“Don’t prettify the client, attack their style. If she comes in blonde – dye her into a brunette, quit being nice to them, you can’t let them set the terms!”
The day before, he told Marina he couldn’t have her cutting the clients’ hair and banished her, as punishment, to the make-up row. Marina hadn’t said anything then, and didn’t contradict her Armenian star of a boss now. She walked the city streets in the clean, cold air. She walked and thought that it was time to get a down comforter. Seven years ago, she took in a sick Doberman from the street, nursed him to health and named him Turk. Her husband told her to put the dog down, he was afraid of him, or maybe he was jealous. Marina refused, and the husband divorced her. And now Turk had died.
Women who came to be ravaged by Artavaz would stand up from the chairs, turning their suddenly foreign heads and straightening their shoulders as if they were about to leap off a cliff. They were at pains to hide their panic; the mirrors on the salon walls both beckoned to them and frightened them. Artavaz was macho, many liked him. Marina’s clients, on the other hand, shied from dramatic makeovers. She loved finding the subtle touches that could bring out the image her client had chosen herself. Likely she needed to look for a different place to work. But Diarissimo was right in the center of the city, which was very convenient for clients, and this was the rub.
On Posad square, an old woman with a tote caught Marina’s eye. She had thin hair in a pitiful perm, a coat that was just as pitiful, and threadbare cloth slippers. The woman peered pleadingly into the faces of the passersby, asked them something, repeatedly got a curt reply, but stubbornly persisted. Marina came up to her.
“Sweetie, could you tell me where Garibaldi street is? I seem to be lost..,” the woman asked.
Marina had never heard of such a street. The old woman couldn’t tell her with any degree of coherence how she had found her way to the square. Marina took her to the police.
When he heard their story, the sergeant on duty barked, “No such street in this town! Wait over there, we’ll write up the paperwork for the asylum.”
The grandma squeezed her lips into a thin line, which made her look like a sick pigeon.
“Take me home with you, I’d pay you for your trouble,” she asked, all of a sudden.
The request left Marina stunned; the old lady stood before her, blinking in her confusion. So Marina took her home, gave her a bath and a warm meal, and put her to bed. Before falling asleep, she told her, for no particular reason, about her quarrels with Artavaz and about Turk’s death. The old woman listened and nodded with a wise expression. In the morning, she made herself at home, made blinchiki with meat and a pot of soup, but didn’t seem to want to go outside, afraid of getting lost again.
The next day, she disappeared. She left Marina a mound of cutlets in a deep dish on the stove, turned off the gas, and put the key under the doormat, just as Marina had asked. Nothing was missing; the old lady must have gone out to the store and wandered off again.
Three days later, the woman pulled up to Marina’s apartment building in a large American car, accompanied by a driver/bodyguard. The old lady had her hair died a soft reddish-brown, an excellent choice for a naturally dark-haired woman, and no longer looked wilted and unwanted.
“I promised to pay you back,” she said from the door, and put an envelope on Marina’s kitchen table. “My experiment on the square – I did it because I read on the internet that sociologists say people, basically, are growing kinder by the day. 69 percent of responders say we ought to help the homeless get medical care and jobs, while just 23 percent believe vagrancy should be banned and all the homeless rounded up and sent to special camps, like they did in the old days.”
She smiled.
“I’d spent three hours on that square before I met you. Don’t fuss over the money; my son was a businessman, he died a month ago, had no kids. I couldn’t possibly spend all his money, it’ll still be there when I’m gone. There’s a former bakery for sale on Malaya Posadskaya – buy it, refit it, and cut hair however you think is best, I’ll be your first client. Get a puppy and cheer up.”
She put down the cup of tea that Marina had poured for her and, very satisfied with the impression she’d made, left.
Soon after that, Marina bought the place the woman suggested, hired a few people, and is now flourishing. The puppy has grown up into an elegant Doberman who protects his mistress on walks, and if you happen to be one of the people who think this breed is dangerous, Marina would love a chance to dissuade you, explaining that it’s all about kindness and proper training.
