“With me it’s always eight o’clock,” Klava bellows, turning her back to me, bending over and throwing up her skirts. Between her bare buttocks she presents me with two holes, one above the other like the figure eight.
Every day Klava and her husband battle each other with pitchforks and mallets. It’s amazing that neither manages to kill the other. When drunk Klava bursts into our rooms, throws off our blankets and tries to climb onto one of us. I keep a hoe by my bed to drive her away. When the lads reject her advances she stands outside cursing and throwing stones at our windows.
As a Heroine Mother of the USSR Klava doesn’t have to work. Her husband turns up in the fields now and again, just to see what he can steal. The couple have countless children. The little ones crawl around the farm, putting everything from apricots to dog shit in their mouths.
Still, I’m in no position to judge my neighbours. I drink every day. Samogon is as copious as the waters of the Volga. The local peasants distil it from tobacco. In the morning it makes your head ache unbearably, so you have to take a hair-of-the-dog immediately.
I feel as though I’m being sucked into quicksand. A little while longer and I’ll never be able to tear myself away from Red Shaft Collective Farm. My pay is better than it was in any chemical factory and there’s not much work to do. I enjoy plentiful food, lots to drink and girls as sweet and strong as apples.
The girls came to us from the Cossack village of Petrovka that lies twelve kilometres to the south. They have their fun with us away from the eyes of their fathers and brothers. In their community they count for damn all. Since early childhood they’ve had to work like donkeys. The breadth and strength of their arms deceives anyone who wants to be deceived. Sometimes in the morning I discover that the girl I’ve spent the night with is not even 16 years old.
I get caught in a storm while bringing in the horses. In a few seconds I’m soaked to the skin. I develop pneumonia. The farm’s doctor wants to take me to hospital, but I refuse.
“You’ll be dead by tonight.”
“All to the good.”
“Do you know what you are saying?”
“Yes. I have to shit, and you’re preventing me.”
She withdraws. Somehow I make it to the bucket my friends have supplied and then I sleep. In the morning I awaken feeling weak but well and flooded with happiness. I have a strong urge to visit my daughter in Estonia.
A week later I leave the collective farm, taking only the watch they award me for my labour. I don’t even collect my wages. Money frightens me.
9
Georgia
I want to see Natasha before she forgets who I am, so I set off for Estonia. A tractor drives me into Slavyansk and I walk to the station. The conductor of a westbound express is happy to give me a berth in exchange for my Red Shaft watch. I travel as far as Rostov; after that I make my way northwards on local trains, keeping an eye on schoolboys who always know when the conductor is on his way. When the train halts and they jump off I limp along after them, climbing into carriages that have already been checked. All the same I’m caught a few times and put off the train. From Rostov I go to Taganrog, and then across Ukraine through the Donbass and back into Russia, through Belgorod, Kursk, Oryol and Tula.
The whole way I keep as sober as glass and on constant lookout for the police. My jacket is only distinguishable from a convict’s by its collar, my shoes are falling apart and I sprout a beard. I have only to step into a waiting room for the attention of all uniforms to fasten upon me like a magnet. In Tula I am accosted by a guardian of law and order: “Where are you going?”.
“Home.”
“And where’s ‘home’?”
“The collective farm.”
“Which collective farm would that be?”
“What d’you mean ‘which’?” I look at him with the eyes of Saint Francis. “Ours!”
I tell myself not to overdo it, for the policeman probably left the collective farm himself not so long ago.
“And where is your farm?” he spits out the words like pieces of shit from his mouth.
“It’s in the Kuban,” I put on a southern accent.
“Do you have your documents?”
“Well of course!” I reach into my jacket and pull out a package wrapped in old newspaper. The policeman looks on with distaste as I peel off the paper. My new passport is already stained and the residence permit almost illegible.
“Sorry… I didn’t know that it was leaking.”
“What was?”
“The lamp!”
“What lamp?”
“The kerosene one. The electrician was drunk and burnt the transformer.”
“Get the hell out of here! If I see your stupid face again you’ll go straight into the spets.”
So I continue northwards, trying to ride by night when ticket controllers are sleepy. By day I wander around towns, collecting empty bottles for a couple of roubles to buy bread. I bum cigarettes, or pick up dog ends and roll them in newspaper. Sometimes I share a cigarette with another vagrant, sitting by his side smoking in silence, feeling as close as brothers.
I reach Moscow, cross the city, and head northwards. As I near my destination I feel my courage fail. I long to see Natasha, but will she be pleased to see her father, especially in his beard and filthy clothes? At Bologoye I wait a whole day for an Estonia-bound train, sitting on a cold platform lost in thought.
As night falls I rise, cross the footbridge and take the next train south. I return to Moscow and then jump trains to Tambov, Rostov and finally to Sochi. I am relieved that I made my decision in time. If I’d seen Natasha I might have done irreparable harm.
“Kind people! Answer me anyone who hears!”
“What d’you want?” I call out.
A blind man taps his way towards my voice. His face is exactly as I imagine Blind Pew’s in Treasure Island. He doesn’t wear dark glasses, perhaps because he wants people to see the cruel livid scars around his eyes.
“Brother!” he cries, “Help me get a bottle. I can hear a whole crowd of people around me. I’ll be trampled.”
Not waiting for my reply, he pours some small coins from his pocket into his cap. “Get us a couple of bottles.”
“But I haven’t enough for one myself.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Take as much as you need! And a bit extra for yourself. My trousers are sagging with the weight. Perhaps you need it all?”
I come out of the shop with three bottles and catch up with Blind Pew on the corner. With his cap held out to passers-by he whines: “Help me good people. I was burned in a tank at the battle of Kursk.”
“I see you waste no time,” I say.
“Ah, you’re back. Well, what are you dithering for? Slurping up the snot dripping from your nose? Where shall we drink?”
“It’s all the same to me.”
Taking my arm, Pew directs me to left and right, until we reach an obscure beer stall tucked away under a railway bridge. They instantly lay out glasses for us. Placing a finger across the rim of each glass in turn, Pew carefully pours the wine.
“I grew up in Sochi. I was blinded a few years ago when I fell into a pit of quicklime. Usually I take someone along with me to keep an eye out for the police and to buy bottles. I used to have a girlfriend but the police picked her up in Sukhumi.
“The cops can’t do much except give me a kicking, but I’m scared of being sent to the invalid home. It’s worse than strict-regime prison. They take your pension and the staff steal all the food. Anyone who still has legs runs away.
“Of course if you live rough you’re caught between two flames. In railway stations there’s plenty of folk around, but you have to look out for the police. In quiet places you get beaten up and robbed by thugs. They know we won’t run screaming to the law. Anyway, where are you headed?”