Moscow Noir

“I am in desperate need of plastic surgery. The operation costs ten thousand dollars. I have no one else to turn to. If you refuse to help me, I will have you thrown in jail. I will sue you for inflicting severe injury on me, and I have documented evidence to prove my claims.”

“The money’s over there,” I said, nodding. “In the top drawer of the desk. Exactly ten thousand.”

“I’m not joking. Have your parents sell their apartment. You should understand that my life is being ruined because of this. I have no other choice. Mark my words, you’ll be doing time.”

A nose injury, blown out of proportion into a worldwide conspiracy that cannot be proved or disproved—as long as you believe in it, it’s true. But why was he indulging in this eccentricity, and what did he really need the money for? Was it a bribe? For whom? My god, could he really be so desperate as to believe that this fantastic sum could help him rise from the ashes? For us ordinary people (dorm dwellers), it would have been no more consequential than a mosquito bite, but for him it was a mortal wound. For the rest of us, unemployment, lack of money, obscurity, was the air we breathed. For him, it was a sign that his life was over, once and for all.

“You listen to me!” I shouted. “One more word out of you and I’ll fix your nose for you myself, right here! Have your parents sell their apartment and shell out the cash to you! Or are you an orphan now?”

“My parents are unable to give me any money,” he answered hollowly, as though his parents had died yesterday.

“And why is that?” I asked in surprise. “You are family, after all. And you’ve had it easy for three years, living off the money they send you. So what gives?”

“My parents are busy with their own lives now. They got divorced, and I got left out of the picture, so I can’t ask them for help anymore.”

“But you think you can ask me for help?” I exploded. “Ten thousand bucks doesn’t just materialize out of thin air, you know! What do you want it for anyway? To go to America? Or invest in Gazprom stocks and become a millionaire in six months?”

“I’m warning you, either you come up with ten grand or I’m taking this case to court.”

“You can take it to the war crimes tribunal for all I care!” I stormed out, slamming the door behind me. What was I going to do with him? And how much longer could I keep this up, treating him like a normal human being? Get a grip! If we could sit down and have some vodka together, I might quote the words of a poor, homeless Russian poet who died in exile. He said, It is cold to walk the earth; still colder is the grave. Remember that, remember, and do not curse your fate. He wouldn’t get it though. It would be like trying to explain that bread is bread. Somewhere deep inside, I knew: he was losing it. Something had to be done, an alert had to be sounded. The problem was that while his old swagger had not made him many enemies, it did little to win anyone over to his side either, so his fall was met with a general apathy. I was the only one he could count on. So I decided to go back in there and talk to him. I decided to say, Come on, don’t do this to yourself. You are healthy and strong as an ox! You’re young and bright, well-educated and good-looking. You could be out there having fun and living life to the fullest, and you choose this instead?

I went back inside, only to find him standing over my computer. I yelped like a wounded animal and rushed forward—but it was too late. With one press of a key, he had consigned my best piece to oblivion. Half a year of tense and difficult sleepless nights … I’ll kill him! I grabbed a ceramic vase from the table and threw it at him, aiming for his head. I missed, and it crashed through the double-paned glass window. Then I went straight to the dorm supervisor.

“But you boys come from the same parts, don’t you?” the supervisor asked me. “Why are you squabbling with each other? I don’t have room vacancies at the moment. If you really want to move, I suggest you ask around. Maybe someone will agree to swap roommates with you.”

Nobody wanted to swap with me; no one was willing to share a room with Tatchuk.

Each morning the sheets on my bed were twisted into a hieroglyph suggesting torturous insomnia. The reason: that maniac had acquired the revolting habit of getting up in the middle of the night and shuffling around the room like a somnambulist. My nerves were wound tight as strings, and it was like Tatchuk was pulling a bow across them. I always had the feeling that he was getting up stealthily, tiptoeing toward me. Perhaps with a pillow or razor in hand. I stayed on my guard, waiting for him to strike from behind. I think we both needed help. I found myself having to copy all the files in my computer onto discs that I secured in the desk drawer under lock and key. Things can’t go on like this for long, I told myself. But it didn’t get better. It just went on and on, in the same way.

