Voroshilovgrad Page 36

  At first we just called his name, figuring he had hidden somewhere. Then we got scared and jumped in after him, plunging into the darkness. But it was impossible to make anything out down there, so we retreated to the riverbank, waving flashlights that cast their beams across the river’s surface, while somebody ran into town for help. The river was flowing past us, its ripples disappearing into the darkness. Gea was hanging there under the water, his body bobbing with the current like seaweed. Not wanting to believe that the worst had happened, stubbornly refusing to believe it, we all repeated quietly to ourselves as we gazed into the glimmering water, “Did he really die? Is he really gone?”

  10

  “Herman, did you know him long?”

  The thick grass spread out across the hospital courtyard, concealing apples, cigarette butts, and used syringes. Sometimes cautious and suspicious cats would freeze in the grass, their green eyes pointing up into the sun. Sometimes a window would open up, and some poor decrepit patient could be seen sneaking a quick smoke, waiting for the doctor to come by. Once it was his turn, he’d flick the cigarette out, sending it flying into the yellow grass like a falling satellite. The courtyard was dotted with some old, wind-battered trees. A bench, which had been brought in off the street, sat by the brick hospital wall. In the evenings, patients would sit there, smoking, drinking fortified wine, and telling interesting stories from their lives. Now the presbyter and I were sitting on the bench. He had just gone into the hospital to check up on Injured, although there was nothing to check up on anymore. Now he was giving me the full rundown and waiting for me to say something, but I didn’t have anything to say. Injured had died so suddenly that I couldn’t keep myself from talking about him in the present tense. The presbyter decided not to correct me. Then he asked me:

  “Herman, did you know him long?”

  “I guess you could say that,” I said. “I’ve known him since I was a kid. He’s older than me, obviously—he was really friends with my brother. They played soccer together. And then I joined the team later on.”

  “Was he a good player?”

  “Yeah, the best, man. You know, Petya,” I told the presbyter, “I’m not just saying that because he’s dead. He was actually a really good player.”

  “What about yourself?”

  “I wasn’t great. I was lacking something. Maybe I just wasn’t quick enough. Maybe I wasn’t hungry enough. But we won the championship anyway.”

  “When was that?”

  “In ’92. They’d already won it a few times, actually, before I joined the team. It was no big deal for them, but me, I was stoked. Can you imagine winning the championship?”

  “In ‘92,” the presbyter replied, “I was in the loony bin.”

  “What do you mean, the loony bin?”

  “Well, the loony bin. I had some drug problems. My sister had me committed. She thought they could help me kick.”

  “Did they?”

  “Nah, they didn’t. I helped myself. But I had to work my tail off. I even got recruited by some cult, can you imagine that?”

  “Well, how’d you get better? By praying?”

  “Praying? You’re kidding, right?” the presbyter said, chuckling. “It was all drugs, Herman, it was all drugs. That’s how it works—certain drugs always outweigh others. All in all, I have no idea how I got clean. But I did.”

  “Where does religion come in?”

  “It didn’t. Religion had nothing to do with it. It wasn’t about the church.”

  “Then what was it about?”

  “It was about the fact that I had them and they had me. We’re all in this together, you know what I mean? Let me tell ya a story.” He took Injured’s phone out of his jacket pocket, turned it off, and set it aside, as though he was gearing up to tell me something truly important. “You know why the majority of drug addicts crack? Because they’re all by themselves. Well, you probably knew that. That’s why there are so many group therapy methods, and sometimes they even get results. As for me, I’ve always been skeptical of group therapy. You know why? Because I’m an adult, and I’m used to taking responsibility for my words and actions. When I decided to get clean, I thought to myself, ‘Alrighty then, no group therapy and none of that twelve step crap.’ All of these toxins are flowing through my veins, pumped by my heart, and nobody can loan me their heart, now can they? So, I immediately decided against all of that handholding and sharing. I convinced myself that I was capable of regaining control over my own life and that it was unfair to blame anyone else for my mistakes. That kind of romantic drivel just complicates things. But, Herman, now I’m absolutely sure that I had to withstand that unbearable torture to see what I was made of and what I was capable of, for real. Herman, we sure aren’t capable of much. And, even so, we rarely live up to our fullest potential—but that’s a whole other issue. Nevertheless, at some point I did get clean after all. And then I realized that nothing had really changed—Herman, life is an exhausting everyday struggle against one’s addictions. It’s only a matter of time before I fell off the wagon, you know what I mean? Obviously, it’s not about getting clean, it’s about staying clean. And that’s when you need group therapy in the service of God—there’s no way around it. You know, I got real lucky finding the church here. Real lucky, you know what I mean? They take those kind of things in stride, and I know I wouldn’t have made it without them.”

  “Ah-ha, so it was the healing power of scripture after all?”

