Atdtda28: Entertaining possibilities, 780-782

[Paul Nightingale]

The Event and the date are finally linked explicitly (781), although
discussion cannot adequately represent what happened. As the issue is
debated, with exchanges bordering on the acrimonious, consensus among the
crew remains elusive: cf. the apparent unanimity of "eyewitnesses living
below". This section continues the introduction to the Russian crew, with
two points being emphasised: the Chum-like bickering and the size of the
crew, similarity and difference. There is a sharp contrast drawn between
those named and those anonymous others who "[fall] into a holiday routine".
As the officers obsess in the wardroom, the crew is freed from direct
supervision.

In the midst of the section Padzhitnoff's pov is prioritised; and his silent
musing includes the possibility that they have "all developed a collective
amnesia about" the Event. It is in this passage, amid the speculation, a lot
of which occurs in unattributed dialogue, that Padzhitnoff links Event and
date: if it cannot be explained it can at least be identified and logged.
The chapter's opening one-line section (779) does not make it clear if
narration is 'current' or retrospective, ie 'present tense' or 'past tense';
but succeeding sections offer a non-comprehending aftermath and track
narration's failure to 'return' to the Event. Hence Padzhitnoff's
"collective amnesia", the failure to know if this is even something they
should recall (even if "[t]he possibility had to be entertained ..." etc,
781).

Previously, certainty was tied to Heaven's mandate (779); here, more and
more is uncertain, not least Padzhitnoff's knowledge of his own crew (781).
If nothing is certain, that must include his own recollection of what the
Bol'shaia Ingra has been involved in. However, this introspective account,
by acknowledging the possibility of repression, does bring its author into
the Event; other officers attempt to remain objectively aloof, the exchange
of insults ("Ouspenkian!"--"Bolshevik!") a denunciation of each other's
partiality. At the same time Padzhitnoff is distanced from the crew as an
observer of "this spectacle", one that emphasises the shift from the
unknowable Event to the writing of it.