This Translation Tuesday, a short story from Kazakhstani author Mikhail Zemskov, brought into English by Yuliya Gubanova. Alone in his dirty apartment, an oddball takes a creepy enjoyment from cold-calling strangers on his Soviet-era landline. Never speaking, only breathing suggestively into the receiver, he becomes the missing, longed-for person in another family’s domestic drama – a ghost, even – before hanging up and dialing his next victim. A grim prank, inflicting his loneliness on others.
He set his plate aside. The Korean-style carrots from a nearby cooking shop turned out to be just carrots, finely chopped, dusted with red pepper, and drizzled with vinegar. And stale, too. He suspected they would be… but for some reason he craved something spicy today.
He turned on the TV (an old Soviet one, still functioning, so why should he throw it away?). He switched channels, and turned the TV off.
He rubbed his stubble, which was coming up in gray patches. “I’d better shave, or it’ll be harder to do in a few days. Or should I grow the beard again?” But with those specks of gray, the beard – even when washed and carefully brushed – looked shaggy and unkempt.
It would have been nice to clean the flat today. But he was tired and did not want to get up from the deep armchair which had already been sagged by his parents. In fact, it had been a week since he first thought of tidying up. But in previous days, he had been just as reluctant to get out of the deep armchair.
He pulled up an old disc telephone set, also left over from his parents. He took a stack of small bills out of his jeans pocket, pulled one out at random. A ten-ruble bill. He put it on the table next to the telephone. He picked up the receiver. He dialed the numbers from the serial number of the dark green paper carefully and slowly. He cleared his throat.
Three rings, and somebody answered on the other end.
“Hello. Hello?” there was the uncertain voice of a young guy.
He exhaled into the receiver, then again. He heard (or thought he heard?) the guy on the other end swallow:
“Hello? Zhanna, is that you? Zhanna, why don’t you say anything? Are you still mad at me? I’m sorry, I realize now that I was wrong… Zhanna, say something. Let’s start all over again…”
He exhaled into the receiver one more time and smiled happily. The tip of his nose trembled slightly.
“Hello? Zhanna… Let’s meet and talk… We’ll discuss everything…”
He hung up, laughed softly and rubbed his nose. He poured himself some tea, forked the sluggish carrots one more time, and finally pushed his plate away. He took a bite of an oatmeal cookie, had a sip of tea.
Things got easier for him the year before last. Back then, everyone was complaining about life, about devaluation, about price increases, about salary delays. He did not complain, he started working as a private taxi driver. He did not earn much money, but more than at the design institute where he used to work, and he got this money every day, not once every few months. “God will give you a day, God will give you food,” was how his great-grandmother used to say when he was a child. It turned out to be true.
He pulled out a stack of money again. He picked a bill at random again. He put a twenty-ruble bill between the ten-ruble bill and the telephone. This time there was no answer for a long time, and he was about to put the receiver back on the lever, but suddenly something clicked and a hoarse female voice softly uttered:
“Hello?”
He exhaled into the receiver.
“Hello? Lyoshenka, is that you? Lyoshenka, I can’t hear you very well.”
Sweat appeared on his forehead, but his breathing remained even.
“Hello? Lyoshenka, you can talk, your father is not home right now… Anyway, he’s not so angry with you anymore. He also wants you to come back. Where are you calling from? From Moscow? What do you eat there? Aren’t you sick? Lyoshenka, say a word, please! We are all ready to forgive everything, if only you would come back…”
He gently pressed the lever with his fingers, the receiver became silent. Then sharply, with some muffled growl, he exhaled, laughed, and looked thoughtfully at the wall opposite. He hung up. Still smiling with his eyes closed, he rubbed his forehead with his palm. He stared at the unpretentious wallpaper patterns again.
A few minutes later another combination of numbers from a random bill connected him with a new call recipient.
“Hello,” there was a slightly shrill young female voice.
He exhaled.
“Hello?!”
He breathed in and out.
“Oh, you bastard, calling and breathing again! When are you going to leave me alone?! Bastard, son of a bitch!”
Unexpectedly for himself he made a sort of clown face and tried to screw his ass even deeper into the armchair.
