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  He stood, poured himself some tea, and returned to his chair—intolerably confident, pulled together, elegantly casual, still looking like a peer at a diplomatic reception at the palace.

  The boy read aloud:

  “ ‘If the patient does not follow doctor’s orders, does not take his medication, and abuses alcohol, then approximately five or six years later the secondary phase is followed by the disease’s third—and last—stage.’ ”

  Zakhar sighed.

  “But why? Why me?”

  Vecherovsky placed the cup in the saucer with a light clatter and put the saucer on the table next to him.

  “Because our age is wearing black,” he explained, dabbing his pinkish gray equine lips with a snowy white handkerchief. “It is still wearing a tall top hat, and still we continue to run, and when the clock strikes the hour of inaction and the hour of leave-taking from daily cares, then comes the moment of division, and we no longer dream of anything—”

  “The hell with you,” Malianov said, and Vecherovsky pealed with smug Martian guffaws.

  Weingarten fished a longish butt out of the ashtray, stuck it between his fat lips, struck a match, and sat for a while, his crossed eyes focused on the glowing tip.

  “Really,” he muttered, “does it really matter what power … as long as it is more powerful than humans?” He inhaled. “An aphid squashed by a brick and an aphid squashed by a coin … but I’m no aphid. I can choose.”

  Zakhar looked at him hopefully, but Weingarten said nothing else. Choose, thought Malianov. That’s easy enough to say.

  “That’s easy enough to say—choose!” Zakhar began, but Glukhov started talking. Zakhar looked at him hopefully.

  “But it’s clear,” Glukhov said with unusual feeling. “Isn’t it obvious which you should choose? You must choose life! What else? Surely not your telescopes and test tubes. Let them choke on your telescopes! And interstellar gases! You have to live, love, feel nature—really feel it, not dig around in it! When I look at a tree or a bush now, I feel, I know that it is my friend, that we exist for each other, that we need each other.”

  “Now?” Vecherovsky asked loudly.

  Glukhov stuttered to a stop.

  “Excuse me?”

  “We’ve met, you know, Vladlen,” Vecherovsky said. “Remember? Estonia, the math-linguistics school? The sauna, the beer.”

  “Yes, yes,” Glukhov said, lowering his eyes. “Yes.”

  “You were quite different then,” Vecherovsky said.

  “Well, back then …” Glukhov began. “Barons grow old, you know.”

  “Barons also struggle,” Vecherovsky said. “It wasn’t so long ago.”

  Glukhov spread his hands in silence.

  Malianov understood nothing of this interlude, but there was something to it, something unpleasant, sinister, there was some reason for what they were saying to each other. And Zakhar, apparently, had understood, in his own way. Malianov felt some insult to himself in that brief exchange, because suddenly, with unusual harshness, almost with anger, he shouted at Vecherovsky:

  “They killed Snegovoi! It’s easy for you to talk, Philip, they don’t have you by the throat, you’re all right!”

  Vecherovsky nodded.

  “Yes,” he said. “I’m all right. I’m all right, and Vladlen here is all right, too. Right, Vladlen?”

  The little cozy man with the bunny-rabbit eyes behind the strong glasses in steel frames spread his hands again in silence. Then he stood up and, avoiding everyone’s eyes, said:

  “Excuse me, friends, but it’s time for me to go. It’s getting late.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Excerpt 15.… “Do you want to spend the night at my place?” Vecherovsky asked.

  Malianov was washing the dishes and thinking over the offer. Vecherovsky wasn’t rushing him for a reply. He went back into the room, moved around in there for a while, and then returned with a mound of garbage in a soggy newspaper, which he threw into the garbage can. Then he picked up a towel and wiped off the kitchen table.

  Actually, after all of the day’s events and conversations, Malianov didn’t feel like being alone. On the other hand, it wasn’t very nice to abandon the apartment and run off; it was almost shameful. It’ll look like they managed to run me out after all, he thought. And I hate sleeping over, even at friends’ houses. Even at Vecherovsky’s. He suddenly smelled the aroma of coffee. That pink cup, as delicate as a rose petal, and in it—the magical elixir à la Vecherovsky. But when you think about it, you don’t drink that at bedtime. He could have coffee in the morning.

