The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight

by Gina Ochsner

  If these were accounts of the economic catastrophe, such as the week's inflation index, then the assignment fell to Arkady, who could track the manifest rise and fall of the rouble in the cost of chewing gum or the ever-fluctuating price of bread. And Arkady could turn a phrase. A master of commercial euphemism, just the other day Arkady artfully dubbed the fact that for over two years the average monthly pension couldn't buy sausage and butter for a week as 'deficit earning'. The 28 billion roubles of unpaid wages to transportation, construction and agricultural workers he attributed to a common malaise known as 'indefinite delayed payment syndrome'—a condition encapsulated in a saying every Russian worker had known and repeated for decades: 'We pretend to work, they pretend to pay.'

  Military reports, on the other hand—estimated numbers of casualties, movements of troops and munitions—fell exclusively to Olga.

  Arkady ripped the transcripts from the carriage and squinted fiercely at the type. 'For you,' he said, handing it to Olga.

  Olga winced and read the report:

  After heavy fighting near Chervlenaja, Dolinsk, Pervomaisk, Petropavlovskaya, 250 troops were counted as lost.

  Olga sighed a ponderous sigh. Two hundred and fifty lost might actually mean five hundred dead and far more than that wounded. Russian military organizations, Olga knew, each had different ways of tallying their losses. Only soldiers who actually died on the battlefield were counted as dead. Those who died in transport or various field hospitals did not count. Add to the confusion the fact that each service (defence ministry, internal ministry) had its own hospitals. And even though the actual figures could take months to trickle in, even she could see that during the first half year of the war in Chechnya the Russian Federal Forces suffered greater losses than the Soviet army sustained during ten years of war in Afghanistan. This was a difficult fact to play down. That Russian conscripts like her Yuri gained military experience at the price of their own blood was also a reality that required some delicacy. And from Yuri, who saw it with his own eyes, Olga learned that the bodies of Russian soldiers who died in high-altitude mountain terrain were very often left where they fell. Kholodets, they were called, meat in aspic, because if the helicopters designated for carrying human cargo couldn't gain the necessary lift, then those bodies were simply dumped into the mountain lakes.

  And now it was Olga's job to whittle the numbers down to acceptable figures. She re-read the report summary and tapped her teeth with her pencil.

  Noticing her distress, Arkady plugged in the hotplate then touched her sleeve. 'Round those numbers down and be done with it.'

  Exactly what he had said nearly twenty years ago when the first reports from Afghanistan arrived. And in those days, when Olga was young and optimistic that a war could be won, she was only too happy to comply. She purposefully reported inaccurate numbers of casualties, citing figures that did not even remotely correspond to the numbers of actual wounded. This fell not too far afield from the beloved and well-intentioned vranyo, a type of fib one told purely for entertainment purposes. In the town where Olga grew up, vranyo masters, able to put the best possible spin on any awkward or embarrassing situation, were highly esteemed. And this type of lie was told with the expectation that everyone would immediately recognize the fib for what it was and know not to believe a word. The usual and polite response was to leave the vranyo unchallenged and undiscussed, like the discovery of a sudden turd dropped from the sky. The stink was unmistakable, but the custom was to simply step around it without comment and, with a wink, get on with business.

  But over the years of reading endless reports of how little had been accomplished in each of these wars and how much lost, Olga had grown more and more uneasy with her work at the Red Star. She saw the names of people she knew—neighbours, their sons and brothers. She saw her cousin's name and the name of a boy who had kissed her in the tall grass when her mother wasn't looking. So many names! And how, she'd like to know, do you lie about a name, which is all that was left of some of these people? And how do you decide which names to cross out, when, as her mother taught her long ago, no name should ever be forgotten? It's bad enough to die, but to die and not be mourned? Unthinkable.

  Again the teletype spluttered. Arkady and Olga sat listening to it spit and spew. When, at last, the machine fell silent Olga ripped the message from the carriage.

  This time, a letter.

