The Fantastic Worlds of Yuri Vynnychuk Read online

  The chilled brass doorknob squeals sickly, the doors obstinately yield, and I end up in a dark vestibule where the scent of mustiness dominates, of pickled cabbage and old furniture puffed up with rags soaked with naphthalene.

  “Anybody here?”

  All around it’s quiet and unfriendly, but I sense as though someone invisible is waiting cautiously, listening to my every word and step. A startled rustle slides along my ear and grows quiet so quickly that I’m no longer sure whether I’ve heard it at all.

  “I’m from the gas company!”

  Finally somebody’s hoarse voice that could have been a man’s or a woman’s reverberated from above, from behind the open doors, and crawled along the stairs to me.

  “He is from the gas company! Go and open the door!”

  Heavy footsteps echo above my head, from the ceiling the plaster crumbles until the wooden steps, along which a dark heavy figure descends, begin to squeal.

  “Good day. I’ve come to check the gas.”

  “The gas is fine.”

  The woman, hands gripping her waist from both sides, was big and heavy-set, her face in the dark. Could this really be Ilayáli’s mother? She was grumbling about something.

  “Anyway, I have to check. You understand—it’s my job.”

  “We understand, follow me.”

  We recognize you, we recognize you, the steps whisper... You used to come here a long, long time ago and you were so small and light, in short-short crisscrossed overalls. Do you remember how you carved out three letters on us—ILA?... Don’t be afraid, we won’t turn you in, we’ve forgiven you for it, even though it hurt. Those letters are already gone, don’t look for them here, when the little girl died, the lady of the house scratched them off. We asked her why she had done it, but she didn’t answer.

  “Come here.”

  The room was large and cluttered with all kinds of junk, filled with cobwebs and dust. In the corner an iron bed, on the bed a scraggly man was sitting with a face like crumpled paper, with mussed hair and veiny hands on his knees. It looks like this is Ilayáli’s father... How do I ask about her?... There under the window on the floor was her doll.

  “You have children?” I nod my head at the doll.

  His wife wrinkled her face and stretched to her husband:

  “He’s asking if we have children... What should I answer him?”

  Her husband draws away his head, looks at me with eyes white as milk and says:

  “Tell him that it doesn’t concern him.”

  And the wife: “There’s the meter.”

  I am leafing through my notebook, conscientiously writing down the numbers and furtively following the two of them. They’re silent and don’t move. They’re waiting anxiously for me to finally get out of here. They’re looking like I caught them committing a horrible crime. Why are his eyes so white? He’s dark, but his eyes...

  “Your eyes... why do you have white eyes?”

  But his wife interrupts: “He’s really becoming annoying. Say something to him...”

  She was sure that her husband would say something that would carry me away like the wind. Perhaps it’s already been tried, because a satisfied smile contorted the corner of her mouth in the expectation of delight. She switched her gaze from me to her husband and back, she doesn’t believe anymore that I’m from the gas company.

  “I won’t say anything,” her husband wheezed, “I don’t have anything to say. Anybody who doesn’t like my eyes doesn’t have to look at them.”

  “I’m not looking...”

  “Do you hear?” His wife joins in. “He’s looking at the meter.”

  “He’s looking at the meter...,” her husband repeats after her and grows quiet.

  “Can I look at the oven?”

  I try to hang around a little longer next to the oven.

  How can I find out about Ilayáli from them?

  I feel over the pipes, the doors, I even smudge some ashes on my finger and stupidly examine them. The ashes are hot, but the oven is barely warm. That is, they didn’t fire the oven, but were burning something. Perhaps the letter I wrote to her?

  Back then we used to write letters to each other. In the corner of the sheet in red pencil we used to draw large lips and kissed them, writing: “I’ve kissed this spot,” and while re-reading them in the evening we would revel in joy.

  “What kind of ashes are those? Were you burning paper?”

