Moscow Stations

by Venedikt Yerofeev

  Oh, Jesus! If every Friday’s going to be like this one, I’ll hang myself some Thursday! Oh, Petushki – while I was trying to reach you, who slaughtered all your little birds and trampled down your jasmine? Oh, Queen of Heaven, I’m in Petushki!

  Well, never mind, Erofeev… Talitha cumi, as the Saviour said – Arise and go… Give it a try. You’ll soon find out why there’s nobody here, why she didn’t meet you, you’ll know everything. Go, Venya, go. If you want to go left, go left. If you want to go right, go right. Just follow your nose…

  You know, somebody told me once it was quite easy to die: all you need to do is breathe in, really deep, as hard as you can, forty times on the trot, then breathe out, the same again, and you’ll give up the ghost. Might be worth a try?

  Actually, if I die – then I’ll die without accepting this world. I’ve observed it close up, and from afar. I’ve got it sussed, but I can’t accept it. I’ll die, and the Lord’ll ask me, He’ll say, “Well, how did you find it down there – good or bad?” And I won’t answer. I’ll lower my eyes and keep shtum. And my silence will be familiar to all constant and heavy drinkers. I mean, isn’t the life of man simply the soul’s sidelong glance? The soul’s eclipse? We’re all of us drunk, yes, each in his own way, and I, who have drunk so much that I’ve lost track of how much… I’m the soberest man in the world…

  Yes, the Lord, wreathed in blue lightning, will say to me, “Why don’t you speak?” But what can I tell Him? The consolation of mankind, the lily of the valley, didn’t turn up, she wasn’t there to meet me. So what can I say?

  You know, it’s weird, they’ve flung up some really tall buildings in Petushki! Actually, it’s always like that after a prolonged piss-up: people seem terribly angry, the streets are fantastically wide, and the buildings are so tall, it’s scary…

  And why can’t somebody open a door and let a person get warm for a couple of minutes? It can’t be that difficult, surely? I don’t understand it… They do, the serious people, they understand it, but I never will, I’m too much of a lightweight. Mene, tekel, upharsin… i.e., I’ve been weighed in the balance and found wanting, a lightweight – a tekel. Well, whether those scales exist or not, sighs and tears’ll outweigh plotting and scheming, I’m absolutely certain of that. I know whereof I speak, humanity – all your guiding stars are on their way out.

  All you people out there – I don’t know you too well, I haven’t paid you much attention, but I am interested in you. I’d like to know where your soul is, to know for sure if the Star of Bethlehem’s going to shine out again, or even just flicker. That’s the main thing, ‘cause all the other stars are just about kaput, and even if they are shining, well, they’re not worth a shit.

  Anyway, scales or no scales, us lightweights’ll be weighed again up there, and it’ll be our turn. We shall overcome. Only why have they widened the streets in Petushki? It’s so strange.

  Oh, if I could have even just twenty mouthfuls of Kuban vodka! They’d reach down to my heart, and my heart could always convince my reason I was in Petushki!

  But I had no Kuban vodka, and at that point, something happened, far more terrifying than anything I had seen in my dreams. Four men were walking towards me. They didn’t look like criminals, no, quite the contrary, there was a suggestion of the classical about them, but their eyes – all four of them had such eyes. Have you ever been to the toilet on Petushki station? If so, you’ll remember right down in the murky depths, underneath the round shit-holes, the brown slops splashing and twinkling. Well, that’s what their eyes were like.

  Nobody can be sure of himself at night, on a cold night. Even the apostle betrayed Christ before the third cock crowed. Actually, the apostle betrayed Christ three times before cock-crow, and he was at least able to keep warm. But I haven’t got a fire, and I’ve a desperate hangover. And if they were to torture me now, I’d betray Him up to seven times seventy, and more besides…

  “Listen,” I said, “Let me go. I mean, what am I to you? I’ve just missed my girlfriend… I was on the train, and I didn’t make it… I fell asleep, and somebody stole my little suitcase… there was nothing in it, just junk, some ‘Cornflower’ sweets, and two hundred grammes of walnuts. I was taking them to my little kid, I’d promised I would, because he knows his letters so well…”

  And the four of them stood looking at me, thinking, “This is a fool, a chicken-livered halfwit.” Oh, God, let them think what they like, as long as they let me go!…

  “I want to go to Petushki!”

  “You’re going to no Petushki!”

  “Alright, I’ll go to Kursk station.”

  “You’re not going to any station!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because!”

  One of them swung back his arm then, and punched me in the face..

  Oh, run, Venya, run like the wind, anywhere! Run to Kursk Station, to left, or right, or backwards – it doesn’t matter where you end up! Run, Venya, run!

  If they catch me, they’ll kill me! I jumped out onto a huge square paved with wet cobblestones… This isn’t Petushki!!!

  No, no way is this Petushki! The Kremlin was shining before me in all its splendour. Even though I could hear my pursuers’ footsteps behind me, I was still able to think: “Here I’ve criss-crossed Moscow God knows how often, drunk or hung over, and I’ve never once clapped eyes on the Kremlin, I’ve always wound up at Kursk Station. And now I’ve seen it – when it’s Kursk Station I need more than anything!”

  Unfathomable are Thy ways, o Lord…

  Right to the very last second I still believed I could save myself. Even when I ran into that godforsaken entry, and crawled up to the top landing – even then I was hoping…

  Never mind, Venya, it’s okay, your heart’ll calm down in an hour or so, the blood’ll wash off. Lie down, Venya, have a lie-down till the morning, then you can go to Kursk Station…

  Downstairs, I could hear the entry door opening. Talitha cumi… arise, and prepare to meet thy doom… No, this is no longer talitha cumi, I can feel it in my bones, this is lama sabachthani – as our Saviour said… “My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” Yes, Lord, why hast Thou forsaken me?

  And the Lord was silent.

  Oh, angels in Heaven, they’re coming upstairs! What am I going to do? What can I do now, so I won’t die!? Angels!…

  And the angels burst out laughing. Do you know how angels laugh? I’ll tell you, shall I? A long time ago, at Lobnya Station, a man was killed by a train – it was incredible, the entire bottom half of his body was chopped up into little pieces, and strewn all over the rail-bed, while the top half was left standing, like the busts of all those various bastards you see on pedestals. Anyway, the train moved off, and he, that half of him, was left with a sort of worried look on his face, and his mouth open. Most people couldn’t stand to watch, but some kids ran up, three or four of them. They’d found a fag-end somewhere, and they stuck it, still smoking, in the dead man’s mouth. Then they started running round him, tee-heeing at the great joke.

  Well, that’s how the angels laughed at me now. They laughed, and God was silent… Then I saw those four men – they were coming up on to the top landing…

  They didn’t even pause for breath. They launched themselves at me from the steps, and one of them, the one with the fiercest and most classical profile, whipped out a huge cobbler’s awl, with a wooden handle – maybe it wasn’t an awl, it might’ve been a screwdriver or something, I don’t know. But he ordered the others to hold my arms, and no matter how I tried to defend myself, they nailed me down…

  Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

  They plunged the awl deep into my throat… I never knew pain like that was possible. I writhed in torment, and a thick red letter ‘U’ spread over my eyes and started to quiver.

  At that point, I lost consciousness. I’ve not come to yet… And I never shall.

  THE END

  Stations