The Slynx

by Tatyana Tolstaya

  "That's how you talk to a Minister?" Father-in-law bent over and tore the book out of Benedikt's hands. He hurled it on the floor and the pages fell apart.

  "Jeez!… And you, Papa, you just plain stink!"

  "Oh, so that's it, is it? Come on, then," Father-in-law jumped across the table in one leap, knocking over the dishes. He grabbed Benedikt by the neck with his strong, cold hands. "Come on, let me hear that again! Say it again-again I say! I'll teach you to-"

  And, squinting his eyes, he began to burn Benedikt with a chill, yellow, scratching sort of flame.

  "Enough of this outrageous behavior! And in front of the children!" Mother-in-law cried out.

  "Control yourself, Papa!"

  "What are you?… You're just a…a…a… you're the Slynx, that's who you are!!!" cried Benedikt, scaring himself- words just fly out of your mouth and then you can't catch them. He was scared, but he shouted, "Slynx, Slynx!"

  "Me? Me?" laughed Father-in-law, suddenly loosening his fingers and letting go. "Nanny nanny foo foo, you got it wrong. You're the one who's the Slynx."

  "Me?!?!?"

  "Who else? Pushkin? You! You're the one and only…" Father-in-law laughed, shook his head, stretched his stiff fingers, and put out the light in his eyes-only reddish glints flickered in the round eyeballs. "Go take a look at yourself in the water… in the water… hee, hee, hee… Yes, the Slynx, that's just who you are… No need to be frightened… no need… We're among friends…"

  Mother-in-law laughed too, Olenka giggled, and Terenty

  Petrovich-san grinned. The children stopped scratching the floor, raised their flat heads, and shrieked.

  "Just look at yourself in the water…"

  He ran out of the room. The family's laughter followed him.

  What are they saying! What did they mean! Here's the storehouse, here's a barrel of water. Blocking the light with his hands, he looked into the dark, slimy-smelling water. No, it was all lies. Lies!!! It was hard to see, but you could tell: his head was round, though his hair had thinned; his ears were in place, his beard, nose, eyes. No, I'm a human! A human is what I am!… That's right! To hell with you!

  He rinsed his face in the barrel: the skin smarted where Father-in-law had burned it with his rays, and it felt rough to the touch, like it was covered with tiny blisters or a rash. He suddenly felt nauseated, as though he'd eaten cheese. He ran to the door and vomited his guts out. Something yellow. Must be the canaries. He'd eaten too many canaries. Ugh, he felt weak.

  … He should take a walk, no? Get some fresh air. He hadn't walked anywhere in ages. From the city gates. Hiss to the guard. Walk to the hills. To the river. Over the bridge-into the forest, and farther, farther, till he was up to his knees, waist, shoulders in grass, to the place where there are flowers and flies, a hidden glade, and a honey-sweet wind, and the white bird… That's right, just wait…

  He trudged on, shuffling along in his lapty on weakened, sickly feet. He suddenly understood clearly that it was all in vain. There isn't any glade or any bird. The glade was trampled, the tulips torn up, and the Princess Bird, well, she was caught long ago in the snare and ground into meat patties. He ate them himself. He himself slept on pillows of snowy, lacy feathers.

  He knew, but he walked on, almost indifferently, like just before death, or just after death-when everything has already happened and you can't fix anything. He plodded past fields planted with bluish turnips, along ravines with their piles of red clay, across canals and pools with worrums. He climbed up the hills with difficulty, slipping on overgrown marshrooms. From the hills you could see far, far away: fields and then more fields, with weeded and unweeded turnips, and new ravines, and dark patches of woods where the blindlie bird hides, and the unbelievably far-off oak groves with their firelings, and then more fields as far as the eye could see. The wind of his homeland blew brisk and warm, grayish clouds turned the heavenly vaults murky, and on the horizon, like a deep blue wall, stood dark clouds ready to sob with summer downpours.

  In thickets of brittle August horsetail he found a mirror of dark water, and took another good look at his reflection. He touched his ears. Regular ears. The family's talking nonsense. Nonsense. He patted his cheeks-his palms were covered with pus from the burst blisters. His palms were normal too, rough; across his entire palm and his fingers was a wide callus from the hook. He took off one of his lapty and checked his feet. His feet were just plain feet too: white on top and dark underneath from the dirt, that's what a foot is for. He checked his stomach. Rear end. No tail or…

  Wait. Just a minute. The tail. There had been a tail. Jeez, there was a tail. But people weren't supposed to have… So what did that?…

  He vomited again, more canaries. No, I'm not the Slynx. No!!!

