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23:48
YAR—A Moscow Restaurant
Lukashevich, the vice-president of a small but impressive bank, and Zeldin, the owner of four supermarkets, sat at a table served for three. A Gypsy choir was singing on stage. A birch tree was growing in a tub by the table. On the table itself, a decanter of vodka sparkled and a plate of salmon crimsoned.
The two pals were drunk. They’d begun at Café Pushkin: 850 mL of Russian Standard, cranberry mors, beer, pickled porcini mushrooms, stuffed pike, veal pâté, Caesar salad, “Hussar-style” lamb, sturgeon in champagne, crème brûlée, bliny with hot fudge, coffee, cognac, calvados. Then, they’d continued at Biscuit: 380 mL of tequila, green tea, fruit salad.
“Nah, Bor,” Lukashevich lit a cigarette sloppily, “those Gypsies ain’t doin’ it for me…”
“You don’t like it?” Zeldin filled the glasses, spilling vodka onto the tablecloth. “Well, I love it when they howl.”
“I mean, like… that’s some real-ass longing…” Lukashevich took a glass. Splashed it onto the birch. “Dogshit.”
“The vodka?” Zeldin didn’t understand.
“Everything.”
“Whaddaya mean––everything?”
“I don’t like places like this. Let’s go to Bridge. Dance with some chicks.”
“Right now? Let’s drink first! What’s with you, Sashok?!” Zeldin hugged Lukashevich. “Everything’s still good. Oh yeah!” he remembered, “I didn’t finish telling it!”
“What?” Lukashevich looked at him gloomily.
“Like, about the bell!”
“What bell?” Lukashevich was bored.
“Like, on the Cathedral of Christ the Savior! The bass bell! A G-note! Thirty-two tons. On the southwest wing, I think. Yeah. And this broad from Gazprom, well, she’s got lung cancer, she heard somewhere that low frequencies destroy cancer cells. She stuffs their pockets full and, every evening, they take her up with the bell ringer, plus she’s totally naked… Sasha, you bitch! I still can’t believe you came! Motherfuck!!! You came!!! You came, you sweaty asshole!!!”
Overturning the decanter of vodka, Zeldin lunged for Lukashevich and embraced him with all his might. The table rocked. Zeldin’s striped jacket tore. Lukashevich growled, his big, mealy fingers squeezing at Zeldin’s swarthy neck. Zeldin squeezed at Lukashevich’s white neck.
“You Moscow bitch!” Lukashevich growled, then they began to strangle each other.
23:48
A five-story building on Novatory Street prepared for demolition
Two bums, Valera and Petyukh (“Bitch Boy”), sat atop a pile of damp rags in the corner of a ruined apartment. The thin moon shone through a broken window. The bums were drunk. And finishing a bottle of “Russian” vodka. They’d begun drinking in the early morning right by Yaroslavsky Station: a quarter liter of Istok, a half-loaf of white bread, chicken scraps from a grill bar. Then made it to Sokolniki where they collected empty bottles in the park, turned them in for money, and kept going: three bottles of Ochakovskoye beer and two poppy-seed buns. Then, after they’d slept on a bench for a little while, they made it to Novodevichy Convent, where they begged for alms until evening. Enough for a bottle of “Russian.”
“That’s it,” Valera finished drinking the bottle in the darkness.
“It’s done?” Petyukh croaked. “Motherfuckin’ fuck…”
“What?”
“I’m shiverin’ like a bitch. As if we hadn’t drunk shit. I could use another swallow.”
“We’ll shift over to Izmailovo tomorrow. We’ll really rake it in there! Tomorrow! Tomorrow!” Valera chuckled, then began to sing something incomprehensible.
“Whaddaya mean––tomorrow?” Petyukh hit him.
“What the fuck! I pissed myself, bro! Again! Motherfuckin’ bitches!” Valera giggled.
“Asshole… dickmouth…” Petyukh punched him sluggishly.
“Fuck is this… go eat a dick!” Valera punched him back.
They fell silent, a fire truck drove by loudly outside the window.
“Meat wagon?” Petyukh yawned.
“Concrete smasher,” Valera retorted authoritatively.
They fell silent.
“Tomorrow! Tomorrrroooowww, motherfuck! Tomooooorrrroooowww!!!” Valera sang once again, then laughed, opening his rotten-toothed mouth wide in the darkness.
