Found Life

by Linor Goralik

  —…fish, something else expensive. And like always, he takes out his card to pay for all three of us. And I said: “How about I pay this time?” Because no matter how rich he is, this isn’t the first time I’m having dinner with him, and he pays every time—it’s awkward. I said: “Let me get it?” He’s like: “No, no,” and so on. And he leaves his card, kisses her or whatever and goes to the bathroom. And then she started looking at me all intently and asked: “What, are you sweating it that he’s paying?” “Well, yeah,” I said, “of course I’m sweating it.” And then she leans across the table, squeezes my wrist and says really quietly: “Well, don’t.”

  —…it’s so light there, so peaceful, and beautiful, like in an airport.

  —…I’m not superstitious, but some things are sacred. Lying about your child’s health is going too far. When I don’t want to visit my mom, I tell her: “Mama, Sonya doesn’t feel like coming over!” And then I explain to Sonya why she doesn’t want to visit grandma. And that’s it, no big deal.

  For Т.

  —…maybe when they name their cat Smokey or Tiger they really feel like they’ve come up with something cool, really funny. You know, like if I name my fridge Al or call the piano Edward. But then I think: maybe this is pride. Maybe they’re naming their cat that ironically, and it’s really funny. And that’s how I keep myself in check.

  —…a dreary schmuck isn’t someone who constantly thinks about death; it’s someone who always has it in the back of their mind. And that’s what he’s like, unfortunately. Let me tell you. We were at The Papas, having something to eat, and then Rita started talking about how she’s part of the last generation of Jewish women who know how to feed a family of three for three days on one chicken. That her grandma taught her, and her mother knew how, and Rita knows how too, but it’s already lost on the younger generation. Everyone was like: “Tell us, tell us!” And I can tell you too, why not: first you take out the giblets, you skin the chicken, then cut off the fat. You boil the neck, wings, and butt, and make a noodle soup with the broth, and with the skin you make gefilte gelzele with rice and fried onions, and that’s a dinner and a half. Everyone was like: “Awesome, wow, Rita, your grandma was so thrifty!” “And then,” Rita said, “Grandma would cut up the chicken so that there’d be roast chicken and potatoes for two more main courses, but she’d boil the breast and slice it thin to have on sandwiches in the morning!” And everyone was just hanging on her every word, like a thriller. Only I can see that our Lyosha is looking all pissy. “That’s nothing,” Rita kept going, “you take the giblets and fry them in the schmaltz, mash them with onion, salt, and flour, and spread that on bread for supper!” Everyone was like: “Rita, can you make it for us, we’re drooling, this is so cool, we could film it, make a video, etc.” Rita was like: “Yeah, yeah, good idea, in memory of my grandma, let’s do it!” And right then Lyosha announces in this icy tone: “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” And everything went totally quiet, right…Somebody asked: “Lyosha, what’s the deal?” “The deal is,” he said, “that your grandma didn’t love her family, Rita.” Rita’s jaw drops, she was like: “Wha…?” And Lyosha said: “If she’d loved them, first she would’ve cut off the legs and fried them up right away: one for her husband, one for her kid!” So now you tell me: why would I need a person who thinks like that at my wedding?

  For D.N.

  —…last Tuesday I was walking home from work when this kid stopped me, like maybe ten years old, and asked if he could make a call from my phone, because he’d run out of minutes on his. I dialed the number for him and held on to his sweatshirt hood with a death grip the whole time he was talking. I’m going to hell for this and when I get there I’ll keep doing the same thing.

