The main city cemetery can be reached by bus or by car, driving a short stretch along the ring road and then passing a tangled interchange. It can also be reached on foot or by bicycle, by cutting through a ten-kilometer path through the forest. Of course, in the second case, you will still have to walk past very old burial sites, mostly forgotten and long since unneeded by anyone. And most likely, the descendants of those lying here in the ground are resting somewhere further on. Under any life circumstances, the circle of life closes in this place.
After lunch, closer to evening, an elderly man appeared on a shaded path trodden between the pines. In a matter of seconds, with a brisk, youthful gait, he covered several meters and crossed the invisible boundary separating the forest from the leafy overgrowth of the old cemetery.
The wooden fence had long since rotted away; only moss-covered brick pillars remained standing. Passing one of them, the man stopped, ran his hand over the soft green surface, and then inhaled the pleasant smell of dampness and earth coming from the rough, wrinkled skin of his palm. He also looked up, smiled through the leaves at the still-high June sun, and continued walking toward the main entrance.
Every time on his way to work—walking through the forest, then along the winding path among the graves, all the way to the caretaker’s hut—he engaged in an inner monologue, reflecting on life and death, on people. Sometimes he simply thought about everyday trivialities, like the fact that the large garbage bags were running out, or that only half a roll of adhesive tape was left.
Right now, for example, he is thinking about violets.
How do I know this?
Because the old man is me.
Birch trees, rowans, maples, and rosehip bushes planted in the mists of time for some unclear purpose near the graves have grown into full strength. Back then, lovers of cheap symbolism probably did not imagine that, left without care, the trees would destroy both the tin and wooden grave markers, as well as the brick monuments, and that their roots would most likely tear apart the remains of their beloved dead.
But I do not complain: now there is a whole grove here — birds are chirping, and walking in the cool shade is a real pleasure. Strange creatures, these plants: they live simultaneously in both sunlight and the underground world. They seem to blur light and darkness, creating twilight in broad daylight.
Well, I’ve had my walk: the first iron fences begin to appear, rusty but still strong enough. Together with the tree trunks, they form an almost impassable barrier. I step out onto the path between the plots.
Once in the bright sunlight, I hunch over. And, limping like an old man, I shuffle further along the asphalt cracked with time. I have been walking here for years, and in order not to get lost, one must be attentive and not miss landmarks such as unusual gravestones at intersections or particular trees.
Like here, for example: someone decided to plant an apple tree. I wonder, is it a tribute to the dead, or someone’s sense of humor? Though what does it matter — we all feed on fruits that have absorbed the juices of someone’s decomposition.
In any case, the apples will not go to waste, because birds are free of superstition.
Посреди однообразной массы на одной из могил сверкнули желтые с фиолетовым лепестки. Надо пойти проверить, как прижились цветочки. Да и плитку вокруг памятника надо бы посмотреть: не перекосилась ли? Протискиваюсь по узенькому проходу между оградок. Блин, как же тесно. А попробуйте пройти к нужной могиле, с тяжелой и громоздкой ношей? Оградки, оградки, оградки. Мерзкая привычка отгораживаться. Эти людишки всегда хотят отжать побольше, даже для своих мертвых. Да что там говорить. Сегодня по пути наткнулся еще на одно импровизированное кладбище домашних животных. Докатились! Теперь, захватывают участки в ничейном по сути лесу для своих дохлых кошечек и собачек. Даже там наставили оградок. Вы это серьезно! Дайте своим мертвым питомцам стать свободными хотя бы сейчас! А может быть, при всей своей напускной любви к жизни, человечество все же одержимо смертью?
Еще нынче принято накладывать родственников всех мастей и поколений в одно место. Чтобы не скучно им было что ли? А вот если при жизни муж с женой друг друга терпели из последних сил, или брат с сестрой не разговаривали, может дети тайно ненавидели родителей? Смерть всех примеряет? Да ладно вам! Я то сразу вижу такие загончики. Почему бы вообще не утилизировать тела так, чтобы не оставалось следа. Это было бы честно. Вспоминаем ли мы о человеке каждое утро, ведем внутренний диалог с ним? Вот настоящая память. Какая разница, ведь уйдем мы, и память потухнет, и придут в запустенье и зарастут старые могилы.
