Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

The Magic Letter

Viktor Ivanovich Ropin is a born outdoorsman, camper and hiker, and in summer, when he has a chance to get out of town, pitch his tent, arrange his campsite just so, sit down before a fire and grab his guitar... well, then he is truly happy.

Viktor Ivanovich is a music teacher, but the most important thing in his life is summer. In summers he works as a camping instructor at the Stargorod Tourist Camp and he also takes groups on boating trips. A hundred miles of rowing’s just the thing to separate the men from the boys. Sometimes he gets real whiners in his group – and woe to them; Viktor Ivanovich doesn’t cut anybody any slack. Eventually, though, they always find the rhythm, get used to the work, and thank him in the end, of course they do – he takes them to see places they’d never find anywhere else, the lake, the little tributaries – and they get there rowing, by the work of their muscle alone.

Oh yes... His last trip went really well – everyone left happy. People became friends. Working together – it brings people closer. It was only he, the guide, who got into a bit of trouble: the woman who seemed to favor him during the entire trip, as soon as they got back to the camp, went out with a man from Moscow. And the most upsetting thing was – it was his 50th birthday yesterday, not just any birthday – his 50th! They had talked about how they would celebrate it together, made plans; Viktor Ivanovich had put away some money – and then she dumped him! Still, he tried not to get too upset about it – all women are the same.

She said she was sorry for him!.. Oh no, he wouldn’t have any of that – no tear-jerking sentiments, that’s what he told her, up front. He’s gotten used to being straight with women. She can take her pity and stick it – he knows how their pity works, he’s seen his good share of it. He’s been burned twice; he’s had to trade his apartment that he’d worked so hard to get for two smaller, separate ones – but now he’s got his own place, and no one can reach him there. And why should anyone pity him? It’s all games... The woman left in a huff. Good riddance! There’s a new tourist group coming – there’ll be others. The thing’s to stay calm, not to get worked up about it. Stress is unhealthy.

And still – it hurt. It was his 50th birthday, and even his son didn’t come – the boy’s also pissed at him. He’d come to ask for 40 rubles – wanted to buy some special sneakers at the market. He’ll be fine without – it’s not the end of the world. Viktor Ivanovich at that age didn’t have a pair of sturdy boots, never mind some shitty sneakers for 40 rubles. It was his big birthday, and he’d only put aside 50 to spend on it – and here was the kid wanting 40 for a piece of junk.

It’s too bad it didn’t work out, though. He really wanted it.

He went to bed angry and sober, and didn’t even watch the TV.

Come to think about it, this summer hasn’t been good at all. He’d spent the whole winter looking forward to it, rearranging and fixing his equipment, and suffering through the classes he taught at the school – he hated those more than anything else, it was torture. He let the kids play punk rock on the school’s rattling tape deck and dreamed of summer.

Viktor Ivanovich hated his students. He taught choir, and even his fifth-graders couldn’t hold a note together – they were all rickety, weasely children of alcoholics, juvenile delinquents. He left them alone. He understood it was pointless to teach them choir. He’d come into the classroom and sit behind his desk. The kids turned on the tape, and he spaced out for 45 minutes. And then another 45. And another. He dreamed of summer.

If a fight started in the back of the class, he’d get in and twist a couple ears, but more often he’d just grab the broom and give the instigators a few jabs on their behinds. That’s all right, it’d only do them good: the kids saw much worse things at home and didn’t hold a grudge against their teacher. Viktor Ivanovich remembered his own strict upbringing well – in a home for the Leningrad blockade orphans.

The kids today – you don’t even want to think about them... Everything’s just going to hell in a handbasket. Old ladies say the End is near, with a capital E. Who knows, maybe they’re right: everywhere you look is sloth and ignorance, no one wants to work. And the women? He doesn’t count them as really human. At first, he tried – he wanted to make a home, have a family. But no – all she wanted was him to give her money. Women are all the same – they use you, they rob you, and then they move on to greener pastures. And sometimes they sue you. They’d put you in jail if they could.

He was raising his son right – as a real outdoorsman. The kid’ll thank him when he gets drafted. But his mother... She just couldn’t leave well enough alone, and she ruined everything. She keeps spoiling the boy – and what happens? All he thinks about is going out to discotheques and his damn sneakers. He runs in for a minute, asks for a tenner, and disappears. God forbid you say anything to him: he gets upset and cries. The boy cries! He’s got no manhood in him. And when his son cries, Viktor Ivanovich can’t help but feel sorry for him, and gives the boy what he wants. What kind of a future generation is this?

