The Good Life Elsewhere
Page 11
But the cunning Romanian envoys refused our demand, saying Romania is already a member of the European Union and thus obliged to protect its borders. And notwithstanding their impudent speech, they were peacefully released by us and by our leader, Father Paisii. And he delivered a speech before us, and I, the Chronicler of this, the first Holy Moldovan Crusade, transmit it here with some abridgment, for Father Paisii said much that was incoherent. For he, like the entire army, had drunk adequately. During the pillaging of Ungheni the devil brought under our control an entire wine and vodka works.
“Brothers, hear my speech,” Paisii spoke. “Romania does not desire Moldovan pilgrims upon its borders. But they will be helpless before us if we are in Romania, having passed through their country peaceably. They will not smite us, for we will be carrying high the banner of our yearning for European integration. Thus, most important is to cross the river and, gathering together in one column, to walk straight and strong, with God in our hearts!”
And our ears rejoiced and many did not close their eyes until morning, for they were drunk and excited. And toward morning many fell silent, for they were on the cusp of their dreams, and all that remained to do was take a step and soar, as fledglings. And on the opposite bank of the river they had put out their fires, for the Romanians decided we would delay our crossing. And our leader Father Paisii struck his sword at the fourth hour of the morning, when the slumber of the border guards was heavy, and thus gave a sign for the crossing.
Alas and alack, to our misfortune. Our army was not well intentioned in their hearts and God destroyed our plans, effortlessly and easily, though not as a young boy destroys a fortress built of toy blocks, but as a stern father destroys the impious Tower of Babylon. And the entire river was overfilled with vessels large and small, though the width of the crossing in that place did not attain even fifty meters. Because of the clustering of people, a crush began, and many descended to the riverbed. Their steel armor sank, to multiply our misfortune. And verily, many drowned because they did not want to part with the loot they had stolen in Ungheni, and even earlier in Calarasi.
And mothers wailed, their eyes following their drowning young children, and the men swam, trying to save themselves, but mercy was not theirs to own. The current of the Prut in that place exactly is very quick and it drags a swimmer down to the bottom with more strength than God dragged Jonah to the fulfillment of his destiny.
And one soul in four had drowned, for the wind was increasing and many sloops were overturned, and a battalion of Romanian border guards tore asunder with a barrage of accurate bullets those who were not fated to drown. And so yet again one in four souls of our pilgrims were shot. Or, being wounded and without strength, they drowned. And Father Paisii was wounded, and he let fall the sword of Emperor Trajan into the river, and this holy weapon drowned. And of those ten thousand that ascended to the Romanian side, afterwards it was heard that they were sold to the Albanians. The Albanians separated the people and sold them once again. The men were sent to the snake-infested orange groves of Greece where, if they were not felled by poisonous bites, the sun would surely strike them. And the women were sold to Kosovo, where they were used by peacekeeping troops. And we, the survivors, cried to see how they were led away on the opposite bank. And the twenty thousand who remained from the entire crusading army were scattered by cold and hunger. And we returned to our villages across Moldova, to eke out a miserable existence and save money.
For every one among us still dreamed of leaving to go work in Italy.
26
IT TOOK VASILY LUNGU AND SERAFIM BOTEZATU NEARLY A month to reach home. Because of the tractor, they couldn’t make it any faster: for an entire one hundred and twenty miles they lugged its remains. The men walked along the railroad tracks; the trains were forced to wait patiently while they dragged themselves from one station to another. When passengers realized that right before there eyes passed not just two random men, but Vasily and Serafim in the flesh, those two men who’d tried to fly a tractor to Italy—they’d been written up in the all the newspapers—they gave the travelers a standing ovation. The only ones who didn’t share the people’s joy were the conductors, the train and tram drivers, and the stationmasters.
“Come on, can’t you drag yourselves any faster?” the railroad men shouted nervously, letting off steam from their engines and getting hot between the ears themselves. “Get off the tracks, you pests.”
“Let them alone,” the passengers interceded on behalf of the men. “They’re chasing after their dreams. If their dreams are slow as molasses, so be it.”
The railroad men resigned themselves and hit the breaks. They ran the trains at the lowest speed and plodded along dejectedly behind Vasily and Serafim, every now and then nipping at their tails. The passengers would exit the wagons to stretch their legs and breathe in the fresh air. They held picnics and weren’t afraid of being left behind, for in an entire hour the train would only cover a mile or two, no more. Many people sunbathed on the roof, and the especially impatient women manipulated sunbeams that bounced off their makeup mirrors. They’d stop only for a passionate kiss.
“It’s so nice that there are men like Serafim Botezatu and Vasily Lungu in this world,” the ladies said exultantly. “Thanks to them, we remember that we needn’t always hurry. And thanks to them, time comes to a standstill, like when a dog is chasing after a bird and suddenly he gets a whiff of a bone buried in the ground … ”
And Vasily and Serafim walked on, straining their backs, dripping the sweat of their exhaustion onto the scorching rails, and smiling unhappily to each other. Both mulled over the fact that had they not fallen asleep, they might have evaded the Grad missile that blasted through the clouds where their flying tractor was hiding. But such was their fate. They both understood, and Vasily no longer held out hope for anything, since his entire life had been wrecked along with the tractor.
