I Was a Potato Oligarch: Travels and Travails in the New Russia

by John Mole

  “Of course it’s not in the Bible. It hadn’t been discovered yet. The prophets were good but not that good.”

  “You blaspheme.” “Shorry. Sorry.”

  “The tayder was the incarnation of the evil thing”

  I look over to Natasha for help. She has her hands over her eyes. I’m on my own.

  “Didn’t you ever eat French fries in Pittsburgh? Mashed potato and gravy?”

  “Food for unbelievers.”

  “But they eat potatoes all over Russia.”

  “The evils of Russia come from tayders. You know how they wiped out leprosy in Siberia? They stopped eating tay-ders. You know the cure for syphilis?”

  “Crisps?”

  “Tayder. Same family as deadly nightshade. Taste its leaves. Bitter poison.”

  “There’s your mistake, Cyril. You don’t eat the leaves. You eat the root bit.”

  “And what happens? Wind and lust. Wind and lust.”

  “Hey, go easy. Those are my hobbies.”

  Natasha still has her hand over her eyes. I’ll kill her. She must have known this maniac had a thing against potatoes. She dragged me out here for a sick joke.

  “You know what we call this tayder a yours.”

  “Gulba. You said. Going astray.”

  His voice drops and his eyes burn into mine and spittle trickles from the corner of his mouth. “Shari Diavolu. The Devil’s balls.”

  What can I say? I’m choking down a laugh. Maria crosses herself and scampers back to the stove.

  The rest of the meal was rather subdued. So that’s why there was kasha with everything. I should have spotted what was missing from the menu. I could have understood it from the mouth of some ancient peasant, but this drivel from a man I could have sat next to on the 137 Shadyside Express? At Three Rivers Stadium? On a bar stool in the Wheel Café? Ancient superstitions persecuted from the Old World into the New, to be nurtured there for generations and brought back on a 747.

  Pudding was tinned peaches and evaporated milk. Then a heavy sponge cake smeared with jam. And tea. Natasha made small talk about lettuces and beetroot and other Christian things they could grow for us on the farm. Like a thunderstorm on the Steppes, Russian rows fade away as fast as they spring up. Fill - clink - swallow.

  When we finished eating Cyril blessed us all, made his obeisance to the icon in the corner by the door, put on his parka and baseball cap and went out into the night. I admired the straight line he walked. When I went round the corner for a pee on the dung heap I had to hold on to the wall. For a moment I was uncertain whether the icy air would sober me up or strike me unconscious, but I survived.

  Natasha helped Maria clear the table while I sat on a bench and took deep breaths and practised focusing on the Mona Lisa and exercised my curiosity about the sleeping arrangements. It was satisfied when Natasha appeared from behind the patchwork curtain beside the stove and beckoned to me.

  “Dzhorn! Bedtime,” she said.

  Navigating by the wall, I joined her. Behind the curtain was an alcove made by the wall, the stove and another curtain. Filling the alcove was an enormous bed, more than a double, a triple, a bridal bed with carved headboard and pillars at each corner and a mountain of grey quilt and off-white sheets and a bolster with a lacy cover. Natasha stood on the other side of the bed in her blouse and knickers, her chestnut hair billowing over her shoulders. She looked at me with eyes made moist and mellow by the faint light from the little oil lamp on top of the stove. She was smiling. There was tenderness and mischief in her smile.

  “I’m sorry about tonight,” she said, rolling back the quilt to get in. “I didn’t know.” She lay on her back looking up at the wooden ceiling. I fumbled off trousers and shoes and socks. On the other side of the curtain I heard Maria blowing out the oil lamps. It all went dark.

  I slid under the quilt. The rough and prickly patchwork sheet had not quite made the transition from vegetable to fabric. It felt like beaten straw. I lay still until the bed stopped spinning. I thought it was polite to give Natasha a goodnight cuddle and quite safe, as it was all I was capable of. I rolled on my side and stretched out my arm and caressed a hard, bony body in a shell of coarse material. A rough-skinned talon gripped my wrist and pushed me away.

  “Goodnight, Maria,” said Natasha. She couldn’t keep the laughter out of her voice.

  “Good night, God spare us,” croaked the bony thing next to me.

