The Slynx

by Tatyana Tolstaya

  Oh, the moment, oh, the bitter fight.

  Let the beer brew with the malt.

  Life could have been pure flight,

  But rain and cold streamed from the heavens' vault.

  Benedikt started to cry. The tears burned his eyes, backed up quickly and overflowed the brim, pouring down into his beard. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve. She was kind. She always gave you her own ink if yours ran out. She explained what words meant. A steed, she said, is not a mouse-truer words were never spoken. An idol in her hands…

  Sniffling, Benedikt sat at the table, took a piece of birch bark, and turned it around. We need an idol… He squeezed the writing stick-he hadn't held it for so long-and dipped it in the ink. An idol. But how to draw one…

  … He drew a bent head. Around the head-curls: scritch scratch, scritch scratch. Kind of like the letter S, technically, "Slovo." All right… A long nose. Straight. A face. Sideburns on the sides. Fill them in so they're thicker. Dot, dot-and you've got the eyes. The elbow goes here. Six fingers. Squiggle squaggle squiggle all around: that's supposed to be a caftan.

  It looks like him.

  He stuck the idol in her hands.

  He stood there and looked at her.

  Suddenly it was as if something broke through his chest, burst, exploded like a barrel of kvas: he started to sob, he shook, he gulped and gasped, he howled-was he remembering Mother? His life? Springtimes gone by? Islands in the sea? Un-traveled roads? A white bird? Nighttime dreams? Go on and ask, no one will answer!… He blew his nose and put on his hat.

  Yes! That's right. So what did I come here for? Oh, the book!… Where does she have the book? Benedikt got down on all fours and looked under the bed, holding the candle. There's that box. He pulled it out and rifled around in it-women's junk, nothing valuable. No book. He looked some more-nothing, just the usual garbage. He put his hand under and felt around. Nothing.

  He looked on the stove. Nothing…

  Behind the stove. Nothing.

  Under the stove. Nothing.

  In the closet-he held the candle up-just rusht. With a deft hand he grabbed the hook-it's so much easier with a hook- and poked everything. Nothing.

  Perhaps the table, a drawer of some kind-no, nothing. A stool-does it have a false bottom? No. He stood, looking over the izba with his eyes: the shed! He ran outside into the shed with the candle: nothing. She didn't have a bathhouse, there was no one to start the fire. He went back into the izba.

  The mattress! He stuck his hands under Varvara. It was awkward, she got in the way. He felt the whole mattress, but she got in the way. He dragged her off onto the floor. He felt the mattress and pillow, poked them with the hook; he checked the blanket with hurried fingers, and the quilt of crow feathers. Nothing.

  The attic!!! Where was the hatch? Over there. He climbed up on the stool. Hurrying, he bumped Varvara, and the idol fell out of her hands. He bent over, stuck it back somewhere in her middle.

  There was nothing in the attic. Only torn strips of moonlight coming in through the dormer window.

  It should be closed: it's a leap year, you never know…

  The moon shone, the wind blew, the clouds scudded across the sky, the trees swayed. The air smelled of water. Spring again, was it? And the emptiness, the meaninglessness, and some kind of scurrying-sticks of hay fell from the ceiling, the roof was drying out. No, something else.

  Ah-the mice. The mice were scurrying. She has mice in her izba. Hickory dickory dock. "Life, you're but a mouse's scurry…"

  Who cares about her charming hands! Who needs her bed's warm heat Come on, brother, let's retreat, Let's soar above the sands!

  … Benedikt returned to the sleigh. The Degenerator looked at him questioningly. Benedikt stuck out his leg and kicked him. He kicked Terenty Petrovich until his foot was numb.

  ER

  There's a good rule: Don't let a pig into the house, he'll get used to it. The dog in the yard likes the doghouse just fine. Let him stay there and guard his master.

  If some Golubchik takes pity on him and lets him into the house for the winter-"Oh, the poor mutt is freezing," or something like that-the dog will never go back to the doghouse, it has already taken a fancy to life in the izba. As soon as you turn around, it will weasel its way back in.

  It's a scientific rule, true for all creatures. The same for Degenerators. Where is the Degenerator's place? In the sty. Because he's a pig and swine should stay in the pigpen, the very name tells you that.