  “Nah, you’re not getting it. What I’m trying to say is that certain things are more important than faith. Things like gratitude and responsibility. Actually, it was an accident that I joined the church. I just didn’t have any other place to go. I couldn’t turn to my sister any longer, because she’d just send me right back to the loony bin. I had no real other choice. But the church and I didn’t really get off on the right foot. I mean, the church can do wonders, sure, but nobody besides you can fix your problems. Basically, I didn’t think I was in it for the long haul. I thought that the holy brothers would give me the boot sooner or later, as soon as they caught on to my act. They knew my history, but they never made a big deal about it. And then they sent me up here. The local priest had just moved to Canada, and the church needed someone who was willing to stick around for a while. I was willing. And I’m sure when they sent me here they were absolutely convinced I’d be heading for the hills in no time. I guess they thought, ‘If he disappears, then he’s not our problem anymore.’ You know, when I first got here we all met up at Tamara’s place.”

  “Who met up at Tamara’s place?” I asked.

  “Well, the congregation and I. There weren’t many of them back then. And you know what . . . They just sat there staring at me, and I couldn’t say a thing—I couldn’t even force out a single word because I was feeling that fuckin’ shitty. And they got that, they understood it. And they weren’t even expecting me to say anything. They just got it, Herman. They felt everything, and understood, but didn’t expect anything from me. Group therapy is a bunch of horseshit—everyone’s just trying to get clean, save their own skin, and nobody gives two shits about the others, about who’ll make it to the last session and who’ll bite the dust. Because when you’re saving your own ass you don’t have time to care about anyone else. There’s no therapy that can help you. It’s all so unfair, you even wind up suffering because you see yourself revealed as a real bastard trying to survive at any cost. But me, my situation was completely different—I understood that they didn’t really need me, that they’d get by just fine without me. Well, plus I had been officially assigned to head up their church, so they weren’t about to send me packing—back to the loony bin—I could rest assured. Even though I could’ve been anyone, I was almost a complete stranger. Just some motherfucker from across the border. I immediately realized that if I couldn’t stay clean here then I was pretty much a goner. And no prayers would help me.”

  “Did they know about your history?”

  “
Pasha knew. I told him myself. On the very first night. I took one look at them and realized that there was no need to hide anything—it’d bite me in the ass later if I tried. Pasha was their leader, like he is now. So, I told him everything. I said that I wanted to be completely honest with them, and that if a dope-fiend priest didn’t suit them, then I, naturally, would step down. You know what Pasha said? He said that if all the local dope fiends started quitting their jobs, there would be a spike in the city’s unemployment rate. He essentially told me to chill out and do my job—sing hymns with them and baptize their children. So, I stayed.”

  “I see.”

  “But that’s not the whole story,” the presbyter continued. “Herman, that’s not the whole story. I still couldn’t stay clean, you see? I worked for about six months, and then I fell off the wagon. I even pocketed some of the church’s money—not much, but still. Pasha pulled me out of it. He saw what was going on right away and he kept me from going on a bender. He locked me in his house and kept me there until I was clean again. He treated me with his own herbs and stuff. He told everyone I had the flu. And it was around then that I said to myself, ‘Look, you don’t give two shits about your health, obviously. You don’t really care about your career, that’s obvious too. And you couldn’t care less about God’s commandments, despite your professional commitment. But dude, if you don’t want to burn in hell, simmer over a slow flame, cook like a TV dinner in the microwave, then stick with these odd, slightly off, yet incredibly genuine and compassionate people. Don’t run out on them. Stick with them. Read them psalms or baptize their children, whatever you want. After all, it doesn’t really matter what you’ll be doing. Just stick with them. They won’t send you packing—that’s not how they do things around here.’ And that’s how it all played out,” the presbyter finished, and turned the phone back on. “I barely knew Injured, myself. Actually, we hardly ever talked. And I hardly ever talked to your brother, either. But that doesn’t matter—they were all here together. Herman, we’re all in this together, you know what I mean? I know what I’m talking about. This isn’t about the church or drugs. It’s about responsibility. And gratitude. If you’ve got those two things, then there’s a chance you won’t be remembered as a total asshole.”

  “Everything you’re saying makes perfect sense,” I said. “But, see—Injured got shot and my brother hightailed it out of here a while ago now. They were doing all the right things, like you said, but I didn’t help. Look, I agree with you. But the funny thing is that they’re down in the trenches thinking they can wipe everyone else out . . . but, it turns out that they’re the ones getting knocked down, one by one—they’re being squeezed out of this town and soon enough they’ll all get squeezed out.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yep.”

  “Okay, they might get squeezed out,” the presbyter said. “Maybe. But still—they’ll stick together until the very end, you know what I mean? Herman, I’ve met a lot of different people in my life. All kinds of people. The majority of them were weak and vulnerable. The majority of them have betrayed their friends and family. I think it was because they were so vulnerable. No matter how you slice it, life makes people wimps and traitor. I’m telling you that as a priest. If they all get squeezed out, like you said, then I’m going out with them, because I’m down in the trenches too, Herman. We have the same sense of responsibility. And the same sense of gratitude.”

