“No,” continued Chelnokov with gusto, “the first thing on our list should be a decent primate … Uh, an anthropoid. Perhaps we could even section off a c-corner as something of an ancestral temple, like a Chinese fanza.” He was playing the buffoon. “My daughter was in Jiangxi. Uh … in their houses the Chinese have a special c-corner they use as an altar, with the ashen remains of their ancestors where they b-burn incense. And they talk to their ancestors in Chinese about everyday matters. Girls talk about their beaus”—Chelnokov winked at Lera who was stifling her laughter with her palm—“and the paterfamilias might talk about the harvest or consult it on matters of monetary investment.”
Chelnokov’s arguments were flippant, empty, and unfounded. In fact, it would be unjustified to call them arguments at all. But as Tsukatov listened to his colleague, he felt that in fact he really had nothing against the idea of a stuffed ape, and that perhaps it would be a better idea than getting a tortoise. After all, the vicechancellor of science had moved to the administrative position from the Department of Biology. While he was still a practicing zoologist, he had participated in some ridiculous project for acclimatizing chimpanzees to the Pskov region. It stood to reason that he would still feel affection toward anthropoids. This also meant that it would be easier to get the paperwork through.
Ever since the university’s reputation had improved and the Ministry of Education had named it one of the leading institutions in the country, their financial situation had changed for the better. The department’s scientific projects won grant after grant, and they were able to rig up a new laboratory. Some tidbits even trickled down to the museum itself. That was when they realized that they needed a museum curator—a specialist whose obligations, among other things, would include replenishing the museum’s collection, restoring old exhibits and museum furniture, as well as any other matters that came up.
Demyan Ilich had excellent references and extensive experience working at various institutions, including the Russian Academy of Science’s zoology museum. Tsukatov made a special trip to the spit of Vasilievsky Island to make inquiries about the applicant with the assistant director of the zoology museum, who was an acquaintance of his. The latter attested to the fact that Demyan Ilich was an impressive specialist with a deep understanding of his field, although, as a person, he was a handful: gloomy and unsociable. His coworkers found Demyan Ilich difficult. He had a way of putting people on their guard, which is why he changed jobs frequently. He had his own secret (albeit quite economical) ways of obtaining materials for exhibits. He could get hold of some of the rarest, most improbable exhibits, and his taxidermy skills were held in high esteem by the museum staff.
Tsukatov was not put off by the gloomy nature of his future employee. For him, a supporter of hierarchical discipline, warm relations with coworkers meant absolutely nothing. The most important thing to him was how well they did their jobs, and he was certain that he knew how to get them to do their jobs well. Tsukatov was one of those people who didn’t have to play around, gnashing his teeth and crunching the knuckles of his clenched fists. Everyone could see full well that he was a heavyweight. Demyan Ilich’s ability to get hold of whatever was needed was nothing to turn up one’s nose at, either. As a matter of fact, it would prove very useful for replenishing and expanding the museum’s collection. The only problem was that the materials he managed to get hold of—pelts, corpses, and even complete stuffed animals—often lacked the necessary paperwork. But even this did not deter Tsukatov. During the course of his work with the for-profit organizations that delivered the museum its collection of shells of crustaceans, and the glass cube with the display of insects and arachnids from Southeast Asia, their employees had offered, rather unambiguously, to produce the necessary papers for just about anything—any beast, even a diplodocus, hunted in a safari in the swamps of equatorial Africa. For a reasonable fee, naturally. Through their fly-by-night branch offices he could also cash the official funds earmarked for acquiring new museum exhibits, since the suppliers used by Demyan Ilich accepted cash only.
Since hiring the curator, Professor Tsukatov had already used the services of these fly-by-nights twice. First, when at his request Demyan Ilich obtained a wonderful, brand-new stuffed female alligator so large that they had to set it on the highest shelf, just beneath the ceiling, opposite the Steller sea lion, which had been placed in a similar fashion. The second time was when, on his own initiative, Demyan Ilich suggested that they acquire a new stuffed peacock to replace the old one, which had become tattered and frayed during its hundred years of service.
