Сергей Жадан - Mesopotamia

“I don’t remember my dad,” Alla said. “He crashed before I went to kindergarten.”

“Was he a pilot?” Yura asked diplomatically.

“Yep. A test pilot. He did two stints in compulsory rehab.”

“Gotcha,” Yura answered respectfully.

“I’ve always gotten along with my stepdad, though,” she continued. “But something’s up with him. He’s a gardener somewhere outside of town… and he talks to the trees now.”

“Maybe he just needs somebody to talk to,” Yura conjectured.

“Well, obviously he does. The people he works for are Vietnamese, it’s not like he can chat it up with them. So he talks to the pear trees, that’s better than nothing.”

After he’d returned to the ward in the morning, Yura tried to draw the young guy out a little. Sania answered curtly and brusquely, though; he wouldn’t meet him halfway. He must have been pissed. Even Valera got quiet, sitting there and observing the action from his bed. Yura decided not to pressure him. “All right,” he thought, “we’ll figure this out eventually.” He threw on a shirt and stepped out for a smoke. Valera caught up to him by the fountain.

“What’s up with Sania?” he asked.

“He’s all riled up.”

“’Cause of the nurse?”

“Uh-huh.”

“That’s what I thought. What are you gonna do?”

“Well, I guess I gotta marry her.”

“Are you for real?” he said, horrified. “Yura, you’re kidding, right? Have you seen her?”

“Only in the dark,” Yura joked.

“She definitely has another guy,” Valera whispered despairingly. “A girl like that just can’t be single. She’s gonna wind up biting your head off, and Sania’s too.”

“Is she a shark all of a sudden? And why Sania too?” Yura asked, confused.

“Because misery loves company. I’m telling you, she definitely has another guy,” Valera said, still all worked up. “She’s keeping you on the down-low, you know that.”

“Well, she’s at work, man.”

“Bullshit,” Valera countered. “You wouldn’t believe the kind of stuff I used to pull at work. Did anyone ever say anything to me? You’ll see,” he whispered, looking around, eyes apprehensive. “There’s only one way to check,” he said conspiratorially.

“Oh yeah?” Yura threw out his cigarette butt.

“Run away with her.”

“Where would we go?”

“Wherever. The farther the better. My first wife and I did that once. Did I show you the pictures?”

“The pictures of you?”

“Nah, the pictures of her.”

“Yeah, you did.”

“Well, I pretty much kidnapped her right in the middle of a rehearsal. The firemen had to come and catch the tigers afterward.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Then it was off to Crimea for a month.”

“Who went to Crimea? The tigers?”

“Nah, we did.”

“How come?”

“How come? I couldn’t tell ya. We were scared—we panicked. Then we decided to make things the way they were before. And things went back to the way they were. That’s to say, bad. But you won’t come back. You can really do it.”

“I don’t want to go anywhere,” Yura said anxiously. “I like it here.”

“Here?” Valera nodded toward the clinic. “You like it here? ”

“So, who do you live with, by the way?” Yura asked her a few days later, when her next shift came. They were sitting in the dark room—he was smoking, not even bothering to step outside. “I’ll just burn this whole place down, with everybody inside,” he thought.

“I have some animals at home,” Alla said.

“Gotcha. What was your nickname as a kid?”

“Oh,” she said, laughing. “I had an insane nickname. Everybody called me the Alligator.”

“Because you had a lot of pets?”

“Nah, because of my smile. I had a special smile. And a ton of friends. I almost got married in high school. Everybody falls in love really early around here. Especially the women. He was a few years older than me. Just like you.” She reached through the darkness and touched his hair. Yura shuddered. “That’s why it didn’t pan out. I was very upset, I thought I was being punished for my bad behavior. Plus he was a boxer, that probably didn’t help. Then I flipped out—I just up and started sleeping with all his friends.”

“All at once?” Yura asked, confused.

“Nah, one at a time.”

“Are you a boxing fan?”

“What kind of question is that?” Alla was miffed.

Yura finished his cigarette and went back to the ward, saying that his roommates got anxious when he spent the night elsewhere.

She was gone for a couple of days. Yura approached the doctor, who explained that she’d asked for some time off because something was up with her father. Yura could picture it—the two of them standing there, chatting it up with the fruit trees.

“It would actually be nice to take her away from here,” he thought. “Right now we’re like a couple of college kids, crammed together on a pull-out bed. On the other hand, the last time a woman stuck around was five years ago. She wound up getting carted off to the looney bin.” Yura wasn’t sure he was ready for that kind of commitment.

The young guy had calmed down; he was keeping his suspicions and hard feelings to himself and avoiding Yura, opting to socialize with the circus guy instead, but the circus guy kept pulling away. Valera latched on to Yura, and whenever the latter would pick up his National Geographic, he’d simply roam the hallways and bother the staff.

Zhora showed up again toward the middle of July. He came over to the clinic right after his night shift at the pharmacy; the doctor hadn’t even started making his rounds yet. He hid behind the trees and signaled Yura with a loud whistle. The morning shadows fell thick and cold. Yura put on his shirt and tiptoed outside so as not to wake his roommates. Zhora said hello and pulled Yura into the shade, telling him that Black Devil was getting more agitated and that he’d paid Yura’s old man another visit and started threatening him. His old man didn’t lose his cool, obviously, even though Black Devil had brought two other guys along. They promised to burn his house down next time.

“They’ll do it, too,” Zhora said adamantly. “They’ll get away with it—they’re firemen after all. Why don’t you just give Black Devil a call? Maybe you can talk this out.”

“What are you so worked up about? Did Black Devil send you?”

“Go fuck yourself,” Zhora retorted. “Just think about your old man.”

“All right, I will.”

“Well, what’s there to think about?” he asked himself. “I gotta get out of here. I gotta make a deal with the doctor so they let me outta here. I gotta calm the young guy down. I gotta figure things out with Alla the Alligator. I gotta call Black Devil. But what’s he gonna do? Well, let him torch my old man’s place for all I care. I’ll bring him the lighter fluid. We’re so used to complaining about everything. We’ve gotten soft. It’s all because of our family issues. What’s with our parents? We got one guy living on the street and another talking to trees.”

It felt as though his roommates had been waiting for him to come back. As soon as he stepped into the ward, Valera poked his head out from under his covers, while the young guy ducked under his. Yura sat down on the circus guy’s bed.

“So, what were you telling me about your first wife?” Yura asked, patting the old-timer on the knee.

Valera came to life, waking up all the way, clearing his throat, and shifting over to sit closer to him.

“My wife was a local celebrity, I’ll have you know,” he started. “Dining with her was considered a real honor.”