Moscow Stations

by Venedikt Yerofeev

  So, at the end of the month each worker comes to me with his report: so many grammes on this day, so many grammes on that day. Like, for instance, the chart of Victor Totoshkin, Komsomol member: I mean, even on the most superficial inspection, it was the Himalayas, the Austrian Tyrol, the Baku oilderricks, the top of the Kremlin wall – which I’ve never seen, incidentally.

  Then there was Alexei Blindyaev, Communist Party member since 1936, and shagged-out old creep. His was a breeze on the River Kama, just before dawn, all gentle plashes and dazzling ripples.

  And as for your humble servant, ex-brigade leader, and author of the epic Moscow to Petushki, well, what else but the beating of a proud heart, the Song of the Stormy Petrel, the ninth wave? Yes, and all this from a mere outline.

  Anyway, to the seeker after truth (like myself, for example), those lines said it all about man and the human heart: about his virtues, sexual and practical, and his failings, practical and sexual; about his state of mind, and his capacity for betrayal, and all the secrets of his subconscious, if indeed he’s got any.

  So, I now scrutinized with intense interest the souls of each one of those dozy buggers. Not for long, however: one unhappy day all the graphs vanished from my table. Yes, that old fart, Alexei Blindyaev, Communist Party member since 1936, was posting off our new Socialist pledges to head office, and whether from stupidity or drink, he put my individual graphs into the same envelope…

  Well, a few hours later it was all over. My Crucifixion took place exactly thirty days after my Ascension. In short, they gave me the bullet. And I solemnly swear to you now, that to the end of my days I shall embark on nothing which might bring about a repetition of my unhappy experience of life at the top. I shall remain at the bottom, and from down there spit on your whole social ladder. Yes. One spit for each rung. To climb up it, you’ve got to be a heathenish, thick-skinned bastard, a pervert, forged out of pure steel from head to foot.

  Anyway, I’m so fucked up now by all that mindless garbage that I haven’t had a dry day since! Fair enough, I can’t say I’d been dry too often before, but at least I could remember what I’d drunk, and in what order! Yes, that day my heart fought against my reason for a whole half-hour. Like in the tragedies of Corneille, you know? “Duty wrestles with the promptings of the heart.” My heart was telling me: “You’ve been hurt, you’ve been treated like shit. Go on, Venya, go and get ratarsed…” That’s what my beautiful heart was telling me. And my reason? It kept whingeing, relentlessly, “Don’t do it, Erofeev, don’t you dare drink a single drop!”

  Anyway, by the sixth day I was so pissed that the line dividing heart and reason had disappeared altogether, and they were both clamouring, “Go to Petushki! Go to Petushki! That’s where your happiness and salvation lie!”

  Petushki is where the birds are never silent, day or night, where the jasmine never fails, winter or summer. And there, every Friday, at exactly eleven o’clock, that girl of mine, that flaxen-haired she-devil, meets me on the station platform.

  And it’s Friday today, and she’ll be there, and the station platform’ll be there, and after the platform – strong vodka and port, sheer bliss and contortions, ecstasies and orgasms! Oh, Mother of God, how far away is Petushki still!

  Yes, and there, beyond Petushki, where the she-wolf howls at the stars, there in a smoky, flea-bitten mansion, unbeknownst to the flaxen-haired one, blossoms my little boy, the chubbiest and best-behaved infant of them all. He can point to the letter U, and waits for me to give him walnuts…

  ON-BOARD ANNOUNCER: Kuchino! Kuchino Station! Next stop Nazaryevo. This train does not stop at Yesino.

  VENYA: Pray for me, angels, do you hear? Let my way be light, let me not stumble against a rock, that I may see the place I so long for. And meanwhile – if you’ll excuse me – meanwhile keep an eye on my case while I nip out for a drink of Kuban vodka, so I don’t go off the boil. Okay? Angels?…

  Why don’t they answer? Why do they clam up the minute I start talking about Petushki? I mean, what are they thinking? That there’ll be nobody to meet me? Or that the train’ll crash down an embankment? Or that I’ll fall into a drunken stupor and somebody’ll knife me? Why are the angels embarrassed and silent? My tomorrow’s bright, okay? Our tomorrow’s brighter than our yesterday or today. But who can guarantee that our day after tomorrow won’t be worse than our day before yesterday?

