by Fenek Solère
Tom smiled confirmation.
They rushed towards Nevsky, bouncing along wood planking that had been built for commuters to bypass the construction work. Behind, moving stiffly, but with quiet determination, Bogdan followed, reaching into his pocket, ready to call Arkady on his mobile. Traffic was congested. Arkady was struggling to turn the car onto Bolshaya Morskaya when his mobile rang.
‘Da’, he said, then listening intently. ‘Ublyudok!’ he spat, big knuckles drumming on the steering wheel. In the back, two other Bloc men sat in silence. ‘Get out and follow’, he commanded. ‘Don’t lose them.’ The rear doors swung open, dispatching fresh attack dogs into the metropolitan centre of the former Leningrad.
Tom and Ekaterina reached Nevsky junction, turning right toward Kazan, rain lacerating them like iced grapeshot. They pushed on over the first canal bridge, looking back to see if they were still being followed. Their predators were clearly visible, wolf-like eyes intent on their prey. Bogdan was 30 metres distant, talking breathlessly into his mobile, giving directives to the foot soldiers. His stride widened as he strove to close on them. His accomplices had successfully circumnavigated the Admiralty and were now on the opposite side of Nevsky.
Poised on the curb, waiting for gaps in the hurtling headlights, Tom and Ekaterina began running, bolting between oncoming cars, slipping between the shadows cast by the Cathedral’s colonnades. Consumed by narrow passages, Tom felt that familiar uneasiness which always overcame him in enclosed spaces. He was straining to keep up, thigh muscles choking on lactic acid. Torrential rain fell as Tom stopped, slumped against a wall, bracing himself, the nausea overwhelming. Ekaterina waited.
‘You shouldn’t have drunk so much!’
He rolled his eyes and vomited. ‘I’m too old for this’, he confessed to himself. Some 20 metres on, an archway gave to the left. The entrance was partially cordoned off by concrete slabs. Ekaterina handled these hurdles with relative ease, whilst he stumbled through them, heavy-legged, just making out the girl’s pale features refracting in the air blowing west from the streetlights on Nevsky.
‘If we go this way’, she was saying, ‘we go back to the street and come behind them. They will never know.’ Tom nodded numbly. Ekaterina began clambering over some railings. Tom, gasping, copied her, heart thumping, spitting bile.
For a moment they stood side by side, cars chasing light snakes over the tarmac. Crossing to the eastern side of the Gribeodova to catch a lift, Arkady’s black car skidded to a halt in front of them. He was hitting the horn, yelling for them to get inside, but they had already taken off down the canal bank, past the Sakura, slapping steps weaving around a growling motorbike. Bogdan and the others emerged from the crowd of onlookers and gave chase in a flurry of hats and coats.
Ekaterina grabbed Tom’s damp sleeve, pulling him towards the entrance of the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood. Disappearing into the congregation, they joined pilgrims squeezing through the narrow doorway, shuffling into a vestibule where carved figures flew about the walls. The smell of sodden wool permeated the air. Within the candlelit sepulchre, a circle of crow-robed priests stood in silent contemplation, their beards black, cloth veils falling from their headgear. The low mutter of prayer began resonating in the gloom. Tom stared upwards, clouds of blue incense obscuring the mosaic of the Christ Pantocrator, wondering if this was a sanctuary or a gilded trap. He noted that Ekaterina’s face was flushed with exertion as they approached Alexander II’s shrine, self-conscious footfalls resounding on Italian marble. She slid her hand into his.
‘Who were those people?’
‘Bloc partisans.’
‘More like gruppirovka.’ Tom looked blank. ‘Gangs!’
***
Behind the scenes, nationalist sympathisers in the Russian High Command were taking control of the new military command structure, at strategic, operational, and brigade level;
Vitaly Milonov, a former St Petersburg Councillor and lawmaker for Vladimir Putin, makes a return to the public sphere, advocating for the celebration of St John of Kronstadt, a man connected with the Black Hundred;
Thousands flock to Tolyatti where Mary’s icon is raised, symbolically offering protection against hostile forces;
‘Resistance’, Vitaly Averyanov, President of the Institute of Dynamic Conservatives, repeated again and again, ‘is a sign of life.’
