Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets (63 page)

A young warrior’s training: aesthetic marching, learning Army regulations by heart, disassembling and reassembling a Kalashnikov with your eyes closed, underwater…There is no God! The sergeant is Lord, Tsar, and Commander-in-Chief all rolled into one. Sergeant Valerian: “Even fish can be trained to do tricks. You got that?” “When you’re singing in ranks, shout loud enough to make your ass muscles shake!” “The deeper you dig yourself into the dirt, the less they’ll kill you.” Folklore!! The biggest nightmare was the imitation leather boots…The Russian army was only recently re-shod—they finally gave them short boots just a few years ago. In my time, it was still calf boots. To make them shine, you have to rub them with shoe polish and buff them with a taut woolen rag. Then you’re expected to cover ten kilometers in them. In eighty-five degree heat…It’s hell! The second-biggest nightmare are footwraps.
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There were two kinds, one for the summer and one for the winter. The Russian army was the last to stop using them. They waited until the twenty-first century…They’ve given me more than my share of bloody blisters. Here’s how you wrap your feet: You start from your toes and always go outward, not in. We fall into ranks. “Private…Why are you wobbling? There are no narrow boots, only wrong feet.” Everyone speaks in profanities: they’re not cursing, that’s just how they talk, from the colonel down to the private. I never heard anything else.

The ABCs of survival: A soldier is an animal that is capable of anything…The army is a prison where men are required by the constitution to serve time…Mama, I’m scared! A new soldier is “fresh meat,” a “serf,” a “worm.” “Hey serf boy! Fetch me some tea.” “Hey you, shine my boots…” Hey, hey! “I see how it is, you’re a proud little fuck.” The persecutions begin…At night, four guys hold you down while two others beat you. They’ve mastered the technique—they can do it without leaving any marks. Nothing. For instance, with a wet towel…or spoons…One time, they messed me up so bad I couldn’t speak for two days. For every single ailment, the only treatment offered at the infirmary is antiseptic. When they get sick of beating you, they give you a “shave” with a dry towel or a lighter, and when they get tired of that, they’ll feed you feces, filth. “With your hands! Pick it up with your pretty little hands!” Bastards! They can force you to run around the barracks naked or dance…A new soldier has no rights…Papa: “The Soviet army is the greatest in the world…”

And then…the moment arrives…You get this nagging little thought, this low-down, base little thought that, all right, I’ll wash their underwear and footwraps for now, but one day, I’ll be the one making someone wash my underwear. Back home, I’d considered myself all clean and pure. I thought nobody could ever break my spirit or kill my “self.” That was all before…[
A pause.
] You were always hungry, especially for anything sweet. In the army, everything gets stolen—instead of the regulation seventy grams, they’d serve a soldier thirty. One time, we had to go a whole week without kasha because someone had made off with the freight car of barley at the depot. I dreamed of bakeries…raisin cakes…I got to be a master at peeling potatoes. A virtual virtuoso! I could get through three buckets of potatoes in an hour. They brought us soldiers the unsaleable goods, like at a farm. You sit there covered in potato peels…Fuck! The sergeant goes up to the soldier on kitchen duty: “Peel three buckets of potatoes.” The soldier: “People have been going into space for a long time now, funny they still haven’t invented a machine for peeling potatoes.” The sergeant: “The army has everything it needs, Private. Even a machine for peeling potatoes: namely, you. You’re the latest model.” The soldiers’ cafeteria is a world of wonders…For two years, they served us nothing but kasha, sauerkraut, macaroni, and meat soup with meat from the military stores, stockpiled in case of war. How long had it been in there? Five, ten years…Everything came greased with lard out of these huge orange five-liter cans. On New Year’s Eve, they’d put condensed milk on the noodles—yummy! Sergeant Valerian: “You can eat cookies at home and even share them with your whores…” According to the regulations, soldiers were not permitted to have forks or teaspoons. The only utensil you get is a spoon. One time, someone received a pair of teaspoons in a package from home. Christ! You should have seen how giddy we were sitting around stirring our tea. Civilian luxuries! You’re constantly told you’re swine and then, all of a sudden, somebody hands you a teaspoon. Good God! I have a home somewhere…The captain on duty walked in and saw what we were up to. “What? What’s going on here? Who gave you permission to have these items? Immediately clear the premises of that junk!” Spoons, and then what? A soldier’s not a person. He’s an object…a tool…a killing machine…[
A pause.
] Discharge. There were about twenty of us…They drove us to the railway station, let us out: “Well, goodbye! So long, boys! Good luck in civilian life.” We just stood there. And half an hour later, we were still standing there. An hour went by…None of us had moved! We stood around, looking at one another. Awaiting orders. Someone had to give us the command: “Run! To the ticket counter!” But the orders never came. I don’t remember how much time passed before it dawned on us that there weren’t going to be any orders. That we had to decide for ourselves. Fuck! Those two years really screwed us up…

