More on Charlemagne

First Visit

I clock the ride to metro Vyhino, the last station, from the center and come to the figure of 34 minutes, which is not so bad. Metro Vyhino is on a high, simple concrete platform with an open staircase that leads down to a parking lot boarded by porta-potties stinking even in the minus 25 degree Celsius cold, and a large fish and fruit market quilted over with vinyl tents. It doesn’t look promising, but the apartment itself is 20 minutes away, so it’s too early to judge. I make my way down to the rows of yellow marshrutkas, reminding myself to later subtract time spent searching for the right bus, and take off. The ride is only twenty minutes, but it is a Sunday and whether this arrangement is viable at all depends on whether there is traffic, which is impossible to judge now.

The building itself is one of hundreds upon hundreds of brand-new brick and pastel highrises towering over a stretch of railroad track with a snow-coated cemetery and drafty, creaky-looking dachas. I ring and Charlemagne lets me in the main entrance. I go up to his floor and he lets me in- he’s holding a mohito and wearing jogging shorts and a RUSSIA t-shirt. He leads me to the freshly remodeled kitchen, where he brings me to wakefulness with the day’s fourth instant coffee with milk. When I interrogate him about the traffic conditions, he tells me that traffic is not a problem as long as we get in the marshrutkas that drive past the cemetery by 630am; otherwise I will face the possibility of getting stuck in a traffic jam. Calculating, I understand this means I will either arrive 60 minutes early to my earliest class, or several hours after it ends.

He takes me on a tour of the other rooms- his is open plan with Ikea furniture, mine is more private, but still lacks a lock. It’s full of hundreds of children’s toys which belong to the landlady’s younger son, and despite being a little drafty, it seems completely suitable. As we walk back to the kitchen for another drink, I notice a row of bowls of along the front wall and as I count them I notice there are 21 of them, each with a different type of dry cat food. Above them hangs a picture of a much younger Charlemagne, a young, no-shame, say what comes into your head homosexual with wild, curly fur burgeoning down to mid forehead and pointing triumphantly at the camera. We all get old.

I go to check out the toilet and out limps a mostly shed white cat clearly in agony. So do cats.

“It’s Juju. He won’t be with me much longer.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I will keep him alive as long as he can survive it.”

“How?”

“I give him suppositories and injections. He has a rapid heartbeat.” I remember him saying to our school's secretaries in Russian that he puts svechi, candles, in his cat’s ass, a comment which shocked me and the simple, clear-eyed secreataries. Months later, I understand his comment- "svechi" also means suppositories.

“I’m sorry.”

“Do you want to go on a tour of the neighborhood? I have to go grocery shopping.”

“Sure. Let’s go. I need another coffee, though.”

“I’ll pour it for you.”

We head to a mini-mart located on the ground floor. It has everything a person could need, but not more.

As we walk in, Charlemagne condescendingly nods at the Tajik shop attendants and volunteers at normal speaking volume, “I spend 800 rubles here every single day. These sand-niggers love me. I could marry either one of these girls and fuck them day in and out, you can see how wet they are when I walk in, they know what time it is. Can you smell it? You know they are all horny for me, this whole city. I don’t get up in those” –he squints- “what do you call them? I almost forgot.”

“Vaginas?”

“Oh, right, that’s what they call them. Disgusting!” He looks at me, biting his lip lasciviously. “Gay men like me are taking over the world. Finance, business, sex, art, you name it, we’re there hiring our lovers and getting each other to the top. Fags’re the new kikes, they are on their way OUT, we are going UP and IN. That’s why pussy lovers are so afraid, they know their days are numbered.” 

“Our days.”

He cocks his head at me a little. I don’t think he’s a rapist. I’ll just sleep in the sleeping bag. He won’t fit in it.

This is so clearly sub-optimal, but two weeks of being careful is not so long, especially to move into the flat at Oktiabrskoe Pole, which is owned by people that have been vouched for by people I would vouch for, which is the best I can hope for in this city.