Back to Moscow (25 page)

See you tonight.

At five, feeling a bit better, I decided to go out for some fresh air and to buy stuff for dinner. I walked into Eliseevksy, always comforting with its elegant gilded ceilings, chandeliers and
wall paintings. The most beautiful place in the world to buy dried fish and imported biscuits. At the deli counter I got cured salmon, sturgeon, liver blinis, a jar of red caviar and smetana. On
the way back I stopped at a booth in the perekhod and bought a film of the type Tatyana liked. The seller at the stand, who recognised me from previous purchases, assured me that the English
subtitles worked well.

Pushkinskaya was bursting with life. Muscovites walked in and out of the metro, rushed through the perekhods, sat at the outdoor tables of Café Pyramida. I walked on among the crowd,
towards my building, bag of groceries in one hand, movie in the other, feeling light-hearted at the thought of the night ahead – at the thought of Tatyana coming home.

S
TEPANOV WAVES HIS HAND
at the waitress and points at his empty coffee mug. ‘But I don’t understand your problem,’ he says, turning
back to me. ‘You can keep your girlfriend at home from Monday to Friday and enjoy your freedom on weekends.’

I glance around the garden. The morning is grey, threatening rain. A few ravens are pacing on the nearby grass, awaiting our departure to jump on the breakfast leftovers.

‘Russian women are forgiving,’ Stepanov says. ‘They accept that we have lovers on the side.’

The waitress fills our mugs with coffee, then heads off to attend to a table further away, where two white-haired expats are reading copies of the
Moscow Times
.

‘Not sure about that,’ I say. ‘I’ve met girls who were less trusting than Tatyana.’

‘Perhaps spoilt Muscovites,’ Stepanov says. ‘But real Russian women, from outside Moscow, it’s a different story. They understand that men need to chase women, that
it’s in our nature and we can’t do shit about it. They don’t take it personally. They know it has nothing to do with feelings.’

I take a sip of coffee.

‘Of course there are rules to observe,’ Stepanov says, ‘but as long as you don’t bring other women home, and you’re discreet and respectful, you’re allowed to
sleep around.’

‘Like in Chekhov’s stories,’ I say.

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s not just that people cheat in Chekhov’s stories, adultery is old in literature. It’s the factual way Anton Pavlovich tells us his characters cheat. No moral
consequences.’

Stepanov adjusts his sunglasses, which today are large and greenish. ‘That’s my point. In Russia infidelity is something that can be addressed with a bit of discretion and mutual
understanding.’

I take a red notebook out of my bag, place it on the table, begin to scribble.

Stepanov leans forward, takes his sunglasses off, places his elbows on both sides of his empty plate. His blue eyes are bloodshot. ‘We, Russians, accept cheating as part of life,’ he
says, speaking slowly now, ‘because we accept life as it is. Some things you can’t change, you have to live with them.’

I stop writing, look up. ‘You mean you just accept your sudba?’

‘Exactly. We’re fatalistic.’

I drop the pen and take a sip of my coffee.

‘Russians are fatalistic,’ Stepanov repeats, tilting his head towards my red notebook.

I nod. ‘Right.’

Stepanov’s eyes stay fixed on my notebook, and it hits me that I’m expected to write down his acute insight into the Russian mentality. I lift the pen and write
Russians =
fatalistic
. I circle the word ‘fatalistic’ so that Stepanov sees it.

Stepanov nods with an approving smile. ‘You Westerners are always angry because you want to change everything in life. We Russians are always sad because we know that most things cannot be
changed.’

I feel Stepanov has been waiting for the right moment to squeeze this pearl of wisdom into our conversation. I’m about to write it down when I see Colin and Diego approaching our
table.

‘Sorry we’re late,’ Diego says. He’s wearing a baseball cap, green, white and red, the word ‘Mexico’ stamped on the front.

‘It’s fine,’ Stepanov says. ‘I was sharing with Martin some of the secrets of the Mysterious Russian Soul.’

‘Nonsense,’ Colin says, taking a seat at the table. ‘The Mysterious Russian Soul is—’ He doesn’t finish his sentence, distracted, glares at a raven that has
approached our table begging for food. ‘Nothing but a marketing trick,’ he finally says, scaring the raven away with a wave of his hand. ‘An old slogan to promote a culture of
laziness and alcoholism.’

