Boris Smagin

The Silent Procession

F

or three days the letter had been on his table. How ridiculous of his mother - as if she couldn’t have told him about it. Never mind the exams. They can wait!

Andrei ripped the envelope open. He had grown tired of the quarrel long ago. He was too good-natured, and all the friends that he had ever made he had kept to the present day. And as for Herman, obviously something greater bound them together. He swore, suddenly feeling a strange emptiness in his apparently full life.

Herman had entered his life on a whirlwind, turning it upside down. That was how he was.

That, maybe, was the reason for their break, at first so unexpected. Herman affected people almost hypnotically, his combination of thorough scepticism and a pure youthful enthusiasm had an amazing attraction. Andrei wanted to free himself from this hypnosis, to shake it off.

‘The instinctive longing for independence, burdened by the child-complex - pure Freud,’ - that’s what Herman would have said. Maybe he even said it.

All right then, we have done our sulking in opposite corners, time to make it up.

The envelope was large, but the letter was tiny. The philosopher loved lengthy expositions, but his style of writing was markedly lapidary, becoming inarticulate at times. Andrei had noted this with malice right at the beginning of their acquaintance. It was nice for the physicist to feel supremacy over the philosopher in such a purely humanitarian subject.

‘Come back, all is forgiven. Friday, 2 pm. But make sure you’re on time!’ And that was all.

They met three years ago, during entrance exams. Andrei had just got another A grade, and was proudly striding down the corridors of the University, which he already began to regard as his own.

On one of the windowsills sat a thin boy, of such an unusual appearance that Andrei involuntarily stopped. First, that surprising red wispy beard, framing a narrow face, which, in addition, was thickly decorated with pockmarks. Secondly, his outfit. The jacket, when young, might even have been foppish. but that had been long ago. In addition it had grown by two sizes more than its owner, and as for his jeans, also unspeakably shabby, they, too, were approximately two sizes too big.

Seeing Andrei, the boy jumped off the sill, and asked: ‘Maths with Physics?’

‘Yes, why?’

‘Just interested, you know.’ He offered a tanned hand. ‘Herman.’

‘Andrei.’

‘Must mean you’re good at mathematics.’

‘Yes, I’ve just got an A,’ said Andrei, modestly lowering his glance.

‘Excellent, excellent. That means you can explain it all to me.’

‘What exactly?’

‘Mathematics, of course. Don’t look surprised - we simply do not have the time for that. Better sit down here. You see, I finished school last year, externally. So of course I have forgotten everything. I’ve noted a few questions here which have to be revised.’

Andrei’s friends were waiting for him, so as to make proper use of the Saturday afternoon by celebrating the A grade. This boy’s proposal seemed absurd - to explain mathematics! But from some reason he stayed, he even began to explain.

For an hour or two, Andrei talked, moving from Bessel’s function to cosine theorems, from the volume of a pyramid to the use of complex numbers. Herman took no notes, he just listened, occasionally interrupting Andrei with short, lucid questions.

Breaking in on yet another exposition, he jumped up and said, ‘That’s all. Finis. I’m off to the exam, Room 212. Wait for me there.’

And he vanished. Andrei found his friends, strolled round the courtyard, and then he did in fact go to find Room 212.

By the open door stood a few people, and one of them exclaimed in admiration - ‘He’s really going well!’

Herman was being examined. But how well he answered! Brilliantly he repeated the theorems hurriedly explained to him only a short time ago, freely handling complicated terminology.

Such was the beginning of their acquaintance, which developed into a fierce friendship.

Andrei walked very fast, as if pursued. It was not surprising that his mother smiled on hearing where he was going.

‘Well, now nothing will stop you. You’ve got through to your beloved Herman.’

‘Beloved Herman’ - that’s what all the family called him. And also ‘man of the future’. It was the future, in fact, on which their friendship struck rocks.

‘We separated on ideological grounds,’ explained Andrei one day at breakfast, when the whole family was together.

The memory of that conversation was to stay with Andrei all his life. Now, too, his memory revived that dull March evening, the lilac dusk, the dark attic, named by Herman ‘the laboratory of the intellect’. Herman sat on a low wooden bed by the table, on which stood a thick lighted candle to impart a picturesque atmosphere.

No joy was evident in Herman’s face, though he himself had phoned, asking Andrei to come.