  Take Teterya, for instance: he was let in people's houses a couple of times. First Nikita Ivanich got out of line, sat him down at the table, and asked his opinions about things. Then Benedikt had to call him in at Varvara's that time-out of spiritual distress, he forgot himself. So the Degenerator developed a taste for it, and now he rushed in whenever he could.

  At first he looked for excuses to help carry something, open the door, pay Mother-in-law or Olenka compliments. Then he started coming to the kitchen with his advice. You know, he'd say, I have a first-class recipe for drying marshrooms. Marshrooms, no less! We've been drying marshrooms since the time of Tsar Gorokh, we're still drying them, and will be drying them until the Last Days come! You just string them up on a thread and dry them! Nothing science can add to it!

  Then he pretended that he wanted to hear Father-in-law's instructions: how to put on the sleigh bells so that they ring louder, so that there was more sound from them when you ride. What songs it was best to sing along the way: merry or melancholy. Then, before you knew it, he was the senior Degenerator, and he started shouting out orders himself: Hey, clean up that dung over there. Next thing he was making himself at home in the house. All you heard was: Terenty Petrovich this, Terenty Petro-vich that.

  Benedikt was furious. He stomped, he pleaded, he shamed, he argued, he threatened, he dragged Teterya around by the sleeve. No, Benya, leave him be, what would we do without Terenty Petrovich? He fetches, and carries, and entertains, and whips up a great potato casserole, and compliments rosy cheeks and white face paint too.

  He'd see Olenka in her curlers, slathered in sour cream, and would say, as if to himself, like he couldn't help it: "Holy Toledo! What a beautiful woman!"

  He'd drive the sleigh with a whistle and a song; he braided the reins, decorated the harness strap with birch pictures; he fastened a picture of an idol right in the middle-a fellow with mustaches on both sides; to the right a naked woman with tits, to the left a sign: "Terenty Petrovich Golovatykh: at your service." He invited Olenka to admire it, and Olenka immediately said: "That's it, Benedikt. This is my sleigh! You take another one." Benedikt spat, but he gave her the sleigh and Teterya with it-he was so mad he didn't even feel like kicking him.

  Benedikt was given a Degenerator named Joachim, an old man who wheezed and coughed: everything in his chest squealed and bleated, rattled and whistled; he could barely drag his legs along. He'd drive the length of two fences and stop: "Oh, Lord Almighty, heavenly queen… Our sins weigh heavy… If only the Lord would call me to him…"

  And he'd cough… with a rattle, a wet cough; then he'd clear his throat and spit; not even the whip could get him going until he'd spat out everything.

  "Heavenly mother… and the forty sainted martyrs… you've forgotten me… Oh, saint Nikolai… for my terrible sins…"

  "Come on, Grandpa, get a move on! You can spit at home!"

  "Oh, why won't death come?… the Lord is wrathful…"

  "Let's have a song! A spirited one!"

  "Chriiiiist is riiiiisen from the deeeeeeead…"

  It was embarrassing: What if someone he knew saw him? Would he start to grin? Hey, looky there, look at Benedikt! What kind of old nag has he got? Where do they find them like that? Or even worse they'd give him a nickname!

  And just as he'd feared, that's what happened. He was driving Joachim past the pushkin-he wanted to see how it was holding up-and right at that very moment Nikita Ivanich was climbing up on our be all and end all and untying another laundry lin
e from his neck. He saw the whole shameful thing and sure enough, he shouted: "Benedikt, you should be ashamed of yourself!!! To drive an old man like that!! Just remember whose son you are!!! Polina Mikhailovna's!!! What on earth are you thinking of? You'll get there faster on foot!!!"

  It was so humiliating, Benedikt turned away and pretended that he didn't see, didn't hear, and complained to Father-in-law when he got home. Oldeners are pointing at me, I should be going along at a good clip, I'll shame my mother's memory! Give Teterya back, to hell with him! But Teterya was already busy with other work. He'd been promoted to kitchen help; he was cleaning turnips, plucking chickens, and making beet salad.

  So they gave Benedikt the most plain, ordinary sort of De-generator: no peculiarities. His name was Nikolai.

  Olenka stuffed the pillows with white fluff; it was much softer to lie on. He didn't have to work at all: no chopping, no hewing. He didn't have to walk either-I'll take the sleigh. Food? Eat whenever you please. So Benedikt filled out, he bloated, his features swam. He grew heavier. Not even so much from food as from heavy thoughts. It was like his soul had been stuffed with rags, snippets of cloth and lint: it was hot, itchy, and stifling. Lie down or stand up, no peace to be found.

