The Fantastic Worlds of Yuri Vynnychuk

by Yuri Vynnychuk

  Now, even if I had wanted to, I wouldn’t be able to jump off the tramcar.

  When the ticket-controller finally finished his speech, I felt the perspiration gush on my brow. An unexpected oppressive hotness came over me, and any self-assuredness disappeared without a trace.

  “Through people like him we’re not living like people,” a woman in an awful pink-colored hat said. “If not for these intellectuals, we’d really be somewheres.”

  “They’ve sent him here on purpose,” a mustachioed granny joined in, “just to destroy the young state.”

  “Spy!” an old granddad breathed out a bouquet of spirits and whooped.

  “What’s the damn Security Police doing now? Why aren’t they bothering with spies?!” A scrawny, bony retiree screamed. “In our time they caught ‘em like butterflies:

  –z-zap!–then pin ‘em! –z-zap!–then pin ‘em! And look what, you understand, happens! And the devil-knows-what comes out! We hardly get this fuckin’ independence, and the enemy’s already intervening here!

  “Yes, there are too few decent people these days,” the mustachioed granny said. “Nothing but swindlers all around. At first glance he might look like an intelligent person, but just turn away—and he’s pulling your money out of your bag. Maybe this is just one of those. Look at him—he’s the spitting image of a pickpocket.”

  “And look how he’s flushed!” The woman in the pink hat poked me with her finger. “You can see right away his conscience isn’t clear!”

  “Time for me to get off,” I said and began to push my way through the crowd, but this turned out to be my profound strategic mistake, because the people immediately leaned and a dozen hands stretched toward me.

  The mustachioed granny took a swing and smacked me on the head with her bag.

  “Don’t let go of him! Hold the criminal!”

  They tugged me in various directions, tore my clothes, scratched and hit me with everything that they could grab nearby. The woman in the pink hat tried to bite me the entire time. The frightened ticket-controller, unprepared for such a violent reaction, tried to pull me out and save me, but suddenly got a fist in the nose and was forced to concentrate on his own trickling blood.

  Another good blow to the head with the handbag, and I, no longer able to remain standing, sat down on the floor. Everything was swimming before my eyes, feet were trampling me, someone continued to turn my clothing into rags, but I no longer felt any pain. Unexpectedly I felt ever so light, I was taken up into the air and saw from above how the crowd had deserted my body, and the ticket-controller, wiping blood all over his face, sobbed:

  “You’ve killed him! You’ve killed him!”

  An hysterical woman’s scream reverberated. The tram stopped and suddenly emptied. Some kind of power carried me off up high, and below everything was disappearing momentarily until it had completely vanished. I flew through the clouds higher and higher. I was warm and joyful from the feeling of having fulfilled an obligation. From time to time you have to give the people the chance to let off a little steam and to crucify someone once more. I brought myself as a sacrifice for the sake of humanity, and now heavenly bliss awaited me.

  Unexpectedly something stopped my flight, and I saw an illuminated figure before me with a golden halo.

  “Lord!” I shouted. “Embrace my soul!”

  “Stop!” The figure said. “Show your ticket!”

  “Which ticket?”

  “The ticket to paradise, you dope!”

  I felt all over myself and became convinced I was totally naked. My suit together with my body remained in the tramcar.

  “Aha, you wanted to break in without a ticket? Get away from here!”

  The hand of the archangel cuffed my ear, and I, knocked on end fell to that same spot from where I had flown into the sky.

  I opened my eyes and saw that hospital orderlies were carrying me on a stretcher.

  “Where are you taking me?” I muttered.

  “To the drunk tank, where else?”

  2. Psychologist of the Human Soul

  The Clover Was So Fragrant

  She’s not pretty, but she’s dying, so it’s not worth talking about her not being pretty.

  Her husband’s sitting by her bed, holding her hand and keeping silent. She’s also silent. That’s how all the things in the room think. But they’re wrong. Because this husband and that wife do not remain silent.

  He wants to say: “Soon you won’t be here, and I’ll be left alone... What should I do?”

  She wants to say: “Soon I’ll be gone, and you’ll be left alone...”

  He wants to say: “I know you’ve loved me, faithfully loved me, never cheated on me, I never did either, but how can I be left alone?”

  She wants to say: “You know I’ve loved you, faithfully loved you, never cheated on you, You never did either, but how can you be left alone?”

  And he says: “Whether you want or not, I have to marry again... The new wife will cook me potato dumplings. I love dumplings so much.”

  Then she: “You’ll get bored quickly and you’ll marry again. You’ll bring a new woman here and you’ll ask her to cook dumplings for you. You love them so much. How can I stand all this?”

  Then he: “I’ll certainly get used to her quickly, I’ll love the things she loves, and vice versa. It’ll be great.”

  Then she: “It’s hard for me to think about this—a strange woman will be wearing my clothes, eating from my plate, watering the pots with my flowers, rolling dough into dumplings with my rolling pin...”

  Then he: “You’ve been dying so long that I’ve already gotten used to it, and various stupid things come to my mind. For example, what will the second one be like... I’ll take a widow, a widow’s better, a widow has a lot of property after her husband’s death. I’ll wear his suits, if only his size fits me.”

