Galina could not sleep that night-in Sovin's'warm house smelling of animals and the suffocating comfort of hay, it should've been easy to sleep. But every time she started to drift off she dreamt of Masha, sometimes human, sometimes a bird. Masha cried and reached for her with her jet-black wings and called in her sweet voice. “Where are you, Galka? Why aren't you coming for me?"
"I am,” Galina told her. “I am looking for you."
"Don't leave me here,” Masha pleaded. “Please don't leave me, don't forget me."
"I would never leave you."
"Find me beyond death, beyond the river."
Masha's eyes grew huge and wide and human in her bird face, and Galina woke with a start, Masha's high voice still ringing in her ears. She sat up on the inflatable mattress that was already sagging; must've been a leak. She was alone in the room-the years of privation and a habit of hard work prompted Sovin to build big when he got a chance, and his house sprawled, irregular, in a maze of small angled rooms. The naked beams of the walls, warm and worm-holed, felt rough and reassuring under her fingers.
She thought about what Yakov told her, and she felt uneasy. The darkness surrounding Sergey's associates’ plans and their underground allies worried her. There was an expectation she learned in her childhood that the universe was essentially predictable, even if the life didn't always work out the way it was supposed to. She didn't expect to be diagnosed in high school and prevented from going to college; but things turned and she could find a job without any formal education, just a good working knowledge of English, French and German acquired through studying by herself, in the mental hospital, just to pass the time. Back then, foreign words and strange letters warded off the heavy breathing of stygian beasts that crouched around her bed. They were her talismans, those words, those varied shades covering the same meaning like masks. There was order in the world, even if it was occasionally disguised. It chased away the monsters.
She sat down on the floor, her back pressed against the door, and whispered her protective spells-she whispered the words for bread, earth, air in all four languages in turn. Water. Grass. World. The nightmares subsided, leaving only the sense of longing and confusion.
She knocked on Sovin's door-he didn't sleep during the nights out of old habit; she could see the weak light from the tallow candles seeping through the uneven crack under the door.
"Come in.” He wore long underwear, and his thin old man's legs reminded her of a stork; a padded jacket over the stained shirt hung like a pair of atrophied gray wings.
"I dreamt of my sister,” she said. “She told me to find her beyond the river-do you know what that means?"
"There is a river nearby,” he said and sat on the padlocked chest at the foot of his narrow pristinely made bed that reminded Galina of the hospital. “Have a seat, dear."
She sat on the edge of the bed, for lack of any other arrangements. “You live so sparely,” she said.
He nodded. “The less you have, the less you lose."
"Or the more you lose the less you have,” she answered.
"Could be. But the river… we don't cross it all that much-the vodyanoys and rusalki don't like people mucking it up. And getting across can be problematic. Berendey's forest is on the other shore."
"No one has yet seen him, right?"
He shook his head and hacked wetly. “Not that I know of. Zemun's worried, and Koschey is raring to go. Now everyone thinks that he's up to something, so he's eager to pin it on someone else."
"You don't think it's him?"
"I don't,” Sovin said. “He's a chthonic figure, and they are always demonized without good reason. People just don't like anything associated with death and dirt. Do you even realize how different you and I are from everyone on the surface? Most people would rather die than live underground, without sun."
"I don't want to stay here forever. Just as long as I need to find my sister."
Sovin opened his mouth to say something but then thought better of it and just sighed.
"Thank you,” Galina said. “I know it might take forever. I just don't want to think about it right now."
"This place sucks you in,” Sovin said. “It's comfortable here, and at first you want to see what else is here, you want to explore-and then you just settle and build a house and spend your days playing checkers."
"It won't happen to me."
"I suppose not.” He chewed the air with his toothless mouth. “I suppose you do love your sister."
Galina nodded wordlessly. She'd forgiven Masha for marrying and having a baby; she just wanted her back now. “I'm so sorry,” she whispered, forgetting about Sovin. “It's all my fault."
"Just be careful,” Sovin said. “Look at David if you need reminders-he did love his wife and yet he never did anything to get her back. Now is a good time for you; everyone's talking doomsday and how the surface is going to overtake us; everyone's scared. Maybe you'll get someone to come with you across the river. And if you want my advice, go tomorrow, go while the pain's still fresh enough to egg you on. The day your heartache dulls, you'll be living here and drinking tea with her majesty Elena."
"You don't like her?"
"Not just her. It's the aristocracy I don't like."
"She seems nice."
"Oh, she is. But it's about the principle."
"How can you hate someone on principle alone?"
Sovin sighed and closed his eyes. “It is easier than you think."
Galina stood. “Thank you. I'll leave tomorrow. I guess you won't be coming with me?"
