Page 129 of Pioneer Summer

Yura, I screwed everything up! I betrayed her so badly! She’s suffering; she calls sometimes, and I do what I can to calmher down. I wish I had someone to calmmedown. I’m such an idiot! Ever since 1990, if not earlier, it’s been all but proclaimed from the rooftops that people like me are ... well, not normal, of course, but at least not the kind of monsters I used to think they were. No, I still don’t accept all of them—I hate the ones like Boris Moiseyev who do drag—but I wish I had tried harder to be accepting. Instead, I had to go and ruin my own life and then go and ruin Sveta’s.

I feel bad for her. She’s so fun, so lively and funny ... She’s like you. She’s bright, just like her name. And I caused her pain. I loved her. Or rather, I thought I did. I tried so hard to believe I could fall in love with her—I wanted it so badly—that I convinced both her and myself.

We started dating a month after we met, you know. It’s my fault. I was confused about myself. I couldn’t tell the difference between liking her as a person and liking her sexually. We talked so much, went on so many walks. This is probably going to sound stupid, but she was lavishing me with light and warmth. I couldn’t resist! I started hoping my disease was curable again, seeing Sveta as my chance to change.

We moved in together. Two months ago her period was late. She told me about it immediately. I felt like I’d been punched in the face. Like an honest man, I said that if she was pregnant, I’d marry her. No question. We told our parents and went to the clinic for a pregnancy test. It’s a good clinic, private, you pay through the nose. Sveta and I are sitting there in the hallway and I’m looking around at the pictures of babies and pregnant women. And Sveta’s just glowing! She’s smiling, flipping through a magazine, and then she holds it up for me to see: a picture of a young family. A happy mama holding a cute little baby and the father behind them, his arms wrapped around them both. Sveta’s all “Look, what a cute little guy!” and what do I look at? The husband! And I go, “Yeah, he’s cute.” And then it hit me like a ton of bricks: What am I saying?! What am I doing here?! How did I ever manage to getmyself into something like this?! What dream am I dreaming here?! What do I think is going to happen?! Am I blind?! Then they call Sveta’s name, and she goes into the office, and I run to the bathroom. I thought: Okay, I’ll turn on the hot water just to bring myself back to my senses; this will pass ... it used to help me before, after all ... but no! It didn’t help! It just made it worse. What the hell kind of father would I be? I’m unbalanced, I’ve got some kind of suicidal tendencies! I hide in the bathroom and burn my hands at the least little thing! What kind of husband would that make me?

For a few days, while we were waiting for the results, I was a bundle of nerves. I felt like I was in some kind of hell. Not even the army was that bad. I had to force myself to do it with Sveta in the first place, you know. I already had to spend half an hour just working myself up to it. Sveta was a big fan of the long prelude, of course, but the prelude wasn’t for her. And I realized, if everything was so bad already, then how much worse would it get? There were only two options: either I’d cheat on her, or I’d die by my own hand.

And then we got the test results: false alarm. I was so happy, I didn’t sleep that night! But Sveta thought the opposite, she thought I couldn’t sleep because I was so upset. My parents told us to get married anyway. They loved Sveta, obviously. Doubtless because she’d apparently cured their fag of a son. Sveta’s parents agreed with them. They said, “We give you our blessing. And kids will come with time.” But the minute I came back to my senses I told her I wanted to break up. Poor thing, to this day she thinks it’s because of that non-pregnancy. She cries all the time and calls me late at night. I don’t get to sleep until two in the morning because I’m staying up on the phone with her. I feel bad for her. I never did tell her the truth, and I never will. I’m never going to tell anyone. But I don’t know how to deal with it. I know now that it’s incurable. I look at other people like me and I don’t feel any hatred toward them, or at least I don’t think so.But other people being this way are one thing; it’s different when it’s yourself. I can’t forgive myself for being this way.

I feel as though I’m living someone else’s life. But what’s my life supposed to be like? I have no idea. And I can’t bring myself to find out. It scares me.

