“Ok, enough chewing the rag! C’mon, ante up!” you ordered, enforcing your power over him. “We’re supposed to get your pay, not her.”
Poor Gennady Karlovich, totally confused, started taking out his wallet, and at that very moment Mother broke into the room; probably she had been listening behind closed doors to our entire conversation.
“Oh, you fucking little wretches! Have you decided to rob your poor mother? You aren’t a bit better than your father, you ungrateful, filthy bastards!”
“I won’t give you money,” separating one word from another, you muttered. “I honestly earned it.”
“You’re lying, you piece of junk!” and she suddenly rushed at us, craning her neck and popping her eyes out. “Whoever’s going to lay eyes on you, lame thing? I should’ve choked you to death in the maternity hospital.”
Her heavy, black words were pressing like pig-iron kettlebells, and she hurriedly spat them out as though she was afraid to suffocate. I was intolerably ashamed for her, not for us. Meanwhile, she started shaking your hand to tear off the watch she had gifted you, and continued yelling in a heart-rending voice:
“I haven’t seen you for years, and now you appear out of nowhere. You want my apartment, don’t you? Well, bite me!” and she made an obscene gesture right in front of my face. “Whoever invited you here? Do you think it is easy to be a mother of such freaks?” she shouted across the crowd of faces that had started to gather in a lopsided doorway next to us.
Oh, this tormenting concern that your neighbor’s life might be better than yours! And how great it feels when you realize that the truth is exactly the opposite; and we’re not so different after all. Nothing brings true neighbors together like a little friendly competition.
It seemed that our mother could elicit exceptional critical praise and wild ovations from the public any moment she liked. You shivered, but didn’t protest, and she didn’t yell any more but croaked, flooded with damnations:
“Help me, people! I’ve been robbed! I wish you were dead, you bitches!”
Her face got black with rage, her legs gave way under her and she fell down and started rolling on the floor, belching out absurd pleadings and disgraceful curses.
“Hate you. I hate this thing I gave birth to. Filthy creeps, ghouls.”
I was overcome by extreme disgust; you were limp and pale as chalk. As for Gennady Karlovich, he was the only one impassively watching the scene, like a passerby who has gotten involved in a theatrical performance by mistake. In addition, he managed to keep the money to himself.
The final moments of this monumental, epic story dissolved into the most trivial of farces. The neighbors who had gathered in the corridor to look at us were covering their giggling faces with their hands and loudly whispering, exchanging their opinions on Ms. Charity’s behavior that had already become a habit, and her conjoined, two-headed monster that had dishonored the principal tenant G. K. Kucheryavy. Their faces were shining with joy and tenderness, they were happy: now talking and reminiscing would suffice and lift up, however temporarily, their miserable, cheerless lives. Meanwhile, our mother kept coiling and jerking her feet restlessly.
“Let’s get out of here,” you said dispiritedly. “It’s no use searching in a place where there is nothing.”
And the pain of frustrated hope and broken faith sounded so clearly and openly in your words that all those who were present, including G. K. K., felt uncomfortable and fell silent.
“Come now, please,” you repeated, feeling that your dreams were the opposite of reality.
As we approached the door, we stopped and looked back. Neighbors, who had assembled like relatives ready to shoot a family portrait, watched us closely, with great concentration, but we didn’t care anymore. We stepped across the threshold, determined never to return. The door-lock clicked behind our backs and echoed, bouncing off the walls, doubled, then trebled that sound as though all the doors of the world were closing one by one, and the unflattering truth was eventually showing itself. “From here on you go alone, forever forsaken, forever alone.”
13. ARMLESS TSAR_
Strange thoughts visit me sometimes. Was it exactly as I remember, or did you see everything in a different light? And can it be that I greatly exaggerate all human imperfections, highlighting our ugly duckling burdens? Hardened in heart and having no other weapon but my own suffering, could I exhort others to do things they otherwise would not do? What if I were secretly in love with my failures and wished them to continue forever?
All the way “home” I was looking for an opportunity to discuss the Mother story with you, but you just kept wincing and turning away, awkwardly stumbling now and again. Try as I might, I couldn’t find the right words to talk about the incident. We eventually arrived at our abandoned house. I felt more unwanted than unhappy, as if we had been brought into the world and then expelled from it. I held no grudge against my mother. I forgave her. But was my forgiveness sincere? Is it possible to forgive a traitor without perceiving the true reasons for his or her treachery? Is it another lie intended to justify all previous lies? I would really like to know what you think about the bullshit, this bullshit, my bullshit. However, I often seem to understand you better when you are asleep!
The following day, driven by necessity (“We have to go back,” you agreed, “or else we’ll kick the bucket…”), we returned to the tunnel. However, even the obvious need for money faded by comparison with our growing impatience to plunge into the living, swarming mass again, to disappear completely. It was irresistible, like the urge to sneeze. I couldn’t live anymore without this chaotic, overflowing stream sliding through the tunnel like a well-trained but confused animal. I thought if we disappeared at least for a moment, so that nobody would notice us, pointing their fingers and making fun of us, I would not go crazy. Attention of any kind was also better than no attention at all. And at the same time the tunnel was the best place on earth for us to hide, to take a breather. You see how confused I felt!
Life in the tunnel hadn’t changed; everything remained in the right place. Same as before, all the sundry people hurried somewhere, indifferently, listlessly, same as before. We were met with “open arms”, so to speak.
“Well, look who decided to show up!” the supervisor shouted gleefully. “Hydra returned, by itself, on its own four feet.”
“Is our spot still waiting for us?” you inquired in a matter-of-fact way.
“You don’t even know what is waiting for you, two-headed freak,” the pug muttered with muffled rage. “I will cure you of your habit of leaving without permission.”
After that he grabbed you, seized you by the throat and shook you with such force that even my teeth clanked, and the last coins fell out of our pockets.
“Take your hands off me, jackass,” you croaked, barely able to catch your breath.
It happened in a flash. Next moment the pug hit you with all his strength. Suddenly the earth turned upside down; both of us dropped on the floor and all the noises around us quieted down. In the dead silence, somewhere far away, I heard his voice:
“Pray, bitch!” and he gobbed generous spittle on us, completing our humiliation.
Who could think that the ceiling and the walls of the tunnel could look so alike! I lay motionless, feeling neither pain, nor fear, most probably just the fear of pain. “I’d better not rise; it is safer,” I thought with bitter pleasure.
“I will pray for the repose of his soul,” you hissed, choking with fury now. “Let him burn in hell!”
And while we were slowly getting up, rubbing our hurt sides and hands, you repeated many times: “I wish him dead, scumbag. I wish him dead”.