The Slynx

by Tatyana Tolstaya

  Mother pulled on her felt boots, threw a scarf on her head, and ran out for Nikita Ivanich.

  Father: "He'll tell! He'll tell!" And he grabbed her skirts.

  He meant that Nikita Ivanich would tell the Saniturions. All in vain. She pulled away from him and ran out into the blizzard.

  She came running back with Nikita Ivanich. He said, "What is it now? Show me. What do we have here? Neurodermatitis. Don't eat so many mice. It'll go away on its own. Don't scratch it."

  And it really did go away. And Father did find the Olden-print book and burn it after all. He wasn't as afraid of the contagion as he was of the Saniturions, may they remain nameless at night.

  Because they take you away and treat you, and after treatment people don't come back. No one ever comes back.

  It's scary to think about. You walk down the street and suddenly there's a whistle and a whoaing. The Red Sleigh rushes by, with six Degenerators hitched to it. And whatever you're wearing, a caftan or a padded jacket, or a shirt in summer-you fling yourself to the side, into the snowdrifts or mud, cover your head with your hands, and shrink back: Lord, let them pass! Save me! You'd like to hide in the ground, disappear into the clay, become a blind worrum-just don't take me! Not me, not me, not me, not me!…

  And they come closer and the clatter grows louder-here they are! There's heat and whistles, and the six Degenerators wheeze, and clods of mud fly up from the runners… and then they're gone. Silence. In the distance the dull thud of felt boots dies down.

  I'm not ill, I'm not ill, no, no, no. No, no, don't let the Saniturions come, no, no, no. God forbid, God forbid, no, no, no.

  YEST

  When kitty died, there was no one to catch mice. You won't catch too many with bare hands. Of course science doesn't stand still, it just keeps inventing things. Benedikt would sometimes make loops, noose traps. He'd twist threads into a stiff string, rub it good and well with mouse lard, wind a special loop on one end so that it would slide, try it out on his finger-and he was off to the hunt. Our floors are all cracked and gaping, not so much on account of being poor, but so it's easier for the mice to come out. Come on out now, little critters!

  I have seen you, little mouse, Running all about the house, Through the hole your little eye In the wainscot peeping sly, Hoping soon some crumbs to steal, To make quite a hearty meal.

  They say that the rich Golubchiks who have tall, painted terems two stories high-Murzas, for instance, or someone who has grown fat from a dishonest life-those ones have all the cracks stuffed up so there's no draft even in the deepest winter. And how do they get their food? They've got special serfs sitting in the cellars, and those serfs are trained to attack mice. That's all they know how to do. People say they sit there in the cellars day in and day out in the pitch dark, but they can see like it's high noon. They can't even come out into the light, they'd go blind right off, and their mice-catching days would be over. Who knows? Could be.

  But we're simple folk, we lie down on the floor on our bellies, stick the noose in a crack and give it a tug. Mice are stupid critters. They're curious: what is that noose doing over there? And they'll stick their heads right in the loop and then: whoop! You give it a jerk.

  Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe, made a scientific invention for us. The mouse trap. Well, people do have those too, but they just stand there idle. You have to put a piece of food in the mouse trap for it to work, otherwise the mice aren't interested and won't go near it. Thieves, on the other hand, are very interested. As soon as you've left home, a thief will find out that you have food lying about, and he'll come take a look. He'll clean you out of house and home and won't even say thank you.

  That's just what thieves do: they take everything. Meat, noodles, nuts, goosebread, marshrooms, if you've got them saved up -everything. But they don't take rusht. There's plenty of it everywhere. You have to be a real lazybones not to have enough rusht! True, if it's really good rusht, dry and fluffy-then they might go after it. They might take the rusht too.

  You can understand a thief. Here he is, walking through the village and he sees the izba door is closed with a stick. The owners aren't home. They're out, but there might be some rabbit meat in the izba. Mightn't there? It is possible, isn't it? Yes indeed, there might! Maybe the owner managed to hit a rabbit with a rock, or maybe he traded eggs or horsetail with his neighbors. Maybe he's got a knack for catching rabbits! The idea gets into your head and stays there. If you walk on by you'll never know. You can't help taking a peek. So the thief goes in, looks around. If he guessed right and there's meat-he'll take it. If not, he gets mad that there isn't any and he'll take whatever he can find, even worrums. And once he's pinched one thing, what's to hold him back? The izba's already been burgled, he figures, and so he'll go and clean the place out.

