Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets (58 page)

And that’s when I met him…You could say that I loved him. This sounds like a confession, doesn’t it? [
She laughs.
] He was twenty years older than me, married with two sons. A jealous wife. He lived under a microscope…But we drove each other crazy, the ebb and flow was so strong…He told me that he started taking two sedatives in the morning so that he wouldn’t burst into tears at work. I also did crazy things, I would have jumped out of an airplane for him. It was all…it’s just how things are in the candy and flowers phase…before it starts mattering who’s lying to whom, who’s pursuing whom, and what anyone wants. I was very young, twenty-two…I would fall in love…and fall in love again…Now I see that love is also a kind of business, everyone is taking their own measure of risk. You have to be ready for new configurations—always! These days, few people go weak in the knees for love. Everyone saves their strength for the leap forward! For their career! In our smoking room, the girls gossip about their love lives, and if any of them has real feelings, everyone feels sorry for her—like, what an idiot, she’s head over heels. [
She laughs.
] Idiot! I was such a happy little idiot! He’d send his driver home, we’d catch a cab, and we’d roll around nighttime Moscow in some Moskvich that reeked of gasoline. Kissing and kissing. “Thank you,” he’d say. “You’ve made me a hundred years younger.” Flashes of episodes…flashes…I was stunned by his pace…the pressure…I’d get a phone call in the evening: “We’re going to Paris tomorrow morning,” or “Let’s swing by the Canary Islands. I have three days.” We’d fly first class, get a room in the most expensive hotel—the floor would be made of glass, and there would be fish swimming around under it. A real shark! But the thing I’ll remember as long as I live is the Moskvich reeking of gas, rolling aimlessly through the streets of Moscow. And how we’d kissed…like mad…He’d get a rainbow for me out of a fountain. I fell in love with him…[
She is silent.
] He was turning his life into a party. For himself…Yes, just for him! When I hit forty, maybe I’ll understand…One day, I’ll understand him…For instance, he never liked watches when they worked, he only liked them stopped. He had his own special relationship with time…Yep! Uh-huh…I love cats. I love them because they don’t cry, no one has ever seen their tears. People who see me on the street think that I’m rich and happy! I have everything: a big house, an expensive car, Italian furniture. And a daughter I adore. I have a housekeeper, I never make meat patties or do laundry, I can buy whatever my heart desires…Mountains of knickknacks!…But I live alone. And that’s how I like it! I am never as happy with anyone else as I am by myself. I love talking to myself…first and foremost about myself…I’m excellent company! What do I think…? What do I feel…? How did I see this yesterday and how do I see it today? I used to like the color blue, now I prefer lilac…So much happens inside each one of us. Inside. Within ourselves. There’s an entire cosmos in there. But we barely pay any attention to it. We’re all too busy with the surface, the external stuff…[
She laughs.
] Loneliness is freedom…Now, every day, I’m happy I’m free: Will he call or won’t he, will he come over or not? Is he going to dump me? Spare me! Those aren’t my problems anymore! So no, I’m not afraid of loneliness…What am I afraid of? I’m afraid of the dentist! [
She suddenly loses control.
] People always lie when they talk about love…and money…They’re always lying in so many different ways. I don’t want to lie…I just don’t! [
She regains her composure.
] Excuse me…please forgive me…I haven’t thought about any of this for a long time…