It is foolish to contradict her: as soon as Arto the Doberman raises his almond-shaped eyes at you, your hand, of its own volition, reaches out to pet him, something the smart dog benevolently permits from all normal people who are kind to his goddess. And as far as the sociologists’ findings go, well, they are highly educated people – I’m sure they know what they’re talking about.
Kambiz
On the nights when passersby glimpsed the red flickers of flame bouncing off the walls of a small room in the small brick house that huddles against the gate tower of the Stargorod kremlin, they knew – Kambiz was doing his witching. The old Persian believed in the Good that persists in its grueling war with Evil. I doubt you could find, in central Russia, even a dozen experts who could correctly pronounce the ancient words khumata, khukhta, khvarshta – the holy triad of Zoroastrianism, “good thoughts, good words, good deeds,” that constitute the foundation of any true Zoroastrian’s life. The Persian, with his unruly mob of white hair and bulging eyes, seemed to people to be a kind of a magus, and it was widely believed that he could foretell the future and cure incurable diseases.
Nina Timofeyevna Shlionskaya, a math teacher from the First gymnasium, never in her wildest dreams could have imagined that she would have to turn to the wizard for help, but, defeated by family troubles and having lost her faith in doctors, she decided to take her chances – her last chance, as her neighbor Klavdia Ivanovna insisted – with the Persian. The man had cured Klavdia Ivanovna’s husband of alcoholism in a single session.
Kambiz sat before the fireplace in which soggy logs were slowly beginning to burn. Unable to hold back her tears, Shlionskaya told him about her daughter Katya. Abandoned by the scoundrel who had seduced her, the girl was suffering from a mental affliction, had turned inward and withdrawn from the world. Doctors – and they’d been to all kinds of doctors – could do nothing to help her. And then this cult – the New Life Fraternity, as it called itself – showed up. The girl went to their meetings. Soon she wanted her parents to join as well – but the new life, into which Katya dove head-first, frightened them more than her earlier withdrawal: Katya now seemed to live in a scary fairytale from which there was no return. Recently, she announced that she would gift her parents’ apartment to the fraternity, sign over ownership to her Teacher, and move “into the cells” with her sisters. They were all brothers and sisters, chanting spells and beginning their prayers with a peace pipe passed around a circle, after which they would be given visions of the new life they all aspired to. If Katya sold the apartment, she would doom her aging parents to homelessness, but she did not think about that.
“You’ll come live with me, it’ll be better for you that way,” she said. She has become a zombie.
“What’s to come of us? What?” Nina Timofeyevna asked Kambiz.
Kambiz threw a pinch of white powder on the logs. Smoke billowed and rose, the logs caught fire instantly. The Persian took a magical crystal off a shelf and looked at the fire through it.
“Where do they meet?”
“The building that used to be the movie theater.”
“Go home now, everything will be fine tomorrow.”
For some reason, Nina Timofeyevna believed him, and left – the Persian emanated true magical power. Kambiz, after she left, spoke to someone on the phone.
The next morning Kambiz attended the fraternity’s meeting. The teacher – a
well-nourished man with a shaved head who was wrapped in an orange bed sheet – greeted the newcomer with a happy smile and offered him the peace pipe. The rite had already begun – about a hundred adepts sat in a circle on small ottomans, and their pin-head-sized pupils told Kambiz they were already seeing visions.
“Do you know the future?” Kambiz asked the teacher in his thundering voice.
“Of course I do, brother, and so will you if you join.”
“You do not know the future. You are a liar. You will be taken to the police now, and then you’ll stand trial, and get eight years in a high security prison for distributing drugs, and then will come the camp, concrete floors, tuberculosis and death.”
Kambiz waved his arm. Two SWAT teams poured in through the doors. The teacher was promptly handcuffed and led away. In the back room they found a stockpile of hard drugs. Lieutenant Colonel Ivanov, who was in charge of the operation and who tracked down the entire supply chain (the teacher cracked right away and gave the police all his dealers) got a medal and was promoted. Katya returned home, went through detox, and never mentions selling her parents’ apartment anymore. Does she still dream of a new life? History is silent on that count. The common citizens of our city saw the raid as just more proof of the Persian’s prophetic gifts.
