St. Petersburg Noir

by Julia Goumen

  He sat down, took Peter by the shoulders, and cautiously lay him on the floor. He pulled the driver’s shirt out of his pants and turned it up—after that came a dirty undershirt and below that a shallow cut.

  The wounded man was emitting muffled groans and cursing incoherently. The writer looked at Jesus and said, “A cut. Nothing serious. You can stitch it up right here. Or take him to an emergency room. But bear in mind—it’s a knife wound and the doctors might call the cops. . .”

  “I hope he croaks!” the girl hollered, squeezing her knees to her chest.

  “Your decision,” the writer said, shifting his gaze from Jesus to Peter.

  “Well…” Jesus said. “I don’t know ... Are you a doctor?”

  “Nearly,” the writer answered, taking off his pack. “Bring vodka, a clean cloth, and a needle and thread. Quickly.”

  “I hope he croaks, the bastard!” the girl shouted.

  Jesus went into the hallway.

  In principle, it doesn’t have to be sewn, the writer thought. It could be cauterized. But he would scream.

  “Sit,” he ordered Peter. “And undress. It’s nothing, a scratch.”

  “Did it nick my liver?” the wounded man rasped.

  “Your liver’s on the other side,” the writer said. “Come on, off with it.”

  Peter slowly raised his hands and with clumsy fingers started unbuttoning.

  Jesus came back and held out a sewing needle and towel. “There isn’t any thread.”

  “Pull some out of something.”

  The author of psychedelic watercolors looked at him uncomprehendingly. The writer told him to undress the victim. He went out into the hallway, quickly studied the garments hanging on the coat rack, found an old coat with a shabby fur collar—obviously belonging to the old woman who didn’t want to die—and neatly pulled threads from the lining. The thread was rotten, but folded twice it would do just fine.

  There was no vodka to be found either, but there was brandy. The writer told Jesus to calm the girl and neatly closed the wound with two stitches. Peter—he had a gray body with thick rolls of fat at his waist—moaned faintly and writhed.

  The writer poured half the bottle into Peter’s mouth and half on his bare flesh. He wanted a sip himself, but judging from the smell, the brandy was some wretched fake.

  The girl spoiled the operation’s conclusion. Breaking out of Jesus’s weak arms, she leapt up—the shards crunching—and tried to kick the wounded man. He bared his teeth and floridly promised his attacker a speedy and agonizing death.

  The writer stood up.

  Peter means stone, he remembered.

  He found the bathroom at the end of the hall. He liked it—large, good acoustics, a window with a broad sill. The writer thought that it would be nice to immerse himself in water here on a warm summer’s day, say, up to his chest, and turn his wet face and shoulders to the fresh street breeze.

  He washed the blood off his hands and carefully examined his fingers and nails. He could only hope the wounded man didn’t have hepatitis or something similar. He looked at himself in the mirror. Suddenly he felt a chill. The adrenaline’s washed out, he thought. Or the drug’s kicking in. In Moscow they sell southern grass, from Kazakhstan or Tajikistan, but here it’s the north, Europe; damn if I know where they get it. Maybe it really is from Holland. Or they grow it themselves . . .

  He buttoned his jacket as he walked, now in the hallway; he checked his pockets. He turned by the door. Peter was leaning against the wall, and Jesus was stroking the sobbing girl’s head. A thin blue flame was burning peacefully under the iron kettle.

  “Go to the pharmacy,” the writer said as he turned the door handle. “Buy a bandage. And antibiotics. Bandage him up.”

  “Fuck yourself!” the girl shouted, pushing Jesus away and rolling her eyes, white with rage.

  The writer nodded in agreement. The advice was perfectly sensible.

  On the stairs he checked his pockets and the contents of his backpack one more time; his money and documents were where they were supposed to be.

  Barely a drop, he thought, letting go of the massive door and plunging into the rain.

  The wind was strolling down Liteyny Prospect. The streetcar rails glinted like dagger blades. The writer remembered the paring knife among the china shards. It was a foolish shiv, no good for killing or even seriously injuring someone. He saw the lit windows of the twenty-four-hour store and headed for that.

  He didn’t like to warm up with alcohol. He considered the method lowbrow. But sometimes, in lowbrow circumstances, lowbrow acts were exactly what he needed. The writer bought a flask of whiskey, raked the change, a few coins (he had never respected copper money), into his palm, turned into the very first entryway, and downed half.

  If you were a real, old-school writer, he told himself, you’d find an open bar now, perch at a table, and get down to work. Right now, at three in the morning, when your hands still smell of someone else’s blood, not an enemy’s, but the blood of some random clown, some philistine who doesn’t matter. When your head’s filled with marijuana smoke and your mouth with the taste of fake Polish whiskey. When icy drops are rolling down your neck and back. And you wouldn’t write about the cold and graveyard damp. Or about fools, jealousy, greed, and poverty. You’d fill your story with sunshine and the scent of tropical flowers. Salty ocean breezes would fly at your heroes’ tanned faces. They would love each other and die young.

