Watson, Ian - Novel 11
Read Watson, Ian - Novel 11 Online
Authors: Chekhov's Journey (v1.1)
In
1890 the Russian author Anton Chekhov undertook an historic journey across
Siberia
to the convict
island
of
Sakhalin
.
A
hundred years later, in an isolated artist’s retreat near
Krasnoyarsk
, a Soviet film unit prepares to commemorate
his journey by using a technique of “reincarnation by hypnosis” so that
Mikhail, their chosen actor, not only plays the role of Chekhov but actually
believes himself to be the playwright.
But
the situations Mikhail acts out diverge wildly from known biographical facts
when
Chekhov hears of an explosion in the Tiin- guska region
of
Siberia
. Yet the real Tim- guska explosion—one of
the great enigmas of science—occurred in 1908. So how could Chekhov possibly
have known of it in 1890?
The
mysterious explosion then exerts an influence from another realm when Mikhail
claims under hypnosis to be captain of a Soviet time-ship from the year 2090
plunging out of control down the years toward the disaster in
Siberia
. What follows is the compelling tale of
displaced lives from three separate centuries, struggling for survival as time
comes unstrung and reality is under siege.
Continued
on back flap
Also by Ian
Watson
THE EMBEDDING
THE JONAH KIT
THE MARTIAN INCA
ALIEN EMBASSY
MIRACLE VISITORS
THE VERY SLOW TIME MACHINE
GOD’S WORLD
THE GARDENS OF DELIGHT
UNDER HEAVEN’S BRIDGE
(with Michael Bishop)
DEATHHUNTER
SUNSTROKE
Carroll
& Graf Publishers, Inc.
New York
All
rights reserved
First
Carroll & Graf edition 1989
Carroll
& Graf Publishers, Inc.
260 Fifth Avenue
New York
,
NY
10001
Library
of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Watson,
Ian, 1943—
Chekhov’s journey / Ian Watson.
— 1st Carroll & Graf ed.
p. cm.
ISBN
0-88184-523-
X :
$16.95
1.
Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich, 1860-1904, in fiction, drama, poetry, etc. I. Title.
PR6073.A863C47
1989
823'.914—dc20
89-37988
CIP
Manufactured
in the
United States of America
For
Brian Stableford
Contents
ONE
ANTON huddled IN
his sheepskin jacket
and military-style leather raincoat. As the buggy jolted him along through the
Siberian night, numbly he watched last year’s grass burning off the frosted
fields.
Tongues
of flame laced the earth with flickering red and gold, which faintly
illuminated occasional groves of birch trees. Yet the night immediately stole
any warmth away. The Road was frozen, hard as iron. Driving along was more like
lurching over an endless series of suits of armour laid side by side.
How
long had they been travelling? Was it five hours, or eight? The horses were
tramping like brainless machines, and driver Volodya had long since gone into a
trance. But Anton hadn’t yet learned the trick of sleeping through this sort of
punishment.
Maybe
Volodya had died, a few hours ago? Imagine being driven for tens of versts by a
dead body without even realizing it!
Soon
the sun would rise. By the afternoon the Road would become a chumed-up
quagmire. Where it broadened, on its way through villages, it would be a river
of mud with houses on both banks. . .
Abruptly
thunder drummed from the darkness ahead. Hooves, wheels!
Within
seconds a troika of the Imperial Postal Service came dashing out of the
night—three horses abreast, and no intention of yielding to anything on the
road.
Even
as Anton cried a warning, Volodya was jerking on the reins. The old codger
wasn’t dead, after all. He hauled the team and buggy over to the right, just as
the troika thundered past, missing them by a hand’s span.
As Volodya and Anton swung round to
curse the troika on its way, they spied—bearing down from the darkness behind—a
second juggernaut, returning full tilt towards
Tomsk
. This second troika careered past the
first, heading directly towards them. And worse! Behind it, a third troika
charged in pursuit.
Volodya
lashed his team with the reins. “God save us!” he howled.
With
their usual nervy stupidity, the horses swung the buggy the wrong way; and it
blocked the Road entirely.
