Mesopotamia Read online

  PRAISE FOR SERHIY ZHADAN

  “One of the most astounding novels to come out of modern Ukraine. Mesopotamia is seductive, twisted, brilliant, and fierce. It brings to mind our own fiction from a time when we still felt like we had something to fight for and a chance we could win.”

  GARY SHTEYNGART, author of Little Failure and Absurdistan

  “To say that Serhiy Zhadan is a poet, a novelist, a rock star, a protester, a symbol of his country’s desire for freedom and change, is to say the truth—but what is truth? Zhadan is a literary master of enormous force. At times he combines the energy of Jack Kerouac and atmospheric spell of Isaac Babel, at other times he is a balladeer of his country’s struggle. ‘Such strange things have been happening to us,’ he writes, of the streets where ‘winters are not like winters / winters live under assumed names.’ In Mesopotamia’s nine stories and thirty poems we find ourselves in the newly independent Ukraine, stunned by its grit, its rough backbone—and its tenderness. What do we discover here? That ‘Light is shaped by darkness, / and it’s all up to us.’ We also discover that Serhiy Zhadan is one of those rare things—almost impossible to find now in the West—a national bard, a chronicler. This is a book to live with.”

  ILYA KAMINSKY

  “To know Dublin, read your Joyce, for Macondo, García Márquez, and for Mesopotamia, Serhiy Zhadan. Of course this Mesopotamia is not the Birthplace of Civilization (or is it?), it’s Kharkiv, the Ukrainian Center of Nothing, located smack-dab on the Russian border, which, in Zhadan’s brilliant vision, is smack-dab in the middle of life lived beyond the fullest because any second could be your last, creaming with joy, madness, war, orgasm, stupidity, and a blinding light that smells like the essence of human spirit. We need to learn from Ukraine. Zhadan is a masterful teacher. The use of poetry as Notes—so far as I know, this has never been done before and is positively Nabokovian. This book is world-class literature.”

  BOB HOLMAN, author of Sing This One Back to Me

  “To say that Serhiy Zhadan is a great Ukrainian novelist of whom you might not have heard does not begin to cover it. Serhiy Zhadan is one of the most important creators of European culture at work today. His novels, poems, and songs touch millions. This loving translation is a chance to see Ukraine in terms other than the familiar, but more importantly a chance to allow prose to mend your mind.”

  TIMOTHY SNYDER, author of On Tyranny

  “Unlike Joyce’s Dublin, the cradle of Zhadan’s civilization is a place of refuge for young people fleeing hardscrabble lives in the provinces, and a hardscrabble home for natives buoyed by desire yet adrift amid the flotsam of a spent empire. The men and women in these comic and heartfelt pages endure the dynamic paralysis that comes over those who are all dressed up with nowhere to go. They aspire, struggle, fight, fail, drink, fuck, and then they fight some more. Amid the city’s detritus, they refuse to become part of it by continuing to love and dream. There is nothing marginal about them. They insist on being seen, heard, understood. They will charm and madden you. They will haunt your dreams, and you will never forget them.”

  ASKOLD MELNYCZUK, author of House of Widows

  “Zhadan is the rock star of lyrical melancholy, and Mesapotamia is not just a book of short stories but a cosmos with Kharkiv-Babylon at its center. We meet its lovesick citizens at weddings and funerals; their visceral, fantastical lives unfold in the intensely prophetic atmosphere of the upcoming war.”

  VALZHYNA MORT, author of Factory of Tears

  “With tales at once earthy and phantasmagorical, sentimental and anarchic, Zhadan is an exhilarating chronicler of a new kind of borderlands.”

  SANA KRASIKOV

  “Serhiy Zhadan’s dazzling novel—here fantastically well translated—evokes voices that get under our skin and take us into the rich inner life of people about whom we have long known nothing.”

  MARCI SHORE, author of The Ukrainian Night: An Intimate History of Revolution

  “Mesopotamia offers a sublime experience of taking you right to the middle of a very specific world, where you eat and drink and love and fight and die with the characters, until you notice that that world has transcended the time and place and became part of the eternal human story.”

  LARA VAPNYAR, author of Still Here: A Novel

  “Mesopotamia finds poetry in the most unlikely places—in the bars, tower blocks, and concrete boulevards of a Ukrainian city. By turns funny, shocking, and touching, weaving between the lyrical and the grotesque, Zhadan’s stories provide a lesson in belonging.”

