The Librarian (19 page)

B
EFORE IT WA S LIGHT
, the five of us—Tanya, Timofei Stepanovich, Dezhnev, Ogloblin and I—went down to the RAF. Our outfits and weapons were packed in large check bags.

I blithely slept through the journey to Kolontaysk. Tormented by a morning-after hangover, I arranged myself as comfortably as possible in the seat, and the sense of movement and the jolting lulled me until I sank into a blank sleep.

In Kolontaysk we were billeted with the reader Artem Veretenov, who had helped us in the battle with the Gorelov reading room. Veretenov lived in private-sector housing and his two-storey house could accommodate a large number of guests. We were put in the bathroom, the attic and the glazed balcony; the summer house was already taken by the more numerous readers from the Voronezh and Stavropol reading rooms. A brigade from Kostroma was in the annexe.

Of course, having such a large number of armed people around was reassuring, despite the inconvenience involved. But I realized something else: if such an impressive force had been mobilized, then a serious battle was expected. There were twenty-seven people in the Kolontaysk reading room. More than thirty fighters had gathered at Veretenov’s home, and, according to what he said, reinforcements were still turning up to join Latokhin. The people from Penza were in the Kolontayskite Sakhno’s apartment. The Vologda readers were staying with Latokhin. They were even expecting a brigade of at least two dozen from the Council of Libraries.

Such a large number of warriors indicated that the Pavliks were not merely a dangerous enemy, but also very numerous. In recent times the flourishing library had been joined by a large number of surviving remnants, copyists who had been hiding for years from the forces of the council, bands of marauders, unsuccessful thieves and other riff-raff of the Gromov world. It was anticipated that as many as a hundred warriors had already gathered under the Pavliks’ banner.

The most annoying thing was that no one could say how long we would have to wait for the Pavliks to show up—a day or a week—and the enforced idleness was depressing.

I didn’t see the town; we had been recommended not to go out for walks, and I didn’t particularly want to go outside in any case. We quickly got to know all our neighbours. When Veretenov introduced me as the librarian Vyazintsev, someone exclaimed in surprise: “So you’re alive, but we were told you’d been killed a year ago!”

Our colleagues turned out to be fine people. Associating with them was both interesting and useful. After all, I had never previously considered the highly complex mechanisms of conspiracy that allowed the reading rooms and libraries to survive in their grim reality of bloodbaths, ambushes and assassinations.

For instance, in the ordinary world the Kostroma reading room concealed itself under the guise of The Association of Lovers of Japanese Culture. The Kostromites’ librarian, Ivan Arnoldovich Kisling, was a teacher of Russian language and literature and entirely indifferent to Japan. The reading room was located in a small basement where sambo, the Russian martial art, was served up as a form of karate, and Japanese sword-fighting techniques were taught to allay suspicion. Kisling prudently charged astronomical prices that frightened off anyone who was curious. His little office was crammed with all sorts of pseudo-oriental trash that was passed off as Japanese—in case an inspection committee turned up. The “association” was an official organization, and if the militia suddenly discovered twenty-odd old dragoons’ sabres
disguised as Japanese swords in the basement, the Kostromite lovers of Japan wouldn’t have any particular problems.

The reading room of the Voronezh librarian, Yevgeny Davidovich Tsofin, was concealed behind the screen of a religious organization that functioned as a kosher slaughterhouse. That gave Tsofin’s people a legitimate reason for never parting with their long knives, designed for slaughtering cattle. It should be said that Tsofin was the only Jew in their reading room. With his ginger hair, large nose and eternally dissatisfied and disgusted expression, he unfailingly rebuffed any visitors from the municipal authorities. The bureaucrats wisely preferred to stay clear of him. Only once had uninvited guests from the Jewish Centre poked their noses into the reading room by mistake, but the Voronezh readers had seen off their “kinsmen” very promptly. Soon everyone left the reading room in peace and avoided it as a place with a bad smell, which was exactly what Tsofin and his comrades had been trying to achieve. They had shown up for the battle in double-thickness kaftans as tough as wooden planks and turbans that took the place of helmets.