Grigori paced back and forth, eagerly awaiting the call from Federal Security headquarters in Lubyanka Square, Moscow. ‘Hydra goes green’, was the message. ‘We are sanctioning the assassination of President Babel’, a dry voice confirmed after giving the appropriate Syny Otechestva, Sons of the Fatherland, authentication code. ‘Spetsnaz units will be deployed to assist the operation.’
‘Date, time, and location?’
‘Babel will be attending a dinner party organised by his fellow tribesman Mikhail Mirilashvili at a private house on Bolshoy Prospekt tomorrow. He will take the Blagoveshchenskiy Most crossing, following the university embankment route and liniya.’
‘And your men will be the same ones you used in Makhachkala?’
‘Yes, they are already in the city and will contact you.’
‘I will tell the Dutchman to be ready.’
‘Remember, it is important we have clean hands’, the Muscovite threatened.
‘Do not worry’, Grigori confided. ‘This man was trained by the Norwegian Forsvarets Spesialkommando.’
Then, after raising a private toast to the mission’s success, he called Alyosha, pressing him for a show of strength on the street as a diversion. ‘We need everyone out on Nevsky. Massed flags, music, and weapons. Leave no one behind. Every man, woman and child, understand?’ Alyosha agreed. ‘Make sure Martsinkevich’s FAMAT 18 hard men are there, this will be war.’
‘Understood!’
***
Ekaterina lived in a nineteenth-century apartment off the Ulitsa Yakubbovicha. They went up four flights of spiral steps with twisting banisters. Drafty French windows opened out onto a narrow balcony with a split plinth overlooking an inner courtyard. Throwing open the shutters, her graphite pupils caught the starlight. ‘You will be safe here’, she said confidently. ‘There are no monsters.’
‘Monsters?’
‘What Glukhovsky calls the Dark Ones, Homo novus—the next stage in evolution.’
‘You like Metro 2033, too?’
‘Of course, it is an allegory for our times. We are like the hero Artyom battling another species. Take a look around you; they are rising. We fooled ourselves into thinking we had rid ourselves of the people who genocided millions upon millions of real Russians after their so-called Worker’s Revolution. But we were wrong; they have returned even stronger, with new allies from the south and east. And soon, just like Wells’ Morlocks, they will be hunting us in the streets.’
‘You are certainly one of the Eloi’, he flattered her.
They sat and talked. She was descended from an old Leningrad family, her great grandmother having attended the Smolny Institute for young noblewomen.
‘Have you been active in the movement long?’
‘It depends what you mean by active.’
‘Meetings, marches, that kind of thing.’
‘Since my early teens, I guess. Just as soon as I read Kollar’s epic poem Slavy dcera, Slava’s daughter.’
‘And your friends?’
‘Most, yes, but my grandfather is the most influential on me.’
‘Parents?’
She went quiet and changed the subject.
The flat comprised three rooms. A cramped lounge, with an antique clock, an Afghan rug, and bookshelves filled to bursting; a dining room-cum-kitchen with a small stove and Formica table littered with pots, pans, herbs, oils, and vinaigrette; and sleeping quarters barely large enough for a double bed.
He paid particular attention to some of her own art hung over the fireplace whilst Ekaterina put on Halgrath’s dark ambient composition, Out of Time.
‘Do
you like Aveparthe’s Landscapes over the Sea?’
‘Yes, and Outer Tehom by that Ukrainian drone guy, Oleg Puzan’, she enthused, pouring some German beers and stepping out onto the balcony. ‘Be careful, it’s not very safe’, she said as his facial expression changed with the creak of metal wires. The storm had passed, and now silence reigned in the courtyard below.
‘Thank you’, he said.
‘For what?’
‘Helping me.’
‘You are a guest in my country, it was my duty.’
‘Duty?’
‘Pleasure’, she corrected herself.
For a while he stood at the bookshelves, glass in hand, head to one side, reading esoteric titles by Mircea Eliade, Titus Burckhardt, and Aleksander Zinovyev. He felt a pang of jealousy that she owned a signed copy of Dmitry Merezhkovsky’s Death of the Gods, and Against Liberalism, a collection of essays assembled by Dugin in consultation with Alain de Benoist. His fingers settled on a large, familiar volume. ‘I see you like Tolkien?’ he said.