  There must be some books somewhere. There must be.

  He went out into the yard, on the greengrass-it had only just begun to push up through the snow-to give his arms a workout. That way, if they had to confiscate something, his hands and arms would be light, deft, and agile. The hook wouldn't stick, it would fly, and he wouldn't be able to tell where his arm ended and the hook began.

  Father-in-law kept reproaching him, saying Benedikt was clumsy, that he'd done that Golubchik in. Father-in-law would meet him in the hallway and shake his head regretfully: ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay…

  "I mean, why is it a hook? It's a hook because it isn't a spear! It has a certain line, my dear boy, see? It curves! And why? Because humane treatment is important to us in our profession. A long time ago, of course, the regime was stricter. The least little thing, a short conversation and then pop! That was the end of it. In those days, needless to say, a spear was handier. But now we take a different approach: a little crookedness, a little bending, because we don't kill them, we treat them. There's a lot of backwardness in society-I explained it all to you, remember? Art is being destroyed. If not for you and me, who would stand up for art? Who? Well, there you go."

  "But Papa, art requires sacrifices," Olenka would say, standing up for Benedikt.

  "The first blin is always lumpy," Mother-in-law comforted.

  "There you go, talking about bliny again! How come you only talk about one thing: bliny and more bliny!…" Benedikt wasn't listening, he walked out, turning over the heavy thoughts in his head. Whistling to Nikolai, he plopped into the sleigh like a sack of potatoes: "To the market!" he said, leaving his robe on, just pushing the hood back. Red, bulky, gloomy, he wandered past the booths where the Lesser Murzas displayed their birch books, their clumsy, messy homemade booklets. People fell silent, terrified when Benedikt tromped through with a heavy step and heavy thoughts on his brow, dark circles under his eyes from sleepless nights, overfed jowls and a strangling collar. He knew he was scary-so be it. He took a booklet and flipped the pages disdainfully-the Murza started to say he had to pay first but Benedikt gave him such a look that he didn't open his mouth again.

  He'd read it. And this one? What was this? He'd read it, the whole thing, not excerpts like here.

  "Where's the whole text? The whole story should be here, thieves!" he screeched at a Murza who sat there like a shriveled old sparrow. He poked his fat finger at the bark. "Even here you stole something, what kind of people are you! Here you leave out a chapter, there you break off mid-word, and in another place you mix up the lines!"

  "The government doesn't have enough bark," muttered one frightened Murza, "there's not enough people to do the work-"

  "Quiiiiii-et!"

  Sometimes he would find something he hadn't read: rusty looking scribbles, bent lines, mistakes on every page. Reading something like that was like eating dirt and rocks. He took it. It made him feel sick, he despised himself, but he took it.

  In the evening, leaning over, running his finger over the potholes and ruts of the bark, moving his lips, he made out the words; his eyes had grown unaccustomed to script, he stumbled sometimes. His eyes wanted the straight, fleet, clear, clean black-and-white page of Oldenprint books. A careless Scribe, it seems, had copied out this one-there were blotches and smudges. If he could find out who it was he'd have their head in a barrel!

  Our eyes were glued to the tribune, (blotch) Our ears discerned amid the silence of the state, The final, equitable weighing of the summary Where all divisions add up to the century!

  Blotch…

  Blotch… and cannot lock our feelings up, remote. Conferred upon us by Party Card and heart, (blotch) Is the decisive power of the vote!

  Well? The poetry was worth a mouse and a half, maximum, and they get twelve. There's thievery here too. True, Benedikt didn't pay. They just gave it to him.

  He tried rereading the old books, but it wasn't the same. No emotion, no trembling or anticipation of things to come. You always knew what happened next; if a book is new, unread, you break into a sweat just wondering: Will he catch up or not? What will her answer be? Will he find the treasure or will thieves get it first? But the second time around your eyes pass lamely over the lines. You know: he'll find it; he'll catch him; they'll get married; he'll strangle her. Whatever.

