black against the pale, ash-grey clouds. The insects came to life… The spider’s web touched my face…
I got up, feeling the heaviness of my sticky clothes.
My matches were damp. As was my money. But more importantly, there was very little of it left: six roubles. The thought of vodka loomed like a dark cloud…
I didn’t want to go through the tourist centre. At this hour it was full of idling methodologists and tour guides. Any one of them might have started a serious conversation about the director of the Lyceum, Yegor Antonovich Englehardt.
I had to walk around the tourist centre and make my way to the road through the woods.
Cutting through the courtyard of the monastery also frightenedme. The very atmosphere of a monastery is unbearable for a man with a hangover.
And so I continued downhill along the route through the woods. More of a broken footpath, actually.
It began to ease off a bit by the time I reached the Cavalier. Compared to local drunks, I looked like a prig.
The door was held open with a rubber brick. On display in the hallway by the mirror was a ridiculous wooden sculpture – a creation of the retired Major Goldstein. The copper sign read: “Goldstein, Abraham Saulovich”. And below it, in quotes: “The Russian”.
“The Russian” brought to mind both Mephistopheles andBaba Yaga.* The wooden helmet was painted silver with gouache.
Eight people or so were crowding around the snack bar. Wrinkled roubles soundlessly landed on the counter. Coins jangled in the chipped saucer.
Two or three groups were partying by the wall in the main room. They talked energetically with their hands, coughed and laughed. These were workers from the tourist centre, psychiatric-hospital orderlies and stable hands from the lumber mill.
The local intelligentsia – a film projectionist, an art restorer and entertainment organizer – kept apart, at different tables. Facing the wall was a man I did not recognize, wearing a green polo shirt and domestically manufactured jeans. His ginger locks rested on his shoulders.
It was my turn at the bar. I felt the familiar hangover shakes. Under the soggy jacket throbbed my weary, orphaned soul.
I had to maximize my six roubles. They had to stretch as far as they would go.
I ordered a bottle of fortified wine and two chocolates. I could get two more rounds like this and there would still be twenty copecks left over for cigarettes.
I sat by the window. Now there was no rush.
Outside two gypsies were unloading crates of bread from a car. A postman surged up the hill on his moped. Stray dogs were rolling around in the dirt.
I got down to business. And made a positive mental note: my hands aren’t shaking. Which was good…
The wine was spreading like good news, colouring the world with hues of kindness and compassion.
Ahead of me lay divorce, debt and literary failure… But here are these mysterious gypsies with bread… Two dark-skinned old women near the polyclinic… A damp day cooling off… Wine, a free minute, my homeland…
Through the general din I suddenly heard:
“This is Moscow! This is Moscow! You are listening to the Young Pioneers’ Dawn… At the microphone is the hirsute Yevstikheyev… His words sound like a commendable rebuff to the vultures from the Pentagon…”
I looked around. This mysterious speech was coming from the fellow in the green polo shirt. He was still facing the wall. Even from behind you could see how drunk he was. His back, covered with rippling locks, expressed some sort of aggressive impatience. He was almost yelling:
“And I say no! No to the overreaching imperialist beasts! No,echo the workers of the Ural paper mill… There is no happiness in life, my dear listeners! I say this to you as the last man standing of the 316th Rifle Division… Thus spoke Zarathustra…”
People in the restaurant began to listen. Although without real interest.
The guy raised his voice:
“What are you staring at, you schlubs? You want
I got up, feeling the heaviness of my sticky clothes.
My matches were damp. As was my money. But more importantly, there was very little of it left: six roubles. The thought of vodka loomed like a dark cloud…
I didn’t want to go through the tourist centre. At this hour it was full of idling methodologists and tour guides. Any one of them might have started a serious conversation about the director of the Lyceum, Yegor Antonovich Englehardt.
I had to walk around the tourist centre and make my way to the road through the woods.
Cutting through the courtyard of the monastery also frightenedme. The very atmosphere of a monastery is unbearable for a man with a hangover.
And so I continued downhill along the route through the woods. More of a broken footpath, actually.
It began to ease off a bit by the time I reached the Cavalier. Compared to local drunks, I looked like a prig.
The door was held open with a rubber brick. On display in the hallway by the mirror was a ridiculous wooden sculpture – a creation of the retired Major Goldstein. The copper sign read: “Goldstein, Abraham Saulovich”. And below it, in quotes: “The Russian”.
“The Russian” brought to mind both Mephistopheles andBaba Yaga.* The wooden helmet was painted silver with gouache.
Eight people or so were crowding around the snack bar. Wrinkled roubles soundlessly landed on the counter. Coins jangled in the chipped saucer.
Two or three groups were partying by the wall in the main room. They talked energetically with their hands, coughed and laughed. These were workers from the tourist centre, psychiatric-hospital orderlies and stable hands from the lumber mill.
The local intelligentsia – a film projectionist, an art restorer and entertainment organizer – kept apart, at different tables. Facing the wall was a man I did not recognize, wearing a green polo shirt and domestically manufactured jeans. His ginger locks rested on his shoulders.
It was my turn at the bar. I felt the familiar hangover shakes. Under the soggy jacket throbbed my weary, orphaned soul.
I had to maximize my six roubles. They had to stretch as far as they would go.
I ordered a bottle of fortified wine and two chocolates. I could get two more rounds like this and there would still be twenty copecks left over for cigarettes.
I sat by the window. Now there was no rush.
Outside two gypsies were unloading crates of bread from a car. A postman surged up the hill on his moped. Stray dogs were rolling around in the dirt.
I got down to business. And made a positive mental note: my hands aren’t shaking. Which was good…
The wine was spreading like good news, colouring the world with hues of kindness and compassion.
Ahead of me lay divorce, debt and literary failure… But here are these mysterious gypsies with bread… Two dark-skinned old women near the polyclinic… A damp day cooling off… Wine, a free minute, my homeland…
Through the general din I suddenly heard:
“This is Moscow! This is Moscow! You are listening to the Young Pioneers’ Dawn… At the microphone is the hirsute Yevstikheyev… His words sound like a commendable rebuff to the vultures from the Pentagon…”
I looked around. This mysterious speech was coming from the fellow in the green polo shirt. He was still facing the wall. Even from behind you could see how drunk he was. His back, covered with rippling locks, expressed some sort of aggressive impatience. He was almost yelling:
“And I say no! No to the overreaching imperialist beasts! No,echo the workers of the Ural paper mill… There is no happiness in life, my dear listeners! I say this to you as the last man standing of the 316th Rifle Division… Thus spoke Zarathustra…”
People in the restaurant began to listen. Although without real interest.
The guy raised his voice:
“What are you staring at, you schlubs? You want
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