by Serhiy Zhadan; Reilly Costigan-Humes; Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler
“I’m leaving the apartment this morning,” Short Hair says. “And he’s lying there on the bench. They put him there this morning, so everyone could see.”
“Are you for real?” Her neighbor’s crying. “You can’t be serious.”
“Yeah, black, purebred. No head,” the woman continues.
The lady bitterly wipes her mouth with the corners of her handkerchief.
“Thing is, he wasn’t from our building. I know that for a fact. Someone dropped him off.”
“Black,” Pasha thinks. “Purebred. No head. I’m really hungry. Really hungry.” He tosses his head back. His eyes shut; cold is pooling in his lungs like water in a clogged drain. Someone gets up in the corner, slowly walks toward the exit. Skinny, darkened. Suitcases in his hands. And when he passes by, the suitcases give off a wet dog smell so potent that Pasha turns around. It’s like someone’s come to take him away. He huddles into the wall, closes his eyes tight, so tight, but that only makes things scarier, so he frantically lifts his head, drowsily looks around, and takes in the dead dog smell that’s gradually diffusing around him. He looks at the ladies. The one who was crying is sound asleep, head drooping onto her chest. Short Hair’s nodding anxiously, though, seemingly agreeing with someone invisible. Beside her, a family’s sleeping—a boy and girl with their mom. Some guy on crutches is next to them, followed by some more women. Quiet, choked. So hungry.
“I’m hungry.” The kid gives Pasha a little shove.
Turns out he isn’t asleep either. He’s waiting.
“Want a can?” Pasha asks.
“Nah, you’ll start bleeding all over the place again.”
“I’ll be right back. Hang tight.” Pasha gets up, looks around, and trudges off to the waiting area.
The room is sorrowful, like the hold of a ship packed with captives. Everyone realizes that they won’t all be saved, but everyone’s hoping to save themselves. The patrolmen spot Pasha from afar, turn around, and quickly head toward the exit. “Well, okay then,” Pasha thinks, watching them walk away. Then he goes up the stairs to the second floor, steps over a body, and bumps into a bag. The body lurches awake, emerges from a heavy sleep as if it’s rising from the bottom of a river. Eyes linger on Pasha for an instant, then blur, flicker out, and sink to the bottom. Pasha finds a sign—Snack Bar—in the corner on the second floor. He can’t find the entrance, though: barricaded windows, an advertising stand, a heap of scaffolding, drowsy women on the floor. Everything’s closed, everything’s dead. Just as he’s about to turn around and head back, he hears footsteps and cheerful voices behind him: a woman in a short down jacket and high-heeled boots, purse in hand. Two soldiers—unarmed—are following her. “Those staff officers,” Pasha thinks. They walk, yelling back and forth and paying little attention to the drowsy people all around. The first one pulls the stand aside, revealing a door; he pushes it, and it squeaks open. The other one gently pushes her; she laughs ostentatiously, doesn’t resist, disappears inside. The door squeaks shut. “There’s gotta be something at the snack bar,” Pasha thinks. “Some chips at least. Or chocolate. Just have to ask someone.” He approaches, carefully pushes the door, and peers into the darkness. Empty, expansive room, several tables with overturned chairs on them. There are layers of paper on the windows so the glass can withstand a shockwave. There’s a bar in the corner—it’s empty, too.
“Hey,” Pasha calls. No answer.
He walks over to the bar, lifts the board, and finds himself behind the counter. A hallway leads farther back, to the next room. Pasha pokes his head inside. It’s dark in the hallway. He takes out his phone—the battery’s almost dead—and turns on the flashlight. Several chairs, last year’s calendar on the wall, a mountain of dirty dishes. A partially open door at the end of the hallway. Pasha advances toward it. He sees a down jacket on a chair, though. And a light-colored women’s sweater. And an undergarment. And he hears something over there, behind the door. Voices—rushed and raucous.
“Anna,” someone yells. “What’s wrong, sweetie?”
