Rushing out of the office, I bumped into Sasha. He had finished his jobs for the day and was heading back to Yakimanka, but I knew that with him I’d be able to get into a theatre or a museum or anywhere else. As a courier Sasha Sorokin was a gift from the gods. He could have nipped down to hell, completed his delivery and been back out before the smell of sulphur had time to settle in his hair.
There was a crowd in front of the theatre and the performance was obviously expected to be sold out. We announced at the staff entrance who we needed. The name worked. It was a new theatre and labyrinthine, with gleaming laminate floors and white corridors full of people. They took us to the upper circle and left us there, promising that so-and-so would show up at any minute.
“Titch, do you know what he looks like?” “I think so.” In fact I did recognise him, although he had only been in our office once when I was there. He breezed into the upper circle and started shooing everybody out. There were heavily made up middle-aged ladies with fat legs in gleaming stockings under short tight dresses who protested they were journalists. Sasha and I tried to interpose our request, but he shooed us out too and disappeared. The ‘ladies of the press’ began indignantly to leave. Sasha gave me a wink and we sneaked back in and stood over to one side.
The lights went down and the evening began. It was a performance by Buddhist monks. They chanted in eerie, unearthly voices, their brass cymbals clashing and ringing and their thunderous rhythmical mantra filled the auditorium. Sasha and I were stunned as well as deafened. Spectators in the stalls were sitting on the floor in the lotus posture and swaying in time like the shallows of a lake.
After fifteen minutes or so the door to the circle opened. Our target entered, followed by a number of other people and a couple, the male resplendent in his attire, the female insignificant, like birds. Our customer was fussing over them, getting them comfortably settled.
“Sasha, look!” My knees gave way. I recognised the man who had entered last as BG. He was just like he looked in all his recent photographs, a big, broad man in a brightly coloured jacket with a spade-like Tutankhamun beard. He and his lady remained standing, their faces composed and serious. When the chanting was over and the Buddhists in the stalls started their ceremonial prostrations, BG turned and left. My customer followed and, but for Sasha, I would have lost him that evening.
I remember thinking that if he looked so much like his photographs now, he must have been exactly the same as in his photographs back then. “Titch is in love!” Tolya hooted. “Titch is head over heels in love like a schoolgirl. For heaven’s sake, he’s got a daughter older than you!” “Tolya, pack it in. What do you know!”
I repaired to my gallery. “You’ll wilt up there!” Tolya protested clownishly. “Want a beer?” “No.” “What’s up? Have you gone teetotal? Oh, Titch has given up drinking! You’ll dry out like a radish! Time for you to retreat to a nunnery, a Buddhist one — Ommmm,” he hooted. “See what’s become of our gentry!”
Artemiy had stuck that label on me, Tolya had blabbed and now the whole of Yakimanka had heard. I got strange looks. In no time at all they would all be thinking it was true. I might even myself. When it comes to lineage, who knows…
My father had dreamed of hussars. He loved talking about their light blue uniforms and gold epaulettes, their bravado, moustaches, and the popping of champagne corks. Frantic races across the steppe at night like flashes of blue flame, unbuttoned uniforms flapping in the breeze, epaulettes and aiguillettes like sparks in the wind. Frantic racing, perpetual racing, and only that star, that red star up there, shining out of the blackness.
Another car overtakes us at high speed. The driver yells something, mimics the tightening of a loose screw at his temple and points backwards. Yesaul Ulanov attempts to understand, lowers the window. He too yells, can’t understand, so starts swearing. The driver in the car gets pissed off, gives up contemptuously and rockets away from us. The Yesaul looks around puzzled.
“Okay, guys, seems we have a problem.” He drives over to the verge. We get out. A rear tyre is torn to shreds. “Change it!” the Yesaul barks. “Seryozha, have you ever changed a tyre? Nothing to it. Dead easy. I’ll give you the tools, tell you what to do, and you can change it. I’m too drunk to change a tyre.”
Grand pulls on the gloves the Yesaul has given him and takes the jack. I hover around. The Yesaul goes to the car and comes back. “We’re down on diesel too, guys. My car gallops on diesel. Not enough to make it home. Need to find a tractor. I’ve got foreign currency…”
He surveys the dark steppe. Somewhere in the middle of it points of light flicker in the windows of what is presumably a farm. “Forward!” Yesaul Ulanov commands and, withdrawing a bottle of vodka from the glove box, leaves the road to head off into the blackness of the steppe. Grand and I attend to the wheel. The night is chilly. We have just finished when the Yesaul returns.
“The wretches, they’re holding out for more!” he shouts and curses as he comes up. “How simple everything was under the Soviets. You gave someone a bottle of vodka and they let you take as much diesel as you needed, but now ‘This isn’t right, that isn’t right…’ Ekh! Okay, guys, pile out. I’ll drive over there. I haven’t a bent kopek. Perhaps I can talk them round. If you get a lift, goodbye, otherwise we’ll drive home together.” We barely have time to pull our rucksacks out before the car roars away over the weed-choked field and races, bouncing up and down, towards the distant lights.
We stand on the road. It’s cold and barren and dark. We have roused ravenous mosquitoes from the ditch and nearby stagnant puddles. There is, in any case, nowhere for us to sleep. We stand. Then we dance. Then we run around in circles. Suddenly from the direction of the farm we hear engines revving. Two pairs of yellow beams bump over the black earth, one towards us.
We wait motionless to see what will happen next, but much closer than the headlights and engines we hear the lowing of cattle and dogs barking. Almost at once a small herd of calves, sheep and lambs, mooing and bleating, spills out on to the road. Half crazed by running in the night, they stumble across the strip of asphalt and disappear into the darkness on the far side. The last across is a bullock with a white star on its forehead. It is being herded by a small but vociferous dog. The bullock halts when it sees us and moos in our direction, but the dog chases it on and they too disappear into the darkness.
One pair of headlights is already close, while the other is doing U-turns in the field. A minute later, Yesaul Ulanov is with us again. “What’s this, guys, nobody give you a lift? I’m telling you, there are just no good people around any more. Oh, guys, we have a firm bond now. You’re helping me and I’ll help you. There’s no parting us now, no way. In you get!” I‘m dumped in the rear seat again. For an instant I resent it, but only for an instant. Who cares. At least it’s warm and there are no mosquitoes.
“I talked them round and they filled me up with diesel. We shared out my bottle on the spot, and they had some hooch of their own.” “What’s going on over there?” Grand asks. We look across to where yellow beams continue weaving an intricate pattern in the black field.
“I introduced a bit of discipline. I said to him, why aren’t you working? Why hasn’t that field been ploughed?” He says, “Absolutely right. It hasn’t been ploughed for donkeys’ years. Any time now it will turn into swamp,” and damn me but off he went and there you have it. But why are you looking so glum, Seryozha? Let’s get singing again and cheer you up. ‘Oh, from behind a distant is-land…’ Come on, sing!”