‘There was a time when owning The Lord of the Rings was a revolutionary act’, reminisced Ekaterina. Like Heidegger, Tolkien was concerned with the rise of the machine, the massification of everything. Are you familiar with Dugin’s book Martin Heidegger: The Philosophy of Another Beginning?’
‘That was published by the Radix people, right?’
‘Yes, a beautiful edition. I have an English-language version in my bedroom.’ Tom followed her, accepting the copy as she took it from the bedside table.
She explained that her participation in the Right was inspired by Mikhail Antonov and Sergei Kurginyan’s economic vision for a new Russia. ‘I also have ecological concerns’, she explained. ‘For me, the preservation of Russia’s natural habitat is a primary objective. I hate the fact that the forests have been logged, lakes poisoned, and the Aral is now a dust bowl. I love traditional buildings. I want to fight the malyi narod agenda, like crime, alcoholism, dissolution of family values, and the lack of idealism amongst young people.’
‘Noble intentions.’
‘I am an idealist in a land of pessimists!’
‘And a mystic’, he added, pointing to a book on Sufism.
‘I have many interests and many appetites!’ She wandered into the kitchen, pulling open the fridge. ‘You want another drink?’ He answered in the affirmative and she fired the cork from a bottle of sparkling wine, the contents frothing madly, spurting everywhere. After a glass or so, Ekaterina dipped her fingers into a bowl of honey and reached out provocatively for his mouth. ‘You have sweet tooth?’ He gripped her wrist and licked her thumb. She bent into him, tonguing his ear, golden fingers wrenching his shirt while he opened her blouse, clutching at the brassiere’s metal catch, unzipping trousers, sending them sliding to reveal crimson knickers.
They fell into bed and made love to the rhythm of rain tip-tapping on windowpanes. He could feel Ekaterina’s hips suck him deep inside and hear hot words of encouragement to push harder. She was lying beneath him when she came to orgasm, eyes closed, hands gripping his shoulders. His mouth was on her throat, panties coiled around a leather belt, black shoes pointing north and west.
Afterwards they lay together, listening to water pipes gurgle.
‘Tell me more about England’, she said.
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Do you all live in cottages with thatched rooves?’
‘Of course!’
‘And roses, are there always roses in your gardens?’
‘Naturally. And we stop everything for tea with jam and scones at three o’clock.’
‘Really?’
‘You look surprised. I thought you had studied English culture.’
‘You must not mock me’, Ekaterina smiled. ‘We were told you were a very polite people. That you would wait in line for a red bus and let ladies sit first.’
‘Only in the suburbs’, he replied. ‘In the city it is dog eat dog.’
‘What is suburbs?’
‘I’ll explain later’, he promised. They disentangled their bodies, wrapping themselves in crumpled sheets, padding barefoot into the lounge to take coffee. Ekaterina watched him over the rim of a big cup. Tom leaned forward and touched her flushed cheek.
‘You were wonderful’, he said.
‘Are you sure?’ His hand was still resting against her blushing face. She did not withdraw, but did not melt with emotion either. There was a challenge in her tone now. ‘You mean it?’
‘Yes, I mean it’, he confessed, as much to himself as to her. Outside, the rain had stopped, and stars shone like embossed rhinestones on black suede. ‘A lovely night’, he said. She put down her steaming drink and embraced him. Her warm tongue probed deep. Then with a wicked smile, she slipped his right hand between her legs and nodded towards the bedroom, ‘Again’, she said, ‘I like strong man in lovemaking.’
Tom lay where he fell, bedcovers pushed back, completely naked. The curtains were half drawn, and there, opposite his half-open eyes, beside the window pane, body bleached by the pale white moon, Ekaterina sat cross-legged, staring at him like a manifestation of Priya, the Slavonic goddess of love and spring. A towel hung over her shoulder. Motionless, she gazed at him from under long lashes, mouth pouting, her expression serious.
‘Come to bed or you will catch cold.’ The caring tone in his voice frightened him.