Professor Tsukatov went over to the window and gazed out at the snow, the trees that had turned white, the glass dome of the atrium of the trading house behind the Red Bridge, the chains of black footprints made by students trudging through the courtyard, the sky that promised an early twilight, no longer murky, since the downy winter had already spread itself all around. The calm of the snow-covered earth slowly spread within him.
“Chinese cuisine is also quite p-peculiar,” said Chelnokov, removing the bubbling kettle from its base without interrupting himself. “I’m rather afraid to go to their restaurants. Have you ever noticed how m-many of them live in our cities? Yet they don’t seem to have any cemeteries. Why do you think that is?”
“Call Demyan Ilich in,” Tsukatov said to Lera, who already knew she’d been forgiven, and was poking about in the cupboard searching for a coffee cup. Then, turning to Chelnokov, he said, “Yes, a chimpanzee. I suppose a chimpanzee would be best after all.”
* * *
The untidiness of Demyan Ilich’s abode did not concern its master in the least, and was in fact merely a semblance of disorder—every item here had its place. Just reach out, and the necessary tool was in the palm of your hand. Toss it, and it would fall into position. Joiner and furrier tools, vials with acids, salts, alkali, alums, varnishes, and arsenic solutions, molds for plaster casts of the slim ankle bones (distal limb sections) of some ungulates, piles of glass eyes with hand-painted irises and highlights on the pupils, cans of construction foam, glue, rags, bits of hide, feathers …
Demyan Ilich was to the business of taxidermy what Stradivari and Guarneri were to the art of violinmaking. He had invented a special solution for preserving fresh materials, a wonderful lotion that worked for pickling bird pelts, and a brilliant tanning solution for animal hides, which changed the qualities of the inner side of the hide, making it flexible and resistant to decay and fungus. He had solved many a riddle of the trade, and he knew quite a few special tricks that were unfathomable to others. Soaking, cleaning the inner side of the hide from any leftover muscle tissues, quill preparation, rinsing and fat removal, pickling, drying, and softening—he had his own secret recipe for every stage of the process. The fur of the hides that he had dressed remained glossy and didn’t wear thin, and the feathers never fell out. The recipes of his shadowy secretive art quickened the dressing process, making it five or ten times faster. No other taxidermist could complete the process so quickly. Assembling a beast or bird with unfinished hide would mean that it would rot, develop a foul odor, and lose its fur and feathers. And if it didn’t rot, then the hide of the stuffed animal would dry up, become deformed, the seams would rip, and the edges of the hide would curl up on the bare mannequin, which then couldn’t be rectified by any number of bandages or clamps. Demyan Ilich was able to get excellent results in a short time: the gloomy bliss of genius had chosen to descend upon him.
“Involution … Ahem …” The curator’s index finger shot upward. “Involution … yes. A serpent shall give birth to an angel.”
He talked to himself when he was in a colorful mood. Demyan Ilich had finally come up with a plan for luring the little devil into his lair. She would come of her own accord. She had all that remodeling going on at home, and he had offhandedly set her up with a ceiling plasterer. The man was a spurious wretch from the joiner’s shop of the museum on the spit, who was greedy and dumb as a cork. He woul
d bring her to Demyan Ilich, as if to show her his work: I did the ceilings over there a few days ago, come and see for yourself what a great a job I did. Demyan Ilich would give the handyman his due later—he’d invite him over to pay him, and then he’d awaken the polecat within.
* * *
Lera didn’t like the museum curator, and was even a little afraid of him. Demyan Ilich’s gaze was sharp and piercing, his eyebrows thick and disheveled, his face sallow and bony, his character unsociable and nasty. Once, seeing him in the hall in front of the genetics kitchen, where students in thrall to science brewed porridge for fruit flies, Lera automatically smiled at him with her large mouth and fluttered her eyelashes. Only after she had passed him had she heard him mutter, “Ahem … Quite an ostrich.” Lera’s ears blushed scarlet and her back became covered in goose bumps. What a weirdo!
