The Moscoviad (13 page)

Stool pigeons,
says the first, nice one, are not in our jurisdiction. It’s the cops who work with
the stool pigeons. How could you, Otto Wilhelmovych, even think of this! We
don’t have stool pigeons; we have people who help voluntarily. Engineers,
doctors, college professors, artists, architects, historians. We have writers
too. All of them are patriots. But let’s not go on about that. I have a
suggestion. Let’s meet again in a week. Why should we get hot-tempered and
angry? Think about it all calmly. Evaluate all the pros and cons. Parole
d’honneur, I wouldn’t want to ruin your life, Otto Wilhelmovych.

And I am
sympathetic to you too, says the other, who also grew nicer. If a war happens,
we’ll go into battle side-by-side, isn’t that right, Otto Wilhelmovych? We have
one motherland, there is no need for us to divide up anything.

This made me
laugh mentally, but how can you leave, slamming the door, at this point?
Naturally, the good upbringing, the delicacy above all. Fine, I say, we can
meet again in a week, but I am firmly convinced that I won’t change my mind. We
can talk about poetry if you like. About syllabotonics and free verse, and
about dactylic rhymes.

And I left, while
the two of them stayed behind.

And it turned out
that in vain did I give them the gift of this one extra week, Your
Luminousness. Because while I spent the entire week trying to forget and not to
think about all this, consuming various strong alcoholic drinks, they didn’t
sit with their hands folded. They analyzed, searched, studied. Verified certain
facts. And got themselves a new card. A trump card.

But everything
began just like before. The same furniture place, the same first guy. We smoke,
we chat. He started painting for me some fairytale sweet prospects. How I would
be able to travel abroad to poetry festivals. How they would help me get an
apartment of my own. How my books would be published in Canada and the States,
there they have their own, and very Ukrainian publishing houses. In other
words, dolce vita! I answered to this that I know such situations from my
private life experience. When a boy wants to screw a young lass, he would
promise her God knows what, and then would do his deed at midnight in the
bushes—and good-bye, dark eyes!

Then the other
one bursts in with lightning rods in his hands. What the hell for are we
wasting so much time on this sniveler?! One may think he’s a poetry superstar!
Tell me now, what’s your mother’s maiden name? So and so, I answer him. So
here’s your other grandfather, your mother’s father, also a war criminal, took
part in punitive operations, and he’s alive and kicking, still living, and you
visit him twice a month, enemy cub!

And then—a photo
on the table, in front of my eyes, and there stands my other grandfather,
young, about thirty years old, in some uniform, perhaps of the insurgent army.

Well, the apple
doesn’t fall far from the tree, triumphs the other one, why are you dropping
your jaw? So, my dear superstar, we will grab your grandpa no later than
tomorrow. There is a case, there are witnesses, there will be a trial! How old
is he you’re saying? Seventy-four? Well, he could of course go on trampling
grass for a while longer, but because of the stubborn grandson he’ll get the
firing squad. C’est la vie!

And here, Your
Mercy, for the first time I did not find what to say. Only visualized the court
chamber, my mother in black, heard someone’s mechanical voice, “The verdict has
been carried out.” And my long, long life with eternal guilt in my heart.

Give me the
paper, I tell them. They were almost dancing, even though on the outside
appeared reserved. And I wrote the vilest dictation in my life. About
“voluntarily pledging to help.” That for the sake of conspiracy I would answer
to the nickname . . .

How about
“Rimbaud,” suggests the first one, for I, the fool, was telling him earlier
about my favorite poets. No, I answer, I wouldn’t dare profane the great name.
Then maybe “Arthur,” prompts the other one (he had heard somewhere, the dog,
that Rimbaud’s name was Arthur!). Okay, you can have your Arthur. And I wrote
it down.

Well, gave the
second guy a sigh of relief, I congratulate you, Otto Wilhelmovych, you have
finally done a wise and correct deed, made a humane step. May your dear grandpa
go on living, we won’t bother him for the next hundred years! In the future
you’ll work with him, and nods towards the first one; you don’t know me. The
main thing for you is to get used to it and to calm down. Because from now on
your life will become richer and more interesting. Remember, you are not the
first, nor are you the last. Such is our job!

