Day of the Oprichnik (12 page)

In our difficult and important work things don’t always turn out right. My fault this time—I didn’t instruct them, didn’t keep an eye on them. Didn’t anticipate or warn them. Well, there was no time—I was fighting for the Road. That’s how I justify it to Batya. When it’s over I want to drop by to see Khobot, and bop him on the head, but I feel sorry for him—he’s had enough for one day. From the people.

Hmmm…Artamosha sure gets them worked up. But he’s playing with fire. He’s gone overboard. Gone so far that it’s time to
snuff
him out. The scoundrel began as a genuine bard. At first he sang traditional Russian epics. About the deeds of Ilya Muromets, Buslai, Solovei Budimirovich. He became famous all across New Rus. Made a good living. Set himself up with two houses. Acquired high-placed patrons. He could have gone on living and living, wallowing in his popularity, but no—something got into him. He began to sing exposés of morals and manners. Not just of anyone, but of Her Highness. As they say, you couldn’t fall higher. And Her Highness…well, that’s a whole story in itself. A bitter one.

To take the broad view, the state’s point of view, His Majesty had a stroke of bad luck. In fact, he didn’t have any luck. Big time. The one blotch in our New Russia is His Majesty’s spouse. And you can’t wash this spot away, or cover it up, or remove it. You can only wait, be patient, and hope…

Whistle-blow-moan.

The red signal on my mobilov.

Her Highness!

Speak of the devil, God forgive me…She always calls as soon as I start thinking about her. It’s downright mystical! I cross myself, turn to answer the phone, and, bowing my head:

“Yes, Your Highness.”

I see her plump, willful face, with a little mustache above crimson, carnivorous lips:

“Komiaga! Where are you?”

Her voice is chesty, deep. You can see that our
mama
has just woken up. Her eyes are pretty, black, with velvet eyelashes. These eyes always shine with a powerful fire.

“I’m driving around Moscow, Your Highness.”

“You saw Praskovia?”

“Yes, Your Highness. I did everything you asked.”

“Why aren’t you reporting to me?”

“Forgive me, Your Highness, I just flew in.”

“Well buzz yourself over here on the double. Fast as a fly.”

“I hear and obey, Your Highness.”

Back to the Kremlin again. I turn onto Miasnitskaya Street, and it’s jam-packed—it’s evening, rush hour, of course. I turn on my State Snarl and cars part in front of my Mercedov with the dog’s head; I steadily make my way to Lubianskaya Square, and there I stop dead: a traffic-fucking-jam, God forgive me. I’ll have to wait.

A powdery snow falls, dusting the cars. And as before on Lubianskaya our Maliuta stands tall, bronze, stooped, preoccupied; powdered with snow, he stares out intently from beneath his overhanging eyebrows. In his time there weren’t any traffic jams. There were only fruit jams…

On the Children’s World department store building there’s an enormous frame with a live advertisement: for Sviatogor flannel leggings. A curly-headed youth sits on a bench; a beauty of a girl in a traditional Russian headdress kneels down in front of him with new leggings in her hands. The young man extends his bare leg to the strum of a balalaika and the sobs of a harmonica. The young lady wraps it in the leggings, and pulls on his boot. A voice declares:

“Sviatogor Trading Company leggings. Your foot will feel like it’s in a cradle.” Right away you hear a lullaby, and see a wicker cradle rocking gently with legging-wrapped legs in it: rock-a bye baby…And the girl’s voice says: “They’ll cradle your legs!”

Suddenly I’m feeling kind of sad…I turn on Radio Rus video channel and order a “minute of Russian poetry.” A slightly nervous young man declaims:

“The fields flow with fog,

Bark and birch are injured,

The ground’s a bare black bog,

Spring’s not icumen in.

The birch bark’s been bled

With a jagged axe blade,

Down, down the sap runs,

Calling to matins.”

One of the new poets. Not bad, it creates a certain mood…One thing I don’t get, though: how does birch sap call to matins? Church bells should call to matins. Up ahead I notice a traffic cop in a fluorescent coat. I call him on the government line:

“Officer! Clear the road for me!”

