Zakhar Prilepin - Sin

The man was in no hurry and deliberately pulled the dog towards himself slowly. The dog struggled and sprayed spit.

“You’re sick!” I shouted, shielding myself with my sleeve.

“Get out of the building,” he replied. “Go away, you tramp!”

Holding the dog on the leash and showing that he was prepared to release it, the man waited for me to get up and go out.

He shouted after me, but his words were inaudible over the barking.

Not without horror, I imagined that I had carelessly torn the rail out of the wall, and now, above the bathroom tiles, there would be two gaping holes in the crumbling plaster and whitewash.

What will I say to Vova’s classmate? What have I done!

Somehow freeing myself from the shower curtain, I looked at the place where the rail had just been, and with a feel of incredible relief realized that nothing terrible had happened.

The rail had been fixed on plastic hooks, one of which had simply turned over, thus making the iron pipe fall on me, together with the shower curtain that was attached to it.

I put the rail in its place and went out of the bathroom. No one had heard anything.

Vova was asking his classmate for a loan, but she replied that she did not have any money.

I didn’t have the energy to talk. I sat at the table in silence, completely stupefied.

In the bowl, with red froth around the edges, lay a leaf of boiled cabbage.

My friends started getting ready to go, but I couldn’t pull myself together to stand up.

“Hey, cripple, get up!” Vova called to me after a few minutes.

His classmate started taking away the dishes.

For some reason I wanted to tell her that my friends and I had not been with any women for a long time, almost three months. And before that I hadn’t been with a woman for a long time either, perhaps a whole month in addition to that. But back then I still remembered them, and now I had completely forgotten all about them, and I felt much better.

We never talk about women and never pay attention to them if we’re walking along the street. We’re always going somewhere.

But I didn’t talk about that, having remembered another story, which was very touching. How once, this winter, at the very beginning of it, I left the apartment building and saw a little girl on the swings.

I wanted to push her on the swings. This is what I said, looking into the bowl and enunciating the words with intolerable difficulty: “I… wanted… so… much… to… push… her… and she replied…”

She replied:

“Don’t touch me. You’re ugly.”

After I said that, I finally got up and went to put my coat on. I took a long time to pull on my shoes, listening to the splash of water and the sound of dishes being put away in the cupboard.

Then I searched for the arms of my jacket, for some reason finding only one arm, or three at once. The guys were already smoking in the stairwell, waiting for me.

After she had washed the dishes, she went to close the door after me, but I didn’t go out, and silently looked in her face, which I couldn’t make out, and would never remember later if I wanted to.

“I’ll give you my phone number, and you can ring me,” I said firmly, feeling as if I was going to be sick.

She shrugged her shoulders, tired.

I fished around in my pocket and took out a firm, square piece of paper.

“Give me… a feltpen… I’ll write it down.”

She took a pencil from the table by the mirror and gave it to me.

I wet the pencil with my saliva and wrote down the number, realizing that I had forgotten it somewhat and had probably got three numbers wrong out of six.

“There,” I gave her the square with crooked numbers on it.

“What is this?” she said in disgust.

On the other side of the telephone number there was the instant photo of the dead old woman. The woman’s lips were firmly closed. You could clearly see her brown eyelids and her white sunken cheeks.

“How disgusting,” said the girl in revulsion. “Where did you get that from? Why do you carry it in your pocket? You’re mad. Take it away!”

I don’t know where we found money again: I think we came across it after a fight by a kiosk at night.

I remember that Vova, endowed with incredible strength, knocked down two guys, grabbing them by the collar and throwing them onto the asphalt as if they were completely helpless.

We drank vodka in an underpass, and our hoarse lalughter was continued by a distorting, broken echo.

Vadya had disappeared somewhere, and Vova and I drank almost the entire bottle together. To chase it down, we had only a tiny toffee, which I found in my pocket, covered in specks of tobacco and fluff — from the lining.

I bit the toffee in two and gave the other half to Vova. As we swallowed the vodka, we would nibble a tiny piece of the sweet, crunching it between our teeth and grimacing.

“Vova, have you ever thought… that every year… you live out the day of your death?” I asked. “Perhaps it’s today? We live it out every year… Vova!”

Vova shook his head, not understanding a word I said.

Then Vadya came back, and we drank some more, but I just had a little bit. I took a few gulps into my mouth and spat almost everything out.

I went outside and soaked the iron wall of the kiosk with steaming urine. As I did up my pants, I saw a woman crouching nearby. She got up, pulled her pants on and returned to the kiosk, closing the heavy door behind her. We weren’t at all surprised by each other’s presence.

Forgetting about my friends, I wandered off home. I had no money for a taxi, the trams weren’t running at this hour, and I walked along, barely aware of where I was going, only sometimes coming to my senses and recognizing familiar objects in my part of town.

My path home went across the railroad tracks. I still don’t remember how many of them there are, three or four: they’re smooth, heavy rails, which come together and then diverge.

At one place on the rails, there was a battered crossing platform.

As I walked towards the tracks, I heard the rumble of an approaching train, a freight train. Sometimes I’d get the idea of counting the wagons of freight trains, but once I reached fifty I got tired.

Unless I cross the tracks now, I’ll fall down before it’s gone by, it’s heavy and long… I’ll fall down here and freeze! I realized, without saying this, and gathering my strength, I ran.

The rumble was getting nearer.

Tripping over the rails, not finding the platform, I ran diagonally, sensing the approaching iron mass, the burning smell and the heat.

In my right pupil, a lamp with a long white light was reflected.

My foot slipped, and I fell on my side, on to the gravel bank, and immediately, at that very second, I saw the black shining wheels steaking past with a terrible roar.

I gathered gravel in my palm, I felt the gravel with my cheek, and for a few minutes I couldn’t breathe: the huge wheels burnt the air, leaving a feeling of hot, stifling, mad emptiness.

By his hands I could tell that he wasn’t my enemy.

So I relaxed immediately.

He entered loudly, clinking the keys on his finger, the poser.

I looked out the window: sure enough, outside under the quiet rain falling from above, in the light of the street lamps, his long car was parked, pretty as a fish.

He spoke rudely to the barman with the nasty voice of an old pederast, sat on a tall stool opposite the bar, loudly moved the ashtray closer and threw the cigarette packet on to the table. A poser, as I said. He was wearing an overcoat.

“Are you asleep, you big-mouthed shmuck? The work day hasn’t started yet, and you’re already asleep. Give me a lighter, how long do I have to suck on an unlit cigarette?”