Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

3

I’ve drunk my fill, in my time, to my heart’s content you could say. It’s now I’m with chickens and I don’t allow myself much, you’ve seen them – they keep you busy. Up at half past four, do chores, and it’s time to catch the bus, to the plant, and after my shift I’m back at their cages. I don’t let Zoika anywhere near them – girls, women are no good.

I can talk forever, you know, my mother used to listen to me and listen, and then she’d spit, rub it into the ground with her foot, and go back inside, to hide from me. But I could get her even there, if I needed to, especially if I were tipsy. Or else I’d go to my hog – I called him Borka – fill his trough with beer, fix myself a drink about that big and sit there and watch him work his way through it. Made him a total wino, I did. But he was my true friend. My brother, younger one, would come up sometimes, “Vovka, pour me one.” But I sent him packing – let him get it out of his wife, I was better off with Borka, my brother, he, when he drank, wore me out. Blah-blah, blah-blah-blah – and I can do that myself, why the heck would I need another one! With Borka – it was great, we’d sit together and be quiet, I’d scratch his side now and then, or he’d oink a little at me. When we went after beer with him, they always let us through – “Let Vovochka and Co. through!” Guys laughed, but I didn’t care and Borka oinked happily, he knew he’d get some too. And would you believe me – he drank from the mug and never spilled anything, not once! When ‘twas time to cut him down, I left the house not to look, and never touched that pork.

Yeah, I remember some khokhols were around drinking beer with me,²³ and said, “Hey guys, check that out, he’s growing his piglet something special, must be giving him beer to get more lard.” How could you explain things to them – they feed their pigs horseshit to get them fat, people say. Borka, closer to the end, he did get pretty big, and just lay there and looked at me now and then. And, you know, I was never without some critters. Once, this local buddy gave me a little fox terrier. “Take him, Vovochka,” he says, “I don’t have much use of him, and really it’s you I was thinking of when I got him.” I called him Yeller – he was a big barker and a true watchdog, never let a stranger close. Mother would cuss at him, and he’d just glare back at her with his teeth all bared – and I’m just sleeping in the shed, with snow blowing in through the door, but what do I care? I’ve got extra pounds and a shearling coat to keep me warm, you could shoot a cannon at me, I wouldn’t wake. Mother tried this and that, but Yeller wouldn’t let her close – he knew his job. “You son of bitch,” she says, “I’m the one who feeds you!” And he just goes, “Woof-woof!” and snaps at her finger. You couldn’t chase him away with a yoke – he was one game dog. Afterwards, the guys said, the snake-eyes that were building a bridge in our town ate him. I didn’t believe them until I lived with those folks for a while – but that was later, and first I had this idea of getting married. I was young and stupid then, had few brains left after wine.

My mother-in-law and I, we would really go at it. The grandpa, after we’d drink together, was all right, but if I were on my own, even he would start looking at me askance. Because you know, I moved in with them in the city, into their big apartment. At first it was all fine and dandy, but then my better half started getting distracted. All right, I thought, I should give her something to keep her busy. So I got a pair of little black lambs from a local buddy that worked at the slaughterhouse – I thought we’d raise them, or, again, make her, the wife, a nice fur collar for her coat. When they bring sheep to the slaughter, you know, some give birth right there, so my buddy just picked them up and carried them out. I put them into a box, got on the bus home. And of course, they’re going “blah-ah-ah,” poor things, whimpering in that box. This one lady goes, “What’s that you have in the box?” The wife, I say, brought a pair of unplanned twins into this world, so I’m goin’ to the pond to drown ‘em. She left me alone.

