Stargorod

by Peter Aleshkovsky

  Finally, Lyudka can’t take it any more and comes to the veranda door with a slipper in her hand. The boy freezes.

  “Will you stop your damn singing, you bastard?”

  The boy is silent.

  “I’ve had it with you, you hear me? I hear one more peep from you, I’ll bite your head off. I want to sleep.”

  Lyudka goes back into the house and slams the door. The boy chuckles, remembers the name Granny calls Lyudka, “heathen.” And – he can’t help himself – begins to sing again:

  “Eeny, meeny, miney...”

  But Lyudka’s smarter – she hadn’t gone anywhere, she waited behind the door, and now she jumps out and slaps him with his slipper, once, and again!

  The boy breaks free, tumbles down the steps into the yard, and yells back at her, angry, through tears:

  “You heathen, heathen! You go out God knows where all night, you’re a curse!”

  Lyudka doesn’t come down from the porch, preferring to yell back at him from there. She calls him a rickety bastard.

  The boy goes out to the street, scratches his butt – the slipper left a mark. Heathen! But you just wait, when you bring one home in the oven we’ll see how you sing! That’s what Granny says. What’s supposed to be in the oven? The boy doesn’t know, but it must be trouble, if Granny keeps talking about it like that.

  It’s better not to mess with Granny right now – she’d bite his head off too for her tomatoes and cucumbers.

  The boy takes up his complicated song again, but just as he figures out his steps and makes a skip down the street, he stops short again. The mailman has come to the Koldayevs. His horse is grazing untethered, which means Uncle Vova the mailman has come drunk. He’ll be totally drunk when he comes out – the woman Koldayeva makes her own booze.

  The boy crawls ahead close to the fence; there, in between acacia bushes, he’s beaten a special path. He is crawling closer to the horse. To Star. First he stares at her, without moving, then finally, slowly, emerges from the bush. Star rolls her eye at the boy, blows air onto his hand, and licks his empty palm. Is anyone listening? The boy looks around to check, then says,

  “Star, hare-ware, wonac?”

  No, no one’s heard him. Star nods her head in agreement. The boy picks up the reins and climbs onto the cart. Star obediently walks off. She is thirsty, and she pulls the cart to the lake. She goes in deep, until the wheels sink in the mud to the axle. She drinks.

  The boy is cut off from the shore. Star stands in the water quietly, waiting for someone to pay attention to her; she moves her ears every so often, and swishes at the flies with her uncombed, burr-studded tail. The boy is scared – there’s water all around him, the cart is stuck. He begins to sing, in a begging, tender voice, “Star, Star, harrico-warico, wo, wac?”

  Star doesn’t move, only turns her head now and then to look at the boy with her big, dark eye. She is waiting for help to come.

  There’s nothing else to do – the boy resigns himself to his fate and, not letting go of the reins, starts under his breath:

  “Eeny, meeny, miney, moe, Catch a spider by the toe...”

  Uncle Vova the mailman comes running along the shore, cursing as he runs and swinging his arms like a windmill. But there’s nowhere to hide – the boy’s trapped by the water, and in the water there’s the undertow cold as a sea-dog. Uncle Vova has a long switch. He pulls off his boots and his pants, walks gingerly on the slippery bottom, sways, shakes the switch at the boy. Uncle Vova reaches the cart, grabs the reins from the boy, but loses his balance, slips, and falls into the muddy water. Uncle Vova is very angry. He gets up, and, instead of helping Star, begins whipping the boy with his switch. It hurts a lot.

  The boy can’t think straight, dashes around the cart, but there’s nowhere to hide, and he rolls off into the cold water. He runs to the shore, wailing. Undertows or sea-dogs, he’d rather drown!

  “You bitch! Bitch!” he yells at the mailman. He picks up a rock but he can’t throw it far enough.

  Whimpering, the boy crawls deep into the acacia bushes. His shorts, his belly, his legs – everything is covered with gooey mud. He can’t go home now. Granny will twist his ears, she sure will.