‘Do you mean to stay long?’ She spoke softly, like someone scared of being overheard.
‘We’ll talk in the morning’, he replied. ‘Let’s sleep now.’ The moonlight cast a cold glow over her right cheek, her mouth hung open, a soundless sigh perched on puckering lips. Tom closed his eyelids tightly and tried to sleep. He heard a metallic noise and felt Ekaterina’s weight press down on the mattress. She was sitting beside him, arms outstretched across the pillows. Tom coughed. She leaned into him, nudging his neck with her forehead. They kissed. Tom held onto her for a long time, asking himself if it was possible to feel so strongly so quickly for another person? Any normal male feelings of mere sexual gratification, conquest, and the urge for a quick exit strategy seemed to have vanished. ‘Are you afraid of what is happening?’ he eventually asked.
She did not reply. Ekaterina had drawn back, propping herself against the head of the bed. The towel rose and fell with her breathing. She watched him with quiet interest, something like how he imagined a scientist might study a laboratory rat. Then she took his hand. Her fingers played chase across cotton.
‘No, I am angry.’
‘Angry?’
‘How we Russians have let things come to this.’ Her frail voice was distant and low-pitched.
‘How we Europeans, you mean?’
When he was sure she had fallen asleep, he got up and stood at the window, looking out over bridges and domes glowing under a corona of red light. A gull rose on an updraft of air, wings gliding against the sun, sailing far on the estuary’s wind. He longed to feel the freedom of the breeze carrying him in its ebb and flow, to know that whichever way it took him, he could find his way home.
Over his shoulder, Tom could hear the rise and fall of her chest, sucking and blowing sounds through linen.
‘I’m going to have to leave’, he whispered to himself. ‘Leave this place.’ Then, looking down at Ekaterina, ‘Leave you.’
***
At that very moment, Peter Janssen received clearance from his commanders in the European underground to proceed with Operation Hydra. He had been fully briefed by his Spetsnaz counterpart on logistics and tactics during the journey back from Pulkovo airport, after dropping Ulrick Hoffman off for his flight to Frankfurt. Janssen’s commander, a man called Geir, headquartered in Norway, told him, ‘The assassination would be the starting pistol, just like the shooting of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo.’
‘Our accommodation of President Babel’s desire to re-populate Russia exemplifies our Eastern alignment with the Islamic world’, says Joshua Meyer, Tel Aviv’s representative to Central
and Eastern Europe;
‘Our vision for Europe and Russia is a multi-ethnic, multi-tiered, and multi-layered commonwealth of partners and associates stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Caspian Sea. We will expand this empire of opportunity, transforming the various communities we reach’, says Nicolas Sarkozy, independent political consultant to the EU;
In an interview widely circulated among the nationalist underground across Europe and Russia, Alexander Dugin speaks once again of ‘sacred geography’ and the battle for Hyperborea. ‘As I said in my article “The Hand is Stretching for the Holster”, this will be decided by war. The father of all things’;
Russian nationalist guerrilla units bomb pipelines running across the Caspian Sea’s southern rim.
6.
Moscow has only just woken up, and Russians have only just started to recognise their identity. With every day, Russian nationalists are gaining more and more support across the country.—Alexander Belov
Four hundred marchers came down Ulitsa Marata, chanting ‘Russkiy! Russkiy! Russia for Russians!’ The columns bore their icons aloft, crowds coming together in the shade of unfurled gonfalons. Their opponents smashed shop windows and raided the Atrium shopping mall. The Bozhaya Volya, or God’s Will Movement, began fighting pitched battles with scattered groups of Leftists hiding behind their black balaclavas, each side beating the other down the whole length of Liteyny Prospekt. Two Blacks with White girlfriends were cornered by the Nekrasov Museum. ‘Blyat!’ the patriots were screaming, dragging them to the nearest bridge and throwing them off into the water below.
Alyosha and Alexei were in the forefront, standing under a banner with an orange snake clenched in a fist, giving orders and directing the action as they charged the Bloc’s lines. Nikita, wearing a black shirt in honour of the Hundred, was in the vanguard, leading students in linking arms and singing with Pamyat flags:
Slav’sya, Slav’sya rodina-rossiya!