Day of the Oprichnik

by Sorokin, Vladimir

  Posokha comes out onto the porch: his huge lips are swollen, saliva is about to drip from them, his eyes are dazed, and there’s no way he can zip his pants up over his purplish hardworked member. He stands with his legs spread out and does his business. A book falls out from under his caftan. I pick it up. I open it—Afanasev’s Secret Tale. I read the epigraph:

  In those far-off olden times,

  When Sacred Russia had no knives,

  Carving meat was done with pricks.

  This little book has been read till there are holes in it; it’s tattered and grease almost oozes from its pages.

  “What are you reading, you impudent lout?” I slap Posokha on the forehead with the book. “If Batya sees it—he’ll throw you out of the oprichnina!”

  “I’m sorry, Komiaga, the devil made me do it,” Posokha mutters.

  “You’re walking along a knife edge, you dimwit! This obscene stuff is subversive. There were purges in the Printing Department on account of these sorts of books. Is that where you picked it up?”

  “I wasn’t in the oprichnina then. I came across it in the house of one of them generals. The devil nudged me.”

  “Just understand, you idiot, we’re guards. We have to keep our minds cold and our hearts pure.”

  “I understand, I understand…” Posokha scratched the black hair under his hat, in boredom.

  “His Majesty can’t stand cusswords.”

  “I know.”

  “Well, if you know—burn that indecent book!”

  “I’ll burn it, Komiaga, here, I’ll swear on it”—and he crosses himself in a sweeping gesture, hiding the book.

  Nagul and Okhlop come out. As the door closes behind them I hear the moans of the noble’s widow.

  “What a fine bitch!” Okhlop spits, and cocks his cap back.

  “They won’t bang her to death, will they?” I ask, stubbing out my butt on the bench.

  “I don’t think so…” The wide-faced smiling Nagul blows his nose into a white handkerchief lovingly embroidered by someone.

  Ziabel soon appears. After a roll in the hay he’s always excited and garrulous. Like me, Ziabel attended university, has a higher education.

  “How glorious it is to destroy Russia’s enemies, don’t you know,” he mutters, taking out a pack of unfiltered Rodina. “Genghis Khan used to say that the greatest pleasure on earth was to conquer your enemies, plunder their possessions, ride their horses, and love their wives. What a wise man he was!”

  The fingers of Nagul, Okhlop, and Ziabel reach into the pack of Rodina. I take out my flint-fire with cold blue flame and let them light up.

  “It looks like you’re all hooked on this devilish weed. Do you know that tobacco is damned forever by the seven saintly stones?”

  “We know, Komiaga.” Nagul grins, taking a toke on his cigarette.

  “You’re smoking Satan’s incense, oprichniks. The devil taught people to smoke tobacco so they would praise him with incense. Every cigarette is incense to the glory of the foul fiend.”

  “But one defrocked monk told me, ‘He who does tobacco smoke / is sure to be Christ’s bloke,’” Okhlop objects.

  “And the Cossack lieutenant in our regiment always said, ‘Smoked meat keeps longer.’” Posokha sighs as he takes a cigarette.

  “You numbskulls, you blockheads! Our Majesty doesn’t smoke,” I tell them. “Batya quit, too. We have to watch the cleanliness of our lungs, too. And our tongues.”

  They smoke silently, listening.

  The door opens and the rest of the lot stagger out with the noble’s wife. She’s naked, unconscious, wrapped in a sheepskin coat. For us, tumbling a woman is a special kind of work.

  “Is she alive?”

  “They rarely die from it!” Pogoda smiles. “It’s not the rack, after all.”

  I take her senseless hand. There’s a pulse.

  “All right, then. Drop the woman off at her family’s.”

  “You got it.”

  They take her out. It’s time to finish up. The oprichniks keep glancing at the house: it’s wealthy, full of goods. But since the mansion is to be demolished by order of His Majesty, no stealing is allowed. It’s the law. All the goods go to His Majesty’s red rooster.

  I nod to Ziabel; he’s our guy for fire.

  “Take over!”

