St. Petersburg Noir

by Natalia Smirnova

  So this time he took a regular compartment. He tossed his meager backpack on the rack, went out into the passageway, and waited for his neighbors: first an unshaven guy with an ordinary man’s ordinary face; then a young woman with a light smile and a heavy ass skillfully raised on too-high heels. She might have worn simpler footwear for travel, the writer thought censoriously, and he headed for the dining car without lingering.

  He had found muddle-headed, unintelligent women annoying since his early youth. For some reason, though, he was drawn to the muddle-headed types more than the others. Muddleheadedness has its own energy and charm too.

  One day he chose the least muddle-headed of all the muddleheaded women he’d met and married her.

  In the dining car he immediately felt good. He had a shot of vodka, turned on his computer, and started working. The vodka had nothing to do with it. He liked his work. And travel. Spatial displacement was stimulating. The writer valued detachment. To describe something, you have to detach from it.

  He wrote for two hours, then was tired and had another drink—not because of his weariness but in order to prolong his pleasure. A little later the young woman came into the dining car with the same heels, the same smile, and the same ass, and sat down opposite him. The writer—an experienced night train passenger—had gone to the dining car earlier than the others and now occupied a four-seat table; he had set up his smart electronic device among the coffee cups and not a single hungry person had sat down with him all evening. Everyone had appeared in groups or pairs and found free seats without disturbing the writer; or, more likely, they had taken the writer not for a writer but for the restaurant manager tallying his debits and credits, since the table was the last one, next to the kitchen. Whatever it was, the writer was not surprised at the stranger’s proximity. It is fairly risky, when you have such high heels, to sit alone in a dining car at two in the morning when four traveling salesmen—wet brows, ties askew—are dozing in one corner, and two crew-cut alpha males, together weighing five hundred pounds, are drinking beer in another. If the writer were a young woman in heels, he would have sat with someone like him. Short, almost sober. Computer on his left, notebook on his right.

  And so, she was on her way to see her lover. She was free, he was married; she was in one city, he was in the other. He didn’t want to divorce (his kids? the writer asked; his companion nodded), he paid for her weekly trips and hotel (generous, the writer said; his companion shrugged).

  The writer introduced himself as a writer and added that the titles of his books were scarcely known to the general public.

  She livened up a little.

  He bought her alcohol.

  “I feel like a fool,” she admitted, relaxed after her third shot. “The relationship has no future. I don’t want to be wasting time. He’s much older and I don’t love him. But he’s nice. Respectable, strong, and smart. High-ranking,” she clarified, slurring a little. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Have another drink,” the writer suggested.

  “No, I’ve had enough,” she responded. “I want to but I won’t.”

  “What should you do?” he repeated. “It’s very simple. Relax. You’re young. Enjoy yourself. You want to sleep with a man—do it. You want to drink some more—do it. Be happy. Do you feel good now?”

  “Yes,” she answered after thinking it over. Her drunken gravity and the gaze into nowhere of her well-fogged eyes cheered the writer up.

  “That’s just great,” he said. “Hold onto that feeling. Savor your pleasure. I’m forty. I got married at twenty. I dropped out of college and got a job. I haven’t stopped ever since. I kept thinking like you. I worried about the future … I was afraid of wasting time … To hell with that. Live in the here and now and don’t be afraid of anything. Youth is given to be enjoyed.”

  “Yes,” the young woman said, and she gave him a grateful look. “Ask them to bring more vodka …”

  He excused himself and went out on the platform to smoke a cigarette. When he returned, one of the alpha males was leaning over his companion. Evidently he had made a vulgar suggestion. The other was waiting at their table sucking on a pale shrimp.

  The writer thought ruefully that he had no chance. If, say, he smashed a bottle and jammed it into his back or shoulder … In any event, the only way to beat the square-shouldered heavyweight was by surprise and cunning. He’d never last in hand-tohand. The young woman, however, politely and curtly rejected the solicitation, and the alpha backed off before the writer could come within striking range.