“What a scoundrel, eh?” The young woman continued to get angry. “I’m getting married soon, by the way. Tomorrow I’ll tell my fiancé about you, he’ll find you and beat you so badly. Come on, say something. Where are you calling from, from home? Listen, idiot, I will never come back to you! But I’ll call my fiancé right now, let him come to you now to beat your ugly face.” There were short beeps.
He laughed happily. He hung up the receiver and hugged his knees. Then he jumped out of his chair, walked back and forth across the room, and collapsed on the couch. A joyful, spellbound smile was on his face. He turned on his back, his gaze found a network of small cracks in the ceiling, in which he always saw a flying saucer in the epicenter of lightning. The mini-mural of natural origin reminded him of a similar pattern on the ceiling of the old apartment he had spent his childhood in. Still with the same smile on his face, he closed his eyes.
The telephone rang. He shuddered, and looked back at the gray set. The sharp, aggressive trill was repeated. He had almost forgotten how loud and annoying that plastic box could ring. And how long…
He sat down on the couch. The telephone kept ringing. It seemed to him that each new trill was launching an extra batch of fear and anxiety into the room. It had to be stopped.
He walked over to the telephone and picked it up. He opened his mouth, but said nothing. Muffled sounds were heard on the other end, then an uncertain child’s voice uttered:
“Hello? Daddy? Hi, Daddy. Daddy, can you hear me? I learned how to call, and Mom finally gave me your phone number. I have already learned to call myself, I’m nearly seven years old. Mom also said that you gave me our parrot on my birthday, when I was two years old. The parrot died yesterday. Hello? Daddy, I can’t hear you. Can you hear me? This is Seryozha. Daddy?”
He took the receiver away from his ear, frightened. Then he pressed it to his ear again, wanted to say something, but suddenly threw the receiver on the lever.
Not a minute later, the telephone rang again. He got up from his chair, walked to the door, and closed it behind him. In the hallway, he leaned over to the telephone socket and pulled the cord out.
He got back in the room, and sat down in an armchair. He finished the rest of his tea. He took a stack of petty cash out of his pocket, spread the bills out on the table: five-ruble bills to a five-ruble stack, ten-ruble bills to a separate stack as well as twenty-ruble bills. He moved one fifty-ruble bill and two hundred-ruble bills to the edge of the table. He got up from his chair and went out into the kitchen. He poured water into the kettle and put it on the stove. He went out into the corridor, plugged the cord into the socket and looked at the telephone. It was silent. He walked over to the gray set, picked it up to check for a signal. He heard the usual long beep.
He sat down in the chair. He put the fifty-ruble bill and the two hundred-ruble bills in the desk drawer. He gathered up the rest of the neatly folded bills and slipped them into his jeans pocket.
The telephone rang. He waited for three beeps, carefully picked up the receiver and put it to his ear. He opened his mouth, but he said nothing. On the other end he could hear someone’s breathing.
“Seryozha?” he asked quietly. “Hello, Seryozha, is that you? It’s your dad. Can you hear me? I can’t hear you. Hello, say something. I’ll give you a new parrot. Hello? Seryozha?”
He heard (or thought he heard?) someone’s muffled laughter, and then short beeps.
Translated from the Russian by Yuliya Gubanova
Mikhail Zemskov is a Kazakhstani prose writer and playwright. The author of four books of prose and many publications in Kazakhstani and foreign literary magazines and collections. Twice winner of the Russian Prize, finalist and laureate of drama competitions and festivals. One of the founders of the Olga Markova Almaty Open Literary School. Co-organizer of literary forums and festivals in Kazakhstan. Graduate of the screenwriting and film studies faculty of VGIK. Member of the Writers’ Union of Moscow and the Kazakh PEN club. Lives and works in Almaty.
Yuliya Gubanova was born in Moscow in 1977. She graduated from Kazakhstan Academy of Architecture and Construction as an engineer but became a translator. She has 23 years of technical, legal, journalistic translations. Finalist of the III Central Asian Book Forum and the Literary Festival Award, and the Qalamdas Literary Award.
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Read more from Translation Tuesdays on the Asymptote blog:
- Translation Tuesday: “Rice” by Alejandra Kamiya
- Translation Tuesday: “The Thief” by Osamu Dazai
- Translation Tuesday: “Mixed Media on Galvanised Tin” by Zmira Poran Zion