Voroshilovgrad Read online

  International Praise for Serhiy Zhadan:

  “Zhadan’s raucous poetry and poetic novels depict post-Soviet working-class lives in his country’s rust belts; in his imagination, Ukraine’s vast, rolling, sparsely peopled steppes and historically shifting western border are part of the country’s vital essence rather than a point of weakness.”

  —Sally McGrane, New Yorker

  “More, perhaps, than any other writer from the post-Soviet era, Serhiy Zhadan speaks to this experience of national and personal upheaval . . . Zhadan gives us a flâneur’s perspective on post-Soviet urban life, with its ruined socialist architecture, industrial wastelands, petty crime, and violence. The absurdity of the clash of socialist and Western culture is also sharply observed.”

  —Uillean Blacker, The Times Literary Supplement

  “His writing—think Irving Welsh’s Trainspotting set against a grim post-Soviet backdrop—is very popular in Russia, but he writes in Ukrainian, partly, he says, as a political act.”

  —Chrystia Freeland, Newsweek

  “Zhadan’s language is wild and powerful. The rhythm structuring his endless sentences demonstrates his beginnings as a poet.”

  —Jutta Lindekugel, World Literature Today

  “Zhadan is a writer who is a rock star, like Byron in the early nineteenth century was a rock star.”

  —Dr. Vitaly Chernetsky, New Yorker

  “Zhadan’s prose is so poetic, his free verse so prosaic. It is difficult to assign a genre to his work: memoir, travelogue, timely or untimely meditation—or a mixture of all these, centered on the themes ‘my generation’ and ‘our epoch’.”

  —New Literary Review (RUSSIA)

  “One of the most important creative forces in modern Ukrainian alternative culture . . . He writes desolately, brashly, deliriously, associatively, cleverly and with laugh-out-loud humor and great empathy for his characters...”

  —KulturSpiegel (GERMANY)

  “There is no summarizing the spicy, hot, sweet, vicious improvisations of Serhiy Zhadan—this is verbal jazz.”

  —Kirill Ankudinov, Vzglyad.ru (RUSSIA)

  ALSO AVAILABLE FROM SERHIY ZHADAN IN ENGLISH:

  Depeche Mode

  translated by Miroslav Shkandrij

  Deep Vellum Publishing

  3000 Commerce St., Dallas, Texas 75226

  deepvellum.org · @deepvellum

  Deep Vellum Publishing is a 501c3

  nonprofit literary arts organization founded in 2013.

  Copyright © 2012, Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin

  The original Ukrainian edition was published in 2010 under the title Ворошиловград by

  Publishing House Folio, Kharkiv.

  English translation copyright © 2016 by Reilly Costigan-Humes & Isaac Wheeler.

  First edition, 2016

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 978-1-941920-31-2 (ebook)

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CONTROL NUMBER: 2015960720

  —

  Cover design & typesetting by Anna Zylicz · annazylicz.com

  Text set in Bembo, a typeface modeled on typefaces cut by Francesco Griffo

  for Aldo Manuzio’s printing of De Aetna in 1495 in Venice.

  Distributed by Consortium Book Sales & Distribution.

  Contents

  Part I

  Part II

  PART I

  1

  Telephones exist for breaking all kinds of bad news. They make people sound cold and detached. I guess it’s easier to pass along bad news in an official-sounding voice. I know what I’m talking about. I’ve been fighting telephone receivers my whole life, albeit unsuccessfully. Operators all over the world still monitor people’s conversations, jotting down the most important words and phrases. Meanwhile, psalm books and phone directories lie open on hotel nightstands; that’s all you need to keep the faith.

