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Fiction

Petroleum Venus

By Alexander Snegiryov
Translated from Russian by Arch Tait
Russian Booker nominee and award-winning short-story writer Alexander Snegiryov presents the (show) business of oil in Russia.

“Vanya, why are you sitting in the dark?”

“I’m looking at the picture,” came the imperturbable reply.

“What picture?” What new fantasy had come into his mind? I walked up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder.

A picture frame he had brought in off the street was propped against our pot-bellied fridge. It had a picture in it.

I flicked the switch and warm light flowed down from our tumblerlike lampshades.

A naked blonde, her upturned face registering pleasure, was squirming erotically while pouring a black liquid, evidently oil, over herself from a red plastic bottle. The oil was running over her half-parted lips, sumptuous breasts, and belly button, and dripping from her delta. It streamed down long legs to red stiletto heels. Behind the nude were some birch trees and oil rigs, and above the Petroleum Venus’s head hovered a halo of gold-colored barbed wire. Her eyes gazed heavenward; the barbed wire halo resembled a crown of thorns.

The picture was wrapped in polythene. Vanya had torn a large hole in it but had not removed it completely. I peeled back the bottom right corner to reveal the name “Georges Sazonoff” ornately signed in Latin letters.

“Art!” Vanya said proudly. “Look what glass I found!” he added, waving a fragment of red brake light in the air.

I stood that December evening in the living room of our suburban Moscow home contemplating a painting by a fashionable artist which my fifteen-year-old Down syndrome son had dragged in from who knows where.

Tearing off the rest of the polythene to take a closer look at Vanya’s find, I saw it was a genuine oil painting and, while its artistic merit might be open to question, the artist was much in demand and his work commanded a good price. Some of my customers had commissioned Sazonov to paint them dressed as one of Napoleon’s marshals, or to paint their children, wives, or lovers as Greek deities, and sometimes group portraits of their entire business team in the manner of Rembrandt’s “Night Watch.”

Our curvaceous blonde would not have been out of place painted on the door of a long-distance truck, with her voluptuous breasts, diminutive waist, the bottle in her hands the same color of red as her nails and sandals, and the oil spattered over her body like the sperm of some primeval subterranean monster.

Vanya could not tear his eyes away from the painting. He stared at the woman’s white body dripping with black oil.

“Vanya, can you please tell me where you got this, er, painting?”

“I won’t! I won’t!” he shouted, running around the room laughing and flinging himself down on the high-backed sofa with its two worn velvet bolsters at each side.

“Come on, Vanya. Tell me.”

He suddenly started bawling. It’s something he does.

“M-m-mmmmm, don’t ye-ell at me-e-eeeee! Wa-a-aaaaa!” He was instantly transformed into a big baby in floods of tears, smearing snot all over his face.

“I’m not yelling at you! Stop howling. You’re grown up now!” I tried to maintain my pose of a firm but fair father.

“Ah-ah-ah-aaaaaaaa!” His mouth and nose bubbled.

“Well, all right, I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry, pal, I just . . . like . . . I’m sorry!” I’m a useless nanny. I gave Vanya a hug and patted his back. “Don’t cry. I’m asking for a reason. It’s a bit weird. I’m just pushing the car out and you suddenly bring back a painting. What if there are gangsters looking for it?”

“It’s pretty,” Vanya sobbed. Like a baby, he stops crying as quickly as he starts. He’s easily placated, my Vanya. I wish I was. When I get stirred up, I take ages to calm down again.

“Go on, tell me where you found it.”

“I won’t!”

“Did you find it at the rubbish dump?”

“I won’t say! I won’t say.”

“Come on, then, you can show me,” I said gently, but took him firmly by the hand. I put on his jacket and shoes. He did not resist. I put on my own things and we went outside. We drove to the road.

“There was a car here!” Vanya jumped out and started galloping along the median, acting out the accident.

We are sitting at our round table and looking in silence at the painting.

“I was walking along and then bang! The car had an accident! I went over. The man was not moving. He hadn’t done up his seat belt. You should always wear your seat belt . . .”

“Tell me about the picture.”

“It was next to him. I opened the door and took it.”

“And nobody saw you?”

“I’m not sure,” Vanya says, wondering, pondering.

How on earth did he manage to bring a painting all the way home without anyone noticing? All we need is a witness. The picture is crap and not worth a whole lot of hassle.

“Dad, is it art?”

“Art? Oh, well, it’s difficult to say. Probably not exactly.”

“Why?”

“Well, for a painting to be considered art, it has to be . . . it has to be . . .” I hesitate, not finding it easy to explain the obvious. “Art has to be beautiful. There!”

“But is it ugly?” Vanya asks in surprise. “It is very beautiful!”

I look at the Petroleum Venus. You can’t in fairness say it is ugly, but something like that just doesn’t get called beautiful.

“Perhaps it is beautiful. Oh, I don’t know.”

“What is art for?” Vanya persists.

“What do you mean? Well . . . so you can show other people something you think is beautiful. That sort of thing. Say an artist sees a beautiful woman, he paints her, and it turns out you think she is beautiful too.”

Vanya opens his eyes wide and covers his mouth with his hands, the way cartoons convey astonishment.

“I get it . . .”

“What do you get?”

“The painter painted it specially for me!”

“No, Vanya. That’s not what I meant . . .” But he has stopped listening.

“I get it! I get it! He painted her for me!”

I stop listening to Vanya and try to imagine who this Venus could belong to. Some oink got rich and commissioned a painting of the woman he’s in love with? A widowed forty-something decided to ask a fashionable artist to paint her portrait? Or had “Sazonoff” decided to create a new image of Russia as a curvaceous blonde with oil rigs and birch trees?

