The Ukraine by Artem Chapeye & Zenia Tompkins

Author:Artem Chapeye & Zenia Tompkins [Chapeye Artem & Tompkins Zenia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: short stories; essays; essay; fiction; novels; book lovers; book lovers gifts; fiction books; gifts for readers; book gifts; book lover gifts; book lover; long story short; short story collections; essay writing; books fiction; short story anthology; short stories collections; anthology; race; literary fiction; translation; modern; russian; collection; writing; haiti; poems; philosophy; 21st century; classic; 20th century; school; culture; magical realism; war; comedy; aging; family; crime; indian; hard boiled; russian literature
ISBN: 9781644212967
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Published: 2023-12-20T17:30:00+00:00

Slavik, a young loader, reminds me of a small predatory animal in his behavior. When I find him at our agreed-upon location, he’s dozing on his cargo cart, shielding his eyes from the sun with the crook of his arm. It’s a scene from an early Maxim Gorky story. Sensing my presence, Slavik instantly wakes up, leaps next to me, and doesn’t stop moving for even a minute after that. He moves jerkily and unpredictably, like a small cobra. Slavik has a shiner the size of half his face.

“Oh, you and I are going to concoct one hell of a story! Psst! Just give me a minute to . . . Say, if we bomb this bazaar, how much do you think we’d get paid for that?”

“Umm . . .”

“Or, better yet—you should hire yourself out as a loader with me! You’ll make so much in a week or two that you’ll forget all about your writing! I’ve already made three hundred eight hryvnias today. But when you first start, you can’t sit like I was just sitting. You have to walk, walk, walk the entire time. Because no one knows you here.”

At that moment, a portly salesman yells, “Hey, I need a wheelbarrow!”

Slavik trots over to him with his cargo cart and loads his crates of cherries with exaggerated vigor and enthusiasm. We’ve just met, but Slavik gives me his jacket to hold. “There’s money in there,” he says. “Take good care of it.”

As I watch him move, I notice that, in addition to the shiner, he also has shallow cuts all over his neck and shoulders.

“Forty,” he says to the salesman.

“We had agreed on thirty!” the salesman shouts at Slavik.

“No one agreed on anything with anyone.” Then, after a pause, he adds, “OK, fine. You can’t blame me for trying.”

The cherry salesman hands the money over not to Slavik, but to the customer who’s just bought the cherries; the customer is supposed to give it to us when we unload the crates at their destination. Together, we pull Slavik’s cargo cart to a minibus at the entrance to the bazaar (I’m a “cousin” new to loading). As we’re leaving, another cargo cart rolls up to the customer, and it turns out that he had, in fact, agreed on thirty—just in advance and with another guy. But Slavik has just accidentally intercepted a client who didn’t bother remembering who he had made an agreement with. Slavik twitches, then snarls at the dissatisfied cries of the competitor from whom he’s just stolen earnings. He laughs.

After we unload the cherries into the minibus, the buyer gives Slavik the money from the seller, and Slavik hands the money over to me right away, under the pretext that he has no pockets. He’s demonstrating his trust in me. Only half an hour later does he finally find a pocket somewhere on him, so I give him back his money. Slavik boasts about how easy working at the bazaar is. He shows up in

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