Otar Dovzhenko "Maksym Popov"

Otar Dovzhenko was born in 1981 in Zaporizhia, grew up in Dnipropetrovsk, and currenlty lives in Lviv.  A journalist by education, he was deputy editor-in-chief of Telekritika magazine. An author of a book of short prose Kvitoslava [2006], the title story of which was published in English in Fabula magazine distributed among libraries and colleges of North America. 

This is the first publication of his story "Maksym Popov".

MAKSYM POPOV

by Otar Dovzhenko

i

The worst of Maksym Popov’s incarnations were the kids. They were so innocent that I could neither hate them, nor wish them evil. What they did was something kids always do; I also used to bully the weak when I was a boy— Although, I bullied younger ones, and they were lucky to have got a helpless older guy, besides, not handicapped or something, which made them feel really proud of themselves. One of them was a stout and round-headed boy, the leader, a kind of Eric Cartman of Lviv, whose eyes were permanently glowing with cruel boldness; he was the one I craved for hitting badly, though I realized how lame an act it would be. I once saw a slender four-eyed high school teen, a nerd, a model student, the winner of all possible academic contests, enter a classroom during a recess, with a face looking really miserable, and hit a fat bully (like this one) two or three years younger than him in the mug. Then, he bleated in a trembling voice: “I’ve taken my revenge.” I don’t know what the thin one was feeling that moment, but I, personally, felt transcendental shame fill my body and soul as it sometimes is when you watch an utterly embarrassing scene in a movie, only much more intense. I still feel ashamed when I recollect that.

So I never hit any one of them, never even tried. I only wished sincerely they were ensnared by a pedophile. In a dark basement with soundproof walls. A strong man with a big tool would teach the boys to be good. As for me, I never ever said a single word to them.

Once, a friend of mine stuck up for me. He went out to the balcony, shut the door behind himself, and said something to them, softly but persuasively. My friend knew how those street arabs should be talked to (they were not a real street gang but, as it normally is, they were aping the characters of Brigade¹ and the notorious Leopolitan Garik Krichevski²). As for me, I felt humiliated as a male being, but endlessly grateful at the same time, because after that conversation the kids calmed down for a few months.

However, Maksym Popov will never retreat completely; he will only allow you a brief period of repose.

When I was coming back home, the kids were sitting on the stairs at the front door and calling me names behind my back, though not too insulting, but somewhat lacking respect. One summer, after I had grown a mop of hair, they finally lost fear and discretion, having re-christened me ‘shaggy’. And the other day, the round-headed one augmented that nickname with a timid ‘dork’. “Dork! Dork!” others joined in and I hastened to lock the door. Thank you, dear readers, but I don’t need your advice concerning the way I should have reacted.

For six months running I never came back home before 11 p.m. Sometimes I would stay in a street car, making circle after circle, or wander about half-empty cafés, or simply sit on a bench, to kill time. On the occasion of school holidays, parents would not make those bastards go home early, so they stayed on the stairs by my door until late night. I learned to observe them through a small window, but a few times I failed and had to walk them by. After all, I could not just turn back and make off. That would have been too much even for the vilest of Maksym Popov’s incarnations.

My mania was aggravating, and something was growing in the kids at the same time. That was some kind of grim resoluteness like the one that drives a pack of wolves through a ring of fire. So they were, wolf cubs with itchy milk teeth. The fate of the hornless ram had been certain for them.

I think that me and them, we had different Gods; as the one that had created me and was drawing my life roadmap should never have thought of planning the X-day is such disharmonious manner. This is how I imagined the endgame should have been. They should have struck me on the head with something heavy; it would have been wise to drag a plastic bag or a jacket over my head and tie my hands up; then they should have started kicking me, giggling and gasping with childish delight. I would not have uttered a single sound, only protected myself. And then, perhaps, an old woman next door would have crawled out, disturbed by their hyena-like screams, and they would have had to scatter like a flock of little birds of prey. I can see it all clearly. After that I would have had to call the police and all of them would have certainly gotten away with it. But it wasn’t like that, at all.

Being 22 years old that time, I contracted chicken pox, a grave children’s disease that would rather suit them, not me. I stayed at home, and all my stamina was spent on trying to keep from scratching myself, as the one who has chicken pox must not scratch oneself in any case. That was my modus vivendi on the first days; it was five degrees Fahrenheit outside and I had to wear winter clothes at home, regardless of the autonomous heating. I put on my sheepskin and rolled on the floor, trying to placate the inhuman desire to scratch myself at least a little. I did a lot of things not to go crazy and to keep from thinking about the five per cent adult patients whose organism, as statistics has it, did not survive the struggle with the children’s infection.

To make matters worse, the rat that had gnawed through the plastic drain pipe under the kitchen sink started a ghastly din expanding the infrastructure of tunnels in the cabinet below. I honestly wished I would live in peace with the rat and I even thought, almost with sympathy, that if I joined the hapless five per cent, his loneliness would be adjourned by my flesh. Just like he had been brightening my life with his noises so far.

In addition to the rat, the kids’ voices were heard behind the wall. They were hanging out on the balcony, to which my apartment's door led. I thought the rat was at one with them.

The voices got closer. The kids were standing by my window. From scraps of conversation I managed to make out that they were talking about me. I was keeping still but the rat would not!

“He’s there!” said a wheezy pubescent voice, the fatso’s, perhaps. “He’s in for sure! He’s at home!” others confirmed. There was a moment’s silence and then something slammed into my door with incredible vigor.

“They’re trying to smash the door”, thought I. “What for?” The rat did not get scared; on the contrary, he started gnawing his way to my room from his sewer side even more enthusiastically. There was another blow at my door and then another one. They were throwing something heavy against it; a brick or a block of wood. After each attempt, they retired to the stairwell. Were they trying to drive me out by that?

I thought I should wait for the moment when one of the gang members would be sneaking up with a rock in his hand. That would hardly have been the round-headed one, as the rank-and-file members of the gang should have been put through the rite of passage as well. Then I’d open the door and grab the rotten bastard— Well, who’s rotten here? At this thought I felt the itching again. Grab him and drag into the apartment. Then what? Make him cry and apologize, while others would go and tell their parents that the moron from Apt 13 had captured Vitalik or Orest, perhaps, when the boy was peacefully playing games on the balcony? The parents would run up, and this obscure fellow with no registration record in his passport issued somewhere in Central Ukraine would try to convince them that he had dragged the kid into his home for self-defense. By the way, the suspect was contagiously sick and potentially hazardous for others, especially the tender and vulnerable children’s organisms. So, that was no way to go.

Something broke inside of me. If not the kids, I’d make the rat calm down, at least. I took a hammer from a drawer, went to the kitchen and started smashing the cabinet, quite new but badly damaged by water from the sink. With every blow, a large piece of soaked particleboard fell off. The rat bolted into the pipe after the very first stroke, but I intended to make access to the hole and stop it somehow, even if I would have to break all kitchen furniture for that.

The blows at the door ceased too. The kids crept up closer, hushed by the rumble in the kitchen (also being the antechamber with the sink straight opposite the entrance door). “Look out, he’s in the kitchen!” a voice shrieked. Another smashing blow at the door. The cabinet fell into uneven pieces and the plastic drain pipe with walls half-inch thick, all eaten by the rat, came into light. The animal had worked on it hard; on the floor below, there was a pretty big heap of feces, chips of plastic, and remnants of food stolen from me. The pungent stench of the rat’s workshop hit my nose, and at the same moment, kids stroke the door again. Startled, I accidentally pushed a mug, in which I mixed my medication, off the table. It crashed into a dozen sharp splinters. Perfect! I gathered the hard pieces, quietly crawled under the sink, and poked them into the pipe. Let’s see, dear rat, how your teeth will manage that. Take this! Eat this!

Having packed the drain pipe with shards of crockery I bound it tightly with duct tape and barricaded the defiled space with pieces of the broken cabinet. The kids were waiting at the door, talking in soft conspiratorial voices. For a moment I wondered what they would have done if I had opened the door. Who would have been the first to dare to enter? The fatso? Or his chief competitor? What kind of havoc would they have played inside? Yet, it was nothing but reasoning as no force in the whole world could have made me turn the key that moment. That door, a thin plank between me and the outer space, was the most precious gift from God as finally there was a barrier between me and Maksym Popov.

