125 RUS

where, entranced in pallid flotsam,
A dreaming drowned man sometimes goes down.[10 - A. Rimbaud. Drunken boat. Translated by Oliver Bernard: Arthur Rimbaud, Collected Poems (1962).]

How could there be so much decadence? I’ve just talked about sparkling cars and almost forgot to say about alabaster-white gulls in open areas – so where did the drowned people with sea kale on shoe soles appear from? Why does Vladivostok seems so gloomy for a girl from the record tapes while I perceive this city as extremely life-affirming? I can’t connect the two perspectives together, the circle closes on some kind of muffled anthropological thoughts, that we all came out of the water, and Rimbaud, as an affectionate song on the radio, continues humming in my mind,

Foam of flowers rocked my driftings…[11 - see ibid.]

It is necessary to change the subject, and it would be better for me to wind down and write about heraldry. I have already mentioned a roaring tiger on the coat of arms. So, on March 16, 1883, Alexander III approved the coat of arms of Vladivostok, which showed the following: «On the green shield there is a golden tiger, rising on a silver rock, withscarlet eyes and tongue, in the free part to the left there is the coat of arms of the Primorsky Krai. The shield is decorated with a gold crown with three prongs, behind the shield there are two golden anchors, laid crosswise and tied up by St Andrew’s ribbon»[12 - Coats of arms of cities, provinces, regions and settlements of the Russian Empire by P. Winkler.].Over time, the coat of arms hasundergone changes that are quite typical for the changing epochs. Thus, during Soviet times, a sickle and a hammer were added to the two Admiralty anchors, the Amur tiger and the mural crown, and the entire composition was twisted with guard ribbon. And the passion for minimalism prevailed at the beginning of the 21st century, and the tsar of the taiga remained alone, without anchors, towers and everything else. Thumbing through the highways atlas and a map of the Primorsky region, I find another funny detail: The bays are named after the ancient Greek heroes (in fact, they were named after the first ships moored here, which in turn were named as heroes of Homer’s poems). I have already counted three: Ulysses, Patroclus, Diomed. And on the Russian island, there is Ajax Bay, my namesake. Are there more successful coincidences?

My phone is always on, but during my staying in Vladivostok, no one has sent a message to me. Marina, of course, was offended, and my father doesn’t care how I live and where. And I live perfectly well. In these areas, you can not leave bread on the table – it can get damp through the day, but you can breathe the sea, look at the sea and be proud of a small part of the sea that bears your name.

The silence of the hotel room is broken by the sound of a bell signaling the arrival of the elevator to the floor. The Chinese are speaking in their own language. The neighbors have a TV on: Channels, of course, are Asian. I’ve read that there were quite large Japanese, Korean and Chinese communities in Vladivostok until the 30s of the 20th century. By 1939, all of them ceased to exist… But despite the signs with hieroglyphics, Chinese flea markets and architectural exercises such as pagodas, I could hardly call the city Asian. Someone noticed that Vladivostok is a cross between St. Petersburg, Odessa, San Francisco and Istanbul with an exceptional local flavor.

I turn on the recorder and get ready for a new trip to the Pacific coast, having changed the refill in a ballpoint pen and opened a clean page in a notepad.

«Why do you want to kill Mira?»

Chapter 4

D – Distant geographical names

I can be called Alexander, I can be Alexei, and maybe even Akim… Naturally, I’m not a Greek. Fortunately or unfortunately, but not a Greek. I didn’t give back a little paper with my usual name, but slightly corrected it, modified it a little bit. There are two heroes who participated in the siege of Troy – Ajax the Lesser, son of Oileus and Ajax the Great, son of Telamon. There are two bays on the Russian island, not one, as I thought before: Ajax the Lesser and Ajax the Great.

In Homer’s Iliad, both Ajaxes were often in arms together. The only difference was that the Lesser was not as strong as the Great. They both defended the ships, fighting for Patroclus’s body. Ajax the Lesser is peculiar, among other things, with all kinds of atrocities and misdemeanors, such as, for example, raping of Cassandra, violation of an oath, blasphemy. By the will of the great Olympians, Athena and Poseidon, Ajax was swallowed up by the sea. Not far from the cliffs of Capelfis, formidable Athena hit his ship with a thunderbolt, but the hero escaped, clinging onto Whirling Rocks. Poseidon killed him splitting the rock with his trident. The role of Athena was not so significant in the Odyssey: Poseidon drowned the ships, and threw Ajax into the sea, splitting the rock.

