St. Petersburg Noir
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St. Petersburg Noir
Ed. by Julia Goumen
& Natalia Smirnova
No copyright 2013 by MadMaxAU eBooks
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Table of Contents
Introduction
PART I: GANGSTERS, SOLDIERS & PATRIOTS
Andrei KivinovKupchino
Training Day
Sergei Nosov Moskovsky Prospect
The Sixth of June
Vadim LeventalNew Holland
Wake Up, You’re a Dead Man Now
Alexander Kudriavtsev Dostoevsky Museum
The Witching Hour
PART II: A WATERY GRAVE
Natalia Kurchatova & Ksenia VenglinskayaRybatskoye
Peau de Chagrin
Lena Eltang Drunk Harbor
Drunk Harbor
Andrei RubanovLiteyny Avenue
Barely a Drop
Anna Solovey Kolomna
Swift Current
Julia Belomlinsky Arts Square
The Phantom of the Opera Forever
PART III: CHASING GHOSTS
Anton ChizhHaymarket Square
The Nutcracker
Mikhail LialinLake Dolgoe
Paranoia
Pavel Krusanov Moika Embankment, 48
The Hairy Sutra
Eugene Kogan Kunstkamera
A Cabinet of Curiosities
Vladimir BerezinHotel Angleterre
Hotel Angleterre
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INTRODUCTION
Inescapable Anguish
W hen you think of the most noir city in Russia, the name that springs to mind is St. Petersburg. This link between the place, its character, and the genre has become quite paradoxically the biggest challenge for the authors in this anthology, who must balance their work with the city’s rich noir tradition and at the same time transform daily criminal headlines into a literary experience.
Indeed, the tradition of noir writing in St. Petersburg features the greatest names of Russian literature. Most obviously, one thinks of the nineteenth century: Fyodor Dostoevsky (you can hardly find a more obvious noir spirit than in Crime and Punishment’s Kolomna settings, where Raskolnikov kills an old lady with an ax), Alexander Pushkin (my grandmother likes to recall how scared she was walking home in the city before World War II following the Mariinsky Theater’s opera performance of Pushkin’s “The Queen of Spades”; and “The Bronze Horseman”—a long poem about a disastrous flood—is one of the creepiest stories in Russian literature), and Petersburg Tales by Nikolai Gogol. More recently, the early twentieth century contributed to the city’s noir tradition with Andrey Bely’s novel Petersburg; followed later by the absurd, bleak writings of Daniil Kharms and Mikhail Zoshchenko.
Speaking of the latter two—Petersburg somehow nurtures ironic, satirical, and darkly humorous interpretations of reality. The darker and harsher life gets, the more humorous its interpretations tend to be. Indeed, only at a Petersburg house party could writers argue enthusiastically over the most efficient way to get rid of a corpse (with the deceased taking vodka shots next to them, vividly participating in the discussion). This anthology is no exception: in Andrei Kivinov’s story, for instance, a dead body comes to life only to die again in an ironic salute to Gogol.
The origins of this rich noir tradition come from the city’s history, its urban landscape, and even the weather, as Petersburg’s climate undoubtedly affects local character. What morbid thoughts can freezing winds from the Baltics bring along? Which emotions swirl inside a person struggling through snowdrifts in the streets? How can one remain positive when the long-awaited northern “summer” offers less than a dozen sunny days?
St. Petersburg is an intentional city: established by the czar’s will as the inverse of Moscow’s old-style ruling, and an outpost to guard the country’s expansion to the north. But the initial purpose of the city has faded, and dwellers of St. Petersburg live in a place of broken grandeur incongruent with daily routine. Its denizens seek to move beyond the city’s limits—sometimes through cheap alcohol (as in Sergei Nosov’s “The Sixth of June”), sometimes with the help of drugs (check out Andrei Rubanov’s “Barely a Drop”).
Yet the conflict between the grandness, the imperial indifference of the city’s architecture, and its dwellers remains painful. Each stone and monument in the city center breathes of history and purpose—while locals are like exhibits of the Kunstkamera: oddities gathered for examination or research, the purpose of which remains unclear. (This conflict has been elegantly examined in Eugene Kogan’s and Alexander Kudriavtsev’s stories.) Enriching the city’s already vast postmodern treasury, the authors of the anthology bring monuments and museums to life: a bust of Pushkin takes on flesh and color in Lialin’s “Paranoia”; college students become material for new taxidermy projects in Pavel Krusanov’s “Hairy Sutra.”
Crime in Petersburg fiction is traditionally of a metaphysical nature. With a history densely filled with dark crimes, the city’s atmosphere is saturated by a poisonous miasma coming from the swamps upon which it is built—an ideal condition for ghosts to haunt the landscape and folklore. Quite a few contributors have introduced ghosts or spirits into their stories.
St. Petersburg is famous for its canals, rivers, embankments, and bridges. This romantic landscape offers poetic comparisons to Venice in Italy, but also implies fluctuation, unsteadiness, fluidity that diffuses the local character and its morals. Since Pushkin, water has contributed to the gloomy and desperate atmosphere of the city: in his poem “The Bronze Horseman,” a flood kills the protagonist’s beloved girl, driving the hero insane. Water becomes a character in Lena Eltang’s “Drunk Harbor,” and is also prominent in Kurchatova and Venglinskaya’s criminal tale, Anna Solovey’s theatrical drama, and Vadim Levental’s classic mystery investigation.