  … No, you're the Slynx.

  No!

  … Just think about it…

  No! I don't want to! That's not the way things happen! I'll go back right now, I'll run home to my bed, to my rumpled warmth, to my beautiful books, to my books where there are roads, steeds, islands, conversations, children with sleds, verandahs of colored glass, beauties with clean hair, birds with pure eyes!

  "Ah, Benedikt, why did you eat meat patties made from my white body?"

  I didn't mean to, no, no, no, I didn't mean to, they just kept stuffing me, I only wanted spiritual food-they stuffed me full, caught me, confused me, stared at my back! It was all the… it never rests… It crept up behind me-and its ears were flattened, and it was crying, and it wrinkled up its pale face, and licked my neck with its cold lips, and searched with its claw, looking to hook the vein. Yes, it's the Slynx! It ruined me, aaa… aaa… aaa, ruined me! Maybe I'm only imagining, maybe I'm really lying in my own izba in a fever, in Mother's izba; maybe Mother is leaning over me, shaking me by the shoulder: wake up, wake up, you were screaming in your sleep, Good Lord, you're all wet, wake up, son!

  I only wanted books-nothing more-only books, only words, it was never anything but words-give them to me, I don't have any! Look, see, I don't have any! Look, I'm naked, barefoot, I'm standing before you-nothing in my pants pockets, nothing under my shirt or under my arm! They're not stuck in my beard! Inside-look-there aren't any inside either- everything's been turned inside out, there's nothing there! Only guts! I'm hungry! I'm tormented!…

  What do you mean there's nothing? Then how can you talk and cry, what words are you frightened with, which ones do you call out in your sleep? Don't nighttime cries roam inside you, a thudding twilight murmur, a fresh morning shriek? There they are, words-don't you recognize them? They're writhing inside you, trying to get out! There they are! They're yours! From wood, stone, roots, growing in strength, a dull mooing and whining in the gut is trying to get out; a piece of tongue curls, the torn nostrils swell in torment. That's how the bewitched, beaten, and twisted snuffle with a mangy wail, their boiled white eyes locked up in closets, their vein torn out, backbone gnawed; that's right, that's how your pushkin writhed, or mushkin-what is in my name for you?-pushkin-mushkin, flung upon the hillock like a shaggy black idol, forever flattened by fences, up to his ears in dill, the pushkin-stump, legless, six-fingered, biting his tongue, nose in his chest-and his head can't be raised! -pushkin, tearing off the poisoned shirt, ropes, chains, caftan, noose, that wooden heaviness: let me out, let me out! What is in my name for you? Why does the wind spin in the gully? How many roads must a man walk down? What do you want, old man? Why do you trouble me? My Lord, what is the matter? Ennui, oh, Nina! Grab the inks and cry! Open the dungeon wide! I'm here! I'm innocent! I'm with you! I'm with you!

  Soaking wet from his head to his soggy shoes, Benedikt banged on the doors of the Red Terem, knowing they wouldn't let him in, that they'd deliberately bolted the doors, that they knew how to get to him. It was pouring, as it does only in August, in a stormy, foamy surge that washed the yards clean of trash, kindling, and peelings. The murky foam swirled with rags and carried them under the gates to the streets and out of the settlement. Way up high Olenka
opened a window, screamed a curse, threw out a dozen books-there, go read!-and slammed the shutters. Benedikt rushed to save them, he picked them up and wiped them off-he ought to kill the bitch. But then another window opened and this time Terenty Petrovich, the Minister of Oil and Refineries, tossed out pristine white books with pictures bound with thin, delicate paper over them, the rarest of books… Benedikt couldn't grab them all and the treasures splatted into the swirl of rubbish, squelched, and floated off, spinning… and then Kudeyar Kudeyarich began to fling other incomparable items to their death from the top floor, one after the other. Benedikt didn't wait for the end, there was no end in sight; the flattened faces of Bubble and Concordia already hung out of the window, the children held packets of journals in their hands; Mother-in-law loomed behind them holding their sashes. He got it. He understood. It's a choice. Come on, now, who would you save from a burning building? He made his choice right away.