  I slept in my clothes—jeans and a stretched-out T-shirt. I woke up and roamed around the room, scattering empty soda bottles, glasses, cans, ashtrays, shoes, and plates with sauce slopped all over them. Barefoot and bad-tempered, I stepped on apples, pistachios, and dates like oily cockroaches. When you’re renting an apartment where you don’t own the furniture, you try to be careful with everything, since it might not belong to you. I’d filled my place up with so much junk, you’d think I was running a thrift shop. I had gramophone records and hockey sticks hiding under my couch, along with some clothes a girl had left behind and some big road signs I’d gotten my hands on somehow. I couldn’t throw anything away, since I didn’t know what belonged to me. But from the very first day, the very first moment that I found myself here, the telephone was lying right there on the floor, in the middle of the room. Its voice and its silence filled me with hatred. Before bed I’d cover the damn thing up with a cardboard box, and in the morning I’d take that box out to the balcony. The demonic apparatus lay in the center of the room, its jarring, irritating ring always ready to sing out and declare that someone needed me after all. Now somebody was calling again. Calling on a Thursday, at 5 a.m. I crawled out from under the covers, tossed the cardboard box into the corner, picked up the phone, and went out to the balcony. It was quiet and empty in the neighborhood. A security guard, treating himself to a morning smoke break, came out the side door of the bank. When someone calls you at 5 a.m., don’t expect any good to come of it. Holding back my irritation, I picked up the receiver. That’s how it all started.

  “Buddy.” I recognized Kocha’s voice immediately. It sounded like he had emphysema or something, as though someone had installed a set of old, blown-out speakers in place of his lungs. “Herman, were you asleep, man?” His speakers were hissing and spitting out consonants. It was 5 a.m., on a Thursday. “Hello, Herman?”

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Buddy,” Kocha said, his tone dipping a bit. “Herman!”

  “Kocha, it’s five in the morning. What do you want?”

  “Herman, the thing is, I wouldn’t have woken you up, but some serious shit has gone down here.” A horrible shrill whistle came out of the receiver as he said this, and it made me believe him, for some reason. “I haven’t slept all night, you know? Your brother called yesterday.”

  “And?”

  “The thing is . . . he’s gone, Herman.” The sound of Kocha’s breathing drew away then, as though removed to a great height.

  “Where’s he at?” I asked, unsettled. Listening to him was like riding a rollercoaster.

  “Far away, Herman.” The start of every new sentence was marked by feedback. “He’s either in Berlin or Amsterdam. I didn’t really catch it.”

  “Maybe he’s going to Amsterdam via Berlin?”

  “Maybe you’re right, Herman, maybe you’re right,” said Kocha hoarsely.

  “When’s he getting back?” I asked, relaxing a bit. I was starting to think that this was all just routine for Kocha, that he was just giving me an update on the family.

  “Looks like never,” he declared, and the receiver made the feedback noise again.

  “When?”

  “Never, Herman, never. He’s left for good. He called yesterday, told me to tell you.”

  “What do you mean he’s never coming back?” I asked. “Kocha, is everything all right down there?”

  “Yeah, everything’s all right, buddy.” Kocha broke into a higher register. “Everything’s all right. The only thing is that your brother dumped all the work on me, you got that? Herman, I’m an old man. I can’t handle this all by myself.”

  “What do you mean he dumped it all on you? What did he say?”

  “He said he’s in Amsterdam and asked me to call you. He said he’s not coming back.”

  “What about the gas station?”

  “Looks like the gas s
tation is all on me, Herman. It’s just . . .” Kocha’s hoarse voice rose to a pleading pitch again. “I can’t handle it. I’ve got sleeping problems. I mean, it’s 5 a.m. and I can’t sleep.”

  “Has he been gone for a while?” I interrupted.

  “Yeah, about a week already,” said Kocha. “I thought you knew. Some serious shit has gone down here.”

  “How come he didn’t tell me anything?”

  “I don’t know, Herman, don’t know, buddy. He didn’t say anything to anybody. He just packed his bags and hit the road. Maybe he didn’t want anyone to know.”

  “Know what?”

  “That he was taking off,” said Kocha.

  “Who would care anyway?”

  “Well, I don’t know, Herman,” said Kocha, his voice twisting evasively. “I don’t know.”

  “Kocha, what happened down there?”

  “Herman, you know me,” Kocha hissed, “I didn’t mess around with his business. He didn’t explain anything to me. He just packed his bags and hit the road. Buddy, I can’t handle it all by myself. You may want to come down, sort things out here, yeah?”

  “Sort what out?”

  “Well, I don’t know, maybe he told you something.”

