Глеб Бобров - The Torn Souls - An Anthology of Prose About the Soviet War in Afghanistan

In the end, after much trial and error, Vitka wormed out of Alyosha the information that the song was about a friend who did not return from battle. It was the well-known song by Vysotsky (“Terminology and Glossary” — Editor), and cigarettes barely figured in it: but for some reason it was just those words that Alyosha remembered, and when Vitka got to them, Alyosha shook his head in embarrassment and began to join in. So now, as he began to perform the song “about a cigarette” for his friend’s benefit, Vitka waited for Alyosha to join in. Alyosha was not much good at singing, but he waited patiently, looking into Vitka’s eyes. When Vitka arrived at the verse Alyosha was interested in, he nodded, stopped singing himself, and Alyosha took over:

The others listened in silence. Now Vitka was launched on his favourite hobbyhorse. He played the songs by Vysotsky that were closest to him: “In the mountains you can’t trust the rocks, nor the ice or the cliffs”, “The sunset glittered like a shining blade”, and his favourite, about stars falling from the sky:

The last chord died away in the silent barracks. Vitka slowly laid the guitar aside, unable to sing any more. All sat with their eyes cast down, not looking at one another. It was Kolya who broke the mood. He shook his big head with its dark hair and its crude crew cut, rose in a businesslike way and gave the order:

— Stop snivelling! Stand up! Follow me, quick march!

They all got off beds, stamped off to the door past the now silent younger soldiers. Outside they rolled a couple of joints, handed them round and afterwards returned to their barracks in a more cheerful mood.

— Come on, Sultan, — said Oleg, — put your tape recorder on.

— Yes, don’t put on “Cascade”, put on the tape with the various songs, and Jakub will sing us his song about the fly with one wing.

Yakub drew his head into his shoulders in embarrassment. He loved singing Russian songs, but barely understood the words, and made up his own versions, such a muddle of more or less similar words that he made his listeners fall about laughing. With his Tajik accent he would mangle the Pugacheva’s (“Terminology and Glossary” — Editor) song by: “Without mine you me love, me fly with one wing”.

Sultan rummaged for his tape recorder in his bedside table, rewound the tape, and started it from the beginning, where the “Jolly Fellows” (“Terminology and Glossary” — Editor) are singing a song about their aunt: “Oh, auntie, you’re wasting your time, Looking out of the window in tears.”

The lively rhythm of the music cheered everyone up, and they soon started to stamp their feet in time as they sat on their bunks, and swayed from side to side. Vitka kept himself under control, sprawled back against the bed head and looking sideways at his friends. He already knew what would happen next: the dope would take over, and all the pent up emotions would break out. He did not have to wait long. The “Jolly Fellows” began a new song, and Kolya suddenly jumped into the aisle between the bunks and began dancing to the music and singing:

Sultan was the next to break out. Picking up the guitar, he followed Kolya out, stood beside him, and now they both stamped their boots on the floor together. Sultan pretended to play the guitar. Alyosha grabbed a gun off a sentry coming off duty, lengthened the strap, and hung the gun over his shoulder as if he were a musician with an electric guitar, holding it low down as if it were a bass instrument. He picked out chords with his left hand on the barrel of the gun, and drummed with his right hand on the body of the gun. Babay appeared beside him, rattling away with imaginary drumsticks. The four of them were imitating the “Jolly Fellows” whom they had seen a couple of times on television. They shouted out the words of their favourite song, assaulted the non-existent strings of their imaginary instruments in a frenzy and stamped their feet in time:

The music was beginning to make them weep a little. Vitya looked at the bowed heads of his friends, their eyes turned in upon themselves, and understood that they were feeling much the same as he was. It was true: the words of the song applied to him too. They were the strolling artists, travelling the mountain roads day after day! What was their armoured personnel carrier if not a little wagon in which they bedded down for the night wherever they happened to find themselves? They ate well enough if they were not too lazy to lug an extra few tins of food.

Vitka suddenly felt very sad. He felt with every fibre of his being that he was surrounded by real friends, such as he would never in his life find again, that once he had got over the first intoxication of homecoming he would miss these guys, with whom he had shared so many bad times and so much happiness. Demobilisation — they had wanted it, they had dreamed of it for ages, they had waited for it passionately. Suddenly it took on a different aspect: demobilisation meant the inevitable parting with friends.

In a few days they would have to say goodbye. Some would go off in the first contingent, leaving the others to await the next draft, and they would say goodbye to their friends beside the helicopter. Some of them — Kolya perhaps, or Sultan, or Oleg, would go aboard, turn round on the ramp, wave goodbye, and disappear forever. Even if they all set off at once, somewhere along the way — at the airport, at the station — the moment would arrive when they had to part! They would embrace one another, turn round, and go off. Of course one could glance back, wave, and realise that one would not see many of them again in this life. “Jolly Fellows” continued meanwhile:

Vitka was finally overcome by his emotions. The boys were stamping their feet and shouting at the top of their voices, and he sat on his bunk, his head drooping lower and lower.

Our tour is coming to an end, he thought. None of the locals, especially not the children, are going to dream of our little green wagons. But we will certainly dream of this savage incomprehensible country, the high mountains, the green valleys, the clean fast-flowing rivers, the flowering gardens of Bakharak, the summer heat, the dusty roads, the autumn winds, the dust storms, the cold of winter. We’ll have much to talk about back home, about the exotic beauty of this country. Perhaps we will even remember it with affection.

But for the moment he wanted one thing only: to get out, never to see all that beauty ever again. He did not need money, or jeans, or souvenirs! To hell with the photo albums, the home-made tie pins, the dress uniforms specially stitched and ironed, the remodelled forage caps, the ballpoint pens, the Japanese watches that could play seven different tunes, the shiny souvenir cartridges, all of these stupid things which the soldiers prepared for the ritual of demobilisation. It was all superfluous. If you still had your arms and your legs, if you had not gone too far off your head — that was enough to be thankful for. I will make my way home in my worn out uniform and my worn out boots, and I certainly won’t ever ask to come back. All I need is to get a few photos through the frontier, and hope to see some of these guys again, who are stifling their homesickness by fooling about, stamping their feet in time to “The Jolly Fellows”!