“And the reason we’re carrying the remains of this machine back to Larga,” he’d explain, huffing and puffing, to Serafim—who hadn’t asked why they were carrying the remains of the machine back to Larga, but was simply doing so out of obedience—“is to return the remains to the earth, like the body of the finest of men.”
Vasily firmly resolved to bury his flying tractor close to his father, a good man, hallowed be his name, whose heart had been softer than a melting ice rose. Remembering this, he perked up his step and encouraged his fellow traveler.
“Ekh, Serafim,” he would smile, crying. “We wouldn’t have been able to face ourselves if we hadn’t tried to make it to Italy. But obviously, it wasn’t meant to be. And if that’s the case, why battle fate?”
“Let’s talk about it later, after we get to Larga and have some rest,” Serafim said sharply. He was hatching new plans.
The steam engine behind them gave out a mighty whistle and the friends, lifting their heads, saw another train coming toward them. The two engineers shook their fists and shouted at each other, while the friends dragged themselves along the line and exchanged bows to the passengers’ applause.
They wrote about Vasily and Serafim in the newspapers – initially in the railway papers and then in the national news. They called them “pilgrims of the rails.” At first, the Moldova Railroad administration wanted to clear them off the lines, since they’d caused a four-day delay in the train schedule. But when they saw the popularity the friends enjoyed, the administration decided they could use the situation to their advantage. They offered Vasily and Serafim steady work: to ride the line back and forth from Chisinau to Ungheni. The bureaucrats were planning on launching five luxury trains along the route, complete with saunas, movie cars, dance cars, restaurants, swimming pools, libraries, and deluxe berths. They were going to charge three hundred dollars a ticket for a ride on the proposed route, and attract foreign passengers. They planned on calling the tour “Charm of the Railroad, or Philosopher of the Rails.”
But while they were searching for start-up capital, Vasily an
d Serafim had taken the branch line to Ungheni and then climbed north, making their way back to Larga. During the course of their journey, they’d become the darlings of all the train passengers of Moldova. But never once did they step inside a wagon.
They couldn’t afford a ticket.
27
AFTER A WEEK OF CATCHING UP ON SLEEP, SERAFIM AWOKE at dawn. His eyes followed the fading Morning Star in the shimmering blue of the new day and he thought about how to get to Italy. He washed up and hurried to Vasily’s house.
“Vasily, wake up!” He shook his friend awake. “I’ve figured out how to get to Italy!”
Vasily who’d been sleeping on a wooden bench underneath the walnut tree, blinked long and tried to understand what was going on. And when he figured out what Serafim wanted, Lungu fell into deep thought and climbed out from under the blanket.
“Some things you can’t talk about with a dry mouth,” he said grandly. “Got to give the brain a boost!”
And slipping his bare feet into his old galoshes, he went into the basement for some wine from the best harvest – made from the grapes he’d gathered with his now-deceased wife. They had lived together peacefully that fall, and for that reason the wine always bore a hint of the unbearable bitterness of Maria’s later tears. Which is why Vasily liked it so much.
“You understand, we’re going to need materials for this,” he said to Serafim before drinking the first round.
“I realize,” Serafim answered with restraint. “Drink.”
“And now you,” said Vasily, handing his friend the glass and taking a whiff of the crumbled walnut leaf he had in his hand. “Where are we gonna get the materials without any money? Are we gonna steal the money?”
“No point in that,” answered Serafim logically. “If we stole the money, why waste it on materials? We could just spend it on a trip to Italy.”
“Well put,” Vasily agreed. “So?”
“You know, to implement this grand plan we’ll need a submarine,” began Serafim, pensively. “Not too large, something we can swim out of the Dniester in and cross over to the Black Sea, go around the coast of Romania and Bulgaria, and set our course straight for Italy.”
“Right.” Vasily shook his head. “But you can’t make a submarine out of thin air.”
“We’ll make it out of materials.” Serafim gave the walnut tree a once-over and poured wine reflexively “Out of materials, my friend.”
“What do you mean?” Vasily couldn’t contain himself any longer. “We haven’t got a pot to piss in!”
Serafim paused for dramatic effect, drank his wine down, looked at Vasily from over his glass, passed it to his friend, and said, positively:
“We’ll dig up the remains of the tractor!”
28
OF COURSE, AT FIRST THE FRIENDS FOUGHT. VASILY, ALMOST immediately upon hearing Serafim’s blasphemous suggestion, drove his leg into his friend’s chest, and when Serafim fell, he went running for his pitchfork. Coming back from the barn fully armed, Vasily shook his head, because the offender had simply disappeared. True, he wasn’t lost for long, and jumped straight onto Vasily’s head from a branch of the walnut tree. Serafim beat Vasily’s head off the bench until his friend saw red stars. Then, without crawling out from under Serafim, Vasily punched him in the side. “Ekh,” Serafim said, doubled over from the blow.
“Ekh, ekh.”
