Watson, Ian - Novel 11 Read online

  “But Nature is even stupider. The Earth whirls round the Sun like a child’s spinning top: how trivial it all is! At any moment a dark star or a wandering moon might crash into us. Splat! And that’s that. Goodbye to the Parthenon and to Venice Serenissima” Tears rose to Sidorov’s eyes. “Look at your average Siberian—a beast, isn’t he? Mind you, he’s your ordinary run of Russian peasant who’s been brutalised.”

  “A brute needs the whip,” quoted Fedotik.

  “Mark my words, Sirs, compared with him the tribes a few hundred versts north of here are noble . . and Sidorov hunted for the word, “savages. Well, almost. Compared to him they’re quite magnificent. They’re heroes. But how can they be heroes if they’ve always stayed here?—that’s what puzzles me. They never rose above their condition. Whereas we local Russians have sunk down to it. Ah, the disgusting flatness of it all! And under the surface everything is rotten and decayed . . . What was I talking about?”

  At this moment the wick in the nearest lamp began to hum loudly. Sidorov pricked up his ears as though he heard something rush through the sky above the roofs of Krasnoyarsk. He buttoned his coat swiftly and ran out of the inn, leaving the door wide open. Thus we were able to see him standing in the street, staring up at the night sky as if to confirm that all the stars were in their proper places. Or perhaps he was only wondering whether it was going to rain, since his boots had holes in them. Presently he returned, unbuttoned and subsided right up against us.

  “Excuse me, but I’m sacrificing myself to Science,” he confided to me in a loud whisper. (I swear to you, Olga—by Mars and Jupiter—that I am not inventing this Sidorov as a mirror for my own soul!) “Why, if I went to Moscow to present a proper report to the authorities, they’d make me a Professor or even a Privy Councillor on the spot. You have the flavour of Moscow about you, Sir, isn’t it so?”

  Reluctantly I conceded the fact.

  Vershinin dug Fedotik in the ribs. “We’ve caught ourselves a provincial bore. Set the dogs on him, Vasily Romanych!”

  “Ah Moscow!” cried Sidorov, in tipsy torment. “Freedom, fulfilment! Afterwards I could drain the bog-land. With all the trees down, I could sell the timber and plant grain. Alas, it’s too cold for that . . . Anyway, the mosquitoes! And the people: too corrupted. Maybe you two men of Science might help me present a proper report?”

  As soon as these words were out, to my no very great surprise Sidorov became jealously hostile.

  “Scientists! Your ordinary scientists!” he sneered. “If the Earth blew up tomorrow they’d go on staring down their microscopes like England’s Lord Nelson.”

  “Turning a blind eye,” Fedotik dutifully supplied.

  “Would they listen to me? As for the authorities . . . well, that’s our whole sickness, isn’t it? Authority: how we worship authority! Ah, I can see how you despise me for not acting like a hero and setting off forthwith for Moscow and fame . . . But it isn’t so easy. There aren’t any authorities on an event like this—except for the Bible narrative of the Cities of the Plain, devastated by God. I can’t persuade anybody in Krasnoyarsk to do anything about it. In Moscow, who cares about Krasnoyarsk?”

  By now Baron Nikolai was in a transport of wrath. He grabbed Sidorov by the lapels. “What the Devil are you talking about?” he shouted into the man’s face.

  Our turnip was shaken, but all the drink he had swilled gave him courage.

  “You smart Muscovites haven’t even heard! And it’s the greatest mystery of the age.”

  “If you don’t tell me, I swear I’ll beat you to a pulp!”

  “The explosion that devastated the taiga. The visitor from space. You haven’t heard.”

  “Hang on,” said I . . .

  Because, my celestial charmer, I had heard of it—had you? I refer to the enclosed clipping from the Siberian Herald, which I originally intended for quite another, ‘hygienic’, purpose.

  Sidorov went on to spin us the tallest tale I’d ever heard, of huge destruction a few hundred versts north of Krasnoyarsk up by the Stony Tunguska River. I shall list his ‘details’ in a moment, since I want to ask you quite seriously, Olga: What do you make of all this? My telescopic tormentress, I request your frank scientific opinion . . .

