Dancing with Bears

by Michael Swanwick

  “Look there-books, by God!”

  Darger darted forward, excitedly holding up his lantern so he could examine the shelves with their warped and faded contents. Pepsicolova, however, hung back. With horror, she regarded an overstuffed chair, its upholstery half-rotted, and the small, grit-covered reading table at its side. They were not… and she knew they were not… Yet still, they paralyzed her.

  Forcing an equanimity she did not feel into her voice, Pepsicolova said, “We’ve broken through into somebody’s basement. One that hasn’t been used for quite some time.” She gestured with her lantern. “See there. The doorway’s been bricked over.”

  She did not add, Thank heavens.

  “A basement room? Just a basement room?” Darger looked around him bewilderedly. Then he collapsed into the chair. He bowed his head into his hands and was very still.

  Pepsicolova waited for him to say something, but he did not. Finally, impatiently, she said, “What is wrong with you?”

  Darger sighed. “Pay me no mind. ’Tis but my black dog.”

  “Black dog? What on earth are you talking about?

  “I am of a melancholic turn of mind, and even a small setback such as this one can strike me with a peculiar force. Do not put yourself out about me, dear heart. I shall simply sit here in the dark, pondering, until I feel better.”

  Wondering mightily, Pepsicolova stepped back from the hole in the wall. Darger was a darkness at the center of his lantern’s pool of light, a slumped caricature of despondency. It was clear that he would not move for some time yet to come.

  So, with reluctance, Pepsicolova squatted down on her heels just outside the breached room, smoking and remembering. Spycraft and its attendant dangers were her solace, for their perils drove away introspection. Alas, inaction always returned, and with it her thoughts, and among them the memories. Central to which was a basement room with an overstuffed chair and a small reading table.

  Afterward, Chortenko was always so serene.

  His people had stripped Anya Pepsicolova bare, shaved off all her hair, save only her eyelashes, and then flung her, hands tied behind her back, into a cage in the basement of Chortenko’s mansion. The cage was one of three which Chortenko called his kennels, and it was too low for her to stand up and too short for her to stretch out at full length. There was a bucket that served her as a toilet. Once a day, a dish of water and another of food were slid into the cage. Because her hands were bound, she had to drink and eat like an animal.

  If Chortenko’s purpose was to make her feel miserable and helpless, then he succeeded triumphantly. But the conditions were not what made the month she spent in his kennels a living hell.

  It was the things she saw him do in that basement room.

  Sometimes it was a political prisoner whom he questioned far beyond the point where the man had given up everything he knew and more, forcing the wretched captive into ever greater and more grotesque fantasies of conspiracy and treason, until finally, mercifully, he died. Sometimes it was a prostitute whom Chortenko did not question at all, but who did not leave the room alive, either.

  Anya Pepsicolova saw it all.

  When the deeds were done and the bodies cleared away, underlings would bring in an overstuffed green leather chair, and light a reading lamp beside it. Then Chortenko would sit puffing on his pipe and unhurriedly reading War and Peace or something by Dostoyevsky, a glass of brandy on a little stand by his elbow.

  One day, a man was thrown into the kennel next to her. They hadn’t bothered to strip and shave him, which meant that he was one of the lucky ones who would be dealt with in a single night. When the guards were gone, he said, “How long have you been here?”

  Pepsicolova was huddled in the center of her cage, chin on her knees. “Long enough.” She didn’t make friends with the meat anymore.

  “What was your crime?” “It doesn’t matter.” “I wrote a treatise on economics.”

  She said nothing.

  “It dealt with the limits of political expansion. I proved that under our economic system, and given the speed with which information travels, the Russian Empire cannot be resurrected. I thought that the Duke of Muscovy would find it a useful addition to current political thought. Needless to say, his people did not agree.” He made a little laugh that turned into something very much like a sob. Then, suddenly breaking, as the weaker ones would, he pleaded with her: “Please don’t be like that. Please. We are both prisoners together-if you can’t do anything else, at least help me keep my spirits up.”