  —…volunteering, it was right before Christmas, our congregation’s small, about sixty people, but only like eight or so really active types. Well, and if you count this one girl—she kinda runs hot and cold—then it’s, like, nine. Our priest says: “How much did we get in donations?” Like five thousand rubles. Well, maybe someone else gives three thousand, so something like ten. But we have to divvy it up among like fifteen families, at the very least. And he says: “No, not like that, let’s do it how they do in America: we’ll stand out in front of the supermarket”—this one’s run by Armenians, good guys, we set it all up already, they’re like: “Yeah, yeah, great idea”—and we’ll tell people we just need basic groceries: canned goods, crackers, shelf-stable milk is good, that sort of thing. And they’re already shopping for themselves, they can just grab something extra. We set up these crates, printed out labels for them and got to work. And people really went for it, that one girl was saying: “You’re nuts, you know what folks are like, they’ll think we’re stealing the food for ourselves.” But no, they really went for it, like: “Sure, yeah.” And some of them even started putting in vodka, “like, they’re people too, they should get to celebrate too.” They put all kinds of stuff in there, lots of cookies, like cheap ones, but nice ones too, with chocolate and other stuff too. Chocolates too, the kind sold in bags, but quality ones. There was even this one insanely expensive box, like this red box with golden, like, those little Mozart bonbons. Really classy. People put in dried fruit, all kinds of nuts, beer snacks. And it wasn’t just members of the congregation, it was like all the shoppers, they’d ask about our church, we gave them flyers. Like, what an adrenaline rush. The owner of the place even came, the Armenian, and we were like: “You should do this for yourselves at Easter,” he was like: “No, we get a good amount in donations,” but still, like, props to you guys. So at two a.m. we brought six full boxes to the priest. Six! We had only planned for three and had to run out for more, plus the Armenians gave us some plastic crates. We started dividing it up into bags, should’ve been really wiped, but the adrenaline was still there, wow. And I grabbed that box of Mozart balls and it spilled out all over me, it was open. I picked it all up and carefully put everything back in place, but there’s empties—two of them were missing. Like, there’s ten little wells and only eight bonbons. We started taking everything out of the crate—but they hadn’t fallen out, there was nothing there. Like, the person who put it in had eaten two of them. So then I took the box—I don’t even know why—and I threw it, like hurling a plate: smash! Right at the wall. The priest was like: “What are you doing, what’s your problem!” and scrambled to pick it up. “We’ll take them out of the box,” he said, “put ’em in a bag, make it look nice, what’s your problem?” Like, this person didn’t eat eight of them, gave them away. Well, so our girls did it up, made a nice cone out of red paper, put them in there, tied it up with a gold ribbon, it looked fine. But fuck, man, let me tell you: have you seen those bonbons? Each one’s like the size of a potato. Well, not a potato, but like…this big. You’d have a hard time getting three of them down. I mean, maybe you could cram a third one in, but that’s pushing it.

  —…I went in there once, what’s it called, “Pennysavers.” No, wait, “Nickels,” it was “Nickels.” Fucking rough in there, like I didn’t recognize a single brand.

  —…he was an OK guy, but obviously, if he caught anybody in the warehouses, he’d sic the dogs on them right away. You can’t run, that’s the worst, you have to drop and cover immediately. They’re scary, these bitches, this one guy had to get his leg amputated right there in the camp, they tore him up so bad. But then they transferred that guy to Berdyansk and this one came. On the third night it was light out and we went to the warehouses, three of us. We were just getting ready to leave when we saw him heading toward us with a dog. We sat there holding our breath. It was some new dog. They’d almost passed us, then the bitch sensed something and went for us. But he couldn’t see us behind the crates, he just saw the direction she was barking and said: “I’ll give you a ten-second head start.” And that dog turned out to be shit, like, she just chewed on me a little, chewed up my back some. But we got him later for that head start.

  —…five-twenty, they repea
ted it a hundred times afterwards, five-twenty a.m. She woke me up screaming: “The baby’s gone.” He was four months old, like, a little over four months. Well, so that was that, we spent the whole day, like, you can imagine. The baby isn’t in the apartment, right? The police, those, you know, detectives. I thought I was going to die. The things I was thinking about, let me tell you. I don’t want to say it out loud, but you pretty much get the picture, right? So, the police were there all day, of course, obviously they’re interrogating us. Her, me. Anyway. I was crying so fucking hard, I’m telling you, like where you can’t breathe, like “uhhh…. uhhhh.” Sat down in the corner and like rocked back and forth. Went at one of the cops…No, well, like I tried, I took a swing at him. The questions they were asking. As if you aren’t thinking all that stuff yourself. At one in the morning we went into our building, got home. I couldn’t even turn on the lights, you know? Such a wreck. And then she said: “OK, here’s the truth. The baby’s with my aunt. I just wanted to show you that you’re the kind of father where you can take the baby out of the apartment and you don’t even wake up. You see?” I was that kind of father. With the second one, with our daughter, it was better, it was different. I made way more of an effort.

