Tolstoya, Sergei Dovlatov, and Andrei Sakharov.

  THE NEVERSINK LIBRARY

  I was by no means the only reader of books on board the Neversink. Several other sailors were diligent readers, though their studies did not lie in the way of belles-lettres. Their favourite authors were such as you may find at the book-stalls around Fulton Market; they were slightly physiological in their nature. My book experiences on board of the frigate proved an example of a fact which every book-lover must have experienced before me, namely, that though public libraries have an imposing air, and doubtless contain invaluable volumes, yet, somehow, the books that prove most agreeable, grateful, and companionable, are those we pick up by chance here and there; those which seem put into our hands by Providence; those which pretend to little, but abound in much. —HERMAN MELVILLE, WHITE JACKET

  DEFINITELY MAYBE

  Originally published under the title За мuллuapб лem бo кoнцa cвema [One Billion Years to the End of the World]

  Copyright © 1976, 1977 by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

  Translation copyright © 1978 by Macmillan Publishers Ltd.

  Afterword copyright © 2013 by the Estates of Boris and Arkady Strugatsky

  Translation of the afterword copyright © 2013 by Antonina W. Bouis

  First Melville House printing: February 2014

  Melville House Publishing

  145 Plymouth Street

  Brooklyn, NY 11201

  and

  8 Blackstock Mews

  Islington

  London N4 2BT

  mhpbooks.com facebook.com/mhpbooks @melvillehouse

  Library of Congress

  Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Strugatskii, Arkadii, 1925–1991.

  [Za milliard let do kontsa sveta. English]

  Definitely maybe : a manuscript discovered under strange circumstances / Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky; translated by Antonia W. Bouis.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-1-61219-281-9 (pbk.)

  ISBN 978-1-61219-282-6 (ebook)

  I. Strugatskii, Boris, 1933–2012, author. II. Bouis, Antonina W., translator. III. Title.

  PG3476.S78835Z3213 2014

  891.73′44—dc23

  2013038567

  Design by Christopher King

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  A Note From the Translator

  An Afterword to Definitely Maybe

  CHAPTER 1

  Excerpt 1.… the white July heat, the hottest it had been in two hundred years, engulfed the city. The air shimmered over red-hot rooftops. All the windows in the city were flung open, and in the thin shade of wilting trees, old women sweated and melted on benches near courtyard gates.

  The sun charged past the meridian and sank its claws into the long-suffering bookbindings and the glass and polished wood of the bookcases; hot, angry patches of reflected light quivered on the wallpaper. It was almost time for the afternoon siege, for the furious sun to hang dead still in the sky above the twelve-story house across the street and f
ire endless rounds of heat into the apartment.

  Malianov closed the window—both frames—and drew the heavy yellow drapes. Then, hitching up his underpants, he padded over to the kitchen in his bare feet and opened the door to the balcony. It was just after two.

  On the kitchen table, among the bread crumbs, was a still life consisting of a frying pan with the dried-up remains of an omelet, an unfinished glass of tea, and a gnawed end of bread smeared with oozing butter.

  “No one’s washed up and nothing is washed,” Malianov said to himself.

  The sink was overflowing with unwashed dishes. They hadn’t been done in a long time.

  The floorboard squeaked, and Kaliam appeared out of nowhere, mad with the heat; he glanced up at Malianov with his green eyes and soundlessly opened and closed his mouth. Then, tail twitching, he proceeded to his dish under the oven. There was nothing on his dish except a few bare fish bones.

  “You’re hungry,” Malianov said unhappily.

  Kaliam immediately replied in a way that meant, well, yes, it wouldn’t hurt to have a little something.

  “You were fed this morning,” said Malianov, crouching in front of the refrigerator. “Or no, that’s not right. It was yesterday morning I fed you.”

  He took out Kaliam’s pot and looked into it—there were a couple of scraps and a fish fin stuck to the side. There wasn’t even that much in the refrigerator itself. There was an empty box that used to have some Yantar cheese in it, a horrible-looking bottle with the dregs of kefir, and a wine bottle filled with iced tea. In the vegetable bin, amid the onion skins, a wrinkled piece of cabbage the size of a fist lay rotting and a sprouting potato languished in oblivion. Malianov looked into the freezer—a tiny piece of bacon on a plate had settled in for the winter among the mountains of frost. And that was it.

