A Russian picnic

Could tfiere k a more appropriate rite of spring?

WE WERE BROKE AND YET somehow had to find a way to charm the ladies. That's when our friend Rubchik had an idea: "Let's do kebabs and have a picnic."

"You're a genius, Rubchik," my brother, Valek, mocked. "What are we going to cook—birch wood?" My brother stood smoking. His right arm was wrapped around a birch tree as if it were a girl's waist.

"I'm serious," Rubchik said. "We could use a dog." Rubchik had studied to be a veterinarian before dropping out.

"What dog?"

"How about the last one that barked at us?"

"Are you fucking nuts?" I asked. "We can't barbecue a dog."

My brother, however, seemed to take the idea seriously.

"It'll work," he finally decided. "You take care of the dog and I'll invite the girls."

It should be noted that this episode took place at a strange time, when our country was poor and its future uncertain. But we were young and deaf to the thunder above us. (continued on page 125)

RUSSIAN PICNIC

(continued from page 68)

The picnic was arranged for the follow­ing day. The promise of kebabs clinched the deal. Like many people in those days, the girls were probably underfed. This was a small town, but we decided to pay a visit because of a mutual acquaintance who lived here. The town's only attraction was the women's dormitory of an old Soviet voca­tional school.

We spent an uneasy night in the house of our acquaintance. He was out of town and had left us the house and the permis­sion to smoke. We lay around and blew our smoke at the ceiling. A gray blanket hung above us, its contours curling in the corners of the room.

The dog was marinating in a large basin on the floor. Rubchik had improvised a con­coction from pepper, salt, flour, pickling brine, vinegar and spices he picked outside, including tree buds. It was spring and the morning brought us the first truly warm day of the year. So sweet you could taste it.

During the night I had risen several times and hovered over the basin in a state of horror.

"Wait until it's cooked," my brother moaned in his sleep. I swallowed hard to keep down the bitter bile rising from my stomach.

When I finally got off the couch for good, the basin was gone. Rubchik had already made a fire in the yard and was warming his hands over the flames, which jittered in the wind. The basin was on the porch.

"The meat should be kept cool for the time being," Rubchik explained.

"What if you end up poisoning them?" I touched the top pieces of meat with my shoe.

Rubchik shot me a contemptuous look; so contemptuous was this look that I paused for a second and tried to see myself through his eyes, but I found nothing worthy of such infinite scorn.

"Nobody's ever died from eating fresh meat," he said.

"This isn't meat," I objected.

"What's a dog then? A mushroom?" Rubchik argued.

The girls came around lunchtime, their keen faces beaming with anticipation. As we introduced ourselves, their eyes searched for the food. My brother didn't want to keep them waiting. He brought forth the basin covered with a towel and then, with a ceremonious gesture, pulled off the towel and looked over the contents with affec­tionate pride.

"This was my favorite pig," he said, put­ting down the basin with an exaggerated sigh. "They fed us from the same bottle."

"Such an old pig?" one of the girls asked skeptically. "Or do you still get fed from a bottle?"

"Right," my brother said, winking. "How about from the same trough then?"

"And what was in the trough?" persisted the girl.

"Gruel," Rubchik interjected. He was busy sliding the juicy chunks onto the skewers he'd fashioned out of sharpened wire.

"It smells great," said another girl as she brought her face close to the skewer heavy with meat. Rubchik handed it to her widiout

hesitation; he was entirely confident in the quality of his work.

I felt light-headed, but it passed.

The three girls surrounded Rubchik, taking the kebabs one by one and carefully placing them on short Y-shaped sticks my brother had gotten from the local fishermen, who used the sticks to support their fishing poles. The girls began to make the kind of exclamations befitting the occasion:

"It's so hot. Ah, I've burned myself!" "What a huge piece! Rubchik, we have to cut this one in half or it will burn." "The big one's mine! I'm the resident orphan around here!"

My brother continued with his story: "So, like I said, Mom raised the pig on milk and honey, and it grew pink as a grapefruit. Had brains too, answered to its own name__"

"What did you call it?" one of them asked credulously.

"Lassie," I blurted out.

My brother's face twitched and he nar­rowed his eyes at me.