But reality, as often happens, proves more horrifying than any invented images. Crowded communal apartments in Kolomna (the statistics shock: in 2011 the number of citizens residing in such projects exceeded 660,000), drug abuse, sexual violence, and mandated killings in Russia’s “criminal capital” become a regular routine and give rich material for artistic interpretation. It is not surprising that many national TV crime shows have been set in St. Petersburg—including The Streets of Broken Lamps, now in its twelfth season, Gangster Petersburg (2000-2007), and Deadly Force (fifty-seven episodes in five years; the show is based on Andrei Kivinov’s script), to name a few.
Dark, grim, and terrifying—these stories concoct a unique noir space of the city, mapping a very untouristic route for those who dare to explore its narrow streets, haunted shadows, and the intricate web of its black water.
The city’s inescapable anguish will seize every reader of these stories, resonating to the maddening clopping sound of the Bronze Horseman.
Julia Goumen & Natalia Smirnova
St. Petersburg, Russia
May 2012
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PART I
Gangsters, Soldiers & Patriots
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TRAINING DAY
by Andrei Kivinov
Kupchino
Translated by Polly Gannon
R ise and shine, Eagle Scouts! You’ve got a report.” Leaving the door to the rec room open and not waiting for us to wake up, Evseyev returned to duty. I wasn’t asleep anyway. I was just lying there with my eyes closed on top of an ancient, disintegrating overcoat spread out on some chairs I had pushed together. That was in contrast to Farid Ismagilov, the Tatar, snoring loud enough to wake the dead. I still hadn’t learned to fall asleep at three in the afternoon. That was understandable: I didn’t have enough practice. Although the
idea of a postprandial nap made sense. If there’s an opportunity to sleep during the day, use it. That way, at night, you won’t keep yawning and nodding off if something happens. Farid, over there, was a guy with a lot of practice.
I got up off the chairs and put on my brown shoes. The standard-issue black ones didn’t fit me, so I had to settle for civilian ones. The officers frowned on them, but the civilian population didn’t give a damn, so I wasn’t worried. No big deal, it’s not like shoes are your uniform cap. I straightened my tie, then nudged Farid, still sleeping on the bench.
“Mister Driver, we’ve got a report to check out. Let’s get going.”
Farid woke up, rubbed his eyes, and yawned, exhaling a lethal reek of bacon and garlic. A Muslim, he scarfed down bacon for lunch despite the injunctions of the Koran. They called him Driver because he drove the official kozel jeep. In his free time, that is, when he wasn’t sleeping. Rank: sergeant; age: thirty-three; disposition: Nordic, sometimes gloomy, with a slight chance of showers. Inclined toward mild, daily drunkenness. Whether he was an athlete or a good family man, I didn’t know yet. Rooted for the Rubin Kazan soccer team.
“We’ll check it out later. It’s our legitimate quiet time.”
“Yeah, but felons don’t get a quiet time.”
Evseyev, the duty officer, was playing a game of erotic Tetris on an office computer, forming a naked minor on the screen. Or, in his words, drawing up a duty roster. This drawing up of a roster was not easy: every time Evseyev got above knee level, he had to start all over again. It irritated him to no end. His assistant was fastidiously interrogating a reticent drunkard who smelled of piss. He steered the man toward the “aquarium” (the drying-out tank) with a gentle kick, and sprayed apple-scented air freshener around the room.
“So, what’s with the report?” Farid said, kneading his neck.
Without glancing up from his “duty roster,” Evseyev handed us a piece of paper covered with what looked like chicken scratch.
“Here’s the address. The paramedics called. Dead on arrival. Forty-two-year-old male. Asphyxiation. Allegedly choked on meat dumplings. Go take a look. If anything seems suspicious, call and I’ll send the operative. And if there’s no sign of foul play, do the usual routine.”
The usual routine. It was my first day on duty, and I had no clue what the routine was. I mean, I knew it in theory—I had taken a three-month course for police investigators—but instructions and regulations were one thing, “the usual routine” was something else. I didn’t let on, naturally. I nodded and took the address as though it was something I did every day. If worse came to worst, Farid would tell me what to do. He’d been in the department more than ten years. He’d give me a shoulder to lean on.
When we went out into the courtyard, the weather was doing its best to discourage any sort of work ethic. It was like being in a thriller. Gray thunderheads, spitting rain, slithery mud, a screaming wind. Indian summer had given way to an abrupt early winter. I have to say that in St. Petersburg there’s no real spring, summer, or fall. It’s one eternal season of early winter. Even in the July heat people escape from here to warmer climes. You’ve just got to put up with it and not start howling when some Lexus speeds by, splashing you with dirty water. Because St. Petersburg is the president’s hometown.
Sopping wet leather shoes were no match for the standard-issue leather kersey boots. But they hadn’t given me those. Said there was a shortage of kersey leather in the country, and that kersey boots had gone out of style a long time ago, anyway. Not flashy enough, I was told.