  Kaliam was purring and rubbing his whiskers on Malianov’s bare knee. Malianov shut the refrigerator and stood up.

  “It’s all right,” he told Kaliam. “Everything’s closed for lunch now, anyway.”

  Of course, he could go over to Moscow Boulevard, where the break was from one to two. But there were always lines there, and it was too far to go in this heat. And then, what a crummy integral that turned out to be! Well, all right, let that be the constant … it doesn’t depend on omega. It’s clear that it doesn’t. It follows from the most general considerations that it doesn’t. Malianov imagined the sphere and pictured the integration traveling over the entire surface. Out of nowhere Zhukovsky’s formula popped into his mind. Just like that. Malianov chased it away, but it came back. Let’s try the conformal representation, he thought.

  The phone rang again, and Malianov found himself back in the living room, much to his surprise. He swore, flopped down on the sofa, and reached over for the phone.

  “Yes.”

  “Vitya?” asked an energetic female voice.

  “What number do you want?”

  “Is this Intourist?”

  “No, a private apartment.”

  Malianov hung up and lay still for a while, feeling the nap of the blanket against his naked side and beginning to drip with sweat. The yellow shade glowed, filling the room with an unpleasant yellow light. The air was like gelatin. He should move into Bobchik’s room, that’s what. This room was a steambath. He looked at his desk, heaped with papers and books. There were six volumes just of Vladimir Ivanovich Smirnov. And all those papers scattered on the floor. He shuddered at the thought of moving. Wait a minute, I had a breakthrough before. Damn you and your stupid Intourist, you stupid blockhead. Let’s see, I was in the kitchen and then I ended up in here. Oh yes! Conformal representation! A stupid idea. But I guess it should be looked into.

  He got up from the bed with a low groan, and the phone rang again.

  “Idiot,” he said to the phone and picked it up. “Hello?”

  “Is this the depot? Who’s on the phone? Is this the depot?”

  Malianov hung up and dialed the repair service.

  “Hello? My number is nine-three-nine-eight-zero-seven. Listen, I already called you last night. I can’t work, I keep getting wrong numbers.”

  “What’s your number?” a vicious female voice interrupted.

  “Nine-three-nine-eight-zero-seven. I keep getting calls for Intourist and the depot and—”

  “Hang up. We’ll check it.”

  “Please do,” Malianov said to the dial tone.

  Then he slapped over to the table, sat down, and picked up his pen. So-o-o, where did I see that integral? Such a neat little guy symmetrical on all sides … where did I see it? And not even a constant, just a plain old zero! Well, all right then. Let’s leave it in the rearguard. I don’t like leaving anything in the rear, it’s as unpleasant as a rotting tooth.

  He began rechecking the previous night’s calculations and he suddenly felt good. It was pretty clever, by God! That Malianov! What a mind! Finally, you’re getting there. And, brother, it looks good. This was no routine “figure of the pivots in a large transit instrument”; this was something that no one had ever done before! Knock on wood. This integral. Damn the integral, full speed ahead!

  There was a ring. The doorbell. Kaliam jumped down from the bed and raced to the foyer with his tail in the air. Malianov neatly set down his pen.

  “They’re out in full force,” he said.

  Kaliam traced impatient circles in the foyer, getting underfoot.

  “Ka-al-liam!” Malianov said in a suppressed but threatening tone. “Get out of here, Kaliam!”

  He opened the door. On the other side stood a shabby man, unshaven and sweaty, wearing a jacket of indeterminate color that was too small for him. Leaning back to balance the huge cardboard box he was holding, muttering something incomprehensible, he came straight at Malianov.

  “You, er …” Malianov mumbled, stepping aside.

  The shabby fellow had already penetrated the foyer. He looked to the right, into the room, and turned determinedly to the left, into the kitchen, leaving dusty white footprints on the linoleum.

  “Er, just a …” muttered Malianov, hot on his heels.