Great, I thought, sat back in my seat, almost dozed off, but everyone’s around going “shoo-shoo-shoo” in whispers. So I got home, and everyone’s already asleep. I went to bed too. Gramps got up in the middle of the night for a drink of water and thought delirium tremens had finally made him start seeing imps, roused my mother-in-law, and told her to call emergency services. She couldn’t figure it out either, so they sat up all night in their room, without a wink of sleep. In the morning, sure thing – they made a ruckus. “The floor’s covered in sheep crap, the carpet’s ruined!” the three of them yelled at me in unison. So I said, to heck with you, got my lambs and went home to my mother. Never saw them again and didn’t go to court for divorce – send me all the summonses you want, I burned them all. I had my own man in the police, Kolka the lieutenant, we went to school together. He kept at me: go somewhere, Vovochka, put yourself to use or else you’ll drink yourself stupid, you’ve got a good head on you, forget your wench, just go. As to the good head, I know that myself – I was the best at math in school, put me to any machine – I’ll puzzle it out, it’s not a matter of rank at the factory, but of brains, and my pot, thank goodness, always boils.

Kolka the lieutenant tried to talk some sense into me. Once – wait, this is funny – he and I got into my garden, lay down under the currant bushes and had a good time. He’s talking sense into me, but at the same time, because he’s alright, he’s keeping up: pick a berry, squish it with your tongue, then take a sip, and get another one. Mom had close to thirty bushes there – what else could a man want!

Suddenly I see these feet under the fence.

“Kolya,” I whispered, “we’ve been tailed.”

Sure enough, it’s Filka Wolfov himself – he often liked to shave a free drink off of you. But this time… his feet don’t follow each other straight, in one hand he’s got the shaving brush, lathered up, in the other – the razor, and his head’s like Frankenstein: left eye glued shut and the hair all greener than grass, and dried and spiky. Turns out his wife poured a can of paint over his head when he didn’t make it all the way home and instead fell asleep in the shed. So he came ‘round, you know, realized what happened and ran to me.

“Vovochka!” he bawls. “Shave it off! I can take, I can take it!”

First thing, we poured two glassfuls into him as an anesthetic, and then I set to scraping his scalp off–the paint had dried! I scraped as best I could, then washed him in kerosene several times, but the greenness got into his skin and he walked around for a while like that, painted. Since then he’s become Crocodile, but before he had a manly name – Filya the Wolf. One day, not too long ago, I ran into him, and remembered the story, so of course I grinned ear to ear, and he hisses, “Shush, Vovochka! The guys just got over it!” So, I kept it zipped, absolutely.

Yeah, we had some good times, but I listened to Kolka the lieutenant, signed up for the surveyors’ team and took off for Taymyr. Now that was life! I had two pals there – one was also Vovochka, we called him Paratrooper, and the other was Kolka Goldilocks – he was some sort of Veps, or a Karelian, probably Karelian, the Veps are meaner. Kolka was short, like this, barely up to my shoulder, but he was a game dude, and thick as a bull, muscles like granite. His hair was all smooth on top of his head – that’s ‘cause he never took his little stocking hat off, even in the labor camp – and below, down to his shoulders, he had these blonde curls like a girl. One old lady took him for a priest, called him Father… “I’m no Father,” he says. “Fathers are all six feet under at Solovki.” He was like that. So the three of us teamed up, and everyone respected us and feared us a bit, too. Kolka, I’m telling you, was chiseled out of granite, arms like excavator claws – he had his share of ax-swinging in logging camp and even when he got out, he never really left the woods. On a march, he could cover 50 kilometers like a prize stallion, no sweat. The Paratrooper was a different story, he was the brains, a smart man, only his head shook and his left eye blinked by itself – all from jumping. I don’t know how many times he jumped exactly, with his parachute, but it was plenty. Those paratroopers are like us chicken-people – all nuts, maniacs. So the three of us made camp together in a ravine, and no one bothered us – they knew what they’d get back. Back in those days, I pushed 240 without a gram of fat, it’s now that I spread out in winter and trim up in summer, when you gotta’ run after the critters.

I lost Vovka stupidly. I flew home to Arzamas one month, and they stayed behind. Goldilocks didn’t go on the next trek, he must’ve still had money, but Vovka did.

