by Sergey
He couldn’t quite believe his eyes. He approached the girl and looked into her face.
“Alyona!”
Her eyelashes, stuck together with dried-up tears, fluttered open.
“Alexey,” she said, gazing into his face as if trying to recognize him. Slowly, apprehension dawned. “Oh, Alexey, is that really you?”
He stepped on someone’s arm. Swearing replaced snoring, but Aspirin ignored it. He dragged the girl to the exit, fully expecting the door to slam in front of his nose. It was a trap, there is no way they would let him escape, fate will not give Alyona back to him.
And as he expected, a hand grabbed his shoulder.
“Hey, dude.”
Not listening, Aspirin turned and punched the man in the jaw with surprisingly effective precision.
Something clattered on the floor and someone fell. Nearly taking the door off the hinges, Aspirin burst out of the room, Mishutka in one hand, Alyona in the other. Someone’s shrieking followed him; he heard swearing and a nasty growl, “Let me get him! Let me get him!” Aspirin stopped in his tracks, handed the bear to Alyona, and pushed her behind his back. A man in a blue T-shirt faced him, a chef’s knife in his hand, a slice of onion stuck to its blade.
The man’s eyes appeared to be made out of tin, devoid of any thought. Aspirin stood in the middle of the corridor, staring into his eyes like a chief fireman gazing at a burning building.
“I’m gonna kill you!” the man barked (at least, that’s what Aspirin assumed based on the unintelligible pronunciation) and took a step toward Aspirin. Will she be smart enough to run? Aspirin thought hopelessly. At that moment the man’s eyes cleared.
He stared at something behind Aspirin’s shoulder. Aspirin suppressed the desire to look back. He gritted his teeth and took a step forward, but his adversary was already gone. The man sprinted down the corridor, sliding on the slick linoleum. Only a slice of onion that fell off his blade remained behind.
Aspirin finally turned to look behind him. Alyona leaned against the wall, clutching Mishutka with all her might—an ordinary stuffed bear with plastic eyes.
No one had abused her, raped her, or given her drugs. She’d simply sat in the corner of the room by the radiator, trying to get warm. She was freezing and very thirsty.
“Who dragged you to this place? Were you kidnapped?”
“No. I came by myself. I don’t remember how. Mishutka was upset with me. I left him behind. I locked him in my bag and left him behind so he wouldn’t interfere, and then everything happened. And—and I didn’t think about him at all.”
“What happened?” Aspirin couldn’t wait any longer. “What happened, why did you leave, where is your brother? Why didn’t you come home?”
“Alexey,” she smiled. “Thank you. You found me. I was lost. I was completely lost. I even forgot my name.”
“How?” Chills ran down Aspirin’s spine. His worst suspicions had come true—Alyona did have a psychological disorder, and it was progressing.
“No.” She shook her head, as if reading his thoughts. “I am not crazy. My string broke. The E string. This music—this world can’t handle it, so something had to break, either the world, or the string. This music is perfect. You see, playing it is the same as stopping the clock.” She pulled a bag with coiled strings out of her pocket. “Here. Now I have only three left.”
“Where is your violin?” Aspirin asked automatically.
“I don’t remember. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t need the violin anymore, Alexey. I don’t need anything at all. It’s all lost. He’s going to stay here forever. And me too. I will never be able to lead him out of here. My string broke.”
She spoke slowly, smiling, and her smile made the skin on Aspirin’s face stretch tighter.
“Nonsense,” he said as calmly as possible. “Your . . . the guy who owns the strings should give you another one. That would be fair. It’s a technical issue. That’s fair, don’t you think?”
Alyona shook her head; she said nothing, but Aspirin got the distinct impression that there would be no free passes. No breaks. The girl sat by his side, gazing into his face with dry, inflamed eyes, and Aspirin felt like an amateur standing by a surgical table. Here was a wounded patient, bleeding profusely, needing urgent help—but Aspirin had no knowledge of how to even start.
