“Hello, Felix? Hello! Hello!?” But after a short, sharp sound, he heard a steady beeping—the connection had broken off. Never mind; he’ll call back.
Kostya stared at the monitor again. Huh, no way, colonel. That Pasha Korenev, the one the Petersburg cop was looking for, had died; according to a document Kostya had just located, it happened twelve months earlier. In the Sklifosovsky Hospital, in the intensive care unit. Fractured skull, swelling of the brain. They found him by the fountain on Europe Square. He had been beaten, and his wallet and cell phone were gone. That place was bad news, Kostya thought, always full of bums.
What a stupid death …
MOSCOW REINCARNATIONS
BY SERGEI KUZNETSOV
Nikita dozes off holding my hand.
Such a handsome hand he has. Strong fingers, smooth oval nails, nicely defined tendons. Light hairs, almost imperceptible, but stiff to the touch.
He’s sleeping holding my hand, but I just can’t.
I’m afraid of dozing off. It’s like walking into cold water, slowly immersing yourself, diving headfirst and not knowing what you’ll see on the bottom.
That Crimean summer I dove alone while Nikita watched from shore. Only later did he admit he was afraid to swim.
I wasn’t afraid of anything. I was twenty-eight. Never before had I been as beautiful as I was that summer.
Nor will I ever be again.
Time has wrung me out like laundered linen and thrown me into the dryer like a crumpled rag. Back then I thought,
Time changes everyone, but men are grazed by a touch of gray, a leisurely gait, a solidity of figure. At least Nikita has been. As for anyone else, to be honest, it’s been a long time since I’ve cared.
His hands have barely changed. Except that seven years ago a wedding ring appeared.
My skin is tarnishing, withering, covered with a fine fishnet inside of which the years I’ve lived thrash around like caught fish. My hair is falling out and in the mornings I look at my pillow, fighting the temptation to count them.
Once I couldn’t stop myself. Now I know: 252 hairs, almost a handful.
I’m afraid of going bald. I’m afraid of my breasts disappearing in a few years, my belly sticking to my spine, my eyes sinking. Sometimes I feel like a living corpse.
Nine years ago I wasn’t afraid of anything. Now I can’t fall asleep out of fear.
But Nikita isn’t afraid of anything. In those years he’s lost all fear.
I didn’t want to go to kindergarten. I was still afraid then. I thought one day my mama wouldn’t come for me and would leave me there forever. Only later did I learn where that fear came from; it was the echo of my orphanage infancy, the first months of my life.
My mama told me the story herself.
I was six years old and I didn’t know where children came from. I probably thought about a stork that might mix up his bundles, or a store where after a long line you could buy a child—and they might sell you the wrong one by mistake.
When I was ten, my papa explained:
I knew by then that children came out of the belly, but I didn’t really understand how you could not be able to give birth.
I no longer believed in the stork, or the store, but I believed in the rebirth of souls immediately. And I still do. I believe the soul travels back and forth through history, and can even be born several times in the same century, miraculously not meeting herself in a previous (subsequent?) guise.
I believe that. Or, rather, I know it. And that’s why I lie here sleepless, squeezing Nikita’s hand. I’m afraid to fall asleep.
In the filmy, viscous dimension between waking and sleep my past lives return. Men, women, children. They fill me until it seems like there’s no room left inside for
I squeeze into a ball and try to push the past out—it was mine, it wasn’t mine, it may not have existed at all.
No surprise I’m losing weight. I must think that if I shrivel up completely the ghosts will decamp and find themselves another receptacle.
