The Tsar of Love and Techno: Stories (7 page)

On clear days we trudged through White Forest, a man-made woods of metal trees and plastic leaves constructed in the boon years of Brezhnev when the party boss’s wife had grown nostalgic for the birches of her youth. By the time we trudged beneath them, however, the years had ravaged both the forest and the party boss’s wife, and the plastic leaves above were as sagging and liver-spotted as her face. We went on. The mud was a mustard we plodded through. On the forest’s far side we looked across the expanse of sulfurous waste stretching to the horizon. We shouted. We proclaimed. We didn’t need to whisper out here. For a few short weeks in July, red wildflowers pushed through the oxidized waste and the whole earth simmered with apocalyptic beauty.

But the only color belowground was a silvery metallic luster. Our fathers blasted the ore in the most productive nickel mine in the world in twelve-hour shifts. Mine shafts ran a kilometer and a half into the ground below us, and at the bottom the air was so sticky that even in January they stripped to undershirts, and hours later when they came home they’d stumble toward the shower, shedding their overcoats, sweaters, shirts, trousers, and the nickel dust that had dried onto their chests, their backs, their legs, and for a few moments before they showered our fathers were indestructible, men of metal, men who gleamed.

Other metals were mined—gold, copper, palladium, platinum—but northern nickel was our lifeblood. The Twelve Apostles burned it from the ore in two-thousand-degree heat and the falling snow was tinged with color depending on what had been in the furnaces the previous day: the red of iron, the
blue of cobalt, the eggy yellow of nickel. We measured economic prosperity by the spread of rashes on our exposed skin. Even those who had never lit a cigarette had a smoker’s cough. But the mining combine took care of us: vacations at mineral spas, citywide festivals on International Workers’ Day, and the highest municipal wages of any city in the six time zones. When our fathers fell ill, the combine provided hospital beds. When they died, the combine provided coffins.

Through it all, Galina disappointed our expectations faster than we could lower them. The ballet instructor’s initial excitement at seeing her name on the class list turned to dismay. Despite inheriting her grandmother’s beautiful figure, Galina danced with the subtlety of a spooked ostrich. Basic barre exercises upended her. During performances, she was, thank goodness, relegated to the most minor ensemble role. But we really shouldn’t be so harsh: If she were anyone else’s granddaughter, we wouldn’t think twice about her dancing like the victim of an inner ear disorder. Besides, we’re free from the burden of expectation—no one has ever predicted that we would distinguish ourselves in any way—therefore we can’t understand what it’s like to fail where one might seem destined to succeed. So stop prodding us. We really do want to be kind.

With our newfound spirit of generosity, let’s talk about something Galina was good at: making herself the center of attention. She arrived to a party our first year of secondary school wearing an olive-green miniskirt stitched together from the ugliest of her mother’s headscarves. We had never seen anything like it—this most demure of garments transformed into a scandal wrapped around her hips. The skirt ended mid-thigh,
hardly larger than a washcloth, and goose bumps covered the rest of her legs. Boys stared with open-mouthed thanksgiving, then turned away, as if acknowledging Galina’s presence was an unlawfully lewd act. No one knew what to say. There was no precedent for miniskirts in the Arctic. We whispered among ourselves that Galina had become a prostitute, but when we arrived home, we began stitching miniskirts of our own.

The miniskirt attracted the attentions of Kolya. If we could we would airbrush him from our story as thoroughly as the censors airbrushed Galina’s grandmother from photographs she had once populated. You see, Kolya was a hundred meters of arrogance pressed into a two-meter frame, the kind of young man who makes you feel inadequate for not impressing him. He was forever leaning, slanting, sidling, his existence italicized down to his crooked hat. In another country, he might have grown up to be an investment banker, but here he grew up to be a murderer, the worst kind of murderer, the kind who murdered one of us.

Galina couldn’t have foreseen this. None of us could. For his first date he invited Galina for a romantic stroll around Lake Mercury. Yes, that Lake Mercury. The man-made lake that holds toxic runoff from the city’s smelting facilities. For a first date. No kidding. But this is too sad to think about. Forget Kolya, even if we haven’t.

