Сергей Лебедев: Untraceable

Here was the town. The first trolley was at the terminal. The driver was smoking and drinking coffee from a thermos. Yesterday’s trees. Yesterday’s houses. Yesterday’s garbage in the can, even the traffic light was yesterday’s; no one had seen it yet today, no one was awake, only Shershnev and that driver. The ticket validating device in the trolley was buzzing, setting today’s date, but no one had yet had a fare card marked with the new stamp.

Turn to the right. Church on the hill. He would make it, as if yesterday’s long day still continued.

A black figure. Must be the priest departing after a service. Who knows what their religion is, what time they start.

A priest on the road. Bad omen.

A turn, the apple tree alley, a fresh break in the bushes—a truck must have backed into it. A narrow valley. Everything was just as the agents had described. The subject must be asleep. Everyone was sleeping.

But one would not wake up.

When the helicopter rose over the forest and metallic voices addressed him, he had time to look back—an armored German police van was blocking the road.

He turned the car across the ditch up onto the hill. A light feeling of success carried him over stones and hummocks. The car struck the embankment and the motor stopped.

He ran toward the trees. The helicopter clattered overhead, the metal voices ordered him to stop. A round of bullets punctured the grass, but he managed to get into the woods. Dogs barked, he heard orders, shots. The forest spun him around, put roots and holes under his feet, lashed him with branches.

There was a sandy niche, a lair, under an overhang, and he crawled in, crazed by the running.

A gas grenade fell from above, hissing, scattering white, acid smoke. He could still activate the container, let Neophyte out; he tried to find it, at least touch it, feel that he had a weapon.

His pocket was empty. The bottle had fallen out along the way.

Weeping from the tear gas, he crawled out, covered in leaves like a forest demon.

A semicircle of soldiers in black gas masks aimed their weapons at him.

Shershnev slowly raised his hands.

More and more SWAT team soldiers ran out of the woods.

The barrels looked him in the face. The only visible face among dozens of black masks.

That evening it would be in all the papers. On television. On the Internet.

On the smartphone of the boy from the container.

On Maxim’s smartphone.

Shershnev felt tears running down his cheeks, not tears of relief, but tears caused by the acrid gas.

SERGEI LEBEDEV has been called the most important younger Russian author writing today. His novels have been translated into many languages and three of his works— Oblivion, The Year of the Comet and The Goose Fritz —have been published in English to great acclaim by New Vessel Press.

ANTONINA W. BOUIS has translated over 80 works by Russian authors such as Evgeny Yevtushenko, Mikhail Bulgakov and Andrei Sakharov. Bouis, previously executive director of the Soros Foundation in the former USSR, now lives in New York City.

OBLIVION

BY SERGEI LEBEDEV

In one of the first 21st century Russian novels to probe the legacy of the Soviet prison camp system, a young man travels to the vast wastelands of the Far North to uncover the truth about a shadowy neighbor who saved his life, and whom he knows only as Grandfather II. Emerging from today’s Russia, where the ills of the past are being forcefully erased from public memory, this masterful novel represents an epic literary attempt to rescue history from the brink of oblivion.

https://newvesselpress.com/books/oblivion/

THE YEAR OF THE COMET

BY SERGEI LEBEDEV

A story of a Russian boyhood and coming of age as the Soviet Union is on the brink of collapse. Lebedev depicts a vast empire coming apart at the seams, transforming a very public moment into something tender and personal, and writes with stunning beauty and shattering insight about childhood and the growing consciousness of a boy in the world.

https://newvesselpress.com/books/year-of-the-comet/

GOOSE FRITZ

BY SERGEI LEBEDEV

This revelatory novel tells the story of a young Russian, the sole survivor of a once numerous clan of German origin, who delves relentlessly into the unresolved past. The Goose Fritz illuminates both personal and political history in a passion-filled family saga about an often confounding country that has long fascinated the world.

https://newvesselpress.com/books/the-goose-fritz/

WHAT’S LEFT OF THE NIGHT

BY ERSI SOTIROPOULOS

Constantine Cavafy arrives in Paris in 1897 on a trip that will deeply shape his future and push him toward his poetic inclination. With this lyrical novel, tinged with an hallucinatory eroticism that unfolds over three unforgettable days, celebrated Greek author Ersi Sotiropoulos depicts Cavafy in the midst of a journey of self-discovery across a continent on the brink of massive change. A stunning portrait of a budding author—before he became C.P. Cavafy, one of the 20th century’s greatest poets—that illuminates the complex relationship of art, life, and the erotic desires that trigger creativity.

http://newvesselpress.com/books/whats-left-night/

THE 6:41 TO PARIS

BY JEAN-PHILIPPE BLONDEL

Cécile, a stylish 47-year-old, has spent the weekend visiting her parents outside Paris. By Monday morning, she’s exhausted. These trips back home are stressful and she settles into a train compartment with an empty seat beside her. But it’s soon occupied by a man she recognizes as Philippe Leduc, with whom she had a passionate affair that ended in her brutal humiliation 30 years ago. In the fraught hour and a half that ensues, Cécile and Philippe hurtle towards the French capital in a psychological thriller about the pain and promise of past romance.

http://newvesselpress.com/books/the-641-to-paris/

THE BISHOP’S BEDROOM

BY PIERO CHIARA

World War Two has just come to an end and there’s a yearning for renewal. A man in his thirties is sailing on Lake Maggiore in northern Italy, hoping to put off the inevitable return to work. Dropping anchor in a small, fashionable port, he meets the enigmatic owner of a nearby villa. The two form an uneasy bond, recognizing in each other a shared taste for idling and erotic adventure. A sultry, stylish psychological thriller executed with supreme literary finesse.

https://newvesselpress.com/books/the-bishops-bedroom/