  At night, tossing and turning sleeplessly on the soft down, he thought about things. He imagined the town, the streets, the izbas, the Golubchiks. In his head he went over all the faces he knew. Ivan Beefich-does he have a book? But he doesn't even know his letters. How could that be: the Golubchik doesn't know how to read, but he has a book? Does it happen? Yes, it happens. He uses it instead of a soup top… Or to press marshrooms into a salting barrel… He was filled with bad blood, he thought bad things about Ivan Beefich. Should he try a confiscation?… Ivan Beefich doesn't have any legs, his feet come right out of his underarms. You need a short hook here, with a thick handle. But Ivan Beefich does have strong hands. So a short one won't do…

  Yaroslav. Should he check out Yaroslav? They studied letters together, and counting… If he hid something, he wouldn't admit it. He thought about Yaroslav. He could see him going into the izba, bolting the door. Yaroslav looked around. He walked over to the window on tiptoe, pulled the bladder back: was anyone looking? Now to the stove… He stuck a candle in there to light it… Now to the bed… He turned around again, like he'd felt something. He stood there for a minute… He bent over to pull a box out from under the bed… He rifles around in the box for a while, fumbling… shifts something from one hand into the other… Benedikt tensed, he could see it like it was really happening. Only it was kind of see-through, transparent-the candle nickered and crackled straight through Yaroslav, as though he was hanging there in the twilight air like a sleepy shadow, rummaging and rummaging: his see-through back covered with a homespun shirt, his transparent shoulder blades moving back and forth: he was looking for something; his vertebrae moved like shadowy bumps along his spine…

  Benedikt looked into the darkness with eyes wide open. It was just darkness, there was nothing in it, right? But no, there was Yaroslav, and he'd gotten so stuck that he wouldn't come unstuck! You toss and turn on the pillows, or get up to smoke, or to go to the privy, or somewhere else-and there he is. Yaroslav, Yaroslav… You tell yourself: Don't think about Yaroslav! I don't know anything about him! But no, how can you say that, I mean, there's his back, there he is, rummaging… You pass the night without sleep, you get up, gloomy as a storm cloud. Nothing at breakfast seems tasty, everything's wrong somehow… You take a bite and drop it: it's not right, not right… You blurt out: Maybe we should check Yaroslav?… Father-in-law isn't pleased, he scrapes the floor, his eyes reproach you: always obsessed with trivia, son, always avoiding the most i
mportant things…

  By summer Benedikt's hook flew like a bird. Yaroslav was checked-and nothing was found; Rudolf, Myrtle, Cecilia Al-bertovna, Trofim, Shalva-nothing; Jacob, Vampire, Mikhail, another Mikhail, Lame Lyalya, Eustachius-nothing. He bought Brades's Tables at the market-just numbers. He'd like to catch that Brades, and stuff his head in a barrel.

  No one around. Nothing. Only a leap year blizzard in his heart: it slips and sticks, sticks and slips, and the blizzard hums, like distant, unhappy voices-they wail softly, complain, but all without words. Or like in the steppe-hear it?-hands outstretched, they shuffle along on all sides. The Broken Ones shuffle along; there they are heading in all directions, though there aren't any directions for them; they've gone astray and there's no one to tell, and if there were, if they met a real live person, he wouldn't feel sorry for them, he doesn't need them. And they wouldn't recognize him, they don't even recognize themselves.

  "Nikolai!… We're going to the pushkin!"

  A damp blizzard had thrown a heap of snow on the pushkin's hunched head and shoulders and the crook of his arm, as though he'd been crawling around other people's izbas, filching things from their closets, taking whatever he could find-and what he found was a sorry sight, all frayed, just rags-and he had crawled out of the room, clasping the rags to his chest. Molder-ing hay was falling from his head; it kept falling.

  Well then, brother pushkin? You probably felt the same way, didn't you? You probably tossed and turned at night, walked with heavy legs over scraped floors, oppressed by your thoughts?

  Did you, too, hitch the fastest steed to the sleigh and ride gloomily with no destination across the snowy fields, listening to the clatter of the lonely sleigh bells, the drawn-out song of the courier?

  Did you, too, conjure the past, fear the future?

  Did you rise higher than the column?-and while you rose, while you saw yourself weak and threatening, pitiful and triumphant, while you looked for what we are all looking for-the white bird, the main book, the road to the sea-did your dung heap Terenty Petrovich drop in on your wife, the bootlicker, mocker, helpful wheeler-dealer? Did his lewd, empty talk burble through the rooms? Did he tempt with wondrous marvels? "You know, Olga Kudeyarovna, there's a place I know… Underground guzzelean water… Just toss in a match, and fuckin' A, we'll go up in smoke. Kaboom! Would you care to?"… Let's soar above the sands!