  He takes his Rebroff out of the holster and puts a bottle-shaped attachment on the barrel. We move away from the house. Ziabel aims at the window and shoots. The windowpane splinters and shatters. We move farther away from the house. We stand in a half-circle, take our daggers out of their scabbards, raise them up, lower them, and aim them at the house.

  “Woe to this house!”

  “Woe to this house!”

  “Woe to this house!”

  There’s an explosion. The flames are thick, belching out the windows. Shards of glass, frames, and grates fall on the snow. The mansion has been taken. His Majesty’s red rooster has come to call.

  “Well done!” Batya’s face appears in the frosty air, in a rainbow frame. “Let the Streltsy go, and get yourselves to prayer in Uspensky!”

  All’s well that ends well. When work is done—we pray in the sun.

  We exit, avoiding the hanging corpse. On the other side of the gates the Streltsy are pushing back reporters. They stand there with their cameras, champing at the bit to take pictures of the fire. Now they’re allowed in. Since the News Decree, after that memorable November, it’s all right. I wave to the lieutenant. The cameras focus on the fire, on the hanging nobleman. In every house, in every news bubble, Russian Orthodox people will know and see the power of His Majesty and the state.

  As His Majesty says:

  “Law and order—resurrected from the Gray Ashes, that’s what Holy Rus stands on and will always stand on.”

  It’s the sacred truth!

  In Uspensky Cathedral, as always, the atmosphere is murky, muggy, and majestic. Candles burn, the icons’ gold casings shine, the censer smokes in the hand of narrow-shouldered Father Juvenale, his delicate voice echoes; the bass voice of the fat, black-bearded deacon booms from the choir steps. We stand in crowded rows—all the oprichniks of Moscow. Batya is here, and Yerokha, his right hand, and Mosol, his left hand. And we’re all native Muscovites, including me. We’re the backbone. We also have the young ones. His Majesty is the only one absent. On Mondays he usually graces us with his presence—he comes to pray with us. But today our sun isn’t here. His Majesty, our head of state, is completely immersed in state affairs. Or he might be in the Church of the Deposition of the Robe of the Virgin Mary, his domestic temple, praying for Sacred Russia. His Majesty’s will is law and mystery. And thank God.

  It’s a normal day today, Monday. The usual service. The Epiphany has passed, sleighs have been ridden along the Moscow River, the cross has been lowered in an ice hole. Under a silver gazebo, twined ’round with spruce boughs, infants have been baptized, we ourselves have taken a dip in the icy water, fired the cannons, bowed to His Majesty and Her Highness, feasted in the Granite Chamber with the Kremlin entourage and the Inner Circle. Now there are no holidays until Candlemas, just plain workdays. There are jobs to do.

  “And God will be resurrected and His enemies shall be in ruins…” reads Father Juvenale.

  We cross ourselves and bow. I pray to my favorite icon, the Savior of the Ardent Eye; I tremble before the fury of our Savior’s eyes. Formidable is our Savior, immovable in His Judgment. I gather strength for battle from His stern gaze, I fortify my spirit, train my nature. I amass hatred for our enemies. I sharpen my mind and reason.

  Yes, all God’s and His Majesty’s enemies shall be scattered.

  “Grant victory over all who oppose us…”

  There are plenty of opponents, that’s true. As soon as Russia rose from the Gray Ashes, as soon as she became aware of herself, as soon as His Majesty, Father Nikolai Platonovich, laid the foundation stone of the Western Wall sixteen years ago, as soon as we began to fence ourselves o
ff from the foreign without and the demon within—opponents began to crawl out of the cracks like noxious centipedes. A truly great idea breeds great resistance. Our state has always had enemies inside and out, but the battle was never so intense as during the period of Holy Russia’s Revival. More than one head rolled on the block at Lobnoe Mesto during those sixteen years, more than one train carried our foes and their families beyond the Urals, more than one red rooster crowed at dawn in a noble’s mansion, more than one general farted on the rack in the Secret Department, more than one denunciation was dropped in the Work and Word! box at Lubianka, more than one moneychanger had his mouth stuffed with the bills of his ill-gotten gains, more than one clerk was dunked in boiling water, more than one foreign envoy was escorted out of Moscow by three shameful yellow Mercedovs, more than one reporter was pushed from the tower at Ostankino with goose feathers up his ass, more than one hackneyed rabble-rouser of a writer was drowned in the Moscow River, more than one nobleman’s widow was dropped off at her parents’ home, naked and unconscious, wrapped in a sheepskin…

  Each time I stand in Uspensky Cathedral with a candle in my hand, I think secret, treasonous thoughts on one subject: What if we didn’t exist? Would His Majesty be able to manage on his own? Would the Streltsy, the Secret Department, and the Kremlin regiment be enough?