"In the summer we took walks in the woods," he continued. "And in the winter I'd put a harness around it and it pulled my sled."

"What a strange pig," one of the girls said.

"He's joking!" exclaimed her friend.

"That's right," I cut in. "This is all a prank."

Having finished skewering the meat, Rubchik went inside the house and returned with an enormous bottle of local bathtub vodka. The girls were not daunted by the choice of beverage. With such lavish food they were ready to drink whatever we had.

I walked up to the empty basin and glanced inside, expecting to see a forgotten bit of shaggy orange tail.

We brought out some stools and chairs and placed them around the fire. Rubchik placed one girl on his lap and put his arm around a second. The third, who sat with my brother, he eyed with lecherous curiosity.

I poured myself a glass of the murky vodka and drank it down alone. The others clanked their metal plates, filling them with the bread and onion that was to go with the kebabs now hissing and dripping fat into the fire.

Suddenly I caught the distinct smell of dog hair. A dog had run up to the fence. It sniffed the air and began barking at us: "Have you gone mad? Jesus H. Christ, the town's been overrun by savages." That was how I understood the agitated animal.

"Shoo!" the girls yelled.

"Shoo!" my brother repeated and threw a sizable rock over the fence.

For a moment the dog sat silently, watch­ing us in a state of shock. Then it ran off to warn the others that indeed a group of dog-eating savages had come to town.

"Well, girls," Rubchik said, "the meat is ready."

He took the girl off his lap and walked over to the kebabs, all the while eyeing the girls as if afraid they'd disappear or that my brother would get all three.

But for the moment the girls stared fer­vidly into the fire. The meat was dark, so dark and tough its origins seemed obvious.

"I can't eat this," I said, standing next to Rubchik.

'Just try it," he said.

"I'm not even going to try it," I answered.

Rubchik pulled one of the skewers out of the fire, raised it and, after relishing its aroma, declared, "The beast is ready!"

A melancholy howl could be heard not far from the house.

"If these dogs don't shut up, we'll eat like this every day," Rubchik whispered and distributed the meat from the first skewer among the plates. The bastard gave me a piece too.

The howling continued.

"What's wrong with that dog?" one of the girls asked. "Is it rabid or something?"

"Probably," I said nervously. "Probably all the dogs in this town are rabid." I shot Rubchik an antagonistic glance. But then I saw that it was too late. The girls, wielding their skewers, had already sunk their pearly white teeth into the roasted flesh.

"Girls, girls!" my brother interrupted them. "Where are your manners?"

The requisite toast to a new friendship ensued. Glasses were clinked; vodka was swal­lowed and chased with the head of a green onion. Our friendship was now official.

The howling died down. Perhaps the dog had a heart attack, I thought. Or maybe, having tired itself out, it was now searching the street for a large truck that would end its misery. I wasn't eating the kebabs, and the alcohol went straight to my head. I ate only the onion, and soon my whole body stank of onion and booze.

From time to time I would raise my glass full of vodka and say something like "To your health" and then murmur, "You fucking zombies, how could you eat poor Lassie?"

Two more dogs came to stare at us through the crack in the fence.

"Forgive me, brothers," I cried. "Forgive us all! You can eat my hand if you want." I stretched my limp hand through the hole in the fence. "Eat it! Eye for an eye! Paw for a paw!"

"What are you gonna trade for the tail?" my brother asked as he led me back to the fire.

Unlike Rubchik, he had eaten little, but this was normal. He tended to eat in mod­eration, never gorging himself.

When the owner of the house returned in the evening, all the meat had been consumed and the fire had burned down to embers. Rubchik pawed two of the girls while my brother shared a cigarette with a soft-spoken girl who seemed to think everything he said was very funny. I watched the embers.

"So what do we do now?" my brother asked. "It seems it's time to figure out where we're all going to stay tonight."

The girls exchanged glances and from time to time licked their lips. I watched them with revulsion. One of them eyed me pecu­liarly and after a moment wriggled herself free of Rubchik's embrace.

"Why didn't you eat anything?" she asked me.

I knew Rubchik was scowling at me in warning, but I could barely see his face in the hazy spring twilight. Unable to speak, I just rolled my eyes and chewed my lip.

