The Commissariat of Enlightenment (9 page)

THE
young man wasn’t by nature given to elation; he could hardly recognize the emotion coursing through him as he strode against a light drizzle up the road to the post-house.

He didn’t mind being considered deceitful, not even by Meyer, who in any case recognized his reliability. Gribshin had come to understand that deceit was ingrained in cinematographic reporting, as it was in every kind of storytelling. You were presented with a set of facts, sometimes laboriously uncovered and often imperfectly known, and it was your task to order them in a way that imparted meaning. No story was possible without some sense to be manufactured from it.

The story now involved the Count and the Countess. Gribshin wondered how to involve Semyon’s girl. Her claims about the child’s father were ludicrous, of course, but his disbelief was kept apart from his calculations. The image of her distended breasts and swollen belly would be a world sensation, pleasantly reinforcing the public’s convictions about the hypocrisy of saints. He wouldn’t need to employ an intertitle. Although this cinemato
graphic presentation would wipe out Pathé’s just-earned credit with the Countess, its tawdriness was irresistible.

The ground to the village had been made spongy by the ice that had dissolved in the past week’s rain and drizzle. Gribshin’s breath puffed before him. He could feel against his cheeks that a new chill had fallen on Astapovo and its environs. The coming frost would last until spring. Anticipation rushed blood to his head. So powerful was this sensation that he only vaguely heard the screaming.

The post-house sailed out of the blackness of the night, recklessly it seemed, like a ship without a pilot. A figure occupied a bench in front of the door. It was Semyon, with a piece of birch in one hand and a large hunting knife in the other. He didn’t look up as Gribshin approached. Gribshin stood before him and peered at what he was whittling there in the cold and wet. But no form in the wood was apparent. The wood was simply being whittled, narrativeless, resisting the artistic impulse. Alcoholic vapors rolled off Semyon. Something
had
been transformed: cash into vodka, the everlasting Russian equation. He had received a great many rubles for Gribshin’s lodging.

The old man didn’t look at Gribshin. He seemed entirely insensible and Gribshin himself was suddenly submerged in something oceanic. It was huge, green, wet, deafening, screaming, dizzying, buoyant, Russian. Gribshin didn’t speak to the man.

The front window of the post-house was ablaze, throwing into relief the curtain’s coarse threads. As he pushed against the door, light spilled golden onto the mud at the threshold. He became aware of the girl’s cries at the moment they ceased. In the next moment the door was shut in his face with animal force.

Gribshin gazed into the door as if the minute grains visible in the surface of the wood would spell out in complete sentences
what he had just seen. In the room no one he recognized had been visible, only a stooped white-haired woman. Her face had been inflamed. She was engaged in some kind of ambiguous struggle. The woman’s emaciated body had been draped with filthy rags—but with what were they filthy? A chair had fallen. Linen lay on the floor. And had he seen a bare leg? Had it been a leg?

“Galya,” the old man muttered. It was like an oath, rather than a girl’s name. “What’s to become of her? There are certain facts…Facts you understand…It’s what they mean, that’s something else…A nobleman’s smile (is it a smile?), a trail of maiden’s blood (is it blood?), a gold coin…The woman is quite old, you know. The last baby she brought into the world was in oh-seven, a boy, Timon Andreyevich’s boy’s boy…A prick, a prick. A prick is a fact. What it’s used for is its meaning…Marina has quite lost her head, you know. The old woman too. Only Galya…Galya…She was not always like that, you know. Little girl…bright as the forest is dark. I blame it on the Count…But who’s to say? The Count himself is not a fact. He’s a chimera, a specter, an interpretation…No, facts are real. You can break your teeth on a fact.”

The girl’s cries resumed as the words of the old man percolated through Gribshin’s consciousness. “God save me!” Gribshin heard muffled through the door. “God save me God save me God save me!”

Another voice responded, even more muffled, as if under layers of blankets. “God will save you and protect you!”

Gribshin struggled to make sense of the situation. His head was still full of the lights, the camera, the Countess, Khaitover’s accusations, and the Caucasian’s presence. How strange it was that the Caucasian was not with him now. Very slowly, as if he had just learned to speak, Gribshin said to Semyon, “The child has come?”

The old man replied calmly, “The child is killing her.”

Gribshin put his hand against the door, but didn’t push it. He didn’t want to reenter the room. He heard another cry of pain from behind the door and turned to Semyon.

