Day of the Oprichnik

by Sorokin, Vladimir

Executioners and army elders in Russia are allowed to curse. His Majesty exempted them in recognition of their difficult professions.

  Danilkov is tied down; Mishanya sits on his legs and pulls down his pants. Judging by the scars, the junior clerk’s ass has been flogged more than once. So this isn’t the first time Danilkov has been steamed. The students whistle and hoot.

  “So you see, friend,” Mishanya says, “literature ain’t some sort of motorcycle!”

  Shka Ivanov swings the knout and begins to flog him. He does it so well that you get carried away watching. He knows his job, this butcher does, he loves it. The people respect him for work well done. The whip strolls across the junior clerk’s ass: first from the left, then from the right. A neat grate forms on the ass. Danilkov screams and wails; his long nose turns purple.

  But it’s time to go. I flick my cigarette butt to a beggar, and turn onto Tverskaya. I’m heading for the concert hall on Strastnoi Boulevard. The star’s performance is already coming to an end. On my way, I get in touch with the Good Fellows and get the details. They seem to have everything ready. I park the car, and enter by the service door. One of the Good Fellow underlings meets me and escorts me to the auditorium. I sit in the fourth row, on the aisle.

  The star is on stage. A people’s storyteller, bard, and epic tale spinner, Savely Ivanovich Artamonov—or, as the people call him, Artamosha. Gray-haired, white-bearded, stately, with a handsome face, though he isn’t young. He sits on his usual fake bench in a black silk peasant shirt with his usual saw in hand. Artamosha runs his bow across the saw—and the saw sings in a delicate voice, bewitching the hall. Under the enchantment of the whine Artamosha continues reciting-singing another of his bylinas in a deep, chesty, unhurried voice:

  “Look, our Fox, our Sly one, our lovely Patrikeevna, ay ay is me,

  Has come to the Kremlin, to the Kremlin’s low kennel, oh woe is me ay ay…

  The kennel built of mighty logs, ay ay.

  All the kennel windows are teeny-tiny, ay ay.

  All the grates are closed, ay ay.

  The kennel doors are thick and oak,

  Locked with ten-ton locks and bolts, lovey-dovey mine…”

  Artamosha throws back his white head, squeezes his eyes shut, and rolls his stately shoulders. His saw sings. The people in the auditorium are all worked up— toss a match and they’ll explode. Artamosha’s old fans are in the first rows, swaying in time to the saw, wailing along. In the middle of the auditorium, some half-witted woman is moaning a lament. In the back rows they’re sniffling and someone mutters angrily. A difficult audience. How the Good Fellows are going to work here is beyond me.

  “Now how shall you open the bolts and locks, Mama dearest?

  How shall you unblock the locks and slide the oak, Grandmama dear?

  How shall you climb and clamber through the window, my baby bunting?

  How shall you dig, my dear little lamb?”

  I glance at the audience out of the corner of my eye and look around: the Good Fellows have sat themselves in the center. Obviously the Artamonov followers wouldn’t let them in the first rows. Judging by the quantity of Good Fellow mugs, it seems they decided to take over with numbers, like they usually do. God grant. We’ll keep an eye out, we’ll see…

  “She coughs, our Fox, our sly Patrikeevna, she coughs up and up, ay ay,

  A key of gold she vomits up,

  To open the ten-ton cast-iron lock,

  To open the door of oak, ay ay,

  She creeps through the kennel, through the Kremlin,

  To the hounds in the dark, in the deep,”

  The audience begins to sing along: “To the hounds! To the hounds! To the hounds!” The first rows begin to toss and sway; in the back behind they’re shouting, crying, lamenting. Near me a richly dressed fat lady crosses herself, sings and sways. Artamosha plays his saw, his head thrown back so far you can see his Adam’s apple.

  “To the hounds dreaming nose to tail, the hounds so sound asleep,

  To the hounds well-fed and sleek.

  To the hounds so lean, the hounds so young and keen.

  She comes to trifle and to fiddle with them, bringing her wanton, whorish fiddling!

  Plucking at them to do it, ay ay.

