Fyodor was afraid of gypsies; when he was little, his mother used to warn him of straying too far away from the house. “Gypsies will get you,” she said. “They steal children and sell them."
Fyodor played by the porch, in its cool shadow smelling of rotting wood, and rarely wandered past the outhouse and the fence discolored by weather.
When his stepfather came to live with them, he was much less aware of the gypsy problem. “Go play outside,” he would tell little Fyodor. “What are you, stupid?"
"But the gypsies,” he tried to explain. “They'll get me."
The stepfather laughed, and gave him a shove away from the porch. “Gypsies are not dumb. Why would they steal a kid who'd fetch no more than a quarter?"
Fyodor went then, sobbing silently to himself. He hoped to run into some gypsies and to be stolen away, both to get away from the stepfather and to prove him wrong. He wandered past the fence and down the only earthen street of Vasilyevskoe, the village where he was born and lived all his life. It was just a row of one-story wooden houses and a gaggle of filthy geese fraternizing with a few disheveled chickens. He passed the only store, and then the road led him out of the village, to a small clump of pines overgrowing sandy dunes-the Barrens, too grand a name for such a little place. But it smelled of fresh pine resin, and the sun shone, and wild strawberries stained his fingers with their sweet blood.
He spent all afternoon lying on his back, melting into the heated sand and pine-scented air, swallowing sweet melancholy tears as he thought of the gypsies that would come by to steal him away into some magical and sinister land, and how sorry his mother would be-perhaps sorry enough to tell the stepfather to go away forever since it was his fault.
The sun stretched over him, touching the tops of dunes in a sizzling white flash, and sank behind them. The shadows of the dunes grew blue and touched his face; the sand chilled him, and the strawberries grew indiscernible in the dark. He hated the gypsies then, for scorning him as defective merchandise. It was time to return home, to look into the stepfather's smug face and admit that he was right-there was no value inherent in Fyodor, and even gypsies knew that.
Fyodor's family moved when it was time for him to go to school. Like pilgrims, they took trains north and west until they arrived at Zvenigorod. Fyodor did not sleep on the train and just repeated the word-Zve-ni-go-rod-in rhythm with clanging of the wheels. A twinkling city, a happy city, he imagined, animated by the merry ringing of a thousand church bells, a city promising happiness and sunshine. It turned out to be covered in asphalt, and even the trees were dusty. Seven-year-old Fyodor felt the familiar sting of disappointment as he discovered that the name was a lie.
However, there were gypsies here. They were just leaving the train station as his mother and the stepfather bickered about whether the trucker they paid to transport their belongings to the new residence had arrived yet, when his stepfather paused and spat. “Fucking gypsies,” he said. “I don't believe this."
Young Fyodor traced the direction of his gaze and stared at the colorful group-men and women, brightly dressed, sat on sacks and rolled-up blankets, talking loudly in a language Fyodor didn't understand-a secret Gypsy language, he surmised. A few half-naked toddlers played in the dust. All of these people had dark skin and shining black eyes, and the women wore long flowered skirts and jangling earrings and necklaces. The men's teeth shone white in their bearded faces. It was the first time he'd seen real gypsies, and he stood entranced until his mother tugged his hand and dragged him along.
"Don't stare,” she said, irritably, and turned to Fyodor's stepfather. “Both of you. They'll see you looking at them."
It was too late-one of the women rose from the bundle she sat on and approached them calling out in a smoky accented voice, “Wait up, beautiful, I'll tell you your fortune if you gild my hand."
"No, thank you,” Fyodor's mother said firmly, and turned away to leave. “We don't believe in this stuff."
The gypsy woman was not so easily discouraged. Her dark fingers grabbed Fyodor's mother's wrist, and she spoke so quickly her words blended into a threatening chant, “If you don't gild my hand, your eyes will burst, your womb will wither, your child will suffer…” All the while, she held her other hand palm-up, as if offering something invisible.
Fyodor's mother stopped and rifled through her handbag. “Here,” she said, and put the money-not coins, real paper money-into the woman's open hand. “Just leave us be."
"Tell me it wasn't our grocery money,” the stepfather said. “I can't believe you just did that."
Fyodor's mother did not answer but shot him a fierce look and pulled Fyodor closer to her in a protective gesture. Even though she did not believe in hexes, she preferred to pay them off rather than dare to prove them wrong. Fyodor was too young to verbalize his new knowledge, but he was now dimly aware that even the most remote threat is too much when it is directed against someone one cares about. His suffering was worth actual paper money. He had never forgotten that.