And so he would have fled his doom, albeit hated by Athene,
Had he not let a proud word fall in the fatal darkening of his heart.
He said that in the gods’ despite he had escaped the great gulf of the sea;
And Poseidon heard his loud boasting,
And presently caught up his trident into his strong hands,
And smote the rock Gyraean and cleft it in twain.
And the one part abode in his place, but the other fell into the sea,
The broken piece whereon Aias sat at the first, when his heart was darkened.[13 - The Odyssey by Homer (translated by S.H.Butcher & A.Lang).]

On holiday, Marina gave me a silver fork with a tiny handle engraved with open-work letters, «I’ll save Ajax from Poseidon’s trident». Looks like when I’m on the Russian island and find myself on my name-bearing bay, I’ll have to stick a fork into Poseidon’s eye before he sticks a trident in my ferry. Although I did not anger the sea deities. Moreover, I changed my place of residence. Now I live practically possessed by them, where behind my window there is still nothing but the sea, and all roads and high-rise residential buildings are inconvenient at the level of lateral view and do not attract attention.

In time immemorial my damn father, studying the belongings of his late grandfather, found an entertaining book – Dictionary of Chinese toponyms in the territory of the Soviet Far East published in 1975 compiled by F. V. Soloviev. The introduction says that geographical names are a sick topic in the Far East, since they give food to endless disputes about the owners of these lands – Russia or China.

My damn father kept the dictionary as a true relic, not even allowing me to scan the pages. Arriving in Vladivostok, I solved a long-standing problem within a day: A barman Seryoga sent me the whole book by e-mail, and a couple of hours later, I left the copy center on Aleutskaya street, holding more than a hundred hot freshly printed sheets in a folder.

Now I will return to the penultimate paragraph and give an example. A barman’s friend suggested that we go to the «Turtles» on the weekend. «Where?» «On the Ambavozes,» said Sergei. Opening the precious dictionary, I found the following explanation:

Ambabosa (Turtle) is a lake on the northwest coast of the Ussuri Bay in Primorsky Krai. The name has Chinese origin, formed by the components: baths – the prince; ba – eight; on – the lake; tzu is a suffix. Vannaboztzy means Turtle Lake. Hydronym first appeared on the map in 187 spelled like Uvambaboza. By the end of the XIX century the first part of the name (Wamba) was reinterpreted into Amba meaning Tiger in Tungus-Manchu. Ambapoztzy means Tiger Lake.[14 - Dictionary of Chinese toponyms in the territory of the Soviet Far East by F.Solovyov.]

So turtles, after all? Or tigers? Anyway, «Vanbapoztzy», inconvenient for Russian-speaking citizens, had been gradually transformed into what my fellow said, «Ambavozy.» Though the dictionary gives a very strange interpretation – where it is eight princes or the prince of the eight turned into turtles?

However, the riddles did not end there. Two maids were overheard at the hotel: «It’s cold to swim on Shamora.» «You would rather go to BOMBovozy!» Formed from the two roots well known to the Russian ear, the name Bombovozy is easier to pronounce than Ambavoz, and sounds much more impressive than any Turtles. However, for young people, there is another pronunciation variant like «Bombiki» apart from Turtles, in particular for the females.

Waves are high enough on Ambavozy, as if after a strong storm but the water is warm. Quite near the bay, there are rows of holiday homes. Seryoga’s Dacha (a holiday home) is over there too. While he was arranging some kind of barbeque place in the courtyard together with his girlfriend, I went out to look around. The road went uphill, houses ended at the top and a forest started with a black wall of trees. I went upwards, keeping away from the allotments and closer to the forest, looking at the plum trees and kicking stones under my feet.

