The Tool & the Butterflies

by Dmitry Lipskerov

  “I will be very cross if I have come out here for nothing, Belic.” “I wouldn’t do that to you, Comrade Colonel!”

  “Enough with the ‘comrade!’”

  “I like to do things properly. And yeah, this kid’s a chess whiz.”

  “Want to make this a little more interesting?”

  “If he loses, I’ll give you 70 pounds of sun-dried bream, Com … Mr. Colonel.”

  “And I’ll put up a case of vodka. Russian Standard! They only just started delivering it to our neck of the woods.”

  “Best of three,” the major announced.

  “Five,” Jamin countered, pouring another shot into himself. Then he began singing an old folk song, “The Floating Ax Head,” in his luxurious bass voice.

  “Seems like a respectable guy,” the major thought to himself. “But get a few shots in him and he’s as drunk as a schoolgirl.”

  “How about a moment to relax?” Belic asked, his tone servile.

  “Ah, I love napping in the hay up above your sauna! The smell of fresh, crinkly sheets … And send me that … what’s her name? The cook with the pink hair.”

  “Goodness, Comrade Colonel!”

  “That’s Mr. Colonel! I’ll give her a hundred—in dollars!”

  “The match is tomorrow …”

  “A big, warm ass never hurt anybody!”

  “I’ll ask her,” the major promised, then turned around and shouted for his subordinates. “Manuilov! Steklov!” Two yefreytors appeared instantly. “Escort Mr. Colonel to the bedroom above the sauna at once!”

  They fed Joseph—good food and lots of it. The pretty young cooks huddled around the handsome man with the deep black eyes and looked at him reverently. They liked the way he ate. The soldier boy paid no attention to the chicks; he was lost in his own thoughts. After he drank the kompot, Joseph shivered, covered his eyes, and whispered something in a language the cooks didn’t understand. They listened, though, like teenyboppers to a hit song.

  “What was that? Were you singin’ somethin’?” one of the civilian employees inquired when he had stopped whispering.

  “It was a prayer.”

  “What kind of prayer?”

  “For the dead … Slipperov just died.”

  The next morning, at eleven o’clock sharp, in the Lenin room, Colonel Jamin moved his king’s pawn and pressed the clock. The intelligence officer didn’t have any prepared opening lines for the match (or any at all, for that matter), so he was looking at Joseph with a certain degree of pity. This piece-of-trash recruit would have to drink enough bromine to wash away the Ostankino Television Tower, while he’d had that big-assed, pink-haired cook breathing in his ear all night. Jamin disappeared into his erotic reminiscences, making his moves mechanically, like he was playing through some memorized book variation, while time ticked away, and he imagined his nighttime hetaera à la doggy. Then suddenly, a short, cold word crashed into his brain—“mate!” The colonel came to his senses and stared at the board, not understanding how his opponent had managed to capture his king so quickly … It was a sight how happy Belic was! The major was practically jumping for joy, making faces, on the verge of giving Joseph a French kiss. The victor retained his usual demeanor as he set up the pieces for the next game and turned the board around so he could play white. When Colonel Jamin finally realized that he had been defeated by a private, his face turned crimson and he broke into furious sweat.

  “Are you Jewish?” he asked, unable to contain himself, pointing at Joseph, who was already prepared to play white.

  “Yes,” the soldier answered. “What does it matter?”

  “I’ll tell you later,” the intelligence officer promised. “Make your move, Jew. Where’s your yarmulke?”

  The next game lasted thirty-two moves. Eventually, white had three major pieces versus black’s vulnerable king shielded by a couple of pawns. Joseph could have put an end to his opponent’s torments at any moment, but he tried to make him resign himself and avoid the utter shame denoted by that word—“mate.” The intelligence officer fought on doggedly. Sweat dropped on to the board as he moved his king back and forth, but Joseph kept checking him over and over again, until Belic finally nodded. Wipe me out!

  “Mate,” Joseph declared, sliding his rook along the file. The major looked like he was about to crouch down and burst into a dance. His face was as red as Jamin’s, but from joy—the colonel looked like he was about to have a stroke.