  “It must be time,” she said.

  He nodded and asked for the check. As they moved past the alpha males, the writer turned away, and a few seconds later thought that he shouldn’t have walked by as simply as that, and he felt a primitive vexation.

  He didn’t want the girl and didn’t care whether the girl wanted him. He should have jammed something sharp into the alpha-giant’s shoulder for his own sake, not the girl’s. The writer had grown up in a small factory town and from his early youth had known that a girl sitting at someone else’s table was someone else’s girl. It didn’t matter who she was, who she came with, or who she left with. What was important was who was pouring for her at that moment. This simple thought should have been brought home to those alpha-jerks, preferably with the help of a blow to the head. But the writer didn’t strike, didn’t even throw them a look. He was afraid. He had the good sense not to look for adventure.

  Good sense has a nasty aftertaste, he thought sorrowfully as he climbed up onto the top berth and turned toward the wall. When his new acquaintance returned from the bathroom and wanted to continue their conversation, the other neighbor, now awake, joined the conversation desultorily, and she started talking about love (what else?); the writer thought with relief that the girl just liked to chatter, and he fell asleep.

  * * *

  The hotel was a five-minute walk from the train station. The writer had stayed at this hotel a few times before, and when his wife asked him to recommend a decent place, he not only told her the address but called and reserved a room himself. The same one he usually stayed in. He reminded them that he was a steady customer and they immediately took care of everything. By all accounts, the minihotel belonged to intelligent people; the staff was good-natured, and they valued steady customers. And the writer valued those who valued him—if not as a writer, then at least as a steady customer.

  A private five-room hotel, a former communal apartment in an ordinary apartment building—no, not ordinary, the real deal, a classic Petersburg building with a series of mercilessly asphalted courtyards linked by arches. Iron roofs, sprawling staircases—special twists for those in the know. Around the corner, three local cafés right there, each with its own local color: alcohol and bikers in S&M leather in one; ladies with cakes and no smoking in the next; and in the third, the food was good and cheap. Fifty paces away was Nevsky Prospect.

  The damp immediately grabbed hold of his face and hands. Cold and humid; the writer was shivering even before he reached his destination.

  He watched the dark, curtained windows of the room for a long time. Eight in the morning. Either she’d already run off on her affairs, which would be bad, or else she was just about to wake up and turn on the light, which would be good; then he could see the silhouettes. He could tell his wife right away by her lush, long hair. If there was someone else in the room, the writer would try to tell if it was a man or a woman. If it was somehow clear that the second lodger was a man, the writer would head back to the station and leave on the very next train.

  For instance, if the room’s other guest pulled back the curtain, opened the window, and lit up.

  Although his wife couldn’t stand tobacco smoke and would scarcely allow him to smoke.

  Or did she love him and allow him anything?

  His best friend once said, “They should love us smoking, drinking, and poor.”

  When the windows lit up the writer panicked a little but
quickly calmed down.

  In his youth he’d done a bit of surveillance. He would get hired to find people who had borrowed money. Strange though it seems, in the early ’90s the business of collecting debts was considered boring and not very profitable; smart people who began working on these cases switched at the first opportunity to something more interesting, like selling candies or trousers. The writer did exactly the same and subsequently recalled his street exploits without the slightest pleasure. Surveillance requires someone with an unremarkable appearance, and the writer was a skinny, mean kid; when the time came to send someone to prison, the citizen victims would have easily identified the writer.

  In any case, he quickly realized he had overestimated his experience. Shapeless shadows moved behind the curtains; he watched for nearly an hour, but all he could tell was that there were two people in the room.

  She had said an entire delegation, four of them, were going. The writer didn’t try to pin down the details.

  The lights soon went out and a few minutes later his wife emerged. With her were two women and a man. Encouraging each other, the foursome headed toward Nevsky. The writer was standing too far away to form an opinion of the man’s appearance. Regardless, he was young, not badly dressed, and strode broadly, boldly, ahead of the three ladies.