Young Fyodor's life was quiet, and as the result his formative experiences were few. Later in life he marveled that he could count them all on one hand. First, there were gypsies, a vague threat, and his mother's protectiveness and the stepfather's indifferent malice; then there were watercolors his mother brought for him as a gift for his first day of school. He remembered the first of September, he in his new school uniform-a blue jacket with matching pants-in file with the multitude of other children in the schoolyard. The girls were wearing white ribbons in their hair, and brown dresses with white aprons. All children carried flowers to present to their teachers; gladioli predominated. He did not remember the rest of the school day, but he remembered the set of twenty-four paints, neatly arranged in tiny wells sunk in the ornate wooden case, which his mother presented to him when he got home. She also gave him an album of porous, fibrous paper, which drank the paint thirstily, absorbing it.
He painted so much that he ran out of colors, and only the black well retained a sliver of paint, like a curving strip of dirt under a fingernail. He went through a brief black period, until his mother grew worried and bought him another set. He dreamt of painting and daydreamed about it during the interminable school days. When the winter came, he left the pages blank to depict snow that covered everything, and punctuated it with sets of lonely footprints, of birds and humans. He wanted to draw the gypsies but resisted, fearful that the act of art was magical enough to attract their dark attention. But they hid in the edges of his paintings, hinted at by shadows and an occasional flash of white teeth and gold jewelry. He struggled to keep them out but still they found their way in.
During the summer, students descended upon Zvenigorod, coming from Moscow for their summer practice. They were future biologists, and Fyodor watched them shyly as they marched from the train station to the bus stop, where the bus took them to the mysterious Field Station. They carried knapsacks, laughed loudly, and smoked, and acted as if they owned the city. The stepfather disapproved of them. “Look at those kids,” he would say. “Damn Muscovites. Act as if they own the place, like their shit smells of lilacs."
"Are Muscovites worse than gypsies?” Fyodor dared to ask.
The stepfather spat, his rough face furrowing. “Thieves are thieves, however you paint them."
Fyodor watched the receding backs with knapsacks, jeans, canvas sneakers. They didn't look like thieves, and he shared the observation.
"Moscow is privileged,” the stepfather said. “See this?” He pointed at the cracking asphalt and stray dogs sleeping in the shade of the storefront that hadn't ever sold anything worthwhile. “We don't have anything so all the party bosses in Moscow can eat and drink and do what they want. They rob the rest of the country and take it to Moscow. Whoever lives there is a thief, plain and simple. Just like those gypsy pickpockets, God help us."
As Fyodor grew, he continued to paint, and he also started to see his stepfather's point. At the same time, he wanted to go to Moscow, to the land of plenty and the carefree students who came every year, like migratory swallows, and left again before the summer was over. Fyodor wanted that freedom to pass through as he pleased, and when he finished school, he applied to the Moscow State University, biology department, even though he had little interest in the subject. He just wanted to return to the town he lived in for the past ten years as a visitor, just passing through.
He failed the entrance exams, but delayed returning home. He called his mother and lied about unexpected complications, and spent the night at the train station. The next morning, he left his suitcase in the locker and went sightseeing-he visited the requisite Red Square and the Mausoleum, and gawked a bit at St Basil's Cathedral. He meandered through the streets and stood on bridges, watching the green-brown river below. Everywhere he went, he carried his album and watercolors, and took quick sketches, mostly just blurs of colors with only hints of shapes of everything that caught his fancy.
"You're pretty good,” a girl said next to him.
He looked up and realized that she was a gypsy-long skirt, black as soot hair, soft eyes and mouth. A panic struck him, and he babbled. “Please don't hex me,” he begged. “I don't have any money, honest. I'm out of town."
The corners of her mouth dimpled as if she were holding back a smile. “I won't hex you, handsome,” she said, clearly enjoying her power over him. “Just paint me a picture, and we're good. I'll even give you a talisman that'll protect you from any gypsy curse."
"I don't believe in talismans,” he said.
She laughed. “But you believe in curses? Come on, paint."
"You can have this one.” He proffered the sketchpad with his most recent view of the river and the Alexander Garden-splotches of green and light-on the other side.
She shook her head, and her earrings and necklaces jangled. “I want a picture of me,” she said.
He obeyed the woman, not quite sure why he did so. He painted in quick strokes, not waiting for the watercolor, barely diluted by the dank river water, to penetrate the paper, slathering it thick like oil. He poured on blacks and blues for the cloud of her hair, he painted gold and silver on her thin wrists, carmine for the lips, greens and yellows for her shawl and wide skirts. He painted with abandon, with catharsis-finally, finally, he had given in, unable to keep the gypsies out. Now he would be stolen away for sure; he felt relieved at the thought. When everything you had ever feared happened you didn't have to fear anymore.
