Kitabı oxu: «Gamer»

Gamer

Artem Savenkov

A Novel

English Edition

© Artem Savenkov

An Interview with Myself

Where do I start? With childhood, probably. My name is Andrey, and I grew up when computers were gradually finding their way out of offices and into ordinary homes. The trend took a while to reach our town. Hardly anyone was going to buy an expensive machine just to work on it. But once kids discovered you could play games on one, parents all over the country had to listen to the same pleas. Dendy and Sega consoles weren’t enough anymore. We wanted a new toy. Out in the provinces, few families could afford one. Anyone lucky enough to own a computer instantly became best friends with half the neighborhood.

I begged my parents for that technological miracle, too. They kept putting it off: too expensive. Meanwhile, my classmates were getting computers. Some showed theirs off; others kept quiet about the loans their parents had taken out. At last, my turn came. One day Dad brought home several boxes. I saw the picture on the biggest one and knew right away.

“Andrey, come and see what Dad brought!” Mom said as she opened the front door for him.

Dad set a big white box with a picture of a monitor in the middle of the hallway and went back for the rest. I stood over it, afraid to believe it was ours. Mom looked at me, smiled, and went to clear my desk. Of course the computer was going in my room. I could do my homework in the kitchen. At that moment, I’d have settled for a windowsill.

Next came the tower, the cables, the mouse, and the keyboard. All white, all new, still in their packaging. I tried to lift the monitor, but it was too heavy. Dad asked me to step aside and put it on the desk himself. I was in charge of where everything went, though. I’d seen how it worked at my friends’ houses. When we got to the cables, Dad sat down with the manual. While he read, I plugged everything in. Mom laughed: he’d only just put the booklet down, and the computer was already humming. Later, I could recognize that sound from any room in the apartment. And the silence when I switched it off always surprised me.

At first, Solitaire and Minesweeper were enough. Kids and grown-ups alike played them, trying to beat each other’s scores. Then I wanted something more substantial: FIFA, Need for Speed, and, of course, Counter-Strike. We bought games at the market, where copies burned onto blank discs were sold alongside glossy boxed editions. They were cheap, but as a schoolkid I still had to beg for the money. I couldn’t walk past a stall like that. I’d pick up the boxes, read the titles, work out how much more I needed to save. I dreamed of growing up, earning money, and buying every game I wanted. For now, I played whatever I could afford.

There were fewer of us out on the streets. Gaming cafés were opening up. In our town, six rubles bought you an hour on a computer loaded with dozens of games. You could play over the local network, too, and later online matches became more and more common. Some of my classmates started skipping school to go to the gaming cafés. Their parents would be called in, and there’d be a scene at home. The kid would behave like an angel for a week, then start disappearing from class again.

At first, I didn’t skip school. I had a fairly powerful computer at home, just as good as the ones at the cafés, and before long my parents got us an internet connection. Everything I needed now fit on my desk. One summer, I went outside to see the neighborhood kids maybe twice over the entire vacation. They stopped coming to get me. It took me a while to notice.

My grades slipped. My eyesight wasn’t doing so well either: I was prescribed glasses at fifteen. By then I was used to sitting in front of that bulky monitor late into the night, hardly taking a break. Giving up games because my eyes were tired never crossed my mind.

I wasn’t looking for new friends. Talking to people online was enough. I did get good at gaming, though. Counter-Strike was my favorite. When I came across recordings of esports tournaments on YouTube, I watched them with my heart pounding. Then I’d launch the game and try to copy what the pros had done.

“Why are you always on that computer? Go outside with the boys!” Mom often said. She’d come home late from work, exhausted, cook dinner, and sit down to eat with me at nearly nine.

Dad almost never made it home for dinner. He got back around midnight and left early in the morning. My parents worked so hard to provide for the family that they had no time left to spend with us. Sundays were the only days we spent together: haircuts, groceries, shopping for clothes. We’d get home toward evening, turn on the TV, and watch a movie, exchanging a few words now and then. I soon got bored and went off to play. Later, my parents began arguing more and more often, and I put on my headphones so I wouldn’t hear them.

An Overheard Conversation

I often stayed up gaming until almost morning, and sometimes slept through my first classes. Mom began to notice. Before leaving for work, she’d try to make sure I was up in time for the first bell.

“Get up. Time for school!” she’d say, tugging my leg to make absolutely sure I was awake.