  The man put the box down on a stool and pulled out a batch of receipts from his pocket.

  “Are you from the Tenants’ Committee, or what?” For some reason, Malianov thought that perhaps the plumber had finally shown up to fix the bathroom sink.

  “From the deli,” the man said hoarsely and handed him two receipts pinned together. “Sign here.”

  “What is this?” Malianov asked, and saw that they were order blanks. Cognac—two bottles; vodka … “Wait a minute, I don’t think we ordered anything,” he said.

  He saw the tab. He panicked. He didn’t have money like that in the apartment. And anyway, what was going on? His panic-stricken brain flashed vivid pictures of all kinds of complications, like explaining this away, refusing it, arguing, demanding, phoning the store, or maybe even going there in person. But then he saw the purple PAID stamp in the corner of the receipt and the name of the purchaser—I. E. Malianova. Irina! What the hell was going on?

  “Just sign here,” the shabby man insisted, pointing with his black nail. “Where the X is.”

  Malianov took the man’s pencil stub and signed.

  “Thanks,” he said, returning the pencil. “Thanks a lot,” he repeated, squeezing through the narrow foyer with the delivery man. I should give him something, but I don’t have any change. “Thank you very much. So long!” he called to the back of the tight jacket, viciously pushing back Kaliam with his leg. The cat was trying to get outside to lick the cement floor of the landing.

  Then Malianov closed the door and stood in the dusky light. His head was muddled.

  “Strange,” he said aloud, and went back to the kitchen.

  Kaliam was rubbing his head against the box. Malianov lifted the cover and saw tops of bottles, packages, bags, and cans. The copy of the receipt was on the table. So. The carbon was smeared, as usual, but he could make out the handwriting. Hero Street … h
mm … everything seemed to be in order. Purchaser: I. E. Malianova. That was a nice hello! He looked at the total again. Mind-boggling! He turned the receipt over. Nothing interesting on the other side. A squashed mosquito. What was the matter with Irina? Had she gone completely bananas? We’re in debt for five hundred rubles. Wait, maybe she said something about this before she left? He tried to remember that day, the open suitcases, the mounds of clothes strewn all over the house, Irina half-dressed and wielding her iron. Don’t forget to feed Kaliam, bring him some grass, the spiky kind; don’t forget the rent; if my boss calls, give him my address. That seemed to be it. She had said something else, but Bobchik had run in with his machine gun. Oh yes! Take the sheets to the laundry. I don’t understand a damn thing!

  Malianov gingerly pulled a bottle out of the box. Cognac. At least fifteen rubles! Is it my birthday or something? When did Irina leave? Thursday, Wednesday, Tuesday. He bent back his fingers. It was ten days today that she left. That means she had placed the order ahead of time. Borrowed the money from somebody again and ordered it. A surprise. Five hundred in debt, you see, and she wants to give me a surprise! At least one thing was settled: he wouldn’t have to go to the store. The rest was a fog as far as he was concerned. Birthday? No. Wedding anniversary? Didn’t think so. No, definitely not. Bobchik’s birthday? No, that’s in the winter.

  He counted the bottles. Ten of them. Who did she think would drink it all? I couldn’t handle that much in a year! Vecherovsky hardly drinks either, and she can’t stand Val Weingarten.

  Kaliam began howling terribly. He sensed something in the box.

  Excerpt 2.… some salmon in its own juices and a piece of ham with the stale crust of bread. Then he took on the dirty dishes. It was perfectly clear that a dirty kitchen was particularly offensive with such luxury in the refrigerator. The phone rang twice during this time, but Malianov merely set his jaw more firmly. I won’t answer, and that’s it. The hell with all of them with their Intourist and depots. The frying pan will also have to be cleaned, no getting around it. The pan will be needed for goals higher than some crummy omelet. Now, what’s the crux here? If the integral is really zero, then all that remains on the right side are the first and second derivatives. I don’t quite understand the physics of it, but it doesn’t matter, it sure makes terriffic bubbles. Yes, that’s what I’ll call them: bubbles. No, “cavities” is probably better. The Malianov cavities. “M cavities.” Hmmm.