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

II

WHEN THEY AGAIN passed the intersection by the cemetery, Karpov wasn’t as nervous as he had been the day before, but something was still going on, and he even said, “No matter where or when, you really can’t go home again;” and it took Marina a few extra seconds before she realized that this was actually a quote from a real poem, not just something that had come out rhyming accidentally. His mood that night infected her too. She had almost come to terms with this foreign-feeling place, with its tin Red Army soldier standing guard, but she couldn’t understand what sort of place this town was where she was going to have to live, and it made her nervous.

Of course they missed their turn. They went back and forth for a long time, and then, when they had finally found their way, and Karpov had dismissed the taxi driver, they spent a while standing by the door to a building’s entrance—in his childhood there hadn’t been a combination lock here, but now there was, and he didn’t know the code. They sat on a bench in front of the entrance; Karpov was again telling some story and Marina was again not listening, but then a tall skinny guy came out of the entrance with a bucket and Karpov got excited again, and calling out to the guy, Gennady (and using an intimate tone that was not typical of him when talking with strangers and people he didn’t know well), began to explain who he was and whose grandson he was. Gennady listened silently at first, then embraced him and then, not noticing Marina, dragged Karpov into the building’s entrance, and Marina followed them, then they rang and rang the doorbell of an old lady, and finally the old lady came out and also embraced Karpov and invited them for dinner, and he told her that he would come for dinner next time but that now his wife (“Oh, you’re married?”) was really tired, and so he needed the key. The old lady went off somewhere and then finally returned with the key, and then Karpov applied some incredible diplomatic skill in getting away, explaining to Gennady that he would drink with him next time. And only after these procedures did Marina find herself in a spacious, dusty apartment, one which had clearly been vacant for years. She went from room to room, stepped out onto the balcony, turned on the television (it worked), inspected the kitchen, then returned to the television and sat down in an armchair. She wondered whether she would like this place or not, and whether she could live here. She understood nothing. She closed her eyes.

The doorbell rang, Karpov opened it. In walked Gennady, who was evidently overjoyed at having new friends. Marina observed Gennady and Karpov through the door and decided not to get up and go into the other room. The neighbor had brought a three-liter bottle of milk and was saying something; Marina made no effort to catch what it was, but she understood that Gennady was congratulating Karpov for his wise decision: Moscow is hectic and uncomfortable, but here it’s nice and quiet, and the apartment was a good one—“Warm, dry, and not a single rat.”

“Well, I’m hoping to buy as much of that kind of stuff as I can here,” Marina heard him say to Gennady.

“What stuff?” their neighbor didn’t understand. “Apartments?”

“Not apartments,” her husband laughed. “Rats, of course.”