  In days not too long ago the Russian military was considered the best in the world. It shames the Russian military, and every Russian citizen, to be so soundly defeated in our first assault on Grozny. So completely such an important city as Grozny. We must act. But we must have more soldiers.

  To this end we, the undersigned who wish to preserve Russian honour, urge the President and the central committee to reinstate compulsory re-enlistment of former service personnel.

  'I can't believe what I'm reading.' Olga slid the copy across the desk. Arkady read the report, his lips moving. When he finished he pushed the report across the desk with the end of his pencil, as if he could not bear to actually touch the paper with his finger.

  'Burn it with a bright blue flame,' Arkady said, his voice tight as a wound coil.

  'As if one humiliating defeat weren't enough, now these military geniuses want to empty every academy and re-recruit every returned vet for a second assault.' Olga squeezed her eyes shut. She thought of Zvi. She considered how lucky she was really, for all her losses, that she still had her son when so many mothers didn't. Then she thought of all those names she could not remember, and all the names of boys she would not be allowed to print.

  Olga felt fear taking on an animal quality inside her stomach, moving hard and dark behind her ribs. Loss diminished, loss denied, was still loss. And what purpose did all this loss have if they were not allowed to record it, to remember it properly? What good was their simple sorrow, these raw husks that rattled emptily in their hands? What good when those who perpetuated the loss denied the loss and were later helped along in their denials by people like her? This is what bothered her most: that their generational sorrows were daily diminished. By her. That as a matter of routine, of editorial policy, their suffering had been made meaningless and that she'd helped make it that way—unbearable.

  No. Olga shook her head. No. She said it, quietly, then louder, NO. She would not participate. Not anymore. Olga pounded the desk and Arkady's teacup jumped.

  'Grozny! Chechnya is full of Groznys! Next it will be Pervomaisk, Arshty, and after that another village, and after that another, and another. Because if you say three attacks, then you are suggesting a fourth, and if you suggest a fourth, most certainly a fifth is implied. And if we say five we may as well admit six or seven. For every village and city in Chechnya is a Grozny.' Olga took a deep breath and glanced at the oversized window. Did she say that aloud? It seemed so, for the pneumatic tubes stopped their howling as if sensing her indiscretion. Arkady passed gas quietly, and then that shrieking from the tubes recommenced.

  'This job,' Olga said quietly, 'turns each one of us into liars.'

  'So tell the truth.' Arkady scratched savagely at his forearm.

  Like putting ashes in a cellar, it might bring badness, but things couldn't possibly get any worse, Olga reasoned. 'It would represent a great triumph over ourselves. That we could openly discuss such things. Don't you think?'

  'Not at all the perpetuation of historical sediment to which we have become so accustomed,' Arkady said, all the while scratching savagely at his arm.

  Olga's stomach lurched. They could not help reverting to clichés even in moments of high-profundity content. Olga took a breath, held it, and then she started typing: everything she'd read from the generals and the report and the letters to the newspapers, everything she'd heard from Yuri, everything she knew to be true from Vera.

  When she was done, Olga rolled the waxy paper into a tight scroll and stuffed it into the canister and secured the hasp. The wind howled through the tubes. She swallowed hard, then slid th
e canister into the receptacle, holding it there until the next big gust carried it away.

  Two minutes passed. Then three. Arkady unplugged the hotplate and Olga sat drinking tea, her eyes fixed on the dull spots of illumination cast by the unambitious banks of overhead lighting hung over the work floor. A great torrent of snorting and braying trumpeted through the pneumatic tubes. And then Chief Editor Kaminsky materialized at the threshold, his usually florid face pale as alabaster. His eyebrows seemed more peaked than usual and his forehead was a jumble of deep furrows. With the demeanour of a man just back from a wake, Chief Editor Kaminsky studied his hands for a moment. 'Oh, Olga Semyonovna. Olga. Olya. You know how Editor-in-Chief Mrosik feels so very passionately about punctuation, how serious he is down to every last comma and full-stop.'

  Olga pinched her face into a contortion of concentration.

