Сергей Жадан - Mesopotamia

“Polish has so many hushing consonants,” they shouted excitedly, pouring Bob drink after drink. “One shudders to imagine how their church services sound! Hymns cluttered with all those consonants have gotta wake God up in the morning!” They were talking to Bob, and he even answered them, but nobody was listening to him; they kept talking and talking as the hyenas scurried into the shade and yellow snakes wove nests in the metal trash cans. The sun was blazing over church bell towers and billboards, bouncing off the windows up where the city’s warm air hovered, where rooms were filled with life and August drafts were skipping down fire escapes. The women walking down the street smiled at him, waved their hats and kerchiefs amiably, shouting cheerful and tender words, exclamations so tightly interwoven with hushing consonants and palatized vowels that Bob didn’t dare touch these nodes of language, golden, like cells in a beehive, packed with joy and delight. Joy and delight were just what he had the direst need of when he woke up that morning and found his dad’s old suitcase unscathed; it was for the sake of joy and delight that he charged into the late evening twilight, searching for public transportation and brotherly love.

He made for the Bronx, crossed the river, and found them. They were standing outside some banks and clothing stores, closed at such a late hour. One might even have concluded that they bought their outfits at those very stores. Bob stood still, warily sniffing around like a seasoned stray dog, thinking about turning back… but then he realized it was now or never: “I’ll keep reproaching myself for being so weak-willed and I’ll continue to search for some sort of justification for my fears and insecurities if I don’t go for it. C’mon, Columbus, move your flippers,” he said, pushing himself toward all the Puerto Rican and Surinamese girls of the Bronx. There’s plenty of fish in the sea, and he soon came upon one, a short, rail-thin woman with dyed black hair, a sharp nose, and an improbably large bust—which made her all the more tempting. Her velvety voice halted him, causing his heart to spring back out of the realm of oblivion.

“Wanna chill out for a bit?” Her tone inspired trust.

“Chill out how?” Bob answered with a question, his heart aflutter, listening to the falling tone of her voice.

“I’ll show you a good time for fifty,” she promised, moving her hand back and forth as though she were brushing her teeth. “Two hundred for everything else. Don’t worry, I’m on the level and it’s all legal. What’s your name?” Bob answered; she didn’t even bother trying to remember, immediately introducing herself as Mel.

“Mem?” he asked.

“Forget it,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.”

They settled on fifty bucks. Mel-Mem took him by the arm with an air of confidence and led him down the street. Her girlfriends avoided making eye contact with her.

“We almost there?” Bob asked.

“Another quarter-mile,” she assured him. “It’s slow going in these heels, though.”

Bob finally noticed them. It probably wasn’t too easy for her to walk… but they had to keep going. “Let me get us a cab,” she suggested. Bob tensed up, but didn’t object. She waved at a taxi that seemed to be waiting for them. They hopped in, drove half a block, and stopped.

“Pay him,” she said quietly. Bob handed the cab driver a ten-dollar bill; he thanked them cheerfully. For some reason, the cab driver put him at ease. “He could have taken us outside the city,” Bob thought, “and dismembered us. Well, that’s what I would have done at least.” They passed a Chinese restaurant, then ducked through an arch, crossed a courtyard, skirted some shiny metal dumpsters, ascended some stairs, and opened a dark, inconspicuous door. Two security guards were sitting on chairs by the entrance to the building. Their unfriendly, inattentive eyes slid down Bob and Mel-Mem, and then they resumed their conversation. She snatched a key from one of them and dragged Bob up another steep flight of stairs. There were red lamps hanging on the walls and the floor was covered with shaggy white carpeting. The place felt like a darkroom. It smelled like one, too.

They walked to the end of a hallway; she opened a door and stepped through. He peered inside—the room was gloomy and dank. There was a small, empty desk off to the left, while a large bed with some strange curly wooden banisters, silk sheets, and other crap loomed off to the right. “Uncle Alex’s bed looked just like this one,” Bob recalled suddenly, which made him even more dejected. Off to the side, an open door led toward a small shower. The lights were on, and there were clean towels hanging up. She immediately took charge, like a chipper hostess.

“All righty then, do you want to take a shower?”

“I’ve been wanting to for three days now,” Bob answered.

“Okay. Give me some money and I’ll get us something to drink. You have to buy drinks here,” she explained. “What do you want?”

“Is there any Polish booze?” Bob inquired.

“I’ll find out,” she said, taking his money. “What’s the matter with your nose?” She was referring to Bob’s sniffling. “Drugs?”

“Boxing,” Bob explained. “The bridge of my nose is all busted up.” Then she turned around and left without saying a word.

“She’s not coming back, obviously,” he thought, lying on the bed and contemplating the shadows on the ceiling. “She’s clearly left this building and evaporated. She’s long gone. I probably won’t ever see her again. Obviously, I won’t even recognize her if we do cross paths again. Mem, oh Mem, where have you gone? Why’d you drag me over here onto these fiery sheets? Why’d you ditch me in the middle of the stuffy summer night—without any love, without any compassion, and without any alcohol to boot?”

The door opened quietly, and she slid inside.

“How ya doing?” she asked. “How’s the shower?”

“It works,” Bob answered succinctly. Not sure what he was getting at, she simply handed him a glass filled with golden poison. “If I don’t die, I’ll inherit eternal life,” Bob thought, and drank it in one gulp. Then she got down to business. She had a certain fierce intensity about her. But there was something mechanical, disheartening, and utterly unpromising about that intensity; too many frills, too much facade. At first, she made Bob lie down and keep still, as if she didn’t know what to expect from him, and the mere fact that he could move of his own volition was unnerving. She followed his changing facial expressions warily, listened closely to the gurgling sounds coming from the back of his throat, and groped at his crazy-ass shorts, either to please him or just because—or to check if he was packing some psychotropic substances or, at the very least, some kind of knife or switchblade. She started moaning immediately—without interrupting her task. She was moaning with stubborn passion. At one point, Bob started feeling like an infant being rocked to sleep. He even lifted his head to make sure she was doing all right. Unlike him, she was doing just fine—she was toiling away, two-handed, as though she were trying to light a fire with soggy kindling. Eventually, she lifted her head, too, intercepting his gaze. She stopped brusquely and tossed back a strand of hair that had fallen into her face.

“What’s the deal? Too much alcohol?” she asked.

“Yep, that’s part of it,” Bob answered dejectedly.

“Well, how ’bout this…” She took her job seriously, and something about this cowboy with Irish deer running around his hatband had gotten to her, so she wanted him to get his money’s worth. “Throw in another fifty bucks and I’ll let you touch my breasts.”