I Was a Potato Oligarch: Travels and Travails in the New Russia

by John Mole

  Hands on my ears. Eyes and mouth tight shut.

  Ache and shiver and tingle with cockroach.

  Oh Mum. I’m so far from home.

  Twenty-four hours and it was gone. The roaches scattered. There was rustling behind the cupboard and in the garbage chute, but no sight of the buggers other than the wrecks I had trodden on.

  There was another bottle of Pelly in the fridge - I downed it in one go. I found a heel of black bread and a tin of sprats and took them into the bedroom with the nub end of gherkin left over from my face pack. I looked in the mirror. Puffy face, eye bags, a rash of tiny spots, cockroach kisses. I changed my clothes, damp with feversweat. I ate the sprats, skin and bones. I didn’t care, slurped the last bit of acrid sauce from the tin, gnawed the bread, chewed the gherkin, rind and all, and fell into a dreamless sleep.

  The next morning I woke up better but exhausted. It was Saturday. I phoned Flor but must have misdialled, because Natasha answered. She sounded alarmed when I described my symptoms. She offered to bring me food and I did not refuse. I hardly had the strength to go to the bathroom, so shopping was out of the question. I made tea and slept in three-hour cycles until she arrived.

  Flor came too. They looked at me with the sympathy and revulsion you feel for the old and sick. A third person was with them, a big-boned, middleaged woman in an ankle-length black-leather coat and a Cossack fur hat, angular face and lidded black eyes and purple lips and a single eyebrow from ear to ear, a villain from a Marvel comic. I was glad I didn’t meet her in the middle of my fever. Roachwoman. She took me in with a glance, spat me out and marched into the living room. She was the first visitor not to be impressed. She inventoried the Western fixtures and fittings with a stony stare while Flor dipped into one of the shopping bags for a turnip and a jar of honey.

  “This is Udmurt medicine. I will scoop out the middle and fill with honey. After one night, you drink the honey in tea.”

  “Gee thanks, Flor. I feel better already. What do I do with the turnip?”

  “This is my friend Ivana Ivanovna,” said Natasha. “She is doctor.”

  We shook hands and exchanged the usual glum greetings. She looked at me as if I had three months to live and it was my own fault.

  “Tell her I’m over the worst.”

  Ivana Ivanovna took off her hat and coat to reveal a calf-length black-leather dress and a cap of black hair swept back and into a tight bun. She looked me up and down and stared at a point over my head. I looked up, but the only thing of interest was a ceiling tile coming loose.

  “She says to tell exactly what is wrong.”

  “I suddenly got a fever in the middle of the night. And it

  suddenly went away. I’ve got a bit of a sore throat. And these spots. I feel very tired. I’m sure I’ll be fine in a couple of days.”

  Ivana Ivanovna shrugged her shoulders. She did not examine me, open your mouth and say aaah, let’s hear your chest. Not even a thermometer. She just looked at me like Cruella de Vil sizing up a puppy. Unable to stand any longer, I slumped on the sofa.

  “It’s nothing. I was in a pond yesterday. I must have caught a chill.”

  “Dzhorn! Why were you in pornd?”

  My Russian had evaporated with the fever. Natasha interpreted while Ivana Ivanovna chuntered next to her. As I told the story of my mugging and heroic escape, she became more and more interested, eyes unlidded and eyebrow arched. I knew what she was thinking. I had caught some horrible disease from the stagnant water. But I hadn’t swallowed any and I’d showered as soon as I got home. It was just a chill. Ivana Ivanovna said something to Natasha that made her blanch. Both of them looked at me as if I was contagious.

  “Dzhorn! I have bad news. You must not be afraid.” “Oh dear.”

  “You have been attacked by vampires.”

  “What?”

  “Vampires. Those men yesterday. They suck from you.”

  “They didn’t touch me. They didn’t take anything. They took my wallet.”

  “Yes, they steal from you. They take what they want.”

  “How? I’ve got no bites. No teeth marks.”

  It shows how exhausted I was that I didn’t laugh but carried on this ridiculous conversation.

  “Dzhorn! These are not blood vampires. We do not have blood vampires in Moscow.”

