22

Mitya and Marina had been meeting up occasionally for ice cream, which seemed like such a decadence in the winter. From bits and pieces, and the way she sometimes omitted details in her stories, Mitya figured that she was still seeing Sasha. It was okay, as long as she was happy and Mitya didn’t have to communicate with him. The last week of February, Marina invited Mitya on an outing.

“There is a concert that some of Gleb’s friends are doing somewhere to the south of where I live. Do you want to come with me? These people are all so intellectual; I can’t bear them. But it’ll be easier with you.”

Mitya was surprised to hear that she was doing something with Gleb, whose name he hadn’t heard from her for a long time, but he agreed to go with her. They planned to meet in the subway and then go to the concert together with Gleb. It was taking place in an abandoned building and getting there on their own could prove challenging since neither Mitya nor Marina knew Moscow well.

When Mitya arrived at their meeting point, Marina and Gleb were already there. Marina seemed to have blossomed: Mitya had almost forgotten how pretty she could be when happy. She looked at Gleb with such tenderness and longing that Mitya almost became jealous. He didn’t want Marina to look the same way at him, no, but he wanted someone else to do it.

Gleb was also excited about the event they were about to attend and kept talking about it. It was an annual celebration of the Unknown Artist’s Day, which happened every first of March, or Pervomart. The previous year it had taken place at an abandoned hospital, and this year they’d picked a high-rise building that had been ditched mid-construction.

“So who is the unknown artist?” Marina asked.

“That’s the point. The true artist is unknown,” Gleb explained.

“Why is he being celebrated, then?”

“It’s not a he. The unknown artist has no gender, and no name. It’s not a man or a woman at all.”

Mitya was interested. Would he want to become an unknown artist, then? If he understood Gleb correctly, you couldn’t be an unknown artist, because it was a concept, a metaphor. Mitya wanted Gleb to elaborate about the gender, but he couldn’t think of the right question to prompt him.

Marina became interested in something else entirely: she wanted to know how they would be able to get into a construction site and not be caught. Did Gleb worry that someone was going to get hurt? Gleb answered her questions with vague condescension as if she were a loved but ignorant child. Marina didn’t notice or preferred not to notice.

Though Sasha was one of the most abhorrent people he’d ever met, Mitya felt like he was at least more genuine in his approach to Marina. He seemed to be in love with her. And Gleb, while smitten too, showed signs of annoyance.

The building was not guarded at all, but to get to the twenty-second floor where the performance was taking place, they had to climb concrete stairs that looked solid enough but seemed to float from floor to floor precariously. They made pit stops every few flights or so, usually prompted by Marina, who would run out of breath quickly and flushed from the exertion. Gleb appeared restless and wanted to smoke during most of these stops, especially when someone passed them by as if it were a race.

When they made it to the performance floor, Mitya discovered that the genderlessness to which Gleb had alluded was also merely a concept. The people there looked pretty much like those he had seen at the apartment concert, only dressed more warmly, most of them in leather or puff jackets and jeans. Some men had long hair, but there was nothing there that he hadn’t seen on the Old Arbat before. There was no particular showcase of genderlessness.

Gleb went to mingle with the other visitors. They all seemed to be his friends and acquaintances. So while he was occupied, Marina urged Mitya to stand to the side.

“I honestly don’t understand what they’re doing here,” Marina confessed. “But don’t tell Gleb, because I think he’s already ashamed of having come with me. I’m not as smart as all these girls that he’s studying with.” She nodded at a bunch of young women, who were wearing glasses and were dressed like they were middle-aged.

“You’re much prettier than all of them,” Mitya said earnestly, and Marina was delighted, because she thought so too.

Neither Mitya nor Marina enjoyed the performance much. The music was amplified by some boxes that the participants attached to their guitars. The sound filled the cavernous space with an echo, and Mitya could not make out the words. The bass line was loud, and it kept making Mitya’s throat vibrate. It was a weird, ticklish sensation. The rhythm was enough to provoke the majority of men in the audience to jump around, banging their bodies against each other. Gleb, an eager participant in it, later told them that jumping like that was called “slam.” Despite the cold, some men were so energized that they shed most of their clothing for the duration of the slam.

“Looks painful,” Marina said, squirming, and Mitya nodded.

Even when Little Foxes, whom Mitya was happy to recognize, went on stage, it was not the same as when he saw them at that apartment. Perhaps because the intimacy of the small space was lost, Seva seemed to be too concerned with providing the right kind of feeling to the slamming crowd. His energy was palpable, but a few minutes in you could see a strain in the fragile boy. He drank something from a thermos as if to try and regain some energy, and Mitya saw how hard it was for him.

