Back to Moscow (14 page)

Anton Pavlovich is the master of nastroeniye, Lyudmila Aleksandrovna had told me, and he certainly was, capturing in his writing the essence of late nineteenth-century Russia.

Sitting on the terrace of Coffee Mania, scribbling random thoughts in my notebook, I often found myself wondering what Chekhov would write, how would he manage to capture the nastroeniye, if he
were to write scenes not about nineteenth-century provincial life but about the life of expats and dyevs in today’s Moscow.

‘I
T
’
S BEEN RAINING FOR
two weeks,’ I say, looking through the window. It’s dark and the rain is falling
with violence. ‘Every thing is so dirty out there, I can’t wait for winter to arrive.’

Stepanov stands by the turntable, flipping through his records. He’s been playing Russian bands all night. ‘Winter should come soon,’ he says. ‘Last year by this time we
had plenty of snow.’

I return to the sofa, slump down next to Colin. ‘How young do you think is too young?’ I ask.

Colin holds his empty glass up to the light, peers through it from different angles, as if judging the quality of its craftsmanship. ‘What do you mean?’

‘For a dyev.’ I notice comrade Brezhnev staring at me from across the room. Serious eyes. Bushy eyebrows.

Colin places the glass on the table and leans forward, half smiling. ‘To fuck her?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘To
be
with her. When do you think a dyev is too young for that?’

Diego is sitting on a chair, wearing his furry shapka, his large paw-like hands typing on his mobile phone. Black shirt unbuttoned, you can see his chest and facial hair meeting at an
arbitrarily shaved line halfway up his neck. ‘How old is she?’ he asks.

‘Young,’ I say.

Stepanov flips the record on the turntable. Then he crouches and lowers the needle with precision onto the edge of the vinyl. ‘How young?’

I regret bringing up the subject. ‘Is this KINO?’ I ask, when I hear the first beats of the song.

‘Fuck yes!’ Stepanov mimics guitar playing, then drops onto his leather armchair. ‘The
Black Album
.’

‘Sounds good,’ I say. ‘Is this before or after
Gruppa Krovi
?’

‘Their last album,’ Stepanov says. ‘Released after Victor Tsoy died. That’s why it’s called the
Black Album
, the rest of the group decided not to name it.
You know, some people think Tsoy was killed, that his car crash was no accident, because he was against the system and all that.’

‘So Martin’s banging a little girl,’ Colin says. ‘What’s the legal age in Russia anyway?’

‘I don’t really know her age,’ I say. ‘She’s not
that
young.’

Stepanov takes the bottle of vodka and fills our four glasses. ‘I don’t think we have age limits in Russia.’

‘Where did you find her?’ Diego asks, not bothering to look up from his mobile phone.

‘At the Moskva Bookshop,’ I say. ‘A couple of weeks ago. She was standing by the foreign language books.’

‘The foreign language shelves are a great spot to pick up dyevs,’ Colin says. ‘In Dom Knigi there are always hot dyevs around the foreign books. It’s like just by being
there they are giving you a green light.’

Diego looks up. ‘Why’s that? I don’t think
you
need much encouragement to hit on a girl.’

‘You know,’ Colin says, ‘if they are trying to learn English, they are more willing and interested in meeting expats.’

‘So you took her home right away?’ Diego asks, now looking at me.

‘I took her for a cup of coffee,’ I say. ‘She’s a lovely girl, but a bit shy. Next day we went to the new sushi bar that just opened in Bolshaya Dmitrovka.’

‘Haven’t tried that one yet,’ Colin says.

‘Don’t.’ I stand up and walk towards the large piano in the middle of the room. ‘The sushi’s crap. But it was Polina’s first time, so she didn’t
notice.’

‘I had a Polina two or three months ago,’ Colin says. ‘From Irkutsk. Or was it Tomsk?’

‘So Polina tried to eat with chopsticks,’ I say, ‘but she kept dropping the sushi. At some point the sushi fell onto the soy plate and the splash stained her shirt. Instead of
running off to wash the shirt she just blushed and apologised.’

‘That’s cute,’ Colin says.

‘I told her she could use her fingers. She seemed relieved.’

‘I can’t understand the whole sushi revolution,’ Diego says. ‘What did they eat before in Moscow?’

‘So from the sushi place you took her home?’ Colin asks.

‘Not really,’ I say. ‘Next day I took her to the cinema in Pushkinskaya. Then I asked her to come up to my apartment.’

Colin smiles. ‘Man, your apartment has the best location in town.’