Together—he with a baton, I with the State Snarl—we clear the way. I turn onto Ilyinka, make my way down Rybny and Varvarka streets to Red Square, drive in through the Spassky Gates, and race to Her Highness’s residence. I drop the car with the doorkeepers in raspberry-colored caftans, and run up the granite steps. The guards, who wear gilded livery, open the first door for me. I fly into the pink marble lobby, stop before the second door—a transparent one that shines weakly. This door is one ray from the ceiling to the floor. Two lieutenants of the Kremlin regiment stand on either side, and look straight through me. I catch my breath, clear my thoughts, and walk through the shining door. It’s impossible to hide anything from this broad ray—neither weapons, nor poison, nor any evil design.

I set foot in Her Highness’s residence.

A stately assistant meets me with a bow:

“Her Highness awaits you.”

She leads me through the residence, through countless rooms and halls. The doors open by themselves, noiselessly. They close just as quietly. Finally—the lilac bedroom of our lady, Her Highness. I enter. Before me on a wide lounge bed is His Majesty’s spouse.

I bend over in a long bow to the ground.

“Hello, murderer.”

That’s what she calls all of us oprichniks. But not with reproach, with
humor
.

“The best of health to you, Your Highness Tatyana Alekseevna.”

I raise my eyes. Her Highness reclines in a nightgown of violet silk that goes with the tender lilac color of the bedroom. Her black hair is in slight disarray, it falls over her large shoulders. Her down comforter is thrown aside. On the bed is a Japanese fan, Chinese nephrite balls for rolling in your fingers, a gold mobilov, a sleeping greyhound named Katerina, and Darya Adashkovaya’s book
Pernicious Pugs
. In her plump white hands Her Highness holds a gold snuffbox, strewn with diamond pustules. She takes a pinch of tobacco from the snuffbox, and stuffs it up her nostril. She freezes. Her moist black eyes look at me. Then she sneezes. So hard that the lilac pendants on the chandelier quiver.

“Oh, my God, I am going to die.” Her Highness throws her head back on four pillows.

The assistant wipes her nose with a cambric handkerchief, and brings her a shot of cognac. Without this Her Highness’s morning doesn’t begin. And her morning is our evening.

“Tanya, the bath!”

The assistant comes out. Her Highness has a bite of lemon with her cognac, and stretches her hand out to me. I grab her weighty arm. Leaning on me, she rises from the lounge bed. She claps her heavy hands, and heads for the lilac door. It opens. Her Highness floats into the room. In body she’s portly, tall, stately. God certainly provided her ample volumes of white flesh.

Standing in the bed chamber, my gaze follows Her Wide Highness.

“Why’d you stop? Come in here.”

I submissively follow her into the spacious white marble bathroom. Here two other helpers are bustling about, preparing the bath, opening champagne. Her Highness takes a thin glass, then sits down on the toilet. That’s what she always does—first a bit of cognac, then some champagne. Her Highness does her business, sipping from the champagne glass. Then she stands up:

“Well, why aren’t you talking? Tell me about it.”

She raises her white arms. In a twinkling the helpers take off her nightgown. I lower my eyes, but manage once more to notice how buxom and white-skinned is Her Highness. Oy, there’s not another like…She descends the marble steps into her filled bathtub. She sits down.

“Your Highness, I followed your instructions. Praskovia said it would be tonight. She did everything correctly.”

Her Highness is quiet. She drinks her champagne. Sighs. So hard that the bubbles in the bath flutter.

“Tonight?” she asks again. “That’s…your nighttime?”

“Our nighttime, Your Highness.”

“I think that means…lunchtime. All right.”

She sighs again. Finishes off the glass of champagne. They give her another.

“What did the clairvoyant ask for?”

“Baltic herring, fern seeds, and books.”

“Books?”

“Yes. For the fireplace.”

“Ah…yes…”

Her main assistant enters without knocking:

“Your Highness, the children have come.”

“Already? Bring them in.”

The assistant leaves and returns with the ten-year-old twins—Andriusha and Agafia. They dash in and run to their mother. Her Highness rises from the bath, baring herself to the waist, covering her
enormously wide
breasts. The children kiss her on the cheek:

“Good morning, Mamochka!”