Then Lera studied herself in the mirror. Yes, she was tall, slim, wide-hipped, and, well, yes, she had a long neck, large mouth, and large eyes beneath her contact lenses. She was young, healthy, beautiful, and lively. In a word, Artemis. What did he mean “an ostrich”? What nonsense!
Demyan Ilich was in the museum. He answered, “Yes, yes,” from far off, but didn’t open the door right away. He was a long time shuffling behind the closed door. When he finally opened it, he gave her a sullen look. His white lab coat was stale, his hair unkempt, his shoes dusty and worn to the point of indecency.
Coldly, without hiding her aversion to him, Lera conveyed Tsukatov’s message to the curator. Without waiting for his reply, she turned around haughtily and headed off to the lab assistant’s room, high heels clicking, to rewrite the letter of request for reagents, materials, and laboratory utilities. Her shoulders felt cold from the gaze that followed her from behind.
“A little flea went walking in the garden, the louse did bow, and that flea did swagger …” Demyan Ilich muttered to Lera’s back. His eyes, which had been sharp as an awl a moment before, were now glazed over …
“I need an answer now; will you take this on or not?” Tsukatov was talking to the curator, who looked at the professors with a gray, imperturbable owl-like gaze, as though it was already in the bag. “There’s not much time. We need to spend the money before the end of the year. So we have one month left.”
There was a long pause. Tsukatov stretched the truth. On several occasions he would submit the paperwork for equipment that had been purchased but hadn’t yet shipped out. It would ship eventually, but no one checked and Tsukatov was clean. The chair of the department wasn’t afraid of responsibility—he had made the choice between what was necessary and what was easy once and for all. It didn’t matter how many living beings had to be killed in the name of science to develop an elixir of immortality—he would kill them all without hesitation.
“Ahem.” Demyan Ilich’s voice grated on the ears as though it was an old machine. The curator grimaced, his face clearly unused to smiling, and wriggled his furry brows uncertainly. “I’ll have to look around …”
Another pause. The silence in the curator’s presence was so heavy that it took on an almost physical weight, producing an effect that was even more intolerable than conversation itself. When he was silent, it was as though he became all-powerful. There was no doubt about it: if you asked that man to get you a platypus, he’d get a platypus. Never mind the platypus, he could even summon out of nonexistence the extinct red macaw.
“Well?” If Tsukatov deemed a matter important, he could be patient.
“Ahem. It’s not really enough money.” Demyan Ilich’s brows undulated like two furry caterpillars. “Yes, well, I can ask around. Maybe something will turn up.” His nostrils flared as though he had already caught the scent of his prey, hiding nearby.
“How soon will you know?”
“I’ll get back to you in two or three days.”
When the door closed behind the curator, Professor Chelnokov exhaled as though he had just surfaced from a murky darkness, where he would surely have suffocated had he hesitated for even one more moment. He had a hard time dealing with forced silence. Chelnokov felt that when he was silent he no longer existed. And even if he did still exist, he was becoming ever smaller and more insignificant, like a devaluing currency.
“Getting him to talk is like pulling teeth!” Tuskatov said testily.
“A very difficult fellow,” Chelnokov agreed, taking a sip of his coffee, already grown cold. “I’m dumbfounded. If one were to believe Lombroso’s anthropological c-criminology, he’d be nothing less than a serial killer. Those students of ours—could that be his handiwork?”
Two years prior, a female student had disappeared, and half a year later a male student went missing. The latter, however, was from the Physics Department, which had some of its classrooms on the same floor as the Biology Department, in the right wing, opposite the Genetics kitchen. At the time there were numerous rumors floating around—that a cannibal maniac was on the loose, or that the victims had been sold into sexual slavery, or that they had been butchered by surgeons dealing in human organs. For a while the chancellor’s office was full of police operatives who questioned teachers and students; but soon things quieted down. The victims weren’t found. In fact, it never became clear exactly when and where they had disappeared—at the university or off the premises, somewhere in the city.
