Voroshilovgrad Read online

  One can only guess why those unfamiliar African-American rhythms appealed to the Eastern European workers. Possibly it was that the Abrams sisters sang about life in America’s proletarian neighborhoods, about the working man and his daily struggles and concerns. The sentiments expressed by these North American vocalists were easily understood and shared by a large cross-section of the local working class. The sisters’ popularity rose; they could always be found at union clubs and Sunday services. The Methodist Church had discovered an incredible tool for propagating their religion—the girls spread the word, and jazz would ultimately secure yet another convincing victory, winning over a completely new audience who had never encountered anything like it before.

  But when summer came, the situation became more precarious. First of all, the Russian anarchists, tired of waiting, tracked the girls down and expressed their eagerness to receive the funds intended for them. Surprisingly, the choir refused to transfer the money to the revolutionaries. Maria de las Mercedes was particularly adamant about this. She was the one who convinced Gloria to hide the bags stuffed with American dollars at their friend’s apartment. She happened to be a member of the local Lutheran church’s choir, and the insulted anarchists decided to take Maria out to intimidate the girls. Her body was found in one of the Novorossiya Company’s warehouses. Gloria realized that the revolutionaries weren’t going to stop there. Moreover, Sarah, who had developed a close relationship with the manager of a local bathhouse, announced that she was pregnant. Going against her sisters and the church, she opted to keep the child and return to America (in fact, she made the passage on the Mesopotamia again). Barbara Carroll, the fourth member of the choir, wound up accompanying Sarah home.

  All by herself in a foreign land, Gloria Abrams decided to hold auditions for new choir members at the local churches. Meanwhile, she agreed to transfer the hefty sum she had received in America to the appropriate anarchist organizations. As planned, Gloria bought a ticket to Rostov, where she was supposed to pass the money along. Accompanied by local smugglers, she got on the train and headed east. She didn’t make it, however. By the time the train arrived in Rostov, she’d vanished. Neither the train attendant nor her fellow passengers could provide any useful tips. All subsequent efforts made by the anarchist groups to track down Gloria Abrams or find out what had happened to the money she’d been carrying came to nothing—she had disappeared into the black hole of the Donetsk railroad along with those bags stuffed with dollars, not to mention her handwritten sheet music. Nevertheless, some of her work has survived, primarily thanks to Sarah, who preserved her sister’s legacy as a relic of early jazz music.

  The following spiritual (translated here from the original English) is one of the last extant pieces written by Gloria Abrams. Composed just before her sister departed back to the United States, it is rightly considered one of the most lyrical and socially charged masterpieces of choral jazz, and the underlying melody has become something of a standard, seeing use by such world-famous musicians such as Chet Baker and Charlie “Bird” Parker.

  Who stands on the piers by the anchorage as the sun bows out?

  It’s us, Lord, the fishermen and workers after an exhausting day,

  returning from the wharfs,

  stepping on the banks and singing to

  the river water that has deserted us forever.

  What can men sing about on these quiet evenings?

  Lord, we remember our cities and we long for them.

  We hang our horns and guitars upon the trees and step into the river.

  Standing in the warm waves, we sing to the fleeting green water that flows past us.

  Standing in the warm waves, we sing to the life that slips between our fingers.

  And when the passersby ask you to sing for them, what will you say?

  We’ll say that our voices are bitter like prison tea.

  Music squeezes our hearts like Moroccan oranges.

  All of our songs serve merely as a reminder of those hot city blocks

  we left behind, merely as a mourning song for the disappearing water.

  And if we forget our homes, then what are we supposed to sing about?

  We ask our memory to stay with us and not leave us alone.

  All of our hymns about banks and shops eroded by time,

  about markets and warehouses filled with goods.

  About our women whom we are willing to die for,

  and our children who will take our places at the factory one day.

  We are all linked together by the rivers that flow through our past.

  And our women stand alongside us on their banks.

