Читать книгу: «Making for a Yonder»

Foreword

The fifth installment from The Rascally Romance concludes its charitable breakdown into convenient chunks for optimal digestibility (based on healthcare standards in the current historical period).

Here, the protagonist, sensing the approaching end of the plot, prepares to leap over the Caucasus Mountains, at least to hide there, disguised as a carpet-bag foreigner.

The naive fool couldn't foresee that being, like, at large does not prevent from…

However, that's another story.

_{~ ~ ~}

A lone barge hauler

My cheeky retorts to the judge presiding at the unwelcome divorce perked me up for some time, straightening my chest with a sliver of pride–the bastard got shown his place!–but only briefly.

Everything slid back into the routine of a crushed martyr’s stupor, stuck in a looped rut : Why?! I loved her so much! I tried so hard…

And as a result, I only sank deeper into the clinging, languid dreams that one day Eerah would suddenly come and everything would be okay again, well, somehow…

The fact that by filing for divorce, Eerah was logically and straightforwardly clearing the way for her future life without me didn't free me from unrealistic hopes and fruitless aspirations like, well, anyway, somehow, some other day it will be okay…

-.-

Yet suffering, like any other feeling, no matter which, be it even joy, when there are no days off or smoke breaks, turns damn oppressive in its monotony. That’s why there gradually crushed arose and grew stronger and stronger in me a health protective idea that it wouldn't hurt to somehow celebrate the divorce. But how?

No folk rituals for such an occasion came to mind, so I had to improvise. One thing was clear: a special day was needed, one that would stand out from the crowd. And so, for just such a day, I set off for the capital, Kyiv.

Indian summer had become so unchecked that fall that I set out in just a jacket, even though it was already the first week of November. Taking in account the calendar's disapproving view that such a light outfit hardly suits the depth of the current season, I wore a dark gray cloth vest (partially visible) under the jacket.

This detail had never been part of any three-piece affair; the vest hanged about me since school, the product of that same sharp-nosed seamstress in the atelier next to the bus station…

Of these dandy looks (not delving into the shirt, pants, and shoes samely appropriate), I emerged from the infernal depths of the Kyiv metro at Khreshchatyk station and took a leisurely stroll along the remarkably wide sidewalk of the street of the same name, under the arches of mighty Chestnut trees.

Having reached Red Army Street, with its cobblestones polished by traffic to a grayish sheen, I followed its slope toward the Foreign Book store. The sidewalk there was quite steep, but paved, so not interfering with the intention of giving myself a pleasant gift, a memento of the current celebration.

I'd had my eye on this souvenir for quite some time; lusting after it since my work at the reconstruction of a dairy plant or perhaps a plant.

But would it still be waiting for me?

I quelled the tides of nagging anxiety with idle contemplation of fragments in the disjointed events of sidewalk life. Just in case, since I had almost no doubt it would…

Ha! But I knew that!… The same bright red dust jacket of my beauty—'Chamber's 20th Century Dictionary'—happily beckoned at me from the same shelf in the store's spacious sales area.

The salesperson, glancing at my festive attire—(the open collar of my faded red shirt was visible beneath my vest)—politely asked if I was absolutely sure I wanted this particular book.

(… I wasn't surprised by his doubt—in that year, in what was then the current 20th century, the average person hadn't yet become accustomed to existence of oligarchs and foreign millionaires; they found it hard to believe that anyone could afford to shell out 31 rubles 60 kopecks for a book. Except, of course, bricklayers celebrating their divorces…)

-.-

I left the store with a thick volume tightly wrapped in their signature lavender-colored wrapping paper. The gift was to be dropped off in a locker at the train station, the only question was: which way? By metro again? No, that wasn't that kind of day. And I approached the bank of the motionless cobblestone stream, over which the tires of fast-moving flocks of taxis rustled past…

~ ~ ~

From the station, I also made a foray to the 'Angler-Hunter' store, at the address Grinya had given me. He had ordered some kind of super-folding fishing rod from there. Yes, it fit quite comfortably in the same compartment with the book…

-.-

After the shopping spree and the subsequent stacking of the commercial catch, the cultural part of the program began.