I wanted to kill myself about five times…But how? Should I hang myself? There you are, hanging, covered in shit, your tongue flopping out of your mouth. No one is going to shove it back into your throat for you…Like that guy on the train when they were transporting us to the base. They’ll just insult you…your own guys. Jump off the top of a watchtower? You’ll end up mincemeat. Get a machine gun and shoot yourself in the head at your post? Your head will burst open like a watermelon. When it came down to it, I felt bad for my mom. The commander told us: “Just don’t shoot yourself. It’s easier to deduct personnel than it is to account for missing ammunition.” A soldier’s life is worth less than a service pistol. A letter from your girlfriend—that meant a lot in the army. Your hands would tremble. You’re not allowed to hang on to letters. They check your dresser: “Your women will be our women. You’re not done serving yet…Dispose of your paper pulp in the toilet.” You’re allowed to have a razor, a pen, and a notebook. You sit in the can and read the letter one last time: “I love you…Kisses…” Fuck! Defenders of the Motherland! A letter from my father: “There’s a war going on in Chechnya…You know what I’m getting at!” Papa expected me to return a hero…One of our warrant officers had served in Afghanistan, he’d signed up as a volunteer. The war had taken a major toll on him. He never told any stories, he just kept cracking jokes about it. Shit! Everyone laughed their heads off…A soldier is dragging along his heavy, wounded friend, the guy is bleeding everywhere. Dying. He begs, “Just shoot me! I can’t take it anymore!” “I don’t have any more bullets. I’m out.” “So buy some.” “Where am I supposed to buy ammunition? We’re in the mountains, there’s no one else here.” “Buy them from me.” [
He laughs.
] “Comrade Officer, why did you ask to go to Afghanistan?” “I wanted to get promoted to major.” “Not general?” “No, I can never be general—the general already has a son.” [
A pause.
] No one was volunteering to go to Chechnya. I don’t remember a single volunteer…My father would come to me in my dreams: “Didn’t you take the oath? You stood under the Red banner, ‘I swear to faithfully observe…strictly obey…courageously defend…and if I should break my solemn oath, let me face harsh punishment…universal hatred and contempt…’ ” In my dream, I kept running away, but he kept aiming at me…taking aim…

You stand there at your post with a gun in your hands. Your only thought is that in a matter of seconds, you could be free. No one will ever see you again. You fucks can’t reach me there! Nobody…no one! If you want to find a reason, you can begin with the fact that my mother had wanted a girl and my father, in typical fashion, had wanted her to get an abortion. The sergeant called me a sack of shit…told me that I was a waste of space…[
A pause.
] The officers were all sorts of people—one of them was an alcoholic intellectual who could speak English—but mostly, they were faceless drunks. They’d drink until they started seeing things…They could wake up the whole bunk in the middle of the night and make us run around the square until soldiers collapsed. We called the officers “jackals.” There were bad jackals and good jackals…[
A pause.
] Who’s going to tell you about how ten guys gang up on one guy and rape him…[
Bitter laughter.
] This isn’t fun and games, and it’s definitely not literature…[
A pause.
] They’d load you in a truck like cattle and drive you out to the commander’s dacha. To haul slabs of concrete…[
Bitter laughter.
] Come on, drummer boy! Play us the Soviet anthem!

I never wanted to be a hero. I despise them! Heroes either have to kill a lot of people or die beautifully…You have to be willing to kill the enemy at any price: after you get through your ammunition, when you run out of bullets and hand grenades, use your knife, your gun butt, your shovel. Rip them apart with your teeth if you have to. Sergeant Valerian: “Learn to use your knife. The wrist is a very valuable thing, it’s better to stab it than slice it…Use a reverse grip…like that…Good…Steady your hand, go behind the back…Don’t get distracted by complicated maneuvers…Excellent! Excellent! Now twist the knife out of your opponent’s grasp…good…Very good…Now he’s dead. Great job! You killed him! Scream, ‘Die, motherfucker!’ What are you so quiet for?” [
He stops.
] The whole time, they try to drill it into your head: Weapons are beautiful…Shooting is for real men…They train you by making you kill animals, they’d bring us stray cats and dogs to practice on so that afterward we wouldn’t flinch at the sight of human blood. Butchers! I couldn’t handle it…I’d cry at night…[
A pause.
] When we were kids, we’d play samurais. A samurai is supposed to die Japanese-style, he has no right to fall face down, screaming. But I always screamed…The other kids didn’t like playing that game with me…[
A pause.
] Sergeant Valerian: “Remember, the machine gun works like this: one, two, three and you’re out…” To hell with all of you!! One, two…