  She stared at him long and hard. Finally she said, “If I tell you about myself, will you do me a favor?”

  “Anything! Provided it is in my power.”

  “Oh, this will be in your power. If you are man enough to do it,” Pepsicolova said. “Here is my story: I have been here for exactly one month. Before that I was in college. I had a friend. She disappeared. I went looking for her.

  “I came very close to finding her.

  “The trail I followed was twisty and obscure. But I was determined. I slept with many men and two women to get information from them. Three times I was captured. Twice I used my knives to free myself. One of those I used them on may have bled to death, I don’t know and I don’t care. The third time, I was brought before Chortenko.”

  She lapsed into silence. The economist said, “And?”

  “And nothing. Here I am. Now. I have kept my part of the bargain, now keep yours.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  She squeezed one of her legs between the bars, reaching it as far into his cage as she could force it to go. Her near-starvation diet helped. “I want you to bite through my femoral artery.”

  “What!”

  “I can’t do it myself. The animal instincts are too strong. But you can. Listen to me! I have enough self-discipline that I can keep from yanking back my leg. But you’ll have to bite strong and hard, right through the flesh of my thigh. Give it your all. Do this small thing for me and I’ll die blessing your name, I swear it on my mother’s grave.”

  “You’re crazy.” The man scrambled to the corner of his cage farthest from her. His eyes were wide. “You’ve lost your wits.”

  “Yes, I’m sure it’s comforting to think that.” Pepsicolova drew her leg back into her own cage. She had dwelt with despair for so long that she felt only mild disappointment. “You’ll learn better soon enough.”

  That night, she didn’t look away when the questioning began.

  Later that night, Chortenko sat reading, as was his routine. “Listen to this,” he said after a time. “‘All is in a man’s hands and he lets it all slip from cowardice, that’s an axiom. It would be interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of. Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what they fear most.’ Isn’t that so very true?” Chortenko pushed his glasses up on his head and stared at her with those inhuman faceted eyes. “Even you, my dear, who have seen what happens to those who cross me-even you fear something more than joining their number. Even you fear most of all the simple act of taking a new step, of uttering a new word.”

  Chortenko looked at her steadily, eyes glittering, obviously waiting for something.

  She knelt within her cage, quivering before him like an abused and half-starved dog. She could not formulate a response

  “Ahhh, my little Annushka. You’ve been with me for a month, and I trust it’s satisfied your curiosity. Now you know what happened to your school-chum, don’t you?”

  She nodded, afraid to speak. “What was her name again?”

  “Vera.”

  “Ah, yes, Vera. Ordinarily, I would simply have done to you what was done to her and that would have been that. But if you were an ordinary girl, you would not be here now. You managed to follow a trail that very few could even have found. You wheedled, extorted, or coerced information from some of my best subordinates, and before you did this, I would have said that was impossible. You’re smart and you’re cunning. That’s a rare combin
ation. So I’m going to give you one chance to walk out of here alive. But you’ll have to work out the path to freedom yourself. Nobody’s going to give it to you.”

  Pepsicolova’s mind was racing. In a sudden, blinding leap of intuition, she understood what Chortenko was holding up before her. And he was right. She feared it even more than she did the hideous tortures she had, night after night, been witness to. Nevertheless, gathering up all her courage, she said, “You want me to do something new.”

  “Go on.”

  “You want me to…work for you. Not grudgingly but with all the ingenuity and initiative I’ve got. Following not just your orders, but your interests. Without mercy or remorse, doing whatever it is that I know you would want done. Anything less than that, and I wouldn’t be worth your bothering with.”

  “Good girl.” Chortenko got up and, slapping his pockets, came up with a key. He unlocked her cage with it. “Turn around, and I’ll untie your hands. Then I’ll have some clothes brought in and a bath drawn for you. You must be feeling positively filthy.”

  And she was.

