All That Is Solid Melts into Air Read Free Page A

their lines, holding them in their teeth, then turning to call indoors for help, identical bursts of movement that happen on different levels of the building, independent of each other. Across the city, his mother is probably doing the same.
    Below them, at ground level, a woman walks past, sheltering under a navy-blue umbrella. Yevgeni’s eye is drawn downward from the intermittent chaos that unfolds above her. She wears a gray coat and black shoes. Yevgeni recognizes the swivel of the body, the pace of her stride. It has to be her. Finally some luck. He stands up and shouts over to her, “Auntie!” She doesn’t hear and keeps moving. He shouts again, “Auntie Maria!” Still nothing. Yevgeni doesn’t think he has the strength to run after her. He needs rescuing from his little island of gloom. He waves his good hand in the air with broad strokes. Still nothing. She’s moving past now, the moment quickly becoming lost.
     
    The pavement becomes washed in a yellow glaze. Carnival music blares from the overhead speakers.
     
    Yevgeni, momentarily disorientated, looks up to see the perimeter of the concrete canopy lit up with hundreds of individual bulbs. The steel tables around him glisten, stagnant puddles turn into blobs of molten gold. Across the street, his aunt Maria stops and looks over at the circus building, charmed by the electric surge that radiates out into the damp evening air, and pays particular attention to a sodden boy sweeping an arm above his head, as though waving out to sea.

Chapter 2
    G rigory Ivanovich Brovkin stands at the edge of the cold pool in the Tulskaya baths, gazing at the flat sheen of the undisturbed water. The slap of flesh surrounds him: feet sticking to the wet marble floors, the large hands of the old masseurs pounding and kneading thick wads of skin in the adjoining treatment rooms. All men, mostly older than he is, walking with a certain gait, paunches swaying, shoulders bent back, chests out, bodies freed from restrictions, uniform white bath towels cosseting their waists, corners flipping around their knees from their languorous stroll. To his left, two men play chess, partially obscured in the steam, half the pieces ivory white, the same colour as their skin. The pieces gathering condensation, looking as though they too were sweating out their impurities.
    The pool water inert and translucent, so clear he can see the tiled bottom, six feet below, so solid-looking that the idea of it opening itself to him, parting to his weight, seems absurd.
    The day has been a long one and it’s not finished yet. He climbed out of bed at 5:25. He stood at the window in the cobalt light and watched as the day unfurled, the morning growing paler, routine activities billowing out: bakers checking on bread rising dutifully in ovens, janitors pulling on their overalls, mechanics in depots tinkering with delivery trucks, testing the engines patiently until they greet the day with spluttered complaints.
    He leaned his forearms against the glass and watched as a pigeon lifted above some beech trees, its outstretched wings gathering invisible currents, carrying a heart disproportionate to its body size. Such contradictions that nature can hold in its effortless order.
    He has always appreciated order. It was this aspect of his nature that probably, on reflection, drew him to surgery. In the operating theatre, he takes great comfort in the physical rituals. The tools being handed to him in a specific way, held at a particular height. Placed into his hand with just the same amount of force. Everything scrubbed and disinfected. Everything shining clean. A room that is beyond, if not error, then carelessness, everything in it the result of careful deliberation.
    He showered and ate a breakfast of black bread and two boiled eggs and drank some tea. He put on his suit and tied his tie, ran a comb through his gradually receding hairline; the years moving ominously forward.
    His thoughts had a bitter taint to