  They went on foot, the writer thought, didn’t even call a taxi; they were economizing.

  He cursed softly and dove into the nearest café.

  His wife liked noisy crowds. Business over, she wouldn’t go to the hotel to shorten the long evening away from home. Why should she if she was surrounded by a big, handsome city, with all its theaters and restaurants?

  The writer drank his coffee and two shots of brandy. He would have to wait.

  For some reason he’d thought he could simply peer in the windows, watch her coming out of the hotel or going into it—and immediately know. And if he got a look at her friends, he would know especially. He would pick up on the signals, waves, impulses. If there’s a connection between two people, the careful observer will scope it out immediately.

  Now he was sitting there shivering, almost sober, and angry at himself, the way he’d been angry sometimes in his youth when two or three days of nonstop surveillance of some oaf was yielding no result, or, rather, a negative result: the oaf who’d borrowed a large sum of money was not visiting casinos and strip clubs or wearing a shiny new jacket, wasn’t chowing down at expensive restaurants, wasn’t blowing the dust off his vintage Ferrari hidden in some secret garage; he was just dragging out his sad philistine existence. What he had done with the money was unclear. He so wanted to go back to the client paying for the surveillance and say, “I’ve got it! He’s living a double life! He’s secretly building his own brick factory …”

  At the time the writer was twenty-two and hadn’t written anything yet, but his writerly imagination was already playing nasty jokes on him.

  He thought people lived interesting, vivid, stormy, full lives. Whereas they actually lived boring, languid ones.

  He didn’t believe it. He spent fifteen years trying to find people who lived interesting lives and as a result discovered that the most interesting person he’d met in a decade and a half of continuous searching was himself.

  Downing another shot, he turned his anger on his wife now, not himself. Had she bounced out of the hotel doors, beaming and laughing, wearing heels and expensive stones, arm in arm with someone powerful with square shoulders and white teeth, then he, her husband, would have felt pain but also admiration. This way, all he felt was irritation. Once again, nothing was happening. Once again, nothing was clear. Only shadows behind curtains, only vague suspicions.

  He ate very slowly, and killed nearly an hour and a half. Killing time is a great sin, but sometimes a murderer simply has no other option.

  He came out on Nevsky and was going to start wandering around, gawking like a Western tourist at the ponderous granite façades, but all of a sudden he got scared he might run into his wife by accident; he turned onto a side street and hid in the first bar he came to.

  The city was gray, chilly, and indifferent, created not for people but for the sake of a great idea, though there were plenty of establishments for every taste and pocketbook. As a small boy, the writer had come here twice with his parents—to visit the museums and soak up some culture—and even then he’d noticed the abundance of cafés and snack bars. In answer to his question, his mother had shrugged and said, “They lived through the blockade. People starved to death. The fear of famine must have etched itself into their memory forever. They’re led by fear. It makes them open little restaurants in every suitable half-cellar …”

  Even then, actually, the writer thought the people of the city lacked all fear. Constructed of massive stone, the city felt solid. And now, thirty years later, the local residents resembled calm Europeans; naturally, it wasn’t fear that had compelled them to create so many restaurants and bars but healthy Baltic hospitality.

  The writer pulled out his laptop, but he didn’t turn it on. His vexation had the better of him. There was no possibility of actually working. It was stupid. Very stupid. A jealous man had come to follow his wife but had taken along his computer so as not to waste time. Stupid, bizarre, and ridiculous. That’s how jealous men always behave.

  Go to hell, he told himself. Jealous men are all different and they behave in different ways. Are you such a specialist in jealousy? You aren’t jealous at all. You just want to know. You think it’s important to know whether anything happened or not. The very fact …

  The bar was stuffy and bleak. It had begun to rain outside. People quickly packed the narrow space and the writer found himself trapped. He could get up and leave—outside it was cold and windy. If you didn’t find a nicer place you’d come back and your table’d be taken. He could stay—and breathe the sour smells and listen to Finnish, German, and English. The writer didn’t know any other languages and was now ashamed of his lack of education.

  He asked for another dose of brandy and decided to relax.

  It was easy. The writer never forgot that he’d been created, begat, by cheap, smoke-filled dives just like this. He’d spent half his conscious life in smoky, dim establishments where customers from the lower-middle class went to unwind in the evening. He’d eaten, worked, and held meetings in smoke and liquor fumes. He’d smoked a lot. And drank; sometimes a lot, sometimes a little. He’d always eaten very little. And written a lot.

  At some point—it might have been three years ago—he realized his wife was tired of that life. She didn’t understand him. She’d ask him to go to Rome, Prague, Barcelona. He’d agree, but a couple of days into their stay in any European capital he would find a smoke-filled dive, and once he had, he would calm down. And when he had calmed down, he would realize that European dives were much more boring than Russian dives.

  The rain stopped and he stepped out under the low sky.

  He was considered an interesting man, and his books were full of interesting stories. Only his wife knew that in fact the writer was a taciturn, boring creature and all his entertainment boiled down to television. He drew his plots from his salad days; so much had happened that now he could write his whole life without getting distracted by anything else. But his wife grew weary, and one day he realized she had another man.

  Not realized—suspected.

  * * *

  Surveillance requires a car. When dark fell, the writer hailed a cab. Finding himself in an oddly clean car, he asked whether he might smoke. “As you wish,” the driver replied in an even voice; it was immediately clear that this guy would not do for today’s purposes. The writer had to laugh. Usually cab drivers irritated him with their informality, dirty sock smell, and rudimentary musical tastes, but here was rare good luck—behind the wheel was a true intellectual. And so? That’s not what he needed. He needed your typical rogue, a worker reeking of gasoline. A proletarian of the pedals. It’s always that way with intellectuals, the writer thou
ght. They always show up at the wrong time.

  He asked to be let off at the corner of Nevsky and Marat. After paying he realized he had to reallocate his money. He took a few bills out of his wad and put those in his pants pocket and the rest in his jacket, next to his heart. Laughing at himself, he crossed the street and caught another cab, this time quite successfully. The cabbie was young and smirky and looked like a lazy scoundrel. The writer liked scoundrels, he’d spent many years among scoundrels and knew how to behave in their society. He showed his money and explained what he needed to do. The cabbie’s gray eye and gold tooth flashed gamely. He was taking no risk. Better to stand around than drive. Better to do nothing than something. Naturally, given a previously agreed upon payment; money up front.

  They idled across the street where they could see both the room windows and the hotel entrance. The wait could take hours; the writer relaxed and lowered his seat back slightly.

  Bored, the cabbie inevitably struck up the usual, fairly pointless conversation, but the writer immediately interrupted him and started talking himself, and it was a monologue. He had long known that you could calm any idle chatterer if you immediately sucked up all the air. And forced him to listen to you. The writer had a few monologues at the ready, each of which could be made to last as long as needed. The total corruption, war, gas prices in Europe and Asia, weapons, prison, the outrages of traffic cops, air travel, games of chance, cars and motorcycles. Once I was in Barcelona; and once I was in Amsterdam. Generalities were not advisable—the chatterer would interrupt you right away. You needed concrete stories fashioned in keeping with the rules of dramaturgy, with a beginning, middle, and end. Mentions of large sums of money go down well. One time, there I was giving someone fifty thousand German marks—that was before the euro came in—and the man arrived for the meeting with a rubber belt under his shirt to hide his riches on his person, and he was amazed when he saw a thin stack instead of lots of raggedy bills; he didn’t know there were thousand-mark bills … And so on. The stories leapt out of the writer by themselves, one led to another, the episodes were recast in decisive criminal slang, rough curses, and minimal gestures.