Voroniansky is the premier tenor of the Bolshoi Opera, the people’s idol. He not only sits on gold, he probably eats off it…I zip across the Great Stone Bridge again, in the red lane. On my right and left cars sit in endless traffic jams. After the Nestor Public Library I pass Vozdvizhenka Street, the university, and turn onto disgraced Nikitskaya Street. The third cleaning has passed and the street has quieted down. Here, even the hawkers and bread peddlers walk fearfully and their cries are timid. The windows of burned-out apartments that have never been restored blacken menacingly. The Zemstvo swine are scared. And for good reason…
I turn onto Nezhdanov Street and stop near the gray artists’ building. It’s fenced off by a three-meter-high wall with a constant ray of light shining upward. That’s all as it should be…
“Wait for me, Andrei Danilovich,” says the prima ballerina as she gets out of the car. She disappears into the lobby.
I call Batya:
“Batya, we’ve got a request for a half-deal.”
“Who is it?”
“The clerk Koretsky.”
“Who’s buying?”
“Kozlova.”
“The ballerina?”
“That’s right. Do we help the widow beat the rap?”
“We can try. We’ll have to share quite a bit to manage it. When’s the money?”
“She’ll have it by evening. And…my heart can feel it, Batya, she’s going to bring an aquarium out to me shortly.”
“That’s great.” Batya winks at me. “If she does—drive straight to the baths.”
“You bet!”
Kozlova is taking a long time. I light a cigarette. I turn on the clean teleradio. It allows us to see and hear what our domestic dissenters spend so much time and energy to listen to and watch at night. First I go through the underground: the Free Settlements channel broadcasts lists of people arrested the previous night, and talks about the “true story” behind the Kunitsyn affair. Fools! Who’s persuaded by these “true stories”?…Radio Hope is quiet during the day—they’re catching up on sleep, those late-night SOBs. But the Siberian River Pirate, the voice of runaway prisoners, is wide awake:
“At the request of Vován, Poltorá-Iván, released just three days ago, we’ll play an old convict song.”
A juicy harmonica starts, and a husky young voice sings:
“Two convicts lay flat on their bunk beds
And dreamed of a past that they craved.
The first one was nicknamed Bacillus,
The other one’s handle was Plague.”
This River Pirate, jumping around western Siberia like a flea, has been caught between the nails twice: first the local Secret Department squashed it; then we did. They got away from the department guys, and they hopped away from us using Chinese aquari ums. While negotiations over the ransom were going on, our guys managed to put three newscasters on the rack and dislocate their arms, and like a huge bear Sivolai knocked up the female announcer. But the backbone of the radio station remained whole; it bought a new, horse-drawn studio, and those shackle-fetters began broadcasting once again. Fortunately, His Majesty doesn’t pay much attention to them. Why not let them yowl their prison songs?
“All Siberia howled in sync,
Their fame reached to old Kolymá.
Bacillus he fled the taigá,
While Plague returned to the clink.”
I tune in to the West. It’s the real stronghold of anti-Russian subversion. Like slimy reptiles in a cesspool, enemy voices teem: Freedom for Russia!, Voice of America, Free Europe, Freedom, the German Wave, Russia in Exile, Russian Rome, Russian Berlin, Russian Paris, Russian Brighton Beach, Russian Riviera.
I choose Freedom, the most vehement of the vermin, and I immediately run up against sedition, fresh out of the oven: they have an emigrant poet in the studio, a narrow-chested, dour-eyed Judas, an old acquaintance of ours with a shattered right hand (Poyarok made use of his foot during an interrogation). Straightening his old-fashioned glasses with his mutilated hand, the traitor reads in a quivering, nearly hysterical falsetto:
“Where there’s a pair of Grafs—there’s a paragraph!
Where there’s just a court—no justice is courted!
You’ll ‘do your time,’ without ever hearing ‘time to go,’
Since by rights you’re not arighted!”
The Judas! With a touch of my finger I remove the pale face of the liberal from my sight. These people are like unto vile worms that feed and nourish themselves on carrion. Spineless, twisted, insatiable, blind—that’s why they are kindred with the despicable worm. Liberals differ from the lowly worm only in their mesmerizing, witch-brewed speechifying. Like venom and reeking puss they spew it all about, poisoning humans and God’s very world, defiling its holy purity and simplicity, befouling it as far as the very bluest horizon of the heavenly vault with the reptilian drool of their mockery, jeers, derision, contempt, double-dealing, disbelief, distrust, envy, spite, and shamelessness.
