The Moscoviad (18 page)

“After you remain
your words, words, words?”

“Yes, after me
remain my words, words, words!”

“And we will
never kill the whole of you?”

“No, you will
never kill the whole of me?”

“And in your
heart there’s something that’s immortal?”

“Yes, in my heart
there’s something that’s immortal!”

Truth be told,
this final duet came out rather coordinated and melodious. Your hoarse falsetto
successfully blended with “Sashko’s” nightingale-like tenor. The orchestra
continued for some time, closing this scene with a powerful and tragic, but
still somehow, deep down, on some most essential level, an optimistic coda. At
last everything grew silent. And instead of a burst of applause from the
audience you heard only the increasingly aggressive growling and squeaking from
behind. It seemed that those monsters were now scratching not at the door, but
already at your sweater.

“Indeed,”
“Sashko” nodded at the doors, somewhat out of breath, and taking out a hanky,
wiped the drops of sweat off his brow. He had given all of himself to music.
“So get ready, von F.,” he waved his finger threateningly. “But before you turn
into undigested remnants, you will have an opportunity to improve your balance
of sins. You are going to have, as Germans say, eine Yuberraschung!”

“U umlaut,” you
corrected him.

“Same shit,” said
“Sashko” and, having taken the chair with an inventory number on its leg, left
the cage.

And locked it
with a key.

All this
spontaneous performance with the rats, the cage, the swollen knee and the
operatic KGB man seemed to you to be extremely idiotic and completely implausible.
And despite the fact that the back wall seemed to be creaking and shaking from
the insane impatience of the monsters locked behind it, you still did not
really want to believe into this scary prospect. The things you had drunk were
still taking their toll, so you decided, after all, to take another nap, and
even ordered for it in the appropriate heavenly office a dream about Venice.
But before your ferry managed to get from Tronchetto to St. Mark’s Square, you
were awakened by the appearance of someone else in your cage.

And this was
Galya. She pressed her finger to your lips and you, following the old lover’s
habit, started caressing it. And then suddenly leaped back, as if from a viper,
recalling that she was their accomplice. But Galya anticipated your possible
reproaches.

“I’ve been called
here on my job duties,” she explained. “I must give you a few injections . . .”

“What for,
Galya?”

“For the sake of
the purity of the experiment.”

“What kind of
purity? Moral?”

“Stop it at least
this time,” she said quietly, but there was not a drop of malice in her voice.
“Take off your pants.”

“I would like to
die with dignity, Galina.”

“No one is laying
claims on your dignity. But the pants must be taken off.”

She was wearing some
kind of an official suit, something like a woman’s uniform, although a rather
tightly-fitting one, with a noticeably short skirt. She smelled of vodka just a
little bit, but in general held herself together well. Even despite the
noticeable swelling around her cheekbone.

“You see, Galya,
I’d like to die without noise or a distorted expression on my face; besides, I
wouldn’t like to shit in my pants in my dying agony . . .”

“So take them off
then,” she repeated once more, insistently.

“Can you make it
so that I die with heroic foam, eh, with a heroic song on my lips?” you asked,
obediently undoing the first button. “And generally, explain me the essence of
the experiment. Do I have at least this right? What sorts of weird things take
place in your dungeons! First I am informed that I’m about to be fed to hungry
rats. Then I learn that I’ll get shots in the ass for the sake of the purity of
the experiment. And all this is nothing else but the preparation by the
responsible structures for the universal introduction of a state of emergency!
. . .”

She put her
little bag with syringes to the side. And again her finger pressed against your
lips.

“Be silent,” she
said extremely softly.

“I cannot be
silent!” you jerked, but sensed that her other hand was already undoing the
other buttons.

It was
miracle-working, this hand of hers. You even froze, stunned, and it came to you
like an old acquaintance who quite easily got to the desired destination. This
was the musical hand of a virtuoso. It made you strong. It gave you hope.

You then sensed,
rather than actually saw, Galya taking off her jacket and blouse. She crawled
all over you like the queen of snakes. You were all surrounded by her body, you
jumped into it like into an ocean wave, luxuriating in its arousing and
head-spinning hiss. Her lips traveled all over you. They visited everything.
But the hand! It continued its business, so that you even closed your eyes and
started breathing more heavily, jerkily.

“Be silent,”
hissed the queen of snakes.

She dove into you
deeper and deeper. She smelled of vodka, of the rain, and of fresh grass. You
remained motionless and simultaneously were swimming somewhere. Yes, these were
waves. And finally the hand, this hand of hers surfaced from the depths and,
like a blindingly bright bird, flew across your chest and nested in your hair.
And then you remembered you had hands too. And they began their journey. This
was a tournament of hands—yours, still so clumsy and disobedient, and hers,
miraculous, warm and generous. She helped you with her every movement, she
flowed towards you until the two of you freed her from the extraneous clothing.

“You will drive
me crazy,” you whispered.

“Be silent,” she
repeated.

Words could only
do harm. There was no place for them. They were completely out of place. They
did not mean anything. And words ought to mean something.

At last she
uttered a quiet shriek. This was only the beginning, but you already saw the
darkness pierced by strobes of lightning. And hence she did everything so that
you would hold on. She made love to each tiniest particle of you, she almost
sang about it with her ceaseless “be silent, be silent,” and it was already
hard to guess who was sacrificing what to whom: so selflessly was she
delivering all she could. And you saw a clear road of an unknown sunlit day,
you sensed the heat, you felt you were melting, turning into something tender
and white, you made the final effort and burst into white flowers like some
paradisiacal bush, and finally drowned in an inexpressible sea of tenderness
that can be rivaled in its depth by nothing, nothing, nothing . . .