  And I whisper to myself, softly, beneath the singing of the choir:

  “No.”

  Our repast in the White Chamber is quite ordinary today.

  We sit at long, bare, oak tables. The servants bring us kvass made from bread crumbs, day-old cabbage soup, rye bread, beef boiled with onion, and buckwheat porridge. We eat, discuss our plans quietly. Our silent bells sway back and forth. Each wing of the oprichnina has its own plans: some are busy in the Secret Department today; some in the Mind Chamber; some in the Ambassadorial; some in the Trade Department. Right now I have three affairs going.

  The first: deal with the clowns and minstrels, and approve the new performance for the holiday concert.

  The second: snuff out the star.

  The third: fly out and visit Praskovia, the clairvoyant of Tobol, on a special errand.

  I sit in my place, the fourth to Batya’s right. It’s a place of honor, a lucrative place. Only Shelet, Samosya, and Yerokha are closer to him on the right side. Batya is strong, imposing, young in countenance, though completely gray. It’s a pleasure to watch him eat: he doesn’t hurry, he takes his time. Batya is our foundation, the main root of the oak that supports the entire oprichnina. He was the first to whom His Majesty entrusted the Work. During difficult, fateful times for Russia, our rulers leaned on him. Batya was the first link in the iron chain of the oprichniks. After him other links were attached, welded, fused into the Great Ring of the oprichnina, its sharp barbs pointed outward. With this ring His Majesty drew a sick, rotting, collapsing country together, he lassoed it like a wounded bear, dripping ichor blood. And the bear grew strong of bone and muscle, its wounds healed, it put on fat, its claws grew out. And we let its blood, blood that was rotten, poisoned by enemies. Now the roar of the Russian bear is heard by the entire world. Not only China and Europe, but lands beyond the ocean heed our roar.

  I see Batya’s mobilov blink red. Indirect conversations are forbidden during the repast. We all turn off our mobilovs. A red signal means His Majesty is calling. Batya puts his solid gold mobilov to his ear, and it jingles against his bell earring.

  “At your service, Your Majesty.”

  Everyone in the refectory grows quiet. Batya’s voice is the only sound:

  “Yes, Your Majesty. I understand. We’ll be there right away, Your Majesty.”

  Batya stands up, looks us over quickly:

  “Vogul, Komiaga, Tiaglo, with me.”

  Ah. By Batya’s voice I can sense something has happened. We stand, cross ourselves, and leave the refectory. By Batya’s choice I understand—an affair of the mind awaits us. Everyone chosen has a university education. Vogul studied the workings of the treasury in St. Petrograd; Tiaglo specialized in book manufacturing in Nizhny Novgorod; and I joined the oprichnina from my third year at the history department of Moscow’s Mikhailo Lomonosov State University. Actually, I didn’t join…You don’t join the oprichnina. You don’t choose it. It chooses you. Or, more precisely, as Batya himself says when he’s had a bit to drink and snort: “The oprichnina pulls you in like a wave.” Oh, how it pulls you in! It pulls you in so fast that your head spins, the blood in your veins boils, you see red stars. But that wave can carry you out as well. It can carry you out in a minute, irrevocably. This is worse than death. Falling out of the oprichnina is like losing both your legs. For the rest of your life you won’t be able to walk, only to crawl…

