He grew suspicious, his wheels turning.
“You didn’t throw anything away yesterday, did you?” he asked Oksana.
“Just some logs from the bathtub. Why?”
“Please don’t throw anything else away,” said Shulgin.
“But they were crooked and useless!”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, woman.”
Of course, he didn’t know what he was talking about, either, and he couldn’t figure why his living quarters have been made smaller: Was it the mini-boiler or the half logs? What were the rules here? Maybe it’s like backgammon? You make a wrong move and voilà, you can’t get rid of any of your checkers? And Frolov: How did he play? Why was his apartment endlessly getting bigger and bigger, why was it packed with TV sets?
For two months following, things were boring and dull, but safe: he went to the window as if it were his job; there, random crap was meted out—baby powder, paper clips, a bland white Polar Bear waffle cake, homeopathic pellets for an unspecified illness, pots with seedlings. All of it took up space. Shulgin behaved, he kept everything, until he was finally rewarded with an envelope containing a note: “270 square feet, with balcony.” It all worked the same as last time, the only difference being that Oksana herself now found the door, which was obscured by the wallpaper, and by the time Shulgin came home she had already moved the Nefertiti ottoman, along with a table and two armchairs, into their new room.
“Perhaps there are other surprises hidden beneath the wallpaper?” rejoiced Oksana.
“Perhaps…but not all at once,” responded Shulgin, playfully slapping her on the ass and mentally calculating that they had already swallowed up the entire expanse of Naila Muhummedovna’s apartment and were now extending into the space where the Bearshagsky kitchen was. But neither Naila Muhummedovna nor the Bearshagskys were complaining.
Another week went by with Shulgin receiving things both necessary and unnecessary, and then something dreadful happened: they were invited to a birthday party at a dacha. Oksana mused and debated aloud, trying to decide which gift was best, Obsession eau de toilette or a tie; subsequently Shulgin’s guard was down. Upon getting out of the cab, however, he finally noticed his wife dragging a big white box, and his heart stopped.
“What’s that?”
“A charcoal grill.”
“Did you buy it?”
“No, it’s one of ours. We have two of them, remember?”
“What have you done?! We have to take it back right this minute!”
But it was too late: their cab, having made a U-turn, had already left, and the birthday boy had already come out from the gate to greet and joyfully thank them for such a thoughtful gift. Shulgin couldn’t eat a single bite of his shashlik; he was worried sick about what the window would think about this, how it would punish him. Oksana also looked crestfallen: she must have incorrectly concluded Shulgin was just greedy, a dog in the manger. Once home later that night, Shulgin ran to check—had the walls moved, and what about the ceilings, was the balcony still there, what was going on with the fridge and the stove?—misfortune could come from anywhere. He inspected the fuse box, looked under the beds, and counted the appliances and the unopened boxes stuffed with unnecessary things imposed on him by the window. Counting was easier said than done: there were boxes up to the ceiling filling all three rooms; in the hallways you had to squeeze by sideways. But everything looked to be okay until his mother-in-law, who had taken Kira for the weekend, called to say that the child had a high fever, she was burning up.
“This, this is all your doing! That’s what you get for the grill!” Shulgin yelled at Oksana.
“Are you nuts?” Oksana broke into tears.
“Don’t touch my kid! You hear me? Don’t you dare touch my kid!” yelled Shulgin into thin air, shaking his fists.
By morning, Kira’s fever was down, and Shulgin—enraged and resolute—marched over to the window to hash this out mano a mano: What the hell is this shit? The window issued a pair of valenki, just as at the dawn of their liaison.
“What’s this supposed to mean?” Shulgin demanded angrily, banging the closed shutters with his fist. “Hey! I’m talking to you!” The window was silent. “Answer when people are talking to you!” Silenzio. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you!” blustered Shulgin.