The girl looked at the picture and smiled. “I like it,” she said. “Here.” She unwrapped a thin chain with a copper circle from her neck and handed it to Fyodor. “Here's your talisman. Now no gypsy could harm you."
He studied the dull circle that looked like an old coin polished into obscurity. “Does it really work?"
"No,” she said, “but neither do hexes. Come on, put it on."
He obeyed.
"Now,” the girl said, “do you have anything to do?"
"No,” he said, and followed her when she beckoned. On the way, he told her about the failed exams and the dusty asphalt of Zvenigorod growing soft under one's feet in the summer heat. He told her that he had no plans and no desire to go back.
"You can stay with my tabor,” she offered. That's what a group of gypsies was called, he remembered. A tabor of gypsies-like a murder of crows or a pride of lions, a special word just for them.
"No, thanks,” Fyodor said. “I don't think I'm ready for that yet. Where are we going?"
She pointed ahead, at the squat gigantic building with arched windows, which he recognized as a train station.
"Paveletzky Terminal,” she told him. “We're staying there, for now at least. They have a very nice waiting hall, and the courtyard. We need the courtyard for the bear."
"The bear?” he repeated.
She nodded. “Uh-huh. I think we're the only tabor in this city that does bear shows. Only he's getting old."
"Oh."
The station bustled with travelers, and the din of voices and sharp sounds of children's crying assaulted Fyodor; he hugged his sketchbook to his chest.
"There are the Roma.” The girl pointed.
They were not like Fyodor remembered them. Instead of bright colors they were dressed in drab city clothing, dirty with neglect and age. Only their dark faces indicated that they were truly alien. “Their clothes…” Fyodor faltered. “What about you? You're dressed like a proper gypsy."
The girl laughed. “What, this? I'm coming from a party. This costume is something we wear when we have to perform."
"And you pickpocket in the regular clothes."
The girl gave him a long look. “Pretty much, yeah. Want to see the bear?"
He nodded and followed her through the hall of the train station to a small grass-covered yard in the back. Furtively, he made sure that his watch was still attached to the wristband, and that the band still circled his wrist.
The bear chained to a wooden stake thrust carelessly into the ground was old and arthritic, and his rheumy eyes watched Fyodor with indifference born of old age and a lifetime of oppression. The fur under his eyes was sticky with gunk, and his chin was bare, as if he rubbed it too much. There were also large bald spots on his sides, gray skin amid mangy brown fur, like patches of lichen on the stone. The bear smelled strongly too, of wet dog, iodine and bad teeth.
"Poor thing,” Fyodor said.
"Poor Misha,” the girl agreed. “He's so old, my mom says he won't live through the winter."
The bear sat on his haunches, his sides rising and falling, his pink tongue hanging out among the broken teeth; Fyodor doubted he would survive the summer. “You call him Misha?"
The girl laughed. “Yeah, I know. Original, right? By the way, I'm Oksana. You?"
"Fyodor.” He thought a bit. “Why did you drag me here?"
"You said you had nothing else to do.” She still smiled, but the look in her eyes was crestfallen.
Had he been older or not so preoccupied, he would've understood that she was showing kindness to a stranger, looking for a friend or just offering a hand. If he had not been so scared of being stolen in all these years, he would've known better than to scoff, and say, “Look, I told you I don't have any money. None."
Oksana just stared at him. The bear moaned.
"I better go,” he said. He had sense enough not to add, I wouldn't have fucked you anyway, but he thought it, and suspected that Oksana could guess his thought.
He never went back to Zvenigorod-another gypsy encounter, coupled with the presence of the amulet and the image of the old and ailing bear convinced him that going back would mean stagnation and death. As the formerly solid structures and ideologies crumbled and the social services collapsed one by one, he learned how to live the life of the street artist. He squatted when he couldn't find other options, preferring the attics of the apartment buildings downtown, not too far from Arbat where he sold the watercolors and bought art supplies and booze; Herzen Street was the reliable favorite. Sometimes he stayed with the hippies who liked Arbat and the artists, and a few of whom didn't mind his overnight presence on one couch or another. Winters were hard but he survived; if it got too cold in his attic, he dragged himself down the stairs, into the streets, into the flashing lights of ambulances who had the good grace of collecting indigents on especially cold nights and taking them to hospitals and shelters, wherever there were beds and food. Sisyphus’ labor if there ever was one, because the winters kept returning, the indigents grew in number, and the ambulances got their funding slashed time and time again.
