Sorokin, Vladimir - Day of the Oprichnik

“Good morning, Mamochka!”

She embraces them without letting go of her champagne glass.

“Good morning, my dears. I’m running a bit late today, I thought we would breakfast together.”

“Mama, we already had dinner!” Andriusha shouts and slaps the water.

“Well, that’s wonderful,” she says, wiping the spray of foam from her face.

“Mamulya, I won at Go Ze. 6I found the bao xian . 7”

“Hao hai zi. 8” Her Highness kisses her daughter. “Min min. 9 ”

Her Highness’s Chinese is really rather old-fashioned…

“And I won at Go Ze a long time ago!” Andriusha says, splashing water on his sister.

“Sha gua! 10” Agafia splashes back.

“Gashenka, Andriusha…” Her Highness frowns, furrowing her beautiful black eyebrows, and covering her breast as before. She immerses herself in her bath. “Where’s Papa?”

“Papa’s with the armies,” says Andriusha, pulling a toy pistol out of its holster and aiming at me. “Bang, baaang!”

The red target ray settles on my forehead. I smile.

“Pouff! Bang Bang!” Andriusha pulls the trigger and a tiny ball hits me in the forehead.

It bounces off.

I smile at the future heir to the Russian state.

“Where is His Majesty?” Her Highness asks the tutor standing just outside the door.

“At army headquarters, Your Highness. Today is the anniversary of the Andreev Corps.”

“So that means there’s no one to breakfast with me…” Her Highness sighs, taking another glass of champagne from the gold tray. “All right, go on all of you…”

The children, servant, and I head for the door.

“Komiaga!”

I turn around.

“Have breakfast with me.”

“At your service, Your Highness.”

I await Her Highness in the small dining room. An unprecedented honor has been bestowed on me—to share the morning meal with our lady. Her Highness usually breakfasts in the evening, if not with His Majesty, then with someone from the Inner Circle—Countess Borisova or Princess Volkova. With her many “guests” and hangers-on she only lunches. And that is already far after midnight. Her Highness always dines at sunrise.

I sit at the breakfast table, which is already set: adorned with white roses, and laid with gold dishes and crystal. Four servants in silvery emerald caftans stand by the walls.

Forty minutes have already passed, but Her Highness isn’t here yet. She spends a long time on her morning toilette. I sit and think about our lady. She has a hard time of it, for many reasons. Not only because of natural feminine weaknesses . But because of blood. Her Highness is a half-Jewess. There’s no way around it. That’s partly why so many pasquinades are written about her, why so much gossip and rumor is spread about her around Moscow and all of Russia, for that matter.

I’ve never had a problem with Jews. My departed father wasn’t a kike eater either. He told me that people used to say that anyone who played the violin more than ten years automatically became a Jew. Mama, may she rest in peace for eternity, didn’t have any problems with Jews; she said it wasn’t the Yids that were dangerous for Russia, but the pseudo-Jews, people whose blood was Russian but pretended to be kikes. When I didn’t want to study German as an adolescent, my mathematician grandfather would recite a little poem he wrote, a parody of the famous Soviet poet Mayakovsky. 11

Were I

A Jew

Late in life,

Even then—

Nicht zweifelnd und bitter 12

I’d learn

German

If only because,

’Twas German spoken

by Hitler.

But not all were such Jew lovers as my relatives. Outbursts did occur, yes, and Judaic blood was spilled on Russian land. All of this smoldered and dragged on right up until His Majesty’s “Decree On Russian Orthodox Names.” This decree required all Russian citizens who were not christened in the Orthodox faith to have non-Orthodox names: they had to have names corresponding to their ethnicity. After that many of our Borises became Borukhs; Viktors—Agvidors; and Levs—Leibs. That’s how Our Sage Majesty resolved the Jewish question in Russia once and for all. He took all the smart Jews under his wing. The dimwitted ones scattered. It quickly became obvious that Jews were really quite useful to the Russian government. They were irreplaceable in treasury, trade, and ambassadorial affairs.

The problem with Her Highness was different. This wasn’t a matter of the Jewish question. The question was the purity of blood. Had our lady Her Highness been half Tatar or Chechen it would have been the same problem. There’s no getting around it. And thank God…

The white doors open, the greyhound Katerina bounds into the little dining room, sniffs me, barks twice and sneezes like dogs do, and jumps up on her chair. I stand and watch the open door with the motionless servants on each side. Sedate, assured steps are coming closer, building up, and—in a rustle of dark blue silk Her Highness appears in the doorway. She’s large, wide, stately. Her fan is folded in her strong hand. Her luxuriant hair is pulled back, coiffed, held with gold combs, iridescent with precious stones. On Her Highness’s neck is a velvet ring with the “Padishah” diamond, bordered with sapphires. Her face is powdered, she wears lipstick on her sensual lips, and her deep eyes shine under her black eyelashes.

“Sit down,” she says with a wave of her fan, while she sits in the chair the servant has moved up for her.

I sit. The servant brings in a small shell with finely chopped dove meat and sets it in front of Katerina. The greyhound devours the meat, and Her Highness strokes her on the back.

“Eat up now, my little oyster.”

The servants bring in a gold carafe of red wine, and fill Her Highness’s glass. She picks it up in her large hand and says:

“What will you drink with me?”

“Whatever you say, Your Highness.”

“Oprichniks should drink vodka. Pour him some vodka!”

They pour vodka into a crystal glass for me. Silently the servants place the zakuski on the table: beluga caviar, snakeroot, Chinese mushrooms, Japanese soba noodles on ice, boiled rice, vegetables stewed in spices.

I raise my glass and stand, terribly nervous:

“To your health, Your H-h-h-high-highness…”

I am tongue-tied with emotion: this is the first time in my life I’ve sat at Her Highness’s table.

“Sit down.” She waves her fan, and takes a swallow from her wineglass.

I gulp the vodka down and sit. I sit like a stuffed dummy. I didn’t expect to feel so shy. I’m not as shy in front of His Majesty as I am with Her Highness. And besides, I’m not exactly the most bashful of oprichniks…

Her Highness eats her hors d’oeuvres unhurriedly, paying me no mind.

“What’s new in the capital?”

I shrug my shoulders:

“Nothing in particular, Your Highness.”

“And not in particular?”

Her black eyes stare steadily at me. You can’t hide from them.

“Nothing not in particular either. Well, we suppressed a noble.”

“Kunitsyn? I know, I saw.”

Probably as soon as Her Highness wakes up they bring her a news bubble. What else would you expect? It’s government business…

“What else?” she asks, spreading beluga caviar on rye toast.

“Well…you know…somehow…” I mumble.

She stares at me.

“How did you bungle Artamosha?”

So that’s what it is. She knows this, too. I inhale deeply.

“Your Highness, it’s my fault.”

She looks at me attentively:

“That was well put. If you’d tried to dump the whole thing on the Good Fellows, I would have ordered you flogged right here and now. Right here.”