Chapter 71
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For a week I did nothing but sleep, eat, and repay the accumulated debts of married life. I didn't even train. I could sit on a stone for hours, staring into the distance with an empty, unfocused gaze that had no particular destination.
During those hours, Suo didn't disturb me. She didn't even come near.
I'd had a similar state in forty-three, when Erik and I — Erik by then — had settled in Switzerland, and it suddenly became apparent that it was over. Simply over. The insane race against death had ended. We had "made it to the finish line," and there was no more running to be done.
It's a wild thing to experience, in truth. Anyone who's been through something like it will understand. And anyone who hasn't — there's no explaining that hollow, ringing emptiness in the skull. Those phantom surges of urgency, the compulsion to leap up and run somewhere, followed immediately by the realization that there is nowhere to run. The wave of relief with its undertaste of helplessness.
Then, a week in, a newspaper found its way into my hands. I don't know how it ended up in Kamar-Taj — maybe Suo had brought it, maybe one of her students. A regular newspaper, not even a Soviet one, and not fresh like the ones I was supplied with in Moscow. I'd never given much thought to who arranged that, but on the side table in my office back there, every single day without fail, there had been current press — always several different publications. I'd sometimes pick one up when a rare free moment appeared. Not often, honestly. Free moments were few.
Here too, I noticed a newspaper lying on a table, picked it up, and carried it outside. I don't remember the name of the publication at all. Didn't particularly matter.
I opened it and went still, staring at a photograph of Vysotsky in a black mourning border.
He had died right in the middle of the Olympics, as it turned out. Half of Moscow had come out to bury him. And I, in all my frantic running around, hadn't even known.
It would be wrong to say we were close. We weren't. We'd crossed paths a few times at Mosfilm. Bruce had introduced us in seventy-three — they'd had some film together. And later, Suo and I had gone to a few of his performances, twice to the Taganka theater.
I remember trying to pull him into training with me — to draw him in to the martial arts, to sport. But Vladimir Semyonovich had absolutely no interest. Later, I had pushed through getting him one official, large concert at the Federation sports complex, in the main hall.
"Pushed through" is a loose way of putting it. I simply asked him to perform, and every official who showed up trying to discourage it, hinting at problems, complications, undesirability — I sent packing. I kept sending them until, on the day of the concert, He showed up himself.
What can I say? Afterward, Iosif Vissarionovich said: "Good songs. And he sings well. A talented man. But, Comrade Creed — do go a little easier on the comrades from the Executive Committee. They are, after all, at work."
That was in seventy-six. True, it didn't change Vladimir Semyonovich's situation much. Those words, after all, were said to me. What was said to those very comrades Iosif asked me to be easier with — that was another matter.
And I understood it myself — Vladimir Semyonovich was a genius, but a considerable portion of his work was dangerous. Too much freedom in his thoughts. Too much freedom in his verse.
But that wasn't the main thing. Concerts, censorship, difficulties — everyone brushes against something like that in life. Some push through, some don't. That's ordinary. What I had wanted was to save his life. I was going to give him the serum. He was born in thirty-eight — he hadn't been part of Erskine's dietary program.
I was going to. I kept meaning to. And kept putting it off, buried in my own affairs and concerns.
And now it was done. I hadn't even gone to the funeral. I found out about his death from a newspaper. I had put it off long enough.
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Vagankovskoye Cemetery. A fresh grave. No monument yet — not even close. But a great many flowers. Genuinely a great many.
Zen. Am I getting old? Going sentimental? I remember when I didn't make a habit of visiting cemeteries, and now here I am, for the third time in one year, standing silently over a grave. Probably time to stop. Otherwise, in a hundred or two hundred years, I won't have any other occupation left but walking from grave to grave. In the end, death is life. Just as inseparable a part of it as birth, as love. People are born to die. Whatever they are — mutant, mage, external, god, demon. *"I will die, of course, we always die sometime…"* The line of the brilliant poet surfaced on its own — the poet lying in a coffin, in a grave in the ground in front of me. Fitting.
Natasha silently held out a sheet of paper. I took it.
Natasha. Zen — I had grown so accustomed to her presence over these ten years that I hadn't even registered her approach. Hadn't clocked it. I'd let my guard down. No. Something had to be done about this apathy. Otherwise I'd apathy my way right into it — miss an assassin with a Muramasa blade someday, or a Hydra grenade. Or something equally final.
Looking at the paper she had handed me, I couldn't help a slight, involuntary smile. It was my "statement." Complete now with a response, written by the person it had been addressed to.
*upper right corner*
To: Comrade Stalin, I.V.
From: Creed, V.I.
*centered below*
Statement:
I am done. I quit.
*lower left, beneath the text*
03.08.1980 (signature) Creed, V.I.
*below that, slanted, in Iosif Vissarionovich's hand, written large:*
"And is Comrade Stalin not done?
*below, in smaller script:*
Release Comrade Creed, V.I., on primary leave for the years 1970–1980, effective 04.08.1980. Process all requisite documentation and payments. Duties of Head of the USSR Martial Arts Federation to be assumed by Comrade Lee, B.
*below and to the left:*
03.08.1980 (signature) Stalin, I.V."
My first impulse was to crumple the thing up and throw it away, with a cheerful expletive out loud for good measure. But first — this was a cemetery, not the place for profanity or litter. And second — this was, whatever else it was, a document. An official one at that, duly endorsed. Possibly, in its way, a historical one. So I carefully returned the sheet to Natasha. She, in turn, extended toward me a small bundle of other papers. The "requisite documentation," presumably, that was to be processed.
"Keep them," I said, not taking them. "You know better than I do what to do with them and when. I don't want to think about it."
"You've forgotten your passport again, Viktor Ivanovich," she said, and instead of the stack of papers, held out one small red booklet.
"Keep that too."
"But—" Romanova started to object, and actually seemed to be getting somewhere.
"I'll lose it," I said, one short phrase that covered the whole position and ended all arguments. Natasha exhaled and put the passport in her pocket. She of all people knew: I would. I absolutely would.
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