The Symmetry Teacher: A Novel

by Andrei Bitov

  Although he didn’t confess to the theft, the Turk-Yazidi, whining and lamenting, promised to return the above-mentioned sum because the evidence was so dramatically stacked against him, but only as a “debt of honor,” to salvage his good name. For he had a fiancée and planned to marry her and to have children by her (as you can see, devil-worshippers are no different from the rest of us). But, considering the magnitude of the sum that had gone missing through no fault of his own, he would agree to hand over one half of it the next day, he said, and the other half in installments over the next month. And on that note, they parted.

  “Forgive me, Bartholomew,” said his friend with the checkered past, “but I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone as gullible as you are. And if he brings you half the money tomorrow, go straight to the nearest church and light the biggest candle you can find—because it means that you’re not alone. There’s someone else in the world even more gullible than you are: your Thief. But no matter how great a blockhead he turns out to be, don’t ever expect to see the other half of that money for as long as you live.”

  The skepticism of his friend with the checkered past was not justified with respect to the first half of the money, which fortified Bartholomew’s faith in people; but the second half of the oracle’s prophecy turned out to be true, thus fortifying Bartholomew’s faith in his friend’s wisdom.

  But it is one thing to believe in someone else’s wisdom, and another thing altogether to follow it. Bartholomew continued to visit the Thief from time to time to inquire about the second half, and the Thief never refused, even a single time, to promise to return it—it was always “next time without fail!” The Turk never deceived him, that was the point. He did get married, and even came over to invite Bartholomew to be an honored guest at the wedding, which Bartholomew, though flattered, declined. Now when he showed up at the Thief’s for his “debt of honor,” the Thief, sincerely eager to discharge it, tried to remove his wife’s wedding ring from her finger in lieu of the money, and Bartholomew withdrew, filled with shame.

  Once it happened that the Thief came to invite him to a feast in honor of the birth of his firstborn. Just at that time Bartholomew had received news that his brother was alive, found somewhere in South America. Happy for his mother’s happiness, Bartholomew was moved to tell the Thief that if he confessed to the robbery, all would be forgiven and he would be released from his debt. The Thief, strangely enough, was deeply offended, and left. Although deep in his heart Bartholomew was certain that the Thief was, indeed, a thief, sometimes, stealing a glance at his grown son, he still experienced a tremor of doubt. Oh, if only he knew what kind of abyss he had plunged himself into with his own generous—speaking juridically—special ruling!

  * * *

  The Thief paid him the respect due a king. And, truly, his joy at seeing Bartholomew would be hard to overestimate. Sometimes it seemed to Bartholomew that his brother and the Thief had changed places. He couldn’t quite claim that his brother had become a thief; but that the Thief had become a brother was very close to the truth. He still didn’t pay back the debt, but he gladly volunteered for small errands. True, he didn’t actually carry them out, but his eagerness always warmed Bartholomew’s heart. It had been a year since he had promised to procure a new wheelchair for the Queen Mother, and now he was going to bring over a Christmas tree, tomorrow at the latest … Each time, the Thief had a weighty excuse for why he had to postpone payment of the second half of the debt: his mother was ill (a circumstance Bartholomew understood well himself). The Thief’s older brother vouched for this, even putting in an appearance (also a Turk, possibly his brother, too). Then there was trouble concerning that same brother, who had to go to court (Bartholomew could relate to this circumstance as well).

  This time the Thief rolled a barrel of honey into the middle of the room as a conditional guarantee of imminent payment: his relatives had sent it; he had only to go to the bazaar to sell it. Then he would rush right back to give Bartholomew the proceeds, only there was no time—too much work (though every time Bartholomew dropped by, the Thief happened to be at home), and if he didn’t believe him, he could take the barrel with him right now—there was plenty of honey there to cover the debt, with interest. Bartholomew didn’t take it.

