by Serhiy Zhadan; Reilly Costigan-Humes; Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler
“No pity for who?” I ask.
“Anyone,” he repeats.
Then he turns toward me. He looks at me long and hard, like he’s looking through me. He smiles in recognition. I pat him on the back.
“Want some tea?” I ask. He nods. I walk over to the soldiers, get some tea, bring it back. Pasha thanks me, holds the cup in his hand, but he isn’t drinking. His fingers are shaking. His fingers have always scared me. I’ve never seen anything like them. But his fingers aren’t what matters, obviously. Making sure he’s doing all right—that’s what matters. The past few days have taken a lot out of him: all slouched over, gray face, tired eyes. I carefully touch his shoulder.
“You all right?” I ask. He gives me an exhausted look, fixes his glasses the way he always does, nods.
“Everything’s fine,” he says. “You hungry?”
“Yeah,” I answer. “Let’s go home already.”
We can’t go out the main exit. A stretcher got stuck in the doorway when the soldiers were wheeling it in. They’re arguing, pushing it forward and trying to pull it back, which has caused a little traffic jam. Can’t get through. We find the back door, open it, pop out into some sort of storage area. Freshly whitewashed hallway, stains showing through the plaster. Metal staircase attached to the wall.
“Wait,” Pasha says. “I wanna finally see what’s up there.” He points at the staircase.
“Nothing’s up there,” I answer. “Forget about it.”
He listens, doesn’t argue. He nods at me, as if he’s getting rid of something nasty that’s been bothering him.
We go outside, push our way through the soldiers. I’m walking up ahead, leading him, like a guide. He’s following me, his hand resting on my shoulder.
“All right,” he says. “Let’s find the train station and take a taxi. Got any money on you?”
“Yeah,” I answer.
“We’ll have enough then,” he replies cheerfully.
I like the way he talks now, the way he talks to me. He used to sound like he was always apologizing for something. It was awkward—for him and for me. What was he even apologizing for? He didn’t have anything to apologize for. Actually, I always felt bad when I gave him a hard time. Pasha has a heart condition, shouldn’t upset him. His heart could give out anytime, anywhere. That’s why I was so worried about him these past few days. I didn’t know if he’d make it. But he did it. So now he’s speaking in a calm voice, like he trusts me, figures I’ll understand what he wants. He isn’t yelling or ordering me around. He’s calmly explaining everything—go to the train station, find a taxi, we’ll have enough money, we’ll eat at home. The worst is behind us. Nothing’s going to happen to us here. We’ll be home soon. The soldiers aren’t paying any attention to us; they’re yelling to each other, carrying the wounded inside, and taking those who’ve already been treated out into the fresh air. We make our way out to the main road, go around a tractor, and when we’re already some distance away, someone behind us suddenly yells,
“Hey, Teach!”
Pasha stops. Out of the darkness emerges a man: dark, expensive jacket, dirty boots, backpack. His outfit looks pretty sharp, but it’s kind of rumpled, like he was being held in some pit for the past few days. He speaks with confidence, takes his time. He’s speaking Russian, but even I can tell he’s a foreigner.
“What are you doing here?” he asks, looking at Pasha with an unpleasant smile.
“Heading home,” Pasha answers.
“That must be your nephew?” He points at me like I’m a dog. “Picked him up after all?” And he talks about me like I’m a dog, too.
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t think you’d risk it.” The man keeps smiling.
“Would you have?” Pasha asks him. The man simply scoffs.
“Well, I . . . ,” he says tentatively. “What do I have to do with this? Cigarette?” He changes the topic, takes out a pack of cheap, strong cigarettes, offers Pasha one.
He shakes his head. The man, still smiling, extends the pack toward me.
“I don’t smoke that kind of shit,” I reply.
“Sasha,” Pasha says severely.
“It’s all right.” The man chuckles. “It’s fine, no need to scold him.”
“I’m not,” Pasha explains. The man stops smiling, tucks his cigarettes away.
“Going to the Station?” he asks Pasha. “I can give you a ride. Let’s go?”
“Okay,” Pasha agrees, and gives me a gentle push forward.
The man turns around and walks down the road, past a long column of military vehicles. He walks, head down, like he’s hiding from someone. And the soldiers look at him like they know that he’s hiding from someone. He goes over to an ambulance—a fat guy’s sleeping in the driver’s seat. He drums on the door. The driver shudders, peers into the darkness, eventually discerns the man, curses. Well, I can’t hear what he’s actually saying, but he’s obviously cursing. The man climbs inside, nods at us. Get in the back. Pasha opens the door, lets me in first, then follows.