This is precisely why Viktor Ivanovich has decided to ignore the young people, and to keep his emotions strictly under control. You can’t feel sorry for everyone; plus, being felt sorry for has never done anybody any good. And one’s nervous cells do not regenerate! So it’s like he’s ordered himself to stay healthy. He’ll live a long time yet: he bikes almost everywhere, and lifts weights, and takes cold showers. He doesn’t smoke or drink, reads Arguments and Facts and Ogonyok. For a while, he joined the Stargorod Green Movement Society, but got disappointed and left. He realized no one wanted to hear what he had to say – so he left. He doesn’t need any favors from anyone. They all thought they were smarter than him. Fine. All they did was talk, and he doesn’t need more talkers in his life. He doesn’t need anyone. He went home alone, boiled some potatoes, and ate them with sardines and sauerkraut. Great stuff! Who needs women?..

He can have his pick of them in summer; he’s not one to go to the city’s Over Thirty Club – that’s just plain embarrassing. No, he’s done everything alone, all his life, and that’s the only way to make yourself happy – you have to do it, no one else can help you. Nature, nature alone can heal. The quiet. The fire. The fish soup boiling in the pot. The moon. Do you know the kind of moons we have over Stargorod? You don’t see moons like that anywhere else in the world.

He takes hiking groups because they need him. He can whip up a tent in a blink, and start a fire from a single match – and these big-city folks from Moscow and Leningrad... Well, let’s just say they have a lot to learn. Book smarts is one thing, but he’s graduated from the Culture Institute too (correspondence course), yet he doesn’t shout about it on every corner.

And after every trip, they thank him. They always thank him. “Thank you, Viktor Ivanovich,” they say, “It was a trip of a lifetime!” And they do remember these trips – of course they do, look at how beautiful it is all around here, it’s the real Russia! She, she alone heals a troubled heart.

Because of his large bald spot, some call him Pleshner.¹⁵ He knows they do. He knows who these people are, too. His colleagues from the school, all those gossips and ne’er-do-wells, and the women from the tourist camp – he tries to avoid them all. Not one of them said as much as a Happy Birthday when he turned 50. Could have sent a card, at least. One from the whole staff, it wouldn’t have killed them. But no, instead he gets nasty notes stuffed into his mailbox. To heck with it – he’s managed just fine without them, and he’ll be fine just the same. And the woman can take her pity and stuff it.

Soon, soon enough the new group of tourists will come, and with them – new women. He’ll have his trips. And his peace. And his islands. The still expanse of the river. The fish-soup in a pot over the open fire. And his guitar. When asked, Viktor Ivanovich plays Russian romances and sings. And people enjoy listening to him. They do.

✵ ✵ ✵

Viktor Ivanovich went down the stairs carrying his bicycle – it was time to go check in at the camp. He had no particular reason to be there, but he went every day anyway, as if to work. Sometimes there were things to be fixed or painted. And all they paid him – it’s a shame to say it! – was 40 rubles a month, part-time. But he wasn’t doing it for the money – money can’t buy inspiration, as they say.

He checked his mailbox purely out of habit – he wasn’t expecting anything good there. There was a single sheet of paper in there, a page torn out of a school notebook. Viktor Ivanovich pulled it out – he already knew what it was. Another note from the kids.

They’d been tormenting him all winter: there were notes with a skull and bones, or unprintable obscenities, or threats to set his door on fire. Little sons of bitches – what had he done to them? But he bore it patiently for a long time. Once or twice he tried to ambush whoever did it. Finally he couldn’t stand it anymore, went and complained to the precinct duty policeman. The cop just laughed at him: “What do you want, boys will be boys!” he said. Boys! These are underage criminals! His son is turning into one of them, never mind how much his father might beat him. These are the boys who changed the points on the siding at the train yard – it was just luck the trackman saw it before anything happened. That made quite a stir. And it was this same precinct captain who saved their little asses then, the bastard – he had to cover for his own kid. Law and order, my ass! Look at all the muck in the stairwells, and the words carved out in the elevators, and all these young punks hanging together at night – it’s a miracle they haven’t raped anyone yet.

After that conversation at the precinct Viktor Ivanovich commanded himself to ignore the captain, too – and he used to say hello to the man whenever he saw him.

But the note turned out to be something out of the ordinary. Viktor Ivanovich read:

This is a good-luck letter.

This letter brings good fortune. The original of this letter is kept in Holland. Now the Letter has come to you. With this letter you will receive good fortune and happiness, but on one condition: you must send the letter onward. This is not a joke. You will receive happiness. Money can’t buy happiness. Send this letter to someone you know who is in need of happiness. Do not delay. You must send 20 copies of this letter in the next 106 hours (4 days). Even if you don’t believe in magic. This Letter began its life in 1842. Arthur Conan Doyle received this letter and told his secretary to make twenty copies. Four days later, he won a million. One office worker got this letter and threw it out – and was in an accident the next day. Someone placed a copy of this Letter at Khrushchev’s dacha in 1964, and Khrushchev tore it up. Two days later, his colleagues from the Politburo toppled him. Under no circumstances can you tear or shred this letter; treat it kindly. You will see the results four days after you send all 20 copies.

