The Moscoviad Read online

  The Moscoviad

  Yuri Andrukhovych

  Translated from the Ukrainian

  by Vitaly Chernetsky

  Spuyten Duyvil

  New York City

  copyright © 2006, 2008 Yuri Andrukhovych

  © Juri Andruchowytsch, 2003

  All rights reserved by Suhrkamp Verlag Frankfurt am Main

  translation copyright © 2008 Vitaly Chernetsky

  ISBN 978-1-933132-52-5

  Cover photo (C) Slava Mogutin, courtesy of powerHouse Books and Envoy Gallery, NY.

  The publication of this book was made possible by a grant from the Ukrainian Studies Fund.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Andrukhovych, IUrii, 1960-

  [Moskoviada. English]

  The Moscoviad / Yuri Andrukhovych ; translated by Vitaly Chernetsky.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  Summary: Surreal misadventures of a Ukrainian in Moscow during the late times of the Soviet Empire. Both the protaganist and each character with whom he comes into contact presents a comedy of universal error that occasionally morphs into a tale of horror.

  ISBN 978-1-933132-52-5 (alk. paper)

  I. Chernetsky, Vitaly. II. Title.

  PG3949.1.N296M6713 2007

  891.7’934--dc22

  2007007333

  the moscoviad

  let them this time as well

  hunt down nothing that is ours

  Hryhori Chubai

  You live on the seventh floor, having covered the walls of your room with Cossacks and WUPR1 officials, from the window you see the roofs and joyless poplar alleys of Moscow; you can’t see the Ostankino TV tower—it can only be seen from the rooms on the other side of the building—but its close presence can be sensed every minute; it radiates something soporific, the viruses of sluggishness and apathy, which is why in the morning you cannot force yourself to wake up, you move from one dream to another, as if from one country to another. You sleep selflessly, most often until eleven o’clock, when the Uzbek guy on the other side of the wall turns on at full volume spicy Oriental music of the style “one stick two strings.” Cursing good-naturedly our unfortunate history, the friendship of the peoples and the 1922 union treaty, you realize that going back to sleep is ruled out. Especially since the Jewish guy on the other side of another wall has already returned from a shopping expedition, having bought for the umpteenth time, say, pantyhose for his innumerable old-testament kin in Birobidzhan, for all its generations. Now with the righteous feeling of mission accomplished he will sit down to write new poems in the medieval language called Yiddish and will indeed write them, seven before lunch and three more in the afternoon. And all of them will be published in the journal Sovietish Heymland as living testimony to the state’s tireless care for the culture of small peoples.

  The Jewish guy on the other side of the wall is a living and instructive reminder to you, you son of a bitch, that you too must be doing something—buying pantyhose, writing poems. Instead you are lying in bed, studying God knows how many times the portrait of the dictator Petrushevych, while the Oriental music behind the wall turns ever more passionate and monotonous, it streams on like water in irrigation canals, it is really a great outing with camels and elephants, cotton plantations, blues for the hemp mafia.

  And you, the Ukrainian poet Otto von F., you physically sense pangs of conscience eating away at you, gnawing ever larger holes, so that one day you will walk out into the dorm hallway already fully transparent, holy, and not a single Kalmyk will even greet you.

  But one can’t do much about it—your poems must have stayed behind in the atmospheric fields of Ukraine, while the Moscow fields turned out to be too dense for their nightingale-like penetration.

  In the meantime the local characters are already filling up the hallway; actually, they are writers, indeed “from all ends of the Soviet Union,” but for some reason they resemble not so much creators of literature but its characters. Characters from potboilers baked according to the blandest recipes of the great realist tradition.

  You distinguish their writerly voices—and each one of them, according to the letters of recommendation from the places of previous activity, is “endowed with his/her own unique voice that cannot be mistaken for any other”; these voices in the hallway—they tell each other something, they copulate, they say the kettle is boiling, they sing “dontpoursaltovermywounds,” quote Vysotsky (Zhvanetsky),2 invite someone to come over for breakfast, inform that the whore from the distance learning division (third floor, room 303) spent this night in room 727, and so forth.

  In inviolable dialectical unity with the voices appear the smells—a bouquet made up of garbage disposer, hangover, and sperm. Frying pans hiss, buckets and keys clank, doors slam, for today is Saturday, no lectures, and no bastard will force me to do something I don’t want to. And may all of them go to hell!

