Two Meatballs and an Olive Heap
By Vladimir Lebedev
Translated from the Russian by Elena Malkov
The room smelled of wine, meatballs and cloying perfume. It was an assembly hall with a crooked stage across from the entrance, and high windows with patched red wooden frames, cotton wool sticking out from beneath the plasters. People shuffled across the brown, warped linoleum. They shuffled heavily, always on the verge of attacking the floor panels with their chins. It was that kind of wedding. A quiet winter evening flowed slowly into a night of agony. Outside the windows, in the darkness, a streetlamp shone and the snow glistened. Besides the snow, the two naked trees and the sad moonless night, there was nothing.
The wedding transformed the usually-empty hall into a fantastic bustle. The gold satin drapes were parted, the white windowsills were heaped with flowers and ceramics. A little old man in a bright-red shirt was led onto the crooked stage. He carried an accordion in front of him, anxiously pressing it to his chest as though it was his firstborn. His playing was frenetic, he seemed to be trying to awaken death itself. He played the minor chords with visible feeling, his face contorted, jaw moving fiercely, and eyes rolling in ecstasy; legs flying in St. Vitus’s dance.
The accordionist’s shirt was drenched, greasy drops of sweat dripped into his collar from his narrow wrinkled forehead. Occasionally, someone brought him a shot of vodka. He never refused, wrapping his lips around the glass and throwing back his head, sniffing the rubber folds of the accordion burning from his exertions, by way of a chaser.
His requiem infected the crowd, whose energy had begun to fade. And here was the Russian soul, taking the wrong turn, its voices launching from all corners of the continent, from Sakhalin to Paris, filling up the hall. Two generations of poverty: twenty young and twenty old. The flock of youths—in white shirts and black slacks, satin dresses with silk ribbons—all looked the same. Identical bodies squeezed into uniforms. Ties and corsets ruled the agonizing humiliation of the bodies, singing in lean veins of a thorned freedom. They interacted with one another, but interacted even more with the alcohol, crying over the selling out of their lives.
Relatives from Zhitomir brought their city with them. In Zhitomir, the electricity turned off often, and here, in the hall brightly lit by a giant chandelier, their side of the table swarmed in darkness.
The accordionist had created a new world, smooth but shifty. While he played, everything went well. I came late and took a chair closest to the exit. I couldn’t sit close to the bride, mostly because we used to sleep together. That was long before the ceremony, but still. In front of me stood fish and meat salads, stuffed peppers, olives, sausage, everything in crystal and butter, decanters full of juice, vodka, wine. The thick, distorted glass refracted the bride and groom, who looked like vaudeville marzipan figurines atop a wedding cake. Smudged with glaze.
I inhaled two meatballs, destroyed a heap of olives and five pickles, feeling the wormhole of a righteous life with the tip of my tongue, chewed it and swallowed. The accordionist finished, and the guitarist took up where he left off. But the guitarist played poorly, holding the guitar unsteadily and plucking the strings as though they stung him. The wedding guests didn’t like it, losing interest in the music and finding new interest in the wine. They applied themselves seriously to the drink, trying to catch up to the accordionist, who had just left the building and headed to the other side of Moscow. I drank but didn’t get drunk at first. Then, standing up, the alcohol hit me all at once as I squeezed myself out of the celebration and into the foyer, took out a cigarette and lit it. People walked out past me into the frozen night, and as they came back, they sucked some of the winter back into the foyer with them. And I smoked, shoving my hands into my pockets to protect them from the cold, tearing up from the smoke pricking my left eye. Into the room came one of those drunk freaks in the white shirt and black slacks, tall like the streetlamp outside the window, scrawny, with the eyes of a crazed neurotic. He sharply jerked his wife’s arm, showering her with insults, pronouncing every word with particular bile.
His wife could barely stand in her heels, scuffing the floor. With her free hand she grasped at the bow on her sparkly pink dress or smacked the freak on the chest.
“Bi-i-tch,” he yelled at her, “Go home, and fast. Go home to your child!”
“My mom is watching my child!” she screamed in answer.
“A mother should be with her kid,” he argued. He had giant eyes, scarlet, full of animal hostility.
“You drunk asshole,” she howled.
I wiped the last tear out of my left eye and got into their business.
“Stay out of this!” was the answer I got.
“Stay out of our family’s shit, dumbass,” he demanded again, seeing my mouth open for a rebuttal.
