Memoir of a Russian Punk

16

After Easter, Eddie-baby started visiting Vitka in Tyurenka a lot. It turned out that his grandmother didn't just make home brew for the holidays. The cold, brown, explosive liquid resembling harmless kvass stood in the vestibule of the Nemchenko house all year round. Eddie-baby remembers sitting with Vitka all spring and summer, singing along with his accordion. Vitka also played the guitar and was learning how to play the trumpet. He dreamed of becoming a musician in a restaurant, whereas for Eddie-baby it was enjoyment enough just to sing the Tyurenka songs he learned from Vitka. Some of the songs were at least fifty years old, and most of them were thieves' songs – about prison, about the joy of getting out, and even about the joy of going back in. And about love, of course. Prison and love – that's what most occupied the minds and hearts of the people of Tyurenka.

"'The prosecutor demanded our execution…,'" Vitka sang, and Eddie-baby's heart sank as he applied the situation to himself. It seemed to him that it was his own and Kostya's execution that the prosecutor was demanding, and that he and Kostya were sitting "on a bench in a hot people's court…," where "you could see the curtain swaying and hear the buzzing of the flies…"

The details of the song, for all their apparent triteness, were remarkably exact. Eddie's presence had more than once been required in a hot people's court, which even in the summertime was always heated, so that with the abundance of grief, the multitude of relatives of those on trial, and the emotions, tears, howls, and fainting spells that were their portion, it was nearly impossible to breathe. And Eddie was acquainted too with the terrible silence that reigns when the judge finally emerges and everyone stands up and he clears his throat before pronouncing the sentence.

And what an explosion of joy when it's only "fifteen years!" and not the firing squad.

I see, the defense attorney smiles at us,

After taking a pistol from his pocket;

I see, they've changed the judge for us,

The prosecutor demands five years!

Our mothers weep for joy,

The escort even smiles at us.

Why didn't you come, blue-eyed one,

To say farewell to me?…

"The blue-eyed bitch," Eddie-baby thinks angrily. "She's betrayed me. Well, it doesn't matter," Eddie persuades himself. "I'll get out of Kolyma and take my revenge. I'll get my revenge! After all, Tolik Vetrov escaped from Kolyma. That means it's possible. I'll come and stand threateningly in her doorway. 'Well, then, Svetka?' I'll say to her."