He shook his head, dejected. “I feel old. I don't want to explore. You're welcome here anytime, but that's all I can do for you, sorry."
She returned to her room whispering Je ne sais pas and Ich weiß nicht to herself to guard from confusion. There was a river, then; did it mean that Masha's appearance in her dream was real? But she had been expecting a river all along, a dark twisting river smelling of dust, with a lone oarsman who would accept a copper coin in his palm, solid and crevassed as if carved from dark wood-and did it even matter? There were signposts, and she would be a fool not to follow them.
With that thought, enormous fatigue came, and she lay on her mostly deflated mattress; even before she closed her eyes, the dark waters rolled before her, and a small speck of light grew larger, as the boat moved closer toward her, guided by the uneven light of the lantern mounted on its prow.
The next morning, she asked Fyodor and Yakov if they wanted to go. Yakov nodded, dutiful. Fyodor thought a bit and shook his head.
"Zemun will go with us,” Yakov said. “Yesterday, she was agitating that we need to do something. If you ask her, she'll have to go. Ask around, see who else is game."
"I think we need to bring that thug along, Sergey,” Galina said. “He'll be able to recognize the voice he heard."
"It's not a bad idea,” Yakov said. “Only he is a dangerous man, even if he was recently raised from the dead."
"Just take his soulstone,” Fyodor said.
"Won't work. How will you talk to it? Through a medium?"
"Maybe put it into something else,” Fyodor said. “A rat maybe."
"They can't talk either,” Galina observed.
"Oh, fuck me.” Fyodor slammed his palm on the table. “Just trying to help here."
"If you want to help, come along,” Galina said.
Fyodor made a face. “I do what I can. I didn't have to lead you here, you know."
"Enough bickering,” Sovin said. “Zemun and Koschey will figure something out."
They found everyone at the Pub. Galina wondered to herself if anyone ever went home, or if they sat behind the wooden tables, upright and silent in the darkness, all night long.
"I'm leaving to go across the river,” Galina told Zemun. “I'll need someone to come along."
"We'll find someone,” Zemun promised. “But we also thought that we need to mount an expedition to the surface."
Galina saw her point, but the thought made her unease flare up. If Sergey was telling the truth-and she had no reason to doubt his veracity-then who knew what his former friends were up to. A vision of the empty city came to her mind, deserted streets with garbage blown across the pavements, flocks of birds studding the power lines and turning the sky black; she imagined them watching from the roofs, looking through the windows of their former residences, longing for the lives they had been forced to abandon. She thought of her mother, an old grey crow, and Masha's baby-it would be just a hatchling, unable to fly on its own.
And what of her grandmother, locked in the hospital, among the walls covered with cracking, piss-colored paint? What of the old woman alone, her wrinkles flowing around her eyes and mouth in a fluid pattern, sitting on a hospital bed, wondering dimly why no one comes to visit her anymore, not even her daughter-didn't she have a daughter? She remembers pigtails and cheap patterned dresses, she remembers mending white bobby socks, but the girls all blur together, daughter, granddaughters, nieces, grandnieces, extended family and friends; she could never remember Galina's name, and always tried a few others first.
Galina pitied the old woman in that abstract way one reserves for the old-a general pity for decrepitude and decline, recognition of one's inevitable fate in another. She pitied the old women who timidly waited by the benches where young people laughed and drank beer, until there was no one around so they could quickly snatch the empty bottles and turn them in at the recycling centers for pennies each, but they added up to enough for a bottle of milk and some cheap fish for the cat, they added to the destitute existence on government pensions that remained the same as the prices doubled, tripled, and quadrupled in a single day. She pitied the old men who pinned their medals to the threadbare jackets to hide holes on their lapels and who grew thinner by the day.
Most of all she pitied the chronically ill, confused, broken, incapable of taking care of themselves, stuffed into hospitals four or five to a room. She used to visit her grandmother in the beginning, when they still expected her to come home. As it became clear that she was there forever, Galina stopped, unable to face her guilt. Now, she wondered if the old people would turn into birds too, or if they would still sit in the hospital, forgotten, abandoned, wondering at first why there was no lunch, and then simply accepting it as they accepted all the unfathomable but ultimately cruel turns of life.
Yakov, Zemun, and Koschey conferred, with Sovin and David listening closely but not saying a word. Fyodor wandered around the Pub, looking for something-the gypsy girl he seemed so taken with yesterday, Galina assumed.
"Excuse me."
She turned to see the Medieval Tatar-Mongol warrior. She had to look down on him; not only was he quite short, but also his bandy legs detracted from his already unimpressive height. The hem of his long felt coat brushed the floor, almost concealing his soft-soled boots.
