Voroshilovgrad (54 page)

“Pre-law,” Dima muttered. He was getting flustered. He had pictured our conversation playing out rather differently.

“Motherfucker! Where do all these lawyers come from?” I wondered incredulously. “Well, you heard me—I want you to get the hell out of here. By tomorrow morning. My friends and I will take care of ourselves, without any lawyers.”

I stood up and headed for the door. Dima sprung up off the bed as I went.

“Herman,” he called desperately, “we have all the documents right here! We filed for all of them! You should help us out. We have your best interests at heart! Why don't you get that? Look here!”

He grabbed the laptop, opened it up, and handed it to me, trying to show me something. The computer woke up, rumbled a bit, and the familiar blonde popped up on the screen, sucking even more vigorously at whatever fluids remained unsucked.

“Why don't you finish up, jerkoff,” I suggested, and closed the door behind me.

I also told him: “You're absolutely right. I agree with almost everything you're saying. But you said they're all vulnerable. I'm
thinking, What the fuck makes you think they're wimps like that, anyway? And why the fuck is that the case, Father? Why do you say they're vulnerable? They were all born and raised here. They're all scurrying around like their train is about to leave, you know what I mean? But it's like the train is parked at the station and they're saying all of their good-byes. Now they don't owe anyone anything, and they can start fuckin' bashing things up and burning things down because the train's already there, waiting for its passengers. That's how they behave. I have no idea why. Those bastards live here. In these towns. They grew up here. They went to school here, skipped classes here, and played soccer here. They lived their whole lives here. So why, why would they burn the land they've lived on for so long? All those fuckin' cocksuckers have started walking around like they own the place. All of those finance pricks, pig cops, corporate shits, young lawyers, up-and-coming politicians, analysts, business owners, fuck all those capitalists—why are they acting like they've on vacation and are just about to hop their train home? It's not as though they're really leaving. They're not going anywhere anytime soon. They're staying put—we even frequent the same stores. And you think they're weak and vulnerable, Father? My ass they're weak. They've got steel jaws and they'll rip you to shreds, if need be. How are they vulnerable?”

“I absolutely agree with you,” he replied, “but you're forgetting about one thing—vulnerability fuels aggression, and so does weakness.”

“So, you're saying they've gone fuckin' bonkers because they're actually weak?”

“Yes. And because they're vulnerable.”

“What can we do about that?”

“Herman, keep doing what you've been doing,” the presbyter answered. “Keep doing what you've been doing. Don't slight the living, and don't forget the dead.”

In the evening, Seva and I went back to the hospital to pick up Olga. She'd already heard about Injured; she was quiet and had obviously been crying. She let us carry her out to the car and put her in the back seat. She lived only a few blocks from the hospital. Seva drove cautiously, trying not to hit any of the numerous potholes along the way. Seva and I carried her over her spacious yard, all covered in grapevines, stepped onto and passed through her veranda, brought her into the living room, and carefully placed her on her couch. Two women were waiting for Olga in her little house, and they whizzed around us, bringing Olga a pot of freshly brewed tea and some small, puffy pillows, disappearing and returning with water, or producing a frail black cat and handing him to Olga. Finally, Olga could take no more and asked everyone to leave—except for me, that is.

“When's the funeral?” she asked quietly.

“The day after tomorrow. On Saturday.”

“Pick me up, all right?”

“All right.”

“Why don't you get going?” she said. “Come by later.”

“I'll wait until you fall asleep, and then I'll get going.”

“Sounds good.”

Olga lay there, wrapped up in a warm, wool blanket, peering out the window at the thick, lilac-colored darkness sprawling out around us. I could hear the women waiting outside, talking.

“You remember how you told me about those postcards?” Olga asked suddenly.

“What postcards?”

“The ones for tourists. Those sets of all different cities. You said how you would talk about them in German class.”

“Oh,” I said, “sure, the Voroshilovgrad postcards.”

“Yeah,” Olga confirmed, “the Voroshilovgrad ones.”

“What made you think of them?”

“I found a whole stack of them.”

“For real?”

“Uh-huh. I couldn't remember for the life of me where they came from. But then I remembered. My friends and I had some German pen pals. One boy from Dresden would write me. He kept inviting me to come visit and he sent me some postcards. I sent him some too. I'd buy whole sets of them. I'd pick out the ones with tons of flowers because I wanted him to think that Voroshilovgrad was a fun city. I would just keep all the other ones, with all the monuments and stuff. And I just found them. A whole stack of them. It's funny,” she said, “there's no such city as Voroshilovgrad anymore, and the boy from Dresden doesn't write me anymore, and it's like none of that even happened, or it wasn't even part of my life. It's like it happened in another life, or someone else's life. Someone else's city, someone else's country, and someone else's friends. Maybe these pictures
are
my past. Something they took away from me and forced me to forget. But I haven't forgotten,
because those really are a part of me. They may even be the best part of me,” she added, after a second's thought.