“Umm.” He knew he had to say something quickly, and with great conviction, without any amorphous “calm down” and “it’ll all work out.” “Listen. They say Paganini could play on one string. You see, his strings broke too and he still played his Caprices on one string. If Paganini could do it, why can’t you?”
“On one string,” she said slowly, as if half asleep. “No, Alexey, that’s not possible.”
“Then,” Aspirin said, feverishly searching for the right words, “then use a regular E string instead of the special one. You know, a normal one. It’ll be like a crack in a clay pitcher. Like they did in the ancient times to prevent the Gods’ envy. Remember, like when a potter made a particularly good pitcher, he’d leave a small crack in it, a flaw, to make sure he didn’t anger the Gods. Then maybe you can play your song, and the world won’t break.”
She stopped smiling. Aspirin’s heart jumped into his mouth: “Alyona?”
She threw herself at Aspirin, her arms tight around his neck, her face pressed against his cheek so hard that Aspirin felt a twinge of pain; Mishutka was squeezed between them so hard that the bear’s hard plastic nose poked Aspirin’s chest.
Part III
February
“What’s up?”
He’d woken up a minute ago. Irina lay with her eyes open, her cheek resting on her hand.
“Nothing,” she smiled with her lips closed.
“Was I snoring?”
“No.”
He glanced at the clock. It was half past six, a bit early, but he had the morning shift today.
Aspirin sat up in bed and lowered his feet to the floor. Lately their morning ritual of waking up in the same bed had developed a tiny crack, a hint of discomfort. A vague false note.
“Still sleepy,” he complained. “But I need to get up. You should go back to sleep.”
She didn’t respond.
Aspirin reached for the bathrobe hanging on the back of the chair. The robe was soft and comfortable. Everything was good, calm, comfortable, easy. If only it weren’t for that look and that silence.
“If I ordered a general to change himself into a seabird, and if the general did not obey me, would that be my fault or the general’s?” he asked spontaneously.
“Is that from The Little Prince?” Irina asked after a pause.
“Yes. The answer is ‘Yours, Your Majesty. Because you asked for the impossible.’”
“Am I asking for the impossible?”
Aspirin tensed up. Early morning was not the right time for this sort of discussion.
“You don’t ask for anything.” He touched her arm gently, conciliatory. “I am off.”
“Go,” she pulled the blanket to her chin. “Have a good show.”
“You have a good day too.”
Her door slammed behind his back. Still wearing his bathrobe, a cigarette in his mouth, he went up to his apartment. A neighbor carrying a full trash pail gave him a knowing look.
He sat in his kitchen, by the window, took a long drag on his cigarette and closed his eyes. He had to give Irina some credit—she was certainly perceptive. She was right. She did ask for the impossible. Her steep demands took a toll on their relationship, like a worm eating away at an apple, and no one could tell how long the second round of this neighborly idyll would last—a week? A month?
He was thirty-four years old. He liked his status. He valued his relationships with women on their own, without any additional expectations. Either she would understand that, or . . . that would be a pity. What a shame that would be. There were very few women like Irina out there.
Alyona was still asleep. He left a pack of defrosted ground beef
on the counter for her to make meatballs.
As he was leaving the club, a young woman, fresh as a daisy, asked for an autograph. He drew a man behind a controller, signed “Aspirin,” and the girl nearly melted in gratitude.
From the car he called his music guy, got a list of all the new stuff, and stopped at the store. He grabbed a cup of coffee with the sales guys and signed another flyer for the girl at the cash register. He spent all his cash on a stack of vinyl and discs, put the bag into the back of the car, and drove home.
Alyona was washing the floor, furiously wielding the mop, sharp shoulder blades sticking out from her T-shirt. Once again, Aspirin was startled by how thin she was.
“Take off your shoes,” Alyona said instead of a greeting. “Am I wasting my time here?”
“Don’t waste your time. Who asked you?”
Alyona straightened up and smoothed her hair back from her forehead.
“I don’t like living in a pigsty,” she said clearly, looking into Aspirin’s eyes. She hesitated, then said, a little softer: “What are you so happy about? Good news?”