  He washed the last saucer, put it into the drainer, wiped up the puddle on the linoleum haphazardly, and went into his room. Vecherovsky was in the armchair, facing the window. The sky was golden pink and the new moon was perched just above the high-rise building, like on a minaret. Malianov turned his chair to the window and sat down. They were separated by the desk, which Vecherovsky had cleared up: the notebooks were in an orderly pile, there wasn’t even a trace of the week’s supply of dust, and the three pencils and the pen were neatly lined up by the calendar. While Malianov had done the dishes, Vecherovsky managed to make the room sparkle—all it lacked was a vacuuming—yet he remained elegant, suave, and without a single spot on his creamy suit. He didn’t even get sweaty, which was absolutely fantastic. While Malianov, even though he had worn Irina’s apron, had a wet belly, like Weingarten’s. If a woman’s belly is wet after doing the dishes, it means her husband is a drunkard. But what if the husband’s belly is wet?

  They sat in silence, watching the lights go out one by one in the twelve-story building. Kaliam showed up, mewing softly; he hopped up into Vecherovsky’s lap and began purring. Vecherovsky petted him with his long, narrow hand without taking his eyes off the lights in the window.

  “He sheds,” Malianov warned.

  “No matter,” Vecherovsky replied softly.

  They fell silent once again. Now, when there was no sweaty Weingarten or terrified Zakhar with that abominable child of his or that ordinary yet mysterious Glukhov, when there was only Vecherovsky, infinitely calm and infinitely self-confident and not expecting any supernatural decisions from anyone—now it all seemed like a dream, or even some bizarre fairy tale. If it had actually happened, well, it was long ago, and it didn’t actually happen, it stopped just before it started. Malianov even sensed a vague interest in that semifictional hero: Did he get sentenced to fifteen years or was it all …

  Excerpt 16.… remembered Snegovoi and the gun in his pajamas and the seal on the door.

  “Listen,” I said, “did they really kill Snegovoi?”

  “Who?” Vecherovsky answered after a pause.

  “Well, uh,” I began and stopped.

  “Snegovoi, judging by everything, shot himself,” Vecherovsky said. “He couldn’t stand it.”

  “Couldn’t stand what?”

  “The pressure. He made his choice.”

  Now it wasn’t a bizarre fairy tale. I felt that familiar fear inside and I tucked my feet under me on the chair and hugged my knees. I curled up so tight my muscles crackled. It was me and it was happening to me. Not to Ivan the Tsarevich, not to Ivan the Wise Fool—not to any fairy-tale hero—but to me. Vecherovsky could talk, he was safe.

  “Listen,” I said through clenched teeth. “What’s with you and Glukhov? That was a strange conversation you two had.”

  “He made me angry.”

  “How?”

  Vecherovsky didn’t answer right away.

  “He doesn’t dare be alone,” he said.

  “I don’t understand,” I said after some thought.

  “What gets me is not how he made his choice,” Vecherovsky said slowly, as though thinking aloud. “But why keep justifying his action? And not simply justifying it, but trying to convince others to follow him. He’s ashamed to be weak among strong people, and he wants you to be weak too. He thinks that it will be easier for him. Maybe he’s even right, but that attitude of his infuri
ates me.”

  I listened to him, mouth wide open, and when he was through, I asked:

  “Do you mean that Glukhov is also … under pressure?”

  “He was under pressure. He’s simply squashed now.”

  “Wait a minute.”

  Vecherovsky turned his face to me slowly:

  “You didn’t understand?”

  “What do you mean? He said … I heard him with my own ears … I mean, you can see, simply, that he hadn’t dreamed or imagined … it’s obvious!”

  But it didn’t seem so obvious to me anymore. On the contrary.

