125 RUS

125 RUS
Anna Efimenko

A man with a mythical name and sealed lips goes into the unknown. Mystery of Primorye penetrates into him through A – Airport and a voice from a voice recorder, B – Bagulnik flowers and Bays with the ancient Chinese names; C – the city of Vladivostok surrounded by the ocean, where one can sometimes get lost on edge of reality and fiction, as if in an inaccurate reflection of sea water… Will we find out what really happened? Can we dare to get to the last letter of the alphabet?

125 RUS

Anna Efimenko

Translator Olga Simpson

© Anna Efimenko, 2021

© Olga Simpson, translation, 2021

ISBN 978-5-0053-1515-1

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

Like a driven wave,

Dashed by fierce winds on a rock,

So am I: alone

And crushed upon the shore,

Remembering what has been.

Minamoto no Shigeuki (1st century AD)

Prologue

My father threw me out of home in early June, at the beginning of summer.

Does a person with a clear and well spoken voice sounding like a devastating thunderstorm have any advantages of a man being mute from birth but not deaf? He certainly does, and this advantage is highly consequential. Time and time again, I kept coming to such a conclusion during my life, not long enough and quite uneventful. Making a start on events described in the book, the episode is further proof of that.

Having returned from my walk (I liked to take a walk with Marina every night in the local park), I found my father drunk and overly talkative. No wonder, this combination often ended up with controversy, bad arguments, and aggravation of conflicts, being sanded-down and trampled within time. In our case, the arguments usually quickly slowed down, as directing all his energy to his verbal apparatus, the father expelled saliva, made jokes, becoming sarcastic, while masterly inventing new denouncements. In turn, I shook my head or nodded depending on the situation, and made violent gestures. Not receiving any reprisal from me would only be a reflection of his aggression being voiced upon me, my father used to shrug his shoulders, spitting out, «Phooey on you!» and then disappear to the kitchen, where he had wine and read thick books half the night. In the morning, I often found him asleep on David Chandler or Horace Vernet’s endpapers with an empty bottle of Chardonnay nearby.

On such days, I took the keys to his car and drove away to the quarry with Marina or somewhere else further on, such as the lakes. There, we made bonfires and jumped through them, waving savagely with our hands, feeling something akin to pagan ecstasy. I brought photocopied sheets with fragments of my favorite poetry, so that Marina could chant them to me. She kept reading Eugene Onegin and Childe Harold to me a thousand times. The image of a romantic hero, disappointed and lonely, leaving his native land and going far away to meet new unknown horizons, somewhere to the east, to exotic countries, had always been very close to me, and Marina called this an incomplete phase of childish outburst.

By and large, I agreed with her, because age and the course of life slowly but surely thinned off the whole spiky nihilism of the brave young protesters, rolled the sharp corners of their characters smoothly, leaving no chances, but even any desire keep holding their own line, the one which had been already bent and curved in the past. Nevertheless, I have always sincerely admired people who live with an idea, as well as music, and other arts – honest people, targeted to their destiny. I was really fascinated by the French students in 1968 or those who chained themselves to the Pentagon in protest against the Vietnam War (Just listen: «Protest opposing…» these two words speak for themselves). Unfortunately, I got information about the majority of such examples only from print publications, chronicles or TV, I never watched it personally. However, deep inside, I always hoped, if not being on barricades, but at least to raise my collar with thunderous brows and, hobbling like someone you know who, get away somewhere for good.

The chance to do this fell upon me on that ill-fated night when in the midst of another heated argument my father uttered suddenly giving me his scathing look, «Get the hell out of here by tomorrow! Of course, I won’t kick you out tonight, Ajax, but be gone by tomorrow.» Looking about the room, the population and comfort of which was created by a rack with discs, pots with cactuses and my father who hated me, I’d got some flash in my mind that could only happen in dime novels, «All right, here’s for nothing. At least for me. As they used to sing in an ad when I was a child, Once in a lifetime kind of thing.»

So, I put a pile of сredit cards with different balance accounts into my wallet and a bundle of banknotes which had been put aside for buying my own car and our shared living together with Marina in future, then I started packing my suitcase. Looking at all this, father snickered, switched on a music player and left to the kitchen with utter disregard. Wasting a good half-hour with a broken suitcase zip, I got the second flash on my mind, this time it wasn’t worth a novelette, but a comedy movie. Half of my clothes (I should note, the best half) was spinning and spinning in the drum of the washing machine while I was having arguments with my father. They were absolutely unsuitable to be piled in such a dried condition. Then I started to lose my temper.