‘You’ve come,’ he grunted-from his corner. ‘Well, sit down, now that you are here. What have you to tell me, my dear boy? I suppose my behaviour surprises you? Why, it’s a long time since I last phoned or saw you. I’m very busy. And it’s very probable that you won’t be able to understand me, even less to help me.’

‘Why have you given up going to the University?’

‘What would I do there? I have passed all the appropriate exams so far and now I’m sitting and - thinking.’

‘I don’t understand. Am I in the way of your thoughts, or something? Why should I not be able to understand or help you? And anyhow, why all this secrecy?’

‘You see, my dear friend,’ said Herman condescendingly, ‘I did, in fact, think of enlisting you for the solution of a problem. But the trouble is - you are too rational. And too good a physicist. Every scientist dislikes dilettantes, and is prepared to fight to death for the axioms of his wet-nurse. You have many ready prescriptions and categorical conclusions, where the accusations of the prosecutor become one with the sentence given by the judge.’

‘Just a moment,’ Andrei interrupted, ‘why are you carrying on at me like that? I am your friend, after all, I can help if it is necessary.’

‘Subjectively a friend, that’s true, but objectively thanks to your profession, we are enemies for the time being.’

‘But why, for heaven’s sake? Have you disproved the theory of relativity, or something? Everyone is doing that nowadays?’

‘Don’t jump to conclusions. But, while we are being frank and helpful, tell me: what is your opinion of the time machine?’

‘It belongs to the realm of fantasy.⁵

‘Very well. And now one more question. The search for the philosopher’s stone is ...’

‘Nonsense.’

‘Well, there you are, you have finished me off, my dear friend. It is precisely the time machine that I am thinking of, which I want to construct, or rather, achieve by visual experience, right here. With the help of the philosopher’s stone. Of course you will say that it is impossible. It turns out that it is you who are the scholiast, though by rights scholiasm ought more to be a quality of mine, since I am a philosopher.’

‘What has scholiasm to do with this?’ Andrei could not bear it any longer, he jumped up from his chair and began pacing the room. ‘There is such a thing as a law of physics, which cannot be dismissed just like that. The time machine brings with it the disruption of the casaulity of events.’

‘You ought not to dabble in philosophy. After all, it is a subject which I know something about.’ Herman gave him a patronizing smile. ‘Come off it, don’t get offended, I was only joking. Of course the search for the time machine is an occupation worthy of idlers and madmen. So calm down, my dear friend, I am doing something that is purely practical, one may even say, utilitarian. I am preparing a long paper on aesthetics, and at the same time, between the acts, so to speak, I indulge in painting. This, like all dilettante pastimes, takes up much of my time, therefore do not judge me harshly for my coming to see you so seldom. Communicate this to your worthy parents, for them I would least of all like to offend. Soon there will be a competition for amateur painters, and I want to participate in the historical genre. I find the time of the Thirty Years’ War very stirring - terrible years of violence, oppression and cruelty. Take a look at these sketches.’

Andrei skimmed the pages of the sketch-pad, which really did carry the figures of soldiers in medieval armour, and he felt he was being made a fool of. Something false made itself felt in Herman’s pompous speeches.

What, in fact, was it? Andrei felt vaguely irritated by his friend. He was concealing something very important, something that had completely taken possession over him.

‘I don’t believe in your painting,’ he said, and turned for the door. ‘If you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to. But there is no point in lying. I’m going.’

‘As you wish, my dear friend. I cannot keep you here by force.’

Andrei slammed the dilapidated door of the flat with a bang.

That was two months ago. And now - this letter. Whistling a march he walked up the familiar staircase to the familiar attic. A cosy place for meditating. Andrei had frequently made use of it during term.

‘Open sesame!’ he shouted happily, and pushed the door with his foot.

The sesame opened. The attic was empty. The clean, freshly scrubbed floor breathed coolness. A large vase full of flowers stood on the table. A narrow beam of light from the patterned window crossed the room and lit the corner of a low row of shelves, which ran along all the four walls. The far wall was covered by a painting. Andrei quickly went inside. It was much darker there, but the convex outlines of people in medieval garb stood out as if illuminated by a bright sun. Eight soldiers in full military dress walked straight at the observer.