The plot? A tale as old as time…I wanted to have his baby, I got pregnant…Maybe it scared him? Men are such cowards! Whether they’re bums or oligarchs—makes no difference. They’ll go to war, start a revolution, but when it comes to love, they’re traitors. Women are stronger. “She’ll stop a galloping horse in its tracks, run into a burning building.”
^*2
According to the clichés of the genre…“But horses keep galloping and galloping. And buildings keep burning and burning….” For the first time in my life, my mother gave me some sound advice: “Men stop developing at the age of fourteen.” I remember…It went like this…I broke the news to him before I was supposed to go on a business trip, they were sending me to the Donbass. I loved traveling for work, I loved the smell of railway stations and airports. It was always a pleasure to come back from a trip and tell him about it, discuss what I’d seen. Today, I realize that he not only showed me the world, amazed me, took me to mind-boggling boutiques, showering me with presents—he also helped teach me how to think. Not that he did this intentionally, it just happened on its own. From observing him, listening to him. Even when I thought we were going to stay together, it wasn’t that I was planning on permanently moving into someone’s abundant shadow and settling into a well-fed and glamorous life. You’ve got to be kidding! I had my own plans. I loved my job, I was quickly building a career. I traveled a lot…That particular trip was to a mining village. It’s a gruesome story, but probably typical for its time: At a mining enterprise, the best miners had been awarded stereos, they were given them as holiday presents. That night, the entire family of one of those miners was murdered. The killer didn’t take anything else—just the stereo. A plastic Panasonic! A box! In Moscow, there were luxury cars and supermarkets, but just beyond the Garden Ring, people marveled at the most basic stereo. The local “capitalists” that my editor had dreamed of walked around surrounded by men with machine guns. They wouldn’t even go to the bathroom without a bodyguard. So what if there’s a casino here and there. The rare privately owned little bistro. The nineties…that’s what they were like…The notorious nineties…I was gone for three days. When I got back, we saw each other. At first, he was excited—we’re going to have…we’re going to have a baby soon! He had two boys already, so he wanted a girl. But words…words…They don’t mean anything, people hide behind them to protect themselves. It’s the eyes! And in his eyes, I saw fear: Decisions had to be made, he’d have to change his life around. At that…he suddenly clammed up…There was a breakdown in communication. Oh! There are men who leave you right away, going off with their suitcases full of socks and shirts still damp from the wash. And then there are men like him…Coochie-coo, blah blah blah…“What do you want? Tell me what you want me to do,” he’d plead. “Just say the word and I’ll get a divorce. Just say the word.” I’d just look at him…

I’d look at him and my fingertips would go cold, I had started to realize that I could never be happy with him. I was young and stupid…Today, I would have flayed him like a hunter skins a wolf, I know how to be a predator and panther now. Sewed him up with a steel thread! Back then, I just suffered. Suffering is a dance; there’s bitterness, weeping, then acceptance. Like a ballet…There’s a secret to it, and it’s very simple: It’s unpleasant being unhappy…humiliating. I was at the hospital overnight for a check-up. In the morning, I called him to tell him to come pick me up, they were going to discharge me by lunchtime. With a sleepy voice, he told me, “I can’t. I can’t do it today.” And didn’t call me back. That day, he went on a ski trip to Italy with his sons. December 31…New Year’s Eve. I called a cab…The city was blanketed in snow, I walked through the snowdrifts clutching my belly. Alone. Actually, no! The two of us walked together. My daughter and I. My little girl…My darling! I already loved her more than anyone else in the world! Did I love him? Like in a fairy tale: they lived happily ever after for a long, long time and then died on the same day. I was suffering, but I wasn’t like, “I can’t live without him. I’ll just die.” I haven’t yet met a man who has made me feel that way…So yes! Yes, yes, yes! But I learned to lose, I’m not afraid of losing…[
She looks out the window.
] I haven’t had any major relationships since then…a couple of flings…I’ll go to bed with someone pretty easily, but that’s not the same thing, that’s something else. I don’t like the smell of men—not the smell of sex, but the smell of men. In the bathroom, I can always tell if there’s been a man in there…even if he wears the most expensive cologne and smokes expensive cigarettes…I am filled with horror when I consider how hard you have to work to keep someone in your life. It’s like breaking rocks at a quarry! You have to forget about yourself, reject yourself, liberate yourself from yourself. There is no freedom in love. Even if you find your ideal partner, he’ll wear the wrong cologne, he’ll like fried meat and mock you for your little salads, leave his socks and pants all over the place. And you always have to suffer. Suffer?! For love…for that harmony…I don’t want to do that work anymore, it’s easier for me to rely on myself. It’s better to just be friends with men, have men as business partners. I rarely even feel like flirting, I’m too lazy to put on a mask and start playing a game. A trip to the spa, a French manicure, Italian hair extensions. Makeup. It’s like war paint…My God! Good Lord! Girls from Bumblejekistan…from all over Russia—to Moscow! To Moscow! Wealthy princes await! They dream of someone transforming them from Cinderellas into princesses. They expect nothing short of fairy tales! Miracles! I’ve been through that already…I understand the Cinderellas, and I feel bad for them. You know, there’s no heaven without a hell. Pure heaven…there’s no such thing. But they don’t know that yet…They’re blissfully unaware…

