I count aloud with dry, chapped lips:
One.
Two.
Three…
Ah, how my eyes they opened wide,
That’s right, my eyes, yellow eyelet eyes,
Yellow eyelet eyes on my head, my crown,
On my crown, on my head so mighty.
And my crown—o this lovely head of mine,
Sits atop a neck that’s long, it is, and strong,
Strong and long it is, and serpentine,
Clad in serpents’ scales it is,
And sitting by this fabled head of mine,
Are six heads fine, and they do writhe, they do,
They twist and coil, and wink and blink
Their golden eyelet yellow eyes, they do.
They wink and bicker,
They spit and sputter,
Their jaws are red, so scarlet, so marvelous,
Gums of pink and teeth so sharp,
An acrid smoke pours from these jaws, it does,
This smoke rolls out and fire flares,
To bellowing and a mighty roar.
And for every head there is a name that’s his,
A name that’s sworn in brotherhood.
The first head is nicknamed Batya,
The next is called Komiaga,
The third is nicknamed Shelet,
The fourth goes by Samosya,
The fifth is called Yerokha,
The sixth is called Mokry,
The seventh is simply Pravda.
But all of us, seven-headed us,
I call Gorynych the Terrible—
The fire-breathing Dragon Ruinator.
And all seven heads sit on a torso,
A wide and broad, a stocky one.
On a stocky trunk, on a weighty one,
With a heavy tail, a sinuous one.
And that torso so exemplary
Is carried by legs, two thickset ones,
Both stout and thickset mighty ones,
With claws that stab the brittle earth, they do.
On the sides of the thickset trunk you see
Two webbed wings stretch and grow,
Webbed are they and sinewy,
Strong, and flapping forcefully.
They sweep the air most gloriously,
Tense and taut, they rise, they do.
Wrench away from our mother earth,
We rise right there, above our native land,
Above the earth, the whole Russian land,
And fly through the sky, the blue sky we do
Fly easily, wherever we want to go.
And the seventh head asks:
“Where are we flying, where does our path lead?”
And the sixth head asks:
“What lands are in our plans today?”
And the fifth head asks:
“Must we fly far, through the sky today?”
And the fourth head asks:
“Where should we turn our valiant wings today?”
And the third head asks:
“Which winds will wag our tails today?”
And the second head asks:
“What lands do we set our sights upon?”
Then the first head, the head of heads,
The greatest of all, replies to them:
“We’ll fly right across the sky, we will,
Straight across the sky so blue,
Straight west to a land far away we will,
To a land far away, and wealthy, too,
A land beyond the crash of the ocean blue,
A far-flung land, yes, one that’s flourishing,
Rich with gold and silver treasure nourishing.
In that far-off country towers stand,
Towers high and higher stand,
Tall, pointy and sharp they are,
Mercilessly buttressing the sky so blue,
And in the towers brazen people live,
Brazen and dishonest they live, they do,
They live with no fear of God they do,
These godless people,
They wallow in filthy sin, they do.
They wallow and enjoy themselves,
Mocking all that’s sacred, all that’s holy, too,
Mocking, jeering, and sneering is all they do,
They hide in Satan’s work,
And spit on Sacred Rus, they do,
On the onion domes of Russia’s Orthodox,
They all defame the golden name of God,
They flout the truth, oh yes, they do.
Now we fly most easily,
Through endless skies of baby blue,
Through nearby merchant countries,
Through groves and piney backwoods, too,
Through fields and meadows greening,
Through lakes and rivers clear as day,
Through villages and European towns,
Then we fly ferociously,
Far away from home, across the ocean-sea
Far away to where the godless roam.
We spread our webbed wings,
We wag our tail to the seven winds,
Our wings catch hold of the swift eighth wind,
The speedy eighth, the wind that travels the way we want to go,
We fly into its wake, stream into its wake, we do,
We saddle it, yes, straddle it, like a dashing stallion,
We ride the wild and galloping, we ride the rolling winds,
We take off on the winds, on a journey wild and dangerous.
We fly the first ten days,
We fly the first ten nights.
Ten days and nights over glassy water smooth,
Over the steep and rolling waves.
Our webbed wings weaken,
Our Gorynych heads grow weary,
Our mighty tail droops,
Our feet flail, our claws unclench.
Then, lo and behold on the ocean-sea,
We spy a metal house, on poles, on iron ones,
Built to pump and suck our mother earth,
To drink her deepest blood, amassed throughout the centuries,
We land atop that iron house,
We tear apart the iron roof,
We eat the twelve impious there,
And spit their bones into the sea.
We rest three days, and then three nights,
On the fourth we set the house afire,
And head off to the west again.
We fly ten days again,
And ten nights more,
Ten days, ten nights, the glassy waters o’er,
’Til our webbed wings weaken,
Our Gorynych heads droop,
Our mighty tail lolls, half dead
Our feet, our claws unclench.
Lo and behold in the ocean-sea we see
A mammoth six-decked ship.
A massive vessel floating east, it does,
From a wily country, from the godless land.
