Michael Swanwick - Dancing with Bears

“We appear to have lost our two charges.”

“The ladies will most likely miss Arkady mooning about and singing love songs. The Neanderthals will surely be glad to see the last of him. And I…well, he was a likeable enough fellow. But as he spent most of his time huddled with Koschei, absorbing the pilgrim’s doubtless fanatical theology, I had no opportunity to form any great attachment to him.”

“You sum up the situation succinctly. But now I see that the crowds are as large as they are ever likely to be. So I too must leave.”

“Do you have the book?”

Darger placed a hand inside his jacket. Then, with a roguish smile, he flung open the door and, brandishing the book high over his head, leaped free of the carriage. He plunged into the crowd and disappeared.

Behind him, he heard Surplus shout at the top of his lungs, “Halt the carriage!” A quick glance over his shoulder revealed Surplus leaning far out of the open carriage door, an anxious arm extended toward the distant fringes of the crowd. “Stop him! Stop that thief! A hundred solidii to whoever returns me that book!” Then, in apparent response to the puzzlement on the faces of those nearby, “Ten thousand gold rubles! To anybody who restores to me that book, ten thousand rubles-in gold!”

The crowd stirred and eddied. Men began to run where they thought the fugitive had gone. More joined them and, because not all were clear on who was being sought, fights broke out among them.

But Darger had not fled. Immediately upon entering the crowd, he had stopped and turned to face the procession. He then took a few jostling steps to the side and there remained, craning his neck, as if he were just another citizen anxious to see the spectacle. The book he slipped back in his jacket. Darger was blessed with a forgettable face, and it was his particular genius to be able to fade into the background wherever he was. Searchers ran past him and he turned to gawk but did not join in the pursuit.

Shortly thereafter, the carriage started forward again. Inside it Surplus sat, arms crossed, ostentatiously glowering and sullen. The procession continued down the street.

After a while, the crowds broke up and dwindled away.

Darger pulled a slouch hat over his head and joined the general dispersal. He walked randomly at first, choosing the shabbier streets over the better. Always he considered the bars, taverns, and unlicensed purveyors of basement-brewed beer. As he strode along, he casually drew a square of paper from his pocket, extracted two pills, and swallowed them. By the time he finally selected a low dive that looked particularly dreary and unattractive, his eyes had turned from gray to green and his hair was bright red.

He went inside.

Two or three broken-down rummies sat slouched in the gloom. A man who was no discernible improvement over them wiped a filthy rag over a filthier bar. Standing just within the doorway, Darger exclaimed, “Dear Lord, this must be the vilest and most squalid bar in all Moscow!”

The bartender looked up resentfully. “This here’s a drinking establishment, bud. If you want the kinda bar where faggots sit around discussing philosophy and plotting revolution, you shoulda gone to the Bucket of Nails.”

“Thank you, sir,” Darger said. “Could you tell me where I might find that august establishment?”

Of all the places Koschei might have taken them, the most unexpected was this-a luxuriously appointed suite in the New Metropol, which even a provincial such as Arkady knew to be the single best hotel in Moscow. He watched in astonishment as liveried servants filled a porcelain bathtub with buckets of hot water, lit candles in the sconces above it, added scented bath oils, and deposited great fluffy stacks of towels on a stand alongside it.

“I’ve sent for a barber and a tailor. You will need appropriate clothing if you are to move in the social circles your holy mission will require,” Koschei said.“Later this evening, one will come who will initiate you into the next stage of your religious education. But for now, relax. Wash off the stains of travel.”

“Surely you should have the tub first, holy pilgrim.”

“Pah! If the soul is clean, the condition of the body means nothing. I am in a state of perfect grace, and therefore it wouldn’t matter if I stank like a horse. Were I dying of leprosy, I would yet smell sweet to the nostrils of God. You, however, are weak of spirit, and so you must bathe. Do as I say. We have a great deal to accomplish, and I do not expect you will get much sleep tonight.”

“Blessed father, you have not yet told me why we have come to Moscow.”

“Later.” “And for that matter, however in the world are we paying for all this?”

“Later, I said! Will you force me to beat you? Go! Bathe!”

Lying in the warm water with soap bubbles billowing about him, Arkady felt as though he had fallen into a fairytale. He floated in a golden dazzle of comfort and luxury. Surely in the real world, pilgrims did not treat outcasts so? Koschei had spoken of a holy mission. Only in a dream would a spiritual journey begin in such surroundings. Yet he could hear the strannik stomping about the suite, unpacking their knapsacks and arranging the few modest possessions they had brought with them. He could hear the mutter of the good man’s prayers. So, evidently, this was how they did things in Moscow.

He closed his eyes, smiling. This could not possibly last. But he would enjoy it while it did.

After the bath, room service brought in what seemed to be a hundred small white plates of zakuski-smoked fish, caviar, cured meats, salads, cheeses, pickles, and more. There were also pitchers of kvass and mors, and more bottles of vodka than Arkady had ever seen set out for two diners before. He attacked them all with a vengeance. Yet he could not come close to matching Koschei’s appetite. Vast quantities of food and alcohol disappeared into the strannik’s maw without his showing the least sign of satiety or intoxication. It was astonishing.

When they had eaten, the tailor came by to take Arkady’s measurements. Koschei questioned him closely as to what the young people of the upper classes were currently wearing, and ordered a dozen suits of clothing, suitable for a variety of occasions, along with boots, gloves, hats, canes, and other incidentals such as a gentleman required.

Arkady tried to object that this was far too generous. But then the barber arrived, bringing with him a manicurist, and soon thereafter he found himself shaved and shorn and polished and powdered to within an inch of his life.

Koschei examined him critically afterward. “I thought of hiring a tutor to teach you comportment and manners. But it would be like putting a dress on a camel. Nobody could fail to see what lay underneath.”

“Yes, holy one,” Arkady said humbly.

“You are from the provinces-we cannot pretend otherwise. But for a season that touch of exoticism will be sufficient to make a parvenu such as you welcome in polite society. Act like yourself, and that will be enough.”

“Enough to do what? I think the time has come for me to learn exactly what my mission entails. You have something planned for me, I can see that. But what it is, and how it could possibly require”-he swept out a hand to take in the room, the bath towels, the candles, and the table which had already been efficiently and deferentially cleared of the emptied plates-“all this…well, that is completely beyond my understanding.”

“Yes. You are exactly right. The truth is completely beyond your comprehension. But I can tell you that-”

There was a knock on the door.

“Ah! Here she is! Answer that, will you?”

When Arkady opened the door, a woman rushed past him and flung herself into Koschei’s arms. She kissed him deeply and passionately. Then she knelt down and kissed his feet. He raised her up with a smile. “Little daughter!”