Off the Beaten Tracks

by Irina Bogatyreva

  “You will have costumes.” She eyed me. “Do her hair the same way,” she concluded after a moment’s hesitation. “Do you dance?” I shook my head. “Cover her up,” she decreed. Roma was already having brown greasepaint applied. “I don’t suppose that’s shit, is it?” Tolya enquired warily, sniffed the jar and with a sigh closed his eyes. “Go ahead. What won’t we do for money!”

  “You need wax to make it go like that,” I said, indicating Roma’s dreadlocks, “but I’m not up for it. I’d lose my day job.” The make-up artist nodded and started braiding my short gamin haircut into a thousand and one plaits. I was issued a green linen tunic, then painted almost black, and ribbons of various colours were braided into my plaits. My arms were stained up to the elbows and I was urged not to raise them or the loose sleeves would fall back to my shoulders. Looking at myself in the mirror I saw the reflection of a charred hedgehog.

  “Go, Rastas, go!” Tolya commanded in a scary terrorist voice and, festooned with tom-toms, we proceeded to the performance space. We had no idea what was going to happen to us and my palms were sweating. Only Roma Jah was cool, his ginger dreads bobbing over his painted forehead to the beat of music playing inside him.

  We sat down on the floor of a large reception room and started playing with practised ease whilst surreptitiously taking in our surroundings. The hall was decorated as a hut in the jungle, but this was evidently the hut of a leader of all the tribes of Africa, who had long ago sold half his subjects into slavery. Wooden carvings of giraffes and elephants were positioned around the floor, ritual masks hung from the walls, and everything was painted in strong African colours. A divan and the floor were strewn with imitation straw. We sat beneath a real palm tree in a pot and played, while the skinny girls we had already met listened.

  We played and nothing happened. The girls yawned, popped grapes and pieces of fruit into their mouths, sent text messages and chatted among themselves. I couldn’t make them out at first, but then just got used to them. They were ordinary girls, most likely studying somewhere. There was one I quite liked. She wasn’t tall and had almost no tan. She had big eyes and a little mouth with peculiar, almost predatory teeth, which gave her a slight lisp. She jiggled her foot in time to our rhythms. Her toes were bare, and the thin strap of her shoe was twined around a slender ankle. The little white heel of her shoe jogged rhythmically in front of my face, like a tooth amulet. We exchanged a smile and nodded to each other and I stopped worrying, concluding that the girls were as much part of the furniture, beautiful, exotic pieces, as we were. It just wasn’t clear for whose benefit all this was being put on. There was no sign of an audience.

  Madame entered all a-jingle, rolling her sun-kissed waves of flesh. She instantly sized everything up – the girls, us, and the other elements of the setting. She came to Roma and said, “Play louder and make it last. Don’t use all the music up at once. They’re dining now and will come through afterwards. We’ve got some other musicians for later. You’re the support act.”

  Then she whispered something to the girls and opened a door in the far wall. A babble of men’s voices and the smell of food drifted in. Tolya strained over his drum to look. More time passed, the girls started turning off their mobile phones, adjusting their expressions, then shimmied over and disappeared through the door. Swaying slightly and with his eyes half closed, Roma began a simple Rasta song. Tolya and I picked up the rhythm and began to enliven it.

  Rastafari – will be forever – love and Jah. – And Rastafari!

  The girls began coming back, their heels clacking, laughing, their myriad pendants jingling prettily. Men in business suits followed them in, still chewing and continuing unfinished conversations. The girls sat on the divan, then stood up and started to dance, trying to get the men to join in, but they were still deep in their business discussions and not yet inclined to dance.

  My girl was the liveliest of them all, running over to photograph us with her mobile phone. She laughed and asked me, “Is that difficult? Don’t your arms get tired? Did you study it somewhere?” I smiled back and she ran off, laughing some more. She had a pleasant, open face. I pictured her in jeans, a T-shirt and baseball cap and decided we could become friends. I was looking at her so much I lost track of what we were playing.

  “Roma, does this song ever come to an end?” I heard Tolya whisper. Roma carried on swaying and singing, his eyes completely closed. They say there comes a point where you don’t need grass any more, you are just high all the time. Jah will give us everything, eh, Roma?

