Chapter 1
Dedicated to the regional centre of K.
and the thousands of places similar to it.
If you don’t know where to start,
Start from where it all began.
Death is not the worst
that can happen to men.
Plato
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, 1988
The regional centre of K. seemed to be the slowest place in the world. It was extremely quiet and small. People never hurried anywhere, the life was just passing. As every regional centre, the regional centre of K. had several schools, two hospitals, a police station, some shops, where people seldom bought goods, two markets, a huge railway station and basically nothing else worth mentioning. It was so small that one could easily walk it through in three hours or even less. People living in K. were pretty happy though. The majority of their time they spent in the yard talking to neighbors and chewing sunflower seeds or taking care of their vegetables in the garden.
There was almost nothing new happening in K. From time to time some couples got married and gave the rest of the people a fine reason to celebrate and stay drunk for several days in a row. From time to time old people died, giving everybody exactly same reason. Summer time was amazing, hot and dry. Occasional cars were making the road dust go up in the air and people passing by swear. In autumn that dust was becoming sticky mud slightly peeking out of the deep puddles. They were turning the whole town into the flooded grey mess too soaked and too lonely to be loved.
Oleg Ivanovich Budiakov was taking his time, smoking his second cigarette and finishing his cup of tea, which was as black as the soil he stood on with his bare feet. That was the habit he had from the early childhood, when his family only had one pair of boots for him and his seven siblings. Oleg Ivanovich did not want autumn to come, but it was stupid to think much about something inevitable so he switched his attention to the swallow nest on his neighbor’s house. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eye, put the glasses back on his old wrinkled nose, made several steps towards the nest and started watching the swallows precisely, sipping his tea and smoking.
It was not the shoes that he was worried about; he had many of them now; but the weather and those huge puddles that would prevent people from coming to him. In autumn and in winter his business didn’t bring that much as during spring and summer. Moreover, he had much to do before the autumn comes. The wooden roof of his old house got rotten long ago. Budiakov was repairing it himself until it got really bad last year and he had to cover the whole floor with wash basins. The water from the ceiling was dripping from the early autumn to the late spring, leaving stains, moulds and dampness. Finally Oleg Ivanovich came to conclusion that it couldn’t be mended by any means and had to be finally covered with fibre cement sheets. He also knew that the full roof cover was only done during dry weather and it only meant summer. So all the money he earned since the first wash basin touched his floor was stored in the tin box, waiting for Budiakov to have enough of it.
Above the small gate leading to Budiakov’s yard and the house one could see a big dingy sign saying ‘Polishing Service’. The old bicycle stopped right under that sign.
‘Ivanovich, what are looking at in there?’
Budiakov’s thoughts just got interrupted by the voice, coming from the walkway. Without even turning his head, Budiakov replied, still watching the bird’s nest:
‘Good morning, Tamara Pavlovna. Did you bring the knives?’
‘No. Maybe tomorrow. Wanted to tell you that there is a big parcel for you at the post office. It arrived yesterday in the evening. From Saint Petersburg. Pretty heavy.’
Budiakov’s face got happier the same moment he heard it.
’You know what, Tamara Pavlovna. I read a very interesting article last week, or maybe two weeks ago, - he frowned, - well, it doesn’t matter. So it said that in China people make soup from swallow’s nests. It’s their very ancient tradition, you know. And that soup is extremely expensive. That’s what I read. You know I order ‘Around the world’ every month.’
Tamara Pavlovna burst out laughing:
‘Do you think someone is that stupid to eat mud and birds’ saliva or whatever else those swallows put together to make a nest? If so, we need them all to come and buy those nests from us. Maybe could make much money. That would be nice. Potato harvest was so bad this year. God damn those Colorado beetles. In his interview for ‘The Gardener’ newspaper one farmer said that he thinks that all-fired Chernobyl even made potato beetles more resilient. These pests are very tough creeps, dash them all.’
Budiakov’s thoughts were somewhere very far from the potato beetles and Tamara Pavlovna’s rage, even far enough from Chernobyl. He was the old school person; he was one of the people who believed in those things only that they saw with their own eyes.
Tamara Pavlovna got discouraged as she noticed that her presence didn’t really concern Budiakov as well as everything she was saying. But she did not mind. Everybody knew he was a fine workman, but very desolate and unsociable, shut out in his small house, polishing the things people brought. After a long silence Tamara Pavlovna said:
‘I will go now, Ivanovich. Come to take your parcel later today.’
‘I will, Tamara Pavlovna, I will,’ replied Budiakov, still watching the nest.
Tamara Pavlovna got on her bicycle and left.
Budiakov took the last sip of tea accompanied with a loud slurp and threw the cigarette butt into the can from the Latvian sardines, which now served as the ashtray resting on the tin window ledge of the wooden cabin. That cabin stood in the yard, right opposite his house. That was a kind of working studio where he polished the goods. It had the huge table, several cabinets and some shelves. Most of the table was occupied by polishing machines and tools. The long shelves were full of different boxes, cans, squares of cloth, bottles with industrial oil and dissolving agent and a lot of lumber stacked in between. Everything inside that cabin looked dull and fainted. The bottles were greasy with a heavy layer of dust stuck to them and the liquids of unknown origin inside. The cans hosted different small metal details, thimbles, nails and other metal pieces. The air had metallic smell and even metallic taste. The tiny corner shelf was a home for the tainted kerosene lamp that Budiakov used during those late evenings when he was finishing some big orders.
