Fyodor did not expect the bear made entirely of rats to be helpful for much longer-it seemed to work more as a distraction, a quaint way of buying time. If only he could do something with the time they bought-running seemed superfluous now, and the only thing that occurred to him was to shove Oksana into the nearest snowdrift, to protect her from harm that now seemed inevitable.
Unfortunately, the bear made of rats misinterpreted his intentions and turned toward him, raising its arms silently and protectively.
"What the fuck is that thing?” one of the maroon jackets said.
"It's a bear of some sort,” another answered. “A transformer bear."
"Oh yeah,” the first one said, brightening up. “My kid has one of those-imported. Good toy."
They watched as Fyodor retreated up the path, the jackdaw Vladimir hovering over his head. Slava remained silent, but his hand reached inside of his jacket and Fyodor cringed at the thought of what it would extract. He never liked guns, was fearful of them-even when his stepfather went hunting he preferred to stay behind and never looked at the glassy-eyed birds and rabbits he brought back. Now, he imagined his own eyes turning into expressionless glass marbles, clouded with death.
Oksana, now between him and the thugs, got to her feet. She spat out snow and whistled to the bear, redirecting its slow shambling attack. Fyodor thought that it was getting embarrassing; it was the only reason why he ignored the glint in Slava hand and instead charged him.
He was too far and the path was too slippery. Slava saw him move and raised the gun. His gray eyes squinted, aiming a heavy long-nosed Luger at Fyodor. The bear moved closer and Slava hesitated and changed aim, as his bodyguards stepped off the porch and walked toward Fyodor.
A shot rang out and the bear tottered and fell apart. The rats scattered, leaving one writhing and spraying blood onto the blue-streaked snow. Oksana cried out and fell to her knees to pick up the injured rat. She cradled it in her hands, oblivious to the danger.
Fyodor took an awkward swing at the thug who'd reached him first, but the man just waved Fyodor's hand off, as one would a fly, and his round rubbery fist slammed into Fyodor's jaw, dislodging something important and filling his mouth with salty blood. He staggered backward a bit but remained standing, watching the blood drip from his lips, searing small black-cherry red craters into the packed snow of the path.
The other thug stepped forth-there was no hurry in his movements, as if he were going to take his sweet time beating the trespasser. Fyodor found himself sympathizing with the thug-how often did this man have an opportunity to pummel someone in peace, in the middle of the snow-covered forest at sundown, where there was no risk of interruption or discovery? At the very least, their attention was diverted from Oksana. Even Slava put his Luger away and watched the beating.
Another punch, and out of the corner of his swelling eye Fyodor saw a streak of motion-a dark blur in the blue twilight, and realized that Oksana lunged for Slava. She knocked him off balance, and the two of them tumbled into the cabin. The last thing Fyodor saw was Slava pushing Oksana away from him with one hand, and reaching into his jacket with the other.
Fyodor strained to follow them, but two thugs cut off his route, reluctant to let go of their forbidden amusement, like a bulldog with an imported leather shoe. One of the thugs grabbed his coat at the chest to hold Fyodor up, and the other deposited slow, methodical blows to the face and sternum, calculated to inflict the maximum amount of pain and remorse for ever having tangled with Slava's goons.
The blows stopped and Fyodor looked up out of his one working eye, waiting for the inevitable sounds of Oksana's scream and a gun shot. Instead, there was a flapping of wings and birds poured into the darkened air, coming seemingly from everywhere-the windows and doors of the cabin, from between the clouds, even flying up from among the rats that ran on the ground.
Fyodor was let go, and his knees buckled; he dipped, staggered but stood up, as the air churned around him, black with wings and eyes and beaks. There were reptilian clawed feet touching his face and hands, there were soft-as-butter feathers of owls brushing against his bruised and swollen face. Rats climbed up his trousers and sleeves, seeking protection from the air that suddenly became a whirlwind of predators.