  I lay back rigid on the bolster. My eyes got used to the dark. In the faint red glow from the icon lamp I saw the Devil peering down at me from the top of the stove.

  “Shari Diavolu!” I shouted and sat bolt upright.

  “It’s my son,” said Maria. “Dimitri. He’s a good boy.”

  He had a man’s body and a tiny pointed head. He squatted on top of the stove with a blanket round his shoulders. I waggled my fingers at him, the only greeting I could think of. He pulled the blanket round him and lay on his side, still looking down at us. The last thing I remember was wondering if the Greek sailor’s name was Dimitri.

  I have very little recollection of the next morning. Not exactly a hangover, but the feeling that my brains had turned to hot kasha and were about to burst out of my ears. Dimitri was nowhere to be seen. Cyril was tough and hearty, as if he had spent the night on lemonade. I took little sips of tea and fudged through the haze of farewells. I managed to get to the Niva without plumping down on my bottom.

  “Dzhorn! I’m sorry,” said Natasha as we slalomed down the forest track. “I didn’t know about the potatoes. It is the truth.”

  “Not to worry,” I said. “It’s given me a great idea for a Jackets Special. Shari Diavolu”

  How to avoid vampires

  It was a glorious spring day. The breeze was from the south. The snow had gone from our square. Leafless trees and yellow turf were pricked with emerald. I needed a holiday. I hurried from the station to the forest as if I was late for an appointment. Since I find no pleasure in snow, it was the first time I had been in the woods for nearly six months. I wandered through the trails, deliberately getting lost, shucking off city air and city concrete and city noise and city straight lines. Leaves and roots and bark and mud were equally delicious. Birds squabbled in the undergrowth and chattered and sang. I succumbed to the urge to join in the warbling. There were birds in the trees, but I never heard them singing...

  There were other people. Mothers and grandmothers with children, still swaddled as if it were 15 below. One young mother navigated an old-fashioned perambulator entirely unsuitable for the terrain, utterly immersed in the lullaby she crooned to the bundle of pink wool under the canopy. I felt bountiful and wished I was a good fairy and could give the child a present - the knack of two-fingered whistling, a talent for the ukulele, a visa for America - but all I had to bestow was a benevolent smile. Couples with eyes only for each other strolled decorously, wondering perhaps if the ground behind the bushes was still too damp. A white-haired veteran in an ancient suit with a chest full of medals stared into the tree tops and savoured victory over another winter.

  I pushed on down narrower and narrower trails, skipping over logs and muddy bits. The narrow path ended in a clearing. In the middle was a round pond covered in dead leaves and green sludge. There was a bench made of logs and I was disappointed that two men were sitting on it. One was about my age, very gaunt, in a black serge suit and black polo-neck. I suspected he had a wasting disease, because his hair was sparse and lifeless and his skin pale and leathery and his eyes sunk in dark sockets. The other man was young, perhaps late teens, with bouffant black hair and the wisp of a first moustache. He wore black jeans and a brown leather jacket. They each held a piece of manuscript paper and sang to each other in soft bass voices.

  They stopped and looked at me with theatrically raised eyebrows. My first impulse was to turn round and go back the way I had come. They looked so harmless and at the same time so sinister that I was in two minds. Curiosity won out. I sauntered towards them and nodde
d, pofaced, Russian style. They turned back to their manuscripts and start singing again. I ignored them and gazed into the filthy pool with my hands in my pockets.

  What does he see... he see... he see?”

  The only way out of the clearing was the way I had come. I waved my hand cheerily and made for the path, but Bouffant stood up and in a couple of strides blocked my way. His speaking voice was a flat monotone. “Please join us”.

  “Yes, join us,” growled Gaunt, more an order than an invitation.

  “You’re musicians,” I said.

  “Poor singers...”

  They laughed for the first time and start their recitative again, this time led by Bouffant. We’re singers... poor singers are we... poor singers... do join us...

  It was stupid to be nervous. What was there to fear from musicians? Besides, they could be interesting. An early bluebottle, still sluggish from winter, drifted onto my cheek and I slapped it away. Bouffant copied my movement and slapped his own cheek. I went with him to the bench and Gaunt pointed to the place beside him. I sat down and Bouffant sat on the other side of me.

