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aarghhaaaarrrghhh · 4 months ago

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What Lastochka Left Unsaid/О чём молчит ласточка - Chapter Five

Master post here

Chapter Five - A Special Friend

His sleep was long, deep and undisturbed. Like a swamp, it swallowed Volodya, and like from a swamp, Volodya could not pull himself out. Not that he wanted to, either; he was resting in long-awaited peace and impenetrable quiet. Dozens of calls and texts which made his phone buzz did not reach his awareness. After having slept for fifteen hours straight, Volodya began to sense that somewhere out there, beyond the veil of sleep, there was a real world which was trying to bring him back.

After half a day, the irritating trill of the mobile phone broke through to him through the emptiness and woke him up. Volodya could not lift his head from the pillow, as though it had been filled with lead, and he fumbled around blindly for the phone - it was in his trouser pocket.

“Yes?” he croaked into the receiver, trying to unglue his shut eyes.

“Are you actually still alive over there?” shouted Braginsky. “Vova, the contractor’s come in today, we’ve been waiting for you all morning! You might have at least warned me that I’d have to take the fall for it!”

Volodya squinted, trying to acclimatise to daylight, sat up with difficulty and rested his hands around his knees. His head buzzed. He had not come to work? He had overslept?

“What’s the time now?”

“Lunch has just finished.”

“And what day is it today?”

“Are you ill?” Braginsky’s tone of anger shifted to concern. “Are you planning to come to work today?”

“I’m ill, yeah,” mumbled Volodya, giving his head a shake and groaning from the pain - his temples pounded so hard that he saw spots.

What the hell kind of poison has Igor slipped me? he thought as he hung up the call after Braginsky wished him well.

There turned out to be seventeen missed calls and three texts on his phone. Volodya was surprised at how well he could see without his glasses, and only then realised that he had forgotten to take his contacts out. He scrolled through the calls and opened the messages. All three were from Masha.

Come back! It’s really him! she had written at half eight. Twenty minutes later: I’m going to go up to him and tell him that you were here and ran away like a coward! The last: Volodya, you will, of course, excuse me, but you’re an IDIOT!!!

The events of the previous day gradually began to become clear: the greyness of the morning, crossed with Igor’s beating in the early evening and the thundering of the late evening - the magic of music, the conductor’s gestures, with his magic wand. He remembered someone’s large hands, coarse hair, slender profile. Yura.

“God…” groaned Volodya, and a wave of remorse hit him.

He leapt from his bed and ran from his bedroom to the living room. He got tangled up in the duvet and almost fell, catching himself by the doorframe. He froze like one possessed: Where am I running to? And why? Where am I hurrying to now, if I was late last night?

Pain gripped his head like a vice. Volodya rubbed his temples with his fingertips, and practically tore the shirt that he still had on off - his crumpled and dishevelled clothing was getting in the way. He threw it straight on the floor and strode to the bathroom. He needed to calm down, as his heart was beating like crazy, his hands were shaking and his thoughts were swarming, colliding with each other and fighting. From his guilt and shame, tears welled up in his eyes. Or perhaps it was because he had slept for fifteen hours in contact lenses? Yes, of course, that was why.

Volodya stood in the shower cubicle. In his imagination flashed the image of Yura as an adult. Yura, not as he had been a hundred years ago, but as he had been the night before - tall, statuesque, elegant. With that damned conductor’s baton in hand.

His eyes stung again. Those damned lenses!

Volodya grabbed the valve without looking and spun it sharply. Icy water burnt his injured back. He screamed. All his thoughts bent upon the pain and concentrated on it. But Volodya did not relent, he waited to grow used to it. And once he had, he turned the dial up as hot as it would go.

“That bitch!” He barely restrained himself from punching the wall.

Why had he not thought that a pianist could, at the same time, be a composer and a conductor? WHy had he got hung up on the idea that it could not have been Yura? From what was he protecting himself, from whom? From him? From his music, from the memory of him? From the fear that, since Yura had not come to their willow ten years before, then… Then what? What did it mean that he had not come to the willow then? He could have had any number of reasons. But now Yura was there, in Kharkiv. Right there! He had come. The day before, he had been so close, he could have just reached out his hand and touched him.

Coward! Damned coward! Masha was right - a coward and an idiot!

“Masha!” recollected Volodya. He got out of the shower, towelled himself off as quickly as possible and hurried for his phone.

“Why, hello,” drawled Masha ironically. “So you’ve reappeared…”

“Where is he, do you know?”

“He was there yesterday, today, I don’t know. How should I?”

“Because you wrote that you’d go to him.”

Masha was silent; all that could be heard was a sigh of frustration. Volodya thundered:

“Don’t say you didn’t! Don’t say you only said that as a threat!”

“Son of a bitch,” she groaned. “What should we do?”

Volodya sat on his bed and hid his face in his hands.

“You’re asking me?”

“Who else? You’re the moron who went all white and ran away like a teenage girl.”

“It’s all gone to shit for me anyway without your commentary, thank you very much,” he snapped. “You didn’t throw away the ticket, did you? What did it say on it? Maybe there’s something about other cities on the tour? Or a web address? Something, anything?”

“I’ll look for it now.”

All he heard from the speaker for almost a minute was just rustling. Volodya sat on his bed in a single towel and looked out the window. At the forest, among the canopy of which, flagpoles stuck out straight, like a knitting needle. It had been many years that the camp flag had not been raised upon it, many years that no-one had gathered on the plaza beneath it, many years that human voices had not been heard there. There had long since been nothing there but the wind howling through those ruins.

Suddenly, a daring, almost insane thought whipped his consciousness into a frenzy - what if Yura was on his way? What if he had come, not for the performance, but to find their time capsule beneath the willow tree?

In response to his first thought came a second, more painful one - where had he gotten the idea from that Yura had come to Kharkiv for him? He did not even know that Volodya lived there…

“There’s nothing on this stupid ticket,” grumbled Masha. “Date, time, name. That’s it. Listen, let’s call the philharmonia, maybe we could get something out of them?”

“No point,” said Volodya gruffly. “We’ll never get through on the phone, it’ll just be some usher sitting there… I’ll go there myself.”

“Hey! Maybe it should be me? You’ve gone completely mad today,” Masha began to try to convince him. “Or, what about this - you go, while I phone anyway, and if I find anything out, I’ll call you back immediately.”

Volodya slung out a ‘Thank you’ and hung up.

He began to get dressed. He hurried, so as not to miss a single minute, and grabbed his creased trousers from the day before. It had gotten colder, it was drizzling and somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbled. Volodya should have put a jumper on, but as soon as the itchy wool touched his skin, his back began to burn. He went over to the mirror, turned around and saw what exactly was hurting. His skin was decorated with bruises, but they were not the only thing that ached. Igor had gone too far the day before and left a thick red strip of raw flesh all the way from his shoulder blades to his buttocks. There would probably be a scar. He had to put a shirt on to cover the purple bruise that surrounded the mark with the collar. But the fact that he was in pain as he looked in the mirror turned out to be handy. Volodya was aghast as he looked at his own face: dark, practically purple circles under his eyes, swollen cheeks, stubble. He could not leave the house looking like that, much less go to the philharmonia.

As he hurriedly made himself presentable, he spun his memories of the previous day around in his head: memories of what he had let Igor do, and of what he had almost let him do. Inside, he boiled with rage against himself. Why had he done that? Did he want to have the guilt beaten out of him? The shame? But he was so worn out that he found himself, without exaggeration, on the edge of a breakdown and thought neither of his own worth, nor of the physical consequences.

Suddenly the phone began to ring, and his heart clenched from the pleasant anticipation that perhaps Masha had found something out. However, the word ‘Work’ shone from the screen.

When he heard Lera’s voice, he grew angry:

“I told Braginsky that I’m ill. Didn’t he make you aware?”

“He did, but I’ve got this urgent-”

“Then don’t disturb me!” interrupted Volodya and he took the phone away from his ear. He was about to break off the call when he heard:

“A Yuri Konev is calling about the Swallow’s Nest.”

Volodya sat down.

“Konev?” he repeated, thoughtlessly.

“Yes,” Lera replied guiltily. She addedL “Yuri Ilyich.”

“Put me through,” said Volodya solemnly, disbelieving the reality of what was happening.

“He left a telephone number and asked that you immediately call him back.”

“Text,” Volodya forced out with difficulty. “Lera, send me his number by text.”

Frozen from shock, he sat and waited. One minute, another… it felt like an eternity had passed. Even though he was holding the phone in his hand, the sound of the message coming through still startled him and he stared at the number - they were floating before his eyes.

His heart was beating somewhere in his throat and his breath was taken away. He cleared his throat, said a tongue-twister out loud a few times and once his voice had regained its strength, he typed in the long number.

There were some beeps: at first one, then a second. The call seemed to have been broken off, but then suddenly there was a peal of thunder and Volodya did not know whether he had been picked up or not.

“Yura?” he asked, without believing that he would actually hear it.

“Yes… Yes! Volodya, it’s me!”

Volodya choked on a gasp and his lips spread into a dumb smile.

“Yurka…”

“I’m so glad to hear you!” came Yura’s high, lively, accented voice. “I was reading your letters… Volodya, forgive me, I messed everything up! We promised not to lose each other, but we did, I left it too late to start looking for you.”