Farid chased away a filthy crow sitting on the hood of the kozel and, cursing, tightened the metal wire around the bumper that fastened it to the body of the jalopy. The kozel was even more experienced than the driver. It had lost part of its engine in gang wars. Its gear box and suspension had been severely wounded, and its scratches and battle scars were too numerous to count. It had received a medal of honor for “Endurance,” undergone treatment in the field hospital, and continued to serve under the proud moniker of G-Wagen, which some witty cynic had spelled out in black paint on the yellow hood.
After he had tightened the wire, Farid loaded himself into the vehicle and passed me a hand crank. I stuck the crank under the bumper. Mustering up all my strength, I grabbed the handle with both hands and gave it a turn clockwise. Nada.
“Harder,” Farid said. “It’s not a beer bottle.”
“You shouldn’t have stopped the engine.”
“If you gave me more gas, I wouldn’t have to.”
Our jalopy started up on the fourth attempt. The joyful roaring of the engine resounded through the courtyard, its blue exhaust filling the air. I dropped the crank under the seat and jumped in. We were rolling. Finally.
We didn’t have too far to go. Our precinct was based in Kupchino, a Petersburg bedroom community, settled at one time, according to legend, by merchants. Or maybe not. In any case, nowadays the people who lived here were just the same as the people living in any other part of Petersburg, and probably the entire country. The places we inhabit have no bearing on the way we think and live. That’s a proven fact.
Our precinct covered fifty hectares, all told, and it counted about 100,000 people. They lived mainly in Khrushchev-era buildings—architectural monuments unprotected by either the government or UNESCO. The people who lived in them were responsible for their upkeep. The ones who didn’t drink. I had only spent a few weeks here as a police inspector when I understood that was a clear minority. Very clear.
In addition to watching over the populace, my tasks included regular twenty-four-hour on-call duty. I had to go with the driver to all kinds of events that were not distinguished by any significant criminality: domestic violence, drunken brawls, petty vandalism, and other amoral phenomena that disrupted the peace of ordinary citizens. Naturally, my job was not just to go there, but to react quickly and adequately, adhering to the letter of the law, if possible. And if not—not adhering to it.
As I already mentioned, today was my debut; or, rather, my training day. Like any other novice, I was nervous. Thank goodness, before lunch it all went as smoothly as could be. No mass riots or technogenic catastrophes. A few scuffles between neighbors, and a fight in a café where a crusading customer refused to pay for an order that he had already more than half-consumed. Ismagilov had dealt with all these incidents without much effort. He never even pulled out the Jedi baton, a product of some factory’s rubber division, from his broad belt. The fight was broken up and the brazen customer was shaken down for a few rubles with the use of the magic words “detention” and “downtown.” Usually the Star Wars began after six in the evening, when the weary proletariat returned home after its labors and grabbed any means at hand for letting off steam and reducing stress. I was hoping that today wouldn’t produce many marvels. You can’t put too much strain on a lieutenant’s shoulders that have yet to be tested, or on the brain of someone fresh out of engineering school.
I had never had to file paperwork on a murder—not when I was in college, or even in the service—so I was feeling some emotional anxiety. I just wasn’t used to procedures like this. Actually, I had no experience whatsoever. They had taken us on a field trip to the city morgue during our training, but I pretended I was mortally ill and copped out of it. I had no desire to examine internal organs in their natural state. I’d rather look at a picture in a textbook on forensic medicine, or, better yet, not see it at all. Now I was reaping the questionable rewards of my own squeamishness. Farid didn’t seem the least bit bothered by it. He’d seen it all in his ten years with our outfit. It was all still ahead of me, though. But there was nothing you could do about it. I had chosen this path myself when I decided to devote my younger years to fighting domestic crime, and, if I was lucky, to getting a place of my own in the bargain. It was cramped living in one small apartment with my parents and brothers.
Not long ago I had been at a funeral. A relative on my mother’s side, an eighty-seven-year-o
ld man, had died. We stood by the coffin in the morgue to say goodbye, everyone crying, of course. A few other coffins containing the deceased surrounded us. Suddenly, a seriously drunk fellow burst in, looked around, and then, pushing aside all my relatives, cried out, “Goodbye, Mama!” and flung himself into my dead relative’s crossed arms. In spite of the tragic pathos of the moment, everyone standing around the coffin broke into laughter, myself included. After that everyone started crying again, but not like before. Laughter through tears; a patch of light, a patch of darkness . . .
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Next to a shopping center Driver slowed down and dashed out to buy cigarettes in a little dive with the nostalgic name 3.62. I seemed to remember that was how much a half-liter of vodka cost when I was a kid. Farid had a discount there—he checked out their daily scuffles. By the door a soaking wet beggar sat in the rain on a piece of cardboard, exhorting the public through a megaphone to donate money to him for bread. He amplified his voice without shame or timidity, like a guide on Nevsky Prospect inviting tourists on a canal boat ride. “Hurry up, hurry up! Just one piece of bread! Don’t pass up your chance to help the needy. You won’t be sorry in the next world!”