Family Celebration

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I don’t like family celebrations. More than any of the others, I don’t like my birthday.

Every year the same thing happens.

Of course, my parents are the first to congratulate me. Well, “congratulate” is a strong word.

Mom meets me in the kitchen not with cheers but with a pitiful attempt at a smile, and Dad, already drunk in the morning, grips my hand tightly and turns on the music. That’s how I understand that another year has passed.

Dad’s musical taste is awful, but arguing with him is useless: he wouldn’t open the apartment door even for the police, he’d just yell something about how it’s his son’s birthday today and anyone who disagrees can go to hell. That’s regarding outsiders. With family it’s simpler: if Mom or I ask him to turn the volume down, he’ll grab us by the collar, breathe fumes in our faces and say that once a year a working man can relax, especially for an important occasion.

So we don’t argue, and the disgusting songs about a “thief’s life” blare through the entire building. At moments like that I feel a bit sorry for the old ladies living nearby. Well, for those who were unlucky enough to live to see this annual bacchanalia.

Closer to noon, the first relatives arrive.

Year after year, Aunt Sveta and Uncle Borya are the first—both elephant-like, with thunderous voices. Shaking their folds of fat and massive bellies, they squeeze into my room and start shouting about their great love for me.

Honestly, I don’t even know which side of the family they’re from, but I don’t want to ask because it would surely cause mortal offense.

After squeezing me, the elephant-people go to the kitchen to chat with my parents.

Laughter joins the crashing music. Over many years I’ve learned to distinguish the laughter of all four of them: Mom clucks like a hen proud of a freshly laid egg, Dad doesn’t so much laugh as shout, stretching vowels into endless notes. Aunt Sveta laughs silently but flails her hands and slaps the countertop. Uncle Borya guffaws with the full power of his smoke-ruined lungs, so loudly that the glass in the cabinet trembles and rattles pitifully. I think the same happens in the apartments below, above, and next door.

During the kitchen gathering, the first bottle of vodka is emptied.

Next always comes Svyatoslav Mikhailych. He’s a creative person. Supposedly an actor in some small provincial theater. His congratulations are always long, tedious, and solemn, with theatrical pauses, wringing his hands and playing with intonation. Like the previous guests, he arrives without a gift for me but with a bottle of cheap cognac. Setting it on the table, he always says: “Here… my admiring fans presented this to me. Well, I didn’t begrudge it to you, so to speak.”

That’s a lie, because I know he buys that cognac at the nearest shop around the corner.

But no one cares. The company moves to the kitchen, and to the laughter, giggles, and clucking is added Svyatoslav Mikhailych’s booming bass. The neighbors undoubtedly enjoy listening to his free retellings of ancient theater jokes.

The bottle of cognac follows the bottle of vodka.

Last to join are Mom’s second cousin Aunt Lyuba with her brood of children. There are many of them, and they don’t even bother greeting anyone. Aunt Lyuba immediately goes to the kitchen, where she shrieks for a “welcome” shot of cognac and laughs just as shrilly.

Her children scatter through the apartment like a swarm of insects, and there is no escape from them anywhere. They stomp on the floor. They jump off furniture, landing on their heels. They shout, trying to out-yell the blaring chanson. They run around the apartment touching, touching, touching everything with their little hands, trying to unscrew, tear off, or steal as many trophies as possible to drag back to their toy-poor home. I try my best not to forget that they’re just children, but the rage rising in my throat is very hard to restrain. Still, I manage every year.

The adult guests have their last smoke on the balcony, and then it’s time to eat.

The family, joking and shoving one another, sits at the table, where simple snacks have been laid out since morning. I’m seated in the “place of honor” at the head of the table, with a view of all the waiting bottles and food: vodka, cognac, a symbolic bottle of wine, a few salads, pickled cabbage and cucumbers. A carton of juice, shyly nestled beside a dish of mashed potatoes. Conversations stop for a few minutes while everyone rushes to fill their stomachs, then start again. Politics are discussed, the birthday boy’s sex life, the sins of all absent relatives. Vodka flows like a river.

After about the third toast, Aunt Lyuba’s kids run off from the table to continue their destructive fun. Someone goes to the tape player and turns the already screaming chanson even louder. Talking becomes harder; everyone strains their voice to be heard. All at once.

The most sensitive residents start praying at this point. Those who have somewhere to go leave. Those who don’t endure.

Svyatoslav Mikhailych suddenly becomes interested in whether I’m gay because I don’t drink vodka. Dad and Uncle Borya hesitate for a while over whose side to take in the brewing argument, but eventually side with the dear guest. I give in and drink. Amid the family’s approving roar, a fight starts—Dad remembers, after all, that I’m his son.

The fight ends quickly, even without broken noses. I get up from the table and go to the hallway—I know that in Uncle Borya’s jacket pocket there’s a pack of strong cigarettes and a lighter. I head into the kitchen, already hearing how the relatives in the room begin to sing some song. I think I can smoke without anyone noticing.

A sharp smell in the kitchen hits my nose, but I pay no attention. The children look at me not exactly guiltily but with fear, as if they’ve done something wrong somewhere and now are afraid I’ll expose them. I don’t care about them. I clamp the cigarette between my lips and go to the window to open the vent. I flick the lighter. And above the old gas stove a fiery flower blooms.

Subconsciously I wait for a loud sound, but there isn’t one—on the contrary, all sounds disappear. The children’s shrieks vanish first. I even manage to wonder for a moment whether it hurts them.

It doesn’t hurt me. I feel good. And when the chanson finally falls silent—better still. With a smile I listen as Uncle Borya’s bass somewhere in the room fades away. He seems to be swearing. It’s from fear—he always gets scared.

I close my eyes, then slowly open them. And the world splits in two. And I see what happened then, several of my fifteenth birthdays ago: the flame, freed from the gas pipe, races through the apartment with a roar—childish mischief turned into the death of many people. The wallpaper, curtains, furniture ignite. If I lower my gaze, I can see myself burning. At the same time I see what has become of our apartment over the years: no frame in the kitchen window, no furniture, traces of soot everywhere.

And I breathe a sigh of relief when I feel myself beginning to dissolve into the silence.

I feel a little sorry for all the people who live in the neighboring apartments, because living next to cursed places is never easy. Still, they have another three hundred and sixty-four days of peace.

Until next year. When I turn fifteen again.