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1.
Bad Grief:
Okay. By the time you hear this, you’ll probably have forgotten what it’s about, so I’ll remind you. I was telling you I’d write you every month if you’d just learn how to read, so the day before I left you gave me this journal and told me to write down everything I want to tell you about. So I can read it to you when I get home.
Probably could’ve just had Stakh or Gravel read letters to you. I think this is better, though. I’ve always wished I could keep up with journaling; maybe this will finally motivate me. Plus this way I actually feel like I’m coming home one day. Everyone was acting like I’d be gone for good.
I miss you all already. Even though I’m still on the train. I know this sounds stupid, but I don’t know who I’m going to be without you. I don’t know who I’ll be at the Capital, anyways, but especially without you guys. You’re probably gonna make fun of me for this. I don’t care.
It’s such a long train ride. I never realized just how far it really is... but also, it’s hard to believe that there’s something at the other end of the railroad. I’ve always felt like the steppe was infinite. Like when we went out on adventures, and we could just walk for days, even past Ehe-Gola. It was an endless garden. I don’t know what’s outside it. Everybody says it’ll be different, but I don’t even know what different is like. You know that print of Lake Baikal in the book in my father’s study? The train is supposed to go right past it. I have this sliding door propped open just a little bit so I can see outside and get fresh air, so hopefully I’ll be able to see the lake. I saw a pack of wolves yesterday.
Seriously, it’s so long. I was really going to wait until I got off the train to start writing in here, but I feel like I’m going crazy. I’ll hold off from now on, but it’s just me and my bedroll and the one book I brought. I like how the train rumbles and shakes. It’s kind of relaxing. I wish you were here.
2.
Grief— Just woke up and looked outside. I didn’t think trees could actually get this big. You’re not even gonna believe me when I tell you. I know I said I’d hold off but I wish you could see this. I won’t always write this often, I promise.
3.
Grief— I saw the lake just now. It’s incredible. Surrounded by the biggest hills I’ve ever seen. It’s evening now so it looked like a pool of dark blood. I’m going to try to draw it under here, but I have to do it from memory because I was just sitting on the edge of the car and looking the whole time.
4.
Grief— I don’t know how I’m supposed to make friends at the academy. Am I supposed to make friends? This is stupid. I don’t want other friends.
5.
Grief— Okay, so I got off the train in Irkutsk like I’m supposed to. I already got lost twice because this city is so huge. I feel stupider and stupider. You’d get lost too, though, before you make fun of me. I don’t even know how to describe it— everything’s bigger and sharper, I guess, and all the houses look different.
I found a place to stay tonight eventually. It’s this boardinghouse run by a woman with no smile lines, but she was nice to me when I came in. She keeps trying to convince me to buy a watch. Tomorrow my next train leaves, and that’s an actual passenger train with real bunks and windows and everything, so I don’t have to sit in the dark and eat from a can. I’m excited for that. I wish you could come. Right now I’m sitting on a public bench outside a post office, because I just sent a letter to tell Father I made it to Irkutsk. I think I can do this.
6.
Bad Grief:
I’m not sure how I feel about the passenger train. It’s cramped with people. I’ll try to explain when I get to talk to you.
7.
Grief— Why do I keep addressing these to you? I’m not going to write to anyone else here.
Really should’ve brought more than one book. And writing doesn’t help much because I’m not very good at it.
[...]
12.
Grief— I’m settling in alright, after all. I don’t know if it’s better or worse than I expected. I’m trying not to be too pessimistic, like you and Gravel always say. She’s such a hypocrite. I hope she’s doing well.
Hey, the dormitory isn’t so bad really. My roommate finally moved in, and he’s barely around at all. When he is, he’s nice enough. Not like you or Stakh, though. I think his family lives near the city, so he visits them often. I call it the city because I’m a pretentious medical student now.
It’s strange that I have more privacy here than I did at home, even though I live with a stranger. I like it.
13.
Bad Grief— What’s it called when you have more of something than you need? Oh, a surplus.
That wasn’t an attempt at a joke. I just forgot.
14.
Grief-- I saw a rat the size of a chihuahua today. There are some huge rats here, even though the whole city pretends to be so clean. And I’m not just talking about the monarchy. You’d love them. Remember how we used to hang around outside the hideout and pick up rats by the tails and put them in bags? I know we’re adults now or whatever Stakh says, but I hope you don’t abandon the hideout while I’m gone.