Dumping my wet belongings mixed with normal ones, not forgetting about the precious records, pages from books copied by hand for the sweet memory, three notepads (one to be kept into a breast pocket, together with a pen), personal cleansing and two pairs of glasses (sunscreen and with diopters), I forcefully zipped the mischievous zip, lifted the collar of my cloak up by sharp movement, gave a cold-hearted look to the bloody house and headed out of this place.

Hardly had I a cigarette outside, when a taxi arrived to pick me up right away, of which I was quite happy about, it was simply that I didn’t expect such a quick response in the middle of the night. I was about to write Marina’s address in the notepad, as something (I called it Providence later) stopped my lean hand. A teen idol was offering to win the prize, continued to pour from the blue screens somewhere at the back of my mind, «Once in a lifetime kind of thing.» I remembered while being a schoolboy I read a lot about the Second World War, and my late grandfather sent me a map of the place where he lived all his life: there was a war with Japan, there was the Hasan battle… On the back side of the map there was a globe, dotted with a grid of meridians and parallels, and a scenic airliner flying around it. Under the simple drawing there was a darkened inscription, «Welcome to our region!» At this point, I stopped thinking as if there was the beginning of the white film on the audio cassette – the right signal that the tape recorder would stop playing itself soon. This side of the recording was over. This side ended.

I dropped my pen, rummaged impatiently along the rubber car mat and as soon as I found my writing device again, I could write only one-word «Airport» and placed the notepad before the taxi driver (who had already started whistling impatiently). He gave me a price, I nodded, and we drove off.

The second surprise for the evening after my father’s weird behaviour was the cost of air tickets. It was so expensive that it seemed reasonable to me to save money buying a one-way ticket. True, inadequate ideas often come to my head, but fortunately, I have no regrets, and the above action is not an exception. While waiting for flight check-in, I tried to contact Marina to be able to write a message to her when I would hear the beeps. However, her phone was turned off, which is quite normal for a person who gets up for work at six in the morning. I had my poor luggage registered and was figuring out what kind of mildew the hidden clothes would cover after many hours in the air being put in the bowers.

When the flight was announced, coming to the security lane, I suddenly looked back and thought about something which was very typical for such a situation, «Am I doing the right thing? What awaits me in a completely unknown land? What will I gain there and what will I lose here?»

But there was nothing for me to lose, my whole former existence, if it had any value, would not slip like a sand into a gigantic immense place without leaving any single meaningful memory. Coming on board the ship, nineteen-year-old Harold didn’t torment himself with doubts, didn’t analyze and didn’t go for doubting anything. He had always been my favorite hero, and I never missed a chance being like him once again.

Well, today, in general, it was possible to arrange a tribute concert with my participation, so successfully I fit into all Byronic stencils:

Apart he stalked in joyless reverie,

And from his native land resolved to go,

And visit scorching climes beyond the sea

With pleasure drugged, he almost longed for woe,

And e’en for change of scene would seek the shades below.[1 - CHILDE HAROLD’S PILGRIMAGE by Lord Byron. CANTO THE FIRST.]

I straitened my shoulders proudly and moved forward, deliberately laming on one leg. A great many of people call their alter ego for help at critical moments: a certain confident, strong personality, which, it seems to them, is able to cope with unexpected problems. So, I stepped aboard a mighty airship! The next chair was occupied by a girl whose behavior promised me a perfectly quiet flight before the takeoff. She put some eye drops into her weary aqua blue eyes, put her headphones on, and wrapped herself in a blanket. I was on the phone with Marina at the last moment, «Flying off to Vladivostok. I’m going to text you later with more details when I have a chance.» A few moments later, a female voice with a metallic sound asked all passengers over the loudspeaker to turn off their electronic and radio devices. And in ten minutes, it was all over.

Chapter 1

A – Airport

«Vladivostok» is an international airport located 44 km from the city of Vladivostok, which is connected by road and passenger rail services to the airport station 6 km from the airport. There are a number of direct international flights to Seoul, Beijing, Dalian, Harbin, Osaka, Niigata, Toyama, as well as several seasonal international charter flights, mainly to China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam. It operates inland daily flights to Moscow, Khabarovsk, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. There are flights to St. Petersburg, Irkutsk, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg and other Russian cities. There are two passenger terminals and one cargo terminal at the airport. There are also two airfields: «Knevichi» designed for local and long-distance airlines as well as «Lake springs» for local airlines.

