Chapter 9

"Day off," Kostya remembered, after abruptly waking to the sound of the alarm, and raised himself from the bed. "I should turn it off on weekends. And what to do today?" he asked himself, crawling back under the blanket.

During the day, Kostya did some editing on his second book and, when he glanced at the clock, realized he had spent nearly half the day on it. Then he watched a film, lounged about on the bed. In the evening, he called Henry:

"Hello, what are you doing?" Kostya greeted him, after Henry picked up the receiver.

"Nothing special, really... want to take a walk?" asked Henry, knowing the answer in advance.

"Yes, why not, especially since the weather seems decent enough. Anyway, I'm leaving in ten minutes, I'll wait for you by your entrance," Konstantin finished and hung up.

"...and so Freud distinguishes between the concepts of fear, dread, and fright," Henry concluded his account of the Freudian theory he had recently read.

"Yes, I've read that somewhere... anyway, what shall we do?" Kostya asked as they approached the shop.

"Perhaps some wine and to the old spot?" Henry recalled the place where he and Kostya usually sat. It was a certain uncrowded park. If one descended lower, into the depths of this park, there were almost no people there, especially in the evening.

"If you would be so kind, good sir, as to fill my glass to the brim with this noble beverage," Kostya said jestingly, extending his cup to Henry. They sat on a fallen tree, somewhere in the middle of the aforementioned park.

"As you wish... accept, Your Excellency, this sweet nectar of the gods," Henry replied equally playfully, pouring wine for Kostya.

"Do you remember...," Kostya began to reminisce about events connected with this park.

"I remember, I remember everything," Henry interrupted him, "how we were here with Elizabeth's friends, and how I was seeing Yulia, and how she left me. Five meters from here, you and Elizabeth were consoling me. What a fool I was."

"Why a fool? 'Does love or passion have anything in common with reason?' as Goethe said. At that time, it could not have been otherwise," Konstantin reasoned. "Yes, indeed, do they have anything in common with reason," he repeated once more in his mind. "And in general... our whole life is absurd and meaningless," Kostya added in a cynical tone.

"That's true... anyway, forget it, what's done is done. How's work going for you?" Henry changed the subject.

"If only I could relate to my past the same way, but no... so much time has passed, yet the past still torments me. It is near and at the same time far," Kostya thought.

"Work is work, it brings no pleasure, and money doesn't either, but something else entirely torments me... you know how to put this...," Kostya pondered for a moment, then continued, "Well, listen, imagine a paralyzed man. He is helpless before time, feels the deepest hopelessness, understands that he cannot change anything. Can you imagine? So then... I feel the same way. It's as if I'm looking into the face of a beloved, still feeling and perceiving the world around me, but powerless to change anything, powerless to embrace or even speak tender words to the person standing beside me."

For a minute or two, Henry said nothing. He was apparently deep in thought about something. "You need to forget and let Elizabeth go, unless you're a masochist and you enjoy this suffering. Then you may continue," Henry finally concluded.

"Perhaps I really am a masochist," Kostya agreed, "anyway, forget it, we'll live and see."

"Next week, by the way, I'm taking time off. I want to go to the psychiatric clinic—you've been there... so I want to get checked out, because my head's been hurting lately, and my nerves have been shot to hell. Especially at work, I'm practically going at management," Henry poured the remaining wine.

"Alright, go ahead, then call me, tell me how it went." The lads finished their wine and headed toward home.

***

A telephone ring interrupted the reflections of Konstantin, who was sitting in his office at work:

"This is Burka Private Enterprise, do you need something?" came a voice from the telephone receiver.

"Remind me what you have?" asked Kostya.

"Mineral water: Khreshchatyk, Myrhorodska, Brusnytska, one and a half liters, two liters, five liters. Juices, half a liter, one liter," the voice enumerated the offered goods.

"No, thank you, we have enough water. We bought from you during the sale, I believe. Thank you, no need, goodbye," Konstantin hung up. "Well, we have enough for another month ahead, and he still calls after we bought so much from them. Starting to get irritating, it seems," Kostya thought.

Another telephone rang, this time the mobile.

"Konstantin Augustinovich, I'm calling you to have a bit of a quarrel," said the shop owner, Yaroslav Vladimirovich.

"And what happened?" Kostya asked without particular concern.

"The new cashier for some reason couldn't print a report from the register yesterday. Supervising their work is part of your duties—why didn't you teach the cashier how to print reports?" Yaroslav began lecturing Kostya.

"Teach them, these workers of yours—where do you even find them? A simple equation is higher mathematics for them," Konstantin thought irritably. "I'll sort this out," he replied to Yaroslav.

"Furthermore, I'm getting calls that we haven't paid the electricity for last month. Am I supposed to deal with this?" the employer continued.