[...]
26.
Bad Grief:
I’d tell you more about my classes, but you would just get bored. That’s not what I want to talk about, anyways. This is where I’m going to have to lower my voice when I read to you. I was able to meet up with the unionists Sacha said he’d get me in contact with, and I really think there’s a potential to change things back home. I started out quiet at the meeting, but then I got-- well, you know how I get, but I don’t think I made a complete fool of myself. Hopefully they’ll invite me back. It would be a valuable opportunity to learn strategies I could replicate back home. We talked for hours. I don’t even know how to tell you how much it meant to me to actually have a resource on anything other than trade unions, the shadows of which have only deepened the wounds back home. I think industrial unionism is the Town’s only hope. We’re eating ourself alive. Or, I guess, you are. “There are periods in the life of human society when revolution becomes an imperative necessity, when it proclaims itself as inevitable.”
Who knows? Maybe by the time I come home, things will have started changing already. If they haven’t, I’ll catalyze it. That’s what I’m here for, right? Father sent me away to learn everything I need to
be something. I’m not sure what. A good menkhu, maybe? A good doctor? A surgeon? The point is, I’m supposed to bring my learning back to the community. I know that. I shouldn’t restrict it to modern medicine. Science and medicine as institutions, and the people who practice them, too often serve the wealthy. Like
Well, never mind.
[...]
43.
Bad Grief:
I haven’t been writing lately. Finals are killing me. I don’t think you want a linear account of everything that happens to me, anyways. And it’s not like you’ll notice the difference since these aren’t letters.
It’s strange to think that you’re not going to read these, or hear them, for years. It makes me a little self-conscious. Less self-conscious than I’d be if Stakh or Gravel read them to you, which is weird. It isn’t as if I’m saying anything really private. If I was, I wouldn’t trust you not to tell them anyways. Learn to read so I can write you letters, idiot.
44.
Grief-- I’m glad I’m not writing you letters, actually, because Father hasn’t replied to the ones I’ve sent him in months. There must be a problem with the deliveries. I hope the trains are running normally. I’m writing this three days after the last one because sometimes I’ll be washing my clothes and think of something I should’ve added to something I said weeks ago. Do you ever do that?
[...]
53.
Grief:
People wear their wedding rings on their left hands because the Romans thought there was a vein running directly from the third finger of the left hand to the heart. Called the venus amorus or some Latin shit. They were wrong, but it’s a nice idea. It’s all about connections. And blood.
[...]
89.
Bad Grief-- Did I mention that this term started late? It was a whole mess… I guess it doesn’t matter, I just don’t remember if I mentioned it and I’m not going to read back through all this shit.
I don’t have much to say. I wanted to write, though. To you. It’s stupid. I think I’m just stressed out. I was doing so well a couple days ago. Now everything’s fucked somehow.
I put your name at the beginning of every entry so I can try to remember who I’m talking to. It feels like talking to you, but that’s just because this is the only way I’ve talked to you in so long. I’ve taught myself this is what talking to you is like. But it’s just a memory of a moment. I’m alone.
I mean, I’m fine. Sometimes one of my friends will laugh at one of my jokes, and I feel good. Or I go out drinking with my friends and I feel good, or I have dinner with Annika, or I do my classwork right or go to a socialist meeting, and it’s all good and fine. But I remember when you used to goad me into climbing onto the roof of the Station. Do you remember that?
We’d throw rocks at that one maintenance ladder they never maintained until it slid down, and then we climbed up onto a little ledge and held onto that rail while we crept out to the side, over the trains. You made me go first in case the rail gave out. I don’t think I ever told you how scared I was. Man, I hated it up there. But you always made me forget about how much I hated it. You were totally comfortable on that ledge, like a complete madman. You didn’t glow. You kind of… glinted, like a knife. And we’d just talk all night… tell each other things and make up jokes, and watch the ground under us like we couldn’t fall. I felt so close to you, and completely comfortable with myself. You know how uncomfortable I am with myself.
Did I really feel that way? Was it that good? Or is that just how I remember it now, because I’m lonely and it’s in the past? Do you think about it at all now? Do you ever go up there, do you convince Stakh or Lara or someone else I’ve never met to go in front of you in case the rail gives out?
90.
Grief-- That was stupid. Still feeling like shit.
91.