She embraces them without letting go of her champagne glass.

“Good morning, my dears. I’m running a bit late today, I thought we would breakfast together.”

“Mama, we already had dinner!” Andriusha shouts and slaps the water.

“Well, that’s wonderful,” she says, wiping the spray of foam from her face.

“Mamulya, I won at Go Ze.
⁶
I found the
bao xian
.
⁷
”

“Hao hai zi.
⁸
” Her Highness kisses her daughter.
“Min min.
⁹
”

Her Highness’s Chinese is really rather old-fashioned…

“And
I
won at Go Ze a long time ago!” Andriusha says, splashing water on his sister.

“Sha gua!
¹⁰
” Agafia splashes back.

“Gashenka, Andriusha…” Her Highness frowns, furrowing her beautiful black eyebrows, and covering her breast as before. She immerses herself in her bath. “Where’s Papa?”

“Papa’s with the armies,” says Andriusha, pulling a toy pistol out of its holster and aiming at me. “Bang, baaang!”

The red target ray settles on my forehead. I smile.

“Pouff! Bang Bang!” Andriusha pulls the trigger and a tiny ball hits me in the forehead.

It bounces off.

I smile at the future heir to the Russian state.

“Where is His Majesty?” Her Highness asks the tutor standing just outside the door.

“At army headquarters, Your Highness. Today is the anniversary of the Andreev Corps.”

“So that means there’s no one to breakfast with me…” Her Highness sighs, taking another glass of champagne from the gold tray. “All right, go on all of you…”

The children, servant, and I head for the door.

“Komiaga!”

I turn around.

“Have breakfast with me.”

“At your service, Your Highness.”

I await Her Highness in the small dining room. An
unprecedented
honor has been bestowed on me—to share the morning meal with our lady. Her Highness usually breakfasts in the evening, if not with His Majesty, then with someone from the Inner Circle—Countess Borisova or Princess Volkova. With her many “guests” and hangers-on she only lunches. And that is already far after midnight. Her Highness always dines at sunrise.

I sit at the breakfast table, which is already set: adorned with white roses, and laid with gold dishes and crystal. Four servants in silvery emerald caftans stand by the walls.

Forty minutes have already passed, but Her Highness isn’t here yet. She spends a long time on her morning toilette. I sit and think about our lady. She has a hard time of it, for many reasons. Not only because of natural feminine
weaknesses
. But because of blood. Her Highness is a half-Jewess. There’s no way around it. That’s partly why so many pasquinades are written about her, why so much gossip and rumor is spread about her around Moscow and all of Russia, for that matter.

I’ve never had a problem with Jews. My departed father wasn’t a kike eater either. He told me that people used to say that anyone who played the violin more than ten years automatically became a Jew. Mama, may she rest in peace for eternity, didn’t have any problems with Jews; she said it wasn’t the Yids that were dangerous for Russia, but the pseudo-Jews, people whose blood was Russian but pretended to be kikes. When I didn’t want to study German as an adolescent, my mathematician grandfather would recite a little poem he wrote, a parody of the famous Soviet poet Mayakovsky.
¹¹

Were I

A Jew

Even then—

Nicht zweifelnd und bitter
¹²

I’d learn

German

’Twas German spoken

But not all were such Jew lovers as my relatives. Outbursts did occur, yes, and Judaic blood was spilled on Russian land. All of this smoldered and dragged on right up until His Majesty’s “Decree On Russian Orthodox Names.” This decree required all Russian citizens who were not christened in the Orthodox faith to have non-Orthodox names: they had to have names corresponding to their ethnicity. After that many of our Borises became Borukhs; Viktors—Agvidors; and Levs—Leibs. That’s how Our Sage Majesty resolved the Jewish question in Russia once and for all. He took all the smart Jews under his wing. The dimwitted ones scattered. It quickly became obvious that Jews were really quite useful to the Russian government. They were irreplaceable in treasury, trade, and ambassadorial affairs.