Or I could just go out to the balcony and start hitting him with a hammer, violently.

Oh no. You cannot kill Maksym Popov like that. He is like Duncan-freaking-MacLeod, only worse. I never even thought about confronting Maksym Popov for real. Perhaps, it just was not fair? If, for example, a man whose wife you have seduced (or whom you have insulted in some other way) comes to kick your ass and throws himself at you, full of righteous ire, ought you to resist and give him a bloody nose or something, if you are fit for that, of course? Hardly so. In fact, I was many a time visited and even haunted by the idea of killing or somehow avenging certain incarnations of Maksym Popov. But the truth is (I said this before, didn’t I?) that every single Maksym Popov’s incarnation acts quite logically within its human nature. Especially the kids.

The last moronic plan of that evening was to get dressed, go out, walk around the apartments of our house (some of the kids naturally lived in our house; that was why they made my stairs their headquarters), find their parents, and call them to overdue fulfillment of their parental duties. So far as my mug looked like an illustration to a book on dermatovenerology, I prepared a speech that was supposed to open with the phrase “Good evening, I’ve got chicken pox”. That was the most pathetic attempt to fight Maksym Popov in all my life (there were more, and I’ll tell about them later). I did not remember the faces of the kids – they were just kids and I had no time to stare at them. I would not be able to tell the guilty from the innocent and I could probably slander some angel or cause a heart attack in one of the neighbors by my ghastly look. So I stayed at home to heal my sores. After the X-day, as after any crisis, a lull came; the kids did not bother me for about a week and the rat retired too, having broken his teeth on the shards of the mug.

However, it found another chink before long.

I moved out of that apartment, the best and the most comfortable home one can imagine, after a few weeks of spring exacerbation. I had gotten to the point of being afraid to walk in the streets, and to make matters worse, I was running into the blooming brats even in the morning. I had no other plan than to flee. Oh, what a home that was! These days, you cannot find anything like that, unless it costs a fantastic sum. Many of those who happened to be there, both men and women, but mostly women, will never forget it. One of them earnestly intended to buy the bed from that apartment and another one said he was in love with the wardrobe. People often felt really happy in that gloomy and sultry single-windowed bachelor home, and I felt like a manager of their happiness. I loved that apartment and often said emphatically that I lived on the edge of the world. There was a chocolate factory nearby and the air was always filled with the stupefying aroma. It brought excitement and even corporal desire, perhaps. Never and nowhere else I had so much success in bed. And not only me, it seems. To cut it short, it was a special kind of place that should not be abandoned just so. But I packed all my odds and ends into 29 bundles and moved out. That’s the end of the story

ii

I can hardly remember my life at twelve. The period after thirteen, when teenage crushes began, first hopeless, then more or less successful, is easy to recollect grasping at faces and names of lovers. They got imprinted in my memory much more distinctly than friends, teachers, books, classes, and joy trips. Being twelve years old is an obscure low season, not childhood already, but not adolescence, yet. The school chronology was not helpful either. In early 1990s, when the Soviets demised, the ten-year schooling was somehow converted into eleven-year one; some students skipped from the third grade straight to the fifth and some did not. I could never understand that system. I do not even remember whether I belonged to the former or to the latter; it’s Maksym Popov who helps me set the timing. I know that he died when we were eight, and when the whole case began I used to say: “Maksym Popov died four years ago”. 8+4=12.

When I was twelve I fell out with my classmate Maksym Popov. We sat at the same desk and were friends, from the child’s point of view. Our friendship was officially confirmed when he came to my birthday party and presented me a popular science book about cosmonauts, a book that nobody needed; perhaps, that was why he gave it to me. I cannot remember what we fell out about, I am just certain that that was something worthless. I had already forgotten the cause of the quarrel when the matter just started. It had always been easy for me to break friendly terms, often on a ridiculous pretext; I was sort of testing the strength of a friendship. Thus, I moved to a different desk and remained sitting alone for six moths or so. But that was not enough.

Once I was asked: “What’s the matter between you and Maksym?”

The concept was shaped in a blink of an eye. “You mean Maksym Popov?” I retorted with surprise. “But Maksym Popov died four years ago! This is not him!” The inquirer naturally wondered who that was. Here, I created a piece of impromptu fantasy fiction about an evil spirit, so ghastly and repulsive that the only suitable name for it was ‘Shit’. Four years ago, when Maksym Popov had had meningitis (and he really had had it), his soul had abandoned his body and the evil spirit had replaced it. How come I knew that? I just felt it! Obviously, it would not have been revealed to anyone else, as we had been really close with the mock Maksym.

My classmates had never been surprised at my oddities. As for myself, having brought that story to life, I could not disclaim it. I had to be consistent, so next time when Shit approached me, I took to my heels in feigned panic. However, feigning did not last long; soon I started feeling genuine fear.

For a boy of twelve, Maksym had an ugly swarthy face and a set of rotten teeth in his mouth, so it was not hard to imagine him as a monster. Now, analyzing the legend I created and accepted myself, I cannot help laughing at my childish narcissism. I was the only person in the world who could see the true otherworldly force lurking inside the body of Maksym who had died four years before. Those were the early 1990s, when ‘prophets’ were in fashion, the Great White Brotherhood³ was still active, and the date of another inevitable End of the World was announced every week. Perhaps, I subconsciously copied the successful behavior model. And the true success of any undertaking requires personal belief.

(After all, Maksym Popov was really likely to have died of such lethal disease as meningitis, wasn’t he? And if so, why wouldn’t some evil force (I’m still sure that there’s a plenty of it wandering around the world) have gotten into him?)

So we were running; through the classroom, maneuvering between desks, pushing smaller kids out of our way, and knocking staid lady teachers off their feet; through the hallways and the lobby where he would nearly get me, and on to the courtyard and beyond. He cried something in his rasping voice. Finally, when I felt his hand on my shoulder I quickly searched for a place to comfortably fall down, and I fell. The Shit Spirit stood above me staggering like a monster from a videogame, both victorious and puzzled. He liked and disliked the new entertainment at the same time. There was something wrong for him in it.

Two of our classmates standing aloof were looking with curiosity at the weird game of ‘it’ and an unconscious guy.

“What a dork,” said one of them.
“Which one?” asked the other.
“Both of them.”

Thus, new life began for me and Maksym Popov.

The ‘Maksym Popov’ act became the favorite amusement of our class for some time. They were delighted by everything in it, not only the race and the falling! They liked the way I, as they saw it, put Maksym down – there was no other explanation for the story of the ghastly spirit – and how I got away with it. Why got away? Because by running and falling I took myself out of the society; that was my own particular state that they could provoke (which they regularly did through setting the obedient Maksym Popov at me), but could not stop. Their influence on my behavior was limited. All they could do was kicking and pinching me, pouring water on my unconscious body, speaking offensive things into my ears, or stuffing my pockets with trash; but they could never make me react. I was senseless.

They asked Maksym to stay next to my body for as long as he could, in hope that I would get tired of pretending. Ridiculous. Or they would come up and say that I could get up as he had been gone. But I was alert. I could only regain my senses when the dark energy had moved at a safe distance away from me. Once, having set Maksym off before themselves they drove me into a huge puddle that covered almost a quarter of the school yard. It was November; I was standing knee deep in muddy water and they were hooting and jumping around on the brim like monkeys. “Look”, they yelled, “here he is, Maksym, that is Shit. You’re scared, aren’t you? You got nowhere to run from this puddle, eh”?

I was giving them a blank and somewhat compassionate look. I remember the unpleasant feeling of my shoes getting soaked with mud. First-grade kids were ceasing their incessant circling around the school yard and stared at the bigger boy in the puddle. “Come oooout! Join us!” the crowd on the shore was calling. Maksym Popov showed his brownish yellow teeth and tried roaring like a beast.

