‘So Martin’s banging a little girl,’ Colin says. ‘What’s the legal age in Russia anyway?’
‘I don’t really know her age,’ I say. ‘She’s not that young.’
Stepanov takes the bottle of vodka and fills our four glasses. ‘I don’t think we have age limits in Russia.’
‘Where did you find her?’ Diego asks, not bothering to look up from his mobile phone.
‘At the Moskva Bookshop,’ I say. ‘A couple of weeks ago. She was standing by the foreign language books.’
‘The foreign language shelves are a great spot to pick up dyevs,’ Colin says. ‘In Dom Knigi there are always hot dyevs around the foreign books. It’s like just by being there they are giving you a green light.’
Diego looks up. ‘Why’s that? I don’t think you need much encouragement to hit on a girl.’
‘You know,’ Colin says, ‘if they are trying to learn English, they are more willing and interested in meeting expats.’
‘So you took her home right away?’ Diego asks, now looking at me.
‘I took her for a cup of coffee,’ I say. ‘She’s a lovely girl, but a bit shy. Next day we went to the new sushi bar that just opened in Bolshaya Dmitrovka.’
‘Haven’t tried that one yet,’ Colin says.
‘Don’t.’ I stand up and walk towards the large piano in the middle of the room. ‘The sushi’s crap. But it was Polina’s first time, so she didn’t notice.’
‘I had a Polina two or three months ago,’ Colin says. ‘From Irkutsk. Or was it Tomsk?’
‘So Polina tried to eat with chopsticks,’ I say, ‘but she kept dropping the sushi. At some point the sushi fell onto the soy plate and the splash stained her shirt. Instead of running off to wash the shirt she just blushed and apologised.’
‘That’s cute,’ Colin says.
‘I told her she could use her fingers. She seemed relieved.’
‘I can’t understand the whole sushi revolution,’ Diego says. ‘What did they eat before in Moscow?’
‘So from the sushi place you took her home?’ Colin asks.
‘Not really,’ I say. ‘Next day I took her to the cinema in Pushkinskaya. Then I asked her to come up to my apartment.’
Colin smiles. ‘Man, your apartment has the best location in town.’
‘Guess what she tells me when she’s undressed?’
‘I need to move to the centre,’ Colin says. ‘Get a flat around Tverskaya.’
‘Martin,’ Stepanov says, ‘don’t tell us she was a virgin.’
I nod. ‘I didn’t know, of course. So she’s lying naked on my couch and I can see from her face that she’s kind of panicking. So I asked her, “Are you OK with this?”’
‘Man,’ Colin says, ‘you should never ask.’
Diego looks up from his mobile phone. ‘If she’s a virgin you are supposed to ask.’
‘Good fucking etiquette,’ Stepanov says, laughing.
‘Seriously,’ Diego says, ‘you want to be sure she’s really up for it. Wouldn’t you?’
‘Anyway,’ I say, ‘she just told me to be careful because she’d never been with a man before.’
‘Who gives a fuck about age anyway,’ Stepanov says, standing up and raising his glass of vodka. ‘If she’s into you, why not.’
I raise my glass. ‘That’s right.’
‘Let’s drink to our friend,’ Stepanov says, pointing his glass at me, ‘Humbert Humbert.’
Diego and Colin laugh.
‘Fuck you,’ I say.
We all drink up. Stepanov starts to sing along to the next song. Colin joins in for the chorus.
When the song is finished, Colin turns to me. ‘Remember Marusia, from the Real McCoy?’
‘Of course,’ I say. ‘The TV presenter.’
Colin shakes his head. ‘She’s driving me crazy, man.’
‘Haven’t banged her yet?’
‘She’s just playing with me. I took her for dinner twice, to expensive places. But she’s so used to this kind of treatment, must have plenty of guys after her. She would not put out, the bitch.’
Stepanov is pouring vodka into our glasses. He realises he’s miscalculated the amount of liquor left in the bottle and there’s not enough to fill the last glass. He takes his own glass and pours half of his vodka into Diego’s.
Diego lifts his glass, now full to the brim, takes a small sip. ‘Is that one of the famous half-German sisters?’
