The Symmetry Teacher (17 page)

“You see,” Anton said, having cheered up after the third
Hey, whoop!
, “you Englishmen are, of course, wise men … Still, everything that burns from the inside is ours. And when we finally manage to combine our Russian stove with the samovar, my Tishkin will show you! The Moon will become ours, just like Antarctica!”

Who is this Tishkin, you might ask? It’s not Anton himself, is it?

Alas, no. But Tishkin is the hero of our story.

*   *   *

Tishkin was a bombist (what we would call a terrorist), but not a warrior or a fighter. He was a man of science who developed the technology for making bombs, for which he was exiled to Tobolsk. After he had liberated himself from his primitive tinkering with explosives, he took a post as a teacher in a technical college and devoted himself entirely to his beloved Science. He invented a rocket for flying to the Moon. He was inspired by the fact that Mendeleev was also from Tobolsk. The scientific interests of Dr. Tishkin were, however, too heterogeneous not to distract him from his primary pursuit: local flora and fauna, mineralogy, astrology, folklore … He delved into everything, and concentrated fully on nothing. He was tall, broad-shouldered, pale, with a black beard. The local maidens fell in love with him on sight. But he paid no attention to them, since he himself was already head over heels in love. His chosen one, in her turn, paid no attention to him.

She was not one of the beauties, and not one of the maidens. She was small, round, red-faced, and taut, like a turnip. One would never have suspected that such a powerful voice resided in such a tiny body. She sang in a church choir but was more celebrated for her ancient folk chants, which she learned from various old grandmothers and remembered note for note, word for word. Initially, Tishkin took an interest in her as a folklorist with a natural talent. She was a natural talent in the sense that when she wailed and keened, she turned every heart upside down. But they called her Manya, and a mania she certainly created. She was considered to be rather light-headed: she liked to tipple, and she didn’t shun suitors. No one could say for certain whom she preferred. Therefore, they all lived in hope, and this would promptly reach the ears of our Tishkin. He had, as we say, fallen for her; but he was one of those for whom jealousy was the primary source of his passion. The deeper he sank into one emotion, the more another one increased.

I rolled on the floor with laughter each time I listened through the wall to Tishkin declaring his love to Manya. (The room had an especially creaky bed and floorboards, and they produced sounds in different keys:
poing-poing
and
skreek-skreek
, respectively.) Having satisfied his uncontrollable primary urges, he poured himself some Russian whiskey, handed her a glass in bed, puffed—to mark the degree of his satisfaction—on a pipe (the kind with a long mouthpiece), and then began pacing about the room, making the floorboards creak.

“You see, my dear Manya, on that day Mercury was especially close to your Moon. (You remember, that was the day I found the Coitus Necropolis, very rare in these parts.)”

“You mean the day you killed the bedbug?” Manya giggled. She was easily tired by his talk, and just as easily grew tipsy.

“A bedbug!” Tishkin was indignant. “Bedbugs don’t live in gazebos. What I want to know is, where did you run off to when you left the gazebo? You told me you went to a rehearsal, but what kind of rehearsal could it have been, when I found you the next morning in a disheveled haystack, in a likewise disheveled condition?”

“What was I supposed to do? Listen to you talk about your arthropod earsnouts? You pay court to them for all the world to see, but you have no sweet nothings to say to me.”

“What did you say? Earsnouts?” Tishkin’s voice sounded smug. “Is it possible that you’re jealous of a bedbug?”

“And how!” Manya laughed. “Get over here, quick! Now I’ve caught a real one.”

And the squeak changed key again.

He seemed to be an intelligent fellow, but the closer he came to an obvious fact, the less capable he was of accepting it. As a scientist, however, he believed only in facts, which Manya could easily strip him of.

“Look,” he said, beginning to simmer, “I ought to know when you’re lying and when you’re telling the truth.”

“As if I know myself,” she chortled. “Don’t listen to anyone else. Look at me. Can’t you see that I love only you? Who else is there to love in a hole like this?”

If that didn’t calm him down, she laid siege to him: “Heel, my little rabbit! Heel!” Although this pet name offended him, it always had a transformative effect—he seemed to press his ears back against his head. As she knew he would. The victory was always hers. A lean compromise is always better than a fat lawsuit. Let’s have a drink, let’s strike up a song! When she broke into “You Are My Sweetheart,” he was ready and waiting to take the bait, poor old chap. How much feeling she invested in the song! He, naturally, took everything at face value, to his own detriment. He wept from happiness.

