The Slynx

by Tatyana Tolstaya

  Then Varvara Lukinishna spoke up timidly. "Fyodor Kuzmich, I wanted to ask… In your poetry, the image of the steed frequently appears. Can you please explain what a steed is?"

  "Hunh?" asked Fyodor Kuzmich.

  "A steed…"

  Fyodor Kuzmich smiled and shook his head. "So you can't do it yourself… Can't figure it out. Hmmm… Come on, now, who wants to take a guess?"

  "A mouse," Benedikt said hoarsely, although he had sworn he'd be quiet: he felt all mixed up inside.

  "There you go, Golubushka. You see? The Golubchik here managed to do it."

  "And a winged steed?" Varvara Lukinishna asked in a worried voice.

  Fyodor Kuzmich frowned and shook his arms. "A bat."

  "And how to understand: 'He brushed the steed with a curry'?"

  "Well, now, Golubushka, you wouldn't eat a mouse raw, would you? You'd skin him, isn't that right? If you wanted to whip up a souffle or a blancmange, you'd clean him, right? If, for example, you got it into your head to make the mouse into petit-fri a la mode with nut mousse, or to bake it in a bechamel sauce with croutons. Or you might catch a lot of mouselings and make yourself a schnitzel wrapped in pancakes or flaky pastry. Wouldn't you clean them first?" Fyodor Kuzmich chortled and turned his head. "How now? What can I teach you? Do you think it's easy for me to compose? 'A thousand tons of linguistic ore I mine for the sake of a single word,' you know. Have you forgotten? I composed something about that. 'Artist, do not ever slumber. Do not give yourself to dreams.' And besides art there's plenty to do: day in and day out you invent things, figuring, figuring, thinking so hard your brain swells up. The whole state is on my shoulders. No time to sit down. I just composed a Decree, you'll get it soon. A good one, yes siree, real interesting. You'll thank me for it."

  "Glory to Fyodor Kuzmich! Long May He Live! We're grateful in advance!" cried the Golubchiks.

  Then the doors opened and Nikita Ivanich walked in. Everyone turned to look at him. Fyodor Kuzmich too. He walked in like he was at home, all grumpy, unkempt, rusht stuck in his beard, his hat still on. He didn't fall down on his knees, didn't roll his eyes back up under his forehead. Didn't even blink.

  "Good morning, citizens." He was irritated. "I've implored you on more than one occasion: Take precautions with the stoves. You have to keep them under constant observation. You're always working this old man to the bone."

  "Stoker Nikita, know your place, light the stove!" shouted Jackal Demianich in a terrible, sonorous voice.

  "Now you listen to me, Jackal, don't be so familiar," said Nikita Ivanich in a huff. "And don't tell me what to do! I'm three hundred years old, and I saw enough bureaucratic nastiness in the Oldener Times to suffice! You have a job, an elementary responsibility to maintain a minimum level of order! You allow your colleagues to become inebriated, and you have the gall to badger me with trifles. The mass alcoholism we are experiencing, Jackal, is partly your fault. That's right! This isn't the first time I've brought this issue to your attention! You are not inclined to respect the individual human being. Like many people, for that matter. And your veteran status"-Nikita Ivanich raised his voice and tapped on the table with a crooked finger- "please don't interrupt me! Your veteran status does not give you the right to harass me!! I am a Homo sapiens, a citizen and mutant, like you! Like all these citizens!" he said, gesturing broadly with his hand.

  Everyone knows that there's no point in listening to Nikita Ivanich: he just rambles on, probably doesn't understand half the words he says himself.

  "Nikita Ivanich! You are in the presence of Fyodor Kuzmich himself, Glorybe!" cried Jackal Demianich, shaking.

  "You are in my presence," said Fyodor Kuzmich with a cough. "Fire up the stove, Golubchik, for heaven's sake, my legs are frozen. Fire it up, what's there to get mad about?"

  Nikita Ivanich just waved his hand. He was annoyed. He went over to the stove. He didn't seem to care that the head of state was there and not just anyone, that he'd deigned to honor them with a luminous visitation, that he was chatting with the people, sharing his governmental thoughts with them, that he made them a gift of a painting, that guards with staffs and halberds stood at attention, that Konstantin Leontich once again sat with a gag in his mouth, all tied up with ropes so he couldn't scream, that all Varvara Lukinishna's cock's combs were fluttering from the tension, that the floor was adorned with crimson rugs. No, he didn't care. He walked straight over those governmental rugs in his lapty. Everyone froze.