"Yes?” she said.
"My name is Timur-Bey. I heard about your sister,” he said. “I am sorry. Is there anything I can do to help?"
"You can come with me,” Galina said. “But why? Everyone here seems to want to stay, not go traipsing through Berendey's woods."
His expressionless narrow eyes looked up into hers. Galina realized that the man in front of her was very, very old-five hundred years? Six? “Redemption,” he said. “I have yet to atone for my crimes."
"You mean the Golden Horde?"
He shrugged. “We did what we had to. But there are cruelties I've done without compulsion."
Galina smiled. “My name's Galina,” she said. “I do appreciate your help, whatever it is you think you've done wrong."
He gave a curt nod, tossing the long sleek braid of black hair shot through with a few silver threads over his shoulder. Galina thought that he looked just like the Tatar champion on the famous painting depicting the battle at Kulikovo Field-only the copper helm and armor were missing. She imagined the small man armed, battling the Russian champion, a giant monk named Peresvet. The image was almost comical, and she shook her head. It was a long time ago; still, her own slightly slanted eyes and cheekbones sweeping up like wings were the heritage of the Golden Horde's occupation. The marks that Masha had avoided somehow, with her button nose and wide gray eyes. Masha, she reminded herself. She mustn't be distracted; she mustn't try and learn everyone's story, see how they all fitted together; it didn't matter how history had abused or forgotten these people. They won no wars, they showed no valor; the winners didn't spare them a second thought, and neither should she. Masha was her only concern, her sister was her only obligation.
Soon it was time to go. Galina, Yakov, Zemun, Timur-Bey and Koschey were to go to the river, which, so Zemun asserted, was less than a day away. David packed them a parcel with bread, beer and some dry fruit. “Sorry,” he said. “Didn't have any fresh ones-without Berendey around, there's no one here to bring sunlight to my garden."
"Don't worry about it,” Galina said. “But have you seen Elena?"
He nodded. “She left this morning. Said she wanted to talk to the rusalki and the vodyanoys about something. Don't worry, I'll tell you when she gets back, and maybe she'll send you a message with one of her watery friends. Look for them when you get to the river-it's crawling with all sorts of water spirits, and they sure do talk."
"Thank you,” Galina said.
Yakov took the parcel from David. “We'll be back soon,” he said.
David nodded. “Just be careful there, grandson.” He got the word out with some effort, as if he was still getting used to it.
"Of course,” Yakov said. “It's not like anything can go wrong there, right?"
David shrugged. “It's not a safe place,” he said. “There's no such thing as a safe place. Like there's no such thing as a good czar, no matter how much people want to believe it."
"What are we going to do about Sergey?” Galina asked Zemun.
"We took care of him last night,” she said. “He's coming with us, but Koschey made him harmless.” Her large soulful eyes flicked to Koschey, and he dug in the pockets of his jacket and extracted a large albino rook; its wings were clipped, and its eyes flashed with indignation. “Fuck you,” it screeched.
"Now, now,” Koschey said. “I told you it was temporary. And honestly, dear boy, you should be happy you got resurrected instead of rotting in that river, with eels slithering in your eye sockets. So you'll be a bird for a bit; enjoy the new perspective it affords you, hm?"
"Did you put the soulstone into that bird?” Galina said.
Koschey nodded. “I promised I would free his soul from its glass confines eventually, but for now I prefer him-portable."
"Don't piss me off,” the rook Sergey threatened.
"Or what?” Koschey's bony finger wagged in front of the bird's beak.
The rook made an unsuccessful attempt at pecking it. “I have friends,” it said.
Koschey chuckled-an unpleasant sound with the consistency of scratching fingernails. “No, you don't. They killed you, remember? Your only hope now is to behave and help us, and if you do well, you might yet live again as a person.” Koschey stuffed the agitated bird back into his pocket.
"Everyone ready?” Zemun said. “Let's go then."
Zemun led the way, and Galina thought it difficult to take their expedition seriously, as long as they were led by a large gleaming-white cow, whose udders swayed in rhythm with her energetic step. She also considered whether the talking intelligent animals needed to wear clothes-Zemun appeared naked to her, somehow.
Yakov and Koschey followed, and Galina and Timur-Bey brought up the rear. It felt like a school trip, and Galina had to restrain herself from trying to hold hands with Timur-Bey; despite his diminutive stature, he appeared quite formidable. Besides, Galina thought, he had never been herded with a group of other children to a museum or an exhibition of the country's agricultural prowess. It was frustrating, thinking of that man and realizing that they had never shared an experience; was it possible to be so remote in time and circumstance that there was simply no overlap?