  “Kocha, I haven’t seen him for six months.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” Kocha said, quite flustered now. “Herman, buddy, you get down here, because I just can’t handle it all by myself. You see where I’m coming from?”

  “Kocha, what are you being so cagey about?” I finally asked. “Just tell it to me straight, what happened down there at the station?”

  “Everything’s fine, Herman,” Kocha coughed. “It’s all good, man. Well, the way I see it, I told you what happened. Now you can do what you want. You know what’s best. I’m off, I’ve got customers. See you, buddy. See you,” Kocha said, hanging up.

  “Yeah,” I thought, “he’s got customers. Customers at 5 a.m.”

  We were renting two rooms in a former communal apartment, downtown in a quiet little neighborhood peppered with lime trees. Lyolik had the room closer to the hallway, and I had to walk through it to get to my room, the one with the balcony. The rest of the rooms had been closed off and nobody knew what was hidden behind those doors. Our landlord was a hardened old retiree, a former cash-in-transit driver. His name was Fyodor Mikhailovich, so I called him Dostoyevsky. In the ’90s, he and his wife decided to leave Ukraine, so Fyodor Mikhailovich filed for a new passport, but once he got it, he suddenly changed his mind, figuring that this was just the time for a fresh start. So it worked out that his wife emigrated by herself, while he stayed behind in Kharkiv, supposedly keeping an eye on their apartment. Basking in his newfound freedom, Fyodor Mikhailovich rented out his rooms to us, then went into hiding, bunkering down in some other part of town. The kitchen, the hallways, and even the bathroom of this half-decayed dwelling were stuffed with 1930s furniture, tattered books, and stacks of old Ogonyok magazines from the Soviet days. Dishes and multicolored rags that Fyodor Mikhailovich thought fondly of were piled on the tables, chairs, and right on the floor. He wouldn’t let us throw any of it away, and we wouldn’t throw any of our own stuff away either, so our junk mingled freely with his. Chests of drawers, shelves, and kitchen cabinets were overflowing with dark bottles and jars in which sunflower oil, honey, vinegar, and red wine shimmered (we put out our cigarette butts in the latter). Walnuts, copper coins, beer corks, and buttons from army overcoats rolled to and fro across the kitchen table. Fyodor Mikhailovich’s old ties hung from the chandelier. We accepted and even approved, in a way, of our landlord and his porcelain Lenin figurines, enormous fake silver forks, dusty shades, and pirate treasures. The yellow sun slashed through the thick air, herding eddies of dust through the room. Sitting in the kitchen in the evenings, we would read Fyodor Mikhailovich’s scribblings on the walls; there were some random telephone numbers, addresses, and bus routes all drawn directly on the wallpaper with an indelible pencil. We looked over cutouts from calendars and photographs of unknown relatives that he had pinned up. These relatives of his looked severe and dignified, unlike Fyodor Mikhailovich, who would wander into our warm nest from time to time in his squeaky sandals and foppish cap to pick up our empty bottles. Once he got his dough for the month, he’d disappear into the lime trees. It was May. The weather was warm and the grass had reclaimed its former territory. Sometimes at night cautious couples would wander in off the street and into the lobby to make love on the bench lined with old rugs. During the day stray dogs would pop in and sniff out all the traces of love. Disturbed by their findings, they would run back out onto the city’s central streets. Sometimes in the morning hours the bank security guards would walk over to the bench, sit down, and roll up joints as long as May sunrises, like the one lingering over our apartment building at that particular moment, after I hung up the phone.

  When I came out to the kitchen Lyolik was already hanging around by the refrigerator in his suit—a dark jacket, gray tie, and pants that drooped over him like a flag on a windless day. I opened up the fridge and studied the empty shelves.

  “Hey,” I said, flopping into a chair. Lyolik sat across from me with a sour expression on his face, gripping the milk carton tightly. “Let’s pop over to my brother’s place, all right?”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Just because. I’d like to see him.”

  “What’s up with your brother? Something happen?”

  “Nah. He’s fine. He’s in Amsterdam.”

  “So you want to visit him in Amsterdam?”

  “No, not Amsterdam. Let’s go to his place, this weekend?”

