Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Star

Sunday. The morning tea is finished, but the garden can wait. Maxim Maximych kneads a filterless Belomor cigarette with his fingers, lights up, and watches the street through the window: he wonders if his daughter will bring the grandkids from the city today, or if she’ll stay there to party again. Everything went out of whack when she got mixed up with that highway criminal of hers. She was sorry for him, you see... So she had the twins. Then got divorced. Said, Papa, I’m not ever getting married again – won’t touch that mess with a ten-foot pole. And what’s the point of going out then? Soon, though, she’ll have to bring the kids for the summer – the school break has already started. And it’s only 20 minutes by bus... Half-an-hour tops.

Antonina Pavlovna is finishing her curd pancake.

“Do you figure they’ll come?”

“Huh?”

“You’re deaf as a post, aren’t you? Are you done there yet?”

“Aha.”

“Then grab the paper and read what the boys will tell me at the shift tomorrow.”

Maxim Maximych used to be a second lieutenant at the meteorological-station in Motovikha, and now guards the furniture factory. He goes in for a 24-hour shift, then is home three days to work in his garden. Antonina Pavlovna is also retired. She worked as an accountant at the city bakery, but quit a long time ago.

“Aha,” Antonina Pavlovna says reaching for the newspaper and her glasses. “From the beginning?”

“Of course not! Like you don’t know... Start at 1700.”

She begins to read:

“Monday, June 9, Channel 1. 17:20. ‘Sound your trumpets!’ A happy, joyful song opens the performance by the Pioneer propaganda brigade from the capital’s Kuybyshev district. The brigade is the winner of the Russian National School Propaganda Brigades contest. Its performances are fondly remembered by the builders of the Tomsk Chemical Plant, the Kalinin Nuclear Power Plant, by the sailors of the Black and Baltic Sea fleets, and by the hardworking kolkhoz workers of Udmurtiya. But the propaganda brigade is not the only brainchild of the Kuybyshev district Young Pioneers’ Headquarters...”

Maxim Maximych is unmoving. He listens; he no longer watches the street, however. Instead, he’s fixed Antonina Pavlovna in his motionless gaze. She takes a sip of her cooled tea and continues:

“Twenty-four years ago the Headquarters initiated an honorary guard and commemoration event ‘Remember Everyone by Name.’ Since then, every year, on Victory Day, the Young Pioneers stand to attention at the Defenders of Moscow Memorial in the Preobrazhensk Cemetery. This year alone, the boys and girls have raised 1,400 rubles to be distributed to the Peace Fund, Orphanage No. 73, and the Foundation for Battling AIDS. Neither do the Pioneers neglect those who live next door: Operation ‘We Care’ has become one of the headquarters’ biggest projects.”

Antonina Pavlovna looks up from the paper.

“It’s all pure torment for those poor kids. Boys told me, one of the girls at our school had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance after they stood guard at our Eternal Flame – it leaks gas, you know.”

“You know what, you better just stick to reading,” Maxim Maximych turns back to the window out of frustration. “That was about Victory Day they wrote – just one day, and our guys stand there all year round!”

Pavlovna nods in agreement and turns the page. She studies it for a while. Suddenly, she is transformed:

“Maxim Maximych! Hamiddulin, the one who stabbed Prokhorov! He’s now a star – fancy that!”

“Oh yeah?” Maxim Maximych turns back to face the table, much faster this time. “Come on then, what does it say?”

“It’s right here, let me mark it – I’d like to see it too: ‘Man and Law: Drinking Causes Crime.’ Channel 1. 18:40. Recently the Stargorod City Court sentenced the 28-year-old Hamiddulin to 14 years in prison. Hamiddulin was convicted of a serious crime: an attempt at murder. What began as an act of hooliganism ended in uncommon cruelty. So what really happened at Stargorod’s furniture factory, where Hamiddulin worked? One day, the young man entered the boiler room not having cleaned his muddy footwear, in direct violation of the factory’s operating procedures. The boiler room operator demanded that he leave the premises immediately and Hamiddulin was forced to comply. Several days later, in a state of drunkenness, Hamiddulin unexpectedly entered the boiler room, attacked the operator, and stabbed him 10 times before attempting to flee. He was detained. The surgeon’s skill and the EMTs’ quick response saved the victim’s life. But would the emotional wounds sustained by the boiler room operator that fateful evening ever heal? Would the shock loosen its grip on the minds of the operator’s family, his colleagues’ minds?”

“Now that’s a load of bull if I ever heard one!” Maxim Maximych waves at the paper dismissively, kneads a new Belomor cigarette, lights up.

“That Beanhill – Kolka, the one they call an ‘operator’ – he’s a dyed-in-the-wool thief and bandit, and the auditor lady was there in the boiler room the first time: she heard him call Hamiddulin a dirty goat. That day, Igoryok – Hamiddulin – he was drunk too, so what? He had a good heart, it’s just that Beanhill bullied him, so he was his whipping boy, ran to fetch him booze and such. That Beanhill, he had it coming – he wasn’t such a big boss on the inside, mark my word. And now Igoryok’s gotta sit 14 years in a special prison... and you say, he’s a star! Some star indeed...”

Maximych is so angry he jams his unfinished cigarette into the ashtray, grinds it. He gets up, goes to the door.

“In violation of the factory’s operating procedure,” he mocks. “You couldn’t get into the fucking boiler room on a tightrope, you hear me?” He doesn’t know why he is yelling at his old wife, so he adds, softly: “All right, I’ll go water now. It’s no use waiting for them now – they don’t show up ‘til dinnertime.”

He leaves.

Antonina Pavlovna clears the table, washes the dishes, thinks. She plans how she will share the news with her neighbor. It’s not anything special, of course, just a regular bit of news, but the fact that it made the first channel – that’s different.

Maxim Maximych waters his potatoes. It’s been dry, the earth is hard and caked solid; chinks of it come off like flint. He swears at the dirt, the sun and the potatoes, and in-between, when he stops for a break at the well, he repeats in amazement: “Would the shock loosen its grip on the minds of the operator’s family, his colleagues’ minds?”

“He ain’t got no family – that bitch – never had one and never will!”

He fills his bucket-sized watering can and, bending under its weight, carries it to the next row of potatoes.