  IZHITSA

  The dill had been weeded out hither and yon, the square raked clear, the pushkin's pedestal was surrounded with brushwood and rusht, and they'd tucked logs in and around it. Up high, Nikita Ivanich was bound with rope to our be all and end all, back to back. After the downpour the air was clean and it was easy to breathe. That is, it would have been easy if not for the tears.

  Benedikt stood in the front of the crowd with his hat off. A breeze played with the remains of his hair and blew the moisture from his eyes. He felt sorry for both of them-Nikita Ivanich and the pushkin. But the old man went and offered himself up voluntarily, so to speak. Almost completely voluntarily. He displayed an understanding of the moment. Of course, Benedikt had explained everything to him straight and clear: You have to. You have to, Nikita Ivanich. Art is in peril, it's perishing all around us. The honor of sacrifice, so to speak, has fallen to you, Nikita Ivanich. You always wanted to preserve all facets of the past? Well then, be a dear and show everyone an example of how it's done.

  Of course, no one's forcing you, you know. You don't have to go. But then the decree will be signed and go into effect, because as soon as a decree is signed, there's no way around it. And there'll be a section reserved for art.

  It was an unpleasant conversation. Unpleasant. Of course, Nikita Ivanich could go on living his life. How long he had been allotted couldn't be known. But life requires choices. Are you for art or against it, life asks, and that's it. The time has come to answer. That's the way the cookie crumbles.

  Having cried his eyes out on the hill amid the horsetail, having talked it through with himself-just like someone else was there, but that was just a regular sort of illusion-Benedikt's spirits rose and his head cleared. Or his reason. He observed everything with much greater calm-and in books they write that's a sign of maturity. He used to want everything himself! Himself! To be higher than the Alexander column! The second man in the government! I sign decrees! Decrees are all fine and well, but somehow, in the shadow of the table, or maybe the bed, Petro-vich-san grew unnoticed, that scum, that stinking animal. Before they could turn around he was in charge of everything. How did that happen? Why? Benedikt used to have a close relationship with Papa, that is, Father-in-law. They worked and played together. They swore an oath. Now Petrovich-san had all the keys, all the chits, the guzzelean, and now he had art too. And he gave you that rotten look, and smiled with those shiny yellow teeth, not like other people's; and he's even proud of those teeth and says: "I put the yellow stuff in ages ago, and it's still there."

  The bastard pushed him to make a choice. For instance, Nikita Ivanich had agreed to burn on the "Nikita's Gate" pillar, but the family wouldn't hear of it. Let him burn on the pushkin. It was as clear as a bump on a log that this was what you call Terenty Petrovich's doing, or, to put it scientifically, the result of palace intrigues. It was just to make Benedikt do the deciding: if you want to preserve art, then say goodbye to the pushkin. Either or.

  But Benedikt's spirits rose and his head cleared, he looked at things with greater calm, so he made this choice immediately too, without looking back: Art was more precious.

  But you couldn't exactly control the tears, they flowed by themselves.

  Nikita Ivanich stood on the firewood fit to be tied, shouting a tirade and cursing the whole world. Well, he was anxious, you could understand. A lot of people had gathered for the death by execution.

  There were some people Benedikt knew, though not many- most were being treated. He could see Lev Lvovich making faces, and Poltorak shoving Golubchiks along with his third leg. Ivan Beefich's friend had brought him on piggyback.

  Olenka and Fevronia sat in summer carriages under lace parasols, all fancy and so fat the axles had bowed under them, and the wheels were turning into squares.

  Kudeyar Kudeyarich personally placed rusht under the brushwood and straightened the logs. "That's it! Out of propeller range!"

  "What do propellers have to do with it?" Nikita Ivanich argued irritably. "You haven't invented the propeller yet, you frigging mutants! Ignorance, self-importance, stagnation!"

  "Shut up, Oldener," Father-in-law interrupted. "The General Saniturion himself, Life, Health, Strength, is assisting you with his own personal hands! And he could have stayed at home in the warmth! You should say thank you!"

  "Stoker Nikita, don't get uppity, just do your job and burn!" came the weak voice of the aging veteran Jackal Demianich, God knows from where.

