Babayaga: A Novel (9 page)

“Bah, don’t touch that pot. That’s dinner,” the old woman said, trundling off into her kitchen. “I was about to put a kettle on, would you like tea? Who did you say you are again?”

“I am Inspector Vidot and this is my colleague, Officer Bemm,” he said, now trying to decipher the titles of the books on the shelves. “We have a few questions regarding the clock you offered the shopowner down the street.”

“Mmmn,” she said. “Did you say you want tea or no?”

“We do not need anything to drink, madame, but thank you for your kind offer.”

Vidot and Bemm listened to the banging about of cabinets, dishes, and pots before the old woman emerged again from the kitchen. Now clutching a steaming mug, she brushed by them and sat herself down on a threadbare upholstered chair in the corner. “The clock? The clock? Mmmn. Oh, yes, that clock”—she shook her head with a scowl—“a girl gave it to me yesterday.”

“May we ask who this girl is?”

“A girl, she is a girl, she is trouble, she is bad news. Her name is Zoya Fominitchna Polyakov. She was moving, leaving town, and she did not need the clock. I certainly did not want it either, look at this stupid place. Where would I put such a pretty thing?” She kicked the beat-up ottoman in front of her. “No room. Nothing pretty here. Ha. Plus, at my age, staring at a clock is worse than a dagger in the eye. It’s like kissing the enemy. Ugh, I don’t have to tell you about that. But as I say, this girl, Zoya, she owed me money, so I took this clock. You want to sit down? You two make me nervous.”

Vidot and Bemm both sat awkwardly on the couch. Vidot tried to suppress his smile. “This is all very useful information. And can I get your name?”

The old woman leaned forward and pronounced her name very clearly, “My name is Elga Sossoka.”

“You are Russian?”

“Yes, but I left there in, what, ah”—she counted in the air with her fingers—“1917.”

“You’ve been here since then?” asked Vidot.

“I’ve been all over.” She went back to sipping her tea, and then stopped. “Why are you grinning like such an idiot?”

“To be honest, madame, I have been working on this case for a little while now and we have had no real leads. So it is very refreshing to receive even this small bit of information.”

“Ah! I see, I see. Ha ha.” Her eyes lit up, suddenly she seemed bright and lucid, almost young. “So you’re that sort, you like to hop about and think on puzzles, yes, of course, of course, hmmm, yes, then you should see it, a problem, a strange troubling problem you can help me with. You certainly look like a man who can figure things out, so this will be easy for you, I am sure.” The old woman balanced her tea precariously on the ottoman and, stiffly pulling herself up, waddled over to the bookshelf. Watching her reaching up to dig through the shelves, Vidot again sympathized with the woman’s aches. He found himself wondering at the strange ratio between pain and age, how when we are young and without suffering we lead such careless lives, physically risking all without the slightest thought, and it is only when we’re older, when we’re given such misery in bone, joint, and tooth, when our sense of smell and taste are long gone, our eyes have clouded over, and our ears have waxed shut, it is then that we cling to life so fiercely, struggling to continue on when we are only little more than a compendium of agonies.

“Ah, there it is,” she said. The ancient woman was up on her tiptoes now, grunting and reaching toward a dusty, thick tome perched high on the shelf. “I think I can reach it.” Vidot was about to rise up to help when, in her clumsiness, the old woman knocked two jars down onto the floor. They both fell with a loud crack as the glass shattered and a dark, red dirt spilled out onto the rug. “Ah, forgive me, such an ass,” she said, leaning over.