“Being difficult isn’t a crime.” When Tsukatov deemed someone useful, he became lenient. “It’s not like we’re getting married to the guy.”
“Him?” Chelnokov cried indignantly. “What do you mean married? I’d be afraid to turn my b-back to him. He’d just as soon b-b-brain you!”
* * *
People don’t talk about things that are important; things that are important are felt. Those feelings burn the heart, and the heart tosses and turns like a rose chafer beetle inside a closed fist. Demyan Ilich knew his materials and was rarely mistaken. That kid was definitely suited for the job. Of course, it would take a lot of work, pressing, crushing, and occasionally giving him a good shake to awaken his true nature, forcing the sleeping essence to hatch and crawl out of its eggshell … But he looked very promising. To himself, with his distinctive brand of humor, the curator referred to this process as awakening the beast.
Demyan Ilich stopped him in an empty hallway. Lectures had already begun, and the fellow, it seemed, had arrived late, or had perhaps shown up earlier than necessary. He was an ordinary student, with loose pants hanging from his buttocks, a sweatshirt with a hood, and a bag hanging across his stomach. He had a backpack, and his movements were loose, as though his joints had too much play. He had dark fuzz on his upper lip, pimples, and shifty eyes. The curator asked him to help bring the reagents for the laboratory class. The fellow agreed. Why not? Demyan Ilich let the boy go into the open storage room ahead of him, closed the door, and click-click, he turned the key, locking them both inside.
One moment there were two people in the hallway, the next moment there was no one at all.
* * *
After the third class had let out, Lera took the key to room 452 and went off to rescue the wild boar’s head. A hunter, a general who was an acquaintance of Tsukatov’s, had given his hunting trophy to the department a year ago. It was the excellently dressed head of an enormous male boar with terrifying fangs. There wasn’t enough room for it in the museum, so they hung the head in the lecture room. From that time on, unable to rely on the vigilance of instructors, Lera was responsible for unlocking room 452 before class and locking it after class was over. Otherwise, the students, due to someone’s forgetfulness and/or lack of supervision, might give way to their curiosity.
Lera locked the room, plowed her way through a crowd of vociferous sophomore girls, passed the wide stairwell that veered off sideways, and went into the laboratory, where she picked up the IKEA catalog she shared with her friend, a graduate student. They chatted briefly about this and that, the trouble and inconvenience of the remodeling and so on, before she headed back to the lab assistant’s ro
om. As she passed the storage room of that loathsome Demyan Ilich, above the noise in the hallway she seemed to hear a muffled voice coming from behind the door. That was unusual, since the curator never let anyone into his lair. Lera stopped, hesitated a moment, and then carefully put her ear to the crack between the door and the frame. The door was well fitted, but what if … yes. That is, no—she couldn’t have been mistaken.
“We’re gonna friggin’ acquire some new habits now.” The custodian’s muttering growl came through the closed door, almost indiscernible, as though from underwater. “We’re gonna do it one friggin’ step at a time. Ahem. First we’re gonna make a real guy out of you. Then … Sure you are. What did you think? I’m gonna grab your throat and hold it like that a little, and then you will … What was that? How’s about I kick your balls? And your Adam’s apple? Don’t bitch out on me. Ahem. Yeah, that’s the lesson we’re gonna learn now—we’re gonna have a little talk and learn how to behave. Yeah. And eat sunflower seeds too. It’s called the Hairy Sutra Awakening. Ever heard of it?”
Lera recoiled from the door, her ear burning. What was this nonsense? She could only hear one voice coming from inside. Even if there was someone answering the curator, that voice was inaudible. And who could be in there? No one. No one could stand Demyan Ilich here … Suddenly Lera’s thoughts stood on end like iron shavings on a magnet: Why, he’s a maniac! He can’t even be trusted with a fork! My goodness, he’s really lost it. He’s talking to himself …
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