The Fantastic Worlds of Yuri Vynnychuk Read online

  Beatrice lights a candle.

  “Yes, you’re not a shadow. But you’ve died. You died a long time ago.”

  “Really?.. I already don’t remember that. But you... you remember... my poems?”

  “Yes.”

  “At least recite one...”

  “Bend to me, my Beatrice...”

  Her entire body swings, the candle swings, and the room swings.

  “Bend to me, my Beatrice...”

  Then he saves her:

  “Where the poppies bloom and the birds sing...”

  She feels embarrassed, it seems to her that it’s not her, because that Beatrice, to whom so many sonnets were dedicated, died on the same day with their creator. She feels like telling him something so gentle and warm, but she can’t find the words.

  “So, you’ve returned?” She asks, because nothing else comes to mind.

  “I’ve returned to you, just to you.”

  “Certainly I’m not the same one. You could return just to me, but not to poetry, for there is no more poetry in me. Look at me—I no longer conceal anything mysterious in me, I’ve become so ordinary and plain, like this armchair you’ve sat down in, like this table you placed your hand on. And moreover I feel hunger and I’m cold.

  Then he pulls dried up bread out from beneath his arm and offers it to her:

  “Take it. While I was walking to you, I was given charity. I didn’t refuse, I didn’t want to insult people.”

  Beatrice chews on the bread, or perhaps, on her old age, her infirmity...

  And he breaks his walking stick, cracks his wooden shoes and starts up a fire. The flame crackles, licks its lips and blows out the warmth bit by bit.

  “O Beatrice, there, in non-being, I thought about you. I searched for truth in my poems. You say that there’s nothing mysterious in you anymore... But that’s not so. For me you’re just as mysterious as before. I certainly never saw you naked. I never kissed you. I loved you, but never touched you. You bared your body in front of so many... Just I, I alone didn’t see you. I recalled my poems and saw that I had deceived myself. I sculpted your image from imagination. Everything is there in my poems about you except you. Then I understood that I must see all of you as you are, and put everything in its place. That’s why I’ve returned. I’ve traversed the long road to gaze at your body...

  Beatrice becomes terrified, bread crumbs scatter from her lips, her hands tremble, she covers her mouth so as not to scream.

  SOMEWHERE FAR-FAR AWAY, WHERE MEMORIES ALREADY NO LONGER RETURN, RAIN FALLS...

  “No-no, how could you dare!”

  tomorrowI’llwashup tomorrow I’llwashup tomorrow I’llwashup tomorrow I’llwashup

  Croak-croak the pond, hum-hum the grass.

  tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow I’ll chop up the table chop up the armchair

  tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow I’ll heat up some water I’ll wash up

  “Beatrice, I’ve crossed such a long road, I’ve completely decayed, I feel like a pile of dust. The wind puffs—I fly in different directions.

  Again her thigh itches oh how it itches

  her sweaty slippery thigh if you stand on it—

  you’ll slip water will drown your mouth—you’ll choke

  IN YOUR MOUTH A GLASS ROSE WILL BLOOM

  A rose-colored boat on the water, and I am in the boat. Willow branches above the shore. Birds. LOOK AT ME HOW BEAUTIFUL I AM HOW NICE I AM! There where the poppies bloom, there, where the birds sing. MY BODY IS LIKE THE SUN—IT BLINDS THE EYES. Young J. from an excess of love such frenzied races—I’m escaping escaping escaping

  “Beatrice, pity me!”

  “Lord! How can you ask for that! How can you dare!”

  “Beatrice, I didn’t see your body, I didn’t ever see it. Let me guide my hand along it and kiss it along the trail of my hand!”

  “Have mercy! How can you? I won’t allow you to ask me this way. So many years have passed. No one has seen my body in so long, not even a mirror.”

  Ah, how will I show myself to him? I’m old and so horrifying. My skin is wrinkled, all blistered. Where have the golden hairs disappeared that used to cover it? They’ve gone gray and become saddened... the color of my body became oh-so-white, like paper... such an unpleasant color... my legs got covered with ugly blue veins...

  “Beatrice, you won’t chase me away, you’ll pity me.”