  And you know how much I like you and you know how rare it is for me to like anyone. As a personal favour to your father I hired you against the advice of my colleagues. Never did any of us imagine how brilliant you were, translating the most difficult military reports and memos and turning them into such pieces of diaphanous gossamer fragility that they've even become suitable for inclusion in children's variety shows. But this latest report of yours'—a measure of starch crept into Chief Editor Kaminsky's voice—'is rendered so transparently, well, it will give everyone a heart attack! What people want is security and stability. They want to feel good about this new Russia which needs them to feel good about it.'

  Olga squinted at Chief Editor Kaminsky's hair standing tall to attention, pointing the way to the pneumatic tubes, which she now associated with every trouble, real or imagined. Oh, how she wanted to clip those ridiculous strands off his head and knit them into something she could sell: a foot warmer, a tea cosy, a sweater for a dog.

  Instead Olga nodded her head with an exuberance she herself did not feel but hoped her body would find convincing enough to believe, if only on a muscular level.

  'You are the head of the translation division. The head of the head, the heart and the brains. What will we do if we lose you? We will flounder, that's what we'll do. Flounder and sink and drown. Drown and die. Is that where you want to leave us? Drowning and dying?' Chief Editor Kaminsky wrung his hands. 'Oh, please, I beg you. Nothing like this again, or I'm afraid we'll have to find another department for you—obits, or translating approved recipes from the Ministry of Meat and Dairy, or perhaps something even worse.' Chief Editor Kaminsky's gaze settled on the children's primer for a moment.

  Olga bobbed her head meekly as Chief Editor Kaminsky backed out of the office and into the corridor. 'Oh, the tyranny of rock-solid certainties,' he mumbled. 'Oh, help.'

  With a trembling hand Arkady set another cup of tea at her elbow. 'I think that went over really well,' Arkady whispered. Together they sat in silence watching the clock. Four fifty-nine. They studied the slow sweep of the second hand and waited for the minute hand to move. Five times the second hand swept the face of the clock before the minute hand finally moved.

  Arkady jumped from his seat and bowed gallantly. 'I absolutely applaud and salute your bravery. You are a real woman, Olga Semyonovna. A gem in the rough. A diamond amongst the turds.' Arkady reached for her hand and kissed it.

  Only then did Olga notice that her wedding ring had been lost in the tubes.

  ***

  Outside, the smell of old snow and diesel fumes settled in her mouth. Every swallow brought the taste of rusty coins and grit. It was sad to think what her life had become: churning out sludge, trying in vain to make bad news more palatable. It was hard to keep at it without succumbing to complete self-loathing. Two things sustained her: Olga's fragile hope that there was a heaven for translated words. That somewhere every edited thought and sentiment, every bit of raw truth, was catalogued and preserved, kept safe from the meddling hands of humans. And the second thing: her Yuri.

  Miraculously he'd been returned to her from Grozny, unharmed, catapulted clear from the only tank in the column that did not explode. How lucky she was—she did not have to travel hundreds of miles to the train station in Mozdok, where the bodies of Russian soldiers were packed in open railway carriages. But her relief was surprisingly short-lived. What with all these reports coming in over the teletype, who knew what would happen to her boy now? If God would just smile in her direction. If she could be a little more clever, could work a little harder, longer, she might think of a way to save her Yuri, for it was becoming clearer to her each day that Yuri was incapable of saving himself. He would always need a mother, always a woman to look after him, a mother and a wife. If she were very lucky, Yuri would marry a woman who would be both.

  In the square a gathering of Red-Browns, hardliners and reactionary communists, young unemployed punks, and old men waved paper flags. Just the type who'd vote for a man like Zhirinovsky, a Jew-hating loudmouth who couldn't wait to orchestrate another world war.

  A man wearing a leather jacket with the slogan of a rock band on the back side held up a bullhorn. 'And who will clean up the cities and countryside? Who will settle once and for all the question of foreigners?'

  'Zhirinovsky!' the old men and the young men cried.

  'And who will erect giant fans and blow all the toxic fumes and pollution from our great country into the pathetic Baltic states?'