  Madame finally came swanning back in with a smile and much jangling, her tan glistening and her teeth gleaming, and whispered to Roma to wind it up. He stopped instantly, rose and walked towards the exit. We finished off with a drum roll, in some confusion.

  Our place was immediately taken by other musicians, real negroes, and we could only gape in amazement: these were serious jazzmen, international celebrities. “How many bucks do you need to get these guys to come back to their roots?” Tolya chuckled, when he did finally stop gaping. “Hell, Roma, we’ve sold ourselves too cheap here.” Roma looked at him smiling, the song still on his lips.

  Tolya had underestimated them: these cats were playing real jazz. We, the waiters, the maids, the make-up artists and the cooks in their aprons crowded round the partly opened door to the hall and listened. The people who worked here were comparing this party with earlier ones. We quickly ran to wipe off our make-up and came back. Tolya had lost no time in getting in with the cooks in the kitchen and the waiters from the bar and was strolling around with a full wine glass. A little later he invited us to the ‘dressing room’ where dinner awaited us on disposable plates. “Learn from me, Rastamans,” he said exultantly, “and Jah will give you everything.”

  While we were eating and listening to African saxophones, Madame came floating in, slipped Roma two hundred-dollar bills, and headed back towards the door. “Madame, when are we getting a lift back?” Tolya called after her. “It’s getting late.” She turned round flinty faced, but said finally, “The driver is going home. Find him. He’ll give you a lift to Moscow.” Tolya whistled. “Well guys, I’m off to find the driver, or before you know it…”

  We went back to the door. At that moment I was feeling insanely jealous of the girls. There they were sitting cheek by jowl with real jazz greats! These were major musicians, living classics! Did they have any idea how lucky they were? It was a double door through to the hall and there was a gap. I wished I could squeeze through and see everything, the musicians and the enraptured face of my girl. I was sure it would be enraptured.

  I slowly worked my way forward and had just reached the gap when the crowd gasped, “They’re coming!” and everyone rushed to get out of the way. I had the gap to myself but only had time to see clothing an inch away. I jumped back and managed not to get my head hit by the doors as they burst open. One of the men came out of the hall with my girl. She was holding his hand by the little finger.

  There was an inconspicuous door opposite which led to stairs to the first floor. With two steps they had crossed the corridor and disappeared through it, but in those two steps my girl flashed me a dazzling smile with her predator’s teeth. She wore her smile like a queen might wear a marriage diadem before her wedding, a fixed, glittering smile of triumph. She started climbing the stairs and I heard the clatter of her amulet-heels.

  “Roma, grab Titch before the driver goes without us!” Tolya was drunk but more firmly grounded in reality than I was. It was the same driver, but in his own new indigo Lada-6. He was as uncommunicative as ever, although with Tolya sitting in front now he did acknowledge that they were namesakes. This new Tolya was from a Moscow suburb, somewhere on the other side of town. He drove us until our ways parted, then dropped us on the outer ring road and drove on towards the exit. He dropped us at a bus stop, not registering that it was one in the morning and raining. The exit he was turning off at was another three kilometres down the road. He evidently though
t he was doing us a favour, our new Tolya.

  “I say, young lady! You really shouldn’t be hitchhiking. Men will be trying to pick you up!” Tolya is convulsed, laughing at Roma. With the wet dreadlocks framing his face, Roma really does look like a girl. He has maidenly brown and very clear eyes, but beneath his nose is unshaved ginger stubble.

  “I say, young lady! Perhaps you could all the same just raise your regal little hand? After all, you are the professional. Perhaps you could just flag down some old jalopy for us, you soul of Rasta mother plucker!”

  Tolya is talking sense: Roma Jah is fully familiar with the open road. Every year he hitchhikes down to the Crimea or the Caucasus or wherever. In May he collects three months’ rent in advance from his tenants in the commune and takes off for the summer. He’s got a girlfriend down there and a son who must be three by now. I saw a photo: a strange little creature with a scorched face and hair bleached by the sun. It was completely unkempt and now you probably couldn’t run a comb through it. Historically that’s where dreadlocks came from – tangles of hair, matted over a lifetime. Roma never tells anyone anything about his non-Muscovite family. All I know about them is that they exist.