  The eldest little thief, Bartholomew’s pet, was already sitting on his knee. Not limiting himself to the candy he had already been treated to, he had set his sights on the ballpoint pen or the cigarette lighter, so Bartholomew gradually turned into a juggler, catching in midair first the one, then the other, then a handkerchief, then a watch, and then restored them to their places. The youngest crawled on all fours with astonishing speed, like a little cockroach. The wife trundled her enormous third belly from the kitchen into the living room and back again. All this progeny had been conceived and born within the span of Bartholomew’s memory. He was freezing, and he stayed to warm himself at this hearth, forgetting why he had come. In the kitchen, something bubbled and exhaled a savory Turkish aroma, and it would be ready in a jiffy, Bartholomew must stay and taste it …

  As proof of his candor, the Thief showed Bartholomew, finally, the king’s own fur coat, which the Thief had volunteered to repair back in the summer, and had snatched out of Bartholomew’s grip almost by force, in spite of his timid protests. The coat had been an object of especial pride for Bartholomew. It was wolf skin. He had brought it back with him from Alaska—no one else could boast of such a prize, and no one but Bartholomew would dare to wear it. A fur fit for a king! He donned it only on very solemn occasions, though those occasions seemed to have become increasingly less solemn, or … When Bartholomew finally brought it out to wear, time itself seemed to fly out of it, like it was giving up the ghost, in the familiar guise of the clothes moth. The Thief, seeing his dismay, made fervent offers to come to the rescue: he had a cousin, a Turk, first class, it would be just like new again. Bartholomew mumbled something about how it could never be new again … in vain. The Thief grabbed it under the arms like a living creature, and it even seemed to resist, like a dog that was being hauled away from its master.

  Now, along with the subject of the debt, the subject of the fur coat took root and grew until it had assumed equal proportions, and already it was unclear which matter was more pressing—the fur or the debt? (Bartholomew was sure that the fur had made it to the bazaar, where someone’s barrel of honey hadn’t.) One seemed to supplant the other, so that returning one of them canceled out returning the other. “You’ve halved it again!” It suddenly dawned on Bartholomew, and he laughed in delight at his own shrewdness and insight. It seemed he even said this aloud. This time the Thief was offended, as deeply as only thieves can be.

  “You insult me, Your Majesty,” the Thief said, reaching behind the honey barrel and producing an untidy bundle. “Here!” the one so recently maligned said triumphantly. “Here!” His arms and back looked like he might be sobbing while he unfastened it. His sharp shoulder blades worked furiously beneath his tank top.

  Finally the wrappings dropped away, revealing the remains of what had once been Bartholomew’s fur coat.

  “We tried everything we could,” the Thief insisted, scooping up handfuls of furry scraps, and letting them fall back down again, as though he were fingering priceless jewels in a treasure chest like Ali Baba. “But you can see for yourself, it’s the inner side of the hide, it didn’t survive the process…” With these words he plucked out a slightly larger scrap, one that still looked whole, and commenced tearing it into tiny strips, like paper, to prove his case. Poor Bartholomew reached out to stop him.

  “But we’ll think of something,” said the Thief, comforting him. “I know a furrier who says he will trade these odds and ends for an almost new chinchilla jacket. A woman’s jacket, sure, but it’s chinchilla! And the surcharge will be minimal.”

  The Thief’s ingenuousness moved Bartholomew, and he laughed, relieved that his sense of humor had returned to him. “Fine,” he said, “but when will you return th
e money?”

  He didn’t mean to upset the Thief. It was sly on his part—waltzing so lightly over the problem of the fur coat. The Thief shook his head at him as if in reproach, as if to say, “Oh no, here we go again.”

  Bartholomew left with a wave of the hand. “I’m running late!” he said, and rushed downstairs, skipping every few steps.

  “Wait!” the Thief called out to him. “You really won’t make me give you the money back if I confess?”

  Bartholomew seemed to hang in the air in midflight. Finally! he thought. It’s too bad I won’t ever see my money again, but oh, what a relief it would be!

  We could leave them like this forever: Bartholomew, frozen in midflight, his head turned back over his shoulder like a playing-card king, and his court Thief, in a tank top, hanging over the bannister of the stairwell. If the story had ended here, they would have made a perfect chiseled image: it captured their relationship like a curious and apt monogram.