In the middle of holiday homes, a lousy stain of a huge burned-out house was rising which made you feel scary while passing it nearby. It stood on high metal stilts so that one could climb down to the very bottom of the structure. That’s what I did. Crawling on my knees through mugwort jungle among partially rotten stilts, I just hurt my hands with fragments of broken glasses. I kept running into the strangest items now and then: a broken comb with a scrap of someone’s hair, a rusty harmonica, twisted tapes of a light-struck film. Beside mugworts, there was also myriads of fairy-mushrooms. It was a culmination of Gothic horror, a miniature of the Castle of Otranto. When I got out of there, I walked around the burned house. The run wild imagination pictured what could be hidden behind the smudged windows and the elaborately carved shutters of the three-storey bulky thing.

The sun was going below the horizon, cuckoo tune was making you feel depressed, the sharpness of vision faded in the evening twilight. I came back to the path leading to the top of the hill, and climbing up, I settled on the edge of the forest sitting tailor-fashion and took out a voice recorder from my breast pocket. I saved for the long-awaited dessert the answer to the question, «Why do you want to kill Mira?» especially looking for a suitable environment. I was looking for something exciting to make blood turn to ice, the cuckoos kept singing, and the burned-out estate full of ghosts made you feel scared with its fragments of old combs. All right, let’s go…

Sometimes she might be called Mirabel or probably Miroslava, or even Mirra, with two rolling «r’s». But it’s easier for me to call her with four letters, which were pinned down in the past before our era, before Christ, on the parent’s car. It was called Mira Daihatsu, it was blue, with three doors and very small. This car was crashed in an accident. Being extremely short, Mira kept smacking me across the head with her short little hands when I was learning to drive. Patting me on the shoulder, challenged me, «Keep steering, my young pianist.» or, «Keep driving, my young pianist.»

She killed everyone who dared to offend me. Yes, yes, she just came and made at point blank. But I won’t tell you about this. Mira hates that I don’t eat, but I always have an answer, «How can you think of food recalling the siege of Leningrad?» Even Mira can’t argue with that.

She still does not confess what she is really after and believes that it’s too early for me to see corpses and blood. But I can still see it. When I put her contact lenses in special containers, through the transparency of the solution, I see the reflected faces of those whom Mira was likened to… When I wash off her flower dress from splashes of someone else’s blood… I am aware of everything. I know that she dyes her hair in red so that the blood of being killed by her is not so noticeable until Mira gets to the bathroom and find peace in the cold silence of the tile.

Once Mira gave me a Hohner harmonica when I was hopped up on blues. She bought this gift in Paris being together with Jean-Baptiste at that time. Mira was so angry that even slapped my face when I dropped the harmonica in a barrel of water at our dacha, it was on Amba…

I stopped the recording. I got up and walked away from the forest edge, trying to move as quickly as possible. Down the hill, skipping along.

Chapter 5

E – Eponymous settlement of de Vries

Being a Heligolander, James Cornelius De Vries was an Earl and a merchant (according to another version his name was John, not James), who arrived to Vladivostok in 1865 intending to open trade and become a farmer having settled in the harbor. James Cornelius chose a peninsula that goes into Amur Bay. The peninsula got its name De Vries (people call it «difris»).

There are lots of legends about this place, which is considered an abnormal area. There are two legends about the tragic death of the Earl’s young daughter. The first says that she drowned because of unrequited love, and the despairing father planted «Love Alley» in his dominions to commemorate the memory of his late daughter. The second legend narrates about the difficult conditions to overcome small distances. Back then, you had to cross the sea by boat to get from De Vries to Sadgorod. Once the boat capsized, and all of its passengers drowned, including the Earl. Nowadays, there is Cape of Drowned located on the peninsula in the vicinity

of the cemetery, which indicates that the legend number two might be quite a real story.

(Grouped from various sources by me)

Does anyone know how to keep firmness of the spirit and clarity of mind, while everything happening around is suddenly weaved into a web of mystical coincidences and regularities? How to be guided, analyzing a similar situation – rational or instictively?

I will try to tell everything from the beginning what happened to me during my short staying in Primorye. Sometimes I’ll lose my train of thoughts, running to extremes or going off the rails, deviating from the essence of the matter and pouring out unnecessary details.