  “Yid!” the intelligence officer raged. “Kike!”

  “Anal sex maniac!” Joseph snapped back unexpectedly.

  “How dare you, you little bitch!” The officer sprang to his feet, medals jangling, sweaty hand moving to his holster. “I’ll whack you in the toilet, you fucking bastard! I’ll shoot you right in front of Lenin! And, by the way, why the hell haven’t they taken Lenin down?!” At that point, the major had to step in.

  “Later, Mr. Colonel! The next item on the agenda is the third game! A deal’s a deal! Then you can shoot Lenin himself, if you want!”

  “I’ll whack you, too, bitch!” Jamin growled. “Damn you, Belic! You’re a yid too! You’re all yids here!”

  “Sure, sure,” the major agreed. “Everybody’s a yid, just move your pawn or whatever …”

  The colonel took a few deep breaths, trying to calm down. He strained his brain, like he was putting the pedal to the metal in his mighty Chrysler and moved so fast sparks flew: E2—E4.

  An elegant, absolutely crushing combination ended the third game on move 15.

  The instant Joseph uttered the word “mate,” Major Belic shouted.

  “Get outta here, kid! Run!”

  In white-hot fury, with blood rushing to his brain, the colonel sprang up, clawing at Joseph’s chest, but the quick, nimble youth slipped away and was already running across the parade ground toward the gate leading to the woods, Jamin’s voice booming after him.

  “Halt! I’ll kill you, kike!” Gunshots and four-letter words rang out. Hell, five-letter words, six!

  Joseph was unharmed for the time being. Jamin and Belic got into a rather primitive fight and busted up each other’s noses … When they broke apart, breathing hard, blood gushing, there was a sudden summer thunderclap. Buckets of rain came down; plump white mushrooms would sprout tomorrow.

  “I’m from Machulishchy,” Belic explained, the wind accompanying his voice. “That’s in Belarus!”

  “I know this trick by heart,” said the colonel, adjusting his uniform. “You’re a secret yid!”

  “Would you be so kind as to pay up … mister?” The irony was deliberate. “By the way, our president is inviting yids to return to our country. He promised to welcome them with honors!”

  “What are you showing off for, Belic?” Jamin’s heart had slowed, and his once hot skin had cooled; there was just a little blood left around his nose. “You can’t win yourself, so you brought in a Jew! That’s why the boys upstairs are inviting them back, to edge everyone else out once and for all! Those bastards did all their science abroad and left us fuckin’ high and dry!”

  “You’re the one who challenged him!”

  “But you’re the one who told me about him!”

  “Did anybody put a gun to your head?”

  “You know I have a temper!”

  Those who had lived on that base for a long time and seen Colonel Jamin invited for chess matches knew it always ended the same way: the most primitive of fights, then reconciliation. These officers weren’t enemies, just the opposite—they were comrades whose lives were missing something. One didn’t have enough opportunities to torture people, the other didn’t have enough stars on his shoulder boards—so they sublimated their real desires into games, the fair sex, and busting each other’s noses. Jamin lugged the case of fashionable new vodka out of his Chrysler and shook Belic’s hand.

  “Until next time, Comrade Colonel!”

  “Sure … Comrade it is. We’re as far from misters as a Jew is from a general.” Jamin got
into his car, where the air conditioner was already running, and bade the driver get moving.

  The following day, Slipperov’s coffin was brought out to the parade ground for the service. The departed seemed to have gotten even smaller; his face had dried up and the sight of the little cloth covering his head was heart-wrenching. His skull had been opened neatly but then closed carelessly. A dead man doesn’t give a damn!

  Belic received a call from the command center—he was not being held responsible; they were surprised that they had even managed to diagnose an aneurysm on a military base. The major explained that he was trying to keep morale high in these difficult, anarchic days, to maintain Soviet standards, especially in medicine. An ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure!

  The soldiers crawled up to the coffin like drowsy flies but then sped up to get away from the strange smell.

