CHAPTER FIVE

Once Sidelnikov was left on his own in the room, he jumped up and started dashing around. It seemed impossible to grasp, or in some way tame, everything he had heard that day but something had to be done with it all. To start with, he rushed to the mirror and began to examine his own eyes with such interest as if he had only just acquired them. There was nothing about them that resembled grapes. However, their colour was undoubtedly dark green.

Dusk was already falling. The process of examining himself in the mirror was fascinating and quite soon it seemed to Sidelnikov that some silent stranger was looking at him from the other side of the glass. The face was getting dark against the background of bluish-white walls, as bare as they were on this side. The stranger was not just silent; it was as if he was stubbornly concealing in that silence the ultimate truth of what was barely gleaned from Rosa’s words and what Sidelnikov would never dare ask about, and besides, afterwards there would be nobody to ask.

Suddenly blessed with a savage cunning, Sidelnikov attempted to perform a manoeuvre. Namely, he began to shift his face imperceptibly to the left, to the very edge of the mirror hoping to discover a gap, or at least the tiniest chink, between this side and the other. Until the very last moment, he managed to hold the unblinking and strained stare of the stranger who was still peeking out of the moulded frame getting ready for intrusion… But every such attempt was met by a cool dry slap of the whitewashed wall on his cheek.

Damp smells of earth and old leaves were coming through the open windowpane and tinny clicks of individual tardy drops could be heard. Sidelnikov climbed onto a stool, then onto the windowsill and stuck his head out. He could not shake off the feeling that someone was watching him.

The air was so soft and delicious that he wanted to devour it in lumps. However, the vague need to be mindful was still lingering… It is possible that this duality brought to his mind the word “mildness” that felt unfamiliar and posh. Sidelnikov said it twice under his breath, as if tasting its milky sweetness with his tongue and lips. The word “mildness” distinctly resonated with another word that had recently sounded in the room as if wishing to find a pair. Getting down onto the floor, Sidelnikov nearly fell from the windowsill, he was so burdened by the effort of recollection. But as soon as he sat down on the stool and turned his face towards the table, the sound repeated itself of its own accord. “Kindness”, that’s what Innokenty said, “so little kindness”.

The poem occurred so effortlessly and suddenly. It was as if it had always existed, and had just been waiting for an opportune moment in order to amaze its creator. And indeed, the amazement was in earnest. Sidelnikov was galloping around the room like a madman reciting his oeuvre in different ways with meaningful inflections. Here is the unabridged version of it:

Outside, the air smells of mildness.

When you’re forty, there’s little kindness.

He had never heard anything more impressive. Well, maybe not counting “There were only three of us /Left out of eighteen lads”. True, there also was another song with an obscure but marvellous word “dreaminokarelia”. An exotic female voice crooned, “Dreamin’o’Karelia will go on fore-e-ever” and it was clear that it meant something beautiful and sparkling and that fortunately, it was there to stay.

The triumphant author soon bridled his emotions and decided that he ought not to rest on his laurels. What he needed was a serious approach. Therefore, a twelve-page school notebook with times tables on its back cover was immediately sought out from the whatnot drawer. On the front cover, he printed in handsome letters:

Complete works of

G. F. SIDELNIKOV

And a little further down:

Volume 1.

The figure “one” came out bold and important.

Being aware of the fact that any proper book should start if not with a preface then at least with a brief summary of the author, Sidelnikov was forced to obey this boring rule.

The author’s summary required some serious deliberation. The summary was supposed to highly appraise and simply praise. But as the life ahead of him was certain to turn out glorious, he managed to find the adequate words:

“G. F. Sidelnikov is a well-known Soviet poet. And writer. He was born (crossed out). All his life (crossed out). He composed a lot of famous poems. He also composed...”

Sidelnikov had to decide urgently what else he would be composing apart from poems. He naturally would not allow himself the self-indulgence of piddly short stories, so without further ado Sidelnikov chose the large-scale genre.

“He also composed a lot of interesting novels”…

All that he had to do now was to invent a couple of titles, and the author’s summary could be deemed ready. But he stumbled when it came to the titles.

By that time, Rosa had returned and switched on the light and sat down at the table opposite him with some of her papers and books. A bit later, she asked, ‘What are you writing?’ while leafing through a dog-eared German-Russian dictionary. When she learned that the preparation of his complete works was in process, she was silent for a minute and then asked the single question: ‘Will you let me read it?’

The day was ending. It was one of those days which could be counted on the fingers of one hand and which Sidelnikov’s memory managed afterwards to fish out of the whole ocean of the time spent with Rosa when she was still alive. Frankly, a meagre catch. This happened due to, or maybe in spite of, the silly habit from the growing-up time: to run ahead and look forward, into the day after tomorrow, ignoring the untainted span of the present day, which was allotted the paltry orphaned role of a preparatory period. On such days, one is getting ready to start living, only to realise afterwards that it was what one had already been doing.

As regards the career of G. F. Sidelnikov as a writer, well, it is appropriate here to mention another, later event that G. F. himself preferred not to recall.