They thought they were rising above by way of humiliating me. In fact they were always losing. Losing in their own consistency; bullying me today they sought for my goodwill tomorrow. Losing in their endurance and insistence; they always were first to give up, distracted by other things to do. I always broke even and they came off worst.

iii

They also were the first truce envoys. For some reason, they saw the whole affair as a war, a campaign I was waging against them with some unintelligible goal. A couple of times, having been left face to face with me, they tried inquiring me carefully: why are you doing all that? What do you want from Maksym Popov?

“Maksym Popov died four years ago”, I replied.

Okay, it's all clear, but still— Let’s put it all away, they said, all this stuff of yours, and talk like normal people. You see, all this makes Maksym nervous and sick. He doesn’t find it funny any longer.

“Maksym Popov died four years ago”, I iterated.

Okay, okay, he’s dead, but you just listen. You made it all up cool and smart, that Shit Spirit thing. But Maksym Popov is a normal guy and he doesn’t like it, you see? Doesn’t like to be called names like that, doesn’t like it when someone runs away from him, falls and pretends to be unconscious.

“Maksym Popov died four years ago”, I admonished.

Well, you just don’t want to talk like normal people do. Now think for yourself. You can’t run away from him all your life. And it must be scary for you to fall to the ground like a dork every time and wallow around while others wipe their feet on you. This is stupid, funny but stupid! You’re a smart kid and so is Maksym and you used to be friends, remember?

“Maksym Popov died four years ago”, I objected.

We’re fed up with you, pighead! Get a life! We’ll work it all out for you, right tomorrow morning, if only you give up these pranks, okay? Talk to Maksym and be friends with him again.

“Maksym Popov died four years ago.” And they walked away.

Followed adults. My demeanor was the subject of heated arguments at PTA meetings; of course, I was never told any details as that was not something a kid should be told. Part of the parents led by Madame Popov insisted on my parents’ immediate intervention and cessation of that outrage by any repressive means they would choose; the other part, informally supported by the teacher, asserted the children’s right to build up their own relationships without parents’ meddling. To unambiguously classify my behavior they lacked initial information. As, you know, trying to get at least some explanation from me concerning my terms with Maksym they would hear nothing but “Maksym Popov died four years ago”.

My parents did not say anything to me. I don’t know what they were put through at PTA meetings and how they kept resisting. If there ever were any attempts to start a talk about Maksym Popov, my reply – you already know what it was – satisfied them.

And the teachers— Well, now I see how creepy they felt. “Young man”, said they, “I do not know what kind of story there is between you and Maksym Popov but this must be stopped outright.” “Maksym Popov died four years ago”, I announced. “You have gone too far! This is a bad game; you cannot joke with such things as death!” (Not to joke with death! Was it really worth getting a pedagogical education and teaching experience to show such ‘deep understanding’ of a 12-year-old kid’s psychology? What else should one joke with, if not death, eh?) “Other children are looking at this and copying you and something should be done about it.” “Okay, do something”, I agreed.

But they could not do anything about that; they were powerless.

iv

While all that was happening, I ceased to grow. Even my body’s physiological development stopped. In the year 1993, not a single new notch appeared on the wall where my height was solemnly marked every six months.

v

The P.E. teacher’s direction took me unawares. That shallow man, unpopular both with students and colleagues, was given a severe reprimand by the headmistress concerning the lack of discipline and so he started putting things right. He directed that a medical certificate will henceforth deliver a student from physical exercise but not from staying in the gym during the lesson. Before that, the delivered ones (and I had always been the most delivered) had spent time in the park or cafeteria or some quiet place, reading or finishing homework. Now we all were obliged to change for sportswear, draw up, and sit on a bench in the gym watching others work out. Headmistress promised that she would strictly control attendance and punish violators with no mercy. Then, I got the kind of presentiment that always comes true.

On the first occasion I managed to swiftly reach the changing room, get changed with lightning speed, tuck my things under a bench in a corner, and run into the gym before everyone else did. As for changing back into the uniform, I was the last to do it, getting late for the next lesson. But for the second time I did not succeed.

The teacher of English had kept us in the classroom for extra five minutes and so I went to the changing room along with others. There, having shrunk into a corner, I started getting undressed quickly and unpacking my sportswear at the same time. The room was getting filled with my classmates’ hubbub, but I was not paying attention to them, trying to break all the records of fast changing. The only thing left was to drag up the pants, when a couple of the strongest boys (having definitely arranged it beforehand) grabbed me by the shoulders and pressed me against the wall.

I swore and tried breaking loose, but they were holding me firmly. Their motive was clearly understood. One of the ‘dorks’ was sent on the lookout by the door. By and by other guys drew up and then the familiar swarthy face emerged from behind one of their backs. They were going to torture me with Maksym Popov.

A dozen pairs of bold and cheerful eyes were fixed on me. Just a short while ago some of those boys had called me their friend and had copied my homework, but now that was of no importance for either of the parties. They intended to let Shit approach me but not permit me to fall down. Squeezed between the radiator and a bench I had no room to fall into, even if they did not hold me.

“We got Maksym Popov here”, said one of them. “He’s gonna come up to you. Want him to?”
“Maksym Popov died four years ago”, thought I.
“I’m coming, my love!” the voice shrieked behind their backs. The boys, certain that I would not play the fainting trick, stepped aside making some more room for me.
“Good old sweet Maksym. He’s gonna kiss you!”

I looked into their eyes once again and realized that I was lost. I shook my head meaning to say no, please don’t.

They giggled. Then, one of them, far from being bold in everyday life, pitched an idea:

“Show your wiener!”

Oh, crap— I was standing there with nothing but my briefs on. The thing they asked me to show shrank with fear and nervousness, having dragged itself inside almost fully.

“Come on, show it!” the boys yelled. “Ye-e-es!” Maksym Popov confirmed.

I put my hand into my briefs and pulled my penis out. The audience broke into an ovation. “He's shown his wiener! He did it!” they repeated, passing the news over to the back rows. “Let me see! Let me see!”

“Well now”, the most impudent one who was holding me by the shoulder, continued. “Now wank it.”
“Lay off”, I retorted with my glance.

The guys stepped apart on the spot and the dark brownish grinning face showed up in the gap between them. With his arms outstretched, like a bear, Maksym Popov was approaching me slowly. I closed my eyes.

“Now?” the tormentor asked me sternly, standing between me and the monster. My lower lip began to quiver treacherously. “Wank it!” he repeated.
“Just a li-i-i-ttle bit”, drawled Maksym Popov.
“Okay, guys, let’s leave him alone”, someone’s scared voice came. “I think he’s gonna cry.”
“He may go and snitch on us”, someone else agreed.
“He won’t snitch”, the leader asserted. “He’ll funk it.”

And he was right, though not about the motive.

I took my poor tiny tool with my fingertips. My future male pride was stiff and did not feel the touch. Looking above the heads that were sizzling with delight, I was moving my fingers up and down.

When I recollect the scene now I want to believe that I did not only look over those heads but also soared somewhere above them all, above their childish and bestial joy. Greenish light was flowing through the pane of the only window, stained with paint. It was January.