  “These are the ashes of my old pants,” his wife responds and breaks out in laughter. Between her teeth there is a lot of saliva, entirely in fine white bubbles; like dough steeped in yeast, her entire body chokes in spasms of laughter, and every fold of her gigantic stomach shakes, and the bundle of black hairs that sticks out of a wart on her chin also shakes and... Lord, how could it be that it’s she who gave birth to Ilayáli?

  Have to say something... something...

  “One of my friends...”

  They’ve become defensive and no longer hide their hostile glances.

  “...is looking for an apartment...”

  They’re thinking: what does he want?

  “...and I... could you have... ah... possibly...”

  They exchange glances like a ball being tossed back and forth.

  “...a room?”

  With a hollow voice his wife utters, as though it were a prayer she has just learned:

  “We don’t... have... a free... room...”

  “Too bad,” I yawn, “’cause if...”

  “No, we don’t have a free room,” her husband interrupts.

  “...if there are only two of you...”

  “There aren’t just two of us.”

  “Then is she alive?” I nearly scream. And I want to rush to them with hugs... But have the stairs, does it turn out, have they lied? Why would they?

  “...but even if there are three of you, then...”

  Suddenly he cuts me off sharply as though with a saber:

  “There aren’t three of us!” And then he gets up from the bed, staggering. With all his strength he forces himself to stand up, even though it isn’t easy for him. I involuntarily step back to the wall.

  “And not four, or five, or ten!”

  He spits in my face with those words, and they spread along me, splatter on the floor, and turn into white slime. I cast a glance at the mirror and don’t see that man there, although the mirror’s hanging behind his shoulders.

  “What do you want from us? Are you from...”

  “No, I’m not from the police... and not from... I’m from the gas company.”

  “Then why do you...”

  “I’ll tell you: my friend...”

  “That’s not true! What do you want?!”

  His cracked voice breaks in his dry throat, he waves his arms, then grabs for his heart and painfully, greedily catches air with his mouth. His wife restrains his arms–“Calm down calm down calm down...”

  “Let him tell us what he wants!”

  “He’ll tell us, he’ll tell us...”

  And I can’t see her in the mirror. It’s not reflecting anything. Maybe they don’t really exist?

  “Listen, maybe you aren’t here? Maybe you never were?!”

  At first his wife only stares at me silently, and then turns her head to her husband and, as though she had arranged it with him in advance, they begin to encircle me with frenzied laughter, stretching their arms. They do this unhurriedly, cutting me off from the doors, the way you’d get ready to catch a chicken. I feverishly gaze about the room in the hopes of grabbing something with a long reach, because I’m not afraid of these old people at all, I’m sure I can handle them easily... Though... though this man—dammit—has veiny hands…

  “Ilayáli!” I suddenly scream. And this name, with which I honored the little girl, echoes like an oath, which, in fact, it is.

  The old people jump back from me as though they have been pricked. His wife covers her mouth with her hand, and I now see that her eyes are dilating, dil
ating, and how her husband’s hands are shaking, he’s making extraordinary efforts to keep his balance.

  My hands fall powerlessly, my pencil strikes the floor hollowly and rolls to the feet of his wife, she steps away, and the notebook flaps its page-wings like a pigeon and flies off...

  “Ilayáli! I want Ilayáli!”

  “Go with him down the stairs so he doesn’t fall,” her husband says.

  “But I want Ilayáli!”‘

  “...’cause it’s dark...”

  His wife goes to the door, waiting guardedly.

  “I won’t go until you show her to me! Where have you hidden her? What have you done with her?”

  With a pleading voice his wife says:

  “Listen, tell him... tell him... let him go...”

  “I won’t go... I...”

  “She...she’s gone...she died...so many years ago...there’s nothing left of her...her grave’s beneath the elms...it’s marked...there...Go!”

  “It’s marked ‘Go’?”

  “Don’t you see—he’s crazy!”

  “Then she’s dead?!” He starts back from me, flicks his hands at my shout, as though burning his face on a flame with long tongues.

  “Then it’s not she who’s dead, but me! Me! Me! Don’t you see? Before you is a corpse that decayed long ago! Don’t you smell the odor? Come closer! Don’t be afraid of the worms—they’re tame, they don’t bite their own kind!”