It’s been seven years since we broke up…He calls me sometimes—for some reason, it’s always at night. He’s not doing well, he’s lost a lot of money…says he’s unhappy…He was dating this one young girl, now he’s with another one. He asks to see me…What for? [
She is silent.
] I missed him for a long time, I’d turn off all the lights and spend hours sitting in the dark. I’d lose myself in time…[
Silence.
] And then…after him, it’s been just flings. But I…I’ll never be able to fall in love with a man from a dormitory town who doesn’t have any money. From a prefab ghetto, from Harlem. I hate people who grew up in poverty, their pauper’s mentality; money means so much to them, you can’t trust them. I don’t like the poor, the insulted and the humiliated. All those Bashmachkins and Opiskins
^*3
…the heroes of great Russian literature…I don’t trust them! So what? Does that mean that there’s something wrong with me…I don’t fit the stereotype? Just wait…nobody knows how this world really works…I don’t like men for their money, it’s never just for their money. When it comes to successful men, I like the whole package: the way they walk, the way they drive, the way they pursue you—everything about them is different. Everything! Those are the ones I go for. And that’s why…[
She is silent.
] He calls me up, says he’s unhappy…What hasn’t he seen, what can’t he buy? He and his friends…they’ve already made their fortunes. Big money. Crazy money! But all that money isn’t enough to buy happiness, that same love we were talking about. Love shmove. A poor student can have it but they can’t. There’s injustice for you! But they feel like there are no limits to what they can do: They fly their private jets anywhere they want just to see a football match; they’ll jet over to New York for the premiere of a musical. They can afford it all! Take the most beautiful model to bed, or bring a whole plane full of them to Courchevel! We all read Gorky in school, we know how the merchants party—breaking mirrors, lying facedown in black caviar, bathing babes in champagne…But then they get sick of all that, it starts to bore them. Moscow travel agencies offer these kinds of clients special entertainments. For example, two days in prison. The advertisement even says, “Would you like to be Khodorkovsky for two days?” They pick them up in a police van with the bars in it and drive them to the city of Vladimir, to the most terrifying prison, Vladimir Central. Then they dress them up in prisoners’ uniforms, chase them around the yard with the dogs and beat them with rubber clubs. Real ones! Pack them like sardines into a filthy, reeking jail cell complete with a shit bucket. That’s what makes them happy—new sensations! Three to five thousand dollars will buy you a game of “bums”: Clients are changed into costumes, made up, and driven around the streets of Moscow, where they stand, begging for change. Although they always have bodyguards around the corner—their personal ones and the ones from the agency. There are even more titillating packages for the whole family: The wife plays a prostitute and the husband, her pimp. I know a story…One night, the modest, Soviet-faced wife of the richest gourmet food merchant in Moscow got the most clients out of anyone. He was so proud of her! Then there are the amusements that you won’t find in the brochures…Top secret stuff…You can arrange for a nighttime hunt for a human being. Some unlucky homeless guy is handed a thousand bucks—these dollars are yours to keep! He’s never seen that kind of money in his life! All you have to do is pretend to be an animal. If you make it out alive, that’s fate, and if they shoot you, no hard feelings, please! It’s all fair and square! You can rent a girl for a night…Let your imagination run wild, the darkest parts, things the Marquis de Sade never even dreamed of! Blood, tears, and semen!!! That’s what they call happiness…Happiness Russian-style, going to jail for two days so that you can get out and realize how good you have it. Awesome! To not only buy a car, a house, a yacht, and a seat in the Duma…But also a human life. To be, if not God, then a minor deity…An übermensch! Indeed—there you have it!!! Everyone was born in the USSR, everyone is still from over there. That’s their disorder. It was all so…that world was so naïve…They dreamed of creating a good man…They promised: “With an iron fist, we’ll chase humanity into happiness…” All the way to heaven on Earth.

I had this conversation with my mother…She wants to quit working at the school. “I’ll get a job as a coatroom attendant. Or a security guard.” She tells children about Solzhenitsyn…tries to teach them about heroes and righteous men…Her eyes burn with passion, but the children’s don’t anymore. My mother is used to children’s eyes lighting up at her words, but today’s children tell her, “We’re interested in how you used to live, but we don’t want to live like that. We don’t dream about performing great feats, we want to live well.” They’re reading
Dead Souls
by Gogol. The tale of a swindler…That’s what they taught us in school. Today, the children are a different breed: “What makes him so bad? Chichikov is like Mavrodi,
^*4
he built a pyramid scheme up out of nothing. It’s a cool idea for a business!” For them, Chichikov is a positive character…[
She is silent.
] My mother is not going to help raise my daughter…I won’t let her. If she had her way, my child would only watch Soviet cartoons because they’re “humane.” But when the cartoon is over, you have to go out on the street, into a completely different world. “I’m so happy I’m old,” my mother confessed to me. “I can just stay home. In my fortress.” Before, she used to always want to be young, she’d do tomato juice masks, rinse her hair with chamomile…