That means we’ll talk near the fireplace. She likes to carry on conversations in front of the fire. Or maybe she’s just freezing? Staring at a fire is a great pleasure, though. As our Batya says, there are three things you want to look at continuously: fire, the sea, and other people’s work.
The silent guards lead me into the fireplace chamber. It’s dusky in here, quiet. The only sound is the logs burning, crackling in the wide fireplace. And it’s not only logs, but books as well. Books mixed in with birch wood, as always at the clairvoyant’s. Next to the fireplace there’s a pile of logs and a pile of books. I wonder what the clairvoyant is burning today? The last time it was poetry.
The doors open, I hear a rustle. She’s here.
I turn. The clairvoyant Praskovia moves toward me on her invariable shiny blue crutches, dragging her emaciated legs along the floor, staring at me with her immobile but cheerful eyes. Russ, rush, rustle. That’s her legs sliding across the granite. That’s her sound.
“Hello, dovey.”
“Hello, Praskovia Mamontovna.”
She moves smoothly, as though she were sliding on ice skates. She comes quite close and stops. I look into her face. Unusual, it is. There’s not another one like it in all Russia. It isn’t female and it isn’t male, neither old nor young, neither sad nor happy, neither evil nor kind. Her green eyes are always cheery. But this cheeriness is not for us, simple mortals, to understand. Only God knows what stands behind them.
“You flew in?”
“I flew in, Praskovia Mamontovna.”
“Sit down.”
I sit in an armchair in front of the fireplace. She lowers herself onto her chair of dark wood. She nods to the servant. He picks up a book from the pile and tosses it on the fire.
“The same old business?”
“The very same.”
“The old is like a stone in water. Fish splash around the stone, above the sky birds fly, in the white air playing high, birds long-winded, like people intended. People spin and turn, but never return. Their life is civil, but they gibber-jabber drivel, they topple in waves, surround themselves with graves, retreat far into the earth, from women again are birthed.”
She falls silent and stares at the fire. I stare quietly, too. A kind of shyness overtakes the soul when you’re with her. I’m not as shy with His Majesty as I am before Praskovia.
“You brought hair again?”
“I did.”
“And the shirt?”
“I brought the undershirt as well, Praskovia Mamontovna.”
“The shirt that’s under is always asunder, smarter ever after, avoids disaster, sours, turns baldish, in the wash is scalded; once dried and smooth, from beloved don’t remove, pressed to the skin, good will in the end.”
She stares into the fire. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky’s Idiot is burning. It started with the ends, now the cover is smoking. The clairvoyant again signals the servant. He tosses another book on the fire: Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina; it lies there awhile, then suddenly flares. I watch, bewitched.
“What you looking at? You never burned books?”
“We burn only harmful books, Praskovia Mamontovna. Obscene and subversive books.”
“And you think these are useful?”
“The Russian classics are helpful to the state.”
“Dovey, books should only be practical: about carpentry, stove-building, contracting, electricity, shipbuilding, mechanical engineering, artificial hearing, on weaving and sheaving, on casting and basting, on foundries on boundaries, on plastic and mastic.”
I don’t argue with her. I’m wary. She is always right. If she’s angry she can easily throw you out by the scruff without a second thought. And I have important business to take care of.
“Why so quiet?”
“What…should I say?”
“Well, tell me what’s going on in Moscow?”
I know that the clairvoyant’s home has no news bubbles and no radio. That’s first of all. And second—she doesn’t like us, oprichniks. But then she’s not alone in that. And thank God…
“In Moscow life is good, the people live and prosper, there are no rebellions, a new underground highway is being built between Savelevsky Station and Domodedovo—”
“I’m not talking about that, dovey,” she interrupts me. “How many people did you kill today? I can tell—you smell like fresh blood.”
“We suppressed one noble.”
She looks at me intently and speaks:
“Suppressed one, but took out ten. Blood never covers blood. Blood in blood ends. Weary is the ending, sweat it out—then comes mending. What heals with scabs will turn to rags, crack and burst, in new blood birthed.”
