The Kukotsky Enigma: A Novel

12

THEY WALKED ON AND ON THROUGH THE MONOTONOUS, sad, and undulating desert space until they arrived. The sandy desert ended. They stopped at the edge of a gigantic fault filled with a gray fog. Somewhere off in the distance loomed the other shore, but it could also have been an optical illusion, so tenuous and imprecise was the jagged strip that could be either heavy clouds pressed to the ground or distant mountains or a forest closer in . . .

“We need to take a rest,” Skinhead said, extending his fire-bearing hand over the dry branches. As always, the warmth and the light of the tiny children’s campfire far surpassed the capabilities of the pathetic fuel.

Warrior—who had assigned himself the task of bringing several dry skeletons of former plants—looked into the fire and asked Skinhead: “Why does it require fuel? That fire of yours burns just fine on its own.”

“Yes, I noticed that myself not long ago.” Skinhead nodded, and then stretched his arm over an empty spot. Another campfire ignited. On its own, without any fuel . . . “You see how we’ve all grown a bit wiser of late . . .”

“Even too wise,” the Warrior quipped morosely.

Skinhead pulled out of his pocket several dry square cookies with dotted symbols, just like ancient hieroglyphs, and gave each of them one. “Eat. You need to get your strength up.”

The Newling long ago had ceased to be surprised. The taste of the cookies was indistinct, herbal, and reminded her of the flat cakes her mother had baked in lean years from dried goutweed seeds mixed with a handful of flour. They were pleasant to eat.

“We’ll rest here for a bit, and then we’ll make our way over in that direction.”

They sat, absorbing the heat with their fatigued bodies.

Skinhead called Longhair over; the latter followed him unwillingly. Together they began digging at the top of a nearby hill. A while later they brought a bunch of whitish-yellow rags that seemed as if just removed from the linen sterilizer. They tossed them on the ground, and a multitude of tie-straps flew out in all different directions.

“Put on gloves and booties,” Skinhead commanded.

Reluctantly they began to sort out the strange garments: the sleeves had long straps on the wrists, and the canvas leggings tied just beneath the knees. The garments were as cumbersome as they were uncomfortable, and it was particularly difficult to knot the strap on the right arm. The Newling helped Longhair cope with the dangling ties . . .

The Professor, who had begun digging through the pile trying to find a pair that matched, suddenly flung the rags aside and barked: “This is a mockery! You’ll answer for this! You’ll answer for this mockery! I’m not going anywhere! I’ve had enough . . .”

Skinhead walked right up to him.

“Quit your hysterics. There are children, women, and animals here, after all . . . If you don’t want to come, you can stay here . . .”

The Professor regained his self-control and modulated his tone of voice.

“Listen! Would you just tell me why I’m here? What is going on here? What kind of a place is this?”

“The answer to that question lies on the other shore,” Skinhead answered curtly. “But if you insist, you can stay here.”

The Professor turned away, slumped over, and moved away from the campfire . . . He easily transitioned from overbearing bossiness to humble subordination.

Skinhead tied his own two booties and helped Longhair secure his case to his back.

Both campfires had burned down. Cold flowed from the fault, and it was incomprehensible how Skinhead intended to transport them all to the other side. He approached the edge of the fault. The others crowded like a herd of sheep behind him.

“We’ll take the bridge. Come stand at the edge.”

Cautiously, they approached the precipice. They craned their necks: there was no bridge.

“Look down, down there.” People made out a metal construction looming in the unfathomable depths of the gray fog of the fault.

Skinhead jumped, and the entire monstrous construction swayed like a rowboat. His face, turned upward toward them, barely shone from below. He waved. Each of them standing up above shuddered, feeling trapped between necessity and impossibility.

“Manikin!” Skinhead called, and the latter obediently approached the edge. Its feet in their canvas bags sweated and felt heavy as stone. There seemed to be no force strong enough to make it follow Skinhead. But there was: far off in the distance a sound arose, barely audible to the ear, forewarning of an intolerable shower of black arrows. Manikin, doomed, did not jump—suicidal, it collapsed headfirst and disappeared in the fog.

