Sparkles

They were coming in faster now. They always did. Summer was over, and autumn was curling dreadfully, inevitably down towards winter; the deep, long dark of winter in northern Russia, where the cold was so desperate it ran down into your bones, and the beautiful blanket of snow wrapped the frozen earth up, hard as death. No wonder people drank.

It was a prosperous business, selling vodka and beer to miners and party officials, on the outskirts of Minsk. The tavern had a supply of alcohol, a blazing fire, tables for cards; it wasn’t hard to fill, even in the long summer evenings. But when winter came around, the place was packed. Men didn’t want to go home to their fat wives in the dark. They chose to drink a little, gamble, look at the blaze, laugh, talk about women. Leer at women, if any were ever brave enough to show their faces. Mostly it was just the whores, and Pyotr discouraged them inside his bar; he didn’t want any trouble for the party bureaucrats. They could drum up their trade outside the door.

Vladek despised those women, too. Young and desperate . . . and selling their bodies. Why should those sluts pollute the bar? If they were poor, then they could work. They could make something of themselves, the way he,Vladek, had done.

His real name wasn’t Vladek. But he had decided to call himself that. Vladek means “ruler.” He had learned that in the orphanage, along with many other facts taught by Mr. Kovec and others—the history of the glorious Communist revolution, with geography, with tales of capitalist aggression. And while the other kids sat there, sullen, thinking of nothing but the hunger that gnawed at their bellies,Vladek had sucked it in. He would better himself, for such was his destiny.

Vladek swept the floors for the eighteenth time that afternoon. He smiled, nodded at the patrons as they swaggered in, blowing on their hands and calling at Pyotr to pour them a shot—or six. Blowsy, rolling drunks, they were all peasants. Like the other kids at the orphanage, mining or chopping wood, manual labour, that was their destiny.

But he didn’t show his disgust. There would be no complaints. Whatever Pyotr wanted done, he did. It was why Pyotr hadn’t thrown him onto the street that first night, when he ran away from the hated iron gates of the orphanage, struggled ten miles into the settlement, in his thin, darned pants, terrified he might faint from cold. Because had he done so, of course, he would have died.

Every spring, when the snows melted, they found bodies in this town, men who got drunk and passed out in the forest. Nobody could survive a Siberian winter night without warmth. The drifts and flakes gently, lethally covered the bodies, and they never bothered anyone again.

But Vladek was strong. And determined. He could still remember the light over the door, shining out at him like a beacon of salvation. How he’d snuck in behind a group of welders from the factory, run to the coat rack and hidden himself, giddy with the warmth of the furs. But he didn’t sleep, although he longed to. He grabbed a broom and went around sweeping up. That night, luckily for him, Pyotr had indulged in his own product. While he lay passed out on the counter,Vladek diligently cleaned up, stacking the chairs on the tables, locking the tempting box that held the piles of roubles, notes and coins.

The bar had never looked so clean. When Pyotr woke, groaning, he thumped the hell out of Vladek, assumed he was a thief. But Vladek twisted away, his nose broken and bloody, refusing to run, refusing to leave, and managed to show Pyotr how he’d kept all the cash locked up. He could clean the place, he offered, and manage it, let Pyotr have fun with the customers.

The barman was suspicious. He didn’t need another set of wages. But Vladek held up his hands; not a rouble, he only asked for the scraps of food the customers left, and permission to sleep on the cloakroom floor and wash in the bathroom.

Pyotr agreed, and Vladek had a job. The potatoes and fish he scarfed down nightly were hot and welcome; there was sometimes even fruit, a half-withered apple smuggled in from town. He didn’t drink the alcohol, though;Vladek hated to be out of control. He despised Pyotr, who even after one year had never offered to pay the boy, or let him sleep in his house. He despised the drunken miners putting off going home to their fat wives. He especially despised the party commissars, lording it over everybody, but at closing time winding up just as vodka-sodden as the rest. They were the only men there with a chance to get out of this hellhole, and what did they do? Stay, and work at being big fish in a small pond. But really, Srebrinka was so small it was more like a puddle.

Vladek hated Communism anyway. Equality and fraternity? He saw only misery; instead of the peasantry being oppressed, now everybody was. He was sure that noble blood ran through his veins. He would be the heir, the lost and forgotten heir, of some fine White Russian family. While he ate leftover scraps and hugged the ashes of the fire for warmth, when he splashed freezing water from the tap under his armpits in the morning, it burned him; he should be riding among these people in a sleigh drawn by dogs, tossing coins to them while they scrabbled before him in the dirt.

