Mesopotamia Page 11

  “I’m just wearing this dress. Like that’s it,” Sonia said suddenly.

  “That right?” he asked, surprised. “Don’t your sneakers count?”

  But she just chuckled, taking his hand and showing him that she really wasn’t wearing anything underneath. Who would have thought? As they were laughing together, Danylo walked quietly over to the door and switched off the light, taking out a pack of cigarettes. “It’s a good thing I have some left, otherwise I’d have to bug my brother,” he thought, lighting up, looking out the dark window, and cracking the faintest smile. He was trying not to bother them and trying not to look at them. Her skin was golden, her hair was copper, and her heels were yellow, like lemons.

  Persistent fists pounded on the door. The iron was ringing dully, bombarded by men’s heavy shoulders, but the locks were durable and the metal impenetrable, so over there, on the other side of the door, in the black hallways, there was nothing to be heard but sharp curses and frustrated cries. Danylo kept smoking, burning through one cigarette after another. Oleh jumped down onto the floor and started getting dressed in a hurry, trying to slide his hand into the armhole of his jacket, hopping on one foot, sticking the other one into his shoe, and looking around the room for something heavy.

  “Take it easy,” Sonia said.

  She was sitting on the metal table, tying her sneakers unhurriedly. Hazelnuts and coins were sliding down the creases of her dress. Her hair looked like a red flame flapping in the wind. Her voice was calm, though, and her eyes tender. When they’d first started pounding on the door, Oleh had stopped and whirled around, looking at his brother apprehensively, but Danylo, hiding out there in the gloom, hadn’t even flinched. Sonia had wrapped her arms around Oleh’s neck, pulled him toward her again, whispering something in his ear—quickly, quietly, yet coherently—which brought Oleh to a sudden stop inside her, and then it stopped her too, but she kept whispering, overcome by gratitude, joy, and drowsiness.

  “Sonia, are you in there?” His voice was odd-­sounding—­sharpness mingling with uncertainty, frustration with hesitation.

  “What a guy!” Sonia said, laughing, and then she yelled. “Yeah, I’m here. Whaddya want?”

  Senia was at a loss.

  “Open up,” he said dryly.

  “All right,” Sonia said to Danylo, “climb out the window, you two. Then I’ll open the door. Are you listening?”

  Danylo didn’t say anything, and Oleh didn’t respond, either. Everyone was listening on the other side of the door.

  “Danylo, did you hear me?”

  Oleh walked over to Danylo.

  “What are we gonna do?” he asked quietly.

  “Whatever you say,” Danylo answered, just as quietly.

  “I can’t just leave her. He’ll kill her.”

  He looked ahead, biding his time. Danylo hesitated for a second.

  “Danylo,” Sonia said, growing a bit anxious. “Are you listening to me? Come on, get outta here!”

  “Don’t think so!” Danylo said suddenly. “Like I’m gonna run away from those chumps.”

  “Yeah, for real, man.”

  Danylo patted him on the back, switched on the light, and opened the door like it was the gate of a besieged city.

  They looked like a real soccer team, coming out of the stadium’s dark tunnels and into the floodlights, geared up for battle and expecting another victory. As soon as the door was flung open, the whole squad burst forward, backing Oleh and Danylo up against the metal tables, forming a half-­circle around them. Senia’s nephew was poking his head between them, relishing the fact that he’d been the one to bring them all here, to the scene of the crime. Senia’s relatives immediately rushed over toward Sonia, who had adjusted her dress inconspicuously, found Oleh’s cigarettes somehow, lit one up, and was now coldly blowing smoke in the faces of some women as they yelled at her, doing nothing to hide their consternation and despair. The soccer players stood there, glaring at the two brothers, not knowing what to do; Senia’s gaze kept moving from Oleh to Danylo and then back to Oleh, until he realized it was making his eyes look all shifty, so he turned toward Oleh.

  “Hey, you,” he said glumly, “let’s have a little chat. And you,” he said, nodding at Danylo, “stay put. We’ll chat with you in a bit.”

  “Hey, you,” Danylo mimicked his tone. “Go fuck yourself.”

  Senia wanted to respond, but the anger welling up inside choked him, and he charged at Danylo, who stepped out of the way, grabbed Senia’s neck, and threw him against the table. Senia’s chest slammed into its shiny metal surface, and he slumped to the ground, gasping for air. The soccer players charged at the brothers. Oleh clocked one of them, and Danylo took down another two. After that, the gang knocked them off their feet and went in for the kill. Danylo covered his head, trying to keep his breathing relaxed. Oleh was squirming, trying to fend them off, not saying anything and not thinking about anything, although he sure had a lot to think about.

  Like his own misplaced self-­confidence, how sure he was that everything would play out just the way he imagined it. He had taken a liking to her right away. He liked that she wasn’t afraid of anything, especially being alone, and that she made a big show of carrying condoms in her wallet, right next to her business cards. He liked it that she sent the hearts of her potential business associates racing.