Bearing vile and filthy goods,
Carrying godless people,
Subversive letters and seditious documents,
Bearing delights demonical,
Bringing pleasures satanical,
Conveying decaying whore-swans
Like a whirlwind we attack that ship, we do,
Scorching and burning it from seven heads,
From seven heads and seven mouths,
We burn, we obliterate the godless filth within,
We gorge on decaying whore-swans, oh yes.
We rest three days, and rest three nights,
And on the fourth day we move on.
We fly another ten days,
And a third ten nights.
When lo we glimpse the godless land.
We fly, we fly, and fly anon.
We torch, we scorch it from seven heads,
From seven heads, from seven mouths,
We smite and bite the godless ones.
When we’ve had our fill of them, we spit out their bones, and again we char the vermin, the vile p
arasites, those disgusting whoresons, brazen and godless, who’ve forgotten everything sacred, everything thrice-sacred, they must be like the spawn of Asmodeus like cockroaches like stinking rats scorched mercilessly to ashes we scorch whoresons the accursed burned to a crisp, we do, with pure and honest fire, burn and burn and when I slam against the hard glass window the first time it holds I slam it the second time it cracks slam it the third time it breaks I stick my head into the dark apartment the vermin hid from heavenly judgment but my yellow eyes see in the dark they see well my yellow eyes and I stare and find the first foul creature a forty-two-year-old man wedged in a wardrobe I set the wardrobe on fire I watch the wardrobe burn he sits inside and doesn’t budge he’s scared and the wardrobe burns the wood crackles and he sits there and I wait he can’t stand it and flings the door open with a cry and I send a thin stream of flame, my faithful skewer of flame into his mouth and he swallows my fire and falls I keep searching I find two children two little girls six and seven hiding under the bed under the wide bed I drench the bed in a wide stream the bed burns the pillows flame the blanket they can’t stand it they scramble out from under the bed run to the door I send a fan of fire after them they run as far as the door burning both of them I keep on searching I’m searching for the sweetest thing of all and I find her a woman thirty years old blond who hides frightened in the bath between the washing machine and the wall dressed only in her nightgown her knees are bare she’s squatting petrified she looks at me with fear, her eyes wide and round, and slowly my nostrils inhale her sleepy smell I move closer to her closer closer closer I look and tenderly I touch her knees with my nose and slowly spread spread spread her and send my thinnest stream my faithful flaming skewer into her narrow womb I send it and its might fills her trembling womb, my flaming skewer fills it she howls inhuman cries and slowly my fiery flaming skewer begins to fuck her to fuck her to fuck fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.
Awakening…
It’s like rising from the dead. Returning to your old body, which died long ago and is buried in the ground. Oh, how loath you are to do so!
I lift my leaden eyelids and see my naked self stretched out on the lounge chair. I stir, cough, sit up. I’m hot. I grab a bottle of icy Esenin birch juice. Koliakha said he’d provide the birch juice, and he didn’t forget. It gurgles in my parched throat. The others are also stirring, coughing. How good. It’s always good on fish. Never been any nasty crash or black slough on fish. This isn’t any of your miserable smack.
We all cough as we wake up. Batya gulps his juice down. His pale face is sweating. Drinking your fill is the first order of business after fish. The second is belching. And the third is telling who did what.
We drink and belch.
We share what we’ve been through. This is the eighth time we’ve been the many-headed dragon Gorynych. Fish are a collective affair; only an idiot uses them alone.
As usual, Batya’s not very pleased.
“Why’re you always in such a hurry? You’re always wanting to burn or eat…You’re all fretting and fidgeting—first this way, then that. Calm down, fellows, one thing at a time.”
“It’s all because Shelet’s itching to start,” Yerokha says, coughing. “You’re always rushing to be on time, brother.”
“Oh, come on now,” says Shelet, stretching. “It was good, wasn’t it? I liked the part with the ship…the way they crawled through the portholes and jumped into the water!”
Mokry nods. “Great! But I liked that part in the city best: how we made a fan with seven streams, and the way they squealed in the skyscraper…cool! And Komiaga over there, isn’t he a genius? The way he did her! Smoke was comin’ out of that American broad’s asshole!”
“Komiaga’s inventive! He studied at the university, fuckin’ A!” Pravda grins.
Batya gives it to him on the lips—for cursing.
“Sorry, Batya, the devil led me astray.” Pravda makes a face.
“All in all—it was good,” Batya sums up. “They were the right kind of fish!”
“The right kind!” We all agree.
We dress.
If the gold sterlets are good you don’t feel weak afterward, just the opposite: you’re stronger. Like you’ve been at a resort in our sunny Crimea. Like it’s the end of September outside, and you just spent three weeks in Koktebel lying on the golden sand and submitting various limbs to sinuous Tatar massage. And now you’ve returned to Whitestone Moscow, landed at Vnukovo, disembarked from the silvery airplane, taken a deep breath of the Moscow country air, held it in—and right away you feel so good, your soul feels so perfect, so balanced, so important…you realize that life is good, you are strong, you’re part of a great endeavor, and your confederates are waiting for you, a daring bold fellow who’s up to his ears in urgent work. The enemy hasn’t lessened in number, His Majesty is alive and well, and, most important of all: Russia is alive and well, rich, huge, united. Over the course of those three weeks our Mother Russia hasn’t budged; quite the contrary, her eternal roots have delved even deeper into the earth’s meat.
