Moscow Noir

Nina survived because that morning she’d gone out for mushrooms when the punitive expedition showed up. She hid out in the woods and didn’t emerge until it was all over.

Until everyone was dead.

Kolya says he wouldn’t have lasted a day in the forest. I’m afraid of wolves, he says. She laughs; he’s probably not afraid of anything.

Nina is afraid for him.

Afraid they’ll slit Kolya’s throat to take away his gun.

Afraid Kolya will stop someone to check his documents—and the person will start shooting.

Afraid Kolya will go after a thieves’ den—and be killed in a shootout.

Afraid Kolya will walk into a building—and into an ambush.

Nina says, Take care of yourself, for god’s sake. If only you could wait until the child is born!

But Kolya replies, I took an oath. If I don’t stop them they’re going to keep on killing. Pretty recently they butchered a whole family in Marina Roshcha. Even a tiny baby. Got away with 25,000 rubles.

A huge amount. Kolya’s salary is just 550. How long do you have to work to make that kind of money?

How old was the baby? Nina asks.

Still in its cradle, absolutely tiny, Kolya answers. They killed him so he wouldn’t cry.

Why is he telling her this? Nina wants to hear one more time how after she gives birth Kolya is going to take time off. No, Kolya doesn’t want to talk about leaving work, he answers Nina. Wait for us to catch them all, and then we’ll start living well and happily!

Nina doesn’t believe it. She remembers how people used to say, We’ll drive Fritz out and then we’ll start living well and happily. Where is that happiness now? Now it’s like seeing her husband off to the front line every single day.

Actually, it’s her own fault. She knew who she was marrying. From the very first second. Only Kolya was so handsome in his new uniform, blue with red trim. His cap with its sky-blue band. His boots. The moment she saw him at the dance, she fell in love. Kolya later admitted he’d gone into the police force because of the uniform; they issued it for free and he liked wearing it.

There was a star on the cap, and in the center a soldier with a rifle at the ready. Nina liked that a lot too.

At the time Nina had only just arrived and she was afraid of Moscow. It was awful! Everyone cutting in and out, sideways, down the streets—and the locals pushing their way past, swaggering, spitting at their feet, not afraid of anything. You could spot them right away: soft eight-panel caps, boxcalf boots, and white mufflers.

Later Kolya told her those were the thieves. Crooks.

Why can they walk down the street like that with no one arresting them? Nina asked.

Well, you can’t arrest someone for an eight-panel cap, Kolya laughed. Don’t worry, they won’t be walking around for long. Too bad they’ve abolished the vyshka . But that’s all right, if need be we’ll take matters into our own hands—and he winked.

Vyshka was short for capital punishment. Execution. It was abolished a year ago. Kolya says there’s no one to chop timber in Siberia.

Nina thinks, We’re going to have a child—and how are we going to live? It’s good the war’s over. But still, are we really going to spend our whole life in the city? No forest, no real river. You can go to the big park, people dive and swim from the pier—but Nina feels shy. She swims like a country girl, after all, and in Moscow everyone must have some special style.

Nina sits home waiting for her husband. Sits and waits, worried, troubled, and afraid. She can’t make heads or tails of what she reads, and they don’t have a gramophone, or even a radio speaker; it’s an old building. I don’t know whether there were any televisions back then, but Nina and Kolya definitely didn’t have one.

I’m sitting home too, and I’m waiting for Nikita too. I’m worried for him—even though I have no cause for worry. Nikita’s business is peaceful and he drives carefully. I’m still worried, though.

I’d like to say, I don’t know if I could deal with being in Nina’s place, but I can’t. She and I are one and the same, which means at some point I was sitting there like that, waiting for my husband to come home from work, bored, looking out the window, stroking my pregnant belly, afraid to go outside.

It’s weird to feel other people’s lives inside you. Snatches of other people’s thoughts and irrelevant facts suddenly surface in my memory. Edible berries. The best place to gather mushrooms. How to climb a tree and get settled so you don’t fall out at night.

And sometimes a tune gets stuck in my head and keeps ringing in my mind hour after hour. Sometimes I can even make out the words.

My dad the bigwig fucks his tart

Oh bastard me, I fuck my aunt

All the time, everywhere,

From midnight until morn

From one night to the next

And back again till morn.

My dad the bigwig only fucks ’em rich

Oh bastard me, I fuck ’em bent and humped

All the time, everywhere

From midnight until morn

From one night to the next

And back again till morn.

I know this is what the little boys sang when Nina walked around the yard. Nina heard this song, and now I hear it in my head. All the time, everywhere, from midnight until morn—and I don’t know whether this song amused, frightened, or annoyed Nina. I get my melancholy from her. All the time, everywhere—that is, in this life and the ones before, around the clock, night and day, I sit in an armchair, on a seat, on a stool, and wait for my beloved to come home. And I’m afraid something’s going to happen to him.

When I’m Nina, I caress my big pregnant belly. When I’m Masha, I paint my toenails over and over again, though I have no plans to go out. It calms me.

Kolya comes home and tells me how they picked up the Kazentsov gang a few days before, on a train, and how there was shooting. The gang had hidden out in the children’s car but the conductor noticed them and called it in. It turned out they were hijacking cars. They’d ask a driver to take them out of town, where they’d kill him. Now they were the ones getting killed, at least two of them.

Kolya says there are too many guns in Moscow. Captured and brought back from the war, taken away from policemen, stolen from the Hammer and Sickle plant, where they’re selling old inventory to melt down.

To make sure a policeman can’t have his gun taken away, Kolya explained, the cop attached it to a special red cord. The cord goes up one side of his uniform, around his neck, and down the other side. The grip has a special loop where the cord is attached. Kolya explained and even showed me, but I still don’t understand. Better they just take the gun. That way, if some crook decides he wants your gun, he doesn’t have to kill you for it.

I’m really scared for Kolya. Since I got pregnant, I’m even more scared.

At first I was so glad we were going to have a child! I imagined him growing there, inside me. I went to the doctor once a month and the doctor told me when his little eyes appeared, and his little hands. I’m only sorry he’s going to be born in Moscow and not the country. What kind of a life is this? Why did I ever come here? I must have known I’d meet Kolya. There’s nothing else good here in Moscow.

I’m glad I didn’t enter the institute. I’d have had to study—but before you know it, a little baby is going to be born and Kolya will come to his senses. We’ll go away together, wherever we want.

I’ve been living in Moscow nearly a year and I still can’t figure out what draws people here. In line at the doctor’s I met a woman, also near her due date but older than me, her name was Marfa, also from the country, but