Once I’d opened my eyes, she’d go out into the hallway. The front door slamming shut finished waking me up.

“I don’t start till second period!” I’d sometimes try, when I was desperate for more sleep.

Mom didn’t believe me. But the school wasn’t complaining, and I rarely came up at parent-teacher meetings. I suppose she thought things were still going all right.

I didn’t stand out at school. I scraped by, said hello to everyone, let people copy my work or asked to borrow a notebook. Other kids bonded over sports, afternoons hanging out, and cigarettes sneaked behind the garages. I didn’t have a group like that. There was only Inna, a skinny girl with dark hair and slightly curly bangs. She had three dresses for school and wore them in rotation. She’d recently had her braces taken off. Our classmates had said plenty of cruel things about them, and Inna kept to herself. The teachers often seated us together, usually in the second row on the left.

“Together again?” I asked when our biology teacher put us at the same desk.

Sometimes I did want someone to talk to. It was easier with Inna than with anyone else.

“Again!” she said with a smile.

I don’t know whether she was pleased or just used to smiling back. The teasing about her braces had made her even quieter. She probably felt safer with me. I didn’t make fun of her, and I stayed out of other people’s business.

We sat next to each other for years. Even when we were allowed to move, we stayed at our desk. Gradually we became friends, although we hardly saw each other outside school, apart from walking part of the way home together. Sometimes we talked about homework or sent each other jokes. Inna spent a lot of time at her computer, too, and that brought us closer. Our classmates were already getting together and breaking up, while we still couldn’t bring ourselves to move beyond friendship. I couldn’t, anyway. I liked her. I just didn’t know what to do about it.

“Listen, we always walk home together, and we sit at the same desk, but we’ve never actually gone out. You know… just to hang out. Want to meet up today?” Inna asked one day as we walked our usual route.

I could tell from her face that she’d prepared for this conversation. I hadn’t.

“Sure! Where do you want to go?”

“Anywhere. We’ve never been anywhere together!” she said pointedly, looking at me.

I wasn’t nervous then. I’d thought something like this would happen sooner or later, only I’d imagined being the one to suggest it. The more we talked, the more we realized we liked the same things, and we both wanted to spend more time together.

“All right! In two hours, then. At the turnoff to your street.”

I chose it because I could walk there and save the bus fare.

“Okay. See you!” Inna said, going her way.

“See you!” I smiled and hopped onto a bus that had just pulled up.

As it carried me toward the turnoff, I watched her through the window. For the first time, I wished I hadn’t gotten on.

We were supposed to spend those two hours doing homework. Inna did, as I learned later. I checked my school planner: I wouldn’t get called on in one subject, there was no homework in two others, and I’d have to copy the rest anyway. Time for a couple of matches, then. I reached our meeting place with a whole minute to spare and began looking out for her.

She appeared a couple of minutes later. Instead of her usual school dress, she wore a light jacket and jeans, her hair loose. Looking at her, I only then understood that we weren’t walking home from school. We’d come here specifically to see each other.

Inna smiled. I became painfully aware of my old, pilled T-shirt and worn sandals. She’d gotten ready to meet me. I looked as though I’d just run out to buy potatoes.

“You look so beautiful!” The words came out before I could stop them.

Inna blushed a little, but I could see the compliment had pleased her. She softened.

“Thank you!” she said. We stood there for another few minutes, trying to think of something to say and somewhere to go.

“Come on, I’ll show you the river!” I suggested. It was the first thing that came to mind.

The silence was getting awkward. And the river was the only place I could think of where I had anything interesting to point out.

“It’s still too cold to swim,” Inna said. April had been warm, but the water was bound to be freezing.

“We don’t have to swim! It’s pretty down there.” I looked straight into her eyes, waiting for an answer.

“Let’s go to the park instead,” she suggested, a little shyly.

“The park it is.”

I didn’t care where we went as long as I was with her. But I couldn’t stop thinking about my clothes. Next to Inna, I looked as if I’d come out to take out the trash. All I could do was hope she cared more about the company than the T-shirt and shorts, too.

“Why didn’t you want to go to the river? Afraid of getting dirty?” I asked as we approached the park.

Inna hesitated, apparently trying to decide whether to tell me her secret.

“I can’t swim. I nearly drowned when I was little. I’ve tried to stay away from water ever since…” She lowered her eyes, as if ashamed of being afraid.

I wished I hadn’t asked. I wanted to cheer her up as quickly as I could.