There was a film screening the next day. After some words of welcome and expressions of thanks, we were treated to a real musical, with long dance routines and vocal numbers. It was the tale of Alyonushka, a poor girl, but pretty and honest. Her neighbors and friends envied her intelligence and beauty, and one day gave her a poisoned apple. Alyonushka took an antidote, dealt with the evildoers, and made off with the most eligible bridegroom. People helped her, and wild animals, as did the ancient spirits of the land, which gave her oil. Curiously enough, all the good characters were blond and all the bad people had dark hair and wore glasses.

The best scene was the finale, festivities in a forest glade. In the middle was a circle surrounded by the battlements of a fortress. They looked like those of the Kremlin only they were made of ice. From behind some slender birch trees came a score of boys and girls in gaily embroidered folk costumes. The boys had balalaikas. They formed a line in front of the fortress and struck up the slow, lyrical opening bars of “Kalinka.”

The singers divided to reveal five figures with red cloaks inside the circle. Their cloaks fell to the ground. Three were girls, one a mulatto, another a brunette with the painted eyes of an ancient Egyptian, and the third was blonde Alyonushka. The girls wore lingerie painted with yellow khokhloma folk art leaves and red berries. Alyonushka too was in bra and panties, only hers were gold. The girls were all wearing red stiletto shoes and squeezing in their hands bottles of vodka named in honor of the president. (The film’s main sponsor was a distillery.) The two others were boys wearing vests and combat trousers. Their Adidas sneakers were navy blue with the obligatory three white stripes. They carried whips and their biceps were tattooed with helicopters, tanks, and paratroopers. They were suntanned and athletic, their faces hidden by special-ops face masks.

Ka-a-a-lin-ka malinka m-a-alinka moia

V sadu iagoda malinka malinka moia . . .

At first, singing their folk song of raspberries in the orchard, five lithe bodies smoothly circled each other, like animals in a courtship display. Then the mulatto put a vodka bottle on her head and her hands on her hips. One boy cracked his whip, wrapping the lash round the bottle. A flick, a tug, and he held it in his hands, the girl unharmed, the bottle intact. The public whistled and clapped appreciatively.

The second boy repeated the trick no less adroitly, but with the brunette.

Kalinka malinka malinka moia

The boys started moving in from both sides on Alyonushka. She put a bottle on her head. They cracked their whips and snared the glistening bottle at exactly the same moment. Alyonushka jumped back as their eyes bored into each other with theatrical menace. Each had a bottle in his left hand, while the third was held quivering in mid-air by the tensed whips. The guys began rhythmically rocking their entwined whips and the bottle, before dashing it to the ground. Glass splintered, vodka spurted.

Kalinka malinka malinka moia

As if on cue, the boys dashed the bottles they were holding against their foreheads and computer graphics transfigured the splashes and splinters into seams of diamonds.

One of the dancers whistled and the boys tore off their hats and masks to reveal the heads of Wolf and Bear. The animal heads grew naturally on their human bodies. Their snout-faces expressed human emotion, smiling, baring their fangs. Wolf’s top left fang was gold.

The singers in the chorus also threw off their clothes and began dancing wildly. Close-ups alternated with wide shots, angled from above and below. The dancers performed everything expected in a Russian folk dance and more besides. The girls turned cartwheels, did high kicks and hand stands. Wolf danced on his haunches, leaping high, spreading his legs wide, his hands touching the tips of his sneakers. Bear jumped head over heels again and again.

Great raindrops fell from the skies, black drops on Alyonushka’s face, more and more of them. The dancers stripped off their painted bras, only Alyonushka remaining covered. The boy-beasts were magically stripped to black trunks. “Kalinka” rang out in a cutting-edge electronic rendition, its tight rhythm like the beating of one big communal heart.

Kalinka malinka malinka moia

“Oil, oil, oil, oil,” hammered through the hall.

Sure enough, it was raining oil, which the Mother Spirit of the Earth had bestowed upon Alyonushka. It became a downpour. The dancers whirled insanely beneath it. Muscles bulged on shoulders, calves, and bellies. The girls’ hair sprayed black wetness over the screen, a wetness which could enable you to travel at fantastic speed, to fly round the globe in a day, erect skyscrapers, roll out a banquet, or hold on to power and make it grow.

OIL!

Glimpses of animal snouts flecked with gold, female breasts, birch trees. From the heavens black gold pours down. No, this dance is dedicated not just to oil. It is dedicated to all of us, to all of Russia. Khokhloma folk art and oil. Ice and suntans. Striptease and whirling reels.

New Russia has merged with Eternal Russia. Behold my country, the great enigma, where everything is as precarious as the electricity supply of a house which mainly depends on a mobile generator running on light oil. If the generator packs in, it’s the end of everything, but until it does we won’t build a power station. We’ll keep our fingers crossed.

Behold my Russia, a flighty madam accustomed to money and men who dance attendance on her. Everyone knows she is coarse and vulgar, drinks too much, behaves abominably, but she has only to smile for everyone to forgive her. Just that tender smile, that gaze straight into your eyes, and you are sunk, no longer responsible for your actions. My homeland, whose every act is unpredictable. Today, dressed to kill, enticing, billing and cooing; and tomorrow she will throw on a stained, crumpled vest, open the door, fold her arms to hide the punctured veins, push you out and pretend she never knew you. If she wants, she will spit in your face; if she wants, she will surrender to you.

