The Slynx

by Tatyana Tolstaya

  It must be the Slynx, that's what! The Slynx is staring at his back!

  Benedikt felt sick with fear from the evil, from the feeling of something rising in his throat. He slammed the door shut without waiting until the sun went down, without inhaling the raw, blue, evening air; he hooked the door in a hurry, shut the bolt; slipped in the dank dark of the izba on the curds he had bought; and even forgot to cuss. He made it to the bed and lay down quickly, his legs numb.

  His heart was pounding. The Slynx… that's what it was. That's what. Not any of this feelosophy. The old saying is right: the Slynx is staring at your back!

  It's out there, in the branches, in the northern forests, in the impenetrable thickets-it wails, turns, sniffs, lifts one paw at a time, flattens its ears, picks… and it has chosen!… Softly, like a terrible, invisible Kitty, it jumps from the branches, treading delicately, crawling under the storm kindling, under the heaps of sticks and thorny branches, leaping over the gray, overgrown moss, the dry rot piled up by blizzards! Crawling and leaping, lithe and long; it turns its flat head from side to side so's not to miss or lose the trail: far away in a poor izba, on the bed, filled with blood warm as kvas, Benedikt lies and trembles, staring at the ceiling.

  Closer and closer to the house… Out there where snow blankets the land, dusts the ravines, where the blizzard stands like a wall, where a snowy whirlwind rises from the fields, there it is: it flies in the blankets of snow, twists in the blizzard! Its paws won't leave a trace on the snow, it won't frighten a single courtyard dog, nor trouble any household creatures!

  Closer and closer-its invisible face grimaces, its claws quiver. It's hungry, famished! It's tormented, tormented! Slyyyy-nnnxxx!

  Now it creeps up to the dwelling, closes its eyes, the better to hear, now it will pounce on the rickety roof, on the chilled chimney; now it has tensed its muscles…

  There was a sudden knocking and rapping at the door. Knock, knock, knock. Benedikt leaped up as though he'd been hit with a stick, and screamed out loud: Nnnnooooooo!

  "Oh, are you busy, Golubchik? Then I'll come by later," said a wonderfully familiar voice from behind the door: Nikita Iva-nich. The Lord sent him… the Lord sent him!

  KAKO

  Benedikt lay in bed with a fever for a week-shamed and chagrined. Just like a little kid. The old man tended the fire for him, baked the sweet rolls, and gave him hot water to drink. Together they ate up all the food. So much for the New Year Holiday. It came and went as though it never happened. What a pity, they missed everything! The Golubchiks had a grand old time, they danced and sang songs, lit candles like the Decree said, and drank rusht. After the holiday, as usual, there were more injuries and cripples in the town. You'd walk along the street and you could tell right away: there had been a holiday and a lot of merrymaking. Here a guy knocked about on crutches, there another had a black eye or a huge bruise on the side of his head.

  Recuperated now, Benedikt pined: life had passed him by. That's the way it always was! What a shame, it was so disappointing. Hadn't he prepared, hadn't he used his brain to approach the whole affair? Hadn't he caught mice and traded them for provisions? He'd lived in anticipation of the bright, joyous event for two whole weeks: guests, candles, music!

  What is life made up of, anyway? Work and cold, the wind whistling in the trees! Right? How often does a holiday come along?

  But he had to go and catch a cold. Maybe he overdid things. Or maybe it was hunger, or something he ate in the Food Izba- who knows?-and he fell into a fever, and where have those golden days gone now?

  But Nikita Ivanich said that Benedikt had a newrottick. Well, whatever. Maybe he's got one and maybe he doesn't, maybe it's rotten and maybe it isn't, but what can you do-some people just never have any luck. Only it's so frustrating it makes you want to cry.

  Nikita Ivanich also says, just thank your lucky stars, you'll be in better shape this way. Your legs are in one piece, they'll come in handy yet, you reckless, empty-headed, young dreamer gone astray, like all your kind, your whole generation-and for that matter, the whole human race! Nikita Ivanich doesn't like our holidays, not one bit.