Neither the crows nor the owls showed much interest in the rats-instead, they landed on the trees, the path, the roof of the cabin. There were hundreds of them, and the thugs stared at them, open-mouthed, not yet sure if it was to be their reckoning-if all the people they had turned into birds by their slow-witted, cruel magic had come back to exact revenge.
Fyodor used their consternation to break away and to run to the cabin, muttering, “God please let her be alive” with his split and bleeding lips that stung in the cold air. The cabin was darker than the outside, and he couldn't see a thing; he blundered inside blindly and immediately stepped on something soft and bumped his elbow against something hard.
"Oksana?” he called into the darkness.
"In here,” she replied, her voice surprisingly calm. “Just wait a second and let your eyes get used to the darkness."
Slowly, like a photograph in a vat of developer, the inside came into focus, black and grey in the darkness. He discerned Oksana-unharmed, thank God-standing by the wall; the soft thing by his feet was Slava, alive but lying prostrate on the floor, with the barrel of a shotgun pressed against the nape of his neck; Elena was the one holding the shotgun. She shot Fyodor a friendly smile that flashed white in the darkness. “Hi,” she whispered. “How many of the others are outside?"
"Just two,” Fyodor said. “And a shitload of birds."
He squinted into the darkness, and as his eyes adjusted to the twilight he realized that the fourth wall of the cabin had been subsumed by a gray fog that stretched somewhere far, into unimaginable dimensions. The swirling fog cleared and condensed again, allowing him only brief glimpses of the shadowy figures inside of it.
He stared into the fog as one would into a snow globe-the concerns about the thugs and the questions about Elena's unexpected presence melted away, leaving him charmed, entranced by the unfolding spectacle. The figures inside appeared distorted, as if one was looking through a soap bubble, but he recognized their long gray coats and the red stars on their hats, their military boots striking the ground in unison-the legendary First Cavalry, the product of propaganda and folklore in equal proportions; they passed through the bubble, each of their faces briefly magnified and distorted, and disappeared again into the fog.
Fyodor felt his throat tighten as he realized that he was not seeing real people but an entire epoch passing into realms unknown-all his childhood heroes, all the revolutionary soldiers he had been conditioned to admire as a child became irrelevant and disappeared into the mist. They did not look at him as they passed-perhaps they couldn't see him-but stared straight ahead. Their horses followed, with a subdued clip-clopping of shod hooves, their heads lowered, their eyes pensive, all of them bays with a white star on the forehead.
The vision passed, and the fog swirled again.
"What was it?” he whispered to Elena.
She shrugged, never letting go of the shotgun's stock. “Another era has moved underground."
"But those were not real live people."
"Of course not. They were symbols. Now, if you're done with asking irrelevant questions, will you give me a hand?"
He shook his head and winced-every movement resonated with a sharp pain in his skull. “What do you need?"
"The two men outside,” she reminded him. “See if the birds are done with them."
He peeked through the doorway. It was completely dark now, but on the snow he saw two large dark spots, motionless and bulky like two beached whales. “Yes,” he said.
"Good.” Elena moved the shotgun away from Slava's neck, and motioned for him to stand and move against the wall. “Now, let's get this thing over with."
The walls of the cabin dissolved in a mild yellow radiance around them-Fyodor felt like the four of them stood on a stage, the audience hidden from them by the glare of footlights. But he could feel their presence in the undifferentiated glow, he could hear breathing and voices.
"All clear,” Elena called into the light. “Come on out."
Koschey was the first to emerge, his lips pressed close together in a habitual sour grimace of general disapproval of the state of things. In his bony hands he held two feathers-one black and one white-with the air of a stage magician.
"Bring out One-Eyed Likho,” Elena said to him. “I don't want him underground."
"I'm pretty sure they don't want him on the surface either,” Koschey said.
Elena shrugged, her milk-white shoulder dipping out and back into her black dress. “I can live with that."
Oksana touched Fyodor's sleeve. “One-Eyed Likho,” she whispered to him by way of explanation. “It was in here, talking to him.” She pointed at Slava. “When it saw me it ran through the wall, but I guess they intercepted it."
