Sorokin, Vladimir - Day of the Oprichnik

“Don’t need to open your mouth, my eagle, you’re as clear as a bell: you have a girl coming up to her time.”

There you go. That’s it.

“Which one?”

“The one who lives in your house.”

Anastasia! Good Lord. I gave her pills. Ah, the sly cunt.

“A long time?”

“More than a month. She’ll have a boy.”

I’m quiet, trying to take myself in hand. Well, so what…it happens. It can be dealt with.

“You wanted to ask about your job?”

“Well, I…”

“So far, everything’s fine. But some are jealous.”

“I know, Praskovia Mamontovna.”

“So if you know, beware. Your car will break down in a week. You’ll come down with something, not too bad. They’ll drill through your leg. The left one. You’ll get some money. Not much. You’ll get hit in the mug. Not too hard.”

“Who’ll do it?”

“Your boss.”

What a relief. Batya is like my own father. Today he’ll give me a thrashing—tomorrow he’ll be kind. And my leg…that’s just the usual stuff.

“That’s all, dovey. Get out of here.”

All but not all. One more question. I haven’t ever asked it, but today something urges me to ask. A serious frame of mind. I screw up my courage.

“So what else do you want?” Praskovia looks at me steadily.

“What will happen to Russia?”

She doesn’t answer, but looks at me carefully.

I wait with trepidation .

“It’ll be all right.”

I bow, touching the stone floor with my right hand.

And I leave.

The flight back isn’t bad, although there are more people in the plane. I drink Yermak beer, chew on salted peas, watch a film about our valiant moneychangers from the Treasury. How they fought with China Union Pay four years ago. It was a stormy time. The Chinese wanted to grab us by the throat again, but things didn’t work out for the slant-eyes. The Treasury held on, and responded with the second mintage. New coins sparkled with Russian gold in those slanted eyes. Diao da lian! 5Friendship is friendship, as they say, but Treasury tobacco is something else altogether.

It’s evening in Moscow.

I drive from Vnukovo Airport into the city, and turn on the enemy radio.

My loyal Mercedov finds the Swedish radio station Paradigm, for our underground intellectuals. It’s a major resource, seven channels. I run through the channels. Today they’re having an anniversary program: “The Russian Cultural Underground.” All stuff that’s twenty or even thirty years old. It’s meant to let our senile bloody fifth column shed some tears.

The first channel is broadcasting a book by someone named Rykunin, Where Did Derrida Dine? It has detailed descriptions of the places the Western philosopher ate during his visit to post-Soviet Moscow. One of the most important chapters is called “Leftovers of the Great.” The second channel is marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of the exhibition “Caution, Religion!” Some old lady who participated in the legendary obscurantist exhibition is being awarded a medal for being a “Victim of the Russian Orthodox Church.” In a trembling little voice the old bag reminisces, babbling on about “the bearded barbarians in cassocks, bursting in and obliterating our beautiful, honorable, authentic works of art.” On the third channel there’s a discussion between Vipperstein and Onufrienko about cloning the genre of the Great Rotten Novel, about the behavioral model of Sugary Buratino, and about medhermeneutical adultery. On the fourth, some Igor Pavlovich Tikhy speaks seriously about the “Negation of a Negation of Negation of a Negation” in A. Shestigorsky’s novel The Ninth Wife . On the fifth, Borukh Gross’s bass voice babbles about America, which has become the subconscious of China, and about China, now the subconscious of Russia, and about Russia, which has still not become even its own subconscious. The sixth channel is given over to the puppies of a man-dog, a well-known “artist” in the years of the White Troubles. The puppies are howling something about “freedom of corporeal discourse.” And finally, the seventh channel of this stinking radio station is permanently relegated to the poetry of Russian minimalism and con-sep-chew-a-lism…In a gloom-and-doom voice, Vsevolod Nekros reads his verse, which consists mostly of coughs, quacks, and interjections:

“boo, buck, bod,

there you have God.

bek, bud, bok,

there you have Bach.

piff, paff, pof,

now you’ve got a Crotch.

And that’s quite enough.”

Hmmm. What can you say? Our underground intellectuals feed on this dung, this vomit, this deafening emptiness. Hideous polyps they are, growing on the body of our healthy Russian art. “Minimalism,” “paradigm,” “discourse,” “CON-SEP-CHEW-ALISM”…From early childhood I’ve heard these words. But I still don’t understand what they mean. But take the painting Boyarina Morozova , now—just as I got to know it when I was five years old, I know it to this very day. All this “contemporary” art isn’t worth one brushstroke of our great artist Surikov. When my soul feels low, when the enemy overwhelms us, when crafty circles begin to close in—you can run into the Tretiakov Gallery for a minute, visit the great canvas, and see: the sleigh with the unruly boyarina drives over the Russian snow, the boy runs, the village idiot, ready to cross himself, raises his two fingers, the coachman grins…Russia explodes from the wall. So intensely you’ll forget about the meaningless bustle of the world. Your lungs inhale Russian air. That’s all you need. And thank God…

The whips crack: it’s Prima Kozlova calling.

“Andrei Danilovich, I have the money.”

That’s good. We set a place, and meet near the People’s Library. I pick up a leather bag stuffed with coins of the first mintage. The first will do just as well.

I drive along Mokhovaya Street.

Across from the old university I notice a flogging is about to take place. Interesting. I slow down and pull over. This is where they flog the intelligentsia. Manezh Square, a bit farther on, is usually for the Zemstvos; Lobnoe Mesto is for clerks. The Streltsy flog themselves in the garrisons. All sorts of other scum are steamed at Smolensk Square, Miusskaya Square, on the Mozhaisk highway, and at the market in Yasenevo.

As I drive up, I lower the window and light up a cigarette. People part so that I can see better: they respect the oprichniks. Shka Ivanov—a well-known executioner of the Moscow intelligentsia—stands on the wooden platform. On Mondays he always does the flogging here. The people know him and respect him. Shka Ivanov is big, stocky, has white skin, a broad chest, curly hair, and wears round eyeglasses. He reads the sentence in a booming voice. I listen with half an ear, and look around at the crowd. As far as I can figure out, some junior clerk, Danilkov, from the Literary Chamber is to be flogged for “criminal negligence.” He copied something important the wrong way, screwed it up, and then hid it. An educated crowd mills around, a lot of students, upper-school girls. Shka Ivanov rolls up the sentence, sticks it in his pocket, and whistles. His assistant appears—Mishanya the Quotationer. He’s a tall, narrow-shouldered, shaven-headed beanpole with an eternally mocking expression on his face. He got his nickname because he says everything as if it’s in quotation marks. After every word, he raises his hands to his temples and makes his “quotation marks,” at which point he strongly resembles a gray hare. Mishanya brings the convicted Danilkov out on a chain: he’s an ordinary junior clerk with a long nose. He crosses himself, muttering something.

Mishanya speaks to him in a loud voice: