レビュー
“Travis Holland writes exquisitely. The Archivist’s Story is that very rare book, a historical novel that makes us forget ‘historical’ and remember only ‘novel’, even as we take in hard historical fact— the archivist Pavel living in the midst of Stalin’s purges, could be any of us, and Holland conveys his world in indelible images. The beauty and reality of this novel linger long after one has read—reluctantly—the last page.”—Elizabeth Kostova, author of The Historian
“A quietly miraculous book—uncannily persuasive in its rendering of a distant time and place, and deeply moving in its evocation of lives caught in the jaws of history. It's common to welcome a debut novel as "promising.” This book is a promise perfectly and profoundly kept,; its author one to read now and into the future.”—Peter Ho Davies, author of The Welsh Girl
“A historical novel of subtle power and tremendous grace.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“There is a quiet authenticity about Holland’s writing that draws you in, and soon you will find yourself sitting on the edge of your seat, silently cheering for his characters. Readers will want to hear more from the author of this heartbreaking and haunting work.”—Library Journal, starred review
抜粋
Chapter One
It is a small matter that brings them together. A story, untitled, unsigned, and by all appearances incomplete, which the arresting officers in their haste have neglected to record in the evidence manifest. A year ago, when the Lubyanka thrummed with activity, when all of Moscow seemed to hold its breath at night and every morning brought a new consignment of confiscated manuscripts to Pavel's desk, such a discovery would have hardly warranted a second look, let alone this face-to-face meeting the archivist frankly dreads. Babel has confessed: One story will not change that, nor will it save him. Still, Kutyrev has insisted the matter be formally resolved, and since Pavel must now answer to the ambitious young lieutenant, the question of authorship is to be settled, if only for the record. Already an empty office upstairs has been reserved for the purpose. In due course the appointed morning comes. Just as the first heavy drops of rain are beginning to fall onto the dreary courtyard below, a guard raps once on the door. Babel enters.
"I was about to make tea," Pavel offers. On the bureau beside the window sit an electric samovar, a serving tray, tea glasses and spoons, a darkly tarnished tin, all left behind by the office's previous occupant, absent now. Behind the desk, where a row of pictures once hung, the plaster is noticeably lighter; only nails remain. "Would you like to sit down?"
After a moment, as if Pavel's voice has only now reached him, Babel nods, then sits. He is unshaven. A bruise is fading under his right eye, and a faint film, like dried salt, coats his lips. The wilted wings of his shirt collar lie crookedly across the lapels of his wrinkled coat. And this finally, which Pavel finds most disturbing: The writer's glasses are gone. Somehow he had expected Babel to appear as he once did in his dust-jacket pictures.
Pavel lifts the empty teapot from the samovar. "I'll just get this filled."
At first the young guard standing watch outside merely stares dully at the teapot, as if he has never laid eyes on one before. He is at most twenty, with the sleepy eyes of a peasant. Some displaced farmer's son, perhaps, come to Moscow to better himself. Whatever he is, the expression on his face is familiar enough. "Water," Pavel sighs, handing the teapot over. He might as well be back at Kirov Academy, standing in front of a classroom of boys hardly younger than this guard, reading aloud lines from Tolstoy. Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible. Sons of want and privilege alike, born in revolution's shadow: It is his former students' generation now joining the numberless ranks already marching under the banner of collective progress, while their former teachers reconcile themselves to silence. In the two and a half years since his appointment to the special archives, where until Kutyrev's arrival this past May he was alone, Pavel has become painfully aware of just how fortunate he once was, how blessed. He would give anything to be standing before his students again, book in hand.
With the rain has come a kind of false twilight. All week the weather has been like this. Sitting, Pavel pulls the brass chain of the desk lamp, which clatters softly against the green glass shade. "I keep hoping we'll get a little sun soon," he says, trying to hide his nervousness. It is not every day one meets a writer of Babel's eminence. He asks, "Are you hungry? I'm sure I could have something sent up, if you'd like."
"Thank you. No."
A high, almost breathy voice: Babel will not even meet his eye. Pavel stares openly at the bruise on Babel's cheek, then looks away. The guard returns with the teapot.
At the window again Pavel fills the samovar. Next door a telephone rings once, is answered. A watery, pale light cups the rounded side of the warming samovar, spilling over Pavel's hands as he pries open the tin. Only a little tea remains, the blackish, powdery leavings like a kind of sand he tips into the waiting teapot. Tilting the tin toward the light, Pavel catches a glimpse of his own blurred reflection in it. Then he returns to the desk.
"Might I ask a question, Comrade Inspector?"
"I'm not an inspector," Pavel says quickly. "I work down in the archives." Leaning forward, he wipes the green cardboard of Babel's file folder with his fingers. A pink ribbon, neatly tied, holds the folder shut. "Actually," he adds, "I used to be a teacher, believe it or not. I taught your stories."
