Best European Fiction 2010

by Aleksandar Hemon

  The museum guard was obliged to follow me around—it was like having a bodyguard. She wouldn’t let me out of her sight for a second. Maybe she had special instructions concerning people who insisted on getting so close to the historic capsule, sole evidence of Romania’s cosmonautical endeavors. So as not to seem suspect, I tried to strike up a conversation with her:

  “Excuse me…” And the lady, dressed as though for a winter that would last the rest of her life, waddled over to me like a penguin, immediately rattling off a speech she’d probably had to memorize in order to get hired:

  “If you’re interested in the Interkosmos Soyuz 40 mission, then I can tell you that it lasted a total of seven days, twenty hours, and forty-two minutes in space. Ever since he was a little boy, Dumitru Dorin Prunariu had wanted to fly, little knowing his dream would one day come true. As a schoolboy he took part in the state Minitechnicus Competition and won prizes that fueled his ambitions. If you look at the photographs on the wall over there, you can learn all about the training Dumitru Dorin Prunariu underwent at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Zvyodny Gorodok, also known as ‘Star City,’ near Moscow. There he learned Russian and became acclimatized to cosmodrome life together with his family. Then, on May 14, 1981—at exactly 20:16:38 Bucharest time, to be precise—the Soyuz 40 rocket was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, weighing three hundred tons and carrying a combined Romanian-Soviet crew: Lieutenant Major Pilot Engineer Dumitru Dorin Prunariu and Colonel Cosmonaut Leonid Ivanovich Popov. Dumitru Dorin Prunariu was and is the first and only Romanian in the history of space exploration to have gone into orbit, a flight that lasted, as I said, seven days, twenty hours, and forty-two minutes, between May 14 and May 22, 1981. During the flight, twenty-two scientific experiments were conducted, including those designated ‘Capillary,’ ‘Bio-dose,’ ‘Astro,’ and ‘Nano-balance,’ but the most significant was a study of the earth’s magnetic field. I should also mention that the vast majority of the experiments carried out were Romanian in conception. During the almost eight days he spent in space, Dumitru Dorin Prunariu crossed from night to day sixteen times every twenty-four hours, which means he orbited the earth one hundred and twenty-five times. Dumitru Dorin Prunariu has said that he passed over Romania around 7:30–8:00 P.M. every day, and that from that altitude our country looked like—and was about the size of—a loaf of crusty homemade bread. In his free time, around one and a half hours per day, he watched cartoons and listened to music, and when he wanted to relax, he has said that he used to ‘go to the beach’: looking out at the cosmos through the capsule’s porthole.”

  Her speech went on, including numerous other technical and administrative details connected to Romania’s great achievement in space exploration. The museum guard had hit her stride; she was beginning to warm to her subject, standing there in front of her favorite object in the museum. I wondered what would have happened if I’d asked about some other exhibit. I thanked her and asked her to allow me another five minutes to admire the great capsule of the Romanian people in silence. Reentry, at those infernal speeds, had scorched the super-resistant materials of its hull. It looked like a football that had been kicked around by every kid on the block. Looking at the diagram again, I noticed that there was a canteen by one of the cosmonauts’ feet—the same kind they give you in your conscript’s kit when you join the army. A canteen in which these two heroes of socialist space exploration probably kept water or their national drink (either tzuica or vodka). Maybe they even conducted an experiment about the effects of alcoholic beverages on the human body in space. (Really, one could justify conducting a space experiment on just about any human activity or experience, from mystical ecstasy to masturbation. But a drinking bout is still in a class of its own.)

