The People's Act of Love

by James Meek

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Anna. ‘I took their picture. I don’t know what happened to them. There were a lot of peasants passing through the station that year. The harvests failed in the new lands. I don’t know where they were going.’

  ‘No-one should have to run when harvests fail, should they?’ said Samarin. ‘They should be able to call on a scourge to destroy those who have money but don’t feed them.’ Anna saw the old Samarin re-emerging and felt a jump of fear. It was Samarin who changed the subject. ‘There’s no photograph of your husband,’ he said.

  ‘The painting,’ said Anna quickly. ‘It’s a poor likeness. My father was a bad artist. Besides, my husband met me when I was taking pictures of a demonstration. He stopped a Cossack from beating me, or killing me. The photographs have him in them in that way.’

  ‘And no pictures of the people of Yazyk.’

  ‘I have some. But they don’t care to have their picture taken.’

  ‘They are very devout, you said, like Balashov, and not Orthodox. Wasn’t that what you said? And the other thing you said was that you knew people who had shed their own flesh and blood for God. I thought that was a very unusual expression. Is Balashov one of these men?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Anna hopelessly. He knew but she was obliged to pretend. The comfort was that he wasn’t using his knowledge to torment her, and that he didn’t know Balashov was her husband. There was a tenderness in his inquiries; it wasn’t a greed for prurient details or a stroke for advantage. He was trying to gently slide open her mind and climb inside. Part of her was aware that she felt so well about his questioning because she wanted to touch him, to kiss him again and begin to play with his body, but she wouldn’t pay attention to that part of her.

  Samarin said: ‘Is Balashov a castrate?’

  Anna nodded, hating to hear the word in Samarin’s mouth. It wasn’t the way he said it, but the word spoken out loud by a man, in particular this man at this moment. It struck her like a fist in her belly, and she remembered how much the whole Gleb had meant to her once and how much she had seemed to mean to him, and how it hadn’t been only an act against her, how it hadn’t been only a preference for God over her, mocking their lovemaking and their child as young sinners’ follies like cards and duelling; but how it had been an act which almost killed in her the hope that there existed men worthy of the love women gave them, a hope already crippled by her realisation that her father was a fool.

  ‘What does it matter to you whether he’s a castrate or not?’ she said. ‘Let the man rue it in peace.’ She sat on the divan, lips pressed together, and watched her fingers on her lap, playing with her ring.

  ‘I don’t ask for intimate knowledge of Balashov or any of those folk,’ said Samarin, sitting down next to her and leaning towards her. His animation excited her and his desire to keep talking about the castrates made her dislike him. ‘But you can’t be surprised that I wonder. You live here. You forget how many people west of the Urals think there never were castrates, or that they died out a century ago. It shows there’s hope.’

  ‘Hope?’ said Anna, looking up. She laughed. She hadn’t heard anything so funny for a long time.

  ‘Hope to think that modern man will make such sacrifices for something they believe in, for more than something they can reach out and touch. That not everything is a transaction.’

  For a moment Anna felt all the weight drain out of her, leaving her as light and empty and sad as a single Chinese lantern, rocking in the wind. She began to speak and with the first sound from her mouth her face reddened and she began to cry, and as she raised her voice against the tears she became angry.

  ‘Hope,’ she said. ‘Hope! Some clown ends his manhood in the forest with a knife when he gets the word from God. Yes, he thinks he’s a fine man, standing there with a cupful of blood draining out through his fingers, he thinks he’s done a bold thing. He’s made his covenant with that thirsty old swine in Heaven. But Heaven is such a long way away, so far, d’you know, Kyrill Ivanovich? It’s such a long way to go, and by the time you get there, the blood’s not hot any more, it’s all dried up, and you can’t put them back, and you say to God, “Look! Look what I did for you!” And God says: “Thank you.” And you look round and you see all the heads bowed around him, all the millions who’ve brought him their blood sacrifices, and you know what? God doesn’t have the time. And you think, “What if I hadn’t?” What if I’d stayed with the people I know, what if I’d stayed with the people I’d loved, instead of going all that way with my mean little sacrifice for God, who doesn’t need it? Would that not have been a better and a harder sacrifice? Too late! Your cannibal. Too late! To build a shining future on the meat of his companion? Do you really think a man can eat another and it not leave its mark on every act he does thereafter, and in every consequence of every act? Do you really think the stink of that one betrayal isn’t going to spread to all the acts of all the anarchists he inspires?’

  ‘It’s not that way,’ said Samarin calmly.

  Anna wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and spoke more gently. ‘When I hear a man talk like that,’ she said, ‘I think of a spoiled child, who’d kill his mother if she wouldn’t let him go and try to catch the rainbow.’