She laughed it all off with well-honed expertise. He, to her: “Don’t torture me, don’t become my mania!” And she, to him: “What kind of mania? I’m Manya! And my surname is fitting: it’s Grand. I’m your delusion of grandeur. Do you suffer from megalomania?” “What kind of megalomania could I suffer from, when I’m a hopeless loser?” Tishkin objected. “In that case you have a persecution megalomania. Persecution by Manya Grand! Take your pick: either persecution megalomania or Manya Grand. Which do you prefer?” “Manya’s better,” Tishkin agreed. “At last. You chose correctly.” And she kissed him. And Tishkin bloomed. The floorboards began creaking again.

“Manya, you are a science; and science is my mania. Manya! There’s an idea. True science is nonlinear, like romance. There’s a novel in there, too, Manya. Romance, as in novel,
capice
? What other Roman? What do you mean—you’re having a romance with Roman? Who is this Roman? A baron! Oh, come now. Eyewash! I’m talking about a novel. A novel is nonlinear, too, like scientific discovery. Everything in it has to be revealed, uncovered anew, you see? This is how I explain it to myself: in real scientific discovery, the interesting thing is the nonlinearity of becoming, and not the results, however astounding they might be. That’s why I say it’s like a novel, romance or otherwise. I beg you, stop pestering me with your Roman! Oh, so there was a Roman? Well, all right, so he’s a baron. A baron is also a result, it’s a hereditary title. It’s passed along, transmitted like a disease. Aha, I see! So that’s where they came from. You brought them! From him!”

The scuffle turned into sobs and squeaking in the dominant key. Followed by the floorboards, again …

“You see, Manya, if the romance is a book, and the discovery is nonlinear, it’s already worth writing a real novel about. You realize that the book was also discovered, don’t you? No, no; a book needs covers, of course. That’s part of what makes it a book. I mean discovered, like electricity, like America … No, in science only the path is interesting, not the actual achievement.”

Poing-poing! Skreek-skreek!

“That’s why you are a science, Manya. Or a mania, as you wish. And if it’s love? Passion?… Will you stop nattering on about that baron? The kerosene worked, didn’t it? You washed, and that was that? But kerosene also had to be discovered! Oh, that’s a long story, how it was discovered … More interesting by far are these whatchamacallits from the order … What are they? Okay, crabs. By the way, how did you pick them up? Ah, you don’t know. You don’t remember. You didn’t count. Of course, why count crabs? When I’m going to strangle you with my bare—!”

Poing-poing! Skreek-skreek!

You be the judge—an intelligent enough fellow …

But she had only to sneak out and disappear into the night for him to get all fired up again: Why so sudden? What was the hurry? At night, unable to get a wink of sleep because of his jealousy, he devoted himself to his other beloved—Science. But Science betrayed him, just like Manya. Even so, he defended it, too, with all his powers. He laid it out on a large tabletop, like a game of Patience: newfound minerals, plants, beetles, spiders, and butterflies, trying to align them with the disposition of the stars, and the stars with the sequence of the chemical elements. All with one goal: to expose Manya in a concrete act of infidelity. And each time, it turned out to be something that resembled a crossword puzzle more than a science experiment, but with a single, ever-recurring word: Manya. The links didn’t connect up—Manya slipped away. She left him bit by bit: now a hand, now a foot, now an ear … Manya became a mania.

Vacation time drew near, and in his despair he decided to set out on an expedition to a distant region, with the goal of building his flying contraption. He needed an assistant, and he bumped into Anton at that very moment. They suited one another to a tee: Anton called Tishkin Tishka, and Tishkin called Anton Toshka.

Thus, Tishka and Toshka set out on the expedition. They rafted down the Irtysh, far from civilization, set up camp on a little offshore island, and there began assembling the contraption. The parts all fit together perfectly; but instead of a rocket, they ended up with a moonshine distillery.