“Shut up, you fuck!” Petyukh growled and grabbed him by the throat.
Valera grunted and grabbed him back.
They began to strangle each other.
23:48
An Apartment on Sivtsev Vrazhek Lane
Alex, a dancer, and Nicola, a web designer, lay naked in bed. Mozart’s 40th Symphony was playing quietly. Nicola was smoking and Alex was cutting lines of cocaine out onto Brian Eno’s Ambient 1: Music for Airports. They’d started a whole twenty-four hours ago at a makeup-artist buddy’s birthday party (0.5g + orange juice), then continued at Tabula Rasa (0.3g + still mineral water) and at Niagara (0.8g + still mineral water + 2 cigars). After which, having drunk some green tea at Wineglass, they’d gone to a morning showing of Attack of the Clones. Then, they’d gone out to the dacha of some designer chick they didn’t really know (1.3g + carbonated mineral water + fruit tea +150 mL of whiskey + apple juice + strawberry cake + grapes + candies + 50 mL of apricot liqueur + strawberries + green tea + strawberries with whipped cream). Then, in the evening, they’d gone back to Nicola’s place (0.4g).
“Really not a lot, Col. We’re gonna finish it,” Alex was cutting two puny lines with a discount card for all “Party” stores.
“You mean that’s it?” Nicola squinted his beautiful, glassy eyes.
“I mean, like, it’s gonna have been it.”
They silently snorted the coke through a plastic tube. Alex wiped up the cocaine dust with his little finger and delicately touched it to the head of Nicola’s cock. Nicola looked down at his cock:
“Want to?”
“I always want to.”
“Listen, do we not have any more whiskey?”
“We never did.”
“Really?” Nicola was tensely surprised. “What is there, then?”
“Only vodka,” Alex took Nicola’s balls into his palm tenderly.
“I feel kinda comatose for some reason…” Nicola stretched out.
“I’ll bring it.”
Alex stood up springily and walked smoothly into the kitchen. Nicola stubbed out the butt of his cigarette in a steel ashtray. Alex returned silently with vodka and glass. Poured it. Nicola drank. Alex got down onto his knees in front of him and ran his tongue slowly over the lilac head of his cock.
“First, let’s do it velvet-style, my little hedgehog,” Nicola licked at his dry lips.
“Yes, meesa,” Alex imitated Jar-Jar Binks as he took two velvet women’s belts from the chair––one black and one violet.
They lay down onto the bed, pressed in close to one another, and intertwined their legs. Alex wrapped the violet belt around Nicola’s neck and Nicola wrapped the black belt around Alex’s. Their lips drew closer, parted, and their tongues touched. They began to strangle each other.
23.48
A hut in the village of Kolchino
Two old women, Nyura and Matryona, prayed on their knees to a dark icon case. The lamp’s blue flame poorly illuminated the visages of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, the Savior, and the Virgin Mary. It was damp and dark in the hut.
“Oh Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, we pray to Your Most Pure Mother, to our reverend and God-bearing fathers and to all the saints––that they might have mercy on us. Amen!” The two women finished their discordant prayer, crossed themselves, bowed, touched the uneven ground with their foreheads, then began the process of standing with a groan.
Matryona was the first to get up. Then grabbed Nyura by her bony elbow.
“Oh mama, oh God…” Nyura straightened up with great difficulty, strode over to a bench, and sat down.
“‘Haps y’might still write to Vasily?” Matryona asked, walking over to the table.
“Nah. Haven’t the might,” Nyura was breathing hard.
“Well, I wrote to my people. That they might come.”
“Mine ain’t been here for eight months already… oy, feels like somethin’s breakin’…” Nyura moaned. “C’mon… no point waitin’…”
Matryona lifted up the tablecloth. On the table, in addition to bread and a salt shaker, there was a plate with a blin on it. Matryona picked up the blin, sat down next to Nyura, and tore it in half:
“Well then––chow down. Made it in the mornin’.”
“Just one?” Nyura took half of the blin with her thin, violently shaking fingers.
“What’s the issue…? Yeah. One. With butter. Eat.”