  We go out in the yard. From the White Chamber to His Majesty’s Red Palace is just a stone’s throw. But Batya turns toward our Mercedovs. So that means we’re not going to chat in the Kremlin. We all get into our cars. Batya’s Mercedov is distinguished—wide, bug-eyed, squat, with glass three fingers thick. It’s high quality work by Chinese masters, custom-made on special order, what they call te tzo dei. On the front hood is the head of a German shepherd, on the back a steel broom. Batya drives toward Savior Gates. We fall in line behind him and drive out through a cordon of Streltsy. We cross Red Square. Today is a market day; peddlers take up most of the square. The hawkers shout, saloop men whistle, bread sellers boom, the Chinese sing. The weather is sunny, nippy; there was a good snow during the night. The main square of our country is cheerful, musical. As a boy I witnessed an entirely different Red Square—grim, stern, frightening, with a big pile of granite housing the corpse of the Red Revolt’s maker. At that time a cemetery of his henchmen stood nearby. A gloomy picture. But His Majesty, our little father, tore down the granite box, buried the corpse of the squint-eyed rebel in the ground, and demolished the cemetery. Then he ordered the Kremlin walls to be painted white. And the main square of the country became genuinely krasny— red as in krasivo, beautiful. And thank God.

  We drive toward the Hotel Moscow, along Mokhovaya Street, past the National Hotel, past the Bolshoi and Maly theaters, past the Metropol Hotel, and onto Lubianskaya Square. That’s what I thought: the conversation will take place in the Secret Department. We drive around the square past the monument to Malyuta Skuratov. Our forefather stands there in bronze, dusted with snow, short, stocky, stooping, with long arms; he gazes intently from under overhanging eyebrows. For centuries he has watched over Moscow with the Ever-Watchful Eye of the State; he watches us, the heirs of the oprichniks’ Great Work. He watches silently.

  We drive up to the left gates; Batya honks. The gates open, and we enter the inner courtyard, park, and get out of our Mercedovs. We enter the Secret Department. Each time I walk under its gray marble arches, with their torches and stern crosses, my heart skips and then starts to beat differently. It’s an out-of-the-ordinary, special beat. The beat of the state’s Secret Work.

  A dashing, fit lieutenant in a light blue uniform greets us and salutes. He accompanies us to the elevators, which carry us to the topmost floor, to the office of Terenty Bogdanovich Buturlin, the head of the Secret Department, a prince, and a close friend of His Majesty. We enter the office—first Batya, then the rest of us. Buturlin greets us. He and Batya shake hands; we bow to our waists. Buturlin’s expression is serious. He shows Batya to a chair, and sits down across from him. We stand behind Batya. The head of the Secret Department has a menacing face. Terenty Bogdanovich is no joker. He loves to monitor important, complex, critical state affairs, to uncover and undermine conspiracies, catch traitors and spies, smash subversive plots. He sits silently, looking at us, fingering his carved bone beads. Then he says one word:

  “Pasquinade.”

  Batya waits. We freeze and don’t even breathe. Buturlin looks at us searchingly, and adds:

  “On His Majesty’s family.”

  Batya turns in the leather armchair, frowns, and cracks his large knuckles. We stand absolutely still. Butu
rlin gives a command, and the blinds on the office windows are lowered. A kind of twilight fills the room. The head of the Secret Department gives another command. Words are pulled up from the Russian Network; they hang in the dim light. The letters are iridescent, burning in the dark:

  by Well-Meaning Anonymous

  WEREWOLF AT A FIRE

  Firemen are looking,

  The police are looking,

  Even priests are looking

  Through our capital city.

  They’re seeking a Count,

  Whom they haven’t yet found,

  Nor ever have seen,

  A Count round about age thirty-three.

  Of medium height,

  Pensive and glum,

  He’s smartly attired,

  In tails and cummerbund.

  Cut in the signet ring

  On his finger,

  A hedgehog of diamond gleams and glims,

  But not a whit more is known about him.

  Nowadays,

  Counts are oft

  Pensive and glum,

  Stylishly garbed,

  In tails and cummerbund.

  They adore the alluring

  Dazzle of diamonds,

  The dolce vita

  Is just waiting to find them.

  Who is he?

  Whencesoever?

  What manner of beast

  The count whom they seek

  In our

  Capital city?

  What hath he done,

  This chic aristocrat?

  Here’s what Moscow’s salons

  Say to that!