Люциус Шепард: Eternity and Other Stories

“Shit changes all the time,” said Nicolai. “Empty rooms fill up with people. You’ll be having a talk with someone and it’ll just end—like the rest of the scene was cut out of the movie. Snip! You’re in another room, doing something else. You’ll be sleeping in a bed, the next second you’re dancing with somebody. There’s no logic to it, it’s all done on a whim. Yuri’s whim. The physical laws of the place are his laws. Not God’s, not nature’s. It’s like everyone here is inside him. Part of him. He’s become a universe unto himself. One that contains the club and the party… For all I know he’s taken over the fucking world. But the difference between the places I’m familiar with—the club and the party—most people in the club are still alive.” He started to take out another cigarette, then thought better of it. “We get visitors like you from the real world now and again. And various among us are privileged to visit the club. But…” His mood veered toward exasperation, and Chemayev wondered, with only a touch of cynicism, if Yuri might not be editing his emotions as well as his scenes. “Don’t you understand?” Nicolai asked. “Yuri’s in control of everything that happens here. We’re fucking figments of his imagination. Once you step inside Eternity you’re subject to his whims the same as us. I don’t know what kind of deal you’re hoping to do with him, but take my word, it’s not going to be what you expected. You should get the hell out. Right now.” He chuckled. “Here I am trying to save your ass. Old habits. Of course”—he kept his face neutral—“I’m probably too late.”

“If what you say is true,” Chemayev said, “then logic would dictate that you’re the subject of Yuri’s whim at present. That’s the reason for this… this confrontation. You must have something to tell me. The lecture on Yuri’s power, I assume.”

Nicolai jumped up and went to stand facing one of the muralled walls, as if compelled by the heroic figure of a muscular redheaded man holding up an ingot in a pair of tongs, staring at it with such unalloyed devotion, it might have been the sacred light of Mother Russia soon to become an axle joint. “That’s what I’ve been waiting to hear,” he said. “The voice of the heartless motherfucker who shot me. I knew it was in you somewhere.” He wheeled about, his clever features cinched in fury. “You think this is a confrontation? My dear friend Viktor! My cherished boyhood companion! Don’t you worry. You’ll be back here one day… and maybe not just for a visit. Then we’ll have a fucking confrontation!” He paced toward Chemayev and stood with his feet apart as if preparing to attack. “I do have something to tell you, but it’s got nothing to do with what I said about Yuri. That was for old time’s sake. For a while it was like we were friends again, you know. A couple of guys sitting around bullshitting. I can’t figure why it happened, but that’s how it felt.”

Chemayev could relate to Nicolai’s confusion. His own feelings, compounded of love, fear, guilt, and much more, were too complex to analyze, like a stew that had been simmering for three and a half years, new ingredients constantly being added, fragrant, rich, and savory, but ultimately indigestible. Nothing could be salvaged here, he realized. “What do you have to tell me?”

Nicolai plucked out his Marlboros, tapped the pack on the back of his hand. “Russian women. Ever think about how tough they are, Viktor? They get the crap beat out of them, they take the best abuse of drunks and addicts. Their fathers fuck them, their boyfriends pimp them. By the time they’re sixteen they’re world-class ballbusters. They’re still sweet, still capable of love. But they’ve learned to do what’s necessary. Most men don’t see this. They don’t understand that no matter what the woman feels for them, she’s going to do what’s in her own best interests. She’s become just like a Russian man. Sentimental on the outside. Soft. But on the inside they’re steel.”

“Is this leading somewhere?” asked Chemayev.

“I fucked your woman tonight,” Nicolai said. “Your beautiful Larissa. I did her twice. The second time I had her up the ass. She loved it, she went absolutely crazy. I’ve never considered myself a petty sort, but I must admit it gave me a great deal of satisfaction.” He studied the pack of cigarettes, as if using it to focus his thoughts. “You know how it is with some women—when you make love to them their faces get twisted, distorted. Sex strips away their beauty, revealing the beast. But Larissa, man… She’s amazing. No matter how depraved the act, how degrading your intent, she just gets more beautiful. She had this entranced look. Radiant. Like a saint. Like the more I defiled her, the closer she grew to God.” His soft laugh expressed a touch of incredulity. “But none of that’s important, is it? She’s a whore, after all. So she fucks a guy—even a dead guy—what’s the big deal? She’s doing her job. If she enjoys it a little, all that means is she’s a professional.” He came closer and perched on the arm of his chair. “After the first fuck we talked a while. She told me this was her last night, she was going away with the man she loved. She told me all about you. What a great guy you were. How much you loved her. All your virtues. I didn’t try to illuminate her. I didn’t have to. She realizes you’re a calculating son-of-a-bitch at heart. She didn’t say it, but it was implicit in what she said. She knows you. She loves you. How could she not? She’s exactly the same as you. She’ll do whatever she has to and there won’t be a stain on her conscience.” He repocketed the Marlboros without removing one. He stood, adjusted the hang of his jacket. “Okay. That’s it. My duty’s done.”

He seemed to be waiting for a response.

In standing Chemayev was unsteady as an old man, he had to put a hand out to balance himself. He should be angry, he thought; but he only felt out of his depth. There was a gap between himself and his emotions too wide for any spark to cross. But because he believed he should react in some way, because not to react smacked of inadequacy, he pointed the pistol at Nicolai’s chest.

“Give it a try,” said Nicolai; he held both arms straight out from his sides, turning himself into a blond, expensively tailored Jesus on the Cross. “It worked the first time. I’m interested in what’ll happen myself.” He rested his head on his shoulder. “Wonder what Yuri will have to say?”

After pondering his options, Chemayev decided it would be best to hurry past this part of things. “Where’s Yuri now?”

As if in response the air between them began to ripple, a sluggish disturbance that spread throughout the room, infecting floor and ceiling and walls, and as it spread the dimensions of the room underwent a slow, undulant elongation, an evolution that seemed organic, like the stretching of a python’s gullet when it prepares to swallow an exceptionally large object. Once the rippling ceased Chemayev found that he was standing at a remove of some forty feet from Nicolai.

“Haven’t you heard a thing I’ve been telling you?” Nicolai’s voice carried a slight echo. “In this place you can’t get away from Yuri.”

Before Chemayev could react, the rippling started up once again, accompanied by a dimming of the lights. Moved by an old reflex of mutual reliance, he sprinted toward Nicolai, but the process of elongation was on this occasion so rapid, like the reduction in view achieved by narrowing the aperture of a telescopic lens, by the time he had gone only a couple of steps, Nicolai had dwindled to a tiny black figure at the far end of a long corridor. A foul-smelling corridor with stained, pitted concrete walls, littered with trash, ranged by warped wooden doors and buckets of sand. Hills of cans and bottles, stratified canyons of paper and plastic waste, dried-up riverbeds of urine and spilled vodka, altogether effecting a post-apocalyptic terrain laid out beneath a dirty white sky in which hung a jaundiced light bulb sun. It was the same corridor he and Nataliya had walked down earlier that evening.