St. Petersburg Noir

by Julia Goumen

  There are a lot of things stacked on the shelves. There’s a bust of Pushkin in the corner. K tells of how he dug it out from under a heap of trash last spring. The bust is primed for painting. Across from us is a carpentry table. K works with wood professionally.

  It’s midnight by the clock. The three of us came here in a Deo Matiz. They picked me up at Petrogradskaya.

  A small terrier walks around the room slowly. The first thing its owner did upon entering the apartment was put a bowl of food down. The dog’s called Rogue.

  K cuts hashish into thin squares on the tabletop. Gathers them into a spliff, mixes them with tobacco on rolling paper, rolls with a filter, seals it, and passes it around the circle.

  I’m not feeling the speed. “Nothing so far.”

  “Yeah, there was a little something there.”

  The hashish dulls any reaction, I move over to the leather armchair beside the sofa. It’s deep. I slide down the back, stretch out. Feel a small spark in my cerebellum, which flows down my cheeks to the heart.

  “Fellas, let me tell you that it is friggin’ awesome to have sex in that chair,” K says.

  He takes a scale out of an extravagant ebonite case. Next, a blue parcel with white substance. He places the parcel on one side of the scale, a counterweight on the other. The scales are even.

  “Thirty grams.” K takes a lighter and seals the parcel.

  We sit drinking coffee.

  “Well, should we talk about why you’re here?”

  I get up, go into the hallway. K has stacked books to the ceiling and painted them silver. The books reach the top of my head. I take a napkin that’s been folded several times out of a bag. Return to the room.

  “My grandma called her friend and said: Get here as fast as you can! My K has gone crazy—he’s drilling into books. That’s when I was making that sculpture.”

  I hand the napkin to K. “You’ve even got Marx in there.”

  K unwraps the napkin. In it are sugar cubes that I swiped from home. K takes an insulin syringe and expels a small amount of antiseptic or iodine. Fills it and checks it in the light. Holds it over the two pieces of sugar. Carefully lets drops fall. Checks the syringe. Wraps the pieces in foil, each one separately, puts the instrument away.

  I had handed over the money to C for two drops of English LSD while we were still in the car.

  “Well, there it is, it’s ready.”

  K throws himself against the back of the sofa. His shirt is open and his athletic torso is visible. Although he’s thirty-five, K looks more like twenty-five or thirty. He’s short, swarthy, lean, but somehow exceedingly slow and graceful in his movements.

  The mug of coffee is half empty. I recline in the chair.

  C is still rooting around the Internet—putting on different songs and videos. C is also athletically built, but it’s a different kind of athleticism. In his youth he played basketball professionally. C is blonde with blue eyes. K is a brunette with brown eyes. C’s big, almost childlike lips betray his sensitive nature.

  It’s nearing one a.m. We sit smoking a second joint. Watch a funny video. Finish up the coffee.

  On the glass tabletop are the two little parcels wrapped in foil.

  K walks into the room with a pistol. Black, heavy, big. K walks up to the carpentry table and with a strange contemplative expression he holds the pistol up to eye level.

  After that he throws it on the table. The sound is abrupt, loud, unpleasant.

  I get up, come closer. “Is it real?” I break the tension, pointing to the barrel.

  “Yeah, don’t be afraid, I filed down the hammer.”

  I can feel the room exhale; even C brightens up.

  “What do you need it for?”

  “I have to make it inoperable.”

  I take the pistol, twirl it in my hands. “That’s funny, a gun that can’t shoot. It’s lost its destiny.”

  K takes the barrel from my hands and with white plaster he tightly stops up the openings beneath the screw with a palette knife.

  The doorbell rings. C and I flinch. Rogue barks.

  Two enter. One is red, tall, with a full beard, his eyes are racing. The second is shorter, a bit heavier, with gray circles under his eyes. His name is P, I crossed paths with him in the Siberian city of U. He’s a musician.

  We greet each other. The fellas sit on the floor. K takes the sealed parcel of speed, places it on the edge of the table.

  “You got lucky, fellas. Seriously lucky. The goods are pure. This hasn’t happened in a long time.”

  The fellas nod. They stare at the little blue bag with hungry eyes. Especially Red.

  We sit, lazily talking things over. K lights up a new joint. We pass it around.

  “I think I’ll pass,” Red says.

  P takes the joint from my hands. I put my legs up on the armrest of the chair. P passes it along, sets his smartphone on the table. Presses it. The glass tabletop and this device merge into one another. P places the little bag of amphetamines on top.

  “So you, like, make music?” K asks.

  “Something like that,” P replies.

  “Well, put something of yours on for us.”

  P becomes flustered, but then gets up and heads to the computer. “Here, this is from the old demo.”

  An IDM beat begins to play. I hear a recorded voice from the radio. I focus my eyes on the screen, try to read the name of the band. Aurora Baghdad.