Do NOT alter the text of the letter.

That’s what it said. On a piece of ruled paper. A handwritten carbon copy.

For whatever reason, the letter struck Viktor Ivanovich as funny. It’s too bad none of his neighbors were around – he’d have shown it to them. They’re all old ladies, though – stupid old hens, they’d probably make a fuss over it.

He’s gotten some “holy” letters before, but this was the first one that promised happiness. Good fortune. On a silver platter, so to speak.

So, what’s going on here? Little old ladies with nothing to do are now after good fortune and untold riches? They’d want it free, of course. Just copy the thing 20 times, and here you go, here’s your million. Like Conan Doyle. An elevator ride to heaven, wouldn’t you like that... But there are no elevators – this ain’t the place with miracles we live in, he knows that for a fact. A man has to make things happen. With his own two hands. You reap what you sow, that’s right.

But he didn’t toss the letter – he thought he’d show it to the folks at the camp, they’d have a laugh. Or maybe he’ll give it to the old Leshcheva – let her copy it and get some happy times come her way. She does nothing but complain about her life and her son. Her son drinks, and his wife drinks too, and Grandma Leshcheva feels sorry for them all – usually for a week or two, then she goes right back to cursing them. Than back to pitying, and back to cursing again. That’s how they get along; she mostly sits on the bench by the apartment building, waiting for someone to come by and talk to her – when she’s had a chance to complain to someone, mourn her lot, shed a tear, she feels better, and another day’s gone. But what else do you expect: she’d raised that boy without a father, he’d basically grown up in the juvenile system. You won’t get a decent grandkid out of a son like that either: the little one just takes after the father.

That’s it – he’ll give it to her. She’ll copy it and send it around. All her country friends – they believe this nonsense. They believe everything you tell them. Dreams – they believe in those. The Evil Eye. Jinxes. That, if the priest’s wife were to take a swing with the incense burner, all the drowned would come up from the bottom of the river. UFOs.

UFOs are a special topic, Viktor Ivanovich’s favorite. He enjoys telling stories about aliens at campfires, knock those arrogant Moscow types down a rung. They try to argue with him – bring up the so-called facts from newspapers, but he beats them at physics. There is no natural law anywhere in the universe that would allow an object to travel faster than a speed of light, is there? He shoots holes in their theories with natural laws – they don’t know their physics from their botany. And as far as the newspapers are concerned, there’s a reason journalism is called the second oldest profession on earth, the first being whoring, of course. Whores is what they are, those journalists.

Journalists... He had one in a group once; the son-of-a-bitch was only good at drinking and eating, you couldn’t make him work with a stick. He’d probably believe a letter like this, too. Never mind there’s no logic in it whatsoever – that never bothered them before. Viktor Ivanovich, they said, doesn’t understand the supernatural. Supernatural or not, but when he made them row across the lake – in the rain, he did it on purpose – they changed their tune, didn’t they? They barely made it. He’d put the fear of God in them that day, better than any UFOs! They thanked him later, of course – until the day they left, they talked about how he saved them. He didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

The thought of that poor journalist (the wimp!) instantly improved Viktor Ivanovich’s mood, and he effortlessly sped off on his bicycle. Only at the camp’s gates, near the village, did he again remember the letter: he spotted the old woman Leshcheva at her post on the bench, she was watching her grandkids, as always. The kids, also as always, were dirty, snot smeared under their noses, and covered, at the moment, in clay – they were making tanks out of mud. Of course, when your parents sell your toys to buy vodka, you make do with mud. How else? And if you’re in third grade already and can’t read, that’s not a big deal. How could anyone raise a decent kid in a pigsty like this?

Viktor Ivanovich stopped and gave the old woman the letter; it’ll keep her busy all night – she’s barely literate, too, reads syllable-by-syllable and writes horribly. The silly woman was happy, though, and kept thanking him and bowing after him. He laughed at her a little after he pulled away.

And then it started – as soon as he got to the camp. First, the director dragged him over the coals for leaving the little window in the warehouse ajar last night: someone had stolen four sleeping bags and a tent. He had to think on his feet to appease her – he was lucky he thought to remind her how he covered for her during the last audit, when the linen counts didn’t add up. She said she wouldn’t take it out of his salary, this time. But everyone’s stealing – he’s the only one who hadn’t taken even a single nail! Pleshner’s always guilty. How else?