"I don't like the grass here,” Timur-Bey said. “It's so white and wet. You know what grass should be like? Golden and dry, and it should whisper in the wind, run in waves, part before a running horse like a beaded curtain. It should smell of sun and wormwood and wild thyme. Have you ever seen the steppes?"
"Not really,” Galina said. “Only in the Crimea; I went there when I was little. But I remember the smell of wild thyme-on hot days, it was so strong it made my head swim."
"It does that,” Timur-Bey agreed. “I lived most of my life there."
"When were you-living?” Galina cringed, but could think of no tactful way to ask this question.
"Under Uzbeg-Khan,” he said. “He started his reign in 1312, when I was a child."
She nodded. “Forgive me for asking this, but did you find that the people here, underground, were all right with you? They didn't hold a grudge?"
He gave a short laugh. “Not against Uzbeg-Khan they didn't. He was allies with Muscovy, didn't you know that? Muscovites and Tatars fought against Tver together."
Galina decided to change the subject-she did not want to exhibit her ignorance of the finer points of history, as well as suspecting that the history in question was rather unsavory. It shouldn't make any difference to me, she thought; and yet the thought of her city allying with the invaders for whatever purpose bothered her, even it happened over six hundred years ago. “What brought you here then?” she said. “Were you at Muscovy?"
He nodded. “I fled there, after the rebellion against Uzbeg-Khan was suppressed. He changed the religion of our ancestors to Islam, which I and a few other generals could not abide. How could we abandon the voices of the spirits, how could we betray the living steppe that whispered to us?"
Timur-Bey had three wives, but he loved the steppe better than any of them. He came out of his ger every morning and smiled at the golden waves that stretched from the camp to the horizon. He remained in the remote outpost even though his position among the Khan's foremost military advisors often required travel to Sarai Batu; he could not bear being away for long. He participated in enough military expeditions as it was. He was there to suppress the uprising of the Tver princes; he was there when the treaty with Muscovy was signed.
Uzbeg-Khan had done much to unite the warring tribes; the only trouble was, he wanted to abandon the religion Timur-Bey knew in his heart was true-not out of fervor or divine inspiration, but because the grass and the sky and his horse, a sturdy bay pony, spoke to him in many voices. He never set his dirty foot into a clean stream, afraid of offending the water spirits.
For several years he struggled with the new faith, but in the end he decided to leave.
"The trouble is,” he told Galina, “is that it was not easy to leave the Golden Horde. It was so big-how do you leave the world?” He smiled but his eyes remained sad. “The Muscovites were our allies, and they were a dependency, not a real part of us. So I went there."
"How long did you last?"
He shrugged. “Not long."
"I'm sorry."
"But can you blame the sheep if the wolf who stole their young in the night, who demanded the very fleece off their backs, if that wolf came among them and said, ‘I have changed, I now want to live among you as a brother'? Can you blame the sheep when the wolf said, ‘I will not eat your food or worship your God, but I want you to accept me'? Can you blame the sheep?"
"I can't,” Galina said. “Although I do not like the sheep comparison."
He bowed his head. “I sought not to offend. But you're right; judging by some of my friends, the metaphor is deficient. There were as many wolves among your own people, and the sheep were ready to riot."
"Who do you mean?"
"There is a man who used to be an Oprichnik,” Timur-Bey said.
Galina hugged her shoulders, fighting the chill this word-so old, almost meaningless now-brought with it. She thought of the Ivan the Terrible's army, the brooms and the dog heads with red tongues and milky dead eyes tied to their saddles. When they studied them in history class, she had screaming nightmares where they chased after her, the maws of the dead dogs slavering.
Timur-Bey watched her from under heavy eyelids. “It's a terrible thing,” he said. “The evil doesn't die, no matter how much you atone for it. The old evil is always fresh-four hundred years? Six? What does it matter?"
"People should be able to forget,” she answered. “Things that happened so long ago-it's meaningless. Where would we be if we forever hated those who did something wrong? Russians would still hate Tatars, Jews would hate Russians-"
"You mean they don't now?” Timur-Bey interrupted. “And you're still bothered to think about Oprichniks."
She nodded. “I'm just surprised,” she said. “I wouldn't think to find one here. I mean, why did they let him in?"
"Why did they let you in, whoever they may be?” Timur-Bey shook his head, his braid swishing across his back, back and forth. “Virtue has nothing to do with it. Only those who are damaged enough can find this place; I wish I could tell you that suffering makes people better."
"I know it doesn't,” Galina said. “It's just…"
"You wish it did."
"It would make sense, wouldn't it? Otherwise, there's no meaning."
"But there is a chance of redemption,” Timur-Bey said. “And that's all one can ask for, isn't it?"