That evening, the House of Organ Music shimmered with vibrant chords of blazing sunshine glitter over the splashing waves of the sea expanse, as depicted in Debussy's 'Sketches.' Other works by the same Claude were also performed…

When I was little, my father told me that when listening to this kind of music (he didn't call it polyphonic, so as not to overwhelm a child), one should keep imagining some suitable images. All cultured people behave that way.

I've never been able to follow his instructions; the sounds are too insistent and jealous, too full of irresistible desire to subjugate, leaving no room for the inbred cultural norms…

In the post-concert twilight that descended upon me as I stepped out the doors of the Temple of Organ Music, the chill of deep autumn made itself felt. Besides, I felt I could kill a square meal.

Another taxi took me to the restaurant of the Golden Grain Ear Hotel.

-.-

To begin with, I tried to book a room for the night, but the receptionist, noting my unseasonable attire and lack of luggage, curbed my ambitions with the usual low-key question—about my reservation. Receptionists have long since become adept at dispensing with stray ronins wondering without forged armor. No armor? Don't drop the drawbridge for the vagrant!

-.-

In the restaurant, to get my bearings, I ordered a bottle of wine, and an older man wearing a beret immediately landed at the table.

(… if there’s a beret but no briefcase, it means fate has paired you with an electrician…)

We hadn't even finished a glass when a fair-haired young man dropped anchor at the third end of the table. It's hard to imagine why the third man, who had joined me, began arranging his fingers in the sign 'I'll gouge you out!', accompanying this calisthenics with aggressive grunts. The electrician faded into the woodwork under his beret…

The celebration program didn't include any gladiatorial entertainment, so I stood up: 'Okay, young man. I leave this feast to you. Enjoy.'

Walking to the waiters, I paid for the wine and left the restaurant. The blond man dashed after me into the lobby.

However, not each of the three glass vestibules had doors leading out unlocked. He jumped into the wrong one.

Waving goodbye to the labyrinth prisoner, I stepped down from the porch to continue the party elsewhere…

Spending the night at the train station didn't look like a particularly festive prospect.

The next taxi driver took me to the Old Prague Hotel, near the Opera House. The young receptionist there began with the familiar bagpipe overture about advance reservations, but suddenly her mood thawed changing to mercy, and I finally found a room.

However, she warned me that it would be more expensive. The reason for this became clear when I got to the room itself, which also had a hallway with a lacquered sideboard and a plate set.

Having gotten a little more comfortable, I decided not to tempt fate with my attire any longer, and ordered dinner by phone—fish and chips and wine, white, please…

After dinner, a couple of young persons showed up; the waitress must have forgotten to close the door. I still haven't figured out what the young man and woman wanted. I'd already eaten the chips, there was only one bed, and I had no desire to share it.

Ah, yes! Some drugs stayed left in the bottle; the young man killed them, and they went off in search for refuge in another room. Maybe.

And when I was already asleep, the waitress came to collect back my plate and fork, and also the payment for dinner. But before it, I did have offered to pay in advance. She rejected though. Now she took it, only I had to go out in her presence to the hallway in my underwear, to where my pants lounged in the armchair.

I paid her exactly what she said, with handfuls of kopecks filling my pocket after the taxi rides. Well, once she left, I locked the door to exclude any more disturbance.

~ ~ ~

Waking up late in the morning, I left the kind and cozy 'Old Prague' for a stroll around the city…

As I passed the Golden Gate (a recently erected monument of ancient defensive architecture, accessible from the nearby sidewalk 24 hours a day), a fair-haired young man overtook me, breathing heavily as he ran. Clearly from the monad of yesterday's crazy redneck who had stuck his nose into the wrong glass entrance/exit box of the Golden Ear Hotel.

Looks like the whole monad had to work hard to somehow survive the streak of bad karma brought on by the gifted feast. But that idiot had asked for it…

-.-

On the way down toward Bessarabsky Market, it became clear the lunchtime had arrived, so I headed to the Leningrad restaurant, which turned up on the left sidewalk.

A file of Blacks had unexpectedly gotten ahead of me and wandered into the same establishment, but having never been a racist, I didn't change my mind. True, I didn't like the overly fat scruff of the man bringing up the rear. A self-indulgent Africa.

In the silent daytime twilight of the restaurant, I didn't notice where they had dissolved to, but there was no one else in the dining room except me, and I had it all to myself, celebrating.

