I lay my coins on the table. They are sweaty and crusted with tobacco. A withered hand shoots out from the bed, grabs the coins and stuffs them somewhere among a heap of rags. Having drunk my glass I slink out of the courtyard, shaking and trying not to throw up.
The devil only knows what those Georgians mix with their chacha. I break out in large boils like soft corns which itch and sting. I try not to squeeze them as I know that will make them worse, but when a boil the size of a walnut grows on my heel I have to burst it before I can get my shoe on. By the end of the day I can hardly walk for the pain. There are no bandages in the chemist. I go to Mikhailovski hospital but they throw me out because of my disgusting state. Finally the blood donor clinic where I occasionally earn a few roubles gives me a bandage. I rinse the wound under a tap in the street and bind up my foot.
After that I feel better and I’m able to do a little work on the No 5 tram. I’m not collecting much money these days, probably because I smell so bad that people turn their heads at my approach.
In the morning I grit my teeth and rip the bandage off my raw skin. I rinse it under a courtyard tap but can’t wait for it to dry as I have to get to work. The damp bandage picks up dust and filth from the street. By dusk the wound is itching unbearably but I take that as a sign that it is healing. A few nights later I unwind the bandage to find a mass of worms writhing in the open flesh. I guess it will only be a matter of time before gangrene sets in. I fall into a stupor, staring at my foot as though it belongs to someone else.
That night on the rubbish dump I settle down with two bottles of Rkatseli to keep me going till dawn. I prop myself up against the bank, dropping off for a second, waking with a start and swallowing a couple of mouthfuls of wine. I keep a strict watch over the level of liquid in the bottle. Hold on, I tell myself, it’s not evening yet! Reflecting on my situation I laugh out loud: “Look at you, my boy!” I even mumble a verse that comes into my head:
I do not know whether I’ll live till dawn, but I don’t care too much either way. Let death come tonight. It’ll put an end to life’s torments once and for all. But I do fear the dt’s. I fear I’ll lose control and do something very bad. And I’m deeply ashamed of my filthy, festering body. I haven’t been to the bathhouse for weeks; I can’t use the communal pool because of my wound and I can’t afford a private cabin. I’m filled with shame as I imagine the state my body will be in when it’s found in the morning.
But I do not die on that Tblisi rubbish dump. In the morning I manage to drag myself out of my lair, gather some empties and limp over to the wine shop. I come out clutching a litre of fortified wine in each hand. As I cross Mardzhanishvili Square I trip and fall, instinctively flinging up my arms to save the bottles. My face slams into the asphalt, but by some miracle the bottles remain intact. With a groan of relief I pass out.
I awake to find myself lying on the pavement with a crowd gathered about me.
“We’ve called an ambulance,” a voice says.
Thank God the police won’t be involved, I relax and let myself be carried off to hospital. I don’t care that my nose is broken and my eyes so swollen I can barely see; I fear only the dt’s, which are fast approaching. Believing that I’ve witnessed a dreadful crime and the police want to interview me, I try to hide. I am also convinced that the perpetrator of the crime is tracking me down in order to kill me. In mortal terror of every living soul, I leap out of bed and run around the hospital, squeezing into dark cupboards and cowering under beds.
The staff finally catch me, put me in a strait-jacket and pack me off to ‘Happy Village,’ a large mental asylum in the mountains. There I’m cared for by an unusually kind young doctor who pays no attention to my repulsive appearance. She even suggests I go to a special clinic to have my nose repaired but I decline: “I’m not planning to become a film star; I need a psychiatrist not a surgeon.”
The doctor orders me to be tied to a bed and then she injects me with Sulfazine.[36] With fiendish strength I tear off the sheets that bind me and run away. Although the staff have removed the handles of the ward doors I manage to prise them open with a dinner spoon. I run out of the hospital and down the road. Orderlies catch me two blocks from the clinic, drag me back and tie me up again. I get another shot of Sulfazine. My temperature soars. For two or three days I lie motionless, soaked in sweat. Gradually I return to my senses. When I admit to the doctor that no one wants to kill me she takes me off the Sulfazine and orders me to be untied.
Soon I am cracking jokes with the doctor and making her laugh. Through her contacts she finds me a job as a night watchman in a Tblisi theatre. With a roof over my head I’m able to keep off the drink for several months. One day, however, I run into Tolik, an old friend from Zestafoni who’s trying his luck begging in the capital. He has nowhere to sleep. I can’t recommend the cavern so we agree that after the theatre performance has ended Tolik will tap on my window and I’ll let him in for the night. He sleeps curled up on some newspaper in a corner, refusing my offer of the couch: “No, no, Vanya, I piss myself after I’ve had a bottle or two.”
Despite his alcoholism Tolik is so sharp he only has to look at a few lines of Pravda to arrive at conclusions we hear a month later on Voice of America. He tells me that something is changing in the USSR.
“But what difference will it make to our lives, Tolik?” I ask. “What happens in Moscow might as well take place on the moon.”
The theatre management know about my weakness and try to keep me away from the bottle. However it seems churlish not to accompany Tolik when he pours his wine at night. Early in the morning he sneaks out, taking the empties with him. He spends the day begging and I give him some money from my pay to buy bottles for the night.
It’s not long however, before we overdo it. The director arrives in the morning to find me sitting among the scenery as drunk as wine itself. Centre stage, Tolik strikes the pose of a Roman senator as he declaims Bezimensky’s Tragedian Night. All around us roll empty bottles. We are puffing away like the Battleship Potemkin, although smoking is strictly forbidden in the theatre. They throw my friend out and call an ambulance for me. I am taken back to Happy Village and this time the doctor is not so kind.
I have been away from Chapaevsk for many years and hardly keep in touch with my family, apart from the occasional phone call to my sister. After my second cure I receive news from her that our mother has died. I go back to Chapaevsk for the last time, staying with my sister and her family. I don’t understand them nor they me, but we are civil to each other.
My sister is the only family member I have left in Chapaevsk. Dobrinin died some years ago; Uncle Volodya moved to Ukraine. I hear he took to drink after he was widowed. My wife and daughter have been living in Estonia since they left me back in 1967. My sister occasionally gives me news of them.
I wonder whether to try to find out what happened to my real father. Since the time of Khrushchev I have accepted that he was shot. In the new climate of political openness it might be possible to learn details of his arrest and trial. But I decide it’s better not to know the truth. If he was a Chekist he was probably responsible for sending people to their deaths.