  By the time, hours later, Darger finally hauled himself up from the chair and out of the little room, Pepsicolova’s brain burned with dark memories. She stood as straight as she could and stared at him as if he were a bug. But, oblivious as ever, Darger appeared not to notice. He sighed in a heavy, self-pitying way, and said,“Well, that’s enough for now, I suppose. Lead me back to the Bucket of Nails, and then you can take the rest of the day off.”

  Among Pepsicolova’s minor talents was an almost absolute sense of time. “Our arrangement was that I’d make myself available as your guide from sunup to sundown. Right now, it’s less than an hour to sundown.”

  “Yes, I’m sure that’s right. You can have the excess time for your own.”

  “It’s going to take me at least an hour to lead you out of here.”

  “Then we’d best get going, hadn’t we?”

  They had re-crossed Dregs territory without incident and were coming up on the Neglinnaya canal again when Darger said, “What is that on the wall?” He pointed to six lines of ones and zeros which had been painted there with meticulous neatness:

  “That? It’s just graffiti that machine-worshipers and such scrawl on the wall to offend people. It means nothing,” Pepsicolova lied.

  Which was not easy to do, when the binary code was intended for Anya Pepsicolova herself and ordered her to report as soon as possible to the lords of the City Below.

  She lit another cigarette and sucked on it with all her soul.

  …7…

  The carriage that the Baronessa Avdotya had sent for Arkady drove out of the city through an endless grid of low, regular hills which had been high-rises before being torn down at the fall of Utopia-or, since some disputed whether that happy state had ever been achieved in Russia, what had passed for Utopia in Old Moscow. But at last the land opened up into country estates bounded by thorn-hedges that were smaller, lower cousins of the one that had protected the hometown Arkady had left behind.

  The driver reined in the horses in the shadow of an arched hedge-gate and a monkey dressed in green livery bounded out of the hedge and in through the open window, landing heavily on Arkady’s lap. It snatched the pasteboard invitation from his hand and then leaped back out.“Hey!” Arkady grabbed futilely after the already-vanished animal.

  From the thorny gloom, high-pitched voices chattered: “It looks like an invitation!” “It is an invitation.” “He doesn’t look like anyone we know.” “He has an invitation.” “From the baronessa?” “Who else invites anyone here?” “Sometimes the baron does.” “Only when the baronessa tells him to.” “That’s true.” “But what shall we do about this one?” “He has an invitation.” “We don’t recognize him.” “But we do recognize the invitation.” “He has an invitation?”

  “Here it is.”

  “Pass!”

  The driver clucked his tongue, and the carriage jolted forward.

  Sunlight washed into the cabin and the carriage proceeded down a long, curving road. Arkady could not help but gawk. The Lukoil-Gazprom estate was sublime. Here a stream emerged from a grove of beeches, emptying into a pond whose mirror-smooth surface reflected a rustic mill. There, what looked to be a fairy village of clustered acorns with doors and windows cut into them was actually cottage-gourds grown to house the servants. Beyond, a pillared manor house topped a rise. A verse leapt to Arkady’s mind from the dissolute youth he was working hard to put behind him:

  So twice five miles of fertile ground

  With walls and towers were girdled round:

  And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,

  Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

  And here were forests ancient as the hills,

  Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

  Then he arrived at the manor house, and the baronessa came out to greet him with a chaste peck on the cheek. With her was a ginger-haired and cinnamon-freckled young man his own age, whom she did not bother to introduce.“Darling Yevgeny,” she said, her attention already focused on the next carriage trundling its way toward her, “do show Arkady about, while I stay here to greet the latecomers.”

  “Let me take you around back,” Yevgeny said cheerily. “The fellows are enjoying a touch of sport at the pond.”

  At their destination, Arkady saw immediately that he was dressed subtly wrong for the occasion. His clothes-gray moire cloth with green brocade vest and bright yellow ostrich-skin boots and gloves-would have been flawless for a city gathering, but here in the country they were a touch too formal. The other men wore wider collars and softer cravats than his. Their trousers were cut looser, presumably to provide more ease of movement for the strenuous entertainments of the countryside. Arkady’s trousers, by contrast, were very tight indeed. He blushed to reflect on how much more revealing they were.