  The boy sits in the bushes and rubs spit into his arm where the switch left a red mark. The boy howls in short, small bursts. Then he lies back on the grass – there’s a small patch of green turf in the bushes; here, when the older kids come home from school, they have their headquarters or the trench. Sometimes, they tell scary stories: about the Red Mask, and the dead man, about the White Sheet, and the Black Door, and the Red Boy, and the White Glove, and the Cut-Off Finger, and the Bloody Mary... He is afraid of all of them, but he listens every time, even though he knows the stories by heart. The boy rolls over onto his back, looks at the sky and very soon begins to hum:

  “Eeny, meeny, miney, moe, Catch a spider by the toe...”

  “Eeny, meeny, miney, moe, Catch a spider by the toe...”

  He even begins to drum the beat on his muddy belly. What is this “eeny-meeny-miney-moe” anyway? And where do spiders have toes?

  Petty Officer

  When he is drunk, he sits on the bench with his head thrown back, mouth open. He stares into the sky. When he is very drunk – his head is in his hands, between his knees. He cries when he is very drunk. He smears his tears across his unshaven cheeks with his dirty, motor-oil stained hand. He cries because he is sorry for the kids. Afterwards, he goes to give Nadka a beating. But she’s wised up, too – she jumps at him first and grabs his hair, and aims to get her fingernails into his eyes. That’s how they live: he forever scratched, she forever covered in bruises.

  In the morning, he goes to the sailing club’s boathouse – there, he works on the boats’ diesels, welds and rivets things until half past four. Then, if he hasn’t had anything to drink yet, he spends a couple hours working on the small side jobs people send his way. Then he takes the cash he’s made from these and spends it on liquor, for himself and the other guys. Sometimes he drinks with Nadka. He likes to chase down his booze with kvas, but first he lets his favorite – Svetlanka – have some. The three-year-old Svetlanka is smart: when she rattles off her “motherfuckers,” everyone cracks up. Svetlanka is his fifth. The last one. Nadka swore not to have any more. But she’s always like this: she swears on her mother’s grave to this or that, and he forgives her. He’s all right with it – she’ll tell everyone if she’s knocked up, way before she shows. After four boys, who knew they’d get a girl? Nadka now uses her as a shield, when he comes to beat her. And he backs off. He never beats her when she’s got the girl in her arms. He goes to sleep instead. And leaves the next morning without breakfast. His boys – they’re always trying to slip away from school and hang out with him in the boathouse instead. He doesn’t send them back – no point in forcing it if they don’t want to. The three oldest had to repeat each grade anyway. Grandma Katya, his mother, only shakes her head: why torment the poor kids if they just don’t have school in them? She, for one, never learned to read and has lived her life just fine; she’s had a good, working life – some’d be lucky to live like she did. And books are trouble, that’s all they do. There’s an example right here in the family: Olen’ka, his sister’s daughter, got into reading, and read day and night, you couldn’t drag her away from the books. And then she started feeling sorry for everyone; all she did was cry – out of pity. Now she doesn’t even recognize anyone; doesn’t know her own mother when she comes to visit. No, thank you – it’s better without books.

  Grandma Katya goes to church. She knows the service by heart better than some literate folks, but she’s had to stop singing – her thyroid’s got the better of her. She got all ready to die last winter, but her oldest daughter, Valyusha, came and rescued her. She carried grandma out of their place in her arms, warmed her up, and nursed her back to health. Now grandma Katya stays two doors over, with Valyusha. She comes out to sit on her bench, and her son sits on his bench, head rolled back,
staring into the sky. Or crying. Because he’s sorry for the children.

  Grandma Katya also feels sorry for the children. Whenever they run over to her place, she feeds them. The older ones are now embarrassed and don’t go so often. They find crusts at home – spread them out on the floor, pick through them to find the good ones, and soak them in tea. And Svetlanka crawls all over, back and forth, until she falls asleep on the crusts and pees herself. Or sometimes she also sleeps standing, like a horse – she puts her head on the couch and sleeps.

  Nadka makes 100 rubles a month at the sailing club – she washes the floors there. In summer, she makes another 70 for cleaning the toilets at the tourist camp. There, they also give her leftovers from the kitchen, soup or meat entrees – in summer, the kids eat well. Sometimes she also goes into town and gets her state aid for multiple children – then she buys a bottle of liquor, and spends the rest on the kids. She brings kvas for Svetlanka, and little one says: “Mom, it’s beer! It’s beer, mom.” It makes Nadka laugh: “It’s not beer, sweetie, it’s kvas.” Svetlanka then smiles – like a fox – and washes her hands in the kvas. Or drinks it. Or the other kids drink it. Kvas is tasty.