Yura squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them wide as he blew out a huge sigh. His head was buzzing from the emotion saturating those lines and from the sheer volume of information. How much life Volodya had poured into his writing, how much despair and hope. And the whole time Volodya had been writing that—the whole time Volodya had been about to get married, and then calling it off, and fighting himself, and failing to accept himself—that whole time, Yura hadn’t given a single thought to his Volodya. Yura had been completely immersed in his relationship with Jonas. He felt terrible. He should’ve tried to find Volodya earlier! Yura had promised, after all! He had promised they wouldn’t lose each other ... But he had remembered his promise too late.

There were only two envelopes left in the bundle. One of them had the exact date for once: June 30, 1996. Yurka’s hands trembled when he saw the day of their intended meeting at Camp Barn Swallow. That had been ten years to the day after they saw each other the last time.

I opened the time capsule today. I got out my notebook and read our farewell wishes. None of them came true. We lost each other, Yura. And I lost myself. I didn’t leave for the States, and now I never will. Business here’s booming and we’re opening branches in other cities. My father’s retiring soon and I’ll take over. It’s too late to go out in search of myself. I have to be content with what I’ve got. Maybe you went to the conservatory and became a musician, at least?

I had no hope, of course, that you’d be here on this day. Well, okay, that’s not true: I did hope so, but I knew the chances you’d show up were so small it’d be a miracle. You have your own life over there. And I know very well that the old Yurka I sometimes write to hasn’t existed for a long time. You’ve grown up, you’ve changed, and my invisible But he hadinterlocutor is nothing but an image in my mind, a memory of you that I’ve been lovingly preserving all these years. I don’t even know whether it’s good or bad that I can’t let you go no matter what. Sometimes I think I’m getting a little crazy, because how could I not be? But it’s all just because I’m lonely. It only looks from the outside like everything’s fine. Inside, I feel like an old man, even though I’m not even thirty yet ... No matter where I am, I feel detached from the world, and everywhere I go, I’m different from other people—and not in a good way, either. I’ve accepted myself and I don’t fight my perversion anymore. I wish I could meet someone, my kind of person, a guy I could be honest with. But the more I think about it, the more I know I’ll never find a man like that.

I’ve been putting these letters in our time capsule with some small, weak—but not quite dead—hope that you’ll read them someday. Because this capsule is a mailbox, in a sense; it’s the only way you’ll ever get them. Or is the capsule just my past’s grave? I don’t know. Enough. I’m going to try not to write my mute interlocutor any more letters.

Yura’s insides seized up as it hit him how right Volodya was. They hadn’t been able to take care of each other. They’d lost each other and they’d lost themselves. Sure, Yura had become a musician, like he promised. But he hadn’t achieved happiness. The only things he had now were his career and his loneliness. And loneliness in your thirties is very different from loneliness when you’re sixteen, when you only think that nobody needs you. It wasn’t very likely Yura would be rescued from his loneliness, because there was nobody he was close to anymore. His mother had died, his father wanted nothing to do with him, and he had few real friends left: some had started families, some he’d stopped getting along with, and some he’d just lost, like he had lost Camp Barn Swallow.

The last envelope was different from the others. It was contemporary, business letter size, and it was brighter and newer. There was no writing on it, just the year in pencil: 2001. Yura opened it. In contrast to the other letters,which were written on notebook paper and folded in quarters, this one was written on a blank piece of printer paper and folded in thirds.

This is the last letter. Now I understand clearly that it’s time to unburden myself of this habit, too. There’s a reason to do this now. It sounds strange: I just bought my youth. But I have to get on with my life. Because when you’re always looking back—I remember you every time I write—it’s hard to move forward.

I’d really like to be able to say I have no regrets. But alas, that’s not the case. I do have regrets—painful ones. Not about you, but about what I did to myself in ’89. If I’d known what the consequences would be, I would never have agreed to go get treatment and I would’ve strangled that “doctor” with my bare hands. How could a doctor not see my habit of punishing myself as an indicator of suicidal tendencies? Because I told him about it! I did! That right there was what needed to be treated, not the fact that I longed for my friend Yurka Konev. He used to say that once we suppressed my inclinations, I’d get out of the habit of burning my hands, too. As if! But that wasn’t the only issue. I suffered the consequences of his “treatment” for almost ten years. I was messed up already, but he messed me up the rest of the way.