“Do I look happy?”
Aspirin glanced at the mirror. He looked exactly the same as before—although perhaps his eyes shined a little brighter than usual.
“Nothing special,” he said, pulling off his shoes. “I may pick up the third night shift at Kuklabuck. That would be a bit of a stretch, especially if you count the Saturday morning air. But it is really a wonderful thing—to be paid for doing something you love!”
Alyona smiled, a sad, patronizing smirk. She picked up the pail and dragged it to the bathroom, dirty water cascading with deafening noises.
“You know, I should totally drop Radio Sweetheart . . . I may actually do that and switch to the club full-time.”
“What’s the difference?” Alyona asked from the bathroom.
“The difference is enormous,” Aspirin slid his feet into his slippers. “A DJ at a club is simultaneously a creator and a performer. And the radio gig—it’s not much more than being a clown, an entertainer, that’s all.”
“I don’t understand.” Alyona wiped her hands on a kitchen towel. “What exactly are you creating at your club?”
“A mood,” Aspirin smiled. “You see. Here is the dance floor.” He placed an empty plate in the middle of the table. “The dance floor has its own mood, its own goal, its own contents—age, social standing, interests . . .”
He took a cookie out of the jar, half a loaf of bread from the bread box, a day-old cooked carrot from the refrigerator. In a flash of inspiration, he added a few toothpicks.
“This is a complex object. And I am a master manipulator. I am not a villain, not a mass murderer, not a spin doctor. I don’t want or need anything from them, I just want their world to be better. I want them to feel better and to be better, that’s all.”
Alyona sat down to examine the plate in the middle of the table. As Aspirin spoke, the boiled carrot danced on the plate, obeying his will; the cookie hopped. The bread and the toothpicks waited for their turn.
“Every composition is a mood,” Aspirin continued, quite inspired by his monologue. “When we listen to music, we pick up on the mood . . . or we don’t pick up on it, if the mood feels foreign to us. I feed them my compositions—and while I do that, I manipulate them.”
“The people?”
“The people, and the music as well. When I speed up the rhythm, they get a shot of adrenaline. There are a lot of tricks, enough to talk until the wee hours in the morning, but the most important concept is that I respond to their mood, take control, and smoothly transfer it into something else. From calmness to ecstasy, from ecstasy to euphoria, from euphoria to nirvana . . . Do you see? I am a DJ. My professional talent is in sensing the mood music brings to my audience.”
“So that makes you a professional manipulator?”
“I am a musician.” Aspirin came to his senses and returned the bread to the bread box. “Every musician is a little bit of a manipulator. You should know.”
“No,” Alyona said softly. “A musician, especially a composer, he takes a piece of himself, a bloody piece, with the taste of life, love, and the fear of death. And he preserves it . . . no, that’s not right, he translates the best—or the most terrifying—moments of his life into another semiotic system. Another code. And then he sends it into space. Or writes it down on paper using symbols. And he doesn’t care whether the bar has sold enough alcohol, whether the people sitting down are tapping their feet in time with the music, or whether the dance floor is vibrating.” She picked up the boiled carrot with the tips of her fingers and tossed it into the trash.
Aspirin had no idea how to respond. Ice-cold demeanor, ice-cold gaze—she had already forgotten sobbing on his shoulder, forgotten how he pulled her out of an incredibly shitty situation, how he bought her a new violin (a third one by now), how he provided psychotherapy sessions, day and night for weeks . . .
“Fine,” he said as indifferently as he could manage. “I will take your opinion into consideration.”
He got up and left.
“I got into a hassle with my director,” Kostya said. “It was kind of a big deal. I am up to my ears in debt, can’t sell any discs. Everyone likes it, but when it comes to purchasing, they bail out.”
“You know I work for wages, right?” Aspirin said carefully. “I just do what the boss tells me. I don’t make decisions.”
“But you are well respected. Can’t you talk to someone?”
Aspirin shrugged. “I can try. But I am not making any promises, you understand.”
