Сергей Жадан - Mesopotamia

“You serious?” I asked incredulously.

“I’m dead serious. By the way, she has a red nightgown, too. She’s always just standing there, drinking her tea. Her rum tea. They just put up a new apartment block over there, but nobody wanted to move in at first. It was too pricey. So some construction workers lived there for a bit—they unrolled their sleeping bags, cooked meat on open fires, and rummaged around in the warehouses for something good to eat. I’m tellin’ ya, they lived like a band of partisans. Down around the corner, there are a few convenience stores, but they’re always closed for some reason. Nobody really knows what kind of business they’re actually running. I’ve seen some young women go in there, but I’ve never seen them come out. There are some houses on small lots at the bottom of the hill—there’s nobody living down there—but hey, there’s nobody dying, either. There are tons of trees. Everything’s in bloom this time of year. On the top floors, the lights are always on at night, and there’s generally some kind of business—maybe a Xerox place, or a notary, or a place where they make headstones—on the lower floors. There’s a gas station and some auto repair shops down the road—and the river, too. The army recruiting office is right below us,” she said, leaning down. “I know a couple of secretaries who work there… it’s a real tough job, it wears you down. Have you served yet?”

“No,” I answered reluctantly.

“I see, well, last but not least, there’s our building. All right, take a look.” She leaned so far over the balcony rail she nearly fell, but I grabbed a flap of her robe just in the nick of time. “Two Armenian guys live on the first floor. Ya smell that cologne? They’re goin’ heavy on it. They’ve told everyone they’re brothers, but I don’t buy it. You see the windows and the antenna? Anfisa lives there, she’s a journalist—well, she’s the weather girl. If she invites you over just don’t go. You won’t be in there five minutes before her mom starts asking if you’ve set a date for the wedding. So don’t go there unless you really need to know if it’s gonna rain. There’s an empty apartment on the second floor. The old owner—he was a big hunter—had a shootout with the cops. Vendetta!” Dasha shouted giddily. “I was just moving in when he was trying to fend them off. He used to be an artilleryman. He’d been mending clothes for a few years before that. He kept his gun loaded, though. Nobody moved in after him. It smells like death down there. Across the hall from the artillery guy’s place there’s Hutalin—he’s a Communist and a real dickwad.”

“A dickwad?”

“Yeah, a bigtime dickwad. He’s a real louse, always flooding his downstairs neighbors’ apartments. He acts like it’s just our shitty plumbing, but I think he does it on purpose. Then there’s our floor, you already know everything about that.”

“No, I don’t. How’d you wind up with two apartments?”

“It’s none of your business,” Dasha answered, “but I’ll tell you anyway. My ex-husband left me the one I live in. His grandma used to live there. She didn’t really like her grandson, so she left me her apartment.”

“Where is that husband of yours?” I asked with some suspicion.

“In the Emirates, I think,” Dasha answered. “Or Saudi Arabia. He moved all his assets overseas. It’s too cold for him here.”

“What about his grandma?”

“His grandma died. She was one tough cookie. She was a mail lady, and she stuck it out to the end… i.e., until she got canned. Oh yeah, upstairs,” she whispered, “you hear those footsteps? That’s Mr. Ivanovich. He’s trying to sell some factory… has been for ten years already, but no dice. Hey, John!” she yelled into the sky.

Up above, a man—a bit under forty, a little too skinny, weary eyes, cigarette between his teeth, dark-colored suit, stale shirt—poked his head out. He nodded amiably at Dasha and gave me an attentive look—he had the air of a guy who just got back from a wake.

“Is that one yours?” he asked.

“Yep,” she confirmed—it didn’t seem like she’d understood his question.

“They grow up so fast…”

“Huh?”

“Forget it.” He waved and went inside, shutting the balcony door.

“If you scream at night, he’ll hear you. Well,” Dasha said, adjusting her robe like the general of a defeated army tightening his greatcoat. “Soak it all up.”

But how could I possibly soak it up? What kind of life would I have here? I couldn’t keep my cool any longer. “I’m not gonna get any, am I?” I thought, standing by the window and observing the rising sun. “What’s going on in that crazy head of hers?” I just stood there on the balcony till the afternoon and then lay around in bed till evening, when I went out to meet her on her way back from work, putting on the remnants of my stoic face and hiding my rage and despair behind my sunglasses. I prowled up and down the street—from the army recruiting office to the TB clinic, and from the beauty salon to the mistresses’ mansion, going there and back—back and forth, over and over again. After yet another round trip, I saw her at the end of the street, walking slowly and looking at the fires behind the yellow windows of evening. I headed toward her, keeping it strong and silent. I said hello, asked her how she was doing, told her about my exciting day, and fed her some line about having a bunch of business meetings—“I was running around all day (yeah, in my sandals, why not?) and meeting with all my business partners (well yeah, with my shades on, obviously). It’s a good thing we bumped into each other. Let me walk you back to the apartment. I’ll carry some of those things for you.” All she had was a glossy business magazine, which she refused to let me take.

She ascended the stairs without a word, clearly preoccupied; she even tried lighting the filter of her cigarette. “That’s a good sign,” I thought. “She’s ready. She can feel it; she saw what she needed to see and now she’s down for anything.” I also noticed how different she looked in profile, like a sly fox, with a certain degree of suspicion showing in her eyes. “Huh, that’s weird,” I thought. “You can’t see any of that when you look at her straight on. It’s as though she’s concealing her real face, pretending to be someone else. It’s all in her lips—there’s something odd about their color—no, it’s the composition, but you can only see it if you look at her from the side. I guess that’s just how it goes sometimes,” I thought. “And it makes her look even better.”

On our floor, the very moment I tried to block the doorway to stop her, get in her way so I could finally touch her, somewhere deep in the pockets of her suit her phone snarled, and she pushed me aside firmly, with one brief, iron-willed motion, just like a real lawyer ought to do. She took out her cell, tensed up, ignored the incoming call, and disappeared without so much as a “Sweet dreams.”

But I had them anyway.

“My princess,” went my song of praise the next morning as I lay there staring sullenly at the ceiling in my wrinkled jeans and stale shirt. “Why must you break my heart? Why must you toss it to the pigeons in the square? They play with it, perched up on the city’s TV antennas, and I weep, my princess, while you paint your own portrait with only the most vibrant colors. Why do you keep me in these silver chains? Why do you put this black, suffocating collar around my neck and keep me from telling you all my thoughts about love and cruelty? My princess, where do you run off to every morning? In what burrows do you hide from me, you lovely fox? Why don’t you return and let me go? Why do you hold me captive? Why don’t you ever call me by name?”