The Moscoviad by Yuri Andrukhovych Read Free Book Online Page B

outcome. Give it to him,
yes, give him some more! Good grief, how many of them have packed the place!
One can’t get through. Except along the wall leading to that strumpet from the
window. Which is closed, because she is on lunch break.
    You carefully
knock on the wooden window frame.
    “And the firmament
speaks of His hands’ deeds,” says to this a worn out wandering grandpa that
made himself at home nearby, jar in his hand. Some alcoholic theologian.
    Nothings stirs
behinds the window shutters, so you force your way out of the hall to look for
a phone by the entrance. There it’s also closed, and Beelzebub’s agent in
charge of the dead fish has disappeared somewhere. Perhaps all of them have
left this place, abandoning their several thousand visitors to their own
devices. While they went to pray for their own sins, awaiting the trumpets of
the last day. For nearby is the church of Unexpected Joy. Named as if it were a
bordello. And meanwhile across the street, under the sad poplars that do not
protect at all from the thick rain, two local cutthroats fight an old crone,
trying to grab her old shopping bag. Evidently she came here to resell some
vodka but this wasn’t her lucky day. The larger fish eat the smaller ones.
    You return to the
hall. The fighting is already over, and the loser is plastered over the cement
floor while some noseless lady wipes his wet mouth with a piece of newspaper. A
few other bastards stand above them and argue how to stop the dark-red
excretion. The winner is among them as well, evidently a close buddy, brother,
neighbor, in other words, a great friend of the one who was beaten.
    You return to the
window and knock again—a little more firmly and insistently this time. But no
sound comes from there, just like before, only the already familiar grandpa,
smiling cunningly, throws in another quote:
    “Knock at the
door, and it will open. For it opens for the one who knocks.”
    And truly, the
old scoundrel knows what he’s talking about, because nearby there is also a
door to which you simply didn’t pay attention earlier. You push it in and find
yourself in the auxiliary premises, packed with empty cardboard boxes and also
with egg cartons for some reason. You follow the sound of human voices and
finally find all of them: the fish vendor, the barelegged robe-wearing lass,
and two or three other previously unseen bubbas from the local personnel. They
sit, and smoke, and drink beer—out of mugs, by the way—and also have an open
bottle of white for variety’s sake. The family lunches by the house.
    “I am frightfully
sorry,” you say as politely as possible, “could I make a phone call from here?”
    They give you a
rather drunken but peaceful stare, someone even nods, it seems, and you go to
the phone that stands on the nearby table. Meanwhile they keep on talking, all
at once, about something extremely intimate, for the blond repeats several
times, “So I gave it to him, big fucking deal!” and her partners, while not
really outraged by that, do not seem to approve of it either, and Beelzebub’s
assistant declares in a mentoring tone,
    “You rat, next
time you think who you give it to, ‘cause they can hit us . . .”
    “What am I, a
little fucking girl?” the rat nervously puffs smoke.
    There are long
beeps on the other side of the phone chord, but after the fifth you hear
Kyrylo’s brisk hello.
    “Kyrylo, it’s me,
Otto.”
    “Oh, very good!”
After socializing with the diaspora, Kyrylo has learned to rejoice at every
opportunity. “When will you be at my place?”
    “By the way, I
told him, ‘Do whatever you like, but I won’t take it in the mouth, get it?’”
the “rat” tells her friends, so you have to ask Kyrylo the second time.
    “When will I be
at your place? You see, it’s raining. My hair is wet, I have recently showered.
And outdoors it’s raining, and there’s no end to it in sight. This rain sucks
the soul out of me. Besides I can’t get out