  After leaving the museum, and then for the rest of the day, I found myself thinking of all the things to which the two cosmonauts might have raised a cup of their customary liquor, and so I finally sat down and wrote out a list of three hundred cups for as many perfectly human motives, namely: the cup of banality (1), the cup of compassion (2), the cup of confession (3), the cup of the spirit (4), the cup of the clouded mind (5), the cup of death (6), the cup bathed in sunlight (7), the cup of moist sensations (8), the cup of distance (9), the cup of acquisition (10), the cup of modesty (11), the cup of wandering (12), the cup of silence (13), the cup of solitude (14), the next cup (15), the brutal cup (16), the disposable cup (17), the cup of friendship (18), the previous cup (19), the cup of depravity (20), the cup of the week (21), the cup of laziness (22), the concentrated cup (23), the slanted cup (24), the meaningful cup (25), the final cup (26), the cup of indignation (27), the authentic cup (28), the cup of doubt (29), the complicated cup (30), the cup of judgment (31), the cup of understanding (32), the cup of wasted mornings (33), the cup—of the gloaming (34), the cup of itchiness (35), the cup of desire (36), the cup of idleness (37), the cup of infamy (38), the approximate cup (39), the slippery cup (40), the indefinite cup (41), the infinite cup (42), the cup of discovery (43), the possible cup (44), the cup of continuation (45), the careless cup (46), the cup of occlusion (47), the cup of communion (48), the cup of cold (49), the cup of fury(50), the cup of repulsiveness (51), the prudent cup (52), the cup of fear (53), the cup of liberation (54), the cup of abandonment (55), the traditional cup(56), the cup to go with a cigarette (57), the brisk cup (58), the balanced cup(59), the experimental cup (60), the rhetorical cup (61), the cup in itself(62), the cup of politeness (63), the cup of contrast (64), the cup of optimism (65), the suitable cup (66), the populist cup (67), the precarious cup(68), the cup of decline (69), the false cup (70), the cup of university professors (71), the comparative cup (72), the polemical cup (73), the cup of immigration (74), the cup of vehemence (75), the critical cup (76), the cup of the body as a whole (77), the relative cup (78), the cup of knowledge (79), the cup of the cupbearer (80), the spilt cup (81), the useful cup (82), the controversial cup (83), the cup of valuation (84), the cup of seeing (85), the studious cup (86), the cup of maturity (87), the cup of cynicism (88), the cup of concubines (89), the insatiable cup (90), the cup of parting (91), the cup of betrayal (92), the cup of absolution (93), the cup of piety (94), the cup of indignation (95), the cup of pain (96), the cup of water (97), the cup of skillfulness (98), the concave cup (99), the cup of the tip of the tongue (100), the unregistered cup (101), the cup of occurrence (102), the cup of pleasure (103), the ritual cup (104), the cup of courage (105), the unfinished cup (106), the cup of conviction (107), the cup of tribulation(108), the empty cup (109), the cup of astonishment (110), the cup of relief (111), the cup of ordeal (112), the cup of rebellion (113), the successful cup (114), the cup of good business (115), the cup of vision (116), the lucid cup (117), the cup of gentleness (118), the cup of the end attained (119), the chalice cup (120), the cup of return to first principles (121), the cup of forgetting (122), the illusory cup (123), the cup of blindness (124), the cup of failure (125), the cup of sin (126), the cup of revenge (127), the cup of bitterness (128), the cup of silence (129), the cup of poets (130), the cup of excess (131), the chipped cup (132), the lingering cup (133), the cup of the building site (134), the improvised cup (135), the scandalous cup (136), the wedding cup (137), the cup of night (138), the cup of futility (139), the cup of inequality (140), the inevitable cup (141), the partisan cup (142), the cup of submission (143), the cup of trust (144), the cup of essences (145), the bathing cup (146), the archetypal cup (147), the cup of impressions (148), the cup of presence (149), the febrile cup (150), the cup of harmony (151), the cup of the apogee (152), the alluring cup (153), the subtle cup (154), the cup of shadows (155), the cup of opulence (156), the luminous cup (157), the cup of insinuation (158), the cup of memory (159), the cup of captivity (160), the echoing cup (161), the cup of appetite (162), the cup of getting drunk for the first time (163), the symbolic cup (164), the cup of observation (165), the passport cup (166), the atypical cup (167), the social cup (168), the cup of nationalism
(169), the cup of skepticism (170), the cup of resistance (171), the surplus cup (172), the omniscient cup (173), the cup of truth (174), the cup of levity (175), the reflexive cup (176), the cup of misfortune (177), the cup of Lucifer (178), the cup of pride (179), the grave cup (180), the pedagogical cup (181), the cup of survival (182), the capable cup (183), the serious cup (184), the equivalent cup (185), the civilized cup(186), the cup of innocence (187), the cup of altruism (188), the explicit cup(189), the cup of abundance (190), the cup of all trades (191), the cup of invective (192), the cup of nations (193), the cup of the absurd (194), the cup of harmony (195), the resounding cup (196), the inimical cup (197), the cup of metabolism (198), the cup of influence (199), the cup of functional disorders (200), the adjuvant cup (201), the cup within the reach of children (202), the cup that does not require an administrative hiatus (203), the cup recommended by a physician (204), the cup of ghosts (205), the cup of watchfulness (206), the contra-indicated cup (207), the cup of fatal injury (208), the cup of kings (209), the cup of the proscribed (210), the difficult cup (211), the cup over the sea (212), the cup of the heart (213), the invited cup (214), the cup of substrata (215), the cup of fragrances(216), the cup of promise (217), the clever cup (218), the cup of vagrancy (219), the cup of wilting (220), the cup of old age (221), the cup of freshness (222), the limpid cup (223), the enchanted cup (224), the cup of suering (225), the cup of glory (226), the tainted cup (227), the cup of uncertainty (228), the rejected cup (229), the cup of calm (230), the cup of abuse (231), the cup of steadfastness (232), the cup of the coast (233), the empirical cup (234), the cup in a small railway station (235), the cup of discrepancies (236), the cup of curiosity (237), the interrupted cup (238), the efficacious cup (239), the cup of libation (240), the wellspring cup (241), the sluggish cup (242), the cup for the prosecution (243), the cup of magnanimity (244), the cup of tears (245), the overture cup (246), the cup of camaraderie (247), the paired cup (248), the soft cup (249), the cup of wounds (250), the cup of the history of taste (251), the balanced cup (252), the collector’s cup (253), the virtuoso cup (254), the cup of the well-said(255), the bewildering cup (256), the cup of the future (257), the bloodied cup (258), the technical cup (259), the cup of stubbornness (260), the discourteous cup (261), the cup of monologue (262), the dirty cup (263), the cup of the single woman (264), the asexual cup (265), the purely religious cup (266), the profound cup (267), the cup untouched by reality (268), the synonymous cup (269), the cup from a dream (270), the unknown cup(271), the missing cup (272), the energizing cup (273), the cup of concession (274), the cup of a hell of a day (275), the cup of abatement (276), the not-just-one cup (277), the old cup (278), the hygienic cup (279), the sophisticated cup (280), the cup for the road (281), the cup of my angel (282), the perfect cup (283), the cup of indebtedness (284), the sticky cup (285), the cup of reflections (286), the cup of reduced speed (287), the easily maneuverable cup (288), the cup of prudence (289), the cup with white gloves and a corkscrew (290), the cup for a picnic (291), the oppressive cup (292), the instructive cup (293), the healthy cup (294), the cup of decay (295), the cup of accompaniment (296), the cup of mystification (297), the thermos cup (298), the cup of the reading public (299), and the cup of beginnings the three-hundredth.