Why did you put these ugly monuments everywhere? Are you increasing the value of yet another worthless life? What, does anyone really care about your piece of stone and the rotting corpse under it? You yourselves would be better off hiding it away as quickly as possible, driving it out of your soul.
Apparently, it is difficult for normal people to keep memory in their hearts. They haul the one who has finally escaped life to the cemetery—laying him down like an object on a shelf in a cabinet, and remembering him only on strictly regulated dates, tucked between the colorful carousel of days.
And so I’ve arrived. One monument made of standard black stone, and to the left space for two more bodies. Planners, damn it!
I step over the iron fence, the same as everywhere else. I bend down toward the flowerbed. The flowers are doing just fine. Some might say I should choose graves that are no longer visited. But then it would be harder to hide that their appearance has changed. Perhaps, closer to sunset, I’ll come back: I’ll keep watering for a couple more days.
I whisper, barely moving my lips: “So how are you doing together there, my dear ones?”
Suddenly, I hear whispering from somewhere to the side. Then a male bass voice: “Who are you? What are you doing here?” “This is our plot!” another voice squeaks in.
I won’t jinx it, of course, but I’ll try to come by and take a look at your gravestones. Jokes aside, did I miscalculate something? Or is this just an unplanned visit from relatives this year?
Although such questions cannot catch me off guard. I have long since prepared what to say in such cases:
“Hello!”
The minds of ordinary people freeze. Of course, they were expecting rudeness in return, so they could continue playing at being owners.
I continue:
“I was just tidying up. Some foolish kids scattered trash here,” I pause… and finish them off: “I see the relatives haven’t come for a long time. I thought I’d do a good deed, otherwise, God forbid, they might decide it’s abandoned and everyone will start littering on the grave.”
The thin woman with several gold teeth is the first to speak:
“Oh, we had some things going on. Completely overwhelmed,” she says, then turns to her husband. “I told you, we should’ve come two weeks ago.”
A chubby man, about sixty-plus, in a checkered shirt, neither shorts nor trousers, and his ever-present beige sandals, snorts through overgrown nostrils and then mutters guiltily through his bushy mustache:
“Well, we were…”
“Yeah, important things,” the woman cuts him off, smiling at me.
It turns out she has even more gold teeth than it seemed at first. Not a mouth, but a full jewelry store.
“It happens,” I reassure the unexpected visitors. “You’re young, you’ve got things to do.”
The woman visibly changes. Oh, those teeth. Most likely it’s some kind of family trend, but it’s hard to tell: the man only grumbles gloomily and doesn’t smile at all. He also keeps glancing suspiciously at the paving stones. Apparently he senses something is off, but can’t figure out what exactly.
“Vitya, look at these flowers! Next year we should plant the same ones,” she says, then turns to me, flashing her karat-rich smile. “Are these begonias or marigolds?”
“Violets,” I reply to the lover of plastic flowers bought from cemetery stalls.
“I didn’t know there were such colors.”
Checkered Vitya, with a smeared homemade tattoo on his right forearm, starts shifting from foot to foot and coughing.
The rest unfolds with small variations almost every time.
The woman digs into her wallet, rummaging for a long time with her wrinkled hand, and then hands me a banknote rolled into a tube:
“Here, for your effort and care for Mary Ivanna.”
I refuse:
“No need. I…”
“Take it, take it.”
In this scene, for full effect, I was supposed to resist a little. I extend my trembling palm.
“Oh, what smooth, young skin you have on your hand.”
The money moves over to me.
“And not many wrinkles on your face either. What’s your secret?”
Sharp-eyed one—maybe contact lenses?
But then Viktor intervenes:
“Galya, we still need to make it to Auchan!”
Men don’t care, but it’s better to keep your distance from women.
“Well, since you’ve already tidied up here, then we—” hearing the name of the popular hypermarket, Maria Ivanovna’s relative loses all interest in the conversation, “we’ll go.”
“I always work with gloves on and don’t eat after six in the evening,” I call after the residents disappearing through the narrow paths.
Then I pretend to inspect a neighboring grave, and, waiting until the relatives turn around the next corner, I slip out of the labyrinth.