  “One less thing to worry about”.

  “These are energeticheskiye vampir.”

  “Better than lazy ones.”

  “Dzhorn! You have bad thoughts. You are full of mocking. She says you are definitely victim.”

  “Victim of what?”

  “Energy vampires. They suck energy out of you. Out of your mind and out of your body. This is why you are tired.”

  “Rubbish. It’s a virus.”

  “You see? You attack me. Doesn’t he attack me, Flor?”

  Flor shrugged and studied the bookcase. I lay back on the sofa. Ivana Ivanovna stood by my side and held her hands, palms down, about three feet over my head, with her eyes closed. I didn’t have the strength to tell her to go away. Besides, it was a good story for later. After several minutes she turned away and sat down on a dining chair, hands on her lap. She seemed in a better mood, almost chatty as she gave her full diagnosis for Natasha to translate.

  “They have attacked all your auras. Your purple aura is severely damaged. This is why you are exhausted and with mental problems. You will sleep badly and have bad dreams and waking dreams. She says your red aura is harmed too. Do you have problems at the toilet? The green is only slightly touched, which is good about your heart.”

  “What is all this about?”

  “All people have seven auras like rainbow. Energy vampires steal from them. Sickness comes in the parts of the body fixed to the aura that they suck. Last year I was attacked in the yellow aura and had problems with liver.”

  “How does she know my auras are damaged?”

  “Oh Dzhorn! She can see them. She can feel them in her hands.”

  For the first time since I had woken up with the fever, I felt truly frightened. Not about the taradiddle of my auras, but frightened that I was having a hallucination. It felt so real. The disorientation of Russia, the stress of trying to achieve something, the mugging... yet if I was having a breakdown would I realize I was having it? Isn’t fearing you are going mad a sign of sanity?

  “Your chakra is open to life force of the cosmic rays but it is closing. Dzhorn! You are in grave danger. You have no energy to keep it open. If it closes then you will have no more energy. You will become vampire too. You must steal life from other people.”

  “I said they didn’t touch me”

  “They have invisible pipe from their chest. They put it into your aura and they suck. They do not need to touch your body.”

  This was such tripe. Humour them. “How do I get better?”

  “Ivana Ivanovna is psychic doctor. She will cure you. She has many successes.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “You must pay her.”

  My throat hurt when I laughed. Everyone had something to sell. But it was worth it. Hard cash would prove if she was a hallucination.

  “How much?”

  “Ten dollars. With massage.”

  Hallucination or not, a massage from a woman in a leather dress and purple lipstick would be difficult to explain when I got home. But worth the trouble. “Go on then.”

  “Money first. Massage after.”

  I hobbled into the bedroom for my wallet. Ivana Ivanovna followed. I gave her the tenner and was disappointed that she didn’t tuck it into her cleavage. I was embarrassed by the bed, sweaty and crumpled. She nodded to it and I lay down. I waited for the towels and unguents and instructions to undress.

  There is the medical massage, the sports massage, the parlour massage. They all offer relief in their own way. And then there is the psychic massage. This offers no relief to the psychically insensitive, indeed no sensation at all. The masseuse waves her hands over the body of the
massee and about three inches above it.

  “Turn over, please,” she said in Russian.

  “What? Is that it?”

  I rolled on my stomach and she continued to massage my auras. She could have been polishing her nails or inspecting her split ends for all I knew.

  “Dzhorn! You must drink this,” said Natasha, coming into the bedroom. I sat up and she handed me a Father Christmas mug steaming with a black liquid smelling of coffee.

  “What is it?”

  “It is good medicine. Drink.”

  Russian bedside manner is the old fashioned do-as-you’re-told variety. I did as I was told. It was instant coffee with a strange taste. “What is in this?”

  “Coffee and a big spoon of pepper. You must drink this every morning before you leave the house and when you come back in the evening. And you must have cold shower. And you must quickly dance like this”

  She jogged and flapped her hands up and down. Ivana Ivanovna interrupted her.

