My BOOKS
Oh, God, it’s so cold and wet now in Boston, he thought.
After the beach he had a nap, and in the evening had absolutely nothing to do.
Should I go browse around to check what kind of a nightlife they have here? suddenly came to his mind, it’s Saturday night.
He remembered his younger days, when he and his buddies raced his old sporty Dodge through the dark Boston streets. The lads were tough, nobody messed with them. Side jobs, pocket money, nightclubs, girls.
Frank took a shower and went down to the lobby. He spoke the local dialect well and asked the doorman where he could find the best night club in the capital. Waiting for the taxi, Frank sipped some cognac and double espresso to finally wake up. The club was called Dolce Vita.
Dolce Vita of Bisharaz, Frank sighed.
The club was disgusting. Small, dirty, shabby. Groups of people were sitting around greasy wooden tables. A dozen untidy, horribly dressed, worn-out women gathered by the bar. All the tables were taken and Frank had to stand. He ordered a drink and looked around with unconcealed repulsion.
Will get a few more shots to knock myself out, and then back to the hotel, to sleep, he thought.
And then he saw her. A skinny, tall brunette entered the club. Her shiny black hair waved down her naked shoulders, like dark silk. Her nose and jaw were protruding forward a bit, a common trait of Latin women, making her face even more sensual. She wore faded, torn light blue jeans and a white tank top. She had a beautiful tattoo on her hand that suited her well. The rosebush was climbing up her arm, flowers, leaves, and branches crawled over her shoulder to her chest.
“Hi, Tommy,” she said to the barman, “one beer to go.”
Frank realized that she would leave soon. He rapidly moved towards her and gently gripped her by the elbow.
“Good evening, princess.”
She was visibly shocked, reluctantly turned her head, and responded through almost shut lips:
“Good evening.”
The barman passed her a bottle of beer wrapped in a napkin. Frank rose his glass up.
“Nice to meet you, my name is Frank.”
“Daniella,” she answered.
They clinked their drinks.
“I got the tab,” Frank said to the barman.
All the tables were taken, so they stood by the bar and chatted. One drink followed another. Frank told her about Boston, about the United States, about his study, his job, showed her pictures of the snow. To stay honest, he disclosed that he was currently married. A tastelessly dressed, unattractive black girl was passing by the bar. She wore high heels but didn’t know how to walk in them properly, her body was tilted forward and she was awkwardly stepping, like a wounded bird. Daniella walked toward her, opening her arms. ......................................................................
I stood on the corner of Mir Avenue and Boris Galushkin Street and waited for my girlfriend. I'd arrived early; it was cold, damp snow was falling, and I decided to pop into the post office to warm up and to ring my mum. I changed a fiver for an inter-city phone call and dialled the usual number.
“Hello,” replied a woman's voice, far, far away at the other end of the line.
My mother's voice sounded very strange to me.
“Mum?” I asked uncertainly.
“Marat?!” she cried out.
My name is Timur. Muscovites often called me Marat or Artur, but I'd become used to that too. I had drunkenly dialled a wrong number, or I hadn't been properly connected. In her voice was sadness and grief, and very little hope – unrealisable hope. It was obvious that she didn't expect this phone call, that this phone call could not happen. Immediately it was clear that this woman had taken me to be her son, a son to whom something had happened, who could not call. He'd either been killed, or was in prison, for what else could happen to a lad in Alma-Ata? I hung up the phone in horror. I began to feel hot. I undid my coat and then went outside. The light snow melted on my collar. I came to my senses and sobered up. Lena still wasn't there. I went back into the post office and carefully dialled my mum's number. My frozen fingers would not obey me. Having spoken hesitantly to my mum, I went outside. The Russian girl Lena waited for me in the black, cold and damp Moscow evening.
“Where did you get to? I'm frozen already,” she said.
