The Superfluous Man

by Botyakov Anatoly

  Victor was silent. He had nothing to respond, without even seeing any need to say anything anymore. All this suddenly became his own fault, just as Tumenov said, he had pried into this affair himself and now was just paying the bill. His imprudence and lack of foresight brought him here. There was no gross injustice in all this, no eternal enmity between the good and the evil, he simply loved another man’s woman and his suffering was not even the highest price for such love.

  “I hope you do not think that you are the first person who found himself in this situation,” Tumenov continued boasting of his power, “I have wanted to let you know that it is not the first time when I do something like this; people caused me troubles before and you seem to understand it now, which truly impresses me, considering your obvious brain exhaustion. So let us save for each other both time and nerves now, I just want you to tell me everything and then you may go home. As for me, if you are curious, I have a massage in…” Tumenov defiantly turned one sleeve of his rose-coloured shirt and consulted his watch, “It is very soon so hurry up!”

  “Honestly, I do not understand what you want to hear from me because I already explained everything to your driver, Alexander,” Victor answered in an injured voice, “it was you who told, when we were discussing the conditions, that I would have to report to him! So I did…”

  “Oh, it is interesting indeed,” Tumenov scratched his chin, “however, keep on!”

  “I kept shadowing your wife during whole week, having begun practically right after our meeting with you; I was spying on her from morning to late evening, until the moment when she went back home. She has nobody, she meets with nobody, except for these two friends of hers, Anna and Den who, apparently, are going to get married shortly. To be honest,” Victor wetted one palm and placed it on his bloody face, “I started to partially understand your suspicions towards her after the very first day as if being able to see something what made you question her loyalty. That is why I began following her with great enthusiasm, having become her shadow indeed, filming almost each step she made with the camera. Nevertheless, no matter what I did, how attentive I was, how desperately I continued to convince myself that she had something to hide, everything was for nothing. I do not know whether you will understand me or not, but I really wanted to find something what would compromise her from any standpoint. You mentioned the money, but I am not greedy for money, especially for one that is not mine by right. Therefore, I decided not to continue any more, I called Alexander and told him that I was going to stop being engaged in shadowing, that I could no longer see a point in doing it, that it was a waste of time and energy. Of course, I did not dare to bother anybody asking about an audience with you; I had nothing significant to report, nothing to justify my poor results with, either.” Victor was speaking in the most sincere and honest manner, having failed to mention only that mysterious story about the private lessons for that person – Dan, by reason of being afraid that if Tumenov learned about that man, he would by all means get his teeth into this story as a hungry dog, gnawing a bone with some meat left on it.

  “So it is how the things are…” slightly rocking the remains of cognac, Tumenov summed up once again. “It seems everything is rather harmonious, but one moment does not add up anyway!”

  “Yes? And what exactly, allow me to learn?” Victor asked.

  “Alexander! Why did he tell me nothing about all this?”

  “And you should ask him the same question! Bring him right here, on this very place, previously having him beaten and humiliated, and then ask it in order to prevent him from lying and concealing in the future!” Victor answered instantly. “I am sure that with your intuition you will at once notice if anything is suspicious.”

  “I will do everything I need to make things right!” Tumenov assured all the witnesses of the conversation. “And as for this small misunderstanding,” he raised a hand with the glass and slowly outlined Victor’s face, using his little finger, “I am not accustomed to apologize to anybody, so do not judge too severely. I could offer you some money for medical treatment, but as we have recently found out, you are a person of strong pride, so I think you would scarcely accept it. I am advising you to forget about revenge then and there, you may regard it as the best unsolicited advice you have ever got in your entire life. And you will be delivered back home.”

  “Save yourself from worries, I understood you perfectly and I am not thinking to go anywhere,” Victor responded with some hints of pride in his voice, as one of the kidnappers began to untie his legs and hands. “And with respect to apologies, if you believe in God or at least just in something good in this world, you will be your own severest judge. I am sure that one day a very stiff penalty will be imposed upon you. And if you have no faith in the good, well, then you have already been punished in the most terrible way…”

  “Here is what I am going to tell you, young man,” Tumenov failed to say nothing in response, reserving for himself the right for the last word in this conversation, “I do not believe in God with such force that the religion calls us to, but I do not deny anything as furiously as noisy atheists do it, either. On the basis of these words you are entitled to make whatever assumptions regarding my afterlife. Have a good day!”

  The conversation was over, and Victor was taken back home, but not as a kidnappee anymore, having become just a passenger. They made him get out of the car one block away from the place where the assault had been made, so he had to walk on foot the rest of the distance, turning away and hiding his face every time when he met rare passers-by who were circulating in all directions as if doing it solely for the motion’s sake. However, his masking proved to be not too effective, keeping continually drawing sidelong, suspicious glances all the way. Seeing his bloody face and dirty, partially ragged clothes, people quickly got across the road or, if they noticed him too late, sharply recoiled from him, mumbling something in discontent. This attitude seemed to Victor even more offensive than one he had seen shortly before it. He was simply unable to understand how people could show such an extreme apathy towards the world that a beaten person, barely keeping on his feet, was for them not a victim but the one to condemn.

