by Josh Weil
He could feel Timofei gripping his beard, the pull of the hairs, the sting. Slowly, he reached up, found his nephew’s fingers, squeezed them tight in his own fist.
He didn’t wait for Zinaida to come out. He didn’t wait for his brother to come back. He unhooked his nephew’s fingers from his beard, and kissed the boy’s head, and got his shoes on, and into the stairwell, and down, and out to the courtyard, and then he had to sit. Holding a rusted bar, he lowered himself to the edge of the old carousel. It groaned, tilted into an even steeper slant. His fingers pressed into his forehead. His head gave up its weight. Beneath him, the iron disk slid a little, as if about to spin; it might have already been: whirring, listing, the ground trying to pull him off. He could feel the abyss. They were standing at its edge and he could feel the world pushing him, feel it pulling his brother back, and he took his hands from his face and held hard to the carousel, as if to stop it spinning. It creaked, slid a little again. The metal was still warm from the sun. He pressed his palms against it.
And felt her fingers on his shut lids. She had been the only one who wasn’t ever shown, who’d stayed behind the lense, out of the frame. In the air the wires over the tramline began to shake. The clatter of contactors on the wires, the shriek of brakes. He opened his eyes, watched the tram pull up, let passengers out, pull away again. The next one, he knew, or the one after that, would bring his brother.
Dima stood up. Before those doors opened to Yarik stepping out, before another thing could jolt them, he would leave. And tomorrow morning he wouldn’t try to meet his brother at the bus stop. He wouldn’t try to meet him after his work. He would give him some time. He would take the time to get himself back level. He would wait.
That night, lying in bed beneath faint motes of mirror-light, he tried to clear his mind of the thing that had knocked him off balance. Because, taking the tram home from his brother’s, he’d been unable to keep from staring at some other ticket collector’s yellow vest. For the rest of the ride he had shut his eyes. And seen beneath it, beneath her sweatshirt, below the safety pins where the halves of the zipper fell apart, to the thing he’d glimpsed two nights before: that small red navel tattoo, that mushroom blooming from her belly. Out on the balcony, he had seen her close-buzzed hair in the tiny ruffled feathers of Ivan’s neck and paused—what would it feel like to brush his fingers along the curve of her head?—before he tugged the hood down. Now he turned to the wall. The cot creaked under him.
Some two dozen years ago, in those nights after he and his brother had returned to their childhood home, when they were eleven, twelve, barely beginning to molt their boyhood, Yarik would turn away from the room, and, lying on his cot, whisper stories to them both. Stories about the tsarevnas, maidens, Alyonishka with her golden hair, Lyudmila in her nightgown and her braids, her alabaster bosom, Ruslan tearing open the nets that bound her, peering at her sleeping shape—but did he really just keep watch, Pushkin had wondered, in thoughts of love, without the deed?—and how, in Yarik’s tightening voice, the wondering would end, the knight would take her, what he would do to her, what she would do for him, the way she’d feel. Listening to the creaking across the room, Dima would attempt to imagine it, too. Would shut his eyes and try to learn from his brother’s sounds, time his hand to that. Until they grew older and Yarik stopped telling the tales, quit talking at all once the lights were off, would just turn away from Dima in his cot and silently face the wall.
In the years since then, Dima could count on one hand the number of times he’d let the idea of someone else get deep enough in him he had to work to pull it out. How had she done it so deeply now? Because she watched the world same as him, rode all day on the trams seeing it slide past the windows? Or with that raven wing of unbuzzed bangs, had she, like the Kievan prince who, shaped as a crow, would alight before an unsuspecting maid, swooped down on him?
Eyes shut, facing the wall, he tried to shake her off the only way that he knew how. To yank her away, make her release her grip, force her from his mind, cleanse himself, spill her out.
When he was finished, he lay with the sheet tented off him by his bent knees. Over by the window, beneath the artificial night of the rug Dima had hung, Yarik’s cot was still there, the holes in the old kovyor above it letting through just enough light to show the mattress bare as it had been for years. Had Yarik ever lain there, his sheet around his knees? Had he been able to empty himself of thoughts? Had he even tried?
