Voroshilovgrad (30 page)

Part II

1

The priest from the funeral—the “presbyter,” as he was officially called—was looking up at the morning sun as the three figures emerged from the yellow cornstalks that swayed in the wind like hangers in an empty closet. For a while it was hard to tell who precisely was pushing their way out of the thick crops—the only clues were a black jacket flashing by, the creaking of the corn, their cool breath rising. Stomping some sand-colored leaves and mowing down the morning dew, they finally popped out onto the road: two adults and one teenager. The man in front was wearing a winter AC Milan track jacket that went down to his knees. Army boots too. The club's black and red colors seemed faded against the troubling October sun. The man was unshaven and had long hair. He cast a shrewd yet unfocused glance at us. Another man, short and pot-bellied, wearing white work overalls stained with yellow paint, followed behind him. He had short, gray hair and was wearing Chinese-made Nike sneakers. The teenager looked the worst of all. He was wearing knockoff Dolce & Gabbana jeans and a shiny black jacket with scattered cigarette burns, square-tipped dress shoes, and had some Koss headphones on his head—which also looked like knock-offs. All three of them headed toward us without a word. I looked at the presbyter out of the corner of my eye.
He was just about holding it together: was doing his best to conceal his distress. I started rooting around in my pockets, but then I remembered I was wearing someone else's clothes. Digging around in my jacket pocket, I was surprised to find Kocha's screwdriver. The tips of my fingers felt its sharp edge. “God's watching out for me,” I thought, smiling at the presbyter. But he wasn't looking at me—he was watching the strangers, quite concerned. Admittedly, there was cause for concern—the tallest guy was holding a hunting shotgun, come to think of it, while the pot-bellied one was expertly flourishing a machete. The teenager was the only one not holding anything, but he had his hands in his pockets, so one could only imagine what he was hiding in there. The distance between our two groups closed. The tall guy unexpectedly swung the gun off his shoulder, cocked it, and fired a blast into the sky. Then he spread out his arms, holding the weapon with one hand, and came over. The rising sun flashed behind his shoulder. The October air was dry, like gunpowder.

He stopped, dropped his hands, and shouted amiably at the presbyter:

“Father?”

The presbyter was doing his best to exude an air of self-importance.

“It's me, Tolik,” the guy in the AC Milan jacket said to the presbyter, dashing over to embrace him.

The presbyter tolerated his affection with surprisingly good grace, and then the soccer star headed over to embrace me.

“Tolik,” he forced out his name, nearly hugging me to death.

“Herman,” I answered, freeing myself from his grip.

“Herman?” the soccer star asked. “Yura's brother?”

“Yep.”

Tolik broke out into amiable laughter. Then he remembered his fellow travelers and started introducing me to them.

“That's Gosha,” he said, pointing at the pot-bellied man. “He showed us the shortcut. We were like plantation owners,” Tolik said, pointing at the machete, “cutting our way toward you. Yeah, and that's Siryozha, Gosha's son. He's studying at the local community college. He's going to be an engineer—well, maybe.”

Siryozha, continuing to listen to his music, waved at us. Gosha gave the presbyter a long and heartfelt handshake.

“We went straight through the fields on purpose,” Tolik explained to the presbyter, “to cut you off. It'd be best to turn here, otherwise we could bump into the farmers farther down. We're at war with them.”

“What are you fighting for?” I asked.

“Isn't it obvious?” Tolik asked, surprised. “To expand our sphere of influence. Sure, in all honesty, sometimes we do cross over into their territory now and again. But, you know, we have to hide our shit somewhere,” he explained. “We leave everything out in their fields. That's capitalism for you. Anyway . . . they're waiting for us out there,” Tolik said, looking off into the distance.

Only now did I notice that his right eye was glass. Maybe that's why he'd looked so mysterious to me. Now he was laughing heartily again—he was an easygoing guy, it seemed, despite everything—living in a warzone wasn't getting him down, at least.

“Well then,” he said, his real eye directed at the pot-bellied man, “let's give them a call and get going.”