What
had been till a moment earlier an empty void was suddenly filled with a chaos
of crashing wood and whinnying, rearing
horseflesh.
Briefly their own buggy stood up on end. A moment later Anton found that he
wasn’t sitting in it at all, but was lying sprawled on the ground, bombarded by
his luggage.
Scrambling
up, he raced aside. “Stop, damn you, stop!’’ he screamed down the road.
But
the third troika hurtled towards them, pell-mell. Its driver was a dark lump,
probably fast asleep. A few seconds later it too crashed into the tangle.
Again, horses reared, shafts cracked and harness snapped. Yokes tumbled to the
ground over trampled baggage.
Then,
for a few moments, everything was so still that Anton believed he had gone
deaf. In the east, ever so faintly, dawn was beginning to glow.
At
least two of the drivers must have been tumbled out of their dreams into this
nightmare of bruises and cold. Though the occurrence could hardly be unique, it
took them a short while to work out what had happened. But then they and
Volodya squared up to each other in the gloom—and the driver of the first troika
ran up to add his own contribution.
“You
were asleep, you buggering fool!”
“You
lying clip-prick, I was awake. The other two fuckers weren’t!”
“You
couldn’t drive a team of rabbits, Grandpa!”
Crazed
by the invective being bellowed on all sides, the horses milled and collided
hysterically.
Idiot creatures that they were, they reared and
kicked and tried to bite holes in each other’s necks.
Their hooves
pummelled broken shafts and jumbled luggage. And nobody made the slightest
effort to calm the beasts, or drag the damaged vehicles apart, or clear their
spilled contents aside. Obsessed with abuse, the four drivers merely swore at
each other endlessly, blaming and blaspheming and accusing each other of being
Jews and sodomists and lunatics.
Anton
stood by in fear and fury; he wondered if he ought to pull out his revolver and
discharge it over their heads to restore order. And cold flames crackled in the
fields, as anaemic daylight spilled slowly from the horizon . . .
Only
when the drivers were quite hoarse did they deign to back off and begin tidying
up. Volodya had to commandeer the straps from Anton’s trunk to tie up their own
shafts and harness. Eventually, after what seemed like two hours, their buggy
crept on its way . . .
The
next post station was versts
away,
and half-a-dozen
times they had to stop to refasten the shafts or harness which easily broke
loose again. The Road was already becoming slightly soggy in the mocking
sunshine, though ice still crusted the puddles.
Flights
of ducks beat their way overhead, provoking Anton’s belly to a rage of hunger.
To stop his own tripes consuming themselves, be bit off a chunk of the sausage
he’d been fool enough to buy a hundred versts back; and instantly regretted it.
The meat smelled of peasant feet unwrapped after six months, and tasted like a
dog’s tail dipped in tar and shit. Hastily he spat out the vile mouthful and
flushed his tastebuds with vodka, which was pretty foul too—sharp and oily.
Thousands of crumbs had worked their way down into his underpants, but he
couldn’t find a single whole crust of bread in any of his pockets.
True,
a bottle of finest cognac reposed in his baggage. Kuvshinnikov, the complaisant
cuckold, had presented this to him with a fine flourish, to be quaffed on the
shores of the Pacific. He wouldn’t be surprised if the bottle had been smashed
during the collision. Well, at least his gun hadn’t gone off and shot him in
the stomach . . .
Longing
for the barren oasis of the next village, Anton stared ahead.
Curiously,
he didn’t feel at all unwell. He was starving, and exhausted to the point of
hallucination. But his head no longer ached with migraines, and his piles had
cleared up since Ekaterinburg. Even his cough was better.
As
for gastritis, bye-bye to that.
A
good Christian might have said that all his routine ailments were really
devils—but lately the going had got too rough for them; so they had all
decamped . . .
Salvation
was in sight at last!
Wooden cabins, straggling along both sides of the Road far ahead.
An onion dome sitting on a little wooden church . . .
Buoyed
up, Anton became aware of the jingle of
their own
harness bells. Was it a merry note? No, it was just a noise ... He began to
daydream lustfully of sturgeon bouillabaisse. Ah yes, flavoured with sorrel and
mushrooms . . .
Fat
chance of that!