  Well said, Venya, yes – all that stuff about tomorrow. Yes, it’s not often I put things so neatly. I’ve got very little brains at all. Still, what do I want brains for, anyway? I’ve got conscience and good taste. Brains are superfluous.

  I remember a while back, people would be holding forth on some topic or other, and I’d say, “What d’you want to bother with that crap for?” “What crap? If this is crap, kindly tell us what isn’t.” And I’d say, “I don’t know, I really don’t know. But it does exist!”

  Now, I’m not claiming I know the truth, or that I’m even close to it. No way. But I’ve come within shouting distance, and I know this much. Weltschmerz, the world’s sorrow, isn’t some fiction put out by old writers – no, I carry it inside me, I know what it is, and I’m not going to hide it. We’ve got to get into the habit of speaking out, telling people directly, coming right out with our virtues. I mean, who else but ourselves can know how good we are? (Drinks.)

  ANGELS: Venya, that’s too much. We’re afraid you won’t get there again. We’re afraid you won’t reach him, and he’ll have to go without his walnuts.

  VENYA: Hey, hold on, that was last Friday. She wouldn’t let me go to him last Friday. I got sidetracked in her white belly, as round as the earth and sky…

  ANGELS: Poor boy. Poor, poor little boy.

  VENYA: What do you mean “poor?” Listen, angels, just tell me this – you’ll stay with me all the way to Petushki, right? You won’t fly away?

  ANGELS: No, no, we can’t go all the way to Petushki. We’ll fly away as soon as you smile. You haven’t smiled once today, but the minute you smile, we’ll fly away, our minds will be at ease…

  VENYA: And you’ll meet me there on the platform, right?

  ANGELS: Oh yes, we’ll meet you there…

  VENYA: You know, they’re really charming creatures, these angels, but what do they mean – “poor little boy?” He’s not poor, no way! Well, okay, he was sick Friday before last, and everybody was in a state of alarm, but he started to get better the instant he saw me, he did, truly! Oh, merciful God, don’t let anything happen to him, not now, not ever!

  I mean, they told me he had a fever. I sat by his cot, drinking lemon vodka, and they left me alone with him. He really did have a fever, even the dimple in his cheek was feverish. Anyway, I’d had three glasses by the time he woke up and looked at me, and at the fourth glass in my hand. We had a long chat then, and I said, “Don’t die, kiddo, eh? I mean, you think: it’d be very silly to die, knowing just the one letter U, and nothing else. You can see that’d be really stupid, can’t you?” “Yes, father,” he said, with such a blissful smile… Ah!…

  And the angels are nodding to me from afar, and flying away, just as they said they would…

  Well, right, but I’ve still got to see her first! Yes, to see her on the platform, to catch fire, and get flat-out drunk, and graze among the lilies, till I’m dead of exhaustion!

  That’s how it was on that first day, exactly twelve weeks ago, with the birds, and the jasmine in Petushki. It was somebody or other’s birthday party, a bottomless well of all kinds of drink, could’ve been ten, twelve, twenty-five bottles. And when I came to, there she was, laughing at me, like some kind of good-natured baby. And I thought to myself, “Fantastic! Here’s a woman whose breast, until today, has been gripped by nothing but premonitions! This is a woman who, up till I arrived, hasn’t even had her pulse felt!”

  “So you’re Erofeev?” she said, and her eyelashes met and parted. “I’ve read one of your things. And you know what? I’d never have believed you could get so much bullshit into a
hundred and fifty pages. It’s beyond the powers of man.”

  “Beyond nothing,” I said, “I could fit even more in if you want.”

  And she promptly downed a hundred grammes of vodka. Drank it standing up, too, tossing her head back like a concert pianist. Then she uncoiled herself, like a whore, and started swaying her hips – so gracefully, that I couldn’t look at her without trembling…

  I was overcome with desire, panting, ready for sin. What next? Should I go all smarmy and gentle, or rough and masterful? I mean, up till then – should I be telling you this? – up till then I knew bugger all about women. I’ve always been in two minds about them, really. On the one hand, like Karl Marx, I love women for their weakness – for instance, they’ve got to sit down to pee, and I’ve always liked that – that’s always filled me with… well, what the hell – a sort of warm feeling. But on the other hand, they did shoot at Lenin, with a revolver, no less! I mean, fair enough, sitting down to pee, but shooting at Lenin?

