Fardwor, Russia!: A Fantastical Tale of Life Under Putin

XXIV

THE MAIN PURPOSE of Filimonenko’s visit to Karpov was simply to brighten his mood, which had been ruined by Slava and his visit the evening prior. Filimonenko didn’t like being made to feel afraid, especially when the source of the fear was just two or three or however many words Slava had used that evening. But while Kolya and his two partners were beating Karpov, Filimonenko first of all didn’t feel any sense of satisfaction, because as a matter of fact, even if this chump was to blame, then it was only for his own stupidity; since no one had warned him about anything, he couldn’t have expected it, and in his place Filimonenko wouldn’t have expected anything either. Yes—in his place, precisely, and this was the second thing—the ataman suddenly thought that it might not be a bad idea to have a liter or two of this liquid. And when Karpov said that he could understand words as well, Filimonenko asked Kolya to “Fuck him up some more”—and Karpov collapsed, but the ataman said: “Well, it’s been a pleasure, thanks, boys,” and dismissed his guys, who left him alone with Karpov. Fifteen minutes later he walked out to his GMC with a newspaper-wrapped parcel from which protruded the neck of a two-liter Coca-Cola bottle filled with a yellowish liquid. If anyone had seen it, they would have thought that it was homebrew.

And a week later a discussion thread called “A Tiger” popped up on the town’s Internet forum; naturally, some teenager had spotted a tiger in the fields behind the institute, and didn’t just see it, but had been forced to flee through the forest belts, and he himself didn’t know how he managed to outrun it. The only one who believed him was a Muscovite who suggested that perhaps the tiger had escaped from the zoo, but, of course, there were no zoos in the town, not even in the regional center, and posters quickly explained this to the Muscovite, but they didn’t feel any need to explain anything to the teenager who started the thread, the rest of the replies to his post amounted to the forum’s resident posters commenting they wouldn’t be against meeting the dealer who had supplied such powerful weed to the guy who had come up with this tiger story. And when someone wrote, “Yes, I also saw something, but it wasn’t a tiger, a tiger’s hide has orange stripes, but this one was a kind of gray, sort of faded-looking, but on the other hand, anything will fade under the sun in these latitudes.” Anyway, when this post appeared in the thread, everyone of course assumed that the author was the same as the first guy, or was just some other jokester, even though his joke wasn’t that funny: a faded tiger, L-O-L.

But then the District Office of Civil Defense and Emergency Management issued a press release calling on citizens to remain calm, because there had been multiple sightings of a large predator from the cat family in the town’s vicinity—they thought it to be a type of jungle cat or a lynx, but it had not yet been caught. Whoever saw the animal was advised to immediately call 01, or 112 if from a cell phone. After this bulletin, a trio of impostors immediately appeared on the forum, claiming that they had been the ones who wrote the first post about the tiger, but then someone wrote something about boobs and the discussion, as often happens on the Internet, came to a dead end.

Meanwhile the ataman Filimonenko was drinking—not because he regretted taking the bottle of serum from the unfortunate Karpov, but because things didn’t turn out so well with the kitten, and he really should have started with piglets, but little pigs didn’t interest the ataman, and the kitten was so cute, the ataman had even thought up a funny name for him—Galustyan. He carried him by the scruff of his neck, laid him out in the palm of his hand, and injected the entire syringe into his belly. The kitten yowled at first, and then drank a liter of milk within an hour. The ataman poured out some more—milk for Galustyan, vodka for himself—and rejoiced in how cool it was that there were kittens in the world.

But after four days Galustyan—already a burly cat that came up the ataman’s waist—jumped over the fence and ran off somewhere. The ataman thought, “I should go find him,” but then spit and occupied himself with other matters.