Grief-- You know, with the way you used to act it was hard for me to believe you were ever afraid of anything. To be fair, you weren’t scared of most things normal people are scared of. At least you didn’t act like it. But I remember how you used to get after a bad fight with Lara. I hope you’re doing alright.
[...]
129.
Bad Grief-- They say there’s going to be a war. There’s always a war. I’m supposed to act like civil war hasn’t been ongoing for longer than I’ve been alive. Even when the state claims to be at peace, it’s engaged in a campaign of brutality against the working class, working women, and indigenous peoples; which it enforces with military might at the slightest opposition. I don’t give a shit about this new war.
I’ve been getting in these terrible moods lately.
[...]
151.
Grief:
I guess I really can’t keep up with a journal. I found this while I was packing up my things, and I almost felt too guilty to pick it up again. Figured you wouldn’t mind the hiatus, though.
I’m just moving to a new apartment for my hospital residency. Not coming home… yet. That’ll be a few more months now.
At least, I think so. I was talking to my friends about this— I always got the impression I was supposed to go home as soon as I graduated, but I’m honestly not sure. It’s gonna be hell packing up all my books. Oh, um, something I want to tell you...
A couple weeks ago, this idiot I took an anatomy class with last year accused me of stealing his car because I don’t like him. As if I know how to drive. He found it after he sobered up, so I keyed it the next day. That was funny.
152.
Bad Grief— I realized I don’t know if you were serious when you told me to do this. I don’t even remember how you said it. I’m going to look stupid if I get back and you weren’t expecting all these notes. Maybe I just won’t tell you.
This has been a strange way to maintain a friendship. But it’s comforting. I don’t even know what you’re like anymore— now that’s scary. At least we’ve always been so different that we know how to handle it. Sometimes when I start telling people about you, I wonder if you weren’t one of my imaginary friends. The shit you got up to…
153.
Bad Grief:
The new place is working out. I forgot to tell you, the old one had mold growing on the windowsill right next to my bed; I had to all but strip the varnish from the wood to get the mold out, and it just kept coming back. Disgusting.
There’s a dog in the unit downstairs now.
154.
Grief— But you were real. I mean, you are. I just woke up from a dream that… it must have been a memory. I do forget sometimes just how… Bad Grief you can be. It escapes me somehow, even though your name is Bad Grief, which says a lot, and I write it whenever I open this journal by sheer force of habit.
It was after Lara’s bat mitzvah. Remember that? I can’t believe it’s been ten years. It feels like ten years since I last saw you all, but also like it was yesterday. Sometimes I think I’ll turn around and you’ll be sitting on my desk.
[...]
165.
Bad Grief:
Here’s one. A man was reported to have said, “Nikolay is a moron,” and was arrested by a policeman. He said, “No, sir, I didn’t mean our beloved Emperor, but another Nikolay!” Said the policeman, “Don’t try to trick me: if you say ‘moron’, you are obviously referring to our tsar.”
166.
Bad Grief:
I love you.
167.
Bad Grief:
I’ve said that before. But I really mean it. I hope you know that.
[...]
171.
Grief-- Everything’s gone to shit. There’s no use complaining, but I want to complain anyways. I’m not going to be allowed to graduate because of the fucking war. They need medics on the front lines. Fuck them. God, I’m pissed. What am I supposed to do now? Go to the front lines, I guess. My train leaves tomorrow.
A lot of my friends are dodging. I would too, except… Father sent me here for a reason. If I dodge, I might never be able to get home. Not for many more years, at least. I still feel like I have a duty to him and my community. I know, I’m an idiot. At least it’s just medicine.
I’m tempted to punch a hole in my wall. It’s so… I can’t even describe how angry I am. I did everything right, somehow, but it still got fucked up and there’s nothing I can do about it. Now I’m probably going to die aiding some bullshit effort to kill the peasantry faster than usual. If they find this after I die, they’ll probably just burn my body. Which is fine. I’m not leaving this behind.
[...]
203.
Bad Grief:
Almost got shot again today. At this point, I wish they’d stop missing me so I could have a scar to show for it.
[...]
220.
Grief-- I haven’t been writing much, I know. I didn’t forget or anything, there’s just nothing here I want to tell you about, and I don’t want my story to be too much of a downer. I’m sure I’ve done a lot of complaining already.