  He set out, feeling a surge of strength. He knew for sure that if he found an open bar he would do what others had done before him. Sit down and write. Moreover, if he didn’t find an appropriate establishment he’d grab a ride to the train station—or even walk—buy a ticket for the first morning train, and then find somewhere to sit in the waiting room and write anyway.

  He couldn’t come here and not write anything.

  ~ * ~

  This city consisted of black water and black stone. The water below, in the canals and rivers, and above, in the air.

  Walking, he caught himself feeling as though he were breathing water.

  The local inhabitants could probably use gills; especially now, in late fall. Or special breathing organs made of stone. Granite alveoli and tracheae.

  The writer liked to fantasize after he got out of scrapes. He found contemplating abstract topics gave him a sensation of the fullness of life and was very calming.

  His best friend once said, “Don’t look for peace, let peace find you.”

  He walked to the station without finding a single open establishment.

  Entering the warm, booming hall, he immediately felt a weakness. He no longer had any desire to work.

  He bought a ticket. The cashier yawned mightily and glanced at his sleeve. The writer stepped aside and looked—there was someone else’s blood on his cuff.

  Then he sat down on the plastic bench and composed a brief story about someone who loved people but not himself.

  Twelve hours later he was home. That same evening his wife arrived, and the writer caught himself thinking that he was sincerely glad to see her.

  The shirt he’d had to throw away; the blood wouldn’t wash out.

  <>

  ~ * ~

  SWIFT CURRENT

  by Anna Solovey

  Kolomna

  Translated by Marian Schwartz

  I ’m not getting ready to die ... This ridiculous plastic thing gets tossed too—who gives that to a little girl? ... I’m not getting ready to die, that would be a waste of time. I’m moving. Very soon. Where, I don’t know yet, but there’s no staying here. Why would I do that? And don’t look at me like that from the wall. If only you could see ... Hey, what is it with these photographs? Whoever invented photography ought to be shot ... There’s one more sheet on the sofa, the last one, the rest are neatly folded and stacked. I’m moving and I don’t need anything now—when you don’t have it, you do without. There’s a kettle and a glass, so drink!

  “Before, love sucked u
p all the air and I never did move anywhere. All those nights we fought and it always won, fell on me with its heavy, slippery body, its damp fog crushing me, squeezing my heart so hard it could scarcely beat, my breathing shallow, and until I smeared into a white cloud under its carcass, it wouldn’t stop making love ... and it always said, I love you because you want to die. Anyone who says it’s chilly and youthful and its eyes are the color of a wave has never fought with it in bed. This city—Peter’s creation—always was the victor, smothering me with its embraces, so by morning I’d be brimming with the fatal poison of his seed.

  “In the mornings, as I was walking across the Kryukov Canal to Theater Square, it would gradually reveal itself, like a vision, the cupolas of the St. Nicholas Cathedral piercing the gray fog. It would pretend we were strangers and just tickle me with its quivering air, flirting with everyone at once, the cheap stud! As if I weren’t the one who’d carried all its countless embryo-germs in my womb, as if I hadn’t coughed through its winters trying to spit them out. I crossed that little bridge on countless occasions, and each time admiration stopped me dead in my tracks, and I forgot all the darkness and reveled in the blue.

  “But then I slipped away ... I ran and ran ... and I stuck out my tongue, teasing them! ... I don’t go there anymore. But every day I try to describe ... Here’s this stack of papers, I packed everything away in my chest and wrote for days and days, sometimes even at night. There’s heat coming from the tips of my fingers, and that heat gets transferred into the letters, my soul drains into the ink. I don’t like computers, I’m made of other blood, loftier blood, and my handwriting is like runes ... open the chest and hocus-pocus—an empty chest, yes ... because I had to condemn the words to fire for them to fly. It was because of the fire that they locked me up, my neighbors. Fire can burn everyone. That’s clear, that the fire burning inside can burn everyone. They decided I was crazy and rejoiced. Rejoiced that my room would free up sooner. They don’t have far to take me. Pryazhka’s a stone’s throw from here. A cheerful trick. They’re good neighbors, not mean. And you can see they’re poor. Who else lives communally now? They don’t have a car either. It’s enough to make you cry. Their boy sits on the steps with his friends all the time smoking weed. Could you really invite a girl up to an apartment like that? Poor people, their hearts seethe and have nowhere to bubble over. They themselves left, and shut me out, in case I burned the building down, set fire to it. They think they’ll be living in my room. Fools, fools, I have Mashenka ... she’s not here now, but if anything happened to me she’d hop right to it and come running, my darling.”

  ~ * ~

  Mashenka was walking across the bridge. Plié, plié! Knees out. Jeté forward, assemblé to the side! Rond de jambe, plié, extend! Fondu sur les demi-pointes! Your back!

  What was the point? She hadn’t been there very long, but she still couldn’t get the words out of her head. Her heart started beating fast, though why should it, really? The Vaganova school ... her dream ... all that time not eating, not drinking, training until she dropped, leg cramps, and her ardent daily prayer to her home icons: Ulanova, Pavlova, Nijinsky, Lopatkina ... and then—ta-da!—the envelope, please. The letters make it simple and clear: corps de ballet. Chin to chin, nose to nose, left-right, fire—dive, little soldier . . .