‘Yeah,’ Colin says. ‘That was a great night, when we met them.’
‘You’ve told us the story a hundred times,’ Diego says.
‘If only you had slept with her that first night,’ I say, pointing at Colin, ‘you wouldn’t give a shit about her right now.’
‘If only,’ Colin says. ‘But shit, we were so wasted, remember? And now I can’t get her out of my mind. If I could fuck her just once I would be able to move on. Maybe we could double-date them again?’
‘I’m done with the sister,’ I say. ‘She’s so messed up. Anyway, they are too high maintenance, the kind of dyevs who end up with oligarchs.’
‘Listen to this song,’ Stepanov says. ‘The best on this album.’
‘If only I could fuck her once,’ Colin says, to himself, gazing despondently into his glass.
Stepanov stands up and raises his glass. ‘To tonight.’
We drain our glasses.
Diego has now pocketed his mobile phone. Then he asks about the bomb in Pushkinskaya. ‘So close to your place,’ he says, looking at me. ‘Did you hear anything?’
‘Only the sirens. It all happened underground, the earth must have muffled the blast.’
‘Poor people,’ Diego says. ‘I don’t understand why Chechens do this.’
‘I doubt it was the Chechens,’ Stepanov says.
Diego shrugs. ‘That’s what I heard on the news.’
‘You guys shouldn’t bother watching TV news,’ Stepanov says. ‘It’s all propaganda. TV in Russia is where the government says whatever they want the people to believe.’
‘That’s true,’ Colin says. ‘Fucking weird, if you take Russians individually, one by one, they are the most honest people on Earth. They are so direct, so straightforward, they just can’t lie. Not in their genes. Russians can’t do hypocrisy, not like Westerners. That’s why they come across as rude. It’s not rudeness. It’s fucking honesty. But, shit, when it comes to the public sphere, that’s another story. Everything in this country is a big fucking lie.’
Stepanov lowers his voice. ‘True. The bomb in Pushkinskaya was most probably planted by our guys. Nashi.’
‘What do you mean your guys?’ I ask.
‘You know, the FSB, the secret services. It’s like the building they blew up last year in Pechatniki. They killed dozens of people, just to make a point.’
‘What point?’
Colin turns to me. ‘To show the common people that Russia has enemies.’
‘Precisely,’ Stepanov says. ‘You need to understand that for Russians to feel united we need an enemy, someone who wants to destroy us, an external threat that helps us come together. Mongols, Poles, French, Germans, Americans, anyone will do. It’s a tradition, it has always been like this.’
‘I see,’ I say. ‘Like War and Peace.’
‘I guess,’ Stepanov says. ‘Haven’t read it.’
‘You never read War and Peace?’
Stepanov shakes his head, looking down at the coffee table. ‘I started it a couple of times. Too fucking long.’
‘Russians can’t live without existential fear,’ Colin says. ‘They are a screwed-up nation.’
‘I wouldn’t put it exactly like that,’ Stepanov says.
‘They have an enormous inferiority complex,’ Colin continues, now pointing at Stepanov. ‘With all their shit about being a special nation and all that, if you scratch under the surface, all Russians are jealous of the West. Of America in particular.’
‘Have you read War and Peace?’ I ask Colin.
‘
I saw the movie,’ he says. ‘What I mean is, making enemies is how Russia tries to overcome its inferiority complex. The hostile attitude, the political whining, it’s just a façade, it makes Russians feel more valued, or, at least, less ignored. That’s why they came up with the whole communist fiasco and put up with it for so long. They knew it didn’t work, but they liked the feeling of being feared.’
‘I thought communism was about giving life some meaning,’ I say. ‘Through sacrifice and suffering.’
‘Bullshit,’ Colin says. ‘It was about prestige. Like the unpopular kid in school that turns into a bully. He’s never going to be one of the popular guys, so he’d rather be a bully than a nerd. That’s Russia.’
‘Communism was awesome,’ Diego says. ‘It would have been great to live here twenty years ago, when people believed in those things. Social justice, ideals. The fall of the Soviet Union was a historical tragedy for the entire world. No wonder Russia is such a mess now. And the people are so confused.’