  Then she: “In my life I’ve had only one husband, who pampered me, kissed me... just one and only... But you’re going to have one more wife. How can this be?”

  Then he: “Maybe that husband whose widow I’ll marry later, hasn’t died yet, maybe he’s still getting ready to die. Maybe she, that future widow, already anticipates this and is also thinking about getting married... If the old colonel who lives across the road should die, I’d court his wife, she’s an appetizing woman, and all the rest of course, also...”

  Then she: “No, that won’t do... I want everything to be fair. I don’t want you to think that I belonged just to you, and you can belong to two... No, I don’t want it that way.”

  And then she said:

  “Listen, I want to confess to you... I want to confess a sin to you...”

  He was all ears:

  “What kind of sin? Have you...”

  “Yes... In my life I was unfaithful to you once...”

  “Don’t lie!”

  “I was unfaithful with a certain... um... with a certain...”

  “You’re lying! Lying!” He screamed and nearly took fright from the power of his own voice.

  He wanted to say: “How is this so? You’ve been unfaithful to me? You couldn’t have done this... How could you? I never... you...”

  She wanted to say: “That’s it... already too late... I said it and now it’s too late to deny it... I have to recount the whole thing to the end.”

  “How did it happen?” He asked, and suddenly realized what a stupid question it was, since it proved he believed her. “I don’t believe you! It’s not true!”

  “I’m not lying,” she retorted. “I know what I’m saying. I’m still of sound mind...”

  She licked her dry lips, and her waxen hands nervously surveyed the bed cover.

  “I was unfaithful to you with the colonel...”

  “With that... that colonel?” He pointed at the building across the street. Pain contorted his face. “Well, she’s lying! She’s gotta be lying! And she won’t even flinch! Don’t fib on your death bed at least!”

  “It was in the spring
. You went off on a trip somewhere... Maybe it was to your sister’s... And I was left alone... He came to borrow... to borrow a ladder... Twelve years ago...”

  “Stop lying... They have their own...”

  “I took him to the barn... A ladder was lying flat in the barn on a pile of clover hay.”

  “Stop lying... We didn’t raise rabbits then... What would we need that clover for?”

  “I showed him the ladder... And he... Then he came close to me and said that I’m really beautiful...” He said: “What wonderful hair you have!” Even you never spoke that way to me... Not even you...”

  “You’re lying! He could never have said that. The colonel is versed in women. He’d never have said it that way.”

  “And then he smiled to me... And I smiled, too. And then he started kissing me, and I already couldn’t... I couldn’t control myself. The clover was so fragrant... green clover... It took my breath away...”

  “You’re lying! You already said it was early spring and now there was hay from the clover.”

  “No, you forgot...” Her voice quivered and broke, and it was obvious how hard it was for her to utter the words. “I said it was in the summer and that a ladle was lying in the barn on a pile of green clover... And he just came to borrow a ladle…”

  “You said it was a ladder!”

  “See how bad your memory is... I say ladle and you hear ladder...”

  He furiously measured the room with his footsteps.

  “You’re lying about all of this... You’ve dreamt all this up... Liar!”

  But somewhere at the bottom of his soul something began to stir: maybe it’s true? The colonel is such a... He can... This was all a long time ago—she could have forgotten whether it was hay or freshly cut clover... And the colonel is such a... And to say she’s beautiful, he could have... Just to get what he wanted... He could have.

  And she thought to herself: “There, I told him. He certainly believed me. Now let him go get married. He’ll remember what I told him the rest of his life. It’s stuffy in here... Open a window...”

  And he paced about the room and couldn’t find any space for himself. The miniscule modest suspicion that a minute before had stirred in him slightly, had grown now to unbelievable proportions.

  Just like in a movie theater he now saw how all this had happened...

  Maybe it happened more than once…

  “Listen... Did it happen just once? This was the only time in your life?... You never got together with him again?”

  He halted above her and looked into her face with anxiety, but it was motionless and cold. Then he fell to his knees, took her head in his hands and shook her.

  “When I was little I loved to shake my money bank to hear the jingle of the coins. One time I took the money bank, rattled it close to my ear and heard nothing. You understand, nothing...”

  “You couldn’t have! Couldn’t have! How could you?! Tell me this was the only time! Tell me this was the only time! Tell me that this never happened!”

  “...Then I fell to the floor and cried...”

  The Doorbell

  Suddenly a clamor on the street awakened them. Next to the apartment building an argument had started up, male and female voices gradually gathered volume, she managed against her wishes to recognize individual words, most of them indecent. She was embarrassed to hear this in her husband’s presence, so she pretended to be asleep. But he started to wake up anyway. He tossed about, moaned, then tapped her shoulder with his hand.

  “This happenin’ under our windows?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well...” The bed screeched. “I’ll let them...”

  Yawning, he felt for his slippers with his feet and, annoyingly mumbling under his breath, shuffled to the window, but he stopped in the middle of the room when she whispered:

  “Why? You stupid? Lie down. Do you need this?”

