Definitely Maybe

ARKADY
(1925–1991) and
BORIS
(1933–2012)
STRUGATSKY
were the most acclaimed and beloved science fiction writers of the Soviet era. The brothers were born and raised in Leningrad, the sons of a critic and a teacher. When the city was besieged by the Germans during World War II, Arkady and their father, Natan, were evacuated to the countryside. Boris remained in Leningrad with their mother throughout the war. Arkady was drafted into the Soviet army and studied at the Military Institute of Foreign Languages, graduating in 1949 as an interpreter from English and Japanese. He served as an interpreter in the Far East before returning to Moscow in 1955. Boris studied astronomy at Leningrad State University, and worked as an astronomer and computer engineer. In the mid-1950s, the brothers began to write fiction, and soon published their first jointly written novel,
From Beyond
. They would go on to write twenty-five novels together, including
Roadside Picnic
, which was the basis for Andrei Tarkovsky’s film
Stalker
;
Snail on the Slope
;
Hard to Be a God
; and
Monday Begins on Saturday
, as well as numerous short stories, essays, plays, and film scripts. Their books have been translated into multiple languages and published in twenty-seven countries. After Arkady’s death in 1991, Boris continued writing, publishing two books under the name S. Vititsky. Boris died on November 19, 2012, at the age of seventy-nine. The asteroid 3054 Strugatskia, discovered in 1977, the year
Definitely Maybe
was first published, is named after the brothers.

ANTONINA W. BOUIS
has translated many Russian writers, including Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Tatyana Tolstoya, Sergei Dovlatov, and Andrei Sakharov.

THE NEVERSINK LIBRARY

I was by no means the only reader of books on board the
Neversink.
Several other sailors were diligent readers, though their studies did not lie in the way of belles-lettres. Their favourite authors were such as you may find at the book-stalls around Fulton Market; they were slightly physiological in their nature. My book experiences on board of the frigate proved an example of a fact which every book-lover must have experienced before me, namely, that though public libraries have an imposing air, and doubtless contain invaluable volumes, yet, somehow, the books that prove most agreeable, grateful, and companionable, are those we pick up by chance here and there; those which seem put into our hands by Providence; those which pretend to little, but abound in much
.
—HERMAN MELVILLE,
WHITE JACKET

Excerpt 1.…
the white July heat, the hottest it had been in two hundred years, engulfed the city. The air shimmered over red-hot rooftops. All the windows in the city were flung open, and in the thin shade of wilting trees, old women sweated and melted on benches near courtyard gates.

The sun charged past the meridian and sank its claws into the long-suffering bookbindings and the glass and polished wood of the bookcases; hot, angry patches of reflected light quivered on the wallpaper. It was almost time for the afternoon siege, for the furious sun to hang dead still in the sky above the twelve-story house across the street and fire endless rounds of heat into the apartment.

Malianov closed the window—both frames—and drew the heavy yellow drapes. Then, hitching up his underpants, he padded over to the kitchen in his bare feet and opened the door to the balcony. It was just after two.

On the kitchen table, among the bread crumbs, was a still life consisting of a frying pan with the dried-up remains of an omelet, an unfinished glass of tea, and a gnawed end of bread smeared with oozing butter.

“No one’s washed up and nothing is washed,” Malianov said to himself.

The sink was overflowing with unwashed dishes. They hadn’t been done in a long time.

The floorboard squeaked, and Kaliam appeared out of nowhere, mad with the heat; he glanced up at Malianov with his green eyes and soundlessly opened and closed his mouth. Then, tail twitching, he proceeded to his dish under the oven. There was nothing on his dish except a few bare fish bones.

“You’re hungry,” Malianov said unhappily.

Kaliam immediately replied in a way that meant, well, yes, it wouldn’t hurt to have a little something.

“You were fed this morning,” said Malianov, crouching in front of the refrigerator. “Or no, that’s not right. It was yesterday morning I fed you.”

He took out Kaliam’s pot and looked into it—there were a couple of scraps and a fish fin stuck to the side. There wasn’t even that much in the refrigerator itself. There was an empty box that used to have some Yantar cheese in it, a horrible-looking bottle with the dregs of kefir, and a wine bottle filled with iced tea. In the vegetable bin, amid the onion skins, a wrinkled piece of cabbage the size of a fist lay rotting and a sprouting potato languished in oblivion. Malianov looked into the freezer—a tiny piece of bacon on a plate had settled in for the winter among the mountains of frost. And that was it.

Kaliam was purring and rubbing his whiskers on Malianov’s bare knee. Malianov shut the refrigerator and stood up.