“To the Station,” the man says. He’s speaking like a supervisor. One who isn’t that high up, though.
The driver gives him a dirty look but doesn’t say anything. “We’re in odd company,” I think. “Well, it is what it is.”
The streets are packed with soldiers. There’s no knowing where they all came from. They trudge down the sidewalks, make fires so they can get warm—in groups, by themselves. Some of them have weapons, others don’t have anything. There’s a big crowd outside the train station, too. A tank crawling with soldiers is parked off to the side. It’s as if the soldiers are afraid to get too far away from it. We pass the central square, the railroad crossing, and then leave the city. It’s dark—no lights, no movement anywhere. The man up front takes out his cigarettes and lights up.
“All right if I roll down the window? The kid won’t get too cold?” he asks Pasha.
“It’s fine,” I reply.
Pasha merely scoffs at him.
“You call Grandpa?” I ask him.
“Yeah,” he replies. “Everything’s fine.”
I know he isn’t telling the truth. He doesn’t want me to worry. He’s just looking out for me. He’s always looking out for me, afraid something’ll happen to me. Honestly though, I’m worried about him. I might be the only person who worries about him. Maryna left him, his sister—my mom, I mean—takes no interest in his life, and Grandpa’s at war with him. I love him, though. I knew he’d come get me, I was sure. I was just counting on him coming earlier, when you could still leave the city. And when he showed up two nights ago, I immediately thought to myself, “How are we gonna get out?” Well, it’s a good thing everything went okay. And the fact that he isn’t telling the truth—that’s a good thing, too. Talk all you want, Pasha. Just don’t worry about me. I simply don’t understand how he’s still hanging in there, after three days out in the wind and rain. When I saw him in the hospital, out there in the hallway, I thought that he’d just spoken to his death. And he was able to sway it. Or maybe he wasn’t. But it wasn’t able to sway him either.
“Well, so . . .” The man holding the cigarette turns toward Pasha. “When do you go back to school?”
“After break,” Pasha answers calmly.
The man laughs heartily, like he’s just heard an old joke.
“What do you teach again? History?” he asks.
“No,” Pasha answers.
“Chemistry?” the man inquires.
“Ukrainian.” The man whistles in reply.
“That’s like teaching Latin,” he says, chuckling.
“That’s a bit of an exaggeration.”
“Well, all right.” The man doesn’t want to argue with Pasha. He takes out another cigarette and lights it from the butt of the last one. “Just tell me this—how are you going to teach your language now? After all of this?” He points into the black night.
Pasha thinks, doesn’t say anything. “He’s feelin
g blue,” I think. But no, he isn’t.
“Peter,” he says to the man. It turns out he knows his name. “Do your readers send you letters?”
“My readers?” The man’s confused.
“Like the people who read your newspaper,” Pasha elaborates. “Do they send letters to your office?”
“What?” The man’s still confused.
“Basically, I’m trying to say that even if they do, you probably don’t read them. You probably aren’t interested in that. And you aren’t interested in us either. That’s what I’m trying to say.”
“Uh, why would you say something like that?” The man’s offended, but he’s trying to speak amicably.
“That’s how we talk at school,” Pasha explains. “We say what we think. Otherwise, what’s the point of even talking, right?” The man apparently doesn’t know if he should outwardly take offense or keep his hurt feelings to himself.
“You’re a strange guy,” he begins softly. “I don’t get you.”
“That’s just because you don’t understand our language,” Pasha replies offhandedly. “We all speak Latin around here.”
“Very funny,” the man replies.
“Yeah, but tell me I’m wrong.”
We pass a checkpoint on the road that leads out of the city. The lights of the Station shine in the distance. The soldiers instantly recognize the ambulance. It’s clearly been here before. They nod at the driver. And give Peter the cold shoulder.
“We’ll drop you off at the motel,” he says to Pasha stiffly.
“Thank you,” Pasha says just as stiffly.
They don’t say anything more. The driver turns on the radio, picks up noise.
There’s a ton of military equipment by the motel. The soldiers are running from vehicle to vehicle. They scan the ambulance and spot Peter, so they lose interest. The driver stops but doesn’t switch off the motor; he considers pulling up a little closer. Everyone’s sitting, waiting wordlessly.
“They picked up a woman here yesterday.” The driver cracks first. “Special ops guys came in. Turns out she was leaking information.”
“Who was she?” Pasha asks lazily.
“A waitress.”
Peter sneers.
“Name?” Pasha suddenly asks.
“Huh?” The driver’s confused.
