Voroshilovgrad (11 page)

4

Kocha slept soundly that night, as if he wasn't dreaming but just lying there while someone herded dreams through his mind. They rolled through him like trains passing a junction, and he inspected each of them as though he were the station manager, focused and earnest. He took his vitamins and went to sleep outside on his beloved catapult. I lugged an old overcoat out of the trailer and draped it over him. I also got up a few times during the night and went over to check up on him. The stray dogs that had been roaming the lot slept at his feet, and the wind pushed paper bags along the macadam strip. Birds sat on Kocha's shoulders and while ants crawled up onto his open palms, licking off the red residue of the vitamins. The last of the clouds rolled off to the north, and constellations spread out across the sky. It was starting to feel like June again. June was always fleeting and eventful around here—stems would fill up with slightly bitter juice and leaves would turn rough like skin exposed to the cold. Each passing day meant more dust and sand—it got in our shoes and the creases of our clothing, grated in our teeth, and rained from our hair. In June, the air would heat up like army tents, kicking off the season of sluggish men in the streets and rowdy kids in streams. It was already clear by morning that we should be bracing ourselves for a merciless summer that might continue until the end of time and scorch everything in its wake, including our skin and hair. Not even the rain would give us any relief.

Kocha usually took a while to wake up, and he felt lethargic in the morning, like a kid dragged out of bed when his parents
are running late. He'd get up, walk around by the garage, feed the dogs some black bread, gaze pensively down into the valley, and then eventually wake me up. He'd flop down on the couch next to me and tell me long, random, fragmented stories about his ex-wife, taking out old pictures and digging his old army photo album out from under the couch. I'd fend him off feebly, trying to fall back asleep, but that wasn't too easy to do after looking at the army photo album. Eventually, I'd get up, wrap myself in an itchy hospital blanket, and start listening. Kocha would tell me about love, about dating his wife-to-be, and about sex in the front seat of an old Volga car. “But why didn't you just do it in the back seat?” I asked him. “Buddy, everybody did it in the back seat,” Kocha explained. “There's a joint seat in the front of old Volgas, just like in the back, so it makes no difference where you do it, you dig?” “I sure do, Kocha,” I answered him, “it makes no difference.” He nodded appreciatively, as if to say, “Buddy, you know what's up.” And then he went to brew up some super-concentrated Chifir tea to start off our day with a swift kick in the head.

A bit later the first car pulled up to the station, beeping its horn. Irritated, Kocha threw on his glasses and rushed outside.

“Kocha, let me help.”

“Forget about it, Herman,” he said, waving me off. “You're not my idea of good help.”

“Well, I'm all you've got.”

“All right, fine, you can come along,” he said, standing by the doorway and waiting for me to find my clothes. “Just put something else on. What are you doing wearing those jeans? I've got some old clothes over there under the bed. Try to find them,
okay?” With that, he went outside.

He had two suitcases stuffed with ratty clothes. They gave off a strong smell of tobacco and cologne. I rooted around squeamishly in the first suitcase and found some black army pants that were patched at the knees and stank as badly as everything else. Nevertheless, they still looked presentable. I opened up the second suitcase and pulled out a camouflage Bundeswehr coat, wrinkled, but not yet ripped. I pulled it over my shoulders. The coat was tight on me—that's probably why Kocha, who had roughly the same build, didn't wear it. But I didn't have much choice. I looked out the window. The sun broke up my reflection and shredded it into scattered rays. I could only make out some outlines and shadows, but I must have looked like a tank driver who still had a lot of fight in him, though his tank had long since gone up in flames. With those thoughts rolling around in my head, I set off to start work.

Injured showed up at nine. He cast a judgmental glance at my work clothes, harrumphed, and took his post in the garage. I tried to help, but I basically just got in the way. I spilled gasoline a few times, talked at length with a truck driver heading to Poland, and was constantly bumping into Kocha, keeping him from performing his duties. Finally, the old-timer couldn't take it any anymore,
so he sent me over to Injured, who caught on right away: he gave me a gasoline-soaked rag and instructed me to scour some piece of metal caked with silt, rust, and oil paint. I was decisively bored thirty minutes in; I hadn't done any manual labor in years, and it showed.

“Injured, let's take a smoke break,” I said.

