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Translator Olga Simpson

© Anna Efimenko, 2021

© Olga Simpson, translation, 2021

ISBN 978-5-0053-1515-1

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

 
Like a driven wave,
 
 
Dashed by fierce winds on a rock,
 
 
So am I: alone
 
 
And crushed upon the shore,
 
 
Remembering what has been.
 
 
Minamoto no Shigeuki (1st century AD)
 

Prologue

My father threw me out of home in early June, at the beginning of summer.

Does a person with a clear and well spoken voice sounding like a devastating thunderstorm have any advantages of a man being mute from birth but not deaf? He certainly does, and this advantage is highly consequential. Time and time again, I kept coming to such a conclusion during my life, not long enough and quite uneventful. Making a start on events described in the book, the episode is further proof of that.

Having returned from my walk (I liked to take a walk with Marina every night in the local park), I found my father drunk and overly talkative. No wonder, this combination often ended up with controversy, bad arguments, and aggravation of conflicts, being sanded-down and trampled within time. In our case, the arguments usually quickly slowed down, as directing all his energy to his verbal apparatus, the father expelled saliva, made jokes, becoming sarcastic, while masterly inventing new denouncements. In turn, I shook my head or nodded depending on the situation, and made violent gestures. Not receiving any reprisal from me would only be a reflection of his aggression being voiced upon me, my father used to shrug his shoulders, spitting out, «Phooey on you!» and then disappear to the kitchen, where he had wine and read thick books half the night. In the morning, I often found him asleep on David Chandler or Horace Vernet’s endpapers with an empty bottle of Chardonnay nearby.

On such days, I took the keys to his car and drove away to the quarry with Marina or somewhere else further on, such as the lakes. There, we made bonfires and jumped through them, waving savagely with our hands, feeling something akin to pagan ecstasy. I brought photocopied sheets with fragments of my favorite poetry, so that Marina could chant them to me. She kept reading Eugene Onegin and Childe Harold to me a thousand times. The image of a romantic hero, disappointed and lonely, leaving his native land and going far away to meet new unknown horizons, somewhere to the east, to exotic countries, had always been very close to me, and Marina called this an incomplete phase of childish outburst.

By and large, I agreed with her, because age and the course of life slowly but surely thinned off the whole spiky nihilism of the brave young protesters, rolled the sharp corners of their characters smoothly, leaving no chances, but even any desire keep holding their own line, the one which had been already bent and curved in the past. Nevertheless, I have always sincerely admired people who live with an idea, as well as music, and other arts – honest people, targeted to their destiny. I was really fascinated by the French students in 1968 or those who chained themselves to the Pentagon in protest against the Vietnam War (Just listen: «Protest opposing…» these two words speak for themselves). Unfortunately, I got information about the majority of such examples only from print publications, chronicles or TV, I never watched it personally. However, deep inside, I always hoped, if not being on barricades, but at least to raise my collar with thunderous brows and, hobbling like someone you know who, get away somewhere for good.

The chance to do this fell upon me on that ill-fated night when in the midst of another heated argument my father uttered suddenly giving me his scathing look, «Get the hell out of here by tomorrow! Of course, I won’t kick you out tonight, Ajax, but be gone by tomorrow.» Looking about the room, the population and comfort of which was created by a rack with discs, pots with cactuses and my father who hated me, I’d got some flash in my mind that could only happen in dime novels, «All right, here’s for nothing. At least for me. As they used to sing in an ad when I was a child, Once in a lifetime kind of thing

So, I put a pile of сredit cards with different balance accounts into my wallet and a bundle of banknotes which had been put aside for buying my own car and our shared living together with Marina in future, then I started packing my suitcase. Looking at all this, father snickered, switched on a music player and left to the kitchen with utter disregard. Wasting a good half-hour with a broken suitcase zip, I got the second flash on my mind, this time it wasn’t worth a novelette, but a comedy movie. Half of my clothes (I should note, the best half) was spinning and spinning in the drum of the washing machine while I was having arguments with my father. They were absolutely unsuitable to be piled in such a dried condition. Then I started to lose my temper.

Dumping my wet belongings mixed with normal ones, not forgetting about the precious records, pages from books copied by hand for the sweet memory, three notepads (one to be kept into a breast pocket, together with a pen), personal cleansing and two pairs of glasses (sunscreen and with diopters), I forcefully zipped the mischievous zip, lifted the collar of my cloak up by sharp movement, gave a cold-hearted look to the bloody house and headed out of this place.

