Сергей Жадан - Mesopotamia

Somewhere near the beginning of August, with a mere four days remaining before his flight back, Aunt Amalia suggested they throw Bob a going-away party. She and Bob were the only ones in attendance. Lilith blatantly snubbed them, while Uncle Alex got held up at work. He did call, though, telling them to start the festivities without him. Amalia drank and griped about the trials of family life—the callousness of men and the ingratitude of children. Bob backed her up as best he could, saying, “Yeah, yeah, callousness, ingratitude, and God knows what else.” Amalia decided to call her daughter a little before midnight; she immediately threw a fit, yelling, crying, and making empty threats. Suddenly, she passed the phone to Bob.

“What’s going on back there?” He heard Lilith’s serene and slightly cold voice. Bob looked around the room. Amalia was crying in the corner, her fingers clinging to her menthol cigarette. An empty serving dish crowned the table.

“We’re having a party,” he told his cousin.

“Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do. You put her to bed. Then you go to bed, too. I’ll be home shortly.” Her voice didn’t sound as metallic, and, moreover, Bob understood what she was getting at. “Of course,” he thought. “This is it. She’s planned everything out; she’s thought everything through. She means, ‘Go to bed, but don’t fall asleep. I’ll be home shortly. I just can’t wait.’ Did she actually say ‘I just can’t wait?’ Obviously she did. I heard it with my own two ears.” Bob helped Amalia ascend the steps to the second floor, and as soon as she collapsed on her bed, without even taking off her housecoat, he raced over to his room and started getting ready for Lilith. He put his dirty laundry away, took some dishes to the kitchen, lit a candle—setting some magazines on fire in the process—soused everything with water, hastily tried to air out the room, struggled to close the window (he just couldn’t figure it out), and then finally lay down in his drafty room. Ten minutes passed, then twenty, then forty. Despair was gradually tightening its grip on him. His eyes grew tired of staring into the dark. Suddenly, something squeaked in the hallway. “The door! The front door!” he thought, immediately recognizing the sound. It was her. Timid steps pattered down the hallway; somebody bumped into the wall a few times, the door to his room squeaked open too, and a warm, female figure slid through the gloom and landed next to him. Before he could launch into his rehearsed speech about the insurmountable thirst for love and about temptation which, once yielded to, could not be renounced, he caught a glimpse of slightly faded curls, Aunt Amalia’s curls—he was truly horrified when he noticed the menthol cigarette in her right hand, overcome with despair when he felt her left hand creeping down his stomach. But before Aunt Amalia managed to do anything nice or anything that would be of any use to him, his nerves snapped, breaking like guitar strings, and all the wistfulness and penitence that had been accumulating in him for the past few months came bursting out, severing all of Aunt Amalia’s hopes for a long, sleepless night, severing all of Bob’s aspirations to dig down to some golden intimacy. To her credit, Amalia didn’t say a word. She merely settled in next to him, pulled yet another cigarette from the pocket of her housecoat, and started waiting. Bob talked the whole time, trying to adopt a flat and self-assured tone—not making any excuses, yet explaining everything to her, trying not to look silly, but still aiming to have them laugh it off.

“Extended abstinence,” he explained. “Meditation and vows of self-denial. We warrior monks handle cold steel weapons more often than women, so it should come as no surprise that such an unfortunate mishap occurred. But do not, on any account, reproach yourself,” he told Amalia, “don’t assume any of the blame—you did everything right, you did everything you could, you did everything as you’ve grown accustomed to do, you poor, hapless woman.” It’s just that he’d grown accustomed to slightly different types of relationships and a different degree of passion, which he’d demonstrate presently—Bob spoke with a great deal of confidence, since somewhere deep down in his heart, which had been broken and haphazardly pieced back together, he felt a certain eagerness to continue this struggle to which he was already committed. So he intercepted her left hand and placed it on his stomach. Amalia was about to get frisky—she even put her cigarette aside—but as soon as she touched what Bob had been pontificating about for the past forty-five minutes, everything played out much as it had the first time around. Dejected, Amalia merely wiped her hand on her damp housecoat, while Bob despairingly scrunched himself up under a heap of pillows to hide his shame and hopelessness. Suddenly, the front door squeaked open. This time it actually was Lilith. Bob heard a cold, crystalline jingling somewhere beneath his throat. That was the last remnants of his heart breaking. Amalia got up and stepped out into the hallway, making no effort to be discreet. She asked her daughter something and told her something. Lilith laughed buoyantly and then headed to her room. The inside lock of her bedroom door slammed down with a thud in the silence of the house.