In their ordinary lives the Stavropol readers were a Cossack rural settlement—purely nominal, of course, as it existed only on paper. This fictitious ethnic status allowed the librarian Zarubin and the readers to carry cold weapons. Zarubin was not scrupulous about historical detail and drew his ideas mainly from the “Streltsy” of Ivan the Terrible’s time, so that, in addition to swords, pikes and whips, the reading room also made ready use of poleaxes.

The Stavropolites avoided genuine Cossack communities, just as Tsofin’s readers avoided Jews, but that didn’t prevent the “Japanese” Kisling from teasing Tsofin every now and then by offering to give him the blood of a Christian child or inviting the “Cossack” Zarubin to arrange a small pogrom against the Voronezhites.

We lived quite comfortably. Latokhin took care of everything, even our food, which was very simple: soup made with dried-pea powder, boiled grain, potatoes, bread and meat pies.

On the second day Latokhin himself dropped round to see us with some papers. Under his intent gaze I nervously applied my signature—a squiggle with a pig’s-tail flourish—to some document or other.

We were woken at night. A battered old Laz drove up to Veretenov’s house and we hastily piled into it. In the bus Veretenov handed out thermos flasks of coffee and little plastic cups.

We arrived at an immense clay quarry—the future battlefield. The quarry had not been worked for a very long time, but the reddish-brown sides bore the marks of excavators’ teeth.

Latokhin’s fully assembled army amounted to eighty-four warriors. Surrounded by a crowd of armed men, Latokhin attached an icon case containing the Book of Memory, open at the title page, to a pole. He stuck the pole into the clay and a little lamp lit up in the icon case, illuminating the pages.

As dawn approached it became clear, after several tense hours of waiting, that the Pavliks had not had not taken the bait of the Book and the battle was postponed. We set a watch and went back to our buses.

In the morning Latokhin’s lads drove up two field kitchens with goulash and a barrel of kvass. Everyone was given an orange worker’s waistcoat for a disguise, but this was just insurance—construction wastelands extended for many kilometres on all sides.

We spent the entire day encamped. At sunset the Vologda patrol, walking round the quarry, came across Pavlikite scouts. There were three of the outsiders. A brief skirmish took place; two Pavliks got away and the third, more dead than alive, was lugged to Latokhin’s headquarters.

The prisoner looked appalling, as if he had just been dragged out of a traumatology ward, totally encased in plaster, so that even his face could not be seen. The grubby grey bandages were soaked in blood and smeared with clay. I even had the absurd thought that the men on patrol had first broken the man’s bones and then rapidly applied the plaster.

But in fact he wasn’t dying of broken bones—the fatal blow had been struck by an axe, precisely between his plaster collar and the bandage on his head.

Marat Andreyevich sat down beside the wounded man with a pair of scissors. The removal of the first cast explained everything—the Pavlik’s terrible, blood-spattered costume was a well-designed suit of armour, like a medieval knight’s. Under the bandages lay not plaster, but heavy plastic, moulded to the contours of the body.

Marat Andreyevich worked away with the scissors in his habitual fashion, ripping apart the dense bandaging.

“By the way, it’s not blood on the bandages,” he jovially informed the men who had gathered round. “It’s imitation, a dye. Only I can’t understand what it’s for.”

“It’s a cunning kind of psychological pressure,” said one of the Voronezhites. “The sight of him is enough to terrify you, and at the same time it’s harder to hit someone in bandages…”

“That could well be it,” Marat Andreyevich agreed. “Their librarian used to be a theatre designer…”

The prisoner lay there stripped, like a lobster, and the sections of his shell were heaped up beside him—cuirass, chausses, poleyns and collar.

“He’s dying,” Timofei Stepanovich said behind me.

As if he had heard these words, the Pavlik took two convulsive breaths, as if he were gathering his courage, and died.

“We won’t have long to wait for our visitors now,” a patrolman said confidently. “We found a pair of binoculars up there. So they’ve been watching us. As sure as eggs, the whole band is sitting down somewhere, working through the Book of Fury. That’s a couple of hours, three at most—they’ll arrive well warmed up in time for night…”

“Comrades, librarians,” said the Kolontayskite Veretenov, running up to us. “A few minutes…”

“Alexei Vladimirovich, let’s go. Latokhin wants to see us,” said the Vologda librarian Golenishchev, adjusting his steel breast
plate, worn over a leather trench coat, and striding off towards the illuminated pole with the Book. I followed him.