She touched my hand stayed quiet for a whole, looking out the window.

“I knew that something was going to happen,” she said suddenly. “I could just feel it. But there was nothing I could do.”

“What could you have done?”

“I don't know,” Olga said. “I don't know. And I don't know what to do now, either. Don't forget to pick me up, okay?”

“I won't forget,” I reassured her. “Don't worry.”

She took her cell out of her pocket and handed it to me.

“Put it somewhere.”

I looked it over, then asked “May I?” I quickly found Injured's number in her contact list and called. It rang once, twice, three times. I about to hang up when I heard an odd sound, like an answering machine clicking on, and then a nearly imperceptible rustling, like a draft, a hum that began almost imperceptibly and gradually mounting until it felt like a cold ocean breeze was blowing all of the sounds and voices out of the air, clogging everything up with its icy breath. The wind was picking up, howling out of the void. It was as though I'd tuned in to some secret radio channel that pilots used to navigate over this deserted land. Incomprehensible voices could be heard inside the noise. They were shouting to be heard over one other, lost in the faraway ether, desperate to get some important message across. But I couldn't pick out any individual words or phrases, no matter how I tried. Gradually the voices disappeared and a heavy, inexpressible silence settled in. I turned off Olga's cell and placed it on the windowsill.

“What's up?” Olga asked.

“Nothing. Nothing at all.”

She was lying there in the darkness, her eyes wide open, for some time, touching my hand, sighing softly, and faintly humming something. She fell asleep shortly thereafter, her breathing smooth and estranged.

Seva didn't wait up for me. By the time I stepped outside he was already gone. I walked down the street, ducked under the dark apple branches, took the shortcut, and emerged from the wood out by the hospital wall, for the third time today.

The night had cooled down; clouds blanketed the sky. It was quiet and empty in town; moonlight touched the heavy branches of the fruit trees and the cold, dew-covered road signs. I kept going, trying to remember what was behind the buildings along the way. I passed the other hospital where my brother went when he got appendicitis. I remembered how we'd all run over to visit him, scaling the brick wall. I passed the white block, where the prison was—my brother and I would go there to talk with this one guard. My brother had some business to settle, and I would just tag along. I passed the monastery, which used to function as a barracks and where our dad did his military service. My school was right behind the monastery—the playground, the lines painted on the asphalt, all the places we used to stash cigarettes, the holes in the fence that we used to crawl through. The hotel was barely visible off to the side. I remembered how we'd bring our girls there, once we were fully mature and had some pocket money,
street cred, and our own notions about love. The faded phone company building, where they'd opened up a movie theater back in the day, was across from the hotel. We hardly ever went there because they mostly showed movies about karate, which didn't interest us adults. The health clinic, where we used to buy pure alcohol, was farther down the street. Next came the 24-hour convenience store on the corner where they'd serve anyone who was thirsty, regardless of their physical state, their age, or their religious beliefs. Off to the right, the fire tower popped into my field of view for a second; we once had an epic brawl right over there. Then came the neighborhood police station where we were all taken afterward. Quiet neighborhoods followed, taken over by grass and spiderwebs, and dark alleys with exhaustively cracked asphalt. Then came the highway, heading out of the city; I stepped onto it—how many times had I left all these streets and houses behind? I felt as though I was abandoning the city, deserting my friends, relatives, and lovers. An uncanny sensation, a mixture of alarm and loss, overcame me for a moment, but quickly receded, and I could feel some sweet rhythm in everything, hinting that the highway was just getting started, and I could take it for hours in any direction. Empty fields emerged behind the city's last houses; the dam crossed through the darkness farther down. The surface of the river glistened brightly in the moonlight, beyond the dam. The hills rolled out past the river; the night had settled over them like furniture covers. Nothing had changed while I was gone. The highway had the same glass, metal, and scorched grass on the shoulder. The same streams of light coming from the houses over the dam. The same persistent silence. The same voices and
whispers evaporating in the silence. The same wary animals. The same sleeping fishermen. The same high sky. The same black earth.

P.S.

Hi, Herman,

Sorry I haven't written for so long. First, I don't have a whole lot of news. Secondly, I wasn't too sure you'd actually find my news interesting. But I decided to write you to tell you a story that happened a long time ago. I don't remember why, but I haven't told you it before. The story is about Pakhmutova, and since you knew the deceased, I hope you'll think it's interesting and illustrative. My dad brought Pakhmutova over to the TV tower when I was three years old, so we grew up together. I quickly got used to her. Life up at the tower is rather mundane, and there isn't much to do for fun, so I would spend all of my free time with Pakhmutova. We slept together, ate together, and went for walks together. In the summertime we'd always stop by the river and swim forever on our way back to the city. We'd swim over to the bridge, listening to the trucks rattling by up above.