  "Well, all right, where is the kindling?" he grumbled, disgruntled.

  Lesser Murzas ran up with kindling and tossed it in the stove. Everyone watched: Fyodor Kuzmich watched, and Benedikt watched; he'd never seen the Head Stoker light the fire. There wasn't anything in his hands. And nothing sticking out of his pockets.

  Nikita Ivanich squatted. He sat there for a while. Thought a bit. He turned his head and looked around at everyone. Thought some more. And then he opened his mouth wide, and out came a blast: Whoooooosssshhhhhh! A column of fire blew out of him like the wind, in great puffs, and went in the stove. With a burst everything caught fire in the wide stove, and the yellow tongues of flame crackled like a jeopard tree in spring blossom.

  What with all the fear and people shouting, everything went all fuzzy in Benedikt's head. He only managed to notice that Fy-odor Kuzmich pushed off Olenka's lap with his huge hands, jumped on the floor, and disappeared. When Benedikt regained his senses, he rushed out on the street, but all you could see was a cloud of snowspouts reaching from the earth to the sky. And the Lesser Murzas galloping off in the other direction.

  Back in the izba the rugs and the skins were gone, the walls were bare and dusty with smoke, the floor was covered with trash, the stove hummed and radiated waves of warmth. The warmth made the blue Demon on the wall stir, as though he wanted to get down.

  IZHE

  Oh, how Benedikt envied Nikita Ivanich! That evening, arriving home after work, all worried, he checked the stove as he always did. As if to spite him, as often happened, the stove had gone out. If he'd gotten home an hour earlier, it might have been all right, a little bit of life might still have warmed the embers, he could have probably gotten down on his knees and, turning his head like he was praying, blown and blown till a live flame came out of the gray, ashen sticks. Yes, just an hour earlier it could have still been done. The workday is long, and by the time you get to work and then run home afterward-it's like on purpose, like someone figured it out so that you couldn't make it in time! The soup, of course, wouldn't be cold yet if it was wrapped in rags the way it ought to be; you can fill your belly, but the taste is sad, twilightish. You're in the dark-there's nothing to light a candle with. You feel sorry for yourself, so sorry! The izba isn't cold yet either, you can hit the hay in your padded coat and hat. But it will start freezing up at nighttime: winter will creep up to the thin cracks and the notches, it'll blow under the door, breathe cold up from the ground. By morning there will be death in the izba, and nothing else.

  No, you can't go that long. You have to go ask the Stokers for fire-and you'd better get some little surprises ready for them, Golubchik. Or you can knock on your neighbor family's door and beg, if they aren't too mean. Family people have it easier: while the husband works, the wife sits at home, keeps house, watches the stove. Makes soup. Bakes. Sweeps. Maybe even spins wool. You can't go on begging like that day after day, the neighbor ladies will lose all patience: they'll smack you on the head with a shaft. Or maybe they've gone to bed, maybe they're barking at each other like family folk do, or fighting, pulling each other's hair out, and here you show up: Could you spare some coals, kind Golubchiks?

  But Nikita Ivanich now, he doesn't need a family, or a woman, or neighbors; his stove could go out a hundred times-what does he care? He puffs up-and lights it again. That means he can smoke when he wants, in the forest or the fields or wherever- he's got fire with him. If he wants, he can start a campfire and sit down by the flames, tossing on dry storm kindling, branches, forest g
arbage, fallen thicket rubbish; he can stare into the live, reddish-yellow, flickering, warm, dancing flame. He doesn't have to ask, or bow, or scrape, or be afraid-nothing. Freedom! Bene-dikt would like that! Yes, he would!…

  Once again, in the pitch dark, he felt for the pot with the warm soup and fumbled around: Where is the spoon? Who the devil knows, he stuck it somewhere and forgot. Slurp it over the rim again? How much could he take, he wasn't a goat after all.