  The prophet Zechariah leaves the factory for his lunch break,

  wipes away a manual laborer’s sweat,

  and washes oil and coal dust from his black hands and nails,

  scissors jingling in the pockets of his overalls.

  For now, while he’s not on the clock, one can look up at the sky.

  For now, he can take a break from the heavy work that people count on.

  Let the city remain etched in our memory.

  Old train cars took us away from you,

  and whoever forgets you will never be at peace.

  Every one of them vanishes, their hearts torn to shreds.

  It’s so easy for us to share the past.

  Life is a machine made for us,

  and we know that there’s no need to fear this machine.

  Golden factories open up their gates to us,

  the sky flies high, above our schools and stores.

  The only things awaiting us are emptiness and oblivion,

  the only things awaiting us are love and salvation.

  8

  They had dark jackets, white dress shirts, and worn yet durable shoes. Their cars were the same—worn yet durable. Mercedes and Volkswagens. They were like a funeral procession. I walked around the hangar, stepped out onto the runway, and immediately locked eyes with them. They were standing by their cars like taxi drivers waiting for fares outside a train station. They were smoking and shooting the shit.

  “Hey, Gadjo!” Pasha, Kocha’s relative, yelled to me. Everyone came over. “Gadjo, a little bit late, aren’t ya?”

  I greeted them all one by one, starting with Pasha, who was holding a phone in each hand, then Borman, a fat guy whose red hair had grown out over the summer; he kept touching it as if he didn’t believe it was there or that he couldn’t quite believe it had actually grown out. After that I said hello to Arkady, Prokhor, and our other guys from the church, all those committed, well-intentioned members of the congregation, gathered in the middle of the runway; their black jackets made them look like guests at a wedding who had stepped outside for a smoke break between dances. I greeted Ernst, too, who looked like the groom—he looked very uncomfortable with this whole operation, even though he was the one who got us into it. I greeted Injured last and then stuck by him. Injured wasn’t saying anything; it was obvious he felt self-assured with his whole gang there. He was wearing a light, comfortable black windbreaker, perfect for a rumble. He touched my hand.

  “A letter came for you,” he said, taking an envelope out of his pocket and unfolding it. “I forgot to give it to you yesterday.”

  The letter was from Katya. Her handwriting was round and childish. I put the envelope into my jeans pocket.

  “I’ll read it later,” I told Injured, and he nodded.

  The sun burned evenly above us, and the wind whipped across the men’s tanned, nearly black faces. Everyone was focused and calm. Pasha was telling some story about how he bought a used Fiat for his daughter as a wedding present. He said the guy who sold it to him was from Moldova, from somewhere around Bessarabia, and he drove the car all the way up here, but he had forgotten all the documents for it at home, but he only told Pasha that after the money had changed hands, and now they didn’t know what to do—the guy had to get home to pick up the documents but he didn’t have his car anymore. Well, t
he wedding was set for a few days from now, and the Fiat was almost brand-new and the color of blood. They all tried consoling Pasha, telling him not to worry, saying forget the documents; they’d buy him all the documents he needed just as long as he didn’t get all worked up. They said the Fiat was a good gift, a modest and necessary thing—they completely supported his decision to buy his daughter a car and promised to give the newlyweds a present of their own, something useful and almost brand-new. To the casual observer, the guys might have looked as though they were just about to go celebrate the marriage—as if they were going to finish their cigarettes and then they’d head back inside where their wives, sisters, and lovers were waiting for them. Pasha, however, still holding two cell phones, reminded us all that we had to live long enough to make it to the wedding first.

  The corn guys were running late, and deep down I was already starting to hope that they just wouldn’t show up—that everything would resolve itself without any hunting knives or bike chains, that we would all smoke one last cigarette and then shove off toward the old airport cafeteria, where Ernst would roll out his strategic alcohol reserves to celebrate the successful completion of our region’s latest reprivatization case—not to mention the end of this hot summer, and the beginning of a warm autumn. We’d express our solidarity and deep, abiding friendship. The wine would linger on our lips like dried blood, and we would reminisce about all our women, ask each other about our families, and tell stories about mutual friends. The short, autumn day would flow into the thick early evening, a cold twilight would stretch out across the runway, and everyone would be tipsy, alive and kicking.