On this we
parted, although they first gave me some technical instructions. If, for
example, I notice on my mailbox, in the top left corner, a little chalk circle,
the kind kids sometimes draw, this means we need to meet. I then must call him
and, without naming my last name or anyone else’s for that matter, make plans
for a meeting at a certain spot.

But, Otto
Wilhelmovych, don’t be so sullen, we’ll only meet rarely—once every three
months at the most, so please be free, write poetry, listen to music (by the
way, we can procure some good Western records for you), take vacations—live and
enjoy! And remember, from now on you are under our constant protection.
And—keep it a strict secret, otherwise . . . We don’t have statutes of
limitations. But let’s forget about this.

Of course, Your
Royal Mercy, I could not stand this hellish hell even for one day. It seemed to
me that I was being spied on from every corner, that they were eavesdropping on
the phone and through the ventilation shafts, that they parked under my windows
suspicious cars with special equipment. And this was only the beginning!

Because, without
even having betrayed a word of someone else’s, without having done anything ill
to anyone, I felt myself to be a Judas, I even saw the dry tree branch on which
I undoubtedly would hang myself. I ground my teeth like a soul in hell, and bit
my elbows. And did not see any ways out for myself.

And already the
next day I violated their conditions. I went to visit my closest friend, and
went far out into the fields, and there I confessed everything to him, all the
things that had happened to me in the recent weeks. Suspicious cornflowers
stuck out from the grass like microphones. The crown of the old cherry tree, it
seemed, was hiding a radar.

Peter, my friend,
grew sullen as I finished my confession, thought for a little while and said
this,

“Why didn’t you
come earlier, when they were still trying to get you? I’d have explained
everything to you, would advise you how to carry yourself, we would have found
a way out. There exists one golden rule for all of us: never to sign any of
their papers. Whatever may come, never to sign! They could have been only
bluffing about your grandfather. You should have played va-banque. But now it’s
too late: you’ve signed. But there are no cities without gates. Drag the time,
fool them, do things that would make you uninteresting to them. Concentrate on
yourself, avoid new acquaintances, write the kind of poems that would justify
it all. Drink, but don’t lose your head; they don’t like to deal with drunks:
it’s too risky for them. Some time will pass, and they will let you be,
realizing that there will be no milk from this cow.

Peter was radiant
like an apostle, and evening was descending upon the field, and the sun was
going to sleep, and then I understood, Your Mercy, that they always take
advantage of our disunion, but I have overcome it, I confessed, and I am no
longer alone.

The little chalk
circle did appear a few times on my mailbox. I’d like to know who was drawing
it? The janitor? The mail carrier? One of the neighbors? Or did the guardian
angel with invisible epaulets carrying the star of a major do it himself? When
did he do it? At midnight, when ghosts come out for night watch? Or when the
third cock crows, and all the devilish guard falls underground?

We met a few
times at a secret apartment. We smoked, I talked about nothing. I did not
betray or sell out even a tiniest drop, even someone’s half a nail: God sees
everything—this is my last hope, and let Him judge me. I did not write a single
sheet of paper for them anymore, no matter how hard he pressured me
tête-à-tête. I did drink quite a bit then, but this was my own private matter.
Sobering stations were the place of my political asylum.

In the meantime
the empire started cracking. I believe it was during the third such meeting
that I firmly expressed my desire to break my relations with him once and for
all. I told him to arrange a meeting for me with their general whom I was going
to tell all about their pitiful blackmail, promised that I would turn to the
press (yes, now I was threatening him with newspapers!), to Kyiv, to Moscow,
for there exists a limit to everything, and I was now standing at that limit.
It seems that he did pee in his pants, for he only shrugged and said he would
indeed arrange for me to meet the general, but did not keep the promise and
disappeared for a long while. Now I looked for him, telephoned insistently, but
he spoke of some prolonged business trips. He hid from me. He walked down the
street with his raincoat collar raised and his hat hiding his eyes.

And only a year
later, in the summer of eighty-eight, without a chalk circle, but in a simple
human fashion, he called me himself to ask for a meeting. Let’s draw the line,
he said.

The next day,
without going inside any premises, in one of the side streets, he informed me
that our from now on our relations ended. I can consider myself free from all
obligations, except one—keeping our unsuccessful attempt to work together, as
he called it, a secret. This final obligation I am solemnly breaking right now,
Your Mercy, by writing this letter. I leak out this secret. Amen.