  “How do you know whether I’ll take pity on you? Do you guess I cried when young J. was at the point of death? Or when my husband died? No, I didn’t cry...”

  “Don’t slander yourself, Beatrice. All of this is untrue. I saw how young J. M. died. He was murdered!”

  “Not true! He died in my arms!”

  “And you were lamenting for your husband and biting your lips!”

  “Not true! I hated him!”

  “Ha-ha-ha-ha!” He laughed.

  “Go away! I don’t want to listen to you! Go away!”

  “Beatrice, take heart!”

  She waved her arms, rushed to the door, and suddenly her shirt got caught on something, and the worn cloth tore and slipped off her, and her body shone like a stiletto.

  “A-a-a!” She began to scream in despair.

  ........................................................and with eyes wide open from surprise he apprehended her body—a young orange body, yet to be tasted by anyone, so smooth, like alabaster, so sweet and so much aflame.

  “It’s not me! Not me!” She shouted with horror. “I’m old and vile! This isn’t my body! Who substituted me?”

  And he:

  “O no, this is you, you—I know it! I saw you this way in my dreams! You’re the way I wanted you!”

  “Don’t look at me! For the sake of all that is holy don’t look! This isn’t me! These are the devil’s jokes! My body’s crawling with fat, it’s grown white and flabby all over! This is all the devil’s doing!”

  But he had already fallen on his knees, and was groping her with his hands, and he whispered a prayer or his poems, but she could not hear, suddenly turned her head around and fell down, without understanding how her old and shabby body suddenly had become young.

  . . . . . . no-no, I don’t want to begin from the beginning

  . . . . . a young body. . . . young J. . . . .

  . . . . . a young husband . . . again those poems. . . . .

  Be gone devil I. . . . . . . . .

  Be gone devil DON’T WANT . . . . . .

  Be gone devil TO BECOME YOUNG . . . .

  Be gone devil

  AND I UNDERSTAND: ALL THIS IS THE DEVIL!

  Be gone, devil, your jokes are much too cruel..............................

  The rain returned and when it flew past her roof, it thought: perhaps I’ll fall here...

  And the garden replied: give it-give it,

  there’s no longer a road here for memories...

  A Dream About a Tramcar

  I was riding in a tramcar and looking out of a window at the morning people. You can really differentiate early morning people from those who roam around the city during the day. Especially by their faces—unhappy and as gray as the cobblestone pavement.

  Next to me a ticket-controller stopped and asked if I had a ticket. I nodded without taking my gaze from the window, but he continued to stand next to me.

  “Are you sure you’ve got a ticket?”

  I measured him with my gaze. He was a small heavy-set man, who reached just up to my chin, with a great big round head and protruding ears. On his ticket-controller’s coat you could see countless bright fibers, threads, and hairs, as well as a kind of down, as though he had been rolling around all over somewhere at a textile factory.

  “I have a ticket,” I answered, and once again looked out at the street. In the meantime the passers-by had become even more preoccupied than before, and for some of them this had turned into rage. Just about anything might provoke their anger—for example, this tramcar that put a crimp in their itinerary, as they were forced
to wait until it crawled across the street, or my kind, amiable face, that of someone who had nowhere to rush and who had just spent the night in a woman’s arms.

  “I’m not sure you’ve got a ticket,” the ticket-controller said.

  I didn’t know what to answer him, and tried to think about something pleasant. There was little though that could be pleasant. You might even say there was nothing that could be pleasant at all.

  “You’re riding without a ticket,” the ticket-controller continued his deliberation.

  I led my gaze away from the window, and in my soul a heartfelt pity appeared for this small man who had been deprived of a woman’s caresses, and who tried to paste greasy tufts of hair to his eternally perspired bald head. Hopelessness glistened in his yellow eyes. His life had even fewer pleasant hours of experience than mine. Illness undermined his health, his pay was barely enough for cheap sausage, and when anyone treated him to a glass of cheap red wine that everybody calls “ink,” he became filled with boundless joy, as though the Lord’s blessing had descended upon him. At home his wife nagged him, calling him a lazy bones, an idler, impotent, and dystrophic. In the all too rare hours of conciliation, he conscientiously crawled up on top of her and tried to do everything of which his capricious organism was capable. But this didn’t last long, in fact it was always so short-lived that it only served to irritate his wife even more; she flew into a rage, pounded his bald head and shouted right up into his face:

  “Shithead! Shithead! Shithead!”