Though her scarf miniskirt scandalized the school, it didn’t prevent Galina from dancing at the fifty-year anniversary of the mining combine. Kremlin officials arrived by prop plane to celebrate our party boss. Our most inept bureaucrats received medals and commendations. Gorbachev’s men told us that we
lived atop the globe so that the rest of the world could look up at us. Our fathers beamed as the general secretary himself thanked them by video recording.
You not only mine the fuel of the Soviet Union
, he proclaimed,
you are the fuel of the Soviet Union.
The final night of celebrations ended with an outdoor ballet performance in the city center. Dancers from the Bolshoi and Kirov flew in for the leading roles. Against all expectations, Galina was chosen for the backing ensemble. The Twelve Apostles had been turned off two weeks earlier, and the July sun pierced the remnant cloud cover, spotlighting Galina for us.

A wall fell in another continent and soon our Union of Soviet Socialist Republics dissolved. Oleg Voronov, a “new Russian” and future oligarch, replaced the party boss. For the first time in seventy years, our city opened and some of us left. One found work as a ticket collector on the Omsk-Novosibirsk rail line, eventually marrying an engineer and having three boys. One received a scholarship to study physics in Volgograd. One left for America to marry a piano tuner she’d met online. But most of us remained. The world spun the wrong way around. It was no time to stray from home.

Kolya—like most of the boys in our year who couldn’t bribe their way into university—was called up for his mandatory military service just as the conflict in Chechnya was beginning. Before he left, he’d proposed to Galina in the grocery store vegetable aisle, which tells you all you need to know about his idea of romance. Also, she was pregnant. The army granted deferments to fathers who bore sole responsibility for one child, and to fathers of two or more children, so this gave Galina and Kolya a few options: They could marry immediately and then
get divorced to work the sole responsibility angle, or they could get married and hope for twins. We urged Galina to do neither. She was only eighteen years old. She had the rest of her life to make rash, irrevocable decisions. Do the sensible thing. Take care of the pregnancy and the deadbeat boyfriend with a single trip to the doctor. But despite all our well-reasoned advice, she still loved Kolya. The television dramas we grew up on, stories of star-crossed lovers, stories of love overcoming all obstacles, well, they’re all fairy tales, obviously, like the television news; but the obvious is only obvious when it happens to someone else. We’ve all ended up with men we’d pity others for marrying. After Kolya’s deployment, Galina seemed diminished, strained, just
less
. Could we have misjudged the seriousness of their relationship? Galina had been as vivid as stained glass, but we hadn’t imagined that Kolya might have been the sunlight saturating her.

We had walked her to the clinic and had walked her home afterward. We were proud of her. We were sorry for her. We were there for her.

G
ALINA
worked as a telephone operator for the nickel combine and took computer classes on Tuesday evenings. She was with us when we saw the first poster for the inaugural Miss Siberia Beauty Pageant plastered on the wooden bus stop. It called for women of youth, beauty, and talent for a nationally televised event. We looked to Galina. She looked to her waist.

Auditions were held two weeks later in the events hall of our old school. We climbed onstage one at a time, our makeup
layered, our legs bare. The casting director circled us, patting our thighs, squeezing our hips, testing out the firmness like a babushka at the beet bucket. Most of us were dismissed after he made a single revolution. Not Galina. When the casting director saw her in her headscarf miniskirt he gave a relieved sigh. He circled her again and again, grazing the hem of the skirt without touching her skin. “What is your talent?” he asked. “Ballet,” Galina replied. He nodded. “Bring your toe shoes to Novosibirsk.”

Soon Galina was everywhere. Her name appeared in the newspaper for fifty-seven consecutive days. She was not only our representative in Novosibirsk, but also one of three contestants selected to advertise the Miss Siberia competition, and we encountered her face more frequently than the faces of our parents and boyfriends, we saw her face more often than we saw our own in the mirror; it was our flag.