Feet tap in time to the music. Some of the audience are dancing in the aisles. The images of the film get mixed in with the kaleidoscope of my visions. My country, whooping and cheering, rushes past in front of me. Sailors trashing palaces, and aristocratic young ladies flirting at their first ball; the “granddad” conscripts in the army beating up “greenhorns,” and drunken merchants flying around Moscow in their sleighs; Cossacks in earrings slash with sabres, Jewish violins lament, horses hauling cannons sink in mud, bears dance at fairs, headscarves whirl like the wind, leaders of peasant revolts are caged in Red Square, fingers of secret policemen press triggers, political prisoners fell timber.

There are the fascists’ nooses from which Young Communist martyrs dangled, and here are the fascists themselves on their way to be shot, goose-stepping, arms outstretched in a final salute. Here are the priests with pentagrams branded on their foreheads. Here are drunken women in pink, fur-trimmed anoraks dancing in front of the Lenin Mausoleum on New Year’s Eve. Here are the agents of Smersh in their dark blue breeches shooting in the back condemned men fighting in wartime penal battalions. Black-eyed mountain-dwellers cut the throats of yesterday’s schoolboys from Ryazan or Tambov, freshly kitted out in Russian military uniform. Slit-eyed horsemen, blond-bearded Slav champions.

On the screen, the dancers’ bodies merge to form strange hydra-headed creatures with multiple arms and legs. Chortling, antic faces.

My nose is stinging. I unobtrusively wipe tears from my eyes. It’s just love. I love this whole appalling shambles. I am a part of it. I don’t need any order beyond this chaos, beyond this indefinableness. Thank you, Russia, for the passion, for the atrocities, for your loveliness, for our suffering.

Witches fly in mortars and on mops, mermaids splash beneath the vaults of sunken bell towers, a troika of black steeds drags gun carriages spraying machine-gun fire. The world is blessed by the cross tattooed on a convict’s back. And above it all there sits in glory He, the Eternal Joker, the Artist who created me, and Vanya, and Petroleum Venus.

I see the cinema auditorium through the eyes of the characters in the film. I see the film through the eyes of the audience. I see the whole world through the eyes of surveillance cameras. Skyscrapers, blue domes studded with golden stars, nuclear submarines, a hail of arrows tipped with flaming resin. Malachite, the rack, boyar noblemen, tsareviches torn to pieces, space rockets. The birch switches in bathhouses fuse with rods lashing bloodied backs. The steam pouring out of the bathhouse goes up the chimneys of thermal power plants. Summer camps, forests, distant horizons. The haze over black rivers, over marshes at the bottom of which lie chests full of the treasure foreigners tried to drag away. Nearby lie the foreigners’ remains and, beside them, those of the defenders.

Vanya came away from the film deep in thought.

“Where does oil come from, Dad?” he asked.

I explained as simply as I could about long-dead trees, animals, and people, and couldn’t resist adding at the end that someday we too would become oil.

“I really want to become oil!” Vanya exclaimed. “Like in the picture. I really want to be useful to people.”

I promised him that someday we would definitely become oil. We would splash and gurgle in underground caves and, after millions of years, be found; and pipes would reach down to us like straws and we would be sucked up like fruit juice out of a tumbler. We would flow through pipelines in a thick, greasy stream. We would be fractionated, and combust, and turn into a cloud of exhaust fumes, and fly up into the heavens, there to be inhaled by the Lord God Himself.


From
Petroleum Venus, Glas New Russian Writing 2013. © Alexander Snegiryov. By arrangement with the author and publisher. Translation © 2012 by Arch Tait. All rights reserved.

English Russian (Original)

“Vanya, why are you sitting in the dark?”

“I’m looking at the picture,” came the imperturbable reply.

“What picture?” What new fantasy had come into his mind? I walked up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder.

A picture frame he had brought in off the street was propped against our pot-bellied fridge. It had a picture in it.

I flicked the switch and warm light flowed down from our tumblerlike lampshades.

A naked blonde, her upturned face registering pleasure, was squirming erotically while pouring a black liquid, evidently oil, over herself from a red plastic bottle. The oil was running over her half-parted lips, sumptuous breasts, and belly button, and dripping from her delta. It streamed down long legs to red stiletto heels. Behind the nude were some birch trees and oil rigs, and above the Petroleum Venus’s head hovered a halo of gold-colored barbed wire. Her eyes gazed heavenward; the barbed wire halo resembled a crown of thorns.

The picture was wrapped in polythene. Vanya had torn a large hole in it but had not removed it completely. I peeled back the bottom right corner to reveal the name “Georges Sazonoff” ornately signed in Latin letters.

“Art!” Vanya said proudly. “Look what glass I found!” he added, waving a fragment of red brake light in the air.

I stood that December evening in the living room of our suburban Moscow home contemplating a painting by a fashionable artist which my fifteen-year-old Down syndrome son had dragged in from who knows where.

Tearing off the rest of the polythene to take a closer look at Vanya’s find, I saw it was a genuine oil painting and, while its artistic merit might be open to question, the artist was much in demand and his work commanded a good price. Some of my customers had commissioned Sazonov to paint them dressed as one of Napoleon’s marshals, or to paint their children, wives, or lovers as Greek deities, and sometimes group portraits of their entire business team in the manner of Rembrandt’s “Night Watch.”

Our curvaceous blonde would not have been out of place painted on the door of a long-distance truck, with her voluptuous breasts, diminutive waist, the bottle in her hands the same color of red as her nails and sandals, and the oil spattered over her body like the sperm of some primeval subterranean monster.

Vanya could not tear his eyes away from the painting. He stared at the woman’s white body dripping with black oil.

“Vanya, can you please tell me where you got this, er, painting?”

“I won’t! I won’t!” he shouted, running around the room laughing and flinging himself down on the high-backed sofa with its two worn velvet bolsters at each side.

