Suddenly, I see my husband in the doorway. “Katia, there’s an emergency,” he says briskly. “The flat is being flooded.” What? It feels as if my faculties fail me and I can’t understand what’s going on.
“I got a call from the decorator,” he explains. “He noticed a big damp stain on the ceiling. It seems something went wrong in the flat above us. We need to go there quick. So it’s necessary to speed up the ladies in the banya.”
I run to the ladies and, in a confused speech, explain that we have to wrap it up. I feel furious, but powerless. My mind is spinning. Is there anyone we can ask to go upstairs and deal with it? Can the Uzbek decorator do that? I talk to my husband.
“He went,” Egor replies. “But no one answered the door. I contacted the block management company and also wrote in our condo group chat. But it looks like the owner is not a member of the chat and even the management company does not have their contact details. I also called the emergency service to have the water in the riser pipe shut off, but they say they can act only when requested by the owner of the flat where the accident has occurred.”
WTF. We are trapped in a vicious circle. Who knows when we will be able to stop the water from flooding us. The owners might be on holiday or might have left the country altogether. And no one cares!
“The banya stove is still burning,” mum points out. “It’s necessary to wait till the wood has burnt down.”
She is right. We need to make sure everything is all right here first.
“You and Egor go,” mum continues. “You can’t lose any time. I will stay and put everything in order here.”
“Oh, thanks, mum.” At least one worry is off my shoulders.
“Hey, can we have the keys?” Vika asks. “So we can lock the doors when we are leaving.” Egor gives them a spare set and explains which one goes where.
But it turns out we are not leaving, at least not yet. Obviously, after celebrating, we are not fit to drive a car. And no taxi drivers are willing to come pick us up. Well, one agreed, but changed his mind on the way. I had tried offering additional pay on top of the fare and selecting the business class option, but nothing worked.”
“Why is it like that?” I ask.
“I guess they’re afraid we might cancel the order, and it’ll be next to impossible to find other riders here. Everyone either drives their own car or goes by elektrichka,” Egor explains.
“Well, I can take you to the flat and then come back to pick up mum, if there’s no other way,” Vika suggests. I can clearly see she would rather not spend the rest of the day ferrying everyone around.
“You know, I’m heading to the city, so I might as well give you a lift,” Vadim offers. “Where’s your new flat?”
I give the full address. A strange look crosses his eye, then he casts his gaze on the floor.
“Well, I’m afraid I was too hasty in offering you a ride. I have to be in a different part of the city in an hour and a half, and I might not make it on time if I go that way.”
“Oh, you don’t have to take us to the destination. That would be too much, and we don’t want to disrupt your plans. If you could just drop us somewhere in the city,” there is a tinge of imploring in my voice, “We’ll call a taxi from there. It won’t be a problem.”
“That I can surely do,” Vadim replies with a smile.
Soon we get into Vadim’s car and hit the road. He tries to raise our spirits by regaling us with amusing stories, and I try to keep the conversation going. Egor looks out of the window, his lips tightly compressed and a furrow between his eyes.
Suddenly, the cars slow to a crawl. “Damn it,” Egor mutters under his breath.
It seems we got stuck in a Sunday traffic jam – everyone returning from the countryside.
“It’s definitely a nuisance!” Vadim remarks. “Might it be a big one?”
Well, chances are we will be crawling till we reach the city. Only then will the vehicles disperse along various roads. I groan inwardly. Why now, when we need to get to the city as quickly as possible? Though how we are to find the owners of the flat above us is unclear to me. But still, when we are on the spot we can at least do something. Now we can only sit and wait.
The passing minutes seem like eternity with cars crawling at 10 kilometers per hour. Then a car overtakes us from the right, raising dust as it goes along the roadside. Two more decide to follow it. If we were using our own car, I feel we would certainly join the crowd in the breakdown lane. I know it’s against the law, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Of course, I do not even suggest such an option to Vadim. We cannot exploit his kindness.
Slowly, but surely we move ahead. After some time, fields and windbreaks give way to a row of road cafes and motels for long haul truckers, then we go past some malls that, like identical twins, differ only in name and enter the city. “You can drop us somewhere around here,” I say to Vadim. “Thank you soooo much. We owe you big time.” We get out and Vadim dashes away.
“What a chatterbox!” Egor rubs his temples.
“And what are you, then?” I glare at him. “The guy was kind enough to give us a lift. We should be really grateful to him!”
“Drama queen,” Egor labels me.
“Look, who’s talking!” I retort.
(…to be continued…)
Transadaptation Volume 5 – Of Flowing Vicissitudes
January: The Night the Stars Stopped Shining – Sarah-Leah Pimentel (South Africa)
February: Three Sides to Every Story – Krisztina Janosi (Hungary)
March: Rain Trap – Adriana Uribe (Columbia)
April: Priorities – Narantsogt Baatarkhuu (Mongolia)
May: The Night in Heaven – Armine Asryan (Armenia)
June: Witches Don’t Burn – Alejandra Baccino (Uruguay)
July: A Regular Flat – Mateusz Tymoszewski (Poland)
August: Many Happy Returns – Svetlana Molchanova (Russia)
September: And Now, It Will All Go Downhill – Jonay Quintero Hernandez (Spain)
October: Planet Qirim – Anastasiia Leonova (Ukraine)
November: You Are Her, Aren’t You? – Seyit Ali Dastan (Turkey)
December: Culture Shock – Veronika Groke (Austria)
Background – Context
Transadaptation Volume 4: Material Dissent – Adulthood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2023)
Transadaptation Volume 3: Evanescent – Young Adulthood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2022)
Transadaptation Volume 2: Conceived – Childhood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2021)
Transadaptation Volume 1: In the Middle – Prelude to a Contemporary Transadaptation, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2020)
Peripatetic Alterity: A Philosophical Treatise on the Spectrum of Being – Romantics and Pragmatists by Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)
La Syncrétion of Polarization and Extremes Transposée, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)
The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2018)
L’anthologie of Global Instability Transpuesta, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2017)
From Wahnsinnig to the Loony Bin: German and Russian Stories Transposed to Modern-day America, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2013)
Emblems and stories on the international community
Perception by country – Transposing emblems, articles, short stories and reports from around the world
Credits
Top row (left to right): Russia – Dacha – Artic photo (Shutterstock), Saratov, Russia – Cityscape along the Volga – Viktor Karasev (Shutterstock), Voronezh region, Russia – Dacha – thekovtun (Shutterstock)
Center image: Altai, Russia – Dacha – Nick Night (Unsplash)
Background image in lower half: Saratov, Russia – Kirov Avenue – Aleksei Butenkov (Shutterstock)
Lower left image: Saratov, Russia – Over the Volga – Sergey Lavrentev (Shutterstock)
Lower right image: Saratov, Russia – Downtown – Cad Wizard (Shutterstock)
Source: The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed