Ivan Ivanovich’s Dawn
Рассвет Ивана Ивановича
(Originally published on April 2013)
Vadim could not move at all. He was tightly strapped onto the ejection seat, while the roaring sound of jet engines started to drive him mad.
What the?
“Ivan Ivanovich ….”
Upon hearing the faint voice amidst the constant roaring of jet engines inside that cramped space capsule, he wanted to move his lips and answer, at least just to say that his first name was Vadim and not Ivan. But he couldn’t. His face was as hard as an iron mask. He could also feel his skin layers weren’t as elastic as it was supposed to be, despite the similar texture.
Outside the window of that small capsule, Earth—glowing bright blue—looked as if it moved away under him, surrounded by infinite darkness.
Vadim could see his thin reflection on that window. At that very moment he realized he was clad in bright orange cosmonaut attire. The pair of brown eyes staring back at him, not even blinking, indeed looked almost exactly like those of his own, save for the different color. Still, those eyes—even that body—wasn’t his. A white sheet of paper with MAKET written in stark black letters covered the lower part of his face.
Next to his seat, a female dog in space outfit was also strapped in her own seat. She glanced at him, and then turned to bark at him.
“Ivan Ivanovich, please come in!”
The call was heard once more. Vadim really wanted to answer, but with his locked mouth he could only wait for the communication device, which he couldn’t even actually operate himself, to send back a pre-recorded message.
“First off, prepare some beet roots, sour cream, cabbage...”
If only Vadim could open his mouth, or at least produce voice without having to do it, his laughter could have burst out when the record played. He didn’t have the slightest idea the next recording to be transmitted back to Earth was a recipe for borshch.
Seconds after the recipe was completely recited, some noises filled the gap from the radio equipment before another voice called.
“Ivanovich, can you hear us? Please come in.”
For a while, Vadim was stunned. That voice reminded him so much of Artem.
“Ivanovich?”
The next recording, probably the last one, played. The orchestra began to play, and that made Vadim want to melt away the iron mask so badly and wince until both his eyebrows meet.
The choir started singing Smuglyanka.
He really wanted to laugh, but he chose to pay attention to the song and mentally sing along while staring at the moving, shape-shifting white patterns above the bright blue-green ball outside his window. At least, a choir wouldn’t sound as silly as that borshch recipe.
“Good. Now get ready for re-entry.”
The voice was heard once more, and with it, he could sense the capsule’s change of direction from where he sat. His metal body—probably Ivan Ivanovich’s body was more correct—could have been floating for a short while in microgravity had he not been secured to his seat.
His flight would soon end.
The blue-green ball grew closer and the white patterns enlarged in his sight. Heat started to gather in the cramped little capsule as the outer shell of the capsule rubbed against the atmosphere. Vadim could feel his metal body growing heavier again.
White patterns transformed into grey clouds, through which the capsule poked holes rapidly, and he could also see light snow falling outside before he ejected out of there, followed by a loud boom—as if a plane just fell down—and the searing hiss of melted snow, combined with the resulting water coming into direct contact with the hot capsule’s shell.
Snowflakes gathered on his bright orange spacesuit when he floated down with a parachute. Moments later he touched down on the snow-covered ground not far away from the capsule’s impaction site. His eyes stared blankly forward, his face was still hard as an iron mask, and the MAKET inscription over his face no longer stayed in its place.
The female dog who went up with him was already taken out of the capsule. She ran to Vadim, poked her head out over his expressionless face, and barked, just like then, before a man’s hands carried her away. Vadim could hear the man mutter as he carried her away, “Good dog, Zvezdochka, good dog ....”
People who came to fetch him were busy packing up things and carrying back the animals carried in a separate compartment. One of them approached and stared at him. Vadim could see the man’s face showed slight fear before he lifted the metal body of the test cosmonaut with two other people and hurried him away from there.
Vadim felt the body was carried into a car, and he was seated between two people. One of them started boasting around, “This flight was a great success! We will celebrate upon arrival in Moscow... Korabl-Sputnik will finally be able to carry a human... from Tyura-Tam, several weeks from now... Yura and comrades...”
He didn’t really pay attention to the man’s twaddle. Instead, he was more interested to watch the other man as he spread out Izvestiya, the daily paper owned by the government. At a glance, Vadim could see the date: March 25, 1961.
Suddenly, everything he experienced since the first time he found himself inside the small capsule orbiting Earth until his re-entry, also part of his gabble he could catch about Korabl-Sputnik, Tyura-Tam, “Yura and comrades,” became interconnected.
So that’s why, the name—Ivan Ivanovich!
He wanted to smile at himself. Still—he couldn’t. Slowly everything faded to black, and then orange.
# # #
Vadim woke up and caught the sight of a very familiar ceiling. He was laid down on the sofa, in his own living room. He lifted his arms—which felt far lighter—and felt his skin as its texture was back to normal, finally trying to say something. Just one word.
“I—“
He sighed with relief as he felt his lips move and heard his own voice. On the other sofa next to him, Alisa soundly slept. He glanced at the digital clock on the wall right opposite him: April 13, 7:46 AM.
His memory on what happened before slowly flowed back. He invited his friends for dinner and to celebrate Alisa’s birthday—coinciding with Day of Cosmonautics and Yuri’s Night. He could recall putting a blanket over the young lady before he saw, heard, and felt what Ivan Ivanovich experienced in his own sleep.
“What perfect timing,” he bitterly chuckled.
When he nearly jumped down the sofa, he was startled at the sight of Artem curling up almost exactly under his feet, inside another blanket he usually uses until all scrunched.
Artyoshka—damn it, my blanket! Should have stepped on you, he thought.
He walked to the kitchen to see whatever he still had for breakfast. Instead, he found Nadya sleeping on the dining table after cleaning everything up.
“Hey, Nadya,” he called as he gently patted on Nadya’s hand. He nearly jumped back when he touched her skin—a bit warm. But, not so long afterwards, the short-haired girl lifted her head.
“Oh… you, Vadim,” Nadya answered as she rose. “What time is it?”
“Almost eight.”
Vadim opened the kitchen windows. Stars were clearly visible in the pitch-dark sky. There was no snowfall all night long—a sign of the coming spring.
“No snow out, and it’s still dark. Ah—what about me waking up the others and we go out on the roof, stargazing and drinking kvass?”
“Not bad,” Nadya got up from the dining chair. “Wake ‘em all up. I’ll prepare the kvass and glasses.”
Before Vadim completely went away from behind the dining room divider, his laughter burst when he heard Nadya, almost shouting, “If Artyosha doesn’t want to wake up, just kick him!”
But, he found Artem and Alisa were awake. They were still leaning on the sofa while watching the morning news.
“How could you, Nadya?” Artem moaned as he tightened his blanket when Vadim appeared from the dining room, still giggling. Alisa also chuckled.
“Oi, you—return the damn blanket! What on earth, you just use it without tidying it back up?” Vadim cut off as he pulled the blanket off Artem’s body. Artem scowled, but he did fold the blanket and return it to the wardrobe near Vadim’s bedroom door. Alisa’s laughter grew louder.
“Dimochka, where’s Nadya?”
“She’s in the kitchen,” Vadim grabbed the long coat hanging on the wall, and then put it on Alisa. “Come on—you too, Artyosha—let’s get to the rooftop. She’ll come after us later.”
Alisa turned the television off and trailed behind Vadim to the stairs heading up to the rooftop, Artem tagging along behind her. Above, the dark spring sky was sparkling with stars.
“How lucky you are to have a house in such location that doesn’t get light pollutions, Vadim.”
Vadim only smiled. The three of them sat on the smooth concrete surface and enjoyed the view. Once in a while, they could see a shooting star or two.
“What a fitting sky for Yuri’s Night,” Artem added. Right at that moment, Nadya appeared with two bottles of kvass and four glasses. She soon filled the glasses with kvass, helped by Vadim and Alisa. The brownish liquid slightly fizzed as it poured and filled glass after glass to the top. The fizzing sound reminded Vadim of Ivan Ivanovich’s landing, not so far off the capsule—scorched on the outer shell—amidst melting snow and boiling water. Alisa saw him making a grimace, although he tried to keep it to himself.
Vadim’s adoptive father, Ivan Petrovich Tarashenko, who also became the chief designer of the N-1 series androids, indeed once told him that he was a “living replica” of a cosmonaut. But, he never thought the cosmonaut he meant was Ivan Ivanovich, and the people at the laboratory went up to eleven creating detailed reconstructions of what could have been experienced inside Korabl-Sputnik and wedged it in-between dream sequences inside his operating system.
Yes, only what could have been. Ivan Ivanovich was just a mannequin, more often forgotten by people.
“Dima? What’s going on?”
Alisa’s voice shattered away the thoughts that started to fill Vadim’s head. He thinly smiled and reassured the blond girl, “Nothing. It’s just... funny to hear it fizz. Yet, it’s not soda.”
Had Ivan Ivanovich been “alive” like me, would he still be forgotten like now?
Soon, glasses of kvass were raised—a call for toast.
“For Alisa Mikhailovna Katerinskaya!”
The glasses clinked, and the kvass inside were finished off in a short silence. Alisa looked questioningly at Vadim as the man quickly filled them again until half-full. Before she could asked what for, Vadim broke the silence, only interrupted by the pouring, with another call for toast.
“For Ivan Ivanovich.”
Artem, Nadya and Alisa stared at each other, and then at Vadim—all with questions clearly on their eyes. He only smiled, saving his explanation on who Ivanovich was for later, when the sun is up and they’re back inside. The three friends only answered to Vadim’s call and repeated, accompanied with the clinking glasses of kvass, “For Ivan Ivanovich.”
In the distance, the lights downtown started to turn off and the sky began to fade into a shade of blue.
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