Arkady Strugatsky: Monday Begins on Saturday

Sighing again, he turned back toward the oak and began to sing. “Krou, krou, my little ones! Krou, krou, my pigeonlets! I… me-eh… I slaked your thirst with the dew of my eyes… more exactly—watered you.

He sighed for the third time and walked on silently for some time. As he reached the oak, he yelled out abruptly in a very unmusical voice, “Choice morsel she finished not!”

A massive psaltery suddenly appeared in his paws; I didn’t notice at all how he came by it. Desperately he struck with his paw, and, catching the strings with his claws, bellowed even louder, as though trying to drown out the music:

He stopped and paced a while, banging the strings in silence; then he sang in a low, uncertain voice:

He returned to the oak, leaned the psaltery against it, and scratched behind his ear with a hind leg.

“Work, work, work,” he said, “and nothing but work!”

He placed his paws behind his back again and went off to the left of the oak, muttering, “It has come to me, oh great tsar, that in the splendid city of Baghdad, there lived a tailor, by the name…” He dropped to all fours, arched his back, and hissed angrily. “It’s especially bad with the names! Abu… Au… Somebody Ibn, whoever…. So-o, all right, let’s say Polouekt. Polouekt Ibn, me-eh. . Polouektovich… In any event, I can’t recall what happened to him. Dog take it, let’s start another.”

I lay with my stomach on the sill in a trance-like state, watching the unfortunate Basil wandering about the oak, now to the left and then to the right, muttering, coughing, meowing and mooing, standing on all fours in his efforts—in a word, suffering endlessly. The diapason of his knowledge was truly grandiose. He did not know a single tale or song more than halfway, but to make up for this, the repertoire included Russian, Ukrainian, West Slavic, German, English—I think even Japanese, Chinese, and African—fairy tales, legends, sermons, ballads, songs, romances, ditties, and refrains. The misfunction drove him into such a rage that several times he flung himself at the oak, ripping its bark with his claws, hissing and spitting while his eyes glowed with a satanic gleam and his furry tail, thick as a log, would now point at the zenith, then twitch spasmodically, then lash his sides. But the only song he carried to the end was “Tchizhik Pizhic,”(Common children’s song)and the only fairy tale he recounted at all coherently was “The House that Jack Built” in the Marshak translation, and even that with several excisions. Gradually—apparently fatiguing—his speech acquired more and more catlike accent. “Ah me, in the field and meadow,” he sang. “the plow goes by itself, and… me-e… ah… me-a-ou…and behind that plow the master himself has paced… or is it wended his way…?” Finally, altogether spent, he sat down on his tail and stayed thus for some time, his head bent low. Then, meowing softly and sorrowfully, he took the psaltery under his arm and wandered off on the dewy grass, haltingly on three legs.

I climbed off the sill and dropped the book. I distinctly remembered that the last time it was Creativity of the Mentally Ill, and was sure that was the book which had fallen on the floor. But the book I picked up and placed on the sill was The Solution of Crimes by A. Swanson and O. Wendell. Dully I opened it, scanned a few samples, and at once I was sure that I sensed there was someone strangled hanging in the oak. Fearfully I raised my eyes. From the lower branches, a wet silvery shark tail hung. It was swinging heavily in the gusts of the morning wind.

I shied violently and struck the back of my head on something hard. A telephone rang loudly. I looked around. I was lying crosswise on the sofa, the blanket had slid to the floor, and the early sun was shining into the window through the oak leaves.

The phone kept ringing. I rubbed my eyes, gazed through the window (the oak was in its place), studied the coat hanger (it, too, was in place). The telephone kept on. Behind the wall it was quiet in the old woman’s room. So I leaped to the floor, opened the door (the bolt was shot), and came out in the entry. The telephone rang insistently. It stood on a shelf above a large water cask—a quite modern white plastic phone, such as I have seen in the movies and the director’s office. I picked up the receiver.

“Hello.”

“Who’s this?” asked a piercing female voice.

“Whom do you want?”

“Is that Izbakurnozh?”

“What?”

“I am saying—is it the Izba on Hen’s Legs or not? Who is talking?”

“Yes,” I said. “It’s the Izba. Whom do you want?”

“Oh, hell,” said the voice. “Take this telephonogram.”

“Let’s have it.”

“Write it down.”

“One minute,” I said. “I’ll get pencil and paper.”

I brought over a notebook and a pencil.

“I am listening.”

“Telephonogram number two hundred and six,” said the female voice, “to Citizeness Gorynitch, Naina Kievna.

“Not so fast…. Kievna…. Next?”

“You are hereby requested… to appear today the twenty-eighth of July… of this year… at midnight… at the annual all-union fly-in… Have you got that down?”

“I have.”

“The first meeting will take place… on Bald Mountain. Formal dress. Employment of mechanized transport at your own expense. Signed… Department Manager…Eich… Em… Viy…”*

“Who?”

“Viy! Eich Em Viy.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Viy! Khron Monadovitch. Don’t you know the department manager?”

“I don’t know him,” I said. “Spell it.”

“Hell’s bells! All right: Vampire, incubus, yang-yin… Have you got it down?”

“I think so,” I said. “It comes out: Viy.”(Leader of ghost goblins and supernatural monsters)

“Who?”

“Do you have polyps or something? I can’t understand you.”

“Vladimir, Ivan, Yakov.”

“Right. Repeat the telephonogram.” I repeated it.

“Correct. Sent by Onoukina. Who took it?”

“Privalov.”

“Greetings, Privalov! Been in service here long?” “Poodles serve,” I said angrily. “I work!”

“Good, good. Work on. See you at the fly-in.”

Tones sounded. I hung up and returned to my room. The morning was cool so I did my setting-up exercises hurriedly and dressed. What was transpiring seemed exceedingly curious and interesting to me. The telephonogram seemed to associate strangely in my consciousness with the events of the night, although I had no specific idea whatsoever exactly in what way. However that might be, certain ideas were beginning to circulate in my head, and my imagination was definitely aroused.

Everything that I was here witness to, was not altogether unfamiliar to me. I had read of such incidents before and remembered how the behavior of people finding themselves in analogous situations seemed to me extraordinarily and irritatingly inept. Instead of fully exploiting the enticing perspectives that were presented to them through a fortunate opportunity, they became frightened and struggled to return themselves to the humdrum and routine. One such exponent actually advised the reader to keep a good distance from the veil dividing our world from the unknown, threatening physical and spiritual maiming. I did not yet know how the events would develop, but I was already prepared to immerse myself in them enthusiastically.