I closed my mouth and threw a punch at the freak’s chin, but missed, skidding across his neck. We fell over onto the parquet. The smell of meatballs, wine and perfume was now augmented by the smell of blood. He grabbed me with his long arms and threw his forehead at the bridge of my nose while I threw elbows and head at him. The woman squealed. Afraid to get hit, she circled around, yelling at us to stop. But we kept rolling across the floor, stained with blood and the dirt of the local flowerbeds. A group of worried guests flocked to the sound of the woman’s screams.
They yelled:
“C’mon guys, break it up!”
“Nah, let ‘em sort it out like men.”
“Yeah they’re fighting over the girl, they need to figure it out.”
“Drag him away”
“Who is the bald guy anyway?”
(The bald guy is me.)
“Fuck him.”
“Fuck who?”
“Who the fuck cares? Just fuck him.”
“Stay out of it Al.”
“Just let me throw one fucking punch.”
Once all the wedding toasts were over, we were finally dragged apart. The foyer looked like a train heading towards the sea—barefoot guests in swim trunks, full of warm beer. Zhitomir peeked out from behind the flock of youths. The guitarist continued to pluck nervously at the strings for the emptied hall, the flowers, the flatware, the meatballs and the olives. The bride and groom called for peace and quiet.
“C’mon fuckers, let’s get outta here,” someone yelled with a mixture of regret and glee in his voice. Everyone realized the show was over.
The freak ran into the street, fell into the snow, threw out his arms and legs and ordered himself to be killed. Nobody seemed particularly interested. Shadows from the naked tree branches crisscrossed his face. He didn’t get up. The representatives of Zhitomir bent over him, quietly discussing what to do.
I stood in the bathroom in front of the sink, washing my shirt with a cracked piece of soap. The blood kept dripping—onto my undershirt, the sink, the tiled floor. My swollen nose filled the square, dim mirror. At least my teeth were intact. I smiled, but my smile broke down in the mirror, dripping to the wet tile.
The freak’s wife found me. I saw her reflection in the old, cracked mirror as it hopped from one section to the other, distorted like in a kaleidoscope.
“He fucked up,” she said.
“Yep,” I answered, not turning around, spitting blood into the sink. The drain retched the sound and stink of the pipes.
“How’s your nose? Is it broken?” she asked, smoothing down her sparkly pink dress with the bow.
“I don’t think so. Looks okay. If it’s broken, it’ll be from syphilis.” She tried to smile, though it didn’t turn out well.
“You’re, well... brave.”
“I’m just drunk.” I answered.
She grew thoughtful or embarrassed, her face reddening. Out in the hall, someone loudly kicked out the guitarist, taking his instrument. The party unraveled, reaching a new level of fun. A voice muted by the doors carried to us a typical neighborhood hymn in G minor.
Finally she started talking, passionate and alarmed, clinging to my shoulders and shaking.
“Take me away, please,” she begged. “Anywhere. Just take me away from this nightmare. He’s... he’s an okay guy. But the drinking... that asshole will kill me.”
After a brief reflection I decided this was an incredibly idiotic idea, so I crawled back into my wet shirt smudged with pink soapy stains, buttoned the top button and told her we didn’t have a minute to lose.
While Zhitomir fussed over her frozen husband, feeding him moonshine as though it would cure him of everything, even the drunken delirium, we slipped across the hall. People had scattered over the linoleum, frantically shuddering their bodies.
Escaping the building, we walked past the streetlight and the window, finding ourselves by the road. I waved down a car, and we got in. She gave the address. As the driver tried to figure out where it was, I instinctively turned around and looked out the back window, dirty and wet from snow.
“Ah fuck!” I exclaimed.
The husband, shirt unbuttoned, was waving his arms like a maniac, gnashing his teeth and getting closer to the car. Just a few more steps and he’d catch us. He was running like a wild, wounded animal, thick steam streaming out of his mouth.
“Go!” yelled the wife. “Oh, fuck. Please, go faster!”
The driver stared out the back window, horrified.
“Hit the gas, the pedal on the right, hit the fucking pedal!” she screamed.
Hurried but impressively calm given the circumstances, the driver took the wheel and sharply switched gears. At that exact second, as the husband reached us and hurled his body onto the trunk, the car stalled briefly, then tore ahead.
“What in holy hell? Who is that?” the driver asked, stunned, bent over the wheel as though the husband’s apelike body could reach into the car and grab him.
“The father of my child,” was the answer.
“Bad luck,” he said, turning on the radio to drown out her miserable, nervous sobs.
She covered her face with her hands. Punctuating her speech with sighs, she kept repeating that she just couldn’t take it anymore, that alcohol would bury her family, her children, her husband... her nerves were frayed, she didn’t have any patience left, so she absolutely needed a drink.