The truth is that at some point Sidelnikov, who had then already turned thirteen, did write a novel. That fantastic (if only in terms of its genre) work whose size amounted to two-thirds of a school notebook was created without interrupting his studies in the seventh form of secondary school, that is, directly during classes. The novel dealt with the burning issue concerning the fight of Soviet cosmonauts against space pirates in the circumstances of a supernova explosion. Its title was no humbler than “Lost in the Universe”. When the first chapter was finished, Sidelnikov, with the notebook under his arm, went on the tram to the Old Town where was located the editorial office of the only city newspaper, “The South Urals Worker”. An employee of the office by name of Deveryanov produced the impression of someone suffering from both idleness and the weight of cares. He devoured the contents of the notebook in one go in the author’s presence and inquired indignantly, ‘Where’s the rest?’ Sidelnikov, moved by such insatiability of his reader, hastened to calm him down saying, ‘please don’t worry, just publish it and put “to be continued” at the end, ‘cause I know what’s going to happen afterwards and will write the rest.’ ‘No way,’ Deveryanov said sulkily, lowering his head, ‘nothing doing.’ It’s clear that Sidelnikov has put a lot of effort into his work but this is not the way things are done here. First, let Sidelnikov write everything to the end, and then we’ll see.

Deveryanov got this opportunity in about three weeks when he was presented with the finished manuscript, yet he requested a week for consideration. When the week was up, he laid down an unexpected condition: there are young people in the novel (he started counting on his fingers), there’s a woman and a girl, but it totally lacks humour and romance. ‘These ought to be inserted,’ Deveryanov added kindly but firmly, thereby creating an unforeseen problem for the author. There was no problem with humour and romance. Both were effortlessly composed in the tram on the way back. But Deveryanov said that they were “to be inserted”. Alas, Sidelnikov had not yet mastered the technique of insertion. Writer’s work turned out arduous and grubby. Until late at night, he had to cut out intricate pieces of paper with minuscule inscriptions and paste them into the intended spaces, not to mention the fact that he knocked down the jar with paper glue twice, spilling the contents on himself. But the worst of it was that Sidelnikov ceased to understand why on earth he had bothered to go to the editorial office. He was no longer interested in what he had written. He did not feel like boasting to anyone. The grey sheets of “The South Urals Worker” used, inter alia, for wrapping a change of shoes for school, did not evoke in him any warm feelings whatsoever. Nonetheless, the notebook swollen from all the insertions was surrendered to the mercy of Deveryanov, irrevocably so, in exchange for some vague promises, but without any specific dates. Coming back from the Old Town on the same number four tram, Sidelnikov no longer remembered any supernovae and pirates accompanying them because he was absorbed in a much more crucial topic, namely, the mortal combat of Roman gladiators that he was going to depict without fail by means of linocut, and his most urgent creative task was to obtain a suitable piece of lino.

At least four months had passed when he discovered in the shopping bag belonging to Rosa, who was meeting him after school, along with the parcel with his favourite meat pies, ten identical copies of the newspaper which he did not even bother to glance at. ‘You’ve been published,’ said Rosa opening her bag.

On that day, coming out of the school building, Sidelnikov, perhaps for the very first time, took a detached view of Rosa. She was standing by the gilded Lenin’s bust like a frozen sentry, in her aged threadbare brown overcoat and an old-woman’s headscarf of the same brown colour and zipped cloth boots, with her bluish-black shopping bag, the only one she’d ever had, containing the still warm pies for Sidelnikov and the ten pathetic grey little newspapers.

For whom did she buy so many of them and what for? They must not be given or shown to anyone, let alone be read. Sure, he opened one of them when he was left alone with his shame and even made an attempt at playing, for his own sake, the role of an inveterate newspaper reader. All right the-e-n-n-n, let’s see if there’s anything interesting today… The headlines were intriguing and enticing: “The Union of Hammer and Sickle Strengthens”, “The Targets Are Set: Let’s Reach Them!”, “Tradition In Reliable Hands”, “Y. Shitsky: Educator And Mentor”. A-ha, here we go: “Lost in the Universe”. Let’s see what it’s about… “It was the last hour of the night…” Suddenly, Sidelnikov felt as if he lost the use of his arms and legs. Apart from this first phrase, everything was written by somebody else. An anonymous author, someone much more experienced, was able to conceive such exquisite expressions as “the starry expanse”, “unexplored space” and “the crew’s indissoluble friendship”, which would have never occurred to the unsophisticated Sidelnikov.

During the following three days, the mother of the fledgling fantasy writer was receiving telephone congratulations from friends and acquaintances. Unfamiliar coquetry was bubbling in her voice. (His father was not around because it was already a year since he had left them.) Thank God, all that soon ended, evaporated almost without a trace. And in the residue, which could not be helped, there was Rosa standing in the wind in the schoolyard with the unwanted offering at the ready. It is not that Sidelnikov was ashamed of her presence, but it burdened him, ever so slightly. Besides, his enemies and tormentors could walk out of the school doors any minute and they should not be afforded any reason for sneering. Rosa seemed to have realised something and hastened her step and they walked off but not side by side. She was walking a bit ahead of him and he trudged behind, swallowing his meat pie on the go and trying not to touch with his eyes the worn out brown coat on her back.