Again she stares into the fire. You can’t figure her out: last time she almost kicked me out when she heard that six clerks from the Trade Department had been whipped on Lobnoe Mesto in Red Square. She hissed that we were dark bloodsuckers. And the time before that, learning about the execution of the Far Eastern general, she said it wasn’t enough…
“Your monarch is a white birch. On that birch there’s a dry branch. And on that branch is a black kite, pecking a live squirrel in the back; the squirrel gnashes its teeth—if you listen with a pure ear, you can make out two words in that screak: ‘key’ and ‘east.’ Understand, dovey?”
I remain silent. She’s allowed to say anything. She hits me on the forehead with her wizened hand.
“Think!”
What’s there to think about? You can think and think and you still won’t understand a damn thing.
“What fits between these words?”
“I don’t know, Praskovia Mamontovna. Maybe…a hollow trunk?”
“You’ve got a sorrowful excuse for a brain, dovey. Not a hollow tree, but Russia.”
That’s what it is…Russia. Since it’s Russia, I lower my eyes to the floor at once. I look at the fire. And see The Idiot and Anna Karenina in flames. I have to say—they burn well. In general, books burn well. Manuscripts go like gunpowder. I’ve seen many book and manuscript bonfires—in our courtyard, and in the Secret Department. For that matter the Writers’ Chamber itself burned quite a bit on Manezh Square, purging itself of its own subversive writers, thereby cutting our workload. One thing I can say for sure—they always make for a special fire. It’s a warm fire. It was even warmer eighteen years ago when people burned their foreign-travel passports on Red Square. Now that was an enormous fire! It made a strong impression on me, since I was an adolescent at the time. In January there was a deep freeze, but at His Majesty’s call people brought their foreign-travel passports to the main square of the country and tossed them into the fire. They kept bringing them and bringing them. From other cities they came to Moscow, the capital, to burn the legacy of the White Troubles. They came to take an oath to His Majesty. That fire burned nearly two months…
I glance at the clairvoyant. Her green eyes are fixed on the fire, everything forgotten. She’s sitting there like an Egyptian mummy. But business won’t wait. I cough.
She stirs:
“When did you last drink milk?”
I try to remember:
“The day before yesterday at breakfast. But I never drink milk separately, Praskovia Mamontovna. I use it with coffee.”
“Don’t drink cow’s milk. Only eat cow’s butter. You know why?”
I don’t know anything, for crying out loud.
“Cow’s milk at the bedstead sings: in the heart I’ll sit fast, poison amass, blend with water, with myself swaddle, pray to the calf, my other half, the calf’s bones come home, do nothing but moan, bones of white, lazybones smite. They’ll thunder, expire, sink your strength in the mire.”
I nod.
“I won’t. I won’t drink any milk.”
She takes my hand with her bony but soft hand:
“But eat butter. Because cow’s butter strength does utter, gathers churning all ’round turning, forms a ball, falls in the hall, fat delivers, enters the liver, spreads unde
r the skin, strength bringing in.”
I nod. I like cow’s butter. Especially on hot rolls, with a bit of beluga caviar…
“Well, let’s hear your business.”
I reach into my inner pocket and take out the blue silk pouch embroidered with Her Highness’s initials. I draw a man’s undershirt of the finest make from the pouch, and, in a piece of folded paper, two locks of hair: one black and the other fair. Praskovia takes the hair first. She places it on her left palm, runs her fingers through it, examines it, moves her lips, and asks:
“His name?”
“Mikhail.”
She whispers something over the hair, mixes the two locks together, squeezes them in her fist. Then she orders:
“The basin!”
Her almost identical servants stir. They bring a clay bowl with cedar oil, place it on the clairvoyant’s knees. She throws the hair in the oil, takes the bowl in her bony hands, and lifts it to her face. Then she begins:
“Stick like glue and dry, for ageless ages, the heart of the goodfellow Mikhail to the heart of the beauty Tatyana. Stick like glue and dry. Stick like glue and dry. Stick like glue and dry. Stick like glue and dry. Stick like glue and dry.”
