Warning! What follows contains explicit language.
An edited version of the text is available here.
Consciousness came back slowly. How much time had passed — no telling. A minute, maybe an hour. Dizziness argued with nausea, one imaginary swaying gave way to another blurry one. Reality took its time returning. It came back in the sound of native speech:
— Fuck! Shit! Motherfucking hell! No fucking way, and this son of a bitch doesn’t even have smokes on him!
Someone was searching me. I didn’t see who — I squeezed my eyes shut. When the searching stopped and the cursing man walked off, judging by the footsteps, I cracked my eyes open.
Ha! A young guy with a light machine gun in hand was bent over the bearded man, muttering:
— Fucking hell, goddamn son of a bitch! Where the fuck are their cigarettes? For fuck’s sake! There’s gotta be some! Fucking hell! Gotta be! Shit! Shit! Shit!
A minute went by, he kept swearing, kicking the jeep, the bodies… and then — hop!
A pack of cigarettes slid out of the driver’s boot and plopped onto the gravel. The kid didn’t notice. He peered under the flipped jeep, straightened up, fiddled with the transmission, slapped a fist against the wheel, and sat down on a rock.
I stirred, trying to get up. The kid reacted to the rustle, instantly swinging the machine gun on me.
— Don’t shoot! — I yelled, frightened.
— You talk Russian? — he asked, surprised.
— Yeah.
— Where you from, all dressed up like that?
— Moscow.
— A countryman, then. Long here?
— Since yesterday.
— Fresh meat. What year is it back there?
— Ninety-three.
— Not bad, — the guy walked over, flipped me onto my stomach.
Same as the last soldier, he checked the quality of the loop binding my wrists and my general condition. Concluded:
— Solid.
I sighed. The guy asked:
— Got smokes, bro?
— Not on me, but there’s some over there.
— No shit? — he perked up. — Where?
— On the driver. The one in the helmet. Under him.
In an instant the guy was by the jeep, kicked the body aside, and found the pack:
— Would you look at that!
He came back to me, settled on a boulder across from me, and lit up.
— Fucking beautiful, — he exhaled, letting out smoke rings. — A thing of beauty! There are some days so good you wish they’d never end. Half a year ago, no shit, I got my hands on «Death on the Marsh» and about cried with joy till I smoked the whole pack. Unbelievable stuff!
Half a minute later the guy glanced my way and explained:
— Those are special cigarettes for the men, class seven. The quartermaster hands them out on Fridays. Got it, kid?
— Got it! So, you gonna untie me?
— Like hell why, — the guy said, not taking his eyes off the smoldering tip of his cigarette.
— It’s uncomfortable.
— You know what’s uncomfortable? Tucking a fur coat into your underpants. Everything else is fine. So don’t make a fuss about it. Everything’s peachy.
«What a bastard,» I thought.
— What the hell do I need you for anyway? — the guy went on. — I untie you, and you brain me with a rock. I’ve had enough of that kind of untying. Lie there and shut it.
— I won’t do anything to you, I swear. Let me go, huh? — I pleaded.
— Course you won’t… long as you’re tied up. So what year did you say it was?
— Ninety-three.
The guy snorted, smoked his cigarette down to the filter, lit the next one off it, flicked the butt toward the jeep. I shifted, settled in more comfortably, and got a good look at the kid.
On one foot he wore a short, side-laced boot, gray with dust and worn through; on the other, a «Nike» sneaker, also gray and worn out, laced with wire instead of laces. His torn, pale-green pants were either full of holes with patches, or served as ventilation for his legs. The outfit was topped off with a gray bulletproof vest thrown over his bare chest, a faded gray «SWAT» printed across it. His body was lean and wiry. In his left hand, wrapped in dirty bandages, he was holding the light machine gun. A cigarette smoldered in his right. His hair, bleached white, stuck up in a short, bristly crew cut. His face, with a peeling, freckled nose, was the face of a punk kid from the courtyard next door. Where had he come from?
Once I got tired of studying him, I tried to sit up again. It worked.
Under his mocking gaze, I got to my feet and looked around. The landscape was just as grim standing up as it had been lying down — rocks, rocks, and more rocks all around. Though at the very horizon, sand stretched out. That was where I’d been brought from. I looked the other way. From there came the sounds of battle — single shots, automatic-rifle bursts, the rattle of machine guns, and the thud of artillery.
— Looking for somewhere to run off to? Go ahead, — the guy smirked.
— What do you mean?
— Don’t rack your brain, relax. The jokes and giggles are over. I’ve been stuck bumming around here since ‘83. No way back, none.
— Uh… right… What is this place?
— Fuck if I know, comrade lance corporal. All I’ve figured out is it’s the biggest shithole there is. Reporting for duty — a genuine shithole, forever.
— What do you mean, forever?
— Just that. An inescapable shithole. Total hell, in a word.
— Can’t be.
— Anything can be here. Duck down, will you, or they’ll spot you and finish you off. I don’t need the extra attention.
I obediently crouched. The guy lit a third cigarette off the butt, blew out a cheerful string of smoke rings, and asked:
— What’s your name?
— Roma.
— I’m Anton, and that dumbass over there is Tishka. — Anton nodded toward the rocky ridge.
I didn’t see anyone there, but I mumbled, just in case:
— Nice to meet you.
— Yeah, Roma, — Anton went on, sending off another train of smoke rings. — You landed yourself in a shithole you can’t even imagine. Can’t find a more godforsaken place anywhere. Remember how you ended up here?
— I was riding the metro.
— What?
— I was riding the metro.
— No fucking way. What a dumbass way to get here, gotta say. Never heard such bullshit in my life. Me, I got here from the war. You heard of Afghanistan?
— Sure.
— Sure, what? What could you have possibly heard, you little shit? Your papers write about friendship gardens and la-di-da nonsense, and meanwhile we’re chasing dushmans around in tanks. — Anton smirked. — Heh, «heard of Afghanistan,» sonny. Off the BBC radio, I bet?
Anton went quiet, started whistling a little tune — «chink-chink-Genghis-Khan.» He watched the smoke rings he blew out in rhythm and seemed lost in thought.
The third cigarette burned down to the filter. Anton flicked the butt aside, shook the rest of the cigarettes out of the pack onto the boulder, lined them up, and counted. «Only eight left, damn it,» he sighed, put seven back in the pack filter-down, lit the last one. Blew out five smoke rings one after another, then pierced them with a sixth breath. Stuffed the pack into his vest pocket, the lighter after it, rubbed his palms on his pants, glanced up at the sky, and concluded:
— Life’s shit. Death’s shit too. But we’re alive, and we screw everyone over.
I looked up too. There was nothing up there that could argue with Anton. Brown clouds and red patches were competing over who could take up more room.
— And generally, everything in this world is shit and more shit, — Anton brought the thought to its logical conclusion. — Want to know how I ended up here?
— Sure! — I hurried to agree, hoping Anton would untie a grateful listener afterward.
— Then listen up. Nothing better to do. Uh… what was it now?… Ah, remembered. So, here’s how it went…
