David Nickle: Rasputin's Bastards

The essence of Babushka whirled and twisted, as the air from the closing door swept to the rafters. The Koldun understood it as a shrug.

Why now? You should have to ask. Look at the world, my dearest. It is past ten years ago that our masters are fallen. Yet we still live for their dying will .

Not so , said the Koldun. When was the last time that any of us were called in the night? When was the last time we even heard them in Discourse? And really — you never lived for them. We all live for ourselves. For our children .

The essence of Babushka loosened itself, and spread across the cedar ceiling planks like a pool of liquid, inverted.

For our children . Her voice was a whispering in the Discourse. The ones we know of, perhaps…

What are you talking about? ‘The ones we know of.’ The Koldun rocked back and forth on his heels uneasily. He looked again at the Babushka’s body — heavy and naked, its flesh was yellow as an old bruise. He looked up again at the steam at the ceiling. It was dissipating; the Babushka’s voice was fading.

The Koldun stepped over to the water barrel, and dipped the ladle in to pull out a cup of rainwater. Eyeing the ceiling, he flung the water onto the rocks by the fire. Hot steam stung his eyes and burned down his throat.

What do you mean ? said the Koldun again. ‘The ones we know of?’

The Babushka was angry now, though; she roiled and burned across the ceiling, and crept toward the crack above the door.

Enough , she said. I will go see my grandchildren now.

You already have , said the Koldun. Your passing is known across the village .

Across the village perhaps it is , she said, but I must yet visit my grandchildren. All of them. Across the world. They must all know.

The Koldun raised an eyebrow at that. The world? he wondered, but he didn’t pass that thought on to Babushka.

That’s a great many grandchildren , he said, if you mean the whole of City 512 and —

City 512 — pah! The cloud rolled back from the door now. It thickened, and began to descend. You have no idea, my love. You could not have had an idea, until a time such as now .

A time such as now ?

A time of gathering, my love . The cloud crept further down the walls of the sauna. Its belly fattened. A great gathering, here in the harbour — here in New Pokrovskoye. A gathering of the children we’ve loved and dreamed. And more. Of children whose fine luck was to never know their fathers. Who never knew us .

What are you planning ?

You know , said Babushka, and drew in upon him.

They cremated the body a day later, in a pyre near the lighthouse. There was no shortage of ceremony to go with the burning. The town gathered first in the greenhouse, where they sang and drank and wept in accordance with their understanding of the Babushka’s final wishes. Then they moved, with the body, up the hill to the pyre of driftwood. It took five men to lift the Babushka’s litter onto that pyre. All stood and watched as the wood lit, and breathed deeply of the scent, as the fire grew to consume her ancient flesh.

Everyone in the village attended — everyone but for one, and he was excused for obvious reasons. For the past day, the Koldun had lain wrapped and snoring in the Babushka’s blankets at the bathhouse. When he was finished dreaming on her behalf, no doubt he would join the village to remember their matriarch in fitting form.

Or such was the word around the village. In truth, the Koldun would have no trouble remembering Babushka, whom he had loved and served in life.

And now, in death, whom he was preparing to betray.

In his dreams, the Koldun found himself drawing back to Babushka’s whispered answer to his question.

What am I planning ?

Many things: to be loved; to be remembered; to be worshiped, maybe; to set things right, perhaps.

But one thing for certain .

Not, my love, to ever die .

The face looming over his own could have belonged to God: an old, tired, and infinitely pissed-off God.

Well , thought Alexei Kilodovich as he gazed up into His heavenly glare, He has every right to be . God must have better places to be than here out in the rain on the deck of a boat in the middle of an Atlantic night, pulling an undeserving wretch like Alexei Kilodovich out of the drink. One small eye squinted as a rivulet of water ran into a tiny pink tear duct from the broad slope of His forehead.

“What the fuck happened to you?” He demanded.

Alexei looked back at the face and considered the question, and the unspoken questions that cascaded from that one.

How did you get that bruise on your own forehead, all yellow and blue and soft? How did you wind up in that little dingy, here in the Atlantic? How could you let Mrs. Kontos-Wu down? Leave her to the Romanians ?

How could you be so stupid ?

Alexei opened his mouth to answer. But the truth stuck in his throat like a bone.

“I remember nothing,” he lied, and with that lie he settled into a new role: the amnesiac castaway, confused and grateful and frightened — but most of all confused — as much a mystery to himself as he is to his benefactors.

“Ah,” said God, “should have let you drown.” And He pulled away and vanished in the dark.

“Did your boat sink?” It was a new face this time — a long one, with a little van Dyke beard and a head shaved bald. His breath smelled funny — like burning sugar, and something beyond. The smell came and went as a sea breeze.

“I do not—” Alexei paused, to frown and think on the question, or at least give the appearance of honest thought “—I do not remember.”

“What about its name?” asked a young woman who sounded American — possibly from the southern States, maybe Georgia. “Your boat’s name.”

“It was—” Alexei made a show of snapping his fingers, as if the noise alone would summon up the name like a well-trained dog.

“No,” he said. “I am sorry.”

“What are you doing off Maine?” said the bald man. “You sound Russian or something.”

“Maine?” said Alexei. The woman was pulling up the rope ladder from their own boat. This one was at least as large as the Romanians’ big cabin cruiser — from the brief glimpse of it he’d gotten as it approached his raft, he’d guessed it might be even larger, and more opulent. From inside the main cabin, Alexei could hear faint music — although he couldn’t tell what kind, against the noise of the ocean. Yellow light shone warm as a fire through the curtains of a nearby porthole. It all should have conspired to give him comfort… .

Comfort is the torturer’s first tool. Succumb to that, and you’ve failed already . Who had said that? Alexei frowned, and shivered. Maybe the amnesia trick wasn’t such a lie after all.

“You can’t not know where Maine is,” said the woman. She had the hood of her raincoat up, so he couldn’t see much of her. But the skin on her face shone like a seal pelt in the misting rain, and her eyes, small and suspicious, flashed at him. “You can’t,” she repeated.

“It is in the United States,” replied Alexei. He let a sliver of uncertainty creep into the trailing sentence for effect. “Sure.”

“So you haven’t forgotten everything ,” said the woman. “What year is it? You know that?”

“1997,” he said, and she said, “See?”

She threw her hood back, damp hair falling to her shoulders in faux-Rasta Medusa-snakes. She was younger than he’d thought — not more than twenty-five, certainly, with an oval face, scorched eyebrows and small dark eyes — and in the act of pulling back the hood, the accusation in her eyes had changed to a kind of triumph.