St. Petersburg Noir

by Natalia Smirnova

  A CABINET OF CURIOSITIES

  BY EUGENE KOGAN

  Kunstkamera

  Translated by Margarita Shalina

  1.

  "Mama,” Ilka’s heartbreaking cry rang out. “Ma-a-a-a-a-ma!” Olya bolted to the nursery. She was much too young, skinny as a reed, with long black hair and enormous eyes that seemed to take up half of her face. “What is it, my son?!”

  “Mama, he’s back again.” Ilka sat pressed into a corner of the bed with a blanket he’d gathered into an enormous heap—that heap was supposed to barricade the child from whatever it was that his eyes fixed on.

  “Son, Ilyusha.” Olya sat down on the bed and embraced her child. “There’s no one here.”

  Immediately, Ilka began to wail, pressing himself to his mother.

  2.

  Peter Alexeyevich disliked the journey from the very start. The second week of March was well under way by the time the delegation had arrived at Riga, which found itself under Swedish ascendancy. His mood had been ruined by General Erik Jönsson Dahlbergh, the regional governor—who’d refused Peter’s request to visit a fortress and survey the construction of fortifications. “Damn this place,” muttered the czar as he cast off the city.

  The mighty delegation moved along slowly, and Czar Peter Alexeyevich was traveling incognito. But to not notice him was difficult—his enormous figure stood out among the rest. It was practically impossible for the czar to conceal his own presence.

  3.

  Ilka had just turned five. For his birthday, his mother baked him a very beautiful pirog with chocolate filling and she even drizzled it with chocolate icing. Six candles stood atop the tort. Ilka knew how to count to five and was very proud of the fact that he was able to tell everyone about his age. “There was four, and before that three, and before that two, and before that one, and now five,” he declared, laughing at how big and bright he was, and all those around him laughed as well. But the candles turned out to be incomprehensible. Ilka counted up to five and realized in astonishment that something else did indeed come next, but what was a mystery. “Mama,” Ilka looked at Olya questioningly.

  “After the number five comes the number six,” smiled Olya.

  “Six,” repeated Ilka and calmed down. He liked six as well.

  Ilka was small. At a glance, he seemed no more than four years old. He was smart, cheerful, found a common language with other children easily, always shared his toys in the courtyard. When he was three, he gave a shovel and a red plastic bucket as a present to Sveta, the girl next door. But all the neighboring children were taller than him, and Olya worried. Ilka, however, hadn’t yet noticed that he was smaller than everyone else, he didn’t dwell on it—such foolishness is not dwelt upon in childhood.

  4.

  By August they’d reached the Rhine and descended to Amsterdam. They didn’t linger there though, and carried on further to Zaandam. The czar spent over a week there under the name Peter Mikhailov, a junior officer of the Preobrazhensky Regiment. In Zaandam, Peter Alexeyevich stayed on Krimp Street in the little house of the nautical blacksmith Herrit Kist, whom he’d become acquainted with back in Russia; the handy Dutchman had been at the wharves of Archangel, sharing his expertise. Now Peter Alexeyevich worked in the Netherlands on the wharves of the East India Company—everything had changed, however he did not share his expertise, but drew from others, attentively observing how the clever Dutch shipbuilders labored at their craft.

  News inevitably spread that the Russian czar himself resided in that unassuming little house belonging to the nautical blacksmith, so visitors from all countries were drawn to Zaandam. Peter Alexeyevich was forced to quickly leave the city behind—beneath the sail of an acquired iceboat he reached Amsterdam in just over three hours and remained in the capital for some time, carrying out excursions to Utrecht, Leiden, and other places.

  5.

  Olya dropped out of university when she was in her second year. She was alone, with her small son. At first she’d wanted to continue her education after a year-long maternity leave. She did return, but couldn’t keep up—there wasn’t enough money, work had to be found, the child demanded attention. So, she forgot all about university.