Pasha turns off his phone, gropes his way out of the hallway. He walks across the room, goes downstairs, finds the kid.
“Well?” he asks.
“Try to get some sleep, all right?” Pasha requests.
The kid looks at him attentively, agrees.
But the suitcases, where’d the suitcases come from? They never had any suitcases. When they were younger, his parents didn’t travel, didn’t vacation. Pasha remembers this one summer, though, in the early nineties. He’s in seventh or eighth grade, he and his sister are in the same class, his parents are on vacation—actually, no, his parents’ jobs have just disappeared, stopped providing them with anything, yet they still go to the station every morning, like they’re possessed, like they’re wind-up toys. The station stands empty, the tracks are quickly overrun by grass. The country changed rapidly, but all of them—its citizens, the residents of this particular railroad town—weren’t able to change; they just didn’t have the right mechanisms in place. They kept going to work, work they weren’t getting paid for. Just because they’d been going their whole lives, gotten used to it. You wake up every morning and you trudge off to work, as if you’re going to toil like a galley slave when you get to the depot. But the depot’s come to a standstill, like a sailing ship that’s been raided by pirates. Walls and the Party slogans on them—there’s nothing else left. And the workers stand under the slogans, and they’re eager to fulfill and overfulfill the plan, meet their co-workers halfway, and take on extra duties, yet nobody has any use for their duties and nobody’s going to meet them halfway anytime soon, and there are just these tight-knit flocks of pigeons—there are suddenly so many of them—flying from the station to the city, from the plant to the residential area, searching for happiness and free grub. In the summer, his mom somehow gets awarded a trip to the sanatorium in the next town over, in a pine forest, by a river, and this all looks so unreal. They haven’t gotten anything in a long time, even though they’re still hoping they will. Break their backs at work and get something in return—that’s what they’re used to. But they haven’t gotten anything for the past few years, even though they’re still willing to break their backs, and this has crushed their long-held notions about how things should be, about basic fairness. Oh yeah, and then there’s this trip to the sanatorium, and at first the whole family’s planning on going, and Pasha’s looking forward to it, getting ready, like a real adult—well, he thinks he’s all grown up. How old is he? As old as the kid is now, about thirteen or so. And he’s packing his things. And obviously, he doesn’t have a suitcase—just some shabby sacks that his old man uses when he goes to the makeshift market downtown. Pasha is given one of these sacks and told to think about what he’ll need on vacation, to make sure he doesn’t forget anything, to act like an adult. Pasha methodically moves his things from the wardrobe in his parents’ room into his room; he places them on the bed, sorts through them. He’s going to work out; he’ll need athletic clothing. But he’s also going to go for walks in the woods, so he’ll need something comfortable and practical. And he shouldn’t forget to bring a warm sweater, too. And he’s meticulously packing all of it, tossing some T-shirts and socks in, taking his favorite detective novels. Then, ashamed of himself, he stuffs one last thing in, on the very bottom, under his sweater and socks. Sunglasses—his dad’s old pair. He found them in a drawer; his dad hasn’t worn them in a while. Pasha’s ashamed of himself, but he still tucks them in his bag, just in case. After that, pleased with himself, packed and pleased, he goes to the kitchen and sits down at the table. He sits there listening to his elders’ conversation with an air of importance. The conversation is a somber one: the family doesn’t have any money, they have no idea how they’re going to pay for this vacation. The next town over isn’t the Black Sea coast, obviously; it’s just as much of a dump as the Station is. But you still have to pay extra for children, for food, for lodging.