“Oh, sorry. We’ll even steer clear of puddles, then!” I tried, hoping she’d take it as a joke.

“I’m not that scared of it. Otherwise I’d smell pretty bad. There’s water in the bathtub, too!” she said, and we entered the park smiling.

I had a little pocket money left. When I spotted a cotton candy stand, I bought one and handed it to Inna. She took the stick in both hands and smiled.

“Thanks. Why didn’t you get one?” she asked, pulling off the first piece and putting it in her mouth.

“I don’t really eat it.”

“How come? On a diet?” she teased.

I certainly didn’t need to lose weight. I’d forget to eat while I was gaming, and when I remembered, I’d make do with something I could carry back to the computer. It was hard to put on weight eating like that.

“Looks like it!” I said, unable to think of a better answer.

“Or do you want me to get fat so nobody else will want me? Is that your plan? Have I figured you out?” Inna said brightly, bouncing around me with exaggerated energy.

I hardly ever saw her like this at school: loud, cheerful, ready to tease me. Apparently the quiet girl beside me at school could be someone quite different.

“Only if the plan means nobody can steal you away from me…”

It wasn’t until I’d said it that I realized how bold it sounded. I could hardly believe the words were mine.

Inna stopped laughing and looked at me. I waited for her answer, already imagining several reasons she might decide to leave.

“That’s sweet…” she said very softly, suddenly shy.

We walked in silence for a few more minutes, then started talking about ordinary things. Somewhere along the way I forgot about my clothes and was simply myself, thinking every so often how lucky I was to be with her.

We walked until evening. My legs ached, and hers must have too, but she didn’t complain. As the sun began to set, we finally reached her house.

“We should do this more often!” she said, rocking slightly on her feet and glancing around.

I stood a little below her on a small slope. From the side, she might have looked an inch taller than me, although it was actually the other way around.

“Yeah. Only next time we should sit down at least once, or our legs might fall off!” I said, looking at her shoes.

I looked up. Inna smiled and nodded.

“So… bye?” she said, half raising her hand, unsure what to do next: go inside, wait for me to leave, or hug me.

The older kids at school hugged goodbye, but we didn’t yet know whether we could. I waited for her to go. Inna swayed forward; I thought she was reaching for me and stepped toward her. I think she was only shifting her weight. But it was too late to back out. We hugged awkwardly, froze for a couple of seconds, and let go. Then she went to the door.

“Bye!” I called, raising my hand just as she turned to look at me. She opened the door and disappeared inside.

All the way home, I thought about how we’d hug every time we saw each other now. I didn’t have much to compare it with, but I’d have traded ten wins in Counter-Strike for one goodbye like that.

By the time I got home, all I wanted was my bed. I didn’t even feel like gaming. The windows were lit up. Mom was back, and maybe Dad too, although he was rarely home this early. I was bursting with happiness after our walk. I wanted to do something silly, like sneak into the kitchen and give Mom a fright.

I opened the door carefully, took off my sandals, and tiptoed toward the kitchen. The door was ajar. I was about to peek inside when I heard voices. My parents were arguing about something.

“…Look, I get all that! What do you want?” Dad asked roughly.

With the TV on, they hadn’t heard me come in. Dad had his back to the doorway. I couldn’t see Mom from where I stood.

“I want us to get divorced already!” she shot back. A short silence followed, and I could clearly hear a commercial for alcohol-free beer.

“But we agreed we’d do it when he turned eighteen, so we wouldn’t traumatize the kid!”

“We agreed on that more than ten years ago! Sasha, are you serious? We’re ruining our lives over that decision! You and your mistresses… I can’t have a proper relationship with anyone. Everyone looks at me sideways. If Andrey finds out what’s really been going on, it’ll hurt him even more! Do you understand that?”

“I do. But what are you suggesting? We just walk away?”

“I suggest we sit down with him and talk calmly. I think he’ll understand. He’s not a little boy anymore!”

“I know that! But do you want him living with you? I’m guessing not. So what do we do with him?”

“I’ve thought about that! We leave him the apartment. Then we won’t have to divide it between us, and he’ll have a decent start in life!”

“And who’s going to live with him?”

“He can live on his own. He’s old enough! You were already working at his age!”

“Where will you live?”

“That’s none of your business anymore, just as where you live is none of mine. We’ll send Andrey money to begin with, and then, with any luck, he’ll learn to stand on his own two feet. He can’t play computer games forever. It’s time he grew up!”