The improvised council of war was in full spate.

“We form up in a phalanx,” said Zarubin. “How many of us are there? Eighty-four?” He thought for a moment, calculating. “In eight rows: with three, five, seven, nine, eleven and fifteen men.”

“That’s not a phalanx, it’s a ‘pig’,” the Penza librarian Akimushkin objected. “That’s unpatriotic, old man. And I’m superstitious, too. We don’t want to share the fate of the Livonians, do we?”

“The Teutons…”

“Ah, what’s the difference? The dog knights.”

Kisling knitted his brows and declaimed in a sepulchral voice:

“The first rush of the Germans was appalling, wedging into the Russian ranks and charging straight through with two lines of horse-drawn turrets…”

“Tvardovsky?” asked Tsofin, who hadn’t spoken so far.

“D-minus, Yevgeny Davidovich! Sit down! And what does the younger generation think?”

“Simonov?” I suggested.

“That’s an A-plus!”

“I don’t understand…” Tsofin said with a humorous frown. “How can a teacher of Russian be called Kisling? I mean, Ivanov, Petrov…”

“Even Tsofin, if it comes to that…” Kisling continued acidly, and everyone smiled.

“Colleagues,” Golenishchev said in a conciliatory tone of voice. “It’s a ‘pig’ when the enemy attacks, but when it’s our own Russian men, it’s a ‘wedge’. There’s no problem here.”

“Then the question is closed,” said Latokhin. “Has anyone got a sheet of paper? Better if it’s squared—that makes it easier to draw. Aha, thank you…”

He took the notebook held out to him by Tsofin.

A minute later I glanced curiously over Latokhin’s shoulder. The truncated triangle looked like a plan of a theatre auditorium.

“The first twenty-seven numbers,” Latokhin explained, “are my reading room. And you, comrades, form the flanks.”

I chose a spot on the right, immediately behind the Kolontayskites. The Vologdaites and Stavropolites took the centre and the final rows of seventeen men consisted of readers from Penza, Kostroma and Voronezh.

“Comrades,” said Latokhin as soon as the all the squares had been distributed among the brigades. “Let’s quickly run through formation-training, so we won’t get under each other’s feet if there’s an alarm…”

Due credit to them, all the readers played their parts meticulously, without any commotion or jostling. I deliberately walked up onto a mound of clay. From a height the army, bristling with terrifying scythes, pikes, gaffs and hayforks, looked very impressive indeed.

Time after time we assembled and disbanded the wedge, and Latokhin only left us in peace when we could match a record-standard time—thirty seconds in full battle kit.

But in fact we didn’t get much rest. Half an hour later the Pavliks made a leisurely appearance at the far side of the quarry.

T
HERE REALLY WERE
a lot of Pavliks, as many as a hundred white, blood-spattered mummies. It was a grisly sight. While they were still on the slopes they formed up into a bulging crescent moon, with a curve like a sabre, but they didn’t seem to be in any hurry to attack.

I focused on my own feelings and noted with satisfaction that there was no fear. The thoughtful Shironinites had hidden me away deep in the formation. On Akimushkin’s plan it was square number thirty-one. On the right I was covered by Tanya, with Timofei Stepanovich, Marat Andreyevich and Fyodor Ogloblin beyond her—I had no reason to doubt those people’s fighting credentials. On my left were the Vologda readers, and to reach me the enemy would have to smash his way through the barrier of their mighty axes—in the world outside the Vologdaites were a worker’s cooperative of lumberjacks. And the very sight of twenty-plus Kolontaysk “goalkeepers” was enough to reassure me that the enemy would never crush their ranks.

In imitation of the “Japanese style”, Kisling’s warriors had assembled armoured mantles out of thin steel pipes attached together like straw mats. Zarubin’s “Cossacks” looked tremendous dressed in light chainmail vests over red kaftans and carrying poleaxes and sabres. The turbans and kaftans of Tsofin’s warriors added a touch of menacing oriental colour to the ranks.