“Oh, no need to clean—” Vidot began to say, when suddenly she bolted upright, letting loose a loud raspy scream and throwing handfuls of the dirt into each of the policemen’s faces. The mixture of dirt flooded his lungs, and immediately Vidot felt immobilized, incapable of even turning to look at Bemm. None of the words shouting out of the woman’s mouth were recognizable, they did not even sound like language, merely a serpentine thread of barks, hisses, shrieks, and throaty rasps. Veins bulged out of her brow and neck as she lunged backward, grabbing another jar off the shelf and fiercely shattering it onto the floor. More dust billowed around them, blotting out everything but the thick streaks of ocher light streaming through the curtains. Vidot felt weighted shadows come crawling in around him; looking down, he was shocked to see his fingernails extending backward, running up his arm, splitting open his flesh. His body shook and his old skin smoked off him, like dry autumn leaves burning in a pile. Then his spine suddenly twisted and contracted as extreme cramps in his thighs and stomach caused him to lurch over and collapse onto the floor. He caught a glimpse of Bemm as he fell down, his partner reeling too, his face covered in a sheet of blood and his mouth open in a silent scream.

Looking up, the last thing he saw before it all went black was the old woman’s pained expression and her hands madly weaving around in the air, as if she were playing some great and terrible harp. Then the pain ceased. He felt as though he slept for months, maybe years, and when he opened his eyes Vidot was stunned at how impossibly large the room had become.

XI

Zoya sat on the bench across from the apartment building and gazed up at the distant lit window. She was almost certain the man had not seen her slipping up behind him as he left the metro station. He had been easy to pursue, she simply trailed him at a short distance, sticking to the shadowed side of the street. After trailing him from the station to the restaurant, she watched him eat alone as she sat perched behind a column at the bar, disappearing behind the menu whenever he glanced her way. After that, it was only a few more steps of stalking to reach his apartment building. Moments after he disappeared into the lobby the lone light went on up on the seventh floor, so she assumed that was his home. She watched and waited and thought.

First impressions were critical to her, though she could not always articulate why she chose one prey over another. From his pressed suit and his clean-cut style, she had taken him to be a businessman of some sort. He seemed both a little less successful and also slightly brighter than poor Leon. Perhaps it was his American accent that drew her in; she liked the idea of an outsider who would not know the things he should be suspicious of, the subtle cues that might make a young woman from a foreign land too intriguing. Each of them had come a vast distance, from opposite horizons, which made every question and each curiosity that much easier to imbue with myths and fables and lies.

From time to time she wondered if she did not, in fact, get to choose her prey at all, if perhaps it was the long hand of fortune that marked the quarry. She did not like the possibility that she had no control. “Fate is as fickle as a drunk at a piano,” Elga used to say. “Listen to it at your own risk.”

Zoya saw shadows move up in the room, not one but two silhouettes. A lover? A wife? Wives made things easier, keeping men preoccupied and paranoid. Guilt came with the busy building of excuses and alibis, and often introspection too, and she preferred her men looking backward and inward, anywhere, really, so long as it was not too closely at her.

But there was also the chance that a wife might not bode well for Zoya, it generally depended on the man’s predisposition. In their brief exchange on the metro, this one had left her with the impression of being almost too uncomplicated. Men such as this, once married, often worked hard to stay true. She didn’t meet many such men. Still, one with a solid faith in his vows was never wholly unconquerable, she had plenty of tricks tucked in her charms, but it often took effort. She was more comfortable with men of duplicity. The sinister ones were so much easier for her to handle. After all, that was where she had first begun.

Her first adventure with a boy had been Grigori. She worked then at the estate belonging to Grigori’s father, a prosperous but minor count who spent most of his time out hunting with his hounds. Her own father, Foma, managed the stables. Her mother had died giving birth to Zoya, and so she was raised alone with her father in a small cottage that sat behind the manor house. Grigori was the count’s only child, and the household had let them play together; they enjoyed hiding games in the gardens and skipping stones in the fish pond. By the time she was old enough to begin making the beds, he had already been sent off to a military academy.

His school was too far away for him to return for every holiday, so she did not see him again until the late harvest break. Almost immediately she sensed a change. He was now stiff and formal with her, and she found herself ducking his gaze. When he did look at her, it was as if he did not know her, the boyish spark gone, as if the light in his eyes had been snuffed out. The change in his demeanor made her young heart ache in a disorienting way, but she went about her duties, washing and steaming and laying out the clean towels and linens. Instinctively, she avoided him, staying as much as she could in the back of the house, but she could still hear his voice, bluntly ordering the servants about, shouting for Foma to saddle his horse. Evenings were filled with the sound of Grigori’s hard boots pacing across the floorboards of the large manor, walking room to room.