“You can't smoke here,” Injured responded. “This is a gas station, in case you hadn't noticed. But all right,” he went on, “go take a break, and then come back.” Which is just what I did.

They turned the phone back on around twelve. I called Bolik. His voice sounded wrong, he was agitated.

“Herman! How are you doing down there?”

“Fine,” I said, “it's like a resort. There's a river nearby stocked with pike.”

“Herman!” Bolik yelled over the static. “We've got the convention coming up this week, and you're fuckin' going on about pike. Herman, screw the pike. Listen, bro we've got so much fuckin' work to do—we actually really need you back at the office. When are you getting back?”

“Oh, Bolik!” I yelled back. “That's just what I'm calling about. Looks like I'm going to be hung up here a bit longer.”

“What? Herman, what'd you say?”

“I said I'm gonna be hung up here a while.”

“What do you mean hung up? For how long?”

“A week, max. No more.”

“Herman,” Bolik asked, suddenly serious, “are you doing all right down there? Maybe we can help somehow?”

“Nah, man,” I said, trying to affect a carefree and convincing tone, “relax. I'll be back in a week.”

“You aren't going to stay there for good, are you?” Bolik sounded concerned, or suspicious, or maybe just hopeful.

“Nah, what are you talking about?”

“Herman, I've known you for a long time . . .”

“Right, so quit talking nonsense.”

“You wouldn't do that, would you?”

“Don't worry about it—I just told you I was coming back.”

“Herman, think twice before you do anything stupid, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Think about us, your friends.”

“I am, I'm thinking about you guys.”

“Before you do anything stupid.”

“Gotcha.”

“Think first, Herman, okay?”

“Obviously.”

“All right then, bro. We love you.”

“Bolik, I love you guys too. Both of you. But I love
you
a little more.”

“Quit blowing smoke up my ass, fucker,” Bolik said, finally hanging up.

“Yeah, yeah,” I yelled, hearing the dial tone, “I miss you, too! Very, very much!”

I called my brother again a few times after that. He refused to pick up. Sunlight poured into the room; dust hovered like river water disturbed by a passing fish. I looked out the window and felt the steaming guts of June settling on the surface of the tarmac, touching every living thing on the highway. What's next? I could descend into the valley once again, try to find friends and acquaintances I hadn't seen for years, chat with them, and ask them about their lives. I could hitch a ride out of here, extricating myself from this hellish place with its sunbeams and memories that clogged my lungs and blinded me. Naturally, the easiest thing would be to sell all of this, then split the money with my business partners. I doubt my brother would take it the wrong way. And if he did, what difference would it make anyway? He really hadn't given me much choice. I could chill with Kocha a while longer, while it was still warm and the river was stocked, filling up trucks, and pretending I wanted to help. Still, soon or later I'd have to handle the documents, taxes, and all that junk that I've avoided my whole life. The whole episode where my brother registered the company in my name seemed odd and illogical now. My brother must have foreseen this scenario; unlike me, he always calculated everything well in advance—I just don't get why he had to leave me in the lurch like this. Most importantly, why'd he disappear without explaining anything or leaving any instructions? He seemed to be saying, “Do what you want. Sell it and save yourself the headache if you want to, or donate it to the poor or some orphanage—let them fill up all these outlaws' vehicles, or just torch the booth and throw the deed into the fire and head on home, where your real friends and an interesting job
are waiting for you.” But no, he hadn't left me any instructions. He just disappeared like a tourist from a hotel, dragging me out into these smoldering hills; ever since I was a kid I always felt out of place here, from early childhood up until that wonderful last day when my parents and I finally got away, when our father—a retired serviceman from a now-insignificant army—was given a house near Kharkiv. That was when my brother decided to stay; he didn't want to leave—he didn't even want to talk about leaving. He'd been planning on staying from day one, and it seemed as though he'd never really forgiven us for running away. He never came out and said it, but I always felt his coldness, especially toward our parents, who gave up on this valley with all of its sun, sand, and mulberry. He stayed, hunkered down in the hills, and fought valiantly to protect his land. He was incomprehensibly stubborn. He would be capable of fighting to the death for this empty land, while I have no trouble letting go of emptiness, trying to rid myself of it. That was the difference between us. Life had its own plans, though—he'd run off to Amsterdam, and I was stuck on this hill from which you can see the end of the world . . . and I wasn't liking the looks of it much.