Koschey allowed a small satisfied grin to light his hollow face. “It was quite convenient. Likho stole your friends’ luck, see? And what is the worst luck if not running into Likho? They are practically designed for attracting misfortune. Too bad for them, but here we are."
"Where are they? Galina and Yakov, I mean?” Fyodor said.
"They're coming,” Koschey said. “Apart from loss of luck they are all right."
Likho was the next to emerge from the glow-a slavering, wild thing that cast about with its hungry single eye, and Fyodor took an involuntary step back. It growled at him, so unlike the dry scratchy voice he had heard previously. Likho strained and fought, but a rope around its neck, held by several rusalki, kept him secured.
Yakov and Galina followed close behind. They both smiled and nodded at Fyodor, and he smiled and nodded back, unsure of the protocol. Were they his friends? Was he supposed to hug them or at least shake hands? He decided to remain aloof, and just hung in the background listening to Elena explain the situation to the new arrivals and introduce Slava to the gathering. The white rook who sat on the Tatar-Mongol's shoulder squawked indignantly.
"All right then,” Elena said. “This is everyone. What do you think, Koschey, what's first, the curse or the charm?"
"The curse,” Koschey replied and stuffed the white feather into the pocket of his long black jacket. “Fun stuff first."
He tossed the black feather at Slava; he ducked but the feather followed him like a target-seeking missile. It attached itself to Slava's head, and he cried out in pain as black, tar-like substance oozed from the feather, spreading over his face and his now screaming mouth.
Likho watched the happenings with its single eye burning. It swallowed often and looked around, as if searching for escape routes, but as the tar kept pouring and dripping, forming long streaks like melting candle wax, Likho's gaze focused on Slava, as it were drawn to him with some inexplicable force.
The rusalki loosened the bonds, and Likho strained toward Slava, now just an amorphous mass of tar. They let it go, and Likho bounded to its victim, claws extended and mouth slavering. In one long low jump Likho reached Slava, wrapped its scaly arms around him and clung, suddenly submissive and content.
"What's happening?” Fyodor whispered.
"A curse,” Koschey explained. “Likho will stick to him now. Whatever he attempts, he won't succeed."
"You're not going to kill him?” Fyodor asked.
Koschey turned to face him; in the twilight his cheeks were dark hollows, and his eyes barely glistened from under the dark heavy eyelids. “I'm not a merciful entity,” Koschey said. “They call me chthonic. They call me Deathless, but death is my realm, and I want nothing to do with his kind. Let him walk the earth forever, like accursed Cain with a red brand on his face, let One-Eyed Likho follow him for all eternity."
"You're going leave this thing here?” Fyodor said.
Koschey shrugged. “You heard the countess. Better you than us."
"But I thought…"
"What you thought doesn't matter,” Elena interrupted. “As long as you're on the surface, you're not a friend. You have your problems, we have ours. You dumped enough corpses and spoiled magic underground already. Let's see you deal with your own problems for a while."
"She's not a benign entity either,” Koschey said, and a shadow of affection snuck into his old brittle voice.
The tar had thickened around Likho, making it into a shapeless lump-Slava looked like a hunchback, Likho just an ugly growth now. The tar started to melt and soon was absorbed, leaving only a few unclean stains and drips on the cabin floor.
Slava shook-shuddered, even, with strong convulsing spasms. Likho became just a bump on his back, smaller than before, but certainly disfiguring and prominent enough to split open the maroon jacket along the seam. His gaze cast wildly about, as if it were Likho looking out of his wide eyes.
"Go,” Koschey motioned. “Go and don't ever come back to Kolomenskoe, or you'll regret it."
Slava hunched over, eyeing them all like a cornered wolf. “I know where your death is,” he howled to Koschey, and bounded through the lights into the surrounding darkness. There was a crunching of snow and a snapping of branches, and Fyodor exhaled in relief.