  But Benedikt doesn't have anything to steal. He doesn't keep provisions, he eats what he catches. All that's there is a full trunk of rusht.

  What's so good about rusht? Well, it's good for all sorts of things. You can smoke it, and drink it, and make ink out of it, and dye threads with it if someone wants to embroider a cloth. It makes good mead, especially when winter's coming. You can use it to keep the house warm by sticking it between the logs to fill the cracks. Some people have tried to cover the roof with it, but that doesn't work. The bunches are round and stiff-it just falls apart. Straw is good for a roof. If you're rich, you can use wood planks.

  You can find rusht in the bog. On weekends everyone grabs a basket as soon as it's light and sets off in different directions. Benedikt found a good place. Nikita Ivanich put up a post there that says "Garden Ring." There's no ring of course, just izbas in rows. The town ends there. And right beyond the izbas there's a bog full of rusht. More than you can pick. Even the locals won't shoo you away; other Golubchiks would beat you up for going near their place, but these people don't care. So you hurry along just after dawn, in winter it's murky, red, and blows cold.

  From the dawn a luxurious cold Pierces the garden.

  Just like Fyodor Kuzmich wrote.

  We don't have gardens, of course, only maybe a Murza might, but the part about the cold-that's true enough. It goes straight through you. Benedikt's felt boots have thinned out, his feet can feel the snow. You run quick quick over Foul Bridge to the top of the hill, then down again past the Cockynork neighborhood. If a Cockynork sticks his head out you throw a rock at him to warm yourself up, and keep running. You throw the rock because the Cockynorks, they don't talk like us: all they say is blah-blah-blah and blah-blah-blah-you can't understand a thing. Why do they talk like that, why don't they want to talk like we do? Who knows. Maybe on purpose. Or maybe it's just a bad habit, that kind of thing can happen.

  They're just cutting off their noses to spite their faces. What can they say in Cockynork? Our language is handier any way you look at it: you can sit down, talk things over, discuss them: such and such and thus and so. And everything's clear as day.

  The Cockynorks are just plain stubborn and that's all there is to it. Some say that their noses get in their way; that they'd be happy to sit down and chat in our language, except for their noses. Their noses practically touch the ground-it's really funny. That's the Consequence they have.

  When our people don't have anything to do, they sometimes get together in the evening at the Cockynork settlement, climb up on the fence, look all around, and laugh. Hey, Cockynorks, how come your noses are hanging down? Trying to smell your shoes? We'll wipe your noses for you! They run out and they're all mad. It's so funny-they close their shutters tight, hustle the children into the house, chattering blah-blah-blah all the while. And if you throw a rock and hit one of them on the forehead, he yells ouuuuch! But he doesn't grab the lump with his hand, he uses his nose instead, and that's really hysterical. Our lads nearly fall off the fence laughing.

  Ivan Beefich, who has a little hut on Rubbish Pond, loves these kinds of pranks so much that he collects rocks-he digs them up in his garden and saves them in a barrel. If the lads ar
e heading off to the settlement, they can't sneak by him, he knows, he keeps watch out the window. Wait, guys, take me with you, I won't make it on my own!

  Ivan Beefich has really bad Consequences. His head, arms, and shoulders are all strong, straight, and powerful, it would take three days to unscramble them, as they say. But right after his underarms come the soles of his feet, and in the middle there's an udder. That's what Nikita Ivanich called it: an "udder," but we don't have a word like that, why would we, what do we need it for, it's not in any books. We just call it titties.

  Sometimes there's a mix-up of course. Once the guys went to tease the Cockynorks and one of them carried Ivan Beefich piggyback. He had two whole capfuls of rocks, and was singing. He's master singer of old songs. He starts off with: "Hey, Dunya, Dunya, Dunya, die, she clobbered Vanya in the eye!" And he wiggles his shoulders and rolls his eyes, his teeth sparkle all white-a real dashing daredevil, that fellow. Of course, since he was singing, the Cockynorks heard him coming, they shut their windows and doors and hid out, only they forgot one old man in the yard. Well, he got it from everyone. And that nasty old man got so mad, he picked up a rock with his nose, just like it was his hand, and pow! He bonked Ivan Beefich right on the udder. Ivan Beefich went plop-and lay there. Our lads got furious: how dare they hit one of our guys-and they tore up half the Cocky-nork settlement.

