Once again Markov took out his black envelope. I never got the chance to spend my four roubles…
Now we were talking, interrupting one another. I told him about my troubles. To my chagrin, I discoursed on literature.
Markov addressed the void:
“Off with your hats, gentlemen! Before you sits a genius!”
The fans chased clouds of tobacco smoke around the room. The sounds of the jukebox were drowned out by the drunken voices. Workers of the state lumber mill made a bonfire on a porcelain platter. Dogs wandered under the tables…
Everything was beginning to blur before my eyes. I managed to catch only some random bits of what Markov was saying:
“Forward to the West! Tanks moving in a diamond formation! A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step!”
Then some intoxicated character with an accordion approached me. Its bellows blushed pink, intimately. Tears streamed down the accordion player’s cheeks. He asked:
“Why’d they dock me six roubles? Why’d they take away my sick days?”
“Take a swig, Tarasych.” Markov pushed the bottle towards him. “Drink and don’t be upset. Six roubles is nothing…”
“Nothing?” suddenly the accordion player got angry. “People break their backs and for him it’s nothing! For six years these hands drudged away for nothing doing hard time… Article 92, without an instrument…”*
In response, Markov trilled soulfully:
“Stop shedding tears, girl! The rains will pass…”
A second later, two lumber-mill stable hands were prying them apart. With a painful howl the accordion collided with the floor.
I wanted to stand up, but couldn’t.
Then a Duralumin stool flew out from under me. As I fell, I took down a heavy brown curtain.
I couldn’t manage to get up, even though I think Markov was taking a beating. I heard his tragic cries:
“Let me go, you beasts! Finita la commedia!”*
It’s not that I was thrown out of the restaurant. I crawled out on my own, sheathed in the drapery fabric. Then I hit my head on the doorpost and everything went black…
I came to in a strange room. It was already light. The clock was ticking; it had a chisel for a weight.
I was still covered by the same brown drape. On the floor nearby I discovered Markov. Evidently, he had given me his bed.
My head hurt. I felt a deep gash on my forehead.
The sour odour of a peasant home made me a little sick.
I groaned. Markov raised himself up.
“Are you alive?” he asked.
“I think so. What about you?”
“Status: heading into the storm! How much do you weigh?”
“No idea, why?”
“I barely managed to drag you here…”
The door opened and a woman with a clay pot entered.
“Vera,” shouted Markov. “Hair of the dog! I know you’ve got some. Who needs this road to Calvary? Bring it to us now! Let’s bypass this interim period of developed socialism…”
“Drink some milk,” said Vera.
I said hello with dignity. Markov sighed:
“And I had to be born in these boreal backwoods…”
Vera was a pale, tired woman with large, calloused hands. Cantankerous, like all wives of alcoholics, without exception.
A look of deep and utmost sorrow was etched on her face.
I also felt awkward because I was occupying the master bed. What’s more, my slacks were missing. But the jacket was on.
“I’m sorry to have put you out,” I said.
“Don’t worry,” said Vera. “We’re used to it.”
This was a typical village abode. The walls were flecked with reproductions from Ogonyok magazine.* A TV with a blurry magnifiying lens hid in the corner. A faded bluish oilcloth covered the table. A portrait of Julius Fučík* hung above my headboard. A cat sauntered between the chairs. It moved soundlessly, like in an animated film.
“Where are my trousers?” I asked.
“Vera undressed you,” replied Markov. “Ask her.”
“I took off the trousers,” explained Vera, “but I felt awkward about the jacket.”
I felt too weak to process the meaning.
“That’s logical,” quipped Markov.
“They’re in the hall, I’ll get them.”
“Better get us a drink first!”
Markov raised his voice a little. Arrogance and self-abasement constantly alternated in him. He said:
“A Russian dissident has got to have hair of the dog, don’t you think? What would the academic Sakharov say?”*
And the next minute:
“Vera, give me some cologne! Give me some cologne with the seal of quality.”
Vera brought me my trousers. I got dressed. Then put on my shoes, after shaking the pine needles out. With disgust I lit up a cigarette…
The heavy taste of morning blocked out the shame of yesterday.
Markov felt great. His groaning, I thought, was only for show.
I asked:
“Where’s the envelope of money?”
“Shhh… In the attic,” said Markov, and added at full volume: “Let’s go! We should not await favours from nature. To take them – that is our task.”
I said:
“Vera, I’m sorry for the way things happened. I hope we meet again… under different circumstances…”
“Where you going?” asked Vera. “Again? Do keep an eye on my fool.”
I gave her a crooked smile, so as to say that I myself don’t set a very good example…
That day we paid a call on four drinking joints. With apologies, we returned the brown curtain. We drank at the boathouse, at the film projectionist’s booth and by the monastery fence.
Markov drained his sixth bottle and said:
“Some are of the opinion that a modest obelisk should be erected here!”
And he stood the bottle on the knoll.
We lost the envelope of money several times. We hugged it out with last night’s accordion player. Were seen by every senior worker at the tourist centre. And according to Natella, claimed to be Pushkin and Baratynsky.*
Even Mikhail Ivanych preferred to keep away from us. Though we invited him. He did say:
“I know Valera. You knock back a few with him and find yourself sobering up at the precinct.”
Thankfully, Mitrofanov and Pototsky were away on an excursion in Boldino.
We fell asleep in someone’s hayloft in Petrovskoye. In the morning, this nightmare started over. Even the stable hands from the lumber mill recoiled from us.
What’s more, Markov was going around with a lilac lampshade on his head. I was missing a left sleeve.
Loginov came up to us by the shop and asked:
“How is it that you’re without a sleeve?”
“I was getting hot,” I said, “and threw it away.”
The keeper of the monastery mused over this and then made the sign of the cross over us both. Markov said:
“You shouldn’t have… Instead of God, we now have Lenin’s Central Committee. But there’ll come a time when these bitches have their own great terror…”
Loginov looked uncomfortable, crossed himself and rushed away.
And we continued to stagger around the Preserve.
I made it home towards the end of the week. And spent the next twenty-four hours in bed, without moving. Mikhail Ivanych offered me wine. I turned to face the wall without saying anything.