Tatyana Tolstaya - The Slynx

"Excuse me, but I beg to differ!" Lev Lvovich and Nikita Ivanich broke in, interrupting each other. "Under Sergei Sergeich there was utter terror! He trampled the rights of the individual!… There were arrests in broad daylight! Have you forgotten that more than three were forbidden to gather at one time?… No singing or smoking on the streets!… Curfew!… And what happened if you were late to the recount?-And the uniforms…"

"There was law and order under Sergeich! All the terems were built! All the fences! They never held up Warehouse packages! A basket for holidays, my ration was fifth category, and I got a postcard from the local committee!…"

"You've got it all mixed up, all confused… postcards were before the Blast!… But just remember-a mere forty years ago private mouse-catching was forbidden!"

"… A co-op apartment in Skabl… in Sviblovo," said Te-terya, tripping over his own tongue, "five minutes from the metro. A park zone, you got me? We weren't a bunch of rabi-noviches living in the center!… They were right to put you all in jail!"

"I beg your pardon… we're talking about Sergei Sergeich!"

"… They stick a pair of glasses on and then they start thinking!… I won't let you weeds hit me with a wrench. Don't you shake your beard at meeee! Abraham! You're an abraham! The government gives you a quota and you're supposed to stay within it… Jeezus F… Christ… and not go wagging your butts in front of a bunch of foreigners…"

"But-"

"Gone and multiplied like rabbits, shit! Supposed to be two percent and not a cent more so you don't crush the working class!… Who ate all the meat? Epstein! Huh? Who bought up all the sugar… and we're supposed to make hooch from tomato paste, right? Isn't that right? You're a hitler! There's no Zhirinovsky for you guys anymore!"

"But-"

"Made your son a nice liddle blue shoot, suit, a hunnert percent wool! Then you made a deal to sell the Kuriles to Reagan!… Not an inch will we yield!…"

"Terenty Petrovich!"

"I said not one inch!… We won't give up the Kuriles… And you can stick your pillars up your rear end! You parasites, tried to turn the country into a museum. Pour gasoline over you and-just one little match!… and your ppppparliament, and your books, and your academic Ssssssakharov! And…"

"Now you've done it, you s.o.b.!" A crimson Lev Lvovich suddenly hauled back and punched him. "Don't you dare touch Andrei Dmitrich!!!"

There wasn't any Andrei Dmitrich in the izba; but that happens when you drink too much: your eyes see everything double, and strange figures and faces watch you from the corners. Then you blink-and they're gone.

"You bastard!" shouted the Head Stoker as well. "Get out of here!"

"Don't touuuuch me!" Teterya yelled, flailing his furry elbows. "Help! They're beating Ruuuusssssians!"

"You prison slime… Terrorist! Tie him up!"

They knocked over the table and the jug rolled away. Benedikt jumped in too, and helped them tie the drunken pig with the reins; they rolled him up, threw him outside in the snow, and kicked him for good measure.

"I had a chrome faucet in Sviblovo!" they could hear from the snowstorm. "And you can't even get it up, you queers!…"

If this one is quiet, what is Potap like?

Bright thoughts ascend In my heart's battered torch And bright thoughts descend By a dark fire scorched.

"Under Sergei Sergeich there was law and order," said Benedikt.

"You said it," replied Father-in-law.

"No more than three people gathered at a time."

"No way."

"But now everybody's too smart for their britches, they read books, they've gone to seed. Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe, has let everything get out of hand."

"Words of gold!" Father-in-law exclaimed joyfully.

"Sergei Sergeich built fences, but What've we got nowadays?"

"A crying shame!"

"Holes everywhere, fences falling down, the people's path is overgrown with dill!"

"That's right!"

"A useless weed, no taste, no smell!"

"Not a smidgen."

"People hang underwear and pillowcases on the pushkin, and the pushkin-is our be all and end all!"

"Right down to his itty bitty toes!"

"He's the one who wrote the poems, not Fyodor Kuzmich!"

"Never a truer word spoken."

"He's higher than the Alexander column!"

"Oh, my dear, the column can't compare!"

"But Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe, is only knee high to a grasshopper! And he wants to be the Greatest Murza, Long May He Live. Sits right down on Olenka's lap and makes himself at home!"

"Yes, yes… tell me more…"

"What do you mean, 'yes and tell me more'?"

"Take the next step, think it through."

"Think what where?"

"What does your heart tell you?"

Benedikt's heart wasn't telling him anything. His heart was dark, dark as an izba in winter when all the candles have gone out and you live with your hands outstretched. There was an extra candle somewhere, but just try and find it now in the pitch dark.

You stumble and your hands fumble, they're blind, frightened: who knows what you might find or touch, not seeing what it is. Your soul will freeze: What's this? There's never been anything like this in the izba. What is it?

Your insides are like to pop with fear and you throw the thing away, whatever it was… You stand there, petrified, scared to breathe… Scared to take a step… You think: If I move, I'll step on it …

Carefully… sideways… along the edges… against the wall. One step, two steps… and you make it to the door. You yank the door open and run as fast as your legs will carry you!

You collapse under a tree or next to the fence; everything inside is pounding. Now you have to pull yourself together, ask someone for coals or maybe a candle. If they give you a candle it's easier, not so scary; you'll go back to the izba and take a look.

What was that thing? And there doesn't seem to be anything there.

Nothing at all.

Could be your neighbors were playing a trick on you, the jokesters: while you were out, they put who knows what there, to ruin your reason with fear; and while you were running back and forth, trying to get some fire, they go and fetch whatever it was they stuck there. So there's nothing there now, and you never know what it was.

His heart wasn't telling him anything. But his head-yes, his head was telling him something. That's why reason is up there in the head. His head told him that a long time ago, before his wedding-yikes, ages ago-when he was still a wild young man, an uneducated greenhorn with a tail and no sense, he saw a book at Varvara Lukinishna's place. He couldn't remember what book it was, big or little, or what it was called: the fear and the strangeness made it so he didn't understand anything at the time, he only understood that he was scared stiff.

Now, of course, as an educated man, sophisticated, you might say, he'd know how to appreciate such a treasure. He'd fondle it, turn it over, count the number of pages and see what the letters were like: big or small. Is it a quick read or not? Having read it, he'd know which shelf to put it on, with a kiss.

Now, refined and wiser, he knew that a book is a delicate friend, a white bird, an exquisite being, afraid of water.

Darling things! Afraid of water, of fire, They shiver in the wind. Clumsy, crude human fingers leave bruises on them that'll never fade! Never!

Some people touch books without washing their hands!

Some underline things in ink!

Some even tear pages out!

And he himself used to be so barbaric and clumsy, such a Cro-Magnon, that he rubbed a hole in a page with a spit-covered finger! "And the candle by which Anna read a life full of alarm and deceit…" Idiot. He'd rubbed a hole in it, Lord forgive him. It was the same as if you'd found the secret glade in the forest by some miracle-all covered in crimson tulips and golden trees- and finally embraced the sweet Princess Bird, and while embracing her you'd gone and poked your dirty finger in her bright, self-admiring eye!