  “Formaldehyde,” Mrs. Adamian explained. She seemed to have aged another ten years. She wouldn’t leave the coffin, just stood there on legs riddled with varicose veins, stroking the cloth on Slipperov’s head … That evening, they escorted the old Armenian lady to her room, poured her some valerian, and let her be. Under cover of darkness, the kitchen girls hauled bucket after bucket of rapidly melting ice to keep Slipperov’s body cool. His parents would be arriving the next day, and everything had to look presentable.

  Belic drank the Russian Standard all night, getting pretty raucous, constantly inviting Joseph to knock one back to Slipperov’s memory and his victory over Jamin. Joseph abstained from drinking, but he sure did eat. The kitchen girls had fried up a whole heap of fish …

  “Well, yid, ol’ buddy …” the major said to Private Brodsky in parting. “There ya have it!” Then he retired for the night.

  The next morning, a black Volga arrived for Joseph. It was the general in command of their military district and Mitya Schwartz. Belic was instructed to provide Recruit Brodsky’s file without delay, as well as Brodsky himself.

  “He didn’t do anything wrong!” The agonizingly hungover major did his best to defend the kid, thinking Jamin was up to his old tricks, but the general harshly ordered him not to interfere.

  “Don’t worry, they’re going to give him a medical discharge,” Schwartz reassured him.

  They took Joseph to Moscow and improved his mother’s living conditions. They had found a vocation for this young man with the 180 IQ after all and, with it, the meaning of his life. As if he didn’t know it himself.

  12

  Every year, at the end of winter, I run a marathon in honor of a Roman named Pheidippides who never existed. Those Romans made up a lot of things in their long history—gods and idols to teach their wives and children, to sleep with them and cheat on them. Boy, those guys were a creative bunch. They changed the world. They stunned the Creator himself. Basically, I like it when it’s really coming down, and all the puddles … I put on my track bottoms with the stretched-out knees, some sneakers preserved since the fifties, a T-shirt with a Moscow Dinamo stencil on it, and …

  Well, long story short, I start running. I’m slopping through the melting snow, and all the people are gawking, like there’s something wrong with me. Maybe I’m not dressed right, who knows? I really like the way I look, though. It just so happens that contemporary activewear fashions tend toward the retro. Adidas and Fila both have retro lines. The people of Moscow are a peculiar lot. The best way to get a smile out of them is to slip on the ice and smack your head. Just slip and go face first right into the dirty snow. I brought so much joy into the world! The college girls started laughing, then the guys copied them out of habit, using my misfortune as an opportunity to flirt, even though they’d already suffered their own misfortune in their pants! Yesterday morning, they had all discovered that they were eunuchs. Even an old lady who had just a day and a half to live showed her gums in a toothless smile when she saw how elegantly I run.

  “You will be forgiven!” I promised her, then looked at the world around me and added, “but not the rest of you,” in a whisper.

  I trotted to the Boulevard Ring and started running where they’d plowed. I unexpectedly encountered an elderly man I recognized; it was Medvedev, the bachelor from that long-ago communal apartment, the one who’d once tried to evict me and enlisted the support of those other scumbag neighbors. I came up beside him and started running a little slower.

  “Do you remember me, Medvedev?” I asked calmly. He was carrying a bunch of bags, probably from the local Pyaterochka—must have been coming home with groceries.

  “Sure, you’re EE.” He looked at me like he’d seen me yesterday.

  “Precisely.”

  “You really don’t change. It’s like aging just isn’t for you.”

  “Try running, Comrade Medvedev. Especially now that there’s nothing between your legs to get in the way.” My neighbor clearly didn’t want to listen to what I was saying, so he stopped, pretending he needed to rest. I could not stop, of course; I was running a marathon and could not disrupt my graceful progress, so I had to leave Medvedev behind, but a chain of associations led me back to that disgusting apartment where they would never let me live in peace …

  Just as I had promised, I set up a table in the common area, one of the little mommies covered it with a white cloth, and then I loaded it with such fanciful delicacies in such quantity that even Old Lady Morozova started drooling.

  “I bet you stole it all, Mr. Eskimo!”

