Natalia Smirnova - Moscow Noir

Boltyansky does bring The Decameron , a fat blue volume with an elegantly lettered title, and gives Ryabets a two-week deadline. Ryabets skims the yellowed pages and sets it aside. Final exams are starting soon.

“Wouldn’t you know? The minute I climb off her, the bell! She goes to the door and wipes off the blood, all scared. ‘Who’s there?’ Boltyansky: ‘It’s me, Nadya.’ Her: ‘Damn! What do you want?’ Him: ‘Want to go for a walk?’ Ha ha ha!” Mesropov nearly falls down laughing. “Just imagine. A walk!”

“What did she say?” Ryabets’s lips are dry. He and Mesropov are standing in the schoolyard. The graduation party is starting in half an hour. Everyone’s already been drinking and they’re sharing the news half-soused.

“She’s practically rolling in laughter. Well, I sneak up from behind while she’s talking to him through the door and give it to her good! If only Bolt could have seen what we were doing four inches away!”

Six months before, Mesropov had vowed that before graduation night he was going to pop the cherry of one of their classmates. Fiercely handsome and ox-eyed, he drove the girl crazy.

“I just came and he says again, ‘Nadya, Nadya’”—Mesropov mimicked Boltyansky’s squeaky voice—“‘Let’s go for a walk…’ Well, I yanked the door open! Just as I was, no underpants, only a T-shirt! And a rubber flapping in my hand. Catch! Bolt’s eyes bug out and he runs! Ha ha ha!”

“What about her?” Ryabets is breathing fast.

“Who? Nadya? Nadya’s fine, Ryaba, just fine. She plays along! We fucked like bunnies for hours. Whoo! I can barely stand up. So we’re going to Silver Pine Forest tomorrow, right, Ryaba? Nadya’s got this friend, Lidukha. She’s little but she’s got titties out the wazoo! I’d rather have Lidukha, but Nadya… It’s nice there, in the forest. Never been? Tons of bushes! ‘Under every bush she kept a table set and a home!’ Ha ha ha!”

Some other classmates come up and Mesropov starts recounting his adventure.

“Bolt gave me The Decameron to read,” Ryabets says when he’s finished.

“What? The De-cam-er-on ? Give me a break! That Decameron ’s kid stuff. Ever heard ‘Luka Mudischev’? The actor Vesnik does it. ‘The Mudischev clan was ancient, it had a patrimony, villages, and giant firs!’ Come over, I’ll play it! The Decameron . Hah! Kid stuff, Ryaba, kid stuff!”

“It all depends on your imagination,” Tregubov the intellectual interposes weightily. “Some guys can get off on a keyhole. I don’t think The Decameron ’s half bad. Quattrocento, feast during the plague… Italy! It’s not ancient Russia. Signorine, not girls! Pinos, not pines!”

Tregubov knows what he’s talking about. In his not quite seventeen years he’s the only one in class who’s been abroad, he even lived in Italy. His father worked at the Soviet consulate in Rome.

“Pinos? Is that like a blowjob?” Mesropov.

“No, amico mio, it’s a Mediterranean pine tree. A sky of purest blue! The sea! The sun! O sole mio/sta ’nfronte a te!/O sole, o sole mio/sta ’nfronte a te!/sta ’nfro-o-o-onte a te-e-e-e! ” Tregubov sings, breaking into a falsetto.

“A goddamn Caruso!” Mesropov says with respect.

Boltyansky enters the yard wearing a black suit and a skinny black tie. His black hair is combed back and slicked so it shines. Seeing Mesropov, he nearly stumbles and his cheeks break out in red spots.

“Hey, pino,” someone shouts, “want to go for a walk?”

Friendly laughter.

Ryabets doesn’t stick around for the party. He takes his diploma and leaves. As he’s walking down the stairs from the auditorium, Boltyansky catches up to him.

“You’re taking off?”

“What do you care?”

“You’re not staying for the dance?”

“I don’t give a damn about that.”

“When are you going to return the book? My parents have been asking. Did you read it?”

“Not all of it. Exams. I’ll finish tomorrow. I’m fast.”

Buratina passes them on the stairs. Powdered cheeks, high heels, short little skirt, lacy stockings, and looking slightly sloshed—she’s giggling oddly. Boltyansky licks his lips. Three more steps up and she stops.

“Ryaba, want a drink? The kids are in the gym. They still have some left.”

“No, I’m going home. I have a headache.”

Ryabets can’t tear his eyes away from Buratina’s legs. She smiles.

“Home, home, home,” she teases. “To his mama… Why don’t you come to Silver Pine Forest tomorrow? Third beach. Know it? We’ll go swimming at 5 or 6, when we wake up. My girlfriend Lida has a dacha there, her parents are taking off, so…”

“Fine,” Ryabets rasps, and heads downstairs.

“What’s with you?” he hears the teasing directed at Boltyansky. “Want to go for a walk? Hee hee hee!”

Boltyansky calls at 4 or so.

“Are you going to Silver Pine Forest? Did you forget?”

“Too far.”

“That’s okay, you can stay over. Nadya’s friend has a dacha there.”

“I don’t know, maybe I will.”

“And grab The Decameron . My parents are pestering me.”

“All right.” Ryabets hangs up.

Followed by a surprise: Buratina. She’s calling! In the whole ten years they’ve been in the same class, this is the first time.

“Ryaba, hi.” A depressed voice, as if she’s holding back tears. “Are you going to Silver Pine Forest? Take me.”

Ryaba’s heart is pounding. Joy! But fear too. Picturing Nadya in a swimsuit, he can’t imagine what he’ll do with himself. His swimsuit’s going to bristle!

“All right.”

“Should I come by then? In an hour?”

Ryabets hangs up and runs to the bathroom. He decides that if he does it a few times he might get by… He twirls in front of the mirror—uses his mama’s powder on his zits, combs his hair back, then parts it; changes his shirt, rolls up his sleeves, rolls them down. What else? What if she walks in, he kisses her, she responds, and—

A ring. Not the door, the phone. It’s her.

“Listen, Ryaba, I’ll wait for you at the bus stop. If I come over, you’ll rape me. You gave me such a look yesterday! Hee hee hee!”

Oof!

Ryabets grabs his bag and towel, throws The Decameron in—he suddenly remembered—and runs outside.

Nadya’s wearing a yellow shirt with the top buttons undone, and there are her breasts. And a miniskirt too. Her face is creased; she drank and partied all night long. She’s got a mark on the back of her neck. A hickey? Her eyes, half-Kalmyk to start with, are swollen; the abundant mascara highlights this. Her perfume—from a long way off. Ryabets stares and joy bubbles up inside him alternately with horror.

It’s a long trip: trolley, subway, transfer, subway, trolley. Ryabets notices glances at his companion—men’s leers, women’s frowns.

Ryabets can’t for the life of him figure out why she isn’t with Mesropov. It’s a puzzle. Going with Mesropov makes sense. Mesropov would take her in a taxi. All the way to the beach. His parents are really rich.

The trolley crosses the bridge toward pines, pines, and more pines. Pinos.

“Lidukha lives way over there,” Nadya points out the window. Tall green and blue dachas with turrets amid century pines. “We’ll go to her place after the beach, tonight. Her parents are off traveling somewhere. Will you go?”

“Maybe,” Ryabets mumbles.

They get out. Ryabets is holding his bag in front for obvious reasons.

They’re walking down the road next to a very high fence.

“Who lives here? Artists?” he asks.

“Big shots, diplomats, and artists too. Did you see the Japanese flag behind the fence at the stop?”