Praskovia takes the shirt of the young lieutenant of the Kremlin regiment, Mikhail Efimovich Skoblo, and places it in the oil. Then she gives the basin back to her servants. That’s it.
She turns her clairvoyant eyes to me:
“Tell Her Highness that today, close to dawn, the heart of Mikhail will adhere to her heart.”
“Thank you, Praskovia Mamontovna. The money will come, as always.”
“Tell them not to send me any more money. What am I supposed to do—pickle it in a barrel? Tell them to send me fern seeds, Baltic herring, and books. I’ve burned all of mine.”
“What kind of books specifically?” I ask.
“Russian, Russian…”
I nod and stand. And begin to feel nervous. It wouldn’t be bad to ask about my own affairs now. And you can’t hide anything from Praskovia.
“What are you fidgeting about? Decided to say a word or two of your own?”
“Yes, I have, Praskovia Mamontovna.”
“Don’t need to open your mouth, my eagle, you’re as clear as a bell: you have a girl coming up to her time.”
There you go. That’s it.
“Which one?”
“The one who lives in your house.”
Anastasia! Good Lord. I gave her pills. Ah, the sly cunt.
“A long time?”
“More than a month. She’ll have a boy.”
I’m quiet, trying to take myself in hand. Well, so what…it happens. It can be dealt with.
“You wanted to ask about your job?”
“Well, I…”
“So far, everything’s fine. But some are jealous.”
“I know, Praskovia Mamontovna.”
“So if you know, beware. Your car will break down in a week. You’ll come down with something, not too bad. They’ll drill through your leg. The left one. You’ll get some money. Not much. You’ll get hit in the mug. Not too hard.”
“Who’ll do it?”
“Your boss.”
What a relief. Batya is like my own father. Today he’ll give me a thrashing—tomorrow he’ll be kind. And my leg…that’s just the usual stuff.
“That’s all, dovey. Get out of here.”
All but not all. One more question. I haven’t ever asked it, but today something urges me to ask. A serious frame of mind. I screw up my courage.
“So what else do you want?” Praskovia looks at me steadily.
“What will happen to Russia?”
She doesn’t answer, but looks at me carefully.
I wait with trepidation.
“It’ll be all right.”
I bow, touching the stone floor with my right hand.
And I leave.
The flight back isn’t bad, although there are more people in the plane. I drink Yermak beer, chew on salted peas, watch a film about our valiant moneychangers from the Treasury. How they fought with China Union Pay four years ago. It was a stormy time. The Chinese wanted to grab us by the throat again, but things didn’t work out for the slant-eyes. The Treasury held on, and responded with the second mintage. New coins sparkled with Russian gold in those slanted eyes. Diao da lian!5 Friendship is friendship, as they say, but Treasury tobacco is something else altogether.
It’s evening in Moscow.
I drive from Vnukovo Airport into the city, and turn on the enemy radio.
My loyal Mercedov finds the Swedish radio station Paradigm, for our underground intellectuals. It’s a major resource, seven channels. I run through the channels. Today they’re having an anniversary program: “The Russian Cultural Underground.” All stuff that’s twenty or even thirty years old. It’s meant to let our senile bloody fifth column shed some tears.
The first channel is broadcasting a book by someone named Rykunin, Where Did Derrida Dine? It has detailed descriptions of the places the Western philosopher ate during his visit to post-Soviet Moscow. One of the most important chapters is called “Leftovers of the Great.” The second channel is marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of the exhibition “Caution, Religion!” Some old lady who participated in the legendary obscurantist exhibition is being awarded a medal for being a “Victim of the Russian Orthodox Church.” In a trembling little voice the old bag reminisces, babbling on about “the bearded barbarians in cassocks, bursting in and obliterating our beautiful, honorable, authentic works of art.” On the third channel there’s a discussion between Vipperstein and Onufrienko about cloning the genre of the Great Rotten Novel, about the behavioral model of Sugary Buratino, and about medhermeneutical adultery. On the fourth, some Igor Pavlovich Tikhy speaks seriously about the “Negation of a Negation of Negation of a Negation” in A. Shestigorsky’s novel The Ninth Wife. On the fifth, Borukh Gross’s bass voice babbles about America, which has become the subconscious of China, and about China, now the subconscious of Russia, and about Russia, which has still not become even its own subconscious. The sixth channel is given over to the puppies of a man-dog, a well-known “artist” in the years of the White Troubles. The puppies are howling something about “freedom of corporeal discourse.” And finally, the seventh channel of this stinking radio station is permanently relegated to the poetry of Russian minimalism and con-sep-chew-a-lism…In a gloom-and-doom voice, Vsevolod Nekros reads his verse, which consists mostly of coughs, quacks, and interjections:
“boo, buck, bod,
there you have God.
