Сергей Лебедев: Untraceable

Travniček looked around the church vault. Kalitin thought: that must be what the pastor meant when he spoke of creativity in the name of evil. Kalitin was amused once again: such big words for a banal case of acoustic surveillance, and not of the highest quality, incidentally! He automatically took the story as yet another puzzle and began thinking if there could be a chemical solution to the problem: radioactive markers, for example, or a marking spray. His normal thinking process reinvigorated him somewhat; he felt even more clearly that Travniček was playing a game with him.

“The scientists were sure they would succeed,” said the pastor. “However, it turned out that the whistles were not recorded on the cassette. The sermon was easy to hear. ‘The effect of church acoustics.’ That was the conclusion of the report.”

He must think that God had helped him, thought Kalitin. He liked his own skepticism; but he sensed that he was protecting himself, guarding against hearing faith through the words. For a moment he thought that the pastor and the killers were part of an absurd dream, a series of damned dreams that flowed into one another.

“So they changed tactics,” Travniček continued sadly. “I was living in the parish house. One morning someone was at the door. I thought it would be them. But it was a messenger from the bakery. He had brought twenty cakes. I thought it was a joke. I had several friends quite capable of that. It was my address, my name, and the purchase was paid for. I gave the cakes to poor families. Happy that they would have a celebration. But then…”

Travniček stopped talking.

Kalitin waited.

“The next morning they delivered rakes. Ten packs. I grew suspicious. I wanted to send them back, but the deliveryman was gone.” Travniček reached into his cassock and pulled out an old, worn notebook. “I always carry it with me. As a reminder.”

He leafed through the pages, pointing:

“Dog cages. Fish food. Bicycles. Pumps. Three loads of coal. Sneakers. Hair dye. Mattresses. Axes. Suspenders. Shoe polish. Tape recorders. Televisions. Washing machines. Basins. Hats. Picture frames. Needles. Nails. Tables. Umbrellas. Potted seedlings. Couches. Gas lawn mowers. Milking equipment. Ship models in bottles. Hay. Pots and pans.”

Kalitin felt the heavy weight of the listed objects.

Travniček continued. “No one would take the things back. The house turned into a warehouse. I couldn’t give it all away—what if someone demanded it be returned? The rumor was that I had lost my mind. Become a hoarder. But I continued giving my sermons. They made a radiant path through the madness.”

“Torture by abundance,” Kalitin said. He had never heard of it, but he believed it unequivocally.

“Yes,” Travniček said. “Then they started answering advertisements in my name. If something very large was for sale, for instance, a motorboat or grand piano. People would deliver the goods. Have arguments. One beat me up. I knew that they were doing it all. But it still seemed inexplicable, supernatural; who was I for them to expend so much effort, so much money?”

Kalitin imagined the fat, clumsy priest trying to explain things to the boat seller. It wasn’t funny.

“Thank you for listening so kindly,” Travniček said. “I think they had calculated very carefully. Anyone would break, think it was God’s will. God’s damnation. I wanted to run away. Drop everything and run.”

Kalitin shuddered.

“But they knew that,” Travniček said. “Next, they delivered chickens. Cages of chickens. They were left at the doorstep, and I couldn’t leave them to die. There was chicken feed among earlier shipments. Then they sent tropical fish in tanks. Parrots. White lab mice.”

Kalitin fell back into the past. White mice—so many had died on the Island, dozens, hundreds of thousands, no one kept count, they incinerated the bodies and that was it.

Travniček’s artless tale induced a strange stupor. His vision became multidimensional, he could see the killers’ gray shadows in the distance, himself surrounded by church walls, and the past affairs of the Island.

“They kept dying anyway. I couldn’t take care of them all,” Travniček said bitterly. “Dying. I could find homes for the fish, chickens, and parrots. But hundreds of mice? So when they sent me dummies instead of animals, I was pleased. They didn’t need to be fed.”

“Dummies?” Kalitin echoed.

“Yes, dummies,” Travniček confirmed. “Plastic. The kind in store windows. Naked. Female.”

Kalitin thought of what he never thought about, what he had left back on the Island. Dummies.

If he could, he would have run out of the church. But the killers’ shadows were waiting for him. And here the clever priest was mocking him. Dummies. Zakharyevsky once said: officially there aren’t any here and never were. Aren’t and never were, Kalitin repeated. Aren’t and never were.

“They were stacked up,” Travniček continued. “Pink. It had started snowing in the morning. They had eyes. Plastic blue eyes with lashes.”

Kalitin did not remember the eyes. The bodies had not been pink. White, gray, blue. Color sometimes returned afterward. On the morgue table.

“I should have guessed that it was a warning. I just brought them inside. Ten naked, plastic women in a priest’s house. I was afraid I would be photographed with them, that they had rented the apartment across the way. That would have been a fine photo.”

Women. They were not given women. Kalitin had asked: gender differences in the organism, he explained, different biochemistry. He needed to test. But the ones at the top did not want to hear it. Their half-hearted determination drove Kalitin crazy.

“Then it all stopped. That was even worse. Torture by absence. I had gotten used to the madness, began to find some strength in it. I lasted eleven days. On the twelfth I asked for death if God did not want to protect me. I broke. I stopped preaching. For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me,” he chanted. “Job 6:4.”

Kalitin looked at the priest. He derived fierce pleasure from seeing his face.

“Here’s what I looked like then.” Travniček handed him a photo from the leather pocket in the notebook.

Kalitin was stunned. He could not have imagined the elegant and spiritual appearance of the former Travniček; thin, aristocratic, with a high forehead. Gentle, aloof, and at the same time willful. Handsome. Very handsome. Focused on a high, unearthly goal.

Women must have fallen for him in droves, Kalitin thought, trying to demean the image he had seen.

“I started drinking then,” Travniček said. “At home, naturally. There was always an open bottle in the cupboard. The source of the Word had dried up, and I sought another. I knew what was happening. The recordings, the cassettes, vanished; people stopped listening to them, as if the wind had died down. The storm was over. So I drank more. ‘Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.’” He spoke majestically.

Kalitin looked up again. Looked at the scaly mask. Now he could see the face behind it.

“Their wine is the poison of dragons,” Travniček said thoughtfully. “I took only one sip from the glass. The usual taste, the usual pinot gris, Grauburgunder. You know the one I mean. Then there was pain. In my whole body at once. It’s not surprising that the people who consider others saboteurs, who care about the purity of the race, come up with the idea of modifying pesticides.” Travniček named the substance.

Kalitin saw black. He knew it. Not Neophyte, but still an ultimate poison. The man was a living corpse. Nothing could save you from that substance, not pumping the stomach, not blood transfusions. There were no antidotes. Kalitin knew that as firmly as two times two equals four.