And in May, Maksym Popov’s parents decided to transfer him to some other school.

vi

After I left school, I never approached it even once and I still have no desire to see any of my classmates. If I bump into them in the street or in the transport I quickly take my leave and run on even if I am not in a hurry. If any of them calls me on the phone, there is always an interruption on the line at the very first minute of a conversation. I was supposed to go a long way and they knew it. I was the best of all the boys and I graduated with a silver medal. The teachers were secretly discussing the possibility of my entering Kyiv-Mohyla Academy or some other place like that. Starting with 9th form, I was the class president and owned the key to our classroom, from which I stole books shamelessly, not always returning them to where they belonged. They thought I was trusted like that because I snitched on others and I was never delivered from that suspicion completely. All the time since early puberty, when dudes were running after chicks groping their breasts with ugly squealing, I bore in my soul pure love for older girls at which they even feared to look. In my headphones, there was beautiful music they had no idea of. I read the books that I wanted to read, not was obliged to; out of love, without heavy thought of the forthcoming essay on Ukrainian, Russian, or world literature. I dodged P.E. classes insolently for all 11 years. I had my mum and dad who lived together and did not divorce. I had a permanent girlfriend and every day I could get what they were lucky to experience only having gotten drunk after grand parties. Our love was mutual and we had a serious intention to get married someday. My provocations, unlike their pranks, remained the matter of serious talks at master’s meetings; some printouts of lecherous stories, global conflicts with teachers and quarrels with PTA. My friends were older and smarter than them; they came to our parties and won their girls with ease. I was never seriously beaten up. I was more or less lucky not to have pimples on my face. I lived in my own apartment since I was 14 and I could do anything I wanted there; my parents were democratic and always busy at work. Drinking parties, orgies and romantic evenings in my apartment went quite nice without my classmates. Coming to school I brought sounds and scents of a life more interesting, more grown-up and more full-blooded than theirs, so what could they set against it? I had my own computer and received a dozen letters every day. I drank as much as they did but I never knew what hangover was. I could tell even more and more. But apart from all that, when I am with them I always feel a small boy, cornered in the changing room and ready for any kind of humiliation as long as they did not let Maksym Popov near me.

vii

So what? Are you happy now? You’ve got what you wanted? You won? And then I realized that they were looking at me with more respect, as at a winner, a person who had attained his goal though not in a normal dude's way, but in his own weird, perhaps contemptible, but efficient way. Girls scratch one another with their fingernails and tear off one another’s hair. Why can’t dorks use their special dorkish martial techniques? You really are cruel and evil; you’ve been playing that game for six months and what now? We used to have Maksym Popov and now we don’t.
“Maksym Popov died four— no, five years ago”, I replied.

viii

As for that original Maksym Popov, I did not see him ever since. I just was not interested in his fate. His parents transferred him to a school of sports, so he was supposed to become a sportsman. And me, I never even attended P.E. classes. That is why I always run away and away and he is catching up and up with me. And then I have to fall down for what else can I do? But as a child, I knew that I always had a way out. I could turn my face to him and say: “Okay, Max, enough of this game. I’ve been a dork and it’s gone a bit too far. Of course, you’re no Shit Spirit, you’re my former friend and I will never run away from you again.” That means surrender. I think he would have held his hand out to me and, perhaps, we would have come back to normal relationships. But in his further incarnations Maksym Popov would not be satisfied with this. Now I got nothing to say to him. In fact, I don’t even know what he wants from me. I just still use the method proven in my childhood: if I fall down and feign unconsciousness, Maksym Popov will stay by me for a while and then go away — until next time.

He did not disappear. As a matter of fact, there is even more of him around. Some time later I realized that part of my aggressive environment was arranged by the laws I knew way too well. Maksym Popov began infiltrating my life through eyes and gestures and words of other people. It was quite easy to detect him; it seems I was mistaken only once in all that time, having named someone innocent a Maksym Popov. Everything was as easy as that: each and every of his new apparitions left me helpless and paralyzed and wishing nothing but to run away. However, there was no connection between those apparitions.

Examples? Okay; once there was a girl who pestered me at a bus stop and would not leave me alone at any rate. She had evil adult eyes and coarse smoker’s voice. Some kind of a little bum, though she did not want money. I offered her the contents of my wallet but she refused. She wanted something different; my answers to her questions, dark, slimy, and bawdy. She threatened me with something, perhaps, promised to set her grown-up friends at me if I did not answer. Having missed a few buses (she gripped me by the sleeve with a “Where do you think you’re going?!”), I started making up some answers as I did not have any real ones. I decided not to tell a single word of truth. When she let me go, finally, I was feeling emaciated. Then, there was a big man whom I met while fishing in a secluded place. He took all my things, including the most valuable fishing tackles. It was not the first robbery in my life, so I accepted the situation and wanted to go away, but he made me sit by his side and started to inquire me whether I recognized “their rules”. I was answering: “no, I don’t know what "your rules" are; you’ve taken all I have, now let me go”. “Guess a riddle and I'll let you go”, he said. And here’s what the riddle was. “You’re in jug. On your left there’s a wall of knives and on your right a wall of dicks. What will you do? Come on, answer now! Against which wall will you go?” (Death or dishonor? Death or dishonor? Which answer is the right one? Perhaps, death, as it must be better than dishonor, but, on the other hand, isn’t there a trap in it? This answer is too obvious—). So I repeated: “I dunno, I dunno, I dunno. I cannot decide.” Then he gave me a light but painful punch. “Do decide now! Knives or dicks?”

There were more of occurrences like those and there was no apparent logic in them— until I recognized Maksym Popov.

By the way, I felt better after that. 'Tis the wind and nothing more! Later, I learned to divide all life’s troubles into ‘real ones’ and ‘Maksym Popov’. But that was much later. If those things had happened often, I might have developed immunity to them. But gaps between them were just long enough for me to lose vigilance.

I had a lot of ideas. To kill him, for instance. I could never ever take anybody’s life, but I gladly would take Maksym Popov’s. I imagined laying a nest made of fridge crate between two garages in front of his tower block at night and myself in it with a sniper rifle aimed at his door. (Contras: I didn’t have a rifle, I never shot firearms in my life, I could miss him totally or give him a non-fatal wound, local bums or yard-keepers could expose me; after all, I never reached such degree of rage and fixation on that problem). Or, I could pick up some money and hire a hitman. To meet a gloomy young man in some desolate place, to hand him a pack of dollars and to never, never ever again— (Contras: criminal liability and a risk to get hooked by some gangsters; but if one could simply drop a coin into a murder machine, I would not hesitate a bit). Then, the most ridiculous piece of my fancy: to vanish from the world for a year or two and to come back reborn, physically and spiritually strong (some oriental teachings, yoga, athletics, combat hopak, the Miracle of Fasting, prayers, or whatnot) to be ready not only to encounter Maxym Popov face to face, but even to knock him down with a flick of a finger and to look into his astonished eyes standing above his stretched body.

But I did not do anything. Firstly, there was the proven and easier method of running away, and secondly, Maksym Popov cannot be killed at all.

New incarnations often emerged, like the canonical Maksym Popov, among my former friends. And once, my beloved got possessed. (I’ve always liked calling the girls I went out with my “beloved ones”? It sounds nice). Suddenly I felt that what was happening that very moment was more than a simple lovers’ fight. And then I looked deep into her eyes and saw the familiar glance. Hello, Maksym— There was nothing to do but run away, as usual. Get locked in my inner self, avoid her for as long as I could afford it; I remember lying on a pile of sand in the basement of an unfinished structure at the campus, hoping she, that is he, shall never find me there. And as she was my beloved, the only nearest and dearest person in this world, I made a great mistake of trying to explain to her what was really happening. Funny, eh? Honey, there’s a monster inside of you! Well, in fact, it’s not a monster, but some evil thing that possesses people to play mean tricks on me. Will you try and fight it if you can— Of course, I did not say those very words. I tried to put it in hints, like this: you see, you are not yourself now, not completely, there’s something in you that’s not supposed to be there. And naturally, her reaction was nothing but scoffing laughter.

That time passed away, but Maksym Popov liked it and began possessing my beloved ones again and again. For love's sake, I had to learn to look into his eyes calmly but I failed. Every time after it was over, they could not explain what had been happening to them. They cried and apologized and kissed me, assuring me that they could not understand how they managed to have done anything like that at all. However, I did understand.

So I said to my other beloved, at the very beginning, when we only fell in love: “You know, sweetheart— If you ever feel that there is something happening to you, something possessing you and you suddenly want to make me suffer, do something bad to me, hurt me for no particular reason, be aware that you will cease to be my beloved on the spot, notwithstanding anything that will keep us together, including children, lifestyle, memories, photographs, and so on.”