At home, he cooled down a bit and started contemplating his next steps. Things weren’t looking good. On the one hand, the unseen evil forces behind the window were daily handing out gifts—perhaps not of the highest quality, but quite decent nonetheless. In the span of just eighteen months, Shulgin had accumulated enough to open up his own store. But on the other hand—and here was the catch—the window wouldn’t allow you to sell anything. Wouldn’t let you sell anything, wouldn’t let you give away anything, wouldn’t let you throw out anything. It was a totalitarian regime, thought Shulgin bitterly, absolute control and no free market. Then again, it wasn’t totally inhumane—once the apartment became so full it was close to bursting, the window did thoughtfully expand your living quarters. In Frolov’s case, they seemed to be expanding ad infinitum. Be that as it may, who needs all this square footage, even with a balcony, if you can’t do with it as you please?
Maybe I should privatize it? considered Shulgin.
“What do you think about privatization?” he shouted to Frolov. His friend was silent; perhaps he couldn’t hear him. It wasn’t at all comfortable playing or even just sitting in Frolov’s apartment anymore—there were railroad tracks everywhere, mine trolleys were zooming every which way, knocking over backgammon pieces and coffee mugs—the racket was insufferable and so was the smell. TVs now continuously covered all of the walls.
“What’s all this?” shouted Shulgin over the noise, referring to the railroad traffic.
“I dunno. ‘Siberia Aluminum,’ they say.”
“I thought Deripaska owned it.”
“I think he’s the majority shareholder.”
Shulgin suddenly felt bad for Deripaska: if Deripaska decided to buy some more shares from Frolov for absolute happiness, he’d be shit out of luck. The window wouldn’t allow it. But something was amiss, thought Shulgin—they’d started out at practically the same time, but now Frolov had an entire manufacturing plant, he was basically an oligarch. But all Shulgin had was a three-room apartment and a sausage-vendor wife. Imagine, social inequality and no free market. Take that, North Korea!
Oksana was planning to get a nanny for Kira in order to go back to work, so when the window shouted “Nanny for Kira,” Shulgin hopped up—“Deal!”—and by the time he saw what was what, it was too late. The nanny came out of the window feet first, like a breech baby, and while the legs were making their way out, Shulgin began to realize the full scope of the impending disaster. She was around twenty, Playboy Bunny curves, tits from a sergeant’s wet dream, dyed hair, pink lipstick, teeth playfully biting down on a blade of grass. She adjusted her miniskirt:
“Where’s the kid?”
“I won’t let you near her!” scowled Shulgin.
“And why not?”
“I need a stupid old hag, and not this…What the hell is this!”
“We’ll grow old together! And I ain’t that smart.” She snorted with laughter.
“I have a wife at home!!”
“Oh, muffin, how sweet, he’s got a wife!”
If we walk through the food market she’ll get disoriented and lose her way, plotted Shulgin. But things didn’t go as planned: the nanny held on tight, swayed her leather-clad hips, and loudly demanded he buy her black caviar and cherries.
Where is the Kebab mafia when you need ’em? Shulgin looked around dejectedly. Who’s in charge of this market? The Azerbaijanis, I think? Or is it the Chechens? Where did they all go?!
They finally made it home, caviar and cherries in hand, passersby craning their nec
ks—a disgrace for all to see.
“Break me off some lilacs for a bouquet, tiger,” moaned the nanny.
Here’s what I’ve got to do, he mused. Stop by Frolov’s house, as if for a game of backgammon. And there, shove her into a trolley, pile on some of that aluminum he’s got, and secure with a cover. And let her merrily roll along. It won’t count as giving her away—Shulgin mentally rationalized with the window—it’s simply a cruise! Yep, that’s what it should count as. “Siberia, Siberia, I’m not afraid of you, Siberia, Siberia, you’re Russia with a view,” he purred softly.
Frolov’s door was opened by members of indigenous peoples of the Far North in fox-fur hats; they said the boss wasn’t home.
“I’ll wait.” Shulgin tried to make his way inside, even though it was rather unpleasant stepping on the snow. For that’s what everything was covered with—snow. The railroad tracks, the backgammon table, the coffee service, all of it was a white tundra, completely devoid of coziness: dim, with long rows of TVs, icy plains with hummocks, and gas flares blazing on the horizon. A deer ran by to catch up with the herd.
