Although he did grab me and drag me with him. Because now I am a murderer and betrayer just like him. The evil in the world has increased because of me…
But all the same, Kit won’t come back. And Misha of course had no idea that Kit was such an important person to me. Misha thought that he was still the main man in my life. And Kit was considered a loser, at least according to the standards of the corsairs… And for the artists he was a loser too, poorly educated, merely a craftsman…
Not one of them understood that Kit was my Phantom of the Opera. Once and forever.
And it doesn’t make any sense to tell this story to Lyokha Saksofon.
He never knew Kit or Misha Bakaleishchikov.
He’s twenty-five, and he’s being tormented by Kira. Or is it Lera…?
We sat on the bench, looking at Pushkin.
Little birds and fliers for our group Anyuta and the Angels were flying all around.
The Man from the Past was dead.
The Woman with the Past was rolling a joint.
Don’t bogart that joint, my friend
That one’s burned to the end,
Roll another one
Just like the other one…
Author’s Note: Sanya Yezhov wrote the song “This, My Friend, Is My District and My City.”
PART III
CHASING GHOSTS
THE NUTCRACKER
by Anton Chizh
Haymarket Square
Translated by Walt Tanner
The White Night, a night without darkness, fanned out into early morning. Leaden clouds, pregnant with June rain, hung over St. Petersburg like a thick shroud, threatening to break into a deluge. Roofs and houses, empty streets, and lone passersby all merged in a gray gloom. The wind had abated, but the chill air seemed to ooze through to the bone. Indistinct rustlings floated in the air, like the pitter-patter of claws on tin. A grubby burgundy house loomed over Griboyedov Canal in the fog. The stucco was coming off in chunks, and the jointed sections of the rain pipes met in rusty rings. The building was in dire need of repair. Despite that, someone had hung up a sign that read, Hotel Dostoevsky. Although the grim classic of Russian literature had no connection to the building, tourists seemed to like the name. But other than its name, nothing else distinguished this hotel from any one of the dozen or so such lodgings in the Haymarket Square area.
A black car marked with a taxicab checkerboard shot out onto the canal embankment, darting past randomly parked cars until it came to a screeching halt under the letter D. The cab driver demanded one hundred dollars. He was politely reminded that the fare agreed upon beforehand was half that amount. But the driver remained adamant until he got the green bill he wanted. He refused to help carry in the luggage, saying that wasn’t his job. The cab took off into the fog, raising a cloud of grit in its wake. A young woman with a backpack and large suitcase was left standing on the sidewalk with a twelve-year-old girl, who perched exhaustedly on the luggage, ready to sleep standing up.
The woman glanced around. The embankment, the closest intersections, a partial view of Haymarket Square—she examined them all carefully, as though checking them against a mental map. Rousing the sleepy child, she shouldered her backpack, grabbed the suitcase, and mounted the small flight of stairs to the hotel with a light step.
In the dark lobby she woke the receptionist, a moonlighting student who was dozing on the keyboard of the laptop in front of him. He yawned without bothering to express any stock pleasantries. Scratching his T-shirt, with a picture on it of mice drinking beer, he said there were no vacancies. The woman gave him her reservation code. The receptionist tapped his nail on the keyboard and, yawning again, asked for her ID. He copied the Russian surname from the American passport, refused to take American Express, accepted Visa, and tossing a key, as ancient as the building itself, onto the counter, promptly lost all interest in the guests. Taking the luggage in one hand, and her exhausted companion in the other, the woman went up to her floor.
The reservation website had promised a charming place in the very heart of St. Petersburg, “where every stone is saturated with history.” The other virtues it extolled included comfort, coziness, reasonable prices, and a lovely view.
The door opened into a tiny narrow room, permeated by the smell of dirty socks. The windows, which looked out onto a dull courtyard and a garbage heap, were haphazardly covered with tattered tulle curtains. Pushed up against the wall were two beds, each covered with a gray blanket. The bedsheets, laundered to a dirty yellow, lay folded in a pile on the windowsill. Hanging from just one hinge, the door of the wardrobe gave out a plaintive squeak. A note had been taped above the hot water faucet that read, Off until September. The room, however, did not strike the requisite horror in the guests. The child dragged herself over to the bed, where she collapsed without undressing. This was the very hotel the woman wanted.
She sat down on the edge of the mattress. She had hardly noticed the twelve-hour flight from Chicago, or the terrible bout of turbulence over the Baltic Sea. Now she had to be sure of herself, for there would be no turning back. She had to see it through all the way, or she would never be able to forgive herself for the rest of her life.
She took off her wristwatch and gave herself exactly 120 seconds of restful quiet to take control of the nervous tension that was building within her. She breathed deeply, just like she’d been taught, to clear all thoughts from her head.
Her name was Kate. Ekaterina Ivanovna by birth, but for as long as she could remember, she was just Kate. She’d wanted it that way. She came to the United States at the age of one with her parents, who were trying to save the family from the debris of the collapsing Soviet Union. She had grown up like an ordinary American girl. The language was the only thing she’d held on to. At home they spoke Russian to her and forced her read the classics. Kate had always considered this a whim of her folks: knowing a difficult Slavic language in the modern world was totally useless. Unexpectedly, however, that language had now come in handy. Otherwise, she might not have dared.
Time up. Kate opened the suitcase, trying not to wake Annie. She dressed in a pair of jeans and comfy sneakers, put on a thick T-shirt and a sports jacket over it. She felt the left sleeve, as though there were something inside it, put on a baseball cap, and turned into an ordinary girl in the crowd, just one among thousands. That was the best camouflage for this city, they had explained to her. She left the room and locked the door, turning the key as far as it would go, but didn’t drop it off at the desk.
A humpbacked bridge led over Griboyedov Canal to Haymarket Square. Kate walked slowly, looking around. Returning to the city of her birth did not stir any emotions in her. She was neither touched nor excited. All of her senses were poised for another vital task: Kate was getting a feel for these real streets, which she had examined before on Google Earth.
The square was empty. The occasional car cut across the paved area, paying no heed to traffic lights. Kate stopped on the corner of the square and closed her eyes so that nothing would distract her. She waited for the signal; it was the thread that had led her this far. The secret voice made her wait, but did finally answer. Weak, barely audible, but clear. That was a good sign after so many long weeks of waiting.
She opened her eyes.