  He went out on the porch. Lordy! How dark it was. To the north, to the south, toward the sunset, the sunrise-darkness, darkness without end, without borders, and in that darkness, pieces of gloom-other izbas like logs, like rocks, like black holes in the black blackness, like gaps into nowhere, into the freezing hush, into the night, into oblivion, into death, like a long fall into a well, like what happens to you in dreams-you fall and fall and there's no bottom and your heart gets smaller and smaller, more pitiful and tighter. Lordy!

  And over your head is the sky, also blacker than black, and across the sky in a pattern are the bluish spots of the stars, thicker sometimes, or weaker, it looks like they're breathing, flickering, like they're suffocating too, they're withering, they want to break away, but they can't, they're pinned fast to the black heavenly roof, nailed tight, can't be moved. Right over Benedikt's head, always overhead wherever you go-the Trough, and the Bowl, and the bunch of Northern Horsetail, and the bright white Belly Button, and the strewn Nail Clippings, and dimly, crowded, thickened, in a stripe through the whole night vault, the Spindle. They've always been there, as long as you can remember. You're born, you die, you get up, you lie down, you dance at your neighbor's wedding, or in the morning, in the stern raspberry dawn you wake in fright as though someone hit you with a stick, like you alone remain alive on earth- and the stars are still there, always there, pale, blinking, indistinct, eternal, silent.

  Behind your back the izba grows cold. Soup. Bed. On the bed-a cloth: a boiled felt blanket left by Benedikt's mother, a summer coat to cover his legs; a feather pillow, kind of filthy. There should be a table at the window, a stool at the table, on the table a candlestick with an oil candle, and extra candles in the closet, and a half pood of rusht, and in the safe place, hidden from thieves, extra felt boots, knitted socks, lapty for spring, a stone knife, a string of dried marshrooms, and a pot with a handle. They were there this morning, anyway. Everything you could want. Everything. And still, something's missing. Some-thing gnaws, gnaws at you.

  … Is it riches I covet?… Or freedom? Or I'm scared of death? Where is it I want to go? Or have I gotten too big for my britches, reached the heights of Freethinking, fancy myself a Murza, or some ruler-who knows what-or a giant, magical, all powerful, the most important of all, who tramples Gol-ubchiks, dwells in a terem squeezing his hands, shaking his head? Think how Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe, walked into the mud room and everyone fell on their knees… Think how Nikita Ivanich roared fire…

  That old man isn't afraid of anything. He doesn't need anyone-no Murzas, no neighbors. Because he has such power, such an envious Consequence: fire comes from his innards. If he wanted, he could burn down the whole settlement, or the whole town, all the woods around it, even the whole flat pancake of the earth! That must be why the bosses avoid him, they don't mess with him like they do with us, simple Golubchiks; he has strength and glory and power on earth! Aye, aye, aye, but we poor small folk have to stand on our porches at night, inhaling the freezing darkness, exhaling a slightly warmer darkness. We stomp our feet, turn our faces to the distant heavenly Spindle, listen to tears tinkling like frozen peas, rolling into the thickets of our beards, we listen to the silence of the black izbas on black foothills, the creak of the high trees, to the whine of the blizzard, which brings in gusts-barely audible, but still clear-of a distant, pitiful, hungry northern wail.

  I KRATKOE

  Fyodor kuzmich, glorybe, didn't let them down-exactly a week after his luminous visitation, he issued a Decree and it was handed out to all the Work Izbas to be copied over and over. Benedikt had to make a copy too.

  Jackal Demianich called everyone together and announced -as if we didn't know ourselves-that the governmental resolution must be made available to all Golubchiks immediately, and so he therefore hereby commanded that the Decree be copied swiftly and with beautiful calligraphy and flourishes and that a copy be nailed on every corner that has a Decree board.

  DECREE

  Since I am Fyodor Kuzmich Kablukov, Glory to Me, the Greatest Murza, Long May I Live, a Seckletary and Acade-mishun and Hero and Captain of the High Seas and Carpenter, and seeing as I am constantly concerned with the people's welfare, I hereby command:

  That the Holiday of New Year be celebrated.

  That this here holiday be celebrated the First of March kinda like the May Holidays.

  It's a day off too.

  That means nobody goes to work. Drink and make merry, do what you want, but within reason, and not like sometimes happens when you go to town and burn everything down and then have to mend all the fences.

