Amongst the alkashi I meet former teachers, doctors, and engineers. No one respects them for their education; respect is earned by not stealing drinks and not always having your hair-of-the-dog at another’s expense. When a person trembles from a hangover it is no great sin to cadge a drink, but the man who does this every morning soon annoys his companions. When alkashi notice that someone is trying to take advantage of them they spit in his face and drive him away. Outcasts can be seen hanging around the fringes of the group, usually sporting black eyes.
Nonetheless, the majority of alkashi try to live at the expense of those around them. ‘There are enough fools in this world to be taken advantage of,’ is their attitude, and the more people they con the better pleased with themselves they are. Even more degraded are those who see no meaning in life at all. They live from one drink to the next. If you send them for vodka they’ll disappear; if you drink with them they’ll go through your pockets when you pass out and probably treat you to a bottle over the head as well. One man does this to me and then has the front to come up the next day, look into my eyes and ask: “How come we lost each other yesterday?”
Perhaps he really remembers nothing. Besides, I couldn’t swear it was he who hit me. I was too drunk myself to catch him by the hand to look into his face.
The pay I collected from camp soon runs out and I have to look for a job. That means sobering up. I know that if I carry on sleeping at Ivan’s I’ll be led into temptation, so I go to an old friend’s flat. Igor Gorbunov comes from the northern Urals where the people speak so fast it’s hard to understand them. Like me, he loves reading, but unlike me he is no drunkard, and in the past he has helped Olga extricate me from drinking parties.
Igor has visitors and they are preparing to go camping in the forest. I decline an invitation to join them as I know they’ll be taking bottles with them. They set off, leaving me alone in the flat. I sit on the balcony with a book. Across the street is a vodka shop. Troikas are forming at the entrance, pooling their money and sending in one of their number to buy a bottle. It’s nearly closing time and sales are speeding up. I need cigarettes so I go down to the shop and join the surging crowd of men around the counter. Elbowing through, I hold out my money amongst the forest of hands.
“Cigarettes!”
“How many?” the assistant asks.
“Two packets.”
She frowns at the note I hand her and moves towards the till for change. To save her the journey I involuntarily add: “And three bottles.”
I could leave the bottles on the counter but that would look foolish in front of all those people. ‘Well, I can always give them to an acquaintance outside,’ I reason to myself, but I don’t know any of the men who are milling around the shop. So I return to Igor’s flat armed to the teeth, put the bottles in his fridge and sit down on the balcony with my book. I try to read but the image of those bottles keeps floating into my mind, breaking my concentration. Almost without thinking, I put the book aside, stand up, go through the living room into the kitchen, and open the fridge door.
The first glassful is hard to swallow. I retch. Holding my breath, I manage to force it down. After a while my throat relaxes and the mouthfuls flutter down like tiny birds. Having seen off the first bottle I feel the need of an audience. I could call on Igor’s neighbours but that might be unwelcome, even with two bottles. They hardly know me. Instead I wander down to the yard. I recognise the metal spaceship in the children’s play-area. It has been remodelled from the Decembrist bottle that used to stand at the factory gates. A drunken tune emanates from the spaceship, calling to me like a siren song. Next morning I wake up in the dust without money, documents or shoes.
Olga opens the door: “I’ve been expecting you.”
I enter without a word and clean myself up. For a few days we barely speak and I keep out of her way. Finally she can’t bear it any longer.
“Vanya, it’s my fault you went to prison, but you can’t feel sorry for yourself all your life. Make up your mind. Either we divorce, or you put it all behind you.”
My resentment boils over. “Thanks to you I was stuck in that hole for a year. Can you imagine the endless searches and body counts, or what it’s like to sit down to dinner with a man who’s murdered his mother and another who has raped a three-year-old girl? To have the biggest idiot in the province shout at you for no reason when you can’t answer back? And you know what the worst thing about camp is? That you’re never alone for one minute. Sometimes I felt like committing murder myself.
“You put me through all that and now you want me to behave as though nothing happened. And don’t threaten me with divorce. I know you have nowhere to go. You won’t humiliate yourself again by going back to your parents.”
“All right, I made a mistake, but you can’t use that to justify your behaviour forever. You blame me because it gives you an excuse to drink, but in truth you drink because you’re a coward. You can’t face work, or me, or even poor Natasha. If you can stop blaming me I’m willing to support you until you get paid.”
But prison has put an unbridgeable gulf between us. I feel as though I’ve crossed a boundary beyond which there can be no return to normal life. Olga will never understand what I’ve been through, and she’s mistaken if she thinks I can rebuild a life with her as though nothing has happened.
The factory tells me I can start in the new year. I fill in the time by hanging around with my alkashi friends, who listen to my camp stories with sympathy and even admiration. Their attention fuels my self-pity and I begin to enjoy my role as sufferer. The realisation of this fact does not make me proud of myself, so I submerge myself in drink.
One morning I crawl home to find the flat empty. Olga has taken almost everything that belongs to her and Natasha. I figure she’s trying to teach me a lesson and so I refuse to chase her. A week passes. I phone her work. They tell me she’s resigned. I’m shocked. They must be lying to me. She has nowhere to go.
Olga left no money so I sell the furniture, including my precious East German bookcase. I haul it downstairs at five in the morning, tie it to Natasha’s sledge and drag it to the market. Alas, while I’m taking a smoke-break the wind turns my bookcase over and its beautiful glass doors smash. With great difficulty I convert it into a bottle, which my customer helps me drink.
In the end I sell the only living thing left in the flat, Natasha’s hedgehog Yashka. The poor thing is hungry as there is no food in the house. I take it to the shop Nature, not really hoping for money. I think that at least someone might take it home for their children, but the shop assistant gives me one rouble and seventeen kopecks for Yashka. She knows the price of a bottle.
Finally I go to my wife’s sister Ludmila, who tells me that Olga and Natasha are fine. They’re living in a small mining town, they’ve found a flat and Natasha is going to a modern kindergarten. Ludmila has promised not to disclose their whereabouts. That is the only information I can glean, but I feel calmer. Any decision I take will have to be made with a sober head and so I go home to sleep.
For two days I do not leave the house. Although there is a bottle of vodka in the kitchen I leave it untouched. As each hour passes I feel worse. I can’t sleep for a minute. The radio bothers me so I switch it off. I lie down and try to read. A snow-storm howls outside; the wind rattles the window. On the third night I hear breaking glass. ‘Bad luck,’ I think. Someone must have forgotten to shut their ventilation window and it’s blown open and shattered.