  They pulled around the corner and advanced slowly. Ernst had left the gate open; we were all gathered on the runway now, behind the fence where nobody could see us. Maybe the corn guys took that as a good sign, as though the enemy had opened the gates of their city and given the marauders three days to pillage the hangars and garages, secure the runway, and establish their own little authoritarian regime. They only saw us after they pulled behind the hangars.

  Their column was headed by a yellowish MTZ tractor equipped with two buckets—one lunging forward like a set of tusks and the other lagging behind like a tail. Two guys, one wearing a sailor’s shirt and the other a robe, were sitting in the cab. Nikolaich came next in his Jeep, and a truck brought up the rear with what appeared to be soldiers riding in the back—each of them equipped with a shovel. They were a ragtag bunch who clearly didn’t want to be there; they looked like an old Soviet penal battalion, or maybe more like high school girls wearing their mother’s dresses to prom, given how badly their uniforms fit. Perched on their raised flatbed, they gazed warily at the Gypsy crew waiting for them by their Mercedes and Volkswagens.

  The tractor pulled up right in front of us, its buckets agitating the calm air. The engine kept running, though. The man wearing the sailor’s shirt and the other guy in the robe were in no rush to step out of their vehicle—they sat there, like starlings, waiting for instructions from their superiors, who stood off to the side. Nikolaich, their little runt, was the first to hop down onto the runway. He was dressed for battle—decked out in a camouflage jacket with a heavy collar and matching pants with blue sneakers peeking out at the bottom. Borman started cracking up at the sight of him, and the rest of us joined in with his contagious laughter. Nikolaich, realizing that it was him everyone was laughing at, scampered anxiously around the Jeep, opening up the other door and letting their head honcho out. The gray-haired man sprang onto the asphalt, holding his briefcase in one hand and buttoning up his jacket with the other. He looked ready to get down to business, but then his manner also struck me as a bit affected—he didn’t even close the car door behind him after getting out, as though he wanted to make sure he had an escape route open. The muscle he had brought along didn’t look too intimidating either. They hopped down onto the asphalt and slinked along after the gray-haired man, who kept glancing back at them, unsure why they were taking the rear, as though hiding behind him.

  “Injured,” I asked, “what now?”

  “Dunno. We’ll see.”

  “They’ve got all their government decrees and orders after all.”

  “You know,” Injured said, “they may not have any of that crap.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean they might not have jack shit. They might be bluffing.”

  The gray-haired man stopped short. Nikolaich ran up from behind. The penal battalion continued cowering behind their commanders, feet shifting uncomfortably in their mud-caked boots. The gray-haired man turned struck a dramatic and overly theatrical pose and began shouting at Nikolaich without even looking at him. Nikolaich barked back in reply. They continued shouting at each other for some time, glaring at us all the while, until one of them finally realized that we couldn’t hear their performance because the tractor engine was still running. The gray-haired man went red in the face, while Nikolaich flapped his arms like a caged bird. Finally, the tractor drivers realized that they were getting the signal to turn off the engine, which they did. It got quiet.

  “Nikolaich,” the gray-haired man said after clearing his throat, now really hamming it up for the crowd, “what are they doing trespassing on these premises?” He waved his briefcase at us.

  “It’s unheard of!” Nikolaich snapped, soldier-like, and stomped his feet.

  “Present these gentlemen with the order issued by the council and begin the demolition,” the gray-haired man hissed.

  “Yes, sir,” Nikolaich answered, sweat dripping off his skin, breaking out into red blotches.