The construction swayed again. At that same moment the Newling felt the sand under her feet move and shift. The sandy soil behind the crowded handful of confused people began to cave in and loosen, and an avalanche began behind their backs. It grew and widened, and a whole sandy Niagara whipped up behind them . . .

The next to plunge was Longhair. Then the pair of women chained together—Longlegs first, and Tiny screaming downward after her. With great dignity the former Limper approached the edge, sat down, and lowered himself, as if lowering himself into a swimming pool or bath. Warrior. The dog. One more woman in a running suit. A man with a briefcase. Strange Animal. A blindfolded little girl. The Newling stepped downward as one of the last . . .

None of them fell like a rock—they all descended slowly. Either the air streamed powerfully upward and supported them or the force of gravity in these parts was weaker. Down below the wind gusted. It carried them relatively far from each other in different directions. Some landed on the bridge’s large crossing planks; others, like Longhair, were less fortunate. He stood on the intersection of thin pipes, and the closest vertical support was located at a decent distance and beyond reach. He rolled back and forth to maintain his balance. His case got in his way.

Worst off was Manikin. It lay horizontally, grasping a wide rail at the level of its chest, its arched soles pressed against an unsteady vertical support, and its entire enormous torso spread out in midair as if posed to do push-ups . . .

The uneven rocking of the entire construction caused by their fall slowly began to settle, but just at that moment they heard a hoarse howl: fear of being left alone in the sand overcame all else, and the Professor plunged into the gray fault. The bridge construction rocked violently, Manikin’s soles slipped from the unsteady vertical support, and it now hung by its arms alone . . .

The wind would die down, then gust madly from the fault. The construction shuddered, shaking unevenly in response to each gust, and responded as if alive to each contact. The fog gradually began to dissipate, and the people could make out an artful steel labyrinth, constructed by some mad troll or insane artist. The Newling studied the construction with a professional’s eye: she would never have agreed to draft a working design of this construction, which, she saw, contained strange gaps and inside-out turns, as if the façade and infrastructure had been reversed.

“It’s fictive space, the thought occurred to her. It cannot exist in nature. And if it is fictive, does that mean that it’s impossible to fall? The fall would be fictive then as well . . . But I’m not fictive . . .”

Skinhead demonstrated the agility of a circus performer as he jumped from pipe to pipe, changing levels. He went to each of them, lightly touched their hands, heads, and shoulders. And said something, explained something, inquired. He was tender and convincing.

“We have to keep moving. We have to make it to the other shore. Don’t rush. We can go slowly. Even if we have to inch our way. None of you will be lost. We’ll all make it there. Just don’t be afraid. Fear impedes the ability to move . . .”

His words possessed a heightened effectiveness, and the people, who at first had frozen in the ridiculous poses the construction had caught them in, slowly began to maneuver.

Manikin tried to lift its legs and to rest its enormous body on the rail from which it hung by petrified fingers, but its strength failed it, and its hands, fatigued from the tension, were losing their grip, its chest was dropping lower, and it now hung solely by the tips of its tensed fingers. The stone weight of its body slowly pulled its fingers from the rail, and it waited indifferently for the moment when its fingers would pass over the rib of the rail and slip from the rail’s side surface.

Within its murky consciousness a heavy thought turned like a lump of unrisen dough: I will fall, I will be dashed to pieces, everything will come to an end, and those arrows-bullets-wasps will no longer sting me in the head and stomach . . .

At the last moment it sought out Skinhead: he was nowhere to be seen; there was only Longhair rocking off in the distance, hugging some black object . . . Manikin unclenched its fingers and flew downward. Not like a stone, not like a bird, but like a crumpled piece of newsprint carried by wind blowing garbage . . .

Despite the lightness and slowness of its fall, the blow of its landing was shattering. Broken into pieces, it lay on the stony bed of a long-ago dried-up river among the remains of ancient boats, petrified shells, and two unmatched running shoes. Its body, shattered in all directions, was surrounded by small—larger than squirrels but smaller than rabbits—not entirely solid creatures, perhaps entities—the same kind that appear in dreams and then, on awakening, leave behind not a visual image, but only a kind of spiritual trace of warmth, tenderness, affinity . . .