  SEVEN

  A YOUNG workman was plucking idly at a guitar, and singing to himself. A beefy-faced fellow at the next table ordered a plate of meat croquettes. And Fedotik called out for another bottle of Smirnov Twenty-One.

  In a moment of panic about the mounting bill, Anton clutched at his stomach. This was a reflex he really must put a stop to! Where else could his money belt be? It could hardly unbuckle itself and slide down his trouser leg.

  “Hungry?” enquired Fedotik.

  “No, I just felt as if . . . That’s to say . . .” Anton shook his head.

  “It’s easy enough to pick up bugs—nothing to be ashamed of,” remarked Sidorov.

  Vershinin eyed Sidorov sourly. “We’re all of us bugs on the backside of the world—some more than others, eh?”

  Since his purchase of the springless carriage back in Tomsk, Anton’s money belt was lighter by a hundred and thirty roubles. If this rattletrap got wrecked before he reached Irkutsk, or if he couldn’t sell it there, then he’d be smashed . . . Everything cost twice as much as he’d bargained for. He still owed Suvorin fifteen hundred roubles, to be paid off partly by writing travelogues. The trouble was, journalism was like trying to squeeze juice out of fleas’ genitals! What on earth could he write about in the next one?

  Perhaps the problem had already solved itself. Rolling another cigarette, he listened avidly to Sidorov’s tale of cosmic catastrophe . . .

  “A hundred million trees, felled all at once! Everything trembled and shook. Fountains of water gushed from the ground, so they say. A hurricane roared through Kansk, and a tidal wave raced up the Yenisey. The night sky stayed bright for weeks—don’t ask me why! And whole herds of reindeer were incinerated on the spot. Others got scabs all over them—”

  “What sort of scabs?’’

  But Vershinin had lost patience. “Oh, turn the tap off. The world’s mad for putting up with the likes of you. No wonder it gives a shrug now and then.’’

  “No, hang on,’’ said Anton. “This happened around Midsummer ’88, right?’’

  As he recalled, he had been at Lintvareva’s summer place at the time. Old Pleshcheyev had been there too, forever burning incense to himself—just as if the grand old man was some holy icon. His cigar fumes gave everyone else a headache. So the party often strolled out into the park to clear their heads, even at midnight. And it had been so bright. Astonishingly bright. All night long—brighter than any moonlight. Everyone had remarked on it at the time . . .

  “If our celestial visitor had exploded on top of Petersburg, surely this would have spoken to our society! But what can it tell us here—that God is angry with the taiga? It tells us nothing at all. So nothing has changed . . . It’s too much for me, Sir! I can adapt to ten trees falling down—but a hundred million? No, it’s a joke. And nothing happens, nothing alters. We could have a revolution and nothing would change. Ever. Ever. Ever!’’

  “I don’t know about that" growled Vershinin.

  “Such an immense event—and it failed to kill a single person. So far as I know. That’s the kind of country we’re trapped in. Much better if it had killed a hundred or a thousand people! Then somebody might take a closer look, and the condition of the Siberian people might alter.’’ Sidorov held two trembling fingers a little way apart. “By this much. But where did it have to happen? Exactly where it was guaranteed to be ignored by everybody. So it’s all a joke. What does it matter if a comet strikes the Earth?”

  Once more Sidorov leapt up, buttoned himself and repaired to the door to stand staring up into the starry void.

  Anton thought sadly: ‘Our turnip’s seeing some decoration being pinned to his breast, far away in Moscow. Yes, a jewelled star third class, to honour the reporter of a fallen
star! As he stares up into the firmament, somewhere out there in infinite space fame awaits him . .

  The man returned, slumped down and groaned.

  “I’m missing my chance—all for the want of a few hundred roubles ... I really ought to get up an expedition, don’t you see? Not one of your dilettante outings, but a real scientific expedition equipped with a theodolite and stuff. Moscow’s the starting point for that. No one’s interested here—they’ve all forgotten. But how can I go to Moscow without good evidence? And how can I get good evidence till after I’ve been to Moscow? I appeal to you, Gentlemen, will you lend me ten roubles?”

  “Aha!” exclaimed Vershinin. “Now we see him in his true colours.”

  Dr Rode smiled wanly. “Gentlemen, perhaps a small experiment might be conducted at this juncture, to discover scientifically what this poor wretch will do with the money? Will it be Smirnov vodka, do you suppose? Or Koshelev? We could bet on the outcome—the loser pays the bill.”