  Back then, at the Georgian joint, after those two guys shat their pants and signed on the dotted line, he drove her home and then kept her in the car for a while, talking constantly so she wouldn’t go anywhere; he could tell that she was tensing up and that she didn’t like this whole situation, but he was so sure of himself that he continued holding her hand and cracking jokes, making her laugh and tense up even more. But when he casually leaned in, not even bothering to turn off the engine, she covered his lips with her cold palm and said, “Cool your jets, pal.”

  Then she got out, slammed the passenger door and headed over to her apartment building, swaying from side to side so angrily that he simply couldn’t help but stare at her. “How on earth can someone walk like that without tipping over?” he thought. She opened the door to her apartment building and dove inside. He just sat there, unable to take his eyes off the black night enveloping him. A split second later, her silhouette popped back into the headlights, swaying back and forth, like before, approaching the car and opening the passenger side door again.

  “Hey Rambo, are ya comin’ or what?”

  He caught up to her in the stairwell and tried to carefully lay her down on the landing, but she neatly slipped out of his clutches, mounting him and pressing him up against the cold stone floor. He felt a wandering draft, songs reverberating in other people’s apartments, beasts and birds gathering around the building, reacting to the light and warm air, reacting to the loud cries she wasn’t even trying to hold back.

  “Keep it down,” he said to her. “Your neighbors . . . you’re the one who lives here.”

  “Uh-­huh,” she replied, not stopping. “I know.”

  She kept screaming after every jerky movement, stopping only once, when a door downstairs squeaked open—it sounded like somebody had come in from outside and quickly scurried up the steps; he tried getting up, but Sonia covered his mouth with her hand, which wasn’t as cold anymore and now smelled like her warmth, and the pattering steps cut out a floor below them. A door opened, somebody said hello, everything quieted down, and then he couldn’t hear a thing but her moaning. After that she ran up to her apartment, and he was left sitting on the steps until the early morning, lacking the resolve to get up and leave.

  At first, the squad was dragging them down the hallway, throwing punches and ripping their clothes, and eventually shoving them toward the swimming pools. At that point, Danylo broke free and nailed one of the guys so hard he fell back into the water. Then the whole gang pounced on him and dragged him along, hungry for vengeance. When the whole crowd piled into the bar, John stopped them. A few locals were standing behind him. The
y had either heard about the fight or just knew that this was the only way this night could end.

  “Whatcha got there?” John asked.

  “Well, we caught these two troublemakers,” they all shouted triumphantly.

  “Just two? So it was all you guys against the two of them?”

  “Well, uh, yeah,” the soccer players answered, suddenly sounding less confident. “We caught ’em.”

  “And your fuckin’ point is?” John said. “All right, you caught ’em, now let ’em go. Yeah, some troublemakers you got there.”

  “No fuckin’ way!” one of the younger guys yelled.

  “Come on over here.” As soon as he did, John grabbed him by the collar, spun around abruptly, and slammed him against a half-­open door. It swung the rest of the way, sending the guy flying, and the men standing behind John stepped forward. The squad started duking it out with John’s guys, but they didn’t realize what they were getting into, and it didn’t go well; they all took a beating. John, punching randomly at bobbing buzzcuts, shouted to his buddies,

  “Don’t touch the groom. This is his big day.”

  Nobody touched the groom; he just stayed in the kitchen, crying, his face buried in Sonia’s cold lap.

  He could have thought about the fatigue that enveloped him every time he walked downstairs in the morning, sensing that the tenants in her apartment building were listening to his footsteps. Sonia never let him leave in the middle of the night.

  “Don’t go. I can’t stand sleeping alone. If you go, I’ll have someone else come over.”

  He was putty in her hands; he’d get mad and stay. Her screaming would lull him to sleep, but his body would keep moving, so she wouldn’t even notice. He’d quickly snap out of it, unable to believe that he’d actually fallen asleep right next to her, and even though he couldn’t see her face in the dark, he definitely knew when she was laughing, when she was worrying, when she was coming, and when everything was about to start all over again. You could tell by how she was breathing and what she was saying. She was always talking, always giving him warnings, explanations, and exhortations. He got used to her voice over time, but he could only stop and relax once she’d quieted down. Then he’d lie there, touching her skin.

  The young soccer players were led outside and backed up against a wall. One of them tried breaking free, but he was knocked onto the asphalt immediately. Half the team stood there—the half that wasn’t lying on the floor inside. Obviously, there was no point dragging them out. The locals stood there, making sure nobody could escape; John inspected them coldly; Danylo, holding his side, was standing next to him, and Oleh was next to him. Uncle Hrysha, who was stumbling but managing to stay on his feet, tried reasoning with John, nodding at the squad. The others could hear bits and pieces of the conversation.

  “What the hell, man?”

  “Why the fuck would ya . . .”

  “Those goddamn morons.”

  “Uncle Hrysha,” John replied, “go back to the bar and get yourself a drink.”

  So Uncle Hrysha slunk off dejectedly, not making eye contact with the team.

  “All right then, ya little pukes,” John started. “What’d I tell you? Was it that hard to just listen to me?”

  The team didn’t say anything. Danylo was readying his fists and Oleh was spitting out blood from a bitten lip. The rest of the guys were standing behind John and thinking, “Yeah, they deserve it. He did tell them. Was it really that hard to listen?”