Akimushkin’s readers from Penza had come to the battle with their traditional gaffs, scythes and clubs welded out of water pipes
or battle-axes decorated with pommels in the form of brass taps. Their padded work jackets, covered with blocks of plastic foam glued to their surfaces, looked like life-jackets. Akimushkin had said the greatest danger was not from stabbing and slashing, but from crushing blows.

It looked as if he was mistaken in his choice of armour. When the Pavliks came closer, I couldn’t see any hammers or axes. What I had taken from a distance to be spears looked exactly like rifles with attached bayonets.

I shook the imperturbable Vologda librarian Golenishchev hard by the shoulder.

“What about the general agreement not to use firearms?”

The answer ran through my head: “That’s right, the Pavliks don’t come under the council. All they want is to get their Books back. What do questions of ethics and honour mean to them! Now they’ll fire a few salvoes and Latokhin’s army will no longer exist.” That was the explanation for the Pavliks’ invincibility…

“Well, good for Chakhov, he knows what he’s doing,” Golenishchev replied. His voice was calm and slightly mocking. “Take a closer look, Alexei Vladimirovich. Those aren’t rifles. Only the bayonets are genuine.”

The Pavliks’ guns turned out to be something like crutches— perhaps originally they had been crutches, only now they had bayonets and massive butts faced with metal.

“I’ve been told,” Golenishchev continued, “that in Novosibirsk they dressed up as Kapellites. A psychological assault. Meaning they did a bayonet charge…”

“Well, naturally,” said one of the Kolontayskites. “A bullet’s a fool, but you can trust a bayonet.”

The Pavliks halted as if on command. There were no more than a hundred paces between them and us.

“Marat Andreyevich,” I whispered to Dezhnev. “What now? There aren’t any seconds, are there?… Who sets the rules in cases like this? Who monitors everything?”

“Why, no one does. It’s the two sides in the fight. Look, Latokhin’s already on his way with some lads… Now they’ll decide how to conduct the battle. The Pavliks already realize they don’t have much of an advantage, and they’re tired… Maybe our side will offer to buy them off or suggest some other compromise. Latokhin had good reason to gather all these people. To cool the Pavliks down a bit and make them think… I don’t want to make any guesses, but I’ve got a very good feeling about this, Alexei.” Marat Andreyevich smiled encouragingly.

The tense minutes passed one after another. We stood there, craning our necks, looking at the group of five Kolontayskites and the group of Pavliks who were discussing our fate.

I heard my name called and then Golenishchev’s. He parted the backs of the Kolontayskites and set off to answer the call, straight through the formation. I thought I’d misheard, but my name was passed through the ranks again: “Vyazintsev…”

“But what do they want Alexei for?” Tanya asked peevishly.

“We’ll find out in a moment,” said Ogloblin. “I don’t like this.”

I saw that Kisling, Akimushkin and Tsofin had left their brigades and set off towards the negotiations. Veretenov followed the librarians. When he drew level with them, he confirmed my summons.

“Latokhin is calling for Comrade Vyazintsev…”

“Where to?” Tanya asked cautiously. “Tell him Vyazintsev won’t go… Don’t go, Alexei!”

“Comrade Veretenov,” said Marat Andreyevich. “Let me go instead.”

“I don’t understand,” said Veretenov, confused. “Vyazintsev’s the one they want… He’s the librarian!”

“There’s nothing here to understand!” Tanya said harshly. “
You
go to that Latokhin of yours…”

The Kolontayskites looked at us in amazement.

“Hey, what are you two doing?” I asked quietly. “They’ve found a problem. I’m sure it’s just a standard formality…”

“And what if it isn’t?” Ogloblin asked dubiously. “Don’t go. Let Latokhin risk his own life, not yours. That’s not what we agreed…”

“I won’t let you go!” Tanya exclaimed, clinging tightly to my sleeve. “Marat Andreyevich! Come on, tell him!” she said with tears in her eyes.

I felt terribly embarrassed, especially since I’d already made my mark as a panic-monger.

“Marat Andreyevich, please, calm Comrade Miroshnikova down,” I said, adjusting my sleeve when it was released, and dashed after Veretenov.