“No way, José.” The northern people shooed Shulgin away.
“I didn’t ask you! Where did he go?”
“House of Representatives,” the people answered, lying, no doubt.
Still standing in front of the door just slammed on him, an ordinary particleboard one with a peephole, Shulgin, of course, didn’t buy it. A faint smell of soup was emanating from the cracks; a worn doormat lay before him. On the other hand, anything is possible. If that was the case, he’d need to ask Frolov for a neighborly favor: maybe he could speed up the economic reforms to finally allow sale, exchange, and all that. Any entry into the free market. It would be so convenient: whatever you don’t need, you sell, and, using the money from the transaction, you buy the stuff you do need. Don’t they get it? Look at Oksana with her hot dogs—she’s free as a butterfly. But meanwhile he’s stuck with this craptastic floozy.
“Silly billy, at least I don’t cost a thing!” sing-songed the nanny.
“Drop dead!” howled Shulgin.
“Death won’t separate us!”
Shulgin fumbled for his keys, pushed the nanny aside, ran in, slammed and locked the door. His heart pounding, he tried to catch his breath. He barricaded the entrance with a mattress and secured it with an unopened box of something labeled “Toshiba.”
All night, the nanny pummeled the door, trying to get in. Oksana refused to listen to any explanations. Crying, she locked herself with Kira in the farthest, and, theoretically, nonexistent room. The nanny knocked on Shulgin’s door, Shulgin on Oksana’s, and the downstairs neighbors, angered by the noise, banged on the radiator with what sounded like a wrench. The lilac bushes swayed in the wind outside; in Frolov’s universe, moss was freezing over beneath the snow and sled dogs were heard yapping in the distance. When dawn broke, Shulgin, exhausted from his sleepless night, squeezed past the boxes into the kitchen for a drink of water and saw that a new room, faint like an aspen bud in the spring, was beginning to form in the wall—it was clearly being readied for the nanny. So they wouldn’t let him be, then. That was it. Do or die.
So he made a decision. Hesitated, and made it again.
Resolute, he marched off to the window—right turn, left turn, another left, and into building number 5—the nanny clinging to him and happily chirping all the way.
“One sick tricked-out ride!” swaggered the window.
“Sweeeet,” egged on the nanny.
“No deal,” a dignified Shulgin replied with pity.
“Oh, then it’s my turn!” happily responded the window, and slammed the shutters.
They stood there, they knocked, but no answer. Shulgin turned around and walked back through the courtyard, stepping over the detritus and industrial debris.
“What the fuck? I’m in heels!” the chimera yelped like she owned him.
“Begone, strumpet!”
“How da—”
“Deal!” came a voice from somewhere, and the nanny disappeared, never having finished her sentence. Shulgin looked around—no nanny. Fantastic! A weight was lifted. On the way home he bought some carnations.
“What’s this?” gloomily asked Oksana, holding Kira.
“Flowers.”
“Deal!” came the answer from the faraway window and the bouquet disappeared, leaving Shulgin with a bent elbow and his fingers still angled around where the carnations had been. Something hissed in the kitchen behind Oksana’s back.
“The coffee!” croaked Shulgin, his larynx contracting.
“Deal!” came from somewhere, and the coffee also disappeared, together with the cezve and the accompanying stain around the burner, making the stove look like new.
“Oh, the stove,” whispered Shulgin.
“Deeeaal!” and the stove was no more.
Oksana got scared: “What’s happening?”
“The window…,” Shulgin exhaled inaudibly, but they still heard him. The windows in his apartment vanished, dead walls appearing in their place, and all became dark, as before the beginning of time. Oksana let out a scream. Shulgin opened his mouth to comfort her with “Oksana! Oksanochka!” But having figured out the rules, he stayed silent.
He couldn’t let the window have the next turn.
