The Dream Life of Sukhanov by Olga Grushin Page A

staggering through the uncharted territory of the basement, crisscrossed with low-ceilinged, cramped, poorly lit corridors. The smells of cabbage stew and detergent clung to walls the color of sickness; an ill-looking striped cat slunk past him, its invisible tail bristling; shapeless objects cringed in the corners, briefly suggesting rags, pails, brooms, a rolled-up poster, a three-legged chair, a doll with a missing arm, then sinking back into the shadows.... After the sparkling expanse of the lobby, the building’s faintly unclean, unsavory underside jarred his senses, and he felt a dull oppression descending on him, as if all nine stories of human existence above were weighing heavily on his spirit.
    A metal door stood ajar at the end of the hallway. When his first knock went unanswered, he knocked again, louder this time, and hearing some remote rumble in response, walked in—and stopped, assailed by a sharp, multilayered, terrible smell. A mammoth pile of garbage towered in the murkiness above him. He took an involuntary step back, and as his foot sank into something pulpy—an apple core, perhaps, or a banana peel, he did not want to look closely—the gigantic body quivered, shedding a fish head with oily eyes, a soiled paper bag, a swarm of potato skins, creeping a little closer to his immaculate shoes, an inch, another inch, seemingly on the verge of disintegrating completely, of swallowing him up in its noxious horror....
    He stood still for one long, stupefying moment, then, seized with panic, flew outside, threw the door shut behind him, and pressing his hands to his temples, thought confusedly, What is this, how can this be, in my own house... And all at once the idea of confronting Valya began to seem disgusting, indecorous, mean, as if it too belonged to this underground world of rotting, malodorous refuse; and he was overpowered by a squeamish desire to leave, leave immediately, return to the light, to the air, to his familiar reality. Almost running now, he turned the corner and stumbled against the wall, and the wall, strangely yielding to his touch, let out a wail and leapt off into the darkness. He stared after it, instinctively groping for his heart in the folds of his jacket. Then, seeing nothing but the cat he had encountered earlier in this labyrinth of corridors, he swore nervously and resumed walking, more slowly now, when a door he had not noticed opened in front of him, and there was Valya, her hands glistening wet, peering into the gloom with her slightly cross-eyed, amiable look.
    “Why, it’s you, Anatoly Pavlovich!” she said in surprise. “I thought I heard Marusya cry out just now. Marusya is my cat.”
    “I saw it,” he said, taken aback by her sudden appearance. “I also saw a room full of garbage.”
    “Oh, that’s our trash chute dump,” Valya explained. “Kolya keeps it locked, only he forgets sometimes. I’ll tell him.”
    “Yes, please see to it. It’s most... most unhygienic, you know.”
    A short silence hung between them. Then Valya smiled in her shy, dimpled way.
    “I was going to come up in half an hour as usual,” she said, and wiped her hands on her apron, “but I’ll be glad to start earlier if you need me now, Anatoly Pavlovich.”
    He looked at her, the big, homely woman in an unbecomingly tight blouse, her hair untidy, her round, kind face anxious with a desire to be useful, and his conviction of her guilt faltered. “Just give me a second to check on a couple of things, and I’ll be ready to go,” she was saying, ushering him into a tiny hallway crowded with bundles of freshly washed laundry. A little girl of about six, so blonde her eyebrows and eyelashes were invisible, emerged from somewhere and regarded him seriously for an instant, then wandered off. A telephone started to ring, and a sharp smell of burning porridge began to spread through the apartment. Valya shouted to someone named Stepasha to switch off the stove and to Annechka to answer the