Later Tambov Wolf goes off to steal another bottle, this time from a different shop. We drink it, fall asleep on the beach, and the next day he’s gone.
“Vanya! Got a ciggie, darling?” The prostitute Vera is sitting on a bench sporting a black eye.
As it happens I have. Vera is in an unusually calm mood. As we sit smoking side by side she begins to talk: “I was a trainee draughtsman before the Komsomol got hold of me. Some activists picked me up by the beach, saying that because my dress buttoned down the front I was obviously a prostitute. They hauled me in. Sentenced me as a Decembrist. I had to clean the toilets in the station. When my fifteen days were up I decided I might as well practise what they thought I did anyway. I certainly make a lot more money this way.”
She finishes her cigarette. “I’ll be off to work now. Thanks for the smoke, love. You tramps are okay.”
“Well you won’t find any moralists among us.”
It is time I found a place on a farm. I go down to the town’s labour exchange where they direct me to a collective farm about 20 kilometres out of town. I set off in the hot sun and hitch a ride part of the way in a truck. However, it turns out that the farm administration don’t want to take anyone on. I am annoyed at the waste of time. I haven’t had a hair-of-the-dog and my hands are beginning to shake. Not knowing what to do next, I leave the office and look around. There is a lad standing a little way off. Judging by his appearance he’s some sort of tramp like me. He ambles over to where I stand.
“Brother, do you know what time it is?” I ask.
“Five to whatever the fuck you like. You late for work?”
“Work’s not a wolf. It won’t run off into the forest.”
“But I would, given half a chance.”
“What’re you waiting for? Let’s go.”
We set off for the distant forest. On the way we swipe salt and paper napkins from the farm’s dining room. We pull up some young potatoes and pick a few cucumbers from a field on the outskirts of the farm. I don’t regard this as theft. We never take more than what we can eat at one sitting. In private fields we dig into the soil on one side of the potato plants and pull off a few tubers. Then we pack the earth back, knowing that by autumn the plant will yield as many potatoes as its neighbours. Given the tons of fruit and vegetables that rot away in the fields it would be a sin not to take some.
Once we reach the forest we light a fire in a clearing and bake our potatoes. There’s no shortage of kindling in the dense and tangled undergrowth. It is good to sit by the fire. I wonder why I’ve hung around towns for so long. I must have forgotten that you don’t need much in this life.
My companion, whose name is Yura, is not talkative. That suits me. I’m happy just to look into the flames. The potatoes bake quickly. We pull them out and toss them from hand to hand until they cool down. They burn in the mouth but the cucumbers soothe our tongues. I decide not to return to the town.
“Yura, where are you headed?”
“Armavir. Let’s go together.”
“But I can’t walk as fast as you.”
“I’m in no hurry. Summer’s only just begun. Time enough to get there by winter.”
“Let’s go then.”
First we go back to the farm. An old Cossack woman gives us three roubles and a bottle of samogon in return for chopping wood. We ask her for an aluminium mug and a handleless saucepan, and then we take more salt and a glass from the farm’s dining room. In the shop we buy tea, tobacco and matches. Beyond the farm we head east, following the sun. All around us are plantations of apricot and cherry trees. When the day draws to a close we lie down by a stream in a grove of willows and black poplars. We fetch some hay from a field and spread it out for a bed.
Yura comes from Dnepropetrovsk and has been on the road for two years. He has already been in the spets twice and wants to avoid a prison sentence. He intends to stay in the Kuban till autumn and then head off into Central Asia. That idea appeals to me and we decide to stick together. We will stay where we are for the summer, keeping our heads down and avoiding any trouble with the law. That means not showing our faces in towns and not stealing.
I am unable to steal in any real sense; I couldn’t imagine breaking into someone’s house or pickpocketing. As for other sorts of theft — well, everyone in the Soviet Union steals. Our system turns us into thieves. In other countries the most hardened thief knows in his heart of hearts that he’s doing wrong. Even as he’s hauled off to jail he knows that he deserves his punishment. He may not like it but he knows it is just. You have to answer for your deeds. In the USSR, however, everything is turned on its head. We think someone a fool if he does not steal from the state. The authorities think so too. They pay us so little that we have to steal. That way they encourage us to get our hands as dirty as theirs. Then we’re in no position to complain about them, the much greater thieves.
Everyone knows the difference between genuine theft and taking back what has been stolen from us in the first place. We’re only expropriating the expropriators.
“Yura,” I say aloud, “stealing might be wrong, but when the state steals freedom and takes away human dignity, then people begin to construct their own values.”
Yura interrupts me: “Right. And what if everyone invented their own values? What would we have then?”
“Chaos!” I have to admit it.
Yura sleeps. I draw away from the glow of the fire in order to see the stars. I pile up some hay and lie down. I am not drunk. There’s even a drop of samogon left for my morning hair-of-the-dog. With everything taken care of, I relax and start to think about how to live my life in a way that will have some sort of meaning. My attitude to the world around me is changing. My youthful dreams of setting the world on fire have died. I know I will never walk to the North Pole or discover a new chemical element. On the other hand I am less disturbed by my crippled leg. I’ve learned that strength, whether mental or physical, is a cruel and destructive force. Even if you do not intend to use your strength for evil purposes it makes no difference in the end.
After gazing for a long time at the constellations, I come to a decision. I will never again say, ‘If only everyone did as I did,’ or, ‘If only everyone were like that… .’ I have to accept that people will never be the way I want them to be.
I am disillusioned with humanity but I cannot not say I hate it. You can hate flies and cockroaches, you can love bees and cabbage pasties, but I don’t see how you can love or hate ‘people’ when they are all so different. The man who says ‘I love people’ is either a politician or a scoundrel, which are one and the same, or simply an idiot who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. In the course of my life I’ve come into contact with tens of thousands of human beings. Some were fine and others I wouldn’t have cared to meet in hell. Most were harmless enough. It’s unlikely that I myself have caused joy to leap in many hearts.
I decide that from now on I will behave as though other people do not exist. Even when I’m in a crowded bazaar I will act as though I’m on a desert island. To live in and for oneself sounds very simple but in practice it is almost impossible. I am human like anyone else and affected by those around me. Added to which, as a Soviet citizen, I’ve drunk in the word ‘we’ with my mother’s milk. But whether I succeed or not, the most important thing is that I have made my decision. No one can alter it or prevent me from trying to carry it out.