Read Online Voroshilovgrad by Serhiy Zhadan - Free Book Online

you actually do for a living?”
    â€œI’m an independent expert,” I said.
    â€œAnd what exactly does an independent expert do?”
    â€œHow should I put it? Nothing, really.”
    â€œYou know, Herman,” Injured said, “I don’t trust you. Don’ttake offense—just let me tell you how I see it.”
    â€œGo for it. Lay it all out for me.”
    â€œSimply put, I don’t trust you. You’re going to hang us out to dry—you don’t give a fuck about any of this, and Kocha doesn’t give a fuck either. You don’t even know what you do for a living. Your brother, on the other hand—he’s completely different.”
    â€œWell, why’d he leave then?”
    â€œDoes it matter?”
    â€œSure it does. Who were those guys in the Jeep?”
    â€œYou scared or something?”
    â€œWhy? Should I be?”
    â€œYou’re shaking in your boots, I can see that. Kocha’s scared of them, too. Everyone is. Your brother wasn’t, though.”
    â€œYour brother this, your brother that. Enough already.”
    â€œAll right, take it easy,” Injured said, putting on his jacket and getting back to work. He started up a car. The noise made my ears ring.
    â€œInjured!” I yelled over to him. He paused and looked over in my direction, leaving the car running. “I’m not afraid. Why should I be? It’s just that you’ve got your lives, and I’ve got mine.”
    Injured nodded. Maybe he couldn’t even hear me.

    When evening came, Injured gave the rest of us a mute farewell and went home. Kocha was still sitting on the catapult, covered in orange and blue dust. He seemed to have gotten stuck in some sort of odd torpor; neither Injured’s departure nor the variouspassing truck drivers’ repeated requests that he fill up their tanks made the least impression on him. Injured had shown me how to work the pumps, so I was the one who waited on the three larger-than-life tractor-trailers that came by, looking like huge, weary lizards. The sun had floated over to the other side of the highway, and the twilight burst open like a sunflower. Kocha came to life just as the evening did. Around nine he stood up, locked the booth, and wandered listlessly over to the far edge of the lot. With a heavy sigh, he looped around the truck cab I had slept in last night, squeezed himself inside, and sprawled out in the driver’s seat, extending his legs through the shattered window. I crawled in after him and sat in the passenger seat. Down below, darkness was enveloping the valley. To the east, the sky was already covered in a dim haze, while to the west, right above our heads, red flames spilled across the whole valley, heralding the arrival of night. Mist rose off the river, concealing the little silhouettes of fishermen and the surrounding houses, rolling out onto the road and drifting into the suburbs. The fog that hovered over the valley the city sat in was white. The valley was fading away into darkness, growing more and more indistinct, until it resembled a riverbed, though up here, in the hills, it was still light. Kocha, wide-eyed and stupefied, was staring down at it all, unblinking, his gaze fixed on the advancing night.
    â€œHere,” I said, handing Kocha my MP3 player.
    He put the earphones on over his balding head, tapping some buttons to adjust the volume.
    â€œWhat is this, anyway?” he asked.
    â€œCharlie Parker. I ripped ten CDs’ worth.”
    Kocha listened for a bit, and then put the ’phones down, off to the side.
    â€œYou know why I like it out here?” I asked him. “There aren’t any airplanes going by.”
    He looked up. It was true; there really weren’t any planes. There were still some lights, though: just reflections, maybe, shooting across the sky; green sparks glowing here and there; golden balls spinning along; clouds massing to the north, giving off