  “It’s a nice day,” I said.

  Nice day... nice day... nice day... nice day. They went down a minor scale and ended on a discord.

  “Was that a Doric scale?” I asked, dredging up memories from an improvisation class when I was infatuated with the saxophone. I didn’t know which one to look at so I stared at the pool. Midges hovered over the slime. Gaunt put a bony hand on my knee. I tried to edge away, but Bouffant was up close to me. I could smell his peppermint breath and feel it on the back of my neck. I tried to stand up, but Gaunt’s hand pressed down.

  “Are you with an opera?”

  “Opera is dead. Theatre is dead. Concert is dead,” growled Gaunt.

  “We make our own music,” said Bouffant.

  “You have fine voices”.

  They broke into a syncopated scat, really very good. In normal circumstances I would have enjoyed it. Bum-chi-cha-cha... bum-chi-cha-cha... katashawawa katashawawa...

  Gaunt in my right ear, Bouffant in the left. I joined in, a light baritone. CShagashagashaga.

  Bouffant now had my left elbow and I realized I was pinioned, gently but firmly. I decided not to attempt to break out in case it led to something worse. Gaunt may have been wasting away but his fingers were strong. I tried to get to my feet, but they squeezed my arm and my thigh. I struggled, but Gaunt reached over his body and gripped my free arm with his free hand. I was pinioned. Now I was seriously afraid. I looked round over my shoulder, but there was no one coming down the path.

  “What do you want?” I asked, no longer a light baritone but a tremulous tenor. They broke into song again.

  Bum-chi-cha-cha... bum-chi-cha-cha... katashawawa katashawawa.

  “Let me go!”

  “No, my friend. Deeper. Like this... Let me go... let me go...

  Humour them, humour them. But my voice can’t get down so low. “Let go my arm. Take my purse.”

  Bouffant slid his free hand inside my coat, took out my wallet and slipped it inside his leather jacket. They let go of my arms and I was halfway to my feet when they took hold of my coat collar and pulled it down my back, so my arms were pinioned again and I fell down on the bench. I yelled for help at the top of my voice. I shoved hard and jerked and came free from my coat. I lunged and staggered towards the pond.

  When I got to the edge I jumped. Straightened my legs and touched bottom. Thick mud. It was too shallow to swim and I splashed into the middle. I turned and waited for them. The water was up to my knees, then up to my thighs as I sank into the mud. The men walked round the edge of the pool in opposite directions. It was icy cold. I started to shiver.

  Let him drown.

  Bouffant laughed. They shambled to the path. They looked back at me.

  “You’ll get pneumonia,” said Bouffant.

  “Why don’t you sing?” said Gaunt. “It will keep you warm.”

  “Sod off!” I shouted.

  They disappeared into the trees singing, Bouffant taking the melody and Gaunt in simple thirds. They grew fainter, but I didn’t trust them. They might have been hiding behind a diminuendo. I could feel my feet in the squelching mud but nothing above the knees. I waited until the cold reached my chest before wading to the edge.

  Hunkered down with my arm round my knees in a pathetic attempt to keep warm, I waited to jump back into the pool. When I was more terrified of hypothermia than meeting them again, I made a run for it. Bastinadoed by roots and nettles, whipped by briars and branches, painted all over with green algae, I staggered down the path, bent double with cramp. Lost and disoriented, I chose the widest path at each crossroads.

  Soon I met other people, but I gave up shouting for help - they ran away faster than me. One small boy was transfixed by the apparition of the green man until he was swept up by his father. I jumped up and down and beat my arms until I didn’t drip any more and headed for the metro. Thank goodness I had a token and loose change in my pocket. In the safety of the carriage, I realized that I had left one of my new Russian shoes at the bottom of the pond. I had cuts and bruises all over my foot.

  I’d been mugged before by children in Rome, on the beach in Dar es Salaam, in the kasbah in Casablanca. This was my first experience of grown-ups, musical muggers at that. For some time afterwards I had an aversion to male-voice choirs, walks in the forest and puree of spinach.

  Wake in the night. Headache. Shivers. Sweats. Dizzy. Chest pain.

  Is this it?

