Natalia Smirnova - St. Petersburg Noir

Since hiring the curator, Professor Tsukatov had already used the services of these fly-by-nights twice. First, when at his request Demyan Ilich obtained a wonderful, brand-new stuffed female alligator so large that they had to set it on the highest shelf, just beneath the ceiling, opposite the Steller sea lion, which had been placed in a similar fashion. The second time was when, on his own initiative, Demyan Ilich suggested that they acquire a new stuffed peacock to replace the old one, which had become tattered and frayed during its hundred years of service.

Professor Tsukatov went over to the window and gazed out at the snow, the trees that had turned white, the glass dome of the atrium of the trading house behind the Red Bridge, the chains of black footprints made by students trudging through the courtyard, the sky that promised an early twilight, no longer murky, since the downy winter had already spread itself all around. The calm of the snow-covered earth slowly spread within him.

“Chinese cuisine is also quite p-peculiar,” said Chelnokov, removing the bubbling kettle from its base without interrupting himself. “I’m rather afraid to go to their restaurants. Have you ever noticed how m-many of them live in our cities? Yet they don’t seem to have any cemeteries. Why do you think that is?”

“Call Demyan Ilich in,” Tsukatov said to Lera, who already knew she’d been forgiven, and was poking about in the cupboard searching for a coffee cup. Then, turning to Chelnokov, he said, “Yes, a chimpanzee. I suppose a chimpanzee would be best after all.”

The untidiness of Demyan Ilich’s abode did not concern its master in the least, and was in fact merely a semblance of disorder—every item here had its place. Just reach out, and the necessary tool was in the palm of your hand. Toss it, and it would fall into position. Joiner and furrier tools, vials with acids, salts, alkali, alums, varnishes, and arsenic solutions, molds for plaster casts of the slim ankle bones (distal limb sections) of some ungulates, piles of glass eyes with hand-painted irises and highlights on the pupils, cans of construction foam, glue, rags, bits or hide, feathers…

Demyan Ilich was to the business of taxidermy what Stradivari and Guameri were to the art of violinmaking. He had invented a special solution for preserving fresh materials, a wonderful lotion that worked for pickling bird pelts, and a brilliant tanning solution for animal hides, which changed the qualities of the inner side of the hide, making it flexible and resistant to decay and fungus. He had solved many a riddle of the trade, and he knew quite a few special tricks that were unfathomable to others. Soaking, cleaning the inner side of the hide from any leftover muscle tissues, quill preparation, rinsing and fat removal, pickling, drying, and softening—he had his own secret recipe for every stage of the process. The fur of the hides that he had dressed remained glossy and didn’t wear thin, and the feathers never fell out. The recipes of his shadowy secretive art quickened the dressing process, making it five or ten times faster. No other taxidermist could complete the process so quickly. Assembling a beast or bird with unfinished hide would mean that it would rot, develop a foul odor, and lose its fur and feathers. And if it didn’t rot, then the hide of the stuffed animal would dry up, become deformed, the seams would rip, and the edges of the hide would curl up on the bare mannequin, which then couldn’t be rectified by any number of bandages or clamps. Demyan Ilich was able to get excellent results in a short time: the gloomy bliss of genius had chosen to descend upon him.

“Involution…Ahem…” The curator’s index finger shot upward. “Involution… yes. A serpent shall give birth to an angel.”

He talked to himself when he was in a colorful mood. Demyan Ilich had finally come up with a plan for luring the little devil into his lair. She would come of her own accord. She had all that remodeling going on at home, and he had offhandedly set her up with a ceiling plasterer. The man was a spurious wretch from the joiner’s shop of the museum on the spit, who was greedy and dumb as a cork. He would bring her to Demyan Ilich, as if to show her his work: I did the ceilings over there a few days ago, come and see for yourself what a great a job I did. Demyan Ilich would give the handyman his due later—he’d invite him over to pay him, and then he’d awaken the polecat within.

Lera didn’t like the museum curator, and was even a little afraid of him. Demyan Ilich’s gaze was sharp and piercing, his eyebrows thick and disheveled, his face sallow and bony, his character unsociable and nasty. Once, seeing him in the hall in front of the genetics kitchen, where students in thrall to science brewed porridge for fruit flies, Lera automatically smiled at him with her large mouth and fluttered her eyelashes. Only after she had passed him had she heard him mutter, “Ahem… Quite an ostrich.” Lera’s ears blushed scarlet and her back became covered in goose bumps. What a weirdo!

Then Lera studied herself in the mirror. Yes, sue was tall, slim, wide-hipped, and, well, yes, she had a long neck, large mouth, and large eyes beneath her contact lenses. She was young, healthy, beautiful, and lively. In a word, Artemis. What did he mean “an ostrich”? What nonsense!

Demyan Ilich was in the museum. He answered, “Yes, yes,” from far off, but didn’t open the door right away. He was a long time shuffling behind the closed door. When he finally opened it, he gave her a sullen look. His white lab coat was stale, his hair unkempt, his shoes dusty and worn to the point of indecency.

Coldly, without hiding her aversion to him, Lera conveyed Tsukatov’s message to the curator. Without waiting for his reply, she turned around haughtily and headed off to the lab assistant’s room, high heels clicking, to rewrite the letter of request for reagents, materials, and laboratory utilities. Her shoulders felt cold from the gaze that followed her from behind.

“A little flea went walking in the garden, the louse did bow, and that flea did swagger…” Demyan Ilich muttered to Lera’s back. His eyes, which had been sharp as an awl a moment before, were now glazed over…

“I need an answer now; will you take this on or not?” Tsukatov was talking to the curator, who looked at the professors with a gray, imperturbable owl-like gaze, as though it was already in the bag. “There’s not much time. We need to spend the money before the end of the year. So we have one month left.”

There was a long pause. Tsukatov stretched the truth. On several occasions he would submit the paperwork for equipment that had been purchased but hadn’t yet shipped out. It would ship eventually, but no one checked and Tsukatov was clean. The chair of the department wasn’t afraid of responsibility—he had made the choice between what was necessary and what was easy once and for all. It didn’t matter how many living beings had to be killed in the name of science to develop an elixir of immortality—he would kill them all without hesitation.

“Ahem, Demyan Ilich’s voice grated on the ears as though it was an old machine. The curator grimaced, his face clearly unused to smiling, and wriggled his furry brows uncertainly. “I’ll have to look around…”

Another pause. The silence in the curator’s presence was so heavy that it took on an almost physical weight, producing an effect that was even more intolerable than conversation itself. When he was silent, it was as though he became all-powerful. There was no doubt about it: if you asked that man to get you a platypus, he’d get a platypus. Never mind the platypus, he could even summon out of nonexistence the extinct red macaw.