My mind drifts back to the moment when Lyudmila Aleksandrovna gave me her take on the Mysterious Russian Soul. The expression Russian Soul, as known today, had been coined in the 1840s by
Belinsky, the influential literary critic. It was Russia’s reaction to German romanticism, an ideal to agglutinate a divided nation, to put Russian idiosyncrasies above those of other
European states. Lyudmila Alek sand rovna told me how the expression had been part of the romanticising of Russian peasant life and how, in her view, it had been Fyodor Mikhailovich – good
old Dostoyevsky – who had popularised the term later on, making the soul, she said, the depository of human contradictions, of the eternal struggle between God and evil. I had written down
her exact words:
In Dostoyevsky the soul is the
depository of human contradictions, of the eternal struggle between God and evil.

Stepanov reclines in his chair. ‘I was telling Martin how Russians accept life as it is.’

Colin grabs the copy of
The Exile
. ‘Interesting,’ he says, referring either to
The Exile
cover – which shows a naked woman holding a hand grenade – or
to Stepanov’s remark.

‘Martin is giving up dyevs,’ Stepanov says.

‘Again?’ Colin says. He’s wearing a brownish shirt, the logo of an expensive Italian designer stamped on his chest. ‘Is it because of your Siberian dyev?’

‘Tatyana,’ I say. ‘This time I’m really done. I need to take it easier.’

‘That’s great,’ Diego says, taking off his cap and rearranging his long hair. ‘I knew this was going to work. She’s beautiful.’

‘Bullshit,’ Colin says. ‘You’ve said that before. How many Tatyanas have you been with?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say, irritated by the question. ‘Two. Perhaps three.’

‘So,’ Colin says, ‘this is Tatyana Four?’

In my mobile phone, I realise, she remains Tatyana Evans.

‘What’s your point?’ I say.

Colin grabs my shoulder and looks at me with a half-smile. ‘We’ve been over this, there’s no point wasting your time with one single dyev in Moscow.’

‘I can’t keep meeting new dyevs every week,’ I say. ‘I’m sick of all the plotting and scheming, of switching my phone off in the evenings, of having to come up with
excuses all the time. I want to enjoy cooking at home, watching films, reading books, going to the theatre.’

‘You can do all that back in Europe,’ Colin says. ‘Why waste your Moscow time with books when you can enjoy real life?’

‘Maybe I’m not that excited about real life,’ I say. ‘Look at us. We get pissed, meet dyevs, then what? What’s the point of all this?’

‘Martin’s been reading Chekhov again,’ Stepanov says.

Stepanov and Colin laugh. The ravens, which have been silently approaching our table, retreat a couple of metres, wings fluttering.

Colin leans over the table. ‘Martin,’ he says, ‘fucking around is a great way to be happy.’ He glances over the terrace, then he drops his hand on my shoulder and looks
into my eyes. ‘There is nothing sinful about fucking around.’

‘I just want a simpler life.’ I point at the copy of
The Exile
. ‘Maybe I’m getting too old for all this.’

Colin moves
The Exil
e away from me, as if my finger-pointing were desecrating a holy text.

Diego is hiding behind one of Starlite’s laminated menus. ‘Martin is right,’ he says. ‘If he is happy with Tatyana, why should he meet other dyevs?’

‘So what,’ Colin says, ‘now you are giving up sex?’

The white-haired expats are looking at us from the other table.

‘If you stop sleeping around,’ Stepanov says, ‘your life will lose all its excitement.’

‘Excitement,’ I say. ‘Is that what we’re after?’

Stepanov shrugs his shoulders. ‘What’s wrong with excitement?’

‘Isn’t there anything more durable?’ I say. ‘More meaningful?’

‘Man, you need to stop reading Russian books,’ Colin says. ‘Excitement keeps you alive. It’s not the sex, it’s the chase. That’s the fun part of life. Do you
know what the main difference between young and old men is?’

I lean back in the chair. ‘Age?’

‘Older men have given up on the chase,’ Colin says. ‘Once you stop looking for sexual partners, that’s death, man. Life becomes this dull, boring experience.’

‘Maybe a dull life is not such a bad thing,’ I say. ‘Maybe a dull life allows you to appreciate the beauty of it all.’

‘You’ll always have time for a quieter life down the road,’ Colin says. ‘When you leave Russia.’

‘Maybe I don’t need to leave Russia. I could stick around here. Make more money, buy a dacha. Grow vegetables, read, write. Live in touch with nature, like Tolstoy. Be
happy.’

‘Tolstoy wasn’t happy,’ Stepanov says. ‘He was tormented. And he fucked his maids and peasants all the time.’