“Come on, Vanya. Tell me.”

He suddenly started bawling. It’s something he does.

“M-m-mmmmm, don’t ye-ell at me-e-eeeee! Wa-a-aaaaa!” He was instantly transformed into a big baby in floods of tears, smearing snot all over his face.

“I’m not yelling at you! Stop howling. You’re grown up now!” I tried to maintain my pose of a firm but fair father.

“Ah-ah-ah-aaaaaaaa!” His mouth and nose bubbled.

“Well, all right, I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry, pal, I just . . . like . . . I’m sorry!” I’m a useless nanny. I gave Vanya a hug and patted his back. “Don’t cry. I’m asking for a reason. It’s a bit weird. I’m just pushing the car out and you suddenly bring back a painting. What if there are gangsters looking for it?”

“It’s pretty,” Vanya sobbed. Like a baby, he stops crying as quickly as he starts. He’s easily placated, my Vanya. I wish I was. When I get stirred up, I take ages to calm down again.

“Go on, tell me where you found it.”

“I won’t!”

“Did you find it at the rubbish dump?”

“I won’t say! I won’t say.”

“Come on, then, you can show me,” I said gently, but took him firmly by the hand. I put on his jacket and shoes. He did not resist. I put on my own things and we went outside. We drove to the road.

“There was a car here!” Vanya jumped out and started galloping along the median, acting out the accident.

We are sitting at our round table and looking in silence at the painting.

“I was walking along and then bang! The car had an accident! I went over. The man was not moving. He hadn’t done up his seat belt. You should always wear your seat belt . . .”

“Tell me about the picture.”

“It was next to him. I opened the door and took it.”

“And nobody saw you?”

“I’m not sure,” Vanya says, wondering, pondering.

How on earth did he manage to bring a painting all the way home without anyone noticing? All we need is a witness. The picture is crap and not worth a whole lot of hassle.

“Dad, is it art?”

“Art? Oh, well, it’s difficult to say. Probably not exactly.”

“Why?”

“Well, for a painting to be considered art, it has to be . . . it has to be . . .” I hesitate, not finding it easy to explain the obvious. “Art has to be beautiful. There!”

“But is it ugly?” Vanya asks in surprise. “It is very beautiful!”

I look at the Petroleum Venus. You can’t in fairness say it is ugly, but something like that just doesn’t get called beautiful.

“Perhaps it is beautiful. Oh, I don’t know.”

“What is art for?” Vanya persists.

“What do you mean? Well . . . so you can show other people something you think is beautiful. That sort of thing. Say an artist sees a beautiful woman, he paints her, and it turns out you think she is beautiful too.”

Vanya opens his eyes wide and covers his mouth with his hands, the way cartoons convey astonishment.

“I get it . . .”

“What do you get?”

“The painter painted it specially for me!”

“No, Vanya. That’s not what I meant . . .” But he has stopped listening.

“I get it! I get it! He painted her for me!”

I stop listening to Vanya and try to imagine who this Venus could belong to. Some oink got rich and commissioned a painting of the woman he’s in love with? A widowed forty-something decided to ask a fashionable artist to paint her portrait? Or had “Sazonoff” decided to create a new image of Russia as a curvaceous blonde with oil rigs and birch trees?

There was a film screening the next day. After some words of welcome and expressions of thanks, we were treated to a real musical, with long dance routines and vocal numbers. It was the tale of Alyonushka, a poor girl, but pretty and honest. Her neighbors and friends envied her intelligence and beauty, and one day gave her a poisoned apple. Alyonushka took an antidote, dealt with the evildoers, and made off with the most eligible bridegroom. People helped her, and wild animals, as did the ancient spirits of the land, which gave her oil. Curiously enough, all the good characters were blond and all the bad people had dark hair and wore glasses.

The best scene was the finale, festivities in a forest glade. In the middle was a circle surrounded by the battlements of a fortress. They looked like those of the Kremlin only they were made of ice. From behind some slender birch trees came a score of boys and girls in gaily embroidered folk costumes. The boys had balalaikas. They formed a line in front of the fortress and struck up the slow, lyrical opening bars of “Kalinka.”

The singers divided to reveal five figures with red cloaks inside the circle. Their cloaks fell to the ground. Three were girls, one a mulatto, another a brunette with the painted eyes of an ancient Egyptian, and the third was blonde Alyonushka. The girls wore lingerie painted with yellow khokhloma folk art leaves and red berries. Alyonushka too was in bra and panties, only hers were gold. The girls were all wearing red stiletto shoes and squeezing in their hands bottles of vodka named in honor of the president. (The film’s main sponsor was a distillery.) The two others were boys wearing vests and combat trousers. Their Adidas sneakers were navy blue with the obligatory three white stripes. They carried whips and their biceps were tattooed with helicopters, tanks, and paratroopers. They were suntanned and athletic, their faces hidden by special-ops face masks.

Ka-a-a-lin-ka malinka m-a-alinka moia

V sadu iagoda malinka malinka moia . . .

At first, singing their folk song of raspberries in the orchard, five lithe bodies smoothly circled each other, like animals in a courtship display. Then the mulatto put a vodka bottle on her head and her hands on her hips. One boy cracked his whip, wrapping the lash round the bottle. A flick, a tug, and he held it in his hands, the girl unharmed, the bottle intact. The public whistled and clapped appreciatively.

The second boy repeated the trick no less adroitly, but with the brunette.