On the final afternoon before he was to return to school, she was changing the bedding in the guest wing when she heard his boots coming down the hall. She did not pause but kept focused on straightening the pillowcases and smoothing the duvet. The boots came closer, the echo of every step seemed almost deafening as he approached, until finally the sound stopped and she knew he was there in the room with her. She looked up. Grigori smiled at her. She smiled too, blushing with relief, for finally she had a sign of warmth from him. Then she paused, nervous again, sensing that his smile was not that of the boy she once knew. It came with a steel glint she did not recognize. “It is my birthday,” he said.

She smelled the liquor on his breath as his cold hand grabbed at the back of her neck, pushing her down onto the bed. She did not struggle much, for if she hurt him she sensed there would only be more trouble.

Seven weeks later her angst-ridden and nervous father prepared to go talk with Grigori’s father, the master of the house. Foma was a proud man, he wanted what was right, and as he stood in front of the small stove, rocking nervously back and forth on the balls of his feet, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, he carefully practiced what he would say. He did not expect Grigori to marry Zoya, clearly that was not possible. But Zoya had not asked for this, she was a good girl. They were a decent and God-fearing family, devoted and loyal. Foma knew incidents like these occurred in every big house, but he did not know what was supposed to happen. If his wife were alive she could provide advice, but alone, with a daughter, what could he do? Perhaps he could be moved into a new position in a relative’s house, or caretake the patriarch’s home in St. Petersburg? Or maybe there was a management position out among the field hands, with living quarters that were larger, to make room for the bigger family? Could they possibly arrange a marriage for Zoya to another worker? Foma was unclear what choices, if any, they had. But a solution would have to be found. He could only ask for his landlord’s advice, father to father.

She watched Foma change into his best shirt, proper buckle shoes, and church coat. She did not expect he would be gone long, but hours passed. She sat in mute terror, rocking in the chair, her heart a cold stone. Finally a sharp knock came at the door. She opened it to find Pyotor, the farm’s foreman and one of the few men her father considered a friend. His face held no kindness. “You need to be gone by sunrise, take what you can carry. Talk to anyone here, ask anyone for help, and you will be as dead as your father.” All the emotion that was frozen within her suddenly transformed into a wild, burning streak of lightning and she was about to scream out when Pyotor slapped her hard across the face. “You have killed a good man, whore. Feel free to kill yourself, only do not do it here. I do not want to clean up any more of your family’s blood.” His spit hit hot on her face, and before she could unflinch he had already slammed the door.

At midnight she started off with a small satchel of quickly gathered possessions. Her path only lit by the star-pocked sky and a broken shard of the moon, she did not know her destination. The closest village was more than two hours away but it was not worth aiming for, she knew the town well enough to realize that no one would offer her any warmth. Even the road itself was not safe, only months before a pair of men had been attacked and killed by bandits. She needed protection, she needed shelter. Finding a trail into the woods, she disappeared into the absolute darkness of the trees, exhausted and confused, hoping to find some mossy, soft spot to lay her head.

Fifty years past that night, the same fractured moon was hanging low, slightly obscured in the overcast sky, when the team of horses pulling Count Yaroslavich’s carriage suddenly stopped dead in their tracks. The driver waited as the stewards came out to watch the footman whip and kick at the immovable beasts. It was a quarter of an hour before the count himself finally stepped out from the coach. He did not want any more delay, he told the driver. He was due at his new grandson’s christening in three days.

The air was crisp, a frost had come early. The driver was offering his apology for the stubborn horses when the count silenced him and pointed out across the rough burdock field. “Who is that out there?”

A group of figures was emerging from the darkness. Preparing to defend himself from a possible bandit attack, the count thought first of calling for his saber. But then he saw it was nothing more than a small group of peasant women, four of them in all. A young one was leading the way, and as she neared the road, she pulled the wool scarf from her head and offered him the warm, comforting smile of an old friend. Her gaze shook at the doors of his memory, but he could not place it.