The pot-bellied man handed me his knife and started digging around in his overall pockets. They seemed bottomless. He kept taking things out and handing them to Tolik and me to hold: I got two red autumn apples, and Tolik got a handful of spark plugs. Then, much to my surprise, I got a hand grenade covered with nail polish; next came a few old, battered cassettes for Tolik, whose glass eye twinkled joyfully. Finally, the pot-bellied man reached all the way down past his knee and came back up with an old Sony Ericsson phone, one with a short antenna. He walked a few steps away from us, pulled out the antenna, and turned the thing on. After a few minutes of struggling with the ancient apparatus, he called back, dejectedly, “I don't have any bars. We'll have to drive up to the top of the hill.”

“We're down in a gully here,” Tolik explained. “We'll have to drive up to the top of the hill,” he repeated. “We'll take a little detour. We'll be there in no time.”

Gosha collected his toys and dropped them into his cavernous pockets, wiping the grenade off on his sleeve before tossing it back in. He also took back the machete. The three of them just started milling around, seemingly expecting something to happen.

“What's the deal?” Mr. One Eye blurted out at last. “Are we going or what?”

“What are you going to drive up there in?” the presbyter asked, clearly confused.

“What do you mean?” Tolik asked, chuckling. “We're going with you. We can all fit.”

Seva, our driver, who had been sitting in the car this whole time watching through his sunglasses, took them off to admire
the spectacle of us all jamming into his old, white Volga, which seemed to be rusting more and more the farther we traveled. The presbyter took a seat up front, next to Seva; Mr. One Eye squeezed himself in right behind the presbyter, insistently nudging him toward the driver and miraculously getting the door shut behind him. Tolik's puffy Milan jacket engulfed both himself and the presbyter like an airbag. Pot-bellied Gosha and his son hopped in the back; seeing a woman already sitting there, they started apologizing profusely, albeit without surrendering even an inch of space. I was the last one in, and Siryozha had to sit on my lap. He was so close I could hear the music playing in his headphones—I thought it was shit, so I just did my best to ignore it. Seva put his sunglasses back on and looked at the presbyter inquisitively. Tolik's hand emerged from under his Milan jacket, waving the driver on. The Volga shuddered and started along the dirt road. At times, the corn came right up to the edge of the road, rubbing up against the sides of the car. Tolik directed the driver, flapping his arms. The car was crawling up the hill, up to where we would have more bars and where the farmers would presumably be waiting for us. Then, Tolik was motioning off somewhere to the left. Seva braked and looked askance at his one-eyed passenger, but Tolik persisted in his waving. Our driver obligingly spun the wheel, and we dove into a dry, rustling expanse of corn, shining in the afternoon sun and cutting off our view in every direction. It seemed there was a path hidden there, nearly invisible to the untrained eye, though obvious enough once we were on it; it ran through the heart of this corn jungle, protecting us from the evil eye. We drove slowly, pushing through the cornstalks and tuning
in to the random sounds scattered out in the sun-drenched fields. It felt as though the Volga was barely moving—the thick dust on the dashboard jumped every time we hit a ditch.

Eventually we emerged into stubble fields. Then we crossed over a strip of fallow ground between two fields and rolled onto a brick-paved road. It was completely empty out there, just the dew sliding down blades of grass, and the sun rising higher and higher. The drive seemed to be going on forever. Maybe Mr. One Eye wanted to make sure our trail would be hard to follow, who knows. Soon the fields ended abruptly and we found ourselves in front of a wide gully stretching out to the east. The road dropped sharply, and about a dozen identical two-story structures, which looked like they'd been built back in the '80s, stood at the bottom of the hill. At the edge of this settlement I saw rows of warehouses, followed by gardens, then there were yellow meadows sprawling out to the horizon. Far to the east I could just about make out what might have been a dam or a huge earthen wall stretching out along the horizon. It had a well-defined shape, though I couldn't quite decide what I was looking at.

“What's that?” I asked the pot-bellied man.

“The Russian border,” he answered succinctly. Then he retreated into his own thoughts.

Seva shut off the engine, and we coasted down the hill. The bricks under our tires were all broken up. The road was crushed, like the spine of a dog that had been run over by a truck. Having descended into the valley, we stopped in the middle of a small lot. There was a relatively spacious building there with a slate roof and fake columns on one side. About forty locals were standing on the
front steps. They seemed to have been waiting for us.