I ordered some kind of casserole dish—the menu actually said something like 'casserole.' But they brought a ceramic flowerpot, taller than its width, containing potatoes and meat. Yes, there was also sauce. Brown.

Eating from the pot was completely inconvenient, and way too hot. I had to resort to shoveling some of the steaming culinary extravaganza onto a plate already on the table, then adding more from the pot as it dwindled.

After paying, I visited the restaurant's deserted, quiet restroom and emerged a completely different person. Not the same one I'd been when I'd arrived at the Leningrad restaurant.

Ivan Franko's lines slowly ran through my head:

'One by one tear away all the knots

Bounding to our bygone life…'

Without delving into the other works of the famous poet and novelist, the main difference between me entering and leaving the establishment’s premises was the absence of my jacket, deliberately left hanging in the restroom.

That same wedding jacket that accompanied me at my marriage registration with Eerah at the Nezhyn Civil Registry Office. It later managed to survive my ill-timed attempt to forget it in the restroom of the restaurant 'Bratislava' in Odessa. That moment was clearly not ripe yet for our separation.

Was this item on the program?

No, it was an example of a surge of inspiration—an impromptu one. However, I liked it.

~ ~ ~

Free of the burden, I walked up Khreshchatyk, preparations for the November demonstration were underway there—a brass band played loudly, and troops from the Kyiv garrison marched.

Endless steps had already been laid along the sidewalk for spectators. Three, all in all, but they were wide enough for the citizens to stand upon them in a happy crowd and wave the balloons in their hands, en masse, to demonstrate their approval and collective joy.

(You never know, my neighbor from the landing said she once glimpsed herself in the evening news, holding a balloon. Actually, she never went there with anything but a flag. A small one. 'Peace to the world.' But the jacket was definitely hers. Pink. It used to be red. But then at the dry-cleaner’s, as she came to collect it back, they told her it looked even better this way. It suited her natural blush so perfectly…)

-.-

There were two days left until the upcoming event, and the steps were still empty. I walked along the middle one, my heels loudly clicking on the thick wooden planks—a man in his prime, in a red shirt under a gray vest—and the sun winked cheerfully at me through the branches of the mighty Kyiv chestnut trees overhead.

The path to the metro and the train station stretched before me, and I was once again ready for trenches, walls, and partitions.

People certainly need celebrations, and brass bands too, to let themselves move through life at a more joyous pace…

~ ~ ~

When Panchenko—without considering for a split second whether he might crack someone's skull—threw a four-section cast-iron radiator through a fourth-floor window, seemingly for no apparent reason, his prank actually had a pretty sound basis.

With this homespun imitation of a bolt from the blue, he clearly signaled to everyone concerned that the gangster veteran's balls were still quite hairy, and under his cap of eight-wedge converged under the central rivet (a favorite style of gangsters in the late fifties), he was still quite a wild man.

The signal was addressed primarily to the foreman who drew up his work orders, as well as to the chief mechanic, who accepted and signed those orders for subsequent payroll, so that Panchenko would have the wherewithal to start a new, honest life. From another clean slate. And it was about time, after all, the man had waded into his well over fifty.

And he couldn't care less that after my second trip to Romny, I was no longer in line for the position of the visitant to hospitalized colleagues on behalf of the CAT-615 trade union committee.

-.-

This, initially pretty chaotic position, I managed to elevate to a level of impeccable perfection. Gone were the days of ashamedly drooping of ears when one of the loaders or carpenters, returning to work after a couple of days parked at the railway hospital, would voice loud reproaches about being ignored, passed over with the due consolation, while in the masonry team there are no omitted workers.

But what does this have to do with me? The foremen of the folks outside our team don't report to me!

And a radical solution was found to the problem: after each workday, I would call the hospital reception desk from the payphone bolted to the station building: did one of ours, by any chance, come to you? The workers there, by the way, quickly got into the swing of things and, without any further clarification like 'who are your 'ours'?', were clearly passing on information about the presence of patients from CAT-615. Even about abortions, which had nothing to do with me, since the hospital sent the patients home that same day to recover.

Then came the question of carefully segmenting the three rubles allocated by the union for visiting a hospitalized employee.

How would this amount be spent so that every sufferer received an equal measure of comfort, regardless of age, gender, or other inclinations?

It took a while, but even this conundrum found a proper and—without false modesty, it should be noted—a very clear solution.