“Maybe you’re right. But I need to think about it,” Dad said, and another silence fell.

I stood by the door, unable to move. A minute earlier, I’d thought nothing could spoil this day. Now it turned out my parents had been planning to separate for more than ten years and had only been waiting for me to grow up. So Dad’s late nights, Mom’s business trips, all their arguments… They’d known all along. I hadn’t. The only people I trusted had been pretending we were a family, every single day.

Something rustled in the kitchen. I thought one of them was coming out. I crossed half the hallway in one long stride and ducked into the bathroom. I turned on the water and started taking off my clothes.

“Andrey, are you home?” Mom called from the hallway.

“Yeah, just got in. I’ll have a shower and be out in a minute.”

“All right!” She sounded slightly frightened.

I could hear it in her voice: she was afraid I’d overheard. Whatever Dad said to her was lost in the sound of running water. I stood under the shower, trying to cry without making a noise. I wanted to go back an hour, to Inna’s house, when everything had still been all right.

Living alone at sixteen. Plenty of people probably dreamed of it. I didn’t even know how to pay the bills. I wasn’t ready for adult life at all. Especially not today.

Someone to Lean On

The next day I barely spoke to Inna. She got called on in class, wrote things down, while I sat beside her wondering how I was supposed to live now. After school I headed for the exit without even waiting for her. She caught up with me at the gates and fell into step beside me without a word. I knew I should at least say hello, but I didn’t have the strength.

Instead of turning off for my bus stop, I went on to walk her home. Inna gave me a surprised look. Several times she seemed about to ask something, but couldn’t quite bring herself to.

When we reached the spot where we’d had our first and only hug, I stopped and looked at her, forcing myself to try to say a proper goodbye. None of this was her fault.

“Andrey, what’s wrong?” Inna finally asked, looking straight into my eyes.

I lowered my eyes.

“Nothing. It doesn’t matter…” I mumbled. I couldn’t lift my head. I was afraid I’d start crying.

I wanted her to go inside quickly, so she wouldn’t see me like this. At the same time, I wanted to tell someone, and she was probably the only person I could trust.

“What do you mean, it doesn’t matter? You’ve been miserable all day. Did I do something wrong yesterday?” Inna gently took my chin, trying to see my face.

I couldn’t hold it in anymore.

“My parents are getting divorced…” I turned away, but it was too late to hide the tears.

Inna put her arms around me. I buried my face in her shoulder and, for a while, all I could do was sob. When it eased a little, I pulled back and wiped my face. Inna began fanning my wet cheeks with her hands, as if that could hide the fact that I’d been crying. Without thinking, I helped her. Then we sat on the nearest bench, and I told her everything.

“Andrey, I don’t even know what to say…” Inna paused. “But they’re not leaving you. They want you to have the apartment. They’ll help you. Maybe being together really is that hard for them? Arguing all the time isn’t much of a life either.”

“Yeah, but they’ve been lying all this time! It means I grew up in a lie!”

“Yes. And you have every right to be angry. It’s just… maybe they were afraid of hurting you and didn’t know how to tell you? I’m not making excuses for them. But they’re still your parents.”

“God, I hadn’t looked at it that way. Maybe you’re right!” I said. It felt as though half the weight I’d been carrying had fallen away. I really did feel better.

“Just don’t decide it’s all over, okay? Talk to them when you can. In the meantime, I’m here.”

After that, the whole thing seemed to loosen its grip on me. Then panic crept up without warning.

“But how am I supposed to live on my own? I’ve never done it… How do I cook? How do I pay the bills? What else do grown-ups even do?”

“Well, I can help with the food! I’ll cook for you, and I’ll teach you. Don’t worry. Paying bills isn’t hard either. I’ve done it a couple of times. And you can count on me for everything else. We’ll figure it out somehow!” Inna said encouragingly, looking at me.

I hugged her tight. Nothing at home had changed, and the hardest conversation still lay ahead. But now I could at least imagine surviving it. We arranged to meet that evening. On my way home, I’d remember what my parents had said, then think about Inna, and each time it got a little easier.

The exams at the end of ninth grade were almost upon us. I knew I’d manage a passing grade, even if it was only a three out of five. I gave up on schoolwork altogether and started playing Counter-Strike. It was great for keeping the thoughts away. I set an alarm for five so I wouldn’t be late to meet Inna, and threw myself into each new round harder than the last.