  UILLEAM BLACKER, University College London

  “Mesopotamia is a portrait of post-Soviet Ukraine’s lost generation, of people who came of age in the disorienting conditions of crumbling Soviet order and stagnating social transformation. Serhiy Zhadan gives voice to his generation from Ukraine’s eastern regions bordering Russia. These are the people who have been missing from contemporary literature, whether in Ukrainian or in any other language. To understand the background to the crisis in this region, which has had such a major impact on the world recently, perhaps no other writer can provide insights as powerful as Zhadan.”

  VITALY CHERNETSKY, University of Kansas

  “Serhiy Zhadan has written a love song to contemporary Eastern Ukraine—vices, passions, and ghosts included. His Kharkiv is filled with gritty stairwells, red nightgowns, raw love, and a bit of magic. Costigan-Humes and Wheeler have brought Zhadan’s evocative prose to life for the English ­reader.”

  AMELIA GLASER, author of Jews and Ukrainians in Russia’s Literary ­Borderlands

  Mesopotamia

  BOOKS BY SERHIY ZHADAN IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION

  Selected Poems (forthcoming)

  Mesopotamia

  Voroshilovgrad

  Depeche Mode

  Mesopotamia

  SERHIY ZHADAN

  PROSE TRANSLATED FROM THE UKRAINIAN BY

  REILLY COSTIGAN-­HUMES AND

  ISAAC STACKHOUSE WHEELER

  POETRY TRANSLATED FROM THE UKRAINIAN

  BY VIRLANA TKACZ AND WANDA PHIPPS

  The Margellos World Republic of Letters is dedicated to making literary works

  from around the globe available in English through translation. It brings to the

  English-­speaking world the work of leading poets, novelists, essayists, philosophers,

  and playwrights from Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East to stimulate international discourse and creative exchange.

  English translation copyright © 2018 by Yale University.

  Originally published as Месопотамія. The original Ukrainian edition was published by Klub simejnogo dozvillja, Kharkiv, 2014. © Serhiy Zhadan 2014. All rights reserved by and controlled through Suhrkamp Verlag Berlin.

  All rights reserved.

  This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers.

  Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for educational, business, or promotional use. For information, please e-­mail [email protected] (U.S. office) or [email protected] (U.K. office).

  Set in Electra and Nobel types by Tseng Information Systems, Inc., Durham, North Carolina.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017955589

  ISBN 978-­0-­300-­22335-­4 (paper : alk. paper)

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-­1992 (Permanence of Paper).

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  Nobody knows
where they came from or why they settled on these rivers, but their affinity for fishing and knowledge of pilotage indicates that they arrived by water, sailing up the rivers, against the current. Their language seemed perfectly suited for songs and maledictions. Their women were tender and defiant, the kind that give birth to brave children and serious problems.

  —The True History of the Sumerians, Volume 1

  CONTENTS

  PART I Stories and Biographies

  Marat

  Romeo

  John

  Mark

  Yura

  Thomas

  Matthew

  Bob

  Luke

  PART II Notes and Addenda

  Mesopotamia

  Part I: Stories and Biographies

  Translated from the Ukrainian by

  Reilly Costigan-­Humes and

  Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler

  MARAT

  Marat died forty days ago. Then spring came to the city. It had almost passed by the time we buried him, on Remembrance Day, at the beginning of April. Now overgrown grass had charred the hills green—summer was on its way. The traditional forty days of mourning were enough for us to calm down and forget about the whole thing. But then his parents called to remind us, and I thought to myself, “Yeah, I guess it’s only been forty days.” The dead don’t have any outstanding grievances; it’s the living who are always on your case.

  A few friends and neighbors buried him. Most of his friends—and he had throngs of them, all over town—simply couldn’t believe they were being invited to his funeral. They apologized for being so doubtful, and then they came to the cemetery and looked for Marat’s headstone. That April was a rainy one; stray dogs trotted along after the van transporting the casket like an honor guard, occasionally thrusting their bodies at the black wheels of our Volkswagen hearse because they just couldn’t stand to watch Marat depart for the kingdom of the dead. Solemn throngs of people walked through the cemetery, ascending hills where the low-­hanging clouds pressed close to them, and then descending into the valley where the deluge pooled. They honored his memory as best they could, mixing alcohol with rainwater. We were the only people to show up at the cemetery with a dearly departed friend in the back of their vehicle, so we looked a bit out of place—it was as if we’d come to a music shop with our own grand piano. The fact that it was Easter made us feel all mixed up—our sorrow seemed inappropriate. Who dies on Easter? Typically, people rise from the grave.

