Tatyana Tolstaya - The Slynx

By summer Benedikt's hook flew like a bird. Yaroslav was checked-and nothing was found; Rudolf, Myrtle, Cecilia Al-bertovna, Trofim, Shalva-nothing; Jacob, Vampire, Mikhail, another Mikhail, Lame Lyalya, Eustachius-nothing. He bought Brades's Tables at the market-just numbers. He'd like to catch that Brades, and stuff his head in a barrel.

No one around. Nothing. Only a leap year blizzard in his heart: it slips and sticks, sticks and slips, and the blizzard hums, like distant, unhappy voices-they wail softly, complain, but all without words. Or like in the steppe-hear it?-hands outstretched, they shuffle along on all sides. The Broken Ones shuffle along; there they are heading in all directions, though there aren't any directions for them; they've gone astray and there's no one to tell, and if there were, if they met a real live person, he wouldn't feel sorry for them, he doesn't need them. And they wouldn't recognize him, they don't even recognize themselves.

"Nikolai!… We're going to the pushkin!"

A damp blizzard had thrown a heap of snow on the pushkin's hunched head and shoulders and the crook of his arm, as though he'd been crawling around other people's izbas, filching things from their closets, taking whatever he could find-and what he found was a sorry sight, all frayed, just rags-and he had crawled out of the room, clasping the rags to his chest. Molder-ing hay was falling from his head; it kept falling.

Well then, brother pushkin? You probably felt the same way, didn't you? You probably tossed and turned at night, walked with heavy legs over scraped floors, oppressed by your thoughts?

Did you, too, hitch the fastest steed to the sleigh and ride gloomily with no destination across the snowy fields, listening to the clatter of the lonely sleigh bells, the drawn-out song of the courier?

Did you, too, conjure the past, fear the future?

Did you rise higher than the column?-and while you rose, while you saw yourself weak and threatening, pitiful and triumphant, while you looked for what we are all looking for-the white bird, the main book, the road to the sea-did your dung heap Terenty Petrovich drop in on your wife, the bootlicker, mocker, helpful wheeler-dealer? Did his lewd, empty talk burble through the rooms? Did he tempt with wondrous marvels? "You know, Olga Kudeyarovna, there's a place I know… Underground guzzelean water… Just toss in a match, and fuckin' A, we'll go up in smoke. Kaboom! Would you care to?"… Let's soar above the sands!

Tell me, pushkin! How should I live? I hacked you out of a dumb log all by myself, bent your head, bent your elbow so you would cross your chest and listen to your heart: What has passed? What is yet to come? Without me you would be an eyeless chunk, an empty log, a nameless tree in the forest; you'd rustle in the wind in spring, drop your acorns in fall, creak in winter: no one would know about you! Without me-you wouldn't be here! "Who was it, with iniquitous power, called me forth from nothingness?" It was me, I called you! I did!

It's true, you came out a little crooked, the back of your head is flat, your fingers aren't quite right, and you don't have any legs. I can see that for myself, I understand carpentry.

But you're who you are, be patient, my child-you're the same as us, no different!

You're our be all and end all and we're yours, and there's no one else! No one! Help me!

"Give me the book," whined Benedikt. "Don't try to jew me out of it, give me the book!"

Nikita Ivanich looked at Lev Lvovich of the Dissidents. Lev Lvovich of the Dissidents looked out the window. It was a summer's eve, still light, the bladder off the window-you could see far, far away.

"It's too soon!" said Nikita Ivanich.

"Soon for what? The sun is already setting."

"Too early for you. You don't know the ABCs yet. You're uncivilized."

"Steppe and nothing else… as far as the eye can see… And neither fish nor fowl…" said Lev Lvovich through his teeth.

"What do you mean, I don't know them?" answered Benedikt in amazement. "Me? Why, I… I… Why… Do you know how many books I've read? How many I've copied?"

"It doesn't matter if it's a thousand."

"It's more than that!"

"Even if it's a thousand, it hardly matters. You don't really know how to read, books are of no use to you. They're just empty page-turning, a collection of letters. You haven't learned the alphabet of life. Of life, do you hear me?"

Benedikt was flabbergasted. He didn't know what to say. To be told such a bold-faced lie straight out like that. Nikita Ivanich might as well have said: You're not you, you're not Benedikt, and you aren't living on this earth, and… and… and I don't know what.

"You already said that… What do you mean I don't know? The alphabet… There's Az… Slovo… Myslete… Fert."

"There's Fert, but there's Theta, and Yat, and Izhitsa, there are concepts inaccessible to you: sensitivity, compassion, generosity…"

"The rights of individuals," piped up Lev Lvovich of the Dissidents.

"Honesty, justice, spiritual insight…"

"Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of association," added Lev Lvovich.

"Mutual assistance, respect for others… self-sacrifice…"

"Now that's a lot of stinking mystical blather," shouted Lev Lvovich, wagging his finger. "This isn't the first time I've noticed where you're heading with all that monument preservation! This smacks of nationalistic mysticism. It downright stinks."

It did smell bad in the izba. Lev Lvovich sure got that one right.

"There isn't any Theta," objected Benedikt. In his head he went through the entire alphabet, afraid that perhaps he'd let something slip-but no, he hadn't forgotten anything, he knew the alphabet by heart, backward and forward, and he'd never had cause to complain about his memory. "There's no Theta, and after Fert comes Kher, and that's that. There isn't anything else."

"And don't hold your breath, there isn't going to be any," said Lev Lvovich, getting worked up once again, "You, Nikita Ivanich, you've got no business sowing obscurantism and superstition. Social protest is what's needed now, not Tolstoyism. This isn't the first time I've observed this in you. You're a Tolstoyan."

"A Tolstoyan, a Tolstoyan! Don't argue with me!"

"But-"

"On this point, old man, you and I are on different sides of the barricades. You are dragging society backward. 'To a cell in a shell.' You are a socially pernicious element. Mysticism! Right now the most important thing is protest. It's crucial to say: No! Do you remember-now when was that?-remember when I was called up for roadwork?"

"And-"

"I said: No! You must remember, you were around then."

"And you didn't go?"

"No, no, why do you say that? I went. They forced me. But I said: No!"

"Who did you say it to?"

"To you, I told you, you must remember. I believe it's very important to say no at the right moment. To say: I protest!"

"You protested, but you went anyway?"

"Have you ever met anyone who didn't go?"

"Forgive me, but what's the point… if no one hears-"

"And what's the point of your… what shall I call them… activities? All those posts?"

"What do you mean? Memory, of course!"

"Of what? Whose memory? It's just empty noise! Hot air! Now, here we've got a young man," said Lev Lvovich, looking at Benedikt with distaste. "Let this young man tell us, since he knows his letters so well, precisely what is inscribed on the pillar standing in the burdock and nettle patch next to your izba, and why is it there."

"It's grabweed," Benedikt corrected.

"It doesn't matter, I'm used to calling it nettle."

"Call it a pot if you like. It's grabweed."

"What does it matter?"

"Stick your hand in and you'll find out."