CHEERLESSNESS

You should not have come to see him, you should not!...
The matter is over, what is the use of repeating it over and over again, with trembling lips like a parrot. What’s the good of it? You should have done it in the morning when your hand stretched for telephone, and your finger, grown stiff for unknown reason, was dialing a familiar call. Having spent a certain time waiting for the call, you could explain yourself that he was out, even despite a cheerful, replete voice of your Friend. You could keep silent and even hang up the receiver or say that you phoned simply to make inquires about your business.
Having obtained necessary information about common acquaintances, you could bid farewell to all hopes but when you heard your Friend’s voice you would immediately lose self- confidence, absent-mindedly and obscurely responding his questions in an effort to say something. After all, you could, from force of habit, ask: “Can I do anything for you? May, you need something?” Turning red in the face, sweating, keeping yourself back from collaborations in the same room, going to pieces like a creaked plate, you muttered: “Well everything is okay, true, there are some problems”.
It was not late to collect yourself, decline from a meeting. And did you do when Friend told you: “Agreed, everything will be okay. Come here, I’m waiting for you?” You could not have refused like a person who obeys order. You merely hang up the receiver and, shuffling your feet, went out into the corridor, wiped dry your face and neck, took a cigarette with quavering hands and inhaled avidly.
Tormenting yourself over what had happened, you wished the earth could shallow you up. Still, it came into no mind that you needn’t go to see him. Otherwise, you would lose ability to think! The hell with everything, but there remained a chance to return from the bus stop, from the half-way, from the reception-room of the department where he worked. But when you, despite contrary rain, walked nearly across the whole city and opened a door of his room, greeted his woman-secretary resembling a mermaid, - then it proved to be too late to return. The girl was nice to be a match for interior; she smiled a studied smile and asked mellifluent: “How are you getting on? Please, take off your raincoat and wait a little, he is busy”. You hang up your water-soaked raincoat on a hall-stand and sank into a soft chair. In doing so, you started at the door as if your Friend could have left without seeing you.
You had been sitting for long. The rain outdoors did not quiet down, and the mermaid-like girl whispered something into the receiver. When she blushed crimson and laughed on the sly when watching a kissing couple on the screen, this filled the room with a certain intimacy. Tired of waiting, you decided to go, but on second thoughts you came to the conclusion that something was wrong, and your Friend could remain displeased.
A noise was heard behind a leather upholstered door; it opened and a young woman came up with a self-satisfied look, followed by a well-groomed man, your Friend.
He was so busy with the woman that overlooked you, shriveling two-three steps away from him in the chair. Over the past few months that you had not met, he appreciably grew stout; the second chin appeared; his stomach bulged out of the elegant dress; eyes on the round face seemed to be finer. With charming smile, he told the woman: “Call us, do not forget!” and seeing her off, he turned back to say something to the secretary, when he suddenly noticed your wet raincoat on the hall-stand. At this moment you felt pitiful and embarrassed as if you were not friends at all for many years and never shared a loaf of bread and a cigarette. An impression was that you had been received by an absolutely unfamiliar person.
You felt everything worked up inside; sunken cheeks turned red; sweat drops fell from under yet- undried hair. You stood up with a strange weakness in the feet and, lowering your gaze, went to meet him. “I have not seen you for a month”, - his Friend noticed as if from top to bottom. He stepped forward shaking hands with you, and then mercifully allowed being kissed.
Observing the proprieties, you mumbled something even not realizing what you were saying. Fortunately, your Friend paid no attention to your spirits, nor attached importance to indistinct speeches you delivered. He merely put his hand on your shoulder, showed you into his room as saying “your way”, then turned to the mermaid and asked her “to bring us a cup of tea”.
His room was light, comfortable and warm. He carefully sat on his place, next to the big table. Then he stood up and approached the window as saying: “It is still pouring”. He did it to enter into conversation. “Yes, it is”, - you backed him. Suddenly it blew over in my mind that your Friend had nothing to do with the rain; he may phone any minute to a person in charge of entertainment and pass away the time in sauna or shashlik-house. Meanwhile, you face cold and heat and related problems. In an effort to get rid of these thoughts, you began rubbing your neck with a handkerchief and even risked skinning you alive.
Friend took a seat in the chair, then settled back and smoked. You wanted to do the same; however, appearance of your Friend, luxury of his room and purpose of your visit nipped a desire to smoke in the bud. An impression was that other people, not your, talked for hours in low price cafes, tea-houses, overcrowded subway carriages. From now on, there is an invisible abyss between the old acquaintances, which cannot be surmounted. You had no opportunity, your Friend had no desire.
Still, there were bygone days, the past that made your meeting necessary: it was need that forced you to apply to him and it was his duty that urged him to receive you. Even better, your Friend knew worth of everything, time and place, the way one lives. He did not draw a distinction between him and you; He tried to have a heat-to-heart talk with you. You responded calmly, hinting at your current social status. He was not fool, your Friend; otherwise, he would not have made his way up in such a young age. He talked about one thing and another, making it clear that in this life one should rely on one’s strength only. In doing so, your Friend worked wonders, at least, you grasped his lofty phrases as exact truth.
“Well, do not be shy, tell me how much you want”, - he said these words gnawing at me after the secretary had brought tea and closed a door. You should have given everything to avoid hearing these words, which struck you down once and for all. You hoped that if your Friend asked “What are your problems?” you would think of something and thus conceal a true purpose of your arrival. However, your Friend is a worldly-wise: his current post taught him to speak to visitors properly. That’s why he assessed the situation promptly leaving no place for retreat. He seemed to know even, how many times you died and raised from the dead. “Well, forty, fifty or…”, - in uttering these words you felt you were breaking into a cold sweat. To conceal your passions, you preferred to fix your eyes on the window, as if rain drops falling from the sky were to blame for your humiliation.