Outside the window some cloud smothered the sky. The holes in the rug dimmed; the mattress disappeared into the dark.
The night that Yarik met Zinaida they had been at the dom kultura. One moment his brother was out by the bonfire, then gone. It was the eve of Ivan Kupala. Soon women would wander to the woods, pretending to search for the Chernova Ruta. He knew none of them believed in it—the fabled fern blossom, its once-yearly bloom, its augury of love’s success—knew they wanted to be hunted instead: the candles in their hands beacons flashing (find me), the garlands in the hair of unwed girls whispering (take me) to young men who would watch, who would wade out towards the trees, who, for now, still stood around the bonfire, waiting, whooping while they jumped the flames, the night streaked with the red blurs of their boots.
But Dima came into the light looking only at the faces. He could feel the heat growing on his own. Smoke filled his throat. He turned to look towards the woods again. From far off, over by the Kosha’s bank, there came a cry—Hai!—and singing: On the Day of Ivan-Kupala. . .—he could just make out the women’s voices—. . . her fortune sought . . . the cluster of them by the water . . . plucked the flowers to make her garlands . . . the moonwhite blooms they pulled out of their hair. Between them and him the field was lashed with shafts thrown by the dom kultura’s windows and in them he could see the spark of a button, a pale knee jutting, eddies in the grass. She strewed them on the river’s breast. Something jabbed at Dima’s ribs. A bottle, a hand passing it to him. He took it, turned back to the fire, drank.
By the time the call for the Cossack dancing came through the crowd, his belly was warm, his chest hot beneath his fire-baked shirt. He could feel the smoke in his skull, stuffed like padding between bone and brain. Someone asked him if he was going to dance. Someone asked him where his brother was. He had long since ceased to feel the burn of the vodka on his throat.
Inside, the crowd was already packed against the wall. He pushed his way through, found a space just large enough for him. The band began to tune. To Dima’s right, a farm couple clasped hands, crouched down. To his left, three men in machinist coveralls held each other’s forearms, right legs jutting from their circle like spokes. He stood above the floorful of squatted dancers, staring into the wall of those who’d come to watch. The singer coughed. Someone shouted something about him, his brother; it sent a murmuring through the crowd. He lowered himself. And when the first note wailed, he threw his boot out with the rest, drew it in with them on the next beat. He didn’t know what to do with his hands, held them out a little from his body, awkward and jerking as if, without anything to grip, they’d ceased to be a part of him at all. His legs, too, moved on their own, jolted him so hard he could feel his brain thud, and he tried to focus on nothing but not falling, to think of nothing but the kick, the kick, the kick. Next to him, the group of machinists tangled up, crashed guffawing to the floor. Half the dancers were already down, others walking wobbly legged off into the crowd. His own legs had begun to shake. He watched them like they were strange animals latched onto him to keep themselves from falling, felt resentment that they might pull him down as well. When he next looked up, the floor was emptier again, a few red faces left, clenched teeth and strained necks and some shouting in pain along with each kick. He reached down and put his hands on his thighs, felt them working, was flooded with regret for his resentment the moment before. He was glad to help, glad to have them, would make his purpose to pull them through.
He would not have looked up again if the clapping of the
crowd hadn’t broken suddenly apart. It quieted like a rainstorm petering out, then roared back with the wildness of hail, loosed from the rhythm of the band, mixed with shouts that rose up through it. Over by the entrance, people were parting, pushing others behind them, making way. Through the cheering crowd there came a woman, her head thrown back in laughter, flowers scattered in her swinging hair, her arms held out as if for balance, she shook her way strangely forward, jerking and leaning and righting herself and jerking forward again, until the last line of revelers between her and Dima broke away and he saw the cheers of the crowd hadn’t been for her alone.