The unskilled painter had, after all, captured the dynamics of movement. But here the mastery ended, because the painting looked completely amateur. Andrei remembered the school shows, at which hard-working Savva, the boy who shared his desk, had exhibited paintings. He, too, loved historical subjects. And his creations were just as primitive. The only thing that was striking about Herman’s painting were the colours. Andrei even ran his finger along the edge of the canvas. The paint lay in thick strokes, the finger slipped along its surface. At the same time there was a sense of something soft, as if it was velvet that touched the hand. The paint seemed to catch his fingers, trying to stop them. But at the same time they left no trace.

From a distance the picture made no impression whatever. Andrei moved away from it, sat down, and, waiting for Herman, he began to look at the books lying by the table.

Anyone trying to guess the occupation of the owner of the books from their selection would very probably suffer defeat. Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, The History of the Polish Gentry, a novel by Claude Farrer, History of the Middle Ages - all took their turn in Andrei’s hands. Textbook of Painting for Beginners followed. ‘Well, that already seems more interesting,’ noted Andrei. And then came something really interesting. The Secrets of Painting and the Painting of Secrets - in Gothic script, published in Berlin in the year 1613. Andrei glanced through the pages of the old book finding his way with difficulty through the involved style of a foreign language. Why did Herman waste almost three months on this picture? Why?

Clouds overshadowed the sun and the room darkened. With his eyes fixed to the book Andrei rose to be nearer the window. Something flashed before his eyes and he turned to face the painting.

He saw something that was to such a degree incredible and strange that he dropped the book, and stifled a cry, as if he was afraid of being overheard.

The colours of the picture lit up with a bright flame. It became bas-relief, as if it had filled with life.

The distant contours of the houses came nearer, they took on real features. The bodies of the standing soldiers, too, filled with flesh. But the most preposterous thing of all was that the soldiers were moving. One after another they stepped into space, out of the boundaries of the painting and advanced upon Andrei. And behind them new figures appeared, so as to enter the room in exactly the same way, dark spectres, only to disappear after a few steps. It was quiet, unbearably quiet. Not one sound interrupted the terrible procession of those visions that disappeared by Andrei’s side.

They walked through him, disappeared in him - big, tired men, in steel armour and feathered head-dress.

Andrei did not know how long he stood there - one minute, five, twenty minutes. But his nerve snapped. He turned and leaped out on to the staircase, almost wrenching the bolt off the door.

Complete silence reigned on the stairs and everything was the same as usual. Through the corner window Andrei could see the courtyard, with fresh washing faintly waving in the light breeze, and a fragment of the sky, decorated by the outstretched sail of a feathery cloud.

After waiting a minute Andrei approached the door on tiptoe and pulled it sharply towards himself. Nothing happened. He entered an ordinary room, where everything was familiar, with the exception of a small, silent painting in the corner. Andrei went up to the picture, looked at it closely. The colours shone dully, the people in the medieval dress stood quietly, and no trace was left of that which had taken place here only a minute ago. And maybe it had not even happened. Maybe it had been a hallucination? Yes, certainly that must have been it. Where would those silent figures have come from? Why should they have started wandering?

Behind him something creaked. Andrei swung round, ready for another unexpected occurrence.

In the doorway stood a prosaic Herman, with a no less prosaic bottle of wine in his hands.

‘Why react so strangely to my appearance? Anything wrong? Herman Semyonov, your humble servant, in the flesh.’

He spoke with his usual voice, his usual phrases, but Andrei sensed the laughter in his friend’s eyes.

‘Listen.’ Andrei had to clear the hoarseness out of his voice, which sounded strange to his own ears. ‘Listen’ - and that ‘listen’ suddenly rang out like the peal of a bell, echoing in all the corners of the room. Andrei looked round, and his voice fell to whispers.

‘I saw something inconceivable here, some kind of nightmare…’

‘Oh, but none the less you saw it, blind Thomas, doubting Thomas, dear scholiast mine! Well, what did you think of it, impressive, eh?’

‘That means it was not a hallucination?’

‘Far from it, and you don’t have to see your doctor or take pills. Instead we will each drink a goblet of this wine, and I will tell you about that which cannot be, because never does not exist.’

Herman poured out the wine, they drank a glass each, then another, the wine pleasantly rose to the head, warmth and comfort enveloped them. But this idyll only further underlined the unreality of that which Andrei had seen but a few minutes before.