“I brought you
your raincoat,” she said in a minute, already almost fully dressed. “I washed
and dried it.”

She gave you a
grayish package she produced from somewhere out in the darkness.

“Thank you, but what
good is it to me now?” you smiled bitterly. “Do you want those bastards to
shred it with their fierce teeth?”

She sat down next
to you and lit up a smoke.

“Tell me anyway,
what is the matter? What sorts of experiments you guys conduct here? Why you
exactly? Why are you with them?”

“I’m not guilty.
I wanted to keep on doing my research. On snakes, on poisons. They provided me
with such an opportunity.”

“Do I have any
chances? Would I be capable of mounting any resistance against the rats?”

“For the purity
of the experiment I was supposed to inject you with certain substances. They
paralyze. In less than twenty minutes after the shot you’d turn into a
vegetable. What is at stake is not you but whether these same substances will
later have effect on the rats. After all, they too are living creatures that
operate according to certain biological laws. You see, it has become much too
problematic to rely upon the army. And, indeed, the police as well. In the case
of a worsening of the situation and of armed conflict, he could gravely
miscalculate. Giant rats unleashed at protesters are somewhat more reliable,
don’t you think? . . .”

“And you are
taking part in this crime?”

“We are taking
part in some crime or another every day, my love. Without even knowing it ourselves.
But as for the one you’re talking about, I’m not involved in it yet.”

“So you won’t
give me the shots now, darling? Give me an opportunity to die not like a
vegetable. I’ll hit them with my legs as long as I can. I do have an injured
knee, but still I’d like to hold out until the end . . . By the way, I hope I
didn’t punch you too painfully earlier today?”

“Don’t worry. I
was the one to blame. I started it first. You were only defending yourself.”

“Please forgive
me if I brought you suffering.”

“I really did not
want you to go. But now this no longer matters. Was it good for you with me at
least sometimes, at least a little bit?”

“It was
fantastic.”

“For me too.”

“Thank you,
darling. You are my last great love.”

“It only seems so
to you. In a few minutes you’ll completely forget about me.”

“In a few minutes
I’ll forget not only about you. But then, what am I saying? Is this body that
is about to be ripped to pieces the real me? No, the real I won’t forget you. I
have had opportunities to become convinced that the dead do not forget the
living.”

“You are so
superstitious! Are all Ukrainians so superstitious? You know, when I was little
I too believed in something like this. That the spirits of the dead stay with
us, circle around our beds at night and drink milk in the kitchen . . . But my
husband died and never visited me again . . .”

“You had a
husband? But you never told me anything about him! How did he die?”

“Oh, silly
carelessness in handling vipers! . . . He liked going into the serpentry drunk
. . .”

“Did he drink a
lot?”

“Like a fish. In
fact, he was a chronic alcoholic. Although he loved me very much. But he loved
booze even more. He tried knifing me several times. These things did not pass
for him easily.”

“Nothing ever
passes easily. I’d like to sum up a few things, Galya. My life turned out to be
not as long as the wandering gypsies and the learned astrologers had predicted,
but what is worse, it turned out to be not that spectacular either. I tried not
to make enemies and to be liked by everyone without exception, remembering that
my worst enemy is myself. But to be liked by everyone turned out to be
impossible. No one wanted to suspect me of good intentions. That’s how divided
everyone was by quarrelling. Thus each of my attempts to discover harmony ended
with my expulsion. Moreover, I saw that this world was held together by hatred.
It is this word’s only moving force. And I wanted to flee from this hatred. I
wanted to go on a trip around the world, but my money wasn’t enough even for
sailing to Venice. Thus I satisfied myself with dreams, loves, and hard liquor.
For drinking is also a journey! This is the journey across the liberated
hemispheres of consciousness, and hence, of being. One wonderful rainy day in
May, that is, today, being in a rather clouded state of mind I found myself for
some hell of a reason in this dungeon. However, as it has just become clear,
all this was merely an illusion, a naive and snotty self-deception, while I
thought I was acting fully independently, following my own independent plan. In
fact, I was brought here. As one of the empire’s subjects, a carrier of its
passport, a participant in many of its referenda, I turned out to be a ball in
a certain interesting game of pool. Now what remains is to kick it one last
time.”

“You look at
things far too gloomily,” she smiled, putting her hand on your shoulder.

“I have some
reasons for this. You’d agree, darling, it would have been strange if I now
began declaiming something playful and life-affirming. Can you hear those damn
beasts snort excitedly behind the wall? You know, I still can’t believe that a
fight with them awaits me. Do you happen to have on you a sword or at least a can
opener?”

“I wanted to keep
you at any price. But I understood fairly quickly that this was in vain. You
wouldn’t want to take me along on your trip around the world. You like variety
in women far too much. I don’t have a sword for you. All I could do is to wash
your raincoat, a rather greasy coat of an old tramp, and give you a few minutes
of tenderness as a parting gift.”

“Thank you, my
heart. Are you going to have trouble at work when they find out you didn’t give
me these fucking shots?”

“You are going
too far. What are these questions for? What troubles at work can you talk about
now when we are parting?”

“You are right.
You are always right. Forgive me. I simply wanted you to have everything
tip-top. To have as your next husband not a weak-willed and tedious alcoholic,
but at the very least a grateful and restrained masochist. I would have loved
your husband almost as much as you. Besides, I wish you to catch only the most
poisonous of snakes, nimble and otherwise perfect. Not to have to live in that
empty house that is crumbling in front of one’s very eyes. I would have bought
for you a small palace in South Tyrol if I had enough money for it . . . How is
everything going to look now?”