Life’s a bitch! I can tell you…it’s no picnic. I’ve never seen anything good or beautiful in this life. I can’t think of a single thing…You could put a gun to my head, I still wouldn’t be able to think of anything! I’ve tried poisoning myself, hanging myself. Three suicide attempts so far…Most recently, I slit my wrists. [She shows me her bandaged arm.] Right here, in this spot…I got rescued then slept for a week. Just kept sleeping and sleeping. That’s how my body works…The psychiatrist came, she told me to talk, keep talking, just like you’re doing right now…What’s there to say? Death doesn’t scare me…You shouldn’t have come, and you shouldn’t stay. Won’t do you any good!
[She turns to the wall and is silent. I want to leave, but she stops me.]
Fine, listen…This is all true…
When I was still little…One day, I came home from school, went to bed, and the next morning, I couldn’t get up. They took me to the doctor—no diagnosis. So then we went off to find a wise woman—a magic healer. Someone gave us an address…The wise woman laid out the cards and told my mother, “Go home and cut open the pillow your daughter sleeps on. You’ll find a piece of a tie and chicken bones inside. Hang the tie from a cross by the side of the road and feed the bones to a black dog. Your daughter will get up and walk. Someone put a curse on her.” I’ve never seen anything good or beautiful in this life…As for this slitting my wrists thing, it’s nothing, I’m just sick of struggling. It’s been like this since I was little: There’s nothing but vodka in the fridge. In our village, everyone over the age of twelve drinks. Good vodka is expensive, so people drink moonshine and cologne, glass cleaner and acetone. They make vodka out of shoe polish and glue. Many young men die—from that vodka, of course—it’s toxic. I remember how one of our neighbors used to get drunk and fire birdshot at the apple trees. Call his whole household to arms…Our grandfather also drank into old age. At seventy, he could put away two bottles in a single night. And he was proud of it, too. He’d returned from the war covered in medals—a hero! For a long time, he’d just parade around in his army jacket, drinking, carousing, having a gay old time. While my grandmother worked. Because Grandpa was a hero…He would beat my grandmother half to death. I’d crawl around on my knees in front of him begging him not to lay his hands on her. He chased us around the house with an axe…We’d sleep at the neighbors’. In their barn. He hacked the dog to pieces. My grandpa made me hate all men. I was planning on staying single.
When I moved to the city, I was afraid of everything: all the cars, all the people. But everyone moves to the city, so I did, too. My older sister lived here, she took me in. “You’ll go to school and be a waitress. You’re pretty, Tamara. You’ll find yourself a nice army man to marry. A pilot.” A pilot—yeah, right! My first husband was short and had a limp. My girlfriends tried to talk me out of it: “Why him? There are so many good-looking guys who are into you!” But I’ve always loved movies about war, women waiting for their husbands to return from the front, no matter what condition they were in—no arms, no legs, just as long as they were alive. My grandma told me how one man came back to our village without any legs, so his wife would carry him around everywhere. And still, he drank and raised hell. He’d pass out in a ditch and she’d pick him up, wash him off in the trough, and set him down on a clean bed. I thought that that must be what real love is…I don’t really understand what love is…I took pity on him, coddled him. We ended up with three kids, but meanwhile, he’d started drinking. He’d threaten me with a knife. Wouldn’t let me sleep on the bed…I’d lie there on the floor…I developed a reflex, like one of Pavlov’s dogs: If my husband walked in, the kids and I would go out. Everything I can remember makes the tears run down my face…Or it makes me just want to say to hell with it all! I’ve never had anything beautiful or good happen to me, those things only happen in the movies. On TV. And that’s it…so you can sit there with someone and dream…think about good things…