I tried to rationalize Maksym Popov and even had a lot of success in that. He is much like Castaneda’s pinches tiranitos, petty tyrants. If you did not read those books or forgot them, then, in a few words, the petty tyrant is the one who torments and humiliates a man, over which it holds absolute power. Those tiranitos allegedly help the “man of knowledge” get rid of his self-importance, which is the greatest obstacle on the Warrior’s Path. Although I never intended to follow any kind of Warrior’s Path in my life, I really felt that with every new Maksym Popov my distended sense of self-importance was shrinking a bit and the vacant space inside was getting filled with the pure pristine joy of ‘I am alive!’— Still, the more I pondered, the more certain I got that the search for the meaning of Maksym Popov was nothing but deceiving myself with the thought that I needed him. You know all that masochistic stuff of “what-doesn't-kill-me-makes-me stronger.” Of course, for thirteen years running Maksym Popov was not killing me, but steadily making me stronger. Can’t you see how strong I am?!

ix

And someday Maksym Popov will send me another ambassador. Perhaps, some inorganic being or whoever could be an envoy for a spirit. The being will enter, sit down on a couch, put his inorganic feet on the tabletop, stay silent for a while and then say:

“Look what your mistake is. I mean you are making a lot of mistakes in your life, but it’s high time you understood the greatest of them. You have thought up a huge heap of inadequate things that hamper you to estimate the situation correctly. For instance… ”

“Oh, what do you, inorganic freak, know about my thoughts”, I shall say to myself with irony.

“ … you think that whatever you call ‘Maksym Popov’ is an organized force that consistently tries to make you stop running away and start fighting back. Then, to your mind, there must be some kind of a duel with an outcome unfavorable for you, a sort of atonement, which you will have to survive, willy-nilly, and then everything will be over.”

(To tell you the truth, I really do think so.)

“If only you could imagine what the atonement will be when you face the so-called ‘Maksym Popov’ with his visor raised! But you do not know what that encounter may mean to you, so you run away incessantly and you shall not let this happen as long as you can afford it. Shall not let this force you have imagined attain the goal made up by you as well: to coerce you to fight. Ha-ha, just think of someone wishing to coerce you to fight!”

“Perhaps, someone really does wish to”, I shall think stubbornly.

“If you but tried some superficial analysis of the situation you would see that this imaginary force or ‘spirit’ is in fact good and constructive as it follows you with a very positive goal: to make you stronger, to reshape you, a pathetic coward, and to teach you to struggle. You resist it only because of your pathological stubbornness, though you do understand that being able to struggle and fight evil is good, isn’t it? Don’t be silent, say something!”

“Something”, I shall say moodily.

“Ah, fine. This ‘Maksym Popov’ of yours appears almost an embodiment of God or, at least, a guardian angel that for a long time has been craving to take care of you, to give you strength and to help you step over your greatest fears. What do you think he needs it for? You don’t know, do you? What makes this outwardly evil but naturally good force chase you in various shapes for more than a dozen years, but allow you keeping at a distance and brushing it all aside: “go away, get lost and take your strength with you!” Have you ever thought about it? Or did you fear to?”

(I would feel like asking him “What do you want from me?” but I will not speak, on principle)

“People like things that are square-shaped, systematized, explainable, and illuminated. They put their candles and bulbs everywhere not to feel so scared. So did you, you put a bulb on ‘Maksym Popov’ to have him illuminated. But this won’t help you. I’ll tell you the secret; fancy that, I’ll make it all clear to you as you want it to be! So: the encounter you are afraid of will not change anything. There are no simple schemes you have thought up for yourself, there are no good intentions camouflaged as evil deeds, and there are no intentions whatsoever. There are only actions. But there must be a goal as well! Where’s the goal? Where is it?! you are thinking and your brain shrinks and gets dried like an old nut in its shell if it does not get enough water. But the truth is there’s no goal. Everything just works the way it works. And there is no ulterior sense, and none of your retaliatory actions, nor your escapes, will change anything.”

(“And then?”, I shall ask silently.)

“Even now you are certain that, having told you all this, I’ll wind it up with some formal proposal. Something like ‘Repent!’ or ‘Acknowledge that Maksym Popov is not dead’ or ‘Look into his eyes’. But there will be no proposal.

“Why the hell did you come to me?” I shall ask having lost my patience.

“Just so”, the creature will answer and stay silent in my room for a long time, much longer than my bleakest forecasts would be. I shall pretend that it is not there and it will put on the air meaning that it does not want anything from me. And then I shall get used to it, forget about it, and it will melt away.

x

Likewise, Maksym Popov has melted away temporarily, lulled by the therapeutic effect of this writing. However, I often see him in my dreams. There, he appears in his original shape of the boy who tells stupid stories, runs after me across the school yard, and brings his face near mine so I can smell his bad breath. I hate it when people's breath smells badly. But there’s nothing odd about Maksym Popov’s offensive odor as he has been dead for so many years.

Lviv-Kyiv, 2007

© 2009 Translated by Gennady Shpak

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¹ Brigade (Бригада), Russian crime TV series aired in 2002.
² Garik Krichevski, Lviv-born singer, popular in the whole former Soviet Union, performer of the so-called Russian chanson.
³The Great White Brotherhood, a religious sect led by Marina Tsvigun (then known as Maria Devi Christos) that, on November 10, 1993, attempted to seize St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv and arrange a group suicide there as a prelude to Judgement Day. This led to the leaders’ arrest and dismissal of the sect.

Kateryna Kalytko "God in Town"

Kateryna Kalytko was born in 1982 in Vinnytsia. Graduated from the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy having majored in Journalism. Has published four books of poetry and one book of prose, "M(h)ysteria" [2007], from which the short story "God in Town" was taken. Currently lives in her native town. Besides being a writer, she is a translator from Balkan languages and a photographer.

Original Ukrainian text of the story

GOD IN TOWN 

by Kateryna Kalytko

My funeral is fixed on Sunday. It’s not much of a day for a ceremony like this. But it cannot be helped; I died on Friday, and with the heat wave we’ve got, there’s no time to linger. I never knew how to lay plans for days ahead, with sang-froid. And so I died unexpectedly, suspiciously silent, on Friday night in the midst of summer when most decent citizens are on holidays or trips.

The one who feels worst now is my husband. When I was already gazing at myself standing six feet off the bedstead (just like they show it in movies), he brought me some warm drink and tried to tuck up my plaid. Now he’s weeping like a child, his face even turned blue. I should tell our son to keep an eye on dad and not to let him take too much Valocordin, but how could I do that without scaring both of them to death? I keep sitting in the armchair, cross-legged, and watch my husband sobbing on his knees next to my bed, rocking back and forth like a sleepwalker, and throwing his arms around his head. My poor boy. I would even return into my body to soothe him, but the corpse already seems cooled down and somewhat shrunk, so I might not fit in it. What really hurts in a situation like this is that I can’t, say, stroke him on a cheek, adjust his hair, or kiss him. In fact, I can do all that, but he will not feel anything. This is very bad. I have to do something about it.

The most terrible thing, however, is not death itself or the pain of losing the nearest and dearest, which remains blunted and not fully acknowledged for the first few days, but all those fussy chores one should pass through while arranging the journey to the other side for the loved one. All that running about, the worthless customs, formalities, and unnecessary paperwork. The smell of strange people and wood and varnish from the coffin. The rustle of fake flowers on wreaths. And that ghastly funerary band; when they strike their first notes, your poor heart would pop up, hit against the roof of your mouth, bathe in blood, and collapse like a stone falling out of (beg you pardon) your anus. However, as I was alive, I think I’ve made myself clear enough that I never wanted any band music at my funeral.

Death is not a terrible thing, it’s just heavy. With every death of a friend or in the family, you lose a part of yourself and should get lighter and lighter until the wind would throw you up in the air; but in fact you get heavier as the gravity clings on to you, not letting you go ever again. But as for fear, there’s nothing to feel it about. Our dead stay, as it were, actually dead only for those few days when they lie in their coffins under the roofs of their homes. All the rest of time they are alive, inside of us and by themselves. Of course, my boys still have to face the sheer emptiness on returning from the cemetery, when they’ll have to walk on the crushed flowers scattered in front of my coffin hours before, to pick a plastic daisy from the anteroom floor, to wash away the three tiny spots of blood that fell on the pillowcase as I coughed for the last time, and then to recollect the rubbery resistance my arm gave as they were putting my favorite sweater on me. But to make all those and many other things happen, they have to go into the hardest spurt of arranging my funeral.

