Сергей Жадан - Mesopotamia

Ten years ago, time stopped for me, and it has been determinedly refusing to move forward ever since. My internal mechanisms paused and my heart took to beating like it was a service industry employee with a bad attitude—doing a passable job, but not making any guarantees. Everything irritated me, even the smell of my own clothes. Turning thirty was a trap. There was no fun to be had immersing myself in the unknown and no joy to be found continuing what I had already started. Just morning fire in my head, afternoon emptiness in my throat, harsh evening light, and my hatred, terrible and practiced religiously, for anyone trying to do something nice for me, and terrible vengeance to be exacted upon anyone who tried to help me. I’d already managed to get divorced twice by the time I was thirty. I would have gone for the triple crown, but I didn’t have any takers. My habits scared women off. The fact that I hardly ever slept, and that I wouldn’t wake up for a long time when I did, put them on edge. They sat by me in the cold twilight on old sheets, hovering over me, fearfully observing my breathing, taking my pulse, hastily calling their friends for advice, carefully touching my shoulder, turning me over so I wouldn’t choke on my own bile. Back then, I’d dream of sand dunes. They flowed through my life, leaving no trace except the stifling heat of my room. I’d dream of snakes and ground-dwelling birds, I’d dream of signs written in dark clay, I’d dream of taciturn children who gathered poisonous berries among dry branches and offered them to me, seemingly exhorting me, “Come on, try one already. You don’t know what you’re missing. This is the strangest flavor you’ll ever taste—only death tastes like this. It’s better than any spice imaginable, it’s sweeter than any drug cocktail imaginable. Just try it—wake up and try it.” Naturally, that left me with no desire to wake up.

Sometimes the women couldn’t take it anymore and they’d go run errands. Sometimes they’d just sit there, waiting courteously. But they’d all leave eventually. Sometimes they’d come back and continue to sit on sheets salty as sails. My sex life sure was incredible. In the afternoon, I’d compose myself and head to the radio station, switch on my battered, virus-laden computer, sift through some CDs, fecklessly try to clean up my desk, then get frustrated and wander out into the hallway… you know, for a cigarette break or a cup of tea. The flickering glow of the Polytechnic Institute, where my studio was located, towered over the trees, a few scattered lights shining in the classrooms. Darkness pooled between the buildings; the neighborhood smelled of early spring and damp alleyways. I never wanted to leave this city, and I never wanted to go back to the studio, not for anything.

Ten years ago, she graduated from college and tried looking at the world from an adult’s perspective. The world was out of focus. For a while there, her parents thought she was still in school, so they would stubbornly wake her up for nonexistent morning classes. Her dad was a professional freeloader, and he seemed to be doing just dandy. Her mom worked at the post office, so she knew all the ins and outs of the postal system and could talk about it for hours—if anybody cared to listen, that is. In the winter, she started working at some charity foundation, but they turned out to not be very charitable when it came to paying their employees, so it’d be a bit of a stretch to call that a real job. Vadyk Salmonella, a big-time musician, brought her to the studio; they’d been dating for about a month, but Vadyk simply wouldn’t acknowledge her in public, especially after concerts, despite everything they’d done together. He’d been through the wringer—nearly deaf, pumped full of shitty booze, his vocal cords absolutely shot, like a real rock star. He’d walk right by and blatantly ignore her. She’d break down crying. Apparently he liked this whole act, and apparently she did too. You can enjoy just about anything, even hanging out with complete assholes.

She came in after him, sat down by the door, took out her cell, her anger boiling over, and started texting confidently, snubbing everyone by not even saying hello. Vadyk tossed his leather backpack at her feet and made a big show of forgetting she was there. Fair hair, a white jacket that she’d tossed on the floor just like Vadyk’s backpack, fingers burned pink by the wind, moles on her neck, a school uniform sweater exposing her sharp collarbone, a mistrustful gaze, tense movements, a childish expression on her face, filthy shoes, and pretty knees.

“That your daughter?” I said to Vadyk, nodding instead of giving him a proper greeting.

“Fucking what? Of course not,” he replied in a surly tone; then our radio show got under way.

Vadyk talked about rock ’n’ roll, the rebel’s cause, the aesthetics of freedom, protest songs, and expanding your consciousness for exactly twenty minutes, not counting the breaks for music. She was sitting in the corner, just shaking her head discontentedly. She had a plastic bracelet on her right wrist—basically, she looked like she’d borrowed her mom’s clothes for a night on the town. After the show, Vadyk and I stood out in the hallway, contemplating the glow beyond the windows. He produced some cognac; I passed—the idea of swigging from the same bottle as him was downright scary. You never know what you could pick up. “Poor girl,” I thought.

“How old is she?” I asked Vadyk.

“How the hell should I know? Ya think I checked her driver’s license?”

“Well, is she good?”

“Nah, man, she doesn’t know a thing and she doesn’t want to learn.”

“Let me know when you split up. I’ll teach ’er a thing or two.”

“You betcha,” Vadyk said with a chuckle.

I noticed how quickly he’d started aging. Burst capillaries, inflamed gums, and black teeth. “The fish rots from the head,” I thought.

But what could I actually teach her? What did I know? How to shirk my responsibilities, play it safe, talk about things I had no interest in, and socialize with people who didn’t really matter. What could he teach her? Nothing good. We’d make meaningless small talk, trying to keep up some front and acting like a bunch of cocky jerks, never really believing anyone and never really forgiving anyone. Vadyk tried killing himself a few months later, got all tangled up in the noose, and hung there for a while until some of his friends came by and brought him back down to earth.

Nine years ago, she showed up at a gallery opening with Hustav, patiently following him in and shoving her way through a thick mass of friends and casual acquaintances. A new camera dangled from Hustav’s neck; he was snapping some pictures of old girlfriends—about two dozen of the notches on his bedpost were in attendance. We hugged for quite a while and asked for a detailed update on each other’s lives, although we already knew everything there was to know—the world is small, life is short, and people tend to gossip. She’d changed her hairstyle recently, and the new one looked good on her. Her face had suddenly turned out to be much more interesting. Her features became more distinct whenever she looked away, as if a sheet of ice had cracked and water was flowing freely under her skin. She was wearing a leather jacket, bright orange stockings, and tattered ballet slippers to top off her outlandish getup. “Maybe she just walks a lot,” I thought, glancing at her footwear. She intercepted my gaze and tensed up. She didn’t recognize me, obviously, made no effort at small talk, of course, yet agreed to have a cigarette with me outside.

“Are you going to date every single one of my friends?” I asked.

No response. She was probably trying to figure out whether or not she should take offense; she decided against it.