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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 Abramovich called for another bottle of Smirnov 21.
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"A hundred million trees, felled all at once! Everything roared and shook. Fountains of water gushed from the ground, so they say. A hurricane roared through Kansk, and a tidal wave raced up the Yeneisy. 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 kind of scabs?"
But Mishin 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 every now and then."
"No, hang on," said Erick. "This happened around midsummer '78, right?"
As he recalled, he had been at Lavrentiev's summer place at the time. Old Yermolayev 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 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 intruder had exploded on top of St. Petersburg, surely this would have spoken to our society! But what it can 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 not one 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 Mishin.
"Such an immense event---and it failed to kill even so much as one person. As 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." Yanovich 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 Yanovich leapt up, buttoned himself and repaired to the door to stand staring up into the starry night.
Eric thought sadly: "Our turnip's seeing some decoration being pinned to his breast, far away in Moscow. Yes, a jeweled star third class, to honor 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 rubles. I really should get up an expedition, don't you see? Not one of your dilettante outings, but a real scientific expedition equipped with theodolite and stuff. Moscow's the starting point for that. Nobody'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 I've been to Moscow? I appeal to you, gentlemen, will you lend me ten rubles?"
"Aha!" exclaimed Mishin. "Now we see him in his true colors."
Dr. Aho said warily, "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 think? Or Koshelev? We could bet on the outcome---the loser pays the bill."
"Here, have some anyway." In an apparent fit of bonhomie Abramovich slopped a few fingers of vodka into an empty shot glass. "Go on: a man needs a drink." But then he teased the glass towards Abramovich, as if he might hook it back again.
Like a cat pouncing on a mouse, Yanovich snatched up 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?"
Abramovich nodded sagely. "Yes indeed, those are the horns of the dilemma."
"I've only spoken to people who have in turn spoken to eyewitnesses. You have to discount a lot, sometimes. These people speak of giant rats, the size of cows, that burrow underground. You and I, sirs, know that these are the corpses of mammoths frozen in the undersoil. But the trees, ah, yes, the trees! A hundred million trees laid low instantly. What have logic and morality to do with such a thing? It's an accidental circumstance, sirs. We come into our life by accident. We often leave it the same way. In between is a comedy of errors."
Abramovich nudged Mishin. "I knew it! We have a Superfluous Man in our midst!"
"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."
"We have a Superfluous Man in our midst!" repeated Abramovich, delighted with this insight.
"Does it matter if a comet hits our Mother 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 funnier joke---if this hadn't happened in the back of beyond, if it had struck St. Petersburg full in the face---chastising that rich, uncaring metropolis! ---in that case, the whole world would have known. But I...! But I...!"
"You would have been no one, then," Eric said gently. "You would have had nothing."
Yanovich stared at him blearily. "So you do understand? You're my true brother."
Doubtless, reflected Eric, they were brothers---brother in dishevelment, that is. His own coat reeked of tar, and Yanovich's coat was equally filthy. Their boots were a disgrace. Eric 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 anyone 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 American West could desert the rumor of the Motherlode. Presumably his life could only go downhill from here.
Suppose Yanovich did raise the wherewithal to travel to Moscow? What could he possibly show to anyone there? All those tumbled trees that he'd spoken of were unknown except to the migrating birds, which alone knew the scale of this land....and to a few tribesmen who were considered non-people in Russian society.
"Obsession," Eric said softly, as if it were the title of an as-yet-unwritten novel.
Abramovich heard him. "Once a man is obsessed, there's nothing you can do about it! Take my word for it." He cocked an imaginary pistol at the ceiling. "Bang, bang, down they come." He laughed shamelessly.
And yet, thought Eric---What if it were all true? What if one of the greatest mysteries in the history of the world really had happened not too far from here? But nobody was paying attention---It was as if the Crucifixion had taken place and everybody was away in the country.
"I may as well be a convict in exile," went on Abramovich gloomily. "Siberia isn't a real place. It's so much tripe 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.
Eric reached out and touched the suffering man on the arm.
"My good, Mr. Yanovich, I just happen to be writing a series of articles for the New Times in Moscow..."
At that very moment a loud twang sounded through the room---as if some cosmic clock had chimed at the inn, or as if time itself had suddenly snapped in two. Briefly the room was silent, till the note had died away.
"Sod it!" swore the guitar player, one of whose strings snapped.
"That's right, New Times," Eric said excitedly.
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