After the raid, Kambiz returned home to sit in front of his fireplace and stare at the sacred flames. He thought about the great wisdom of Ahura Mazda. He had used an ancient remedy – a weak opiate solution – to cure Lieutenant Colonel Ivanov’s wife of hysteria and insomnia, and restored peace back to that family. And yet, used for ill, the same drugs almost ruined a hundred other families. Kambiz pulled his piece of rock-crystal from the shelf, played with it for a bit, then put it back. People needed theater, otherwise, it was too hard for them to believe a simple truth: Good fights Evil all the time, and a virtuous man who follows the path of Truth, must also work hard not to stray, for Evil often comes dressed in Good’s clothes.
The Persian fed a dry log to his fire; his lips habitually uttered the three ancient incantations. Someone knocked hesitantly on his door.
“Come in, the door’s unlocked!” Kambiz said in a thunderous voice and made his eyes bulge to give his face a ferocious expression.
Reptile
They called him Lizard at first. Red-haired and green-eyed, the gleam in his pupils ferocious, he was quick and hungry, and learned the law early: fear no one and strike first, or else they’ll eat you alive. After his first night on the street, one old “wolf” pounced on him:
“Share what you’ve got.”
“I’ve nothing.”
“Then give me your ‘nothing’.”
Lizard nodded to his pillow, “There, go take it.”
The “wolf” shook down the stash.
“There’s nothing here, you punk!”
“So I told you – you can have your share of that.”
Later, when he came to be Reptile, he tested the newbies himself. Recruited a band of the fearless. Ruled over them more with his look and his word than his fist, having learned well that man has yet to invent a weapon sharper than a look and more accurate than a word; stole his words from the old-timers, did homework. Most didn’t. For the time being, hid his eyes – saved his look. He seemed in no hurry, but only seemed – in fact, he fought tooth and claw to be on top, and fought his way in. Changed his flag – became Captain, the one at the wheel, looked after Stargorod. Set his course under Gorbachev; the Gypsies then joked: “As long as the Gorbach’s in Kremlin, our horses will eat with gold teeth!” But he didn’t fuss over dough, and wasn’t one to show off, did not wear bling like a suit to work. Built himself a house across from the Governor’s and lived a quiet life, waved from the driveway and dropped by for shashlyk. Judged his people by the code, punished by the law, and over the next 20 years filled his house with stuff, but not with a family – bowed to the code on that count, he did, knew how it goes: a family drags you down – and it weren’t fools that cut you your shirt, so don’t go turning it inside out. Pinned a flag to his lapel, got a party card, and sat in the assembly, but put the business of power into expert hands – sent in Spade and Badger, who did accounting long before girls on TV sang about the job. Himself stayed in the back, didn’t go far, put his pieces on the board and got bored. Life’s a string – you give it some slack, it’ll twist into a noose on your own neck.
Did rounds of the city every day. He’d go to the gas station – they’d pour him a shot of 95, he’d down it straight, and see better. If things didn’t look sharper, it meant boys were mixing the good stuff with 76, he’d send the whole crew to the logging farm, “to the mosquitoes,” they’d straighten up in a blink – he wasn’t Yakuza or something, never chopped fingers. Then he’d visit his laundries, walk between spinning drums, watch his money dry, with the tips of his fingers he could sense second-rate work, punished the slackers, rewarded a beautiful job. Stuffed his pockets with bills, but didn’t take dirty ones – didn’t like the way they’d stick and wad up. Drove to his restaurant, held court, heard complaints, helped some folks, broke fights, rarely showed his teeth. Really, he only came to life if there was a raid, but raids were few and far between – his pawns in the proper corridors ran like clockwork. On City Day he stood on the Archdeacon’s right, and held his candle straight. The crowd whispered about him behind his back, in fear and awe.