Freedom for Russia! whines about “persecuted will,” the Old Believers’ “Posolon” grumbles about corruption in the top hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church; Russian Paris reads a book by Iosif Bak, Hysterical Gesticulation as a Way to Survive in Contemporary Russia; Russian Rome plays some kind of shrill monkeylike jazz; Russian Berlin broadcasts an ideological duel between two irreconcilable bastard-mongrel emigrants; the Voice of America has a program called “Russian Expletives in Exile” with an obscene retelling of the immortal work Crime and Punishment:
“The un-fucking-believable blow of the butt-fucking axe hit the goddamn temple of the triply gang-banged old bag, facilitated piss-perfectly by her cunt-sucking short height. She cried out cumly and suddenly collapsed on the jism-covered shit-paneled floor, although that rotten pussy-hole of a hag had time to raise both of her ass-licking hands to her fuckin’ bare-ass pimped-up head.”
An abomination. What else can be said?
Our liberals are dripping with anger and grinding their teeth after His Majesty’s famous Decree 37, which criminalized obscene language in public and private, and made obligatory public corporal punishment the sentence. Most surprising of all is that our people immediately accepted Decree 37 with understanding. There were some show trials, some drawing and quartering on the main squares of Russian cities, the whistle of the cattle whip on Sennaya Square, and cries on the Manezh. And in a trice the people stopped using the filthy words that foreigners forced on them in bygone days. Only the intelligentsia has trouble coming to terms with it, and keeps on belching forth foul fumes in kitchens, bedrooms, latrines, elevators, storerooms, back streets, and cars, refusing to part with this putrid polyp on the body of the Russian language, which has poisoned more than one generation of our compatriots. And the loathsome West plays up to our underground foul-mouths.
The Russian Riviera dares—in a brazen, impudent tone—to criticize His Majesty’s order to close the Third Western Pipeline for twenty-four hours. How much anger those European gentlemen have accumulated! For decades they have sucked our gas without thinking of the hardship it brought to our hardworking people. What astonishing news they report! Oh dear, it’s cold in Nice again! Gentlemen, you’ll have to get used to eating cold foie gras at least a couple of times a week. Bon appétit! China turned out to be smarter than you…
A knock and ring. That same clerk from the Ambassadorial Department:
“Andrei Danilovich, Korostylev here. The reception for the Albanian ambassador has been postponed until tomorrow at two o’clock.”
“Got it.” I turn off the clerk’s owly mug.
Thank God, because today we’re up to our ears in work. At state receptions for foreign accreditation, the oprichniks now stand next to the ambassadorials. Previously we alone carried the silver vessel holding the water. And a dozen ambassadorials stood in attendance in a half-circle. After August 17 His Majesty decided to bring them closer in. Now we hold the vessel jointly with the ambassadorials: Batya and Zhuravlev hold the cup
; I, or someone from the right wing, holds the towel; the embassy clerk supports the elbow; and the rest stand on the rug or bow. As soon as His Majesty greets the new ambassador with a handshake and takes the credentials, we immediately begin the ritual washing of His Majesty’s hands. Of course, it’s a pity that the ambassadorials have been promoted after the mishaps of August. But—that is His Majesty’s will…
Kozlova finally comes out.
By her eyes I can sense that she has it. I immediately feel a rush of blood, and my heart quickens.
“Andrei Danilovich.” Through the window she hands me a plastic bag from a Chinese takeaway. “The money will be ready before six o’clock. I’ll call.”
I nod. Trying to restrain myself, I toss the bag casually onto the empty seat and close the window. Kozlova leaves. I drive off, turning onto Tverskaya Street. Near the Moscow Municipal Duma I park in the red lot for government cars. I stick my hand in the bag. My fingers touch the cool, smooth sphere. My fingers embrace it gently as I close my eyes: an aquarium! It’s been a long time, oh so very long since my fingers have held the sublime globe. Almost four days. How terrible…
My hands sweaty from excitement, I take the globe out of the bag and place it in my left palm: there they are! Gold ones!
