Sorokin, Vladimir - Day of the Oprichnik

He takes out his mobilov and shows me. Two charming Chinese girls appear in the air: one is riding naked on a buffalo, the other stands naked under a flowing waterfall.

“So?” Potrokha winks at me. “You won’t regret it. Better than your Moscow girls. Eternal virgins.”

I look at my watch: 15:00.

“No, Potrokha. I have to fly to Tobol next and then back to Moscow to snuff a star .”

“As you like. Then to the airport?”

“That’s right.”

While he’s driving, I look up the schedule of flights, and choose one. There’s a one-hour break before the next flight, but I put the outgoing airplane on hold: they can friggin’ wait. Potrokha and I say goodbye, I board the Orenburg–Tobol plane, and get in touch with Praskovia’s security service, letting them know to meet me. I put on earphones, order Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade . And fall asleep.

The stewardess wakes me with a gentle touch:

“Mr. Oprichnik, sir! We’ve already landed.”

Marvelous. Taking a swig of Altai springwater, I disembark, and step onto a moving sidewalk that takes me into the huge terminal of the Yermak Timofeevich Airport. It’s new, just built by the Chinese. I’ve already been here three times. And all on the same business—to see the clairvoyant.

Near the enormous figure of Yermak with his glowing sword, two goons from the great soothsayer’s security service are waiting for me. Each of them is a head taller than me, and two times as wide, but nonetheless, next to Yermak’s giant boot they look like field mice in red caftans.

I walk over to them. They bow and lead me to the car. As we leave the airport I manage to take a breath of the Tobol air: it’s even colder here than in Orenburg. It’s a good 32 below. Now here’s that global warming foreigners are always blathering about. We still have snow and freezing weather in Russia, gentlemen, have no doubts.

They lead me to a powerful Chinese off-road vehicle, the Zhu-Ba-Ze, with a bumper that resembles a boar’s snout. Nowadays these off-roaders are used all over Siberia. They’re reliable, trouble-free in brutal winter conditions as well as in the heat. Siberians call them “Boars.”

We first drive along the highway, then turn onto a narrow road. The captain from Moscow reports: everything is ready for snuffing out the star , the performance is at eight this evening. Fine, but first I have to get there.

The road stretches through woodlands, then crawls into the taiga. We ride silently. Pines, firs, and deciduous trees surround us, heavy with snow. But the sun is already heading toward sunset. Another hour or so and it will be dark. We drive about ten versts. Our Zhu-Ba-Ze turns onto a snow-covered country road. My city Mercedov would get stuck right away. But the Boar couldn’t care less—the one-and-a-half-arshin tires chew up the snow like a meat grinder. The Chinese boar barges through the Russian snow. We continue on for a verst, then another, and a third. And the age-old taiga suddenly opens. We’ve arrived! A fantastical tower rises over a wide clearing; it’s built of ancient pines, has fanciful turrets, latticework windows, carved window casings, a copper-tiled roof, and is topped with a weather cock. The tower is surrounded by a ten-arshin pike fence made of incredibly thick logs sharpened at the top. Neither man nor beast could crawl over those pikes. Perhaps the stone Yermak Timofeevich might try, but even he would scrape his granite balls.

We drive up to the plank gates coated in forged iron. The Zhu-Ba-Ze sends an invisible, inaudible signal. The bolts slide back. We drive into the courtyard of Praskovia’s estate. Guards in Chinese attire surround the car with swords and cudgels. All the clairvoyant’s inner guards are Chinese, masters of kung fu. I get out of the Boar and climb the steps of the carved entrance, decorated with Siberian animals carved out of wood. All the beasts here exist in loving harmony. It’s not a portico, but a wonder of wonders! Here you have a lynx licking a roe deer’s forehead, wolves playing with a boar, hares kissing foxes, and grouse sitting on an ermine. Two bears support the pillars of the doorway.

I enter.

Inside everything is totally different. Here there’s nothing carved, Russian. Smooth, bare walls of marble, a granite floor illuminated green from below, a ceiling of black wood. Lamps burn, incense smokes. A waterfall streams down a marble wall, white lilies float in a pool.

The clairvoyant’s servants approach me silently. Like shadows from the afterlife, their hands are cool, their faces impenetrable. They take my weapons, mobilov, caftan, jacket, hat, and boots. I stand there in my shirt, pants, and goat-wool socks. I stretch my arms back. The noiseless servants dress me in a silk Chinese robe, button the cloth-covered buttons, and give me soft slippers. That’s the way it is for everyone who comes here. Counts, princes, lords of the capital from the Inner Circle—all change into robes when they visit the clairvoyant.

I pass into the interior of the house. As always, it’s empty and quiet. Chinese vases and beasts chiseled out of stone stand in the dim light. Chinese characters recalling wisdom and eternity adorn the walls.

A Chinese voice speaks:

“Missus awaits you near the fire.”

That means we’ll talk near the fireplace. She likes to carry on conversations in front of the fire. Or maybe she’s just freezing? Staring at a fire is a great pleasure, though. As our Batya says, there are three things you want to look at continuously: fire, the sea, and other people’s work.

The silent guards lead me into the fireplace chamber. It’s dusky in here, quiet. The only sound is the logs burning, crackling in the wide fireplace. And it’s not only logs, but books as well. Books mixed in with birch wood, as always at the clairvoyant’s. Next to the fireplace there’s a pile of logs and a pile of books. I wonder what the clairvoyant is burning today? The last time it was poetry.

The doors open, I hear a rustle. She’s here.

I turn. The clairvoyant Praskovia moves toward me on her invariable shiny blue crutches, dragging her emaciated legs along the floor, staring at me with her immobile but cheerful eyes. Russ, rush, rustle. That’s her legs sliding across the granite. That’s her sound.

“Hello, dovey.”

“Hello, Praskovia Mamontovna.”

She moves smoothly, as though she were sliding on ice skates. She comes quite close and stops. I look into her face. Unusual, it is. There’s not another one like it in all Russia. It isn’t female and it isn’t male, neither old nor young, neither sad nor happy, neither evil nor kind. Her green eyes are always cheery. But this cheeriness is not for us, simple mortals, to understand. Only God knows what stands behind them.

“You flew in?”

“I flew in, Praskovia Mamontovna.”

“Sit down.”

I sit in an armchair in front of the fireplace. She lowers herself onto her chair of dark wood. She nods to the servant. He picks up a book from the pile and tosses it on the fire.

“The same old business?”

“The very same.”

“The old is like a stone in water. Fish splash around the stone, above the sky birds fly, in the white air playing high, birds long-winded, like people intended. People spin and turn, but never return. Their life is civil, but they gibber-jabber drivel, they topple in waves, surround themselves with graves, retreat far into the earth, from women again are birthed.”

She falls silent and stares at the fire. I stare quietly, too. A kind of shyness overtakes the soul when you’re with her. I’m not as shy with His Majesty as I am before Praskovia.

“You brought hair again?”

“I did.”

“And the shirt?”