Oleg slowly gets back on his feet and goes into another room. We follow him. I have never seen such a mess in my life. Dirty clothes, wastepaper, empty bottles are scattered on the floor. The floor itself is covered with a thick layer of dust. A cockroach crosses the hall, running away from us. The odor is unbearable: alcohol, rotten food, decaying leftovers, unwashed body. It makes me sick.
“Oleg, we’ll have a look in the bathroom,” my husband says.
The owner nods and gestures to the right. We go, without taking off our shoes. Indeed I regret wearing sandals, not sneakers. They would have made me feel more protected from the dirt.
The bathroom is on par with the hall. Dirty tiles, filthy sanitary (actually, unsanitary) items, rusty pipes, litter scattered everywhere. The faucet is leaking. Only half of the sink is left, and the water is dripping on the floor. Egor tries to turn the tap off, but it is still leaking. He then turns the spout, so the water goes into something resembling a bathtub.
There is a pool on the floor that runs into a cavity under the bathtub. It must be filled to the brim with leaking water. And that is seeping through the concrete floor slab and into our ceiling! Oh, calm down I tell myself. We need to clean up the mess. We need cloths to absorb the water, maybe even containers to scoop it out, and rubber gloves. I leave the bathroom and ask Oleg for cleaning tools. He looks around as if it is the first time he has seen his flat.
“You can borrow mine,” the elderly neighbor offers. I guess she entered the flat together with us to lecture Oleg.
“Oh, thank you. We’ll buy you new ones,” I add, realizing that the ones we are about to use will probably be good for nothing after they come into contact with such dirt.
As the lady is fetching them, Egor phones an emergency service and asks for a plumber to come. This time the request is granted. Then we do all the dirty work. It takes about half an hour to clean the bathroom floor.
When we are done, I exit the bathroom, and my gaze falls on a photo hanging from the wall. I move closer to take a careful look. A large woman with pulled-back hair is sitting in the middle; there are two boys, one to the right, the other to the left of her, one – in his teens and the other some seven or eight years his junior. The younger boy is undoubtedly Vadim, with the same funny haircut he used to have in primary school. Mum enjoys browsing old photos, so I have seen our class pictures dozens of times.
“Oh, it’s Oleg with his mom and younger brother. I forgot what his name was.” Oleg’s neighbor is standing next to me. “He’s in Moscow now, and they say he rolls in money. But we haven’t seen anything of him for ages. I guess the last time he came was a couple of years ago for his mom’s funeral.”
Suddenly I feel exhausted and emotionally drained. All I want is to be back home, curl up in bed, close my eyes and forget the events of today. But the day is not over yet.
When the plumber arrives, we go downstairs and have a look at our ceiling. Then Egor and the plumber return to Oleg’s place. The plumber installs a new faucet in Oleg’s flat, and Egor pays for the faucet and the work. I remain in our flat and then, because staring at the ceiling does no good, take the elevator downstairs to get a breath of fresh air.
We return to the dacha when it is already dark. I ask Egor what we should do next. “The plumber says the stain might dry out and disappear,” he replies. “I’ll have a look at it tomorrow. And I’ll contact the insurance companies and get the flat insured. I’m afraid it might happen again.” I sigh.
A few hours later, we enter the dacha. I am pleased to see it is clean and tidy. Mum has cleared the table and stacked up the fridge. Inside, I can see towers of containers and plates covered with cling wrap. The banya is also clean and dry. “Thanks, mum,” I say inwardly. “It’s nice to have you around.”
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