Hardly had I a cigarette outside, when a taxi arrived to pick me up right away, of which I was quite happy about, it was simply that I didn’t expect such a quick response in the middle of the night. I was about to write Marina’s address in the notepad, as something (I called it Providence later) stopped my lean hand. A teen idol was offering to win the prize, continued to pour from the blue screens somewhere at the back of my mind, «Once in a lifetime kind of thing.» I remembered while being a schoolboy I read a lot about the Second World War, and my late grandfather sent me a map of the place where he lived all his life: there was a war with Japan, there was the Hasan battle… On the back side of the map there was a globe, dotted with a grid of meridians and parallels, and a scenic airliner flying around it. Under the simple drawing there was a darkened inscription, «Welcome to our region!» At this point, I stopped thinking as if there was the beginning of the white film on the audio cassette – the right signal that the tape recorder would stop playing itself soon. This side of the recording was over. This side ended.

I dropped my pen, rummaged impatiently along the rubber car mat and as soon as I found my writing device again, I could write only one-word «Airport» and placed the notepad before the taxi driver (who had already started whistling impatiently). He gave me a price, I nodded, and we drove off.

The second surprise for the evening after my father’s weird behaviour was the cost of air tickets. It was so expensive that it seemed reasonable to me to save money buying a one-way ticket. True, inadequate ideas often come to my head, but fortunately, I have no regrets, and the above action is not an exception. While waiting for flight check-in, I tried to contact Marina to be able to write a message to her when I would hear the beeps. However, her phone was turned off, which is quite normal for a person who gets up for work at six in the morning. I had my poor luggage registered and was figuring out what kind of mildew the hidden clothes would cover after many hours in the air being put in the bowers.

When the flight was announced, coming to the security lane, I suddenly looked back and thought about something which was very typical for such a situation, «Am I doing the right thing? What awaits me in a completely unknown land? What will I gain there and what will I lose here?»

But there was nothing for me to lose, my whole former existence, if it had any value, would not slip like a sand into a gigantic immense place without leaving any single meaningful memory. Coming on board the ship, nineteen-year-old Harold didn’t torment himself with doubts, didn’t analyze and didn’t go for doubting anything. He had always been my favorite hero, and I never missed a chance being like him once again.

Well, today, in general, it was possible to arrange a tribute concert with my participation, so successfully I fit into all Byronic stencils:

Apart he stalked in joyless reverie,

And from his native land resolved to go,

And visit scorching climes beyond the sea

With pleasure drugged, he almost longed for woe,

And e’en for change of scene would seek the shades below.1

I straitened my shoulders proudly and moved forward, deliberately laming on one leg. A great many of people call their alter ego for help at critical moments: a certain confident, strong personality, which, it seems to them, is able to cope with unexpected problems. So, I stepped aboard a mighty airship! The next chair was occupied by a girl whose behavior promised me a perfectly quiet flight before the takeoff. She put some eye drops into her weary aqua blue eyes, put her headphones on, and wrapped herself in a blanket. I was on the phone with Marina at the last moment, «Flying off to Vladivostok. I’m going to text you later with more details when I have a chance.» A few moments later, a female voice with a metallic sound asked all passengers over the loudspeaker to turn off their electronic and radio devices. And in ten minutes, it was all over.

 

Chapter 1

A – Airport

«Vladivostok» is an international airport located 44 km from the city of Vladivostok, which is connected by road and passenger rail services to the airport station 6 km from the airport. There are a number of direct international flights to Seoul, Beijing, Dalian, Harbin, Osaka, Niigata, Toyama, as well as several seasonal international charter flights, mainly to China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam. It operates inland daily flights to Moscow, Khabarovsk, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. There are flights to St. Petersburg, Irkutsk, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg and other Russian cities. There are two passenger terminals and one cargo terminal at the airport. There are also two airfields: «Knevichi» designed for local and long-distance airlines as well as «Lake springs» for local airlines.

(Source: ru.wikipedia.org)

I arrived in the Primorsky Krai at four o’clock in the afternoon. My plane landed at Knevichi airport, designated strangely enough as the air gates of the main city of the region (though you could read the huge letters on the terminal building saying, «Vladivostok Airport»). Not far from here, at a distance of five kilometers, there is a small town called Artem. Miners used to live there, and the settlement was established thanks to the coal extraction, even the three jimmies are depicted lightened by the cheerful sun on the coat of arms. While two main enterprises being developed, aviators and energy men had become the majority of Artem.