  “Listen, dude, what is it you want?” Roma says, suddenly turning and speaking quietly right into Tolya’s face, in order not to have to yell through the rain. “Have you any idea how much they would fleece you for taking you to the city centre? Do you want to hand them everything we’ve earned tonight?”

  “What do you mean?” Tolya asks in surprise, stepping uncertainly to one side. “Can’t we just say we haven’t got any money, if you grudge paying?”

  “You don’t understand. Hitching is not a way of travelling for nothing because you’re a cheapskate. You don’t tell lies on the road. On the road you have to be open with everyone, understand? But what sort of road do you think this is? Do you think these are long-distance drivers on a job? This is Moscow, man.”

  He turns away and walks on, but we immediately hear, “Well, I hate Moscow!” Tolya’s voice explodes in a shriek. “I hate this Moscow of yours, this greedy, gorging, stinking Moscow!” We turn round. He is standing there like a giant humpbacked bird with broken wings, his arms hanging down under his rucksack, water dripping from them.

  “Do you hear? You! I hate Moscow!”

  “Sure, we hear. So why were you so keen to come to Moscow?” I shout into the rain. I can feel he is beginning to get to me too because we still have a long, long way to walk, we’re not even sure where we’re going, and he has to choose this time and this place to let rip. “Why didn’t you just stay in Petropavlovsk? What brought you here?”

  “I’ll screw this place yet! I’ll screw all of them, you know?” Tolya yells. ”Have you seen the map of Moscow? Come to our showroom, we’ve got these maps of mobile phone networks on the wall. Have you seen them? It’s a spider’s web! This is a spider’s web and we all fly here and get stuck like insects. We are stuck, struggling and just waiting to be devoured. Only that’s not going to happen! That’s why I came here: I’ll screw them all yet, do you hear me? I’ll screw everyone, and you too, everyone, everyone!”

  Tolya lives in our room and sleeps under the piano. He makes pictures out of beer caps, fragments of glass, small change, broken bits and pieces, and rubbish he finds in the street. He comes back with boxloads of trash and keeps it under the piano, then crafts it all on to a thin layer of modelling clay on a board. He can recreate the crowds in the metro, the view from our window on to the garbage skips in the yard, the Red October Chocolate Factory, the statue of Peter the Great conjuring the sea on his embankment… an urbanist world evoked through its own refuse. Tolya knows what he is doing.

  Roma goes up to him and shakes his shoulders so vigorously that insubstantial, drunken Tolya is almost lifted up in the air along with his rucksack. “Let’s go on,” Roma says quietly. Because of the rain I can’t hear the words but I guess them. Tolya gives a sob.

  “Roma, take my share of the rent out of that money,” I say when he catches up with me. “Only don’t give Tolya his, okay? He’ll drink the lot and just get kicked out of his job.” “No, he won’t. Not now.”

  We go on. My trainers have soaked up all the water they can, and now with every step I take it squelches back out. “Roma! Hey, Roma. You didn’t say whether that song ever comes to an end.” Tolya catches up with us and falls into step, a figure bent under the weight of his rucksack, the same as us.

  Roma gives a slight smile. We plod on.

  New Spring

  Hi, Julia, skinhead girl with a twisted smile, given to mild swearing. You saunter out, look your public over with that sneer of yours, hands in your pockets, clenched in tight fists. There’s just you and an audience, Julia, and who’s to say they are all on your side? You smirk, put on that husky voice, close your eyes in the spotlight, strike that guitar and sing about getting drunk on Saturday nights.

  “And h-ooow I luvvit!”

  After the gig you turn up your nose and tell us about sweaty guys who smell of overpriced vodka and cheap aftershave trying to pick you up, inviting you to the bar, swearing they only come to this dive to hear you and otherwise they drink exclusively at Blizzard.