  Samarin put out his hand and touched Anna’s moist red cheek. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘What if this imaginary cannibal wasn’t an anarchist revolutionary after all?’ He moved his face closer to Anna’s so that his eyes were looking into hers only a few inches away. ‘Would you like it better if he killed and ate a man for love?’

  Anna was still dizzy from speaking so loudly and so fast and so carelessly when she was crying. Yet she could see a change in Samarin. As he came closer, his liberated self was fading, as if his harder, colder self was drawing the young open Samarin back into an inner cell. She didn’t want that to happen.

  ‘Would I like it better?’ she repeated.

  ‘If he killed and ate a man for love. If he slaughtered his companion, butchered and ate him, so he could live long enough to see the woman he loved again. Would that be better for you?’

  Samarin, the Samarin Anna liked, was disappearing, and Anna wanted him to come back, and was prepared to pursue him. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I would like that better.’ She put her lips to his mouth and it opened and she pushed her body forward so that her breasts pressed against his chest. She put her hand between his legs and felt the blessed reassurance of his hardness there and, as if hoping were a form of magnetism, his left hand slipped under her skirt.

  ‘Are you thinking? Don’t think,’ she said. ‘You like me.’ She stroked him and bunched her skirt and petticoat up around her hips and pulled off her drawers. With both of her hands she lifted his hand, the hand that had moved between her legs, and folded it so that his forefinger and finger were sticking out. She drew it down and slipped the fingers into her slit, which had been moist long since. She looked into Samarin’s eyes as she teased herself with his fingertips. ‘Let’s follow each other,’ she said. ‘Don’t think.’ Samarin smiled and nodded. Anna could see he was trying not to think, even though he was being pulled back inside himself. Anna had paid a young castrate lad to do this to her one night when she was a little drunk and lonely and he’d been chopping her wood all day. He’d lent her his fingers but how he’d giggled, like a girl.

  In Dark Heaven

  In the meeting hall of the castrates, Drozdova cried Balashov’s return from Heaven to the congregation, and the castrates greeted him. Balashov tried to stand still. He’d never spun for so long before. Sweat drops pattered on the floor. He staggered and fell to the ground. Drozdova and Skripach pulled him up and stood close. He was shivering.

  ‘How far he has travelled!’ cried Drozdova. ‘Far, far,’ echoed the congregation. ‘Truth!’ They looked hungry. There was such an expectation of being fed on their round smooth faces.

  ‘Yes,’ whispered Balashov. ‘Yes.’ There was a rustling as the castrates leaned in to hear him. Now he spoke more l
oudly. ‘Sometimes the journey is harder. Even angels, even God’s favourites, must be tested. I have been tested. On the journey to Heaven from which I have returned, Jesus Christ our Saviour hid the light from me, and I had to find my way in the dark. I had to find my way.

  ‘In this dark Paradise, it is peaceful still, and there is singing, and running water, and grass underfoot. But there is no light. You hear voices around you, and you hear the beating of angels’ wings above and around you, but you cannot recognise anyone. In the dark, Paradise is crowded with souls. Each voice could be the Lord’s.’

  ‘The Enemy!’ said one of the congregation.

  ‘No, friend Kruglov, the Enemy is not in that place. It is a test, not a trick. Listen: I walked through the darkness of Paradise for hours, which seemed like days, until I found the Saviour, sitting alone by a waterfall. There was a phosphorescence from the waterfall, and I saw the outline of his face against it. I had heard many voices, and was not sure if they were Christ, or not: but when I saw him, I knew it was him. He turned to me and by the light of the waterfall I could see that he was full of sorrow. He did not speak, but held up to me something he held in his hands, across his knees. It was a sword. The sword began to glow. It glowed red hot, as if it had come straight from the forge. I could tell it was burning his hands, and that he must be enduring great pain, and I knew I was to take it from him, but I was afraid, and did not take it. And I returned to you.’

  The congregation was silent.

  ‘Brothers and sisters, forgive me,’ said Balashov. ‘I cannot tell you what this means.’

  ‘It’s good, brother,’ said Skripach. ‘It’s God’s own best commission, the fiery sword, like the guarding weapon with which the angel wardened Eden.’

  ‘Perhaps, brother,’ said Drozdova. ‘Perhaps it’s a sign of your great power to convert, that there’ll be a host of doubting souls in the lands around who’ll mount the white horse by the offices of your holy scalpel.’

  ‘It resembled a sword I once carried,’ said Balashov. ‘When I was a soldier.’

  ‘God protect us,’ murmured voices in the congregation.