One ruble was spent on drinks—the invariable three bottles: one beer, one lemonade, one kefir. Don't like beer? Give it to your ward-mates.

Paying for pastries, marshmallows, and/or anything else you could find at the 'Confectionery' store by the Under-Overpass was covered with the second ruble.

To spend the third and final ruble, a visit to the train station was made, where the ever-popular satirical magazine 'Perets', with its colorful, cheerful pictures for adults, was always on display from the wide counter of the Union Print (to the right of the restaurant's entrance). The second essential was the Konotop city newspaper 'Soviet Banner' (in local Ukrainian, 'Bunny-munny'), or, as my father affectionately called him, 'our little liar'. The remaining change went to the central periodicals—Labor, Locomotive Hooter, and the like.

(I didn't buy Morning Star for my colleagues, even though the quality of the photos there was far superior to the flickering rotoprints of the Soviet press.)

From the train station, with a full clip of comfort and consolation, I walked to the railway hospital.

-.-

Tensions arose later, at submitting the report for my three-ruble reimbursement. Union 'boss' Slaushevsky was downright hostile to a bottle of beer be mentioned in the document.

(Unions and beer are things incompatible… well, I suppose… or what?)

Finally, as a compromise, I offered him to write the report himself, and I would sign anything…

And now this system, perfectly calibrated to the last micron, was to exist only till the CAT-615 union's reporting and election meeting at the end of November.

Nevertheless, I did manage to feed Panchenko some waffles…

-.-

After listening to the receptionist's phone report about a certain Panchenko from CAT-615, I realized I couldn't wait—why the hell would I risk a sudden discharge?

I hung up and went to grocery store No. 6 for some waffles. First things first. Then more waffles, from the kiosk. And more waffles—worth a whole sweet ruble, in different wrappers, from different outlets…

~ ~ ~

Glancing briefly over my shoulder at the blurry reflection of the two of us in the pitch-black winter gloom beyond the unbarred window, I complimented the decor of the hospital lobby. The plastic bag in my hand made an invitingly seductive 'zing' as I handed it to the patient. He couldn't resist—like everyone else at CAT-615, he knew without looking that there was beer in there too…

Why was I laughing like crazy, scurrying through the snow of the dark backstreets, cutting from store to store as I collected waffles of various shades?

I can't explain it, but it was a laughter for survival, until my pulse was broken, until tears stung my eyes, until I was searching blindly for some solid support to keep from collapsing, convulsing…

-.-

A couple of days later, Lida, a bricklayer from our team, asked me face to face: 'D’you visit Panchenko?'

‘Yep. Sure.’

‘Cakes too?’

‘Nope. For the man only waffles—no variations.’

She knew I never lied, on principle. I fell silent and tensed, because once again I had to suppress a surge of inexplicably unprovoked laughter.

A minute later, Panchenko came into our trailer to get something. Carefully, weighing every word, Lida asked him if I'd visited him.

‘Yes.’

‘With a package?’

'Well, some newspapers, or something. I didn't even read them.'

Not another word was said. She poured out the rest at home, to her husband, Mykola. That he was already a family man and should stop hanging on lips of that waffle-gobbler Panchenko…

~ ~ ~

Somehow, it took me a while to get it why the divorce proceedings left a vague impression of incompleteness. Something felt strangely amiss.

(… my kind of slow-wittedness is remarkable in that I eventually manage to figure out things I wouldn't have thought of at first…)

Well, of course! That darn forgetful divorce applying judge didn't say a word about alimony! As if I were childless… The task of correcting this judicial error fell on my shoulders…

-.-

Since December, I began sending 30 rubles a month to the Red Partisans. For this purpose, on payday, I used the post office across from the bus station.

But since you weren't my only child, I also sent the exact same amount to Decemberists 13. '30 to Nezhyn, 30 to Konotop' became my financial lifestyle and the most recurring line in my pocket notepad for several years.

Why this exact amount? I don't know. Taken together, the transfers made up half my income. From the other half, in addition to my expenses for the bathhouse, laundry soap, and toiletries, I sometimes bought books and ate lunch in the canteens every day.

At first, my mother tried to convince me that the Konotop '30' could be brought to Decemberists 13 and given in person, even though she had no use for the money.

