Natalia Smirnova - Moscow Noir

“Dirty whore!” he hissed, so that we jumped apart from each other. He stood up quickly and started rushing around the room, yelling that he didn’t have to tolerate such animallike indecency in his own room. “Get out of here!” he cried. “If you don’t leave, I’ll go to the dorm supervisor!”

I shot up, doubling my hand into a fist. But when Tatchuk started coughing and groping for his inhaler in his pocket, I relaxed without touching even a hair on his head.

After I returned from walking her home, Tatchuk spoke to me for the first time since our fight.

“I’m in trouble,” he said, with obvious difficulty. “It looks like I’m going to be kicked out of school.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what’s going on. If I don’t hand in at least one new story by May, Urusov will expel me.”

Well, I guess now is the time to confess everything. Tatchuk’s writing had suddenly become remarkably bad. “It’s weird,” students would say. “How did he manage to write that brilliant narrative his freshman year? Maybe it wasn’t his writing at all. What do you think?” My only answer was to chuckle vaguely and shrug my shoulders. What was I supposed to do, tell the whole world that I was the one who had scribbled down the notorious story for Tatchuk? That I was the one who had helped him along, correcting and rewriting most of it? We were fast friends back then, and I was totally convinced he had the golden touch. It was like we gave each other strength. I told him how to put words together, and through him I could stop feeling like such a loser. He made me feel like I, too, was somehow invincible, important, like we could make it if we stuck together.

“No,” I said, “I’ve had enough of this. Do it on your own.”

“I can’t,” he muttered.

“If you can’t, you should transfer somewhere else. It’s not my problem.”

“I don’t want to study somewhere else. I won’t make it there either.”

“Do you want to be a writer or not? Anyway, that’s beside the point. Do you really think Urusov is such an idiot that he hasn’t noticed anything? Just a couple of days ago he mentioned that our styles are strikingly similar. Get it? One more pretext is all they need to kick us both out of here.”

“Please, just one last time!” he implored.

“Yeah, right.”

“Then I’ll just tell Urusov what happened, and you’ll get expelled. If you write me another story, you’ll at least have one more chance.”

“Fine,” I said. “Go ahead and tell him.”

He stopped his pleading, but I had a feeling he was planning something. Just sharing a room with him became nearly intolerable. I had only just been able to stomach the royal, all-powerful Tatchuk of old, but this new one was simply too much to bear. He turned from a generous, merciful god into a backbreaking burden. His eyes followed me beseechingly. Where could I hide when we spent at least six hours a day together?

My instincts had not deceived me. Only a week later he pulled a stunt that had me itching with such fury that it took me all day to cool off.

“A month ago you broke my nose,” he announced calmly. “The nasal septum was damaged, as a result of which I now have trouble breathing. Furthermore, my nose didn’t heal properly, and now no one wants to be friends with me.”

I stared at his unchanged nose. It looked fine to me: protruding, patrician, as always. Still, my roommate did look rather sickly. His cheeks were sunken, his eyes glassy with dark rings beneath them.

“I am in desperate need of plastic surgery. The operation costs ten thousand dollars. I have no one else to turn to. If you refuse to help me, I will have you thrown in jail. I will sue you for inflicting severe injury on me, and I have documented evidence to prove my claims.”

“The money’s over there,” I said, nodding. “In the top drawer of the desk. Exactly ten thousand.”

“I’m not joking. Have your parents sell their apartment. You should understand that my life is being ruined because of this. I have no other choice. Mark my words, you’ll be doing time.”

A nose injury, blown out of proportion into a worldwide conspiracy that cannot be proved or disproved—as long as you believe in it, it’s true. But why was he indulging in this eccentricity, and what did he really need the money for? Was it a bribe? For whom? My god, could he really be so desperate as to believe that this fantastic sum could help him rise from the ashes? For us ordinary people (dorm dwellers), it would have been no more consequential than a mosquito bite, but for him it was a mortal wound. For the rest of us, unemployment, lack of money, obscurity, was the air we breathed. For him, it was a sign that his life was over, once and for all.

“You listen to me!” I shouted. “One more word out of you and I’ll fix your nose for you myself, right here! Have your parents sell their apartment and shell out the cash to you! Or are you an orphan now?”

“My parents are unable to give me any money,” he answered hollowly, as though his parents had died yesterday.

“And why is that?” I asked in surprise. “You are family, after all. And you’ve had it easy for three years, living off the money they send you. So what gives?”

“My parents are busy with their own lives now. They got divorced, and I got left out of the picture, so I can’t ask them for help anymore.”

“But you think you can ask me for help?” I exploded. “Ten thousand bucks doesn’t just materialize out of thin air, you know! What do you want it for anyway? To go to America? Or invest in Gazprom stocks and become a millionaire in six months?”

“I’m warning you, either you come up with ten grand or I’m taking this case to court.”

“You can take it to the war crimes tribunal for all I care!” I stormed out, slamming the door behind me. What was I going to do with him? And how much longer could I keep this up, treating him like a normal human being? Get a grip! If we could sit down and have some vodka together, I might quote the words of a poor, homeless Russian poet who died in exile. He said, It is cold to walk the earth; still colder is the grave. Remember that, remember, and do not curse your fate . He wouldn’t get it though. It would be like trying to explain that bread is bread. Somewhere deep inside, I knew: he was losing it. Something had to be done, an alert had to be sounded. The problem was that while his old swagger had not made him many enemies, it did little to win anyone over to his side either, so his fall was met with a general apathy. I was the only one he could count on. So I decided to go back in there and talk to him. I decided to say, Come on, don’t do this to yourself. You are healthy and strong as an ox! You’re young and bright, well-educated and good-looking. You could be out there having fun and living life to the fullest, and you choose this instead?

I went back inside, only to find him standing over my computer. I yelped like a wounded animal and rushed forward—but it was too late. With one press of a key, he had consigned my best piece to oblivion. Half a year of tense and difficult sleepless nights… I’ll kill him! I grabbed a ceramic vase from the table and threw it at him, aiming for his head. I missed, and it crashed through the double-paned glass window. Then I went straight to the dorm supervisor.

“But you boys come from the same parts, don’t you?” the supervisor asked me. “Why are you squabbling with each other? I don’t have room vacancies at the moment. If you really want to move, I suggest you ask around. Maybe someone will agree to swap roommates with you.”

Nobody wanted to swap with me; no one was willing to share a room with Tatchuk.