We went into McDonald's. It had only very recently opened. It was the first McDonald's in the USSR. This was 1989. For two Big Macs with French fries, and two milkshakes (one chocolate, one strawberry) I surrendered all my scholarship money, all the money my numerous relatives had sent me, and a good part of the remaining profits of my “drugs business.” It was soon to be New Year, the summer break was long gone, my money was running out and I realised that, in the best case, by the holiday I would only have enough for two bottles of vodka. After dinner I splashed out three roubles on a taxi, and we went back to mine at the student hostel. I had concealed half a bottle of Slynchev Bryag brandy, which I'd nicked from a previous party. She hadn't got frostbite, so everything was alright.
“Marat!” said the woman down the phone, “Marat! Marat! Marat!”
That was thirty years ago. I emigrated, served in the Israeli army, studied in the USA, went around the whole world. I got married, divorced, I opened and closed businesses, built houses.
“Marat!” the stranger's mother continues to call to me, though she remains in that cold Moscow evening.
“Marat!” she calls me.
I really want to speak to her, to comfort her as I can, to find out what happened to her ill-fated Marat, but I don't know her number. Back then, I was a callow youth, a child, and I hung up the phone.
“Marat!” she continues to call me. .....................................
Finally, the weekend. I refused the excursions that were offered to us, and decided to explore the country myself. I Googled local attractions, and found some kind of mountain range. It all looked very decent, at least on the screen: green hills, waterfalls, jungles. I could spend my weekend in quiet, I was already imagining how I would stretch out in a hammock on the veranda of a shaded cottage with a volume of French poetry in my hands, sipping cold Chablis. I rented a car.
“Just don’t take the tunnel,” the clerk at the rental agency told me.
“Which tunnel?” I got interested.
“We have only one tunnel.”
“What do you have in there? A tunnel monster?” I joked.
“Just don’t take the tunnel, and that’s it,” the clerk left me to deal with other clients.
“Provincial nonsense,” l grumbled, getting in the car, for sure he referred to some bandits-separatists, or left-over land-mines from their pygmy wars.
I routed the way through Google maps. The fastest way was through the tunnel. It’s said just like that on the map - The Tunnel.
Let it burn in hell, I decided, worst case scenario, I will make a U-turn.
Approaching the tunnel, I realized what the clerk had tried to warn me about. I was in the slums. Partly destroyed buildings, piles of trash on the streets, burnt cars – it looked like a war zone. Laundry was drying on wires stretched from one building to another; barely dressed tanned kids followed my car with hungry, almost beast-like, eyes. On a basketball court, muscular, half-naked lads were playing ball. The highway was empty, I was the only driver. I stepped on the gas. People disappeared. I was racing the car through silent ruins. The absence of people, even slum dwellers, made the landscape even more terrifying. I couldn’t turn around to make a U-turn, the opposite direction was fenced away with a concrete barrier. There was no light in the tunnel, and l turned on the high-beam.
The tunnel was long, and, finally, I could see this famous “light at the end of the tunnel.” A sunny day blinded me, and l immediately found myself in an enormous traffic jam filled with cars, bright advertising banners, and tasteless music pounding from everywhere. Somebody was honking like crazy. A red sports automobile drove up parallel with my car, and a man with a beard and dark, square sunglasses popped his head out of the window, yelling something in the local dialect, making angry gestures. Apparently, I entered this traffic too fast and had unintentionally almost hit his vehicle. The angry fellow tried to cut me off, but l moved as close as l could to the car in front of me. Shouting curses, he started to push me to the curb, gesturing with his hands for me to stop for a road rage meeting. Police were nowhere to be found.
I’m from the big city and l know how to drive in one. I hit the brakes and let him fly in front of me, then abruptly moved right, cutting off another vehicle. I crossed the highway diagonally and, under a cacophony of blowing horns, got away from that madman. What a day. The traffic started to move and I drove fast so that the insane bearded men wouldn’t catch up to me. I’ve glanced at the Google maps.
God Almighty, where am I? .................................................