He’s been reading my letters, Volodya repeated to himself. And he knows the number. How does he have the letters and how does he know the number? Could he really be there, beneath the willow? Two hundred metres away from him. He might even be able to see the roof of his house.

“Are you at Lastochka?”

“Yes, beneath our willow. Everything around here is destroyed, the river has dried up, but the willow is still standing, it’s gotten bigger and more beautiful, like-”

“-It was waiting for us,” finished Volodya, as though in a trance.

Another thunderclap pulled Volodya out of his torpor - they needed to meet up! He pressed his phone between his cheek and his shoulder and began to feverishly rifle around in the bureau in his living room, looking for the keys to the gate on the far side of his plot.

“How have you ended up?” asked Yura quietly.

It was a good question - how? Had he grown smarter? Hardly. More talented? Possibly, but not nearly on Yura’s level. More handsome? Thinking back to the day before, he had grown hideous more than anything else, but in a moral sense, not physically. Although Volodya’s appearance was not much to write home about. No matter how much he had tried to get himself in order, he could not get rid of the bags under his eyes. It enraged him - why did he have to look so bad right in this particular moment? But there was no time to stick himself in front of a mirror, and there was nothing to be said about using an ice pack on his face, it would take far too long. He had to present himself to Yura as he was.

“Well…” began Volodya unconfidently. “Obviously, you’re not asking about money or illnesses. What about you? You’ve grown up…”

“Are you far away from here?” It sounded quiet, sad, even.

Volodya paused: But does Yura really want to meet? Would he be glad to see me?

“Closer than you can imagine,” he sighed. “Do you want to see?”

“I do.”

Volodya shook his head -to Hell with it all! Masha was right: it was better to do something that you will regret later than to do nothing at all.

He said aloud what had been nagging at him for the past several minutes:

“And you’re not afraid of disappointment?”

“Of course I am. What about you?”

“Did you become a pianist?” Volodya began, but then he faltered. He wanted to say more. He barely held himself back from continuing and asking more questions: You wanted to be one so badly, but yesterday you weren’t playing the grand, you were the conductor. Why? Did you have a disappointment? Did some sort of trauma stop you from becoming a pianist?

“You won’t believe it, Volod, I did!” A smile could be heard in Yura’s voice. “I did!”

“Then I’m not afraid,” replied Volodya quietly. He froze on the cusp of leaving his living room. The mere thought that he was about to see Yura, not from a distance, but right next to him took his breath away. He took a deep breath in and exhaled slowly. “Alright, wait a bit…”

Thunder rolled across the sky again, and the connection broke off. Volodya swore and tried to type the number again - there were some irregular beeps. He tried again - it turned out that he had run out of credit.

“Just don’t move an inch,” he whispered to himself, a prayer.

Without looking away from his phone, Volodya went out into the hall, where an unusually high-pitched bark rang out.

“Gerda,” he groaned.

The dog was sitting by the front door, whining pitifully as she looked at him - a puddle glittered in the centre of the corridor.

“I’m sorry, girl,” he babbled, tortured by a sense of guilt. “You’ve been on your own for hours…”

Volodya opened the door, letting the dog out, while he hurtled off to the bathroom for a rag, which he threw on the floor.

He continued to dial Yura’s number without success as he crossed his fog-covered yard at a jog. He closed the gate behind himself and headed through the thick sedge thicket towards their willow tree.

Each step took so much effort, that it seemed to Volodya like the tall stalks were attracted to his legs and not the sky’ they got tangled around his ankles, trying to stop him. But Volodya did not look down; he knew without that, that it was not the grass slowing him down, it was his fear. His fear of encountering in the flesh a phantom of his forfeit happiness. His fear of being let down by how his imagined version of the most radiant person in his dull, lustreless life would match up to reality. His fear of the inevitable loss.

But he overcame it. He strode intently, trampling the grass and shivering from the cold rain, until he finally saw a white spot, hidden behind the gigantic willow canopy.

“Yura,” he called, but his voice was swallowed by the wind and the rustling of leaves.

It was so strange to see him and call him by his name. Even more amazing - to see him seemingly hear him and come to him, parting the willow branches. He took a step towards him, scattering the mist-like drizzle.

He had grown tall, matured, become severer, but even more handsome. Volodya smiled, while Yura frowned - furrows appeared on his pale forehead. He whispered something; Volodya did not catch the words, he just took another step closer. Yura froze, clenching a piece of paper from the time capsule in his hands at a loss. He studied Volodya with a look. He pursed his lips. The way he was looking said the main thing: Yura had not just come here for a letter box, he had come for him. He had not forgotten either. And if he had, then he had remembered.

Volodya took another step towards Yura - and immediately felt hands on his shoulders and a warm embrace. He delicately hugged Yura in return, afraid that if he squeezed him too hard, then he would melt away to nothing. But Yura did not disappear. And he was not a phantom, he was flesh and blood.

He sighed fitfully and his breath seemed to knock the ground out from under his feet.Volodya pressed his face into his shoulder and mouthed, ‘Real. Here.’

Their embrace seemed to be lasting longer than was proper. Volodya did not want to break it off, but he was even more afraid that Yura would push him away first. Therefore, he took him by the shoulders, moved him away slightly and scanned his eyes over him: his dark, messy hair, damp from the rain, a golden stud in his right ear, his coat covered in dirt - how foolish, he had gone digging around in the mud in his normal clothes - wellies on his feet, and notes in his hand.

“Are you going to play me a Lullaby?” asked Volodya quietly.

Yura smiled sadly.

***

“You’re soaked through, you need to get warm. I live nearby. Shall we go?”

In an instant, his heart was stung by an irrational fear - what if he refused? Of course he would not, they had not just met for the first time in twenty years for him to immediately leave.

Volodya was ashamed of having almost let all this slip by. They had almost missed each other; if he had gone to the city, or not picked up Lera’s call… Of course, he should not have left the concert the day before. Volodya reproached himself for that most of all.

Yura smiled and nodded:

“Of course. Let’s go.”

And he was also ashamed of his abused back. The inflamed traces ached so badly that every movement, every brush against the fabric caused a new flare of pain. And every one of these flare-ups was a reminder of what Volodya had so desperately done to drive away the thought of the person walking next to him.

Yura likely also felt uncomfortable. He walked next to him in silence, looking at his feet, but Volodya noticed that now and then he would raise his head, shake it slightly, look at him with curiosity for a couple of seconds, then look down again.

“I can’t even believe it,” he muttered. “For so long, I’ve-” and he faltered, as though he had forgotten the word.

Volodya mentally continued for him, -dreamed of seeing you, but he did not say these words aloud.

The rain fell harder, they hurried up and soon they found themselves by the entrance to Volodya’s plot. With her nose stuck through the bars of the gate in curiosity, Gerda was waiting for them - sodden, filthy, but happy, since she had finally been allowed to run around in the fresh air.

“Oh, a dog!” exclaimed Yura. “It doesn’t bite, does it?”

Volodya replied as he opened the door:

“No. But she might lick you to death.” Having noticed that the dog was already preparing to leap into his arms, he sternly cried, “Gerda, stop!”

She took a couple of steps backwards, bowed her head and gave a brief whine, as though reproaching him. Yura burst into laughter, went fearlessly up to her, held out a hand and petted her wet ears.

“I’m so excited you’re here, my owner, and you tell me stop,” he baby-talked. Gerda stuck her tongue out. “What a beauty! A golden retriever, right?”

“Yes,” answered Volodya briefly. He warned him, “Yur, be careful, she’s all dirty, she’ll get you all filthy-”

“It’s nothing, I’m already soaked and bedraggled.”

“Let’s go inside. Gerda, walk! I’ll have to wash you again later…”

The first thing that caught his eye when he opened the door was the rag he had thrown on the floor to cover the puddle that Gerda had made. He immediately remembered all the clutter he had left behind in his hurry…

“Come in,” he invited, abashed. “Just be careful, go around that spot. I’ll sort it out now…”

He hustled and bustled about: he needed to wash the floor, but first, he had to hang Yura’s wet coat up to dry.

“Yur, you’re probably utterly frozen. Come into the living room, I’ll get the fire going.” He was about to speed to the fireplace, but immediately turned in the direction of the kitchen. “No, first I should put some tea on…”

“Volodya!” Yura called to him sternly, stood firmly on the spot. Volodya looked questioningly at him. Yura smiled. “Stop making such a fuss. I know I came out of the blue and you weren’t expecting me and so on… Could you get me some dry things, please, and then we can sort the rest out after.”

Volodya took a deep breath and collected his thoughts. He went to the first floor, found some clean homewear and a t-shirt and hoped that they would fit - he and Yura were about the same height, but Yura was thinner.

Whilst Yura changed in the bathroom, Volodya cleaned the floor, lit the fire and put a kettle on. He did not notice the sound of quiet footsteps over the water boiling, so, when he turned around, he froze still. Yura was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, leaning against the jamb. He was barefoot, wearing tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt which was a snug fit on Volodya, but which hung freely on him.

He’s changed so much… Volodya thought, then he immediately objected: Of course he’s changed, it’s been twenty damn years!

Yura’s facial features had grown ruder, sharper. His hair was darker, longer, and curled at the tips. Clearly, he had gelled it for the concert and now, because of the moisture and the wind, it looked even more dishevelled than it had in his youth.

Yura was also looking him up and down, probably also looking to see what had changed.