  “She says you must sit in the morning after your coffee and imagine you are in the middle of an egg made of gold. This will protect you. You must play soothing music and feel the harmony of nature. If you go on the grass you must walk barefoot and you should embrace the trees.”

  I was waiting for crystals. Crystals had to come into it somewhere.

  “For ten dollars she will find right crystal for you.”

  Vegetarianism would be next. That was OK. In Russia a vegetarian is someone who eats meat only once a day.

  “You must not eat meat. Or see pornography. Rock music is bad and science fiction movies. This apartment is full of bad things. Ivana Ivanovna thinks the owner is a vampire. All these things imported from the West suck energy from Russian soul. Video games and guns and movies and computers. She believes you are in danger.”

  “Thank her for the warning. I will watch out for psucking psychic psyphons.”

  “She will call you when she has found right crystal.”

  They let themselves out. Laughter may not be the best medicine, but I did feel better that evening.

  Up to now the covers on the bookstalls in the street that caught my eye had been pornography and thrillers and horror and sci-fi. But now I noticed the proliferation of sober little self-help manuals with titles like Ten Steps to Defend Against Energy Vampirism and How to Avoid Vampires.

  Flor had a better theory. He said that the Bolshoi had its own psychiatric hospital until it was closed when state funding dried up. I took to black coffee with pepper, just in case, and it made dire Russian instant slightly more palatable.

  Gorky Park

  For a time I was nervous about walking in the woods, but I thought Gorky Park was safe enough. Many people have heard of Gorky Park, if only because of the thriller and the film. It’s an amusement park on the south bank of the Moscow River, fun if you like rides and attractions. Less well known is the oldest part of the park, the Neskuchny Gardens that run southeast along the river down to Gagarin Square, 250 acres, some of it natural woods and some laid out with alleys and sculptures and ponds.

  One warm Thursday afternoon I decided to walk the length of the gardens and through Gorky Park to get over my fear of mugging and to work up a thirst for Sally O’Brien’s, which had just opened. It was about three miles, so I reckoned I would earn my pint. I had gone about a mile when ahead of me I caught up with a young couple, he in a cape and wizard’s hat, she in a leather jerkin and long-tailed pixie hat. The pixie chanted in a monotone while the wizard strummed a mandolin. Their aura of mystery was diluted by the pixie’s plastic bag clanking with bottles. They looked daft but harmless.

  I followed them down a side path and into a clearing, where a score of other people in various stages of fancy dress lolled on tables and benches made of tree trunks. They were in their late teens, early 20s, mostly young men, and it was obvious that the party had already started. A big man with a red beard and a Laplander’s hat waved a bottle at me and shouted to come and join them. Never one to turn down the offer of a beer, I sat on a vacant stump beside him.

  “Where are you from?”

  “England.”

  “Mmmm,” hummed the people around me as Red-Beard flipped the top off a bottle of Zhiguli and handed it to me. Bottled beer was not cheap. These were middleclass kids, probably university students.

  Before we could follow up the introductions, a blonde waif in a long flowing dress stepped out into the middle. She started to sing in a small, clear, pure voice, unaccompanied. We all stopped guzzling and talking to listen. The tune sounded Russian, but I couldn’t decide whether it was a folk tune or an improvisation. The words were certainly not Russian. I thought they might have come from one of the northern peoples, a Finnish dialect perhaps. She looked lovely against the trees, backlit now by the sinking sun. She finished and there was an enchanted moment of silence before we applauded and she went back demurely to her tree trunk.

  “That was beautiful,” I said to Red-Beard. “What language was it?”

  “Sindarin, of course,” he said.

  “Where’s that from?”

  There are about 70 different minority ethnic groups in the Former Soviet Union speaking about 170 different languages and dialects, so it was not surprising to me that I hadn’t heard of Sindarin. It was to him, though. He looked at me glassy-eyed, from beer or astonishment, and followed it with a burp of less doubtful provenance. He switched to English. “You are English? You do not know? It is Elven-tongue.”

  “Song of the Eagle,” said the lad next to him, a fresh-faced youth in a hat that made him look like a pantomime village idiot, although I suspect this wasn’t the effect he was striving for.