  However, I digress. So – the iron fist or the velvet glove?

  Actually, she made up my mind for me, leaning back and stroking my cheek with her ankle. It was a sort of gesture of encouragement, but also a gentle box on the ear. And something like a fairy’s kiss. And then – oh, her belly, like earth and sky! The minute I saw that, I began to sob, almost, from inspiration. Everything merged into one: roses, lilies, and among the little curls, the moist, quivering entrance to Eden, oblivion!

  I remember saying to her one Friday, when I was all lit up with Zubrovka: “Hey, let’s spend the rest of our lives together! I’ll carry you off to my high-rise in Lobnya, I’ll drape you in purple silk; I’ll make a bit on the side doing telephone boxes, and you can sniff things – lilies, say, you can sniff them. Come on, let’s go!”

  But she said nothing – just gave me the V-sign.

  “For God’s sake, why not? Tell me.”

  And she suddenly burst into tears.

  “You bloody idiot! You know why not! You know damn well, you dumb bastard!”

  Since then, it’s been the same every Friday, the same tears, the same V-signs. But today, well, something’ll be decided today, because this Friday is the thirteenth in a row…

  ON-BOARD ANNOUNCER: Yesino! Yesino Station! This train does not stop at Yesino. The next stop is Nazaryevo.

  VENYA: And Holy Mother of God, we’re getting nearer to Petushki every minute!…

  Yes, I’ve got to live, that’s what! I mean, just imagine how many mysteries there are in the world, how many unfathomed secrets! Like hiccups, yes, why not? One of my halfwitted compatriots, Soloukhin, advises people to go gathering mushrooms in the woods. Well, you tell him where to shove his mushrooms! You’d do far better studying the hiccup!

  “Dear God Almighty!” I hear on all sides, “Surely there’s more to life than that, there must be something…”

  But there isn’t, that’s just my point! There really isn’t! So – let us consider the hiccup… Undertake research on the drunken hiccup, in its mathematical aspects…

  Of course, to commence our investigation of hiccups, we must first call them forth: either an sich, in the terminology of Emmanuel Kant, which means from ourselves, or else from some other person, but for our own purposes, which is für sich, as Kant terms it. Actually, the best of the lot is both an sich and für sich, and here’s what you do:

  Drink some sort of strong spirit, say Hunter’s vodka, for two hours non-stop, if possible without any snacks. If you find that hard, you can allow yourself a bite to eat, but something really unpretentious: bread that’s seen better days, or sprats in tomato sauce.

  Then break off for an hour, don’t eat or drink anything, just let your muscles go limp, and don’t strain. And before that hour’s up, you’ll see for yourself, your hiccups will commence. And the very first time it happens, you’ll be amazed at the suddenness of the onslaught; then you’ll be amazed at the second hiccup, and the third hiccup, likewise. And if you’ve got all your wits about you, you’ll write down at what intervals your hiccup deigns to visit you – in seconds, of course: 8 – 13 – 7 – 3 – 18…

  Naturally, you’ll try to establish some sort of periodicity here, you’ll have a shot at working out some ridiculous formula or other, to predict the length of the next interval. Try, by all means. Feel free. Life will topple all your half-arsed constructions… 17 – 3 – 4 – 17 – 1 – 20 – 3 – 4 – 7 – 18…

  You know, the leaders of the world proletariat, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, made a detailed study of changes in social structures, and on that basis, they were able to predict a whole heap of stuff. But they’d have been completely foxed by this one. I mean… 13 – 15 – 4 – 12 – 4 – 5 – 28…

  Now, isn’t this the way catastrophes line up for the human race – in random order? Yes, the law is above us all, and hiccups are above any kind of law. And just as their commencement took us by surprise, so also will their ending, an ending which, like death, we can neither foretell nor prevent… 22 – 14 – stop. And silence.

  And in that silence your heart will say to you: they are unfathomable, and we are at the disposal of a fate which is nameless, and from which there is no salvation.

  Therefore, be perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect… i.e., drink more and eat less. That’s the best remedy for self-doubt and facile atheism. I mean, just look at a hiccupping atheist: grim-faced, unable to concentrate. Then watch me when I hiccup, trusting in Divine Providence. Yes, I believe that God is Good, and I too am therefore good and blessed.

