Lydia Fitzpatrick - Lights All Night Long

In the center of the square, the most coveted spot, Gazneft had sponsored an enormous replica of the refinery. It was shot through with multicolored lights that flashed and pulsed, and it was encircled by a red velvet rope. It was entirely unnecessary—the refinery itself was visible from the square, as were the gray columns of its smoke, which had not been replicated—but Fyodor Fetisov did not normally attend the Winter Festival.

“Don’t tell Fetisov, but they forgot the cafeteria,” his mother said.

“It’s a gift to him, from him,” Timofey said, fingering the velvet rope. “Heaven forbid we touch it.”

“Don’t talk that way,” Babushka said. “It’s an honor Ilya will meet him.” Babushka hated Fetisov more than any of them, but not as much as she feared any disrespect of authority.

“I’m just shaking his hand,” Ilya said. Maria Mikhailovna had told him that it would be entirely transactional: Fyodor Fetisov would detail plans to expand the refinery, he would announce the exchange, the handshake would occur, and that was it.

They wandered over to the amateurs’ section, to a Snow Queen whose ice nipples jutted through her fur coat like a force of nature. Her face had been so crudely hacked that it looked manly, and at some point her chin had melted and refrozen into a Lenin goatee.

“What are you grinning at?” Timofey said.

“The cross-dressing Snow Queen,” Ilya said, and Timofey laughed.

“Ridiculous,” Babushka said. She looked at the little card that listed the sculptor. “And it’s Mikhail Kolchin. He just gets worse and worse every year. Remember the bear?”

Ilya’s mother started to laugh. “It was the skinniest bear ever. It looked like a weasel.”

“A demented weasel.”

The next lot seemed to be empty. His mother and Babushka strolled past it, but Ilya stubbed his toe on a ridge of ice. He bent and dusted snow off the ridge with the sleeve of his jacket. The ice was curved into a long, low hump, and Ilya swiped more snow off until he’d uncovered the whole thing. A crocodile. It was poorly done. It looked more like the pedestal for a statue than the statue itself, but the primitive shape was there: the tapered snout, the bulbous eyes and bulging body, the long, ridged tail. Half of the creature had been gouged with crude scales before the sculptor had lost interest.

Ilya stared at it, remembering how Vladimir had said, “We don’t really call it krokodil. We don’t really call it anything.” Still, it seemed to Ilya like more than a coincidence. It seemed like a sign. A declaration. The crowd was still by the Land Cruiser and the refinery. Babushka and his mother had joined a line of women to get their pictures taken with a bust of Vladimir Mashkov. They yelled Ilya’s name and waved at him, and he waved back before leaning over and brushing the snow off the card by the crocodile’s snout. It was blank.

A half hour later, Fetisov arrived in a cavalcade of sirens, and the loudspeakers announced that the speeches and performances would soon commence. Ilya’s mother ushered Babushka and Timofey to a bench by the stage, and Ilya waited in a sort of holding pen between the portable toilets and an ice cream cart. A ten-year-old girl in an orange tutu and too much makeup waited next to him. She was dancing the solo from The Firebird for Fetisov, she told him, with no small amount of pride. Every few minutes she twirled spontaneously, kicked one leg into the air, and wiggled her toes up by her ears.

The mayor took the stage as the anthem was played. He announced Fyodor Fetisov, and a half-dozen enormous bodyguards surrounded the stage. Two more flanked the man himself, so Ilya could only see a sliver of him. He was shorter than Ilya had expected, but with a meaty neck that was incredibly tan, as though he’d been somewhere tropical just hours before. He was known for his terseness—brevity, was how people put it when they were being diplomatic or were afraid of being overheard—and he dispensed with thank-yous altogether and in a quiet monotone announced that the refinery would soon be expanded to accommodate supply from a new pipeline.

There were cheers from the crowd, and one boo that required the attention of one of the bodyguards.

“And I’m pleased,” he said, sounding far from pleased, “to announce that this marks the inaugural year of an exchange between Gazneft and EnerCo. This year’s Gazneft Academian is Ilya Alexandrovich Morozov.”

The crowd cheered again—with less enthusiasm than they had for the refinery expansion, but still it was paralyzing. What if someone knew that he hadn’t taken the boards? What if Maria Mikhailovna decided that this was the moment for a crisis of conscience? Why did he even need to go up there at all? His name had been announced. That was enough, wasn’t it? But Fetisov extended an arm into the empty space to his right, and the ballerina nudged Ilya’s elbow, and Ilya managed somehow to climb a small set of stairs and cross the stage. Fyodor Fetisov gripped his hand. A camera clicked wildly, the flash spasming. And as Fetisov dropped his hand, Ilya felt the sharp edge of something against his palm. A thick, gold ring, studded with an enormous diamond. Ilya looked at Fetisov’s shoes. They were pointy, slick, expensive.

“Congratulations,” Fyodor Fetisov said.

Ilya nodded. Fetisov’s lips thinned. Ilya was supposed to thank him, but he couldn’t muster it. He was back in the elevator, all the buttons glowing. He was running for the service door, and Vladimir was staggering out of the elevator, his face bloodied, and Ilya wondered if Vladimir was in the crowd somewhere, if he could see Fetisov and had recognized him also.

In the end, Fetisov left the stage before Ilya. He trooped off with his bodyguards, and the mayor ushered Ilya back to the holding pen and said, “You’re Berlozhniki’s best and brightest?” as the ballerina tiptoed out to the first tiny, teasing notes of The Firebird .

It was close to midnight when they walked home, but dancers were still twirling on the stage, their skirts a red blur. The road out to the kommunalkas was filled with people too belligerent to let cars pass, so the cars joined in the procession, horns honking, the windows rolled down, the music from their radios mixing with the music from the square.

Ilya was the first up the eight flights, and so he saw Vladimir first. He was sitting with his spine curled against the door and his head on his knees.

“Vlad,” Ilya said, and he could hear it echo down the stairs behind him, could hear his mother reframe Vladimir’s name as a question. Vladimir didn’t move. There were fast steps on the stairs behind Ilya. Then Babushka said, “What is it?” and Ilya’s mother was pushing past him, saying Vladimir’s name again and again, and still Vladimir didn’t move until she was kneeling in front of him, lifting his head up in her hands.

“You locked me out,” he said. Then he retched, and nothing came out but a bit of frothy spit. He tried to stand and couldn’t, and even in the dimness of the hallway Ilya could see that something was wrong with one of his legs and that he was covered in blood.

“Oh God,” Timofey said from behind Ilya.

“I’ll call an ambulance,” Ilya said. He could hardly breathe, and the words rose up his throat like stones.

“No,” his mother said.

“He’s sick, Mamulya,” Ilya said, his voice sounding high and afraid, though he had meant to be firm.

“They’ll arrest him,” she said.

She wrapped her arms around Vladimir and pulled him up, and Babushka opened the door behind them. Vladimir closed his eyes. His skin looked like marble. Ilya could hear the sound of Babushka turning on the stove in the apartment, and all he could think was that she was cooking blini for Vladimir the way she had cooked it for them when they were little and something had happened to make them sad. His mother dragged Vladimir inside, into the light, and the blood, which had looked like shadow in the darkness of the hall, turned bright red.