Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

How a Soldier Saved Himself from the Army

Not so long ago, there was a debate on TV: should people of creative professions be required to serve in the army? Folks from the parliament took it up with the intelligentsia. They got quite worked up, I thought for sure there’d be a fist-fight, but they cooled off in the end and pronounced their verdict: the Army needs to professionalize, but until that happens, everyone just has to live with the draft. And one rather well-known politician publicly promised one well-known choreographer a deferment for all the guys in his troupe – struck a deal with his opponent, basically, as politicians are wont to do. Those guys got really lucky – like in a fairy tale. Although, we in Stargorod have seen our own share of fairytale luck.

Once upon a time, there was this soldier who decided to go AWOL. Before he got called up for service, he studied at an art college, but then he angered one of his professors: the boy didn’t want to paint still-lifes; he only wished to do landscapes, en plein air. His mother earned little, and his little brother was ill with asthma and needed expensive drugs. His father watched a parking lot at night and read mystical books about reincarnation. He did not help the soldier’s mother any, seeing as he’d taken such offense at her having divorced him. And they all lived in a tiny two-room apartment in a barrack-like apartment block. So it came to pass that our hero quit college and decided to serve his country. He went to the enlistment office and asked to be a Marine. Instead, they shaved his head and sent him off to the chemical weapons brigade, where they taught him to be quick and limber in a gas mask. And things would have just run their course, and he would have come home in just another six months, but as luck would have it, new winds came a-blowing through our good old army.

A whole bunch of new contracted privateers got sent to the soldier’s brigade: every single one of them had done time, and was used to going about life not by the book but by their “notions.” These privateers set to breaking in the rest of the enlistees, in order that they, too, would sign up as contractees. If everyone in the brigade did, Central Command promised them a ton of bacon. Some gave in; our soldier was the last hold-out. When the beasts promised to give him the blanket treatment after the evening roll-call, he called it quits and did what he’d been planning – dove out through a hole in the fence, and headed not to the village but out into the steppe.

So our soldier walked along the rail line and thought about putting a leg under a train – but when a train rolled along, he got cold feet, and didn’t go through with it. He walked some more, and then kept walking, thinking his sad thoughts, until he came upon a great big palace where a general lived with his daughter. The general’s daughter sat high up in a tower, watched “Animal Planet” thanks to a satellite dish, and thought sad thoughts. The general had a mind to get her married to the solicitor general’s son, but the boy had bad breath. The general himself did not care all that much for the solicitor general, but knew he had to make the match for his daughter; it was the politically correct thing to do.

The general spotted the soldier at the gate; he thought they had sent him a denshchik (a day worker) – he’s actually just asked for one. So he called out at the soldier, and ordered him to get the banya heated by 1600. The soldier went to work: chopped some firewood, got the fire going, and soaked the birch-bunches to bring them to life. Then the general’s daughter showed up – brought the new denshchik bread slathered in lard to snack on. He ate tidily, then they worked over a handful of sunflower seeds, and took a great shine to one another. The girl went back into the house to do her nails, and the soldier sat down on the stoop of the banya to have a smoke.

And the general, it must be said, kept fancy black-cocked chickens from a distant land. So, one of these, the boldest hen, came up to the soldier, stood there and looked at him askance, but he was nice to her – didn’t shoo her or throw a boot at her, and instead gave her some bread crumbs. The hen, for his kindness, gave him a magic grain. At 1600, the general’s guests rolled in for their banya: it was the solicitor with his son. In they all went; the soldier slapped and whipped the birch-bunches on the solicitor’s back – the solicitor only grunted, he liked it so much. He started asking the general to sell him his banya expert. The general wouldn’t do it – he hadn’t had his fill of him yet.

Once they got done steaming, they all sat down to vodka. Drank up a bucket, started on another. The solicitor started bragging about his son – what a beast he was, strong as an ox, breaks everyone’s arms. That’s when the General asked the soldier:

“Can you out-arm-wrestle the solicitor’s pup?”

“Yes, sir,” said the soldier, then tucked the magic grain the hen gave him behind his cheek, got big as a tiger, and ground the solicitor’s son into the mud.

The solicitor took offense.

“You cheated, you rotten wolves!”

The general, without much ado, right-hooked him on the chin, then said, “You’re the rotten wolf, and your kid’s teeth stink!”

The solicitor left, hissing, “You’ll be sorry you did this!”

“You wish!” hooted the general. “Our people always beat up on your people!” and made an indecent sign at the solicitor’s back.

He was having such a grand time, he had the soldier sit down and drink some vodka with him. They drank one bucket; started on the next. The soldier held his own. The general liked this, hollered for his daughter. She was right there – she’d been peeking from behind a corner.

“This here common soldier saved you from the solicitor’s pup,” the general explained. “Wanna marry him?”

The girl agreed on the spot before her father changed his mind – she’d had it with sitting up in her tower. The general threw them a party, and got the soldier decommissioned. Afterwards, the newlyweds came to live in Stargorod, where the city allocated them a corner behind a curtain in a big communal apartment. The general’s daughter stuck with it for a week, then ran away to Moscow, where she promptly landed a job with a modeling agency. She now advertises Blissful Ravioli and Tough-as-Nails Nail Polish. The soldier wasn’t sad for long – the main thing was, he got out of the army. He went into carpentry, carves iconostases, makes good money, and doesn’t dwell on the past. He told us his tale once – the guys all but fell over laughing: who now believes in fairy-tales?

Do you?