They’re all running now; well, and so am I. (Not literally of course, but rather mentally. Short of breath, back pains. The usual stuff, you know.) They’ve all slowed down to walking; well, and so have I. They’ve all stood still now; who am I not to stand still? They’ve all sat down in front of the computer; well, and so have I. They’re now looking in the mirror and thinking, “See what you got yourself into, you bastard?”, and so am I . . . . Yada-yada, as they say in North America. Nobody knew what to say, and neither did I. My chest was wheezing, seething . . . . Have you seen a doctor lately? No, there’s covid after all. They all jumped off the bridge. They all shouted out unintelligible curses; and so did I. (Unintelligible? Well, you surely could get the gist, having applied a modicum of intelligence . . . . This language makes me sick. Yada-yada. In my head I screamed, “To hell with it all!” Screamed? More like a hoarse plume of unintelligible curses erupted from his seething chest. Okay, time to stop playacting). They all freaked out; well, so did I. By the way, I've never been the worst of them. Nor have I been the best. And that’s fine. They all banged their heads against the wall; and so did I. They all jumped off the bridge. They all barfed from disgust, yada-yada; and so did I. They all envisioned . . . . no, I’d rather not. Once, a very long time ago, a drunken old man (a Jew, by the way; he asked me at the door, “Are you a Yid?”), in an empty communal apartment overlooking the Kazan Cathedral (he had tons of valuable books in the room, and he offered me to take them so I can peddle them on the black market, if I, like . . . .), asked me to help him end his life, in short, to push him lightly from the windowsill into the open summer space, you shouldn’t be drinking so much, fourth floor, pre-revolutionary building, and I proudly refused. Comrade, you . . . are you crazy? Yada-yada. I came to him to pick up a volume of Mandelstam, well, that one, an academic publication of 1973 (I think), I had not read him yet then (although his last name sounded familiar), but my then girlfriend (although she was married and all that) bought the book for me, on the occasion of my sorts of birthday. The old man had two cats, not sure male or female, Nixon and Brezhnev. (He could have come up with more interesting names. Laura and Petrarch, for example. Or Dante and Gromyko.) Below, near the cathedral, an Intourist bus stopped, foreign old ladies poured out of it, mostly Japanese, all in pink and white, resembling meringues, and started taking photos of the said cathedral, that is, the museum of religion and bloody atheism, with their foreign cameras, each of which costs more than our entire life. While chirping lively. The old man said: they should prepare for death, cleanse their souls and all that bullshit, but they instead travel abroad, taking bloody photos of cathedrals. Well, you know . . . . Two worlds—two Shapiros. On the other hand, though, if you take some red wine and mix it with the sunny May . . . . And outside the window, Nevsky Prospect was flooded endlessly (Was it really flooded? And was it really endless? Huh? Huh?) with representatives of our glorious Leningrad youth who had sold their souls to the West, loudly chanting: Santana! Santana! So it was July 4, 1978. American Independence Day. Anyone interested can Google it. It’s not my job to spell everything out for you. Yes, I remember. It's fucking true. No, it does not work. It does not help. Yaddo is a well-known writers' residence in the Northeastern United States. In Saratoga Springs, to be exact, about a half-hour drive from the college where I spent nine years, teachi... Yes, yes, let's talk a little more about you. It's such a fascinating and interesting subject. They all went to make themselves a cup of tea; and so did I. Yada-yada. They all fed their cat and then, bending down, stroked its head; and so did I, did I. Yada-yada. They all wanted to cry. But tears didn’t come. Such a cliché. I would like to share your fragile freaking feelings. Muteness entered the soul. They all stared blankly at the wall; and I stared blankly. They all were mortally ashamed. Yes, yes. They all wanted to write: they all died; and so did I. Keep your wants to yourself, sir. Well, so what? They all jumped off the bridge. Yada-yada. They all died; and so did I.
March 22, 2022 Translated by Alyona Doubrovina