  That first year, Ilka was horrid—he bawled ceaselessly, surpassed all the rest when it came to being sick, anything imaginable, he didn’t sleep nights, refused to eat, and generally created a merry life for Olya. Olya feared that his behavior wouldn’t improve. Her mother helped however she could, but she didn’t have the strength either—who can argue with a job and an ailing heart? And there were no men in the family.

  But later, when Ilka turned one, everything changed. With what seemed a wave of a magic wand, the likes of which Olya occasionally dreamed of when she forgot herself in a restless dream during the breaks between Ilka’s hysterics. Once, in the middle of the night, the child became dreadfully frightened—either he’d dreamt of something horrible, or perhaps he’d seen something, all he did was wail the whole day, finally he couldn’t even wail—he was hoarse. Then he abruptly calmed down and everything changed. Ilka began to sleep, eat with an appetite, and caused a scandal only with good reason—like if he’d painfully knocked against something or lost his favorite toy. Olya was able to exhale in relief.

  6.

  In Utrecht, Peter Alexeyevich became acquainted with William of Orange—ruler of the Netherlands and king of England, a vast reformer and navigation enthusiast. Enthralled by shipbuilding, the Russian czar gazed with delight upon the foremost European wharves and scaled one of the whaling vessels himself.

  Then, by accident really, he found himself in the anatomical cabinet of Frederik Ruysch, a botanist and professor of anatomy. A specialist in the embalmment of corpses and proprietor of a renowned anatomical museum, Ruysch stupefied Peter Alexeyevich with his art. Once, upon entering the professor’s laboratory, Peter saw the body of a child on a surgical table—the child was dead, but it looked as though it was alive. The talents of the Dutch professor captivated the Russian czar, and Ruysch was extremely pleased.

  7.

  Olya did calm down somewhat, of course, but then she’d regard this change in her child’s character with disbelief all over again. What would cause a one-year-old to exchange rancor for sweetness in a single day? But the weeks passed and Ilka continued to behave himself well, or as well as a child who had just recently turned one could be expected to behave.

  After a month, Olya asked her mother to babysit Ilka and set off to her girlfriend’s—they had drinks, gossiped about everyone, like before when Olya didn’t have a child. A little later, Olya said that she needed a job—it would be ideal to start off working from home, some modest freelancing, then later she could think about something more serious. As things go, money was badly needed. In three days time her girlfriend called and offered her work transcribing text; precisely the kind of work that she was best suited for had fallen into Olya’s lap. Some money began to appear, and life began to improve.

  8.

  Under the guidance of Professor Ruysch, Peter Alexeyevich got so carried away with anatomy that he forgot about shipbuilding for a time. Being who he was, or course, he didn’t forget for a second that that the czar of a superpower must spend every minute thinking about vital matters, so he continued to call on fortresses, shipyards, meet with heads of state and engineers, but Peter Alexeyevich’s thoughts were always there, in the anatomical theater.

  In the anatomical theater of Herman Boerhaave in Leiden, Czar Peter participated in the dissection a cadaver, and then another. He was good at it, and he liked it. In his diary he wrote of being struck by the sight of a dissected human body—the heart, lungs, kidneys, the “tendons” of the brain … There remained one last thing to do—establish something similar at home, in Russia.

  9.

  When Ilka turned two Olya found steady work as a typist. She wasn’t paid much, although she supplemented this by freelancing. Plus, the daily trip to the office forced her to take care of her
self once again, and interacting with people was really quite pleasant.

  During this time Ilka continued to behave like an angel. He was indeed an angel for the most part, only with dark hair. He and his mother had the same face—thin, with big eyes. He’d attentively monitor the world around him, feeding on information. Because he didn’t know how to speak yet, he would point his fist at whatever interested him and peer up into his mother’s eyes. Olya loved explaining everything to him and couldn’t wait for him to begin asking questions. More than anything in the world she wanted to speak with her son.

  10.

  Having purchased several collections from various biologists and anatomists across the border, Peter Alexeyevich returned to Russia with steadfast resolve to establish Kunstkamera in the motherland—a cabinet of curiosities following the example of his new friends in the West. In St. Petersburg it was decided that the collection would be housed at the Summer Palace, and Peter personally supervised what went where.