  Thus gradually you enter reality, remembering that the whore from 303 spent the night not in 727, as was mistakenly announced in the hallway, but in 729, that one of the Chechens (or most likely all of them together) yesterday gave a nice thrashing in the elevator to the phys. ed. guy, Yasha, that the Russian poet Yezhevikin, who lives at the opposite end of the dorm, yesterday spoke on TV, for the fifth time now, and used the word “spirituality” no less than nine times, wiping eight times with the back of his hand the hangoverish sweat off his brow, that you should call home, that the session of the Supreme Council3 will start Tuesday, that the Ukrainian translation of Sonnets to Orpheus is possibly the best among those known to you, that the second year of your Moscow sojourn nears its end and you still have not visited the beer hall on Fonvizin Street; remembering all these things that have no connection with each other, as well as a gazillion other things in no way related to the earlier ones, you nevertheless get up and, having paced back and forth across the room in your underpants, having contemplated the same lame landscape outside the window, with the same poplars and dark, heavy rainclouds, you force yourself to do some morning exercises—one, two—until your muscles begin to hurt, as if this is the ultimate justification for you, for Moscow, and, moreover, for your existence in this world. A rather pitiful existence, by the way, of the kind that Someone Above Us could very well not bother with, were it not for a few successful lines in several generally unsuccessful poems, which, naturally, is absolutely not enough for the great national cause.

  And here are some of the earlier mentioned characters. Their voices irritated you so much in the morning that now you can get even with them, von F. Depict them in the most acerbic way possible, old man.

  Well, enjoy then. Two women, two flowers from the far provinces of Russia. Two poetesses, or rather women poets, no, I beg your pardon, two poets, for now in their circles it is fashionable to repeat after Tsvetaeva-Akhmatova (Horenko?)4 that the word “poet” has no feminine form; thus I, old pervert that I am, imagine all these womenfolk with sizeable penises and, most importantly, testicles down there.

  But that’s not what it’s about. We have two women from the far—and equidistant from Moscow—Russian lands. Two swans, two ethereal creatures, one of them slightly over forty, the other slightly under forty. One of them married, the other not, but I forget which one.

  This is the exposition. Now the development of the action. Both placed too much on this voracious altar. Each dreamed half her life to get here. To get to Moscow for an entire two years! To get to Moscow where, doubtlessly, one will at last be noticed and elevated! To get to Moscow and to stay there forever! To be buried (cremated) there! To get to Moscow where there are shitloads of generals, secretaries, foreigners, patriots, ESP’s! And most importantly, bananas aplenty! . . .

  This dream arises with puberty. And powerfully accompanies one’s entire life.

  For this sake alone it was worth it to go through all the circles of shitty provincial hell. To intrigue. To make phone calls. To throw dinner parties. To sleep with impotents.

  After many defeats and desperate acts—it happened! It came true! Both arrive almost simultaneously, having covered, independently from each other, a sizeable chunk of the Russian plains. They naturally make acquaintance, no trace of cunningness, they are genuinely very pleased, for they are the fellow fortunate ones. Already from the first words they exchange they find out that both have a weakness for Yesenin, not Pasternak, for Rubtsov, not Brodsky, for misses polyester dresses with inlays both in the front and in the back, zipped pockets in the seams, a pleat in the back, with a belt. The same day, filled with the sweet frisson of anticipation of total changes for the better, both pay a visit to the Pushkin monument, to lay flowers, just because, for personal reasons. For both love Pushkin and even consider him the greatest Russian poet and their teacher. Pushkin pensively examines the toes of his shoes. Below, underneath him, guys in gray uniforms and black berets pummel some longhaired freemasons who call themselves “the Democratic Union.” Offended for Pushkin, the gals from the provinces go back to move into the dormitory.

  The dorm superintendent turned out to be a darkie, although not a bad one, a Daghestani, and still rather young: well physically developed, broad shoulders, the chest undoubtedly covered with abundant growth, thirty-four years old, manages to give each one a wink without the other noticing, the teeth straight, the eyes brown, Murtaza Ramazanov, or perhaps the other way round, Ramazan Murtazaev.