When Marina and Mitya went to track down Gleb, they discovered Seva and Gleb talking to each other. It turned out that Seva was interested in chemistry, and was asking Gleb’s advice about preparing for his school exams.

“How did you like it?” Seva asked Marina and Mitya. “This was your first Pervomart, right?”

“I loved it,” Marina lied, and Mitya saw Gleb’s eyes brighten. He had not been expecting her to appreciate it but was thankful for this answer, even if he also knew she wasn’t telling the truth.

“I thought it was too loud. I so much preferred the apartment concert,” Mitya said.

“Oh, me too. But we have to get out of our usual space to create a sustainable counterculture. At least, that’s what the guys keep telling me.” Seva smiled. “I just want to be able to do it for as long as I can. I don’t want to be popular or anything.”

Though the concert was over, the crowd was still enflamed with the excitement of the slam. A bunch of guys began dislodging a cast iron bathtub from a place where it was attached to the floor. Once they were able to pry it off the ground, they picked it up and threw it over the edge of the building. From where Mitya was standing, he couldn’t see the fall, but when it landed, what seemed like a half a minute later, there was a loud noise.

“I hope they don’t kill anyone.” Marina knit her brows.

“This is the energy we need to cultivate. It can start revolutions,” Gleb said, and Seva nodded along.

“Do you want a revolution?” Marina asked.

“Of course we do. Do you see where the country is going?” Gleb’s eyes narrowed as if he was again suspicious of Marina.

“When has it ever gone anywhere good?”

“Exactly,” Seva said calmly, which seemed to ground both Gleb and Marina. “Once the revolution is over, everyone is always proclaiming that the people participating in it were wild, bloodthirsty, and excessively violent. That the way to do it would be through a peaceful referendum. Only the next peaceful referendum will never solve anything.”

“Marina’s from Donetsk and her father is a miner. Which makes it even more strange that she doesn’t understand the urgency of change,” Gleb said, and Mitya saw how much this annoyed Marina.

“Then, by all means, she knows more than we do,” Seva said, peacefully, though Marina’s face was a flame of anger next to his pale one. “Anyway, I have to go, my blood sugar’s getting low, and I don’t like to keep Babushka waiting. I’ll see you around, guys,” Seva said, and shook their hands.

Once Seva had left, Marina erupted at Gleb.

“Maybe I don’t have time to think about the urgency of change because I’m too busy earning money to send back home?”

Gleb shrank back.

“I didn’t realize you did that,” Mitya said. He thought about the money she’d given to him, and shame, hot and sticky, clung to his skin.

“Of course I do. There’s no work back home. Papa keeps drinking. Mama was fired. My sister is pregnant again. And my brother-in-law is on a measly pension because he hurt his eyes in the mine. We don’t even know if he’ll regain his sight, if he’ll ever be able to work again.”

“You never told me that, Marina,” Gleb said, a mix of hurt and accusation in his voice.

“As if there’s nothing better to talk about.”

“Is that why you had the thing with the boss? For money?”

“Of course, the khokhlushka is also a prostitute. I had the thing with the boss because I’m a free woman, and you should respect that, with your revolutionary vision.”

“I’m sorry.” Gleb reached out for her but Marina walked a few meters away from them and lit a cigarette.

“But why is this happening?” Mitya asked. “Why are people losing jobs? It seems so unfair.”

“They’ve privatized everything, that’s why,” Gleb answered. “Where did your parents work before the fall of the Soviet Union?”

“Rubin factory. Where they make the TVs.”

“Are they still working there?”

“No.”

“See, that’s not a coincidence. Do you know why they were fired?”

“No. I didn’t ever really think about it,” Mitya confessed.

“Because the government has sold everything that it owned to rich guys. And the rich guys don’t care if your mamochka and papochka have jobs. They want to hire new people for less money or sell the whole thing to someone else. So they fire everyone. What does your mother do now?”

“She cleans apartments.”

“And your papa?”

“He’s a guard at a supermarket.”

“At least they have that. My father has been out of a job for two years now since his research institute closed, and I don’t think he’ll find another job soon.” Gleb looked down, clearly pained by the thought. “Meanwhile, the government is not helping, because it has no income now: its factories and research facilities are not there anymore to bring in the funds! It’s all a vicious circle, where only the rich get richer.”

Mitya had never considered any of this. His parents seemed to him abstract entities who existed by particular arrangements. But he had never tried to describe them through the same notions that he used to apply to himself, like justice or truth. And now that he saw what had happened to them, and what had happened to Vovka, it seemed self-evident that something was massively wrong with the system that was in place.