  But the collection kept growing and growing. The last time he set out for Holland, Peter Alexeyevich made the acquaintance of the well-known apothecary and collector Albertus Seba—the very one who drowned in one of the canals some twenty years after meeting the Russian czar. Peter Alexeyevich had the opportunity to purchase an enormous collection—an entire pharmaceutical assemblage—from Seba. The collection was moved to St. Petersburg and it became clear that the Summer Palace alone could not contain it.

  11.

  Ilka had a breakthrough as soon as he turned two and a half. He literally spilled everything that had accumulated onto his mother. Everything interested him—a lamp, a door, the wind at the window, the neighbor’s cat, droplets on glass, a mirror, a television, a sandwich with butter and kielbasa, the chamber pot, day and night. He posed hundreds of questions and listened attentively to every answer.

  Olya was happy. Finally, she didn’t just get to read her son a story for the night or sing him a song, but could carry on a more or less comprehensible conversation with him. She got the impression that Ilka was attempting to dig down to the truth of the matter. He didn’t just listen to everything that his mother told him, he comprehended, and it seemed that he even analyzed. Olya occasionally marveled at how Ilka remembered what she told him. That’s how it was—her son didn’t ask the same question twice, though often the next question followed the prior for the most logical reasons.

  Olya and Ilka would have long talks now. Ilka would ask, and Olya would start explaining whatever it was that interested him with pleasure. Neither he nor she grew weary of this.

  12.

  They began to search for a place. Various suggestions were made, but Peter Alexeyevich didn’t care for them. The only thing that could be agreed on was that the future museum must be located somewhere on Vasilyevsky Island. The question was where.

  One day Czar Peter was strolling around Vasilyevsky. The weather was fine—a rarity for Petersburg, which is accustomed to rains and the low-hanging gray sky. Only a gnat pestered him, but nothing could be done about it. Peter Alexeyevich was lost in his own thoughts when two pines, the likes of which he’d never seen, suddenly appeared before his eyes. The pines grew very near, and the fat branch of one had grown into the trunk of the other. Peter stopped before the trees—Siamese twins that had grown into one common bough; he touched the trunk with his hand, circled it, and grinned. The question of where the cabinet of curiosities was to be located had been decided.

  13.

  When Ilka was almost three, Olya decided to place him in daycare. Out of two daycares located not far from home, she chose the one that seemed best to her—anyway, there was no money for anything specialized, private, or extravagant, but here at least the nursery-governess who had a name found in stories and jokes, Maria Ivanovna, smiled in a kind way and Ilka seemed to like it. At the very least it didn’t scare him, even though he understood right away that Mama was handing him off to someone else.

  Ilka looked at Olya with woeful eyes and asked: “When are you coming back?”

  “Soon, my son, soon.” Olya suddenly had a feeling that her heart would tear apart.

  “All right,” Ilka said sadly. Taking Maria Ivanovna by the hand, he went off into a large playroom to join the other children.

  Olya wasn’t herself at work. It was one thing to leave her child with his grandmother, but another matter altogether to leave him with some nanny who is a stranger, even if she did have a kind expression. Olya was perpetually distracted, jumped each time the phone rang, made a ton of mistakes, and as soon as the workday was over, she sprang from her seat as though she’d been stung and raced in the direction of the daycare. Ilka was already waiting for her—calm, carefree, and full of new information. Olya calmed down.

  14.

  The future Kunstkamera building was placed under the direction of a German, Georg Johann Mattarnovi, who’d had a hand in the finishings of the Summer Palace where the collection was being housed for the time being. For some reason construction moved along slowly; it wasn’t easy. The years passed, yet still there was no building. For Peter Alexeyevich, the erection of Kunstkamera was one of the most important works of his life, but he didn’t live to see the completion of construction—he died seven years following the laying of the foundation stone, even though by his death just the walls had been completed. Then the architect died as well, and others carried on construction.

