The Tool & the Butterflies
Page 32
“Gotcha …” Antipatros parted his beard so he could pour vodka into his mouth. “And now you’ve suffered enough?”
“Sure have … I served out my sentence, from beginning to end …”
As we followed the vodka with crepes, we both turned to my former neighbor Ivanov with an unspoken question. He took another shot—his penalty for being late—oinked, as was his custom, and admitted that he had been the seventh cloud of glory but had shirked his obligation to wash the clothes of the numerous people wandering the desert.
“And sometimes I’d go AWOL to enjoy some earthly maidens.”
“So you have a prick?” we both asked, almost in unison.
“Yes,” the Angel Ivanov said, his eyes downcast. “I am not of your … brotherly … Christian … breed.” We all drank to that.
“What are we going to do about Iratov?” I inquired.
“Nothing … He has nothing to do with this. Selected at random. But do not forget, however random he may be, he is Joseph’s grandfather! Remember the city of Zoar, which was not destroyed along with Sodom and Gomorrah because Lot, the nephew of the Prophet Abraham, was hiding there!”
We all agreed on that, yet, in the depths of my soul, I would still always hold my Verushka against Iratov. At that moment, it all seemed like a meaningless detail, though.
For half the evening, we sat there in silence, feeling an immense, universal celebration in our souls. We didn’t want to go our separate ways, but the café had supplied us with more than a thousand crepes, overfulfilling their plan by 300 percent, so they had to close.
“Does everyone know what to do?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“I don’t!” the Angel Ivanov admitted.
“You take care of what grew between Iratov’s legs and exercised the right of self-determination, like Crimea!” Antipatros chastised him.
“His name is Eugene,” I elaborated. “A vile genital!”
“I’ll take care of him,” Ivanov promised. “What’s the method?”
“You’re the pyromaniac around here! If you can’t handle the laundry, handle the fire!”
“That store burned to the ground!” the inebriated angel agreed. “With Zinka’s sister Tamarka inside!”
“Right, you figure out how …”
“Why are we going to Prague, guys?”
“What, you don’t know?” We were surprised.
“No,” he replied, puzzled.
“Prague is the brother city of the Eternal City itself!” Antipatros informed the uninitiated Ivanov. “When we are called up to sit at the table, we go!”
“Ah …”
I went to the yeshiva in Istra, where I found Joseph teaching a class for the youngest kids. He was telling the children about the meaning of some part of the book so beautifully, so elegantly that they were listening with bated breath, and Rabbi Yitskhok, seated by the wall, was almost weeping.
Joseph did not seem at all surprised to see me. When the lesson was finished, he came over and said hello like we were old acquaintances.
“Have you come to see the rabbi?” he asked.
“I’ve come to see you.”
“Has something happened?”
“We’re off to buy you a tuxedo!”
“A tuxedo?” The young man was clearly surprised.
“I’ll give you the details in the taxi.”
Joseph looked at Rabbi Yitskhok, who nodded in encouragement, thereby giving his blessing for him to leave the yeshiva. When the car was rolling into the tunnel under the Moscow Ring Road, the driver, a man as old as Methuselah, suddenly spoke to me.
“I remember you …”
“Me?” I was surprised, catching his eyes in the rearview mirror. “Or the young man?”
“You … Around thirty years ago, you saved my Svetlana from inevitable death,” the driver explained, but he saw my bewilderment and tried to jog my memory. “You were all beaten up, and you tried to pay me with a three-ruble bill from before the reform … My little daughter, Svetlana, with periostitis. Do you remember now?”
“Oh yeah!” I slapped myself on the forehead. “Now it’s coming back to me! How is Svetlana?”
“She’s given me three grandsons! Thank you! My wife Elena, God rest her soul, sends her thanks, too!”
Joseph looked at me in surprise, so I explained things.
“The tuxedo is for the wedding!”
“What wedding?” Now the young man looked even more surprised.
“What do you mean, ‘what wedding’? Your wedding!”
“But … I …” Joseph stumbled.
“Hush now, your wedding will be on Thursday.” He apparently did not like my little scheme, and he asked the driver to stop.
“Pardon me, but I would like to get out! Your sense of humor is too weird.”