Toshka quickly put it to good use, and assigned the head of the expedition to watch over the process while he went hunting for victuals to accompany it. He returned with a small wild boar, and found the chief sound asleep, with his head almost inside the firebox. “He’s tasted his fill,” Toshka surmised. Placing a vessel under the dripping firewater, he began slicing up the little boar for shish kebab. When everything was ready, he woke up Tishka with the words, “Let’s do the test launch.” And they started drinking.

“How is it,” Toshka said to Tishka, “that the most beautiful dame in town is in love with you, but you fell for the frog? I don’t get it.”

“Go ahead and kiss her,” Tishka replied, laughing. “You know the story of the Frog Princess.”

“Did she tell you that herself? But that one was a talking frog; this one sings. I just don’t get it.”

“Is it possible to understand someone who really wants to understand?”

“You speak the truth,” Toshka agreed. “What about science, then?”

“That’s the point. Manya and Science are one and the same. I’m not seeking a general answer, a correct one, but my own. Whether or not I posed the problem to myself, I’m the one who has to solve it. And if I do, only then will it be solved for others. It never works the other way round. It’s not something you can do better or worse—not a stool, or wool that you must spoil before you spin it well. In those cases the substance they were made of stays the same. Only a singular, unique solution changes the substance. Oh, how well I understand the alchemist! He wasn’t seeking profits from gold or the elixir of life but the very birth of the substance. For thought itself is a substance. This is not within the power of man, however, but only of … I won’t even say whom. The One who Created Water!”

Like a devoted student, Toshka knew how to sleep with his eyes open.

“His thought is his most precise instrument. A true scientist cannot be a nonbeliever, just as a real believer cannot help but be a materialist. Render unto God what is God’s. Otherwise we will always fall victim to scientific error—face-to-face with a soulless instrument and a drunken lab assistant who didn’t wash the test tubes. There has to be a third: an observer. Without a point from above, the experiment is impossible. Who’s going to oversee the experiment? Who’s going to oversee the overseeing of the experiment? Hey, I’m talking to you!”

“I always wash your dishes,” Toshka mumbled.

“I’m not reproaching you. ‘What could be more fascinating than following the thoughts of a great man?’ our Pushkin once said. Manya, you say. Beauty, you say. But I say that beauty is the elaboration of our vision, not an objective category. What do you know about the feelings of a blossom when it is visited by a bee? Oh, if only the ear could utter what it hears! I will create a Talking Ear!”

“A talking ear? An ear you can hear? Ah, you mean an echo!”

“No echo. Just an ear,” Tishkin said impatiently. “Without belief in something, life is meaningless—this is what I believe. It’s impossible, it’s perfidious, it’s terrifying, it’s nausea! Without belief, our attempts to understand life become a dangerous temptation. And God forbid that our approximate idea were ever confirmed by the imprecise reading of an instrument—then it would be a double mistake! (A good name for a book…)”

*   *   *

Whether they drank for a long time or a short time, when they sensed the approach of autumn they hurried home. Tishkin had managed to collect only a small sampling of lichen, but, in addition, he had come to suspect that there was a sizable diamond deposit in the vicinity. He decided to call it Beckandcall (Zamanilovo), in honor of Gogol, Manilov, and Manya.

They returned with this scientific baggage, and despite his precipitate return, Tishkin did not catch Manya in any compromising activity. This made him suspect her even more, and he persuaded himself of the certainty of the diamond deposit. He laid out the new exhibits on the tabletop, adding to them exhibits that were already present in the collection, and the stars tending toward autumn burned more brightly. He perceived the simultaneity of all these phenomena—lichens and stars, minerals and butterflies, Tobolsk and St. Petersburg, Mendeleev and Manilov, diamonds and Manya. Feeling a wave of nausea welling up in him from all this temporal coexistence, and unable to find a formula for it, or an exit from it, he took a swig from the bottle they had brought back with them from the expedition and wrote down the title of his opus in big block letters:

A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO A COURSE ON THE THEORY OF UNIVERSAL SYMMETRY

… and woke up with the precise feeling that yesterday’s arrangement of scientific exhibits would at last bring an end to the anguish of his ignorance, because he would be able to prove scientifically his betrayal by the full-throated Manya. He rushed over to the tabletop and saw, as clear as day, the Periodic Table of the Elements, the very same Table that the world’s greatest minds, including Dmitri Mendeleev himself, had been sweating over for many a year.