The Tool & the Butterflies

by Dmitry Lipskerov

  “What’re the slippers for?”

  “Her Juliet costume. That was her first role. They say she was so lovely you couldn’t tear your eyes away.”

  “They’ve delivered the coffin,” the coroner reported. “My orderlies can help you put her body in now. Here’s the death certificate, by the way.” She held out an envelope.

  “Thank you.” I bestowed a warm smile of farewell on her, and we parted as well-wishers. A professional always respects a fellow professional!

  The hearse moved down car-choked streets. The sun seemed the very soul of profligacy, so much light did it pour over the city. The light filled up the entire space of the world; myriads of sunrays were dispatched into the darkest niches of nature and city alike. People sneezed and squinted in the glare, and the flowers that had been perishing during the long winter in their windowsill pots returned to life and bloomed colorfully in reply. Only one policeman was vexed by the light. It shone right in his eyes, like a searchlight, hindering his attempts to regulate traffic. Spring! On a day like that, even a burial is a joy!

  “Should I take her in for the requiem?” the driver asked as the hearse pulled through the gates of Donskoy Monastery.

  “No, go straight to the allée.”

  “Good,” said the pleased funeral worker.

  “What’s so good about it?” I inquired.

  “Oh no, that’s not what I meant! Not singing a requiem is bad, of course! I—”

  “You’ll get out of here an hour early,” I said, finishing his thought. “That’s right.”

  “What do we need a requiem for?” I thought. “I’ll sing it myself.” A couple of burly, taciturn guys neatly lowered the coffin into the ready-made grave, spent a few minutes covering it with dirt, and then laid a wreath at the top bearing the text “to a beloved aunt from her nephew.” Then the crew accepted their five-thousand-ruble payola and dissolved among the gravestones.

  The next grave over had a bench for relatives to sit on when they visited. I sat down and gave my auntie a heartfelt rendition of Elvis Presley’s “Love Me Tender.”

  … “So, where were we, auntie?” And with that, I resumed my story.

  Ten days later, Iratov walked through the prison gate and began his parole. The warden he’d worked for had arrived to accompany him, and he kept exhorting him not to quit the Vladimir Region, to build private homes in their thousands for “my guys,” make use of his mighty talent, and reap the boundless benefits of his creative genius, unhindered by the scrutiny and reprimands of Moscow.

  “I built you a house, didn’t I?” Iratov asked.

  “And what a house it is!”

  “Then leave me the fuck alone!”

  “You ungrateful motherfucker, I’ll—” The warden’s faced swelled with wrathful blood.

  “You’ll what? Trying to scare me again?”

  “I’ll take you out, you traitor! In the course of an escape attempt!”

  “Do you know who arranged my parole? Or are you really that dumb? I’ll survive prison, but you’ll be done for! Be happy with what you got outta me and keep riding the gravy train, but do it without me. Got it?”

  The warden figured out that this currency speculator’s parole had been arranged by the KGB and realized that meant he couldn’t do anything. He was dying of hatred …

  To be more precise, it wasn’t the agency or even Captain Vorontsova that Iratov owed his parole to, but her friend Galina. She told her minister husband that an injustice had occurred, and bam, he was free! And she did it all for Iratov’s stones, the best of the ones he’d managed to hide from the government.

  Alevtina was not there to meet him, so the ex-con took a little bus to the commuter train station. He bought a ticket, endured the embrace of his fellow citizens on the packed train for three and a half hours, then finally arrived in the capital.

  He made it back by dinner and pressed his mother against his chest with particular tenderness, kissing her face, wet with tears of joy. As for his father, he just gave him a firm hug. Iratov’s hunched, prematurely aged progenitor huddled against his strong chest and cried too. Not just because his son had been let out of the prison camp and because he had survived, but also because he had contributed to his child’s happiness with his own plenty. Even if it was through his son, Andrei Iratov had finally achieved his true calling. He had made something of himself. He had become a man. A gold medal in Tokyo!

  We must give Iratov his due. After his Moscow Architectural Institute exams were over, he never used his father’s work again. Some hidden harmony drew him in after that. He designed the self-tapping screw building himself. It seemed like God really had passed talent from father to son, but the younger Iratov’s gift was on a far larger scale.