The Pavliks were waiting for a decision. They looked identical, but I assumed that their leader, Semyon Chakhov, was the one in the centre of the group. This man was unarmed, but he was clutching a large bundle of sticky, bloody entrails, with dung flies sitting on the gleaming guts like motionless bronze sparks.

The other negotiators had slings round their necks, and their plastered forearms rested in them like infants in cradles. This was obviously a piece of Aktyubinsk swank, like sticking your hands in your pockets. The white motorcycle helmets on their heads were decorated with artfully applied bandages.

Chakhov had a good grasp of stagecraft. Even his entourage’s weapons were eye-catching and memorable. The maces were especially impressive—crude steel wires with clumps of concrete resembling meteorites, studded with broken glass, and forks with scummy deposits of dung on their prongs and deliberately broken handles. The hand of an artist was clear in everything. The weapons, like the Pavliks themselves, made your skin crawl.

Swaying as if he was exhausted, Chakhov wheezed in a low voice:

“We’ll wait on one side…” His hands twitched convulsively and he dropped the repulsive bundle. The stage-prop innards unwound and plopped onto the ground. The dung flies didn’t take flight—the insects were only scary junk jewellery.

Chakhov walked off and the ribbon of guts crept after him, with the rubbish that immediately stuck to it. I was aware that this was play-acting, but when Chakhov slowly pulled the guts towards him like an anchor chain, I felt a bayonet piercing my belly.

The Kolontayskites exchanged glances with Latokhin and left the librarians on their own.

And then Latokhin said morosely:

“Comrades, I need to consult with you. As I anticipated, the Pavliks don’t want a large-scale battle. I tried to resolve the matter by buying them off. Chakhov refused. Then I suggested an honest duel, one on one, with the condition that if he lost, the matter of the Book would be closed, and if I lost, then his library would get the Book. Chakhov says that since six reading rooms have intervened for us, it’s only logical that I face the music together with my allies, not on my own. In short, he insists on a collective duel, seven against seven… I implored him to limit it to fighters from our reading room—it’s only fitting for them to fight for the Book…” Latokhin sighed and shrugged, spreading his hands. “That didn’t suit Chakhov. He’s definitely a very shrewd and cunning individual, and he understands the lay of the land. I don’t know what I should do. I’m waiting for your advice.”

“The calculation is simple, elementary,” Kisling said with a frown. “If we refuse, there’ll be a bloodbath and many lives will be lost…”

“But we were prepared for that,” Tsofin said thoughtfully, “the compromise proposed by Chakhov is far from simple. And, to be quite honest, I’m not in great shape…”

My turn to say what I thought came.

“I won’t try to hide the fact that I have absolutely no experience. This is only the second time I’ve taken part in an event like this. Don’t think I’m being cowardly, but I might let you down…”

“Come now, Alexei Vladimirovich, don’t belittle your abilities,” said Golenishchev. “Our scouts reported the jaunty way you cut down the Gorelov librarian Marchenko, and he was no novice…”

“Comrade Latokhin,” said Akimushkin, breaking the silence, “you’re laying a great responsibility on us. If we mess things up, you’ll be left with no Book!”

“I believe in you,” Latokhin said with a helpless smile. “Comrades, I’ll tell you what I think…” He scratched the back of his head and then said in a flash of inspiration: “You have to understand that it’s not a question of physical strength, but… you could call it metaphysical strength. Our cause is just, we shall prevail in any case!”

“But what will the conditions of the duel be?” asked Zarubin.

“The Pavliks are willing to accept the initial rules,” said Latokhin, brightening up. “We have an agreed area for the field of battle; anyone can leave it if he wishes, then he’s out of bounds and the others continue, and then… it’s whoever wins, basically.”

“Humane enough, in principle,” Zarubin agreed. “OK, lads, I’m for it. A hundred deaths fewer, as they say…”

“I was in agreement right from the start,” said Golenishchev.

“Is there any alternative?” Tsofin asked with a bitter laugh.

“I’m the gregarious type,” Akimushkin told us. “Vyazintsev and Kisling, what have you decided?”

I nodded, totally overwhelmed by the situation.

Kisling shrugged: “I’m always willing…”

And Golenishchev summed up: “Comrade Latokhin, call Chakhov… We accept his terms.”