When I was pregnant with my second child, I got a telegram from the village: “Come to the funeral. Mother.” A little while before that, a gypsy at the train station had told my fortune: “A long road awaits you. You’re going to bury your father and weep for a long time.” I didn’t believe her. My father was healthy, a calm presence. It was my mother who drank, she’d start first thing in the morning, while he’d go out and milk the cow, make some potatoes—he did everything himself. He loved her deeply, she’d put a spell on him, she knew how to do that kind of thing. Some kind of potion was involved. I went home…I was sitting next to the coffin weeping when the neighbor girl came up and whispered in my ear, “She killed him with the cast-iron pot and told me not to tell. She promised that she’d buy me chocolates…” I felt sick, nauseated from fear…from the horror…When there was no one else home—everyone had gone out—I undressed my father and searched his body for bruises. There weren’t any, but I did find a big wound on his head. I showed my mother, and she said that he’d been chopping wood when a stick flew up and hit him. I sat up all night weeping…While I was sitting there I got the feeling that he wanted to tell me something, but my mother wouldn’t leave, she stayed sober all night and never left me alone with him. In the morning, I saw a tear of blood appear from underneath his eyelashes. Out of one eye, then the other…The tears streamed down his face as though he were alive…It was terrifying! It was winter. At the graveyard, they’d had to break up the frozen ground with a crowbar. They’d warmed the soil by building a fire in the grave pit, burning birch logs and old tires. The men demanded a whole case of vodka for their efforts. As soon as they buried my father, my mother got plastered. She sat there all happy. While I wept…Even now, all of this makes my tears come down like hail…My own mother…she gave birth to me. She’s supposed to be the person I’m closest to…As soon as I left, she sold the house, burnt down the barn for insurance money and came out to live with me in the city. She found herself another husband immediately…She worked fast…He kicked out his son and daughter-in-law and put his apartment in her name. She lured men in, she knew how do that…She’d cast spells on them…[She rocks her bandaged arm like it’s a baby.] Meanwhile, my husband would chase me around the house with a hammer, he fractured my skull twice. A bottle of vodka, a pickle in each pocket, and he’s out the door. Where was he running off to? The children went hungry…All we had to eat were potatoes, and on holidays, potatoes with milk or a can of sprats. Try saying something to him about it when he gets home. All that will get you is a glass in the face and a chair flying at the wall…At night, he’d pounce on me like a beast…There’s never been anything good in my life, not even some small thing. I go to work all beat up, my eyes red from crying, but my job is to smile and bow to people. The head manager at the restaurant will call me into his office: “I don’t need any tears around here. My own wife has been paralyzed for a year already.” And then he’ll try to get in my pants…
My new stepfather didn’t even last two years…She called me up one day: “Come over and help me bury him. We’ll take him down to the crematorium.” I almost passed out from the shock. But then I came to—I had to go. My only thought was: “What if she killed him?” She killed him so she could have the apartment to herself and drink and party. Right? Now she’s scrambling to take him down to the crematorium. To burn the body. Before his kids get there…His eldest son is a major, he’ll fly in from Germany, but all that’ll be left is a handful of ashes…one hundred grams of fine powder in a little white vase. From all the shock, I stopped getting my period. For two years, I didn’t bleed. When it started up again, I begged the doctors, “Cut everything female out of me, give me surgery, I don’t want to be a woman anymore! I don’t want to be anyone’s lover! Or wife, or mother!” My own mother…She gave birth to me…I wanted to love her…When I was little, I’d ask her, “Kiss me, Mommy.” But she was always drunk…My father would leave for work, and the house would fill up with drunken men. One of them dragged me into bed with him…I was eleven…I told my mother, but all she did was yell at