“This is awkward.” His comment rolled off his tongue. “There’s so much I want to ask you and I don’t even know where to begin…”

The click of the kettle coming to the boil felt all-encompassing in the silence that hung over the room.

“Do you want green or black?” asked Volodya.

Yura cocked his head askance and pursed his lips into a thin line.

“I’d drink something harder, but I have to drive.”

“Then spend the night here,” Volodya suggested before he had the chance to think about his own words. Then, as though to justify himself, he added: “It’s a big house, there’s plenty of space. I could set you up on the sofa in the living room.”

“It’s a deal,” Yura agreed simply. He smiled. His smile discharged the atmosphere, and the air in the kitchen grew less electrified.

Volodya smiled, embarrassed:

“I barely drink myself, but for some reason people always get me alcohol as gifts. I have cognac and whiskey. What’ll it be?”

“For the record, it’s rum that I love, but whiskey’ll do fine.”

Volodya nodded and reached for the door of the floating cabinet, but in that moment, there was a flash, thunder boomed and an agitated howl came from the yard.

“Oh, damn, I need to give the dog a bath… I’ll be right back.”

Gerda - even dirtier than she had been a quarter of an hour earlier - ran straight to the bathroom by habit, leaving wet pawprints on the floor along the way. While he washed his dog, Volodya tried not to think about Yura, who was playing house in his kitchen right that moment. But his thoughts turned back to him anyway.

No matter what, I cannot let him find out that I was at his concert and left, he decided resolutely. He remembered Masha - she must have been blowing up the philharmonia’s phone line, searching for someone whom he had already found. Volodya had not made her aware, after all.

After he finished his dog-washing protocol, he sent Masha a text: Don’t look for Yura. He’s at mine. Talk tomorrow. He turned his phone off.

In the living room, Yura had moved an armchair closer to the fireplace and was sprawled out in it, his feet stuck out towards the warmth. Next to him, on the magazine table, there were glasses, an opened bottle of whiskey, a side-dish with a sliced-up lemon and a plate with bread and cheese.

Volodya nibbled slightly on his lip and frowned.

“Yur, you didn’t have to, I could have-”

“Oh, calm down,” Yura brushed him off and chewed a piece of bread with appetite. “I don’t like to feel useless.”

Gerda, overjoyed, threw herself at Yura and landed on her back by him.

“That pose is called ‘stroke my belly now,’” explained Volodya. “I didn’t think my dog ever liked people that much.”

Yura got to stroking the belly offered up to him, and Gerda’s back paw twitched in satisfaction.

“This hasn’t happened before?”

“I don’t have guests very often… When I’m at work, my neighbour and her husband look after her, they’re the only others that Gerda knows. Now there’s you, too,” replied Volodya, keeping silent on the fact that she was familiar with Igor, too.

It was growing noticeably warmer in the room. Volodya suddenly felt himself getting too hot and quickly took off his jumper, sodden after the dog’s bath. He walked over to the table and poured two glasses of whiskey.

“To our meeting-” he declared, raising his glass.

“-After so many years,” added Yura.

Volodya knocked the whiskey back and felt his throat burn. He exhaled and also took a seat in an armchair. He felt himself beginning to wind down and relax. His sleepy headiness from the drugs had worn off by then, and his headache had gone. But he still could not believe that Yura truly was sitting right in front of him - it felt impossible.

“Well then…” Yura began unconfidently, tapping his slender fingers on the sides of his glass. “How did you end up living here? About Kharkiv, I found out from your letters, but…”

But on the whole, it looks like I’ve spent twenty years waiting for you next to our willow, Volodya finished for him in his head. And there was likely a drop of truth in that.

“I won’t say that it was all just a coincidence. A long time ago, I suggested to my father that he try something new - rather than building a single, detached building, a whole cottage village. He agreed, and I began looking for the land. There were a few options, but in 2000, the chance to buy a very large portion of land here cropped up.”

“Like fate, I guess,” chuckled Yura as he chewed on the lemon rind.

“I don’t believe in fate, but… I’m not going to lie, nostalgia also played a role. And then, when the Swallow’s Nest was built, I decided to move here. I’d lived with my parents since I was a kid and I was awfully tired of them, never mind that I’d always wanted a house. We didn’t have any other cottage villages yet at that point. Although… Even if we had, I still would have chosen this one.”

Volodya felt uncomfortable as he recounted all of this, for it might have come across as though the thread running through all of his decisions was nostalgia for that summer at Lastochka and the memory of Yura, and that all the consequences of that love impacted each and every step he took, so far away. Of course, that was an exaggeration. But right then, when Yura was sitting right in front of him, all grown-up, discovered after so many years, it really did seem to Volodya like he had been there for his whole life.

“You have a piano,” Yura noticed, giving a sideways look at the instrument which stood to the right of the big panoramic window. “Have you learnt to play?”

“No, come off it. When would I?” Volodya smiled forcedly. “The project design called for a grand to be there, but you of all people know that that’s by no means cheap. Then I happened to come across an advert for an old piano being sold. And it was white, it fit in with the interior…”

He felt uncomfortable again. The memory came back to him of how tremulous Yura’s attitude to the camp piano, which they were always dragging from the hall outside and back again, had been in their youth. And more - the way he had reproached himself for having let his piano at home pile up with junk after he had given up playing.

“Tell me, what’s life like for you? You ha-” Volodya stopped short of almost blurting out how many people he had seen come to Yura’s concert. “I mean, are you in Kharkiv for long? What brings you here?”

Yura shrugged.

“Touring. I finally managed to organise a more or less normal tour. I’ve wanted to take a trip to Kharkiv for so long…” Now it was his turn to falter.

But Volodya understood without any unnecessary words why. He reached for the bottle, poured more whiskey in both glasses and put his to his lips, while Yura continued:

“It didn’t all work out, somehow. Work, family, or-”

“Family?” Volodya interposed the question automatically. “Are you married?”

For a second, a sensation of phantom happiness flared up in his memory - Volodya remembered how he had begged Yura in his letters to “get a girlfriend”, confident that he would be happy when he found a female life partner for himself, because then he would in no way become the same as Volodya himself.

Yura laughed quietly. Cheerlessly.

“‘Married’, Volod, really?” He looked at him with a condescending smile. “I wasn’t talking about myself. By family, I meant my real family: my mother, father.”

“How are they?”

“They’re not. Mum died a few years ago, and my father… it’s all complicated. Let’s talk about something good, otherwise…”

Volodya wanted so badly to say that everything genuinely good for himself had come to an end twenty years before, and all that was left was neutral. Well, he still had his dog.

Gerda, as it happened, had peacefully fallen asleep, curled up into a little ball by Yura’s feet.

Volodya could not escape the feeling that they were talking about the wrong things. He needed to ask him ‘how have you been all this time?’ ‘Have you missed me as much as I’ve missed you? Or did you forget about me as soon as you moved to Germany?’ ‘But you did come back, you came back here, to the willow! Why?’

But he could not. A stranger was sitting in front of him, unknown. His appearance might remind him of the Yura from his youth… But Volodya understood that with time, over years, a person could change to the point of recognisability, and here all the more so. There was a chasm between them. It was not just the twenty years frozen in a vacuum, it was much more. Between them, there was a vast layer of history, the collapse of the USSR and its consequences, miles upon miles of road, different countries, different outlooks, different cultures.

Then and there, Volodya had long since ceased to be that up-and-coming Komsomolets, that eighteen-year-old camp counsellor, that MGIMO student. And the person in front of him was far away from being that Yurka, the pioneer, a sixteen-year-old hooligan, a so-called pianist.

They were different. What connected then merely seemed large and important, while in reality, what separated and distinguished them was now much, much larger.

“Do you still keep in contact with anyone from Lastochka? They all lived in Kharkiv; maybe you found someone?” asked Yura.

“Yes, of course. Like, I’m friends with Zhenya and Irina-”

“Oh-hoh! They’re still together?”

“Yep, if you can imagine it. Zhenya worked for a long time as a P.E. teacher at school 13, that’s where I found him…” Volodya decided not to specify that he had gone there to search for any kind of trail leading back to Yura. “As it happens, I’m their daughter’s godfather - can you believe it?”

“Oh-hoh-hoh!” Yura’s eyebrows shot upwards. “Well, well, well!”

“Their son, Pasha, is sixteen, while Olya just recently turned nine. She’s such a lively girl - she’s active, upbeat, she barely climbs off of me whenever I come around. She goes to a music school, as it happens.”

“Well done. Children have always loved you.” Yura spread his hands. “Do you remember those blockheads from the fifth troop? Do you remember that, what’s-he-called… the director’s nephew. Damn, I forgot the surname…”

“Pcholkin? He works for the city council now, by the way.”

“Him? Shut the front door!” Yura almost choked on a piece of bread. Volodya laughed.

It grew lighter, cheerier even, once they remembered that that summer at Lastochka was not fully saturated solely by grief for that lost love. It was true that that season covered so much, so many events and people. The indefatigable children of the fifth troop, the leadership with their formalities and Communistic whims. The beautiful girls, older now. The pranksters. The fresh air, the sun, the river, the bonfires, the discoes, the walks…

The conversation made the time go by faster, the whiskey as well.

“No, but just you think!” Yura amicably feigned outrage. “Here comes this dandy from Ma-a-ascow… and all the girls, like following orders, all fall in love with him! And what of Konev? Fuck Konev!”