  “I swear by my cross!” cried Bartholomew, unprepared for such a turn of events. Bartholomew’s oath, however, made no dent in the demonology of the Thief. “I gave you my word!” Bartholomew was exasperated.

  “Okay, I believe you,” the Thief said with conviction.

  “Well?” said Bartholomew, landing finally and stamping his foot. “Come on, I’m late.”

  “I have so much respect for you,” the Thief said in a voice filled with emotion. “You’re like my older brother.”

  Bartholomew shuddered and jerked his shoulders back, like he was trying to fend off the cold. Hadn’t he had the same thought only moments ago?

  “You’re like a father to me,” the Thief continued. “Do you think I don’t know what you’ve done for me? You got me out of jail, you didn’t let my children become orphans … I’d do anything for you … If you ever need anything, anything at all … call on me … I’ll be there…”

  “Wait, is this a confession or not?” Bartholomew said, distressed and overjoyed at the same time. The Thief began to writhe, the promised word was about to tear free from his lips. “What’s wrong? You don’t believe me?” Bartholomew thundered, his foot stamping the floor again.

  “Of course I believe you! How could I not believe you?” the Thief reassured him.

  “Well, then, yes or no?” Bartholomew yelled.

  “Don’t get mad.” The Thief stepped away from the bannister. “I was just asking, just to be sure…”

  It couldn’t get any more certain than that. Bartholomew finally slipped out of these “Thousand and One Nights” he found himself in and started off at a run, smiling bitterly as he ran: it was nearly word for word the same as the last time, and the time before that, except for the fur coat. That was new. (Bartholomew regretted what had happened to the fur.) He knows, and I know, too, he thought, as he always did. And he knows that I know, and I know that he knows that I know. And he knows that I’ll keep my word. And I will keep it, though I need the money, what with Christmas coming up … Why do I keep pressuring him? He is simply unable to utter those words. He wants to, but he can’t! And this seemed to Bartholomew to be some special kind of honesty unique to the Thief.

  Bartholomew sighed as he shook his wet umbrella and entered the loathsome office of Sir Poluzhan, where he was to have the audience with Paul I and a serious talk with Adams the Vizier.

  The daily royal routine had begun.

  * * *

  Bartholomew was late for his appointment with the vizier. The vizier was no longer at his desk. His annoyance with the Thief was short-lived: as soon as Bartholomew found out from his secretary that the vizier hadn’t come to work today at all, never mind about being here at the hour for which his meeting with Bartholomew had been set, his annoyance was transferred to the secretary. Bartholomew did manage to occupy his own desk on time, however.

  “Shirkers,” he grumbled, entering the reception hall and opening out his umbrella to dry, so that it took up the whole room. He took off his coat and his jacket and hung them up carefully. He donned his black sleeve protectors, like an accountant, gave the pillow on his chair a few punches to put it right, and sat down on his throne. He reached for a thin folder containing urgent matters of state, and assumed an air appropriate to the seriousness of the task. Then, saying, “You may enter!,” he opened it.

  A Russian field marshal, covered in decorations from his neck to his belt (and something below the belt dangled on a sword), lay topmost in the folder. It was a color photograph, and although nobody on the editorial board had heard of the field marshal, the photograph turned out to be the most impressive of the entire Russian collection. He overshadowed the greats, Peter and Catherine, and later Russian leaders, and the editor-in-chief insisted that he have a place in the publication. It remained only to invent a biography for him, since even the field marshal’s name was not known with any degree of certainty, and according to the stipulations of the publication the article could not be smaller than the portrait itself. Judging by the number of decorations alone, he must have lost a very large battle.

  Of seven articles and three illustrations for which there was no room in the layout, it would be necessary to choose five, or two. Or to abridge the articles so that they all fit. And this was within Bartholomew’s power.