  She fiddles and plucks, ay ay, to sate her filthy…”

  Just a tiny bit more, and the hall will erupt. I feel like I’m sitting on a powder keg. But the Good Fellows keep quiet, the muttonheads…

  “Then the hounds awake, ay ay ay,

  Then the hounds wag the sleep from their eyes, ay ay…”

  Artamosha opens his eyes, pauses, and scans the audience intently. His saw howls.

  “How they throw themselves upon our Fox, upon our Sly Patrikeevna!

  How they fuck her in the kennel!

  Full of canine excrement!

  In the corner, in the stinking corner!

  And she’s delighted!

  More, come on, more of you!

  Hotter, quicker, more!

  It won’t be too much for me!

  I’ll satisfy you all!

  I’m ready for anything!

  I have no shame!

  All my hounds!

  All my hounds!

  All my lovely hounds!”

  Artamosha’s shout is hoarse, his saw squeals. The hall explodes. In the first rows there are cries: “Let her have it! The bitch! That’s right, the shameless harpy!” Some cross themselves and spit, others wail, some sing along, “All my hounds!” And then, finally, the captain of the Good Fellows, a guy nicknamed Khobot, stands up and throws a rotten tomato at Artamosha. The vegetable hits the bard in the chest. As if by command, all the other Good Fellows stand in the middle of the hall and launch a hail of tomatoes at Artamosha. In a moment the bard is covered in red.

  The audience gasps.

  And Khobot roars so loud that his kind face turns crimson: “Ooobsceeene!!! Slander against Her Highness!!!”

  The Good Fellows, following up Khobot:

  “Slander! Subversion! Work and Word!”

  The audience freezes. I freeze, too. Artamosha sits on his bench drenched in tomatoes. Suddenly he raises his hand. He stands. His look quiets the Good Fellows like a command. Only Khobot tries to shout “Slander!” but his voice is alone. I already know—they’ve lost. It’s a disaster.

  “There they are, the Kremlin hounds!” Artamosha says in a loud voice, pointing toward the center of the audience with a red finger.

  A sort of atomic explosion takes place in the hall: everyone attacks the Good Fellows. They clobber them, beat the living daylights out of them. The Good Fellows defend themselves, they fight back, but in vain. The stupid idiots sat in the center to boot, so they’ve ended up surrounded. They’re flattened on all sides. Artamosha stands on the stage covered in tomatoes, like some kind of dripping red St. George the Dragonslayer. The fat lady near me shrieks and pushes toward the thick of things:

  “Hounds! Hounds!”

  Clear enough. I rise. And leave.

  In our difficult and important work things don’t always turn out right. My fault this time—I didn’t instruct them, didn’t keep an eye on them. Didn’t anticipate or warn them. Well, there was no time—I was fighting for the Road. That’s how I justify it to Batya. When it’s over I want to drop by to see Khobot, and bop him on the head, but I feel sorry for him—he’s had enough for one day. From the people.

  Hmmm…Artamosha sure gets them worked up. But he’s playing with fire. He’s gone overboard. Gone so far that it’s time to snuff him out. The scoundrel began as a genuine bard. At first he sang traditional Russian epics. About the deeds of Ilya Muromets, Buslai, Solovei Budimirovich. He became famous all across New Rus. Made a good living. Set himself up with two houses. Acquired high-placed patrons. He could have gone on living and living, wallowing in his popularity, but no—something got into him. He began to sing exposés of morals and manners. Not just of anyone, but of Her Highness. As they say, you couldn’t fall higher. An
d Her Highness…well, that’s a whole story in itself. A bitter one.

  To take the broad view, the state’s point of view, His Majesty had a stroke of bad luck. In fact, he didn’t have any luck. Big time. The one blotch in our New Russia is His Majesty’s spouse. And you can’t wash this spot away, or cover it up, or remove it. You can only wait, be patient, and hope…

  Whistle-blow-moan.

  The red signal on my mobilov.

  Her Highness!

  Speak of the devil, God forgive me…She always calls as soon as I start thinking about her. It’s downright mystical! I cross myself, turn to answer the phone, and, bowing my head:

  “Yes, Your Highness.”

  I see her plump, willful face, with a little mustache above crimson, carnivorous lips:

  “Komiaga! Where are you?”

  Her voice is chesty, deep. You can see that our mama has just woken up. Her eyes are pretty, black, with velvet eyelashes. These eyes always shine with a powerful fire.

  “I’m driving around Moscow, Your Highness.”