  The squabble was so bad that not only individual words reached them, but entire phrases, intertwining like snakes, stumbled at their windows and penetrated through the panes to their bedroom. Here they were in their own element, throwing around furniture and mirrors. They raged and seethed, burning their ears with hellish screaming. Somebody had been caught with somebody else’s girl, and now he, the one to whom she had belonged earlier, demonstrated the right to his possession (“I found you!”), a lone girl’s voice was trying to explain something. Another was trying to calm things down and asked not to interfere, but the voice of a third guy outshouted them (“...stop, you screwballs, let’s put a stop to it, come on, lend your paw”)–all this had been scattered like peas, as if they all were afraid that the end of the world would come and they wouldn’t manage to be able to say what they wanted.

  Finally he couldn’t take it and, carefully sneaking up, as though his footsteps in the soft slippers could be heard by those on the street, he pushed aside the blinds a crack. Three boys and two girls had gathered next to their wicket gate.

  “Go back to bed,” his wife shouted. “They’ll scream a bit and then break up.”

  “Looks like they’re getting ready to fight.”

  “Really?”

  She didn’t have to ask again, for she herself heard the sound of a dull blow—something champed, a shout, a screech, then one more blow, then another...

  “You take a look what they’re doing!”

  “What’s going on?” She slid from under the covers and in a second had pressed herself against the windowpane.

  Two of them were fighting, the third was trying to separate them, and the girls screamed and tried to crawl between the two of them. Then the gate squeaked, and the fence started to shake hard.

  “I should have expected it—they’ll break the fence.”

  “Maybe yell at them?”

  “Eh-he, you just watch, they’ll break the window. That kind’ll throw a rock...”

  “The Marchuks, ya think, can’t hear it?” She nodded at the building across the street.

  “Maybe they can hear it. What’s it to them... it’s not under their windows.…”

  Suddenly everything settled down, grew silent, and froze, and this was so unexpected that both observers felt a chill running down their spines—the girl who was the cause of the fight shouted something.

  “What did she say?”

  “I didn’t catch it...”

  What she said obviously had cleared up the situation, because the boys in an instant stopped hammering each other and turned their battered faces toward her. Their arms with fists clenched hung by their sides. They looked at her silently and with ferocity, in the light of the streetlight you could see those malevolent glances, the lady of the house, behind the window, frightened, began to shrivel. To her it seemed her teeth were chattering, so she pressed her teeth firmly, sensing that blood was rushing to her head.

  “What’s gonna happen?...” She whispered, and glanced timidly at her husband. He, too, was frightened and shut his mouth with the fingers of his left hand. Maybe he was afraid he’d begin to scream...

  “You sure?” One of the boys strained, and you could also sense fear in his voice.

  “ Yeah I’m sure! To get it through your thick skull!” One of the girls tossed out, and there was fear in her voice too.

  “Well, you vermin, capisci...,” a second boy whispered. “Through her, capisci... The she-jackal…” But there was fear in his voice.

  “What are you... well frankly...” Her girlfriend began to wave her arms. “She was joking...” But there was fear in her voice.

  “She was joking, right?”

  “Clearly….”

  “She was joking, right?”

  “But I, capisci, because of her…”

  “Well, okay, guys… don’t you understand jokes?”

  “She was joking, right? I’m asking you—she was joking, right?”

  “You hicks, stop this train station flea market right now!”

  “ I’ll send you to the grave for these kind of things, you
know?”

  “Eh, you capisci?”

  “Yes, it’s her... who, really...”

  “Guys, what are you doing?”

  “I, capisci, don’t forgive these kinds of jokes, capisci... Hands off me!... Keep ‘em to yourself, capisci!”

  “Guys, stop! I’ll start screaming!”

  “Shut up, capisci!”

  The lady of the house shrieked, but as quietly as a mouse, and her arms spastically grabbed the blind so hard that it began to crack on top, and her husband burst out: “You want to rip them?” And her hands fell. She thought she would begin screaming now. And bit her lower lip.

  A boy with all his strength jerked the girl by the hair, she flew into the extended fist of a second boy. In an instant she was knocked off her feet—she fell to her knees and pulled her head into her shoulders. A white jacket on her shoulders tore apart, and the red eye of her sweater lit up like a wound.

  “You’ve gone schizo?!” The other girl shouted.

  “Weirdoes!”

  “ Get your hands off me! Capisci! And you’ll get yours!”

  And the blows struck all over, and her body wrenched and fell to the ground, and it coiled and yelped under those blows, and as they started kicking, with power, with discrimination, hanging on so that it wouldn’t be for nothing, she began to roll along the ground, pressing her knees to her stomach and hiding her head in her hands, and her shout was pounding into the darkened windows, and bouncing off, rolling along the street, and reechoing until she stopped screaming, and was just moaning, and the dance around her continued, this ritual pre-historical dance around a sacrifice, this dance without music, accompanied by dull blows, accompanied by the knocking of heels, a dance to which, it seemed, there would be no end.

  The wife was whimpering into her hand, her husband was angrily puffing hard. The old picket fence was moaning. The lamp was illuminating persistently. And the night was trembling.