  The gray-haired man popped his briefcase open, took out a piece of paper, and handed it to Nikolaich. Nikolaich struggled to swallow, as if the dry autumn air was clogging up his windpipe, and headed toward us. He was at a total loss by the time we finally came face-to-face. He didn’t know who to show the order to—Ernst, who was considered an official airport employee; Injured, who had no official ties to the airport itself, but might slug him in the nose at any moment; or the Gypsies, whom Nikolaich didn’t know personally and who terrified him anyway. Our crew stared him down, laughing right in his face. Nikolaich started sweating even more profusely. After a lengthy pause, Pasha finally pocketed one of his cell phones and extended his hand. Relieved, Nikolaich gave him the piece of paper. Pasha perused the decree and then handed it to Borman, who also scanned the page. The document was passed farther down the line.

  The decree looked pretty unconvincing. Firstly, it was a Xerox copy; secondly, the seals on the signatures had been smeared like sauce across a tablecloth; and thirdly, the signatures were very dubious. The wording of the decree was rather hazy: it primarily focused on Ukraine’s gross domestic product and improving the country’s investment climate, on democratic reforms and the government’s approval rating, but there was absolutely no mention of transferring the deed to the airport to another party or the need to drive tractors down its runway. The page made the rounds and wound up back in Pasha’s hands. Pasha then went back to starting at Nikolaich intently, refusing to lower his eyes, black as death in that light. Nikolaich stood his ground, also refusing to lower his eyes—a generous dose of hatred, overwhelming his tired and uncertain gaze, spread slowly and thickly across his pupils. Then Pasha lifted the decree up to his mouth, stuffed it between his teeth, and started chewing it, watching for Nikolaich’s reaction. When it came, it wasn’t quite what I expected—his face lost what was left of its color, yes, and he seemed to sink back into his camouflage outfit, his eyes losing their malice and looking only weary and timid now; but the overall effect was one of petulance—as though the whole world were ganging up on him. Meticulously chewing the last bit of top-quality copy paper, Pasha swallowed the decree and grinned. Nikolaich threw his arms up in desperation, looking back at the gray-haired man.

  “They . . .” he said. “Did you see that? They ate it. They ate it!”

  The gray-haired man seemed lost in his thoughts. Evidently, Injured had
been right—they were bluffing. They couldn’t even rally the cops; all they had were some small fry with shovels. They thought they’d just waltz in here and we’d go along quietly. They hadn’t gotten off to a great start—and, based on the gray-haired man’s reaction, there was no turning back for them. His eyes started wandering; he got all squirmy, making an immense effort not to lose face. The soldiers looked deflated—they had come out here expecting that their day’s work would just entail some manual labor for the benefit of the local oligarchs, but now that they realized that some punches were going to be thrown, and most likely they’d be the ones to take them, every one of them started hopping from one heavy, muddy boot to the other. When Pasha finally swallowed the decree the last flicker of hope whizzed past their crew cuts.

  “Begin clearing the site,” the gray-haired man said, after he’d had a moment to collect himself.

  Nikolaich waved to the tractor drivers, as if to say, “Come on, start the engine. Now we’re gonna mow every fuckin’ thing down!” But, oddly enough, the drivers just waved back, as if to say, “Fuck that shit, you mow it all down yourself.”

  “Nicky boy,” Nikolaich shouted at one of them. “Rev it up, c’mon Nicky boy!”

  But both drivers shook their heads desperately, as if to say, “Boss, we’re on break for the rest of the day.”

  “Hey!” Injured called out at Nikolaich. And then, to the rest of us, “Chill, guys.” He was speaking calmly, as though trying to get us all to be friends. “They’ve got nothing.”

  “What do you mean ‘they’ve got nothing’?” Nikolaich asked, offended.

  “You know exactly what I mean,” Injured said. “So beat it already. We’ll sort everything out ourselves—we don’t need any lawyers.”

  “We got nothing, huh?” Nikolaich asked, not hearing a word Injured said. He ran up to the tractor, which was yellow as the sun, and started jumping up and down, waving at drivers to come down. “We got nothing, eh?”