During the flight I was reading a book, given to my father by my grandfather Henry. The book was titled «Civil Aviation of Primorye. Over the centuries.» It contained interesting destinations listed, or to make it sound better «air links»: Sidatun, Laulu, Terney… Most of them are Chinese names. During politically sensitive years, they were given rather down-to-earth Russian names, like, for example, the village of Melnichnoye. However, Terney kept its beautiful and proud name as a reminder of the French mark in the history of Primorsky Krai.

«Passenger flights Moscow-Vladivostok have been carried out on the Il-12 aircraft since 1948».2 I don’t have the imagination to feel what it’s like to overcome such vast distances being on such a tiny aircraft by today’s standards. But the back side of the mirror exists – people of the post-war era couldn’t overcome major distances on such a huge aircraft as the one that had just taken me to Primorye.

I twisted my neck trying to see the local landscape through the blindness of the window. I saw a bluish mountain range, spreading along the horizon as far as the eye could see when I left the aircraft and walked into the world. «It should be Sikhote-Alin3», I was full of childish rosy cheerful enthusiasm and continued glancing to the ridge of fells, reminding me of the Wizard of Oz and the Emerald City. The fells is a combination of sharp mountains and sloping hills. The definition «sopka» (fell) is a password to the Far Eastern diaspora for the West.

Receiving my luggage, I found myself on the terminal square and decided to ask around how to get to Artem that was supposedly nearby. In the parking, a lot of bored taxi drivers immediately expressed their desire to take me even to the end of the world for the right fee. But my gestured requests to take me to Artem were flatly refused. «Artem?, it is not far from here and unprofitable for us». However, there was another man who could understand me as I fiddled with my map. At first, he advised me to wait for a bus number seven, but I did not have a desire to study the local flavor in public transport. That was the reason I place myself in a taxi and hastily scribbled in a notepad: «I would like to have a look of Artem and listen to your story about it». The taxi driver nodded being slightly lost.

In the next five minutes, after a short trip along the highway with tired fields stretched around, bloodlessly embraced by the same fells, we ended up in the town.

Artem was planned as a city on flat land, which provided suitable conditions for an airport to be constructed, the runway, in particular. It’s about twenty kilometers to the seaside – quite far away by local standards, considering that the city of Vladivostok is surrounded by the sea almost everywhere.

My newly-minted guide was not interested in whether it was my first time here: that answer was obvious. The man showed me a couple of main attractions of the city from his driving seat: A road-header, installed on the pedestal as a symbol of miners labor and a Fighter Yak-38 placed forever in Aviator Park, the monument to the aviator’s feat. The majority of residential areas had five-story buildings. Near the city, there were mines. So five floors were the maximum permissible standard for a building.

In the town there was also a bus terminal, behind it, there were rows of dusty green private houses, gradually turning into small villages with nice names such as «Krolevtzy» and «Knevitchi» already mentioned. The sky was cloudless. The sun, a heater, gaining momentum. Having dropped me at the bus terminal, the taxi driver summarized the purpose of my trip with the wording, «Craving for new impressions, change of pattern.»

Was I hungry for a new experience? Definitely, if they suppressed at least for a moment and covered this uneventful and squalid emptiness, which I ran away from to another end of the world. Oh, Primorye, be my life-giving water, become a potion that cures any ailments.

I remember, there was an Italian fairy tale called «Happy Man’s Shirt». The plot: the king’s son plunged himself into black melancholy, and only a certain shirt could save him. The final is open: Having finally found a completely happy man in the wilderness, the king and his servants, who wanted to save the prince at any cost, were extremely disappointed – there was no shirt on the lucky man. But let’s imagine that the king got what he wanted and the prince recovered. What does this mean? A worthy successor to the throne, a prosperous state. The prince will be busy with the country’s affairs, and will enjoy himself as befits the monarchs to somehow relieve tension: balls, hunting, horseback riding. No painful thoughts alone, everyone is happy. The question is whether he really needs it? Whether he was more ambitious, he would pretend that he cared about worldly affairs just like his royal forefathers. Had he been bolder, he would have built himself a hut in the forest and led a hermit’s life. The prince was quite comfortable in his palace apartments, staring at the open window mournfully and not letting anyone in. He had no other wishes, as it could be seen from the fairy tale. Buddhist postulate has always seemed controversial to me stating that any desire causes suffering and that, if we get rid of desires, we directly get rid of suffering. What to do if there are no desires, but nevertheless, suffering is present (see the story about the poor prince)?