me. She drank and drank…All she ever did was drink and party, her whole life. Then, all of a sudden, it came time to die! She didn’t want to. Not for anything in the world. She was fifty-nine: One of her breasts was removed, then, six weeks later, the other. She was seeing this younger man, this guy fifteen years younger than her. “Take me to a wise woman!” she cried. “Save me!” But she kept getting worse and worse…Her boyfriend took care of her, emptied her bedpan, bathed her. She wasn’t even considering dying…“But if I do,” she told me, “I’m leaving everything to him. The apartment and the TV, too.” She wanted to hurt me and my sister…She was cruel…and she loved being alive. She clung to life greedily. Finally, we took her to the wise woman, we had to carry her out of the car. The woman prayed, laid out the cards. “Oh?” And she got right up. “Take her away! I’m not going to try to heal her…” My mother yelled at us, “Leave. I want to be alone with her…” But the woman told us, “Don’t move!” She wouldn’t let us go…She looked at the cards again. “I’m not going to try to heal her. She’s put more than one man in his grave. And as soon as she got sick, she went to the church and lit two candles…” My mother: “For the health of my children…” The woman: “No, it was for the peace of their souls. You prayed for your children’s death. You thought that if you gave them up to God, He would let you live.” After I heard those words, I made sure to never be alone with her. I lived in fear of her. I knew that I was weak and that she’d get the better of me…Whenever I went to see her, I’d bring my eldest daughter with me. My mother would get furious when my girl would ask me for something to eat: There she was dying, while somebody else was hungry, somebody else would get to keep living. She took scissors and cut up her brand-new bedcover and tablecloth so that no one could have them after she died. She smashed her plates. Everything she could, she destroyed. You couldn’t get her to the bathroom, she would go on the floor or in her bed on purpose so that I would have to clean it up…She was taking revenge on us for staying alive. For the fact that we were going to get to keep walking around, talking. She hated everyone! If a bird flew up to her window, she would have killed it, too. But it was spring…Her apartment was on the ground floor…The smell of lilacs everywhere…She kept gulping for air, she couldn’t get enough. “Bring me a branch from the courtyard,” she asked. I brought her one, and the second she touched it, it shrivelled, the leaves curled up. Then she said to me, “Let me hold your hand…” The healer had warned me that a person who’s done evil deeds has a long, tormented death. You have to either take apart the ceiling or pull out all the windowpanes—otherwise, their soul won’t leave, it can’t break free of the body. And no matter what, don’t give them your hand, or you’ll catch their disease. “What do you need my hand for?” She quieted down, lay low. The end was near, but she still wouldn’t tell us or show us where she put the clothes that she wanted to be buried in. Where she’d stashed away the money to pay for her funeral. I was afraid that she would smother me and my daughter with pillows in our sleep. Anything seemed possible…I’d close my eyes, but kept peeking: How would her soul leave her body? What was it like, this soul of hers? Would there be a light or a little cloud? People have said and written all sorts of things, but no one has ever really seen a soul. One morning, I ran out to the store and asked her neighbor to watch her. Her neighbor took her hand, and that’s when she finally died. At the last moment, she cried out something incomprehensible. She’d called someone’s name…Whose? The neighbor didn’t remember. No one she’d ever heard of. I washed her and dressed her myself. I had no feelings, it was as though she were an object. A pot. No feelings, my feelings were hidden somewhere. It’s all true…Some friends of hers came over, stole her phone…All of our relatives showed up, our middle sister came out from the village. My mother lay there…My sister started pulling her eyes open. “Why are you molesting our dead mother?” “Remember how she tormented us when we were little? She liked it when we cried. I hate her.”