  His wife hides her face in her hands.

  “Go!”

  “Ah, you want to get rid of me? I know you’ve burned her! And it’s not the ashes of old pants, but the ashes of poor Ilayáli! Why have you burned her?”

  “Have mercy on us! Have mercy on us!”

  They both utter these words, not knowing to whom, but with such faith in their voice that I understand the words aren’t directed to God. “Who are you asking mercy from? The devil? No use! Ask it of me! Beg on your knees so that I’ll have mercy! Sprinkle ashes on your heads!”

  And here I once again gazed at the mirror and no longer could make out the room, already there was nothing there, just the thick gray fog curled inside, while below silver soap bubbles rose, bursting with a hollow crackle, and in the distance two barely visible figures disappeared, becoming smaller and smaller in my eyes. Suddenly someone’s thin white arm appeared with fingers sticking out and shielded those two figures from me, and then dissolved in the fog, but just before the fog was about to lift, a pair of familiar greenish eyes winked, these were the eyes of Ilayáli, and when the fog disappeared in the mirror I could see an empty lot, I ushered my eyes away from the mirror, looked around and saw just an empty lot: gray mounds of stones, plaited with bind-weed, surrounded with thistle, and mosquitoes flew above them, and the wind overflowed playfully and quivered. High in the sky—the voice of a hawk.

  Suddenly in my throat the coil of a desperate scream unreeled:

  “It’s true—she’s alive!!!”

  The thistles nodded their heads condemningly.

  “Then she’s gone?”

  Whom did I turn to?

  “And she’ll never ever be back?”

  The hawk screeches again, and I can see how it swiftly falls to the grass and in a moment flies upward, and in terror some kind of creature squeals in its claws, and that squeal reminds me of my own voice, and I no longer sense my legs beneath me and I am running through the empty lot, and coming toward me—a branchy walnut tree with a swing attached to the boughs. Once it used to grow in Ilayáli’s yard, she loved to swing. (Swing—swing! Higher, higher! Swing!) The creature is squealing so shrilly, and it’s as though someone is pulling a strong thread through my ears. (Swing—swing! Don’t be afraid, I won’t fall!) Suddenly I hear the voice of the hawk above me and the whistle of its body, that cuts the air, and with all my strength I run to the tree in hopes of hiding in its hollow, and fear squeezes my frightened heart in its pincers, and the hawk look-look is diving at my forehead, and I squeal just like that creature, because already I see that I can’t save myself—the hollow of the tree is so narrow, and I will never squeeze into it, and my Ilayáli laughs: “Swing-swing-swing!”

  Beatrice: Twilight, The Cold

  Aged Beatrice pulls the cover over her eyes and with her tepid breath warms herself.

  Aged Beatrice tries to fall asleep and, with her sleep, to put a stop to her hunger.

  She’s also thinking about the river, whose shores are covered with green willow branches, and on the branches there are birds and flies of many colors. Beatrice floats along the river’s current in a blue boat and delights in the morning sun. A light fog curls above the water, and her body is so light, so loved, so pampered, and every one of her movements is the flapping of a bird’s wing...

  Her imagination just stops at this point, she’s incapable of more, her whole life she’s been trying to figure out: what’s next?–but she never succeeds. Whether she remains in that boat forever among the green willow branches, among the birds, like a bird...

  And this still isn’t sleep, it’s ordinary drowsiness. Again she shivers from the cold, and her hungry stomach draws into itself the cover, the room, the entire building, together with the squeaking weather vane on the roof.

  –ah how I so want to eat—

  –ah how I so want warmth—

  –ah why am I so old—so unwanted by anyone.

  The moon peeps into the window, a lonely fox moans at the window

  I shut the window: your finger once danced along the pane

  here

  at midnight I shut the window

  a bee is dying on the sill

  the grass is humming and the pond is croaking in this deserted place

  I shut my heart with the translucent wing of a bee

  I sense—A LONELY WOUNDED FOX IS CRAWLING TO ME

  THROUGH THE WALLS.