  'Zhirinovsky!'

  Olga ducked her head and concentrated on her feet. Some days the snow crunching beneath her boots and the blast of cold air were the only things that made any sense to her. She passed beneath the stone archway and entered the courtyard. Yuri and Vitek stood next to the heap and sawed at a fish with a butter knife.

  'What's the news?' Vitek pointed his nose in her direction.

  Olga snorted. 'More than you can bear.' She trained her eyes on the snow and kept charging for the open stairwell, and pretended she could not hear the nonsense spewing out of Vitek's mouth.

  'Because, you see, Yuri, you are making no money at the museum. But the Russian army, they pay brilliantly for people like you. Even a child can do the sums.'

  'I don't know.' Yuri's voice followed her up the stairs.

  'Listen, boy-o. I can't do all the thinking around here. I am whacked as it is, bottling air and selling it as medicinal oxygen. Just the other day I had to beat up an old man who forgot to pay me rent for the privilege of begging on our street. I mean, how much can one person do?'

  Olga kicked off her boots and let herself into the apartment. She smelled Zoya before she saw her, the girl's laundry boiled and bubbled in a pot on the stove. And then her voice, plaintive and sharp.

  'All the best people have toaster ovens these days,' Zoya said, the trumpet of the phone held tight to her ear.

  Olga let her keys fall to the kitchen table with a clatter, but it was no use. Once Zoya got onto the subject of Things She Wanted, it was nearly impossible to derail her. Aiding and abetting the girl's folly was a western magazine, glossy and slick with advertisements for things they could never afford. Where Zoya got the money for the magazine, Olga could not even fathom, though she suspected the Korean-owned kiosk at the end of the street might be to blame for the magazine.

  'You know,' Zoya dropped her voice to a mumble. 'If I were to get pregnant, then we'd qualify for a better apartment. Maybe even one with a balcony. What a position of status we would occupy then. And, of course, I would be so much happier if I could hang my laundry outside with a view of more sophisticated trash.'

  The smell of the kitchen, the sounds issuing from Zoya's mouth, it was all too much for Olga to bear. She spun on her heels and headed for the stairs, where it was a short climb up the metal ladder that opened onto the roof. The smell might not be much better out of doors than in, but at least she could have the illusion of privacy.

  She lit a cigarette. She pulled hard and exhaled a long jet of smoke. By the end of the day, thinking of her responsibilities to the dead wore her out. And more absurdity: she actually envied the women who'd lost
their husbands in the war and had the red star on a cupboard shelf to prove it. Better to know what happened than to be stranded amid the rigours of the imagination. Because as long as Olga didn't have Zvi's body, as long as his name didn't appear on any list, she both hoped and despaired. And because hope is stupid and stubborn, Olga couldn't help but conjure him out of the nighttime darkness in the apartment; and by day her eyes couldn't help but parse him from a city of eyebrows, ears and noses.

  She blew another cloud of smoke.

  'I beg your pardon most sincerely,' a man's voice called from behind the heating stack.

  Olga dropped her cigarette. 'Zvi?'

  The man coughed politely. 'Not quite.' The man stepped forward and Olga could see that it was not a man, but Mircha. The lights of the TV tower flickered behind his body, which had shape but no substance. She knew she should have found the fact that Mircha was there on the rooftop surprising, or at the very least strange, but strangely, she did not. Nothing—not the purely disastrous, nor the monstrous, nor evidence of the supernatural seemed to move her any more. She might have included the miraculous on this list but it had been such a long time since God had sent a true miracle that she was no longer sure she'd recognize one if she saw it. Certainly what she observed winking at her now was no miracle.

  Olga sniffed. 'You have acquired a strange odour.'

  Mircha cupped a hand to his ear. 'What's that?'

  'You stink.'

  Mircha hiked his nose into the air and breathed mightily.

  'Why don't you settle down now and go away quietly? We gave you a good wake.'

  'I can't go away. These thoughts ... these ideas ... they torment me.'

  'What thoughts? What ideas?'