  “You saw Praskovia?”

  “Yes, Your Highness. I did everything you asked.”

  “Why aren’t you reporting to me?”

  “Forgive me, Your Highness, I just flew in.”

  “Well buzz yourself over here on the double. Fast as a fly.”

  “I hear and obey, Your Highness.”

  Back to the Kremlin again. I turn onto Miasnitskaya Street, and it’s jam-packed—it’s evening, rush hour, of course. I turn on my State Snarl and cars part in front of my Mercedov with the dog’s head; I steadily make my way to Lubianskaya Square, and there I stop dead: a traffic-fucking-jam, God forgive me. I’ll have to wait.

  A powdery snow falls, dusting the cars. And as before on Lubianskaya our Maliuta stands tall, bronze, stooped, preoccupied; powdered with snow, he stares out intently from beneath his overhanging eyebrows. In his time there weren’t any traffic jams. There were only fruit jams…

  On the Children’s World department store building there’s an enormous frame with a live advertisement: for Sviatogor flannel leggings. A curly-headed youth sits on a bench; a beauty of a girl in a traditional Russian headdress kneels down in front of him with new leggings in her hands. The young man extends his bare leg to the strum of a balalaika and the sobs of a harmonica. The young lady wraps it in the leggings, and pulls on his boot. A voice declares:

  “Sviatogor Trading Company leggings. Your foot will feel like it’s in a cradle.” Right away you hear a lullaby, and see a wicker cradle rocking gently with legging-wrapped legs in it: rock-a bye baby…And the girl’s voice says: “They’ll cradle your legs!”

  Suddenly I’m feeling kind of sad…I turn on Radio Rus video channel and order a “minute of Russian poetry.” A slightly nervous young man declaims:

  “The fields flow with fog,

  Bark and birch are injured,

  The ground’s a bare black bog,

  Spring’s not icumen in.

  The birch bark’s been bled

  With a jagged axe blade,

  Down, down the sap runs,

  Calling to matins.”

  One of the new poets. Not bad, it creates a certain mood…One thing I don’t get, though: how does birch sap call to matins? Church bells should call to matins. Up ahead I notice a traffic cop in a fluorescent coat. I call him on the government line:

  “Officer! Clear the road for me!”

  Together—he with a baton, I with the State Snarl—we clear the way. I turn onto Ilyinka, make my way down Rybny and Varvarka streets to Red Square, drive in through the Spassky Gates, and race to Her Highness’s residence. I drop the car with the doorkeepers in raspberry-colored caftans, and run up the granite steps. The guards, who wear gilded livery, open the first door for me. I fly into the pink marble lobby, stop before the second door—a transparent one that shines weakly. This door is one ray from the ceiling to the floor. Two lieutenants of the Kremlin regiment stand on either side, and look straight through me. I catch my breath, clear my thoughts, and walk through the shining door. It’s impossible to hide anything from this broad ray—neither weapons, nor poison, nor any evil design.

  I set foot in Her Highness’s residence.

  A stately assistant meets me with a bow:

  “Her Highness awaits you.”

  She leads me through the residence, through countless rooms and halls. The doors open by themselves, noiselessly. They close just as quietly. Finally—the lilac bedroom of our lady, Her Highness. I enter. Before me on a wide lounge bed is His Majesty’s spouse.

  I bend over in a long bow to the ground.

  “Hello, murderer.”

  That’s what she calls all of us oprichniks. But not with reproach, with humor.

  “The best of health to you, Your Highness Tatyana Alekseevna.”

  I raise my eyes. Her Highness reclines in a nightgown of violet silk that goes with the tender lilac color of the bedroom. Her black hair is in slight disarray, it falls over her large shoulders. Her down comforter is thrown aside. On the bed is a Japanese fan, Chinese nephrite balls for rolling in your fingers, a gold mobilov, a sleeping greyhound named Katerina, and Darya Adashkovaya’s book Pernicious Pugs. In her plump white hands Her Highness holds a gold snuffbox, strewn with diamond pustules. She takes a pinch of tobacco from the snuffbox, and stuffs it up her nostril. She freezes. Her moist black eyes look at me. Then she sneezes. So hard that the lilac pendants on the chandelier quiver.

  “Oh, my God, I am going to die.” Her Highness throws her head back on four pillows.