  Ramazan (Murtaza) lets them pick a room on the seventh floor. Any one of them can be theirs.
There’s a room with the windows opening onto a liquor store, and another opening onto a greengrocer’s. There’s one with new parquet flooring. One with a broken window. One near the toilet. Each room is attractive in its own way.

  But there is an option that both take without a moment’s hesitation. This is the so-called “boot,” two adjoining rooms separated from the rest of the world by a small separate hallway. Fantastic! They move in and immediately invite each other for tea. And talk until late in the night about Pushkin, about Yeltsin, recite their own poems, exchange compliments, then poetry collections published by regional presses on recycled paper. And not a slightest hint of lesbianism.

  Thus we have approached the climax.

  And the resolution? As time goes on they understand more and more that they have done something utterly stupid. The “boot” turned out to be a trap. A trap for the foolish cows who God knows why dragged themselves into this bedlam. Their greatest misfortune is that they are not yet ripe for group sex. Thus they fail to seduce either a general or even a Daghestani. And thus, constrained by each other, they lead an utterly nunnish life, gradually getting angrier and gritting their teeth, and the former genuine sympathy evolves into a barely concealed bottomless hatred that grows ever more evident with each passing day.

  The night from Friday to Saturday I dreamt I was having supper with the King of Ukraine, Olelko the Second (Dovhoruky-Riurikid). The two of us sitting at a pleasantly set table in a Baroque loggia made of light blue stone, from time to time the dignified servants appear, mostly Indians or Chinese, with gilded tridents5 on their tuxedo lapels, imperceptibly change trays and plates, dishes, knives, forks, lobster shell crackers, tongs for extracting mollusks, scalpels for dissecting frogs, and equally imperceptibly, without any noise, they leave. The view from the loggia is luxurious: the sun is setting somewhere in the clear waters of a lake, the virgin peaks of the Alps, or, rather, the Pyrenees, shine with the last evening sparkle. And the king and I sip various exquisite wines, cognacs, liqueurs, and infusions and prattle about this and that.

  “Your Royal Mercy,” I turn to him, filled with veneration, “Commander and Ruler of Rus-Ukraine, Grand Duke of Kyiv and Chernihiv, King of Galicia and Volhynia, Master of Pskov, Peremyshl, and Koziatyn, Duke of Dniprodzerzhynsk, Pervomaysk, and Illichivsk, Great Khan of Crimea and Izmail, Baron of Berdychiv, of Both Bukovynas and Bessarabias, and also the Supervisor of New Ascania and Kakhovka, Archseigneur of the Wild Field and the Black Forest, Hetman and Protector of the Don, Berdyansk, and Kryvy Rih Cossacks, Sleepless Shepherd of the Hutsuls and the Boikos, Lord of All the Ukrainian People including the Tatars and the Pechenegs, and also the Malokhokhols and the Fat-eaters, of all the Moldavians and the Mankurts that Dwell in Our Land, the Patron and Pastor of the Greater and Minor Slobozhanshchyna, and also of the Inner and Outer Tmutorokan, heir to the glorious millennial dynasty, in other words, our glorious and honorable Monarch, Your Mercy, wouldn’t You like to remain forever in the golden tablets of universal and human memory?”

  “I would indeed,” says Olelko the Second. “But through which deeds?”

  “And through those deeds,” I answer, “through which all the kings attained eternal unpassable glory.”

  “So perhaps through wars?” asks Olelko the Second, arching his millennial eyebrows and wrinkling his aristocratic forehead.

  “Even a fool can do it through wars, my Lord, and a president can.”

  “Then through wise laws and decrees, through just charters and declarations,” guesses Olelko.

  “And this too is crap, Your Mercy, for this the madmen exist, and also the parliamentarians,” I intrigue him further.

  “Then maybe through young wives and concubines scandalous in number, through loud drinking bouts and bullish fights, through all-pervasive luxury and gluttony and other acts of ill repute?”

  “And this is not new, oh Great Ruler, all the same you cannot outdo the commies,” I taunt him the best I can.

  “Don’t torture me then and tell me, through which deeds?” Olelko the Second says, a little plaintively, and also commandingly.