Having plunged out of the huge wave of primary shock, my husband crawls to the telephone and sits down on the floor in front of it; he has to call the ambulance and to have my death certified. The receiver lets out long dark grey signals. “Levko”, my husband calls out to the kitchen, “call the ambulance with your mobile; something seems to be wrong with the phone”. My son dials the number and puts his cell phone to his ear. In the meantime, Slavko staggers across the room stopping all clocks. “No answer, Dad”, says Levko showing his phone to him helplessly. “They must be watching the game, it’s Dynamo vs Shakhtar on now, and there must have just been the deciding goal". My husband runs to the phone, cursing. Only fifteen minutes later they pick up. “What’s the address? How old was the deceased? We’ll bring the officer along. Wait.”

I even like the girl who comes to certify my passage to the other side. She flips through my medical history, listens to my husband’s tale, then examines my body from a safe distance and nods at the officer who stands in the anteroom, meaning to say that the woman has died of natural cause. The relieved officer takes a cigarette out of his pocket and vanishes into the doorway. The girl follows him, then stops and tells my boys to tie my open jowl with a kerchief before the onset of rigor mortis. She expresses compassion and even tries to jerk a tear. I will remember bright spangles on her blue sandals.

My Slavko, totally exhausted, has to pick up the receiver once more; they should notify some more people of my death, at least my old aunt. They must find eight men to carry the coffin and its lid, the women to cook the funeral dinner and tie towels on the arms of people in the funeral train, and relatives to sit the night at my body, and lots of other people who will scrap together all those ancient traditions we have lost on the concrete ground. The aunt sobs. Then, I have to be washed and dressed, striped mats for other people's feet have to be laid over carpets, mirrors and other reflective surfaces have to be covered. “Haven’t we forgotten anything, Levko?” To stay at home awake all night long, with lights on and chests full of nippy cold. That’s all.

My husband meets the dawn flipping the book of Márquez. He tries to find the passage in Love in the Time of Cholera where Dr. Urbino climbs the tree to catch a parrot and falls off the ladder; he wants to read what happened next, how his wife got over his death, how she felt sleeping in the empty bed alone, burning her husband’s clothes, and giving away his belongings. The suddenly lonely Slavko tries to find someone else’s story akin to his own and to rest on it as if on a crutch. To try and hold the world that crumbles like a tooth lacking calcium. The book cover falls apart in his hands and pages scatter.

Levko rubs his red eyes with his fist and gets dressed. “I’m going, Dad. I got to go to the cemetery, order the place, arrange the time for funeral, hire diggers. Buy the coffin and wreaths from me and you.” Gotta do this. Gotta do that. Slavko nods. As the son goes out, he leaves the door slightly ajar; they say it should be so if there is a recently deceased in the house, so that anyone could get in and say farewell. And so they do get in; a whole bunch of stinky tattered Gypsies infiltrate the apartment. They sweep off the money left on the desk yesterday, Slavko’s watch abandoned on the vanity table, some petty jewelry, and then they disappear blabbering on the way before the bewildered Slavko manages to rise from the armchair. He starts twitching all over. Pressing his hand to his forehead he walks towards the door to lock it and stumbles into four men in black standing in the doorway. They are private morticians. They have learned our address from yesterday’s death certifiers. Stepping back, the totally flabbergasted Slavko lets them in. The four enter and form a rank like well-drilled soldiers. Even the buttons on their coats and their bootlaces look mournful. Their chief steps forward, breaks into a huge Hollywood smile and says: “Good afternoon!” Slavko stares at him blinking silently. He blinks so vigorously that the visitor finally realizes that the demon of aggressive marketing has prompted him something way too wrong this time. “I’m sorry”, he mutters as his glance crashed into the floor. “Of course, there’s hardly anything good about it. I mean nothing good at all. My condolences, but— In a word, would you like a nice coffin, exclusive arrangement of the ceremony, a qualified director, wreaths, flowers, and more? We can provide all those services.” To get rid of those men in black, one could do a number of tricks, but the crushed Slavko simply puts their phone number down and promises to consider the things. The four tarry on the doorstep and then leave, reluctantly. Slavko locks the door and, with a groan, crawls onto he couch where my body lies and curls into a coil next to it. They say it’s a subliminal desire to return into embryonic state.

Meanwhile, Levko is going through another rather unpleasant mission; buying wreaths at the market called Osiris. As the name suggests, this market specializes in goods that facilitate the transfer into the realm of shadows. The saleswoman with mascara smeared under her eyes and lips nearly black with lipstick looks quite otherworldly as well. The wreath ‘From Husband’, that is from Slavko, is already in the boy’s hands, now he wants another one, from himself. Once they used to make those captions in golden letters over the bands, and that was done by persons with perfect handwriting skills. Now, the messenger of Osiris grips the black marker: “What should I write? To Dearest Mama from Son?” — “Huh? What?” — “To Dearest Mama from Son.” — “To De-e-earest Ma-a-a-ma, er— from Beloved Sonny, eh?” — “No, just Son.” — “Why don’t you want From Beloved Sonny? They all write it like this!” — “I just want it to be simple!” — “You’re a bit weird, I tell ya what. I’ve just made a ‘From Beloved Sonny’ for that man over there, and he’s happy, alright.” She nods aside. Levko follows her glance instinctively and sees a man in dark-colored clothes, a suspiciously neat shirt, with a wreath marked ‘From Beloved Sonny’ in his hands. The man looks at his watch, then, he fixes his eyes on my son. “I think I saw him somewhere”, they both think at this moment. And then Beloved Sonny comes up to my son. “Could you help me find 15, Panas Myrny Street?” My son coughs nervously. I can understand his surprise as that is our address, and nobody else but me is dead there now.

One can make sense of the situation if one sees what Slavko is doing in the meantime. While Levko is away, my ex calls him on the phone to present his condolences. As they notified my aunt of my death yesterday, now the whole wide world is dejected by the sad news. “Well, you, little dick”, says my ex to my husband (Slavko is younger than him, indeed). “So, little dick, how does it feel now?”

Years ago, I used to have a husband Myrko and his son Olko. There was a phantom of harmony, decencies and family life that seemed warm; days followed days, our son was growing up, and the morning bags under my eyes were growing heavier. Every morning the ceiling lowered a bit further, just a petty hundredth of a millimeter, but steadily and inexorably. I applied for a divorce only when I felt that my reflection in their eyes looked like a cloud of mist that could be dispersed by a single puff. The court adjudged all the jointly acquired property to Myrko. Olko, who was about to leave school that year, scolded me and wished to stay with father. Later, we accidentally met in town, at parties, in financial and community service establishments, at alumni reunions, even at the Easter vigil once. Every time we found less common things in each other. And then I met Slavko, and later, we had Levko. They shaped a human being out of the cloud of mist again. And now Myrko is telephoning Slavko.

Amongst all other things, he inquires acidly about our financial state. Thank God, they didn’t have to borrow money for the funeral. I always earned enough due to the royalties from my development. As a matter of fact, I invented— But let’s not talk about this now. I met Slavko at a press conference after my invention was patented. That time I was in the climax of divorce proceedings. “Can’t you see that kid wants your money? Only your money, can’t you see? He’ll use you and dump you!!!” that’s what Myrko was shouting, stamping his feet and pulling buttons off his shirt dramatically. I managed to knock him out asking whether he really did not care for my money himself and whether the outburst of his rage was truly altruistic. A year later I married again. And now, as Slavko sees it, Myrko wants to square all accounts at once. “My son’s coming over to your place”, says Myrko menacingly and hangs up.