Death is like love. In the final moments, there’s nothing but darkness…Terrifying, ugly convulsions…You can’t come back from death, but we do recover from love. And we can remember the way things were before…Have you ever drowned? I have…The more you resist, the less strength you have. Surrender and descend, all the way down to the bottom. And then…if you want to live, you’ll break through the sky of water and return to the surface. You just have to hit bottom first.

What’s it like? There’s no light at the end of the tunnel, and I didn’t see any angels, either. Just my father, sitting next to a red coffin. The coffin was empty.

—

Several years later, I once again found myself in the town of N—— (I won’t name the town, per my protagonist’s request). We reconnected over the phone and decided to meet. He was happy and in love, so that’s what he talked about. I didn’t realize right away that I should turn on the tape recorder so as not to miss this transformation of life—everyday life—into literature. I’m always listening for it, in every conversation, both general and private. Occasionally, my vigilance flags—a “fragment of literature” may sparkle into sight at any moment, even in the most unexpected places. Which is what happened here. We’d only wanted to get coffee, but life had handed us a development in the narrative. Here’s what I managed to record…

WE KNOW TOO LITTLE ABOUT LOVE

I found love…I understand what it is now. Before, I had thought that love was nothing but two fools running a fever. Madness…Really, we know too little about love. And if you start pulling on this thread…love and war seem to be of a piece, like they’re made of the same cloth, woven from the same material. The man with a machine gun and the guy who climbs to the top of Mount Elbrus, the people who fought to victory, who built a socialist paradise—it’s all the same thing, the same magnetism and electricity. Do you understand? There are things that no one can do, that you can’t buy or win in the lottery…But people know they exist and they want them…They just can’t figure out how to look for them, or where.

It’s almost like being born…It begins with a shock…[
Pause.
] Perhaps it’s no good unraveling these mysteries? You’re not scared, are you?

The first day…

I’d gone to my friend’s house, he was having people over. As I was taking my coat off in the foyer, I heard someone coming toward me from the kitchen. I had to let them through, I turned around and—it was her! For a moment, I short-circuited, like they’d suddenly switched off the electricity in the apartment. And that was it. I’m not usually one to be tongue-tied, but with her there, I just sat and stared, I couldn’t even see her, like, it’s not that I didn’t look at her, but for a long, long time, it felt like I was looking through her. Like in a Tarkovsky film: Someone is pouring water from a pitcher, and it’s flowing down just past the rim of a cup, and then, very slowly, it turns along the cup’s contour. The way I’m telling it, it sounds like this went on for longer than it really did. It happened in a flash! That day, I learned something that made everything else seem insignificant. I won’t even attempt to dissect it—really, what’s the point? It happened and that’s enough. It’s a very solid thing. Her fiancé went out to walk her home—I gathered that their wedding was right around the corner—but I didn’t care. As I was getting ready to go home, I realized I wasn’t going home alone, she was with me now. She’d already started living inside of me. You fall in love…Everything suddenly changes color, there are more voices, more sounds…You don’t get a chance to make sense of any of it…[
A pause.
] I’m trying to give an approximate impression of what it’s like…

The next morning, I woke up convinced that I had to find her. I didn’t know her name or address or phone number, but the important thing had already taken place, this major life event had already happened. She’d arrived. It was as though I had forgotten something, then suddenly remembered it…Do you understand what I’m getting at? No? We’re not going to derive any formula here…It’d all be artificial…We’re accustomed to thinking that while our future is a mystery, the past is something that we can explain. It either happened or it didn’t…For me, everything came into question…what if none of it had ever really happened? Like it was all just a film reel turning and then it stopped…I can pinpoint the moments in my life that feel like they never happened. Even though they did. For instance, I was in love several times before that…or at least I thought I was…There are lots of photos to prove it. But all of it has spilled out of my memory and washed away. There are things that never spill out of you, that you have to carry around with you forever. As for the rest…Do people really remember everything that happens to them?