Kalinka malinka malinka moia

The boys started moving in from both sides on Alyonushka. She put a bottle on her head. They cracked their whips and snared the glistening bottle at exactly the same moment. Alyonushka jumped back as their eyes bored into each other with theatrical menace. Each had a bottle in his left hand, while the third was held quivering in mid-air by the tensed whips. The guys began rhythmically rocking their entwined whips and the bottle, before dashing it to the ground. Glass splintered, vodka spurted.

Kalinka malinka malinka moia

As if on cue, the boys dashed the bottles they were holding against their foreheads and computer graphics transfigured the splashes and splinters into seams of diamonds.

One of the dancers whistled and the boys tore off their hats and masks to reveal the heads of Wolf and Bear. The animal heads grew naturally on their human bodies. Their snout-faces expressed human emotion, smiling, baring their fangs. Wolf’s top left fang was gold.

The singers in the chorus also threw off their clothes and began dancing wildly. Close-ups alternated with wide shots, angled from above and below. The dancers performed everything expected in a Russian folk dance and more besides. The girls turned cartwheels, did high kicks and hand stands. Wolf danced on his haunches, leaping high, spreading his legs wide, his hands touching the tips of his sneakers. Bear jumped head over heels again and again.

Great raindrops fell from the skies, black drops on Alyonushka’s face, more and more of them. The dancers stripped off their painted bras, only Alyonushka remaining covered. The boy-beasts were magically stripped to black trunks. “Kalinka” rang out in a cutting-edge electronic rendition, its tight rhythm like the beating of one big communal heart.

Kalinka malinka malinka moia

“Oil, oil, oil, oil,” hammered through the hall.

Sure enough, it was raining oil, which the Mother Spirit of the Earth had bestowed upon Alyonushka. It became a downpour. The dancers whirled insanely beneath it. Muscles bulged on shoulders, calves, and bellies. The girls’ hair sprayed black wetness over the screen, a wetness which could enable you to travel at fantastic speed, to fly round the globe in a day, erect skyscrapers, roll out a banquet, or hold on to power and make it grow.

OIL!

Glimpses of animal snouts flecked with gold, female breasts, birch trees. From the heavens black gold pours down. No, this dance is dedicated not just to oil. It is dedicated to all of us, to all of Russia. Khokhloma folk art and oil. Ice and suntans. Striptease and whirling reels.

New Russia has merged with Eternal Russia. Behold my country, the great enigma, where everything is as precarious as the electricity supply of a house which mainly depends on a mobile generator running on light oil. If the generator packs in, it’s the end of everything, but until it does we won’t build a power station. We’ll keep our fingers crossed.

Behold my Russia, a flighty madam accustomed to money and men who dance attendance on her. Everyone knows she is coarse and vulgar, drinks too much, behaves abominably, but she has only to smile for everyone to forgive her. Just that tender smile, that gaze straight into your eyes, and you are sunk, no longer responsible for your actions. My homeland, whose every act is unpredictable. Today, dressed to kill, enticing, billing and cooing; and tomorrow she will throw on a stained, crumpled vest, open the door, fold her arms to hide the punctured veins, push you out and pretend she never knew you. If she wants, she will spit in your face; if she wants, she will surrender to you.

Feet tap in time to the music. Some of the audience are dancing in the aisles. The images of the film get mixed in with the kaleidoscope of my visions. My country, whooping and cheering, rushes past in front of me. Sailors trashing palaces, and aristocratic young ladies flirting at their first ball; the “granddad” conscripts in the army beating up “greenhorns,” and drunken merchants flying around Moscow in their sleighs; Cossacks in earrings slash with sabres, Jewish violins lament, horses hauling cannons sink in mud, bears dance at fairs, headscarves whirl like the wind, leaders of peasant revolts are caged in Red Square, fingers of secret policemen press triggers, political prisoners fell timber.

There are the fascists’ nooses from which Young Communist martyrs dangled, and here are the fascists themselves on their way to be shot, goose-stepping, arms outstretched in a final salute. Here are the priests with pentagrams branded on their foreheads. Here are drunken women in pink, fur-trimmed anoraks dancing in front of the Lenin Mausoleum on New Year’s Eve. Here are the agents of Smersh in their dark blue breeches shooting in the back condemned men fighting in wartime penal battalions. Black-eyed mountain-dwellers cut the throats of yesterday’s schoolboys from Ryazan or Tambov, freshly kitted out in Russian military uniform. Slit-eyed horsemen, blond-bearded Slav champions.

On the screen, the dancers’ bodies merge to form strange hydra-headed creatures with multiple arms and legs. Chortling, antic faces.

My nose is stinging. I unobtrusively wipe tears from my eyes. It’s just love. I love this whole appalling shambles. I am a part of it. I don’t need any order beyond this chaos, beyond this indefinableness. Thank you, Russia, for the passion, for the atrocities, for your loveliness, for our suffering.

Witches fly in mortars and on mops, mermaids splash beneath the vaults of sunken bell towers, a troika of black steeds drags gun carriages spraying machine-gun fire. The world is blessed by the cross tattooed on a convict’s back. And above it all there sits in glory He, the Eternal Joker, the Artist who created me, and Vanya, and Petroleum Venus.

I see the cinema auditorium through the eyes of the characters in the film. I see the film through the eyes of the audience. I see the whole world through the eyes of surveillance cameras. Skyscrapers, blue domes studded with golden stars, nuclear submarines, a hail of arrows tipped with flaming resin. Malachite, the rack, boyar noblemen, tsareviches torn to pieces, space rockets. The birch switches in bathhouses fuse with rods lashing bloodied backs. The steam pouring out of the bathhouse goes up the chimneys of thermal power plants. Summer camps, forests, distant horizons. The haze over black rivers, over marshes at the bottom of which lie chests full of the treasure foreigners tried to drag away. Nearby lie the foreigners’ remains and, beside them, those of the defenders.