“Where are we goi
ng to get the money for that?” his mom asks. “Huh? I’m not going anywhere,” she says firmly. “I’m staying home. There’s no point in going there anyway.” But his dad insists because he loves her. No, you definitely have to go, you need this, you need to get healthy. Pasha doesn’t understand all this health talk; he doesn’t even think about that, health problems don’t exist for him, they just don’t, everyone’s supposed to just be fine. He doesn’t understand any of this. But he does understand that his dad’s an amazing guy, that he’s deeply in love with his wife, Pasha’s mom, that is, and that this is real, grown-up life. Pasha understands that since he’s acting like an adult, too—he gets it. And he’s sitting there, admiring his own maturity and his old man’s maturity. And how helpless his mom is, her inability to deal with troubles, touches him. And he doesn’t even understand that they won’t be going anywhere, that he, his sister, and his dad will have to stay home, tend the garden, and skip ice cream to save money. That his mom will go to the sanatorium by herself, share a room with some lady from accounting, and race over to the phone every two hours to make sure dad’s heating up all the food she left for them. He doesn’t understand that yet; his parents call them into the kitchen again—his dad sits down at the table, his sister’s chattering on about something, not taking any breathers, not stopping. And then his mom starts saying something about the trip being called off, about how they’ll have fun without her, just the three of them. She hasn’t even finished yet, and Pasha still hasn’t fully grasped what she’s getting at, but his sister gets this intuitive feeling, as only a child can, that she’s being deprived of something very nice and important and she starts wailing, loudly and uncontrollably. His dad doesn’t even bother trying to console her; there’s so much despair in her wailing that all he can do is wipe away a meager tear with a barely noticeable movement. Pasha notices everything, though; he suddenly understands everything and starts wailing, too, finally realizing that he won’t get anything: no workouts, no walks in the woods, no nothing. And that nobody has any use for his maturity, nobody has any need of it, that all this is so ridiculous and so hopeless that, once again, everything has already been decided for him, once again he’s been put in his place, and there is no point in hoping he’ll get anything at all. Then his mom, completely bewildered at this point, suddenly flies off the handle and starts yelling at his old man. It’s all your fault, this is all because of you, you did this. His sister’s wailing even louder because she feels sorry for her dad. But she feels sorry for herself, too, so she’s wailing for herself and for him. And Pasha’s wailing for himself and for him, for his old man, who couldn’t do anything, couldn’t ward off their cries, just like he couldn’t ward off mom’s illness, mom’s death.
Pasha didn’t unpack until the fall.
The days are so short this time of year, and there’s so little light that it takes you a while to get used to the darkness once the sun goes down, like you can’t believe that that’s it for today—no more sunlight, just twilight. Pasha’s always out of sorts in the winter: doesn’t have enough daytime, can’t get settled in the evenings, mixes up the hours, mixes up his desires. It seems like it’s time to go to bed, but he’s sitting there, leaning against the wall, slipping into a slumber, but something keeps pushing him out of it, as if there are some guards on duty nearby who won’t let him relax, won’t let him drift off. A moan wakes him up once again. He lifts his head—Short Hair, resting up against the bundles, is talking in her sleep. Pasha catches some words here and there. Something about wiping your feet, about shoe covers, about the schedule. “Yeah, the schedule,” he thinks. “What time is it? How much longer until morning?” For the past two days, he’s been hovering in the damp air, not having anywhere to go yet afraid to stop. The kid is on his conscience, too. “It’s a good thing we managed to get clear of the orphanage. We’ll be home tomorrow if everything works out. And the kid’ll stay with us. I don’t think Nina will mind. Yeah, gotta find her when all of this is over. And the gym teacher, too,” Pasha thinks, immediately remembering everything: the executed coat, the dude with the pasta, the voices by the well. He remembers the crowd outside the apartment building, the soldiers, the darkness, the bashed-up bench, the torn fur coat. “Wonder how Vira’s doing,” he thinks. “Should’ve gotten her number, at the very least. What could’ve happened to her? Did she get home, or is she still hunkering down in some basement? In the basement that I never wound up finding. I’ll find her when all this is over, I definitely will. Office building, massage parlor, travel agency. I can always find her through her friends. Through her friends,” he repeats. “Yeah, through her friends.” Pasha turns toward the kid, who’s sleeping without a care in the world. Next to him on the floor is the bat—it looks like a child’s toy. Then Pasha stands up carefully, so as not to wake anyone, fixes his glasses, goes to the waiting area, and then makes his way to the second floor.