  Later that evening, he called Alevtina Vorontsova. The young man’s unmoored heart nearly froze from the foretaste of that hoarse voice, the fifty-five-year-old mother of his future child, but it wasn’t her who picked up.

  “Who’s asking for her?” answered an unknown man’s voice.

  “Her husband …”

  “What husband? She isn’t married!”

  “Not technically her husband …”

  “Ah, Mr. Iratov?”

  “Comrade Iratov! I’ve got my Soviet passport in my pocket! Who are you?”

  “Come on over! Come on over immediately, Comrade Iratov!”

  It turned out Alevtina Vorontsova’s apartment was full of people, all smoking, including a photographer who was taking pictures of every single item. A pool of still-wet blood reflected the harsh light of the chandelier.

  “Committee for State Security Captain Photios Prytki,” said a man with familiar features. “I spoke to you on the phone.”

  “What happened? Do I know you?”

  “The thing is,” Prytki began. “Two hours ago, Alevtina Vorontsova was fatally wounded—”

  “Fuck!” went the disbelieving Iratov. “Fatally wounded? Murdered! Is that what you mean? Huh?”

  “Wounded, to be precise. While she was dying, she managed to crawl to the telephone and report the name of the killer.”

  “I just arrived from a prison camp out by Vladimir! I’ve been at my parents’ apartment for the past few hours. They can vouch for—”

  “You are not under suspicion, comrade.”

  “Fuck!”

  “Alevtina Vorontsova was fatally wounded by one Zanis Peterson. Your colleague, by the way.”

  “Colleague?! From the institute? Is he an architect? Or a speculator?”

  “Peterson is a speculator, just like you. He hit an elderly woman in the head three times with a hammer.”

  “Yes, I think I remember Alevtina mentioning his name once … but what now?”

  “Now the doctors are struggling to save the child’s life.” Photios Prytki stepped aside for a moment, whispered something in his colleague’s ear, and then returned to the dumb-founded Iratov. “Do you remember your first visit to the foreign currency store a few years ago?” Arseny gave the agent a questioning look. “Come on, think back!”

  “Now it’s coming back to me! You’re the spook from that store! On Vasilyevsky Street?”

  “Precisely.”

  “And now you’re …”

  “And now I am an investigator responsible for matters of the utmost importance to the state, Mr. Iratov.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “My career began with you. Who would have thought? I expected to be watching foreign currency stores forever. I’m just a simple country boy from out by Vyazma, but when I caught sight of you, my bosses soon became aware that you weren’t just some hustler. You were a fish that was rapidly gaining weight, almost a whale. That’s when they promoted me and transferred me to the duty-free store at Sheremetyevo. I watched the monitors, staked the place out, found all your stashes of goods and fall money … Do you remember Aleksei?”

  “I know a lot of Alekseis,” Iratov said with a shake of his shaggy head—too much information too quickly.r />
  “He goes by Lyosha. Remember now? The bartender at Café Lira?”

  “That rings a bell …”

  “The idiot went ahead and bought Zykina’s dacha! Imagine that, a bartender buying a dacha that belonged to Brezhnev’s favorite singer! They dragged him out of the lake when they took him in, and he crapped himself. Pardon me for sharing that detail. Lyosha cracked as soon as they got him to the detention center. Something went wrong upstairs. It was the fear. He just kept repeating that his balls were made of ice … He got a life sentence, but not in jail. Now they’re trying to warm up his balls in a psychiatric hospital …”

  “What are you telling me all this for? Are you trying to scare me? That’s an odd choice, considering where I just came from. I don’t give a red-hot shit about his icy balls. I’ve got totally normal balls. How about you?”

  “What are you talking about?” Prytki’s voice was reassuring. “That was just for your information!” He took a puff to get his cigarette going, enjoyed a greedy drag, and continued. “Do you remember Masha? You know, the salesgirl at our foreign currency store. The real looker. You pretended to be a foreigner, went back to her place that same night, and gave it to her in all three holes?”

