Бесплатный фрагмент - Life had meaning

1. HERE

The first two days at home were a revelation: no one was waiting for me. The children were staying with their grandmother, wrapped in her care and warmth. My wife’s whereabouts remained a mystery. In the apartment, amid familiar belongings and memories, an icy emptiness reigned. The puzzle of my life had fallen apart, and a wave of despair swept over me. I wanted to silence the void by sinking myself to the very bottom.

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I went out in search of illusions of freedom to consume. I reached the bar by nine. People were only just beginning to arrive. The atmosphere, steeped in the blissful languor of leisure, felt like a hothouse overheated by vice. Friday night smelled of cigarette smoke, cheap perfume, and unfulfilled promises.

There she was — the night’s first bomb: the youth of weekdays gone by, lost in a neon jungle. Shot after shot, she tried to put out the fire of her inner rebellion. I watched and listened to her conversation with the bartender.

— Baby, don’t you think you’ve had enough? You passed your limit a long time ago.

— Keep pouring! The night’s only beginning!

In her drunken haze, her words were shattered by the thunder of the music.

— You clearly want to share some secrets. I’m all ears.

— What’s there to tell? Just one long nightmare of a life…

— Go on, then. I’m ready. Let it rip.

— I’m just tired… Dad keeps riding my ass about school. My brothers are pieces of shit. One’s a junkie, always going, «Lend me some money!» The other keeps lecturing me about my boyfriend. I’m just tired…

— And your mother?

— My mother? — She looked at him questioningly, then spat out the word with unmistakable contempt: — A slut.

For a while, they fell silent. The mood in the bar was heating up. The bartender never missed an opportunity to engage a tipsy customer in conversation.

— Your mother’s sleeping around?

— Sleeping around?! She feeds Dad a pack of lies while flying off to Bali to see her lovers! Dad supposedly doesn’t know, but really, he just chooses to look the other way!

— So what’s your problem?

— She keeps trying to teach me about moral values! And my brothers help her do it!

There it was: the «moral character,» picking up speed yet trapped inside itself. Well-done personalities drifted toward the bar; like moths, they flew toward the light glowing in the glass over ice.

— Where’s your guy?

— That bastard is all promises and no substance. He’s screwing around with my friend, — she tossed off, knocking back another shot.

Genuinely astonished by her hormones of self-destruction, I watched a tableau of the typical events of a big city. I kept listening.

— Why cling to a bastard like that?

— You’re a bastard yourself, just like all the other bastards!

She stared into the bartender’s eyes with drunken cynicism. Caught in the trap of his own question, he hesitated, then began pouring me more whiskey.

I greedily swallowed the amber liquid. Yes, we were all bastards here. Love had become a commodity, friendship — a transaction, and happiness — a fleeting illusion of a morning hangover. We were afraid to see our true faces in the mirror.

A young man approached the girl and embraced her from behind. So, there was the lover. Tall, muscular, chestnut hair slicked back with a part down the middle — a brutal alpha male. Girls liked men like that. It was obvious why he was cheating. I listened to their conversation.

— I’ll just be in the bathroom for a minute, then we can go.

The moment she disappeared, the bartender decided to show some masculine solidarity and gave the alpha male’s sleeve a light tug.

— Man, does your beauty know you’re cheating on her? Be careful!

— What are you talking about, bro? Have you lost your mind? — he smirked, adjusting his collar. — I’m a «man for hire.» She calls me whenever she wants.

Now that was a twist.

The girl returned from the bathroom. Arm in arm, they disappeared. I stared through the bartender, focusing on the emptiness.

— Hey, buddy, you all right? Had too much? — the bartender asked, concerned.

I spoke slowly, weighing each word:

— I’m sitting here, watching the human rhythm around you pulse. I’m stunned by what I see.

— That’s how Moscow always lives. You’re visiting?

— I’m a local, but I’ve lost my place. What’s happening here? Why are we there?

I finished the contents of my glass, swept the bar with a heavy gaze, and continued speaking as I headed for the exit.

— We’re incapable of understanding one another, yet we stubbornly search for the meaning of war. While some people here are reveling in drunkenness, our guys over there are raising money through social-media posts for equipment missing from the battlefield. The society around us is hopelessly sick, and every day it gets worse.

2. THERE

A serene calm took hold of me, and my gaze went still. Two tiny beads sank into the drowsiness of exhaustion. The birds of salvation had flown far away. I remained lying there, unable to move, lulled by helplessness. What had it been? Life boiling over — or was death playing its part?