  “Why ‘Eskimo’?” I wanted to ask. Suckling pig, pressed black caviar, three grilled chickens, Olivier salad, Moskovsky salad, a bunch of cans of all kinds of fish, Stolichnaya vodka, enough to drink until you burst, plus Alazani wine for the ladies—a rare commodity back then.

  They sat, they ate, they drank. Old Lady Morozova single-handedly put away a whole grilled chicken but still managed to look displeased. Those representatives of the Russian people grew more kindhearted and raised a glass to me as the son of Comandante Che. They sang all the old songs: the “Seven Magpies,” the one about the horse, and the one about the partisans … Then the apartment burned down. It was Old Lady Morozova’s fault. She mixed vodka with red wine, got in bed with a lit cigarette, and dozed off. Her cotton blanket caught fire, and a lick of flame jumped to the synthetic curtains. After that, it was just a matter of follow-through …

  The mommies, along with their children and partners, burned like witches and warlocks in the fire that spread from that wayward flame. Only Medvedev the Bachelor managed to miraculously escape, and he stood outside and watched it amble up and down the whole height of the building, holding Old Lady Morozova in his arms, who was cursing for the whole neighborhood to hear, proclaiming that the bankbook for an account worth a million rubles was still inside.

  “I wanted to make a donation for repairs to the mausoleum of the great leader of the proletariat!” she yelled. “I saved up for so long!”

  She lived out the rest of her days in a quiet unit at Kashchenko Psychiatric Hospital—not half bad—since she had contrived to become the secretary of the Building 2 Party chapter … Well, to hell with that apartment! There were so many of them, some better, some worse. At least now I was sitting pretty at Senescentova’s place. Nobody bothered me. I kept running, trying to not think about anything, just meditate. The sky was swollen, gray-black, like a boil that was about to burst and send a black hole sluicing out.

  I run out on to Petrovsky Boulevard, startling the pigeons—and bam, I see this old man, one leg up on a bench, tying his shoelaces. The old man’s wearing the same sneakers as me, except red, plus track bottoms and a shirt with CSKA stenciled on it. Dinamo’s rival team. I recognize this flabby athlete, but who is he? Why, it’s my barber, my favored provider of tonsorial services, the silent Greek with the scissors! Antipatros! Then he starts running in the same direction as me. He’s as swift as a donkey on steroids!

  “Hey!” I shouted. “Wearing a CSKA shirt is beating a dead horse!” Their first stadium was built where Moscow’s old horse track onc
e stood, so that was an easy dig. Antipatros turned around and, for the first time in my memory, answered aloud, his voice coming through his fluttering beard.

  “Dinamo is a sty! A pig sty!” He was answering my jab in kind: Dinamo has a reputation for recruiting from the police force. “Dina-noooo!” he booed, as if he were in the stands.

  I was astonished. He was speaking! This man who had been silent for decades, and perhaps longer!

  “My dear Antipatros, your years of silence are over!” I exclaimed joyfully.

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Blood brothers, hey, hey! Oh, smell the hay! Oh, hear them neigh! CSKA is here to play!” I belted out his team’s official song.

  “Blood brothers? People have blood,” the Greek squeaked, his sneakers sloshing along the boggy ground. “You aren’t a person.”

  “You never ran before!” I said.

  “You’re the one who never ran!”

  “I always run in honor of Pheidippides! What’s your assistant’s name?”

  “Zoika—but what’s it to you? Butt out! Anyway, I am Pheidippides.”

  “He’s a fictional character! I’m just asking because she’s a pretty girl—”

  “You’re a fictional character!” The old Greek wasn’t lying, I could see that in his eyes. I felt sorry for Antipatros. My heart contracted into a nut and beat fast like a hammer.

  “How long have you been here?”

  “You do the math!”

  “A long time. What’re you in for?”

  “Don’t butt in! I’m not asking you, so don’t you butt in, piggy!”

  “My apologies … But Pheidippides died at the end of his run to Marathon! Stone-dead, ready for the glue factory! Get it? Like a horse?”

  “Then he was resurrected! For real, not like what certain fantasists have concocted.”

  “Do you have a telephone too?” This was a most surprising conversation with my kinsman.