“Go pick him up!” Pasha’s dad yells. “He’s her son. She oughta pick him up,” Pasha retorts. “He’s your nephew,” the old-timer reminds him. “So what?” “And he’s my grandson.” And the television is on the whole time. He never turns the television off, even at night. It’s like their very own eternal flame, burning to commemorate the dead rather than entertain the living. The old-timer watches the weather report like he’s expecting they’ll mention him by name. After it ends, he just sits there, like he can’t believe what he’s heard. Pasha doesn’t really watch TV, especially this past year—the news has been just plain scary. Pasha sits in his room on a couch by his desk, surrounded by textbooks, until he can’t stand it anymore. Then he jerks to his feet, goes outside. Springs protrude from the couch like twigs from a Boy Scout’s campfire. The furniture in the house is old, yet full of life—it’ll probably out- live its owners. Pasha’s sister suggested they at least get some new chairs, but he simply brushed her off. What’s the point of hauling stuff around? That’s like doing pull-ups when you’re seventy. Yeah, sure, go right ahead, just make sure you take some ibuprofen first. His sister hardly comes by anymore, so nobody’s talking about hauling furniture around anymore either. Pasha liked their house; he’d lived here his whole life and planned to keep on living here. It was built by German POWs shortly after the war—a rather spacious duplex on the second street back from the train station. Their densely populated settlement, which was mostly home to railroad workers, was built around that station, so they’d often refer to their whole town as “the Station”—it gave them work, it gave them hope, like a heart blackened by locomotive smoke, pumping the blood of the local gullies and windbreaks. Life still revolved around the station, even now, with the depot as empty as a drained swimming pool and the repair shops unused, if you didn’t count the bums and swallows that slept there. There just weren’t any jobs now. Sure, maybe they lived in a so-called workers’ settlement, but they were the first to find them- selves out of work. The shops were shut down, and the people scurried off in all directions, hiding in crowded apartment blocks with wells dried up by the scorching summer and cellars where the supplies had already run out by Christmas. Pasha didn’t have anything to complain about, though—he was on the government payroll. “Yep, yep,” Pasha thought as he shut the front door, insulated with hospital blankets, behind him. “I’m on the government payroll, even if I’m not actually getting paid all that much.” The snow—blue-pink with deep, dark pores— reflects the evening sky and the approaching sunset. Sharp to the touch, smells of March water, conceals black, viscous earth, renders weather reports unnecessary—the winter will last long enough for everyone to get accustomed to it, suck it up, and learn to cope. And then something else will begin. For the time being, the world feels like a lump of snow in someone’s warm hands; it melts, releases its water, but the longer that goes on, the colder their hands get, the less warm motion they retain, the more icy stillness seeps into them. The water remains lethal, even as it melts. The sun drowns in an intricate system of watery mirrors and reflections. Nobody can really get warm—right after lunch, once the wet blaring of horns announcing shift changes at the station subsides, twilight sets in, and that illusory sensation of warmth, of a thaw, disappears again. Pasha skirts the building and takes the soggy path through the trees. They had always shared the duplex with a railroad worker. Half the building belonged to him, half to Pasha’s tight-knit family—mom, dad, Pasha, and his older sister. About fifteen years ago, when Pasha’s family still all lived together, the railroad worker burned his half down. They put the fire out before it got to their half. The railroad worker didn’t feel like rebuilding—he went to the station, caught a train heading east, and disappeared from their lives forever. They knocked down his half of the building, whitewashed the burned wall, and went on with their lives. From the outside, the structure looked like half a loaf of bread on a store shelf. Pasha’s old man always bought those half-loaves so he wouldn’t have to pay too much or have too much left over. Living by the railroad taught him that. Black trees in the snow, biting boughs against the red backdrop of the sky, their street on the other side of the fence, the neighbors’ little white