The Moscoviad (9 page)

No one from the
staff guessed the true reason for Astrid’s death. She was carried back to
America by plane, with a stopover in Paris. I managed to get back on my feet
but could not forgive Galya for a long time. I am more than convinced that one
day she will unleash her snake on me too. This is the woman I am going to right
now, Your Royal Mercy. And may God protect You from such messed up relations
with womenfolk, for which I ask for your forgiveness.

Here it is, this
broken off piece of a house, this crippled house with trees growing out of it,
the old fortress, the house where nobody lives except one madwoman who loves
poisonous reptiles and you, von F. Perhaps you’re a reptile too? Perhaps your
tongue has long forked in two, softened in alcohol and cracked from your verbal
whoring?

But the house is
nice. Especially now, in its half-crumbled state, with blackened windows and
chipped balconies, under the rain that doesn’t want to stop. And really, what
have they decided to do with it? Tear it down? It would be a shame: a unique
specimen of the art nouveau, the beginning of the century, the flourishing of
capitalism in Russia, the Silver Age of decadents, Nietzscheans, Tolstoyans,
Solovyovians, Eurasians, mystical anarchists, young suicides and God knows whom
else. Restore? There’s no one to do it. All the construction workers are
standing in lines for the fortified red. Due to this peculiar situation old
Moscow is now being restored by the Finns or the Turks. Especially the Turks,
our good southern neighbors, an industrious nation whose very name in our
language signifies dumbness. But only they, the Turks, can save Moscow, just
like the geese once saved Rome from the final disintegration and desolation.

But the most
important thing is that they still haven’t cut off Galya’s electricity, water,
and gas. And as long as this continues she remains here, since she has nowhere
else to go. Alone in an empty house that is crumbling. Listening to the
nighttime cat screams. Fearless and amazingly athletic. Protected by her
beloved little snakes that sit in glass boxes.

She opens the
door for you and briskly—even too much so—returns to the room. No hugs or
kisses or passionate words, aha, you’ve come, well, to hell with you, wet like
a puppy, unshaven, suddenly recalled that I exist in this world, and I don’t
care whether you’ve come or not, no need to make me happy . . . I wade through
the mistletoe bushes that have sprouted in front of her doorstep and come in.
In essence only one room feels lived in. The hallway is empty, if one doesn’t
count the glass boxes. But in the semidarkness you don’t see the snakes. You
hear only a uniform hissing, but this could also be the sound of margarine
melting on the explosive kitchen stove.

“Galya, it seems
I’ve come down with something,” you say in a trembling voice like some shitty
tragic actor. “If you’d let me, I’d like to take a hot bath. Can I make a phone
call from here? Oh, I see you are having a drink? . . .”

It does happen
with her from time to time. She buys a bottle or two for herself and slowly
sips it. But you haven’t noticed at first that she is already toasted. And
doesn’t look her best: blue circles under her eyes, the robe thrown on right
over the nightshirt, the bed still unmade, the room a mess.

“Something
happened?” you ask and drop on the floor your raincoat that has gotten heavy
like a flag, as a poet said.

“Well, today you
didn’t fast either,” you finally hear her voice.

By the way, she
can figure out whether you’ve had something to drink or not better than anyone
else.

“Well, this is
indeed the truth,” you answer already from the bathroom, turning the hot water
faucet. “You know, I felt I was getting a fever and decided to have a drink
just for preventive reasons . . .”

You return to the
room and in the midst of various junk find her tape recorder. You wipe the dust
off it with the panties well known to you.

“I’ve picked up
the latest recording by Mike Oldfield. Should we have a listen?”

Of course, she is
mum, and gloomily holds a glass of vodka in her hand, but the music begins:
guitars, flutes, drums, harpsichords, water is running in the bathroom, angelic
choirs call sailors to discover new exotic lands, caravels drop anchor by humid
southern islands, you dial Kyrylo’s number.

“Otto? Great!
Where are you wandering, how long do we have to wait for you?” bursts out
Kyrylo instead of a greeting.