  “Here, have some anyway.” In an apparent fit of bonhomie Fedotik slopped a few fingers of vodka into an empty glass. “Go on: a man needs a drink.” But then he teased the glass towards Sidorov, as though he might hook it back again.

  Like a cat pouncing on a pigeon, Sidorov snatched the glass and drank. Abruptly he began to cry, his tears diluting the remaining spirit.

  “How can I visit Tunguska till I’m able to raise an expedition? How can I raise an expedition without going there first, to prove the need for one?”

  Fedotik nodded sagely. “Those indeed are the horns of his dilemma.”

  “I’ve only spoken to people who have in turn spoken to eye witnesses. You have to discount a lot, sometimes. These people talk of giant rats, the size of cows, that burrow underground. You and I, Sirs, know that those are the corpses of mammoths frozen in the undersoil . . . But the trees, ah the trees! A hundred million laid low in an instant. What have logic and morality to do with that? It’s an accidental circumstance, Sirs. We come into our life by accident. We often leave it by accident. In between is a chapter of accidents.”

  Fedotik nudged Vershinin. “No doubt about it, he’s a Superfluous Man.”

  “And it’s all as nothing to this endless earthly monster: our own country. She swallows the incident as a cow swallows a fly. How true that disaster strikes where nobody sees or hears it! In the circumstances, happiness is quite impossible.”

  “A Superfluous Man,” repeated Fedotik, delighted with this insight.

  “Does it matter if a comet strikes the Earth? Yet for it to happen, and be ignored—because the only people who can think are three thousand versts away—it’s a joke that passes endurance. And there’s an even greater joke. . . If this hadn’t happened in the back of beyond, if it had struck Petersburg full in the face—chastising that rich, uncaring city!—in that case the whole world would have known. But I—! But I—!”

  “You would have been nobody, then,” Anton said gently. “You would have had nothing.”

  Sidorov stared at him blearily. “So you do understand? You’re my true brother.”

  Doubtless, reflected Anton, they were brothers—in dishevel- ment. His own coat stank of tar, and Sidorov’s coat was equally filthy. Their boots were a disgrace. Anton tipped back his head, abstracting himself.

  Here was an interesting case indeed. The man had been taken over by an event, which hadn’t quite dropped into his lap. He had been presented—from outer space, would you believe?—with a grand ambition. In another man’s case this might have been an obsessive desire to retire to a farm and grow his own gooseberries or something. But in this instance desolation commanded him—and he could no more leave this part of Siberia than a prospector in the Yukon could desert the rumour of the Motherlode. Presumably his life could only go downhill from here . . .

  Suppose Sidorov did raise the wherewithal to travel to Moscow? What could he possibly show to anybody there? All those tumbled trees he spoke of were unknown except to the migrating birds, which alone knew the scale of this land . . . and to a few tribesmen who didn’t exist within Russian society.

  “Obsession,” Anton said softly, as if it was the title of a tale yet unwritten.

  Fedotik heard him. “Once a man’s obsessed, there’s nothing you can do about it! Take my word for it.” He cocked an imaginary gun at the ceiling. “Bang, bang, down they come.” He laughed guilelessly.

  And yet, thought Anton . . . What if it were all true? What if one of the greatest mysteries in the history of the world really had happened not so far from here? But no one was paying attention . . . It was as though the Crucifixion took place, and everybody was away in the country.

  “I may as well be a convict in exile,” went on Sidorov gloomily. “Siberia isn’t a real place. It’s so much stuffing in between the Urals and the Pacific. Yet how petty my crimes are—compared with the taiga! And how petty everything is . . .” Ineptly he fumbled with his coat buttons.

  Anton reached out and touched the suffering man on the arm.

  “Look, Ilya Alexandrovich, I just happen to be writing a series of articles for New Times in Moscow—”

  At that very moment a loud twang sounded through the room—as though some cosmic clock had chimed in the inn, or as if time itself had suddenly snapped in two. Briefly the room fell silent, till the note had died away.

  “Sod it!” swore the guitar player, one of whose strings had snapped.

  “That’s right, New Times" Anton said excitedly.