“Alright, alright. Was it really all?”

“Wouldn’t you say so? That trio in particular, you remember?”

“Yeah, they were a bit air-headed. By the way, Polina is now a very successful dentist.”

“You keep in touch with her?”

“No, I just heard it through the grapevine. She’s friends with Masha and Masha works with Irina. Irina has her own business now, selling outerwear.”

“Wait, which Masha? That Masha?”

“Yeah, Sidorova. Although… Maybe she’s not a Sidorova anymore after her marriage, I don’t remember. Anyway, she works in sales for Irina.”

Yura looked at him with curiosity and slowly took a sip, as though thinking hard about what to say.

“And what’s she like now? You know, after…” He faltered.

“She’s a decent person. Still hysterical and stupid, but on the whole…” The whiskey pounded in his head and loosened his tongue. Volodya almost blurted out what he wanted to keep private. “Get a load of this, Masha-”

Helped me to meet you

“-Got a load of her own medicine, as they say. So, this weird thing happened with her…”

Volodya told him the story of Masha’s son - in broad terms, without getting bogged down in details. He kept silent on how the situation affected himself personally.

The story brightened Yura up even more:

“Well there you go, that really is some irony of fate. Well, maybe now she’ll get it and won’t get in the way of their happiness, unlike, well… back then…”

Volodya froze up on the inside. Again, the topic of their shared past hung in the air with all the weight of what was left unsaid. Yura was obviously not planning on talking about it, either. But one of them had to pose the main question. No, not one of them - it had to be specifically Volodya who asked.

Why did you come to find me?

But he did not himself know what he wanted to hear in response: Because you’re still important to me, or I was looking for a different you.

They were silent. The whiskey was finished, there was no longer anything left with which to distract themselves, there was nothing else onto which to divert the focus. He would not open the cognac.

“I spent half the day wandering around Lastochka today,” confessed Yura after a few minutes. He said it as though involuntarily. “Reminiscing. I went to our willow and, you know… I’d given up any and all hope. I couldn’t even imagine that you’d turn up here, right by me and… Now I’m sitting, looking at you, and I can’t believe it at all. Out there,” he waved his arm in the direction of the window, “everything’s abandoned. But I remember everything. And I remember you, but not as you are now. Logically, I understand that you’ve changed, you’re not the same anymore, you’re different, but-”

Different, Volodya repeated in his head. And added: So different that, if you met me for the first time now, you’d never want to meet me again.

Out loud, he said:

“You’ve also changed. Of course, it couldn’t be any other way, so much of everything-”

Yura seemed not to be listening to him.

“Are you happy?” he interrupted.

The question caught him unawares. It was seemingly simple, but Volodya stared at Yura without blinking.

No! shouted his inner voice. Of course not. Of course I’m unhappy, I’m single. Sometimes it feels like there’s no future, that I’m stuck in the past, that I’ve betrayed myself, that I’ve single-handedly destroyed the best thing that ever happened in my life…

“I don’t know,” he lied. “I sort of have it all: a house, a job, enough to get by…”

“Ah… Is there someone?” Yura nervously rubbed his cheek. “For you?”

Volodya reflected. He did not know how to reply in such a way that he would not be deceiving Yura and without disclosing any details of his relationship with Igor.

“Well… there is ‘someone.’”

“A special someone?”

“No,” Volodya shook his head, smirking. “Not special.”

Yura gave no reaction and merely continued to watch his face, but he avoided letting their gazes cross.

“And you?” Volodya was not sure he really wanted to know the truth, but he asked anyway.

Yura hesitated. He vigorously massaged his neck, leant back in exhaustion against the headrest of the armchair and shut his eyes.

“No. Definitely no-one special. There was, a long time ago - or at least, so it seemed. But it didn’t work out.”

It sounded very abstract - Volodya could not figure out whom he was talking about. For a moment, he even thought that it was about him, but he cast that thought aside.

“Are you in Kharkiv long?”

As he continued to lay against the headrest, Yura shook his head again.

“My flight’s tomorrow, in the daytime. I should already be getting to sleep,” he yawned.

“Let me set a bed up for you,” proposed Volodya.

He got up to his feet abruptly and almost cried out. His back had gone numb from sitting down for so long, and the stars that swam in his eyes reminded him of himself - he was covered by a wave of pain and shame. Slowly, trying not to let it show, he made his way to the bedroom. His headache had abated finally, but there was still his heavy drunkenness on account of all the whiskey he had had on an empty stomach. In addition, confusion set in, his thoughts were all aflicker. None of them were distinct. Emotions swarmed, so many of them that Volodya felt, for a couple of seconds, like his insanity of the day before were about to return.

He was rummaging in a cupboard for some bed linen when he heard some hesitant footsteps behind him. Yura appeared in the bedroom.

“It’s spacious, what you’ve got here.” He looked around the room. “Isn’t it scary here at night by yourself?”

“What should I be afraid of? Ghosts of the hero pioneers?”

Yura chuckled.

“The spirit of the countess who goes looking for her brooch at night.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s right,” smiled Volodya.

The mention of the heroine of one of the horror stories that Yura had made up way back when was simultaneously heartwarming and saddening.

Volodya finally found a blanket and grabbed it in an armful together with a duvet and pillows.

“Let me help.” Yura strode toward him and took on some of the bed linen. For a moment, their hands happened to touch. Volodya was internally taken aback by the warmth of Yura’s skin, but he gave no sign.

In the living room, Gerda, having woken up, yawned broadly, opening her toothy jaw up threateningly, but then she stuck out her tongue.

“You lost us, huh?” Yura dumped his armful on the sofa, took a seat next to the dog and began to stroke her long tail.

Volodya unfolded and made the sofa bed, watching the two of them out of the corner of his eye. He was touched by how quickly Gerda had taken a liking to Yura. It took her no less than a month to get used to Volodya, growling and threatening to bite, not letting him pet her, but now…

“Ready.” Volodya put a pillow in place and took to gathering up the washing-up from the table. “Do you need to be woken up in the morning?”

“I’ll wake myself up - I have a routine.” Yura sat on the edge of the sofa and looked up at Volodya from below. “Thank you.”

“No problem. Shall I leave you with Gerda, so she can scare off ghosts for you?”

Yura smiled and shrugged.

“And she’s not against it?”

“I don’t know.” Volodya turned to his dog. “Gerda, where would you like to spend the night? Or have you already had your fill of sleep?”

The dog yapped happily.

“Understood. Well, do as you like - come along.” He turned to Yura and said quietly, “Good night.”

“Gute Nacht,” smiled Yura.

***

Sleep did not come. Thoughts buzzed in his head.

Yura was in his home, sleeping on his sofa. He wanted to get up, to leave his bedroom and check whether it was true. Was he not imagining it? But he needed to sleep.

Volodya had indeed missed a whole day of work. Good boss that he was, Braginsky would give him hell the next day for leaving him alone on the front lines. And there was no argument - all the responsibility was on Volodya, it was his business, his company and his money. But on the whole, he did not regret it. He would have agreed to suffer the last few days’ insanity another couple of times, to sacrifice his work and money if in return, a meeting with Yura were waiting for him.

What did Yura think when he looked at Volodya? How did he appear to him? Yes, he did not look his very best that day. After his long, half-drugged sleep, with bags under his eyes, pale, dishevelled, twitchy… What was the point of being such a pedant for his whole life, always looking after his figure and appearance, if, on one of the most important days of his life, he was going to present himself to such a significant person for him looking like that?

Volodya guffawed nervously.

He needed to make himself fall asleep, but without pills, it was useless. Volodya had not slept without pills earlier either, and after such an emotional rollercoaster, it absolutely would not come. But the new formula no longer inspired any confidence at all. What if he was knocked out to the point that a gunshot would not wake him again? He smirked as he looked up at the ceiling. For real - Yura would be in a great mood when he would be unable to shake him awake the next morning…

He turned away from the door and covered his head with the duvet. It did not help to save him from his thoughts, and besides, laying in full contact with the bed made his back and buttocks ache.

It should all have been different. He should have waited for the previous day’s concert to end, then gone through to the backstage, to the dressing room or God knows wherever it is that the conductors go. Knock on the door, go in, carefully shut the door behind himself… Say, ‘Hi, Yura. It’s me, remember? Summer ‘86, the Kharkiv pioneer camp. I was a counsellor there. We were in love…’ and it all would have been significantly easier, simpler.

It all should have been different twenty years before as well. He should not have pushed Yura away and betrayed him. He should have understood that there was no ‘disease’, it was love. He should have valued their feelings - both his own and Yura’s, and let him come to Moscow. All it would have taken would have been to see him, probably more of a man after two and a half years, but still just as dear and beloved, and that would have been that. There would not have been miles between them, and years gone by for nothing, there would be no breakdowns, no burnt hands and marks on his back.

Because there would have been Yura.

Or would there? Or would they have destroyed their relationship after a while, broken up forever and hoped never to see each other again; would Volodya’s living room have been empty that night?

Volodya gave in. He could not turn away, nor stop thinking.

He got Igor’s pack of tablets, picked one out, bit it in two and stuck half under his tongue. An unbearable bitterness spread through his mouth. He tried to swallow but the caustic taste made his throat spasm. He needed to wash it down.