"How's it going?" she mumbled and ran a warm hand through my hair.

"The question still stands," my brother repeated. "Where are we sleeping tonight?" It was obvious to everyone that the owner wasn't going to let a bunch like us use his place as a flophouse.

"Why not go to our place?" asked the girl with her hand still resting on my head. I tried hard to resist the urge to bite her.

"No way!" the girl with Rubchik exclaimed. In a flash, she freed herself from his grip just as he was about to kiss her.

"You know damn well there's a guard and that men are not allowed."

"A guard?" my brother laughed. "I think we can deal with a dorm guard."

And so we grabbed what was left of the vodka, wished our gracious host a good night and set off for the dorms. Several local dogs trailed us, their soft trot drowned out by the arguing girls:

"They're not going to get in. There's no way!"

I was walking arm in arm with the girl who had stroked my hair. As we walked, it became clear that Rubchik was completely and utterly wasted, despite having watched himself all day. I could tell by the girl sup­porting him that he was growing heavier and slower by the minute. Periodically he

would raise his head and shriek something unintelligible.

"Are there windows?" my brother asked.

"The first-floor windows are barred, but we live on the third floor."

"Let's give them some of our clothes," my escort yelled so loudly that the dogs behind us fell back a little. "We'll throw down the clothes and they'll pass through like students."

We found the idea reasonable.

They pointed out the window of their room and went inside. We leaned Rubchik against the wall and waited. Soon the light in the room went on, the window opened, and to the sweet sound of girlish laughter, clothes rained down on us from above.

"Come on, man," my brother pleaded. "Time to sober up, Rubchik."

There was still a bit of dirty snow left in the gutter. I scooped it up and held it to Rubchik's forehead. From time to time he whimpered and spat; long strands of saliva hung from the sides of his mouth. Rabies, I thought. He's coming down with rabies.

Meanwhile, my brother had pulled on a skirt, squeezed into a little jacket and wrapped his head with a scarf. His shoes didn't really match the outfit, but in the dark it was less noticeable.

"Let's put on a little show for the guard," my brother suggested. "You take me by the arm as if you're walking me home. When we get to the entrance, try to kiss me, and I'll slap you in the face and run through the doors crying and upset."

Kissing my brother. It was the disgusting finale to a disgusting evening. But I went along with it. On the steps of the dorm I put my arms around him and drew in for a kiss when slap! It was a fine blow across the jaw, and for a few seconds I saw stars.

"Asshole!" my brother yelled in falsetto. His scream brought me back to conscious­ness. I had just enough time to catch a glimpse of his bowed, hairy legs running up the stairs in muddy boots and the short red skirt that completed the outfit in some absurd way.

A minute later, he ran out the door pursued by a female concierge with a broom.

"Why, you filthy little shit!" she yelled. "What'd you forget in here, you little cock-sucker? Try shaving next time! Can you believe that, kissing right in front of the entrance? The little perverts."

We had to leave.

"Christ, how do they walk in these things," my brother complained. "My fucking balls are freezing."

"Those are just your balls," I replied. "Their balls don't freeze."

Rubchik leaned against the wall where we left him.

"What happened?" the girlish voices ques­tioned us.

"They said none of their students were bearded ladies," my brother shouted and scoured the premises for a new idea.

"Hey," he said, "didn't we pass a ladder on the way here?"

The ladder was indeed nearby and we placed it beneath the hallowed window. It reached only a little past the second floor.

My brother went up first. I held the old thing in place, afraid it would fall apart in my hands during my brother's shaky ascent. At the top, he lifted his hands and our hosts threw down two bedsheets tied in the mid­dle. He grabbed the rope and pulled himself up; dragging his legs against the wall, he made it up to the windowsill and disap­peared into the room.

I shoved the bottle of vodka down my jacket and led Rubchik to the ladder. Three times I explained the procedure that would deliver him into the warm room where a willing girl, full of dog meat, was waiting to fulfill his every wish.

"Got it?" I asked him again and again.

"Got it," he echoed. Then he opened his eyes wide, and for a second I thought he was sober.

I climbed the ladder. At the top, my brother grabbed onto me like a long-lost lover and dragged me inside, where I was greeted by three tipsy female faces with gen­erous amounts of fresh makeup.