He went to check the window: turned out the glass was cracked, so whoever got in, just pulled out the broken-off part from the frame, reached in, unlocked the window, and then put the piece of glass back where it was. Viktor Ivanovich took the window of its hinges and started replacing the glass – and then sliced his finger. Blood spurted everywhere; it took him forever to stop the bleeding by sucking on his finger, and the taste of blood lingered in his mouth.

And then his son showed up.

“Hey, Dad, thanks for the cover-up,” he said. “I hoped you wouldn’t be mad – we just went camping last night.”

The boy dropped a backpack at his feet. Inside: everything that was missing. Apparently, he and his friends decided to celebrate the end of the school year, and Mom let them spend the night outdoors.

Is that so? Of course, the bastard knew where to go. He didn’t go for the used or worn stuff, oh no – he picked the best sleeping bags and the brand new tent! Why didn’t he just come and ask for it?

Viktor Ivanovich wanted to control himself, but couldn’t. He grabbed his belt and... the worst thing was, the boy didn’t even understand why he was being punished. He just clenched his teeth (“That’s my boy!” Viktor Ivanovich thought) and then, after he broke free, snarled over his shoulder, like a stab:

“You bloody tight-ass!”

He said it and ran.

He – a tight-ass! That was too much. Viktor Ivanovich got on his bike, caught up with the kid in the village, and stopped him – to talk.

They talked for a long time, walking up and down the road. Viktor Ivanovich did most of the talking – he tried to make the boy understand that what he did was shameful. Finally, it seemed he got through to him. The boy broke down and started crying, and at that point he had to go ahead and give him the 40 rubles for the sneakers. The kid had been dreaming of those forever, and Viktor Ivanovich never got to use the money he put away for his birthday anyway.

They parted peacefully, more or less. Viktor Ivanovich went back to the camp; he wanted to fix the roof on one of the cabins – the shingles kept coming loose, so he climbed up there to nail them. Below him, music was playing; the group he’d just taken camping had gotten together to grill – and no one even as much as glanced at him, up on the roof, tapping with his hammer. Later, he ate at the cafeteria, the cooking lady gave him lunch; he ate it in the kitchen, didn’t go to sit at a table in the dining room – to heck with them all!

In the afternoon, he went to the spit. He wanted to look at the Lake. He sat there for a while, and felt better. He almost got attuned to nature, but it just wasn’t his day: that woman, who refused him for a Muscovite, she showed up arm-in-arm with that man, and he wearing only his swimming trunks, she in her swimsuit. They were laughing. At least he saw them first – he darted into the bushes, before they could notice him. Next to him, under the bush he spotted the mutt from the camp, Niurka. The little bitch found the shade to hide from the sun. She panted. He’d just seen her a minute ago mating with a village dog, and now she was here.

When the dog saw Viktor Ivanovich, she crawled towards him, wiggling solicitously, tail tucked between her legs and wagging. He stroked her head once, twice, and then suddenly kicked her, hard – she flew up into the air, and fled howling towards the village. He saw she was limping.

Tears burst from his eyes – he was so angry. He couldn’t breathe for a moment – his throat closed in a bitter spasm. No, you can’t go on like that – you can’t let your nerves do this to you!

Gradually, he felt himself again. For a while, he just stood there and looked at the setting sun – it always made him happy. It was almost dark when he locked the warehouse and his little office, got on his bicycle and rode home.

The sun was almost gone beyond the Lake. Everything around him was settling down, growing still. And everywhere it was green, and the water shimmered, and it was beautiful. This was peace.

In four days (exactly as the letter promised!) new people would come to the camp. Who knows what new good fortune might come his way. Viktor Ivanovich even snorted softly, caught up in the pleasant daydreaming.

He’ll handpick his next group, oh he will. He’ll put them through hell and high water – he’ll get all that big-city ennui (or whatever they call it) knocked out of them. They’ll come back revived, tanned, happy – they’ll remember him. And they’ll thank him.

When he stopped in the village, he heard women talking: Niurka, the little dog, had gone rabid. Grandma Leshcheva raised a switch at her to chase her away from the kids, and the dog turned on her and bit her leg. Vovka Leshchev, the old woman’s son, promised to find the bitch and shoot her. And he’ll do it for sure – he’s big on killing things.

Viktor Ivanovich rode home; he pushed the pedals, not feeling any exertion – the bike rolled on smoothly, at a good pace, as usual. He remembered the magic letter and smiled. Some luck it brought the old lady – three stitches. There’s your miracle on a silver platter.

15. Plesh is Russian for “bald spot.”