The creatures gathered in a crowd, like inhabitants of a desert or tundra around airplane wreckage. Some, the most sensitive, sobbed, while the others shook their heads and lamented. Then one of them said: “We should call the Doctor.”

Others objected: “There’s no need for the Doctor. That’s a corpse.”

“No, no, he’s not a corpse,” said still others.

Someone with a young voice squeaked challengingly: “So what if he’s a corpse! Corpses can be revivified!”

A kind of discordant meeting ensued.

Then the largest and eldest of them was wheeled in. He was so decrepit that you could see through him in places. He wheeled up close, accidentally running over Manikin’s broken fingers with his front wheels. He sighed a bit and announced:

“He’s a corpse. Condition zero.”

The gathering stirred, burbled, and rustled.

“Can’t anything be done for him?”

“There’s nothing you can do.” The Doctor shook his head flatly. “Except donate blood.”

They all fell silent. Then one of them with round eyebrows and big eyes said, “There are a lot of us. We can do it.”

One with a long nose interjected: “What about blood substitutes? There are substitutes for blood!”

But the Doctor did not even look in his direction.

“Six liters of live blood, minimum. Or there’s no getting him on his feet.”

“We’ll do it, we’ll do it,” the gathering rustled. The Doctor in his wheelchair seemed angry.

“How are you going to do it? Each of you has six milliliters of blood. You can’t donate more than half. You know that I gave five milliliters and my legs never returned to normal.”

The squirrel-rabbits grew agitated and chattered again.

“If we bring him back to life, he will be . . . handsome . . . intelligent . . . They have children . . . and can build and draw things . . . Let him live . . .”

“Very well,” the Doctor agreed. “But I have to remind you of the following: before you lie the remains of a criminal. A murderer. A very cruel and merciless one. And senseless.”

They all took fright and fell silent. Then the curly-headed one with perky African hair quietly spoke.

“All the more reason. What’s there to discuss? He needs to be given a chance.”

“I don’t disagree,” smiled the Doctor. “I just want to remind you that according to the law of the Great Ladder, when you sacrifice your own blood you descend downward and lose part of your mobility, while he rises upward and acquires the qualities that you sacrificed for him . . .”

“Yes, yes . . . We know . . . We want to . . . We’re agreed . . . agreed . . .”

They encircled the battered Manikin, and from out of nowhere there appeared a white sheet, and a mysterious medicine set to work . . .

THAT PART OF THE LABYRINTH WHERE THE NEWLING had landed held a chaotic accumulation of small landings a good jump apart, with the vertical supports underneath the landings, making it impossible to shimmy down them. The Newling successfully made her way across the landings until she reached one from which only a trained jumper could advance: all she could do was turn back.

She sat down in confusion. Looking down terrified her. She raised her head and looked upward. Up above ran a parallel chain of landings whose weight-bearing supports were relatively close, and she decided that after resting a bit she would try to modify her route. True, she got the impression that the upper path ran somewhat off to the side. But there seemed to be no other way out. Amazed by the lightness and responsiveness of her body, she hugged the scratchy metal pole and, pressing her entire body to it, shimmied up. Her canvas stockings and gloves protected her from the touch of the cold metal. But what was most surprising was that this exercise turned out to be quite fascinating, and her entire body rejoiced. What was there for it to rejoice about? Perhaps that it was so easily training itself to retract like a spring, push off, then recover in the air, and relax slightly before landing. Each ensuing shimmy was easier and freer, and she totally forgot any sense of constraint or danger . . .

That’s probably what’s so wonderful about sports, she guessed as she pulled herself to the landing above. Here there was more light, and from here the other shore seemed not so murky . . .