  A garden with a head, filled with birds, deeply breathes in and exhales the night air. Above the trees and roofs rain floats and contemplates—whether it should descend or not...

  Beatrice crawls out of her bed, shuffles to the dresser and rummages among her rags. She finds a cotton scarf with countless holes in it and ties it around her back. Again she lies down in bed. Beneath the cover she turns up her nightshirt and scratches her thigh, but it’s already itching worse, and her fingers rub along her hot sweaty skin. Finally her thigh calms down.

  Tomorrow I’ll wash up tomorrow I’ll wash up tomorrow I’ll wash up tomorrow tomorrow

  Many years ago she drove her lovers mad. Young J. M. breathed his last on her, on her body, becoming fatigued from the excess of love. At first Beatrice noticed in the corner of his mouth a thin stream of blood. The blood rolled down his chin and dripped onto her neck, but he was in such a frenzy that he completely stopped seeing a woman beneath him, and stopped hearing her scream. Suddenly he saw a race—they’re catching up to him, he’s rushing with all his might, the horse snorts, and bits of lather fly in every direction, I’m escaping, escaping, escaping...

  Then from his mouth—an entire stream of blood. His mouth turned into a giant red rose... I’m escaping, escaping, escaping escaping, escaping, escaping... escaping?

  I’ve closed and spread my legs, my whole life I’ve done nothing but that...

  But then it all was snuffed out, and for twenty years already she’s been living in memories, from time to time tracing her hand along her stomach, pressing her fingers there, here, not feeling anything, pressing harder there, here, not feeling anything, she cries quietly, fingers next to her nostrils—a pungent odor, her fingers above the cover—the scent of rain, fingers on the wall—the scent of spider webs.

  She closed her legs, then spread them... Letting the moon into herself, releasing it...

  The rain thought: I’m going to fall further down the road. The garden thought: fall asleep, or what? The pond croaked and croaked, the grass hummed and hummed...

  tomorrowI’llwashuptomorrowI’llwashuptomorrowI’llwashuptomorrowI’ll

 
washuptomorrow

  Someone’s bare feet stepped up to the door. The door went on alert, the alert was passed along to the walls, the ceiling bent.

  Who’s there? It’s so late. Beatrice wants to sleep.

  tomorrowI’llwashuptomorrowI’llwashup...morrow...

  ash.........

  I’ll fall down not here, but somewhere far-far away, the rain thought, I can’t fall there, where memories return.

  “Beatrice, open up!”

  Whose voice is it? Maybe it’s the door? Maybe the floor?

  “Beatrice, open up!”

  She tore away from the bed, a certain magical power seized her, threw her to the door, the door—creaked.

  “Who is it?”

  Why is she asking—she knows who it is.

  In front of her was a hunched over gray-haired man, he had just traversed a long road, and his clothing had rotted away, and his ribs stuck out like the top of a picket fence...

  .......... a whole row of fences..... a garden behind a picket fence...

  ...in the garden poppies and nightshade... tall hemp... and

  tiny

  Beatrice... sits down on the ground, hides... someone’s voice:

  “Beatrice! Beatrice!”

  “What?” She asks.

  “Beatrice,” the voice says, “I came to you.” “Oh, I see, I see you came to me so exhausted, you came to me, and I am so exhausted... You found me after many years, the way they find long lost things, about which they had already begun to forget; but it’s in vain, the stone will not float from the bottom to the surface, the stone becomes overgrown with moss, slippery, a man, crossing a river, steps onto a stone and slips, taking water into his mouth—he chokes, his body floats beyond the water, the stone begins to weep, the stone didn’t want to joke around this way, the stone begins to weep... eepstonebeginstoweep...

  “Beatrice, Beatrice, I’ve been walking to you for many years. Look—my clothes have rotted away, my feet have become callused, my mouth dried up, my eyes have sunken, blackened, my eyes are wretched...

  “No, no, you died! You died so long ago, that I’ve already forgotten. You couldn’t return. You’re just a shadow that somehow moves by itself.

  “Beatrice, light up a light and you’ll see I’m not a shadow!”