“A horse,” Gribshin announced.

Semyon didn’t answer. He stared into space, as if his volubility had been a dream.

“A horse,” Gribshin repeated. “A horse would be a concrete fact.”

The neighbor had a horse, Semyon conceded after a while, and he unsteadily accompanied Gribshin there to ask for its hire. The transaction required nearly as much time as it would have taken for Gribshin to return to Astapovo on foot.

It was late and except for certain lamplit centers of commerce and entertainment, Astapovo had gone dark. The railway station was immersed in a pool of quiet, especially around the stationmaster’s house. The reporters had gone back to their tents and railway car and the other bystanders had found whatever encampments were reserved for their guilds. Two pairs of gendarmes promenaded the length of the platform in opposite directions, while a third pair stood at attention in the platform’s center. Not a single light could be seen within the house. An inexperienced rider, Gribshin arrived much more out of breath than the borrowed horse was.

He tied up the animal. No one hindered him as he went to the stationmaster’s house and rapped on the same door that had briefly admitted the Countess a few hours earlier.

He heard a rodentlike stirring within this house too and then silence. He struck the door in response to the silence, trying to de
liver into it some of the urgency that had propelled him there. And then the urgency abandoned him. His skin tingled from the chill. What had moved him to this foolishness, this headlong rush through the night? An idiot girl’s scream? All over Russia idiot girls were dying in childbirth. Other idiot girls rushed to take their places. The Caucasian stranger would have laughed.

Just as Gribshin was about to step away from the door to the household in which the Count was passing either his last or penultimate night on earth, the door opened and a very tall middle-aged man in a nightshirt appeared. He was one of the Count’s five living legitimate sons, Gribshin wasn’t sure which.

The man rasped, “What do you want?”

To film the Count on his deathbed—but Gribshin replied instead, “Some girl’s in trouble. She’s having a baby.”

The man shook his head as if to refuse the words admittance. Gribshin supposed that the Count’s family had been disturbed many times this past week and wondered why there had been no one to block his access. The man closed the door to a crack, apparently fearful of the cold air pouring in through it, yet unable to shut the door all the way.

“Is Dr. Makovitsky awake? Can you wake him? The girl’s hemorrhaging. She’ll die.”

“Dr. Makovitsky’s with the Count,” the Count’s son said. His voice registered heavy fatigue.

“Perhaps one of the other physicians? Dr. Pokrovsky? Dr. Berkenheim? Can Dr. Berkenheim come with me? The girl’s only two versts down the road. May I speak with Dr. Berkenheim?”

“It’s late.”

“Where’s Mr. Chertkov?”

“Mr. Chertkov is not a doctor.”

“He’ll understand what’s at stake. For want of a physician, a
young woman is dying. Surely one of these eminent men of medicine can be spared for a few hours.” Gribshin spoke entirely without irony. He added, “I’m not a mendicant. I’m not a missionary or any kind of sectarian. I work for Pathé Frères.”

“I’m sorry. Nothing can be done.”

“Ask the Count! Is he awake?”

The son was tall and somber, but his eyes were warm. He was trying to hide his sympathy. He believed Gribshin’s every word; he had taken to heart every request from the public, but he was powerless to meet them. Throughout his life he had suffered many species of powerlessness, species of lassitude, indecision, and fecklessness. He often wondered who he would have become if born to a less-famous father. And now, simply, what if his father had chosen to die less famously, at home?

“Sir, please.”

“Ask the Count!” Gribshin repeated. “Or imagine yourself asking the Count. And imagine his reply. Look at what he’s written: about the dignity of human life, about the peasant’s humanity…”

“My father has written many things.”

“And surely they must mean something.”

“Many people have come to us with similar appeals for assistance that they’ve justified through my father’s writings: utilitarianists, pacifists, communists, orgiasts. Spirit Wrestlers. Milk Drinkers. So many appeals, based on so many texts. Very often these appeals are at cross-purposes with each other. We can’t accommodate them all.”

Gribshin left the stationmaster’s house angry with himself. The Count’s son was right, of course: Astapovo had been inundated. Now he was at a loss for what to do. He thought about finding a bunk in the press tent, but remembered that he had promised to
bring back the horse. He walked around to the front of the stationmaster’s house, where the nag was tied. After hoisting himself into the saddle and taking the reins, Gribshin became aware that he and the horse were not alone.