  So what if you get hurt once in a while. You could slip on the ice for that matter. Or fall in a ditch and land on a sharp branch, or eat something bad. Don't people die of old age too? Even Oldener Golubchiks-they live for three hundred years and then go and die anyway. New Golubchiks are born.

  You feel sorry for yourself, of course, that goes without saying. You feel sorry for relatives and friends too, though not as much. But strangers-who really cares? They're strangers, after all. How can you compare? When Mother died, Benedikt was distraught, he cried so hard, and was so upset that he swelled up. But if someone else died-even Anfisa Terentevna, for instance -would he cry that way? Not on your life! He'd be surprised, he'd ask about it, he'd cock his ear and strain to hear, what did she die of? She ate something bad or what? And where are they burying her? And will Polikarp Matveich marry someone else now, and did Anfisa Terentevna leave a lot of things behind, and just what sort of things? He'd ask lots of questions, it's always interesting to know.

  And then he'd be invited to the wake-that's fun. They'd eat. He'd be asked inside the izba-you go in, look around to see what kind of izba they had, what corner the stove was in, where the window was, are there any decorations-there might be a carved bench, someone with a lot of big ideas might have embroidered the bed curtains with colored threads, or there might be a shelf on the wall to hold booklets. You'd eat and drink your fill, walk around the izba, let your eyes wander over to the booklets on the shelf. Sometimes there might be an interesting one-you could lean against the wall, cross your legs, scratch your head, and stand there reading. You never knew what you might find!

  But he didn't feel like dying himself, of course not. God forbid! The only thing scarier was the Slynx. It seemed to have moved on now, lost Benedikt from sight-maybe Nikita Ivanich got in its way and it retreated.

  And why is the Slynx scarier than dying? Because if you die, well, that's it-you're dead. You're gone. But if the Slynx spoils you-you have to go on living with it. But how? What do they think about, the Spoiled Ones? What do they feel inside? Hunh?…

  They must feel a fierce, frightful, unknown anguish. A gloom that's blacker than black, with poisoned tears pouring down! Sometimes that happens in dreams: it's like you're wandering around, shuffling your feet, going left and right-you don't want to go but you do, like you're looking for something, and the farther you go, the more lost you get! And there's no way back. It's like you're walking through empty valleys, terrible ones where dry grass rustles under the snow. It just keeps on rustling. And the tears keep running and running from your face down to your knees, from your knees to the ground, and you can't lift your head! Even if you could, there'd be no point: there's nothing to see! There's nothing there…

  If a horrible thing like that happens to a person-if the Slynx sucks the lifeblood out of him, tears at his vein with its claw- he's better off dying quickly, better his bladder should burst, and that would be it. But who really knows, maybe those two or three days before death would be a whole lifetime for him? Inside, in his own head, maybe he's walking through the fields, getting married, having a bunch of children, waiting for grandchildren, and doing his government service, repairing the roads or paying the tithe. Right inside him? Only everything is with tears, with a soulful cry, with an unbearable, inhuman, unending wail: SLYYYYNNXXXX!

  That's right. And don't say, "Why all the injuries?" Injuries are no big deal. You get your eye poked out-well, you can still enjoy the sunshine with one eye; you get your teeth knocked out -even a toothless man can smile at his own fortune and be happy.

  Benedikt's eyes, teeth, arms, and legs are just fine. So what. That's good.

  On the other hand, living alone is kind of boring, you need company. A family. A woman.

  A Golubchik definitely needs a woman-how can you get along without a woman? Benedikt went to see the widow woman Ma
rfushka about the woman business: maybe once or twice a week, but he'd always go to see Marfushka. You couldn't exactly say that she was pretty. In fact, her whole face was sort of crooked, like someone hit her with a battle ax. And one eye wandered. Her figure wasn't all that great either. She was shaped like a turnip. But she didn't have any Consequences. She was rounded out where she ought to be, and caved in where she ought to be. After all, he didn't visit her to look at her, but to take care of the woman business. If looking's what you want-well, you can go out on the street and look until your eyes pop out. This was different. Like Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe, wrote:

  Not because she shines so bright,

  But because with her you need no light.

