2017

by Olga Slavnikova

  Naturally, he couldn’t get any better a night’s sleep than you can in an overcrowded room. Nevertheless, with the first glassy rays of sunlight Anfilogov was ready to set off on his journey. After getting his sleeping bag and food well arranged on his chest, he lay down and threw himself into his main burden. He was able to get up after the first time. It was doable, only the ground kept rocking, like a raft piled high and floating off. Right then, Anfilogov saw the little wet, gold icon in the grass the corpse had crushed. He honestly tried to squat down for it with the crackling Kolyan on his neck, but he immediately realized he was never going to reach that icon in this life. Then the professor cast a stealthy parting glance at his bedewed corundum servitude and set off sideways with uneven, drunken steps and with a needle trembling in his heart like the arrow of a compass.

  Part Six

  1

  HOLIDAYS ARE TIMES EVERYONE LIKES TO BE LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. That’s why Krylov didn’t like holidays. For him the carousing and partying were empty situations when he, sullenly pretending to be a participant in the merrymaking, would goggle at the fireworks or dance with yet another one of Tamara’s “girlfriends”—on the thick carpet, in boots that felt as if they were filled with sticky sand. He didn’t know how to celebrate privately either; he didn’t understand how it was done. But this time Krylov decided to give it a try.

  With his arm around Tanya, he could hang out in a crowd without a care, and Tanya wanted this very much, too. She’d been excited the night before and laughed a lot, tossing salted nuts at her comically resigned spy. They’d parted content with each other, anticipating the fun—that is, essentially their first day off in the ten weeks of their trying experiment. So that they could start having fun right away, Tanya and Ivan altered their usual procedure. Rather than fortune-telling with the atlas, they made a date to meet on Ascension Square, where a big celebration was planned—a bazaar of folk arts, a parade of military historical clubs, a flower show. Marking on his map of the city center the next, not entirely legitimate spot, Krylov attempted—unsuccessfully as always—to read some logic into the thickish scattering of trysts. All he could see was that lots of streets looked like the punctured veins of a drug addict. He was also struck unpleasantly by how soiled and patched the atlas was. Krylov thought it was long since time to buy himself and Tanya fresh sets of municipal tarot cards.

  But even this minor expenditure was a problem for Krylov. He found he was almost entirely out of money. The six hundred dollar bill Tamara had given him had not changed this state of affairs. It turned out to be a collector’s item issued in a limited print run. Krylov was not up to finding a rich notaphilist, and it was insulting to change his “Pamela” at one of the regular currency exchanges that had displaced the cat-pissy entryways and free toilets. Tamara expressed herself entirely in this generous gift: the goods she showered on Krylov were breathtakingly excessive but not meant for real life. If the gifts found a utilitarian use, this unique excess, through which Tamara’s feelings were manifested, was lost. The beauty of the silken candles melted, banally; a collector’s wine in a stone bottle laid to rest in a wooden sarcophagus at the right angle was used like rotgut. Krylov never did understand its rich bouquet. The main thing wasn’t the wine but this inviolable angle of storage and the precious dust, more precious than gilt, on the bottle, which Krylov could not bring himself to touch with his coarse fingers.

  The whole point of the gift was that you couldn’t use it. Rummaging for change in all his pockets, which were more threadbare than his summer and winter clothes themselves, which were still decent, Krylov was aware yet again that Tamara had absolutely no concept of his everyday reality. All he had was one thousand nine hundred eighteen rubles and twenty kopeks. Krylov realized that in a few days he would have to borrow from Farid—everyone borrowed from Farid—but he had enough for modest entertainments.

  You could feel the holiday in the tense, chillier air. The many bands, which you couldn’t really hear but could sense as the pressure increased on their diaphragms, seemed to inflate the day, like a huge balloon that was just about to sail away. On Ascension Square the crowd flooded out of the Metro, nearly dragging the turnstiles with them and carrying the nice young policemen along. Once out of the Metro the city dwellers found themselves among the canvas stalls, which fluttered and flapped like nomadic gypsy tents; inside, in the pink and yellow linen dusk, nesting dolls were heaped up like tropical fruits, and Madonna-and-child lights that worked either with a battery or a plug gave off electric light beams and flickered their golden halos. The jewelry stalls were doing a lively trade. Women with simple jug-faces pawed the round beads and berry-sized rings, sorted through the laminated boxes and the fat plunger-shaped candlesticks. The stones, as far as Krylov could tell, were milky and fibrous, with nasty, off-color inclusions, and he rejoiced, carefree, that he had not laid hands on that roguish assortment.

