Read Online The Living by Anna Starobinets - Free Book Online Page A

her talking out loud in deep layers. That’s how we found out about her pause. She sat at her desk, hunched over, resting her head on the glass table top. Her face was reflected palely in the glass and it was like she was talking to her reflection.
    ‘…Before the pause you have the right to take a holiday of one to seven days in duration. Do you want to take a holiday? Yes. No,’ she said in a metallic voice that was not her own. ‘No,’ now in her own, ordinary voice. ‘Are you sure? Yes. No.’ ‘Yes. I don’t need a holiday. It’s only a pause, right?’ ‘Correct. It is only a pause. But any living has the right to take a holiday in order to get their affairs in order at this stage in their life.’ ‘I prefer to go to work. It’s easier that way. It takes my mind off it.’ ‘Takes your mind off what? Are you experiencing unpleasant emotions regarding the pause? Yes. No.’
    She fell silent. Then started rapping her words out metallically again: ‘Are you experiencing fear regarding the pause? Yes. No.’
    She sat up straight and covered her face with her hands. She sat there a little while in silence, then opened her hands slightly and then slapped them back, as if she were tryingto hide. As if she thought that she would become invisible if she couldn’t see. But the thing she was trying to protect herself from was inside her. Barely audibly, her face nestled in her hands, she replied, ‘No. Of course not. It’s only a pause.’
    …At that goodbye lesson she was telling us about animals. She snatched at the air with her mouth. Her every word was seared on my memory.
    ‘Nine months before the Great Reduction mankind exterminated practically all of its livestock and pets, as well as a large number of wild animals and birds. Scientists of the time based their argument on the mistaken hypothesis that animals were carrying deadly viruses, leading to human pandemics… By the time of the Nativity of the Living many breeds of animals and birds had disappeared forever from the face of the Earth. The numbers of those still left were reduced to critical levels. Surviving individuals migrated to mountainous and forested zones, uninhabited by man. They were pursued and there… The new-born Living stopped the senseless process of the extermination of innocents as soon as He became conscious, as soon as it became clear that the number of the Living was henceforth unchanging forever. Now the Living is the friend and protector of the animals. But He is forced to pay for other people’s mistakes, mistakes made when He did not yet exist. Animals’ fear of the people that exterminated them was too strong; this fear is passed down at the level of genetic memory. Unfortunately animals are not capable of realising that the all-merciful Living has come to replace prehistoric man. Unfortunately, animals are afraid of the Living. Afraid of you and me. But in time the Living will probably manage to tame them and win their trust…’
    I remember after the lesson I went over to her just to say ‘no death’.
    ‘No death,’ the teacher nodded and closed her eyes, and I noticed how limp her eyelids were and how they shiveredweakly. Like moths. Like the crumpled wings of a butterfly that lives only for a day. I should have just gone, but I suddenly got the urge to cheer her up, to say something life-affirming, something reassuring.
    ‘The Pause – it’s great,’ I informed her. ‘The old and weak acquire new life. You will become young and strong again…’
    She suddenly burst out laughing, so unexpectedly and shrilly that I got goose bumps. Through her laughter she said, ‘Do you know why animals are afraid of the Living?’
    I thought she had probably decided to give me a follow-up test and I answered: yes, I know. It’s because animals are simply incapable of understanding that ancient man has been replaced by the all-merciful Living…
    ‘Lies,’ she said. ‘It’s because they do understand. Animals can see