“So I shall…”
They began to eat in silence. Chewed with toothless mouths. Once she was done, Matryona wiped at her mouth with her brown hand, stood up, and took Nyura by the elbow:
“Time to go with God.”
“Time to go… oh Lord…” She had a hard time standing up as she chewed.
They went out into the dark breezeway with its collapsed floor. Light filtered in through holes in the roof. A hemp rope with a noose at either end of it was thrown over the ceiling beam. Matryona led Nyura over to the nooses. Helped her to put one around her neck. Then put the other around her own. Nyura was wearing a new white kerchief with blue polka dots. Matryona had put on her old black one with white polka dots.
Matryona grabbed Nyura by her bony shoulders and pulled her downward. Nyura let forth a sob and a hiccup. The rope became taut and the old women’s legs buckled.
23:48
Kindergarten No. 7
Rita and Masha, both five years old, lay side by side in their beds with open eyes and looked up at the ceiling. The remaining sixteen children were asleep. Their teacher and the watchman were making love behind the wall.
A car passed by outside the windows. Stripes of light crawled across the ceiling.
“A dragon,” Masha said.
“Nope. A giraffe,” Rita wrinkled her nose.
Their teacher let forth a muffled gasp behind the wall.
What the heck is Nina Petrovna up to in there?” Masha asked.
“She and Uncle Misha are stranglin’ each other.”
“Whaddaya mean?”
“They’re lyin’ in bed naked and stranglin’ each other. With their hands.”
“Why?”
“It’s where kids come from. Feels nice too. My mom and dad do it all the time. They strip naked and-–there y’go. Do yours do it?”
“Well, I don’t have a dad.”
They fell silent. Another car passed by. Then another.
“Oy… ahhh… oy… umm… Mish… like… I don’t want it like that…” their teacher muttered behind the wall.
Masha raised her head:
“Rit… think we should strangle each other?”
“Then we’ll have kids.”
They fell silent. Rita thought for a moment:
“No. We won’t.”
“Why?”
“We’re not a man and a lady.”
“Aha! Then let’s do it, huh?”
“Let’s. But, first, we better strip naked.”
“C’mon! It’s cold! Let’s do it like this!”
“If we don’t do it naked, it won’t work.”
“Really?”
“Mhm.”
It took them a long time to take off their pajamas. They got into Masha’s bed. Grabbed onto each other’s necks. And began to strangle each other.
The aforementioned Lukashevich, Valera, Alex, Matryona, and Rita saw nothing special during the strangling process.
Zeldin, Petyukh, Nicola, Nyura, and Masha, on the other hand, first observed a series of orange and scarlet flashes, which flowed smoothly into a menacing crimson radiance. Then the crimson light became turbid, went navy, then sky-blue––before suddenly opening up into an enormously endless space. It was an unbelievably spacious ash-gray landscape illuminated by an enormous full moon in the dark-violet sky. Despite the fact that it was nighttime, it was as bright as day. The moon illuminated the low ruins of the incinerated city in great detail. A scattering of stars sparkled in the sky. A naked woman walked amongst the ruins. A bewitching sense of peace emanated from her white, moonlit body. She didn’t belong to the world, upon the ashes of which she walked. People destroyed by the blast lay in the ash and ruins. Some were moaning and others were already dead. But the people’s moans had no effect on the woman’s calm. She moved smoothly, stepping over those who were dead and those in their death throes. She was searching for something other. Finally, she stopped. A mortally wounded bitch attempting to give birth lay amongst the melted bricks. The majority of its body had been burnt and its ribs stuck out through tufts of fur and skin. Breathing heavily and squealing weakly, it was trying to give birth. But it had no might left for delivery. The dog was dying, shuddering with the whole of its mutilated body and straining impotently. Bloody saliva flowed from its scarlet maw and its pink tongue stuck out.
The woman lowered herself down into the ashes next to the dog. Put her white hands onto the bitch’s singed belly. Pressed. The dog’s dirty, bloody legs parted slightly. It whined weakly. Puppies began to squeeze forth from its loins: a first, a second, a third, a fourth, and a fifth. A spasm passed across the bitch’s body. It squinted at the woman with a single crazed, moist eye, then yawned and died. The wet black pups stirred languidly, poking their muzzles into the gray ashes. The woman took them into her arms and pressed them to her bosom. And the blind pups began to drink her milk.