  —…that when Anya calls her phone says ‘Baby Girl’ but when I call it’s just ‘Katya.’

  For D.N.

  —…it’s not a question of ethics, but of effectiveness. Look, here’s a situation for you. We’re in line for ice cream. There’s a man, OK? Normal-looking, nothing fancy, but normal, with a beard. And he grabs the woman who’s with me and without saying anything slams her head into the corner of the freezer. OK? Just like that—bam!—pushes her head down. Real simple, silently. Because he thinks that she’s a gay boy. Even though she looks basically like Tanya. That’s just an aside, doesn’t really matter. And I’m standing there too. Well, of course, I’m like: “Aaaaahh…aaaaah….” Trying to breathe, what could I do? What am I supposed to do? She’s bleeding, her forehead’s busted, right? And then she turns around and he sees that she’s a girl. And he gets down on his knees and starts crying and saying: “Forgive me, forgive me. For Christ our Lord’s sake, forgive me.” He’s bowing down to the ground, on his knees. And so that’s the situation: what do I do? According to the basic rules I’m supposed to fuck him up. I’m supposed to punch him in the face, in this situation that’s what I’m supposed to do, right? But if you think about it—what’s the point? The man is on his knees sobbing. What’s the point?

  —…was crying, Marina was crying, I was crying, Voloshina had basically dissolved in tears, but Tushevskaya wasn’t crying. She caught the bouquet and when they brought the cake she said: “Oh, give me a big piece, you know, I eat so much and somehow I just can’t gain the weight back!” That’s what Tushevskaya’s like. I think if you’re a widow it still doesn’t give you the right to shit all over people.

  —…that was way back when, I was still at university, but, you know, pretty far along, I was finishing my second year—anyway, the girls came running: “Marina, this puppy’s dying!” So, we dashed down the stairs, they’re sitting by the building, they’d found this puppy, this little pup, like—teeny-weeny, and it’s really cashing out, you could see its eyes rolling back into its head. Its little heart—its heart was like the size of a pea, like half a pea, and you could see it beating under the skin. They were like: “Marina, come on, you give it the shot!” meaning, put a shot of adrenaline right into the heart—but my hands were shaking, what if I miss, or get the dose wrong…So basically I have no idea, I don’t understand how anyone could want to be a veterinarian, you need nerves of steel. I mean, we have to have strong nerves too, but it’s not the same thing as with those teeny-weeny little creatures. So two days after that I dropped out, spent the next year studying at home, and that was it, I switched to medical school. Cut myself some slack.

  For V.

  —…not my business, of course, I’m just the driver, you don’t have to answer or anything, but let me tell you: you were just asking someone over the phone: “What for?” or like “Why?” I’m just saying, you don’t have to give me an answer: I know just what you mean. A year ago now I said to myself: “You’ll be thirty-two next year. If a man still has questions at thirty-two, he’s an idiot, a waste of space, he doesn’t deserve to live, no one can live like that.” And I started answering all my questions, posing every question and answering it, for several days, even a week, one after another. “Why are we here?” I thought about it and figured it out. “Why are women”—well, why are they like that and not some other way. Thought about it—figured it out. Then, like: “What does a man owe his children?”—answered it. And now I just turned thirty-two, in September, and I don’t have any more questions, none. Well, I’m not talking about practical questions, those still come up, obviously. But all the questions relating to the soul and not the body—I thought about all of them and figured them out. What are the practical questions? Like, the ones you can answer or not answer, it won’t really change anything, won’t change your soul. Like, here, I had this parrot, and you know, they live a long time. Well, he died, like, he was sitting on my shoulder and all of a sudden I thought he’d flown off, but then I felt his claws on my back—he’d fallen backwards. Well, I even, you know, I even cried. He lived a long time. So I couldn’t throw him out, I put him in a plastic box and buried him at my dacha. So, it’s been years now, and when we have those warm days, you know, like the last ones in the season, when you’re closing up the dacha for the winter, I dig him up and take a look: he hasn’t decomposed. Why hasn’t he decomposed? That’s a practical question. It’s a good question, but a practical one.

