Voroshilovgrad (27 page)

As I was leaving, I noticed that Kocha was already a few drinks deep—some sort of scene was inevitable. At the cemetery, he got out of the ambulance even more loaded than he was getting in. He was haranguing the musicians, demanding they play some sort of polka, and then started in needling the ambulance driver, trying to get him to take the body all the way up to the grave, saying he would pay him whatever he wanted. The old cemetery was tucked away in a pine forest. The trees encircled the rows of graves, and there was hardly any unused ground left, so we had to creep like partisans, between the trunks and headstones to the freshly dug plot. It was a rather spacious hole. The walls of the grave were faced with brick and the bottom was covered with meticulously placed boards. Mom was carefully lowered in, and afterward came her possessions, passed down the line and placed in the grave beside her. Portraits of Shevchenko and Jesus had been fixed to the walls somehow. Kocha pushed through the pack of relatives, gave them some brusque instructions, ripped some dishware out of their hands so he could put it in the grave himself, ultimately lost his balance, and tumbled, of course, right into the pit, still holding a coffee machine. Some of the mourners reached to help. They wanted to pull him out, but he wasn't having any of
it, saying he wanted to be closer to Mom.

“Let's just make sure they don't leave him in there,” Injured remarked, genuinely concerned.

After the hole had been filled with flowers and the deceased's possessions, completely concealing her, the priest walked up to the grave to pay tribute:

“Why go to a place where you're not welcomed? Why run away from those who love you? If you can't stand up for yourself or your friends and family, what gives you the right to complain about your lot in life? Did you try to do anything before throwing up your hands and giving up? How will you be judged by those who went before you and who are now counting on you? How will you answer the questions posed by those who follow in your footsteps? Life, good people, is an ongoing cycle, and actions taken in the name of love justify any mistakes you may make. The economy is grounded not in force, but in justice. If you can't feel the presence of the living, then why have you come here to part with the deceased? Masha lived a long and heroic life, doggedly fighting for the happiness of her people, her friends and family, and her colleagues. Her persistent struggle to promote the common good and secure equality ennobled her mission, her spiritual journey and her painstaking efforts to build a better tomorrow. Her commitment to the principles of brotherhood, genuineness, honesty, and Romanipen, which she upheld consistently and staunchly throughout her entire life, will serve as a timeless example for generations to come, as they take the baton from their parents in the eternal fight for a brighter future. In that sense, Masha's industry and resilience should inspire us to perform heroic tasks
of our own, to refine our professional skill set, and tune in to the positive vibrations sent by the Savior as a reward for our years of wandering and our endurance in the face of discrimination.”

“Amen,” the crowd cheered amiably.

I didn't know the deceased, but it seemed as though the priest might have idealized her life story just a tad. A lot of the mourners were invisible, standing behind the pines; one could easily have thought that he was speaking to the forest itself.

“One more thing,” the priest added after gathering his thoughts for a moment. “What does death teach us? It teaches us that we must remember everything that has happened to us and to those closest to us. That's the main thing. Because when you can remember everything from your past it's not so easy to let go of it. That is all,” he said, ending his eulogy, and everyone broke out into song once again.

Before the mourners could belt out yet another hymn about the brick roads that we walk down alongside the Savior, about the trying hardships that will pay off tenfold down the line, you know what I'm saying, yesterday's black clouds rolled back in and an unexpected deluge drenched us. Everyone scattered, trying to find shelter under the tall, barren pine trees, hopping over old, sunken tombstones, and running to their cars parked out on the asphalt. The rain gushed into Masha's pit, threatening to flood the grave completely and turn the whole cemetery into a lake. Now Kocha climbed out as quickly as possible and ran after everyone else. I dashed to find Injured's car, but I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, veered a little off course, or maybe chased after the wrong person: I quickly got lost in a labyrinth of pine trees,
running between them, choking on the water that ran into my mouth, feet sinking into the wet sand. Eventually I stopped by some more tombstones to catch my breath. My eyes settled on their inscriptions. I couldn't quite take it in, at first. I moved a bit closer and read them again. The names of the Balalaeshnikov brothers were carved on the tombstones. All three of them. The rain was drowning their portraits; they were looking at me like sharks peering up from the ocean floor. It really was them. Barukh Balalaeshnikov, 1968–1999. Various sacred signs, such as stars of David, gold half-moons and pentagrams, crowns and bird's wings, rose stems and old revolvers, were engraved next to Barukh's face. The next plaque read: Shamil Balalaeshnikov, 1972–1999. Something written in Arabic was engraved near Shamil's picture, while some scenes depicting birth, hunting, and last rites could be seen at the bottom of the plaque. They were hunting deer. As expected, Ravzan Balalaeshnikov, 1974–1999, was next in line. A sad woman, her hair down, wearing a short skirt, had been drawn on the plaque below the deceased's portrait. The woman was sitting on a riverbank under a tiny birch tree, clearly pining for Ravzan. Bewildered and drained, I continued my run, trying to escape from this black hole and remember where I'd come from. However, the farther I ran, the more despair overwhelmed me, because I soon came across Sasha Python's grave, featuring carved horses bearing insane riders; then Andryukha Michael Jackson's tombstone, with a marble column and gold letters; and then heavy granite plaques with the names of Semyon Black Dick, Dimych Conductor, Kolya One-and-a-Half Legs, and Ivan Petrovich Fodder; as well as small yet ornate plaster sculptures of Karpo Disc Grinder holding his
plaster disc grinder in his right hand and Vasya Negative with thuja trees planted all around him; and then there were Gesha Accordion and Siryozha the Rapist's graves; and finally Gogi Orthodox's tomb with crosses painted all over it.