  “Your greatest English writer. The Master.”

  “Ahh, Shakespeare,” I said, back on firm ground and struggling to remember the play featuring the Song of the Eagle.

  “Dzeh Air Air Tolkien,” Red-Beard intoned. They were looking at me now with suspicion and dislike. I was an interloper, an impostor, at best an ignoramus. The last of these is certainly true where Tolkien is concerned. Good yarns, but that’s far as it goes. As for mugging up on his mythologies and languages, there are not enough hours in the day for real-world ones, which I find a lot more interesting than his donnish fabrications. Now was not the time to say so, though.

  “Oh yes. Tolkien. I knew his son.”

  This changed the mood. Everyone within hearing perked up.

  “You knew family of Tolkien?”

  “His son taught me Latin.” He also took us for Catholic Prayers, an annoying innovation in my fourth year that replaced larking around in the gym or finishing homework while the Prods were in assembly.

  “Oh God. He made The Silmarillion.”

  I had never met Christopher, who edited the ragbag of Middle Earth mythology he inherited. My schoolmaster was his elder brother, Michael, but I hadn’t the heart to put them right. He was a nice man, world-weary, I-wish-I-was-doing-something-else-but-this-is-whatI-do-best. Red-Beard took my hand and held it, as if the life force of the Great Fabulist somehow ran through the genes and had lingered all these years on my palm. I changed the subject.

  “I grew up in the same place as Dzeh Air Air Tolkien.”

  There were sighs and murmurs of approval. “Is that the Shire?”

  “One of them. There are several. Ours was the Shire of War-Wick. In the middle of England.”

  “Middle Earth.”

  “We natives call it the MiddleLands.”

  By now they had all gathered round me in a circle. I felt obliged to give them something. I dug out a piece of trivia that my friend Andrew Stephens, who lived in Edgbaston, had told me on top of a number 35 bus. “You know the Two Towers?”

  “Of course,” they chorused in Russian and English and Elvish.

  “They are inspired by the towers of the Edgbaston Water Works.”

  They took this news without flinching and got into a heated debate about whether the Two Towers were Minas this or Minas that or Minas
the other. I took the opportunity to slip away. I didn’t feel I could sponge another Zhiguli and the sun was going down. We clinked bottles in farewell.

  “You are always welcome to Eglador,” said Red-Beard. “Every Thursday afternoon”

  I solemnly shook hands with everyone and with Sindarin farewells left the park. It was too late to walk all the way to Sally O’Brien’s, so I got the metro.

  I tried to remember if hobbits ate potatoes, but they were anachronistically New World. Nevertheless, Bilbo might have when he took ship for the West with the Elves. A Bilbo Special on the menu, then.

  Natasha told me disparagingly that these people were Tolkienuti, conveniently translatable as Tolkien Nuts. Eglador was the name of a Tolkienian kingdom. If I was growing up in New Russia I might have taken refuge in an Eglador too. I never went back there. I heard that later the fantasy world degenerated into violent battles between drunken young men dressed up as Orcs and Trolls and that the police suppressed it.

  We must pay now

  I thought I had heard the last of Andrei Denisovich and his pantacrene and sea shells, but one day he telephoned to say that he wanted to meet me urgently. He suggested the Aurora Hotel. In the Time of Stagnation it had been a hotel for officials of the Union of Inland Navigators.

  The walls, floors and ceilings of the public spaces were clad in brown marble streaked with yellow. Andrei was sitting in an alcove in front of a map of the Volga inlaid in red marble mosaic, a river of blood. He was wearing a dark business suit, which made his unhealthy pallor more livid and a vodka flush more angry. When he stood up to meet me he looked over my shoulder and then to his right and left. There was only one other person in the room, a greyhaired man in shabby clothes reading a newspaper. He looked left over from the old days, certainly not a New Russian.

  Although I had learned not to smile when meeting it still felt odd, as if we were here to exchange bad news. We sat down awkwardly on the edges of our chairs and Andrei glanced over my shoulder to the door. We ordered coffee from a swarthy waiter and got down to business. He took a file out of a plastic crocodile-skin briefcase.