"My stories."
"From Red Cavalry." When one could teach them, Pavel thinks. When it was acceptable. Safe. "Some of your later work as well. 'Guy de Maupassant' is a personal favorite of mine." The opening lines of Babel's story, which he has never tired of reading, return to Pavel:
***
In the winter of 1916 I found myself in St. Petersburg with a forged passport and not a cent to my name. Alexey Kazantsev, a teacher of Russian literature, took me into his house.
A teacher of Russian literature–the irony stings now.
Babel squints at the green folder with an expression of dull, somewhat dazed perplexity, as if Pavel has conjured it up out of nothingness by some sleight of hand. Then his dark eyes empty again.
"May I ask," Babel says finally, "what day it is?"
"Tuesday."
"Is it still June?"
"July."
"Already–" At least that is what Pavel thinks he hears Babel murmur. Already. It has been barely two months since Babel's arrest, two months since the customary unmarked car carried him at dawn through the enormous black gate of the courtyard below. Has he lost his grip on time? Or perhaps, Pavel imagines, Babel is simply, quietly stunned: that he could be brought down so fast, so completely. That in only two months he could become the battered, cowed shell of a man now sitting in this all but abandoned office. Pavel remembers his own first months at the Lubyanka, themselves a stark revelation, though it is obscene to compare his experience with Babel's. He has not suffered one-tenth the torment Babel has likely had inflicted on him: days without sleep or food or water, threats, beatings.
Pavel says, "I've been asked–ordered–to clear up a discrepancy in your file. It's just a formality."
"What sort of discrepancy?"
"A manuscript my supervisor happened upon while reviewing your file. A story. Quite a remarkable story. There's no record of it in the evidence manifest, which means it can't be officially attributed to anyone, yourself included. Which means, officially speaking"–Pavel shrugs uncomfortably–"it doesn't exist. As I said, it's just a formality. If you could perhaps take a look, tell me if you recognize it. Can you read without your glasses?"
"Barely. I was told they would be returned to me," Babel says. "If I cooperated."
Cooperated. Confessed, he means–and in doing so, likely implicated others. Nowadays one cannot simply confess, one must also denounce. Acquaintances, colleagues, friends, even one's own family. Whom, if anyone, has Babel drawn into the net that has now fallen over his life? Eisenstein perhaps, Ehrenburg? Pasternak? A man of Babel's prominence would be expected to name others at least as well-known as himself.
I spent my mornings hanging around the morgues and police stations.
The line, another from "Guy de Maupassant," echoes through Pavel's brain as he walks once more to the window, where the samovar has begun to boil. Steam shimmers on the glass. "I'm afraid we'll have to make do without sugar," he apologizes, filling the teapot. A sedan is just then pulling into a parking space in the courtyard below, wipers briskly slapping away rain. The wipers cease, the driver's door swings open. An umbrella emerges, blooms: a black peony. Morgues and police stations, Pavel things–that is what this age will be remembered for, that is our legacy. "Sugar?" Babel asks. As if the word were new to him.
"For the tea."
Babel is silent.
"I could send for some," Pavel offers, though the prospect of facing the young guard again leaves him tired. No doubt it is also Kutyrev's dreadful, pointless errand that has left him disheartened. For months now the junior officer has seized upon practically every opportunity to drive home his authority over Pavel, like a dog lifting its leg on even the most neglected patch of garden, marking its territory. More than once Pavel has come close to telling Kutyrev that he needn't bother. He is welcome to the archives, right down to the last folder. Pavel hands Babel his tea glass. "Mind, it's hot."
Babel holds the steaming glass of watery tea near his chest. "You were a teacher," he says after a time.
"Of literature, yes."
"Literature." Spoken without irony, without bitterness. He straightens slightly in his chair. Perhaps, Pavel thinks, the tea has revived him. "Did you enjoy teaching?" Babel asks.
"Very much," says Pavel.
Rain taps at the window. Absently Pavel brushes back his hair, feels something hard. The partial husk of a seed comes away in his fingers: It must have fallen from one of the lindens near his building as he walked to the bus stop this morning. He lays it on the desktop.
"Your Red Cavalry stories," he tells Babel, "they were always quite popular with my students. Boys, you know. They tend to be drawn to war. Your stories fascinated them."
Twenty-nine volumes of Maupassant stood on the shelf above the desk. The sun with its fingers of melting dissolution touched the morocco backs of the books–the magnificent grave of the human heart.
He cannot get Bab...
著者について
Travis Holland's stories have appeared in Glimmer Train, Five Points, and Ploughshares. He is the recipient of two Hopwood Awards, and holds an MFA from the University of Michigan. He lives in Michigan. This is his first novel.