He was not looking forward to the winters, and come September he started to drink and worry more and paint less-nowadays, he stuck with the views from the roofs and attics he frequented. Every time he saw gypsies, he searched for Oksana, but she was either not there or he failed to recognize her in her street clothes-he remembered her earrings better than her face. He painted her occasionally, hoping to summon her by sympathetic magic, which turned out to be as useless as the defaced coin hanging on the chain around his neck.
The tourists liked buying Oksana's portrait-they liked anything colorful and exotic, like magpies. They were also as loud as magpies, talking at Fyodor in slow, loudly enunciated syllables. He just smiled and gave no sign that he understood English; he didn't have to-exchange of art for foreign green money was a silent transaction. Moreover, if he played dumb, he got to hear them talking about him-terrible, did you see how drunk he was? This is the problem with this country, communism really fucked them all up. Now hopefully things would get better. They'd still drink though.
Like hell they will, Fyodor thought. Although still young, he had learned that things did not get better but worse, that entropy was winning, that despite the appearance of order the universe had one direction-toward heat death, the second law of thermodynamics said as much, and who was he to disagree with Herr von Helmholtz. Everything sought its lowest energy status, and Fyodor had found his.
It was only a matter of time before he discovered he was not the only one finding stable equilibria in low places. Everywhere close to the ground time slowed down, and if he pressed his ear to the pavement, not caring if passersby took him for a drunk, he heard voices, quiet as the whispering of the growing grass, complaining and crying in an unceasing susurrus. The coin around his neck grew cold when it touched the ground, and afterwards the metal burned his skin with the collected cold it retained far longer than was prudent.
When his heart grew too heavy with the whispers, he went to the roof, to get away from them. But sooner or later they called, and he descended back into streets wet with the first September rains, and sold paintings, and listened to the ground talk to him.
It was a surprise when the birds appeared-he expected things to come from under the ground, to buckle the cobbles of New Arbat and reach up, up, consuming the world, pulling it down to the lowest energy state. But there they were, flapping; he followed them as they circled over the hungry, troubled city.
As his fascination grew, he ate less and drank more; he hardly ever slept. And when the woman asking about them showed up, he wasn't quite sure what he'd seen and what he'd dreamt or imagined. He desperately wanted to show it to someone, just to make sure he wasn't going crazy. He wanted a confirmation, a witness who would stand with him and watch the birds emerge from closed windows reflecting nothing but the night sky; he wanted someone else to see doors reflected in puddles open and admit small, weak creatures into the world.
When night fell, he danced with anticipation, the only seller remaining after the ghastly pink streetlights went on, he and his lone painting. The crowd of buyers and gawkers thinned as well and he slouched against the storefront, in the shadows.
"Where is he?” a man said nearby.
"Right here.” The woman he met the day before stepped into a warm puddle of light and out. “I hope you don't mind that I brought Yakov along."
"Mind? Why should I mind?” He gave a sideways look to a squat short man with a messenger bag over his shoulder. The bag squawked.
"It's my bird,” the man explained. “He fell out of the nest."
Fyodor took his time looking over a young crow. Something about the man made him uneasy-the way he moved, so crisp, almost robotic, as if he worked on keeping in shape. Short hair. Fyodor cringed and hoped he wasn't one of those iron pumpers who, a few years back, used to beat hippies and forcibly cut their hair, but had now graduated to racketeering.
"You wanted to show me something?” Galina said.
"Yeah.” He motioned. “Come on. It's not far away."
He found his way by memory rather than street names; he couldn't remember the street names if he tried, but he remembered turns, uneven sidewalks, the calm faces of the old buildings. He meandered, but finally found the place he was looking for-an arch spanning between two buildings, leading into a courtyard dominated by a large puddle.
"There,” he said, and pointed at the black surface of the puddle marred by a few oil slicks leaking from a beat-up car parked nearby.
The puddle reflected the faint halos of streetlights, diffuse in the misty air, and the front of the nearest building. A small lamp mounted above the door illuminated its surface, and in the reflection the door glowed with a milky light.
"Watch,” Fyodor said. They did, until their eyes weren't sure if they were looking at the reflection or at the real door-the still surface of the puddle completed the illusion of absolute darkness surrounding an upside-down door, hung in empty space for no particular purpose. Then the door started to open, slowly.
"Don't look up,” Fyodor said. “Don't look at the real thing. Watch the reflection-this is what's important."
The door swung open and blackened with a multitude of starlings-they came screeching from the door in the puddle into the night air above their heads, with no transition and no trace of water on the glistening feathers.
The crow in Yakov's bag cawed in recognition and flapped its wings. The thing couldn't fly, but that didn't stop it from trying. Before Yakov could stuff him back, the crow strained and flapped, and fell. It made no ripples on the surface as it fell through the door in the puddle and disappeared from view.