The Professor made his way along a crooked slippery pipe to an angled bollard and sat down on it. Two rusty rails hung in the air to the right, about six or seven feet away, but he decided not to attempt the jump. He sat morosely, intent on trying to comprehend how he had managed to wind up in this absurd, entirely fantastic situation. The wind blew from somewhere below, the bollard swayed, and everything was enveloped by a nasty, damp, oppressive cold.

“Maybe it’s a dream, after all?” The Professor returned to this redeeming idea for the umpteenth time. He ran his fingertips across his face and head. He touched his gums with his tongue: his dentures were missing! How had he not noticed earlier? Where could those fine dentures made at the Fourth Department’s dental clinic have gone?

He sat in a strange and uncomfortable pose, dressed in his best suit, wearing all his medals, but without a single document, and having lost his dentures. Or had someone pulled them out of his mouth? This is awful . . . Awful . . .

“Have I really died?” His fidgety brain, which had studiously avoided the word, suddenly slammed right into it . . .

In the dim fog to the Professor’s left a familiar bald spot flashed by.

“Listen! Your Eminence!” shouted the Professor, and Skinhead immediately headed in his direction.

“Now, we need to gather our strength and, without rushing . . .” Skinhead began in his always low-key voice, but the Professor grabbed him by the sleeve of his white shirt and bawled.

“Will you just tell me finally, did I die?”

Skinhead stared with a lingering gaze at the cringing Professor and said exactly what the Professor did not want to hear from him.

“Yes, Professor. I can’t keep it from you any longer. You died.”

The Professor shuddered, and then he sensed a burning emptiness in his chest familiar from his heart attacks. His hands and feet grew cold. All these sensations were obviously signs of life, and this calmed him, and he began to laugh, placing his hand in the area of his heart.

“You’re joking. But news like that really could kill me.”

“I’m not joking. But if putting it another way makes you feel better, you can consider your worldly life over!”

“So am I in hell?” The Professor fidgeted on his bollard. “Keep in mind that I don’t believe . . . in any of that!”

“Yes, I myself don’t believe in hell. But for the time being you’re going to have to reconcile yourself to the current state of affairs. It’s very important right now that we make our way to the other shore . . .”

Skinhead took two large strides in the direction of the rusty rails, pushed them lightly with his foot, and they immediately fell in line with the bollard. After which Skinhead walked off.

The Professor sat in stunned silence. The fact was that Skinhead strode with his wide feet in their canvas surgical booties right through the air. His steps were sure and fast, and it seemed like the whitish fog yielded slightly beneath his feet, while he himself swayed like a circus performer walking a slack rope. Maybe there was a rope?

The Professor stepped cautiously onto the unsteady rails . . .

Longhair just rocked and swayed, and there was nowhere for him to move: the nearest landing was about ten yards away. The movement of the pipes he stood on had a certain complex rhythmic pattern to it, but he could not figure out what it was, despite his sensitive musical ear. For some reason he knew that as soon as he understood the numeric formula he would be able to direct his movement. He listened closely to his feet, to his tibia and femurs, to his thirty-two vertebrae-conductors—and the resonator of his skull . . . He was beginning to make something out . . . a kind of polytempo, one line superimposed on the other . . . Five thirds . . . That was it. His body responded and adjusted. Falling in step with the rhythm, he sensed that the swinging poles beneath his feet had become controllable to an extent. The amplitude of their motion around their axis increased. But this movement occurred parallel to the closest landing and did not bring him in any way closer to it. In addition, the second tempo got in the way and grew ever more recognizable . . . He had it: seven-eighths! The second axis of motion appeared immediately . . .

Something swung him violently, and he almost dropped his case. But he held on. He pressed it to his chest. He stroked it. His canvas glove kept him from feeling it, and he wanted to remove the glove. Swinging back and forth with a nervous, broken trajectory, he attempted to undo the ties on his left hand. The knot was tight and tangled; he bit at it with his teeth . . . He felt unexpected help coming from the air itself. It was helping. The familiar vortex was spinning around him once again, but it seemed to have fingers and lips, even a woman’s loosened hair curling under its own wind. This vortex of air turned out to have a woman inside.