(Source: ru.wikipedia.org)

I arrived in the Primorsky Krai at four o’clock in the afternoon. My plane landed at Knevichi airport, designated strangely enough as the air gates of the main city of the region (though you could read the huge letters on the terminal building saying, «Vladivostok Airport»). Not far from here, at a distance of five kilometers, there is a small town called Artem. Miners used to live there, and the settlement was established thanks to the coal extraction, even the three jimmies are depicted lightened by the cheerful sun on the coat of arms. While two main enterprises being developed, aviators and energy men had become the majority of Artem.

During the flight I was reading a book, given to my father by my grandfather Henry. The book was titled «Civil Aviation of Primorye. Over the centuries.» It contained interesting destinations listed, or to make it sound better «air links»: Sidatun, Laulu, Terney… Most of them are Chinese names. During politically sensitive years, they were given rather down-to-earth Russian names, like, for example, the village of Melnichnoye. However, Terney kept its beautiful and proud name as a reminder of the French mark in the history of Primorsky Krai.

«Passenger flights Moscow-Vladivostok have been carried out on the Il-12 aircraft since 1948».[2 - Civil Aviation of Primorye. Over the centuries. Jubilee edition.] I don’t have the imagination to feel what it’slike to overcome such vast distances being on such a tiny aircraft by today’s standards. But the back side of the mirror exists – people of the post-war era couldn’t overcome major distances on such a huge aircraft as the one that had just taken me to Primorye.

I twisted my neck trying to see the local landscape through the blindness of the window. I saw a bluish mountain range, spreading along the horizon as far as the eye could see when I left the aircraft and walked into the world. «It should be Sikhote-Alin[3 - Sikhote-Alin is a series of mountains of volcanic origin in the Far East of Russia. It is a water divide for the Amur River, as well as for Sea of Japan and Strait of Tartary.]», I was full of childish rosy cheerful enthusiasm and continued glancing to the ridge of fells, reminding me of the Wizard of Oz and the Emerald City. The fells is a combination of sharp mountains and sloping hills. The definition «sopka» (fell) is a password to the Far Eastern diaspora for the West.

Receiving my luggage, I found myself on the terminal square and decided to ask around how to get to Artem that was supposedly nearby. In the parking, a lot of bored taxi drivers immediately expressed their desire to take me even to the end of the world for the right fee. But my gestured requests to take me to Artem were flatly refused. «Artem?, it is not far from here and unprofitable for us». However, there was another man who could understand me as I fiddled with my map. At first, he advised me to wait for a bus number seven, but I did not have a desire to study the local flavor in public transport. That was the reason I place myself in a taxi and hastily scribbled in a notepad: «I would like to have a look of Artem and listen to your story about it». The taxi driver nodded being slightly lost.

In the next five minutes, after a short trip along the highway with tired fields stretched around, bloodlessly embraced by the same fells, we ended up in the town.

Artem was planned as a city on flat land, which provided suitable conditions for an airport to be constructed, the runway, in particular. It’s about twenty kilometers to the seaside – quite far away by local standards, considering that the city of Vladivostok is surrounded by the sea almost everywhere.

My newly-minted guide was not interested in whether it was my first time here: that answer was obvious. The man showed me a couple of main attractions of the city from his driving seat: A road-header, installed on the pedestal as a symbol of miners labor and a Fighter Yak-38 placed forever in Aviator Park, the monument to the aviator’s feat. The majority of residential areas had five-story buildings. Near the city, there were mines. So five floors were the maximum permissible standard for a building.

In the town there was also a bus terminal, behind it, there were rows of dusty green private houses, gradually turning into small villages with nice names such as «Krolevtzy» and «Knevitchi» already mentioned. The sky was cloudless. The sun, a heater, gaining momentum. Having dropped me at the bus terminal, the taxi driver summarized the purpose of my trip with the wording, «Craving for new impressions, change of pattern.»

Was I hungry for a new experience? Definitely, if they suppressed at least for a moment and covered this uneventful and squalid emptiness, which I ran away from to another end of the world. Oh, Primorye, be my life-giving water, become a potion that cures any ailments.