Igor Eliseev - One-Two

“What guests have come to honor my humble home?” he said, ingratiatingly. “Come here. And stop huddling together like penguins. Don’t be afraid. I won’t bite you.” He burst out laughing. “Well, as you wish. I’m almost ready, anyway. Now it’s your turn to get undressed.”

An absolute, almost hostile silence reigned in the room. I saw what he was driving at and started to inspect the room in search of heavy objects. Meanwhile, you began to pull off your sweater, then your t-shirt. It seemed like we stood on opposite sides of a barricade. I stiffened, watching the situation as if from the sidelines, and felt the changes occurring inside you. You were being transformed into a complete stranger which for me was very dangerous, crossing an invisible line which guarded our safety. Till at last, it hit me that the former Hope didn’t exist anymore; she would not be coming back and we could never shake off the painful memories of what was happening by just shrugging our shoulders.

I felt this weird wave of nausea in my throat, but not in my stomach. I was ashamed. I abhorred our lousy situation. Undressing, you bared both of us, and I stood like an impersonal being or the narrator of a story, not knowing how to distance myself from your performance. Unable any longer to observe the scene, I closed my eyes tightly, not from fear, but from shame. The oppressive silence around me was accompanied by darkness. The whole world had stopped, frozen in indecision. I was powerless. And at that very moment, all of a sudden your voice broke the stinking, suffocating, unreal silence like a sewer pipe.

“What are you staring at, you idiot? Just do something. But don’t touch the sister.”

That very cynical statement you made was filled with chilling tranquility; like a cold shower, it opened my eyes. Everything remained pretty much the same. Gennady stood in the same place and resembled a shaggy, rusted monument rather than a living person. We were still side by side; however, something had changed irrevocably. He no longer had control over the situation; now you were the one giving orders.

“Pick up your jaw from the floor. Look, what a freaking good surprise you got!” Your voice “encouraged” him mockingly.

Gennady didn’t say a word, nervously running his fingers over his baggy underpants and blinked uncontrollably.

“You don’t want me anymore? What’s the matter? Shit or get off the pot!” You threw hurtful words at him with great force, and our body started shuddering with frantic laughter.

“That’s because I’m tired,” Gennady mumbled plaintively, “I’ve been working all night. I’ll be all right tomorrow. Promise I will.”

“If you’re so tired, go to sleep, you impotent, fat fool!” you mocked, putting on your sweater.

I must admit, I got frightened, expecting an uncontrollable reaction from that Russian half-bear, half-hog, so can you imagine how surprised I was when he confusedly and even childishly started to persuade us not to tell Mother about the incident, not to tell anyone?!

“There’s nothing to tell, because you couldn’t do anything,” you hissed sarcastically, rubbing salt in the wound.

“But I am still going to pay her, as if everything went well,” he was mumbling and growing red to match the color of his body-hair. It turned out that he was afraid of mockery like everybody else. And then slowly, hardly moving disobedient feet, he sat down on the chair nearby and started crying.

“What was about him that made him so special and could attract our mother?” I thought, looking at his endless tears. “Was it about his patronymic (The patronymic Karlovich derives from Karl , a popular German name) giving an illusive hint to his German roots, or was it just a trivial physiological need, the most pressing issue for a woman who was already growing old?” For me, it remained a riddle. Only one thing was obvious. Our mother had planned Gennady’s “little discomfiture” in advance. Her hatred towards us was stronger than her love for him. How strange that was. Charity, who was supposed to be at least a slight bit benevolent, merciful and charitable, took revenge because “someone else” was preferred to her. But there again she took revenge on everybody, even herself.

And she succeeded in her revenge wonderfully well. Gennady Karlovich was sobbing like a child. Though I didn’t have much sympathy for him, with my heart I understood how bad he felt and wished to speak a comforting word. But you, on the contrary, were full of contempt and hatred; that new image of you was the absolute copy of our mother’s character, her flesh and blood.

“Ok, enough chewing the rag! C’mon, ante up!” you ordered, enforcing your power over him. “We’re supposed to get your pay, not her.”

Poor Gennady Karlovich, totally confused, started taking out his wallet, and at that very moment Mother broke into the room; probably she had been listening behind closed doors to our entire conversation.

“Oh, you fucking little wretches! Have you decided to rob your poor mother? You aren’t a bit better than your father, you ungrateful, filthy bastards!”

“I won’t give you money,” separating one word from another, you muttered. “I honestly earned it.”

“You’re lying, you piece of junk!” and she suddenly rushed at us, craning her neck and popping her eyes out. “Whoever’s going to lay eyes on you, lame thing? I should’ve choked you to death in the maternity hospital.”

Her heavy, black words were pressing like pig-iron kettlebells, and she hurriedly spat them out as though she was afraid to suffocate. I was intolerably ashamed for her, not for us. Meanwhile, she started shaking your hand to tear off the watch she had gifted you, and continued yelling in a heart-rending voice:

“I haven’t seen you for years, and now you appear out of nowhere. You want my apartment, don’t you? Well, bite me!” and she made an obscene gesture right in front of my face. “Whoever invited you here? Do you think it is easy to be a mother of such freaks?” she shouted across the crowd of faces that had started to gather in a lopsided doorway next to us.

Oh, this tormenting concern that your neighbor’s life might be better than yours! And how great it feels when you realize that the truth is exactly the opposite; and we’re not so different after all. Nothing brings true neighbors together like a little friendly competition.

It seemed that our mother could elicit exceptional critical praise and wild ovations from the public any moment she liked. You shivered, but didn’t protest, and she didn’t yell any more but croaked, flooded with damnations:

“Help me, people! I’ve been robbed! I wish you were dead, you bitches!”

Her face got black with rage, her legs gave way under her and she fell down and started rolling on the floor, belching out absurd pleadings and disgraceful curses.

“Hate you. I hate this thing I gave birth to. Filthy creeps, ghouls.”

I was overcome by extreme disgust; you were limp and pale as chalk. As for Gennady Karlovich, he was the only one impassively watching the scene, like a passerby who has gotten involved in a theatrical performance by mistake. In addition, he managed to keep the money to himself.

The final moments of this monumental, epic story dissolved into the most trivial of farces. The neighbors who had gathered in the corridor to look at us were covering their giggling faces with their hands and loudly whispering, exchanging their opinions on Ms. Charity’s behavior that had already become a habit, and her conjoined, two-headed monster that had dishonored the principal tenant G. K. Kucheryavy. Their faces were shining with joy and tenderness, they were happy: now talking and reminiscing would suffice and lift up, however temporarily, their miserable, cheerless lives. Meanwhile, our mother kept coiling and jerking her feet restlessly.