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

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CLOSE TO ZERO had not asked anyone about anything, but long ago he figured out that he was dealing with people whose development had for some reason remained at a grade-school level—meaning it had halted, but not stopped completely. Every meeting with the kids (and he called them that—kids) left a weird impression on him; he liked talking to them, telling them about the president, the prime minister, Russia, and, for crying out loud, modernization—to see how they listened attentively to him with mouths agape, trying to remember everything he said. The phenomenal memory of his students was something he himself could envy, but they were obviously jealous of him—so intelligent and all grown-up—and even though he understood that there was something unsavory about it, he grew to like himself too. In the evenings, drinking alone in his room, he would think that if such kidults—and there were no such creatures on the planet who fit this definition better—had appeared from somewhere, then it would make more sense to turn them into, well, I don’t know, some sort of universal soldiers or suicidal terrorists. An army of fearless suicides, ready to take over the world—that would be great, but this way—well, why them, who needs them? Close to Zero smiled; yesterday he had given Katya and Masha an assignment—these girls could draw pretty well for their age—to design a poster for the dining room: a flag with the slogan, “Forward, Russia!” They drew it, and the poster was like a grown-up had done it, but the slogan came out as, “Fardwor, Russia!” He brought the poster to the director, who laughed, then asked him to leave the poster with him; he would show it off in Moscow and entertain a certain someone with it.

The director was the only person Close to Zero communicated with in this facility. There was also, of course, the boy Kostya, who had stayed after the lecture one time for classroom duty (he had to water the flowers, wipe the blackboard, and sweep the floor in the auditorium) and suddenly asked Close to Zero, who also hadn’t left yet after the bell rang, if he had a mother. Close to Zero answered that yes, he had one, and the boy said that he did too. More to himself than to the boy, Close to Zero countered: that’s strange, I thought everybody here was an orphan. Kostya knew the word “orphan” and explained that in fact, kids here have no moms or dads, but he just had no dad, his dad died when Kostya was young, but he had a mom, she just drank a lot, and once, when Kostya had gone out for a walk, he got lost, and he was picked up by a police officer, and for three days Kostya stayed at the police station, and his mom never came, and then they sent him to the orphanage.

“How many years ago was that?” Close to Zero asked Kostya, who appeared to be thirty-five years old. Kostya didn’t get the question, and said, “In winter,” and Close to Zero forgot about that conversation. However, after that, he started to pay more attention to Kostya than the others, to ask him how things were going, to say things especially addressed to Kostya during lectures, personally addressing Kostya, but only now it hit him—damn, what if he meant this winter?