  He took out the phone again and turned it off, listening to the rustling of the grass. The late afternoon sun had rolled out behind the hospital wall, its red edges touching the windows of the intensive care unit.

  “Sometimes I’ll show them tricks, too,” the presbyter said out of the blue.

  “Huh?”

  “Tricks,” the presbyter repeated, “circus tricks. When I was getting treatment they taught us some tricks. That was part of our therapy. They said it was supposed to bring us back to our childhood days. One of the addicts was in the circus. He worked as a juggler. He was even wearing a clown outfit when they brought him in. He taught us how to do it. Look here,” the presbyter said, magically producing a bottle of pure alcohol out of his jacket pocket and bending over to fix his shoelace. He took a quick pull from the bottle and hid it. Then he produced a Zippo lighter out of thin air, put it up to his face, and exhaled a heavy jet of blue flame.

  Frightened, I leapt back. But a moment later he was his old self, just sitting there, watching me with his calm and pensive eyes.

  “Now that’s group therapy.”

  I didn’t know how to respond.

  “Where are you headin’?” he asked.

  “I gotta take care of some business. Some very important business.”

  “All right then,” he said, dismissing me. “Call if you need me. You’ve got my number.”

  “So, you’re saying it’s all about gratitude and responsibility?” I asked.

  “Yep,” he said, nodding. “Gratitude and responsibility.”

  There were slot machines on the first floor of the hotel. A few guys that looked like Communist Youth League members with glassy eyes were sitting on high chairs in front of them, and a girl, who had red-dyed hair and red Keds, was sleeping in an upright position leaning on the windowsill. Some Chechens were scurrying down the hallway, carrying boxes with grapefruits thumping around in them. I went over to the front desk, told the girl there my name, and asked whether anyone had been looking for me. She immediately gave me a room number. “It’s nice when people are looking forward to seeing you,” I thought as I went upstairs.

  The hotel was like a partially sunken ship—not everyone had escaped, but mostly because there really wasn’t anywhere to escape to. I walked down a long, dark hallway. It smelled of paint and hotel furniture.

  The door was half-open. I could hear a shower running. I knocked, but nobody answered. I pushed it open and stepped inside. There were two beds separated by a desk. It was messy—pairs of jeans, baseball caps, rumpled sheets, and mustard-stained women’s magazines were scattered all over the place. One bed was empty, while a guy, younger than me, no more than twenty-five-years old, was sitting on the other one. Sitting there and holding a cup of fruit yogurt, the itchy hotel blanket pulled up to his chin. A laptop was resting on the chair in front of him, playing hard-core porn. The sound was off. It was as though the actors didn’t want to disturb anyone. The guy didn’t notice me coming in until something—my reflection in the monitor, probably—tipped him off. He dropped his yogurt, which splatted into a sweet half-moon on the floor, and hurriedly adjusted something down there before tossing the shaggy blanket to the side rather abruptly—possibly too abruptly—and hopped onto the floor. He was wearing tracksuit pants, brand-name ones, and a white T-shirt. He looked like a train passenger in first class who had just slid out of his fancy suit and made himself comfortable for the journey. Much as Olga had reported, he really did have a bald spot on the side of his head, but it didn’t make him look any older. He had something fitted in his left ear that resembled a heavy hearing aid. Slamming some keys on the laptop in an attempt to shut off the porn, he then deigned to look at me, brashly if not quite confidently. The image on the screen had frozen, a women’s golden head interrupted in the middle of desperately sucking on something or other, bobbing in perfect clarity in the dimness behind my host, but he didn’t notice.

  “Herman?” he asked a bit too nonchalantly, extending his hand. “I’m Dima. Take a seat,” he said, pointing to a chair by the door.

  I tossed an issue of Cosmo, smeared with something sticky, onto the floor. Dima looked as though he was dying to lunge over and to pick up the magazine, but he restrained himself. He just stood there, examining me from head to toe and gradually collecting himself and trying to decide how he should behave around me. The blonde behind him was still sucking on some otherworldly object, her radiant hair clashing with Dima’s track pants.

  I didn’t have a chance to speak before the shower fell silent and Dima’s partner, a
chubby, long-haired guy wearing blue pajamas and fluffy, girly slippers, barged into the room. At first he just paced around, drying his hair with a striped towel. He didn’t notice me at first; it was only after picking up on the tension in his buddy’s face that he sent a sideways glance my way and did up all three buttons on his top.

  “This is Herman,” Dima informed him, doing his best to sound chipper.

  “Vladik,” the long-haired guy introduced himself coldly.

  Then he swayed in my direction without actually taking a step toward me, possibly trying to figure out whether or not it was appropriate to shake my hand. He decided against it. And, really, I wasn’t in any hurry to shake hands either.