  Someone suggested to him that he abstract during the act, think about something else, not about women, in order to prolong the loving. So he thought about tramcars, about passengers without tickets, about how they dirty up the cars, how they break the seats, scratch the walls, unscrew screws... Right at the point of the screws forget it—it was all over. It wouldn’t go on any further than that. He crawled off his wife and quietly, like a rat, turned toward the wall, covered his head and tried to forget it as quickly as possible.

  “Shithead! Ah, you’re such a shithead! You good-for-nothing! You clown! You can’t even get a broad to come! I mean it, I’ll go to the grocery store, I’ll stand there—and let just anybody do me! The worst drunk’ll be better than you! I’ll stand there, lift up my dress, and I’ll just keep standing there. Whoever passes by—let him take advantage of it. Nobody’ll ever pass up this rear end. They’ll even wait in line for it!”

  Finally she cracked his head and turned her powerful back at him and fell asleep in a rage.

  His hand touched my shoulder and he repeated:

  “You’re riding without a ticket. I’ve been following you.”

  “Your memory’s bad,” I grumbled, while groping for the ticket in my pants pocket. I could have showed it to him, but it seemed to me that this would dash all the ticket-controller’s hopes. It seemed like it was enough for him to catch various turkeys from whose humiliation he didn’t get a bit of satisfaction. He could shout at them, fine them, shove them off the tram—all this was petty, of little value and uninteresting. Right now he had tracked down a much bigger beast. You come across this kind in your life just once or twice, just like in any hunter’s life. Everyone has his dream of a golden-horned buck, while they’ve been limited their whole life to just rabbits. And here, when finally the golden-horned buck stands before your eyes and you have to shoot him, then you strive as long as possible to prolong that satisfaction toward which you’ve been striving seemingly your whole life.

  For him I was that golden-horned buck, the dream of his miserable life, the knight of his dreams and ravings. He looked at me from below, and I sensed how furiously his tortured heart was beating, how the veins were throbbing on his temples and how his puffy hands with stubby sausages for fingers were sweating. Droplets of nervous perspiration emerged on his bald head, and it was completely understandable—in the depth of his soul he was wholly trembling from the fear that his dream of the golden-horned buck will blow away completely, will all turn out to be a mirage and a deception, and instead, just the dull pain near his heart and the unrestrained sadness of everyday routine will remain. As though he were seeking assurance that all this wasn’t a dream, he touched my shoulder once again, and his fingers trembled. I really existed, I was next to him, and he was really tracking me down. The one thing that sustained his anxiety was my hand in my pocket—at any minute it could emerge and wave the white banner of a ticket before his eyes. Besides that, I could tell him to go to hell and jump out at the next stop. But I’m young and strong, I exuded health, and behind me was a frenzied night of loving with a young lady, whom this clumsy clod could never even dream of.

  Just think—just an hour ago I was lying in her warm embraces, my hand caressing her soft and slender thighs, her fabulous breasts, and my ear captured the intoxicating whisper of her hot lips... I’m sure that if she’d even put her hand on his knee, he’d go mad with happiness. What did he see in life? He was someone who lived only for his pay, who’s stingy with his toothpaste and facial tissues. He gives all his money to his wife, and then for this gets his share of pea soup and still has to work it off in bed. All hope for him lies in a stomach ulcer. Then they’ll give him total peace and won’t poison him with leftover potatoes. When he dies, in his dimming brain the thought will flash: “Why did I live?”

  Consequently he shouldn’t have been born. He wouldn’t have been born if his father had been just a wee bit more careful.

  When the tram stopped, the fear flashed in his eyes that I would push him and jump out. He even warned me:

  “And don’t even think about jumping out. Better to pay the fine. Otherwise I’d have to take you to the police.