  Marat’s death wound up being a lot like his life—illogical and shrouded in mystery. It was late Saturday night, or early Sunday morning. Marat hadn’t gone to church, because he considered himself a Muslim, and a nonpracticing one, no less, but he had gone out for cigarettes in the middle of the night, wearing his slippers and clutching a 50-­hryvnia bill in his fist. He’d gotten shot right by the kiosk. Nobody was there to see it happen; they were all in their respective churches. The clerk working the night shift said she hadn’t heard any gunfire, but she could have sworn she did hear people singing and a motor revving up. She claimed she could identify those voices if she heard them again, although she wasn’t sure if they’d been male or female. Also, she’d managed to write down the number of the supposed getaway car; however, it matched the plates on the ancient Zhiguli that had been parked outside the student infirmary for the past year or so. Nobody touched it but the street sweepers who stashed scraps of cardboard and empty bottles in it. “Well, looks like the mob has made a comeback,” we remarked, thinking back to the tumultuous nineties. “Who’s next?”

  It didn’t make much sense why anyone would have wanted to kill him. Marat didn’t run his own business, he stayed out of city politics, and he didn’t have any enemies; well, maybe he sometimes wouldn’t recognize one of his friends and would walk right on by without saying hi, but come on, is that any reason to gun someone down? The city hadn’t seen any street shootings for over ten years—well, that’s if you don’t count people shooting at cash-­in-­transit cars. But why would you? Do you know anybody who drives one? We could only guess what had happened that night.

  Forty days passed; time pressed forward, the water in the rivers overflowed their banks and then receded again. The days had started getting warmer. I didn’t want to go—I had even decided to call his parents and tell them I was sorry that I couldn’t make it. But then I figured I’d be thinking about him all night anyway, so I might as well do it with my friends and relatives. It’s always better to lose your mind in familiar surroundings. I left my apartment, passed my old school, stopped by the kiosk, and looked at their cigarette selection for a long while. I couldn’t make up my mind, so I didn’t buy any, and then I thought about heading back home after all, but I just kept going instead. I barreled down the steep hill by the Institute and skidded to a stop when I got to Marat’s street. It was quiet. Lethargic canine bodies were warming up in the afternoon sun. Detecting movement near the house, the top dog lifted his head, his dark, attentive gaze lingering on me, then sank down again and closed his weary eyes. Nothing had happened. Nothing had changed.

  Marat lived just a few blocks away from me, closer to the river. Just a three-­minute walk. Everything you could ever need was right there: maternity clinic, daycare center, music school, army recruiting office, furniture stores, pharmacies, hospitals, and cemeteries. You could live your whole life without venturing outside our neighborhood, without even going to the next metro station—and we never did. We grew up in old apartment blocks that had been rebuilt and renovated countless times; in the morning, we’d run out of their damp stairwells. At night, we’d come back, to sleep under their leaky roofs, which were always getting patched up but were never really fixed. From our hill, hanging above the river, we could see the whole city. Standing outside our buildings, we could feel the rocks somewhere down beneath our feet, the rocks on which everything was built. In the summertime, those rocks would heat up and so would our bodies; in winter, they’d freeze and everyone would catch colds.

  Their yard faced the TB clinic; their street stretched out all the way to the old warehouses. On one side, down below, beyond the city’s rooftops, were the river and the bridge, black factory buildings, new apartment complexes, and Kharkiv’s impassable maze of single-­family homes. On the other side, atop the hill, were the city’s main streets, churches, and commerce. I went through the gate, feeling the matter of my life beneath my feet—dust, clay, and heaps of sand so dense that not even the mighty grass could break through them. The walkway leading up to their house was paved with cracked brick and stones—Marat had been threatening to dump asphalt all over the whole damn place for years, but something had been holding him back, so everything stayed the same—two dilapidated, half-­empty, two-­story structures, built before the Bolshevik Revolution. There were flowerbeds in the middle of the yard, shrubs up against the house, apple trees toward the back, and then the blackened brick wall of a building that faced their neighbor’s yard. Marat’s family had hauled some tables and chairs outside; the neighbors had brought their own stools so they’d have a place to sit. Apple trees shone above the tables; white petals kept falling into the salads, adding zest and bitterness.