  You don't need any light with Marfushka, you're better off without it. As soon as Benedikt got to her place, he'd blow out the candle, and they'd start rolling around, twisting and turning and loving it up every which way. Squatting, and straddling, this way and that, and hopping around the izba-goodness gracious, what kinds of things got into your head sometimes! When you're sitting alone, thinking your own thoughts, stirring your cabbage soup, you'd never hop around the izba or stand on your head. It would be silly. But when you visit a woman-you can't help yourself. Your pants come off right away and there's jokes and giggles. Woman's nature, or rather, her body, is just made for jokes.

  After you've had your fun, you're tuckered out. Then you're starving, like you hadn't eaten for three years. Well, come on now, what did you cook up, woman? And she says: Oh, Bene-dikt, where oh where are you off to now, leaving me alone? I'm ready for some more frolicking. Can't tire that woman out. She's a firestorm.

  No, woman, we've had all our frolicking, give me some food, something pickled, noodles, kvas, rusht, everything. I'll eat and then I'll run, or else my stove will go out.

  Don't worry about your stove, I'll give you coals! And it's true, she'll feed you, and wrap up a pie for you to take home, and put some coals in a fire pot for you.

  Sometimes Benedikt would read her poems, if Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe, had made up something about the woman business. He's a real ladies' man himself, that Fyodor Kuzmich -no doubt about it.

  The flame's ablaze, it doesn't smoke,

  But will it last for long?

  She never ever spares me,

  She spends me, spends me gone.

  That's right! And there's another one:

  I want to be bold, I want to be a scoffer, I want to tear the clothes right off her.

  Go ahead and tear them off if you feel like it-who's to stop you? That used to surprise Benedikt: who would ever say a word to Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe, the Greatest Murza, Long May He Live? Go on and rip to your heart's content. The master is the boss. But now that he'd seen him in the flesh, well, he might have to think it over: after all, at Fyodor Kuzmich's height you couldn't even jump high enough to reach a woman. So he must be complaining. As if to say, I can't manage on my own, help me out!

  But one time these poems screwed everything up. Benedikt copied out a poem, a particularly, how to put it, bawdy, lustful, one.

  No, I do not hold that stormy pleasure dear!

  That's the way Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe, put it. Benedikt was surprised: Why doesn't he hold it dear? Is he under the weather? Is he feeling poorly? But then at the end Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe, explained that he'd decided to try the woman business a wild, brand-new sort of way:

  You lie in silence, heeding ne'er a sound, You burn so bright, and brighter, brighter still, Until, at last, you share my flame against your will.

  Benedikt wanted so bad to find out what it was that the Greatest Murza, Long May He Live, had cooked up, that he committed Freethinking. He copied out an extra scroll for himself, hid it in his sleeve, and later ran off to Marfushka and read her the poem. He made her a proposition: well, let's try it together. You plop down and lie there like a log, not heeding anything, but you have to really do it, just like we agreed… And I'll get all het up over you. And we'll see what these high-falutin ideas are all about. All right? Right.

  That's what they decided. But it didn't work. Marfushka did everything just as agreed, just as she was told, not a peep, her arms along her sides, her heels together, her tiptoes apart. She didn't grab Benedikt or tickle him, and she didn't wiggle or wriggle around. But no burning brighter still ever happened the way it said, and there wasn't any flame sharing either-hunh-she just lay there like a sack of potatoes. All evening. And there wasn't really any flame, for that matter. Benedikt fussed and fiddled, but for some reason he wilted, soured, gave up, shrugged his shoulders, found his hat, slammed the door, and went home, and that was the whole story. But Marfushka got mad, she chased him, cussing and shouting. He shouted back. She shouted back again. They fought, tore each other's hair out. A couple of weeks later they made up again, but it wasn't quite the same. That old spark, so to speak, was gone.

  So, he went to Kapitolinka for the same business, and to Crooked Vera. Glashka-Kudlashka invited him, and a lot of others. And now here you had Varvara Lukinishna asking around. He could go to see her, but she's awfully scary looking. What if she's got that fringe all over her body?