I am not guilty
towards anyone. I didn’t say a word to my recently deceased grandfather,
although he, the poor thing, must have felt some danger from them and wanted
very much to see me at his deathbed. Sadly, I only made it to the funeral.

I am guilty
towards myself. For coming to their summons. For stretching a hand out to them
because of my good upbringing, thinking, finally, that they are people too, if
mutilated. That I wrote that scrap of paper, which is still there, in their
archives—yellowing, fading, crumbling, but it exists, the proof of my weakness,
the witness of my spiritual confusion and perplexity, signed with the stupidly
pretentious name, hateful for me since then.

Such is my
confession—of my many sins, My King, and only You I would like to beg for
forgiveness.

Un
doubtedly, a special government committee
will
launch an investigation of the reasons for the mysterious explosion at the
“Snack Bar.” Undoubtedly, an announcement about this will be read out tonight
by the stern anchorman of the nine o’clock news. But what does all of this
matter to you, von F.? Your sweater is soaked through and through, and the
shirt underneath it is soaked as well, and you are now standing, rocking like
an agrammatical question mark, as a poet said, in front of the main entrance to
the “Children’s World,” in front of the gates of this somewhat silly giant,
born at the peak of the empire’s golden days, and you are no longer quite sure
why you are standing there, why it is raining—and what does this “Children’s
World” want from you, why does it torment your overloaded consciousness with
the very fact of its existence, its presence at the center of Moscow, not far
from the dark monument to Dzerzhinsky, who looks very much like Don Quixote.

It is almost six
o’clock, and you, von F., still don’t know why you came here, and if you are
going to struggle with this problem for another hour, there will no longer be
any need to go anywhere, because everything in this world will close, and this
way your burning problems will be solved—at least one of them. You are standing
like a monument to yourself, a monument to the drunken thinker with a bag in
his hand, and around you is a sea of people who even in this rain go on selling
something: chewing gum, perfume, raincoats, shoes, porn, guns, drugs—right
under the nose of Dzerzhinsky, who is going nuts and looks very much like Don
Quixote; they walk around you and pull at your sleeves, these sincere simple
people with mysterious and enlightened Russian souls.

Meanwhile you are
performing a mental vertical dissection of your own self. This way, apparently,
it is easier to concentrate and grasp the essence. So, at the very bottom you
have beer. Some three to four liters of a cloudy yellow drink brewed specially
for the proletariat. Above it a warm red layer of wine. There the
mountain-forming processes begin, these are the depths of a volcano. Then comes
the relatively narrow layer of vodka that stops somewhere in the middle of your
esophagus. This is a very active stratum in the biological sense. At a certain
moment it can become a catalyst for great tendencies for renewal. In fact, it
is nothing else but explosives. Above the vodka, closer to your throat, lies
the FGD, “fortified grape drink.” In the case of an eruption this is what your
fountain will spew out first. It is smelly and dirty brown in color, like oil.

Such is, in its
general features, the plan of your inner cavity. We’ll keep mum for the time
about blood and the rest.

Now comes the
turn for another pleasant discovery. It turns out that at the “Snack Bar” with
the change you acquired a two-kopeck coin. And this means that you must call
Kyrylo from the closest payphone, and warn him about you possibly running late.

This time no one
seems to answer. At last you hear the familiar voice in the receiver.

“Eh, Kyrylo, it’s
me, hi.”

“Okay.”

“What okay, damn
it? I’m calling you, do you hear?”

“I do, my
friend.”

“I’m already
here, at the place?”

“What exactly do
you mean?”

“I’m telling you
I’ve come! I’ve come, understand? I’ve come here and I stand! We did make plans
to meet by the ‘Children’s World,’ didn’t we?”

“By the
‘Children’s World’?” You see from the distance Kyrylo’s Cossack eyebrows
jumping up in surprise. “When did we make such plans? Man, what are you telling
me? What’s happening to you?”

“I’m okay,
Kyrylo. Although not so long ago I barely avoided a sure death. The fact is,
the ‘Snack Bar’ at the corner of the Arbat, the very one where you once showed
me the Rukh
15
newspaper, blew up.”

“What the hell
are you saying? Are you not well?”

“I’m not well.
I’m really not well, Kyrylo. I consist of four internal levels.”