The ball is transparent, manufactured from the finest materials. It’s filled with a clear, nourishing solution. In that solution swim seven tiny (only five millimeters each) gold sterlets. I look at them, bringing the ball close to my face. Teeny, tiny microscopic little fish! Divine, charming creatures. People of great intelligence created you for our pleasure. In ancient times, nimble golden fish like you, magical fish, brought happiness to Ivan Simpletons in the form of carved towers, tsars’ daughters, and self-kindling Russian tile ovens. But the happiness that you bring, divine little ones, cannot be compared to any towers or self-kindling tile ovens, nor to women’s caresses…
I look the globe over. Even without a magnifying glass I can see—Giselle did not deceive us! Seven gold sterlets in my hand. I take out the glass and gaze more intently: superb, obviously made in China, not in wretched America and definitely not in Holland. They frisk about in their native element, shining in the miserly Moscow winter sun. How glorious!
I call Batya. I show him the globe.
“Atta boy, Komiaga.” Batya winks at me and in a sign of approval flicks his bell earring.
“Where to, Batya?”
“The Donskoi.”
“I’m off!” I speed out of the parking lot.
On the way to the Donskoi Baths I try to figure out how to plan my work for the rest of the day and evening, how to get everything done. But my thoughts are muddled, I can’t concentrate—the golden sterlets are right here, splashing in the sphere! Gritting my teeth, I force myself to think about state affairs. It seems I can manage everything—extinguish the star, and fly to see the soothsayer.
Donskoi Street is jam-packed. I turn on the State Snarl. A corps of cars quakes from the invisible sound, yields the road to me, pulling over. Great and powerful is the State Snarl. It clears the road like a bulldozer. I fly, I rush as to a fire. But the gold sterlet is more powerful than a fire! More powerful than an earthquake.
I whiz along to the yellow building of the Donskoi Baths. Outside, rising to the roof, is a figure of a bathhouse attendant with a broad, thick blond beard and two bunches of birch twigs in his muscular hand. The giant attendant thrashes his twigs and winks a mischievous blue eye every half-minute.
Holding the sphere tight in a deep pocket of my jacket, under my caftan, I enter. The doormen bow to their waist. Our room has already been reserved by Batya. I let them take my black caftan, and I continue down a vaulted corridor. My copper-soled boots clatter on the stone floor. Next to the door that leads to our room stands another attendant—strapping, tattooed Koliakha. He’s an old acquaintance, who always watches out for the oprichniks’ peace-of-mind time. A stranger could never get past broad-shouldered Koliakha.
“Greetings, Koliakha!” I say to him.
“To your health, Andrei Danilovich.” He bows.
“Anyone else yet?”
“You are the first.”
That’s good. I’ll choose the best place for myself.
Koliakha lets me into the room. It isn’t very wide and has low ceilings. But it’s cozy, familiar, lived in. In the middle is a round font, to the right is the steam room. It stands empty for want of use. For we now have special steam, ingenious steam. You couldn’t find birch branches for it anywhere in the world…
The lounge chairs are arranged around the font like daisy petals. Seven. The number of fish in the sacred sphere. I fetch it from my brocade jacket pocket, and sit down on the edge of the chair. The sphere of fish lies in my palm. The golden sterlets romp in their element. Even without a magnifying glass, you can tell they’re passing fair. An exceptional mind created this pleasure. Perhaps it wasn’t human. Such a thing could be conceived only by angels falling from the Lord’s throne.
I toss the sphere from palm to palm. Not an inexpensive pleasure. One sphere like this outweighs my monthly remuneration. It’s a pity that these magical spheres are strictly forbidden in our Orthodox country. Not in ours alone, either. In America they give you ten years for silver fish, and about three times that for gold. In China they hang you straight off. And in putrefying Europe, these spheres are too hard to chew. Cyberpunks prefer cheap acid. For the last four years our Secret Department has been catching these fish. However, as always, they swim over to us from neighboring China. They swim and swim, passing through the border nets. And they’ll keep on swimming.