  “Masha …” Iratov said, letting the sound of the name carry him back into the past. A year … two … three … It surfaced in his mind and made him smile.

  “Remember? Yeah, I can see you do. Well, the day after you screwed Masha, she got picked up by the scruff of the neck and thrown out of the system—thanks to you. The poor girl didn’t know that you were a fellow Soviet national, so she got canned. Then she got thrown out of the Communist Youth League and … Well, nobody would hire her with that black mark on her record, but Masha was pregnant. She had the child in abject poverty, and it was taken by social services. A drama worthy of the Moscow Art Theatre—”

  “Sorry, but what’s your name again?” Iratov asked, interrupting the agent. “Phokios—”

  “Photios Prytki, at your service.”

  “What are you doing, acting out a Dostoyevsky novel? Fuck, we’ve got ourselves a Porfiry Petrovich here! Have you ever taken an honest look in the mirror? With that country-boy mug of yours—sorry, but it’s true—all you can do is watch monitors! If you need a Raskolnikov, go catch Peterson! He’s the one who bashed Alevtina’s head in, not me! Now give me the address of the hospital!”

  “I will momentarily,” Prytki promised. “But confiscation specialists have already been dispatched to the locations of your stashes. Alevtina is dead. Who will protect you now? That means a new case. I’m already hard at work, believe me! There’ll be a new sentence, too.”

  “And a big promotion for you?” Iratov asked with a sneer.

  “That too …”

  “You’re screwed, Photios!”

  “Au contraire, Mr. Iratov, you are the one who can expect to get screwed!”

  “All those stashes have been moved to new places! Alevtina was hard at work, too, before she died. It was like my birthday when I got her letter! I can tell you that now that she’s kicked the bucket. Vorontsova made sure our child would be taken care of. So you can go back to working that store and forget about your new stars, Phokios! Or maybe they’ll just tell you to fuckin’ get lost! You ruined Masha’s life for nothing, you son of a bitch.”

  Prytki could roll with the punches, but his ears turned as red as molten metal.

  “Do you know why Peterson bashed Vorontsova’s head in?”

  “Knowing that is your job! I’ve gotta run!”

  “Your lady friend was working with Peterson the same way she worked with you. She kept him on the hook, coerced him into giving her regular—what do you call it? Pumps? She stashed away everything her tenderhearted Latvian friend had accumulated and kept blackmailing him … The odds that the child is yours aren’t too high! She worked with a whole bunch of Iratovs and Petersons, not just you!”

  Iratov burst into sincere laughter. He even permitted himself a squeal of pleasure.

  “You’re such a stupid prick, Photios! I wish there was a foreign currency pay toilet so they could station you there! Even now, you just don’t get it, you cannot fathom how glad I am that Peterson did that old bitch in! If it weren’t for him, I would’ve done it myself. If only he’d smashed her with that hammer a hundred times over! Screwing old spooks isn’t my calling. And I don’t want anything to do with her bastard brat. I’m free, Prytki, free as a bird! Now give me the address, ya little prick!”

  Iratov went to the hospital, but they wouldn’t let him see Vorontsova. As he walked down the long hallways looking for the exit, he happened upon a ward full of sleeping newborns. He meant to walk right by, but he stopped for a moment, looked through the huge glass window, and suddenly saw the tiny, doll-like leg of a child with a tag attached just above the pink heel. Written clearly, in blue pen, was the name “Iratov …”

  7

  The train car taking Eugene to Moscow was cold, crowded, and smelled insufferably sour. The red-haired Shurka had taken the young man to Sudogda. He was visibly sick with a terrible hangover, but still as suspicious as a dachshund chained up in front of its master’s house and expected to guard it like a German shepherd.

  “How exactly are you related to Alice?” the coachman asked. The interrogation had commenced.

  “Is that a horse?” Eugene inquired, ignoring the question.

  “Sure is! A mare. You a city boy? Never seen a horse before?”

  “She’s old,” the young man concluded.

  “She’s still got a little more in her,” the coachman reassured his fellow traveler. “Since when does Alice have relatives in the city?”

  “She has relatives in America, too.”

  “Come on, you’re pulling my leg!”