Once, as I was returning home, I heard him through the door talking to someone on his cell phone. (It must have been his grandma—she was the only living soul willing to listen to his harping.)

“… I filed my claim in court,” he was saying. “He can’t wriggle out of it now. You wouldn’t believe how long it takes them to consider a case! I can’t wait any longer. And guess what? That pitiful wimp managed to land himself a job as a copywriter at a publishing house. He’s making five hundred dollars a month. Oh, and he has a book coming out soon. But I won’t let him feel good about that when my life is such a mess. I want him to live in a state of constant fear. And I’m pretty good at acting insane. I think he’s going to break down and help me soon. My life might be a mess right now, but that’s all the more reason for him to have to suffer as well.”

I went cold with fury. Whether in a healthy state of mind, from hatred toward me, or out of crazy envy of my latest successes, he was like a tick that bit deep into me and wouldn’t let go until it had drunk its fill of my warm blood. They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. That may be so, but today Dr. Bessonov is going to have to use a little shock therapy. I’m going to show him something that will make his latest strategy vanish— poof!—into thin air.

Late that evening, when Tatchuk left for the bathroom, I got hold of his inhaler and hid it in the top desk drawer. Then, after hesitating a moment, I locked the drawer and threw the key out the window.

“Sit down, we need to talk,” I said as he came in the door. “It’s time you went home. I’ve had just about enough of you, my friend. So I suggest you gather your things without a big fuss and go back to Novoshakhtinsk. I came clean and told Urusov that I’d been writing for you. The old man told me off a little, but said the papers for your expulsion would be signed in a few days.”

“No, you couldn’t have!” he cried. “I need my education …” Then he underwent a sudden transformation. He drew himself up straight and puffed out like a turkey, as though his sense of dignity had returned and was flooding him from within. He started pacing the room, and I watched him in his agitation. I experienced a cold, predatory curiosity, a sense of my own strength and the ease with which I could simply crush him like a louse.

“Tatchuk,” I warned, “you had your chance.”

He started coughing and turned toward me, jerking spasmodically. His face had gone purple, and his eyes were large and beseeching like a saint on an icon, or a bull in a bullfight. At first he didn’t understand, as he knocked over mugs and glasses on the table, searching one surface and then another, grabbing at things, incredulous at not being able to find his priceless Swiss fix.

“What did you do with it? Did you take it? Give it back right now! Come on, give it to me … Be a man about it … It hurts, it really hurts. It hurts to breathe, I can’t. Seriozha, man, I’m sorry, what do you want? I’m going to die, please. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He was wheezing and sputtering, then he coughed out a few more words. He started to lose his balance, took a step toward me, then stumbled. He had to lean on the desk for support, and his hand seemed to go through the wooden tabletop like water.

I continued to sit there, ringing with numbness, as though I were not myself. I behaved with the same sweet aloofness with which a cruel child dissects a bumblebee on the windowsill, probing it’s fuzzy belly with a needle until it spurts white pus like a ripe pimple. I found myself at the point of no return, where love is silent, and it was as pleasant and painful as returning to the cramped unconsciousness of the womb. Suddenly, as though I’d been yanked by the hair, I started at the seriousness of my insult to the world, and I slapped myself on the forehead. What am I doing? I snatched a kitchen knife and rushed to pry open the lock on the flimsy desk drawer. I fumbled for the miserable spray and rushed to my roommate’s side.

“Come on, come on,” I coaxed, “you don’t have to be talented or smart or honest or good. It’s enough to just be alive. Who are we, anyway, to refuse one another the right to exist?”

A day later, his body was found in a toilet stall in the left wing of the building. He was clutching an empty bottle of sleeping pills. By some cruel twist of fate, his body lay prostrate just beneath the words You’re useless, which someone had underlined with a thick marker.

When a person loses someone close to him, it is common that he will feel tortured by a sense of