“I’ll be at your
place in some twenty minutes,” you try to calm him down.

“Almost everyone
has gathered here: Omelyan Porfyrovych, Lyuba, Andriy . . . You are holding up
everyone, Otto! We won’t put together anything decent like this! Where are you
now?”

“At a bus stop,
old man . . .”

“Which bus stop,
where?”

“What does it
matter, Kyrylo? The main thing is that I’ll be there soon!”

“Okay, good.
We’ll wait for twenty minutes. Not more.”

“Even less. I’ll
be there in less than twenty minutes.”

“Okay, we’re
waiting!”

Short beeps in
the receiver. So. One deed is done. You sit down by the table, since Galya
directs you to a glass with a nod.

“Have a drink,”
she says.

“Vodka drink, pig
fly,” you recite an old Uzbek wisdom.

The vodka goes
down rather well. Now eine kleine Cigarette—and jump into the bathtub. And may
all of them go to . . . No one will find you here. You can sit here for years.
Up until the Turks fix up the building. Up until a new Silver Age begins.

“What’s new,
Galya?”

“I came back from
Central Asia yesterday.”

“And what are the
accomplishments?

“A few young
specimen of Echis carinatus. Recently hatched. About half a month ago.”

“And what will
you do when your empire falls apart? Where will you go for these Echis? To the
Pskov oblast?”

“You have already
asked me this a hundred times,” she pulls a face.

“And for a
hundred times I didn’t hear your answer. Why are you drinking?”

“The mood. I
don’t want anything. Pour some more. This is not the last bottle.”

“How do you like
Oldfield?”

“I have decided
that you mustn’t come here anymore. And in general—I am crossing you off my
list. Take your bath and then go get lost.”

“Without fail.
And I do have to go anyway. I must buy a present for my friends’ children at
the ‘Children’s World.’ And my friends’ children to me are my own children.”

“Not funny.”

“I know, Galya
dear.”

She lights up a
cigarette, unsteadily gets up from the table and, rocking a bit, makes her way
to the window. She smokes and looks outside. While Mike Oldfield is playing.

“Do you have
someone already, Galya?”

A small vase in
the shape of a skull, the familiar vase from the windowsill is flying without
any warning in the direction of your head. You manage to duck like a talented
boxer. This happens to Galya sometimes. It was a nice vase.

“Are you here to
taunt me?”

“What a foolish
question? Of course! The only thing that keeps me going is sucking your blood .
. .”

A green
disposable lighter flies by your ear. Mike Oldfield amuses himself with a
tambourine and castanets. The next thing to fly will probably be the flat iron.
I should choose my expressions more carefully: it wouldn’t be nice if the thing
were to hit my temple.

“The last time
you were here you treated me like a prostitute. You got yours—and left.
Disappeared for two weeks . . .”

“I’ve been
writing a novel in verse, Galya.”

“You’ve been
writing! You could simply give me a call. I am not keeping you on a chain! . .
.”

She did indeed
have too much to drink. And this iron stands too close to her. And water, it
seems, has already filled the tub . . .

Indeed! A full
tub of wonderful generous hot water which you like so much. Her voice comes
from the room,

“Live the way you
know how! . . . Later in your Ukraine you’ll tell stories about this foolish russkie
girl you had.”

“And more than
one, Galya, more than one,” you answer already undressed, getting into the tub.

In the room
something smashes against something else. But it isn’t the iron. You try
guessing what exactly it was. Good grief, how the temples are thumping. The
forehead feels like 101 degrees. Even a dick more than that, as some of your
Russian writer acquaintances say. Close your eyes and think about something
great. Too bad you didn’t take the vodka glass here with you. For our ancestors,
the glorious Cossacks, used vodka to chase away any sickness. Vodka and hot
baths. But they didn’t drink during the campaigns. That was punished with
caning. Give him canes, canes to this son of a bitch!