‘Guess what she tells me when she’s undressed?’

‘I need to move to the centre,’ Colin says. ‘Get a flat around Tverskaya.’

‘Martin,’ Stepanov says, ‘don’t tell us she was a virgin.’

I nod. ‘I didn’t know, of course. So she’s lying naked on my couch and I can see from her face that she’s kind of panicking. So I asked her, “Are you OK with
this?”’

‘Man,’ Colin says, ‘you should never ask.’

Diego looks up from his mobile phone. ‘If she’s a virgin you are supposed to ask.’

‘Good fucking etiquette,’ Stepanov says, laughing.

‘Seriously,’ Diego says, ‘you want to be sure she’s really up for it. Wouldn’t you?’

‘Anyway,’ I say, ‘she just told me to be careful because she’d never been with a man before.’

‘Who gives a fuck about age anyway,’ Stepanov says, standing up and raising his glass of vodka. ‘If she’s into you, why not.’

I raise my glass. ‘That’s right.’

‘Let’s drink to our friend,’ Stepanov says, pointing his glass at me, ‘Humbert Humbert.’

Diego and Colin laugh.

‘Fuck you,’ I say.

We all drink up. Stepanov starts to sing along to the next song. Colin joins in for the chorus.

When the song is finished, Colin turns to me. ‘Remember Marusia, from the Real McCoy?’

‘Of course,’ I say. ‘The TV presenter.’

Colin shakes his head. ‘She’s driving me crazy, man.’

‘Haven’t banged her yet?’

‘She’s just playing with me. I took her for dinner twice, to expensive places. But she’s so used to this kind of treatment, must have plenty of guys after her. She would not
put out, the bitch.’

Stepanov is pouring vodka into our glasses. He realises he’s miscalculated the amount of liquor left in the bottle and there’s not enough to fill the last glass. He takes his own
glass and pours half of his vodka into Diego’s.

Diego lifts his glass, now full to the brim, takes a small sip. ‘Is that one of the famous half-German sisters?’

‘Yeah,’ Colin says. ‘That was a great night, when we met them.’

‘You’ve told us the story a hundred times,’ Diego says.

‘If only you had slept with her that first night,’ I say, pointing at Colin, ‘you wouldn’t give a shit about her right now.’

‘If only,’ Colin says. ‘But shit, we were so wasted, remember? And now I can’t get her out of my mind. If I could fuck her just once I would be able to move on. Maybe we
could double-date them again?’

‘I’m done with the sister,’ I say. ‘She’s so messed up. Anyway, they are too high maintenance, the kind of dyevs who end up with oligarchs.’

‘Listen to this song,’ Stepanov says. ‘The best on this album.’

‘If only I could fuck her once,’ Colin says, to himself, gazing despondently into his glass.

Stepanov stands up and raises his glass. ‘To tonight.’

We drain our glasses.

Diego has now pocketed his mobile phone. Then he asks about the bomb in Pushkinskaya. ‘So close to your place,’ he says, looking at me. ‘Did you hear anything?’

‘Only the sirens. It all happened underground, the earth must have muffled the blast.’

‘Poor people,’ Diego says. ‘I don’t understand why Chechens do this.’

‘I doubt it was the Chechens,’ Stepanov says.

Diego shrugs. ‘That’s what I heard on the news.’

‘You guys shouldn’t bother watching TV news,’ Stepanov says. ‘It’s all propaganda. TV in Russia is where the government says whatever they want the people to
believe.’

‘That’s true,’ Colin says. ‘Fucking weird, if you take Russians individually, one by one, they are the most honest people on Earth. They are so direct, so
straightforward, they just can’t lie. Not in their genes. Russians can’t do hypocrisy, not like Westerners. That’s why they come across as rude. It’s not rudeness.
It’s fucking honesty. But, shit, when it comes to the public sphere, that’s another story. Everything in this country is a big fucking lie.’

Stepanov lowers his voice. ‘True. The bomb in Pushkinskaya was most probably planted by our guys. Nashi.’

‘What do you mean your guys?’ I ask.

‘You know, the FSB, the secret services. It’s like the building they blew up last year in Pechatniki. They killed dozens of people, just to make a point.’

‘What point?’

Colin turns to me. ‘To show the common people that Russia has enemies.’

‘Precisely,’ Stepanov says. ‘You need to understand that for Russians to feel united we need an enemy, someone who wants to destroy us, an external threat that helps us come
together. Mongols, Poles, French, Germans, Americans, anyone will do. It’s a tradition, it has always been like this.’