  EIGHT

  Felix could no longer contain himself. “Dear boy, what are you saying? Bring him out of the trance!”

  A worried Dr Kirilenko complied. The tape recorder was switched off and notepads were laid aside.

  For a moment or two Mikhail blinked in bewilderment, newly restored to himself. As he took in the room and its frumpy furnishings with contemporary eyes, he grinned. But a puzzled look crossed his face as he registered the expressions of the others in the room, and began to recall . . .

  “It’s like waking up from a dream,” he muttered. “A dream that tries to fade away. If you concentrate, you can remember.” “You’ll soon establish perfect control,” said Sonya soothingly. “You’ll soon have a sense of conscious continuity between yourself—and your other self.”

  “I was in that joint just off Karl-Marx Street! I’m sure it’s the same place . . . This room was the inn. And before—no, afterwards, I’m getting mixed up—I was in a hotel room. Now what was I doing? Got it! I was penning a letter to Olga Kundasova

  “And there it is.” Sonya indicated the notepad lying open on the sofa beside him; the pages were covered with scrawly handwriting.

  Sergey launched himself across the room to snatch up the pad. “It’s a bloody melange, that’s what this is! These officer fellows are straight out of Three Sisters—names and all. Okay, so Chekhov did travel part of the way with an army doctor and a couple of soldiers. But all this nonsense about the comet! Little did I suspect, Petrov, when you made that crack about Jules Verne—!” He tossed the notepad down.

  Felix also stood up, so as not to be dominated by Sergey. “Let’s get our facts straight. Something exploded over Tunguska in the middle of Siberia in 1910, right?”

  “Wrong,” said Sergey. “It was 1908.1 once wrote an article on the Tunguska mystery.”

  “I stand corrected. Anyway, Anton Chekhov was safely in his grave by then. It certainly didn’t happen in 1888, dear boy!” Kirilenko stood up too. “Excuse me, Felix Moseivich, but I am safe in presuming that Mikhail is fully au courant with the actual life of Chekhov?”

  “Absolutely. Must we all keep breaking out in French? We’re Soviet artists, not nineteenth century Russians.”

  “If there are no gaps in Mikhail’s knowledge of the facts, then he couldn’t possibly invent something to fill those gaps.”

  “He could hardly fill gaps, if there aren’t any.”

  “So he’s fantasizing,” Sergey said.

  “But he can’t be. Oh, admit
tedly he fantasizes that he’s Chekhov—in the psychological sense. But he has to do so accurately, just as I instructed him to. He can only invent around the known facts. He doesn’t have free rein to make up whatever he chooses. I must say, nothing like this has happened before in my experience. It’s an important and fascinating new development.” However, Kirilenko hardly sounded very happy about it. Actually, what had happened was confoundedly embarrassing. . .

  “Maybe Petrov’s insane?” suggested Sergey. “You know: cuckoo? Round the twist?”

  “Thanks,” said Mikhail.

  “We have to get to the bottom of this,” said Kirilenko. “I shall reinforce my instructions—then we’ll skip forward a few weeks. Probably that’ll put us back on the right track . . .”

  Just then the double doors opened and Osip wandered into the room without having troubled to knock—attracted by their voices raised in dispute?

  “Damn it, man!” snapped Felix. Was the caretaker keeping watch on them, as well as on the building?

  “Would you lot like something to eat?” asked Osip. “Some refreshments?”

  Felix Fixed him with a hard stare for several moments, before allowing, “Maybe we should break for lunch.”

  “It couldn’t have been a comet, could it?” Sonya said. “The Tunguska thing? I thought it had all the characteristics of a nuclear explosion in mid-air? The heat flash. Radiation scabs on the reindeer. The pattern of tree-fall, the growth spurt in the trees afterwards . . .”

  “Oh yes,” agreed Sergey sarcastically. “Naturally I came to that conclusion in my article. A nuclear explosion in 1908—nothing more obvious, when you come to think of it.”

  Felix noted how Osip had pricked up his ears. “Be off with you,” he told the caretaker. “Get on with it—we’re hungry.”

  Slowly Osip slouched from the room.

  “There’s no other explanation, is there, that fits all the facts?” said Sonya.

  “Soviet scientists are working hard on the Tunguska problem every year,” Sergey explained. “They use helicopters and geiger counters.”