At last I fought through some blackthorn bushes and popped out onto the road, where I was nearly run down by Injured's car. He wasn't too surprised—he just stopped and waited for me to get in. After I was safely inside I immediately started telling him about what I had just seen, but he cut me off, asking grimly:

“Where have you been? Olga called. She's worried about you. And she was asking about some sunglasses.”

“About some sunglasses?”

“Yep, about some sunglasses. She told me to make sure you're being careful. This is some serious shit we're talking about.”

He was right—I immediately recalled the burned truck, thinking that they were probably just getting started. My mounting dread was accompanied by an odd excitement. For the first time since I'd come back, my heart was resonating with those odd, sweet vibrations that filled the sky. Suddenly I could feel them all—the musicians playing their old instruments, striking their false, piercing notes; the two relatives in black suits driving a crane into the cemetery and covering the freshly-dug grave with concrete slabs, so nobody would be tempted to desecrate the final resting place of an eminent public figure like Masha and make off with her Siemens coffee machine. I also felt the two Spanish women wailing for the deceased, squeezing each other's hands, and felt the two cousins, Tamara and Tamila, who had gotten soaked to the bone, their clothing sticking tenderly to their shoulders. I
could feel Kocha, with his hoarse, whistling cries as he tried to get the ambulance driver to drop him off right in front of the apartment. I felt the children clutching their mint candies—I felt them, so carefree, so remote from death and hardship, running in the rain as hymns sounded around them. This happy and terrible feeling thrust me forward, forcing me toward the group packed into Kocha's apartment; I had to join in without delay. The crowd spilled out onto the stairs and landings—nobody was even thinking of heading out early, and Tamara's relatives wouldn't have let them go anyway.

“Look,” Injured said, “don't take what you see in there to heart, because who knows what you'll wind up seeing. That's the main thing.”

We were heading up the stairs. Olga had called again before we'd reached the apartment, asking me how I was doing and telling me to watch out. But she didn't want to stop by for some reason. The party was flowing out onto the stairwell; bottles of wine and vegetable platters were being passed down the line. Everyone was talking loudly, recalling the deceased's professional achievements, yelling over one another. The band was stationed between the third and fourth floors, and as soon as we approached them, the trumpet player nodded at me and started playing a Charlie Parker's song, which I took as a bad omen. We continued plowing through the crowd, up the stairs, but then, right at the doorstep, a slim, dexterous arm jerked Injured away from me. Some middle-aged woman, with a hefty backside, led him farther up the steps. Injured looked back at me and managed to shout out some sort of warning, but I couldn't make it out, as I was
already diving into the jam-packed apartment. A bunch of the deceased's closest relatives as well as the most esteemed guests were sitting at the table in the living room. I picked out Kocha's bald spot, between Tamara and Tamila, and steered heedlessly toward it, crushing kids underfoot and shoving half-blind grannies out of the way. Kocha turned around, saw me, and yelled excitedly:

“Herman!” hitting a high note, even for him—it must have taken every one of his internal whistles—“Buddy, thank God you're here. Well,” he went on, introducing me around, “this is Tamara, the deceased's daughter, you know. And this is Tamila, she's like a sister to me. Herman, you know how hard it can be growing up in a big family and all.”

Tamara and Tamila didn't bother to disguise their interest; the way they looked at me suggested a challenge. Kocha spun, bobbed around the table, gave up his seat to me, and disappeared into the sea of people. Tamara and Tamila started taking care of me right away. Two hands poured me some wine, and they scrutinized my every move, making sure I kept drinking and stayed quiet. I had no clue what I could have conveyed to them, so I was more than happy to sit there, drinking to the deceased's memory. I still didn't know how to tell them apart, either. I thought I had seen Tamila last week by the store, downtown. As far as I could remember, she had been wearing a short, red skirt, but I wasn't absolutely sure about that, so I didn't bother asking.