  “I don’t know. I was planning to get my car looked at this weekend.”

  “Well there you go. My brother works at a gas station, he’s got a garage. Come on.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” Lyolik answered hesitantly. “It’d be better if you just called him.” He finished his milk. “Get ready, we’re running late.”

  I called my brother a few times that afternoon. No answer. I called Kocha after lunch; no luck there either. I thought, “That’s strange. My brother may not be picking up because he doesn’t want to pay the roaming fees, or something, but Kocha should be at work regardless.” I tried again. Still no answer. In the evening I called our parents. My mom picked up the phone. “Hey,” I said, “has Yura called?” “No,” she answered. “What’s the matter?” “I was just wondering,” I said, and changed the subject immediately.

  The next morning, I went up to Lyolik in the office.

  “Lyolik,” I asked, “well, are we going?”

  “Do we have to?” he moaned. “Are you for real? My car is old, God forbid it breaks down along the way.”

  “Lyolik,” I persisted, “my brother will completely overhaul your car. C’mon, be a pal. You don’t want me to have to take a bunch of trains, do you?”

  “Well, I don’t know. What about work?”

  “Get the fuck out of here with that shit! We have the day off tomorrow.”

  “I don’t know,” Lyolik said again, “I’ll have to talk it over with Bolik. If he doesn’t load us up with work . . .”

  “Let’s go talk to him now,” I said, and dragged him into the next cubicle.

  Bolik and Lyolik were cousins. I’d known them since college. We were all history majors. They didn’t look related; Bolik was hip: skinny and clean-cut; he wore contacts and it seemed like he even got manicures. Lyolik was pretty ripped, but a bit on the slow side. He wore inexpensive business casual clothes, rarely cut his hair, and wouldn’t spring for contacts, so he wore glasses with metal frames. Bolik looked slicker, but Lyolik looked like a simple guy you could count on. Bolik was six months older, so he felt responsible for his cousin; I guess he had some kind of older brother complex. He came from a respectable family. His father had worked for the Communist Youth League, then he made a career for himself in some party or another, got elected head of the regional government, and eventually wound up joining the
opposition. During the past few years he’d held some office working for the Governor. Lyolik, on the other hand, came from more humble origins. His mom was a schoolteacher, while his dad had been slaving away in Russia since the ’80s. They lived in a small town outside of Kharkiv. Lyolik was the poor relation, so everyone loved him, or at least that’s what he thought. After college, Bolik immediately went to work for his dad, while Lyolik and I tried to make it on our own. We worked in an advertising agency, a newspaper that ran free ads, and in the public relations department for the Nationalists’ Congress. We even tried our hand at working in a bookmaker’s office, which then shut down in the second month of operation. Then, a few years ago, Bolik, concerned about our aimless drifting and thinking back to our carefree college days, invited us to work with him at the regional government office. Bolik’s father had registered a few youth organizations under his name, through which various grants were funneled, and small but steady amounts of money were laundered. So that’s how we got our start. Our work was strange and unpredictable. We edited speeches, held seminars for up-and-coming leaders and workshops for election observers, constructed political platforms for new parties, chopped wood at Bolik’s father’s country house, advocated for the democratic process as guests on TV talk shows, and laundered, laundered, laundered the dough being funneled through our accounts. The title on my business card read “Independent Expert.” After a year’s work I bought myself a souped-up computer, while Lyolik rewarded himself with a beat-up Volkswagen. By this time, we’d moved into our apartment. Bolik often stopped by our place, sat on the floor in my room, picked up the phone, and called up prostitutes. You know, standard stuff for a model employee trying to climb the corporate ladder. Lyolik didn’t really like his cousin, or me for that matter, but we had already roomed together for a few years now, so our relationship was easy, perhaps even close. I was always borrowing clothes from him, and he was always borrowing money from me—the only difference being that I always gave back his clothes. He and his cousin had been up to something for the past few months—some sort of new family business. I decided not to get involved, since it was party-sponsored and who knew what that would lead to. The loans were one thing, but I had a stash he didn’t know about, a wad of dollars stuck in a volume of Hegel. In general, yes, I trusted them, but I realized it was about time to start looking for a straight job.