  We finish smoking the joint.

  “Well, I guess we’ll go.”

  The fellas get up. We say our goodbyes. C and K go into the hallway to see them off, I remain in the room.

  I hear: “We rode here on kick-scooters.”

  “It’s the first time that I’ve ever ridden a kick-scooter.”

  “How did that go?”

  They walk out the door, continue talking there.

  I move over to the sofa. Try to find something online.

  K and C return. K rolls another joint.

  I tell you, it’s really cool here at his place.

  “All right, you haven’t even seen the whole apartment.”

  K’s converted half the kitchen into a carpentry workshop. He’s got a workbench there, a carpenter’s vise, a lathe. The floor is covered with wood shavings.

  “Before, I used to make lots of little things and give them away as presents. I called them pleasantries. But then I realized they were much more dear to me than anyone else.” K stares off somewhere beneath the ceiling, lost in thought. “So now I make them for myself.”

  We return to the other room. K leads us to the wardrobe with the heart. Opens it. There’s a small illuminated nook in which miniature items are arranged on red velvet. K removes a perfectly smooth egg from a stand.

  “This is what they look like.”

  Among the items are a box for wedding rings and Escher’s staircase made of wood.

  K returns the egg to its place and closes the drawer.

  I take a seat on the sofa and lift my arms out across the shelves that begin where the back of the sofa curves.

  “Feel it. Doesn’t it feel like the wings of an angel?”

  There’s definitely something to that. I throw my head back. Pushkin’s turned upside down. My arms on the nautical boards, I’m ready to start flapping them and fly away.

  K sits down, rolls yet another spliff.

  “What do you think? Should we trip?” I offer.

  “Why not?” C responds.

  The original plan was different. Drop in on K, take acid, and go see P and company. They rent a studio apartment right here on Komendantsky where they record music. Half of the group came here from E especially for that. There’s a boom in the Urals right now of new music with a slant toward reggae.

  But it’s evident that something didn’t line up with C and P

  C and I unwrap the foil, toast symbolically. Let’s ride. It’s one thirty.

  C’s at the computer again, searches, finds, puts on.

  I n
otice a female mannequin in the far corner with a replica of the heart from the wardrobe on its left breast.

  “Cool,” I say. “You’ve even got your own mannequin.”

  “That’s my ex-girlfriend’s.” K walks up to it. Studies it a couple of seconds, then turns abruptly on his heels. His black shirttail lifts up, revealing that solid torso. “She sat indoors while I worked all the time. I just needed a couple of pieces of scotch tape. I love creating something out of nothing.”

  The conversation turns to The Portrait of Dorian Gray. K leaves the room, but quickly returns with a book.

  “Here, I haven’t thrown this away only because of the cover.” Against the soft yellow of the cover is the white profile of Wilde. The book is passed from hand to hand. “These are the little pleasantries I’m talking about.”

  The book is laid on the carpentry table next to the pistol.

  K takes a baggie from the shelves, unseals it, sprinkles white powder onto the table, divides it into three parts, and goes off to the kitchen. We sit terrified of blowing away the powder.

  Rogue climbs up onto the sofa and lies down next to me. She starts to lick. Her rough tongue goes up and down my arm. I close my eyes. I feel the tongue with a thousand granulations on it. Open my eyes.

  “Good, Rogue.”

  The dog stops, looks at the body prone on the couch, and continues running its tongue here and there. It’s not unpleasant, it’s good. Rough. C and I chuckle lazily

  K returns. In his hands are mugs of coffee. He sprinkles the lines one after the other into the mugs.

  “Gentlemen, coffee’s ready.”

  I add three spoonfuls of sugar.

  K gets up, leaves the room, and returns with a seven-branched candelabra. He places it on the carpentry table in the corner in front of the mirror. Turns off the overhead light.

  Rogue doesn’t stop for even a second.

  “Why don’t you give her a rest?” C says.

  “She’s doing it herself. It’s not like I’m forcing her.”

  “Take your hand away.”

  Warmth is radiating from the dog. I don’t remove my hand.

  “So how are you both doing? Good?” K distracts himself from his activity.

  We nod.

  “It’s hard to enjoy yourself if your guests aren’t happy.”

  We slowly pull at our coffee. Two in the morning. Time for the LSD to show itself.

  “I know what you need,” K says, and leaves again.

  “So how are you?” I ask C.

  “Not bad, I’m starting to feel it already. That was a great idea K had about the candles.”

  The flames break apart as soon as I try to focus my attention on them.

  We deliberate about what film to put on.

  “Have you seen Baraka?” C asks.

  “Obama?”

  “No.”

  “Then no.”

  C burrows through the Internet, finds it, reads the description.

  “Listen,” I say. “It sounds a lot like this one film that I’ve wanted to see for a long time. I can’t remember the name. It starts with a K.”

