Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Kindness

Turk’s pained eyes haunted Marina all night long; she slept fitfully, kicked off her thin comforter and got cold – it was already autumn. She woke up bruised, barely made it to work on time, and worked on her client’s make-up mechanically, although she regained her focus at the very end and finished by doing a good job. When Marina’s client left, Artavaz – the owner of the Diarissimo beauty salon where Marina had been working for the past two weeks – started lecturing her.

“Don’t prettify the client, attack their style. If she comes in blonde – dye her into a brunette, quit being nice to them, you can’t let them set the terms!”

The day before, he told Marina he couldn’t have her cutting the clients’ hair and banished her, as punishment, to the make-up row. Marina hadn’t said anything then, and didn’t contradict her Armenian star of a boss now. She walked the city streets in the clean, cold air. She walked and thought that it was time to get a down comforter. Seven years ago, she took in a sick Doberman from the street, nursed him to health and named him Turk. Her husband told her to put the dog down, he was afraid of him, or maybe he was jealous. Marina refused, and the husband divorced her. And now Turk had died.

Women who came to be ravaged by Artavaz would stand up from the chairs, turning their suddenly foreign heads and straightening their shoulders as if they were about to leap off a cliff. They were at pains to hide their panic; the mirrors on the salon walls both beckoned to them and frightened them. Artavaz was macho, many liked him. Marina’s clients, on the other hand, shied from dramatic makeovers. She loved finding the subtle touches that could bring out the image her client had chosen herself. Likely she needed to look for a different place to work. But Diarissimo was right in the center of the city, which was very convenient for clients, and this was the rub.

On Posad square, an old woman with a tote caught Marina’s eye. She had thin hair in a pitiful perm, a coat that was just as pitiful, and threadbare cloth slippers. The woman peered pleadingly into the faces of the passersby, asked them something, repeatedly got a curt reply, but stubbornly persisted. Marina came up to her.

“Sweetie, could you tell me where Garibaldi street is? I seem to be lost..,” the woman asked.

Marina had never heard of such a street. The old woman couldn’t tell her with any degree of coherence how she had found her way to the square. Marina took her to the police.

When he heard their story, the sergeant on duty barked, “No such street in this town! Wait over there, we’ll write up the paperwork for the asylum.”

The grandma squeezed her lips into a thin line, which made her look like a sick pigeon.

“Take me home with you, I’d pay you for your trouble,” she asked, all of a sudden.

The request left Marina stunned; the old lady stood before her, blinking in her confusion. So Marina took her home, gave her a bath and a warm meal, and put her to bed. Before falling asleep, she told her, for no particular reason, about her quarrels with Artavaz and about Turk’s death. The old woman listened and nodded with a wise expression. In the morning, she made herself at home, made blinchiki with meat and a pot of soup, but didn’t seem to want to go outside, afraid of getting lost again.

The next day, she disappeared. She left Marina a mound of cutlets in a deep dish on the stove, turned off the gas, and put the key under the doormat, just as Marina had asked. Nothing was missing; the old lady must have gone out to the store and wandered off again.

Three days later, the woman pulled up to Marina’s apartment building in a large American car, accompanied by a driver/bodyguard. The old lady had her hair died a soft reddish-brown, an excellent choice for a naturally dark-haired woman, and no longer looked wilted and unwanted.

“I promised to pay you back,” she said from the door, and put an envelope on Marina’s kitchen table. “My experiment on the square – I did it because I read on the internet that sociologists say people, basically, are growing kinder by the day. 69 percent of responders say we ought to help the homeless get medical care and jobs, while just 23 percent believe vagrancy should be banned and all the homeless rounded up and sent to special camps, like they did in the old days.”

She smiled.

“I’d spent three hours on that square before I met you. Don’t fuss over the money; my son was a businessman, he died a month ago, had no kids. I couldn’t possibly spend all his money, it’ll still be there when I’m gone. There’s a former bakery for sale on Malaya Posadskaya – buy it, refit it, and cut hair however you think is best, I’ll be your first client. Get a puppy and cheer up.”

She put down the cup of tea that Marina had poured for her and, very satisfied with the impression she’d made, left.

Soon after that, Marina bought the place the woman suggested, hired a few people, and is now flourishing. The puppy has grown up into an elegant Doberman who protects his mistress on walks, and if you happen to be one of the people who think this breed is dangerous, Marina would love a chance to dissuade you, explaining that it’s all about kindness and proper training.

It is foolish to contradict her: as soon as Arto the Doberman raises his almond-shaped eyes at you, your hand, of its own volition, reaches out to pet him, something the smart dog benevolently permits from all normal people who are kind to his goddess. And as far as the sociologists’ findings go, well, they are highly educated people – I’m sure they know what they’re talking about.