  “Then you didn’t understand,” Vecherovsky said, looking at me with curiosity. “Zakhar did.” He got his pipe for the first time that evening and calmly started filling it. “Strange that you didn’t understand. Well, you were obviously upset. Judge for yourself: The man loves mysteries, loves watching television, his favorite show is on today, but for some reason he rushed over to visit with total strangers—for what? To complain about his headaches?” He struck a match and lit his pipe. An orange flame danced in his eyes. He sucked on the pipe. “And then, I recognized him right away. Actually, not right away. He’s changed considerably. He was a live wire—energetic, excitable, sarcastic. None of this Rousseauism and no vodka drinking. First I just felt sorry for him, but when he started singing the praises of his new philosophy, I got mad.”

  He concentrated on his pipe.

  I rolled up into a tighter ball. So that’s how it was. The man had been squashed. He was still alive but no longer the same man. Broken flesh, broken spirit. What did they do to him that he couldn’t take it? But there must be pressures, I guess, that no man can take.

  “So, you mean you condemn Snegovoi, too?” I asked.

  “I don’t condemn anyone,” Vecherovsky countered.

  “Well … you’re incensed by Glukhov.”

  “You didn’t understand,” Vecherovsky said with some impatience. “I’m not incensed by Glukhov’s choice. What right have I to be incensed by a choice made by a man left one on one, without help, without hope. I’m annoyed by Glukhov’s behavior after his decision. I repeat: He’s ashamed of his choice and that’s why—and only because of that—he’s trying to convert others to his faith. In other words, because of his self-image he’s adding to the already unbearable pressure he feels. Understand?”

  “With my mind, yes.”

  I wanted to add that Glukhov was completely understandable and if he could be understood, he could be forgiven, that Glukhov was beyond the realm of analysis, in a realm where only compassion was applicable, but I realized that I didn’t have the strength to talk. I was shivering. Without help and without hope. Without help and without hope. Why me? What for? What did I do to them? I had to hold up my end of the conversation, and I said, clenching my teeth after every word:

  “After all, there are pressures that no man in the world could bear.”

  Vecherovsky answered something, but I didn’t hear him or I didn’t understand it. I was realizing that just yesterday I was a man, a member of society. I had my own concerns and worries, yes, but as long as I obeyed the laws created by the system—and that had become a habit—as long as I obeyed those laws, I was protected from all imaginable dangers by the police, the army, the unions, public opinion, and my friends and family. Now, something in the world around me had gone haywire. Suddenly I became a catfish holed up in a crack, surrounded by monstrous vague shadows that didn’t even need huge looming jaws—a slight movement of their fins would grind me into a powder, squash me, turn me into zilch. And it was made clear to me that as long as I hid in that crack I would not be touched. Yet it was even more terrifying than that. I was separated from humanity the way a lamb is cut off from the herd and dragged off somewhere for some unknown reason, while the herd, unsuspecting, goes on about its business, moving farther away into the distance. I would have felt much better if only they had been warlike aliens, some bloodthirsty, destructive aggressors from outer space, from the ocean depths, from the fourth dimension. I would have been one among many; there would have been a place for me, work for me; I would be in the ranks! But I was doomed to perish in front of everyone’s eyes. No one would see a thing, and when I was destroyed, ground to dust, everyone would be surprised and then shrug it off. Thank God Irina wasn’t around. Thank God this wasn’t affecting her! A nightmare! Unbelievable nonsense! I shook my head as hard as I could. This whole mess because I’m working on interstellar matter?

  “Apparently, yes,” Vecherovsky said.

  I stared at him in horror.

  “Listen, Phil, it doesn’t make any sense!” I said desperately.

  “From the human point of view, none at all,” Vecherovsky said. “But it’s not people who have something against your work.”

  “Then who does?”

  “There you go again—a question as good as gold,” Vecherovsky said, and it was so unlike him that I laughed. Nervously. Hysterically. And I heard his satisfied Martian guffaws.

  “Listen,” I said, “the hell with them all. Let’s have some tea.”

  I was afraid that Vecherovsky would say that it was time for him to go, that he had to give exams tomorrow or finish his chapter, so I hurriedly added:

  “All right? I’ve got a box of candy hidden away—I figured, why feed Weingarten’s fat face with everything. Let’s indulge!”

  “With pleasure,” Vecherovsky said, and he got up readily.