‘I see,’ I say. ‘Like
War and Peace
.’

‘I guess,’ Stepanov says. ‘Haven’t read it.’

‘You never read
War and Peace
?’

Stepanov shakes his head, looking down at the coffee table. ‘I started it a couple of times. Too fucking long.’

‘Russians can’t live without existential fear,’ Colin says. ‘They are a screwed-up nation.’

‘I wouldn’t put it exactly like that,’ Stepanov says.

‘They have an enormous inferiority complex,’ Colin continues, now pointing at Stepanov. ‘With all their shit about being a special nation and all that, if you scratch under the
surface, all Russians are jealous of the West. Of America in particular.’

‘Have
you
read
War and Peace
?’ I ask Colin.

‘I saw the movie,’ he says. ‘What I mean is, making enemies is how Russia tries to overcome its inferiority complex. The hostile attitude, the political whining, it’s
just a façade, it makes Russians feel more valued, or, at least, less ignored. That’s why they came up with the whole communist fiasco and put up with it for so long. They knew it
didn’t work, but they liked the feeling of being feared.’

‘I thought communism was about giving life some meaning,’ I say. ‘Through sacrifice and suffering.’

‘Bullshit,’ Colin says. ‘It was about prestige. Like the unpopular kid in school that turns into a bully. He’s never going to be one of the popular guys, so he’d
rather be a bully than a nerd. That’s Russia.’

‘Communism was awesome,’ Diego says. ‘It would have been great to live here twenty years ago, when people believed in those things. Social justice, ideals. The fall of the
Soviet Union was a historical tragedy for the entire world. No wonder Russia is such a mess now. And the people are so confused.’

‘That’s what makes Moscow so fucking interesting,’ Colin says. ‘The confusion, the chaos. We’re just lucky to be here at this moment in history. In a few years
it’ll all be sanitised and clean like the West. I would die of boredom now if I had to live in the States.’

Stepanov stands up, walks towards the turntable. ‘Russia will never be like the West.’

‘Let’s hope not,’ Colin says.

Stepanov takes the KINO record from the turntable and slides it into its black sleeve. ‘We see the world in a different way.’

‘Vodka’s finished,’ I say. ‘Should we start moving?’

‘How are we getting there?’ Diego says. ‘We don’t even know the address. I don’t want to walk around in this rain.’

‘It’s somewhere behind Lubyanka,’ Stepanov says. ‘We’ll ask the taxi to drive around until we find it. It’s opening night, there’ll be people
outside.’

We stand up. Diego helps Stepanov take the empty bottles and glasses to the kitchen. We start putting our shoes on.

Diego readjusts his shapka in front of a wall mirror. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing this place,’ he says.

‘It’s gonna be awesome,’ Colin says.

Stepanov takes his sunglasses from the coffee table, switches the lights off. We leave the apartment and head down to the street.

I
N THE EVENINGS THE
rain fell frozen, heavy, and for two weeks all the streets around Pushkinskaya were covered in mud and slush. The floors of
perekhods and metro platforms were smeared in black sludge, wet and slippery – the underground air swamped by the smell of damp earth. Then, one day in late November, temperatures dropped
below freezing, the wind and the rain stopped, and dry snow started to fall over Moscow.

The snow began around noon and went on until late in the evening – falling in silence and piling on the stack of plastic chairs on Scandinavia’s terrace, on parked cars, on the bare
trees of the Boulevard, on Pushkin’s bronze shoulders.

Lena stood by the balcony door, staring at the snowfall.

‘I love Moscow in winter,’ I said. From the couch I could not see her face but I knew she was crying.

‘The snow will cover all the shit until spring,’ she replied. She was in her underwear, red lace knickers and matching bra, holding a cup of tea that had long gone cold.

‘Come here, Lenushka.’

‘I’m going home.’

‘Stay, please.’

She turned to me. ‘What for?’

‘It’s late. And cold outside. Come back to the couch. We can talk about everything tomorrow.’

The flat was dark, but for a solitary candle flickering on the coffee table, next to an empty wine bottle.

‘Martin, you said you might write a book about your life in Moscow.’

‘Maybe after my PhD, something more personal.’

‘If you write about me,’ Lena said, ‘please make it a sad story.’

‘All Russian stories are sad.’

‘True.’ Lena took a sip of cold tea and continued crying in silence. I knew she would not let it go. Once Lena had found a reason to cry she did not stop.