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For four days, the earth had groaned beneath our shovels. The trench twisted like a snake along the line of contact. The deathly silence was broken only by the scrape of metal against soil. During our meager lunch, no one spoke. We chewed slowly, without appetite, spoons clinking against metal mess tins. Our thoughts were as heavy as clods of earth.

Two little bars had been pinned to my shoulder boards¹, and I had been put in command of Second Squad, Third Platoon, First Reconnaissance Company, of a separate assault battalion. Two men were placed under my command, each with a completely different temperament. Everyone had something on his mind, but no one asked unnecessary questions. It was war. What else was there to say?

Our platoon commander had been sent to the front line as well. Lieutenant Vitaly Sergeyevich Lyubin — a young, unseasoned soul, suddenly put in charge of a platoon of mobilized soldiers².

He was like a blind, bewildered puppy that had only just opened its eyes. Torn away from its mother’s teat, and suddenly faced with an entire platoon — twenty fighters.

After every briefing, he returned to the trench like a shadow, lost, as though he had been tortured by fire. No, he wasn’t Romka Antonin. That man knew how to command; he kept the platoon in an iron grip. Pity about him. A bullet is a fool, and a sniper is a son of a bitch.

Lyubin trudged along slowly, his eyes dimmed and fixed on the ground.

— Dobrynya Nikitich, come here, — he said without looking up. — There’s something… I don’t even know how to put it…

— Commander, this isn’t a banquet! Say it straight!

— At the briefing, they announced that heavy armor, supported by artillery, was advancing along our sector. We could be hit at any moment. Our task is to hold the positions. We requested air support…

— How the hell is that supposed to work, Commander?! There are fewer than a hundred of us here — one company! They’ll simply—

A fountain of earth and fire erupted barely thirty meters away. Instinctively, I grabbed the platoon commander and threw myself into the trench.

The ground heaved and shuddered beneath the deafening roar of artillery. We didn’t dare raise our heads. Earth and stones rained down on us. Summoning my courage, I lifted myself up to assess the situation.

God!

My blood froze. Tanks!

A sharp jab. Che pulled me out of my trance.

— There! Look!

I turned and saw our platoon commander crouched in the trench. He was shaking violently, hissing through his teeth as though he had just been dragged from an ice hole.

— We’re all going to die. I don’t want to die…

I sprang toward him and seized him by the shoulders.

— What’s wrong with you, Commander?!

His eyes locked onto mine with a wild, deranged stare.

— We’re going to die! We’re all going to die!

Each new explosion shook his mind apart, erasing the boundaries of reality. Che’s voice was repeatedly drowned out by the thunder of impacts hammering our positions.

— We have to get out! They’ll be right on top of us soon!

Along the trench line, our company fired back desperately. The odds were hopeless: nine machine guns, a hundred grenades, and assault rifles against tanks and artillery. A pitiful imitation of resistance, leading to certain death.

The platoon commander frantically clawed at the earth beneath him, muttering incoherent words. His body convulsed in an epileptic seizure. I tore the first-aid kit from his load-bearing vest³ and, with trembling hands, took out an ampoule of promedol⁴. I began attaching the needle.

Che noticed what I was doing and grabbed my arm.

— What the hell are you doing?! That’s for emergencies!

I yanked my arm away.

— I know! Look at him! This is an emergency! He’s finished!

Turning back, I gripped the platoon commander’s shoulder with one hand. With the other, I drove the needle through the coarse fabric of his field jacket and injected the promedol into his raging consciousness.

A minute later, his body went limp. His head lolled to the right, hanging like that of a broken doll. The artillery barrage continued to pound us.

Even a hardened atheist would probably have turned to heaven in those moments.

An explosion.

Earth buried me, dust plastered my eyes shut. Through the pain and fear, I felt Che’s powerful hand seize me. His voice sounded like a sentence:

— We’re not getting out of this, brother. Let’s say our goodbyes.

On my other side, the platoon commander — a lost child — mumbled incoherently to himself, blowing bubbles of saliva.

The world contracted into the sensation of an inevitable end.

The sky was torn apart by a sharp whistle as a blurred shape sliced through the air. They emerged from the blue haze — the Swifts⁵, salvation.