  He still had more than an hour until their rendezvous, but Krylov preferred to take up the agreed-upon position immediately. He walked to the top of the ten broad, polished steps over which loomed the dais and a monument that seemed to soar into the sky with a canonical outstretched palm and a black head like a cannonball in makeup with a triangular Lenin beard. The holiday was swilling around in the enormous cold sunbath, the doves were storming, the flags clapping, and the advertising banners were swelling in the wind. Krylov had never seen so many people in his field of vision at one time; the awareness of this fact made him anxious. Time and again Krylov stood on tiptoe, his fists in his pockets and a chill in his fingers. People kept coming; excited children swayed on their fathers’ shoulders like Bedouins on camels. Two priests strode past Krylov wearing thick beards that might have been ironed along with their cassocks; behind them hurried the artists in their folkloric sarafans, their eyes smeared like plums, and wearing worn red boots. Not far away, alongside a patrol car, which was calmly enduring the festive citizens, a fat police sergeant was chatting with a masked White officer who was sipping beer and working his jaws. The officer’s saber was amusing, like a toy wooden horse. Maskers were mixing everywhere with the men on duty; puppets were wandering in the crowd, plush giants on skinny human legs that were hollow inside.

  Tanya wasn’t late yet, but from her mounting absence Krylov realized she certainly would be. Meanwhile, City Day was about to enter its final phase. On the dais, right above Krylov, the first of the city’s leadership had already appeared; still not required, they looked like doves perched by chance, turning their heads distractedly, but clearly the mayor’s appearance was expected at any moment. A White officer started running, holding his saber. The megaphones howled inarticulately, testing. And then he appeared: an old man with a dye job and a well-formed head on narrow shoulders, in front of his own portrait, which stretched halfway across the façade of City Hall, as if it were Judgment Day. Krylov could see his fastidious wrinkles, which were long, like sideburns spattered with a dark sauce. The mayor was a head shorter than any of his subordinates, but they had probably put a footstool there for him, and he suddenly rose, having placed his ostentatious little turtle-shaped hand on his granite-gray lapel.

  Microphones immediately rose up in front of the mayor. His reverberating speech bounced back from the distance and echoed, rolling from the other side of the pond, so that it sounded like cannons answering. Meanwhile the police, stretched out in a chain, parted the crowd; the paving stones, littered here and there with colorful pieces of paper, were bared but also ominous, as if iron had been added to the humped stone. On the left, on a platform, a military band raised its burning copper muzzles in readiness and fell still. Suddenly the director made a desperate movement, as if he’d decided to leap from a skyscraper, and a march thundered out.

  Krylov had no choice but to stand where he was. He had known that Tanya would not make it for the beginning of the parade of military historical clubs, and he craned his neck, trying to make out her familiar haircut and flat duck walk in the flowing jumble near t
he Metro. Meanwhile, a historical drama was unfolding on the square. First to march across the paving stones were mustachioed popeyes in green uniforms and tight white trousers, with chess caps of some kind on their heads. The eighteenth century was followed by Cossacks, who pranced nimbly on their glossy silken horses, to the playful music of their hooves, as splendid as if they were women in patent leather shoes dancing and clapping.

  Then came an expectant pause. Something formidable was taking shape in the depths of Ascension Avenue, cock-crow commands rang out, and shadows were lining up. The director aimed his baton and gave his riveted musicians a fierce look, as if he intended to turn them into frogs and rats that very minute. Barely holding out until the director’s sweep, the band struck up “Farewell, My Pretty Slav.” On the dais the mayor assumed a dignified air, the buttons on his quasi-military coat flashing.

