125 RUS. The Far East novel. Anna Efimenko

death was due to an epidemic of typhus.

      I have heard, that flowers of Bagulnik along with carnations are often placed in cemeteries. Nobody knows where the grave of Mandelstam or the other prisoners are. In the plural, in the infinite plural.

      Well, I will keep trying to get to the center of Vladivostok. Walk around wherever I like. Marina and I talked a lot about the tremendous use of loneliness for a creative and sensitive person. In the end, I had a lot of money with me and the most important set of necessities:

      My grief – prophetic, pertinent,

      My freedom – quieted and distant,

      And ever-laughing, mocking crystal —

      A numb and lifeless firmament.7

      Chapter 3

      C – City of Vladivostok

      Vladivostok (founded in 1860) is a city and port in the Far East of Russia, the administrative center of Primorsky Krai, the final destination of the Trans-Siberian Railway. It is located on the coast of the Sea of Japan on the Muravyov-Amursky Peninsula.

(Source: telephone directory)

      …The salt on my cheeks, the wind in the disheveled blackness of my hair, the ultramarine disease corrodes my eyes to the very bottom, to the core of the eyeball, and I enjoy every sigh, every slow glance, every step up and down, through countless staircases, climbs and descents of this city. A Panoramic view of the Golden Horn Bay from Eagle’s Nest Hill – I have never seen in my life such beauty before. From a great height, you contemplate the majestic bridges, and the sea surrounding the city, or, conversely, the city that surrounds the sea. Little bit more, and you can spread wings (or gills – they have the chance to be drawn around the neck because of the tropical humidity), drive off mountainous, angular land, steep asphalt curls, winding streets and fly forward, up high, to all four corners of the earth, because the ocean extends only here in all directions. Not warm turquoise, covered in white sand, but a real ocean, wild and untamed, thick, iodous and calcareous, spitting out the curls of seaweeds, which the coastal wind gathers into balls like a tumbleweed.

      Military ships are always proudly alert with a sullen look facing the distant shores, ready to face an enemy at any time. They defend our lands in the East. In the East, the sun rises – appearing from the ocean abyss like a red-hot five-rouble coin, a gold medallion, a fireball. Own the East (‘Vladey-Vostokom’)! A cannon shot is strictly on schedule every midday; military and merchant ships are large and small, different ships being on a raid; Vladivostok was a closed city from 1953 till 1991, only USSR citizens could live there and visit it.

      From time immemorial, Vladivostok is called «Haishenwey» in Chinese which means the city at Cape of Trepang or Trepang Bay. Since ancient times there is a legend about the blessed blue trepang that inhabits these waters (people call it sometimes ’sea cucumber’). The Japanese were less poetic – during the Meiji period (1868—1912) they tagged Vladivostok existed in those times Uradzio which meant the salty bay.

      I stopped at a hotel near the Sport Embankment, in a room with the Amur Bay view. Ninety percent of the guests are either Chinese, Japanese or Korean. There is a corner with a microwave and a large thermos on nearly every floor as an extra convenience: So, to save money, you don’t need to have a meal at a restaurant every day. When I went down to brew a cup of freeze-dried noodles, a Japanese said to me, “Konnichiwa”8, which I answered back with formal and polite bow. The language barrier, which in my case becomes a barrier in the literal sense, because my mouth has not uttered a sound for all my life, has not allowed to get acquainted with Asians. Instead, I made friends with a local barman named Sergei. He is about my age, working shifts on the ground floor, where a porcelain white cat flaunts itself on a bar counter, screwing up its eyes and squeezing a fake bottle of Asahi with its paw – Seryoga calls it a ‘beer kitten’. My communication with the barman began, as expected, from a sheet of paper on which I wrote the name of the desired drink, and then he smoothly flowed into his story about the latest news in the city at Cape of Trepang, as well as endless monologues about cars. Practically everyone here has Japanese cars with a right-hand drive, most of them are white. This combination of sparkling white cars, marine, and blue sky, coupled with tightly whitened snow-white clouds, seems very harmonious. So, walking along the Ocean Avenue you suddenly realize that the traffic jam on the road is moving only in two directions: to the sea or in the sky. Well, I fancy both directions, which means that this is my city. And I shouldn’t have to waste time in getting my own car (a lifelong dream is finally taking shape).

      To the unpleasant: the adventures of my such and such washed belongings did not end. They continue, but, alas, already without me here. As I accidentally took someone else’s suitcase, which was an absolute copy of mine. As soon as I began unzipping such an unusually pliable zip, I already felt something was wrong, but when I found the knots and skeins of leather and jeans items of microscopic size inside, I realized that the luggage was my curse during this journey. Nevertheless, I’m writing a diary, the paper is patient. I will say this. I won’t be doing anything since I can’t contact the airport and share my troubles. Being a mute person, it is physically impossible, and I have no intention to go back to Artem and the airport.

      In this identical suitcase, there was something quite intriguing, in particular – a voice recorder with recordings of people. As far as I could tell, these are patient’s conversations (pleasant voice, an interesting manner of pronouncing words, but sometimes like chewing words) with a psychotherapist. As it can be concluded from the answers of the girl, which resemble just a stream of consciousness, that the doctor uses hypnosis as one of the methods of treatment. I write a personal diary, but the paper is patient, so such a fugitive as your humble servant, is going to listen to all sessions with unconcealed curiosity and write them down in his all-merciful patient notepad: because some of the records I had already listened to are of great value for my modest travel essays. Perhaps it should be illustrated with an example,

      “What does Vladivostok mean to you? Why do you speak of it as the only native element?

      “There is nothing, there never was anything, never no. Oh, hell, it’s blowing my mind! It’s no good. Lord, why are the words so flat? They are lifeless, they do not have a milliliter of water, and wherever there is water, there is life. When Mira asked me as a joke what kind of dream I had as the most erotic, I answered that the dream was me being a late teen-ager, in the late afternoon, where my friend and I kept drowning each other in the lake with water-lilies like languid flowers along the banks, and one of us happened to be put under water now and then. Damn it, and there was also a time when it grew dark, my parents went out for a visit, I couldn’t stop crying when night came to Vladivostok. And there was an episode at school. I was sharing a desk with a guy who, yes. I sat next to him and drew pictures in a notebook: I drew myself without a face, suddenly, behind my back there was an indestructible army of fish, and my shoes were stuck with seaweed.

      And there was another episode, my brother… Oh damn, and this is making my head hurt – Gods, give me the strength to write a story about this! – my brother is in a pale yellow cream shirt, with hair inherited from me and my father – straight, dark, laid on one side – I met him in a dream at the square of his native town, the town of mines and the airport. The brother raised his hand and said, “I don’t believe we’ve met!” Oh yes, my brother lives under the seabed, he had always lived somewhere under the bitter sea, in Podmorie (under the sea).

      Mira and I drove around Podmorie, and her mobile phone slipped out of a crumpled pocket and fell under the sea for fish to have fun. I’ve never been scared to drown. I preferred blue, light blue, emerald, green in the draperies – everything to satisfy the lords

7

Collection of poems by Osip E. Mandelstam. Translated by Andrey Kneller.

8

“Hello” (Japanese).