He did not dream of getting a party job, of becoming a foreman, or of taking over the bar. Those were the destinies patrons predicted for him if they were in an expansive, drunken mood, if they noticed him. Vladek scorned them for their tiny horizons. He wanted to be ensconced in a palace, eating on silver platters, served by fawning staff. That was his ambition.

It could not be satisfied here. One day . . . he would find his family. For Vladek knew his blood was his destiny. He would have a coat of arms. He would have an inheritance, squirreled away in Switzerland perhaps, to protect it from the apparatchiks. . . .

Vladek blushed with rage and ducked into the back. More men were coming in now. He didn’t want people to see him doing this. He struggled with a filthy pole to unblock the stinking clogs, and then wiped it down with a rag, threw everything out, washed his hands in water, and poured turpentine on them, to sterilize them.

It stung, but Vladek did not care. He hated to be dirty. More than anything. Despite his limited means, he was meticulously neat and clean. He washed his clothes in melted snow, he trimmed his hair and nails with a knife, and bathed daily in the icy tap water of the men’s latrine. And he kept his tiny area of the coat cupboard perfectly organized: his saved roubles, the occasional tip, objects that men lost that he’d claimed and might use some day; he even had a working pocket watch and a fur hat.

Vladek stared. His heart thud-thudded. But it was incredible. There was no mistaking it. His nose had been exactly that way before Pyotr broke it. The man had the beady eyes and long lashes, and the sharp, angular chin. There was a beard, which disguised it for a few seconds, but he was Vladek. To the life.

His initial reaction was joy, but that lasted barely a couple of seconds. Almost at once, he became disgusted. Why was the man so drunk? It was only five o’clock. And slovenly? He was a party man, but he was dirty, boorish. He was fat, without discipline. And he had a braying, unpleasant voice. . . .

“You should watch yourself.” Vladek’s father grabbed his glass, vodka sloshing around the inside of it. “Some of them have the pox or crabs. Your dick’ll fall off.”

“It happened to me,” the man said, self-importantly. “Years ago. The whore tried to pin it on me! Me, a family man.” He snorted in disgust. “I have real children. And a wife. What did she think, I was going to feed a hooker’s brat too?”

Vladek’s father shrugged. “Who cares? If she knew what was good for her. I told her she could do that or dump it in an orphanage. Nothing to do with me. A whore’s kid, better off dead anyway. Besides,” he added, gulping down his drink in one shot, smacking his lips, “I gave her some money. Told her to get out of town. Or else. You can’t be soft with these sluts, they go to your wife. Mess up your real family.” He banged his glass at Vladek. “More!” he yelled. “You, don’t you see I’m empty?”

“That’s more like it,” his father grunted. He tossed him a coin; Vladek caught it expertly and put it in his pocket. Checking that Pyotr wasn’t looking,Vladek put the bottle down in front of his father.

As they roared approval, not looking at him, Vladek snuck away. His bright eyes swept the bar, gauging the temperature outside, the patrons’ thirst, his boss’s level of intoxication. A rush swept through his body; it was as though his skin were tingling. Vladek had, he instantly realized, been preparing for this day for a long time. Now it was here, and he would risk everything. He was immediately, fiercely glad.

It was odd, he thought later, when there was time for reflection, how he hadn’t wondered what he was going to do. It all seemed so obvious. He ducked behind the bar, and under the guise of cleaning up, quietly opened the cash box. There were a few notes on the top; he left those and took the rest—all the other paper money and a few coins. Then he went to the coat cupboard; he ignored his little store of objects, except the pocket watch. He stole one of Pyotr’s furs and a pair of gloves, and stashed them by the door. Then he took a copy of the newspaper from somebody’s pocket; it would have the times of the local trains inside.

Nobody noticed Vladek scurrying about, even carrying a fur coat. He always hung the coats up and brushed off the snow. Nobody cared; they all just wanted their drink. And tonight he was more than usually attentive. Neither Pyotr, nor his father, Ivan—that was what they called him, Ivan Nikolaievich—was permitted to have an empty glass for even a second.