  The New Year Holiday should be celebrated like this: chop down a tree in the forest, not too big but full, so that it will fit in your izbas but if you want you can put it in the yard. Stick this tree in the floor or wherever you can, so it stands up, and hang all sorts of stuff on its branches depending on what you 've got. It could be colored threads braided together, or nuts, firelings, or whatever you can spare around the house, all kinds of junk always piles up in the corner and it might come in handy. Tie this stuff on tight so it doesn't fall off on top of you.

  Light candles so that everything's bright and cheery.

  Cook up lots of yummy dishes, don't be stingy after all spring is coming soon and all kinds of things will grow in the forest.

  Invite guests, your neighbors, kinfolk, feed everyone, don't bestingy, they won't eat you out of house and home. You'll get to eat too you know.

  Play on pipes whoever has the knack, or on drums, you can dance if your legs are fit.

  Put on good clothes, dress to the teeth, also put things in your hair.

  Some of you might want to bathe, so I order the Baths to open in daytime, be my guest, drop in and bathe only bring your own firewood with you cause there won't be enough to go around otherwise.

  It will be interesting, you'll see.

  Kablukov

  Benedikt copied the Decree four times, gave Olenka the bark so she could decorate the letters to make them pretty- with plaited ribbons, birds and flowers, since this was serious business, or as Jackal put it, fateful affairs. He perked up and felt cheerful. The rest of the Golubchiks working in the izba also seemed to brighten and straighten up. Why not be happy: spring was on the way! Spring! Who doesn't love spring! Even the most miserable lousy Golubchik looks better, grows kinder, and hopes for something in spring.

  You spend the whole winter lying on the stove bed in soot and peelings, not even taking your lapty off; you don't bathe or brush your hair; you can't tell your feet from your felt boots with all the dirt, they're grimy enough to boast about or show off to your neighbors. Your beard is full of knots and rats' nests- mice would be happy to take up house; your eyes are overgrown with scales so you have to push them open with your fingers and hold them or they'll snap shut. But when spring comes, you crawl out in the morning, into the courtyard, to do your business or whatever-and suddenly a strong sweet wind will blow in, as if there were flowers somewhere around the corner, or a girl sighed, or someone invisible were standing at your gate with presents-the stinky fellow stands there, stock-still, and thinks he hears something but can't believe his ears: could it really be? Really? He stands there, his eyes glassed over, his beard rattling in the breeze like rusht or like tiny bells; his mouth wide open 'cause he forgot to close it; he grabs his britches and freezes, and his feet have already melted two black circles, and the shitbird has already messed on his hair and he keeps standing there, innocent, bathed in the first wind, the golden light, and the shadows are blue, and the icicles
are burning with the heat and working overtime: drop-drip, drip-drop, ding dong! He stands there until a neighbor or a co-worker walking by shouts: "Whatcha hanging out for, Beauregard, whatcha lookin at? Chokin' or somefin?" and laughs in a friendly way, kindly, springlike.

  The First of March is soon. Right around the corner. True, it freezes up good and hard at night still, there'll be more snowstorms, the snow will have to be dug out more than once, a path beaten down to the izba, and the main road shoveled out if it's your turn to do roadwork-but things are already easier, you can see the end of it, and the days already seem longer.

  Winter shows its anger still- Its time has almost passed. Spring knocks on the windowsill And shoos it from the path.

  That's right. That's the way it is. Now it's time to choose a tree in the forest, like Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe, decreed, and dress it in whatever's to hand. During lunch break the Golub-chiks discuss the Decree. What to use for decoration? They're worried.

  Ksenia the Orphan says: "I have two nuts and about five yards of thread in my cupboard."

  Konstantin Leontich dreams: "I'll make doilies and confetti from bark, and symmetrical garlands."

  Varvara Lukinishna: "I see it this way: a fireling on the very top, and spirals of beads descending the tree."

  "Beads of what?"

  "Well… You could roll balls of clay and string them on a thread."

  "Clay? In winter?"

  Everyone laughed.

  "You could thread peas if you have some."

  "Peas would be perfect. Enjoy looking at it a bit, and then eat some. Enjoy a little more-and eat some more."

  "Maybe they'll give out something from the Warehouse for the holiday."