They stayed in silence for a while. Marina, smoking in the distance, was visibly upset. Gleb looked uncomfortable. Mitya wanted more time to think. A group of people, including some of the musicians, started to head out, and Mitya, Marina, and Gleb followed them. The stairs looked even more precarious on the way down. Gleb joined some other people ahead because Marina refused to take his hand. So Mitya was the one leading her. It was nice not to have to talk, but Mitya’s mind was overcrowded with thoughts.

He felt small. Not in terms of age, or stature, but his whole existence suddenly felt insignificant. He had thought that he was concerned with many important things, like Valerka’s murder, Zolotoy’s life, Marina’s well-being, and his inability to be safe at home. But everything was so much bigger and more dire than he had imagined. Besides, he hadn’t had any success with the murder investigation or tracking Zolotoy. He had to hide in the library to avoid Vovka. And, as it turned out, he had only made Marina’s situation more uncertain by accepting her money. It seemed like the whole world was a web of sticky injustices that you couldn’t avoid at any turn. What was the reason that people kept on enduring this?

They walked in a small crowd even after they’d descended the stairs. There was only one way to the elektrichka, the commuter rail. Gleb was walking slightly ahead with his friends, while Mitya and Marina tagged along behind, still holding hands, though the ground seemed less dangerous. It was not paved, and the areas covered in snow could hold something terrible beneath them. Mitya thought about reading in the newspapers how once the snow melts in the spring, people keep discovering bodies. They usually called them “snowdrops,” like the tiny white flowers that bloom before the thaw. Mitya wanted to tell this to Marina, but the mood didn’t seem right at all.

They didn’t speak throughout the walk or the ride on the elektrichka. At one point Mitya overheard some guy ask Gleb why his girlfriend was so gloomy. He must have thought that she wouldn’t hear it over the wobble of the train, or didn’t care. Mitya heard, and Marina must have heard, too, but she didn’t show it. Gleb, however, answered that it was none of the guy’s business, and that made Mitya respect him more. And he hoped that Marina noticed it too.

After they reached the Paveletskaya station and got on the Koltsevaya metro line, Marina told Gleb that she wanted to take Mitya home before going to her place.

“It’s only six o’clock,” Gleb said. “Don’t you want to hang out more?”

“I know, but I’m tired. You can go ahead with the guys from the band or something,” she reassured. “I’ll be fine.”

Gleb seemed anxious to join the musicians, so after some back-and-forth, he agreed. Once Marina and Mitya were the only people from the event left in the train car, she said that she was in the mood for a party. They left the metro on Park Kultury, earlier than the stop they needed to transfer.

“It’s nice out; we’ll walk you home down the boulevards. Have you ever walked down the boulevards?”

Mitya shook his head.

“See, that’s perfect. Have you ever heard any songs by Yanka?”

“No.”

“I love her. I’m sure those guys think it’s a bit too mainstream, although she was a real punk, Yanka. She committed suicide the year after Tsoi died. And she was even younger than him. And more talented.”

They emerged into the crisp air. The temperature had only dropped to zero Celsius by night, so it was comfortable enough. Marina led Mitya over to where the street was at its widest, with the cars speeding to their left, and started singing.

Why don’t you join me for a promenade of the railroad trackside?

We could sit on pipes at the bottom of the city beltway.

Our warm wind will be the exhaust from the factory smokestack.

Our guiding star will be the yellow plate of the traffic light.

If we both get lucky until dark, we won’t return to cages.

We must learn to dig ourselves into the ground in just two seconds,

To stay lying there when gray cars ride over our bodies,

Carrying away those who couldn’t and who wouldn’t mess around with dirt.

Passersby noticed them, cast strange glances, and hurried off into their busy lives. Marina’s voice rang like it was made of crystal breaking against the air. She kept looking at Mitya, not smiling, but not frowning either, a calmness that fit her face like the freckles did.

If we are on time, we’ll keep on crawling on the railroad forward.

You will see the sky and I will see the soil on your shoe soles.

We must burn our clothes in the furnace if we’re to return there,

If we’re not greeted on the threshold by the blue-capped people.

If they greet us, you stay hush about our promenade of the railroad trackside.

That’s the first sign of a crime or of mental disorder,

And Iron Felix will be smiling from his portrait.

It will take so long, but it will be so justifiable.

A punishment for promenading on the railroad trackside.

A justifiable punishment for promenading on the railroad trackside.

We’ll be killed for promenading on the railroad trackside.

“That was amazing,” Mitya said. “Now I can say I was at a real concert.”

Marina punched him on the shoulder lightly.

“Me too. And now I feel like getting drunk.”