  First thing when he comes home – Svetlanka. She says, “Papa!” And her papa, if he’s able, picks her up, and strokes her head sometimes, and sometimes tickles her velvety cheek with his stubble. On Nadka’s paydays, he gets drunk and wants to beat Nadka. This is why Nadka now runs away on her paydays – she takes the money and goes to town. Before, she used to run away without the money, too – someone gave her booze in town – and now she only does it when she has cash. Is she now paying for someone else’s? She’s gone two or three days, then she comes back. Broke, of course. Eyes bulging. She lies on the couch and moans, and the kids tiptoe around, fetching her tea. They love their mommy.

  He’d come home, take one look at her there on the couch, and go to his bench outside. When she’s lain for a bit, she’ll feel better and grope her way out. She’ll sit next to him, and they’ll eat sunflower seeds together, and she’ll complain about her gallbladder. Or tell him she’s sorry and would he forgive her. Or not. Sometimes they just sit there.

  If they see people walk by, they say hello. People say hello back, and then go on their way to gossip about Nadka. What else can they do? They feel sorry for the kids.

  He does, too.

  He sits on his bench until late. Nadka, inside, watches a movie. She’s big on movies. The kids also watch, until they fall asleep – wherever they were sitting.

  He sits. If he cries, that means he is really drunk.

  He is 36. But you wouldn’t know it by looking at him. He’s forgotten already when he came back from the navy. He served on a nuclear submarine. Then he came back and got Nadka – he won her over, she used to go with another guy. She’s been on her own since she was 17 – her folks threw her out. And he was a catch – he was handsome then. Then they had kids. Not right away, though, after five years or so. He’d actually gone to the doctor after the submarine, and the doctor said he’d never father his own. But then added the good news: otherwise, everything works just fine!

  He’d came back decorated, all stripes and ribbons. Petty Officer First Class. He’s got a picture to prove it. Grandma Katya has it on the wall above her bed, with the pictures of all her other kids and grandkids.

  “Say what you want, he came back a prince – any girl would go for him. Why’d he have to choose that slut is what I don’t know,” mutters grandma Katya sitting on her bench.

  Two doors down, he is sitting on his bench, crying. He’s crying for the kids, and himself, and Nadka – he’s sorry for the whole world.

  Next door there isn’t anyone left to feel sorry about: the neighbor killed his wife with an axe a month after the wedding. He thought he saw something about her he didn’t like. Now the family sends him packages somewhere up North.

  Star

  Sunday. The morning tea is finished, but the garden can wait. Maxim Maximych kneads a filterless Belomor cigarette with his fingers, lights up, and watches the street through the window: he wonders if his daughter will bring the grandkids from the city today, or if she’ll stay there to party again. Everything went out of whack when she got mixed up with that highway criminal of hers. She was sorry for him, you see... So she had the twins. Then got divorced. Said, Papa, I’m not ever getting married again – won’t touch that mess with a ten-foot pole. And what’s the point of going out then? Soon, though, she’ll have to bring the kids for the summer – the school break has already started. And it’s only 20 minutes by bus... Half-an-hour tops.

  Antonina Pavlovna is finishing her curd pancake.

  “Do you figure they’ll come?”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re deaf as a post, aren’t you? Are you done there yet?”

  “Aha.”

  “Then grab the paper and read what the boys will tell me at the shift tomorrow.”

  Maxim Maximych used to be a second lieutenant at the meteorological-station in Motovikha, and now guards the furniture factory. He goes in for a 24-hour shift, then is home three days to work in his garden. Antonina Pavlovna is also retired. She worked as an accountant at the city bakery, but quit a long time ago.

  “Aha,” Antonina Pavlovna says reaching for the newspaper and her glasses. “From the beginning?”

  “Of course not! Like you don’t know... Start at 1700.”