I dismissed her insistence with arguments, saying so was more convenient for me. Of course, our team didn't miss the fact that I was a spawn fund payer—given my principle of answering direct questions without evasion, they only had to ask why I kept popping to the post office near the bus station every payday. And some female bricklayers also asked the same question: 'Why exactly 30 rubles?'

Fighting a wave of anger that suddenly surged at neither known at who nor from where, I replied that more wasn’t needed, and were even my salary 3,000 rubles, the '3 tenners' to Nezhyn or Konotop would still remain '3 tenners'.

There were times when I couldn't send out spawn fund payments, and the line '30 to Nezhyn, 30 to Konotop' had to wait until the required amount was scraped together and the line in the mailing list be closed with the clumsy little bird.

Sometimes I only sent 15 rubles in each direction. One such period occurred when I accidentally overheard my mother and my sister Natasha talking. They were tearing Eerah apart in absentia for selling my sheepskin coat and keeping the money for herself.

Of course, I noticed the coat was missing, but I had no idea where it had gone, how, or why.

Now, to restore the reputation as Caesar's wife, I was forced to lower the alimony payment to 15 rubles, until the required sum of 90 rubles was collected…

-.-

I took the money to Nezhyn, and at the post office on Red Partisans Street, I asked a random customer to fill out the address on a money order form, as I dictated it. In the space reserved for personal messages, I wrote—with a clumsy leftward slant—'sheepskin coat'.

Why 90 rubles? Well, the market price of a new sheepskin coat with long skirts was 120 rubles. Mine was short, and older than me—dating back to the Object—the rest was pure arithmetic.

Having received such a large order, my mother was eager to ask me something, but by that point I was no longer on speaking terms with my parents, so asking dumbly silent me about 'sheepskin coat' was pointless.

(… it's worth noting here that the wisdom of strangers doesn't make us smarter. In one of his stories, about a young man who stopped communicating with his parents, Maugham notes that in our harsh and hostile world, people inevitably find ways to make their situation even worse.

I accepted the wisdom of the saying, but didn't take advantage of it. It took ten years of separation (four of which in a full-scale war) before, upon returning to Konotop on leave, I began talking to my parents again.

And I enjoyed saying 'mama' and 'papa'. Only this pleasantness seemed to be enveloped in a layer of felt, preventing me from feeling it, as if I wasn't addressing my parents; or maybe it wasn't really me speaking to them. Probably, because of falling out of habit, or else because we had all changed too much by then…)

~ ~ ~

Trade union and social activities, accurately fulfilling my expectations, got blocked for me completely, however, the right of carrying out my public duty remained with me. The right of any citizen to dutifully maintain and selflessly protect the order the safety within their communities can suffer no infringement.

(For those who haven't quite gotten it, don't worry; I wouldn't realize what’s what seeing the above paragraph the first time, either, it’s all about the monthly shifts in a voluntary public order squad.)

By seven o'clock, the male workers of CAT-615 would gather in a room marked 'People's Militia Detachment Stronghold.' The tablet on the only door in all the end wall in the mile-long five-story building that had long since replaced the squalid Department of Workers Catering barracks office near the Under-Overpass. That very building where you find, at the other end, Workers' Canteen No. 3.

The first person to arrive for the squad shift was usually the crane driver, Mykola Kot (no, not a nickname, and not some code name, but a perfectly innocent Ukrainian surname).

He'd sit down at a table propped against the wall and loaded with a stack of old newspapers. To enhance his comfort, he’d pull his cheap but elegant black rabbit fur hat down to touch his ears, and begin leafing through the piles of press news accumulated since our previous shift.

Then, one by one, we'd arrive, take our seats, and begin our manly, dignified conversations on any subject at hand.

Here, Kot, his eyes glued to the ‘newspapers from days gone by and forgotten’, would predict, from beneath the black fur of an innocently slain animal on his head, that even if we began our sophisticated conversation from the heights of the Salyut orbital station, it wouldn’t cancel our landing on the cunt of Alla Pugacheva or some more accessible local slut, inevitably.

As a rule, the prophecy was accurate. And all because of the latecomers who missed his brazen, but on the whole right, forecast.

About ten minutes past eight, a cop—ranging from lieutenant to captain—appeared to contribute to our male ефдл ырщз and hand out red armbands from a drawer in his desk, bearing the word 'Vigilante' in bold black lettering.