  That kind of thing happens mostly on holidays when people are in a good mood; on weekdays everyone's plenty busy, our people work in government service, then they make soup or smoke rusht. The Cockynorks weave bags and baskets from mouse tails, very fancy, intricate-and then they trade them at the market. Cockynorks aren't good for anything else.

  Sometimes when you're running by their settlement, you'll throw something and then head for the bog. It only takes a week for fresh rusht to sprout, reddish or with a hint of green. It's good for smoking. And the older stuff is browner, it's better for paint or mead. You stuff fine rusht into a dry leaf, roll a smoke, and knock on an izba door to ask for a light. If they don't sock you in the forehead right away, they might grumble a bit, take pity, and give you a light. You walk along puffing, and you feel warmer, like you're not alone, and it seems like the faces of the Golubchiks you run into along the way aren't so beastly after all.

  ZHIVETE

  Benedikt is moody, he knows that himself. No two days are ever the same. Some mornings he's full of boundless energy, every muscle is ready to spring into action. Feels like turning half the world upside down. That's when he wants to work with his hands. In that kind of mood you look for something to do: chop or plane logs, or fix something at home, make an ax or a jug, maybe hollow out a bucket. Once, in a mood like that he smoothed out a dozen planks for the roof. Honest! A whole dozen! Well, maybe not a dozen, but three for sure. That's a lot too. At times like that you feel like singing. Loud.

  Sometimes the doldrums get him. Usually in the evening. Especially in autumn, and almost every day in winter. But it happens in summer too.

  In the evening, when the sun starts to set beyond the wavy fields, beyond the blue mountains, beyond the far woods where no one walks-as soon as the long shadows fall and the silence comes down, that's when it happens. You're sitting on the porch, smoking, arguing with your neighbors. Gnats are swarming in the air. All the birds, all the forest scaries have settled down. Like someone walked by and wagged a finger at them. Then they start up again suddenly, but with different voices, night voices. From the groves you hear a rustling, a coo-booing, a squelching, and sometimes something whirtles or meows in a nasty way.

  The neighbors say: "It's a mermaid, damn it."

  And others: "Yeah, sure. It's a woodsucker, she has a nest over there."

  Then some stupid woman will croak: "Maybe it's a blindlie bird."

  Everyone yells at her: "What an idiot! A blindlie. A blindlie doesn't have a voice, that's why he's a blindlie!"

  The silly woman opens her mouth again: "Maybe he's blind, but he has a voice like a horn, I can hear it, I'm not deaf."

  Everyone: "He can see blind better than you can! He sees what he needs to see! His claws are where he's strong, not his voice!"

  The man of the house-the woman's husband-says to her: "All right, woman, you've had your gabble-go on, now. Go cook something. You've started thinking too much."

  Everything's like always: people are chattering, speaking their minds, discussifying about nature. And Benedikt suddenly feels queasy. Like somewhere here, in the middle, heartburn is fixing to bubble up hot. Around it, like a ring, there's a kind of cold. And there's an unease in his back. And a pulling on his ears. And his spit's bitter.

  If you complain, they say: "That's the Slynx staring at your back."

  No. Not likely. Couldn't be. It's something slinking around on the inside, or maybe, like Nikita Ivanich says, it's feelosophy.

  You look at people-men, women-like you're seeing them for the first time, like you're a different creature, or you just came out of the forest, or the other way around, you just walked into the forest. And everything seems strange, sad and strange. Take that woman. You think: What's she for? She's got cheeks, a stomach, she bats her eyes, she's talking about something. Turning her head, smacking her lips, and what's inside her? A meaty darkness, squeaking bones, strings of guts, and nothing else. She laughs, she's scared, she frowns-but does she really have any feelings? Thoughts? What if she's just pretending to be a woman and she's really a swamp monster? Like the ones that hoot in the bushes, crackle the old leaves, creak the branches, but never show themselves. What if you went over to check? You could set your fingers like horns and poke her in the eyes. What would happen? Plunk. She'd fall, right?