We were driving past the forest. With a good imagination, the wet road could seem like a sea foaming with waves. But really it was just the mud and the snow, squeezed out from under passing tires into the roadside.
Pretty soon we found ourselves in an underground pub, windowless and airless; tobacco smoke swimming in the yellow light clouded our eyes. All the furniture was made of thick, greasy logs that had absorbed the smells of barbecue and vomit. A dirty, gloomy hole for lovers of draft beer, punk rock and mindless sex. The counter smelled of fried bread, garlic, urine and sweat. Men in sweaters and turtlenecks sat at the counter, drinking beer and belching. A bartender with a Neanderthal face, black t-shirt and silver suspenders stretching over his huge gut, also sucked a beer, gripping the tap of the “dark” so as not to fall over.
We sat at a large table in an alcove. The wood glistened. A waitress in a black apron and a Bavarian corset, bust popping out from beneath the lace, brought two mugs of cheap beer. Each mug contained exactly seven trips to the bathroom. I started drinking.
The stolen wife told me about the wonders of married life. Fights, beatings, alcoholism, humiliation. No freedom. I sat and absorbed. Sipped beer. Rejoiced that this story of petty squabbles wasn’t about me.
Well... in moments like this you want to listen, but you don’t want to say anything. What’s the point of anything you say—“leave that idiot,” maybe, or “take him to a doctor.” You already know that won’t happen. You can tell her to go to the police, but you can already see the cop, his flabby face and poorly tucked in uniform, with yellow sweat stains under the arms, telling her, “the whole country drinks, what’s there to do?” You pretend to be concerned about what happens in this stranger’s life; you pretend even to yourself that tomorrow you’ll still be thinking about how to help this poor woman, who has fallen into the classic noose of circumstance, at whose kitchen table sits a gloomy drunk, hating the world and himself. You can even remember Miller and tell yourself that people change contrary to circumstance. But in this moment you feel powerless and alienated. Slowly I sank into her wilted, viscous world, until my phone crackled in my pocket. I picked it up, said hello, but heard only screams. It was her husband. After the heart-rending cry he switched to threats—he’d find me and cut out my tongue; he’d set the cops on me; he’d destroy my life and turn it to hell.
“Get to it!” I answered.
He kept going, his threats turning to inarticulate whining, sobbing and begging, then more threats, then whining again. Gasping, moaning, pleading. I hung up the phone, and told her who it was.
The wife paled, her lips shuddered and pursed. I watched as guilt and self-recrimination flowed through her body in the tight pink dress, wracked by the insignificance and tragedy of life. Again I rejoiced in my role as listener, even if I couldn’t shake the feelings of empathy.
“You know he’s a good guy, when he’s not drinking,” she began.
“If you say so,” I shrug my shoulders. “The faucet’s empty when it’s not pouring.”
She gazed at me, uncomprehending, and answered that she’d probably better go; she’d go to him and try to make it right. “We’ll be okay after all,” she said, giving up.
I sipped more beer. Half a glass still left, half a liter. Before heading out, she found a familiar woman at the bar, plucking her out of the crowd. Sat her in front of me and introduced us. Nastya nodded. I nodded. The wife told her about the evening and directed her to give me the best welcome she could muster. A moment later she fluttered away. I was left with the drunk, belching barflies. And Nastya.
She sat next to me.
“You don’t look great,” she said.
“You’re no picnic either,” I lied, and she knew it. She looked great. Huge eyes, clear and blue. She half-opened her mouth, purple lipstick smeared to the nose. Blushed cheeks. She bowed her head, and black, glossy hair flowed onto the greasy table. She had a big, upturned nose, but mine was definitely bigger.
“Let’s go to a hotel,” I said.
Her face changed, and I could see from her expression she wasn’t the type. She said as much.
“Yeah me neither,” I agreed.
An old romantic ballad started playing, a slow and boundary-less tune by Nina Simone.
We started to dance.
I kissed her, tasting garlic and beer. Not bad.
“I got blood on you,” I said.
“That’s okay,” she answered.
We got closer. The men at the bar were still sucking beer.
“Let’s go to a hotel,” she suggested.
“Let’s do it,” I said.
I kissed her again.
“I got blood on you,” I repeated, wiping her lips with the sleeve of my shirt, leaving a red-purple stain on the cuff.
“It’s okay,” she said again.
And we left. The two meatballs and the olive heap left with us.
Vladimir Lebedev recently returned from traveling the globe for two and a half years. He is now writing a book about different cultural paradigms and how, despite Kant’s wishes, the world is not moving towards absolute morality (or is it?). Occasionally he writes short stories to take a break from the book.