Meanwhile, Vasily hit him in the back with the blunt end of the pitchfork, and the only reason he used the blunt end was that he was holding the pitchfork in an uncomfortable position, and by the time he spun it around to use as a skewer, Serafim had hurled a pitcher of wine at his face and pulled a terribly effective move. The move was one the friends had seen back when they were still kids in the dawn of the nineties, and the collective farm had screened the movies of Bruce Lee. Those were the days when you’d have to pay three rubles for entrance into a room that had a VCR. Jumping up high and grabbing onto the branch of the walnut tree, Serafim thrust both legs into Vasily’s chest.
“Hi-ya!” he yelled.
After which, he prudently grabbed the pitchfork and took shelter in the house. Serafim was saved from arson only because it was Vasily’s house, and Vasily couldn’t bring himself to burn down his own place of residence, even to smoke out a newly acquired enemy.
29
TOWARD MIDNIGHT THE WINE RAN OUT IN THE HOUSE AND Serafim began to cry and ask to be let out. Vasily lightened up after five jugs of wine and the friends reconciled, sealing their friendship with a sturdy kiss and a manly embrace.
“And now,” said Serafim, wiping away a tear, “let’s go see the priest. If he sang the requiem service and returned the remains of the tractor to the earth in a Christian way, then surely he’ll agree to carry out this waddayacallit, this exhumation.”
The month before, Father Paisii, finding himself in very difficult financial straits, had indeed agreed to carry out the requiem rites over the scraps of steel Vasily and Serafim had brought to the village. The priest had even read out, “Then shall the dust of the servant of God, the tractor, return to the earth.” But would Paisii, who’d already once committed a perversion of the Christian doctrine, agree to repeat his sacrilege? Serafim had no doubts he would. Vasily wasn’t quite as sure, but he didn’t care to chance another all-day bloodbath with his pal, since his head still ached from the wine and his ribs from the punches.
“What?” cried the shocked Paisii, leaning out the window. “Dig up the deceased?”
“Father,” said Serafim, trying to assuage the situation, “it’s just a machine, after all. A tractor.”
“What difference does it make?” hissed Paisii. After we gave it a Christian burial, that tractor of yours became like any other normal dead person. Unbury the deceased? Have you lost your mind?”
“Please, kind Father, we really need this. It’s for a righteous cause,” Vasily entreated.
“No,” answered Father Paisii, definitely. “If you even try, I’ll excommunicate you. You’ve lost all your marbles. At first you force the priest to sing the requiem over your tractor, then you ask the priest for permission to dig up this dead – I mean, to dig up this tractor! Tfu!”
“Father!”
“Heretics!”
“Father Paisii!”
“I’ll excommunicate you. Don’t even ask. Got it? Do you know what the crux of our religion is?
“What?” asked Vasily, utterly baffled.
“Our religion is the sword,” uttered Paisii, “for it is said, ‘I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.’”
And it was here that Vasily interrupted.
“And what if we send you a visa invitation from Italy?” he asked quietly. “An invitation and a job. We’ll give it to you in writing.”
The priest exhaled loudly through his nose and sat down on the windowsill.
“Our religion,” said Paisii, stretching out an arm holding pen and paper to his friends, “is peace and mercy. Start writing.”
30
IN THE PRESENCE OF A HANDFUL OF VILLAGERS AND THE priest, who’d given his blessing to the procedure, the friends dug up the tractor’s grave and took down the marker from the cross. On the marker was inscribed:
KOLKHOZ COMMUNAL TRACTOR
IN REMEMBRANCE AND LOVE
1980-2004
The grave marker also contained a drawing of a tractor. The tractor had a human hand. The human hand had a glass of wine. Now the need for such a memorial had passed.
“I bless you,” Paisii pronounced quickly, crossing the friends, “and remember, good Christians keep their word.”
And he left, his dirty cassock sweeping up the cemetery dust in his haste. Vasily, watching him leave, thought the priest was clearly up to something.
Serafim huffed and puffed as he dismantled the coffin where, a month ago, Vasily had wanted to bury the tractor remains. “The motor can’t be repaired, but it doesn’t matter. We’ll need it for ballast. And we can use the metal for the body.”
“In any case,” sighed Vasily, “we’ve got to do something about a motor. If we try to sail to Italy using only the underwater current pattern, it’ll take us over a year to reach our goal.”
“There won’t be any problems with the motor,” said Serafim, calming his friend. “Just take a look over there.”
Vasily raised his eyes and saw before his eyes the bicycle of Old Man Tudor; specifically, the pedals. He understood everything.
31
VASILY, IN A SPLENDID BLACK UNIFORM, WITH GOLDEN threading on his peaked cap and bright red stripes down the sides of his trousers, was standing at attention. Next to him, stooping slightly—which only proved he’d never served in the army—was Serafim, looking askance and slightly craning his neck. Both of them were giving the once-over to the Romanian border guard, who’d nearly lost the gift of speech upon seeing these two strange Moldovans. Usually, it was people in their cars who passed through this checkpoint. But these two had arrived on foot, and not empty-handed, either. Not that they had cigarettes, instant coffee, or pork, which Moldovans usually transported to Iasi to peddle. These two were hauling a strange sort of creation in their arms, something that looked an awful lot like a cheap cigar, or …