To be honest, I don’t see anything antigovernmental in these fish. Ordinary folk can’t afford them, while the rich and those of high position must have their weaknesses; after all, weakness has many faces. In his time, His Majesty’s father, Nikolai Platonovich, issued the great decree “On the Use of Energizing and Relaxing Remedies.” This decree permitted the general use of coke, angel dust, and weed forevermore. For these substances cause the state no harm, they do but help citizens in their labor and leisure. One may purchase several grams of coke in any apothecary for the standard government price: two and a half rubles. Every apothecary is equipped with counters where a workingman may come in the morning or at his midday break and have a snort, in order to return, energized, to work for the good of the Russian state. They sell syringes with invigorating angel dust, and cigarettes with relaxing weed. True, weed is sold only after five o’clock. Now, if we’re talking about horse, acid, and mushrooms, these substances really do poison the people. They weaken, flurry, and deprive them of will, and in so doing bring great harm to the government. For this very reason they are forbidden throughout the entire territory of Russia. This has all been wisely thought out. But these little fish—they are matchless, far above all your coke-horses taken together. They resemble a heavenly rainbow—they come, bring joy, and leave. After the sterlet rainbow there’s no hangover or withdrawal.
The door opens with the blow of a metal-tipped boot. Only our Batya enters that way.
“Komiaga, you here already?”
“Where else would I be, Batya?”
I toss the sphere to Batya. He catches it, looks at it through the light, squinting.
“Ah…good!”
Shelet, Samosya, Yerokha, Mokry, and Pravda follow Batya in. Batya’s entire right hand. In other places, with the left, Batya suppresses his excitement. That’s as it should be—in such affairs it doesn’t do to mix left with right.
Everyone’s already a tad edgy. What do you expect? The fish are right at hand. Samosya’s dark eyes flit back and forth and his fists are clenched. Yerokha’s cheekbones bulge, he’s clenching his teeth. Under drooping eyebrows, his teary walleye stares intently, as though he wants to bore a hole in me. Last time, he was the one who found the fish. Pravda always keeps his knife at hand—just a habit. His fist blanches as he squeezes it. All the right-side oprichniks are like that—fiery fellows. They’ll fly
off the handle, snuff ’em without flinching.
But Batya reins our guys in.
“Shoo!”
He places the sphere on the stone floor and is the first to take off his clothes. Servants aren’t supposed to be here—we dress and undress ourselves. The oprichniks take off their brocaded jackets, peel off their silk shirts; we walk around naked and each of us takes his place on his lounge chair.
I lie down, covering my privates with my palms, and the shakes begin: golden ecstasy awaits just around the corner. As always, Batya does the launching. Baring himself, he takes the sphere with the fish and walks over…to me, of course. I was the procurer today. Therefore I’m the first of the seven. The first little fish is mine. I stretch my left arm out to Batya, squeezing and pumping my fist, pressing my forearm with the fingers of my right hand. Batya leans over my arm, like the Lord of the Hosts. He places the divine sphere on my swollen vein. I see the fish grow still, rocking in their aquarium. One of them is pulled in the direction of the vein pressed to the sphere. It wiggles its tiny little tail, drills through the supple glass, and pierces my vein. That’s it! Hail to you! Tiny golden fish!
Batya moves over to Yerokha. He’s already shaking, clenching his teeth, squeezing his fist, pumping his vein up stiff. Batya-Saboath the Bare-Assed leans over him…
But my eyes are not directed toward them. I see the vein in my left arm. I see it clearly. The teensy, millimeter-long tail of the golden sterlet peeps out from the pale bend of my elbow, straight out of the middle of my swollen vein.
O, divine instant when the golden fish enters the bloodstream! You are beyond compare, unlike any earthly pleasure, closest to what our forebear Adam experienced in the thickets of paradise, when he tasted of the invisible fruits created for him alone by the gray-bearded Saboath, Lord of the Hosts himself.
The little golden tail wiggles and the fish hides inside me. It swims along with the bloodstream. A trickle of blood shoots out in a fine fountain from a tiny hole. I press on my vein, throw my head back on the soft headrest, and close my eyes. I feel the golden sterlet swimming inside me, feel how it moves up along my vein, like it does in spring, striving to reach the spawning grounds at the headwaters of Mother Volga. Up, up, and farther upward! The golden sterlet has a destination to reach—my brain. My brain waits immobile in exalted anticipation: the sterlet-enchantress will deposit her heavenly caviar in my gray matter. Swim, oh swim, little fish of gold, rush unimpeded, spray your golden caviar into my tired brain, and may those roe-berries hatch into Worlds Grand, Sublime, Stupendous. May my brain rise from its slumber.
Day of the Oprichnik Page 6