  But all this woman's business-he'd visit and forget about it. It just didn't stay in his head. It's another story when a vision sticks to you, a marvelous image, a luminous mirage-that's how Olenka began to seem to Benedikt… You're lying down on the bed, smoking rusht, and she-there she is, close by, giggling… You reach out-and she's not there! Just air! She's not there-and there she is again. Gracious!

  … Maybe he should go and court her. What about that? Court her? Go right up and say: So you see, Olenka sweetie pie, it's this way, my gorgeous beauty. I want you to be my blushing bride, my lawful wedded wife, to say I do right at the altar. Be my missus! To have and to hold. We'll live happily ever after!… What else do people say in this situation?… Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. We'll be happy as the day is long!

  Why not! Even though her family are noble bigwigs-they ride in a sleigh. Even though she has a rabbit coat, there don't seem to be any suitors around her. She must be picky. Modest. But she does look at Benedikt. She looks-and blushes.

  When Benedikt recovered from his fever and returned to work, Olenka lit up. She shone all over, like a candle; you could just take her, stick her in a holder, and she'd light up any darkness all the way around.

  He had to think this thing through.

  LIUDI

  The February blizzards had passed. The March storms blew in. Heavenly streams poured down, piercing the snow. It looked like someone had punctured it and blackened it with stone nails. The earth showed through in some places. Last year's rubbish surfaced on all the streets, in all the yards. Swift rivers flowed, foamy and murky, carrying the rubbish from the hills to the flats, bringing out the stench from the settlement. Then, suddenly, up high, blue showed through. Clean, cold clouds ran rapidly across it, the wind blew, bare branches swayed, hurrying spring along. It was raw and bright; if you didn't tuck your hands into your sleeves they'd turn all red from the cold. But Benedikt felt fine and happy.

  The earth underfoot squelched. The clay was impassable. You can't travel in a sleigh or a cart, but the Murzas still want to ride, don't they? They'd not be caught walking on foot-it doesn't suit their rank. You see the Degenerators kneading the clay mud with their felt boots, hauling the sleighs; they pull with all their might, cussing up a storm, but the sleighs won't budge. The Murza lashes them: Pull! They curse him. Such a hullabaloo. In short: spring!

  Then it would freeze up again, there'd be a piercing cold day; a fine snow would fall, and the bladders in the windows would be covered with hoarfrost.

  And while Benedikt lay in bed with a fever, Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe, wrote a new decree:

  DECREE Now hear this. Since I am Fyodor Kuzmich Kablukov, Glory to me, the Greatest Murza, Long May I Live, Seckletary and Academishun and Hero and Ship Captain, and Carpenter, and seeing as how I am constantly worrying about t
he people, I command:

  Oh, and there's something else I remembered, I'd completely forgotten it since I was so busy with state affairs:

  The Eighth of March is also a Holiday, International Women's Day.

  This Holiday isn't a day off.

  That means you have to go to work, but you can take it easy.

  Women's Day means like a Woman's Holiday.

  On this day you have to honor and respect all women since they are Wife and Mother and Grandmother and Niece and any other Little Girls and respect all of them.

  On this Holiday don't give them a thrashing or a licking, they don't have to do all the usual things, but Wife and Mother and Grandmother and Niece and any other Little Girls should get up earlier in the morning and bake pies, pancakes and all sorts of things, wash everything clean, sweep the floors and polish the benches, carry the water from the well, wash out the underwear and outerwear, and whoever has rugs or mats they should beat them all well or else I know you, there'll be so much dust in the izba you'll have to hold your nose. She should chop wood for the bathhouse, light the fire and scrub herself all over. Set the table with bliny and a mountain of all kinds of snacks. Maybe there's some leftovers from New Year's you can put out on the table.

  When you get to work congratulate every Wife and Mother and Grandmother and Niece and any other Little Girls with International Women's Day.

  Say: "Wife and Mother and Grandmother and Niece and any other Little Girls I wish you happiness in life, success in work, and a peaceful sky over your head."

  And every woman you meet, even your Neighborlady, say the same polite words.

  Later on, drink and make merry, eat what you want, have a good time, but within reason.

  Kablukov