The relatives all got together, and the bickering began…They started divvying up her stuff that very night, while she still lay there in her coffin. Someone was packing up her TV, someone else, her sewing machine…They took the gold earrings off her dead body. Ransacked the house for money—didn’t find any. I just sat there and wept. I even started feeling sorry for her. The next day, she was cremated…We decided that we’d take the urn to the village and bury it next to my father even though she hadn’t wanted that. In fact, she’d ordered us not to bury her next to my father. She was scared. What if there was an afterlife? She and my father are bound to meet somewhere…[She stops.] I don’t have many tears left in me…I’m surprised at how little I care about any of it anymore. Life and death. Good and bad people. I don’t give a damn…When destiny doesn’t take a shine to you, there’s nowhere to run. You won’t escape your fate. Yes…My older sister, the one I’d lived with, got married a second time and moved to Kazakhstan. I loved her…and I had this premonition. My heart told me that she should not marry this man. There was something I didn’t like about her second husband. “No, he’s a good guy,” she assured me. “I pity him.” When he was eighteen, he’d landed in prison for killing a guy in a drunken fight. They gave him five years, but he was out in three. He started coming around, bringing presents. Whenever his mother ran into my sister she’d start trying to talk her into it. Beg her. She’d say: “Men always need nannies. A good wife is a little like a mother to her husband. On their own, men become wolves, they’ll eat off the floor…” And my sister bought it! She’s the pitying kind, just like me. “I’ll make him into a good man.” I spent all night next to my mother’s coffin with the two of them. And he was so nice to my sister, so gentle, I was even a little jealous. Ten days later, I got a telegram: “Aunt Tamara, come. Mama died. Anya.” That was her daughter, the eleven-year-old, who had sent the telegram. We’d just carried out one coffin, and another one had already arrived…[She cries.] He’d gotten drunk and jealous. Stomped on her, stabbed her with a fork. Raped her dead body…He was drunk or high, I don’t know what…In the morning, he told his work that his wife had died, and they gave him the money to pay for the funeral. He handed it to Anya, then went down to the police station to turn himself in. Now the girl lives with me. She doesn’t want to go to school, there’s something wrong with her, she can’t remember anything. She’s afraid of everything…afraid of leaving the house. As for him…They gave him ten years. Watch him come back to live with her after they let him out. What a dad!
When I got divorced from my first husband, I thought that I would never let another man into my house ever again. No man will set foot in here! I was sick of crying, walking around covered in bruises. What good are the police? They’ll come once, but if you call again, they’ll tell you: “You’re just having family issues.” On the floor above us, in the same building where we live, a man ended up killing his wife—only then did they show up in their cars with the flashing lights, write up a report, lead him away in handcuffs. He’d been torturing her for ten years…[She beats her fist on her chest.] I don’t like men. I’m scared of them. I have no idea how I ended up married a second time. He’d returned from Afghanistan shell-shocked, twice wounded. A paratrooper. Still, to this day, he hasn’t removed his striped undershirt. He’d been living with his mother in the building across from ours. In the same courtyard. He’d come out and sit there playing the accordion, or just songs on a stereo…songs about the Afghan war, sad stuff. I had war on the brain…I was always so scared of those damn mushroom clouds…Atom bombs. I used to like it when young people—a bride and groom—would go straight from the marriage registration office to pay their respects at the Eternal Flame with a bouquet. I loved it! It’s so noble! One day, I sat down next to him on the bench: “What is war?” “War is when you really want to live.” I felt bad for him. He’d never known his father, his mother had been disabled since childhood. If he’d had a father, they would have never sent him to Afghanistan. His father would have protected him, paid them off like other people do. But he and his mother…I went over to their apartment, and all they had was a bed and some chairs, his medal from Afghanistan hanging on the wall. I took pity on him, I didn’t think of myself. We moved in together. He came with a towel and a spoon. Brought his medal. And the accordion.