  Luckily, the others were clustered at the tiled edge of the pond cheering and cursing, and paid him no more than a quick glance-and-a-nod as he was introduced around. Several of the men had canvas water-bags at their feet. Now one untied the top of his and poured something into the pond. Bright ribbons of red and orange and yellow and green energetically looped and swirled beneath the surface.

  Arkady leaned over the pond to get a closer look.

  “Look out!” Yevgeny shouted as a needle-toothed goblin’s head burst from the water, viciously snapping at his face. Had not Yevgeny wrapped his arms about Arkady’s chest and hauled him back, he might well have lost his nose.

  “What in heaven’s name was that?” Arkady gasped.

  “Her name is Lulu,” one of the men said. He reached a canvas-gloved hand into the water and pulled out a red-and-orange eel which wrapped itself briefly about his arm before being stuffed back in its bucket. A blue eel with yellow stripes floated dead and ripped open on the surface of the water. Turning to his comrade, he said, “And I believe you owe me some money, Borya.”

  “Do you eel, Arkady?” Yevgeny asked.

  “No.”

  “What a pity. Tell you what, let me know as soon as you’ve found an appropriate eeling pond, and I’ll send over my trainer with a bucket of elvers.” There was a sudden thrashing in the water and Yevgeny turned eagerly back to the fight. “Oh, well done!”

  At dinner, Arkady managed to negotiate the soup course without incident. However, he had barely tackled his salad when the baronessa leaned over to whisper, “You mustn’t start with the outermost fork, silly. ‘Big spoon, little fork, tiny silver tongs. A fork for Sylvia, a skewer for her date, then little brother Pierre comes and cleans the plate.’ That’s how you remember.” Then a line of green-clad waiters whose bright stares identified them as serviles entered the dining room carrying platters and began serving out pink cuts of meat. Avdotya tapped on a water glass with her spoon: “Everybody, I want you to pay attention! I’m quite proud of the next course, and it’s a mark of the regard in which I hold you all that I’m serving it t
o you this afternoon.”

  “Well, don’t be a tease, Dunyasha,” Yevgeny said good-humoredly. “What is it?”

  “Why it’s me! I had my own flesh cloned for you today. That’s how highly I think of my friends.”

  “That’s all very nice for the men,” a pretty young thing mock-pouted. “But I’d much rather have a taste of the baron. After all, if he can’t be here in person…”

  A mischievous look came over the baronessa’s face. “Why, who do you think went into the consomme?”

  Roars of merriment and applause lofted to the rafters.

  Arkady stared down at his cutlet in horror.

  At last the dinner was over. The women drifted to the back lawn to oversee the setting-up of lanterns, while the men retired to the veranda for cigars. There, Leonid Nikitovich Pravda-Interfax, who had genially introduced himself as a professional wastrel (but who, according to Yevgeny, was actually highly placed in the Ministry of Roads and Canals), said, “Irina tells me that you have a drug. One that,” he lowered his voice in a comically conspiratorial manner, “improves one’s performance in the saddle?”

  “Oh, yes, certainly. But the sexual dimensions of the rasputin’s power are the least of it,” Arkady said, on familiar ground at last. “Spiritually…well, there are some who have taken it and literally seen God in all His glory.”

  “Yes, yes, God is all well and good,” Leonid said. “But given the choice I’d far rather see Tatiana’s titties.”

  “Or Anastasia’s ass,” one of his pals said to top him. “Or Jennicah’s je ne sais quois,” said another, making it a game.

  His companions snorted and guffawed.

  Arkady flushed again, unaccountably embarrassed. These superficial and well-meaning young men were none of them trying to humiliate him, he realized. But simply by their being who they were and he being himself, the humiliation was inevitable. Which, in its way, made the experience all the more painful.

  Mercifully, the baronessa reappeared. “Put out those foul-smelling things, and join the ladies outside,” she said. “We’re going to play lawn polo.”