The Librarian

* * *

In the corridor we ran into fat, breathless Klava.

“Polinochka… Vasilyevna,” she babbled, stifling as she breathed. “The room for our… e-e-er… respected guest…”—the fat woman bowed to me—“…is ready… All first-rate… They put in the couch, and a really fancy desk, a chair and a lamp…”

“Thank you, Klava,” said Gorn. “Get over to the kitchen… to Ankudinova… Arrange for some supper…”

“Aye, aye,” said Klava, raising her palm to her curls in a military-style salute, and dashed off down the corridor at top speed. Near the central stairway she turned a corner and disappeared from view.

“Remember, Alyoshka,” Gorn told me, jabbing her finger at one door after another. “Administration, accounts… dental surgery and physiotherapy room… massage and dressings… after that, the linen room… the housekeeper’s room… cloakroom… utility room… The two upper floors are all wards…”

From the main stairway and the alabaster banisters a more modest stairway led downward. We walked down it into an echoing basement.

“Here are the storerooms… The kitchen.” Gorn drew air in through her nose and wrinkled up her face squeamishly. “It stinks like a cheap public canteen…”

The air in the basement was permeated with a warm onion stench. From behind the tiled wall I could hear the battlefield clatter of kitchenware and the cooks’ owlish laughter.

“It’s just that they had rassolnik for lunch,” Masha put in. “The smell hasn’t worn off yet.”

“It’s just that they boil up slops for lunch,” said Gorn, mimicking her. “What sort of people are they?… They’ve grown idle in just three weeks… What’s the point in trying? The old women are all gaga… They’ll eat it anyway… Ankudinova’s lost all sense of shame. I’ll have her sacked and out the door before she knows what’s happening!”

“Polina Vasilyevna, you shouldn’t say that,” Masha boomed in her deep voice. “The rassolnik was delicious. I tried it. And the potato cakes were tasty too.”

“And now she has an intercessor to plead for her,” Gorn carried on ranting. “The idle gossips are working hand in glove… They’re as thick as thieves… And Klava too… Where the hell has she got to?”

I sensed that Gorn’s grousing was contrived. She was clearly nervous, but I couldn’t tell why. I suddenly felt terribly uneasy, and an invisible, icy hand ruffled up the hair on the nape of my neck, leaving it standing on end.

“Where are we going, Polina Vasilyevna?” I asked with affected indifference.

“To the bunker.”

The basement ended in a broad ramp that ran down to a depth of several storeys.

“It used to be a bomb shelter,” Gorn explained to me as we walked. “Then the Books were kept there… Now it’s your personal study…”

We wound our way through concrete catacombs for about another minute until the path ended abruptly at an impressive metal door with a large wheel for opening and closing it, like in a submarine; it looked like the armoured entrance to a bank safe.

“Hard a-starboard,” said Gorn, spinning the wheel. The unlocking mechanism clanged and the old woman pushed against the heavy door. The slab of steel slowly drifted inward. Gorn went in first and switched on the light. “Come in, Alexei, make yourself at home.”

The bunker turned out to be a normal living room, not musty, and quite cosy to look at—an impression that was greatly assisted by the decorative windows framed with dark velvet curtains. Even the desk and couch that Klava had promised were there, and also the chair, in a white slip cover. The pipe of a ventilation shaft or rubbish chute protruded from the wall.

I immediately had the feeling that I’d seen this interior before, only I couldn’t remember where—perhaps it was in a dream.

“They’ve fitted it out well… Good for them,” said Gorn, praising the bunker. “A luxury suite. In an Intourist hotel.” She patted the wall proudly. “Three metres thick, no aerial bomb could ever penetrate it. The safest place in the Home. You’ll live here for now… Until the initiation. No one will bother you. Just look at those bolts.”

I looked round.

“And what are the windows here for?”

“To make it beautiful,” said Klava, who had come up behind me. She was holding a tray with plates on it. Leningrad rassolnik, potato cakes with meat stuffing, sliced. Stewed-pear water. Bon appétit…”

“Thank you.”

“You don’t like it here?” the fat woman asked, genuinely disappointed. “A bit gloomy, right?”

“It’s bad that there isn’t a toilet or a washbasin…”

“You can’t put in plumbing in a day,” Klava sighed. “It’s a lot of trouble. The lavatory’s close by. Just a short walk down the corridor…”

“Don’t be awkward, Alyoshka,” Gorn intervened. “I’m sure you can run to the toilet without spattering the whole place.”

“Polina Vasilyevna, you warned me yourself not to go out anywhere.”

“That’s true, I did. So don’t hang about. Once you’ve relieved yourself, it’s straight back… To the bunker.”

“You can have a bedpan for the nights,” Klava suggested. “I’ll just bring one.”

“And what about getting washed?”

“Masha will take you… to the shower unit tomorrow. She’s personally… responsible for you…” Gorn gave her orderly a severe glance. “Answerable with her head, her ovaries and all her other innards…”

Masha and Klava laughed.

“Don’t be sad, Alyosha…” Gorn said encouragingly. “The guard is only a temporary measure. Once you’re a boss… you can wander about wherever you like…”