“What was the waitress’s name? Anna?”
“Nah,” the driver answers, flustered. “Not Anna. Definitely not Anna. Why do you ask?”
“Never mind,” Pasha replies. “Get out,” he says to me. “Let’s go home.”
In parting, Pasha hollowly shuts the ambulance door. But Peter leaps out as soon as we start to walk away.
“Teach!” he yells. “Wait.”
Pasha takes several more mechanical steps but then stops. He stands in silence. Peter walks over, frostily rubs his hands, seemingly not knowing what to do with them.
“Want me to tell you the password?” he asks.
“What password?”
“It’s getting late,” Peter explains. “You won’t get past the first checkpoint without it.”
“We don’t need it,” Pasha says. “But thanks,” he adds after a moment’s thought.
“No hard feelings, all right?” Peter somewhat awkwardly extends his frozen hand.
Pasha shakes it. They stand there, not knowing what to do. Peter pulls his hand out of Pasha’s just as awkwardly, tucks it into his pockets.
“You probably think I’m a real asshole,” he says. “You really shouldn’t, though. You don’t know anything about me. All right?”
“All right,” Pasha replies, smiling.
He doesn’t challenge the asshole part, though.
“Why were you being like that to him?” I ask Pasha once we’ve walked away.
“Is there any other way to be with guys like him?” Pasha asks, surprised. “He really just isn’t interested in anyone. And he isn’t interested in us either. He’ll leave, we’ll stick around. That’s all there is to it.”
On the way back, it starts raining again. You don’t really pay attention to that, though. Just want to get home. Service is spotty, but Mom gets through. She’s speaking calmly, as if everything’s fine and nothing has happened. She tells me she’ll be back tomorrow. I answer in a calm tone, too. Actually, nothing did happen. Pasha calls Grandpa, tells him we’ll be home soon, asks him what to pick up at the store. It feels like we just went for a hike and now we’re coming home—tired, dirty, smelling of smoke. The closer we get to the Station, the more soldiers there are. A long column of heavy armor heads past us, toward the city. They were clearly coming from where the tracks are. Just disembarked. The soldiers are focused and calm. Nobody’s yelling. Nobody’s berating anyone. Everyone’s preparing for the war that’s still going on. Everyone’s planning to survive, thinking about returning. Everyone wants to return home; everyone likes returning. I like returning to the Station, too, I like counting the buildings, seeing our neighbors at the bus stop, waiting for our house—looks like a half-loaf of black bread—to appear around the corner. On the trees around the bus stop, groups of birds. Drowsy, wet, motionless. It’s as if they’re waiting for a ride. They may’ve flown here from the city, come back to their flock. They feel safer here.
Rain-drenched street, black windows, low-hanging sky. I see a box by the bus stop. Something’s squeaking quietly inside.
“Pasha,” I yell. “Hold on.”
Two puppies. Red with spots. One’s cold. The other one is almost dead, too.
“Let’s take him home,” I say to Pasha.
“Ugh, no,” he replies. “Grandpa’ll have a fit.”
“And then he’ll deal with it,” I say.
“Just leave him. He’s gonna die anyway.”
“Yeah, if I leave him he will.” I carefully pick him up, tuck him under my shirt.
Then the puppy starts peeing, right on my sweater. But he’s calmed down, stopped whimpering. “Well, all right,” I think.
“He dead?” Pasha asks, now obviously interested.
“Yeah right!” I answer. “He’ll be a badass when he grows up.”
Pasha laughs skeptically. We turn the corner. Smooth television light shines through our windows.
At home, it smells like fresh sheets.
SERHIY ZHADAN was born in the Luhansk Region of Ukraine and educated in Kharkiv, where he lives today. He is the most popular poet of the post-independence generation in Ukraine and the author of twelve books of poetry, which have earned him numerous national and European awards. His prose works include Big Mac (2003), Depeche Mode (2004), Anarchy in the UKR (2005), Hymn of the Democratic Youth (2006), Voroshilovgrad (2010), Mesopotamia (2014), and The Orphanage (2017). Zhadan’s books have been translated into Belarusian, Czech, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, and Swedish. He is the front man for the band Zhadan and the Dogs.
REILLY COSTIGAN-HUMES and ISAAC STACKHOUSE WHEELER are a team of literary translators who work with both Ukrainian and Russian. They are best known for their translations of Serhiy Zhadan’s prose, including Voroshilovgrad and Mesopotamia.
The translators are grateful to Hanna Leliv and Yevhenii Monastyrskyi for their generous and thoughtful assistance with the text.