  “You know, you think and think,” I said as we went into the kitchen and I put on the water. “You think and think until it all goes black. That’s wrong. That’s what did in Snegovoi. I know that now. He was sitting in his apartment all alone, turning on all his lights, but what good did it do? You can’t light that kind of darkness with all the lamps in the world. He thought and thought and then something clicked and that was the end. You can’t lose your sense of humor, that’s the ticket. It really is funny, you know: All that power, all that energy—just to stop man from finding out what happens when a star falls into a dust cloud. I mean, just think about it, Phil! That’s funny, isn’t it?”

  Vecherovsky was looking at me with an unusual expression.

  “You know, Dmitri,” he said, “I somehow never considered the humorous aspect of the situation.”

  “No? Really, when you think about it … So there they are and they start figuring things out: a hundred megawatts on research of annelid worms, seventy-five gigawatts for pushing through this project, and ten will be enough to stop Malianov. And someone objects that ten isn’t enough. After all, you have to drive him crazy with phone calls, one; give him cognac and a woman, that’s two.” I sat down with my hands tight between my knees. “No, it really is funny.”

  “Yes,” Vecherovsky agreed. “It is rather funny, but not very. Your paucity of imagination is staggering. I’m surprised you managed to come up with your bubbles.”

  “What bubbles!? There weren’t any bubbles. And there won’t be. Stop badgering me, mister director, sir. I saw nothing, heard nothing, I see no evil, hear no evil. I have a witness, I wasn’t there. And anyway, my official work is on the IK spectrometer. All the rest is just the hubris of intellectuals, a Galileo complex.”

  We sat in silence. The teapot started to wheeze softly and make a “pf-pf-pf” noise as it got ready to boil.

  “Well, all right,” I said. “Paucity of imagination. Agreed. But you must admit that if you forget the fiendish details, the whole thing is fascinating. It looks like they really do exist. People gabbed so much, guessed so much, lied so much, inventing those idiotic saucers, mysterious explanations for the Baalbek terrace … and they really do exist. But, of course, not at all the way we had thought. I was always sure, by the way, that when they announced themselves, they would be completely different from everything we had invented about them.”

  “Who are ‘they’?” Vecherovsky asked distractedly. He was lighting up his pipe.

  “The aliens,” I said. “Or to use the scientific te
rm, the supercivilization.”

  “Aha,” Vecherovsky said. “I get it. Nobody’s ever suggested that they might be like policemen with aberrant behavior patterns.”

  “All right, all right,” I said. I got up and set out two tea settings. “I may have a paucity of imagination, but you have none at all.”

  “Probably,” Vecherovsky agreed. “I am totally incapable of imagining something that I think cannot exist. Phlogiston, for instance, a thermogen, or, say, the universal ether. No, no, please brew some fresh tea. And don’t skimp.”

  “I know how to make it,” I grumbled. “What were you saying about phlogiston?”

  “I never believed in phlogiston. And I never believed in supercivilizations. Both phlogiston and supercivilizations are too human. Like in Baudelaire. Too human, therefore animal. Not a product of reason, a product of nonreason.”

  “Just a minute!” I said, with the teapot in one hand and a box of Ceylon tea in the other. “But you yourself admitted that we’re dealing with a supercivilization.”

  “Not at all,” Vecherovsky replied unflappably. “You were the ones who admitted that. I merely took advantage of the circumstances to set you straight.”

  The phone rang in my room. I shuddered, dropping the cover of the teapot.

  “Damn,” I muttered, looking back and forth between Vecherovsky and the door.

  “Go on,” Vecherovsky said calmly. “I’ll make the tea.”

  I didn’t pick up the phone right away. I was frightened. There was nobody who would be calling, especially at this hour. Maybe it was a drunken Weingarten? He was all alone. I picked up the phone.

  “Hello?”

  Weingarten’s drunken voice said: “Well, of course he’s not asleep. Greetings, victim of the supercivilization! How are you doing there?”

  “Okay,” I said with great relief. “And you?”

  “Everything is shipshape,” Weingarten announced. “We dropped by the Astoria. The Austeria, get it? We got a half-liter bottle, but it didn’t seem like enough. So we got another one. And we took the two half-liters, that is a liter, home, and now we feel just dandy. Want to come over?”