  I said hello. The other guests nodded in reply; one of the women produced an extra stool from somewhere underneath her and handed it to me, so I squeezed in between two warm May bodies. Somebody immediately started heaping my plate with food and somebody else was pouring me a drink. I looked around, scanning the guests and recognizing familiar faces. Our whole crew had come—sitting across from me was Benia, who had cut his gray hair short. He gave me a genial nod and then returned to the main conversation. As far as I could gather, they were talking about the weather. Well, that’s a pretty innocuous topic, so why not talk about it? At least nobody will get too riled up. Kostyk, who was sitting at the other end of the table, waved at me without turning his attention away from his meal. Apple petals were fluttering down onto his white dress shirt, dissolving against its fabric lik
e snow falling into a river. Marat’s frail neighbor who lived on the second floor was leaning up against Kostyk, though she kept getting edged off her chair by his sharp hipbones. Sem was standing off to the side, under the trees, next to Rustam, Marat’s brother. Wearing rubber sandals and a new tracksuit, Rustam was pacing back and forth on the cracked bricks and talking to someone on the phone, occasionally asking Sem about something. Sem was wearing a tracksuit, too. They looked like two marathon runners who had taken a wrong turn and were now frantically calling the race organizers to get back on the course. It was the neighbor ladies who were doing most of the talking, but it felt like any second now somebody was going to put on some music and we’d all start boogieing. Occasionally, somebody would invite Rustam to join us at the table, but he’d wave his hand dismissively at us, as if to say, “Fuck off with all your Orthodox bullshit,” and then continue his passionate diatribe. Sem was nodding, seemingly on board with everything Rustam was saying.

  I took a look at our crew. They hadn’t changed much in the past forty days, but they hadn’t changed much in the past ten years, for that matter, unless you count the wrinkles slicing up Benia’s face, making him look even more like Mick Jagger. Decked out in a black sweater and fancy dress shoes, Benia was trying to look put together, using his last ounce of strength to do so. I was one of the only ones who knew that his company had been squeezed out of the market, so he was living off his savings. It was obvious they wouldn’t last much longer, which probably accounted for why Benia’s hair had started graying even faster. Honest businessmen had fallen upon hard times in Kharkiv . . . well, what can ya do? Kostyk had gotten even fatter, although that hardly affected his personality, since he had always been a pretty wretched human being. That doesn’t change much over time . . . Kostyk worked on the railroad—i.e., he had some management position at the Southern Rail Station downtown. I wasn’t quite sure what he managed; I suspect he wasn’t either. As he put on weight, he started taking things too seriously. He stuck with us, his childhood friends—he didn’t hang out with anyone else. I guess Sem had changed the most. Well, he got a new tracksuit, that’s about it. As a veteran cab driver, he could quick-­draw his keys. He had a battle-­ready stance, a suspicious attitude toward his passengers, and a deep-­seated hatred of traffic cops. As for me, I could feel a warm clump of fatigue balling up somewhere between my heart and spleen, pushing upward. It was taking over more and more space in my body, compelling me to listen—something was going on underneath my clothes and skin, in my soul. Nothing—not my 9–5 office job, not even moving up the corporate ladder—could counteract that clump eating away at my internal organs like a piranha somebody had set loose inside me. Back in the day, I’d decided to stick to familiar territory, so I took a job at the local factory, just two blocks away from where I live. I worked my way up, and fifteen years later I even got my own office. The factory hadn’t been operating for ten years, though; I was like a deckhand trying to get promoted on a sinking ship. In theory, it was possible to move up the ranks, but at the end of the day you’re still gonna wind up on the bottom of the ocean. We turned the old labs into rentable office space and the old factory floors into rentable warehouses; I made good money and wore a suit that didn’t quite fit. Just like my friends, I started having sleeping problems, and my first gray hair sprouted up a while back. I didn’t see any point in griping about it, I just started cutting my hair short. The security guard ladies at the factory actually liked my crew cut—they started to respect me. Or pity me. All of us, Marat’s friends I mean, had hit that age when life slows down and gives you more time alone with your fears and insecurities. Marat had only made it to thirty-­five, but each of us could look forward to a long life and a natural death. Maybe from Alzheimer’s.