  God is good, yes. He is leading me out of suffering towards the light. From Moscow – to Petushki. From the torments of Kursk Station, through the Purgatory of Kuchino, to light, and Petushki. What can I drink in Thy Name? Alas, I haven’t a thing worthy of Thee. Kuban vodka’s horse-piss, and fortified rosé at a rouble 37! Jesus! But if I should reach Petushki today, in one piece, I’ll create a cocktail which can be drunk without shame in the presence of God and man alike. And I’ll call it The Waters of Jordan, or The Star of Bethlehem.

  No, don’t laugh. People all over the place, from Moscow to Petushki, still drink these cocktails, unaware of their creator, cocktails like Canaan Balsam, or Spirit of Geneva, or Tears of a Komsomol Girl, and that’s as it should be. I mean, vodka on its own, even straight out the bottle, offers nothing but aggravation, weariness of spirit. However, you drink a glass of Spirit of Geneva, and you’ll get whimsy, ideas, pathos, and a hint of metaphysics.

  Why don’t I give you the recipe for Spirit of Geneva? It’s not just a drink, it’s the music of the spheres. What’s the most beautiful thing in life? The struggle to free all mankind. Well, here’s something even more beautiful. Write it down. Please. You’ve only got one life, and if you want to see it out, you don’t make mistakes with recipes:

  Zhiguli beer ……………………………………. 200 grammes

  Distilled varnish …………………………….. 100 grammes…

  I’m not going to tell you how to distill varnish, that’s kids’ stuff. You know, it’s weird, nobody in Russia knows how Pushkin died, but everybody knows how to distill varnish. Anyway…

  Distilled varnish …………………………….. 100 grammes

  ‘White Lilac’ toilet water ………………… 50 grammes

  Sock deodorizer ……………………………… 50 grammes

  Let it marinade for a week with some cigar tobacco. Then serve. Drink it in big gulps, when the first stars appear. After two glasses of this, I tell you, a person becomes so inspired that you can walk up and spit right in their moosh for a whole half-hour, and they won’t utter a word…

  Actually, the secret lies in the White Lilac, for which there is no substitute – not Cypress, not Jasmine, not Lily of the Valley, even. Yes, I drank a whole bottle of Lily of the Valley once, and then sat down and wept. Why? Because I remembered my mother. “Mama!” I said. And wept. Then “Mama!” again, and more tears. Another person, stupider, would’v
e sat there howling. But I just reached for a bottle of White Lilac and drank that. And you know what? The tears dried up, I had an idiotic impulse to laugh, and as for my mother – well, I couldn’t even remember her name! Anyway, that’ll do for now. In Petushki, I’ll let you in on the secret of The Waters of Jordan, if I get there in one piece, that is – if God is merciful.

  ON-BOARD ANNOUNCER: Nazaryevo! Nazaryevo Station! Next stop Drezna!

  VENYA: Meanwhile, what concoction can I devise out of the crap that’s left in my little suitcase? Auntie Olga’s Kiss? A Kiss, incidentally, is a half-and-half mixture of any red wine and any vodka. There’s all kinds of Kisses, depending on the ingredients: First Kiss, Loveless Kiss, Kiss Taken By Force… There’s all kinds of Kisses, and they’ll all turn your stomach, unless you’ve been used to them from childhood.

  Rossiiskaya plus fortified rosé at a rouble 37’ll give me Auntie Olga’s Kiss. Okay, it’s nasty stuff, sick-making in the extreme, more suitable for watering rubber-plants. But what can I do? I’ve no decent wine, and no rubber-plant. It’ll just have to be Auntie Olga’s. (Moves to seat.)

  Where’s my quarter-bottle of Rossiiskaya? What happened? The angels were supposed to keep an eye on the suitcase. While I’ve been sharing my joys and sorrows with you, they’ve let somebody steal my Auntie Olga’s Kiss!

  Well, God knows what genre I’ll be in by the time we reach Petushki. All the way from Moscow we’ve had philosophical essays, memoirs, poetry and prose, Turgenev-style. Now, it’s a whodunit! Who stole my Auntie Olga’s Kiss!!!

  Nothing out of the ordinary behind me. Well, there is a couple, and pretty strange too – fantastically alike: he’s wearing a jacket, so’s she; he has a brown beret and a black moustache, so has she. No, it can’t be either of them.

  In front of me: same again, just two odd characters, an old man and his grandson. They’re looking me straight in the eye and licking their lips. Hm… I’d say suspicious.