Batya is right: after fish you feel like living and working, but after horse you only want to run and find another dose.
I glance at the clock—I spent only forty-three minutes Gorynyching, but inside it feels like an entire life. And this life gives me new strength to fight our adversaries and root out subversion. I have quite a few questions about the fish: if they are so helpful to us, the oprichniks, why not make them legal, at least for us exclusively? Batya has conveyed our thoughts on this score to His Majesty more than once, but the response is adamant: the law is the same for all.
We come out of the bathhouse energized and seemingly more youthful. Each of us gives a half-ruble to tattooed Koliakha. He bows, pleased.
It’s frosty outside, but the sun has already hidden itself, rolled behind the clouds. Time to return to business. Right now, I’ve got a star-fall on my hands. It’s necessary business, state business.
I get in my Mercedov, drive onto Shabolovka Street, and call in: Is everything ready? It seems everything is.
I reach for my cigarettes—after fish I always feel like smoking. But I’m out. I brake near a People’s Kiosk. The merchant is all red in the face, like Petrushka in the street shows. He leans out:
“What does your honor desire, Sir Oprichnik?”
“I desire cigarettes.”
“We have filtered and unfiltered Rodina.”
“Filtered. Three packs.”
“At your service. Smoke to your health.”
It seems the fellow has a sense of humor. Taking out my wallet, I look at the kiosk window. It’s the standard selection: Rodina cigarettes and “Russia” cardboard-filtered papirosy, “rye” and wheat vodka, white and black bread, two types of chocolates—Mishka the Bear and Mishka in the North—apple and plum jam, butter and vegetable oil, meat with and without bones, whole and baked milk, chicken eggs and quail eggs, boiled and smoked sausage, cherry and pear drink, and finally—“Russian” cheese.
His Majesty’s father, the late Nikolai Platonovich, had a good idea: liquidate all the foreign supermarkets and replace them with Russian kiosks. And put two types of each thing in every kiosk, so the people have a choice. A wise decision, profound. Because our God-bearing people should choose from two things, not from three or thirty-three. Choosing one of two creates spiritual calm, people are imbued with certainty in the future, superfluous fuss and bother is avoided, and consequently—everyone is satisfied. And when a people such as ours is satisfied, great deeds may be accomplished.
Everything about the kiosks is fine; there’s only one thing I can’t wrap my head around. Why is it that all the goods are in pairs, like the beasts on Noah’s Ark, but there’s only one kind of cheese, Russian? My logic is helpless here. Well, this sort of thing isn’t for us to decide, but for His Majesty. From the Kremlin His Majesty sees the people better, they’re more visible. All of us down below crawl about like lice, hustling and bustling; we
don’t recognize the true path. But His Majesty sees everything, hears everything. He knows who needs what.
I light up.
A vendor approaches me. He’s got a neat beard, wears a neat caftan, and has good manners. The tray he carries, strapped over his shoulders, is for books—that’s obvious.
“Would his honor Mr. Oprichnik, sir, care to acquire the most recent novelties of Russian literature?”
He unfolds his three-part tray in front of me. Bookstands are also standardized, approved by His Majesty and approved by the Literary Chamber. Our people respect books. On the left side there’s Orthodox Church literature; on the right the Russian classics; and in the middle, the latest works by contemporary writers. First I look over the prose of our country’s contemporary writers: Ivan Korobov’s White Birch; Nikolai Voropaevsky’s Our Fathers; Isaak Epshtein’s The Taming of the Tundra; Rashid Zametdinov’s Russia—My Motherland; Pavel Olegov’s The Nizhny Novgorod Tithe; Savvaty Sharkunov’s Daily Life of the Western Wall; Irodiada Deniuzhkina’s My Heart’s Friend; Oksana Podrobskaya’s The Mores of New Chinese Children. I know all these authors well. They’re famous, distinguished. Caressed by the love of the people and His Majesty.
“Let’s see…what’s this here?” In the corner of the tray I notice a textbook by Mikhail Shveller on developing carpenters for parish schools.
And under it—a textbook on carpentry by the same author.
“There are two schools not far from here, Sir Oprichnik. The parents buy them.”
“I see. Any young prose?”
“We’re expecting new works by young authors in the spring, as always, for the Easter Book Fair.”
Got it.
My eyes move to Russian poetry: Pafnuty Sibirsky, “The Motherland’s Expanses” Ivan Manot-Bely, “The Color of Apple Trees” Antonina Ivanova, “Russia’s Loyal Sons” Pyotr Ivanov’s “Water Meadow” Isai Bershtein’s “I Have You to Thank for Everything!” Ivan Petrosky’s “Live, Life!” Salman Basaev’s “Song of the Chechen Mountains” Vladislav Syrkov’s “His Majesty’s Childhood.”
Day of the Oprichnik Page 7