Voroshilovgrad Read Online Free PDF Page A

engine. The Ikarus bus stalled with a sharp iron-on-iron screech, and then it came to a complete stop. Desperate now, the driver remained silent—and I felt too awkward to speak up. Finally, he dropped his head onto the wheel. His shoulders heaved from time to time. At first I thought he was crying, which I found oddly touching. After listening in a bit closer, though, I realized that he’d just fallen asleep. All the other passengers on the ghost bus were asleep too, and nobody was so much as thinking about protecting the goods.I walked up and down the aisle once again, then peered out the window. The wind was gently brushing against the young corn; there was absolute silence, and the sun was eating away at the valley like a grease stain attacking a tablecloth. Suddenly, somebody touched my hand. I looked around. At the back of the bus there were some dark brown curtains that hadn’t been washed for some time. It had seemed to me that there wasn’t anything behind those curtains except maybe a wall or a window or something like that. But no, a hand was sticking out. It grabbed me and dragged me easily inside. After slipping through the invisible entrance I found myself in a tiny room. It was a kind of chill-out space, a place for meditating and making love, a little cell caressed by perfume and shadows. Synthetic Chinese rugs bearing strange ornaments and images depicting deer hunting, teatime, and Beijing pioneers greeting Chairman Mao decorated the walls of the tiny space. Two small sofas were placed up against the walls. Three dark-skinned men and one dark-skinned woman were sitting on these sofas. They were in their underwear, the men’s strange and white, the woman’s modern and sporty. Skulls dangled from heavy necklaces wrapped around her neck. Instead of a comb, there was a paper knife sticking out of her hair, and she had a thermos resting on her lap. Their skin blended into the darkness; all I could see was the greedy glint of their yellowish eyes, illuminating the room like amber. She reached out, grasped my hand and didn’t let it go, looked me straight in the eyes and asked:
    â€œWho are you?”
    â€œWho are you ?” I countered, feeling the warmth of her palm and the weight of her silver rings.
    â€œI’m Karolina,” she said, and drew back her hand sharply. After sizing me up, one of the men whispered something to his neighbor, and the latter laughed briefly.
    â€œWhere are you going?” Karolina asked, looking me over in the partial darkness.
    â€œHome,” I answered.
    â€œWho’s expecting you?” she asked, taking the knife out of her hair and letting her flowing locks cover her eyes.
    â€œNobody.”
    Karolina laughed.
    â€œWhy are you going to a place where nobody is expecting you?” she asked, producing a pomegranate from somewhere or other and cutting it in half.
    â€œWhy does it matter?” I was baffled. “I just haven’t been there for a while.”
    â€œHave some,” she said, offering me half of the pomegranate. “What are you going to do there, in this place where nobody is expecting you?”
    â€œI won’t be staying there too long. I’m leaving for Kharkiv tomorrow.”
    â€œYou’re that afraid of returning?” Karolina asked, chuckling, lifting her half of the pomegranate to her mouth and sucking on it. “How can you be so sure? You haven’t even gotten there yet and you’re already planning to leave. You’re afraid.”
    â€œI’ve got stuff to do,” I explained. “I can’t stay any longer than that.”
    â€œYou can if you want.”
    â€œNo,” I said, irritated. “I can’t.”
    â€œYou only think you’ll leave right away because you’ve forgotten all the experiences you had there. Once you remember, you’ll find that leaving is harder than you think. Here.”
    She handed me a mug filled with something