‘That’s what makes Moscow so fucking interesting,’ Colin says. ‘The confusion, the chaos. We’re just lucky to be here at this moment in history. In a few years it’ll all be sanitised and clean like the West. I would die of boredom now if I had to live in the States.’
Stepanov stands up, walks towards the turntable. ‘Russia will never be like the West.’
‘Let’s hope not,’ Colin says.
Stepanov takes the KINO record from the turntable and slides it into its black sleeve. ‘We see the world in a different way.’
‘Vodka’s finished,’ I say. ‘Should we start moving?’
‘How are we getting there?’ Diego says. ‘We don’t even know the address. I don’t want to walk around in this rain.’
‘It’s somewhere behind Lubyanka,’ Stepanov says. ‘We’ll ask the taxi to drive around until we find it. It’s opening night, there’ll be people outside.’
We stand up. Diego helps Stepanov take the empty bottles and glasses to the kitchen. We start putting our shoes on.
Diego readjusts his shapka in front of a wall mirror. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing this place,’ he says.
‘It’s gonna be awesome,’ Colin says.
Stepanov takes his sunglasses from the coffee table, switches the lights off. We leave the apartment and head down to the street.
26
IN THE EVENINGS THE rain fell frozen, heavy, and for two weeks all the streets around Pushkinskaya were covered in mud and slush. The floors of perekhods and metro platforms were smeared in black sludge, wet and slippery – the underground air swamped by the smell of damp earth. Then, one day in late November, temperatures dropped below freezing, the wind and the rain stopped, and dry snow started to fall over Moscow.
The snow began around noon and went on until late in the evening – falling in silence and piling on the stack of plastic chairs on Scandinavia’s terrace, on parked cars, on the bare trees of the Boulevard, on Pushkin’s bronze shoulders.
Lena stood by the balcony door, staring at the snowfall.
‘I love Moscow in winter,’ I said. From the couch I could not see her face but I knew she was crying.
‘The snow will cover all the shit until spring,’ she replied. She was in her underwear, red lace knickers and matching bra, holding a cup of tea that had long gone cold.
‘Come here, Lenushka.’
‘I’m going home.’
‘Stay, please.’
She turned to me. ‘What for?’
‘It’s late. And cold outside. Come back to the couch. We can talk about everything tomorrow.’
The flat was dark, but for a solitary candle flickering on the coffee table, next to an empty wine bottle.
‘Martin, you said you might write a book about your life in Moscow.’
‘Maybe after my PhD, something more personal.’
‘If you write about me,’ Lena said, ‘please make it a sad story.’
‘All Russian stories are sad.’
‘True.’ Lena took a sip of cold tea and continued crying in silence. I knew she would not let it go. Once Lena had found a reason to cry she did not stop.
‘I don’t think I want to see you tomorrow,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I want to see you again.’
I sat up on the couch, draped a blanket over my shoulders. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘You really don’t care about me, about how I feel inside. You have no capacity for compassion.’
Compassion. Sostradaniye. Co-suffering. Lena didn’t like it that I wasn’t able to suffer with her.
She placed the cup of tea on the table, picked her crumpled jeans up from the carpet, shook out the legs.
‘Lenushka, please.’
‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Please.’
She was holding the little cross of her necklace. ‘Do you love me?’
I grabbed my glass of wine from the table, had a sip. ‘In what sense?’
‘Why is it so hard for you to say I love you?’
‘Everybody says I love you. It means nothing.’
‘Maybe it means nothing where you come from. Here it means a lot. I love you, Martin. I’m not afraid of saying it. I’m connected to my emotions. I say what I feel. But you never said you loved me. Not even once.’
‘What’s your point?’
‘I want to know that you have feelings for me,’ Lena said, ‘that I’m important to you. Not just someone you sleep with.’
I didn’t know what to say. I tried to come up with some smart words, something revealing the depth and complexity of my feelings for Lena without falling into the tackiness of a forced love confession. Something witty, honest, simple – worthy of a Chekhov character. But the words didn’t quite form in my mouth.