  IT?

  Lie still. It will pass.

  More pain. Please no.

  IT.

  Dear God... Our Father... Hail Mary...

  Daylight atheist. Death-bed reversion.

  Phone home. Say goodbye. Love you all.

  It’ll worry them. It’ll worry me.

  Phone the doctor. Which doctor?

  Phone the hospital. Which hospital?

  What is Russian for poorly? What is Russian for help?

  Attacked in the street don’t shout “Help!” Shout “Fire!”

  Do that down the phone they send a fire engine.

  Call an ambulance. What number? It’s two digits.

  Different ones for each emergency.

  04 is a gas leak.

  Oh God. My Russian’s gone.

  Astarozhne. Stanzie akrivaetse.

  Attention. Station approaching.

  All I can remember.

  Travel insurance. Where did I put it?

  I’ll be dead by the time I get through.

  Used them before. Treat you like a malingerer.

  Broken leg? Snap out of it. Try hopping.

  Insurance. Lovey-dovey when they want your premium.

  Treat you like a criminal when you need them.

  Stop ranting. Do something.

  Clean underpants. Don’t want them to find me in these.

  Ambulance is 01. No, that’s fire.

  No idea how it all works. Never bothered to find out.

  In England you have to stagger out into the street.

  Ambulances don’t come to the house.

  20 below outside.

  Oh God help me. I’m sorry. Won’t do it again.

  What are you sorry for?

  I dunno. Anything you like, God. Just help me.

  Will they take me home? Or bury me in Novodevichy.

  I’m burning. Bed’s on fire. Smoking in bed.

  Water. Get water in the kitchen.

  Where are my feet? Those aren’t my feet.

  They’re someone else’s feet.

  Who stole my feet? Muggers. Bastards.

  Use them anyway. Get up. Agony. Stagger.

  Doorpost to sofa to table to fridge.

  Don’t turn on light. Eyes hurt.

  Crunch on cockroaches. Goo between the toes.

  Nice and cool. Dark in the fridge. Nothing in it.

  Shit. It’s the oven. Where’s the fridge?

  No. That’s
the microwave.

  Where am I? Talk to me someone.

  No don’t. Don’t hallucinate.

  Jerk open the oven. A burst of light.

  Oh my eyes. It’s the fridge.

  Chablis. Vodka. San Pellegrino. Caviar.

  Big green turd. No roaches.

  Swig off the Pelly.

  Bubbles up the nose. Dribble down the chin.

  Chest pain grows. Big burp. Chest pain goes.

  Cold sweat. Hot shivers.

  Mummy, I’m poorly. Make it better. Mummy.

  Take out big green turd. Bread knife.

  Thick slices in the light of the fridge.

  Grab the Pelly. Stagger to sofa.

  Crash.

  Cover eyes and face with slices of gherkin.

  Cool. Good for the complexion. What a way to go.

  Salmon on a buffet covered in cucumber.

  Diving. Down. Spinning. Down the maelstrom.

  Down the plughole. Am I going clockwise or anticlockwise?

  Black hole. DON’T GO DOWN THERE!

  Come back.

  Great swig of fizzy water. And another.

  Fight back. I’m here, Mum.

  They’re my own feet now. Muggers sent them back.

  Tickle and prickle. Up the ankles. Up the calves and shins.

  I know what it is. I am calm. I am alive. I know what it is.

  On my hands. Up my arms. Into the armpits.

  On my belly and chest and neck and round my face.

  Nibbling at the gherkin. In my hair. Foraging in dandruff.

  Cockroaches.

  Tickling feelers. Scratching feet. Pricking mandibles.

  Big black juicy cockroaches. Full of goo.

  On the floor, in the carpet, a sea of cockroaches.

  The sofa an island of cockroaches.

  My body a mountain of cockroaches. Heaving.

  Scratch and nibble. Scratch and nibble.

  All over me. Roaches.

  I’m covered in cockroaches.

  Can’t move.

  Turn on a light, they scuttle and are gone.

  Don’t do that. Eyes hurt.

  Feet will squidge and crackle them.

  Bear it. Bear the pain. Bear the weight.

  Pounds of cockroaches.

  Cockroach on cockroach on cockroach.