In threes, we left the stronghold, maintaining public order in the evening sidewalks with our patrols: to the train station, to Depot Street, to Lunatic, and along Peace Avenue, but no further than the bridged gap in the railway embankment.

After a forty-five-minute stroll, we returned to the starting point (some trinities in a soft, emotionally sentimental mood) and, after a more lively piece of a parliamentary session, set out on our final rounds, before heading home by ten o'clock until the next shift…

~ ~ ~

A couple of times, KGB officers showed up at our evening matinées with their own briefings.

The first sighting occurred on the eve of the Great October Socialist Revolution, and we were warned to be especially vigilant and to suppress any provocative anti-Soviet behavior.

As soon as the KGB officer had left, a late cop showed up to mock his predecessor (who had already vanished without a trace), asking if we'd gotten it right that the spy who'd caught our eye needed to be immediately caught by the collar and dragged back to this here stronghold.

For the second and final time, a KGB agent (now younger) shared confidential information aimed at speeding up the capture of a former KGB agent who had disappeared AWOL and gone into hiding.

She may have changed her hairstyle and hair color, the KGB agent explained, showing us a black-and-white portrait of her, but she has a distinctive feature that makes identification easier: a contraceptive ring in her vagina. A Dutch-made production.

The men didn't immediately grasp what he was even there for, and when they finally did, they bombarded him with such leading questions that the KGB agent darted out from under the 'Stronghold' sign at the first cosmic velocity. After all, he was merely following orders, for the stupidity of which he bore no responsibility…

~ ~ ~

During one of my patrols, the men in my threesome gave me a hard time. Walking in a group of three vigilantes isn't exactly a bounty, but it's tolerable. However, when you look around and, in the light of the windows of Grocery Store No. 6, you see that among the passersby scurrying along the packed snow of the sidewalk, only your sleeve is tied with a red rag, you begin to feel a bit outlandish.

Maintaining a brazen, 'I don't care' pan, I walked to the station square. However, carpenter Mykola and driver Ivan were absent from the hurried silhouettes. Passersby of draft age glanced back at the strange phenomenon—the brazen vigilante loner.

It didn't take much intelligence to deduce with 100% certainty that my fellow patrolmen, having torn off their armbands, had grabbed a bottle of 'rotgut,' from one or another grocery store and that very moment, located in some quiet nook, were gurgling it down, in turn, to feel both warm and toned up, generally. Where? That was the question.

Most likely, in the quiet chaos of short lanes and dead ends between grocery store No. 6 and the high platform 1, in that jumble of warehouses, skin and venereal disease dispensary, a couple of private houses without gardens, and other wooden structures. That's where I turned, not because I had the slightest chance or desire to partake from the bottle.

Nope. I had a nobler objective of making the pair of sly asses feel ashamed and amazed at what deductive reasoning could do. Makes you able to so easily spot them in a forlorn alley under a streetlamp. Which only would do good the surprised bastards…

-.-

However, instead of a driver and a carpenter, in the cone of yellow light from a lamppost, I stumbled upon a genre scene.

The girl was walking with a young man when their mutual acquaintance, another young man—a huge brute—caught them in the act and kicked up a fight.

The appearance of a fourth wheel with a red rag on his sleeve (a matador?) slowed the plot, but only for a minute. Realizing that no more law enforcement officers were to pop up, the big man began to beat up his smaller, but more successful, rival.

The bantam fighter dropped to one knee, threw his fish-skin-lined jacket off his shoulders into the same snowdrift where his hat had rolled a second earlier, and rushed to a counterattack.

I remained an indifferent sideline referee with a rag. The girl gathered the jacket and hat to hold them, just as Eerah had once kept in hands my rabbit-fur hat in the main square of Nezhyn.

The odds were too unequal. When the lightweight collapsed again in the snow, the girl, without counting to 10, folded his belongings under a lamppost, took the victor's arm, and disappeared with him into the labyrinth of indecipherable alleys.

-.-

The fallen guy rose to his feet and, seeing that I was still there, launched into a passionate, rambling speech, extolling the power of the spirit, compared to which physical strength is nothing, because all strength lies in the spirit… In Konotop, every second person is a born Lord Speaker. Or have I already mentioned this?