  Only homeless tramps, striking his eye in shades of houses, did not see anything abnormal in his physical state. Having for a while came downstairs, Victor became a philosopher of the social cellar, reflecting hard on the blind fate but at the same time missing one very important thing; only yesterday, he would probably have looked at himself with the same bitter contempt, being unable to restrain himself from making primitive assumptions concerning the life of such individual.

  The very first thing that he felt, having entered his temporary apartment, was this intolerable stuffiness that had accumulated there during the day. Once he opened the door, it instantly pushed him in the face, having thereby virtually struck his weak body down. Still, he somehow unshod his feet and proceeded directly in the bathroom, where he tremulously looked at himself in the mirror, hanging on the wall to his left. At first glance, everything was as bad as he could possibly imagine, and maybe even worse: his face was still a bloody mess, although he had already made some attempts to wash himself before. Right now, he could not even define whether there were any cuts beneath this dried-up blood or he just stained his face with it when he was lying on the van’s floor with the injured nose and the sack on his head.

  Fortunately, his nose was not broken but seriously swelled up, as well as his left eyebrow that was partially covering now the eye of the same name. However, after a long washing Victor looked in the mirror again and saw a completely different picture: soft facial tissues were undamaged for the most part and therefore there was no need to put in stitches.

  Then he entered the kitchen, got some ice from the freezer, wrapped it up with a thin towel, placed it on his face, got back to the drawing room, chose the highest speed mode of an old one-legged fan, and lied down right in front of the streams of this scarcely cool wind. Speeding up the air, the fan
was buzzing loud, but this noise did not seem to Victor a serious defect at this moment. Right now, there was probably nothing in the whole world able to somehow affect his low morale or to stir any emotions.

  He was wasted, without having an idea of how to look at what had happened to him, without knowing whether he was a victim or just someone who got what he deserved. Although it was a temporary state, started by his own body in order to save itself from superfluous stresses and to concentrate only upon the recovery, Victor had to survive this period as well. He was beaten but not broken, he met the scornful attitude but maintained his dignity, they tried to intimidate him but he believed that he came out victor there, too. His thoughts were simple and naive as if belonging to a child. A child he was indeed at this moment, a big child who was falling asleep against the background of the buzzing fan…

  A short time later his deep sleep was interrupted by a phone call, which made Victor give a start and quickly jump up from his place. Nevertheless, when he took the initiator of his sudden awakening, he saw, to his huge surprise, that the cell phone was sleeping just as his owner was one second ago. There were neither messages, nor missed calls. Being perplexed, Victor put one of his palms on his face by force of habit and regretted it that very moment, hissing with pain. At this moment, he heard the same sound again and, overcome with a strong fear concerning his mental state, looked at the cell phone again, frowning. This time, Mariam was calling him indeed. It was twenty minutes to eight – exactly twenty minutes before the hour of their meeting. The sun was dying somewhere in the west again…

  “Hello,” Victor answered in a low voice.

  “Are you sleeping there or what?” Mariam asked with simulated anger. “I am already tired of trying to be heard.”

  “It is the first time!” Victor muttered, slowly rubbing his tired eyes.

  “Seriously?”

  “Listen, Mariam, I am very sorry but I will not be able to meet you today,” Victor told her suddenly, hating himself for this silly lie; he did not know another way to save her from seeing him now, “let’s meet in a week? I have some urgent things to take care of.”

  “I understand,” Mariam answered obediently without marking a single emotion with her voice, “and where are you exactly now, at your place?”

  “Yes, I am still here but I am going to leave shortly,” the naive deceiver calmed himself down.

  “Then why do not you finally let me in so that I could see you telling me all this to my face, looking straight into my eyes?” she detonated suddenly as a warehouse of fireworks.

  Everything instantly fell into place, only now Victor realized that all the while, she was standing on the threshold, the doorbell being the sound he heard. It was one of those rare cases when clearness and calmness came separately, this time there was madness instead of the ordinary second participator. As if going now out of his childish mind, Victor in panic jumped up from his place, where he had somehow returned after being lulled by her, without understanding how he switched-off the cell phone and dropped it somewhere on the sofa.

  When the door finally opened, a short silly game began: the first thing Mariam saw was the back of the person trying to hide somewhere in the drawing room – the person who, according to her opinion voiced less than a minute ago, was too coward to tell the truth looking straight into her eyes. However, she could not leave without explanation. Thus, carried away by him, she sidled in and saw his face with a small delay, starting to feel a shock right in front of him. They averted their eyes almost simultaneously, Victor by reason of being unable to stand her sorrowful look and she because of the profound shock.