Standing on the asphalt, I unfold my palm. A hundred rubles: laughable. Of course, I don’t do this for money, but still, I feel a bit offended on behalf of other men.
For some reason, everyone seems to think that a cemetery worker is content with a small shot of cheap alcohol or some simple brew made by an old moonshining granny. And some even give vodka—cheap, fusel-heavy stuff, as if it were the nineties all over again.
Maybe they think we work on ethyl alcohol—or even methyl, since the cemetery is nearby? They picture us as some kind of salt of the earth, feeding on goosefoot and bread, living in the suburbs in dilapidated little houses with stove heating.
No. We actually live in construction trailers—right by the main entrance—and they’re heated in the most primitive, “black” way.
What’s wrong with these people?
Well, here are the fresh graves. The earth, disgustingly and shamelessly turned inside out. Wreaths—plastic attempts to imitate sincere grief and pay a useless tribute of respect.
And down there, swollen newly made inhabitants. Already useless to everyone, still useless to me.
Which means I’ve almost reached the caretaker’s hut.
“Alright, Vitek, we’ve arrived!” I say, looking into the rearview mirror.
Today is a special day, so I came by car. I carefully close the beige door of the prehistoric sedan.
Whew, it’s really baking! The utility trailers are empty. The heat has been going on for a whole week, so the guys have more work than they can handle.
At other times I would, as usual, be listening to jokes about my old wreck—how it’ll probably fall apart on the first pothole right in the middle of the road.
“And what other kind of car should an old man drive?” I always ask, and then answer myself: “The same—an old one.”
An ancient old man in a wreck from the last century is of no interest to anyone. On the road, foreign cars pass us with disgust, traffic police officers avert their eyes and stop the car behind, and even if they do pull us over, they certainly won’t bother checking the trunk. What could an old man possibly have in there?
And even thieves have nothing to gain from a cabin with a standard radio.
In short, we have long been written off as scrap—but not buried. Ghosts, plain and simple.
I enter one of the trailers. No one here either. Inside it’s stuffy, but bearable. A radio tuned to a retro station is playing a hit from a very ancient era. The melody, as was often the case back then, is stolen from some foreign performer.
I put the kettle on the electric hotplate. On the table covered with a piece of linoleum, in a stack of magazines, there should be a sudoku collection. Where is it? Ah, there it is—lying at the very bottom of the pile, useless to anyone except me, of course. And even to me it’s more for atmosphere.
What else is an old man supposed to do at night in a cemetery?
I’ll run through today’s plans once more. Maybe time will pass faster, and then the cemetery workers will leave, leaving me alone with the dead under the fading summer sky.
After waiting a few more hours, night crept in and slithered over the cemetery. In the impenetrable silence, crickets chirp. Each time, darkness reminds the living that one day they will end up here as well.
A trill, born somewhere deep in the thickets, from a lone unlucky nightingale that had lost its mate, scattered above the swarms of graves.
Somewhere beyond the forest, the living are turning on their lights, while the younger ones prefer to walk along the edge, operating in darkness, staging beneath sheets or in the back seats of cars a tragedy called “the little death.”
I stepped out of the utility trailer. Straightened up. Inhaled the night air. Took off my glasses with their thick lenses and put them in the pocket of my work jacket. Now, with no one around, they are no longer needed. A little more, and my eyes will adjust to the dark, and moonlight and starlight will be enough.
Now I have to act quickly: summer nights are short, and there is a lot of work ahead.
I load into the bed of the pickup—converted from an old Soviet station wagon—two bags of cement-sand mix, a couple of sheets of welded mesh, a plastic canister of water, a bucket of crushed stone, a metal basin for mixing mortar, a shovel, a crowbar (though I don’t really need it, just in case).
Last night I already pried off the cladding, broke up the slab underneath, and even started digging a little, then put everything back on sheets of plywood. The excess soil I hauled away and spread out behind the trailer.
Also in the pickup there is a small petrol generator, and a pile of tarpaulin—left by the workers.
Now the main part.
A turn of the chrome key with a keychain in the shape of a cute teddy bear—the symbol of an Olympics from forty years ago.
