Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Happiness

Until he turned 40, Genka hunted herring all over the northern seas, and with great success. Misfortune struck out of the blue: while he was at sea, his wife left him, and a nefarious scheme, of the kind that had come to be common in his industry, came to light on shore. The skipper lost his boat. On top of that, his mother became gravely ill. Genka found a job at the Angler tackle store in Murmansk. He perused the manufacturers’ literature as meticulously as he used to study navigation charts, and became an irreplaceable expert in fishing and angling equipment. On weekends, he’d get away to one of the local bodies of water, and over the next ten years became so familiar with them that he was bored.

For his 50th birthday, Genka gave himself a present – a trip to The Three Rivers resort, on a lake about 10 miles from Stargorod. Genka managed to book himself early in the season, a fact which later caused him great pride. For the next five years, he vacationed only and exclusively at The Three Rivers; he came three times a year and among the regulars earned himself the nickname Murmansk Genka, which distinguished him from the crowd of the common show-offs who came to swim and entertain their women. The regulars – retired special forces, GRU officers, military contractors and manufacturers – were decidedly more important and richer than Genka, but his tackle was just as good. He always left his room before dawn and came back by nightfall, having missed both lunch and dinner, and even when no one else had a single bite that day, Genka always managed to bring back a respectable catch. He was made to fish just like a bird dog is made to hunt.

After dinner, the company usually gathered in the fireplace den, around the pool table. Genka would sit by himself, eyes wandering over the rooms’ walls: he played poorly and didn’t like losing. He drank little, and when he did, he would confess he could only think of coming back to The Three Rivers. It was Genka, by the way, who caught the record-setting 10.4-kilo pikeperch. He was well respected; men came to ask for his advice about equipment and ordered the newest and hottest items from him, which he sold to them at cost. There was only one thing that really irked him: the entire den was lined with photos of men with their trophies. His photo, however, was for reasons unknown missing, even though he broke Sashka Pugachev’s record the very first year he came, when he reeled in a 79-kilo catfish. A year later, Kasym and his buddy Beard pulled out an 84-kilo beast from Babka’s Dip and were instantly rewarded with three framed pictures right by the door.

Genka no longer had any friends in Murmansk; the vision of The Three Rivers sustained him – wind in his hair, the breaking waves at the lakeshore, the herons in the reeds, the quiet inlets and the deep, deep sloughs where the catfish sleep under the willows. Genka dreamt of catching a record-breaking 100-kilo fish; he knew where and how he would hunt for it, but he never told anyone of his dreams, afraid to jinx them. When he stood behind the counter in the Murmansk store, or took out his ill mother’s bedpan, he would close his eyes and revel in the visions of his future glory.

Genka believed in his luck. Life, however, threw another banana peel under his feet. First, his mother died. Genka took care of the funeral, and felt out of sorts. He looked unwell – dark circles under the eyes, ghostly pale skin – and the store’s owner sent him to see a doctor he knew at the district hospital. The doctor found leukemia.

“People live decades with this diagnosis,” the doctor told Genka, and then ratted him out to the store’s owner. The owner fired Genka on the spot, albeit with a 25,000-ruble bonus.

The fired Genka went home, and as he walked, for some reason, he no longer thought about his record-breaking catfish. With nothing particular in mind, he wandered into a mall, saw a cell-phone-card vending machine, paid, for no reason he could identify, for more airtime, pushed the button for “Beeline,” and pulled out the receipt. He had no one and nowhere to call. Suddenly, among the familiar logos of service providers, he spotted a symbol he’d never seen before: a salmon leaping out of the water over a round sun. Under the logo, the unfussy serious-looking letters read: “Happiness.” Genka fed a bill to the vending machine and pushed the button; the machine smoothly pulled in his money, growled, and returned a receipt which said: “Payment received, thank you!”

An hour later he got a call from the owner of The Three Rivers, Yegor. The resort had bought a large charter rig, and Yegor was calling to see if Genka would like to be her captain. Yegor wanted him there right away, but, purely for appearance’s sake, Genka negotiated himself a week to get packed. This was a shameless lie: whenever Genka returned from The Three Rivers, he had his tackle and bag packed for the next trip three days later, as soon as the previous trip’s laundry was dried and ironed. It was all there, ready, waiting for him in the closet. In the kitchen, Genka swallowed the pills his doctor had prescribed, and washed them down with kefir. He looked at the clock: he had plenty of time to catch his flight. On the way to the airport, Genka stopped at the mall, but the vending machine was no longer there.

“They took it away for maintenance, but you can pay at the customer service,” the manager told him.

Genka smiled and shook his head. He kept smiling as he flew, and as he looked at the clouds and saw monster catfish slipping in and out of them. He’s going to catch one just like that, for sure – he’ll catch it in Babka’s Dip and will personally nail the framed picture in the den, right above the fireplace!