Moscow Noir

There was an explosion on their airplane as it was landing. First, purple smoke filled the plane’s interior for about three minutes; these were the most frightening minutes of their lives. Then there was an explosion that knocked them both unconscious.

The burning plane gave off such unbearable heat that he came to very quickly. She was lying next to him, her neck at a strange angle, a little bird that had been executed. He turned her onto her back and she immediately opened her eyes.

He patted his pockets and pulled out his wallet. The credit card had snapped in half. The electronic notebook where he had saved the number of the bank account was smashed to pieces. The suitcase that contained a written copy of the number had burned, along with the rest of the luggage.

He no longer had any way of getting to his money. It was doomed to move around through the accounts of a distant bank, enriching the bank’s owners, just as the gold of Jews murdered during the war underpinned the might of Swiss banks many years later. He told her this, and she nodded.

“I am Jewish,” she said. “That’s great,” he said, then added, “We have to get out of here. If I’m seen on TV, they’ll find me and kill me.” They got up onto their feet and took off. All around them, dying people moaned. A woman mumbled in a foreign language, but more blood than words came out of her mouth. There were body parts strewn about. The head of a dog traveling in a special pet carrier in the next row over had been torn off, but was still trying to yap. It seemed that they were the only ones who had survived. It was a mile to the woods where they could take cover.

The remains of the plane and its passengers were scattered far and wide over the surrounding area. Halfway toward the woods that would shelter them, they came upon the body of a large man in a Versace suit. He had seen this man on the airplane, flying first class. The man’s face had been pounded into mush. His suit had not suffered, and looked as though it was draped on a dummy. “Look,” he said.

“Look,” she said. The lining of the expensive coat was ripped, and a black cellophane package had fallen out of it. She squatted down and took a pinch of the gray powder into the palm of her hand. From out of nowhere, a bright emerald bug landed in her palm and sank into the soft powder. “Is this—?” he asked. “Yes,” she answered, “no doubt about it.” It was heroin.

It was an offer to begin again, in the very same way. And it was just in the nick of time, since they had turned up in a foreign country without any money or livelihood, and with documents they couldn’t use again; since their bodies would be missing at the sight of the crash, they would be put on a watch list. Money, they needed money. She was still sitting on her haunches, and her face turned sharply pink, and then black, as though she’d already had her fix.

She tossed the powder away and rolled up the sleeve of the Versace jacket. “A Rolex,” she said. The Rolex was still ticking—a fat gold watchband, and a watch face encrusted with large diamonds.

What do you know, a watch. This time he’ll start with a watch.

IN THE NEW DEVELOPMENT

BY LUDMILLA PETRUSHEVSKAYA

Prazhskaya

Translated by Keith Gessen and Anna Summers

This all happened in a Moscow suburb, in a new development. An engineer who worked at one of the ministries had long been on bad terms with his wife. They had a two-room apartment, with rugs, fine china, a color television, and all of it was in her name, and she would get everything if they divorced. The husband wasn’t from Moscow originally, he was from the impoverished provinces, and he’d come to his wife with the clothes he was wearing and nothing more. They’d been at school together, started seeing each other, then she got pregnant and he had no choice but to marry her—he was even threatened with expulsion from school, which was the sort of thing that could happen at the time.