"Rubchik," my brother called. "Hey, get up here!"

"Coming," he replied a minute later, as if their voices had to travel some vast distance before reaching each other's ears.

Rubchik put one foot on the first rung and stood still, getting used to the idea of leaving the ground.

We got tired of waiting and poured a round into dirty cups, and chased the vodka with a single bar of chocolate, biting into it from all sides.

The girls whispered among themselves and then left the room to use the bathroom.

"Dividing us up," I said.

We returned to the window. Rubchik had made it up to the third rung. Looking down, I again felt my stomach tighten, and I just about vomited on top of his head.

"Look," I said, turning from the window. "I can't do this. I can't sleep with a woman who's been eating dog meat."

My brother cocked his head like a puppy and eyed me.

"In Korea you'd have to live in a monas­tery," he said.

"I just can't do it."

"And me? Would you betray your only brother for the same reason?"

I had nothing to say. I poured a full cup of the cloudy liquid, drank it in one gulp and fell back on the bed.

In the meantime, Rubchik was making some progress outside. Having reached the end of the ladder, he considered his task complete and pushed off from the final rung. It had started to snow and our friend's recumbent position made a perfect dark sil­houette against the white background, like a fresh suicide.

When our merry college girls returned, they immediately turned off the lights, but I didn't care. I was sinking into a soft dark­ness where nobody tormented the weak or cut the flesh of the body.

Someone sat next to me and stroked my cheek. At that instant, I felt I was the owner of not the cheek but the fingers, the thin delicate fingers that pulled back after sens­ing the hostility behind the cold, pale face of a drunken man. The hand disappeared and I was again alone.

"To hell with the both of them," my broth­er's voice resounded cheerfully. All night I dreamed I was sailing and could hear the continuous creaking of the masts.

In the early morning, my brother and I woke up simultaneously. He crawled out from under a pair of legs and went through the pile of underwear at the foot of the bed. He judiciously compared two pairs, first star­ing at the one in his right hand and then the one in his left.

"I guess these are mine," he decided, choos­ing the ones with the bright red stripe.

We went to the window. Rubchik was still lying in the snow but was now surrounded by dogs sleeping and sitting next to him.

We made our way down with surpris­ing agility. The dogs did not want to leave Rubchik, and when they did, they sniffed the air, staying close by. I expected to find his face disfigured, but he was fine, with a healthy glow on his cheeks. My brother squatted next to him and said his name. Our friend opened his eyes; they were crys­tal clear and luminous, like a child's eyes. I could see a cerulean corner of the sky reflected on their surface.

"You alive?" my brother asked.

"Alive," he answered calmly.

"Let's go then?"

"All right," he agreed.

He got to his feet and brushed off the snow.

"Morning, boys," said a voice from above and, in a different tone, added, "Hey, Valek."

"Angels!" Rubchik said, raising his bright eyes to the dorm window. The brown-eyed one that had stroked my cheek threw down three lollipops.

"Have fun, boys," she said and closed the window.

My brother caught all three while Rubchik and I stood gaping with our hands in our pockets.

"Was I there?" Rubchik asked, looking at the window.

"No," I answered grimly, as if I were Saint Peter turning someone away from the gates of heaven.

Our tired limbs carried us slowly to die bus station. It was time to go home. Rubchik con­tinued to dwell on his personal tragedy:

"How could it have happened? How is it that I couldn't climb that fucking ladder...?"

"It was the dog meat," I reproached him. "If it wasn't for the dog meat, everything would have been fine."

"You're an idiot," Rubchik said. "It was reg­ular pork. I bought it for twice the price at the school, you know, from the cafeteria cook."

On the way home, we bounced on the hard seats of trucks and buses, cooling our fore­heads on the dirty windows, watching the vast Russian landscape through splashes of spring mud. All three of us were smiling: one at the memory of physical tenderness that had touched him last night, the other at the feeling of winter's last snow melting on his warm cheek. I too was smiling, but at what? God only knows.

We made our way down

with surprising agility. The

dogs did not want to leave

Rubchik, and when they

did, they sniffed the air,

staying close by.

Translated from the Russian by Peter Golub.