  She begins to read:

  “Monday, June 9, Channel 1. 17:20. ‘Sound your trumpets!’ A happy, joyful song opens the performance by the Pioneer propaganda brigade from the capital’s Kuybyshev district. The brigade is the winner of the Russian National School Propaganda Brigades contest. Its performances are fondly remembered by the builders of the Tomsk Chemical Plant, the Kalinin Nuclear Power Plant, by the sailors of the Black and Baltic Sea fleets, and by the hardworking kolkhoz workers of Udmurtiya. But the propaganda brigade is not the only brainchild of the Kuybyshev district Young Pioneers’ Headquarters...”

  Maxim Maximych is unmoving. He listens; he no longer watches the street, however. Instead, he’s fixed Antonina Pavlovna in his motionless gaze. She takes a sip of her cooled tea and continues:

  “Twenty-four years ago the Headquarters initiated an honorary guard and commemoration event ‘Remember Everyone by Name.’ Since then, every year, on Victory Day, the Young Pioneers stand to attention at the Defenders of Moscow Memorial in the Preobrazhensk Cemetery. This year alone, the boys and girls have raised 1,400 rubles to be distributed to the Peace Fund, Orphanage No. 73, and the Foundation for Battling AIDS. Neither do the Pioneers neglect those who live next door: Operation ‘We Care’ has become one of the headquarters’ biggest projects.”

  Antonina Pavlovna looks up from the paper.

  “It’s all pure torment for those poor kids. Boys told me, one of the girls at our school had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance after they stood guard at our Eternal Flame – it leaks gas, you know.”

  “You know what, you better just stick to reading,” Maxim Maximych turns back to the window out of frustration. “That was about Victory Day they wrote – just one day, and our guys stand there all year round!”

  Pavlovna nods in agreement and turns the page. She studies it for a while. Suddenly, she is transformed:

  “Maxim Maximych! Hamiddulin, the one who stabbed Prokhorov! He’s now a star – fancy that!”

  “Oh yeah?” Maxim Maximych turns back to face the table, much faster this time. “Come on then, what does it say?”

  “It’s right here, let me mark it – I’d like to see it too: ‘Man and Law: Drinking Causes Crime.’ Channel 1. 18:40. Recently the Stargorod City Court sentenced the 28-year-old Hamiddulin to 14 years in prison. Hamiddulin was convicted of a serious crime: an attempt at murder. What began as an act of hooliganism ended in uncommon cruelty. So what really happened at Stargorod’s furniture factory, where Hamiddulin worked? One day, the young man entered the boiler room not having cleaned his muddy footwear
, in direct violation of the factory’s operating procedures. The boiler room operator demanded that he leave the premises immediately and Hamiddulin was forced to comply. Several days later, in a state of drunkenness, Hamiddulin unexpectedly entered the boiler room, attacked the operator, and stabbed him 10 times before attempting to flee. He was detained. The surgeon’s skill and the EMTs’ quick response saved the victim’s life. But would the emotional wounds sustained by the boiler room operator that fateful evening ever heal? Would the shock loosen its grip on the minds of the operator’s family, his colleagues’ minds?”

  “Now that’s a load of bull if I ever heard one!” Maxim Maximych waves at the paper dismissively, kneads a new Belomor cigarette, lights up.

  “That Beanhill – Kolka, the one they call an ‘operator’ – he’s a dyed-in-the-wool thief and bandit, and the auditor lady was there in the boiler room the first time: she heard him call Hamiddulin a dirty goat. That day, Igoryok – Hamiddulin – he was drunk too, so what? He had a good heart, it’s just that Beanhill bullied him, so he was his whipping boy, ran to fetch him booze and such. That Beanhill, he had it coming – he wasn’t such a big boss on the inside, mark my word. And now Igoryok’s gotta sit 14 years in a special prison... and you say, he’s a star! Some star indeed...”

  Maximych is so angry he jams his unfinished cigarette into the ashtray, grinds it. He gets up, goes to the door.

  “In violation of the factory’s operating procedure,” he mocks. “You couldn’t get into the fucking boiler room on a tightrope, you hear me?” He doesn’t know why he is yelling at his old wife, so he adds, softly: “All right, I’ll go water now. It’s no use waiting for them now – they don’t show up ‘til dinnertime.”

  He leaves.