  A Malay servant takes away the last plates, a bowl with live, still squeaking, unfinished oysters, empty Malvasia, Ymiglycos and Kellergeister bottles. Meanwhile an Ethiopian servant brings candles in bronzed candelabras and an ebony box filled with the most exquisite cigars. Twilight. Fragrant aromas waft from somewhere in the Alpine meadows. Below, under the loggia, a fountain, or perhaps a spring, sings its song. Two little black boys lead by the hands an old blind bandura-playing minstrel.6 The king and I light up, and the bandura player barely audibly touches his strings, sitting on a stone ledge, next to a relief depicting a dancing faun. The first stars appear in the sky.

  “So tell me, you fool, what did you want to advise me?” the king says in an outburst, irritated by my ambiguous cigar puffing.

  “Be patient, Your Mercy, and kind,” I tell him. “Do not offend even a shitty worthless bug. Attend church on Sundays, but don’t forget about prayer on weekdays either. Give Your wealth to the poor, smile to widows and orphans, don’t kill stray puppies. Think about the good and the beautiful, for instance, about my poetry. Read my poetry, eat my body, drink my blood. Give me a stipend, say, in German marks, and send me traveling around the world. Within half a year, Chiarissime, You will receive from me a panegyric so glorious that it will raise You far above all other monarchs. Within another half a year the people of Ukraine will be filled with desire for Your return and, following a successfully conducted referendum, You will enter Kyiv in a white Cadillac. Truly, truly I tell you: give me a stipend!”

  The blind bandurist plays on some tune. Below, amidst the evergreen myrtle thickets, water gurgles and calls to take a trip around the world. The stars in the sky grow bigger, closer, one can even distinguish on them some strange cities, fairytale forests, wondrous palaces, columns, towers. Their radiance promises so much that one wants to jump out of the loggia and, as a poet said, to die a little.

  “For nothing in the whole world is as superfluous, senseless, and ridiculous as good poetry, but simultaneously nothing in this world is as necessary, meaningful, and unavoidable as it, Your All-Ukrainianness. Take a look at the history of all great nations, and you will become convinced that it is the history of their poetry. Take a look also at the history of nations that are not great. Of those that will cease to exist tomorrow. Take a look and tell me: do poets need a king more than the king needs the poets? Are kings worth anything without poets? Don’t the kings exist by the grace of God only so that they support those who are poets by the grace of God?”

  The sycamore trees rustle in the darkening twilight, the candles flicker, monasteries ring their bells, girls sing while walking. Strange evening birds, or perhaps bats, fly around the loggia. Sweetly disturbing fragrances waft from the far away mountains.

  The king finishes his ice-cold champagne, which he drinks from a glass with a tall Masonic stem, and says, slowly, wisely, weightily,

  “And do you know what’s the Spanish for dick?”

  “What, Your Mercy?” I ask, filled with curiosity.

  “Pinga!” cries the king and claps his hands.

  Then two tall Senegalese men grab me by the shoulders and arms and throw me from the loggia downward. I am flying—and suddenly I remember that his real last name is Anjou. My mug all flayed by the evergreen shrubbery, I hear the gray-haired blind bandura player crying and sobbing.

  Grimacing and spitting, and hating yourself, you recall this dream, while forcing yourself to do your exercises on the floor. To sell oneself like this! Shamelessly, insolently, cynically. “Give me a stipend, Your Sovereignness, give me a sti . . .” What a low and vile lackey spirit, the inner nature of a prostitute!

  Finally the muscles are taken care of. Now it’s time to gather all the stuff necessary for the shower room and descend triumphantly in the elevator to the dorm’s underground, where a team of janitors (Sasha, Seryozha, and Aroutiun), blue from guzzling liquor, have their little closet space, not so much for work but for leisure purposes. But what’s their place in all this?

  In the hallway you wave your hand at someone unknown (that is, someone you know but can’t identify, as he is at the far end of the opposite wing of the building, some two hundred yards from you), the stranger replies with a similar handwave, probably also without recognizing you, and the mood improves. The wait for the elevator is not that long, five minutes tops. While going down, you study the various inscriptions, drawings and scuff marks on its walls and floor—both old and recent, some brand new, the blood of Yasha the phys. ed. guy whom the Chechens yesterday beat to a pulp for having a “beeg ass,” or something like that.