He went abroad once – didn’t like it. Started running away to the woods, to a hut that looked like the one in which he’d been born. He went to hunt, the story was. Deep in the woods, alone, he’d drop his clothes, do a flip and his body would turn – scaly and covered with reddish-gray fur. He’d spend the night roaming under the trees, startling pigs, would sometimes wrangle a moose and drink the blood from its throat – to keep fit. His bodyguards knew nothing – he told himself; he could no longer see the way people looked at him when he came back. They looked with fear, they fawned: at night in the woods, the gleam in his eyes burned bright and dyed his pupils red, and the eyes would give him away, but he wasn’t one to look in the mirrors when he came back.
And still, in the woods he also got bored. No beast was his match – in speed, in wits, in pure strength – none of the many he’d seen in his life, all ferocious and merciless. Those who crossed him cooled their heels in the graveyard, and those who were smarter left him alone, and he did not bother them. And so it went, as the story goes.
Then – he must’ve lost his grip and slipped. Was walking in the forest, came to a clearing, sniffed – something seemed wrong. Looked up, scanned the tree line. All was quiet – too quiet indeed. You can’t hear a bullet lying inside the gun. You don’t smell a trigger yield.
He flew back a few steps, fell and died.
Three men in camouflage dropped from tree stands. Approached carefully, guns cocked.
“Look... his ears are down.”
Spade, who was in charge of the hunt, prodded the now harmless bulk of him, and pulled out his cell phone.
“Done, Comrade General. Positive – dead as a doornail.”
And fished for his flask in his backpack.
“Good job, boys, you’re all going to the Maldives. Bury him here,” he offered a drink to his whippers-in. “Whiskey, 12 years old.”
“And this ‘un here – all he drank was gas... Gave me an ulcer. Now this! That’s good shit.”
“What if we saved his head and stuffed it?”
“Are you nuts? They’d pack us in for poaching – these things all died out, he’s the last big one that was left! Damn reptile.”
“Don’t be so harsh, Vasya, let’s drink to the repose of his soul, poor sinner. His time’s over, it’s our time now,” the man drank, exhaled, and laughed with relief – a horsey, giggling laugh.
A neigh called back from the river – a young stallion tried out his voice, happy to be alive. The men spit into their hands, pulled the shovels they’d brought with them from the bushes and started digging a reptile-sized grave.
Hardy, orange-tinted apples hung on the branches. Father Artemon kept watch over the tree all through September, happy with how the Antonov apples were ripening. On the first Sunday in November – the bishop’s name day – Father Artemon rose before dawn and gathered a large basketful. So as not to spoil the beauty of the fruit, he did not wipe off the cool, damp droplets of evening rain. He walked through the city to the bishop’s residence and was let into the waiting room by a servant. He sat down on a chair outside the high office. The bishop had yet to arrive, and the church high priest and secretary of the eparchy were waiting for him in his office. The door was ajar and Father Artemon heard the servant’s voice: “…has come to intercede for Pavlin.”
“Three years he’s been interceding. That monkey-lover just won’t let it go,” the secretary sneered.
Four years earlier, the bishop sent the old priest into retirement: with his poor eyesight, Father Artemon had, in his church, administered communion to a chimpanzee, taking him to be a holy fool. Father Artemon, to be fair, had a different view of things: Foma the monkey had saved the church icon from a ferocious thief, laying down his life in the process, and Father Artemon faithfully believed that the monkey was an enchanted human being, and not a mute beast, but he had obeyed the bishop’s order. Now he stood through church services alongside the choir, thinking of how he might atone his sin: because of him, another priest – Father Pavlin Pridvorov, the one who had informed on Father Artemon – had also been banished from the city, to serve in Soggy Tundra. Pavlin, owing to his youthful mind, had entertained wild ideas and thirsted for a career. This was always repugnant to Father Artemon, but he had only to recall the poverty and utter hopelessness of his rural childhood, and he would begin to feel sorry for Pavlin’s six children,7 banished to the land of mosquitoes for their father’s mistake. Father Artemon had the dream of restoring the disgraced priest to the lush city post before he died. He believed that the bishop would listen to his entreaties and at first did not attach any significance to the secretary’s evil tongue.
Stargorod Page 29