  For B.F.

  —…I can’t agree with your dad. I’m not sure that you’re supposed to hate a person, even someone who has done very bad things. Really, this is a very old conversation, there’s even a saying: “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” But to put it simply, hating a person is a very strong feeling, and not a good one. I tell myself: if someone put that person in front of me right now and gave me a pistol, would I be able to kill him? And I think, no, thank God, I wouldn’t. And that means I don’t hate that person. I can dislike him, scorn him, blame him for all sorts of things, sure, but I don’t hate him. But if I think, yes, I’d kill him, it means I have to ask myself—why? After all, it’s bad to kill people, right? So it means I have to start working on myself, it’s a problem inside me and not in the other person, I’m the one that’s bad, not him, since I want to kill another person…But you know, Sasha, really, don’t listen to me, I’ve got cobwebs in my head, don’t pay any attention to me. Your dad has it right: we hate Putin, Putin’s bad. Don’t listen to me, listen to your dad.

  FOUND LIFE

  TRANSLATED BY AINSLEY MORSE AND MARIA VASSILEVA

  A giant, long-tressed, bearded biker in leather and chains, buying Whiskas Kitten, two yogurts, and a colorful bottle of “kids’ champagne” at the supermarket.

  An old homeless man in the underpass, his voice breaking as he sings, “Come on, sun, shine harder,” and the hurrying thirtysomething passersby putting small bills in his outstretched hand.

  A pregnant woman holding a small enameled bowl, waddling across an empty seaside courtyard toward a pregnant cat.

  An eight-year-old deaf girl chatting to herself, using all ten fingers, on the steps of an escalator.

  A song in Vietnamese coming through the door of a bathroom stall at the local children’s hospital.

  A duck lazily picking its way through the trash washed up against the bank of a canal.

  The smell of Red Moscow perfume in the stairwell every Friday, when the crazy old lady in apartment six gets a visit from her son.

  The signature taste of a gun barrel.

  A blue toy gun tucked into the belt of a homeless man.

  Several men in suits standing around a dead dog in the middle of Tverskaya Street.

  A school notebook with two kissing watermelons on the cover and th
e words “They have ears, but they hear not.”

  A stick with new growth sprouting from the ruins of an anthill.

  An older woman on a late subway train suddenly saying loudly to no one in particular: “It’s just that now we know exactly where we stand.”

  The chubby girl at the restaurant selectively eating the cheese and croutons out of her “health” salad.

  The fly fluttering out of the pocket of the disabled man shuffling through the subway car when someone tosses a small coin into it.

  Crows above a carcass left in a cart by the market. Two pecking, one circling.

  A woman, her black eye nearly swollen shut, meticulously applying lipstick at a café table.

  A little boy asking his mom on the subway, “Is it true that Piter used to be called something else?” and hearing the answer, “Yes, Leningrad.” “But why?” “It was easier that way.”

  An unkempt man of about forty slowly trailing behind a twelve-year-old girl who keeps glancing back, frightened, as he repeats in a monotone: “…be my little daughter, be my little daughter, be my little daughter.”

  A young soldier arguing with a stocky lady in a beret; some other guys in camo standing at a distance and anxiously watching the proceedings. Yelling: “…husband is an officer? And I’m telling you, if he’s an officer, then he’s an animal. You say he doesn’t beat you, but I know he does! And he beats your children, you just don’t know!”