Koschey sighed too. “Everyone knows where my death is,” he said, addressing the direction of Slava's flight. “What no one understands is that it doesn't matter."
"How do you mean?” Yakov said. He had remained silent until then, his head cocked to one shoulder as if he was listening to some distant whispers rather than the goings-on. “Why doesn't it matter? Aren't you afraid that someone will find it?"
Koschey took the white feather out of his pocket. “They can find it,” he said, “but they can't destroy it. How do you destroy a negation?"
"Metaphysics,” Elena interrupted. “Come on, turn the birds into people."
"Wait,” Galina said, anxious. “Are you sure they are all there?"
"As sure as we're going to be,” Elena said. “The mermaids and the First Cavalry scoured every corner and shooed them all here."
"I thought you said they were symbols,” Fyodor said.
Elena tossed her head impatiently, letting loose a long serpentine coil of her smooth hair. “What does that have to do with their ability to scare up birds?"
Koschey stepped to the lights that now burned brighter. The white feather in his fingers trembled and stretched, shooting long tendrils of blinding-white fog that stood against the darkness around the cabin like the flares of the aurora borealis.
The birds, invisible in the black branches of the trees, rose as one to meet the wrapping of the tendrils; the fog spread until Fyodor saw nothing but white, and then he had to look away.
When he looked back, he saw people like any others. Their feathers turned into black and gray and brown clothes with only occasional splashes of color. They looked around them as if waking from deep sleep; Fyodor tried to imagine what was it like for them-were their lives as birds just vague ghosts now, things one remembers in a dream? Did they wonder how they got there? And, most importantly, what was it like, waking up back in one's body, and finding oneself in Kolomenskoe at the very break of dawn?
He tried to imagine it now-their lives, their dreams. They were just like everyone else; Fyodor thought about the time when everything changed. He was glad then that he'd chosen to live in the streets, painting the overly-expressive gypsies and sentimental landscapes, and not having to deal with the shifting economic and political climate. He could ignore the fearful glances of the people who suddenly felt that the very fabric of reality had been yanked from under them as the oil industry became privatized and classified ads bristled with scary and foreign job titles-copywriter, realtor, and manager. The techy kids, marked from childhood by their glasses and pasty complexion for the engineering careers, dropped out of colleges and opened their own programming companies, while the engineers, suddenly finding themselves on the brink of starvation, sold cigarettes through the tiny clear plastic embrasures of the subway kiosks.
Fyodor remembered the conversation he had overheard in the street once. Two men, both small, slender and unremarkable-likely engineers or junior researchers-stopped by Fyodor's paintings. Not to buy (he had a pretty good instinct in that regard) but to stare at the inviting cloudless azure of the summer sky on one of the canvas.
"I have to take another job,” one of them said. He looked the epitome of the Soviet engineer, a gray harmless creature, timid to the point of invisibility. “Sveta wants to privatize the apartment, and Grandma is ailing and her pension only pays for the fish for her cat."
"You can work for me,” his companion said. “You can sell shawls-we have a joint venture with those folk-masters from Vologda. Nice lace too."
"Sell?” his interlocutor repeated with a note of candid fear in his voice. “I can't. I don't know how."
"There's nothing to know,” his friend reassured. His distracted gaze slid over Fyodor as if he were as inanimate as one of his paintings. “Easy; just hold those things up and be loud."
"I don't know how to be loud,” the presumed engineer said, desperation edging into his voice.
As Fyodor watched the group of people outside, as they looked at each other and shook their heads, trying to remember, and cried silently, he realized what they had in common. The bird people were the ones who did not know how to be loud, in any sense of the word-they only tried to carry on as best they could, holding to the memory of a dignity that didn't seem to be allowed in the new capitalist jungles that sprouted around them, lush and suffocating and seductive but blocking the view of everything but themselves. He felt acute pity for their voicelessness, for their inability to adjust or to turn back time.
He watched as Galina and Fyodor stepped outside and mingled with the crowd. Oksana nudged him. “Do you want to go to them?"