My son Levko is standing in the doorway looking at Slavko, his father, both are utterly confused. Of course, Slavko saw my son Olko a lot of time before, but now it turns out so unexpected that thoughts and situations run asunder like startled cockroaches, and he feels that he cannot manage them all at the same time. And Levko doesn’t know how to tell dad that cemetery administration refused to allocate two plots of land together; the city necropolis is expanding, most land has already been seized, and father is eager to be lying next to mother when his time comes. “What shall we do, Dad?” The news make Slavko silently slide to the floor. My heart aches for him, if I dare say so now that I’ve got no bodily heart, I even take the liberty of stroking his head, but Slavko thinks that his hair is stirring because of horror and feebleness. And then Olko joins in.

“There’s no issue that cannot be solved”, says he in a voice that allows no objections, in his father’s trademark manner. “I’ll sort this bullshit out, no sweat, but I gotta warn you that my father wants to reserve a place by mother’s grave for himself, not you. In fact he wants to find three plots next to one another; he's gonna be buried in the middle, my mother right of him, and Olena Serhiyivna, my stepmother, on his left. Dad wants me to build a family crypt on that place someday. Do you follow me?”

It’s only the arrival of the movers who have brought the coffin that inhibits the blowup. They carry it into the house where three men are standing in sinister silence. The movers put the coffin on the living room floor and cross themselves, glancing at my corpse. “Who’s the master here? Is that you?” the elder one nods at Slavko. “Well, then—” Slavko staggers to the kitchen and brings a glass of vodka. They drink from it by turns, wipe their mouths with their sleeves, mutter a may-she-rest-in-peace, and exit. No sooner has the lock clicked than the flat shatters into pieces behind the door. Slavko throws the empty glass to Olko’s feet; Olko jumps away from the fountain of shards; Slavko advances towards him. “What does your father think he’s doing? To lay women all around himself even when he becomes the worms’ fodder?” Slavko yells. “What else is he gonna take along? Drag all his possessions into the grave too, eh? All the things he ever touched in his life? Will he even order you to bury yourself alive in the family crypt? Come on, speak up!” Olko tries to maintain his dignity. “Father loves my mama”, he says. “Loves her? Bullshit! Where was his love when she was alive, and he treated her like dirt? And why didn’t he remain single all these years, but married again?” Slavko throws his arms. “And now you say he loves her?!” Slavko casts a glance at my cold body, his voice fades, and he starts crying. “Father loves my mama”, repeats Olko firmly. “And they will be buried side by side”. “No way! No way!” Levko mutters with his whitened lips and rushes towards Olko. And then someone rings the doorbell.

In every house, there’s an activist who’s always the first to learn all news, who collects the freshest rumors and hangs them out to dry in the kitchen, and always knows what is to be done in any situation. Sometimes there are several guardians like this. And now a crowd of neighbors turns up at the door; somebody has already walked around all apartments and collected money from those who were at home, not in Alupka, Antalya, or the village of Antonivka; a wreath has already been bought even though we didn’t ask for it. I say we, as I got used to saying, because I haven’t got away from Slavko and Levko. We will always be us. Of course, it’s nice that all neighbors have come to suavely bid me farewell, all except one, named Dusya, who’s lying in bed, sick, also because of me. I think I’ve told that I died unexpectedly, and that is why Dusya was terribly scared when she noticed the coffin lid next to my door. She says she saw me only two days ago, coming back home from shopping. Such an odd thing. Two days ago was two days ago.

“But why haven’t you put her into the coffin yet?” squeals one of the neighbors, a plump lady, looking at the three red-faced men who wheeze heavily. “And have you invited the priest to the funeral? And have you—” “She was such a good person”, someone in the corner sighs. “So she was, and, you see, people like her are getting scarcer these days”, comes a voice from another corner. Slavko and Levko accept condolences with dignity, they thank everybody trying to restrain themselves and not to let out a bit of fury that makes the palms of their hands turn green. Neighbors lay flowers to my feet and disappear one by one, silently. Some of them even wipe away quite natural tears. Damn, I like it.

As soon as they leave, Levko runs to the kitchen and brings three stools, on which he and Slavko install the coffin. They cover its inner part with lacy fabric, grab me and lay me inside carefully, as if trying not to break my sleep. Levko weeps quietly, his tears drop off the tip of his nose. And my elder son Olko, left alone for some time, drags out his mobile phone. “Sirozha, you hear me?” he speaks into it. Olko asks the mysterious Sirozha to get the cemetery supervisor and find out if there are any old abandoned graves, over which they could make a new burial. “Sirozha, you know, money’s no problem. No problem, tell ‘im that”.

The air Olko has put on is meant to say that it’s Slavko and Levko who’s got problems. Perhaps somewhere out there, Olko’s father, all doubled up with rheumatism, is rubbing his hands together as he’s wont to, thinking that he couldn’t break them down when I was alive but now that I’m dead he shall do it. You find it sounds too bombastic? I don’t think so. You just don’t know what Myrko is like. But here, in our home, we have got Olko instead. “You jerk!” my Levko attacks him. “It’s his father who’s the true jerk!” Slavko explodes again. There’s not much room in the apartment; my coffin is placed in the center; a pretty good coffin, I must admit, neat and clean, varnished, pleasantly cherry-colored, with no foofaraws (they’ve guessed it right); at my head, there’s a candle in a wine glass filled with buckwheat to keep it steady; a TV set covered with towel is in the corner, flowers are in a vase, wreaths are leaned along the wall (“To My Beloved from Her Husband”, “To Dearest Mama from Son”, “To Dearest Mama from Beloved Sonny”, “To Our Dear Neighbor”.) Levko and Olko lean over the coffin, grab each other’s shirt front and start dancing sideways like game-cocks, and my husband is dancing between them trying to hold the coffin and not to let it fall off the three stools it’s mounted upon. After a few minutes’ rumble Olko tears himself away and gets locked in the bathroom. His phone rings. That’s Sirozha.

From the cemetery supervisor, Sirozha has learnt that there is an old family sepulcher, just for three. In fact, an old woman used to visit the place, but for the last three years, she did it too seldom, so the graves got overgrown with grass and sunken underground. The supervisor thinks that those graves can be bought as they don’t seem to be important. From his side, he promises to arrange all documents in apple-pie order. He's already managed to find that woman and she turned out not to be related to the buried but only hired to look after the graves and now she’s too old and feeble to do that. The son of the people buried in the ground Olko needs so much emigrated long ago, he happens to be at home too rarely, but the woman agreed to tell his phone number. And fancy that, Olko’s lucky star keeps on shining; the man is in town! He got back only yesterday. Without getting off the john, Olko dials the number, hellos into the receiver, and finally hears his expected interlocutor who turns out a harsh, even somewhat brutish elderly man. Of course, he won’t reject the money. The graves, huh? Well, he can think about them. Anyway, he’s abroad all the time. They could meet tomorrow. “Oh no, tomorrow’s too late, tomorrow’s the time for funeral, look how hot it is!” Olko sings into the receiver pleadingly. The earpiece responds that they can’t meet today because of the soccer game. “What game?” asks Olko bluntly. “Didn’t Dynamo and Shakhtar play yesterday?” “You idiot!” says the man abruptly. “To hell with Dynamos and Shakhtars! The good old Nyva of our town has been revived and it’s playing its first post-revival game today! I’m going there now, you see, soccer’s everything to me!” “Sure, I understand”, Olko says. "But you should understand me too—” “If you want you may come”, the receiver shoots out. “Meet you at the entrance to the stadium, fifteen minutes before the kickoff. Bye now”.

Olko’s no fool and he realizes that this is his only chance to fulfill the father’s errand. So much the more, it’s the matter of honor for him to work it all out in a tough and grown up way. Having barely buttoned his pants he jumps out of the bathroom without even flushing the toilet. He swerves into the living room and yells to my boys that he’s got it all sorted out, the place to bury me has been found, and they will be notified of the time of the funeral later. He disappears with a loud slam of the door. You remember what a leg feels like when it’s fallen asleep after long sitting? That’s what my Slavko and Levko feel like now. Silent and gloomy, they sit at my body. A moment of peace, at last.