I made it all up…this fantasy that he’s a hero…a defender. I’d crowned him myself and told the kids he was a Tsar. We’re living with a hero! He’d performed his soldier’s duty and really suffered for it. I’ll melt his heart with my love…save him…A regular Mother Teresa! I’m not a very religious person, all I ever say is “Lord, forgive us.” Love is a kind of wound…You start feeling sorry for the other person. If you love them, you pity them…that comes first…He’d “run” in his sleep: His legs wouldn’t move, but his muscles twitched like he was really running. Sometimes he’d run like that all night long. In the middle of the night, he’d scream “Dushari! Dushari!” Those were the dukhi—the “spirits”—Afghan mujahideen. He’d cry out to the commander and his brothers-in-arms, “Pass them from the flank!” “Grenades ready!” “Make a smoke screen…” One time, he nearly killed me when I tried to wake him up: “Kolya! Kolya! Wake up!” The truth is, I even fell in love with him…I learned a lot of Afghan war words from him: zindan, bochata, duval…Barbukhaika…“Khodahafez!”*1—“So long, Afghanistan!” For a year, we were happy together. We really were! He made a little money, he’d bring home canned meat, his favorite food. Since Afghanistan. They used to go up into the mountains and bring canned meat and vodka. He taught us how to perform first aid, which plants are edible, how to trap animals. He told us that turtle meat tasted sweet. “So did you really shoot people?” “You didn’t have a choice out there, it’s either you or them.” I forgave him everything because of how much he’d suffered…I tied this burden onto myself…
And now…His friends will drag him home at night and leave him on the doorstep. Without his shirt or watch, lying there naked from the waist up…The neighbors will call me: “Come and get him, Tamara! Or he’ll give up the ghost out there in the cold.” I’ll pull him into the house. He’ll be crying, sobbing, rolling around on the ground. He can’t hold down a job; he’s been a security guard, a bodyguard…He always either needs a drink or he’s hung over. He’s drunk everything away…You never know if there’s going to be anything to eat at home. He’ll either beat the shit out of me or plant himself in front of the TV. Our neighbors rent a room to this Armenian…Once, he said something that my husband didn’t like, and the poor guy ended up on the ground covered in blood with his teeth knocked out and a broken nose. Kolya just doesn’t like Eastern people. I’m afraid of going to the market with him because all the sellers there are Uzbek and Azerbaijani. Any little thing could set him off…He has this saying: “For every twisted asshole there’s a threaded screw.” They knock the price down for him, they want nothing to do with him. “An Afghanistan vet…a whack-job…a devil!” He beats the kids. My youngest son loves him, when he used to try to get close to him, he’d smother him with a pillow. Now, as soon as he comes through the door, my son runs to his bed and goes to sleep—closes his eyes so that he won’t beat him. Or he’ll hide all the pillows under the sofa. All I can do is weep…or…[She points to her bandaged arm.] On Paratroopers Day, his friends all get together…all of them in their striped shirts, just like him…They get completely trashed! Piss all over my bathroom. They’re all messed up in the head…Delusions of grandeur: We fought in a war! We’re tough! The first toast is always: “The world is shit, all people are whores, and the sun is just a fucking streetlight.” And on it goes until the morning: “To resting in peace,” “To health,” “To medals,” “Death to them all.” Things haven’t worked out for them…I couldn’t tell you if it’s because of the vodka or the war. They’re mean as wolves! They hate the Jews and all people from the Caucasus. The Jews, because they killed Christ and ruined Lenin’s plan. Home life is no fun for them anymore: Wake up, wash up, eat breakfast. It’s boring! At the drop of a hat—just call ’em up—they’d all march straight to Chechnya. To be heroes again! There’s this bitterness left over, they’re mad at everybody: the politicians, the generals, and everyone who wasn’t there with them. Especially the last category…more than the rest…Just like my husband, many of them don’t have any sort of career. Or they all have the same career: walking around with a handgun. They say they drink because everyone here betrayed them…Boo-hoo! They drank when they were out there, too, and they don’t try to hide it: “Without a hundred grams of vodka, the Russian soldier won’t make it to victory,” “If you leave one of our men in the middle of the desert, two hours later, he won’t have found any water, but he will be drunk.” They drank methyl alcohol, brake fluid…Drunk or high, they’d crash and burn…When they returned: One of them hanged himself, another one got shot in a street fight; one of them got beaten up so bad, he’s paralyzed now. Another one was so mentally damaged, they locked him up in the nuthouse…and these are just the ones I know about. Who knows what happened to the rest of them…The capitalists—you know, these new Russians—they hire them as thugs, pay them to shake their rivals down for debts. They’re trigger-happy, and they don’t feel pity for anyone. You think they’ll feel the least bit sorry for some twenty-year-old, crazy rich little punk, while all they have are medals, malaria, and hepatitis? No one ever felt sorry for them…They feel like shooting…Don’t write this down…It scares me…Conversations with them are short: They’ll put you up against the wall and shoot you in the head! They want to go to Chechnya because there’s freedom there, plus Russians are getting hurt…They dream of bringing back fur coats for their wives. Gold rings. My guy was dying to go there, too, but they don’t take drunks. There are plenty of healthy men willing to go. Every day, it’s the same thing, “Give me money.” “No.” “Heel, bitch!” And he’ll punch me in the face. Then he sits there crying. Throws himself on me: “Don’t leave me!” I felt sorry for him for a long time…[She weeps.]