‘You know what I mean,’ I say.

‘Nobody is happy all of the time,’ Colin says, as the first drops of rain pepper our table. ‘Life is like a big ocean of boredom and then you bump into little islands of
happiness. Total happiness doesn’t exist. Imagine that you marry your dyev, move to a dacha in Siberia and build yourself a quiet life. You’ll be going deeper into the ocean, with no
happy islands in sight. Man, stop fucking with your head and enjoy what Moscow has to offer.’

‘So when does it stop?’ I say.

Colin raises his arms. ‘Stop what?’

‘The chase,’ I say. ‘The fucking around.’

‘Your dick will tell you when,’ Colin says. ‘He’ll know when you’re done.’

F
IRST
I
SEE A PAIR
of black leather boots. Spiny high heels, shiny leather. I’ve never seen her wear that kind of footwear
before. I’m at the bar, ordering a round of drinks for the brothers. She’s on the dance floor. Not even sure it’s her. Not just the boots. The way she dances, elbows in the air,
breasts pushed out.

It’s been a while since I last came to the Boarhouse. We used to come often during my first year, usually on Wednesdays, to enjoy the Countdown, back then the best happy hour deal in town.
But today is Saturday, there’s no happy hour and we shouldn’t be at the Boarhouse.

These days the place is trashy. For some reason it’s maintained its two fuckies in
The Exile
. The Boarhouse remains a popular place among white-haired expats, those who
don’t care about trendy clubs or are too old and too ugly to make it through face control. But earlier in the night we were at the Bavarian Brewery, drinking large jugs of beer with a bunch
of expat football buddies and someone had suggested we go for drinks at the Boarhouse. And here we are. Wasted.

I pay for the drinks, ship them back to the brothers. I’m holding my shot of vodka in one hand, bottle of beer in the other. I drain the vodka at once, leave the empty glass on the table,
take a sip of beer to wash it down. With the bottle of beer in my hand, I stumble out of the bar area and thread my way between the people, towards the dance floor.

Up close the boots look more plastic than leather. She’s wearing heavy make-up, bright red lipstick, thick eyeliner, her face more aggressive and hostile than I remember. Lost in the
dancing, she doesn’t notice me. Deep inside, I still hope it’s not her. She’s dancing in a group of four, with another dyev and two older guys, clearly expats. They seem to be
coupled up. Her girlfriend dances next to a tall guy with glasses, late forties. She – now I’m sure it’s her – is dancing with the older man, fifty-something, fat and bald,
wearing a white short-sleeved shirt, sweaty around the armpits.

Old disco hits from the 1980s blast through the loudspeakers. Dyevs in the club seem to love the music and are dancing with their arms up in the air, twisting their bodies in inelegant ways.

I tap her shoulder. She turns round, looks at me for a couple of seconds and smiles.

‘Privet, Martin, kak dela?’ She doesn’t seem surprised to see me.

‘Privet, Lena. I wasn’t sure it was you.’

‘It’s me.’

Her breasts are pushed up, look enormous. I’ve never seen Lena wear anything like this before. I can almost see her nipples. I notice that she’s not wearing her golden chain with the
cross.

Here she is. Lena. My long-disappeared Lena.

I find myself thinking of the days we spent together, just after my arrival, when I had plenty of energy and Moscow was a white canvas. The Propaganda era. I picture Lena lying on her kommunalka
bed. Or sitting on the floor of my balcony, her legs dangling through the bars, gazing over the city.

‘It’s been a long time,’ I say.

She nods.

‘Oh Bozhe, Lenushka, you look so different.’ My eyes can’t help going from her face to her breasts and down to her mini-miniskirt.

‘Thanks for the compliment.’

‘I sent you so many messages,’ I say. ‘You never called me back.’

She stops dancing, steps aside. ‘Call you? What for?’

‘To talk, to see each other. I thought a lot about you. Lena, I’ve missed you.’

Behind Lena, the two older expats are looking at me, impatient. Lena steps back as if to go back to dance.

‘Would you like a drink?’ I ask.

‘No thanks, I’m OK.’

‘I didn’t know you came here.’

‘I’ve come a few times,’ she says. ‘I like the music.’

I can hardly hear her, I step closer. She’s wearing the same perfume she wore back then, and, as I inhale as much of the sweet aroma as I can, I feel a shudder through my body, and now
I’m seeing Lena in Propaganda, the first night we met, when she was the most beautiful dyev in the club and I whispered a few Pushkin verses in her ear.