Your Friend fell into thinking as if adopting a decision of paramount importance, then took money out of the case and put them in front of you: “Sorry, it’s just twenty”. In an effort to ignore money, you drawled: “A close friend of mine has invited us to attend the wedding ceremony. I’ll give this back to you soon”. Your voice sounded like a death in the air, though you began dying as far back as this morning when trying to get your Friend on the phone. You were nearing your demise but suddenly your Friend threw you money, like a handful of earth on the grave; at the very same time you passed away; neither earth opened wide, nor heavens engrossed you: just a few banknotes, and it was all over with you. When dying, you imagined a young woman who had come here before you had: your Friend, with sparkling eyes, shoving green scraps of paper into narrow gullies between her breasts. – “Use it as you like. See you in a day or two”. The woman coquettishly looked aside and smiled as debtors usually do…
You have a hazy recollection of what had happened later. Taking a sip of cooled tea, you tried from all your strength to keep dignity and avoid uneasiness and inane – it was your corps, not you proper. When seeing you off to the door, your Friend bade farewell as saying: “Do not worry, everything will be okay”, and asked you to come and see him when appropriate.
All these occurred as is in drizzling. When cold drops began falling on your bare-head, you came to yourself and, splashing through the puddles, ran to the bus stop.
…It was warm and bright in the bus. Next to you there was a plump woman with tranquility in the face. Cold outside the window, a comfortable salon, nearness and fragrance from the woman – all these crated an intimate mood. You tried as if unexpectedly to catch her look, and the money in your breast pocket seemed to add confidence. The women felt it, and a perceptible smile touched her lips. However, the woman’s image demonstrated in accessibility and self-respect…
You asked a driver to stop the bus and watching her go out too but from another door, you tried to staunch a shiver when producing your veteran’s certificate to the driver.
In experiencing a pleasure that the driver was ready to get angry with your certificate, you dragged yourself along the woman who turned off the street to the corner. She slowed her steps down and cast an understanding look at you. You left her behind and directed your steps to the porch. Hearing her steps behind and sensing her breath, you trembled and began climbing upstairs. You confusedly opened the door and stood in the room’s darkness pending first her aroma and approaching sounds of her steps. Yes, her aroma and breath filled up the room, and you with all you soul reached out for this aroma and breathing…
…However, the woman got off two stops before, and she took light, warmth and rest with her. In a stupor state, you followed the rest of the journey with words sparkling and sinking in your mind: “Oh, Allah, long live light! Oh, Allah, long live light!
When coming up to my stop, I turned to the window with my heart beating wildly. I failed to find what I looked for. The reason was my distraction and discord in views. Getting off the bus I saw everything around sinking into darkness. A faint light twinkled in two-three windows: these were candles. It was raining, raining incessantly… This weather made my wound from a shell-splinter in a thigh to ache. Also, my joints were aching as well.
I was going upstairs to the touch, holding on to the walls, and opened the door blindly. I groped for a switch as if your flat had no relation to this house and block, and the light would be on, washing away a fit of spleen and apathy which seized you since yesterday together with the rain. When you finally realized that the light was off, you, with the raincoat wet through, sank into a chair opposite the TV-set and stared at hardly perceptible screen, as if the whole occurrence had a remote relation to you. Meanwhile, a film producer was skilful in reanimating events on the screen, so that everything resembled what had happened with you in reality. Meanwhile, the rain outdoors was beating against the sidewalks and the room was buried in the darkness, and your raincoat let water through…
The light suddenly went out in the evening when your wife took the children with her and bent her steps to the father. Then a heavy shower burst out like unjustified expectations of the miserable woman, like her bitter tears. “Enough! – She would say – “People do money from nothing while you had been rotting three years in trenches and came away empty-handed. Your scribble cannot fill up the stomach!” And sitting in the same chair you remained silent. What could you say? Wages promised to be paid out? No, it was impossible to cheat her. You chief gathered you earlier each week in his room and, drinking tea, talked through his hat. Having finished monologue, he addressed to you with ostentatious respect as saying: “What are your proposals on the agenda?” But you were not so stupid as it might seem, so you smirked and set the pitch: “I wish you health and happiness!” The chief understood irony very well, but made no sign and announced triumphantly: “We shall do our utmost to receive wages this week with Allah’s help”. It was Allah only who could help, not your chief. In other words, there were no hopes to get wages in the nearest days…
…You did not hear an unlocked entrance door open, and your neighbor entered the room, without greeting as usual, sat on his place in the end of the table.
“Why are you sitting in the darkness? You haven’t candles to strike, have you?” – He asked, and you startled, and then the faces of your wife, Friend, chief disappeared in a trice from his voice.
You did not move as saying: “They ran out yesterday, I’ve forgotten to buy”. The neighbor must have come to shutter the boredom, and to start the conversation he added: “This damned rain cannot stop”. But you did not respond, so he asked: “Do you know when the light will be on?”
In doing so, he expected that you would press a button and the light flash out and all the burdens of day would; in no time, be settled. “No”, you replied, and added: “The light is unlikely to be on today”. The neighbor sighed like a man without the slightest hope, sat for a while, banging his fingers on the table, stood up and soundlessly went out.
He was out but you had for long been sitting in the darkness lending an ear to sounds of rain and cars passing by. You regretted that the neighbor had gone: you should have said that the light would soon be switched on. Who knows how the situation would turn out in this world..

1999
Translated by Ali Efendiyev