He quietly lowered his feet onto the floor, sat up on the bed cautiously and fumbled around on the side table for his glasses. After opening the bedroom door, he went to the living room. Thinking only of not waking Yura up, he did not immediately notice the dim light of a floor lamp. And when he did notice it, all his insides turned to ice.

Yura was sitting up on the sofa, looking at him oddly, while an open notebook lay open on his lap - his history of disease.

Volodya restrained the urge to fly right at him, snatch the notebook off him and tear it up, or better yet, to burn it, throwing it into the smouldering fire. But he kept hold of himself. He studied Yura’s face, trying to read any recognisable emotions in it: anger, or perhaps offense. Pity? Volodya could not understand his look. It was inscrutable and so heavy that he felt the need to look away.

Volodya lowered his head, walked quickly to sink, poured himself some water and took a couple of gulps. He affixed his fingers to the tabletop and screwed his eyes up tight.

The pages of the notebook flickered beneath his closed eyelids. He had not opened it for several years, but the notes in there had emblazoned themselves into his memory, black marks. The prescriptions for anti-anxiety formulae, the referrals for fake examinations by fake psychiatrists. The notes that he took per their instructions: the good and attractive things he saw in girls, which ones he had gotten to know especially well, and the bad things about the guys he saw. Erotic photographs of women and his ‘successes’ with them.

Now, after many years, Volodya understood that it was all drivel, stupidity and charlatanry. Why the Hell had he kept that damned notebook in the first place, why had he not thrown it away as soon as he took it from his parents’ apartment? Why, at the end of the day, had he not simply hidden the notebook as soon as he had brought it home? How had he managed to simply forget about it? And as a result, Yura had seen it. Yes, he already knew from the letters how Volodya had ‘treated’ himself, but that notebooks described every one of his actions in the utmost detail.

He took pains to force himself to turn around and look at Yura again. He was not surprised that Yura was not in the living room, but he was standing a couple of metres away from him, as though afraid to get nearer.

“I’m sorry,” he said guiltily, taking a step forward. “I had no right to read it, I just thought it was our notebook from the time capsule, it had the same cover… I picked it up and the pages all fell out, these photographs, and I started gathering them all back up again and-”

Volodya shook his head.

“It’s alright. It’s my own fault for leaving stuff strewn wherever.”

Guilt in Yura’s voice was the one thing he did not expect to hear. Anger, suspicion, but not that soft, hesitant tone.

“You’re not angry?” probed Volodya.

Yura took another step so that he was standing face to face with him. He sighed.

“I’m angry. You can’t even imagine how angry I am. Just not at you. At the society that’s forced down your throat since you were a kid that there’s something wrong with you. At the adults who wanted to ‘cure’ you. At the kind of country where those kinds of doctors can even exist. And at myself. Because I wasn’t there.”

“No, Yur, don’t. Don’t say stupid stuff. I’m the one who forbade you from coming back then, I was such an idiot…”

Yura smiled sadly.

“We’re both alright. But I should have come and dragged you out of it. But I…”

‘Drag’ was le mot juste. Back then, Volodya was drowning himself and he cut off the only lifeline that he might have caught, then, idiot that he was, regretted it for half his life.

He turned his side to Yura, sat on the edge of the table and looked at Gerda, who was on her back by the fire. She was having a dream; she whined a couple of times in her sleep and her tail twitched.

The sudden panic that had gripped him a couple of minutes ago had dissipated. Yura was so kind still. In that, he had stayed the same, he had not changed. He was always denigrating himself whilst absolving Volodya.

There can’t be anything wrong with you, I’m the bad one, you’re the very best. He wondered whether he would continue to act in the same way if he found out about all the things that Volodya had let happen, even right up to that moment.

And that thought suddenly materialised, as though the universe had heard him and decided to play yet another joke on him.

“Volodya…” said Yura, worriedly. He reached out and touched his bare shoulder. “What’s that?”

Volodya flinched at the touch of those cold fingers. He slept in a vest and had not put anything else on over the top when he came out of his bedroom. Yura had seen the red mark on his collarbone.

“It’s nothing…” Volodya brushed his fingers aside and covered the bruise on his neck with his hand.

“What do you mean, ‘nothing’?” There was anxiety in Yura’s voice. “Your skin’s all torn up, have you at least put something on it?”

“Yur, stop it, it’ll heal by itself.”

“I won’t stop!” he insisted. “Where’s your medicine cabinet?”

Volodya felt a momentary flare of irritation, but he restrained himself - there was no point blowing up at Yura, he was just showing concern. But Volodya was used to taking care of himself, especially when the matter had to do with such things.

“Alright, come here,” He went over to the little cupboard by the sofa.

“Let me do it myself.” Yura took the first aid kit out of his hands. “Sit down.”

Volodya lowered himself onto the edge of the sofa and looked away to the window. He turned a black notebook over in his hands. He narrowed his eyes at his history of disease as though it were a snake, coiled up in a ring.

Yura had thought that it was their notes from camp: the play script, their remarks and parting words to each other. But that notebook had long since ceased to exist. Volodya remembered, clear as day, the bright little fire that engulfed the rotten pages when he had come on the appointed date to their willow and not found Yura there.

Back then, Volodya had sat on the riverbank, torn out the pages one by one, rolled them up and flicked the lighter on and watched as the words slowly burned away: the lines of the play, the heroes’ cues, the unfulfilled parting words that Yura had written with all the mistakes: ‘Whatever happens dont lose each other.’ But they had anyway. He watched the most important name, Yurchka, burn away.

Of course, he had regretted it afterwards. In a fit of aching for the past, he had burnt part of all that remained of it.

Yura rummaged around in the first aid kit for something, then came up to him from behind and rested one elbow on the sofa. Volodya watched in the reflection in the black window how Yura poured hydrogen peroxide into a cotton wool pad and carefully cleaned up the wound, all with confident movements. At first, it was cold, then it stung. The unpleasant sensation made Volodya make a face; he caught Yura’s heavy look in the window. Then his nose was assaulted by a sharp, herbaceous odour - Yura had opened a tube of ointment. Volodya was motionless as he watched his hand.

The pads of Yura’s fingertips brushed his neck softly and gently. He passed over his skin almost weightlessly, lowering down to his collarbone with a light pressure. Volodya felt no pain, just nervousness. He could hear how loudly his own heart was beating.

Yura looked him in the face. His look had changed, become serious, but an easygoing smile appeared on his lips.

“No-one special’ did this?” he said so quietly that Volodya did not catch whether it was a question or a statement.

He did not know how to respond - oh, what difference did it make if he told the truth or lied?

“Yes.”

“Why?”

The question left him at a dead end. If Yura had asked ‘What for?’, but it seemed as though he had already guessed…

“I asked him to.”

Yura was silent. He just sighed and shook his head.

The few minutes while Yura delicately cleaned his abrasions felt like an hour.

“Anywhere else?” he asked after finishing with his neck. He tried to lower the shoulder of his vest and touch the skin of his back. Volodya twisted and abruptly whipped round to look him in the face.

“Don’t,” he asked, surprised at how his own voice sounded - almost pleading.

I don’t want you to see this.

I couldn’t bear it if you saw.

Yura rose to stand over him. Volodya froze, looking him right in the eyes. There was so much all mixed together in them: fear, worry, regret, guilt, understanding. And those eyes - big, brown, so pretty, so dear to him. Yura’s lips trmebled as though he wanted to ask something, but he kept silent.

And he held out his hand to Volodya - slowly, indecisively. He hooked two fingers on his glasses, took them off and laid them aside on a cushion.

“My god, Yura. Yura…” exhaled Volodya. He buried his face in his shoulder.

He wanted to say something more, but his thoughts got all mixed up as he drowned in the sweet and musky aroma of his eau-de-Cologne, sinking into that unknown, but so deeply desired scent. He felt Yura lay a hand on his good shoulder while the second stroked his hair. Volodya was enveloped in the warmth that he needed so badly just then.

Yura felt his hair, weaving his fingers through the locks.

“You’ve suffered so much. If only I’d known, Volodya… We’ve lost so much,” he whispered.

Volodya closed his eyes and took pleasure in his warmth and the tenderness of his hands. It felt like time had ceased to exist - after five minutes, or perhaps an hour, Volodya began to slip into sleep. Another few minutes later, on the edge of his consciousness, he sensed Yura rustle about slightly, delicately laying him down on the sofa. As soon as his head touched the pillow, Volodya fell asleep.

#о чём молчит ласточка #о чем молчит ласточка #russian #ya #lgbt #my translations #translation

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aarghhaaaarrrghhh · 4 months ago

Text

What Lastochka Left Unsaid/О чём молчит ласточка - Chapter Four

Master post here

Chapter Four - Symphony of Chaos

The cognac that he had polished off together with Masha made him sleepy, but was not conducive to a healthy rest. Volodya laid down to sleep as soon as he returned home, and fell into a soupy, drunken daze, which turned into a restless hungover dream. He woke up in the middle of the night with a pounding head and a rasping dryness in his mouth. He took pulls, mixing aspirin with the sleeping pills. It did not help much. Volodya seemed to be half-asleep, half-awake:he was simultaneously hot and cold, he heard the quiet, cautious click of heels on the wooden decking, and the lap of river water against the side of the boat.