Galina may have still loved Kolya, but it didn’t keep her from climbing into the nickel-silver Mercedes every Friday night. “She’s done well,” our mothers said, and though we had never seen the two together in public, we agreed. At thirty-five, Oleg Voronov was young to be the fourteenth richest man in Russia. When the nickel combine was auctioned, he purchased a majority stake with funds cobbled together from foreign investors, crooked officials, and gangsters. The auction lasted all of four and a half seconds. He paid $250,100,000, just one hundred thousand dollars over the opening bid. How could a state industry that yielded several billion dollars annually be bought for two hundred and fifty million? Its ownership had been converted to stock and divided among the combine
employees. The stock, however, could only be sold or traded at full value in Moscow, in person. Our fathers had no choice but to sell their shares at kiosks on Leninsky Prospekt manned by Voronov’s underlings who bought back the shares at a fraction of their stock price. It was enough to cover the hospital visits for chronic respiratory ailments. Soon after we heard the rumors of Voronov’s silver Mercedes waiting outside Galina’s apartment block, Miss Siberia advertisements began appearing in the windows of the share-buying kiosks.

Given that we were standing in the background of Galina’s life, the spotlights fell on us as well. A newly opened salon gave us free manicures, hoping the presence of Galina’s former classmates would give it an aura of success and sophistication. Ex-boyfriends called, apologizing. Our mothers began eavesdropping on us. We hope we don’t sound petty saying we relished it while it lasted.

No one worked the evening of the beauty pageant. We huddled around television sets to watch Galina take the stage with young women from Siberian towns better known for closed military sites and uranium mines than for beauty. It was mid-September and frost filled the outer pane. Sugary champagne chilled in the refrigerator, vodka warmed in our glasses, and we drank and shushed each other as the orchestra began “The Patriot’s Song.” We hummed along, but didn’t sing. Our country was three years old and the lyrics to the national anthem weren’t yet composed. The host strode across the stage and welcomed the audience to the first annual Miss Siberia Beauty Pageant. His rosy-cheeked optimism suggested that he
hadn’t spent much time in Siberia. He introduced each contestant, but we saw only Galina.

The show broke for commercials and when it returned the contestants wore high heels and swimsuits; the minority among us who saw the event as glorified smut pointed out that only in pornographic films are swimwear and stilettos paired together. We hissed at the other contestants, willing them to trip, break a heel, spontaneously combust, wishing them nervous breakdowns, emotional collapse, dismemberment, decapitations, Old Testament torments, and this eruption of barely submerged cruelty felt appropriate, even proper because we shared it together. When the swimsuit contestants crossed the stage without breaking a heel or tripping, we decided they must have had much practice as pornographic actresses. Only on Galina was the outfit as graceful as an evening gown.

In the interview section, we derided the rehearsed eloquence of the other contestants and quieted when Galina approached the microphone. The host introduced her and consulted a set of green index cards with a long downward stare that drew out the suspense of the moment and made him appear illiterate. “What does the Miss Siberia Beauty Pageant mean to you?” he finally asked.

With a demure smile Galina turned to the nearest camera. “It means a great deal to represent my hometown on a national stage. I am pleased this pageant is bringing attention to the rich cultural heritage of Siberia. For centuries European Russia has used Siberia as a prison for its criminals and exiles. But we are not criminals and we are not prisoners. We are the citizens of
a new country and soon the world will recognize that Siberians not only mine the fuel of the Russian Federation, we are the fuel of the Russian Federation.”

The host flashed one of those peculiar frowns that express both approval and surprise. “And what will you do if you are chosen as Miss Siberia?” he asked.

“I will become famous, of course,” Galina said and winked at the camera. For the two-second pause before the audience cheered and the backing band trumpeted, Galina didn’t need a tiara because she had already crowned herself with that wink.

During the talent portion a withered cornstalk from Vladivostok played Rachmaninoff on a balalaika. Fake nails, breasts, eyelashes, and hair extensions alchemized into the real woman from Barnaul who donned a blindfold and solved a Rubik’s Cube. Who were these bombshell savants? The judges were as surprised as we were. When it was announced that Galina would dance Odette’s solo from
Swan Lake
, we fell silent. What was she trying to prove by selecting the solo from the first ballet her grandmother had performed on the canteen stage sixty years earlier? Why would Galina, our icon of the new Russia, dance from the USSR’s most widely performed ballet? Photoflashes detonated. White tulle swathed her waist. Her head rested between the parentheses of her raised arms, and rising to her toes, noosed in spotlight, she began.