I have no craving for adventure, impressions. I just can’t stand the monotonous continuation. Too hastily, as it seemed, having left my former routine existence, I hoped most (and still hoping) to find my way to be right. Because for the past ten years I can’t remember a day when everything would be really good. Cloudless. Who was there crying heart out, looking at the clouds? It seems it’s Virginia Woolf – a great episode, very close.

If the phrase «it makes me sick to my stomach» could be applied not only to indicate sickness, I would say so about the clouds. I am still reeling and cringing at the sight of people scurrying back and forth, their petty worries and this eternal good heaven, a gigantic dome sheltering us from the evil blackness, from the cosmic abysses. No, I do not need either life-living water of Primorie, or a happy shirt, if after that I stop thinking about the noble sky by accumulating the bourgeois Zufriedenheit4. I wrote in German because the adjective «bourgeois» is always looking for its twin brother – the adjective «philistine». So, remembering Mrs. Dalloway by Woolf I immediately remembered Steppenwolf. Hello, Hesse.

The bus was about to arrive and take me to the capital of the Primorye Region, where I would be able to lie down on a comfortable hotel bed, and also find out what degree of oxidation and decay the contents of my suitcase had undergone. Then I would plan to find out the address of the nearest dry-cleaners immediately.

Chapter 2

B – Bagulnik

Rhododendron Mucronulatum is a shrub with elliptic-lanceolate [people call it Bagulnik ― note made by me, Ajax] It is considered to be the most decorative and the most powerful species in this group. In the wildness, old specimens reach 3—5 meters (with a stem thickness up to 10 cm), and grows to 2.5 meters when cultivated. It has purple flowers and relatively large leaves (5—7 cm long, 3—4 cm wide), which mostly fall in the winter – only rare leaves stay on the plant bordering the buds on the top of one-year shoots. This species is more demanding for soil moisture during its period of growth and is resistant to winter periods (it grows well even in the south of Primorye, where cold, snow less and dry winters are common).

Rhododendron Dahuricum is extremely winter-resistant with an abundance of flowers, a half evergreen deciduous shrub (part of the leaves overwinter). Its size impressive in adulthood: 2—2.5 m in height and about 3 m in diameter. This is a relatively drought-resistant and photophilous species; Rhododendron Dahuricum blossoms are less lavish if there is not enough lighting. Its heavily branched canopy is decorated with large funnel-shaped flowers of lilac-pink-violet shades.

Rhododendrons bring joy to people and call them to be committed to good, because these plants are Divine. Long ago, when God left the sinful Eden to Heaven, He wanted to take away all the beauty of the Earth from people. But His Love for people and Hope overcame a just anger: God left

people these divine plants – rhododendrons. But they do not grow everywhere, only in hard-to-reach places – such as high mountains and gorges, on seaside cliffs and screes, at glaciers and waterfalls.

(Source: «Rhododendrons of Primorye»,

an article by N. Ya. Repnitsky)

I’m on the bus, which should take me to Vladivostok but for some unknown reason there is a sign «The Second River». Everything has a double name here that refers to the airports and the destinations. Judging by the map, the road runs along the Sea of Japan, but I can’t see it, only the eternal fells are visible from the windows. Now and again bright purple specks flash on the fells. This is Bagulnik. That’s how the special species of the rhododendron is incorrectly called here.

Within two seats in front of me, a ruddy-faced old woman is carrying a few stems strewn with dark purple flowers in a basket. This plant grows on the slopes, and I heard that you often see them in cemeteries (Is it because there are graveyards on the slopes, and everything is generally located on the slopes?). The purple ribbon winds its way down the slopes, it’s getting dark, where it’s about to become night and when the mist cheats by swirling mysteriously. A sign could be seen displaying directions to the Garden City – Bagulnik Garden City?

 

Leaning against the glass, it seems as if someone else’s distant memories can be heard through the items: the hum of an electric train, a water pump on Sedanka (just remember another Chinese name), rusty boats and maple leaves that have fallen too early… Never seen them before, but it might be that someone has been recently leaning against this bus window?