He didn’t have to turn, the presence approached him head-on. It wasn’t the man he expected, the stranger from the Caucasus. It was a glowing red sphere, hovering before him, the end of a lit cigar. In the murk Gribshin could not determine to whom the cigar was attached. Nor could he detect the odor of smoke; another odor was present, familiar but unplaceable. He could have simply ignored the apparition, but its mysteriousness, or something about his own humor, also mysterious that night, compelled him to remain there to contemplate it.

“Good evening.”

Gribshin nodded in the direction of the voice.

“Rather late, though, to be galloping hither and thon,” the disembodied presence observed.

“I have urgent business,” said Gribshin. He felt foolish responding.

“Urgent business?” the voice mocked. “I dare say a girl is involved. I note a good many girls involved in urgent business hereabouts.”

Now Gribshin recognized the form emerging from the gloom. It was Professor Vorobev, the man with the rat.

“It’s not what you think. It’s something else entirely,” Gribshin said.

Vorobev carried an oversized black doctor’s bag in one hand and the lit cigar in the other. As best as Gribshin could see, the expression on the professor’s face was slightly contemptuous—but what was the object of his contempt? The cinematographer’s assistant? A world that didn’t appreciate his genius? Gribshin
guessed that the professor again didn’t recognize him and never would.

When Gribshin told him about the girl, Vorobev’s expression didn’t change. It was as if his contempt had been glazed upon his face. But he said, “I’ll ride. You lead the way.”

SEMYON
was still resting on the bench, whittling another piece of wood into something else that was shapeless. He hardly raised his head as the two gentlemen approached. Gribshin helped Vorobev dismount and the professor quietly entered the cottage.

The door opened for only a moment and Gribshin turned away, but again he was bequeathed a vision that, logically, could not have been embraced within the span of a moment. It was a single frame spliced into a meter of narrative, indelibly imprinted on the retina while the surrounding story subsided from memory. Marina was visible now, crouched behind her daughter. Her arms were wrapped around the girl. The old woman was with her, her rags smeared with filth. She was bowed before the girl, who lay amid makeshift pillows. The top half of the girl’s chemise was spotless, except for a small spot above her left breast. Everything beneath her waist was awash in blood, as if she were a flower rooted in a pot of blood. Her face was transfigured by pain, moved toward some kind of simple beauty. The old woman, the midwife,
seemed to be in equal pain, which on her face was a revelation of deep, wasted agedness, the extent of age to which few people in the Russian countryside could reasonably aspire. She moved her hands frantically within the mass of crimsoned sheets. Gribshin heard one thing within this distended instant:

“God will save you and protect you!”

And then Vorobev’s back obscured his view of the girl and the door closed.

Gribshin rested beside Semyon and together they looked into the dark and heard the girl’s wordless cries. Semyon finished one of the sticks he had been whittling, put it aside before it achieved any recognizable form, and began carving another. Gribshin’s gaze fell to the dirt by their boots, barely visible in the night, and upon the shavings left by Semyon’s work scattered before them. They were only shavings, but Gribshin discerned an image in them, some kind of figure.

He had to look hard and delete from his imagination the scraps that did not conform to the image. In the shavings, Gribshin believed, lay an angel or at any rate some fantastic creature—but it was an angel. Gribshin could almost make out the angel’s wings. The figure was elongated and seemed to be rising from the wood chips, which were arrayed in a kind of rectangular shape, a long coffin perhaps. A spirit rising. Then his vision cleared and the shavings meant nothing again.

Gribshin didn’t count the hours as the girl’s cries faded from his awareness. He eventually recalled the horse. Without a word to Semyon, he took its reins and led the borrowed animal down the path. The neighbor, who was waiting at his gate anxiously, made no inquiry about the fate of Semyon’s daughter.

On Gribshin’s return from an unfamiliar direction, the settlement was hardly recognizable. A half dozen dwellings had tum
bled on the berm of the road like dice. Semyon was now sitting on the bench accompanied by Marina and the midwife. He had stopped whittling and the two women surrounded him in a kind of parenthesis, examining the shavings on the ground. The debris signified the negative to the whittling stick’s positive. The women turned toward Gribshin.

He said, “Professor Vorobev? Where’s Professor Vorobev?”