With a furious roar, they descended upon the enemy, delivering devastating strikes against the heavy armor and artillery positions. The enemy recoiled beneath the force of the air raid. The Swifts, enraged predators, swept in for fresh attacks, giving the enemy no chance to recover and driving them into retreat.

Che leaned against one shoulder; the limp platoon commander against the other. Around us hung a silence saturated with the smell of smoke and gunpowder.

We had survived.

I crawled out of the trench with great difficulty — and immediately collapsed.

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¹ Two little snot strings on the shoulder boards — army slang for a military rank insignia: one «snot string means corporal, two mean junior sergeant, three mean sergeant, and so on.

² Mobilized soldier — short for a person called up for military service through mobilization.

³ Tactical load-bearing vest — a general term for various types of equipment designed to hold weapons, ammunition, and other gear securely on the body while distributing the weight evenly across different muscle groups.

⁴ Promedol — a narcotic analgesic whose pain-relieving effect resembles that of morphine and its synthetic substitutes. In combat, it is used as a powerful painkiller for severe wounds.

⁵ The Swifts — MiG-29SMT multirole fourth-generation fighter aircraft flown by the Swifts aerobatic team.

3. ALIVE

The quiet whisper of the wind, birdsong, the unhurried footsteps of the staff at the Fata Morgana sanatorium. The atmosphere was woven from anticipation of a new day. A wonderful place to rest — apart from the oppressive heat of the Moscow region. Summer simmered over a slow flame, seasoning the air with the aromas of pine and wildflowers. I had been recovering within this ideal routine for two weeks now.

The room was simple, without frills — a Soviet standard. It was precisely in this simplicity that true happiness lay. On a massive chest of drawers, beside a mirror darkened by age, stood a vinyl record player designed like a small case, with yellowed metal clasps. The layer of dust made it clear how long it had been since anyone had used it.

Nearby, on a glass table, a television displayed its pictures. Whenever I turned it on, I lowered the volume all the way to zero so as not to disturb the fragile silence. From time to time, I would cast a furtive glance at the screen. The silent flashes of imagery did not awaken the slightest desire to turn up the sound.

In the mornings, I had no wish to tear myself away from the comfortable chair on the balcony. The sun began its journey, rolling lazily into the sky.

I wondered where Lyubin was now.

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Yesterday was dead; today had taken its first breath. The moment had arrived. Meaning awakened slowly, sleepily stretching beneath the grayish-blue sky.

I had to go.

My feet carried me to the dining hall. Breakfast consisted of rice porridge, a boiled egg, and tea. Beside each place setting lay the prescribed daily ration of medication. Among the multicolored pills was a blister pack containing tablets that tasted like fruit pastila.

The schedule on the table listed the precise times at which the medicines were to be taken throughout the day. But such details were for weaklings who blindly followed instructions. I swept the pharmaceutical rainbow into my palm and sent it straight into my mouth.

My stomach would sort it out.

I had barely swallowed the first spoonful of porridge when Warrant Officer Filipp Filin sat down at the table beside me — a stocky, middle-aged man with a receding hairline and a thick mustache. To be honest, I couldn’t even remember his patronymic, and there had never been any need to.

Filipp was a great lover of conversation and always started it himself.

— Good morning, Dobrynya Nikitich! What did you think of the morning digest?

— Good morning, good morning! I don’t understand. What are you talking about?

— How can you not? Every news channel is trumpeting the story: our forces supposedly wiped out an entire tank battalion — more than a hundred pieces of equipment. Haven’t you heard?

A voice with a hint of amusement sounded behind me.

— You believe all sorts of fake news, my esteemed friend. Those are neuro-victories. The truth is what happens at the front.

With those words, Klimenty Petrovich Kapustin sat down at the table. He was the commander of the 45th Assault Brigade, a man who had risen from lieutenant to major during three years spent in the very heart of the fighting.

Even while undergoing treatment, Klimenty Petrovich invariably wore a black camouflage suit and swamp-colored boots. With his lean build and height of nearly six feet three, the clothes hung from him and fluttered like a flag on a flagpole.

After shaking my hand, he extended his own to Filin, who immediately cut Kapustin off.

— A defeat is a defeat, no matter what kind it is.

At that moment, the pills began to take effect. I needed to leave the dining hall before I became entangled in a heated argument. My condition grew unsteady.

After performing a French-style pirouette, I made my way toward the park recreation area and collapsed onto a bench facing the expanse of water. As I put on my sunglasses, I could feel the pills establishing full contact with my brain.