  In the evening, my nerves exhausted after a day dedicated to this unique Romanian aviator and astronaut, I decided to pass by the Military Museum one more time—just as a murderer is always tempted to return to the scene of his crime. The heroes of the nation were illuminated by rather dim searchlights, and the courtyard was guarded by conscripts bumming cigarettes off passersby and sniggering among themselves. The rest of the street had been plunged into a suspect and alluring darkness. Heading toward the other end of the street, toward the Dîmbovia River, I began to make out the glinting eyes of pimps offering me one or more “girls” at excellent prices. I was overcome by an explicable fear, and, simultaneously, a lust that had begun to radiate from my solar plexus to my extremities. I trembled at everything, at every sound, at every voice or whistle around me. Finally, I went into an alley and I was allocated—naturally—a Russian girl. Climbing the stairs of her two-story building I thought again about that great Romanian-Soviet friendship, about that capsule diagram like a pregnant belly from which twins were about to emerge: Dumitru and Leonid. And about how my Russian girl would give our twins a middle name, a patronymic: my name, Doru. Just like what had happened to me. And before opening her door, I remembered—how strange!—that Romania’s first astronaut, Dumitru Prunariu, did indeed have a middle name, Dorin, which is more or less the same thing as “Doru.” My Russian girl was called Sonia. But I rechristened her, I named her Mother Russia before getting on with the business I was there for. Unfortunately, I don’t remember much of what came next. Then: a new Romanian night, black, profound, Walachian.

