RuKsaK

Here is the first Conversation at the Nuclear Power Institute. You should perhaps read the introduction before this, but it's not completely necessary. Anyway, the introduction is here: Conversations at the Nuclear Power Institute - introduction. Please let me know what you think of The cosmonaut's son.

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The canteen was as I'd expected. A shifting line of people choosing substances from a small collection of feebly heated trays. All the same it was solid food - completely bereft of a single pretension. I had potatoes, of course potatoes, with a pair of kind of beef rissoles the Russians call beef steak. It's not a steak and it never was, but truth be told has a certain tastiness to it which I always imagine men appreciate more than women. To drink I had pineapple juice from a box - the photo on the box being the only thing which really had anything to do with pineapples. My host helped himself to the same except he had a busty-looking chicken leg instead of the twin rissoles I was having.
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He paid only for himself and I remember how I got slightly irritated at this. It's always a problem for English teachers that they feel their time speaking the language they sell somehow shouldn't be free of charge. So, then I felt I was being mercenary and got a little annoyed at myself. By the time we sat down I'd convinced myself I deserved to pay for myself for thinking that way. I've been through this emotional switchboard over unpaid lunches many times.
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He walked us to a table in the corner, which had all of its six chairs unused. I waited to see which one he would choose, so I could be opposite him. It was an awkward moment as he seemed to be doing the same. The upshot was that we ended up sitting side by side. This mishap in ergonomics made starting the conversation a little hard.
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'Erm, so how long have you worked here?'
'Now it is twenty-seven years. I think I eat this chicken for more than ten thousand times now. I sometimes not sure it's not same chicken all those years.'
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I laughed gently, but the way in which he indicated acknowledgement of my amusement suggested he wasn't joking. Russians do that though so I wasn't too perturbed.
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'I guess this place has changed quite a lot though.'
'Not changed a little. The people get older. Me too. That's all.'
'I see. Right - so how did you get a job at the Nuclear Power Institute?'
'Ah. My father got this job for me.'
'Did he work here then as well?'
'No, my father was cosmonaut.'
'Wow! Really. That's amazing.'
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I wasn't doing any of the feigning teachers are prone to do when showing interest. I was as amazed as my intonation suggested.
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'Yes. Amazing.'
'How did your father, I mean as a cosmonaut get you a job here then? If you don't mind me asking.'
'Difficult story, but I happy to tell you. Maybe you believe, maybe not. My father died when I was nine.'
'Sorry to hear that.'
'He went into cosmos in 1959 and not come back.'
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I had to ask the next question. If my attention was to stay as intrigued and interested. I didn't want to be the point of ridicule for one, or all, of these professors.
'Sorry, but Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space in 1961, wasn't he?'
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He turned to me, eyes full onto mine. He looked grave, but it instantly seemed he'd said what he said before - not rehearsed, so much as worn by it.
'Yuri Gagarin was not first man in cosmos. Yuri Gagarin was first man return from cosmos. Soviet Union give me high education for sending father into cosmos and to be dead from it. That is how he get me job in Nuclear Power Institute.'
'Seriously?'
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I didn't intend to offend him, but this was madness it seemed. There were so many reasons this couldn't be true - not least of all that he was telling me this. He looked believable. His face had gone a darker, more convincing shade of purple. His eyes staggered less. I was just afraid to believe as I had to teach these guys for another six months.
'You don't believe.'
'I'm sorry. I don't know, but it's just, well, you tell me this, but nobody seems to know this. It's not exactly public knowledge, is it?'
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I realised I was arguing with someone who I'd just met over how his father died, but had no other rational options.
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We finished our dinners without saying more. I thanked him for lunch, although I was even happier I'd paid for it myself now. I shifted my chair back about to stand up.
'It is true, but you like all others. I sit this table everyday. That chair you sit first time used in many months. No one believe me and so I sit by self all time. It is okay. You go.'
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As I walked off I looked back and something about the way he sat there gave me the impression I was the first person he'd spoken to about anything personal in years and years. His first conversation with anyone was the one that distanced him. All the other professors from the class were on tables together, and although they had spare chairs, I couldn't imagine the cosmonaut's son sitting there. You see, that's what they all called him as I later found out - the cosmonaut's son - because they didn't believe him either, no one did. And that was it, the way he sat there, was just like a man floating out in a capsule, dying, getting further and further away from the world. Just like his father - maybe.

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If you're on the lookout out for something a good bit bawdier and upbeat than this one, I have a new post at Love is a Cunt, which you can find here: She stinks for me.

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Conversations at the Nuclear Power Institute - The cosmonaut's son