Lena slipped into her jeans, wiped her tears with the tips of her fingers.
I stood up, grasped her hand.
‘Lena, I really like spending time with you. You know that. I love it when we are together. Let’s go to sleep, please.’
I tried to kiss her but she turned her face away. I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her gently towards me – her breasts now pressed against my body.
We embraced and on my cheeks I felt the damp warmth of her tears. I kissed her neck. Lena didn’t budge. We stood skin to skin, in the darkness. Not knowing what to do, I retreated to the bathroom for a quick shower.
When I came out, Lena was standing by the double front door, zipping up her high-heeled boots. She was wearing a white woollen hat and a matching scarf. In high heels Lena was a bit taller than me.
‘The metro must already be closed,’ I said. ‘Do you need money for a taxi?’
‘Martin, I’m not a whore.’
Lena stood motionless, waiting for me to open the doors. Tears had smudged her mascara – she had black smeared all over her face. I tried to wipe her cheeks but she pushed my hand away. I unlocked the doors and she walked out.
Lena didn’t take the lift. Instead, she stomped down the stairs, her boots tapping loudly all six floors down to the street. I closed the doors, wrapped myself in the blanket again and stepped onto the balcony. The air outside was icy and crisp – Moscow was covered in fresh snow. I saw Lena coming out of the entrance below, looking small and remote. She opened the metal courtyard gate, turned left, and disappeared under the archway beneath my building.
I stood on the balcony, my nose going numb with the cold. The snowstorm had paused for a moment but tiny snowflakes kept on swirling in the darkness, sparkling around the street lamps.
Winter had arrived.
27
LENA, HERE’S MY BOOK about Moscow. I imagine these days you don’t have much time to read books. But if destiny puts these pages in your hands – the way it brought us together so many years ago – I can tell you now what I was thinking back then, on my balcony, when the first snow of the season fell over Moscow and you left my flat in the middle of the night. Fuck you. Fuck you and your sad stories and your endless search fo
r pain. And fuck that troubled soul of yours that I was never Russian enough to understand.
PART THREE
Anna’s Punishment
28
UNLIKE PUSHKIN’S TATYANA, WHO stays with her husband despite having a thing for Onegin, Anna Karenina decides to dump both husband and son so that she can pursue her affair with Vronsky.
These two stories, arguably the best-known love stories in Russia, have rather different endings. Two married women love another man. Married woman number one, Pushkin’s Tatyana, decides to stick with her husband. Married woman number two, Tolstoy’s Karenina, ditches her husband and elopes with her lover. Married woman number one lives virtuously – if not happily – ever after. Married woman number two falls into disgrace and ends up throwing herself under a train.
Thing is, we know Anna Karenina could’ve got away with her affair, if only she hadn’t been such a drama queen. Tolstoy makes sure we understand as much, by showing us that other women in Anna’s milieu were having affairs – discreetly, without major repercussions. But Karenina makes a big fuss about her story with Vronsky and ends up messing everything up.
As a result of her public infidelity, Karenina gets a bad reputation, and all of a sudden it’s uncool among the elitni tusovka to be seen near her. She loses her friends. All she has now is Vronsky. Vronsky likes Karenina, but she becomes so clingy and dependent that, at some point, he feels suffocated. Who could blame him.
So Vronsky does what anyone in his position would do: he tries to cool things off. He lets Anna know that he would like her to go and get a life of her own, but of course now she can’t because she has become a social outcast. Vronsky still has his friends, because he is a man, and in nineteenth-century Russia – as in twenty-first-century Russia – men can fuck around and remain respectable members of society.
Anna is now jealous and kind of paranoid and she whines all day. She becomes a bore. So Vronsky tells her, what the fuck, Anna, just chill out. But Anna Karenina, who’s a sufferer, makes a scene about Vronsky’s every move. Is Karenina proving the extent of her love through her suffering? Vronsky won’t have any of it, and she becomes more desperate – unbearable. She has nowhere to go. In the end, she can’t stand it any longer and, in what’s probably the most famous scene in Russian literature, she goes and throws herself under a train.
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