Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Pickle and Little Dragon

In the time before memory, in what would become the Stargorod district, there lived a people called the Komsi. They worked only so hard, drank themselves silly on braga,² and then soaked for weeks in banyas which in their tongue they called “saunas.” When the hard-working Slavs arrived, they easily crushed the Komsi. The Komsi did not resist and, legend has it, retreated quietly beneath the earth.

Stargorodians who today live in the region are pure-blood Russians and visit banyas only on Saturdays. Having lost their jobs after the collapse of the kolkhozes, they drink cheap moonshine and swear that even if liquor turned to stone, they would gnaw on that rock – they have discovered no better medicine for their boredom.

It is said that moonshine kills 40,000 each year in our country. This horrific figure was pronounced by Putin himself, who proposed that the state take charge of alcohol production, so that it might be of the highest quality. Fortunately the Duma hit the brakes, and the plan was scrapped. We remember too well the two bottle limits of ‘87, and don’t want to go back there.

Once the villagers polished off all the foreign alcohol known as Royal, they turned to a domestic product called Little Dragon, an oily, green, glowing beverage. I was assured that, if you stare long and hard into your glass, the liquid will congeal into a furious yellow snake that will spin on the surface of your drink like a resinous shard of pine wood in a spring puddle. The villagers drank Little Dragon without looking in the glass. Some lost their minds; others were carried straight to the churchyard. But the engine of history runs on accidents: thanks to a miraculous confluence of events, the villagers have stopped consuming this poison.

Kolya Piklov, whose nickname was Pickle, downed a glass in the morning and then added two more at lunchtime, right there in the field, at which point he lost all interest in plowing, since he had a three-liter bottle of Little Dragon at home.

Pickle hopped behind the wheel of his Belarus tractor and rolled out onto the road. The next instant he was rammed by a new Audi A-8 that three goons were delivering to their commander, Anton Bes, the district’s chief bootlegger.³ Abandoning the tractor, Pickle fled as far as his legs could carry him, which was Bald Mountain, some ten kilometers from the village. There he sat down on a stump and began to think.

For ruining such an expensive foreign car, the Stargorodian thugs would definitely leash him up like a dog. Pickle became frightened and began to cry bitterly. Suddenly, he saw before him a snotty old woman in birch-bark shoes, who said, “Kiss me.”

Since he had been a boy, Pickle had heard of a Komsi sorceress who, coming across a traveler, asked for a kiss. Those who did not show respect simply disappeared. So, without much ado, he gave her a peck on the cheek.

“You’re a true Komsi, Pickle. What do you have to fear?” the hag laughed.

He told her of his woes. The sorceress gave him a vial of poison, and ordered him to drink it at home, then quietly lie down. Pickle thanked her and ran home. Meanwhile, the bandits drove the Audi in for repairs, then doubled back to beat the living daylights out of the tractor driver.

At home, Pickle poured the contents of the vial into his bottle of Little Dragon and gulped down a mouthful of the cocktail. His body suddenly began to bulge and broke out in pimples all over. Not quite himself anymore, he stumbled out onto the porch, climbed into the bottom of his brining barrel and promptly turned into a large pickle.

The goons arrived and sat themselves down at his table. They sat for an hour… two… No sign of the master of the house. They got thirsty. Someone found Pickle’s bottle. Someone else ran to the porch and brought back a ladleful of brine and a large pickle. They poured and drank, and the one who ran to the porch took a bite of the pickle. The poison worked instantly: two kicked the bucket and the third was transformed into a chimpanzee.

Pickle woke up on the table – either the brine had absorbed the poison or the effect of the drink had worn off. He had half an ear bitten off, but he was alive. Next to him were a whimpering chimpanzee and two stiffs.

The police pulled in. They did their tests and found cyanide in the Little Dragon. The case began to acquire the stench of prison, since everyone knew that the alcohol was supplied by Bes. The chief of police, Ivan Pankratovich Bolt, who had been protecting Bes’ business, ruled thus: first, he would keep the Audi for himself; second, Bes would be forbidden from trading in Little Dragon.

Bes transitioned to Monolit, Mozaika and Maximka - “clear, colorless glass-cleaning liquids based on ethyl alcohol, without any mechanical additives.” It’s easy to order them: just search the internet for “Wholesale Liquor.” They even offer home delivery.

The sorceress has not appeared to anyone since. Pickle brews braga and drinks nothing else, having completely stopped working. He proselytizes in the village that the Komsi will soon awake, as the time has come for their auras to be set free from their underground incarceration. When everyone laughs at him, Pickle goes home, climbs into his pickling barrel and soaks there for weeks, activating his chakhras.

The peasants now drink Maximka, which paralyzes the tongue for two days. But what is there to talk about, if everything is so clear? The chimpanzee lives in Bes’ garage; at night he howls at the moon. Meanwhile, the chief of police has a new headache: the Duma has doubled traffic fines. What’s good for a Muscovite is trouble for a Stargorodian. Each road police crew, which used to turn a hundred dollars a day over to the bosses, now has to deliver two hundred. The question is this: will people give them more money, and will it lead to public unrest?

2. Fermented birch sap.

3. Bes is Russian for “Devil.”