When the fire burned low in the grate and the ashes were starting to glow, most had left; even the men at his father’s table had thinned out. The pig was still drinking though, almost snorting the vodka; it would miss his mouth at times and drizzle down his cheeks like drool.Vladek noted it with an almost clinical hatred. The man had no control. He shamed himself. Really,Vladek thought, he would be doing him a favour.

Now there was nothing for it but to wait. Vladek took the vodka bottle back to his father’s table. They had all left, except the skinny man and the fellow with the moustache, Alexei.

His father yawned. “Take me now,” he said. “I’m tired. I have a family to get back to.” His eyes blurred with drunken tears. “My boys,” he said, nauseatingly. “I do everything for them. . . .”

“Right away,” Vladek said. He gently heaved the man to his feet. His father swayed, backwards, forwards, and stumbled, but Vladek was there. His arms darted out and caught him before he hit the sawdust on the floor.

“I’m getting a whore,” Alexei said. He cackled.Vladek considered doing something about him, but decided no; he didn’t want additional distractions.

Slowly, he dragged his father into his coat. It was a well-made fur, better than Pyotr’s, waiting by the door. As Ivan mumbled curses at him, Vladek put on the stolen coat and slipped the money and watch into his pocket. He put the gloves on, too. They were necessary; as soon as he opened the door, the cold hit him in the face like a punch. Alexei would not get lucky tonight; the whores were long gone.

“Which is your car?” Vladek said, like he didn’t know. It was the sturdy little Moskovich, standard black, with only one dent on the fender. A working car for a rich party man.

“Tha. . . . ,” said Ivan. He drunkenly fumbled in his pocket for the keys. Vladek was there before him; he fished them out between a thumb and forefinger, and dragged the man to the vehicle. He unlocked it, and shoved Ivan into the front seat; then turned the key in the ignition.

Vladek felt powerful. He pressed his foot on the gas, and the car sped off down the road, bumping over the potholes, going towards the city. In the seat next to him, his father’s head lolled back, and he started to snore.

Vladek enjoyed the drive. It was more than the strangeness of the big machine, headlights on, eating up the road; it was the knowledge that he was now a criminal, running away, running to his destiny. If they caught him, it would be the gulag. But that was of no concern; they wouldn’t catch him.The police out here were slugs like Ivan. They didn’t care about anything other than warmth and women and booze. By the time they even started to look for him, he would be long gone. In America perhaps, or London. Living the good life.

Okay, he could see Vladivostok now; the lights of the city sparkled below him, at the foot of the hill, like diamonds scattered on black velvet. He drove a little further; it would maybe snow, and he had to be within easy walking distance, in case the car failed once he was done. When he’d found the right spot,Vladek pulled over by the side of the road. He let the car idle, went around to the passenger side and dragged his drunken father out, onto the snow.

The man’s eyes flickered as the cold air hit his face. It was truly freezing now.Vladek reached down and scooped up some snow in his gloved hands. He then rubbed it on his father’s cheeks, and Ivan woke up, completely, angrily. He stared drunkenly at Vladek.

He looked at Vladek’s eyes. “No!” he shouted. He swung a heavy fist towards the boy, who yawned and sidestepped it, then aimed a sharp, vicious kick to Ivan’s groin.

Agonizing pain flared through him. He groaned and fell to one knee, throwing up under a tree. A little flurry of snow drifted from the lower branch onto his head.Vladek noted that the man had a bald patch. This infuriated him; he didn’t want to go bald. He kicked Ivan again, harder.

“I didn’t!” Ivan said. He moaned again, then twisted his head, looked at Vladek. Even through the pain and fear, there was curiosity. Vladek hated him. Where had that emotion been when his mother was pregnant?

“Yeah. It was cold in the orphanage too. Lots of days,”Vladek said. The fury and hatred rose in him. He reached forward, while his father moaned and begged, and circled his neck with his hands. Then he choked him, squeezing violently, while Ivan kicked and jerked. His legs landed on Vladek a couple of times, but he ignored the pain. He stared at his father until his terrified eyes rolled back in his head.

Vladek let go, checked for a pulse. There was none. He took the money from his father’s wallet, then kicked some snow on top of him. Later tonight the white blanket would come down. It would not melt; there would be more and more snow.

Maybe they would find Ivan in the spring. Maybe not. He really didn’t care either way. He got back in the car, whose engine was still running, and closed the door. Then he drove carefully down the hill, towards the city.