Still, I’m almost completely free of the habit of punishing myself. Almost. Sometimes, when my panic attacks get really bad, I start getting the old itch again, but I’ve learned how to dispel those thoughts. Of course, I didn’t get rid of them all on my own, but I definitely got by without any charlatans messing with me.

My only real relationship started late, when I was 31. Now I know I never loved him as a person, as himself. I only loved one thing in him: his gender. Just the very fact that he was a guy. My guy! Finally! I would get into such a frenzied euphoria just because he had a man’s shoulders,and arms, and—everything else. He himself as a person, his personality, even his looks, didn’t matter to me a bit. We were together for almost two years. Although “together” is relative: we met, went out, talked, slept together, but the idea of, say, moving in together was never even on the table. He was married. I got tired of his vacillating and ended the relationship. And I got the final confirmation that I didn’t love him when we broke up: I didn’t miss him, just the closeness. But I don’t regret he was in my life, not in the slightest. He helped me overcome my fear. I forgave myself and accepted myself. And damned if I don’t feel so much better now!

But that’s not the only thing that changed in my life. Yura, I’m here! I can’t believe it, but I’m here, and it’s all mine. We’ve been developing land in lots of places, so I had an excuse ... Now I can truly say I’ve got everything. Everything except ... well ... but I’ve got nothing to lose, so ...

Yura unfolded the letter so he could keep reading, but something fell out. He picked it up: a black-and-white photograph that had been folded in half down the middle. He opened it and caught his breath. It was that picture, the one they’d taken after the show. Yura had completely forgotten about it after eighteen-odd years. He looked at his young self and at Volodya, whose arm was around Yurka’s shoulders. How handsome Volodya had been, though: tall and slim, a little pale, a subtle shadow under his chiseled cheekbones ... And Yurka looked so funny in the picture, with his crooked grin, and his Pioneer neckerchief, off-kilter as usual, and his baseball cap on backward ... It was so ridiculous! They were so exuberant in the picture: they’d been so happy then! Never mind their impending separation, never mind that they had basically no time left to be together ... They’d been happy then, because they’d been together, they’d been with each other, but mainly because they’d hoped and believed they’d see each other again!

Yura folded the picture so he could put it back down and keep reading the last letter. But what he saw made his heart stop for a minute, then pound against his ribs painfully: on the back of the picture, in compact handwriting, was written, “I’m not hoping for anything and I’m not expecting anythingfrom you anymore. I just want to find out how you’re doing,” followed by a phone number that had been crossed out. Underneath, written with a different pen, were two more numbers, for a landline and a cell phone.

His heart skipped a beat again. Hope flared bright within him. Yura guessed that Volodya had written the message and the crossed-out phone number earlier, in 1996, when he’d put the old letters in the time capsule, but that he’d written the new numbers in later, in 2001. Yura pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, trying to remember how much money he had left on his cell phone account, and slowly dialed the cell phone number with a shaking finger. Then he pushed the call button. It felt as though he were setting off a detonator.

The call was answered quickly. A woman, and not a young one. Immediately the thought flashed through Yura’s mind:Who’s that? A jealous wife? But I thought he’d come around on that!

“Hello, could I speak with Volodya?”

“What Volodya?” replied the irritated voice.

“Volodya Davydov.”

After a moment of silence, which felt like an hour to Yura, she said, “You’ve got the wrong number,” and hung up.

Yura figured Volodya must have changed his number. In 2001 the cell phone networks were just getting established and things were always changing: service providers, rates, numbers, and so forth. Volodya had probably gotten a different SIM card since then and this number would have then been given to a different person. Yura double-checked the second number, the landline, on the back of the picture and then dialed it. It seemed familiar to him somehow.

He spoke aloud as he dialed it: “Fifty-five ... five ... Strange ...” He’d definitely seen it somewhere before.

“Hello, this is the front desk of LVDevelopment. How can I help you?” Yura was taken aback. He turned instinctively to look at the advertising billboard, but he couldn’t see it from there.

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