Beneath her crouched his brother. Yarik came into the clearing with her on his shoulders, his arms squeezed tight around her legs, his own legs kicking, out and back and out again, heels hammering the floorboards in synch with Dima’s own. Dima could feel their blows in his knees. He could feel the shaking with each kick that brought his brother closer. The tendons stood out on Yarik’s neck, and Dima could feel that, too. On his own shoulders: her weight. A spike of pain shot through his legs. But his brother was beaming, his eyes all laughter. Beneath her laughter, her head thrown back. Her hair was tangled with leaves, Yarik’s boot soles clogged with mud. And with each shake their bodies made, Dima watched another piece of the forest fall to the floor.
Now, each day, he stayed away from the statue, kept clear of the lake, off the city’s streets, abandoned the trams, the markets, anywhere he might be found by anyone who might try again to grab a hold of him. Each morning, instead, he took the bus to the only place he knew for sure she wouldn’t go. The whole ride out, he sat hunched in the back, a hood pulled up, pretending to sleep. But once the bus entered the Oranzheria, he felt safe. Maybe a worker would glance his way, befuddled by the lack of hard hat. Maybe a foreman would jab him with a glare. A few stared, as if to locate the familiarity of his face. He learned to steer clear of where they were. And once he found his routes, his paths, it was so pleasant beneath the glass. On sunny days, it was strip-off-the-overshirt hot. He strolled the road in sleeveless tee, his shadow ambling beside him in the dirt. Men working in dusty fields, grayed skin striated with sweat, paused, watched him, worked a little more slowly when he was past. Sometimes he whistled a tune.
On rainy days the great glass sea became an endless awning, a translucent roof drummed hard by downpours, soft by drizzles, all the Oranzheria his porch. He would find a patch of grass beside a collection pipe, lie down, and listen to the rain spill down from duct to cistern: some days the babbling of a brook, others the muffled roar of a waterfall in a glade. And high above him, on the glass, there might stand a laborer in wet-weather gear, his poncho shedding rain like the canopy of a tree, his boot soles still as roots, his shadowed face staring. Until another splashed over to send him back to work. While, below, propped on his rucksack, leg crossed over knee, rereading books from his and Yarik’s school days, Dima might look up to see the foreman shouting down. But through the glass, the beating rain, he would not hear.
There were times someone from security would approach, tell him he had to leave. He would put away his book, put on his shoes, catch the next bus, take it to another sector. Sometimes, when he stepped off he would think that he could feel his brother. He would stand very still, surrounded by the scents of new corn silk or water-soaked soil or wheatheads baked dry in the sun, and let his beard grow heavy with the humidity, his arm hairs brown with dust. Sometimes he thought he heard Yarik’s voice. Once, he was sure he heard his laugh. He sat where he was and listened and when he heard it again, he didn’t call out, didn’t get up, simply laughed silently to himself. And pictured Yarik hearing that. Sometimes he liked to imagine Yarik feeling that he was near, liked to picture his brother taking a deeper breath. And Dima would take a deep breath. And that was all. He never went to look for Yarik. He would wait till his brother was ready. Till the trouble he had caused had died down. Till one day soon, when his bratan would come and find him.
The day he did it was hot, the beginning of July. Dima had hitched on the back of a supply truck and, climbing out of the hot wet air beneath the tarp into the hot drier air beneath the glass, he headed straight for the Kosha. Between him and the river was a vast field of corn, and while he waded through the waist-high stalks he unbuttoned his shirt, stripped off his sleeveless, and by the time he got to the bank his back was bare and he was tugging at his shoes. Not thirty seconds later, he was in his underwear. Then he was swimming.
He splashed out to the deep, tussled with the current, flipped on his back, floated downstream in tandem with a duck, flipped again and dove under, and when he came up, something smacked into him. Neck stinging, he swept his water-bleared eyes over the surface: a dark, wet shape, pointed as a snake’s head. He jerked away. And amid the sound of his splashing heard laughter. At the same moment, he knew what had hit him was his shoe. He whipped a look around for it—saw the men on the bank, the one holding his clothes—and slashed downstream after what he hoped was a glimpse of its sinking shape. Diving, he felt the laces, the leather, came up coughing with it.
On the bank, the men cheered. And the one with his clothes threw his other shoe. He threw it as far from Dima as he could and still be sure it landed in deep water. Turning, Dima scrambled through the current. Halfway across, breath gusting out and coming in half water, he lost sight of it and stopped. The men on the bank booed.
