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Let's Put the Future Behind Us is a speculative fiction novel by Jack Womack set in post-Soviet Russia and released in It chronicles the transition of.
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The old woman in charge of the checkroom signaled that we should give her our coats but I ignored her; how could I know I would ever see them again? She eyed us as if desiring that we should be the ones whom our friends came to honor. On the sleeves of his outfit were red and black designs symbolizing flame, and pinned to the front was a metal badge stamped with a similar emblem. He must have devoted intense study to codes of etiquette while serving out his state-expropriated time. I gave him another and he collapsed. Sonya and I took seats next to Yury, in the front row. Sonya held a hand over her mouth, stifling her laughter, and I shifted the tail of my coat beneath me.

A woman, appearing no less charming than the one who had allowed us entry into the facility, walked to the front of the room. Holding in his hand two pieces of paper, one letter-sized and the other no more than scrap, he started reading from the former. The representative frowned at having been interrupted and continued to read from the larger page, squinting as he rushed through the hollow phrases. He talked as if to blow down the Kremlin; who knew how much wind he might hold? As he droned on, I studied the room. A mud-brown nylon curtain hung behind the catafalque.

On either side of the casket, two plastic baskets of day-old flowers stood atop plaster columns. Posters from the Olympics and swimwear calendars from Thailand papered the other walls, and so Mischa the Olympic Bear and Bangkok bikini girls could also freely participate in all mourning rituals.

Let's Put the Future Behind Us

Most likely the posters were hiding hammers and sickles, the lingering spoor of previous administrators. A metal pan in a rear corner of the room caught a steady drip from the ceiling. Slipping her hand into my coat pocket, she sought out and located the hole she had previously torn through the skin-soft silk. She eased her hand snakelike through the opening and rested it on my leg.

I drew my coat close around me so that her movements might go undetected, aghast at her lascivious burrowings but unable to stop her without attracting attention to what others should best ignore. With subtle if not wholly funereal movements, she discovered her prize. Sonya gazed soulfully at the casket and at the representative as he huffed and puffed, revealing nothing to indicate that her thoughts were anywhere other than with the deceased. When we are asked what a worker should be, always let us warmheartedly picture in our minds the figure of Georgi Mikhailovich Stumkin!

His victorious conclusion should have been great cause for rejoicing. But ours was a jaded cadre, and our stillness rose only to a thunderous silence, broken by the growling of stomachs. Sonya withdrew her hand, sighing sadly. When I turned harsh eyes her way, wishing to inspire within her the desire—yes, the compulsion—to repent, she smiled.

I have never known Sonya to ask forgiveness for her crimes; she sleeps contentedly with guilt. I patted his arm as he stood up. Walking to the casket, taking a suitable stance before it, he closed his eyes and intoned a quick, silent prayer. He lifted his head to look at us before speaking.

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The musician was so fat-fingered that we could not tell if the tune was dirge or disco. Raising his voice, he attempted to shout the words he had written for his father over the circus melody. Finally, the noise stopped. Yury took a deep breath before making his long-delayed statement.

Without warning, the woman attendant burst into the room, throwing open the doors as if to proclaim that the Czar had fallen. Four underlings trailed her, pushing a cart bearing the next deportee—rather, one pushed and the three others ascertained that he performed his job correctly. Be gone. Others are waiting.

Who are you to delay them? Take your party and go. Had she been alone we might have worked out something between us and wheeled Slavkin back in. But her attendants were so muscular they could not have clasped their hands behind their broad backs, and I knew if Yury lost his temper and struck out as he appeared ever more willing to do , we would not last a minute against them.

Let's Put the Future Behind Us

Plainly a prison cabal of brigands had, upon release, evidently effected a takeover of this operation to serve their purposes; for these attendants, too, bore tattoos of penal provenance on their knobby hands and scarred faces. Such vipers could give a nasty bite. Were we to protest too loudly they would without hesitation be happy to rifle our wallets at their leisure while delivering us to our own unscheduled appointment with the oven king.

Do we run our business solely for your benefit? The hidden elevator in the floor reascended, empty, and her assistants rolled the next cart into place. Yury, Sonya, and I squeezed by the next party of mourners streaming into the room. The woman and her beasts gave the new arrivals frigid stares. It could be a delicate matter. I walked with Sonya to the Retrieval Room. One individual had a dagger engraved on his brow, its tip dripping a stream of red down his face.

Giving these reprobates my charge number would be like offering them the keys to my house or the favors of my wife, such as they are. I shook my head. She always evinced her avarice in forthright terms; I appreciated that. She, like the other women who worked for the crematorium, was in her autumnal years and must have practiced her glower in deepest sleep.

Druzhinas, inevitably, had been such women as this one. It pleased me to know that the brutes who ran this establishment were making sure even these redundant old biddies might happily share in the fruits of capitalism. She ignored the twenty I threw before her, waiting until I added its twin before applying full attention to this problem. Pulling open a drawer behind her counter, she reached into its recesses and took out a type of bag used often for carrying fruit or vegetables.

Let's Put the Future Behind Us | Obsidian Portal

You can carry the ashes in your pocket for all I care. It shames me to admit it, but sometimes even I lose my temper dealing with the capricious whims of those who know they cannot be ignored. Sonya stopped me before I could express my feelings too openly. With slow gestures she unfolded the bag, delighting at its classic form, paying homage to its beauty as if it were a prized icon or one of the old masters in the Pushkin Museum. I endlessly marvel at the joy the simplest Western trinket continues to produce in those too long familiar with the standard goods of Homo sovieticus.

A male attendant remained behind the counter. Of all the apparent ex-prisoners who presently devoted their labor to the Glow of Life Columbarium, this one appeared most sinister. His dark features bespoke a southern origin, but he was larger than the average inhabitant of those regions; his uniform strained against his bulk. He wore a veritable gallery of artistic designs. Tattooed chains encircled his wrists. Blue spiders ascended the cords of his neck. In the center of his forehead a third eye stared onto the world, its look as warm as those of the two with which he was born.

He lacked the forefinger of his left hand. Though I understood that this signifies some criminal rite of passage, I thought it more likely that he or one of his compatriots might have bitten it off in a fit of anger, or hunger. The attendant watched us, saying nothing. The woman attendant returned, holding the bag by its handles.

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Peering inside I saw a smooth layer within, several centimeters deep. Their blackish-gray color was unflecked by white. Placing a hand on the bottom I felt not even the shadow of heat. A wild idea came to me.

Let's Put the Future Behind Us

I perceived that these ashes were not the leavings of Mr. Slavkin at all but rather those of wood fires, or papirosi, or fine old Havana cigars. Now that our country has opened itself wide to the world, some people say that in a short time we Russians will become homogenized, that our country will become indistinguishable from any other except indisputably larger and arguably more pathetic. Such doubters underestimate the inextinguishable spirit of their fellows. Where else but Russia could you exchange the corpse of a loved one for a sack of cigar ashes while you wait? My mind reeled with questions.