  “It’s your image,” Producer says. “Cut out the cussing and the songs about booze and you’ll find a different crowd around you.” You take no notice of what he has to say. You might if he were a proper producer, but what has he done for you? Nothing. He comes up with projects for albums and tours but you’re still doing the rounds in bars and nightclubs, like everyone else from the old Moscow underground scene. Julia, girl of great talent, now starring in the beer bars of Moscow. Where the hell did Sasha find her?

  “Where did you find her, Sasha?” I ask, but I’m not ready to listen to his long rambling explanation about some festival and running into her in a snowstorm. Like Pushkin’s Silvio, Julia appeared out of a snowstorm but ended up in our commune.

  No, Julia, you are a Moscow girl, not destined to live here with us on Yakimanka, although you’d be hard pressed to find a better place to rehearse. The walls are thick, you’ve got Roma here on bass guitar, Sasha to play any pipe or flute you can think of, and Lenka for backing. You’ve got a group! We admire your talent, and our perpetually pie-eyed Tolya crawls under the piano and holds his breath whenever you come into the room.

  Those rehearsals were the highpoint of a fever which rampaged through our commune. We were like charged particles, attracted to each other, colliding, repelled, in a constant state of flux. That cruel fever blew our minds and we lived in the moment not knowing what we were doing.

  But already we had a presentiment that soon it would all be over. You and I, Sasha, are on the road and have no alternative path. No traffic either, because what sort of a road is this? It’s a narrow track to a village where some people are supposed to be expecting us. How many kilometres is it to the village, Sasha? Oh, what the hell! We should make it by dawn.

  Our house is full of people, all playing games with each other. They might not agree, but looking down on them from my gallery I know best. My home is full of kids, all playing at love.

  Lenka started it, blonde-haired, blonde-browed, green-eyed Lenka as brazen as the devil. She introduced the bacillus of March madness to Yakimanka. Old Artemiy, our communal scarecrow stuck permanently beside the kitchen radiator, said it all the moment she arrived. “You’ve got the devil in you, girl,” he told her. “Cool,” Lenka replied.

  There are things which are powerless over the mind. It is powerless, for instance, to figure out what caused two beings as dissimilar as Lenka and me, Titch, to collide. Collide we nevertheless did, in the metro where she was handing out leaflets and I was rushing along one of my courier routes, my endless routes which, starting from a particular place, are guaranteed to take you back there, again and again. So it was. Lenka and I collided again and again, a dozen times, until finally laughter spilled out of our eyes and we were bound to be friends.

  “This
is one crackpot city we live in,” I said, sipping fruit juice through a straw. It was our lunch break. “Right,” Lenka nodded. “And we’re doing the most crackpot jobs it could think up.” “Right,” Lenka nodded, eating chocolate with a beer chaser. She is so hooked on sweets she won’t eat anything else so as not to put on weight.

  Lenka had come to Moscow, was living with an aunt, studying somewhere while doing a job, the same as me. Her aunt kept coming down on Lenka, not letting her flower. “Everybody has the right to live how they please,” Lenka protested, “But this despot has got it into her head she has to mother me. That’s not what brought me to Moscow!”

  Her appearance on Yakimanka was pre-ordained. Even though we were the same age, no one ever thought to call her what they called me. “This chick means business,” Tolya said admiringly. “Look and learn, Titch!”

  Yakimanka, our rented communal paradise, adopted her and here she found the nurturing environment, the saturated solution of cynicism, two fingers to the world, the permissiveness her youthful schizophrenia needed to grow and flourish. She told everyone she was schizophrenic, found a book on forensic psychiatry and compared her symptoms. “Manic-depressive syndrome triggered by alcoholism,” she proudly diagnosed her condition. But you, commune, our shared home, are never shocked and only laugh. So many people here talk like that. There’s no knowing when they’re serious and when they are joking.

  It was only old Artemiy who saw her demon straight away. Later I saw it too, one night, looking down from my gallery. I love watching people while they are asleep. You immediately see something important. Lenka looked scared in her sleep and there was a restive little brownish-grey creature beside her, like a kitten. In the darkness I couldn’t see what it was. I raised myself on my elbows, the creature pricked up its ears, tensed, jumped back into Lenka’s head and was gone.