bek, bud, bok,
there you have Bach.
piff, paff, pof,
now you’ve got a Crotch.
And that’s quite enough.”
Hmmm. What can you say? Our underground intellectuals feed on this dung, this vomit, this deafening emptiness. Hideous polyps they are, growing on the body of our healthy Russian art. “Minimalism,” “paradigm,” “discourse,” “CON-SEP-CHEW-ALISM”…From early childhood I’ve heard these words. But I still don’t understand what they mean. But take the painting Boyarina Morozova, now—just as I got to know it when I was five years old, I know it to this very day. All this “contemporary” art isn’t worth one brushstroke of our great artist Surikov. When my soul feels low, when the enemy overwhelms us, when crafty circles begin to close in—you can run into the Tretiakov Gallery for a minute, visit the great canvas, and see: the sleigh with the unruly boyarina drives over the Russian snow, the boy runs, the village idiot, ready to cross himself, raises his two fingers, the coachman grins…Russia explodes from the wall. So intensely you’ll forget about the meaningless bustle of the world. Your lungs inhale Russian air. That’s all you need. And thank God…
The whips crack: it’s Prima Kozlova calling.
“Andrei Danilovich, I have the money.”
That’s good. We set a place, and meet near the People’s Library. I pick up a leather bag stuffed with coins of the first
mintage. The first will do just as well.
I drive along Mokhovaya Street.
Across from the old university I notice a flogging is about to take place. Interesting. I slow down and pull over. This is where they flog the intelligentsia. Manezh Square, a bit farther on, is usually for the Zemstvos; Lobnoe Mesto is for clerks. The Streltsy flog themselves in the garrisons. All sorts of other scum are steamed at Smolensk Square, Miusskaya Square, on the Mozhaisk highway, and at the market in Yasenevo.
As I drive up, I lower the window and light up a cigarette. People part so that I can see better: they respect the oprichniks. Shka Ivanov—a well-known executioner of the Moscow intelligentsia—stands on the wooden platform. On Mondays he always does the flogging here. The people know him and respect him. Shka Ivanov is big, stocky, has white skin, a broad chest, curly hair, and wears round eyeglasses. He reads the sentence in a booming voice. I listen with half an ear, and look around at the crowd. As far as I can figure out, some junior clerk, Danilkov, from the Literary Chamber is to be flogged for “criminal negligence.” He copied something important the wrong way, screwed it up, and then hid it. An educated crowd mills around, a lot of students, upper-school girls. Shka Ivanov rolls up the sentence, sticks it in his pocket, and whistles. His assistant appears—Mishanya the Quotationer. He’s a tall, narrow-shouldered, shaven-headed beanpole with an eternally mocking expression on his face. He got his nickname because he says everything as if it’s in quotation marks. After every word, he raises his hands to his temples and makes his “quotation marks,” at which point he strongly resembles a gray hare. Mishanya brings the convicted Danilkov out on a chain: he’s an ordinary junior clerk with a long nose. He crosses himself, muttering something.
Mishanya speaks to him in a loud voice:
“Now, townsman, we’re going to thrash you!”
And right away, he makes those quotation marks with his fingers.
“We’ll give you a real beaut of a thrashing!”
And again, the quotation marks. People laugh and applaud. Students whistle. The torturers grab the junior clerk and tie him down. Shka Ivanov grins:
“Lie down, lie down, you fucking fruit!”
Day of the Oprichnik Page 10