Vanya came away from the film deep in thought.

“Where does oil come from, Dad?” he asked.

I explained as simply as I could about long-dead trees, animals, and people, and couldn’t resist adding at the end that someday we too would become oil.

“I really want to become oil!” Vanya exclaimed. “Like in the picture. I really want to be useful to people.”

I promised him that someday we would definitely become oil. We would splash and gurgle in underground caves and, after millions of years, be found; and pipes would reach down to us like straws and we would be sucked up like fruit juice out of a tumbler. We would flow through pipelines in a thick, greasy stream. We would be fractionated, and combust, and turn into a cloud of exhaust fumes, and fly up into the heavens, there to be inhaled by the Lord God Himself.


From
Petroleum Venus, Glas New Russian Writing 2013. © Alexander Snegiryov. By arrangement with the author and publisher. Translation © 2012 by Arch Tait. All rights reserved.

Нефтяная Венера

– Иван, чего в темноте сидишь?

– На картину смотрю, – последовал невозмутимый ответ.

– На какую картину? – гадая, что за фантазия пришла ему в голову на этот раз, встаю за его спиной, положив руку на плечо.

К белому пузатому холодильнику прислонена рама, притащенная с улицы. В раме холст.

Я щёлкнул выключателем. Три стакана-абажура вспыхнули тёплым светом.

Обнажённая блондинка, страстно изогнувшись, изобразив на запрокинутом лице наслаждение, поливает себя из красной канистры чёрной жидкостью. Видимо нефтью. Нефть бежит по её полураскрытым губам, пышной груди, пупку, капает с лобка, струится по длинным ногам в красных туфлях на шпильке. Позади блондинки находится несколько берёзок и нефтедобывающих вышек. Над головой нефтяной Венеры парит нимб из золотой колючей проволоки. Глаза заведены к небу. Нимб из проволоки, словно терновый венец.

Картина была плотно обёрнута полиэтиленовой плёнкой. Ваня прорвал в плёнке большую дыру, но до конца не снял. Я оттянул плёнку в правом нижнем углу. Витиеватая подпись латинскими буквами – George Sazonoff.

– Живопись! – гордится Ваня. – Смотри, какое стёклышко я нашёл! – машет осколком красного сигнального фонаря.

Декабрьский подмосковный вечер, я стою в центре гостиной нашего дачного дома и рассматриваю картину, писанную модным художником, которую приволок невесть откуда мой пятнадцатилетний сын-даун.

Содрав остатки полиэтилена, и рассмотрев Ванину находку внимательно, я понял, что это подлинный «холст-масло», что художественная ценность картины весьма сомнительна, но автор моден и дерёт за свои произведения порядочно. Некоторые мои клиенты заказывали Сазонову собственные портреты в нарядах наполеоновских маршалов, изображения детей, жён и любовниц в образах древнегреческих божеств, а иногда и корпоративные полотна с целыми коллективами в духе «Ночного дозора» Рембранта.

Нам досталась фигуристая баба, напоминающая тех, что украшают дверцы дальнобойных фур. Грудь пышная, талия узкая, в руках красная, в цвет ногтей и босоножек, канистра, нефть на теле напоминает брызги спермы древнего подземного чудовища.

Ваню картина зачаровала. Он смотрел на белое, в чёрных каплях тело, и глаз не мог отвести.

– Ваня, скажи, пожалуйста, где ты взял это… эту картину?

– Не скажу, не скажу! – он носился по комнате и, смеясь, с разбегу плюхнулся на диван с высокой спинкой и двумя истёршимися бархатными валиками по бокам.

– Ну, Вань. Скажи.

Тут он взял и заревел. Умеет делать это неожиданно.

– М-м-ммммм, не кричи-и-ии на меня-я-я-яяяя! А-а-ааааа! – моментально превратился в крупного пупса, брызжущего слезами, размазывающего сопли по физиономии.

– Я не кричу! Прекрати рёв, ты уже взрослый! – стараюсь поддерживать реноме строгого, но справедливого отца.

– А-а-а-аааааааа, – пускает пузыри носом и ртом.

– Ну, ладно, извини… Извини, чувак, я же так… как бы… Извини… – воспитатель из меня никудышный, обнимаю Ваню, легонько хлопаю по спине. – Не плачь, я ведь не просто так спрашиваю… странно всё-таки… я машину выталкиваю, а ты вдруг притаскиваешь домой картину… а может за ней охотятся гангстеры?…

– Она красивая… – всхлипывает Ваня. Плакать он прекращает, как ребёнок, также быстро, как начал. Он вообще отходчивый, мой Ваня. Мне бы так. Я уж если загружусь, то надолго.

– Ну, скажи, где ты ее взял?

– Не скажу!

– На помойке нашёл?!

– Не скажу, не скажу!

– Пойдём, покажешь! – ласково, но крепко я взял Ваню за руку, надел на него куртку, ботинки. Он не сопротивлялся. Я оделся сам и мы вышли за дверь.

Мы выбрались на дорогу.

– Вот тут машина была! – Ваня выскочил, принялся скакать по разделительной полосе, в лицах показывая аварию.

 

Мы сидим за круглым столом, молча рассматривая картину.

– Я гулял и тут трах – автомобильная авария! Я подошёл, дяденька лежит, не двигается. Не пристегнулся. Всегда надо пристёгиваться…

– Про картину давай.

– Она рядом с ним лежала. Я дверцу открыл и взял.

– А тебя никто не видел?

– Не знаю, – задумался Ваня и погрузился в размышления.

И как ему удалось незаметно дотащить картину до дома?.. Может, ещё объявятся свидетель… А картина-то ерундовая, не хочется из-за неё погореть.

