Darragh McKeon - All That Is Solid Melts into Air

Yevgeni hasn’t properly put it all to use yet. All he has bought are two pairs of gym shorts and, of course, the running shoes. Stupid idea. He thought he was being careful, staying within the limits of what’s acceptable, but he can’t blame himself for getting caught. It was just dumb luck that his mother happened to be home that evening. He panicked, he knows it. If he’d been more casual, said a couple of words, made nice, thought of a decent excuse for being back, then went to his room, it wouldn’t have been a problem. But he panicked. Understandable, though: I mean, when is she ever home?

He’s storing up the money. It’s not so much yet, but it will be; it’s steady, it’s growing. His bedside lamp has a hollow base, so he rolls up the money and hides it in there. He’ll probably soon have more saved than his mother does, which only goes to show how shit-poor her wages are. All that sweat over wrinkled clothes. It won’t be him. Already he’s got rid of the laundry run, fixed it so Ivan Egorov will do it for him instead, and the sweet justice of this situation causes a warm rush in his chest every time he thinks about it. He approached Ivan in the school yard, made him an offer. Ivan, of course, already knew about Yevgeni’s new contacts. He asked about his finger, mumbled his apology, which Yevgeni pretended not to hear, which Ivan then had to repeat, louder, more clearly. The most satisfying sentence Yevgeni has ever heard anyone speak. This is what Iakov means when he talks about influence.

Of course, his mother will find out that her boy is no longer delivering her laundry, but he’s prepared for this eventuality, he’ll pass it off as a favour: Ivan wants him to do well, they’ve become friends—this is what he’ll say, not that she’ll be convinced. But she’ll be fine. He’ll play the kiddie piece tonight and then have free rein to do what he wants. She’ll have even less reason to object when she finds out about the money. The Conservatory will probably mean more expenses.

So, not much will be said, she’ll ask her questions because she feels she has to and he won’t answer because he doesn’t have to, and she’ll take the money, take his help. Tonight will make everything all right. He’s been practicing hard. He knows the piece backwards. He’s not even really nervous, though that might change in front of all those people.

“Come on inside.”

“I can’t,” Yevgeni says. “There’s somewhere I have to be.”

“What? You’re such a busy man that you can’t spare five minutes? Come on, say hello to a few friends of mine. It’ll do you good.”

“I really can’t. It’s important.”

“Don’t insult me, ‘It’s important.’ This is important too. These are people it will do you good to know. If they get to know your name, that’s a good thing, Zhenya. It’ll be a help to your mother, believe me.”

Iakov leads him through a corridor to a lighted doorway at the end. To the right of the door sits a two-tone barber’s chair, white and beige. A framed photograph of Yuri Gagarin hangs over one of the mirrors; over the other is a black-and-white photo of some Spartak footballer. In the corner there are some fake plants, stooping due to the weight of the dust that’s layered their leaves. To the left of the door there’s a table surrounded by seven men, some similar to Anatoly with the same withered features, and a couple of others Yevgeni recognizes as the men who were roasting potatoes that time Iakov had called him over.

There’s a poker game going on, and when they see Yevgeni the men kick up.

“Hey, what is this?”

“No cartoons in here, Iakov. Get the fucking kid out.”

“He’s a kid, it’s fine.”

“You’re a fucking kid—this one here, he’s barely out of nappies. I don’t want him squealing and bitching in my ear. Put him back in his playpen.”

“He’s a kid, he’s quiet.”

“I swear I never want another one in my sight. Fucking screaming at three in the morning. How many mornings was I woken up by bawling?”

“Too many.”

The men all nod in consent.

“Come on,” Iakov reasons. “He’s been walking around for me for the last few hours. Let him stay long enough to warm up his bones.”

Anatoly stands up, pointing towards Iakov.

“I know this boy since he was four years old. Before he had that girl’s haircut, which, by the way, I have offered three thousand times.”

“No cutting my hair, Anatoly. Forget it. It’s where I draw my great strength.”

He flexes a nascent bicep.

A round of guffaws.

Anatoly takes Iakov by the shoulders, pushes him into a chair, and nods towards Yevgeni.

“Your child can stay, but if I hear a fucking squeak.”

“He won’t say anything.”

“A single fucking squeak, so help me.”

Anatoly looks at Yevgeni, winks, and points towards the barber’s chair. Yevgeni sits down to watch.

Silence sweeps through the room, and the men get down to the serious business of the game. One of them whips the cards around the table, and they don’t take them up and look at them, as Yevgeni has always done the few times they played at home; instead they keep them flat, taking only a brief peek at the corners. They don’t use roubles to bet but various mechanical materials, a combination of nails and bolts and screws and nuts. There’s a mound of these in the middle of the table and various-sized clumps in front of the men. Yevgeni knows he should go. His mother and aunt and Mr. Leibniz will be waiting. But twenty minutes more. He has twenty minutes before he really needs to leave. He can make up some time by running. He watches and keeps his mouth shut and the game expands into sequences, ranging from the tense and perfunctory—where everyone is concentrated on the other, throwing little sidelong looks, one of them massaging some small bolts in his hands as though he is rolling a cigarette—to a more expansive mode, where they drink and laugh and talk of obscure things, of women and former jobs. And occasionally there’s an eruption, when someone takes a hand unexpectedly, when they brandish their cards, laying them out like a fan, wrists up, and there follows an outburst from the others, an intestinal moaning, hands slung towards the ceiling in frustration at the vagaries of the game. Yevgeni has never actually seen grown men play a game up close before. How odd it seems that, even at their age, they are caught up in the same dilemmas as he sees in his school yard, the laws of luck and skill.

Yevgeni can’t make out who’s winning. Each pile of chips seems to be roughly the same shape and size, with the exception of Anatoly’s, whose resources are quickly depleting, forcing him to play more erratically, until finally a hand comes down to Anatoly and another man. Anatoly has no more nails or screws in front of him; everything has been pushed to the centre of the table. Iakov drums the table lightly to ratchet up the tension, and Anatoly looks at him as if he might reach forward and pull Iakov’s fingers from their sockets, and so he stops, looking sheepish.

Anatoly lays his cards forward. Yevgeni can tell it’s an impressive hand by their expressions, the downturned mouths and tucked chins and faint nods. The man opposite takes a moment to display his own cards, enjoying the moment of strike, looking at Anatoly with a predatory eye. Yevgeni can tell by this look, even before the man shows his hand, that Anatoly has been defeated. Anatoly knows it too, a small death occurring throughout his features, the faint glaze of hope and expectation extinguished, and his face becomes even more shrunken, looking as though it might be swallowed by his shoulders at any moment.

He shakes hands reluctantly with the other man and walks from the table in disgust, sitting on the arm of the barber’s chair, suffering the ultimate cardplayer’s indignity, unable to participate in a game in his own home.