The sun had not yet gathered its strength. It touched the surface of the water gently, and the water reflected the tender blue sky like polished silver.

Near a quiet backwater sat a little man, his figure barely distinguishable amid the greenery. The smooth movements of his fishing rod created a perfect morning landscape: a union with nature.

An irresistible desire overcame me — the urge to share in that beautiful feeling of light hunting.

A few moments later, I was standing opposite him.

He was a man of about forty, dressed in a sand-colored uniform, with yellow boots completing the image. Because he was short, his head seemed enormous. He looked like a village peasant, tanned by years of fieldwork.

— Getting any bites? — I asked quietly.

— Well, it depends on what you mean… They stocked the pond at the beginning of the season. The fish are sluggish and heavily overfed. Even the carp are reluctant to go for corn.

There was an invitation to continue the conversation in his words.

— Have you been here long? — I went on, feeling myself becoming part of the surroundings.

— Since half past three. Here, take the two-section rod, — he nodded toward a case containing spare tackle.

Without hesitation, I took the rod, imagining my first cast.

There it was — life! Solitude infused with peace of mind.

As I stepped closer, I noticed a thick scar encircling his neck.

— Could I have some corn?

— Luck won’t come to you on an empty hook, — he replied with mild sarcasm.

In exchange for his smile, I held out my hand.

— Dobrynya.

— Let me guess — Nikiтich?

We burst out laughing. Still chuckling as we shook hands, he introduced himself:

— Pyotr Sergeyevich Parkhomenko.

I threaded the corn onto the hook and made my first cast. Sitting down in the soft grass, I relaxed and became absorbed in watching the float. My inner world rejoiced, bathing in serenity.

Time dissolved.

— Are you here for rest or treatment? — Pyotr Sergeyevich asked.

I slowly turned my head toward him.

— I’m here for rehabilitation. What brings you to this wonderful place?

— The final stage of recovery after a head transplant.

— What?

I froze at his words.

— You’ve got a bite! What surprised you so much? — he said calmly, without taking his attention away from the water.

— Well… um… — I shifted my gaze toward the float, which had disappeared beneath the surface.

I struck sharply.

A carp flashed in the sunlight, barely larger than my palm. The small victory seemed insignificant beside his shocking revelation. As I removed the fish from the hook, I became absorbed in the process.

He turned toward me.

— You haven’t answered my question.

— Forgive me, but it’s not every day you hear something like that.

— I understand. When my positions came under fire, only my head survived. But there’s nothing classified about it — our people have been buying artificially grown Chinese bodies for years, — he said proudly. — You should watch the news more often.

— Yes… It’s been a long time since I last turned up the sound on the television, — I muttered. — Are you the first one?

He threw his head back and laughed.

— What do you mean, the first one?! The first is whoever was first in our enormous swamp!

He ran his hand along the surface of the water, continuing to praise the progress.

— A Chinese body, our head — and we’re holding half the world at bay. You understand, there’s a shortage of people in the country, but the most important thing is our brains.

I fell silent, thinking. Familiar reality was crumbling, giving way to the impossible.

— Holding half the world at bay? They used to hold us at bay!⁶

Good Lord, it was surrealism⁷ — yet gripping all the same.

You really shouldn’t take a handful of pills at once!

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⁶ Holding half the world at bay? They used to hold us at bay! — A reference to the Truman Doctrine, the foreign-policy strategy proclaimed by U.S. President Harry Truman on March 12, 1947. It was aimed at containing the Soviet Union and destroying the communist regime.

⁷ Surrealism — not the real world, but a space of fantasies, dreams, and the subconscious. In simple terms, surrealism is the art of dreaming while awake.

4. CABARET

Life runs us through the millstones of events, and eventually you stop expecting people to be straightforward. Disappointment fades, incomprehension melts away, leaving behind detached astonishment.

A forest in the middle of a concrete jungle seems like a miracle: skyscrapers, overpasses, and asphalt all around, yet here — a little green island, a splinter lodged in the body of the metropolis.

There was a moss-covered BMW with the license plate 911. Its insurance had expired in 2005. Somewhere on this spot, someone’s story had come to an end, and the car had become a monument to the past, frozen in the present.

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Time heals, but being held captive by memories does not become any easier. The search for myself had turned into wandering through a labyrinth of the past. The travel allowances intended to ease my burden had evaporated. Debt, daily expenses, and most of my earnings went to my children and my ex-wife.