You open your
eyes. Here’s a snake crawling along a pipe. Perhaps it wants to jump into your
tub. But how could it jump? To jump one has to have at least some kind of legs.
And snakes don’t have them. It doesn’t want to jump; no, it wants to fall into
your bathtub. It will crawl a little lower on the pipe, and that’ll be your
end.

“Galya,” you cry.

As if into an
abyss.

“Galya, take the
snake away from here!”

She’s drunk, but
still she got scared. Came over and sat on the floor. Waddles her hand in the
water.

“What snake, what
are you talking about?” she asks in a tired, tired voice.

“There, see, on
the pipe? An Echis!” You suddenly feel extremely amused, you are rolling with
laughter. “An Echis. A young Echis! There it is, the bitch! . . .” You are
laughing so hard you’re shaking.

“This is
waterproofing, you cretin,” she says softly, softly and starts kissing you.

Her disheveled
hair falls into the water. She kisses your head all over, and you even stop
laughing and start wondering: it is really possible to love someone’s head so
much? Well, okay, loving the muscles, the thighs, the chest, the crotch is
understandable. But the head? Something similar already happened earlier today:
hot water, kisses. The main thing is to stay still and not move, for if now she
makes it to your shoulders and chest, you wouldn’t escape scratches and bites.
She has such a peculiarity. After dates with her you always walked around
painted all over with the traces of her passion, as if you were a poor thing
that had just gotten out of a torture chamber. She simply needs to find in this
life a kind and gentle masochist who doesn’t have any bad habits, makes ends
meet materially, and is neat in daily living matters. And she will be happy.
She definitely will, you are certain about it.

“What’s happening
outside?” you ask in between the kisses.

“Rain,” she says
and finally leaves the bathroom.

Now let’s just
lie here for a few minutes, and then it will be time to go. The water is
cooling down anyway, the music on the tape climaxes in a united choir of
Indians and conquistadors, and she can finish the vodka by herself, even if she
has another bottle stashed away. My boys die for vodka, and she lets herself
smash bottles against the wall.

You let the water
out to the netherworld. It runs away with a muffled mumbling. Farewell, water,
I loved you the way a lover would, I spent a sweet half an hour with you, till
we meet again!

A large fluffy
towel she brought is lying on the floor. The water level is mercilessly
falling, and now it can’t be helped anymore . . .

But you are
standing in the bathtub, and Galya is again at your side, she is right in front
of you, she unwraps you, she takes you out of the towel and then she bends
forward, and presses your back against the wall tiles, and fixes you in this
position, and presses her hands on the tiles as well, while you are slipping
down, you’re almost ready, and she starts looking for something with her mouth,
and does find it, making you close your eyes. And how much passion is in all
this, but also tenderness; firmness, but also sadness—and you feel the way the
raped perhaps feel, you concentrate only on the sensations, on the music that
has stopped in the room, but a strange smile wanders over you, and you only
want to love, love, love, and you want to sing hosanna to her lips, for all of
her has become these lips, the tongue, this all resembles a practice session
for a flute, you fill up like a fountain, and this lasts almost for an
eternity, because the caravels manage to return, and your voice bursts out, but
not only the voice, you’re overflowing, and you explode, since like any other
eternity this one also has its end . . .

She wraps you
back into the towel and leaves silently.

“So, did the tape
end?” you ask, returning to the room already dressed.

“You are not
going anywhere,” answers Galya. “I suggest that you don’t go anywhere. You
really are running a high fever. I’ll make some eggs, and you should lie down.
You must rest. You can’t go out anywhere—it’s raining outside. I won’t be in
your way, you will simply take a nap. I’ll pour you more vodka, but you must
lie down, otherwise it won’t help. You can stay here until tomorrow—you must
warm up and stay in bed. Tomorrow’s Sunday anyway. You’ll be in bed by
yourself. I have a cot, I’ll be nearby, I’ll simply be nearby, I’ll simply
serve you whatever you like. I can bring some medicine from the pharmacy. Don’t
go, all right? . . .”