“The plane’s already in the air, you can’t get out! A man without a wife is like half of a coin—he has no value.”
“I categorically insist!”
“Alright, alright, keep calm … If you don’t want to marry Zoika, that’s your prerogative.”
Joseph’s expression instantly transformed. An apple-red glow appeared in his cheeks as blood ran back into his pale skin.
“Zoika who?”
“That’s doesn’t matter anymore!” I turned aside but kept my attention focused on the bobber that was slowly but surely sinking into the water, indicating that the fish would soon be caught. “You might be a little young to get married …”
“Z-z-oika w-who?” Joseph stammered.
“The one from Petrovsky Boulevard … She tidies up the barbershop. Perhaps you’re right … Perhaps she isn’t a good match for you …”
“I’ll do it!” the young man shouted, so thunderously and unexpectedly that the driver was startled, and the taxi almost crashed into a truck. I myself nearly soiled my pants.
“Alright, I got it, I got it … What are you scaring people for? How are you, sir? God, you gave him such a fright!”
“I’d like to give him a smack!” the elderly driver replied, then continued unexpectedly. “It’s just a shame there won’t be any great-grandchildren!” Joseph grinned from ear to ear, like a complete idiot, sadly resembling his deceased daddy.
“But w-who are y-you?” he asked, still stammering.
“Me? Well … in traditional Russian weddings, if the groom’s father was not able to participate in the ceremony, another man would be brought in to play his role. I’m someone like that …”
“Did her father give his b-blessing?”
“Why on earth would we be buying a tuxedo without his blessing? That would be utter foolishness! Antipatros gave us the money out of his own pocket.”
“How do you know him? Does he c-cut your h-hair, too?”
“Oh, my dear boy, who don’t I know? But yes, that’s it precisely. I am an old customer of his. And that’s enough stuttering!”
The owner of the Central Universal Department Store unexpectedly appeared in the fitting room and commanded that Joseph be furnished with a tuxedo completely free of charge. He also received the accompanying white dress shirt, black tie, and polished shoes.
“Why?” Joseph asked, still surprised. “What for?”
“He is a God-fearing man!”
“He just gives everything away to everyone?”
“He’s no fool. What kind of business would that be, if he just gave everything away?” The Lyonchik brothers, the owners of numerous jewelry brands, gifted us with the wedding bands and escorted us all the way to the exit, shedding tender tears … Then we set off for Joseph’s apartment, where we spent two days preparing for the most important day of his life.
The Angel Ivanov stood on the Old Arbat in a Grim Reaper costume, complete with a real scythe. God only knows where he procured it. Perhaps he pilfered it from the Vakhtangov Theatre?
From time to time, Ivanov would light a stream of alcohol and send a tongue of flame into space from his mouth. The passersby just w
ent about their business, paying no attention to this homegrown fire-eater/flamethrower.
As he walked out of his building after a night with Vera—he was sick to death of her by then—Eugene suddenly realized that he would never return. He was transfixed by the thought that this was the day to make himself known, to elevate himself above the masses like a fireworks display, an explosion of hope, to soar above the world. Held captive by his thoughts about how to rise to the peak of triumph, he stepped on to the Old Arbat from the Smolensk Market side and headed down toward the metro. His thoughts bounced from one method of elevating himself to another, but then it became clear to him that it would all happen here, on this street, that this was the place where unnumbered gawkers would see his might and carry the glad tidings of humanity’s salvation to the whole world. Pale from the grandeur of the moment, he stopped in front of a jewelry store.
“I am with me!” he declared, seizing his belt. Yanking on the leather tongue, he was about to release his pants into free fall, but then someone started whispering some incomprehensible words in his ear, pouring in some fluid that felt warm and brisk at the same time. He turned around and saw Death. Death was short, just like in the fairy tales, the polished metal of the scythe shining in the sun. Eugene was about to shove the mummer aside, but the latter suddenly showed him two pieces of silicon in his hands.
“Take that, pussy!” uttered costumed Death, striking the pieces of silicon together to produce an overpowering spark.