Semyon grunted. “With the girl.”

He notched the wood and began another cut.

“She lives?” Gribshin said, exhaling in relief and allowing the passage of something like a smile, a lightninglike disfigurement across the lower half of his face. He had never before saved a human life. He thought of his father, who would be pleased with him, pleased and amused to hear of his late-night horsemanship.

“But the boy is dead.”

“What boy?”

“Her boy. My grandson.”

“I’m sorry,” Gribshin said.

No one replied nor moved to stop him from entering the cottage. He pushed at the door. The room was as it had been upon his first arrival, except now it was infused with a solar radiance, as if morning had come, and it seemed much cleaner, scrubbed even. There was no trace of blood. Vorobev, who been standing with his back to the door, glanced at him blankly. The professor was still in his suit, his hair unruffled.

Gribshin became aware of the same odd fragrance that he had first detected in the train compartment on the way from Tula. This was the odor of Vorobev, much more vivid now, its acridity bordering on the unpleasant. It nearly made him sneeze. Within this nimbus of odor whirled perhaps the extracted molecules of some toadstool or smut, or some rare tropical spore, or particles from a
sliver of comet or stray nebula. Gribshin wondered if this was what the future would smell like.

The girl lay on her back on the pallet, sleeping. A regal quality was inherent in her repose and you might not have guessed that she was an idiot, but otherwise she looked as she had before the ordeal. Her face was unlined. The sheets on which she lay were unbloodied and her chemise was clean. Even the spot on it had been removed.

“This was my first delivery,” Vorobev announced, but not directly to Gribshin. He appeared to be speaking to the unconscious girl. “And I employed medical instruments not primarily suited to the task. Ether was unavailable. The delivery was nevertheless, I’m sure, the most advanced medical care this settlement has ever seen.”

Gribshin hurried to say, gallantly, “Pathé Frères will pay for her treatment.”

Vorobev turned again to Gribshin, and Gribshin wondered if he recognized him even from the night before. “Pathé Frères? It’s a pity that you weren’t on hand these last few hours with your camera; it would have made a fine demonstration of practical medical expertise. Another opportunity lost. Cinematography has never achieved the goals to which it claims to aspire, particularly the universal diffusion of education and scientific knowledge. Instead the cinema has become nothing but another beer hall entertainment.”

The young man reddened. “Pathé Frères has always striven to fulfill its public responsibility. We take pride in our serious film subjects. That’s why we’ve come to Astapovo and why we bring our audiences views of the world’s important news events. Cinematography remains the most promising tool for public education.”

Now Vorobev’s face showed no mockery. “In that case, I have a proposition for you, another chance to record the benefits of modern medicine. In this instance, you’ll be recording progress at the forefront of scientific medical technique.”

Gribshin looked doubtful.

Vorobev declared, “The Count will be dead either within the day or within the week. The moment of his death will present a unique opportunity to perform a medical procedure that will guarantee his immortal fame. I propose that you cinematically photograph my procedure, which I have developed through years of research and experimentation.”

“And you wish to have this procedure performed on the Count?”

“Unfortunately, Russian law blindly places the hapless deceased into the hands of his heirs, regardless of their competence. Since the Count is apparently incapable of making his own arrangements, the decision devolves to the Count’s family or, more realistically, to Mr. Chertkov. Mr. Chertkov respects the cinema. If I’m not mistaken, your firm may be in a position to exercise some influence on Mr. Chertkov.”

Gribshin held back a smile. Vorobev was a madman, perhaps, but an interesting one. And yes, that odor, it definitely smelled of the future. In a moment, Gribshin understood that he would always give in to the premonition, when it came, that he was falling toward the future. He gazed on the sleeping figure of the girl, her face untroubled. “You overestimate our influence. Mr. Chertkov won’t even allow our cameras into the house.”

“Mr. Chertkov is willing to speak with you. He trusts your firm. You may arrange for my introduction to Mr. Chertkov.”

Gribshin wondered how much of this he should tell Meyer, whose indulgence was great but not infinite. Meyer would think
he was mad too. “Perhaps. But I can’t promise results. Mr. Chertkov is, ah, a very conservative man.”

“Mr. Chertkov and I are pursuing the same goal: the greatest truth delivered to the greatest number of people. Given a proper demonstration of my research, he shall recognize me as an ally, indeed as a colleague.”