  You wouldn't get away without a fuss, the men would give you a thrashing, they wouldn't care that you're a government Scribe, an official Golubchik-they'd beat you black and blue, and if some Lesser Murza started asking questions, they'd swear up and down that that's how you were, that your blue face was just a plain old Consequence, that your parents had the same ugly mugs, and your grandmother too.

  Today, for instance, toward evening, right at work, who knows why, feelosophy suddenly churned up inside Benedikt. Dimly, like a shadow under the water, something in his heart started to turn, to torment and call him. But where? Hard to say. There was a tingling in his back, and he felt tears rise. It was either like you were fixing to get good and mad, or wanted to fly. Or get married.

  He couldn't get the Gingerbread Man out of his head. What a scary story. He sang and sang… He ran and he ran and he ran… You can't catch him, he's the Gingerbread Man… And then he got caught. Snap.

  It was Varvara Lukinishna with all her vague talk too. She's gotta know what "steed" means. Discontent, that one. Who knows what Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe, might do in poems. That's what poems are for, so you don't understand a thing. And if Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe, is speaking in different voices, well, that's just… Everybody does that. Take Benedikt: this morning he left home, walking in the sunshine, the snow squeaking underfoot, lots of pleasant thoughts swirling in his head, not a care in the world. But now, with night coming, it was like he was someone else: weak, scared, and it was so dark out that going out on the street was like wearing a boot over your head-but he had to. And Olenka wasn't there, and it was even more miserable in the izba without her.

  The clapper clunked: work's over.

  The Golubchiks jumped up, tossed their writing sticks down, pinched the candle flames, hurried to pull on their coats and crowded around the door. Jackal Demianich, a Lesser Murza, made the rounds of the tables, put the finished scrolls in a box, stuffed the empty ink pots in a basket, and wiped the writing sticks with a rag. He grumbled that we're using up a lot of rusht, that you can't keep enough sticks on hand, and that's what a Murza does, he grumbles and gripes at people, and Jackal Demianich is given that power over us because he's a Veteran of the Ice Battle. What sort of Battle it was, and when, and just who Jackal Demianich fought, and whether he struck down a lot of Golubchiks with
a cudgel or a bludgeon, we don't know, and don't want to know-and even if someone told us we'd forget.

  So the day's over, it's gone, burned itself out. And night has fallen on the town, and Olenka sweetie disappeared somewhere in the winding streets, in the snowy expanses, like a vision, and his fleeting friend the Gingerbread Man was gobbled up, and now Benedikt hurried home, making his way over the hills and drifts, tripping and falling, shoveling the snow with his sleeve, and feeling a path through the winter, parting the winter with his hands.

  What is winter, after all? What is it? It's when you come into the izba from the cold, stomping your felt boots to knock off the snow, shaking it off your coat and slapping your frozen hat against the door jamb; you turn your head, and your whole cheek listens to the warmth of the stove, to the weak current from the room. Has the stove gone out? God forbid. Undressing, you go all wobbly in the warmth, like you're thanking someone; you hurry to blow on the fire, to feed it with old, dry rusht, with wood chips and sticks, you pull the still warm pot of mouse soup out of the swaddle of rags. Fumbling in the hiding space behind the stove, you grab the bundle with the spoon and fork and feel grateful: everything's in order, they didn't steal it, there weren't any thieves, and if there were, they didn't find anything.

  You gulp down the usual thin soup, spitting the claws out into your palm, and start thinking, looking at the feeble, bluish flame of the candle, listening to the scuttering and scurrying under the floor, the crackle in the stove, the wail just outside the window, begging to be let in; something white, heavy, cold, unseen. You suddenly imagine your izba far off and tiny, like you're looking down at it from a treetop, and you imagine the whole town from afar, like it was dropped in a snowdrift, and the empty fields around, where the blizzard rages in white columns like someone being dragged under the arms with his head arched back. You imagine the northern forests, deserted, dark, impassable; the branches rock in the northern trees, and on the branches, swaying up and down, is the invisible Slynx-it kneads its paws, stretches its neck, presses its invisible ears back against its flat, invisible head, and it cries a hungry cry, and reaches, reaches for the hearth, for the warm blood pounding in people's necks: SSSLYYYNNXXX!