So, I’m Ajax. I stay in a central hotel where I can watch Amur Bay from the window day by day. I have acquired peace, or at least trying to find it. After all, wise psychologists, and even people are now and again talking that you will stay calm if you surround yourself with shades of blue. In my room, there are the following items available ― a double bed, a TV set with many Asian cable channels, a table which I am writing it and not only this, a refrigerator and an ashtray. Of course, there is still a bathroom with a toilet. In the wardrobe on the top shelf, there is a thick warm blanket folded, so I can live through winter in the same city. If I have some money left, of course. If not, I’ll rent an apartment in Lighthouse, my favorite area in Vladivostok.

Lighthouse or Egersheld: that’s where the bus routes end, a pile of steel rails clinging to the ground keeps empty trains that have nowhere else to go, except into the sea waves with all the weight of wagons to the bottom of the sea… Lighthouse is the place where Vladivostok ends, as well as Russia and the whole continent, there is nowhere to retreat.

At the very beginning of this epic at the airport, I took the wrong suitcase, brought it to the hotel and only then opened it. I decided it to be too much to go back and give the suitcase to the owner (a female owner to be more specific). Moreover, being a downright scoundrel I poked my nose into other people’s luggage. I found a voice recorder with a patient’s sessions (obviously, the current owner of my suitcase) recorded by a psychologist. She says something inconsistently, then stretches words. Sometimes it’s interesting to listen. For example, I really like this passage:

Vladivostok stretches its tentacles in all directions, except for the northern one. There, on the top, taiga presses it down with its tiger paw, the dominions of the sea monster ends in the north. Vladivostok avoids cedars and wild animals. The city is drawn by photos of Svetlanskaya street, traffic jams, traffic junctions and sometimes – by its militarism: brave sailors, a green submarine, forts… I want to leave it from my mind, even for a little while, but it doesn’t give me a chance. Having reached Lighthouse, to the very edge, when suddenly the southern arm of Vladivostok grabs me and drags me back. A giant Octopus with searchlight eyes, sparkling in the dark not with phosphorus, but with the electric lighting of houses and street lamps doesn’t give an objective judgment.

The one who had once lost his Vladivostok, would face a sea monster. I left the city near Trepang Bay, and the blue trepang took away my luck. You do not even see a line of fortune on my palm. My hands are smooth and slippery, always cold, my skin is wrinkled on the pads of my fingers as if I do not get out of the water for days. I try to eat very little, and my parents take me to hospitals, they feed me through droppers – oh, hell, this is making my heard hurt, yes.

Dagon, Kraken, anyone – a sea monster does not want me to tell the rest about it. Vladivostok lets out a thick fog when I want to make a picture of high hills. It splashes water in the underground passages. Once it even drowned my piano, and let someone prove me that this is just a coincidence. Yes, yes, if I tell anyone, they can just recall that film with Holly Hunter, where the piano drowned… And the heroine is dumb, she has a notebook with a pencil on her neck… Do you remember this movie?

I might find a link where it doesn’t exist in principle. I try to stick to this version. On the other part, a lot of things annoys me. For example, any mention of the piano reminds me of my father, let him be three times cursed. And she keeps moaning and groaning about this piano in almost every record. And she constantly repeats that it is necessary to kill Mira.

Mira as I could understand it – is either the older sister, or the governess, the mysterious one who destroy everyone and kills. And Mira must be controlled not to put an end to the bloody massacre but in order to – attention! – gain spiritual freedom.

Everyone has his issues, and some of them are not inferior in size to Madagascar, probably this is exactly the case of my Anya (I got her name from the voice recordings too). But what might be of interest – she’s got my bag with my diaries and notebooks. Does she read them? Does she try to grasp what was being described as I listen to her narration and translate them into the canvases of manuscripts? Life can be very random sometimes: two strangers first rummaged in, sorry, each other’s underwear, and then dissect («hurt») each other’s brains, still not meeting and not even having a visual idea of his opponent.

I have a bad feeling. And it will come true in the near future. Because otherwise, nobody will be curious. Because if you have managed to get into this mess with a claim to Haruki Murakami’s lamb bestsellers, be so kind as to get yourself in trouble, warm up the audience’s interest, don’t be sceptical – it’s so boring. Better solemnly summarize in the end that this Anya with her voice recorded is your only and the last love and you are off to find her experiencing a series of incredible adventures. The public will cry of amusement. Standing ovation. Booker, awards, Nobel Prize, translation into sixteen languages, screen version. In the end, we all have to match the story.