  The gentlemen officers marched handsomely. Krylov was amazed at how foolish they looked individually and how imposing in formation. Their step in their sharp crease was smart, and the sun burned on each and every chest. Each White Guard was copied multiple times in the rank, which made it seem as if its power was mounting in a geometric progression. The march music, which at a certain height reached a doleful, desperate cry, could not drown out the synchronized boots striking the paving stones. Ahead of the officer rank, a black velvet banner fluttered in the wind, and from it smiled a narrow skull, and gold crossed bones sparkled like lightning in a cloud. Line after line, rank after rank, the White Guards took the shuddering square; one officer company marched across, and behind it, under the leadership of a stout, clean-shaven colonel who bore himself leaning nearly all the way back, came another, and behind it a third was implied. The drum cracked dryly.

  Then, out of the depths of Cosmonaut Avenue, as if out of the very thick of the colorful crowd, other, jagged music rang out. “For the power of the Soviets … and we will die as one”—an old choral recording was carried by the wind, and somehow it became clear that everyone singing was now truly dead. The holiday crowd surged back from the pavement, and the linen trading tents shuddered, like sets during a scene change. In the gap that formed, they marched, their legs pushing open the long hems of their heavy, damp-looking overcoats. The Red soldiers were not so much marching as surging forward. Their high-cheekboned faces, which from far away looked like clenched fists, were white under their pointed cloth helmets. This whole sullen mass seemed to have come out on this sunny day from some never-ending cold rain. Red banners hung above the ranks, sticking together, and huge paper carnations bubbled. On the left, ahead of the formation, a short man dressed up like a commissar, who looked in his broad riding breeches like a swallowtail butterfly, punched out his military steps as best he could. Due to his short stride, he seemed to be hopping in place, lifting his legs in the air, driven from behind by the press of the revolutionary element. To his amazement, Krylov recognized the butterfly-man, despite his large service cap and lacy vertical beard. It was his old classmate, an earnest history major from a parallel course, who, like Krylov, had probably forgotten his university science, but who, like Krylov himself, like many, had held onto his ineradicable historical dream, which he was now attempting to bring to life in public.

  However, the Red Army soldiers’ appearance on the square was apparently not part of the holiday program. They probably represented a competing club or else had not submitted an application to the organizing committee. The police started getting worried, and their worried walkie-talkies started muttering, spitting red-hot ether. The patrol car beside which the cop and White officer had so recently been standing, peacefully drinking beer, switched on its flasher and, hooting, attempted to move from its spot—but the sluggish citizens just kept moving around in front of its bumper—each one absolutely had to be on the other side—and a fizzing soda can flew out of someone’s hand and spilled sweet bubbles all over the hood of the car. Krylov’s nerves were already stretched to their limit. He hated Tanya’s absence with every fiber of his being—and suddenly he saw her coming up the Metro steps, digging in her shoulder purse and reminding him of a hen that had decided to peck itself under its wing. Krylov’s first impulse was to run toward her—but the thick of humanity between him and Tanya was rocking, and it would be the simplest thing to miss each other, so Krylov could only wait for Tanya herself to make her way to the agreed-upon spot. Now he was irritated at her, at the crowd, the wind, the plum-colored plush monster that was blocking his view of Tanya, and the self-appointed speaker who had climbed on the roof of a van and brought with him a good-sized banner of an insolent red, on a pole that looked like it had been yanked from the nearest fence. An alarmed saleswoman stuck her head in its plastic cap out of the van and shouted something; the speaker paid her not the least mind; he stamped his army-booted feet and shouted poetry in a hoarse voice.

  Because he was tensely following Tanya, who kept disappearing and reappearing, Krylov did not see the Red Army soldiers turn onto Ascension Avenue. One quick glance, though, and he was struck numb with terror. The military maskers were about to clash head on. The area of free paving stones between them, marked in the middle by an airy ice cream cup that was trembling in the wind, was closing quickly. On both sides of the parade the crowd was literally hanging on the chain of policemen; the cops, crucified by this inordinate weight, held onto each others’ tensed arms, as if they were tied in fast, blood-soaked knots. People’s bright holiday caps were knocked off at the least pressure. Glancing quickly upward, Krylov saw that the fathers of the Riphean capital had hastily quit the dais, shielded by their bodyguards’ rectangular backs.