  “What happened? I will stay with you today!” Mariam said quickly in a loud voice without worrying about the order of her words by reason of being overcome with emotions. “Say something!”

  Victor, however, remained silent just for a couple of seconds, then he slowly approached Mariam and embraced her without saying a word, having pleased himself thereby as much as he could possibly afford.

  “Everything is fine. Now, everything is fine,” he whispered in her ear, folding her in his arms. “Everything ended. You will understand it yourself when I tell you.”

  He released her only for a moment to close the door, then came right up to her again, carefully placed his palms on her cheeks, and glanced at her bright, dark eyes. He was sure that she suspected something, she even might know the whole story, but, on the other hand, it was unlikely.

  “Have you tended to your wounds?” having removed his hands, Mariam asked angrily.

  “Do not worry,” Victor stepped aside, “there is nothing to tend, just a few scratches…”

  “Where do you keep your medicine chest here?” she continued, paying no attention to his opinion.

  “Seriously, Mariam! It is unnecessary,” Victor tried to stop her, but she, having been here once, did not want to listen to him and went to the kitchen.

  “Sit down right there!” in a minute she was sitting on the sofa, holding a small bottle of some disinfectant and a cotton bandage.

  “Mariam, please…”

  “No, it will be better if you lie down, and I want to see your head on my lap. It is not clear yet what you have there on your nape…”

  “Mariam, can you hear what I am saying?”

  “Do you really want to drive me to that state again?” she threatened him for the last time. “Lie down, I will take care of your wounds and in the meanwhile you will tell everything what you have been eager to tell for so long.”

  After these words, Victor finally gave in and decided to obey. Most likely, being in his normal state of mind, he would try to avoid such situation by all means, but right now, when all his prejudices just disappeared, this particular situation seemed to him only rare and correspondingly quite admissible. He lied down on the sofa stretched and put his head on her lap, just as she ordered him a moment before.

  “You may start from the very beginning,” Mariam said, having wetted the cotton bandage with the disinfectant.

  Once again, Victor began to think that she was perfectly aware of everything what was happening between them up to this point.

  “Do you remember that day when we met for the first time?” he started from afar indeed. “Do you remember that moment when I told you about my occupation?” he looked up at her, but she ignored his meaningful glance, continuing to look for any scratches on his head.

  “That day, that morning, I told you that I was going to have a meeting with a person who doubted fidelity of his spouse,” Victor continued, having never derived encouragement from her, “I told you that I was going to refuse him. And I did not lie! Believe me! Honestly, I was going to tell ‘no’. In any other case I would have refused for sure, but when I kept this cursed appointment, when I found myself in this big house, and saw on his desk your portrait, Mariam…”

  And she flinched faintly, but not with surprise, no, she just could not keep holding her breath anymore.

  “Up to this point, I could not even imagine that everything might take such turn. If I had only known that it would be you, I would have never gone there. And later everything became so blurred as if I was going out of my mind, I forgot about everything, got lost and did not know what to answer. It was akin to a dream that did not have to cause any consequences. I do not even know now why I agreed, for we were going to meet with you anyway. But I want you to understand right now, I did not tell him a word about you. I have shadowed you but I did not give him any reports.”

  Mariam was crying bitterly, tears flowing down her cheeks. However, Victor could not see any feelings behind her tears. Apart from this, she seemed untouched by his story.

  “You can hate me, I think I would even like it be so. I would like to hear your frankest opinion about me.” Victor said and became silent.

  “I want to know everything: from beginning to end, down to this very moment.” She finally looked in his eyes, having let him know that it was not just a request.

  “
I started to watch you after our second meeting. That moment was the starting line. I am probably insane, but even now, I cannot explain you why I followed you that day. I have reflected on it many times, seeking for a straight answer, but all has been for nothing,” Victor was given to soul-searching, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. “There, in that shopping centre, I saw that man and instantly began to hate him. After that, I could not just leave everything behind; I could not stop watching you anymore. Then you became the most important part of my life, Mariam.”

  During his narration, she did not dare to go into details, specifying nothing, listening silently, as a priest hiding in a shadow during a confession.

  “All the next week I kept coming to the café and watching you sitting there alone. I have never desired anything as badly as to approach you, to start talking, to sit down at the same table, but could I?” by this moment Victor finally sank into a reverie, having covered himself with memories, and suddenly afforded a happy smile. “I filmed everything with that camera.”

  For a moment, Mariam turned in the direction where Victor’s hand pointed.

  “Before I continue, I would like to ask you one thing, if you do not mind it…” he asked suddenly.

  “I do not,” she answered, indifferent.

  “What would your opinion be, if I said that one should never dedicate his feelings to a beautiful woman?”

  “And why do you ask me about it?” Mariam responded, seemingly still being not interested, “I do not consider myself beautiful.”