Read Online Voroshilovgrad by Serhiy Zhadan - Free Book Online Page A

little sparkles.
    â€œBut there are always satellites up there,” Kocha answered finally. “You can see them very well at night. When I’m not sleeping I always see them.”
    â€œAnd why aren’t you sleeping, old-timer?”
    â€œWell,” Kocha said, every consonant still coming out with a screech, “the thing is, I’ve got sleeping troubles. Ever since the army, Herman. You know how it goes in the paratroopers—those drops, the adrenaline . . . it sticks with you, for life.”
    â€œGotcha.”
    â€œSo I bought some sleeping pills. I asked for something that would really knock my socks off. They gave me some kind of weird artificial shit. God knows what they’re putting in pills these days. Anyway, I started taking it, but it didn’t do a thing. I upped the dose and I still couldn’t fall asleep. Thing is, though, I’ve started sleeping during the day now. It’s a real head-scratcher . . .”
    â€œWhat have you been taking?” I asked him. “Can I have a look?”
    Kocha rooted through his overall pockets and took out a bottle; the label was a poisonous-looking green. I took the bottle and tried reading it, but I didn’t even recognize the characters on it.
    â€œMaybe it’s some sort of cockroach repellent. Who even makes these pills?”
    â€œThey told me the French do.”
    â€œBut look at these hieroglyphs—does that look like French to you? Okay, okay—how about I try one?”
    I twisted off the cap, took out a lilac-colored pill, and popped it into my mouth.
    â€œNah, man,” Kocha said, taking back the bottle. “If you only take one you won’t even feel it. I take at least five.”
    Kocha dumped a few pills down his throat, as if to validate this statement.
    â€œGimme that.” I took the bottle back, poured out a few pills, and downed them. Then I just sat there, trying to focus in on my own sensations, waiting for the pills to kick in.
    â€œKocha, it doesn’t feel like they’re doing anything.”
    â€œI told you so.”
    â€œMaybe you need to wash them down.”
    â€œI tried doing that . . . with wine.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œNothing. My piss just turned red.”
    The twilight thickened, slipping through the tree branches and reaching out into the warm, dusty grass wrapping around us. Flaming orange balls hung in the valley, their sharp citrusy light burning through the fog. The sky was turning black and distant, the constellations showing through like a face appearing on a negative. But the night’s most salient feature was the fact that I didn’t have the slightest desire to sleep. Kocha put on my headphones again and began swaying softly to an inaudible beat.
    Then I noticed movement somewhere down below. Someone was coming up from the river, ascending the steep slope. The hillside was buried in fog; I couldn’t make anything out, but it sounded as though somebody was herding skittish animals away from the water.
    â€œYou see that?” I asked Kocha warily.
    â€œYep, I sure do,” Kocha replied, nodding happily.
    â€œWho’s down there?”
    â€œYeah, yeah,” Kocha said, continuing to nod, contemplating the night that had pounced on us so suddenly.
    I froze, listening hard to the voices that were becoming more distinct as whoever it was drew nearer in the darkness that clung to everything like some thick, acerbic liquid. Lit by the valley below, the fog now seemed full of motion and shadows. I could see into the space above it, where some bats occasionally whipped by, making circles above our heads then abruptly darting back into the wet haze. The voices got louder, the rustling resolved into individual footsteps, and then, all at once, bodies started swimming out of the fog, gliding quickly across the thick, hot grass toward us. They moved easily up the slope—there were more and more of them. I could already see the