  Meanwhile, the Red Army soldiers had changed their pace—and now the first wave of greatcoats split up and, boots thumping, broke into a heavy run. The back rows, lagging behind by a few seconds, reached uncontrollably after the first, as if the square under the Red Army soldiers were tilting, sending them forward, against their class enemy. The ranks of White Guards stumbled and their black banner swished. The Red Cavalry in front were already galloping like horses, overtaking their masker commissar, who looked like he was hobbling on needles. The orchestra gasped; someone’s fire-breathing loudspeaker drowned out the orchestra and started thundering either threats or panicked and muddled commands.

  Meanwhile the ranks of White Guards straightened out and shifted to a civilian quick-step. Some officers made a strange movement, as if they were checking their watches as they went. One, fair-haired, with a pelican sack of a second chin, held back, digging around. Then, as if doing something purely personal that had nothing to do with anyone else, took aim.

  A dry and powerful shot rang out as if a limb had cracked at a bend; the masker commissar took a little leap and fell writhing on the paving stones. In that first moment his men surged away from him, letting people see his short legs kicking in their wrinkled boots. Then isolated shots began hopping like fleas. Another Red Army soldier lowered himself heavily to the ground, like an old woman, and turned his tear-stained face to the sky. Another leaped over him, whipping a whistling, cooing chain in the air. Many shed their heavy greatcoats as they ran, taking out iron rods and homemade nunchuks. One little policeman leapt out in front of the running men, turned his head, firing his government-issue gun into the air, and was immediately knocked down and a smacking noise was heard, like the sound of a horrible kiss, and the little policeman started crawling, all twisted up, unnaturally, pressing the black spot under his heart with his red hand.

  Krylov watched the slaughter completely removed, as if his brain’s translator from his outer to his inner language had been turned off. Working her elbows and turning this way and that, Tanya was making her way crosswise through the human mass, which was still calm, lazy even. From time to time she threw her arm up in its torn green sleeve, and Krylov threw up his own in response. The sunny scene on the far shore of the blue-striped pond was surreally distinct. There, evidently, no one knew anything yet, and the folklore artists were dancing in a circle near the bright p
ond, shaking their triangular kerchiefs. Krylov’s glance latched on briefly to one other familiar face. The spy, naturally. He was sitting literally ten meters away from Krylov, having hoisted himself onto one of the granite spheres that adorned the porch of the old mining college; like a caricature of Munchausen on a cannonball, the spy set his spurs into the stone sphere, meanwhile not letting go of his heavy plastic bag, which threatened to tip him over. The spy’s view was superb; his face reflected horror. Suddenly the spy leaned back, fixing his gaze on the unnaturally clear and festive sky: an ominous scream was mounting there, accompanied by a smooth, almost soundless whistle that made Krylov’s lips numb, swept by a shudder.

  That same moment, from behind City Hall, from behind the statues of kolkhoz women and steelworkers poking up on the roof, like Apollos and Artemises wrapped in old newspapers, massive federal helicopters emerged, dark and glittering in the sun. With flickering propellers in three places, propellers that seemed to be turning in different directions, the massive machines looked like sledgehammers with dragonfly wings and were clumsy in the air, like a terrible waking dream. Spreading a low wind that choked the holiday flags, the helicopters hovered over the square, where the battle between White Guards and Red Cavalry had turned into a champing, cursing jumble. Krylov, who had seen all kinds of fights, was sickened by the bloody heaps and the slippery stirrings of the wounded, crushed by the dead. You couldn’t fully believe in the reality of the carnage. You could barely hear the women’s cries in the rows pressed up to the police cordon, and many spectators’ eyes could have been looking at a wall. From his accursed spot, which Tanya, borne off to the side by the tossing that had started, still couldn’t reach, Krylov could see what was left of the commissar: he seemed to have been smashed to pieces inside his clothes, and there was what looked like a dead fly on his forehead. Krylov realized that the minute he descended to the paving stones he would cease to see Tanya and everything would probably be nearly over. The word “over” reverberated inside him like a simultaneous striking of all the keys on some monstrous black piano. He tried to send Tanya strength with his look, and she, in her twisted top, with a vivid scratch from her wrist to her elbow, was making a new leap in the hard human waves. About half an hour had passed since the moment she had appeared on the Metro stairs, and in this time dozens of people on the square had managed to die.