His truck is empty, and so he’s not scared of the traffic cops or the devil, and perhaps he’s also happy to see me…
This is what I thought as I pressed on the brakes to let the truck past, but the road did not hold my car, and the wheels did not grip the asphalt. And even the wind, it seemed, was blowing into the back windscreen, pushing me, placing my body, locked in a warm and smoky salon, under a blow.
Ivau! Ga!
Good morning, Papa…
I tore at the gearstick, shifting from neutral into second, then right into first — trying to brake that way. The car jolted, for a moment it seemed that it had slowed down, but I was already on the highway, and was looking stupidly ahead, into the emptiness and the falling of white snowflakes. From the left, my face, a mad-eyed reflection in the rear vision mirror, was bathed in a ghastly light.
The driver didn’t slow down, but turned the wheel and powerfully moved into the empty opposing lane. The truck, crashing and waving the enormous tail of the trailer, drove right past my eyes, maybe just half a meter from my car.
When the huge hulk disappeared, stirring up a cloud of snow, I realized that I was still swaying slowly. And I was gently moving the wheel, like a child pretending to be a driver.
I crossed the road in first gear. The trucker drove in the opposing lane for about a hundred meters, then moved back into his own lane, without stopping, to tell me that I… That I was mortal.
I cracked open the window and moved into second gear. Then into third, and almost straight away into fourth.
The White Square
“Hi, Zakharka. You’ve aged.”
We were playing hide-and-seek in the empty lot behind the shop, a few village boys.
The one whose turn it was to lead stood facing the door, loudly counting to one hundred. During this time, everyone was supposed to hide.
The dark-faced, gap-toothed, sharp-shouldered boys hid in the labyrinths of the nearby new two-story building, which smelt of brick dust, and in the dark corners, of urine. Someone sneezed in bushes, revealing himself. Others, scraping the skin on their ribs, crawled through the gap in the fence that separated the village school from the lot. And they also climbed trees and hurtled off the branches, running to overtake the leader to the door of the village shop, to touch the square drawn on it with a brick, shouting “Keep away!”
Because if you didn’t say that, you’d have to be the leader yourself.
I was the smallest one, so no one really looked for me.
But I took care to hide, I lay there motionless, and listened to the toothy laughter of the boys, quietly envying their impudence, their swift heels and dirty language. Their dirty language was made of different letters than the ones I pronounced: when they cursed, each word rang out and jumped like a small and ferocious ball. When I cursed — secretly, in a whisper, with my face in the grass; or loudly, in an empty house when my mother was at work — the words nastily hung on my lips, and all I had to do was wipe them off with my sleeve, and then for a long time examine what had dried on it…
I watched the boy who was It from the grass, sharp-eyed as a gopher. When he went to the other side, I gave what I thought was a loud Cossack’s whoop, and trotted on my short legs to the door of the village shop, with an unnatural smile that seemed to be made of plasticine on my face, and in my heart a feeling of unusual triumph. The boy who was It lazily turned his head for a moment in my direction, and didn’t even stop, as if I wasn’t running to the door, but that something stupid, obtrusive and pointless had happened.
But I honestly carried my smile and the unceasing triumph to the white square on the door, and hit it with such force that my palm burnt, and I shouted out “keep away!”
(Keep away, away, my life — I’m already here, by the door, and beating my hands on it.)
After I shouted, I heard, not without pleasure, laughter behind my back — so someone had appreciated how I jumped so nimbly, how I ran over…
“Oh…” I said more loudly than I needed to, and turned around self-satisfied, showing for all to see that I was tired from running. And of course, I immediately saw that it wasn’t me, naked-bellied, who delighted people. Sashka had behaved strangely again.
“I’ve aged. You age particularly fast when you start to look for justifications from life.”
“But when you believe your own justifications yourself, then it’s easier.”
“How can I not believe them, Sasha? What should I do then?”
Sasha doesn’t listen to me. He never comes. And I don’t know where he is.
“Sasha, what can I say even if I do come?”
He has a frozen face with turned out lips and frost-covered cheek-bones, resembling the body of a frozen bird; he has no facial expressions.
“It’s cold, Zakharka… Cold and stifling…” he says, not listening to me.
Sashka was unusual. He had a blonde forelock, a face of tender beauty, always ready to break out into a thoughtful, sensitive smile. He was kind to us little boys, not telling us what to do, not saying disgustingly vulgar things, never swearing. He remembered each one by name and asked: “How are things?” He shook hands in a manly way. The heart leapt towards him.
He allowed himself to laugh at the local crooked-faced and crooked-legged hooligans — the Chebryakov brothers. He looked at them with narrowed eyes, without taking the smile off his face. The Chebryakovs were twins, a year older than Sashka. In childhood that’s a big difference. At least it is for boys.
I heard him laughing once — the only one among the rest of us, who did not even dare to crack a smile — when Chebryakov climbed up a tree and tore the sleeve of his shirt to the armpit, with a loud tearing sound.
Sashka laughed, and his laugh was unforced and merry.
“What you laughing for?” said Chebryakov, one of the brothers, forgetting about his sleeve. His pupils constantly moved from left to right, as if he couldn’t decide to stop at Sasha’s smile. “What you laughing for?”
“Are you forbidding me?” Sasha asked.
All my life I’ve looked for an excuse to say that — like Sashka. But when there was an excuse, I didn’t have the strength to say it, and I would get into a fight, so as not to become completely frightened. All my life I looked for an excuse to say that — and I couldn’t find one, but he could — at the age of nine.
Sashka mocked the movement of Chebryakov’s pupils with his cheerful eyes, and it seemed to me that no one but me noticed, because all the rest were looking away.
Chebryakov spat.
Oh, these childish, youthful, manly gobs of spit! A sign of nervousness, a sign that the selfcontrol is running out — and if they can’t now become hysterical and bare their claws, and can’t release the white spit touching the corners of their lips, and reveal their young fangs, then things will never work out again.
Chebryakov spat, and squatted down suddenly. He raised his arm with the torn sleeve, and looked at it, whispering something and interspersing the words with curses addressed only to the sleeve.
“It’s stuffy, Zakharka. I feel stifled.” I can hardly tell what he is saying from his icy, almost motionless lips. He has no voice.
“Maybe you’re thirsty. I have something in the fridge…”
“No!” he shouts, almost spitting. And I’m afraid that the shout will split his face in two — like the carcass of a frozen bird breaks, revealing red and tangled insides.
Goats wandered around the village during the daytime, I remember that Sasha’s grandmother also had them. Sasha’s grandmother lived in our village, and his parents lived in the neighboring one. Sashka spent the nights here and there, and returned home through the forest, in the evening.