  “Way back in the late nineteenth century, one of Alice’s ancestors moved to Texas, where he would later invent the television, the automobile, and the locomotive. He patented everything and became a billionaire. Every generation of his descendants multiplied his capital, but his great-great-great-granddaughter Jackie Kennedy was childless, so Alice might have some serious money coming her way. After Jackie dies, of course.”

  “This city boy’s fucking with me,” Shurka thought, suddenly tense, his nasty hangover forgotten. “What if he ain’t, though? If he ain’t, then I’ve gotta go make Ksenia sweet on me, so’s she’ll let me rent out a younger horse from her after this Jackie lady dies … I won’t pay those village capitalists, of course. They got more money than a dog’s got fleas. Maybe I could borrow some money from Ksenia, like fifty thousand rubles, and not give it back?” Shurka wondered what would be better for him—if the city boy was telling the truth about the relatives in America or if he was lying. Sure, he’d have a new horse and lots of money, but on the other hand, Ksenia and Alice would be up in the kingdom of heaven, throwing money around at the store in Stepachevo. Did they deserve that kind of wealth? What made those dames better than Shurka? “No way! I’d rather have this city boy be lying,” he decided. “To hell with it, the new horse, the millions, everything’s fine the way it is! We don’t need any upheavals around here! We won’t stand for a capitalist revolution! We’ll drop the bomb on America! I’m a man who means what he says!”

  “So who exactly are ya?”

  “I told you, I’m her relative.” Eugene hopped off the sleigh and started walking beside it, rubbing the old mare’s croup. She happily swished her tail, welcoming the good treatment of horses.

  “I mean what do you do for a living?”

  “I’m a student.”

  “And what are you studying to be, Mr. Student?”

  “A scholar.”

  “Scholars are dirt-poor these days.”

  “There’s no changing your vocation …”

  Shurka didn’t want to jaw with Alice’s guest anymore. He got off the sleigh, too, and turned away from the wind. He loosened his pants and began to rid himself of excess fluid, but then he screamed at the top of his
lungs.

  “Oooooow! I’m never buying a stranger’s moonshine again! That crap was fake, fudge pudge! I’ve got the frickin’ DTs, I’m dyyyyyyyyin’! Frig me sideways!” Then he suddenly fell silent and ran to catch up to the sleigh, holding up his pants with both hands. “Hey, Mr. Student!”

  “What do you want?” Eugene asked, turning toward the coachman. “What are you yelling for?”

  “You’re a scholar—”

  “Still just a student.”

  “Wait up, Mr. Student!” Shurka stopped, unclenched his shaking hands, and let his pants fall right on to his felt boots, baring everything below his stomach. “Well?”

  “What?”

  “Go on, look!”

  “I am.” Eugene looked at the coachman’s white pelvic area.

  “Did my dick really disappear, or is it the DTs?”

  “It’s gone,” the young man said and began to climb the hill toward the bus stop. Shurka ran to catch up to the horse, which had managed to turn around and start heading home.

  “I can’t stop drinking,” he said in a voice that hardly sounded human. “I’m an addict!” he shouted into the woods.

  “Dick … dick … dick …” answered the echo.

  Eugene started feeling poorly on the train. There wasn’t enough oxygen. It reeked intolerably of unwashed human bodies. One man was eating hardboiled eggs, another was chewing mint gum to cover up the alcohol on his breath. Little tykes were hollering, and one of the young mommies was unabashedly feeding her spawn from her giant red breast.

  Eugene was afraid he’d lose consciousness, especially in a place like this. He was holding it together, but there was still a hellish hour and a half to go until Moscow. The train jerked, people bumped into him from every direction, and his nose started bleeding.

  “Hey, snot-nose, get the hell outta here! Go between the cars!” commanded some thug with a mug like a pit bull. “You’ll bleed all over everyone! Make way, citizens!”

  The compliant crowd squeezed Eugene into the vestibule, where he wiped the blood away with the sleeve of his coat. That was of no interest to the smokers standing out there. His innards twisted from the cigarette smoke, like someone was turning them on a spit, and his vision blurred, but a small, short man grabbed his arm to support him and drew him into the vestibule of the next car.