  We search. The director of Baraka leads us to Koyaanisqatsi.

  “That’s it.”

  We read about the thirty-five thousand meters of film used on the movie.

  K returns. “Here, this should be just the thing for you both right now.” Two jam dishes appear on the table, filled with white globs.

  “What’s that?”

  “Fruity ice cream. Little cocktails.”

  We try it, a soft sweet taste, it flows smoothly into the stomach.

  “C, pass Alexander Sergeyevich over.”

  C climbs onto the sofa, lifts the bust of Pushkin. “Behold the power of art,” he says.

  I take the bust, it really is heavy. Pass it over to K.

  K places Pushkin on the carpentry table, starts painting the white poet. C puts on Koyaanisqatsi. We eat the fruit cocktail, drink the spiked coffee. Rogue finally calms down and falls asleep.

  “Koyaa-nisqatsi, Koyaa-nisqatsi,” a voice repeats against the background of mournful ceremonial music and clouds of fire.

  After a minute we understand that a rocket is taking off in slow motion. It’s the beginning. Time passes quickly and imperceptibly. Hours fall away, leaving only perfunctory minutes behind them. The echo of Koyaa-nisqatsi traverses the entire film. The final scene. A rocket goes skyward. So does the mournful ceremonial music of Glass. Something has gone wrong, the music only reinforces this sensation. A torrent of air flows over the body of the rocket in a white plume. A second, then an explosion. The camera watches for falling debris. One piece stands out. It falls, tumbling and burning. For a second it seems as though it could be the astronaut’s seat. But no, it’s a piece of the rocket. Twirling in a final dance, it slowly falls to earth.

  “All is senseless and futile.” I’m quoting Mujuice here.

  K sits at the computer, searches for a color picture of Pushkin. In the time it took to watch the film, black kinky hair has appeared on the bust of Pushkin on the table.

  I register the change. Colors have intensified. Trails have begun in my peripheral vision. I think of Kesey and the Pranksters’ tests. Put the jam dish with the fruit cocktail to the side. C finishes eating it to the very last.

  “How tall did you say your ceiling is?” K ask unexpectedly.

  “It’s, like, normal,” I reply. “Average.”

  Outside the window we hear a guitar being played, singing.

  “It seems our musicians didn’t get far.”

  I go up to the window. A seaside neighborhood. Komendantskaya Square, at the center of which is a shopping center that resembles a flying saucer. Right beneath the windows is another big shopping center, overlaid in gray paneling. The frightful tastelessness typical of a residential neighborhood. Seemingly the only signs read, Secondhand. Beyond it, bunched together, are high-rise homes.

  A young man sits on the grounds of the shopping center and strums a guitar. Beside him stands the yellow-green Deo Matiz. I step away from the window.

  K has printed out several color images of Pushkin, and C is at the monitor again. He finds and puts on Baraka.

  “I’m going to the store,” K says. “Got to buy food for Rogue. Anyone need anything?”

  We shake our heads.

  C closes the door. Baraka begins with the same images as Koyaanisqatsi.

  The film is more vivid, the colors more vibrant. The camera moves along the corridors of a temple, a mosaic appears all around the monitor. It’s literally like looking through a kaleidoscope at the center of which you find yourself. You open all of these doors, walk through all of these corridors. You’re on the inside, while your eye is a camera. The music is extraordinary, it blends with the landscape in a very soothing way.

  I grasp at something important. There’s something encased in the center of the universe. Some sort of simple and at the same time fundamental truth. Another second and I’ll understand it, seize it.

  I need to get rid of this sensation. I recall the story of the banana. The story goes like this: Friend K faithfully wrote something on a scrap of paper during a moment of insight in the middle of an acid trip. The next morning K discovered the scrap. On it was written: The banana is cool. But the peel’s thick.

  C sits with his legs tucked beneath him, and has gone quiet. I want to talk, share my perceptions with him. But something interferes, some strange and unknown barrier. It could be that the whole matter lies with K, since we’ve never had problems like this arise before.

  K has now returned from the store, filled the dog’s bowl, cut up fruit in the kitchen, and brought it into the room on a big tray along with other edibles.

  C goes for the pretzel sticks.

  I try one too. The taste of salt is very pleasant. Words can’t begin to describe. It fluidly dissolves into the walls of the mouth. Even the cheekbones take it in. It’s also interesting to just gnaw on the pretzel stick. To bite into
it, feel as the stick crumbles in your mouth, as crumbs from sharp edges scratch at your tongue, cheeks. As they slowly lose their rigidity.

  I’m discussing this with C, whose attention is taken up mainly by the grains of salt, before he grabs an apple. The apple is undergoing a metamorphosis too. It’s succulent, spraying sweet juice along the walls of the mouth cavity. Biting, chewing it gives pleasure, bordering on ecstasy.