houses, yellow lemons of electric light scattered here and there, gardens, fences, fireplaces emitting smoke like the warm January respiration of weary men standing out in the cold. Empty streets, no one in sight, train cars being coupled together, metal on metal, like someone rearranging iron furniture. And from the south, from the direction of the city, sporadic blasts have been coming in all day, since morning—sometimes intense, sometimes diffuse. An echo ripples high up in the air. The acoustics are distorted in the winter; you can never really tell where one is coming from or where it’s hitting. Fresh air, the smell of damp trees, tense silence. It only gets this quiet when everyone pipes down and starts listening. Pasha counts to a hundred and heads back. Ten. There were six last night. In the same interval. I wonder what they’ll say on the news. Pasha sees his dad in the kitchen. He’s standing hunched over the table, packing an old duffel bag. “Long trip ahead of ya?” Pasha asks. What’s the point of asking, though? He’s going to pick up the kid, obviously. He makes a big show of tossing things into his bag: a newspaper (how can he reread old newspapers like that? It’s like looking at a completed crossword), glasses (Pasha’s always hassling him about those thick glasses that warp every image—“you might as well wear sunglasses, you can’t see a thing anyway”), pension card (he’ll get a free senior citizen bus ticket if he’s lucky), his cellphone, worn smooth like a rock in the sea, and a clean handkerchief. The old-timer washes and irons his handkerchiefs himself, doesn’t pass it off on his daughter. He takes out the ironing board once a month and smooths out his handkerchiefs, grayed by the passage of time, like he’s drying out devalued hryvnias that have been through the washing machine. Pasha’s always getting his old man tissues, but he keeps using his handkerchiefs—has been since the days he worked at the station, when tissues just flat out didn’t exist in this part of the world. He can hardly even use his cellphone, but he still takes it just about everywhere—beat-up frame, faded green button. Pasha puts minutes on there for him; he’s never learned how. Now he’s folding everything meticulously, rooting around in his bag, silently taking umbrage at something or other. It’s getting harder and harder to deal with him—can’t even talk to him without hurting his feelings. He’s like a little kid. Pasha walks over to the stove, begins drinking right out of the teapot. All the wells dried up in the summer. They’re too scared to drink from the tap—who knows what’s floating around in the pipes now? So they boil their water and steer clear of lakes and rivers. The old-timer is rooting around in his pockets, refusing to respond to Pasha. “Fine,” Pasha says. “I’ll go get him.” The old-timer isn’t just going to roll over, though. He takes out the newspaper, unfolds it, then folds it in four, and sticks it back in his bag. Dry yellow fingers anxiously tear the paper; he’s all hunched over the table, not even looking at Pasha, like he wants to prove something, take on the whole world. “Did you hear what I said? I’ll go pick him up.” “You don’t have to.” “I said I’d pick him up,” Pasha repeats, a bit anxiously. The old-timer makes a big show of picking up his newspaper and leaves, flinging open the door leading to the living room. A strip of soft light from the television reaches the dark hallway. Then he shuts the door abruptly, as though he’s locking himself inside an empty fridge.
✔ Author(s): Serhiy Zhadan,Reilly Costigan-Humes,Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler
✔ Title: The Orphanage: A Novel (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)
✔ Rating : 4.5 out of 5 base on (239 reviews)
✔ ISBN-10: 0300243014
✔ ISBN-13: 9780300243017
✔ Language: English
✔ Format ebook: PDF, EPUB, Kindle, Audio, HTML and MOBI
✔ Device compatibles: Android, iOS, PC and Amazon Kindle
Readers' opinions about The Orphanage by Serhiy Zhadan
Josephine Alvarez
What a rollercoaster of emotions! I laughed, cried, and everything in between. The author's ability to evoke such raw feelings is truly commendable. It's a story that will stay with me forever.
Iris Watts
I loved the powerful messages hidden within the story. The book tackled important social issues and made me ponder the world we live in. It's a must-read for everyone.
Tasha Cobbett
I couldn't stop raving about this book to my friends and family. It's a literary gem that deserves all the praise. I can't wait to dive into more works by this talented author.