“Couldn’t you
still come here?” There is open worry in his voice, bordering on bewilderment.
“We are almost done with shaping the first issue. You are the only one holding
us back. We have worked well here: Omelian Porfyrovych, Andriy, Lyuba . . .”

“Kyrylo,” you
interrupt him, “could you call Lyuba to the phone?”

“Just a moment,”
he answers after a brief hesitation. “But why, what for?”

“I must tell her
something extremely important.”

“Hello,” you hear
Lyuba’s voice in a little while.

“Lyuba,” you
articulate, trying to put into this word as much tenderness as possible, all
your tenderness, all the tenderness of this world.

“I’m listening,
yes,” Lyuba has a titillating Russian accent even when she speaks Ukrainian.

“Lyuba, I have
long wanted to tell you . . .”

“What, what deed
you want to tell me, Ottah? . . .”

“That I like you
very much. I have completely lost my head over your legs, the most beautiful in
the world . . . Grant me access to them, Lyuba . . .”

“My God, what’s
thees,” she’s laughing, “It’s very nice for me to hear this, Ottah, but . . .”

“There is no need
for any ‘buts,’ I beg you. Lyuba,” you exhale her name warmly, together with
the aroma of the FGD.

“What’s with you,
dear sir? I would never have thought . . .”

“Please think,
Lyuba, Lyu-bo, Lyu-bov . . .”
16

She is laughing
again, somewhat nervously, you even sense a certain anxious dryness in her
voice, but at this moment everything cuts off. The three minutes granted for
the connection have passed.

So. One thing you
have definitely figured out. You had to meet Kyrylo at his place. Ergo, you are
hanging out in front of the “Children’s World” for some other reason. But which
one, you’d sure like to know! Perhaps you could ask Dzerzhinsky. The Iron
Felix. No, the Iron Sigfried. Ask Konrad Klaus Erich Dzerzhinsky. Or Rainer
Anselm Willibald Kirov. Or Wolfgang Theodore Amadeus Lenin. He is not far away
from here, behind glass, more alive than all the living.

But here’s one
thing! You should try getting inside, crawl through the jaws of this giant and
visit its abdomen. Perhaps there you will recall everything. A small nuance, a
random hint, a remote association—and you’d recall everything: why the hell did
you come here, what all of this is for and in general, why the fuck do you
exist in this world, drunken freak with some minor rhyming talents.
Hence—avanti, to the entrance, elbowing your way through this primitive
polyethnic swarm, squeeze yourself into this world, this cruel, tight,
abnormal, nervous, cynical children’s world! For perhaps it is right here, in these
halls, on these floors, in these senseless lines for nothing our children lose
their childhood, stop being children. They leave this place as fully shaped
idiots, good only for building communism, or actually existing socialism, or
for some other similarly absurd occupations.

The first floor
is where the toys are. More exactly, where the absence of toys is. Out of the
entire possible assortment, of all the world of magical fantasies, of all the
parallel fairytale realm here exists only the folding paper dove with which the
entire floor is crammed. Thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of folding
paper doves! An entire continent of paper doves, packed in little blue boxes.
Everything else was bought up already before the revolution. And only paper doves
exist in order to create for the foreign intelligence operatives an illusion of
available goods and toy abundance. The doves are manufactured by a certain tank
factory. This is their by-product. A few faith-losing visitors buy them in
resignation. And the happy Soviet children, wiping the tears of dissatisfaction
off their cheeks, carry under their arms the flying paper pigeons.
Disappointment and losses, and grinding teeth. But the number of doves on the
shelves shows no signs of decreasing.

And where do they
have the restroom, I wonder? I desperately want to relieve myself. Periodically
you run across various absurd signs like “Exit to 1st Artillery Passage,” but
you don’t have guns on your mind, you want to shoot out of something else an
ordinary warm stream, to lighten up your heart, to be reborn in this impossible
hall, in the midst of an irritated and obedient crowd. You pass some empty
departments, then the department of toothbrushes and LPs, crammed with the same
paper doves and the stinking anthems of all the Union republics, and
here—finally!

An unambiguous
door with the letter “M.” You find a twenty-kopeck coin in your pocket. But
even if they asked for a hundred rubles, you wouldn’t haggle for a second. The
old granny by the entrance accepts your coin sympathetically. Moscow grannies
are sympathetic to drunks. They never swear at them, never reprimand, they
accept the drunks as given. To be drunk in Moscow is like having a relatively
common hair color. Can you fault a man for the color of his hair? I think not.

