Татьяна Толстая - Aetherial Worlds

“What’s all this?” shouted Shulgin over the noise, referring to the railroad traffic.

“I dunno. ‘Siberia Aluminum,’ they say.”

“I thought Deripaska owned it.”

“I think he’s the majority shareholder.”

Shulgin suddenly felt bad for Deripaska: if Deripaska decided to buy some more shares from Frolov for absolute happiness, he’d be shit out of luck. The window wouldn’t allow it. But something was amiss, thought Shulgin—they’d started out at practically the same time, but now Frolov had an entire manufacturing plant, he was basically an oligarch. But all Shulgin had was a three-room apartment and a sausage-vendor wife. Imagine, social inequality and no free market. Take that, North Korea!

Oksana was planning to get a nanny for Kira in order to go back to work, so when the window shouted “Nanny for Kira,” Shulgin hopped up—“Deal!”—and by the time he saw what was what, it was too late. The nanny came out of the window feet first, like a breech baby, and while the legs were making their way out, Shulgin began to realize the full scope of the impending disaster. She was around twenty, Playboy Bunny curves, tits from a sergeant’s wet dream, dyed hair, pink lipstick, teeth playfully biting down on a blade of grass. She adjusted her miniskirt:

“Where’s the kid?”

“I won’t let you near her!” scowled Shulgin.

“And why not?”

“I need a stupid old hag, and not this… What the hell is this!”

“We’ll grow old together! And I ain’t that smart.” She snorted with laughter.

“I have a wife at home!!”

“Oh, muffin, how sweet, he’s got a wife!”

If we walk through the food market she’ll get disoriented and lose her way, plotted Shulgin. But things didn’t go as planned: the nanny held on tight, swayed her leather-clad hips, and loudly demanded he buy her black caviar and cherries.

Where is the Kebab mafia when you need ’em? Shulgin looked around dejectedly. Who’s in charge of this market? The Azerbaijanis, I think? Or is it the Chechens? Where did they all go?!

They finally made it home, caviar and cherries in hand, passersby craning their necks—a disgrace for all to see.

“Break me off some lilacs for a bouquet, tiger,” moaned the nanny.

Here’s what I’ve got to do, he mused. Stop by Frolov’s house, as if for a game of backgammon. And there, shove her into a trolley, pile on some of that aluminum he’s got, and secure with a cover. And let her merrily roll along. It won’t count as giving her away—Shulgin mentally rationalized with the window—it’s simply a cruise! Yep, that’s what it should count as. “Siberia, Siberia, I’m not afraid of you, Siberia, Siberia, you’re Russia with a view,” he purred softly.

Frolov’s door was opened by members of indigenous peoples of the Far North in fox-fur hats; they said the boss wasn’t home.

“I’ll wait.” Shulgin tried to make his way inside, even though it was rather unpleasant stepping on the snow. For that’s what everything was covered with—snow. The railroad tracks, the backgammon table, the coffee service, all of it was a white tundra, completely devoid of coziness: dim, with long rows of TVs, icy plains with hummocks, and gas flares blazing on the horizon. A deer ran by to catch up with the herd.

“No way, José.” The northern people shooed Shulgin away.

“I didn’t ask you! Where did he go?”

“House of Representatives,” the people answered, lying, no doubt.

Still standing in front of the door just slammed on him, an ordinary particleboard one with a peephole, Shulgin, of course, didn’t buy it. A faint smell of soup was emanating from the cracks; a worn doormat lay before him. On the other hand, anything is possible. If that was the case, he’d need to ask Frolov for a neighborly favor: maybe he could speed up the economic reforms to finally allow sale, exchange, and all that. Any entry into the free market. It would be so convenient: whatever you don’t need, you sell, and, using the money from the transaction, you buy the stuff you do need. Don’t they get it? Look at Oksana with her hot dogs—she’s free as a butterfly. But meanwhile he’s stuck with this craptastic floozy.

“Silly billy, at least I don’t cost a thing!” sing-songed the nanny.

“Drop dead!” howled Shulgin.

“Death won’t separate us!”

Shulgin fumbled for his keys, pushed the nanny aside, ran in, slammed and locked the door. His heart pounding, he tried to catch his breath. He barricaded the entrance with a mattress and secured it with an unopened box of something labeled “Toshiba.”

All night, the nanny pummeled the door, trying to get in. Oksana refused to listen to any explanations. Crying, she locked herself with Kira in the farthest, and, theoretically, nonexistent room. The nanny knocked on Shulgin’s door, Shulgin on Oksana’s, and the downstairs neighbors, angered by the noise, banged on the radiator with what sounded like a wrench. The lilac bushes swayed in the wind outside; in Frolov’s universe, moss was freezing over beneath the snow and sled dogs were heard yapping in the distance. When dawn broke, Shulgin, exhausted from his sleepless night, squeezed past the boxes into the kitchen for a drink of water and saw that a new room, faint like an aspen bud in the spring, was beginning to form in the wall—it was clearly being readied for the nanny. So they wouldn’t let him be, then. That was it. Do or die.

So he made a decision. Hesitated, and made it again.

Resolute, he marched off to the window—right turn, left turn, another left, and into building number 5—the nanny clinging to him and happily chirping all the way.

“One sick tricked-out ride!” swaggered the window.

“Sweeeet,” egged on the nanny.

“No deal,” a dignified Shulgin replied with pity.

“Oh, then it’s my turn!” happily responded the window, and slammed the shutters.

They stood there, they knocked, but no answer. Shulgin turned around and walked back through the courtyard, stepping over the detritus and industrial debris.

“What the fuck? I’m in heels!” the chimera yelped like she owned him.

“Begone, strumpet!”

“How da—”

“Deal!” came a voice from somewhere, and the nanny disappeared, never having finished her sentence. Shulgin looked around—no nanny. Fantastic! A weight was lifted. On the way home he bought some carnations.

“What’s this?” gloomily asked Oksana, holding Kira.

“Flowers.”

“Deal!” came the answer from the faraway window and the bouquet disappeared, leaving Shulgin with a bent elbow and his fingers still angled around where the carnations had been. Something hissed in the kitchen behind Oksana’s back.

“The coffee!” croaked Shulgin, his larynx contracting.

“Deal!” came from somewhere, and the coffee also disappeared, together with the cezve and the accompanying stain around the burner, making the stove look like new.

“Oh, the stove,” whispered Shulgin.

“Deeeaal!” and the stove was no more.

Oksana got scared: “What’s happening?”

“The window…,” Shulgin exhaled inaudibly, but they still heard him. The windows in his apartment vanished, dead walls appearing in their place, and all became dark, as before the beginning of time. Oksana let out a scream. Shulgin opened his mouth to comfort her with “Oksana! Oksanochka!” But having figured out the rules, he stayed silent.

He couldn’t let the window have the next turn.

A hot day in May in Ravenna, a small Italian town where Dante is buried. Once upon a time—in the beginning of the fifth century AD—the emperor Honorius moved the capital of the Western Roman Empire here. There used to be a port in Ravenna, but the sea has since receded greatly, its place taken by swamps, roses, dust, and grapes. Ravenna is famous for its mosaics; crowds of tourists go from church to church examining them with eyes glued to the ceiling, the faint glimmer of small multicolored tesserae up there, high, under twilit ogival arches. You can make something out, but not much. Glossy postcards give a better view, but it’s too bright, too flat, too cheap-looking.