I open the trunk.
I lift the basalt blanket:
“Well, hello there, my dear friend! Been waiting long, haven’t you? Hold on a little longer: soon there will be the final stop.”
No answer. Only the liquid in the cooling batteries, scattered over the cellophane, gurgles softly.
I move the blue containers aside. Pull back the waterproof cover.
The white light flowing from the pearly half-moon outlines the body, dressed in a classic suit, curled up in a fetal position in the cramped trunk compartment.
“So, ready for the road, Viktor Petrovich?”
He’s silent. Serious. A real man, in other words. Good—then no need for extra words.
I climb into the trunk, lift my new companion under the armpits, and hoist him onto my shoulder. The folded body emits a faint rasping sound. It happens.
I don’t worry about various bodily fluids either. Everything has been opened, drained, washed, and stitched back up—like new.
Carefully I place tonight’s “hero” into the cab next to me, so he won’t wrinkle or dirty his suit. Fasten the seatbelt.
I climb into the cab myself.
Key in ignition.
Before starting the engine, I quickly go through the checklist: have I missed anything?
Deep breath.
Key to start.
I won’t turn on the headlights—they probably don’t even work anyway. No point changing bulbs in a car that only drives through a cemetery during the day.
I drive slowly so it doesn’t shake on the roughly laid cemetery asphalt. A light breeze with the scent of pine and grass slips into the cabin through the wide-open windows.
In high spirits, I inform Vitya:
“I picked you out for one lady buried about twenty meters north of your mother’s grave. I think you’ll enjoy spending eternity together.”
A rather unpleasantly heavy tension appears in the cabin, accompanied by the choking rumble of the beaten-up 1.5-liter engine.
“What? Are you serious? Why do you need your wife anyway, that eternally pretentious old princess with her clacking mechanical jaws? You yourself spend every weekend fishing just so you don’t have to see her. And in summer at the dacha you rush off to the local pond, even though there’s never been any fish there—just sludge, duck droppings, and frogs. And your mother, Maria Ivanovna, is even worse. But don’t worry, she won’t be lonely: I planted her a friend a week ago—just as much of a gossip.”
A difficult man—hard to persuade. I try, of course, to understand my “clients.” One lived his life, and then—bang—into a grave, and not even his own. But all this is just a matter of the living’s conventions: the earth is shared anyway.
And I don’t abandon them—I visit them periodically. I check whether the soil has settled, and with it the tiles or the monument.
“What? What are you even talking about?” he still won’t calm down. “Turns out you’re a joker.”
I switch my attention from the conversation—there’s a right turn coming up at this intersection.
“Caught? Who’s going to catch you? Where did you even live, I mean—where did you used to live? You didn’t seem interested in anything except TV, huh? Sure, your relatives will make a fuss. No doubt about that. But so what? You know, my dear friend, how many people go out to take out the trash and never come back? And how many of them do you think are ever found?”
The car jolts upward. In the back, metal pieces and bags clatter. I’ve been talking too much and missed a huge pothole in the asphalt.
Did anything fall out? I should check.
I open the door and step into the air. In the cargo area, everything is still there—only the top bag has slid slightly to the side. I get back in.
I won’t get distracted by empty chatter anymore. Some toxic man, it seems.
Others, once the shock passes, usually prefer to talk about the frailty of existence, things they didn’t manage to do, the afterlife in the end. But this one just keeps repeating: “They’ll find you! You’re done for! Modern methods of criminal investigation!”
Squawking like a chicken. Watched too many TV series, maybe?
I glance sideways at Vitya, but speak to myself:
“No one needs you except your relatives. And even they will calm down soon enough. They’ll run around offices, file a few complaints, and receive just as many replies assuring them that investigative actions are underway. And then they’ll accept it.
That’s the kind of state we have—it knows how to soothe people.”
And really, there’s no point in blaming the country here. There are plenty of opportunities for professional growth: not only for me, but for officials, doctors, and even law enforcement officers—if they approach their work properly.
It doesn’t matter what tools you use: a piano string, a fountain pen, a scalpel, or handcuffs with a baton. What matters is doing your job with soul—and knowing how to convincingly pretend, both to people and to your superiors.