"Why?” Fyodor said. “What can I do?"
"It doesn't matter,” Oksana said. “Can't you see? They need someone to tell them it's going to be all right."
Fyodor followed her down the steps of the cabin, which seemed to have reappeared from the dimmed lights, outlined anew against the gray dawn sky. He promised himself never to go back to this place, to avoid every memory of Peter the Great and his blasted cabin that harbored rather more than he was willing to take on. He wondered if it was possible to simply forget such things, and smiled to himself lopsidedly-his drinking would surely take care of that, and who needed a liver anyway.
Oksana approached an older woman, her head covered by a kerchief patterned in lurid red roses, a wide-mouthed handbag clutched in her hand. Oksana whispered to the woman, and it must've been something soothing because the woman's shoulders relaxed and her crooked fingers lost their desperate bone whiteness.
Fyodor looked around until his gaze met that of a middle-aged woman. During her ordeals her eye makeup had smudged, giving her a battered, haunted look. Fyodor stepped closer, noticing the fresh stitches on the seam of her light coat and her old-fashioned shoes with square toes and heels and that orthopedic look one usually associated with much older women.
"I'm Fyodor,” Fyodor said. “Are you all right?"
"I'm not sure,” the woman said. “What happened? I was going to work, and…"
"Where do you work?” he asked.
"Biryulevo,” she said. “Meat-packing plant. Where are we?"
"Kolomenskoe,” he said. “You'd have to take the subway back."
"And a bus,” she said, looking straight through him distractedly. Still, he had a feeling that talking about routine matters grounded her.
"Route 162?” he asked.
She nodded. “There are a couple of new ones, too. What am I doing here?"
"Don't you remember anything?” he said.
"I remember a man,” she answered. “The man who followed me to the plant. And then…” She ran her hand over her face. “I had strange dreams-I dreamt of flying through the water, through a dark black river, and white pale faces stared at me-and I remember the city's rooftops-as if I were looking at them from the air."
"It sounds like a nice dream,” he said. “Do you have anyone waiting for you at home?"
"Just my daughter, Darya,” the woman said and smiled a little. “Good girl, very clever. Says she wants to be a mathematician. Want to see her picture?"
"Sure,” Fyodor said and waited as the woman rifled through her roomy handbag, shuffling combs, compact cases, coin purses, plastic baggies, scented handkerchiefs and whatever other arcane objects female bags of such size contained. He was surprised at how calm everyone appeared-no one seemed to have gotten hysterical or distraught, like the woman before him. Her movements seemed sluggish, as if she just awakened up from deep sleep (he supposed she did), or if she deliberately avoided any thought that would make her panic. He also thought that a crowd of people had to be reassuring, even if she didn't remember how she got here. Out of the corner of his eye he saw some of the former birds take off down the path leading to the exit, and he sighed with relief. They would get home and find some way to explain the dreams and the missing time.
She finally fished out a small black and white picture mounted on cardboard and covered with a clear polyethylene sheet, taped at the edges. The girl in the picture appeared utterly unremarkable, but Fyodor nodded and made an appreciative noise. “Cute kid,” he said. “Listen, maybe you should head home, to tell her you're all right? She must be worried sick."
The woman looked around her, perplexed. “It's winter?"
"No,” he said. “Still October. Just a really fucked up one."
He heard Galina's voice calling out, “Masha, Masha!"
"Excuse me,” he said to the woman. “Let me see what's going on there."
She nodded, already looking after the people heading down the path. “Don't worry about me. The subway must be open already, so I better go. Beat the rush hour.” She smiled. “Thanks for stopping to talk to me."
"My pleasure,” he said, and turned to see Galina, panicked now, running from one cluster of people to the next. She looked anxiously into women's faces, grabbed sleeves. Yakov followed behind her.
Fyodor caught up to them. “What's going on?"
Galina mopped her sleeve at her tear-filled eyes. “Masha…” she whispered, all fire gone out of her. “My sister. She isn't here."