The knot loosened and undid itself. Longhair dropped his left hand, tossed off the glove, and felt that the knot had loosened on his right hand as well.

“Quickly, open it up, open it up,” sang the living plait of animated air. It was warm, even hot; it coaxed, caressed, nestled close, and hurried him . . .

His movement corrected itself of its own, directed itself, and little by little brought him closer to the landing. Longhair pressed on the latch, the mechanism clicked, the vortex pulled the wonderful thing from its case, and placed it in Longhair’s hands.

“Play . . .”

His hands held an instrument. An instrument for . . . With the help of which . . . It was the most important thing for him, but he did not know how . . . His right hand placed itself where it should go: his fingers fell in place and recognized the keys. His left hand searched . . . It was followed by tormenting confusion.

Hot fingers ran along his neck, his chin, and touched his lips.

“Play already, please. It’s still possible to go back.”

The wooden mouthpiece nestled against his lips . . . And the swinging pipes carried him back and forth, the rhythm of their motion penetrating his body and insistently demanding his complicity. His total complicity. He gathered air through his nose, relaxing his diaphragm to fill his lungs completely.

The vortex subsided and hung in the air. Longhair pressed his lips around the wooden mouthpiece: there was the promise of pleasure, of the most subtle part of it. His lower lip nestled against the wooden stem, his tongue touched the plastic reed. All together it was like a missing part of his body, an organ from which he had been separated. He was exploding from within: with his breath, with his whole self he needed to fill this queer creation of metal and wood that was as much a part of him as his lungs, his throat, and his lips . . . He exhaled—carefully, so as not to frighten away the emerging miracle . . . The sound was music, the intelligible word and living voice all rolled into one. The sound made the center of his bones ache sweetly, as if his bone marrow were responding with joy . . .

Poor humans—a head and two ears! Malleus and incus . . . Stapes and habenula . . . Three turns of the cochlea, the middle ear plugged with wax, and the Eustachian tube filled with scales of dead skin . . . Ten clumsy fingers and the crude air pump of the lungs . . . Music?! The shadow of a shadow . . . The approximation of an approximation . . . A suggestion suspended in the dark . . .

The most sensitive wipe away the tear spreading under their lower eyelid . . . A yearning for music . . . Suffering for music . . .

Lord God, come among us! He came. And stands behind the impenetrable wall of our earthly music . . .

The Professor heard and began to weep. His last hopes had dissipated: he truly had died, for such things did not occur on earth. He had always been proud of his musical ear, had sung in tune to the guitar, could pick out a tune on the accordion, although he had never taken lessons, and even his blockhead son had inherited his musical talent from him . . . But this was another kind of music. It spoke clearly and distinctly of the senselessness of and necessity for beauty. It itself was beauty—indisputable, heaven-sent, carefree, and with no practical application, like a bird’s feather, a soap bubble, or the velvet violet face of pansy petals . . . It also spoke to him something that grievously shamed the Professor for those aimlessly lived years . . . No, that’s not it, someone else had said that. The Professor was tormentingly ashamed of everything about himself, from birth to death, from toes to head, from morning till night . . .

All movement, all the clambering and grasping stopped. All fell quiet and still. Even the tiny creatures bustling about Manikin splayed at the bottom of the fault lifted their large-eyed little heads and listened . . .

But Longhair was almost not there. He was entirely dissolved in his music; he himself was music. Of his entire being there remained only a single crystal suitable only for recognizing that miracle in the making. There remained only a single point—of acute pleasure, before which all bright earthly pleasures were not even a prototype of perfect happiness, but a vulgar deception, like an inflatable woman with a hole that smelled of rubber . . .

He did not notice as the tender vortex lifted him upward, above the wobbly constructions, then higher, so high that there was nothing around him except the whitish fog. The music continued to mount and to fill the world; it was the world, and the dot that remained somewhere on its edge grew smaller and smaller, until it disappeared entirely. And with that he pushed with all his being against the springy membrane, and exerting certain pressure he pushed through and emerged from it, preserving in himself the echo of the bursting film . . .