He was awoken by a noise - the drumming of raindrops on tarpaulin, and he did not realise at first that he had also dreamt that sound. He sat up in bed, hung his heavy head in his hand and rubbed his face for five minutes, trying to return to reality. How hateful those dreams had been. Volodya was let down by his own consciousness: for the past several nights now, it had ensnared him in these maddening webs. And worst of all, the webs were too pleasant, too long-desired for him to want to fight against them.

After groping around on his nightstand for his glasses and phone, he wrote a text to Igor: Pills aren’t helping. I need others. Today.

He received a reply around lunch: I’m on my way, I’ll try to get there by evening. Time and place - later.

Then, as he sat in his office, Volodya tried to gather his last remaining strength to survive until his meeting with Igor.

He lifted his gaze from his documents and looked at his two empty mugs of coffee - white, with the company’s logo. He thought about going for yet another one, but stopped himself immediately - it would have been useless. The coffee was no longer reinvigorating him, it was just adding to his anxiousness.

His phone beeped.

Five at Sportivnaya. Will you make it?

Volodya glanced at a clock and tried to calculate what time he would need to leave the office in order to pick up his car from Masha’s and not be late for Igor. He figured it out on his second try.

After replying to the message, he tried again to focus on the invoices, but after a minute, he knew that it was useless. He was incapable of the least kind of productive work that day, and the overcast weather was giving him a headache to boot.

There were just under two hours left until his meeting with Igor. Volodya leant back in his chair, laid the back of his head on the soft headrest and shut his eyes. When he awakened, he realised that he was already running late. It was not really a sleep, not even a short one, more like a lapse into unconsciousness, as happens from extreme overexertion, but it brought him a little bit of strength. Volodya said goodbye to Lera, put his jacket on, dashed out of the office and hurried to the metro - he had rethought getting behind the wheel for that day.

Igor was in a car, though. He indicated to Volodya, who was coming out of the passageway, opened the passenger-side door, got some prescription forms out of a briefcase and handed them to Volodya. The thought amused Volodya how like a film all this was, where he was the drug addict getting the shakes, while Igor was his dealer.

“You look absolutely miserable,” he commented as he drove away from the metro and parked up by a dilapidated multi-storey building. “This preparation is significantly stronger, so only half a tablet at a time. A whole one is only for the most extreme cases. Are the ones I prescribed you earlier not working at all, then?”

“Very weakly. Besides, I get nightmares, so I can’t get a good rest even when I do get to sleep.”

“What kind of nightmares? Like before?”

“Yeah, kind of, only-”

Igor interrupted him:

“Is it because of your father? I’m sorry, I mean, because of his death?” And without waiting for a reply, he continued, “This will sound cynical, but you’ll begin to feel genuinely easier soon, because the main aggravating factor has left your life forever.”

“Father?” frowned Volodya. He began to feel uncomfortable.

“Yes,” replied Igor, unbothered. “Remember how you used to be when we first got to know each other?” He indicated Volodya’s hands. “And how quickly did you feel better once you’d moved away from the source of the problem - your parents?”

Even in the beginning of their relationship, Igor had spelt everything out for him so clearly that it felt like he knew more about Volodya than Volodya himself did. By digging around in his head, Igor found, among other things, the reason why Volodya felt unsafe at home. It was just that right then, that had nothing to do with anything. Volodya understood perfectly well that his father’s death was merely the trigger for all the emotional instability into which he had plunged. The primary reason, however, was the suddenly resurfacing of the memories which he felt should have long since faded. But he did not want to talk to Igor about that. Listening to another Intro to Psychiatry lecture on cause and effect would drive Volodya up the wall. He could get by without that.

Volodya understood that he had already been halfway up the wall for a while.

As he looked listlessly out the window, his gaze caught on a huge, dusty sign that said Start and asked, as though Igor would not expect any kind of continuation on his part of the conversation about his father:

“Are you in a hurry?”

“Not particularly.” He looked at his watch. “I need to pick Sonya up at seven…”

“Then maybe we could…” Volodya nodded towards the door beneath the sign.

Igor crooked an eyebrow in surprise.

“Seriously - there?”

“What’s the difference?”

“It makes none to me, it’s you who insists on cleanliness. Although… Considering your condition, I can see that you don’t really care.”

“Besides, there’s definitely going to be a free room there.”

Igor frowned.

“Are you sure you’re up for this?”

Volodya merely shrugged and thought to himself that, if he happened to suddenly fall asleep in the process, that would also suit him perfectly.

The unwelcoming, stout woman behind the administration desk immediately blurted out, without even greeting them:

“We only have two-bed rooms left!”

“That’s alright, we’ll make do,” said Volodya simply, ignoring her impudent tone and calmly placing his passport on the desk. “Any one.”

Whilst she jotted down the information in an old, yellowed notebook - there was not a computer in sight - Volodya took a lazy look around the hall. At some other time, he might have been taken aback by the squalor and decrepitude of his surroundings, but at that moment, he was barely capable of surprise. The hotel seemed to be frozen in the Soviet period: it had not seen a renovation in a long time, and had fallen apart over the years. Wavy curtains, dusty rugs, artificial palms in plastic pots - the whole sham was trying to hide the fact that this used to be a run-of-the-mill shared accommodation, whether for families or for students. It even smelt old and Soviet: the aroma of burnt coffee and eclairs came wafting into the hall from the dining room.

The lift turned out to be practically an archaeological discovery - shuddering and rattling, the doors slammed so loudly that Volodya flinched. All it lacked were obscene graffiti on the walls and scorched buttons.

When Volodya opened the door to the room, Igor hemmed morosely as he looked over the darkened wooden furniture with cracks in the varnish.

“What a pigsty. Where have you dragged me, Vov?”

“You can leave if you want,” slung Volodya without thinking. It probably sounded offensive. He heard a heavy sigh from behind him.

As he took off his jacket, Volodya took a dejected look around the room. It was divided evenly in two by a threadbare rug - red with green stripes. A pair of old cabinets - it felt like it really was still a dormitory. Along opposite walls, there were two single beds, with pillows upon them that stuck out of the headboard in triangles.

“If I bring fleas home to Lidka, she’ll kill me.”

Volodya shrugged.

“Fleas don’t live on people.”

He sat on a bed and laid the back of his head against the wall. He lazily checked Igor out. Not bad looking, truth be told. Over the past eight years, his appearance had grown familiar, but Volodya remembered how much it had once delighted him to know that this man belonged to him. Not completely, of course: there was still a wife, and probably other lovers. But in their moments of closeness, Igor conducted himself as though Volodya were the only one for him.

“You’re checking me out like it’s your first time seeing me,” chuckled Igor as he drew closer. He bent over him and reached out to loosen the knot of his tie, undo his top button and brush his neck with cold fingers. Volodya twitched - not because of the fingers, but because of the unexpected image which had burst into his head.

There was a necktie there as well, only, it was red. And cold fingers, too - Volodya’s. And Yura flinching in front of him, abashed, his warm neck that Volodya happened to touch by chance as he helped him to tie that ill-fated neckerchief. In that moment he had felt like a criminal - after all, he was allowing these touches whilst lying to himself that it was merely by chance.

Igor kissed him - quickly, aggressively, passionately, while Volodya himself felt no kind of thrill. He was not asleep, but it felt like he was falling into something very similar to a dream - it smelt of dust, and he was being kissed quickly and aggressively there as well.

He was all there in body - he wanted Igor, truly wanted him, right that moment. However, his consciousness was significantly further away and could not get a grip on reality. It was like striking a match on a damp box - there was friction, but no flame.

Suddenly, his cheek flared with pain. Igor had slapped him - lightly, more as though he were trying to bring him around.

“Hey, are you really here?”

Volodya looked up at him cloudily.

“Could you do that again, harder?”

Igor did not even try and clarify anything, he raised his hand and struck him on the other cheek with an open palm, far harder than the first time.

His cheek burned and reality grew brighter. Volodya felt a burning wave flow from his cheek, down his neck and lower, while he returned to consciousness. He shifted his jaw a bit and ordered:

“Again!”

Volodya grabbed a breath of air and shut his eyes as he listened in to the sensations: his head rang empty, as though the pain had driven away all his memories and currently unneeded associations. They swarmed somewhere deep down, suppressed by the pain, trying to break out. But they fell silent once again as soon as he heard the sound of the belt being torn from its loops. Volodya opened his eyes.

Igor folded the belt in two. He slapped his own palm with it, to check.

“So?” he asked, grinning.

Caught up in his own thoughts - or rather, his lack of them - Volodya only noticed in passing that Igor was behaving strangely. But he did not care. Volodya slowly took off his shirt, rubbing his cheek, looking forward to the next blow.

“Trousers too. And your underwear,” ordered Igor.

His tone grated on Volodya - he was not used to being commanded, but he obeyed promptly, taking off his belt, kicking off his shoes, pulling down his trousers and sitting up the bed.

At the end of the day, Volodya said to himself in justification, it’s just a game, and Igor’s doing everything by the rules.

“Turn around.”

Volodya obeyed, clenching his teeth. His nose was assaulted by the smell of old feathers from the pillow. There was no way to tie his hands up - the headboard of the bed was a wooden panel. Olodya had to just grip it by the edges.

What on earth are you doing? came an inner voice, almost like someone else’s rather than his own, but Volodya waved it away and buried his face ever deeper into the pillow, so that he could not see anything. He felt cool fingers touch his back.

Igor said quietly:

“There’s still marks left from last time.”