  ‘That was not you,’ said Drozdova. ‘That was the body of a man you left behind when you became an angel.’ She began to sing. Skripach and the congregation joined in. After an hour, the worshippers dispersed. Balashov heard their petitions and told them to lock their doors, for there was a killer abroad.

  Later, Drozdova sat reading out passages from Job while Balashov swept the floor and Skripach copied items between a series of ledgers spread out on a trestle table.

  ‘Kruglov’s short of kerosene for his lamp,’ said Skripach.

  ‘Everyone is,’ said Drozdova.

  ‘He lives next door to the Darov twins,’ said Balashov. ‘How are they for light?’

  ‘They have more, but only two months’ worth.’

  ‘Let them share it,’ said Balashov. ‘They can read and write and cobble their boots at the same table.’

  ‘The Darovs reckon Kruglov is a slacker.’

  ‘Let him help them caulk their roof. If he doesn’t I’ll talk to him.’

  Skripach said: ‘We lost a cow to wolves.’

  ‘How many does that leave?’

  Skripach ran his finger down a column. ‘According to the Czechs, ninety.’ He opened another book. ‘According to my list, we have two thousand, four hundred and eighty-seven hidden in the forest.’

  Balashov leaned on his broom, bowed his head and spoke to the floor. ‘I’m afraid they’ll be found.’

  ‘They never were till now, by God’s mercy.’

  ‘Heaven was never dark for me till now. Could it be a sign that I am to be cast out?’

  Drozdova got up quickly and embraced him. ‘How could you be cast out? You’re the best among us, an angel among angels. It was a good sign, even though you couldn’t read it.’

  ‘I spoke with the Jewish lieutenant, with Mutz,’ said Balashov. ‘I shamed him because he asked me to do something I could not do, and I refused, and he left thinking he had made no mark on me. But he was wrong.’

  ‘What did he ask you to do?’ said Drozdova.

  ‘Persuade the widow and her son to leave.’

  ‘I knew the widow stood in this. Gleb Alexeyevich, what kind of strange affection can you have for her? You’re not a man now.’

  ‘She is a good woman.’

  ‘She’s a painted harlot! She exults in the chains of lust as if they were garlands! You know that. Gleb Alexeyevich, how can you say such things to me? Not to belittle your own acts of purification but you know what pain, what long, grievous hurt it is for a woman to have the knife taken to her breasts.’ She began to cry and went back to her chair and hugged the Bible, rocking back and forth. Skripach looked up and bowed his head deeper into the books. Balashov put the broom down and came and put his hands on Drozdova’s shoulders.

  ‘Olga Vladimirovna,’ he said. ‘I know. But it’s just as I said to Lieutenant Mutz. If we say that love dies with a stroke of the knife, what kind of angels are we? My love for Anna Petrovna is no different from my love for you, or for Skripach, or for friend Kruglov.’

  ‘It should be different,’ said Drozdova. ‘She isn’t one of us. You should love me more than her. And how did this affection begin? Did you know her from your old life?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘I knew it. The Jew was right. You must tell her to leave. She is on the other side from us. She’s left behind. Let her burn.’

  ‘Perhaps I’m the one who is to burn,’ said Balashov. ‘The sword that burns the one who holds it: perhaps I’m to go back.’

  Drozdova was shaken out of tears. ‘You can’t go back,’ she said. ‘You carried out the act. You purified yourself.’

  ‘An angel who commits a mortal sin must still burn in hell forever,’ said Balashov. ‘After we have thrown all the Keys to Hell into the fire, are we to turn our backs on all those who haven’t, for fear of spoiling our purity? Are the rituals and rules and habits of the life in common enough?’

  ‘Yes! They are enough! We are so close to Heaven already. Why go back?’

  ‘God would rejoice at an angel electing himself for damnation to stop a sinner suffering.’

  ‘Rubbish! Blasphemy! Where are you going? To see her?’

  ‘No. I have other errands.’

  ‘Gleb Alexeyevich!’ Drozdova stood up with her hands clasped together and called after him. ‘Take your hat!’

  Balashov took a path that led from the back of his store south towards the grazing lands. The snow which had fallen earlier had frozen and his feet left light prints and a faint scent of earth, the last loose earth of autumn, quickly lost in the woodsmoke of the town stoves. He dropped down to avoid a Czech sentry who was rocking from foot to foot to keep warm, twists of paper hanging over the tops of his boots, his face wrapped in a scarf against the first baby frost. Balashov met the road to the fields and began to run. The ruts showed up deep and sharp with the moon on the shading of snow and his feet smashed ice like a drunk keeling home through an arcade. He turned off the road along a line of birches and walked for a mile to a field which lay in a slight hollow, circled by tall old scraggy pines. Backed up against the pines so it would be hard to see from any direction outside the field was a hut, a well, and a larger building without windows.