Pity is an ugly thing…I won’t give in to it anymore…Don’t look for pity from me! Eat up your own vomit with your own goddamn spoon. Pick up your own mess! Forgive me, oh Lord, if you really do exist. Forgive me!
I come home from work in the evening…I hear his voice. He’s training my son. At this point, I know the routine by heart: “Stop! Remember: You throw the grenade at the window and somersault here. Get on the ground. And then another one behind the column…” For crying out loud! “Four seconds and you’re out on the stairwell, you kick down the door and shift the machine gun to your left-hand side. The first guy goes down…the second one runs past…the third one covers him…Stop! Stop!!!” Stop…[She screams.] It terrifies me! How am I supposed to save my son? I asked my friends for help, one of them told me: “You have to go to church. Pray.” Another one took me to a wise woman…where else can I go? There’s no one else to turn to. The woman was as old as Koschei the Deathless.*2 She told me to come back the next day with a bottle of vodka. She walked around the apartment with the bottle, whispered to it, swept her hands over it, and handed it back to me. “The vodka is enchanted now. Give him a glass of it for two days in a row, on the third day, he won’t want it anymore.” And it really did work—for a month, he didn’t drink. But then he started again: He’ll stumble in plastered in the middle of the night, banging the pots and pans, demanding I feed him…I found another healer. That one read my cards, poured molten lead into a cup of water. Taught me simple spells to say over salt, over a handful of sand. Nothing helped! You can’t cure war and vodka…[She rocks her bandaged arm.] I’m so sick of it all! I don’t feel sorry for anyone anymore. Not the kids, not myself…I’m not asking her to come, but my mother keeps showing up in my dreams. Young and happy. She’s always laughing. I chase her away…Other times, I’ll see my sister, and she’s always somber. Every time, she asks me the same question: “Do you really think you can just switch yourself off like a light-bulb?” [She stops.]
All of this is true…I’ve never seen a beautiful thing. And never will. Yesterday, he showed up at the hospital: “I sold the rug. The kids were hungry.” My favorite rug. The one nice thing we had in the house…the one thing we had left. I scrimped and saved for an entire year to buy it. Kopeck by kopeck. I’d wanted that rug so bad…It’s from Vietnam. And just like that, he drank it away. The girls from work ran over: “Oh, Tamara, hurry up and come home. He’s fed up with your youngest, he’s been beating him. And your eldest (my sister’s daughter), she’s twelve now…You know yourself what can happen…One night he’ll be drunk and…”
I lie awake at night. I can’t sleep. And then I’ll drop into an abyss, fly off somewhere. I never know what I’ll be like when I wake up. I have these terrifying thoughts…
[She unexpectedly hugs me in parting.]
Remember me…
A year later, she made another suicide attempt. This one was successful. I learned that her husband had soon found himself another woman. I called her. “I feel sorry for him,” she told me. “I don’t love him, but I pity him. The only trouble is, he started drinking again even though he promised he would quit.”
Can you guess what she told me next?