– Папа, а это искусство?

– Что?.. Искусство?.. Трудно сказать… Наверное, не совсем искусство.

– Почему?

– Ну, чтобы картина считалась искусством, надо чтобы она была… чтобы была… – я запнулся. Оказывается не так просто разъяснить то, что кажется очевидным. – Картина должна быть красивой. Вот!

– А разве она некрасивая? – удивился Ваня. – Она очень красивая!

Я смотрю на нефтяную Венеру. Сказать, что некрасивая нельзя… но ведь такие вещи не принято называть красивыми…

– Может, и красивая, не знаю…

– А зачем нужно искусство? – продолжил расспросы Ваня.

– Как зачем?! Зачем… Ну… чтобы показаться людям то, что ты считаешь красивым. Типа того. Вот художник увидел красивую женщину, нарисовал её, и оказалось, ты тоже считаешь её красивой.

Ваня широко раскрыл глаза и закрыл рот руками. Так в мультфильмах изображают сильное удивление.

– Я понял…

– Что ты понял?

– Художник её специально для меня нарисовал!

– Нет, Вань. Я в другом смысле сказал… – но он больше не слушал.

– Я понял это! Я понял! Он для меня нарисовал!!!

Перестав слушать Ваню, принимаюсь фантазировать о том, кому бы Венера могла принадлежать. Разбогатевший простак заказал изображение возлюбленной… Овдовевшая леди за сорок решила заполучить свой портрет кисти модного живописца… Или Сазонов решил создать новый образ России, фигуристая  блондинка, нефть, берёзки…

 

На следующий день был показ. После слов приветствия и благодарностей начался настоящий мюзикл с длинными танцевальными и вокальными номерами. История Алёнушки, бедной, но красивой и честной девушки. Соседки и подруги завидовали её уму и красе, и однажды подсунули отравленное яблоко. Но Алёнушка приняла противоядие, одолела злодеек и отхватила самого завидного жениха. Ей помогали люди, некоторые звери и древние духи земли, которые дали ей нефть. Интересно, что все положительные герои оказались блондинами, а все отрицательные – брюнетами-очкариками.

Наибольшее впечатление произвела финальная сцена праздника на лесной поляне.

В центре поляны очерчен круг. По периметру – зубцы крепостной стены, напоминающие кремлёвские. Только изо льда. Из-за тонких берёзок вышли десятка два парней и девушек в расшитых народных костюмах. Парни с балалайками. Они выстроились вдоль круга и затянули медленное, лиричное начало «Калинки».

Поющие разошлись в разные стороны, обнаружив в кругу пять фигур в красных плащах. Плащи упали на землю. Трое оказались девушками; одна мулатка, другая брюнетка с древнеегипетскими глазами, третья – блондинка Лена-Алёнушка. Девушки остались в нижнем белье, расписанном жёлтыми хохломскими листьями и красными ягодками. На Лене тоже трусы с лифчиком, только золотые. Обуты все в красные туфли на шпильках. В руках сжимают бутылки с водкой названной в честь президента. Алкогольный завод – главный спонсор фильма. Ещё двое оказались мужчинами, наряженными в тельняшки и камуфляжные штаны. Обуты в синие кеды с тремя белыми полосками. В руках – хлысты. На бицепсах татуировки: вертолёты, танки, парашютисты. Тела у всех атлетические и загорелые. Лица скрыты спецназовскими масками.

Ка-а-а-линка-малинка, м-а-алинка, моя,

В саду ягода, малинка, малинка, моя…

Сначала все пятеро двигались плавным хороводом, словно животные, красующиеся друг перед другом. Затем мулатка поставила бутылку себе на голову и упёрла руки в бока. Парень щёлкнул хлыстом и сбил бутылку ударом. Да не просто сбил, а, прихватив её хлыстом, дёрнул к себе и поймал.

Мулатка невредима, бутылка цела.

Зрители в зале свистят и аплодируют.

Второй парень не менее ловко повторил такой же трюк с брюнеткой.

Калинка-малинка, малинка, моя

Парни стали приближаться к Лене-Алёнушке с двух сторон. Она поставила бутылку на голову. Парни крутанули хлыстами и обвили запотевшую тару одновременно. Лена-Алёнушка отскочила. Парни давай сверлить друг друга театрально-злобными взглядами. В левой руке у каждого по бутылке, на дрожащих от натяжения хлыстах висит третья. Парни начали мерно раскачивать свившиеся воедино хлысты с бутылкой.

Парни грохнули бутылку оземь. Осколки, брызги.

Калинка-малинка, малинка, моя,

Парни, как по команде, ударили теми бутылками, что были у них в руках, по своим лбам. Компьютерные графики превратили брызги и осколки в россыпи бриллиантов.

Одна из танцовщиц свистнула. Парни сбросили шапочки-маски. Под масками открылись головы Волка и Медведя. Звериные головы натурально прирастают к человеческим телам. Морды-лица выражают человеческие эмоции, улыбаются, скаля клыки. У Волка верхний левый золотой.

Певцы хора тоже скинули одежду и все начали лихо танцевать. Замелькали  крупные и общие планы. Ракурсы сверху и снизу. Танцующие выделывают всё то, чего обычно ждут от русского танца и даже больше. Девушки задирают ноги, крутят «колесо», стоят на руках. Волк танцует вприсядку, высоко прыгая, расставив ноги и касаясь руками мысков своих «адиков». Медведь многократно прыгает через голову.