A dozen hard hats standing there, and more coming down the field rows at a jog. They were calling to each other. The calls sounded happy. At the edge of the bank, a foreman stood holding his clothes.
“You don’t want your shoe?” the man shouted. “How about your shirt?” It hung from his hand, flapping a little, like something he had by the throat.
“Those were my only shoes!” Dima shouted.
The man’s face leapt with mock surprise. His whole body bobbed a little with it. “Why would you need shoes?” he called back. “Aren’t bums supposed to be barefoot?”
When he threw the shirt, it spread out, caught the air, dropped close to shore. Dima watched the current sweep it into the reeds. One of the laborers waded out and grabbed it and flung it farther. Watching the river whisk it away, Dima could feel all his muscles tiring. When he shouted back at the man on the bank—“Please, nothing else!”—his lungs were working too hard to add much sound to his breath.
“What?” the man shouted as he threw Dima’s pants. This time he’d balled them up. They soared within reach before opening, stopping, falling. Dima didn’t even watch them slip away. He just started swimming for the shore.
In the time it took him to get there, the man threw his undershirt and socks and his Dead Souls. The book hit him in the ribs as he was splashing up out of the water. When the foreman reached down and snatched his rucksack, Dima rushed him, got a hand on the bag, turned to fish it from the reeds.
But the foreman grabbed his shoulder, turned him back. “Why don’t you just get the fuck out of here.”
“OK.” Dima turned again.
Again, the foreman stopped him.
“Why the fuck did you come here, anyway?” the man said. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Nothing,” Dima said.
“Bullshit,” the foreman told him. “Nobody does nothing.”
From the crowd came someone’s shout: “Maybe he’s waiting for his buddies.”
And another: “So they can put on their goggles together.”
“And their capes,” someone else called out.
“And change the world,” the first one said.
Then they were laughing.
The foreman wasn’t. He said, “You waiting for your buddies?”
“My brother,” Dima said. It just came out.
“Who’s your brother?”
Dima could hear some of the workers shout out Yarik’s name and some shout the last name he and his brother shared and he said, “All right, I’m going.”
But the man’s grip on his arm didn’t loosen. “Why
don’t you just stand here a second.”
“I’ll go.”
“Why don’t you let these guys get a good look at you.” The man turned to the others. “What do you think, guys? Does it look so good now, being a bum? You think I don’t hear you bitching? Oh, that’s a good life. That’s a easy life. Oh I wish—”
Dima tried to jerk his arm free and the foreman shoved him backwards into the mud and before he could scramble up again the man was over him.
“Stay the fuck down there,” the foreman said. And to the men, “You wish you could be useless as that?” He swept a hand towards Dima. “What if this country was full of men like you? We should stomp you out.” And he raised a boot. Mud from its sole spattered against Dima’s chest. He started to jerk away, but the boot came down, slammed into the mud centimeters from where his hand was splayed.
“We’re going to get back to work,” the man said. “And you’re going to get the fuck out of here. And you’re not going to come back.”
Then he turned and started through the men back up towards the cornfield. The men went with him. In the cornfield, the ones who had not made it to the bank stopped and watched the others come. A few asked what had happened, but most had made it close enough to see over the bank where Dima sat in his underwear, elbows hooked around his knees, chest sunken, his face looking up at them, up at the face of his brother, before Yarik, too, turned and started away.
He could not seem to leave that riverbank. Sending his crew off to punch out that evening, the shoulders Yarik had slapped had been the ones wedged against his in the crowd above the river; the necks his hand cupped, the same that had stretched to see the spectacle. Sitting on the stool by the front door, putting on his slippers, he had watched that shoe sink out of sight. All supper he couldn’t stop thinking how thin Dima had looked. When it was time to put Timosha to bed, his son, undressed to his underwear, had run from him, playing their nightly game—the frightened muzhik fleeing his undead dog—shouting for his papa to give chase. He had stood stiff-kneed by the hole punched in the wall, trying not to match it with another. Even now, watching his wife stark naked beneath him, Yarik could not stop seeing his brother.