There stands Herman, tangible, familiar Herman, here is the table, the chairs, the books, the walls. And there, behind him, is the painting - the source of that mystical transformation. The whole of the right-hand side of the room is real - while the left, that with the picture, belongs to another world altogether. Andrei realized he was avoiding a view of the far corner. Really, if one does not look at the painting, then all is in order, the world is comprehensible, everything is clear, everything is explicable ...

‘Everything can be easily explained, my friend, only the solution often lies in an unusual combination of things. But all you need to do is to stop there, and believe in it, and immediately everything else becomes transparently clear. That is the case here. The time machine is a machine. Everybody thinks so.

‘That is the scheme, that is where you find the poverty of minds. A machine - that must mean levers, gears, Wheels. Or electronics. The time machine means the destruction of causality and so forth. What do we know about time? Time goes on - that is the sum total of centuries of human knowledge. But imagine a time axis that is not straight, but is shaped like a spiral, imagine its circles wound on to each other, sometimes intersecting, and imagine that at the moment of such an intersection you can, with the help of some device, enter another world, another time. “The end of causality” you will say. Kill Ivan the Terrible, and all history will change direction. No, not at all. You will not exist in the reality of that time. You will not be able to do anything there, nor could anything be done to you.’

‘An imaginary axis?’ Andrei could not help asking.

‘Exactly. The world of time is as complicated as the world of numbers, but its axes have nothing to do with the Cartesian system. And that’s all.’

‘How can that be all? What about the painting?’

‘Well, that is a detail. The painting itself is the time machine. Precisely it, or rather its paints, serve as the window into the past, through it the time axes intersect.’

‘The materialization of time through the use of ancient paints? What nonsense!’

‘You saw that nonsense yourself. If I am not mistaken, you even cried out. Why? It is a year now since I sensed this idea. And, I must admit, I wanted to initiate you too. But you have become too engrossed in physics, with your ability to explain and understand everything. Do you think I understand what took place here? No, only a few things here or there. I know for sure that it is four weeks now that every Friday, for five minutes, the axes of our times meet. And for five minutes appears the silent procession of these shades of the distant past. You saw them, but you could not feel them with any other sense organs. There lies the meaning of the junction of times, for while joining, they do not join.’

Herman moved closer to the painting, examined it carefully, and said loudly: ‘Till Friday week, my friends. Maybe I will be able to provide you with a wider public.’

‘What, do you intend to invite people here?’

‘Undoubtedly. Only our crowd. We will prepare a guest list - there will be enough time for that.’

‘But just a moment. Is it not worth experimenting a little more? We will not be able,’ Andrei sought a suitable expression, ‘to sense them materially, that is true. But how about arranging communication?’

This was strange and wild - they were discussing the incredible, that which cannot even be imagined.

But that had just appeared before them. And having become accustomed to one miracle, they wanted another ...

‘I don’t know,’ said Herman vaguely. ‘I don’t think so. They will have to remain fleshless shadows. After all, the imaginary axis crosses the real axis only in unreality. But, none the less…Well, let’s go. Till Friday week. Now it will no longer be necessary to summon you with a postcard? —’ He smiled.

Andrei paused on the stair, in the same place as before. He wanted to think it out, discuss it through to the end, so as not to leave like that, with his head ringing.

‘Just a second. Why are you so certain that next Friday they will appear again, why do you think that if everything is as you said, we shall never be able to make contact with the past?’

‘I don’t know anything completely. You and I have been frightfully lucky. The author of that German treatise had to wait till his death for a repetition of the magic encounter. It may be that even we shall have to wait for ever ... It was easier for him - he believed in God. Let’s go over to your place. It’s a long time since I last had the benefit of the culinary arts of your dear mother. And today, after all, is Sunday, and she has undoubtedly prepared something very important. And we shall enter into communication with the present. And as for the past ... I believe too much in causality, more than you believe in your theory of relativity.’

‘But do you believe in this?’ Andrei hissed, and jerked at Herman’s sleeve.

‘In what?’

‘In what? Listen, listen!’

There, at the top, in the depths of the deserted attic, some sort of noise could be heard. It grew immediately, poured down the stairs, caught up with the two friends, and rushed on.

‘Can you hear it, Herman?’ Andrei shouted. He shouted out loud, no longer afraid of being overheard, because louder and louder grew the clash of metal upon metal, and the sounds of a foreign, guttural language up there.

The noise increased more and more. And they, hand in hand, like children, walked, no, ran, towards the wooden door, behind which the Unknown was awaiting them!

Translated by Jana Dorrell