After a while the party started getting amorphous. A few people hurried out of the apartment, while others started showing up and proposing elaborate toasts to love and fidelity. The priest was going on about something or other—he and Ernst seemed to be
having a lengthy argument about race relations, and soon Kocha's insensate body was carried out of the kitchen into the next room. Tamila and Tamara and lit up like fireflies when they saw this. Bitter, dark wistfulness flooded their eyes, and I gazed intently into their bitterness, remembering more and more of the stories I had so conscientiously tried to forget. The number of guests gradually increased, although I couldn't figure out where exactly these new people were coming from and how they could possibly fit inside the apartment. By midnight, I was dazed from all the yelling and singing, so I excused myself and went looking for some place where I could take a leak—but some old women were smoking heavy clay pipes in the bathroom. One of them offered me a hit. I accepted and breathed in deep. The pipe was hot, like the heart of a long-distance runner. I passed it back and wandered off.

“Where can I take a leak around here?” I asked a man wearing a rubber raincoat standing in the hallway and drinking some Moldovan brandy straight from the bottle.

“This way,” he said, slinging his arm over my shoulder and pulling me along.

We walked over to the next apartment. The man whipped open the doors and shoved me inside.

“It's on the left,” he yelled from behind me, “but it's dark in there, the light doesn't work.”

I groped my way down the apartment's hallway, bumped into something, squatted down to take a closer look, and recognized the musicians all sleeping on the moonlit floor. Their drum sat on its side in their midst, heaped with bottles and sliced bread. Moving on, I felt for the doorknob, found it, and stepped into
the bathroom. There was a window up on the wall that clearly looked out onto the kitchen. Yellow, wavering streaks of moonlight were pouring inside; my eyes took a long time to adjust to the darkness, but I was gradually starting to make out individual objects. I pissed and went over to the tub, which was filled to the brim with cold water. I scooped some into my hands and dunked my face in it. That's better. I blinked heavily; there were dark glass bottles down there on the bottom of the tub, glimmering in the moonlight like carp, flapping their booze-soaked fins. It was time to go home. Then the door opened and shut, and a shadow slid into the bathroom, barely visible. All I could tell was that it was a woman. She approached me apprehensively, touched my face, and sank her hands into my hair. She pushed her body at me, and her hot lips sucked me even closer. The taste of her lipstick only intensified the wine fumes on her breath. There was something predatory in the way she kissed me; she really knew what she was doing, neither hurrying nor drawing things out. Her hands slithered under my shirt, her nails scratching my skin. She removed my pants quite handily and pushed me back up against the edge of the tub, turned, smoothly lifted her dress and got on top of me. It was sweet and painful— difficult to get inside her. She winced keenly in answer to my every movement, but she persisted, breathing deeper and deeper, as though her lungs were somewhere deep, deep down, where the sun's rays couldn't reach and there wasn't enough oxygen. I touched her face, feeling her warm lips, wrapping my hand around her neck and closing it around her throat, which didn't faze her, incidentally. When I touched her hands, locking them together and pulling them toward me, my fingers
rubbed up against something sharp; I realized she was wearing rings on almost all her fingers—they were glowing in the yellow light that trickled into the bathroom and digging into my skin as I squeezed her hands. Then, all at once, she froze, extricated herself nimbly, pulled down her dress, and slipped out into the hallway without making a sound. I didn't know whether I should chase after her or stay put . . . but before I could settle on any sort of action, the door opened, and a shadow was moving inside the bathroom again. I decided not to waste any time, so I grabbed her and bent her over the edge of the tub. I heard her voice for the first time when she let out a nearly inaudible screech. She sounded hoarse and mistrustful. I pulled up her dress hastily. This time I slipped into her smoothly, her fiery body bent over the tub as she stared down at the green and black bottles that our movements goaded along beneath the water's cold surface. It must have looked as though she was washing her hair, or trying to catch a fish with her hands. And I was trying to catch her. She kept whimpering, like she was surprised or something, leaning closer and closer to the surface, until her long hair, which smelled of pine trees and tobacco, dipped underwater. When things were drawing to a close, I tried pulling back to help keep her head above the surface. She caught her flowing hair and tossed it back. Our hands interlocked. Suddenly, I felt that she wasn't wearing any rings. I clutched at her other hand, but there weren't any rings there either, although she had two watches, one on each wrist. Feeling me tense up, she tried extricating herself, but I grabbed her by the neck and bent her back toward the water, finishing up and feeling numerous necklaces and chains on her neck which hadn't been there the
first time around. They were all hopelessly tangled now.