I could instantly sense the atmosphere of a grand, festive gathering. The men were mostly wearing dark, inexpensive suits, bizarrely colored ties, and thoroughly polished shoes. The women had a less uniform appearance—some of them were in dresses, some of them in white blouses and black skirts; others, mostly the younger ones, were wearing jeans studded with masses of rhinestones. Some women had winter coats around their shoulders, some were wearing leather jackets, and a few others had raincoats on, although the autumn air had had already been thoroughly dried out and warmed up by the sun. It was actually rather cozy down here in the valley, like on the southern Crimean coast. The locals greeted us with a joyful roar. We all crawled out of the car, smoothing our wrinkled clothes. Tolik, wearing his Milan jacket, and the presbyter, wearing a black jacket and holding a folder, took the lead, followed by Seva, who was also wearing a suit, albeit a red and rather dubious looking one, as well as his sunglasses, of course. Then the rest of us spilled out—Siryozha, wearing his knockoff jeans with the letters
D
and
G
on the back pockets, and me in my reflective blue suit that made me look like a '70s Soviet pop star. Then came Gosha, decked out in his white, paint-stained overalls, and finally Tamara, surveying her new surroundings anxiously. She was wearing a cherry-colored sweater and a long skirt. On her feet she had thin high heels that immediately sank into the sand outside. Our whole crew headed over to meet the assembled locals.

They were glad to see us. A short dude, wearing a suit and colorful handkerchief instead of a tie, and clearly the one in charge, came down the steps and kissed the presbyter five times in a row,
a custom that was unfamiliar to me. It seemed as though they were old friends; they had some catching up to do, but, instead, the boss invited us in, saying that we didn't have much time, and needed to get everything done nice and snappy.

“
Then
we can catch up,” he added, and headed up the steps.

The presbyter fell in behind him. The locals parted respectfully, making way for him and the rest of us. Our driver moved quickly down this living corridor, then Tamara, sending a concerned glance my way. I turned to Gosha and Siryozha.

“Are you going in?” I asked.

“I'm going to stop home real quick,” Gosha said, standing still and keeping his machete hidden behind his back. “I'm going to get changed. It's a holiday after all.”

“What about you?” I asked Siryozha, raising my voice to be heard over his headphones.

He just waved his hand amiably. Then again, maybe he didn't even hear my question. Meanwhile, the locals were cramming themselves through the front door. I went up the steps too.

I found myself in a dark hallway with a cool scent to it; the building appeared to be their town hall, or something along those lines. Various doorways could be seen at the end of the hallway—the locals who'd preceded us inside were bunched up around them. There was a rather large— given the size of their community—auditorium on the other side. The interior was modest, the room was lined with neatly arranged rows of wooden pews, and the stage was decorated with red velvet. Up above the proscenium I could see the clear outline of Lenin's profile. His picture had probably been hanging there for a while, and then it was taken
down, but the fabric had faded and molded around the outline of his face. Now a crucifix had taken his place; at a distance it looked as though somebody had crossed out the tenets of Marxism-Leninism once and for all. Most of our crew was already on the stage—the leader, with his handkerchief tie, was bobbing around them and explaining something. The locals took their seats all around us. Tolik came up to me.

“What do you think? You like it?” he asked.

“Is this your club or something?” I asked.

He slid out of his heavy jacket, exposing a striped woolen navy shirt. He carefully leaned his gun up against one of the benches.

“It's our church,” he said.

“Seriously?”

“Uh-huh, it's our church. Well, and our club too. We've combined the two, you see?”

“Gotcha.”

“Our religion says it's okay,” Mr. Glass Eye assured me.

“Good to know.”

“The presbyter knows what's good.”

“Uh-huh.”

“For real.”

“Okay, chill.”

Now the presbyter was calling me over. He seemed completely focused now, and was handing out clear instructions. I pushed through the crowd as Seva took out a leather bag containing all the necessary supplies. Tamara was fixing her hair, standing silently at the back.