See the Reverse
A hot day in May in Ravenna, a small Italian town where Dante is buried. Once upon a time—in the beginning of the fifth century AD—the emperor Honorius moved the capital of the Western Roman Empire here. There used to be a port in Ravenna, but the sea has since receded greatly, its place taken by swamps, roses, dust, and grapes. Ravenna is famous for its mosaics; crowds of tourists go from church to church examining them with eyes glued to the ceiling, the faint glimmer of small multicolored tesserae up there, high, under twilit ogival arches. You can make something out, but not much. Glossy postcards give a better view, but it’s too bright, too flat, too cheap-looking.
I’m feeling stuffy, dusty, and hot. There is upheaval in my soul. My father has died and I loved him so much! Way back, forty years ago, he passed this way, through Ravenna, and sent me a postcard of one of its famous mosaics. On the back there is a note, in pencil for some reason, maybe he was in a hurry: “My dear daughter! Never have I seen anything more beautiful (see the reverse)! Makes me want to cry! If only you were here! Your father!”
Every sentence is punctuated by these silly exclamation points—he was young, he was jolly, perhaps he’d had a bit of wine. I can picture him with his felt hat pushed back—1950s style—tall, lean, handsome, cigarette between his white (and, at that point, still natural) teeth, tiny beads of sweat on his forehead, eyes shining happily behind the round spectacles….The postcard—which he tossed into the mailbox, carelessly entrusting it to two unreliable postal services, the Italian and the Russian—bore an illustration of heaven. God is seated in a blindingly green, ever-vernal paradise, white sheep grazing around him. The two unreliable postal services rumpled and ruffled the postcard’s edges, but no matter, it arrived, and you can still make out pretty much everything.
If heaven exists, then that’s where my father is. Where else could he be? Even so, he’s dead, dead and no longer writing me postcards with exclamation points, no longer sending me tidings from all corners of the earth: I’m here, I love you, do you love me? Are you feeling happiness alongside me? Seeing the beauty that I am seeing? Hello to you! Here is a postcard! Here is a cheap, glossy photo—I was just here! It’s beautiful! Oh, if only you could have joined me!
He traveled the globe, and he liked what he saw.
And now, whenever possible, I follow in his footsteps, to the same cities that he visited, and I try to see them with his eyes, try to imagine him there, young, making a turn, walking up a staircase, leaning against an esplanade parapet with a cigarette between his lips. And here I
am now, in Ravenna, that dusty, stifling town, exhausting as all tourist attractions are, crowds filling its narrow streets. It’s a dead, stale, sweltering town with no place to sit. The Tomb of Dante, who was exiled from his native Florence. The Mausoleum of Theodoric. The Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, half sister of Honorius, the one who made Ravenna the capital of the Roman Empire. Fifteen centuries have passed. Everything has changed. It all got covered with dust; the mosaics crumbled. That which was important became unimportant; that which excited retreated into the sands. The sea itself retreated, and where happy green waves once splashed there is now a wasteland of dust, silence, and scorching-hot vineyards. Forty years back—a lifetime ago—my father walked here, laughing, squinting myopically, sitting down at street cafés, drinking wine, biting off a crust of pizza with his then-natural, strong teeth. A blue dimness would descend. At the edge of the table, in pencil, he’d write me hurried notes of his delight in and love of this world, punctuating indiscriminately with exclamation points.
A stifling, cloudy sky. It’s hot, but you can’t see the sun. It’s dusty. The former seabed now surrounds the town as wide fecund fields; where crabs once swarmed, now donkeys roam; where kelp once undulated, now roses slumber. It’s a graveyard, deserted; the streets of the once-magnificent capital are filled with disenchanted American ladies in pink T-shirts, dissatisfied that they have been lied to yet again by the tourist agency: everything in this Europe place is so tiny, so old! Fifteen centuries. Dante’s Tomb. The Mausoleum of Galla Placidia. My father’s grave. A naive green Eden on a crumpled postcard.
What amazed him so? I find the church in question, I look up—sure, something green, way up there, under the vaulted ceiling. White sheep on a green lawn. Ordinary lighting. The discordant hum of the tourist throng below. They point, they consult their guidebooks. In the such-and-such century, such-and-such school of art. It’s the same everywhere. You can’t even make out the particulars.
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