  “I’m not planning on jumping out,” I said. “I have a ticket.”

  “That’s not true. If you had a ticket, you would have shown it to me long ago.”

  His voice trembled noticeably. If at that moment I’d have shown him the ticket, his heart wouldn’t have been able to take it.

  He evoked compassion in me, and the thought even came to me that I could end up in his shoes. I simply was unbelievably fortunate to have been born somewhere else and at another time. And if I had been the sixth or eighth child of some drunk, then who knows whether I would have managed to make my way to the ticket-controller. Life is an interesting joke. It requires sacrifices. But the opportunity to do good comes so rarely, that for the sake of such an occasion, maybe it’s even worth giving yourself up to torture. Perhaps from this very day this unfortunate man will raise his head and smile to the future, perhaps after he humiliates me, makes me obey and forces me to beg for forgiveness, he’ll finally realize that he is a man and, arriving home, the first thing he’ll do—will be to box his wife on the ear.

  Could I ruin his secret dream? In his heart he felt like a real Sherlock Holmes—he had tracked down an extraordinary honcho. And this wasn’t just some argumentative babe who’ll whack his head so he won’t be very happy that he asked for the ticket. This wasn’t a shrewd student who unmistakably recognizes just about any ticket-controller before the latter even sits down in the tramcar.

  Here he grabbed for my shirt button and began to twirl it with such a stare as if that button literally comprised everything that was most valuable for me and the meaning of my existence. Maybe this act still had some symbolic significance for him.

  “Riding without a ticket is really not very nice. Aren’t you ashamed?” He muttered. “Now you’ll have to pay a fine, otherwise I’ll take you away to the police. And there you’ll pay an even bigger fine, they’ll write a report to your employer, your picture will hang in all the tramcars, and everybody will point their fingers at you.”

  Listening to these idiotic things, I understood the real reason behind it. Maybe his supervisor had spoken with him just this way: the former took his button by the fingers, twirled it and pronounced:

  “Why are you riding these tramcars, giving a piss poor number of fines? What are you doing—can’t you grab a scofflaw with bo
th hands and not let go till he pays? The main thing is to figure out exactly whom you can force to pay. In every tramcar there are 20 per cent of the passengers who are incorrigible scofflaws.” But just one pays a fine. Because until you fine him, all the others either jump off at the next stop, or get tickets. The point is to spot somebody right away who can’t weasel his way out, can’t escape, or who won’t hit you in the kisser. You have to have a sense of smell. Like a hunting dog, understand? You have to train yourself. And in general our work is complicated and dangerous. In fact, I’m surprised that there isn’t a higher institute for ticket-controllers. We ticket-controllers should study psychology intently, pedagogy, ethics, and who knows what if not even world philosophy. Here imagine that you, armed with all the branches of knowledge, approach just such a turkey and suddenly straightening your horn-rimmed glasses, say: “Respected sir! With your gratis ride you are undermining the foundations of our statehood! We are rolling toward an abyss as a result of people like you! You are driving in just one more rusty nail into our tortured motherland! With your perfidious activity you are serving the enemies of the republic. But I’ve tracked you down and unmasked you! You are an agent of Moscow! Confess and pay the fine. A voluntary confession will lessen your guilt!..” Well?! Now do you sense a difference? And when you say this loud enough, the remaining passengers will come over to your side. And why?! Because all of them want to be patriots. It’s easier to be a patriot than an abstainer. It’s better to fight for Ukraine than to work hard at the factory.

  The words of his head supervisor screwed themselves faithfully into his brain, and now, looking at me, he began to dictate them as though they were an incantation against an evil spirit. His voice trembled yet reverberated throughout the entire tramcar. Right away we ended up at the center of attention. When he stepped up to “the agent of Moscow,” among the listeners you could sense a slight animation and even an indignant buzzing. Their indignation, it was clear, concerned me, and I somehow flushed red unexpectedly. This inspired the ticket-controller all the more, and he just incinerated me with his tirade, which began to increase incredibly and turned into a true act of accusation. Several passengers got up from their seats and set off toward us. Quickly we were surrounded from all sides. It seemed to me that I had ended up at judgment day.