  If he were to abolish one, which would it be? Bartholomew arranged the photographs in front of him. The field marshal would stay, never mind that his battle was unknown. His rivals were a certain little fish and a certain locknut that bore the name of its inventor. What a fate! There was no article about the inventor, only about his locknut. But the field marshal would be granted an article, although his battle was far less successful than the locknut. Not to mention the fish. The fish was extremely quaint: transparent, with a beak. And what’s more, it was terribly old and rare; but despite the millions of years of its triumphant survival as a species, no one had ever heard of it. The field marshal’s defeat was more famous than he himself was. The locknut eclipsed its inventor. In fact, the locknut was the most famous of them all.

  Bartholomew put the field marshal in the middle, between the fish and the drawing of the locknut. There was no way the locknut entry could be shortened, for purely objective reasons; the field marshal had to stay, for he was under orders; and the little fish was the dearest of all to Bartholomew. So, an altar dripping with medals, an ancient fish, or an ingenious locknut?

  O Encyclopedia!

  Bartholomew laughed out loud in the consciousness of his power.

  This was the incarnation of all his exotic experiences! As a former expeditionary artist, he was not only the literary editor but also the art director. Although clearly underappreciated by the managing editors, this rare combination did put a crust of bread on his table (though he would have preferred it with butter, too). For this reason he occasionally visited the Chairman of the Editorial Board on Mount Olympus. The chairman, on the one hand, regarded Bartholomew’s merits as an employee very highly; on the other hand, he largely avoided him.

  Bartholomew’s last name was a hindrance to him. Especially here, in France. It was not so much a name as a nickname. A London telephone book alone contained no less than thirty pages of others like him. Even in his beloved Britannica there were at least thirty of the greats with his name, from Adam (the economist) to Sir William (the admiral), whom Bartholomew particularly admired.

  When he was still working at the Britannica—which gave him his first steady job out of kindness, in recognition of his father’s legacy after he passed away, and after Bartholomew had married, his brother had disappeared, and his mother had lost her legs—he promoted this admiral, who brought up the rear of this list of eponymous figures, to a place higher on the ladder of the encyclopedic hierarchy. He fostered a kinship between him and a minor religious philosopher, whom Bartholomew himself had included as one of his own great-grandfathers once removed. He had managed to devote almost an entire column in the encyclopedia to the admiral, and had achieved a convincing kinship with him, when he had
suddenly found it necessary to cease this innocent abuse of power due to his brother’s Catholicism, which had acquired a scandalous, almost political, character. Thus, instead of a kinship with Sir William (the admiral), diligent colleagues on the editorial board discovered another undesirable relationship, besides that of his brother: an all but Irish relative (through the maternal line). Taken together, this was enough for him to feel unwanted in such a respectable and upstanding institution, and to deprive him of his crust of bread (still without butter). He was forced to move to his wife’s native France; one might even say, to emigrate.

  Bartholomew sighed and banished this bout of nostalgia. Now he swapped the locknut for the fish: the fish became higher, and the locknut became lower than the military commander in rank, though strictly alphabetically it was the other way around.

  How marvelous the alphabet is! Bartholomew thought. Everything submits to the letter. BARTHOLOMEW, Smith is a king, an admiral; SMITH, Bartholomew is a D student and a soldier. If you’re in the middle, fingers point at you more often, you get called to the board. The middle is much more densely populated, it’s harder to struggle free and make your way in the world. A Smith has to be a genius. A Smith needs a Wesson, otherwise it won’t shoot. How much better it is to be the letter A! You automatically head the list. They are less inclined to reprimand you. They hit you only when they miss someone else. An A is almost exempt from failure, thus facilitating an easy career. Who is better suited to be chairman than an Adams? (Bartholomew’s dissatisfaction with the vizier, as with everything else this morning, now grew.) But being the last in the alphabet has its advantages, too. Watch your back, Zuberg is sneaking up on you! In the shadows, tailing behind, closing out the list. He doesn’t have to watch his back; no one can get behind him. You can’t rise higher than the letter A, and you can’t turn back, either. But Zuberg can see the whole chain, from Z to A. When the flock turns around, the last sheep becomes the first! In the manner of revolution …