  After another year, they began moving the collection from the Summer Palace. Yet construction went on and on. Rumors spread that the Nevsky land was refusing to house a collection of dead monstrosities. But enlightened people didn’t pay attention to such rumors—they’d say the collection had been in Petersburg for years already, so there was nothing to talk about. And soon, the rumors dissipated to nil.

  15.

  In no time at all Ilka became Maria Ivanovna’s favorite and the soul of the daycare gang—as much as three- and four-year-old children can become a gang. An inquisitive, courteous, smart boy, Ilka never vexed anyone, knew a great deal, and was always polite and even-tempered. He took part in merry and noisy group games organically and happily, enjoyed racing around during outings, and didn’t really separate from those around him. He never caused mischief, nor raised a ruckus, nor cried without cause, behaved calmly during naptime, and ate whatever they served in the daycare cafeteria. Barely a day passed that Maria Ivanovna didn’t sing his praises to Olya, and Olya was utterly overjoyed.

  It was only later that she noticed her boy wasn’t really growing. Of course, he didn’t stay the same small size that he’d been the day Olya had brought him to daycare. But his height had radically slowed—when he and all those around him had turned four years old, Ilka was considerably shorter than the others. This was definitely something to worry about.

  Only then did Olya realize that she was recalling the nightmare that had changed her son’s character overnight all too frequently. But why she was remembering it was unclear.

  16.

  Soon after laying the foundation for Kunstkamera, Peter Alexeyevich decided to construct a special building in Petersburg specifically for the growing collection of anatomical and other curiosities. For research purposes, he visited the French port city of Calais, located directly on the strait of Pas-de-Calais. There, he met a man who was so tall that his height left the czar in a state of shock; Peter Alexeyevich was over two meters tall himself. In no time at all, Peter Alexeyevich prevailed upon the Frenchman to relocate to Russia in private service to the czar—he was appointed the position of chasseur.

  The Frenchman died in seven years’ time. By the decree of Peter Alexeyevich the giant’s skin was removed, tanned, and stuffed—the result was something like a tarantula. The Frenchman’s gigantic skeleton was situated next to it—and both the tarantula and the skeleton were immediately absorbed as components of the future museum.

  The Frenchman was called Nicolas Bourgeois, or Nikolai.

  17.

  Olya waited a long time—maybe it
would right itself. But it didn’t. It seemed Ilka had stopped growing, just dead stopped. They decided to see a doctor. Through friends, they found a good endocrinologist—a gray-haired old man with attractive hands. He examined Ilka, ran every possible test, then disappeared. After a week he called—Olya felt as though the stress had caused her heart to stop beating. The endocrinologist said no pathologies had been found as far as health was concerned, and from a medical standpoint he had no explanation for the growth problem. That is, speaking strictly from the perspective of his own specialty. He advised not to waste energy worrying about it: “Ilka will probably begin to grow—this happens with children sometimes, they don’t grow, don’t grow, then suddenly they erupt, and then there’s no catching up to them.”

  The doctor’s words didn’t make Olya feel any better. Again and again, throughout the course of the next year, she took her son to various endocrinologists, each one better than the last, but all the doctors spoke as one—there are no problems with the boy’s health, he’s healthy as an ox, and it’s totally possible that his not growing is just the individual predisposition of this particular developing organism, and it could happen to anyone. Olya began to calm down a bit, although she occasionally cried at night—very softly, so that Ilka wouldn’t hear.

  Then the nightmares began.

  18.

  Over twenty years had passed since the death of Czar Peter Alexeyevich when a terrible fire occurred on the premises of Kunstkamera. The cupola burned atop the steeple, both the collection and library were badly damaged. Among the pieces lost was the skull of Nikolai Bourgeois. Time passed and the museum’s curators began to speak of strange occurrences. They recounted an enormous headless figure that wandered through the corridors of Kunstkamera by night, no doubt in search of something. And it was clear what he was searching for, the museum’s curators said, nodding.