  TRANSLATED FROM ROMANIAN BY ALISTAIR IAN BLYTH

  [RUSSIA]

  VICTOR PELEVIN

  Friedmann Space

  Experts agree that a sizable portion of contemporary popular culture functions according to a principle they’ve dubbed the “windmill”: the merely comfortable selling the poor fantasies about the lives of the rich, the very rich, and the fabulously rich. Often this pattern varies by way of some colorful true-life detail coming out: one of these merely comfortable individuals showing the tabloids around his actually rather modest house in the opulent Rublev neighborhood of Moscow, for instance, all the while parroting some legitimate example of a famous oligarch’s conversation that he’s managed to overhear (like the sacramental phrase such powerful men always repeat on arriving in London, fresh from visiting their goldmines in the far north: “Why, the Siberian winter was really quite mild, this year!”).

  This rather consistent and, in its own way, beautiful mechanism has, however, one dangerous shortcoming—not infrequently, the rich themselves want to find out how the rich live, and thus are forced to study the existing literature on the subject, without fail produced by these same, merely comfortable arrivistes, who are, by comparison, if not entirely destitute, then still rather close to this condition. This is the only way to explain the Babylon of mansions in the Rublev neighborhood, or the frightening number of Maybachs stuck in Moscow traffic.

  So, is there any truly reliable and scientifically proven method of seeing into the world of the megarich?

  To this question, we would like to present a firm reply in the affirmative.

  But we have to begin our story in the distant past, going back to the nineties of the previous century. It was in those days of primitive accumulation that it suddenly occurred to one Chinghis Karataev, a particularly energetic figure of this era (who, aside from business, was also a big fan of the Strugatsky Brothers’ science-fiction epics) that the proverb “money attracts money,” found in nearly every language in the world, could be taken literally.

  It was easy to substantiate such a theory in those wild days. Karataev took a big shoulder bag, put three hundred thousand dollars into it, and, having given his Chechen guards the day off, set out for a stroll around the city. His hypothesis was that the fairly large amount of cash he was carrying would somehow attract even more money to itself. He spent about three hours wandering the Moscow streets. During his stroll, he found two wallets—one only had a few thousand rubles in it, small change at the time, while the other one contained four hundred-dollar bills. In addition, Karataev found a gold ring with a topaz in it, as well as a schoolbag holding a stamp album, which, as it turned out later, held two rare “Straits Settlements” stamps from the British colonies. His total take for the day equaled about three thousand dollars—not itself a massive sum, of course, but clearly exceeding the threshold of the statistically significant, as far as a brief walk around Moscow went.

  Two days later, Karataev repeated the experiment by putting five hundred thousand dollars in his bag. This time, the result was much more impressive—aside from wallets, coins, and jewelry, Karataev found a plastic bag with fo
rty thousand dollars in it hidden under a bench on Gogol Boulevard (an ultraviolet light revealed that the word “bribe” had been written on the bills, but this in itself didn’t alter the implications of the find).

  Thus, his strange, even absurd supposition had been confirmed in practice. This frightened even Karataev, and he decided to figure out exactly how it all worked.

  A few days later, in a Moscow suburb called Dolgoprudny, Karataev tracked down a certain Professor Potashinsky: a theoretical physicist who had fallen on hard times, and who had once worked for one of the classified space programs. After Karataev scrubbed down and fed the professor, he told him about his findings and demanded an explanation: for one thing, he wanted to know why nobody else had ever noticed this effect. The professor answered that from the point of view of experimental science, this particular question was simple: during the transportation of a large sum of money, an ordinary person would only be thinking about delivering it to its destination along the safest possible route; it was unlikely that he would push his luck by wandering up any dark alleys.