"No, of course not, I'll sort this out as well," the subordinate agreed meekly, while thinking, "It's not my fault they know you're the shop owner and they call you." He said goodbye and hung up. He felt indignation creeping toward his temples.

Another ring. "What is this, will there be even a minute of peace," Kostya thought. Looking at the phone, he saw a familiar name.

"Hello Henry, it's you—I thought someone was trying to pester me again," Kostya greeted his friend.

"Yeah... um... here's the thing, basically," Kostya heard Henry's absent voice.

"What happened there?" Kostya began to sense something was wrong.

"They basically locked me up in the psychiatric hospital," Henry reported the news.

"Are you joking or serious?" Konstantin couldn't believe it.

"I swear. Anyway, they're taking my mobile away. I'll be in ward number one. It would be good if you could somehow visit. I'll tell you everything later," Henry answered, adding, "Bring me some provisions, since it's come to this. And a book, so I don't actually go mad from boredom in here."

Kostya hung up with an ambivalent feeling. On one hand, it was somehow funny. He knew Henry—he wasn't mad. Yes, he was unusual, but not mad. On the other hand, Konstantin was now left alone. First Elizabeth left him, and now Henry had disappeared too. "This can't be for long," Konstantin weakly consoled himself.

***

Morning light filled Konstantin's room. "Today I need to go visit Henry. What possessed him to go there. I was there, but I wasn't admitted as an inpatient—they allowed me to go home. And for the most part, for me it was just a way to avoid the army." Kostya reflected, lying in bed.

After he had breakfast, Kostya ran himself a bath. "Yes, exactly... avoiding the army, not counting the fact that my arms were all cut up with a razor blade," Konstantin thought with irony, examining the healed scars on his arms. "And this only because Liza had a boyfriend, while I was beside her and we were close friends." Why had he cut himself then? Who knows—perhaps his inner pain needed some way to come out, for it actually helped him, if only for a time. Or perhaps he simply wanted to attract the attention of his chosen one in this way. In any case—he had gone somewhat too far.

At first, he carved Latin sayings, among which were such as Nascentes morimur (Being born, we die), De die in diem Indignatio facit poetam (Day by day indignation makes a poet), Canimus surdis (We sing to the deaf), Gloria Deo (Glory to God), Veritas (Truth), Justicia (Justice). The last two words—these were what Kostya believed was lacking in life.

After yet another quarrel with Liza, he carved directly "Forgive me Liza"—why bother with subtle hints? Besides, this cut was indeed not subtle. The day after this temporary derangement, he was likewise taking a bath, but in less than a minute all the water had turned red. It was precisely this last inscription that was noticed at the next military commission at the enlistment office, after which Kostya was naturally sent to the psychiatric hospital.

There he was fortunate to have a good attending physician. She asked him more than once why he had done this. What could he answer to that? He knew only that he could not help doing it, and to such questions he responded with aphorisms. "There has never been a great mind without an admixture of madness." Aristotle. "Though this be madness, yet there is method in't." Shakespeare. "He who has never committed a folly is not so wise as he thinks." François de La Rochefoucauld.

"But when did they live? Everything changes with time," the doctor would say.

"Even if they lived many years ago, their words are alive to this day. I am a philosopher, I have written a book—here it is, by the way, with me," Kostya had then taken his first book from his bag. This book had not yet been edited, but for this purpose that was not particularly necessary. The doctor leafed through the homemade, bound book, rereading certain lines, while Kostya continued:

"I was not the only one like this. Everyone knows Van Gogh, who cut off his ear. There was also Vrubel, who inflicted knife wounds upon himself, as did Wagner. The philosopher Foucault slashed his chest with a razor. Not to mention those who ended their lives by suicide—Seneca, Mayakovsky, Yesenin, Hemingway, the same Van Gogh—well, what more is there to say. And do you know why all this is so? Because they cannot fit themselves into the social framework of such a 'healthy,' 'well-adjusted' social organism ticking like clockwork. They inject their discontent like poison, thereby destroying the established framework of entrenched moral and social prescriptions. And if one must commit madness in order to..."—Konstantin delivered his tirade, having by now gotten quite carried away.

"So you agree that you committed madness?" the doctor interrupted him.

"Partially," the patient replied. He did not need to appear particularly healthy, as he was not especially eager for the army, but neither did he want to be locked up in an asylum. Henceforth he chose his words carefully to accomplish precisely this mission.

Kostya was about to leave the house when he recalled the doctor's words. As he was leaving her office one time, Kostya heard her turn to her colleague with the words, "What an interesting young man I've encountered."

"Yes indeed... interesting." Kostya thought merrily, closing the door behind him. "Well, Henry, what possessed you to get stuck in there."