And the rivers there can flood like God forbid. So they came to this little stream and it’s rushing full. The instructions always said to stretch a safety line first, but no one ever did that. Long story short, it took us a month to find him. Sent him back in a zinc coffin – you couldn’t see much through its peephole, and there wasn’t much in there to see. There he went and gave his precious life, without drink, clean as a whistle, we wouldn’t drink for months when we were trekking.

After that Goldilocks and I went off – burned through a couple grand in a blink. One day we’re sitting there, thinking what to do. Where we were, they sold wine in three-liter jars, and we only had one left – between the two of us, that was nothing. So we’re sitting by this store and this Gypsy comes riding up on his horse. I point at him, meaning, look Kolka, how far the bastards have spread through the country.

“That,” Kolka says, “is a gift from St. Nicholas. Exactly what we need.”

He waves the Gypsy over and takes the bull by the horns: “How would you like it if I lifted your horse off the ground with one finger? Bet five jars.”

Gypsy doesn’t take long to convince – he’s game, and folks gather round, curious, standing around, waiting for the show.

I’m staring right along with them – I figure Kolka’s bluffing. But that was not his style. He climbed under the nag, whispered some spell to it from underneath, and kept stroking its belly until he found his spot – then when he did, he climbed out, stood by the horse’s side and gave her a poke with his finger, and he had fingers like sixteen-penny nails, I tell you. The horsey, believe it or not, just sort of lifted off, not like rearing up or to kick, but just as it were standing, all four hooves off the ground at once, and all Goldilocks had to do was put his finger under her and lower her gently back.

The Gypsy zipped into the store without a word. Next thing you know he’s got five jars and puts them down on the grass in front of Kolka.

“Show me the spot – I’ll buy you ten more.”

“Nah,” Goldilocks says. “Give me a hundred rubles for a round count – I’ll show you.”

The Gypsy’s game – he’s already thinking how he’ll strip his whole tribe naked. They must’ve been under that horse for half an hour, crawling on their knees and poking the poor thing all around the belly – but the Gypsy couldn’t get it to work and with Kolka she just hung in the air, every time. So the horseman had to ride off empty-handed. He looked glum, that’s for sure, but what can you do – he lost the bet fair and square.

Of course, folks all flocked to us, one thing led to another, and our five jars evaporated like they were never there. So we dragged ourselves to the local restaurant – and in this god-forsaken Ust-Tareya there was only one. It was always either our plantation crew there or the local officers – they had a construction garrison quartered there. So we sat quietly in the corner and kept to ourselves, but the soldiers were having a grand ol’ time. Suddenly one of them whips out his gun and –bang! bang! – starts blasting into the air. It was later that we figured we didn’t hear bullets whistling, so it was a signaling gun, and at the moment – howls, screams, women in hysterics, plates flying off the tables like rainbows – and we went to set things right. While we were busy stomping down that poor lieutenant and tying him up with tablecloths, the waitresses called the station and got us a ride. They packed us in all like rabbits, together with the tied-up sharpshooter, and then at the jailhouse they put him in one cell – and everyone else into the other. There were four of us, and we kept seeing more and more of them filing into our room. Well, I think to myself, they’re gonna get you straightened out, Vovochka, put your affairs in order. I was all shaped up to take it like a man, when my Karelian, the shorty, pops up from under my elbow, comes up to their Captain, and says:

“Listen, mate, I wanna’ show you something before we get started. Anyone got a five kopek piece?”

They found one for him – he bit it with his teeth, grabbed it with his fingers and – twist, twist! – twisted it into a corkscrew. Gave it back to the Captain as a souvenir and said, very clearly, “Mind you, guys, I like doing that to shoulder-blades, too.” And reinstated himself in his corner quietly.

Naturally, they didn’t believe him. Gave him another– he fashioned a bow-tie out of that too. And now what do you think? Our officers were all blooming like daisies in a flowerbed… They took us in, wined and dined us, and we parted as best friends – they turned out to be generous and well-mannered people.