The problem with Her Highness was different. This wasn’t a matter of the Jewish question. The question was the purity of blood. Had our lady Her Highness been half Tatar or Chechen it would have been the same problem. There’s no getting around it. And thank God…

The white doors open, the greyhound Katerina bounds into the little dining room, sniffs me, barks twice and sneezes like dogs do, and jumps up on her chair. I stand and watch the open door with the motionless servants on each side. Sedate, assured steps are coming closer, building up, and—in a rustle of dark blue silk Her Highness appears in the doorway. She’s large, wide, stately. Her fan is folded in her strong hand. Her luxuriant hair is pulled back, coiffed, held with gold combs, iridescent with precious stones. On Her Highness’s neck is a velvet ring with the “Padishah” diamond, bordered with sapphires. Her face is powdered, she wears lipstick on her sensual lips, and her deep eyes shine under her black eyelashes.

“Sit down,” she says with a wave of her fan, while she sits in the chair the servant has moved up for her.

I sit. The servant brings in a small shell with finely chopped dove meat and sets it in front of Katerina. The greyhound devours the meat, and Her Highness strokes her on the back.

“Eat up now, my little oyster.”

The servants bring in a gold carafe of red wine, and fill Her Highness’s glass. She picks it up in her large hand and says:

“What will you drink with me?”

“Whatever you say, Your Highness.”

“Oprichniks should drink vodka. Pour him some vodka!”

They pour vodka into a crystal glass for me. Silently the servants place the
zakuski
on the table: beluga caviar, snakeroot, Chinese mushrooms, Japanese soba noodles on ice, boiled rice, vegetables stewed in spices.

I raise my glass and stand, terribly nervous:

“To your health, Your H-h-h-high-highness…”

I am tongue-tied with emotion: this is the first time in my life I’ve sat at Her Highness’s table.

“Sit down.” She waves her fan, and takes a swallow from her wineglass.

I gulp the vodka down and sit. I sit like a stuffed dummy. I didn’t expect to feel so shy. I’m not as shy in front of His Majesty as I am with Her Highness. And besides, I’m not exactly the most bashful of oprichniks…

Her Highness eats her hors d’oeuvres unhurriedly, paying me no mind.

“What’s new in the capital?”

I shrug my shoulders:

“Nothing in particular, Your Highness.”

“And not in particular?”

Her black eyes stare steadily at me. You can’t hide from them.

“Nothing not in particular either. Well, we suppressed a noble.”

“Kunitsyn? I know, I saw.”

Probably as soon as Her Highness wakes up they bring her a news bubble. What else would you expect? It’s government business…

“What else?” she asks, spreading beluga caviar on rye toast.

“Well…you know…somehow…” I mumble.

She stares at me.

“How did you bungle Artamosha?”

So that’s what it is. She knows this, too. I inhale deeply.

“Your Highness, it’s my fault.”

She looks at me attentively:

“That was well put. If you’d tried to dump the whole thing on the Good Fellows, I would have ordered you flogged right here and now. Right here.”

“Forgive me, Your Highness. I was late due to other affairs, and didn’t get there in time. I wasn’t able to forestall events.”

“It happens,” she says, biting off a piece of toast with caviar and washing it down with wine. “Eat.”

Thank God. There are better things to do in my position than just to keep quiet. I grab some snakeroot, put it in my mouth, follow it with a piece of rye bread. Her Highness chews, sipping wine. And then she suddenly laughs nervously, puts down her glass, and stops chewing. I stop, too.

She eyes me intently:

“Tell me, Komiaga, why do they hate me so much?”

I inhale deeply. And exhale. What can I say? And there she is, looking straight through me.

“So I love young guardsmen. So what? What difference does it make?”

Her black eyes fill with tears. She wipes them away with a handkerchief.

I pluck up my courage:

“Your Highness, it’s just a handful of malicious dissenters.”

She looks at me like a tigress at a mouse. I regret opening my mouth.

“It’s not a handful of dissenters, you idiot. It’s our barbaric people!”

I understand. The Russian people aren’t easy to work with. But God hasn’t given us any other people. I keep quiet. But Her Highness, forgetting about food, presses the end of her closed fan to her lips:

“They’re envious because they’re slaves. They know how to pretend. But they don’t really love us, the powerful. And they
never
will. If they had the chance—they’d cut us to pieces.”