  "Now listen here, Jackal, if I've told you once, I've told you a hundred times, don't get familiar with me," said Nikita Ivanich, stomping his foot. "And don't give me orders! I'm going on my fourth century now! I'd already had it up to here with your nasti-ness before the Blast! Be so good as to have a little respect for the individual!"

  "What are they scorching him for?" people in the crowd asked.

  "He fornicated with a mermaid."

  Father-in-law gave a wave of his hand, aimed the rays from his eyes, and gritted his teeth.

  "Papa, Papa, careful now, you'll overdo it," Olenka worried.

  Kudeyar Kudeyarich crossed his eyes, guided the rays into one point on the rusht, and tensed his neck. A little bit of white, acrid smoke rose, but there were no flames: the rain-soaked logs wouldn't catch.

  "Splash a little guzzelean," the crowd muttered, "it needs a little guzzelean."

  "Gas-o-line," shouted an angry Nikita Ivanich from above, "how many times do you have to be told, to be taught: GAS-O-line, or, as it is occasionally referred to, petrol, or benzine, that's B-E-N-zine, you blockheads!"

  Benedikt, rubbing his eyes with his fist, flinched, like he'd been called by name. "It doesn't matter, Nikita Ivanich… What's the difference?"

  "Yes, it does! It does matter! Is it really all that difficult to assimilate orthoepy?"

  Terenty Petrovich rolled out a little barrel of guzzelean.

  "We'll show you… Now we'll have a real bang-up fart! Regards from the Sixth Taxi Fleet!"

  The crowd pushed forward, shouting, stepping on each other's feet, shoving. Benedikt leaned forward and saw the Minister break off a piece of the swollen lid. He's going to pour the water on the kindling, Benedikt guessed. But why? How could water and fire mix? Benedikt had lived a whole life-and he still didn't understand. And there was something else he didn't understand. There was something important…

  "Nikita Ivanich!!"-Benedikt leapt up-"I completely forgot! I could have gone and missed it! I've got a head full of holes! Where do I look for that book?"

  "What book?"

  "That one. Where they tell you everything!"

  "Out of propeller range!" Father-in-law cried out again.

  "The one you told me about. Where is it hidden? What's the point now? Admit it! Where it says how to live!"

  The rainbow water splashed, drenching the brushwood, and running down. The foul smell filled the air. People rushed off in all directions, spreading the guzzelean with their lapty. A crowd of Golubchiks grabbed Benedikt against his will and carried him away from the pushkin into the streets.

  "Ni
kita Ivaaaaanich! Grandfather! Where is the booook! Tell me quiiiiick!"

  "Study your letters! The ABCs! I've told you a hundred times! You can't read it without your letters! Farewell! Take ca-a-aaaa-re!"

  Turning his head, Benedikt saw Nikita Ivanich inhale deeply and open his mouth; he saw Terenty Petrovich jump back from the pillar, but too late. Whooooosh! A rolling ball of fire, like some jeopard tree gone berserk in spring, covered the pushkin, and the crowd, and the carriage with Olenka, and breathed its heat straight in Benedikt's face, spreading out like a red wing, like some bird of vengeance or a harpy, over the amazed, fleeing crowd.

  Boom! Baboom! The sound hit his back. Turning as he ran, Benedikt saw the fireball rise up and charge down the streets, exploding extra barrels of guzzelean, swallowing up whole izbas in one gulp, throwing itself like a red yoke from house to house, licking the palings and fences, heading in one direction as though following a thread-right to the Red Terem.

  Then he fell in a grassy ditch, covered his face with his cap, and didn't look again.

  Toward evening Benedikt lifted the cap off his face and looked around with dull, empty eyes. The plain still smoldered with gray pockets of smoke, but the fire had had its fill and settled down. In some places the charred skeleton of an izba stuck out, in others an entire street was untouched amid grass yellowed and curled by the heat. But there, in the distance, where the red towers had always risen with their carved fripperies and decorative frilleries, nothing could be seen and nothing rose at all.

  My steppe is burned, the grass is felled No fire, no star, no road, I'm not to blame for kissing, Forgive me, my betrothed…

  What was once the pushkin stood above the yellow, burned field like a black boil. Beriawood is a sturdy wood, we know our carpentry. Benedikt made his way to the poet's remains and looked up at what had been his features, now blistered and blurred by the heat. His sideburns and face had baked into a single blob. On the swell of his elbow lay a pile of white ash with flickering coals, but all six fingers had fallen off.