  Balashov went to the well and let down the bucket. He carried full buckets to a barrel which stood by the paddock fence and poured them in, breaking the thin ice that skinned it, until the barrel was two thirds full. He took off his boots and his clothes, hanging them on the fence, and eased his lean white body up onto the top bar. His flesh shone smooth in the moonlight, the sharp light that gave the old pines the look of attendants. At the top of his legs there was nothing left; after his wife had tried to force him, he had taken the knife to himself a second time for a further act of purification. He slid into the barrel, roaring through clenched teeth and quivering for a second as he went down into the black w
ater, bracing his hands against the sides to pull his head under and holding himself still there for a short time while the remaining fragments of ice tickled him. Then he crouched and jumped up, catching the rim of the barrel in his hands and swinging himself over and out onto the ground. He took his clothes and boots and ran into the hut.

  In the sooty, resinous dark he found a coarse blanket and wrapped himself in it, carefully closed the door and made sure the window was shuttered. By touch and practice he found the lamp and the match beside it, made light, and lit the stove. The room contained a hard, narrow bunk, two chests, the stove and a table. Balashov folded the blanket and clothes and placed them in a pile on one of the chests. From the other he took a clean white blouse and white trousers and foot-wrappings and put them on, and his boots. He combed his hair and his beard. He took a small pair of scissors from the table and cut his fingernails. When he had collected a heap of nail shavings he threw them into the stove.

  Balashov took a key from the table, extinguished the light and left the hut. He stepped over the hard ground to the other building, unlocked a padlock, and went inside. He closed the door behind him. In the darkness a large warm beast shifted its hooves and snorted.

  ‘Hello Omar,’ said Balashov. He lit another lamp. Omar was of an Arab bloodline and Russian breeding. His black hide shone. He had a stall in the corner of the building. The walls of the stable were thick and partly lined with bales of straw and the warmth of the horse took the chill out of the air. Omar looked steadily at Balashov, took a few steps forward and rubbed his nose against the struts of the stall. Balashov asked him gently to be patient and went to prepare food for him. While Omar was eating, Balashov stood in the stall with him, leaning against his flank with his arm up over the horse’s back, stroking him.

  ‘Eat, fine one,’ he said. ‘How glad I am you can’t talk. I know you listen. I don’t think you understand. That is, I think you understand that talking is what people do instead of getting on with things. But you do listen. It makes you like a mirror for me, Omar. When I speak to you your silence means I can hear how my words must sound to others. You know, I’ve been talking to the congregation, my congregation. We are angels, you see. We’re free from sin. It’s wonderful. We are very good. We help each other. We don’t eat meat, we don’t drink or smoke, and of course, of course, we don’t kill. Killing is a mortal sin, whether you are a soldier or not. And there can be no question of fornication, Omar, or procreation, because, like angels, unlike you, I don’t have anything to do that with. I cut it all off. So everything is lovely. We live in Paradise. There’s one thing, though, Omar, that troubles me. This is what it is: I keep lying all the time. You won’t know what lying is. Horses can’t lie. It would be funny if they did. What would they lie about? That it isn’t your foal? That you never touched that mare?’ Balashov laughed. ‘That wasn’t the laughter of an angel, was it, Omar? There was mockery in it, not joy. And I do not think it is an angelic thing to be a liar. Let me see. Lies. Yes, I wrote a letter to my wife, telling her I had become an angel, and telling her I was confessing everything, yet somehow I could not tell her that like my friend Chernetsky I went with a ten-rouble whore on the night before my regiment and my horse – Hijaz, Omar, you would have loved him – before they were slaughtered. God sees the end as well as the beginning of things, remember, Omar, and I think it is more likely God punished me for the lie by letting my comrades be slaughtered than that he punished me for going with the girl. You know, Omar, the wonderful thing about lies is the way they give birth to other lies. So I lie to my wife and to the Jewish lieutenant, saying that I have kept my promise to her not to purify any other men or women, when two nights ago I castrated a young man in Verkhny Luk and brought him to God. My own hand on the scalpel. And to protect that lie, I had to tell another one. I had to lie about the convict Samarin murdering the shaman. I do not think I am a good angel, and an angel must be perfect. Omar, I have begun to find it so easy to lie, even to protect my pride, and I must not have any pride. I returned from the vision of a dark Heaven this evening saying that Christ had offered me a red hot sword. This was true. But I said his face was full of sorrow, and it was a lie, Omar! Christ was laughing! He was holding out the sword with his burned hands and he was laughing at me!’