The sun’s first rays were unbearably yellow. They climbed in through the windows, gradually taking over the whole building. It wasn’t time for alarm clocks yet, and the city was still and quiet. The empty tramlines ran off into the distance, shining like polished gold.
The state highways never slept, although there weren’t many cars out here either at this time of the morning. The sun reflected off the clean, smooth tarmac, turning the roads into mirrors and making it difficult to focus on the road. Most long-distance drivers were still resting, and their KamAZ trucks stood in idle herds at every police checkpoint and roadside café.
It was early in the morning, and things were looking good.
Right now the highway was deserted, and it was hard to imagine a better place than this to put on your rollerblades and skate to your heart’s content, the wind whistling in your ears.
The first ray of sun looked in through the window of Squire’s living room. They were all fast asleep… Or were they? If someone was still awake and crying, it was nobody’s business but their own.
11
I heard once that we only dream in colour when we’re young. Is that true? I don’t know. Maybe it’s just that when you’re older — when your life is taken over by nappies… OK, maybe not nappies but the school reports of your growing offspring, when you’re stuck in a rut at work and there are arguments every evening at home, when you crawl into bed knowing that you have to get up again in just a few hours, cursing your alarm clock — maybe then you’re not capable of dreaming at all. Biologically speaking you are, but not in any real sense.
Once people get past that stage and start heading for senility, when they forget the medical term for the condition they’re suffering and reality contracts and recedes like skin, very often all that’s left is the dreams of their youth. The kind of dreams in which they soared through the sky and saw the world from above… Doctors believe that these dreams are a sign that we’re growing.
I had a dream like that recently. I was climbing a ladder up the side of an enormous factory chimney in the city centre. It was shaky and very high up, with red clearance lights fixed to the sides. And I was up there! I’ve always had a pathological fear of heights, but in the dream I just kept on climbing and climbing. My hands were freezing, because it was winter, and the city lay beneath me enshrouded in frozen, pearl-coloured exhaust fumes. Because of the frost, the smoke from the chimney wasn’t dissipating and stretched into the sky for tens of kilometres. It was thick and soft, like cotton wool, and not all toxic. I know this because I dived into it. Yes, right into the middle of it.
Can you dream the future? Is it possible? Nobody knows for sure, but in his dreams Squire saw the coming winter. There was nothing special about it, incidentally — just another cold, grey winter in Ufa. Cities are pretty much all the same at that time of year. There are the same two types of snow — one is pure white and falls silently, and when you’re far enough away from the factories you can catch it on your tongue; the other is the kind you have to wade through, and its colour is indeterminate. The same trolleybuses, the rank stench of exhaust fumes, the occasional blue-tit and hoarfrost on the trees in the morning. A typical city winter.
That winter Squire was finally kicked out of university. I say “finally” not because I think it’s something you’ve been waiting to hear but because his spectacularly inadequate academic performance had to be addressed sooner or later. On the one hand, it was most unfortunate, but on the other hand by that point he was thoroughly disillusioned by his chosen profession… so it wasn’t worth getting upset about it. At least, that’s what he told himself. He tried his best to reassure his friends too, affecting nonchalance and laughing it off.
What happened next was all too predictable. The cunning zeal of the university’s military department; the uncommon efficiency of the military enlistment office, willing to accept him ahead of the following spring’s conscription round-up; the cold, degrading medical check-up… And basically, that was it. Conscript Squire was told what time and where he had to report for duty and given two weeks to say goodbye to his family and friends.
Squire did actually go back to Sibai, but his parents didn’t shed any tears. It made no difference to them where their good-for-nothing son was — at least this would make a man of him. Once he returned to Ufa the winter days felt long and grey. He managed to fill some of the time retrieving his documents from the university, washing his underwear and buying essentials such as a new razor and a flask. He’d already stocked up on toilet paper.
In a state of mental and physical exhaustion, Squire spent these days on auto-pilot. He spoke in a monotone. He couldn’t believe it — was this it? Was there no way to get out of this stupid situation? He didn’t care about his studies, but really, was this all his life amounted to?
His friends were full of sympathy. Their appalled faces betrayed their horror. Each of them was thinking, “It could have been me!” They spent the last few days before Squire’s conscription wandering aimlessly about the city. They took random trolleybuses to the end of the line, where they would drink beer or vodka before turning around and coming back again. Sometimes they spent the night together. It was a kind of ritual, a farewell send-off.
There’s no point introducing you to Squire’s friends. You wouldn’t remember them anyway, because they’re virtually indistinguishable amongst the thousands just like them — hippies from good families, experimenting with ‘alternative’ lifestyles. Some of them were students who were also about to be kicked out of their academic institutions; one of them, like Squire, already had been. They all looked the same, too: leather biker jackets, heavy boots, shoelaces woven into their hair… They used to congregate at Squire’s place, and now he’d been conscripted they would have time on their hands and plenty to think about during the long winter evenings. Or maybe they’d just find somewhere else to hang out.
In fact, Squire’s friends did have something to occupy them right now, besides wandering aimlessly around the town. They had come up with a plan to sell Squire’s hair. Now, I should probably explain… As we all know, Squire would have his head shaved as part of the army enlistment procedure. In other words, this precious asset that he had been cultivating for over three years would be destroyed by an electric razor in a matter of seconds. They couldn’t allow it! So they decided to cut his hair themselves and sell it to the highest bidder, so that it wouldn’t “fall into enemy hands”. They had to salvage something from the situation.
There were plenty of buyers in the city. Squire’s friends dragged him round, gathering contacts and haggling.
They stopped by a lamp-post to investigate yet another flyer proclaiming ‘We Buy Hair!’ This was followed by the dubious but even more familiar assertion: ‘Best Prices Paid!’ The wind had picked up, causing the edges of the advert to flutter. Squire seemed to be the only one not showing an interest in any of it. His attitude was one of complete indifference, while his friends crowded around the advert, arguing, calculating, showing off their business skills — how their teachers would love to see them now!
“Shit! Is that how much they’re paying these days?”