Eugene didn’t go up like a torch, as one might have imagined; instead, his whole body trembled faintly, feeling heat advancing on all his innards. The heat turned into an inferno, an internal fire as ferocious as in the pit of perdition, and the figure of the young man began to smoke, a trick unusual enough to attract the tourists’ attention, then his clothes sloughed away, baring a body overcome by flame from within. Eugene’s last thought was a simple statement—“It didn’t work out!” His ignited flesh expanded, as if someone had filled a rubber product with air, and, in a moment, the blazing object came to resemble a sizzling sausage, sending the juice intended for billions of human souls squirting in every direction. To the accompaniment of the crowd’s hooting, the phallic sausage burned and spat for some time but eventually collapsed into a heap of ashes on the pavement.
The Angel Ivanov heard the applause, but he muttered that it was no trick, that a magician really had worked an illusion, then quickly retreated to Starokonyushennyy Lane, where he disappeared in an unknown direction, leaving his scythe in the gutter …
The wedding was held at the Crocus City Mall, where thousands of guests had come to celebrate. Neither Joseph nor Zoika knew where they had all come from or who had paid for the ceremony. The young couple were led out on to the street, where the children of the yeshiva held a chuppah above them.
“You are hereby betrothed unto me with this ring in accordance with the laws of Moses and Israel,” Joseph intoned, then gave his bride the ring. At the very instant he put it on her finger, snow began to fall from the sky. Those in attendance applauded in delight, marveling at the miracle of this August snowfall. Rabbi Cohen read the marriage contract, then the groom was lifted toward the heavens in a chair, and thousands of men danced with such fury that the floorboards would have to be replaced the following day. Only after all of that did Joseph make love to Zoika in his mother, Dasha’s, apartment, which was proper and in accordance with the law. Black was tinged with white, and the expression of her blue eyes was coy and submissive … She conceived that very night and felt the joyful presence in her belly ere break of day.
That same morning, Vera stood facing the rising sun, its myriads of warm rays penetrating her thin nightgown. She knew, she felt, that Eugene would never return, but, for some reason, she did not lament that fact, just smiled guiltily at the sky.
“Ah!” she exclaimed, feeling some kind of movement below her stomach, and grabbed the softest spot, what makes a woman a woman. “Ah!” Vera cried out, flabbergasted, thinking for a moment that she, like Mr. Iratov, had become sexless. From under the hem of her nightgown there flew a butterfly of hitherto unseen beauty. It described a circle around the young woman, grazed her hair, as if in farewell, then lightly flapped its turquoise wings, flew through the open window, and soared into the sky. Vera! Verushka!
At the same instant, as Alice stood on the white country road awaiting her sweet Eugene, a cabbage butterfly suddenly emerged from under her dress, flapping its little wings so quickly, rising toward the peculiar, shaggy clouds.
“Hey!” Alice shouted, grabbing her stomach. “Where are you going, butterfly?!”
Lilia Zolotova was riding her Harley that morning, enjoying the speed. She didn’t even notice the large swallowtail butterfly crawling out from under the men’s belt holding up her tight jeans, trying not to break its wings, but she suddenly felt that the spot touching the leather motorcycle seat had become insensate, as if an anesthetic had been administered. The butterfly was swiftly carried away by the headwind, and it suddenly soared aloft like a kite breaking loose from its reel …
In that instant, billions of butterflies soared above the world. They spun and bored into the air, rising on their wings toward the sun. Tiger moths and swallowtails, cabbage and sulfur butterflies, oeneis tarpeja—the tender and fragile creatures blotted out the whole sky. The world went dark, black, like it only does in the hour before dawn.
Moscow, 2016
Dmitry Lipskerov is a playwright and author whose novels have been met with international success due to their vivid, intense portrayal of Russia through both fabulism and realism. He has been awarded the Moscow Komsomol Prize and the French Imaginales prize in 2019, and was shortlisted for the Russian Booker Award. He cofounded two Russian literary prizes: the Debut prize for works of fiction by young Russian writers and the Neformat prize. The Tool and the Butterflies is the first novel of his to be translated into English.
Reilly Costigan-Humes and Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler are a team of literary translators who work with Russian and Ukrainian. Among their published translations are two books by contemporary Ukrainian author Serhiy Zhadan: Voroshilovgrad (Deep Vellum, 2016) and Mesopotamia (Yale University Press, 2018).
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