I haven’t ever read back more than one or two entries in this journal. It’s tempting, but I’m sure if I read too much of this stupid shit, I’ll set the whole thing on fire. And I did promise you I’d do this, even if you were joking. Okay. What’s going on… I got a few days off last week and went into the town nearby. I didn’t like it there, but it was nice to get away. Sometimes I wonder what it’s like back home. I hope things are different there now… better, I mean. But honestly, it doesn’t cross my mind that often. There’s so much distance and baggage and blood between here and home. Honestly, it’s not even what comes to mind when I think of “home”. I’m not sure what does come to mind. I feel like shit for that.
221.
Bad Grief-- Someone told me this joke today: “What’s a bad trait for a surgeon to have? Losing his patients.” I’m a moderately patient man, but there are a lot of caskets out back.
Bad Grief-- Nothing to say this week. I woke up in a bad mood and it hasn’t ended. I just wanted to… reach out, I guess. I’m not sure why I feel like this is reaching out.
[...]
228.
Grief-- Life goes on. Whatever. I’m satisfied with my choice to come here. People are alive now who would be dead if I’d just gone to prison. However small that number is.
[...]
Bad Grief:
My tour ended, but I still haven’t decided what to do next. Should I go home?
I feel like I’ve failed in some way. I’m an army surgeon at best. I don’t have a diploma and I’m certainly not ready for whatever’s waiting for me at Father’s house. I send him a letter a couple times a year if I can. Did he ever get them?
Looking back on it, institutional academia wasn’t ever good to me. I think I tried not to talk about how hard it was for me just to keep up. Maybe I should’ve. There’s a lot I can learn from practice, I think. I could quote any number of theorists on how even the institutional study of sciences is poisoned by elitist power dynamics, but really I’m just bad at paying attention in lectures.
That’s partly a joke. I do genuinely think experiential knowledge is often more valuable than academics. Maybe not the kind of study I did with Father, but I can read books anywhere. I think I should travel. There are a lot of towns and hospitals where I can learn a lot about medicine and surgery, and then I’ll come home when I know how to be a doctor. Like some kind of vagrant scholar.
It isn’t as if Father is begging me to come back as soon as possible.
[...]
255.
Grief-- Hey, Maria must be about twenty-one now, right? I don’t know why I just thought of her, but it’s strange to imagine. I wonder what kind of Mistress she is. She was never much like her mother.
256.
Bad Grief:
The higher elevations back west were better for my knee, but I really like the coast. It’s beautiful. I don’t even know what to say about it. I don’t know how to describe it. Hopefully all these stupid drawings give you a sense. I think you'd like it here.
The hospital here is good so far. I’ve made friends with this old woman who works in the nursing unit because she likes babies. It’s a ten-minute train ride to her house, and every day when I walk her to the station she tells me all kinds of stories from when she was younger. I think most are true. Others… true in other ways. I like all of them.
[...]
300.
Bad Grief:
Three hundred, huh. I guess it’s kind of perfect.
I’m coming home. You probably know more about what’s going on with Father than I do. There’s no point in pretending I’m not worried. I’m still not sure I’m ready to come home, but honestly, I doubt I was ever going to feel ready. I’m not just worried about Father. Which feels selfish.
I don’t think there’s any point in telling you all about what I’m thinking and feeling right now. Not here, at least. I can tell you when I see you. That’s strange to say, for once.
So this is going to be my last entry. I’ll be there in a couple days. Not much can happen while I’m in this box car, right? I left as soon as I got Father’s letter-- maybe not my smartest moment, because I didn’t bring anything but a bedroll, barely enough food, and this. I didn’t even remember all the books I meant to bring until I was already on the train to Irkutsk. Stupid, right? At least I’m not going to have to fend for myself when I get there. I’m worried for some reason I won’t… well, I won’t be able to stay with Father. But he seemed like he’d be glad to see me in his letter.
If worse comes to worst, I can stay at Gravel’s. Probably. Her father always used to say I was almost too old to sleep over, so I’m definitely too old now, and I don’t want to get on his bad side.
I just don’t know what to expect. At all. I’m laying here in the dark wondering if I still know my way around town. If the Kains went through with that paving project Father was always talking about, I probably don’t. Anyways, I’ll see you soon, and tell you the rest.
301.
Bad Grief:
Well.
Now’s not a good time. When this blows over, then I’ll see about reading to you.
It really was good to see you again, strangely enough.