  Masha was still foggy about what would happen to her afterward; she had dreamed only of victory. Roses by the basket and admiration. So there’d be none of that? She didn’t care if she had to slave twenty-four hours a day, didn’t care if everyone in the theater hated her, didn’t care if there was blood in her shoes every day, that didn’t scare her. What did? Being like everyone else, going around in Turkish sweats like everyone else, talking about television, trembling to save up for an apartment in Kupchino with her beer-swilling old man. Then going to a job her whole life, coming back in the evening, choosing wallpaper, hanging lights, closing the doors on people coming off the streets so the lobby wouldn’t stink, doing homework with her children, occasionally breaking free and going abroad to stroll in a crowd. What for? She hated all that, hated it. After all, times had changed. Anything was possible! Leave and find a job dancing? They would appreciate her there! But where? In a strip joint? Or one of those classical-cabaret kind of ballets that does The Birch Tree? Wait for some fat sugar daddy to make her his mistress? But she’d dreamed of creating a world of beauty around herself; she loved art, the audience, and she loved a city—Petersburg. She didn’t care if it was dark there nearly year-round. Its lights lit at night, its golden spires aimed for the heavens, the festive crowd on Nevsky, the Hermitage, architect Rossi’s street—their names alone made it worthwhile!

  She found being ridiculous humiliating. She bathed for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening, washing away the dirt, transforming herself into a pure angel twice a day. Because of the washing, she moved out of the ballet dorm and in with her aunt almost immediately. You can’t bathe for two hours a day in a dorm, and anyway she was afraid of being on her own while still so young. Her aunt and uncle loved her as if she were their own, and she even called her aunt Mama. Only they tried too hard to feed her, always pushing fish oil on her, and this irritated Mashenka. She struggled mightily over each extra bite.

  Of course, Masha idolized the ballet, but not to the point of oblivion, not to the point that she could stand in a single line her entire life. And who said you could hang on in the first row? You’d be trampled there too. Proud but poor—that’s the only way for primas—your success is your applause, your seething blood, your power over the audience.

  Mashenka seemed to wilt utterly. She walked around in a funk, and if you called out to her she didn’t call back. She was used to working hard, and she expected recognition for that, her teachers had praised her for that, and now everyone had betrayed her, she had no one to count on, and only she herself knew how special she was and that she definitely had not come into this world for the corps de ballet. The others, anyone who didn’t understand this, became her enemy. She threw the portraits of her idols in the garbage. Masha raked her aunt’s collection of porcelain ballerinas off the shelf and hid them under a pile of linens. Her aunt bit her tongue, but she wept all night with pity for the girl. She and her husband loved their niece very much, but they had not discerned her morbid pride and did not worship her great talent, so she found their consolation utterly banal. Masha’s aunt had herself been a musician. She taught at the conservatory and played violin in an orchestra. She’d never aspired to being a soloist, but then she wasn’t wracked by a passion like Masha’s, or perhaps she’d left it behind, somewhere in her past. This weakness stirred Masha’s contempt. What could you explain to a spineless jellyfish? That was why Masha was sweet and polite with her relatives but kept them at arm’s length. She danced in her corps de ballet and took sedatives after each performance to ward off hysterics—yes, after the performance, because the applause took the worst toll: the harsh pounding of hundreds of palms that had nothing to do with her, the unlucky, persecuted ballerina . . .

  The pills helped. Little by little she began making kopeks on the side writing about ballet and fashion for a magazine. Because she had a head, as well as legs up to her ears. Then suddenly things started going well for her, swimmingly, marvelously. She started getting invitations to receptions with stars, designers, and directors, but she wasn’t making enough money to dress for them. She couldn’t make that kind of money at the magazine, of course—there weren’t enough fees in the world for her to go to a dressmaker. Somehow certain fine gentlemen just approached her and suggested that she might do well to write a letter and expose the unsightly truth about their prima ballerina, and they also asked Masha to stop by the makeup room for a moment while the star was working onstage.

  These services, which made trouble for their prima, fetched decent money. But Masha was willing even for free. This prima was a shrew, and she’d been seducing other women’s husbands! Her stage triumphs weren’t enough—no, she had to get
her grubby paws on it all! They should be punished, people like that, which was why Masha had no regrets or remorse.

  Also at that time she had an unusual romance, something she had waited for for a long time. Only she’d pictured it rather differently. She’d thought she would come down off her cloud for this love and allow him to kiss her knee, but the reality was otherwise. It didn’t matter, though. This happiness’s name was Vsevolod—Seva—and he was a somebody. He didn’t just have money and connections, he didn’t just have power, he had all three, and he was a celebrity in the city and beyond. He was respected—not that he blew his own horn. Seva could do a lot, a whole lot, almost anything, and it was he, a man like this, who was inspired at first glance, who immediately “got” Masha—that she was special, one of a kind—and he promised the world would soon know it too. You shouldn’t be so afraid of the corps de ballet. It’s a start, a jumping-off point, and with him she would become a golden girl, a sovereign over men’s minds, and looking at all this riffraff, these ballet stars, would be like looking at charwomen, at the staff, but Masha still had to select a field of endeavor.