You move to the
urinals, surrounded by ancient tiles, possibly even dating to the Greco-Roman
times, and involuntarily notice a respectably dressed graying gentleman who is
simply standing there smoking. A slim southern type, about sixty years old, his
suit fits him impeccably, a shining pin holds his tie, a gold tooth, swarthy
complexion—must be an Azeri or a Georgian, or perhaps a Gypsy. He follows you
with a somewhat sleazy look. There seem to be so many gay guys around
lately—they must be sensing the approaching changes in the legislation and
display their inclinations with an increasing openness.

With your bag on
your shoulder, you start fighting your fly with your hands that are still
somewhat frozen from the rain. At such a moment the main thing is to stay calm
and not to succumb to wishful thinking. It would be a shame to suffer a defeat
right here, when the goal is so close. Hence your every movement is
concentrated, measured and thoughtful.

All this lasts a
rather long time, but indeed brings you satisfaction aplenty. You zip up the
fly and walk proudly past the graying guy with unusual habits. He stares at you
rather insolently, and even smiles at you with the corners of his mouth. You
are dealing with the wrong man, sir! If only I could figure out how to handle
all the gals! In vain are you trying to seduce me with your gold tooth. Ciao,
old man!

It turns out you
should have begun with the restroom. After visiting it you experienced
miraculous enlightenment, and you suddenly remembered about your friends, their
children and the reasons why you came here. You return to the hall and see the
situation as clearly as if it were on the palm of your hand. So, before it’s
too late, let’s buy two paper doves. This is the only thing you can do for your
friends and their sweet little children. In fact, it isn’t such a bad gift—a
symbol of peace and of the Holy Spirit. After all, this isn’t a tank or a
machine gun or some other piece of military stupidity.

You reach into
the bag for your wallet. Your bag has an outer pocket on the side. But the
wallet isn’t there. Okay, stay calm, von F. Of course the wallet isn’t in the
side pocket but is inside. Naturally, you put it there after paying for your
food at the “Snack Bar.” You drop on one knee and open the bag. You search for
your wallet in a thorough and determinate fashion. But you only find something
large and flat wrapped in the newspaper Literary Russia. Some fish with
whiskers. A catfish! How did it get there, who can tell me?

Oh well, the fish
is fine and good. But where’s the wallet? Where is it hiding, damn it! There
isn’t much money there, but still it’s all the money you have. All your green.
Besides, there’s also your plane ticket to go home: in two weeks you will be
returning home for good, and you spent four and a half hours in line to buy
this ticket.

Look through the
bag one more time, my dear. And you start searching in its cavity, in the
catfish’s mouth, feeling all its compartments, subcompartments, pockets. And
meanwhile the graying gentleman with a tiepin walks out of the restroom doors.
For a moment your eyes meet. Noticing you, he abruptly, at full speed, turns
right and disappears in the doors of a side exit.

This is spoiled
postmodernist consciousness for you, von F.! You mistook for a toilet queen a
pickpocket, an old sophisticated aristocrat, a virtuoso of his trade!
Undoubtedly it was he who reached into the side pocket of your bag while you
delighted in the process of urination. And now, you fool, you only have a few
seconds to think it over. Grab one of the local cops as fast as possible,
mobilize all of them to search for him, announce a Union-wide chase on the
radio, turn on the siren, gather the best criminologists and use a composite
photo! But hold on, my friend, don’t rush. In your current state it is too
risky to look for allies among the police. This adventure may end in getting
blows at your kidneys and liver and in a cold shower. And you only like hot
showers, besides you are already soaked up to here under all of Moscow’s rains.

You burst into
the same exit where the gypsy baron has just disappeared. This is a stairwell,
and there are stairs leading up, and also leading down—into the basement of the
“Children’s World.” It is doubtful that he would go down—what would he do
there, in this gloomy basement, who needs him there? Of course he could only
flee upstairs—to disappear on the upper floors, in the midst of dummies, school
uniforms, coats, pants and shoes, all of which are long gone though. Most
likely the upper floors are likewise crammed with paper doves. The criminal
could have hidden in one of the flocks of doves. So, he undoubtedly went
upstairs.