Authors: William Vollmann
Tags: #Germany - Social Life and Customs, #Soviet Union - Social Life and Customs, #General, #Literary, #Germany, #Historical, #War & Military, #Fiction, #Soviet Union
Europe Central
Table of Contents
VIEW FROM A RUINED ROMANIAN FORT
THE SAVIORS: A KABBALISTIC TALE
YOU HAVE SHUT THE DANUBE’S GATES
WHEN PARZIVAL KILLED THE RED KNIGHT
FAR AND WIDE MY COUNTRY STRETCHES
WHY WE DON’T TALK ABOUT FREYA ANYMORE
AN IMAGINARY LOVE TRIANGLE: SHOSTAKOVICH, KARMEN, KONSTANTINOVSKAYA
ALSO BY WILLIAM T. VOLLMANN
You Bright and Risen Angels
The Rainbow Stories
The Ice-Shirt
Thirteen Stories and Thirteen Epitaphs
Whores for Gloria
Fathers and Crows
Butterfly Stories
The Rifles
An Afghanistan Picture Show
The Atlas
The Royal Family
Argall
Rising Up and Rising Down
VIKING
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. ■ Penguin Group (Canada), 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) ■ Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England ■ Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) ■ Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) ■ Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India ■ Penguin Group (NZ), Cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) ■ Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published in 2005 by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Copyright © William T. Vollmann, 2005
All rights reserved
Portions of this work first appeared in
Conjunctions, Grand Street, Film Comment, The New Yorker, The Paris Review,
and
Expelled from Eden: A William T. Vollmann Reader,
edited by William T. Vollmann, Larry McCaffery, and Michael Hemmingson (Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2005).
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Vollmann, William T.
Europe central / by William T. Vollmann. p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-101-11819-1
1. Germany—Social life and customs—Fiction. 2. Soviet Union—Social life and customs—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3572.O395E97 2005
813’.54—dc22 2004061170
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Map by the author
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrightable materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
This book is dedicated to the memory of Danilo Kis, whose masterpiece
A Tomb for Boris Davidovich
kept me company for many years
while I was preparing to write this book.
The majority of my symphonies are tombstones.
—D. D. Shostakovich
PATRONYMICS
For the convenience of my countrymen who lose their way in Russian novels.
Akhmatova [Gorenko], Anna Andreyevna
Arnshtam, Leo Oskarovich
Danchenko, Natalya Kovalova
Denisov, Edison Vasiliyevich.
Nickname:
Edik.
Glikman, Isaak Davidovich
Glivenko, Tatyana Ivanovna
Kainova, Margarita Andreyevna
Karmen, Roman Lazarevich
Konstantinovskaya, Elena [Yelena] Evseyevna.
Nicknames:
Elenka, Elenochka, Lyalya, Lyalka, Lyalotchka.
Krupskaya, Nadezhda Konstantinovna
Lebedinsky, Lev Nikolayevich
Lenin [Ulyanov], Vladimir Ilyich. Often called Ilyich.
Litvinova, Flora Pavlovna
Nikolayevna, Tatyana Petrovna
Rostropovich, Mstislav Leopoldovich
Shebalina, Alisa Maximova
Shostakovich, Dimitri Dimitriyevich.
Nicknames:
Mitya, Mitenka, etc.
Shostakovich, Galina Dimitriyevich.
Nicknames:
Galya, Galisha, Galotchka.
Shostakovich, Mariya Dimitriyevna.
Nickname:
Mariyusha.
Shostakovich, Zoya Dimitriyevna
Supinskaya [later Shostakovich], Irina Antonova.
Nicknames:
Irinotchka, Irinka.
Ustvolskaya, Galina Ivanovna
Varzar [later Shostakovich], Nina Vasilyevna.
Nicknames:
Ninotchka, Ninusha, Ninka, Nita.
Vlasov, Andrei Andreyevich
Operation Barbossa
VIEW FROM A RUINED ROMANIAN FORT
(1945)
STEEL IN MOTION