The snack bar door is half-open. Pasha slides inside. He shines his flashlight ahead, walks behind the bar, emerges in a little hallway, stops in front of a door, hesitates briefly, and then knocks carefully. Silence. Then he hears some rustling and the crackling of couch springs.
“Who’s there?” a dry voice asks.
“It’s her,” Pasha surmises, and opens the door.
There’s a small kitchen in the corner: sink, microwave, knives on the table, sugar spilled all over the floor, shelves with spices and kitchenware on them. Oil, vinegar, ketchup. No alcohol. There’s a couch against the wall, and there she is, sleeping on it. She leaps up and turns on a little flashlight as soon as Pasha comes in. At first, Pasha shields his eyes with his hand, but then he decides not to hide—he looks, examines. Pink hair tangled like wires from sleeping, warm sweater. Apparently, she was sleeping on the couch, wrapped up in a down coat and some sort of tablecloth. She quickly fixes her short skirt, but not before Pasha gets a good look: black stockings, gray sweater, no makeup, tired and vulnerable face. Her expression is wary yet devoid of fear—she doesn’t really understand who he is, but she can see that she doesn’t have anything to be afraid of: slightly blurry gaze through his glasses, beard, blood on his jacket sleeve, boots covered in clay. Pasha looks haggard and like he’s in the wrong place at the wrong time. Probably woke her up at the wrong time, too.
“What?” she asks dryly.
“I’m just ducking in for a second.”
Pasha adjusts to the abrasive light, surveys the room, and thinks about where to sit. She notices that, so she immediately pulls a bag toward herself and covers up with the tablecloth. This spot’s taken. Don’t even think about it. He isn’t thinking about it, though. He sees a beer crate in the corner, places it in the middle of the room, sits down.
“Did I wake you up?” he asks.
“What do you think?” she asks in reply.
“Well, sorry. You’re Anna, right?” Pasha switches to the informal “you” to sound more convincing.
“Yeah, and?” She’s still shining the flashlight right in his eyes.
“I saw you come in here. With those two.”
“What else did you see?” she asks angrily. “Who are you?”
“A representative of the citizenry,” Pasha answers.
“Huh?”
“A representative,” Pasha repeats. “Of the citizenry,” he adds. “Forget it,” he says finally. “Turn off that flashlight.”
Anna listens, placing the flashlight aside, at a safe distance. It gets dark in the room.
“I’m looking for someone,” Pasha says. “You might know her.”
“Who?” Anna grows apprehensive.
“You work at the travel agency, don’t you?”
“What agency?”
“At that big office building downtown,” Pasha explains. “Right?”
“Yeah.” Anna scrutinizes him, then snickers. “You’re a client, yeah?”
“Not exactly. I’m a representative of the citizenry,” he reminds her. “I need to get ahold of Vira. You know her?”
>
“Vira?”
“Yeah.”
“What does she look like?”
“Well, uh.” Pasha tries to describe her. “She wears worn-down heels and a fur coat.”
“What kind of fur coat?”
“Don’t know,” Pasha admits.
“Well, I don’t know either,” she says with a tired laugh.
“She wears an engagement ring!” Pasha suddenly remembers.
“An engagement ring?” Anna laughs. “Really? We don’t really do engagement rings at the travel agency.” She keeps laughing.
“She told me that she works there,” Pasha says, his tone aggrieved.
“Is she a cleaning lady?”
Pasha gets flustered and stops talking, so she goes quiet too, stops laughing. They sit, not talking.
“Got any smokes?” she asks eventually.
“I don’t smoke,” he answers.
“I smoked all of mine,” Anna says discontentedly. “With those two. The bastards showed up with no cigarettes.”
“Where are they?”
“How am I supposed to know?” Anna replies. “They ran off somewhere.”
“Why’d you stick around?”
“Where could I go? I’ll wait until morning, then head out. What’s going on with you and Vira?” she asks after a moment’s thought.