In the morning, Bob informed everyone that he had to leave right away, since he’d arranged a bunch of important business meetings in NYC before his flight back home. He simply couldn’t waste another minute of his precious time. He thanked everyone for their hospitality, offered to pay for the broken shower head, and promised to write. “No big deal,” he thought feverishly. “I’ll camp out at my classmate’s place for the next three days. Just get as far away from this shameful debacle as possible.” Oddly enough, his relations were saddened and moved by having to say goodbye, encouraging him to come back anytime, even tomorrow, if he wanted, trying to talk him out of leaving at all, tempting him, and providing him with unsolicited advice. For some reason, Uncle Alex was the one who was beating himself up the most over Bob leaving them. Lilith was the least affected. Amalia walked him to the front door and gave him a tender kiss on the lips.

“Women, it’s all because of them,” he thought, as the train ripped past the grim outskirts of Philadelphia toward the expansive horizon. “It’s our interactions with them and our interest in them that change everything in our hearts. Life never makes any guarantees—in most cases it asks you to take it at its word. When you do trust it, when you open up and leave yourself defenseless, life sweeps away all your hopes and dreams like a raging river sweeping away a fishing village. My path of conquest across America, that wild land to which submission is utterly foreign, was severed by a woman’s tender yet firm movements, by the exceedingly deep and smoke-filled breaths of one woman and the slightly immature—scratch that—the incredibly childish, reckless abandon of another. Who will rescue me from this sad predicament? Who can I depend on? My family won’t be able to help me at all—it’s not their job to fix my premature ejaculation. My friends won’t solve my problems; they’ll merely commiserate with me for a while, then dump their own troubles on me. What stories could they tell? What advice could they give? One of them is sleeping with his first cousin, and one of them is dating a former prostitute. What do prostitutes have to do with me?” Bob pondered, getting even more riled up. “What is prostitution, when you get right down to it? Undoubtedly, it means your life’s a complete wreck, that you’ve fallen and given in to meekness. Then what is it about those women that attracts us? What compels us to lend a helping hand? What drives us to find common ground with them? Society’s scorn for them? Undoubtedly, it’s society’s scorn for them. Courageous and valiant men are the last to pay any heed to society’s sanctimonious double standards. It’s just the opposite, they defy religious and moral dogma. They find women who are no less courageous and valiant, then they stick with them, since it is alongside these women that they experience the fullness of life and the depth of feeling. What kind of people decide to become prostitutes? Those blessed by fate. Strong, complete individuals. Tameless lovers, happy brides, children showered with love. Heroes of Socialist Labor, straight-A students. Mothers with many children and inexhaustible reserves of tenderness, widows who adopt orphans and love the dry breath of champagne. So who else should I be thinking about?” Bob wondered, bouncing around in between train cars on his way to NYC. “Who else should I exalt in my daily quest to get in touch with my spiritual side? After all, most of them lead much more meaningful lives than I do, lives charged with social significance and public-spirited activism. I’m sure that their ranks are mostly filled by environmental activists and politicians, managers of institutions of high culture, and church choir singers. Undoubtedly, most of them are well-versed in the fields of political economy and public relations; undoubtedly, most of them tend to identify most closely with the neoliberal model of economic development and the Bologna Process. They are all fascinated by choral music and team sports; they all successfully juggle their interests in surfing, tennis, and healthy morning runs. In the morning, they gather at their local swimming pools and gyms to praise providence for the opportunity to be part of time and space, for the joy they derive from being immersed in the dark river of this epoch, for the sweet honey on their lips and the roses at their feet, and the joy of socializing with the most renowned visionaries and inventors of this heroic age.” Suddenly, Bob understood that he was raving, possibly even out loud. It’s a good thing there were only black people around—they could never understand him anyway. White people couldn’t understand him either, as a matter of fact. Nevertheless, he was coming down with something, which was to be expected, much like the rain in November. He had to nurse this cold. He had to get back home.