The air gets fresher at night with each passing minute, and fresher beside the sea with every kilometer traveled. I can’t stand the twilight, my eyesight gets worse, it becomes inconvenient to write. But everyone is entitled to their own views. For me, the evening sun is heavier than the lead, and it lies down with golden pollen on the delicate flowers of Bagulnik with warm «Good night, I will warm you again tomorrow». And they regally fall asleep, not looking down, where it is scary and dark and where the roots and foothills are covered with mist.

How desperately I would like to write something worthwhile, but instead, having thrown one stiff foot to the other, twisting the pen with my fingers, I bent down focused over my empty multi letters…

Just a detail: the closer to Vladivostok, the landscape becomes hillier and the colors of the forest become brighter. At the bus stops, the walls are decorated with mosaics with marine fauna images: seahorses, octopuses for example. Two lanes of the road from Artem becomes four, and eventually six as we approach the big city; a wide six lane highway, crowded with white and silver cars.

Well, looks like I arrived to a big city. In the middle of the roadway, there is a pompous coat of arms, and the drawn tiger welcomes the guests. Of course, it doesn’t look like a «welcome» but growls somewhere else. The heraldic King of the Taiga looks down so regally, of whom I imagine the tiger being a hospitable host who meets the newly arrived, yet a formidable defender who promises rapacious punishment to those who come to Vladivostok with evil intentions…

There are two stone walls right next to the road with a height of a house, no less. The first wall is dedicated to the forest, or the taiga to be more precisely. It is carved with acorns, sultana, tiger (you can’t do without it) and ginseng. The next wall is longer than the previous one, it starts and ends with anchors, and there are jellyfish, starfish, mermaid and Neptune (or Poseidon – for those who prefer Greece like me) displayed in the center.

The Second River is just a name of another bus terminal, which was kindly explained to me. To get to the center, I would have needed to take a city bus. But I would rather pay more to Artem the taxi driver, as he had already taken this far anyway, and besides, he could tell me all sorts of different things. As they say, a miser pays twice. To get from the airport to the hotel you need to change three times. In three stages (I hope that only in three!).

The Second River is a landmark. Here, Osip Mandelstam died of exhaustion in 1938. What I have printed out from the site dedicated to Mandelstam, being at home: «At the end of 1929 in Primorye, the branches of the Far Eastern camp (Dallag, later called Vladlag) and the transit camp The Second River (Vladivostok) were organized, from where the prisoners were brought to Kolyma on the steamships to the North-Eastern camp. The prisoners of Dallag and Vladlag worked in Vladivostok for construction and loading works in Nikolsk-Ussuriysk and Spassk-Dalniy, they extracted gold on the island of Askold, coal in Suchan and Artem, harvested forests in the taiga and went fishing along the entire coast of Primorye. By 1937 the number of prisoners here reached 70 thousand people.»5

I also won’t get lazy to rewrite an even more unpleasant and mysterious passage: «In the bus terminal area (at the Second River) in the 1930s there was a camp – a transit point for prisoners. This camp was located virtually on the marshland, where it is said that during the construction of the Bus Terminal they constantly ran into mass graves of corpses. Not surprisingly, no one builds residential buildings on this flat area! But they have constructed a parking lot, a market and a supermarket. The House of Youth nearby (which, they say, not so long ago was on fire)»6. The great poet of the Silver Age perished from hunger in the local camp. Another version of the cause of his death was due to an epidemic of typhus.

I have heard, that flowers of Bagulnik along with carnations are often placed in cemeteries. Nobody knows where the grave of Mandelstam or the other prisoners are. In the plural, in the infinite plural.

Well, I will keep trying to get to the center of Vladivostok. Walk around wherever I like. Marina and I talked a lot about the tremendous use of loneliness for a creative and sensitive person. In the end, I had a lot of money with me and the most important set of necessities:

 
My grief – prophetic, pertinent,
 
 
My freedom – quieted and distant,
 
 
And ever-laughing, mocking crystal —
 
 
A numb and lifeless firmament.7
 
1CHILDE HAROLD’S PILGRIMAGE by Lord Byron. CANTO THE FIRST.
2Civil Aviation of Primorye. Over the centuries. Jubilee edition.
3Sikhote-Alin is a series of mountains of volcanic origin in the Far East of Russia. It is a water divide for the Amur River, as well as for Sea of Japan and Strait of Tartary.
4«Contentment, satisfaction» (German).
  http://www.pseudology.org/Mandelshtam/Memuars/Monument.htm
6see ibid.
7Collection of poems by Osip E. Mandelstam. Translated by Andrey Kneller.