Sometimes I think I cram two or three days into just one, which is the best excuse I can summon for losing a day every now and then. After the amazing day and the night’s festivities, I awake suddenly only a few hours later being evacuated for the cleaner to arrive. I have another shower to try to become at least semi-conscious and shamble into the street, still riding on the effects of a six in the morning beer. I can’t say I remember much of how I spend the next few hours, but at the end of it I’m lying on a bench outside her apartment building waiting for her to respond to my troubled query on when I could go back to sleep. I think the effects of the beer have well and truly worn off by now and I’m left with only the body sickness that comes with a good hangover. I had acquired some Mors juice and finished a litre of it, which was helping a little. This kind of juice is something Victoria introduced me to, its made from different berries from the forest and is something Russian people still make for themselves. This version is packaged, available all over the country and utterly delicious. When I receive her message, I’m working on finishing the second litre carton. It gives me enough energy to shamble back upstairs and pass out again just after one o’clock.
Victoria wakes me around five to tell me,
“I’m going to a celebration that the American embassy is running and I’m wondering if you would like to come?” I check with my proprioreceptive nervous system on this question and discover that whilst all my limbs and organs still seem to be intact, none of them like the idea of working together to move anywhere. I try to negotiate with the warring parties and can find no resolution to the problem that doesn’t involve sleeping for another twelve hours.
“I don’t think I can move anywhere right now”, I say meekly, hoping she won’t beat me mercilessly.
“Oh I thought so… I just wanted to ask in case you were planning on going. Oh..you know you won’t be able to get outside without the key.”
“Yes, I think I’m not going to be able to go anywhere until tomorrow”.
With that response she checks her bag and pockets for everything before waving goodbye and heading out the door. Being locked inside her apartment seems entirely a better prospect than roaming the city with a torturous hangover. I know she isn’t entirely happy, but I still thank her quietly for letting me lie and suffer by myself.
I wake up again after eight feeling significantly less like my internal organs have been blended into a kind of sick slurry and venture to the kitchen to see if I can find anything to eat. It’s moments like these the guidebooks never seem to cover. I now cannot leave the apartment, since I can’t unlock the deadlock. I don’t have any food here. I can’t drink the tap water and there’s only a litre bottle left that isn’t mine. I hope for forgiveness when I replace everything in the morning and turn to the cupboard to try and find something filling. I can’t understand the Russian written on most of the packets, so figure I’ll have to go with something I’m pretty sure I know. I’m overjoyed to find a packet of instant spaghetti and set about getting a pot full of water boiling on the stove. While the pasta is cooking I see if I can find something to use as a sauce and come up with a few gherkins and something pickled in a jar involving tomatoes and…..other things. In the interests of the exploration of international cuisine I give you “Pickled stuff and gherkin on a bed of spaghetti”; a delightful mixture of Russian and Italian mainstays brought together in a moment of desperation. It isn’t bad actually, so I finish it and check my email on Victoria’s laptop. I return to bed again and sleep provides blessed relief from the torment I do like to inflict on my body.
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