  “We gonna finish them off?” John asked, turning toward his guys. But before they could answer, a dry, deafening flash cut through the air, forcing everyone to duck their heads like turtles hiding inside their shells, and fireworks flooded half the sky, illuminating tree branches and roofs buried in the dark, reflecting in everyone’s eyes, and fading into black ozone. People were hooting and hollering somewhere nearby, and our block chimed in, too. Beyond the trees and hills everyone was embracing the celebratory, celestial flame that scorched the insects in the air and blinded the passersby in the streets, making the night unbearably beautiful and our lives inexpressibly wonderful.

  “All right, whatever,” Danylo said, placing his hand on John’s shoulder. “Who gives a fuck about these little punks? Let ’em go.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Oleh said, sliding his tongue along a chipped tooth. “Who gives a fuck?”

  John thought for a bit and lifted his head, regarding the yellow and green flashes glowing in the sky above them, then he turned toward the team.

  “All right,” he said, “I don’t give a fuck about you guys. You’ll live to see another day.”

  Somebody suggested going around the corner to get a better view, so they did.

  (One time, a hitchhiker tried to strangle Danylo. That was before he started working for the taxi company—it was pouring out and he saw some young guy on the side of the road, so he decided to stop and pick him up. It turned out they were heading the same way. The guy sat in the back, which was a bit weird, but Danylo thought nothing of it. While they were crossing the bridge, Danylo had to brake, and the guy leaned forward sharply, ramming his elbow into Danylo’s neck, locking his hands together, and pulling with all his strength. The startled Danylo slammed on the brakes again, sending the guy flying, head first, into the windshield. Then Danylo heaved him over his shoulder and dragged him out into the rain. The guy looked at him, eyes all glassy, showing no hint of fear, no hint of any feelings at all. Sitting there in a puddle, he looked up at Danylo and muttered, his voice hissing with hate,

  “Fag, fuckin’ fag, you’re such a fuckin’ fag.”

  Danylo snapped—maybe he was just tired, maybe it just pissed him off that he went to the trouble of picking a guy up only to get called a fag. Danylo kicked the youngster right in the head, which he truly wasn’t expecting from himself. He did it again and again, he just didn’t have it in him to stop. The guy ducked his head, trying to cover it, and eventually tipped over. His head fell in the water, his eyes were bloody, and foam was coming out of his mouth. Danylo got scared; he even thought about just leaving him there, but something compelled him to lug the guy—all dirty and wet—back to his car and drive him to the emergency room. When he was talking to the doctor, he just said that he’d picked him up off the side of the road. The doctor took one look at him and figured it all out.

  “Did he hit you or something?” he asked, seeing the bruises on Danylo’s neck.

  “He tried to strangle me,” Danylo admitted.

  “Did you do it to him, too?”

  “Nah, but I kicked him a few times.”

  “Drugs. It seems like you knocked his eye out. He’ll live, like that’ll do anybody any good.”

  “What are we gonna do?”

  “Nothing. We’re not gonna do anything. You have to learn to control yourself. Sometimes our perception of the harm done to us pales in comparison to how much our conscience will torture us for the rest of our lives. But at the very least, you don’t realize that until you’re near the end of your life. Get going. You weren’t here, I’ve never seen you before.”)

  He could also have thought about hurt feelings and jealousy, about the need for revenge, about the rage in his voice, about her scornful silence, about the disappointment she didn’t even try to hide. He couldn’t understand what she needed that soccer player for—he couldn’t even tie his shoes—or where the hell he’d even come from. She shouted at him to quit sticking his nose in her business, that she didn’t need him bossing her around, and that he should just beat it. He did, but then he called, and they argued until he ran out of money on his phone and she ran out of patience. Oleh was planning on tracking down that soccer player to tell him that Sonia was his, and he’d better make himself scarce; he was planning on it (he really was!), but he didn’t follow through for some reason—maybe she talked him out of it (“Relax, it’s just a little fling, you’ll see for yourself”), maybe he realized that the soccer player had nothing to do with it, he wasn’t the one br
eaking them up. She was the problem. You couldn’t even talk to her; she was used to doing whatever she pleased, she was always the one calling the shots, and nobody had any sway over her—her dad was out of the picture, her mom had died a few years ago, and the therapist she saw every week, another object of jealousy for Oleh, didn’t really seem to get her, so who had any sway over her? Who could reason with her? “Everything’ll work out,” Oleh said to himself. “She’s a high-­powered businesswoman, after all, she’ll figure things out, sooner or later. She’s not just gonna go and ruin her life. Everything’s going to be like it was before—she’ll keep ripping my heart out, writing me love letters in the afternoon, cursing me up and down in the evening, and telling me her dreams in the morning—they make no sense, they’re too simple and too sublime.”

  They walked down the street and turned up the hill. They passed the Institute, dark buildings, and the empty schoolyard. They stopped by the kiosks. Danylo bought some sparkling water to wash his cuts—the bubbles hissed, as if his skin had come to a boil.