We all worry about the beauty of our bodies escaping this world, we crave for leaving a vague illusion of an ideal, but in fact our deceased on the other side already know all of our most shameful secrets that are buried along with us in this world, so perhaps, it’s more important to put up a good show on the way out there.

I have always been a collection of heresies. I knew that God did exist but I didn’t know what he looked like or what he disliked. I always tried to anthropomorphize him and to bring him closer to myself. The abstract and imaginary God always slipped away from me. I did not put my trust in him and constantly awaited some perfidy from him. The last two days of isolation from the world only made that feeling deeper. When I came back from the store and went to bed with the sense of heaviness in my chest I felt no fear yet; so what, I just got rotten lungs, there was gonna be another bout of severe bronchial cough with bloody sputum and then it would go away. But having started it wouldn’t go away. I felt like asking God what it was and why. I managed to stop the smothering cough by warm drinks for short time. Then, I was lying supine and Slavko was kissing my hands and I felt that God was running away from me again, carrying the whole world in his pockets this time. Death by suffocation is the worst death imaginable. You can feel capillaries burst in your eyeballs and all your mucous membranes, feel your uneasy viscera stand still, feel your finger-pads stiffen and darken, feel the fatal compression in your throat— and at the same time, you feel the bitter betrayal of the people around you who can walk, talk, and breathe and breathe and breathe! And you are sinking deeper into your own abyss. But from that abyss, I finally saw God.

When I was able to get outside, my body was left in Slavko’s arms. And outside, there was God. He was letting swallows out of the palms of his hands and smiling. And everything was so light, festive, and true as it is on your fifth or seventh birthday. God was everywhere now, but not in that distant ‘everywhere’, in which he had been before. God was in town. Imagine me entering my favorite bookstore, sneaking in through the door after a late visitor; and God was there. I peeped through the window of my and Slavko’s favorite café; and God was there. I sat down on a bench in the park, and there he was, beside me, as you might guess. And what was most important, I no longer felt like asking him anything.

Have you ever noticed that as soon as you start doing something the things will work themselves out; the most intricate imbroglios will get disentangled and the heaviest stones will grow lighter? Of course, this is God too. I’m not preaching or something; I just always wanted to talk to someone who sees more than I do. Along with him, God carries lengthy lists of options to urgently rescue each one of us in particular; and the lists of things we can by no means survive and the debts we already paid and overpaid, too. Every night he browses through those lists and crosses off the items that have lost relevance. What if he looks into one of those lists right now?

“You know, sonny,” Slavko says suddenly. “While you were away, a couple of guys came from a firm. Some sort of firm that handles funerals, privately. What if we go to them?" “Where’s their number, Dad?” Levko cries. Both rush to the phone. They've got to hurry up. Olko has just met the owner of the abandoned graves, they've already walked to the stands having secretly taken along some vodka in a small Coca Cola bottle poked into pants and inside the plastic blow airhorn. They are sitting on the stands, gulping their first drinks, and Olko sets forth his problem to the interlocutor with his tongue stiffened by vodka. “Forget it,” his fellow retorts not taking his eyes off the pitch. “Hey, hey, you call that a shot, man? No worries, I’ll sell you the graves. I do get it all. The game will end and we'll make a deal. And now let’s have some more.”

They walk out of the stadium arm in arm, blushing and happy. They take four more beers at a stall by the entrance. The wander through the town and finally sit down on a fragrant flowerbed in front on the regional council. “The game was cool”, the foreign benefactor says, to which Olko agrees. “But the town is bitchy”, he continues. “But don't you worry, I do understand you. My ma died here long ago, and so did my dad.” “My ma’s dead too”, Olko says. “And there’s no place to bury her”. “A bitchy country. A bitchy town. So let’s make a revolution!” the son of the buried suddenly utters. “C'mon, let’s make it!" Olko yells.

Their preparations for revolution are scrupulous; they crawl in the nearby shrubbery, dig in garbage bins, pick up empty bottles holding polemics and even fighting over each of them with homeless gatherers. In the long run, they set bottles up in a line and start throwing them into the council windows. Well, everyone’s got his own vision of a revolution.

At the very moment they get arrested, my younger son is speaking over the phone with the suave funeral home owner who is telling him that they have managed to find a double scrap of land for us at the cemetery, however, this will cost twice as much, because the company has to buy it out from a young married couple who were presented that plot by their relatives for an anniversary. No problem, Levko shall agree to greater expenses. Alright then. If everything’s fine, they’ll come over to fill in the paperwork. My son puts down the receiver and runs to the bedroom where the money are hidden in the chest of drawers; his rush is so vigorous that he slips on the floor and falls down.

I got over the parting with my first family not easily, but without too much pain. On our last evening together, Myrko and Olko were watching some rare movie Olko’s friend had copied for him. Myrko’s friends came too. They invited me, but I was lying in the bedroom, suffocating, wishing but to be left alone. And when I felt relief I went out, though. They were drinking brandy and having fun. The couch and the three armchairs were occupied, and as I would not draw anyone’s attention I remained standing in the doorway until the end of the movie. Of course, I could turn around and walk away, but something made me stay, perhaps, the desire to have one more look at my husband and son, at least their backs. When I was about to leave, Olko called out to me: “Mum, there’s still some brandy left. Help yourself!” I suddenly felt so placid, not even dejected by the fact that I was leaving home like a poor companion. I was happy to go away. I only feel sorry now that when I’m buried Olko will be in the jug.

Now, I have to make my body ready for the last journey. The ceremony’s fixed on Sunday, eleven a.m. They say you can tell how many true friends you have got by the number of guests at your unexpected funeral party. It turns out that my friends are not so few, indeed. Slavko and Levko are bending over my coffin, straightening my already translucent fingers, and stroking my wrinkled skin, thin as cigarette paper. All dead faces are somewhat alike; they become sad and stern and acquire the ancestral traits of all the deceased kinsfolk. But my boys will surely know to remember me looking different. Here, they both are coming to the kitchen. Slavko pours himself, then Levko, a glass of brandy. “You see, son”, he says as his hand shakes, and the brown fluid spills. Levko put his arms around father’s shoulders. “You see, son, when she was lying here, at home, I had a feeling that everything could be mended. I sometimes even would forget everything and tried to step quietly, not to wake her up. And now they are going to take her away, carry her out of her own home, where she’s no longer a mistress; and how can I let them do that?”

It turns out that I am still able to cry. I feel like hugging them, falling prone before them, grasping their knees with my arms. I had two farewells with my family; and how different they were.

There will be a perfect funeral. There will be warm, caramel-colored air, an orchestra of crickets instead of a traditional brass band, no stupid funeral directors who recite life stories of the deceased in a whining voice and then break into a howl: “But behold whose hearts are the heaviest now; the dearest Husband’s and the Son’s, for they shall never see the beloved Wife and Mother again, they shall never hear her sweet voice again, they shall never look into her shining eyes again, for she is about to be buried in the ground and shall never, never, ever—” All that is a big lie and so it shall never happen. The grass chopped with spades will smell pungently. The wind will stir hair on the men’s heads. And of course, God will be nearby. If only Levko would not weep aloud. Then, there will be a pretty decent funeral dinner in a cafeteria next to the cemetery. And after that, they will start recalling me. Later still, my Slavko will sow flowers at his side of the plot and plant evergreen boxwood and set a bench for sitting at mine. And everything will be alright as we shall be ourselves forever.

And you know, I’m not feeling much worried. Firstly, I still have my lawful forty days to wander around the world and enough time to pack the most important memories I’d like to take along. And then I’ll be gone. I shall not be alone at the steps of the invisible station on the other side; the ones to whom the earthly Ukrainian railroad traditionally refers as receivers will be standing there. My mother and father, my grandpa and grandma. They will be standing there, bewildered and happy, as they once were at the steps of the nursing home when I was just brought out.

The sun squints playfully and sinks into a cloud casting prickly sparks all around. Slavko and Levko throw back their heads and stare upwards. Sunbeams spread out like a fan, and the sky shuts down. Like a child playing hide-and-seek peeps from behind a curtain, God is peeping from behind a cloud.


© 2009 Translated by Gennady Shpak