С неба капает. Чёрные капли на лице Алёнушки. Их всё больше. Танцовщицы сбросили свои расписные лифчики. Одна Лена-Алёнушка осталась прикрытой. Парни-звери как по волшебству остались в одних чёрных трусах. «Калинка» звучит в современном электронном звучании.

Сухой ритм стучит, как большое общее сердце.

Калинка-малинка, малинка, моя,

– Нефть, нефть, нефть… – пробегает шелест по залу.

Так и есть. Нефтяной дождь, подаренный Алёнушке Главным Духом Земли превращается в ливень. Герои кружатся под ним в безумном танце. Мышцы натягивающиеся на икрах, плечах, животах. Волосы девушек окатывают экран чёрными брызгами. С этой жидкостью можно развивать бешеную скорость, облетать земной шар за сутки, возводить небоскрёбы, закатывать пиры, удерживать и преумножать власть.

НЕФТЬ.

Мелькают звериные морды с золотыми фиксами, женские груди, берёзки.  С небес льёт чёрное золото. Нет, этот танец посвящён не только нефти. Он посвящён всем нам. Всей России. Хохлома и нефть. Лёд и загар. Стриптиз и хоровод.

Новая Россия слилась с Вечной Россией. Вот она моя страна – великая загадка, где всё также зыбко, как подача электроэнергии в тот дом, где её существенную долю обеспечивает передвижной генератор на соляре. Если генератор однажды накроется всему конец. Но пока этого не произошло, мы не строим электростанцию, мы молимся.

Вот она, моя Россия, взбалмошная дамочка, привыкшая к деньгам и вниманию мужчин. Все прекрасно понимают, что она груба и вульгарна, пьёт и скандалит. Но достаточно одной её улыбки – ей все простят. Одной её нежной улыбки, одного взгляда в самые глаза. И ты уже поплыл, ты уже не владеешь собой. Моя родина, каждый шаг которой непредсказуем. Сегодня облачена в роскошное платье, ласкается и зовет, а завтра откроет дверь, накинув мятую, заляпанную футболку, руки на груди сложит, чтобы исколотых вен не было видно, оттолкнет и не узнает. Захочет в лицо плюнет, а захочет – отдастся.

Ноги сами топают в такт музыке. Некоторые зрители пританцовывают в проходах между креслами.

Картинка фильма смешивается с калейдоскопом моих видений. Страна со свистом и улюлюканьем проносится передо мной. Матросы, громящие дворцы и юные аристократки, флиртующие на первых балах, «деды», избивающие «салаг» и пьяные купцы, катающиеся на санях по Москве. Казаки с серьгами в ушах рубят шашками, еврейские скрипки плачут, лошади вязнут в грязи, волоча пушки, медведи пляшут на ярмарках, платки кружатся вихрем. Вожаки мужицких восстаний в клетках на Красной площади. Пальцы чекистов жмут на курки, зэка валят лес.

Вот фашистские петли, в которых повисли комсомольские мученицы. А вот и сами фашисты, идущие на расстрел прусским военным шагом, вытягивают руку в последнем салюте. Вот священники с выжженными на лбу пятиконечными звёздами. Вот пьяные женщины в розовых пуховиках танцуют перед Мавзолеем в новогоднюю ночь. Вот смершевцы в тёмно-синих галифе стреляют в спины смертникам из штрафбатов. Черноглазые горцы, режут глотки вчерашним рязанским, тамбовским школьникам в российской военной форме. Узкоглазые конники, белобородые витязи.

Тела танцующих на экране сливаются, образуя странных существ со многими головами, руками и ногами. Хохочущие, кривляющиеся лица.

В носу щиплет. Я незаметно вытираю глаза пальцами. Это от любви. Я люблю весь этот бардак, являюсь его частью. Мне не нужен никакой порядок, кроме этого хаоса. Кроме этой неопределённости. Спасибо тебе страна за страсть, спасибо за ужасы, спасибо за прелесть, спасибо за страдания.

Летят ведьмы в ступах и со швабрами, русалки плещутся под сводами затопленных колоколен, тройки вороных влекут тачанки, поливающие пулемётным огнём. Мир осенённый татуированным крестом со спины уголовника. А над всем этим – витает Он, вечный Шутник, Художник создавший меня, Ваню, нефтяную Венеру.

Я вижу зал глазами персонажей фильма, вижу фильм глазами зрителей, вижу весь мир глазками камер слежения. Небоскрёбы, синие купола в золотых звёздах, атомные подводные лодки, тучи стрел с горящими смоляными наконечниками. Малахит, дыба, бояре, растерзанные царевичи, космические ракеты. Банные веники сливаются с розгами, хлещущими по кровавым спинам. Пар, валящий из бань уходит в трубы тепловых станций. Лагеря, леса, дали. Марево над чёрными реками, над болотами, на дне которых лежат сундуки с сокровищами, их пытались вывезти отсюда чужестранцы. Рядом покоятся их останки. А подле них защитники.

Из зала Ваня вышел задумчивый.

– Откуда берётся нефть, папа? – спросил он.

Я объяснил попроще про умершие давным-давно деревья, животных и людей. А в конце, не удержался, пошутил, что и мы когда-нибудь станем нефтью.

– Я очень хочу стать нефтью! – воскликнул Ваня. – Как на картине. Я очень хочу быть полезным людям.

Когда-нибудь мы обязательно станем нефтью, обещаю. Будем плескаться и булькать в подземных пещерах. А, через миллионы лет, нас отыщут, протянут к нам трубы-соломинки и высосут, как сок из стакана. Мы будем катиться по трубопроводам жирным, густым потоком. Нас переработают в бензин, мы сгорим, превратимся в облачко выхлопных газов, взлетим в небеса и там нас вдохнёт сам Господь.

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