I gather my courage again:

“Your Highness, please don’t worry—we’ll throttle that Artamosha. We’ll squash him like a louse.”

“Oh, what does Artamosha have to do with it!” She whacks her fan on the table and stands up abruptly.

I jump up immediately.

“Sit!” She waves at me.

I sit. The greyhound barks at me. Her Highness paces the dining room, her dress rustling menacingly.

“Artamosha! As if he were the problem…”

She walks back and forth, mumbling something to herself. She stops and tosses the fan on the table.

“Artamosha! It’s the nobles’ wives, they’re jealous of me, they set the holy fools against me, and they in turn stir up the people. This subversive wind blows from the nobles’ wives through the fools and to the people. Nikola Volokolamsky, Andriukha Zagoriansky, Afonya Ostankinsky—what kinds of things are they saying about me, huh? Well?!”

“Your Highness, these stinking curs make the rounds of the churches and spread disgusting rumors…But His Majesty has forbidden us to touch them…otherwise long ago we would have…”

“I’m asking you—what are they saying?!”

“Well…they say that at night you rub a Chinese ointment on your body, after which you turn into a dog…”

“And I run around with hounds! Is that it?”

“That’s it, Your Highness.”

“So what does Artamosha have to do with it? He’s just singing rumors! Artamosha!”

She walks around, muttering angrily. Her eyes glitter. She takes her glass and drinks. She sighs:

“Hmmm…you ruined my appetite. All right, get out of here…”

I stand, bow, and walk backward, step by step.

“Wait…” She stops and thinks. “What was it you said Praskovia wanted?”

“Baltic herring, fern seeds, and books.”

“Books. Well then, come with me. Otherwise I might forget…”

Her Highness quits the dining room, throwing open the doors in front of her. I try to keep up behind her. We enter the library. Her Highness’s librarian jumps up and bows, a moss-covered man in glasses:

“What do you desire, Your Highness?”

“Let’s go, Teryosha.”

The librarian minces along after her. Her Highness goes over to the shelves. There are a lot of them. And there’s a ton of books. I know that our mama likes to read from paper. And not just
Pernicious Pugs
. She’s well read.

She stops. Looks at the shelves:

“This will burn well and for a long time.”

She makes a sign to the librarian. He takes the collected works of Anton Chekhov off the shelves.

“Send these to Praskovia,” Her Highness tells the librarian.

“Yes, ma’am.” He nods, shifting the books.

“That’s it!” Our mama turns and walks right out of the library.

I hurry after her. She sweeps into her quarters. The golden doors open wide, the tambourines sound, the unseen balalaika strums, and valiant voices sing.

“Go on and hit me, me-oh-mine,

A big fat stick upon my spine!

A stick that’s excellent and fine.

My spine is quilted well, and lined!”

Her Highness is met by a pack of her hangers-on. They howl, squeal joyfully, and bow. There are a lot of them. All kinds: jesters, nuns well read in scripture, wandering minstrels, storytellers,
playful souls
, and
dumpling makers
crippled by science, witch doctors, masseurs, spinsters, and gingerbread men who run on electricity. “Best of the morning to you, Mamo!” all these hangers-on howl in unison.

“Good morning, my lovelies!” Her Highness smiles.

Two old jesters run up to her—Pavlusha the Hedgehog and Duga the Devil grab her by the hands, pull her along, kissing her fingers. As always, round-faced Pavlusha mutters, “Pow-yer, pow-yer, pow-yer!”

Hairy Duga grunts along:

“Eur-gasia, Eur-gasia, Eur-gasia!”

The rest begin to dance in a circle around Her Highness. I can see right off—her face grows kinder, her eyebrows calmer, her eyes no longer flash.

“How are my darlings doing here without me?”

There’s wailing and whimpering in reply.

“No good, Mamo! No goooood!”

The hangers-on fall to their knees in front of Mama.

I step backward toward the exit. She notices:

“Komiaga!”

I freeze. She beckons to her chamberlain, takes a gold piece out of her purse, and tosses it to me:

“For your efforts.”

I catch it, bow, and leave.