  The assistant wipes her nose with a cambric handkerchief, and brings her a shot of cognac. Without this Her Highness’s morning doesn’t begin. And her morning is our evening.

  “Tanya, the bath!”

  The assistant comes out. Her Highness has a bite of lemon with her cognac, and stretches her hand out to me. I grab her weighty arm. Leaning on me, she rises from the lounge bed. She claps her heavy hands, and heads for the lilac door. It opens. Her Highness floats into the room. In body she’s portly, tall, stately. God certainly provided her ample volumes of white flesh.

  Standing in the bed chamber, my gaze follows Her Wide Highness.

  “Why’d you stop? Come in here.”

  I submissively follow her into the spacious white marble bathroom. Here two other helpers are bustling about, preparing the bath, opening champagne. Her Highness takes a thin glass, then sits down on the toilet. That’s what she always does—first a bit of cognac, then some champagne. Her Highness does her business, sipping from the champagne glass. Then she stands up:

  “Well, why aren’t you talking? Tell me about it.”

  She raises her white arms. In a twinkling the helpers take off her nightgown. I lower my eyes, but manage once more to notice how buxom and white-skinned is Her Highness. Oy, there’s not another like…She descends the marble steps into her filled bathtub. She sits down.

  “Your Highness, I followed your instructions. Praskovia said it would be tonight. She did everything correctly.”

  Her Highness is quiet. She drinks her champagne. Sighs. So hard that the bubbles in the bath flutter.

  “Tonight?” she asks again. “That’s…your nighttime?”

  “Our nighttime, Your Highness.”

  “I think that means…lunchtime. All right.”

  She sighs again. Finishes off the glass of champagne. They give her another.

  “What did the clairvoyant ask for?”

  “Baltic herring, fern seeds, and books.”

  “Books?”

  “Yes. For the fireplace.”

  “Ah…yes…”

  Her main assistant enters without knocking:

  “Your Highness, the children have come.”

  “Already? Bring them in.”

  The assistant leaves and returns with the ten-year-old twins—Andriusha and Agafia. They dash in and run to their mother. Her Highness rises from the bath, baring herself to the waist, covering her e
normously wide breasts. The children kiss her on the cheek:

  “Good morning, Mamochka!”

  She embraces them without letting go of her champagne glass.

  “Good morning, my dears. I’m running a bit late today, I thought we would breakfast together.”

  “Mama, we already had dinner!” Andriusha shouts and slaps the water.

  “Well, that’s wonderful,” she says, wiping the spray of foam from her face.

  “Mamulya, I won at Go Ze.6 I found the bao xian.7”

  “Hao hai zi.8” Her Highness kisses her daughter. “Min min.9”

  Her Highness’s Chinese is really rather old-fashioned…

  “And I won at Go Ze a long time ago!” Andriusha says, splashing water on his sister.

  “Sha gua!10” Agafia splashes back.

  “Gashenka, Andriusha…” Her Highness frowns, furrowing her beautiful black eyebrows, and covering her breast as before. She immerses herself in her bath. “Where’s Papa?”

  “Papa’s with the armies,” says Andriusha, pulling a toy pistol out of its holster and aiming at me. “Bang, baaang!”

  The red target ray settles on my forehead. I smile.

  “Pouff! Bang Bang!” Andriusha pulls the trigger and a tiny ball hits me in the forehead.

  It bounces off.

  I smile at the future heir to the Russian state.

  “Where is His Majesty?” Her Highness asks the tutor standing just outside the door.

  “At army headquarters, Your Highness. Today is the anniversary of the Andreev Corps.”

  “So that means there’s no one to breakfast with me…” Her Highness sighs, taking another glass of champagne from the gold tray. “All right, go on all of you…”

  The children, servant, and I head for the door.

  “Komiaga!”

  I turn around.

  “Have breakfast with me.”

  “At your service, Your Highness.”

  I await Her Highness in the small dining room. An unprecedented honor has been bestowed on me—to share the morning meal with our lady. Her Highness usually breakfasts in the evening, if not with His Majesty, then with someone from the Inner Circle—Countess Borisova or Princess Volkova. With her many “guests” and hangers-on she only lunches. And that is already far after midnight. Her Highness always dines at sunrise.