“Fine, don’t make any promises,” Kostya said wistfully. He pulled out a disc with a half-naked Hindu woman on the cover. He opened the case, signed the insert, and handed it to Aspirin: “Here. That’s my blood, sweat, and tears here. No one needs it, as it turns out.”
“Take care of yourself.” Aspirin twirled the disc in his fingers, not knowing where to put it.
People were trickling in. It was Saturday, the first Saturday after Kostya Foma, his competitor, was fired. Aspirin was slightly nervous.
“Well, here I go.”
“Good luck,” Kostya mumbled.
A waitress placed another shot of vodka in front of him. Aspirin thought: Here is a talented man who dedicated his life to the arts. What will happen to him? What awaits him in the future?
He greeted an unfamiliar crowd like a pilot greets the passengers before takeoff. Almost immediately he knew this was no sinecure. Various clerks exhausted by the long week wanted simple pop pleasures, the cutting-edge youths expected something extreme, more mature members of the audience desired having a gorgeous, stylish evening, and then there was a handful of teenagers who confused Kuklabuck with an acid disco club. Aspirin sat behind the controller feeling like the first man in space right before takeoff. Let’s go!
He didn’t own them right away, but eventually he got them all, from simple to complex. The atmosphere took its time, but eventually it submitted to his skillful hands and sensitive ear. The crowds migrated from the bar to the dance floor, from the dance floor to the tables, and back to the dance floor. The feet tapped in time with the music, the bartender worked tirelessly. Aspirin calmed down and was feeling pretty relaxed when a sweaty, corpulent man wearing a tie off-kilter stumbled into the DJ booth.
“Put on ‘Vladimir Central’!”
Aspirin was mixing two complex tracks. He was happy with the mix; it was long, eight squares. Aspirin moved the crossfader, faded the first track, and only then looked at the visitor.
“‘Vladimir Central’!” the corpulent man repeated meaningfully. “Did you hear me?”
“I am sorry, but we don’t take requests here,” Aspirin said politely.
“You bitch!”
A hand flew toward Aspirin’s collar. In a split second one of Whiskas’s guys appeared behind the man’s shoulder; in another instant, the booth was empty, and only the reek of stale alcohol was left behind.
“M
y apologies,” Whiskas said, appearing from out of nowhere. “We didn’t catch him on the way out.”
“No problem,” Aspirin said, fixing his collar.
“Ah, the memories of old times, the good old nineties,” Whiskas sighed nostalgically. “Fanned fingers, chains, 90s-style raspberry-colored sports jackets . . . Me and the guys . . . ah. You were young back then, you probably don’t remember.”
Aspirin smiled involuntarily. “Victor, how old do you think I am?”
Whiskas shook his head: “Much too young. So, are you happy about Foma being booted out?”
“Why would I be happy?” Aspirin asked. “He and I were . . . we got along. I subbed for him, he subbed for me, you know how it was.”
“I know,” Whiskas nodded absentmindedly. “How is your daughter?”
“She is fine.”
Aspirin tensed up expecting the conversation to go further, but Whiskas nodded in understanding, slapped Aspirin’s shoulder, and moved to the bar.
The rest of the evening went A-OK. Working with the tracks, mixing them, fading them, playing with special effects like a juggler with a handful of dinner plates, Aspirin thought of Alyona’s words about real composers “preserving” selected slices of life and sending them into space. A creative personality as a canning factory, Aspirin thought, watching the dance floor swimming in euphoria. And here I am wielding a can opener and feeding them all these cans of sardines. What if I could travel somewhere with all my equipment—would you get off the dance floor and follow me? In a long line? Tapping your feet in time with the music?
Almost immediately he stopped thinking about it because a couple of girls, identical twins, jumped onto the low stage and, in one synchronized motion, ripped off their tops, showing off their tanned chests. The crowd roared and applauded, the happy girls danced, and Aspirin glanced at the clock—it was too early for a slow number. Let them enjoy the chaos a little longer.