Volodya preferred to act as though he had not heard anything. He was impatient, and the longer Igor dawdled, the more he wanted to shout ‘Come on!’

But Igor took his time, stroking his back - tenderly, attentively. He wanted to respond to those touches, to give in to the very same associations which were stirring behind a curtain of pain.

As if it had all happened before, he saw a back in front of him. Bare, warmed by the summer sun - he was so tempted to reach out and touch it, to feel its heat. To trace with his fingers those three small moles on the shoulder blades, then put his lips to them. To absorb the sun that had been soaked up in that skin, to breathe its scent - so beloved, so desired and familiar… He could have lost his mind in that moment if he had not turned away from Yura as he sunbathed on the beach, breathing heavily and trying to focus on the splash of water in the river.

Igor’s fingers disappeared and on the spot where they had been, a sharp pain spread out. Volodya cried out. And he did not even have the chance to take another breath before another blow fell on the same spot. Volodya began to groan as he felt the pain spread throughout his whole body, making his insides twist. And the way it emptied his head.

Another two off-centre blows on the shoulder blades - one after another. Volodya gripped the headboard so hard that he thought he might break it. He chewed the corner of the pillow, trying to swallow another groan.

The belt whistled through the air and crashed down a humiliating blow on his buttocks, and then another, higher up. Volodya screamed. Everything that had been roiling inside him was taken away by some wild, dirty mix of pain and insult, he was past ready to ask Igor to stop, just… if he just…

What are you doing? that faraway, but familiar, voice broke into his thoughts. Why?

And an image stood before him, so bright that it was like sunlight filtering thinly through closed eyelids: disobedient, coarse hair, big brown eyes, lips, downturned at the corners. And suddenly, a loud, clear laugh that wiped the sorrow from that handsome face.

And in contrast, Igor’s chill fingers tracing lines on his ribs along the stripes left by the belt. They felt icy on his smarting skin.

Why? it sounded again, as though Volodya’s conscience was trying to finish him off.

Trying to convince himself, he replied to that faraway voice:

You’re a long time gone.

He lifted his head from the damp pillow and turned to face Igor, who was chewing his lower lip and despoiling his body with his wild, slimy gaze.

The bed creaking under his weight, Igor stroked Volodya’s waist with both hands, bent over him and stuck his nose in the hair on the back of his head, then kissed him, lower down, on his neck. He pressed his whole body against him and laid on his back.

Volodya caught the thin, synthetic aroma of strawberries. He recognised it - the smell irritated him, but Igor liked that hair gel, so Volodya bought it for him.

As he felt wet, slimy fingers roughly grope his buttocks, Volodya heard Igor’s aroused whisper:

“You’re wonderful, You’re so-”

Dirty! suggested his own inner voice.

…the best person in the world, said another, the faraway one, you’re the most decent person… I’m the perverted one, it’s my fault, not yours…

“Come on already,” Volodya forced out. He wanted so badly to drive out these voices, for Igor to hit him again, or…

But instead, the squeal of an irritating ringtone reverberated around the room.

“Don’t take it,” whispered Igor. As though to make fun of him, he began to stroke Volodya’s stomach and lightly kiss his shoulder blades.

The trill of the ringtone aggravated him, and whoever was calling him would not give up: after the first call came a second.

Igor growled - it was also irritating him.

What if it’s mother? thought Volodya. She rarely called him herself, more often, he was the first to dial. What if it was urgent?

“I’m sorry.”

While he reached for his trousers and got his phone out the pocket, a third call began. The name Masha was illuminated on the screen.

“Are you serious?”

At first, Volodya wanted to decline the call - of course, she knew how to pick the worst moment. But what would have been the point if she was just going to call again immediately? She was not going to turn her phone off.

Volodya answered:

“Masha, now’s really not th-”

“Volodya it’s urgent! Please!” She was screaming into the receiver. “I’m begging you!”

“What is it this time…” He deeply did not give a damn about her problems right then.

“Tolya’s father found out about everything, I- God, I don’t know ho- What am I suppos- He’s going to kill them!”

“Where are you?” asked Volodya before giving any thought to what he could even do to help in the situation.

“By the History Museum. Will you come? Please!”

Call everything off? Now? That’s a load of rubbish, thought Voloyda. But in the depths of his soul, a momentary joy flared into life. Masha had called just in time, since, by asking Igor to do all of that, Volodya had been betraying himself. But to go to her? True, he no longer wanted to stay where he was - after Masha’s call, he had lost any arousal. His back ached and the pain was no longer bringing him any kind of satisfaction.

“Yeah, I’ll be on my way…” said Volodya. He ended the call and immediately typed the number for a taxi.

“Are you serious?” Igor was outraged when Volodya dictated the address to the operator. “Can’t whatever it is wait?”

“No, it can’t,” snapped Volodya. As he put his clothes on, he said, “I’m sorry, but it really is urgent.”

“You had some lady whining at you there,” Igor replied gloomily. “Joining the straights?”

“I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

Igor was taken aback: he stared agog at him, simultaneously surprised and insulted.

“You’re getting your revenge on me for something, aren’t you?”

“Don’t go getting any ideas.” Volodya approached the mirror to put his tie on, but gave up at the last moment and folded it up into a ball and stuck it in his jacket pocket. “Right, bye. Give the keys back in yourself, please. I’m sure they don’t even check who’s handing them in in a pigsty like this.”

***

While he sat in the taxi, Volodya began to grow angry, but he did not understand at whom. At Masha, who had not called and pulled him away soon enough? At the stranger’s scandal, a participant in which he was now becoming? Or at himself, for everything he had allowed and wanted to allow Igor to do with him?

Masha was waiting for him by the metro, hiding under an umbrella. Her head hung, downcast, she nervously fiddled with the fabric of her long, dark dress. Volodya was surprised - Masha seemed embarrassed, even though twenty minutes earlier, she had sounded extremely on edge on the phone.

“What happened? Tell me,” began Volodya as he approached her. “You’ve pulled me away from a very impor-”

“Whatever I pulled you away from, this is more important!” Masha interrupted him, shooting him an unexpectedly confident look.

Volodya was taken aback by how quick the change in her mood was.

“Let’s go,” ordered Masha.

“Why’s everyone pushing me around today?” grumbled Volodya as he obediently walked after her. “Where are we going?”

They went down Sumskaya. Another twenty minutes from there and they might reach Tolya’s place. But why was Masha going there on foot? Especially in the rain.

“Mash? Are you actually listening to me? What’s going on with Dima, Tolya, his father?”

She stopped abruptly by an archway of the Dormition Cathedral, took a look in the door, frowned, and turned her severe agaze back upon Volodya. He even supposed that he might have finally lost his mind and that Masha was not really there, she was either a vision, or he was dreaming. Otherwise, why else would Masha, eternally unsilenceable, not answer him?

“Volodya…” she began firmly, but then faltered. She reached out to him and did his top button up. Volodya flinched on the inside from the thought that, an hour earlier, that same button had been undone by Igor.

After sorting his hair out as well, Masha said:

“Let’s just go inside. I… Truly, I won’t be able to manage without you.”

Without another word, she took him by the arm and confidently led him to the doors of the cathedral. She pushed them open and pulled Volodya along with effort. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a sign that said ‘Organ hall of the Kharkiv Philharmonia.’

The clack of Masha’s heels echoed sonorously along the empty hall of the old building.

“What the Hell, Masha?” swore Volodya, and that echo also repeated around him. Lowering his voice, he hissed: “I told you, you promised-”

“For one thing, I never promised you anything,” she replied in a feverish whisper, gripping his wrist even harder. Volodya, however, did not resist. “Secondly, I explained everything - as it turns out, Konev-”

She did not finish. A theatre worker appeared in front of them like a jack-in-the-box:

“Silence, please. You’re late, the concert has already started.” Music really could be heard coming from behind the tall, carved door - a single violin, accompanied by piano.

“I’m sorry,” murmured Masha as she fussed around in her handbag. “Here.” She held out some tickets.

The usher frowned heavily at them.

“You have the last seats at the end of the tenth row. Please reach them by going around the left side.” He opened the doors for them.

The sound of music battered Volodya. He took step after step and merely caught a glimpse of the silhouette of a man standing upon the stage in a tailcoat with his back to the audience. Masha grabbed Volodya’s hand and squeezed his palm so hard that it seemed like she suspected that he would turn around and leave. She pulled him after her as she picked her way on tiptoes between the rows.

The seats were not the best - at the very end of the row, well away from the stage. And Masha took the aisle seat, as though barring any route of escape for Volodya.

Volodya looked around the hall absent-mindedly, intentionally withholding from looking at the very centre of the stage, so as not to notice the conductor. He was struck by the majesty of the organ that towered up and along the wall - Volodya had never been to the cathedral before and had never seen such an instrument. But on that day, the organ was silent. Below it, on the stage, there was a small orchestra: wind, strings - Volodya did not know about these things - about twenty musicians in all. For the time being, only one violin was playing - a slow, peaceful melody flowed from beneath the bow. It was accompanied by a white grand in the corner of the stage. Behind the grand, there stood a small choir with a few microphones.

Finally, Volodya looked at the centre of the stage. As though in slow-motion - smoothly and gracefully - a young man traced patterns in the air with his conductor’s baton. He looked like he was playing a game with the musicians, lightly pressing invisible buttons in front of him, and it seemed like the music coming from the instruments around him was actually coming from that baton.

Volodya took a closer look at the conductor. Tall, stood straight. His coattails covered his legs almost to the knee. Slender hands. Dark hair.

It might have been Yura. But it also could have been anyone else. Could Masha have brought him here just so he could be sure? He had told her the day before, practically commanded her, not to give him false hope. She had understood him… hadn’t she?

Volodya squinted, trying to get a better look at the conductor. But he held himself back - twenty years had gone by. People changed, their appearance changed… It was just…

Volodya rested his gaze on the back of his head. The dark, disobedient hair. So disobedient that the damned bird’s nest - smoothened, flattened, with gel, probably - still stuck out.

Yura…

His eyes clouded up.

Suddenly, it grew quiet; the music cut out, his own heart seemed to stop. Volodya could not tear his gaze away from that mop of hair, beloved as never before.

He sighed and felt a happiness, so all-encompassing, so bright and real that it felt like he was returning back from far, far away, back to the brightest time of his life. But that feeling lasted for but a moment.

To the symphony-ending lament of the lone violin, a delicate, attractive youth came out onto the stage, approached a microphone and took a deep breath. And when the music had come to a definitive end, he began to sing. In the complete silence, his strained, cracking voice rang out. Volodya was rocked by a squall of memories - he was literally forced back against his seat.

He no longer saw the stage, nor what was transpiring on it. He saw Yura - young, happy Yura, sitting on the children’s carousel among the white fluff from the dandelion field. He saw the dandelion seeds spin in the air and float into his mouth - and he saw him spit and laugh and wave at Volodya.

The conductor on the stage lightly raised his baton and the soloist’s voice grew firmer and stronger.

And in his imagination, Volodya saw his reflection in the mirror - such a young face, horn-rimmed glasses, despair in his eyes, lips curled in anger. He had an urge to hit that face, to smash the mirror to hell, if only it would help him escape that monster inside him that so brazenly slipped such dirty, vulgar images into young Volodya’s thoughts.

The next shot - his hands in a cloud of steam over boiling pots. The lenses of his glasses had fogged up - he could see nothing, there was only the heat, the sobering and simultaneously intoxicating pain in his hands.

Stop, what are you doing? Yura’s hands - his slender pianist’s fingers running over his own wet, red palms. Why? Why do that to yourself?

Yet another image - Yura’s knees. They were so cold, Volodya warmed them with his breath, stealing furtive kisses and smiling as he felt Yura flinch from his touch.

You’re the best, the most decent person in the world. I’m the bad one, it’s my fault, not yours… he whispered.

On the stage, the conductor waved his hands, crossing his fingers slightly. The pianist began to play a different, uncomplicated melody, and Volodya heard in it the splash of river water.

In the twilight, the glare of the pioneer’s bonfire shone on Yura’s face. The hopeless sadness in his eyes contrasted with his smile - also sad, but so, so dear to him.

Let him at least smile like that, just smile like that always.

But those eyes promptly filled with tears. The sun finally disappeared below the horizon and the cold night air made goosebumps break out across his shoulders.

Whatever happens, don’t lose yourself, Yura read aloud the lines he had written in his notebook. Volodya looked at him - Yura was crying, and his heart spasmed at the thought of saying goodbye, while his own inner voice kept repeating: Forever, we’re saying goodbye forever.

The soloist was holding a low note, the choir joined in to support him, without overpowering the leading voice, rather, suffusing its strength. They sang in a language that Volodya did not know, though even if he did not understand the words, that was not necessary - he knew what that high, tender voice was singing about.

Faces flared up in his memory one after the other. His father’s furrowed brow, his mother’s anxious eyes, her trembling lips.

Don’t worry, we’ll figure everything out - her uncertain, soft tone.

And one other face - affectedly cheerful, with a look that immediately raised suspicions and an urge to hide.

Tell me, what’s bothering you?

Fear like tar, uncertainty, shame. The words he needed to say caught in his throat, he needed to choke them out:

I’m sick… I want to be cured of this…

What from? I have a broad portfolio, I work with a lot of different disorders.

I feel de- ahem- sexual attraction to men.

The conductor sharply waved his hand.

Bows were set to strings - several violins began to wail and cellos droned. The soloist and the choir joined the orchestra.

You need to look long and hard at these photographs and find what you like about them; think about nothing other than these women and try and bring yourself pleasure.

Volodya took the pile of photos out of the doctor’s hands and gingerly flipped over the top one. It was a naked woman. A nice cover, but rotten contents, like a worm-ridden apple. Volodya felt like maggots were swarming over his hands, he wanted to throw the photographs away, but he could not.

Immediately, Yura’s face popped back into his memory - his uncertain look, lively interest in his eyes.

You know, in these banned magazines, my father had them, I sort of saw women, like… You know, there’s not just the normal way, there’s something else… Volod, I’m just asking you as a friend, I’m just curious…

The brass instruments joined - a squall of emotion thundered around the room so abruptly and full-chestedly that his heart skipped a beat. The soloist took on a high note, the choir reinforced it and Volodya was struck by the most repulsive memory of all, the one which he had spent years trying to bury deep, deep inside.

Nothing happened for me.

The doctor looked at him, frowning and scratching his chin.

That means we need to move onto extreme measures.

Volodya agreed to everything. The doctor laid photos of naked men in front of him. Volodya averted his gaze.

Look at them! commanded the doctor.

Volodya looked at them and felt the sleeve of his shirt being rolled up. The smell of spirits assaulted his nose and a thin needle pierced his skin.

There’ll now be some nausea. Continue looking at them, said the doctor as he placed an enamel bowl in front of Volodya.

He looked. The supple curve of the biceps, the hollow around the collarbone, the strong neck, the stubble on the chin, the swept, blond hair. A model. Volodya liked his body but not his face. He averted his gaze - he did not want to look at him. He was beginning to feel the queasiness being induced.

When he shut his eyes, he saw a completely different face. Beloved, and sealed in his memory for all the rest of his life. His thin lips, which he wanted so badly to kiss that he did not have the strength to resist.And that face was so close, and declarations of love were pouring from his lips. His arms embraced him so insistently, his fingers dug so desperately into his shoulders.

Please, Volodya. If we don’t do this now, we never will. It’s our last day and I want to remember you, the only one.

In his desperate fantasy, Volodya kissed him, so beautiful, so dear to him, while over them, the willow canopy, as vast as the sky, kept them hidden from the whole world.

Volodya fell to his knees before the bowl. The nausea rolled up his throat so suddenly that he did not have the time to drive off his wonderful fantasy. He retched and felt tears stream down his cheek, tears of exertion and disgust, while in the same moment, Yura was smiling on the back of his eyelids.

The final chord thundered, then the orchestra fell quiet. In the encroaching silence, the voice of the soloist died away as he slowly backed further and further away from the microphone.

Volodya stared at the conductor’s back. Yura. He was real, alive. Genuine. Yura was there.

Volodya felt a phantom nausea bubble up in his throat, and his head span. No. He could not stay there.

He stood up sharply and roughly pushed Masha’s legs aside as he went past her. In the corner of his eye, he caught her trying to grab him by the corner of his jacket, but he tore away and sped straight out of the hall. Enough with it!

As he escaped the philharmonia building, dictating his address to a taxi dispatcher along the way, Volodya kept repeating the one and only thought pulsing around his head: Get out, get as far away as you can, right now.

He could guess what Masha had wanted, but he could not allow himself to present himself in front of Yura after everything he had done. After he had betrayed him and continued to betray him for so many years. Even that very day - though it had not been his choice, though he had not known that he was going to his concert, he had turned up without even having washed himself of Igor. With red stripes on his back below his shirt from the blows which he had wanted to swallow Yura’s memory. Morally, he had no right to even speak to him anymore.

As he sat in the taxi and watched the city streets along which he was borne further and further from Yura, Volodya convinced himself more and more of this.

His inner voice was right. That Yura no longer existed. That youthful Yurka, with whom Volodya had fallen in love twenty years before, had long since disappeared. And now, there, on the stage, conducting the orchestra, was a completely different man. A man! A young, talented, handsome man, not his anxiously beautiful Yurochka!

That Yura had changed, he had long since left the life that he had once had there in Ukraine.

A lot of people had come to the concert. That meant that he was known. That meant that Yura’s music was listened to in Kharkiv. And, most likely, this had not been the first time that Yura had come back there. But he had not gone looking for Volodya, otherwise he would have gone to their willow and definitely found him. And if Yura had not looked to meet him, that meant that he did not want one, in which case it was not worth it for Volodya either. They could not possibly meet, much less right then. He would not have had the courage to look Yura in the eyes anymore.

By the time they were coming out of the city, Volodya asked the taxi driver to stop by a pharmacy. On the way back home, having forgotten about Igor’s warning not to increase the dose, he knocked back two pills straight away.

After pouring some food for Gerda, he just about managed to take his jacket off and throw it on the floor by the bed. He had no strength left for his shirt or trousers - Volodya simply fell face first onto the pillow.

He felt his hand, which was hanging off the bed, be poked at by a wet nose. Gerda whined sadly, begging to be pet. Volodya blindly stroked her on the head as he felt his consciousness grow murky.

“It’s alright, girl. Everything’ll be alright tomorrow…”

#translation #russian #lgbt #my translations #ya #о чем молчит ласточка

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