The mouth of the copper oven door is ajar; Poyarok knocks on it with a bent finger:
“The gray wolf has come, he’s brought some pies for you.
Knock-knock, who’s hiding in the oven?”
From behind the door come a woman’s wail and a man’s cussing. Ivan Ivanovich is cross at his wife for giving them away with her cry. Well, of course, what do you expect? Women’s hearts are sensitive, that’s why we love them.
Poyarok removes the damper door, takes out stove tongs and a poker, and drags the noble and his spouse out into God’s light. The noble’s hands are immediately tied, and a gag stuffed in his mouth. He’s pushed by his elbows out into the yard. And the wife…we’ll handle the wife in a merrier fashion. That’s the way it’s usually done. She’s tied to the butcher table. Ivan Ivanovich’s wife is a beauty: pleasing in form, fair of face, bosomy, well buttocked, spunky. But first—the nobleman. We all rush out of the house into the yard. Ziabel and Kreplo are already standing, waiting with their birch brooms, and Nagul with his soaped rope. The oprichniks drag the noble by the legs from the porch to the gates on his last outing. Ziabel and Kreplo sweep the tracks after him so that no trace of His Majesty’s enemy remains in Russia. Nagul has already climbed the gates and nimbly set up the rope; not the first time he’s hung Russia’s foes. We also stand under the gates, and lift the noble.
“Work and Word!!”
In the blink of an eye Ivan Ivanovich is swaying in the noose, wheezing, sniffling, jerking, farting his farewell. We remove our hats and cross ourselves. We put them back on. We wait until the noble has given up the ghost.
One third of our work is done. Now—the wife. We return to the house.
“Don’t kill her!”—Batya’s voice warns us, as always.
“Got it, Batya!”
This work is—passionate, and absolutely necessary. It gives us more strength to overcome the enemies of the Russian state. Even this succulent work requires a certain seriousness. You have to start and finish by seniority. So this time, I’m first. The widow of the now deceased Ivan Ivanovich thrashes on the table, screaming and moaning. I rip off her dress, tear off her intricate lace undergarments. Poyarok and Sivolai force her smooth, white, well-tended legs open, and hold them. I love women’s legs, especially their thighs and toes. The wife of Ivan Ivanovich has pale thighs, a bit cold, but her toes are tender, well formed, with well-kept toenails covered in pink nail polish. Her weak legs squirm in the strong oprichnik hands, and a slight shiver runs through her toes; they splay and stiffen from tension and fear. Poyarok and Sivolai know my weaknesses: they hold her tender, trembling foot near my mouth; I gather the shaking toes between my lips, and launch my bald ferret right into her womb.
How sweet!
The widow jerks and squeals like a live pink piglet on a red-hot spit. I dig my teeth into her foot. She screams and thrashes on the table. But I bring my succulent work to completion meticulously and implacably.
“Hail! Hail!” the oprichniks mutter, turning away.
Important work.
Necessary work.
Good work.
Without this work, a raid is like a stallion without a rider…without reins…a white stallion, white knight, white stallion…beautiful…brilliant…bewitched stallion…a tender stallion-galleon…a sugar-sweet stallion with no rider…no reins…no reins…with a white fiend…a sweet fiend…a fiend of sugar reigns…no rider…no rain, no galleon-stallion, galloping and no reins, no sugar reins, no sugary rains…galleon galloping where the white sugar fiend reigns and the distant sugar rains, faraway, the reins galloping, trotting, sugar reins, galloping, cantering, sugary, cantering to the sugary, to the canterer, how faaar to the sugary caaaantering cuuuuuunnnnnntttt!
How sweet to leave one’s own seed in the womb of the wife of an enemy of the state.
Sweeter than cutting off the heads of the enemies themselves.
The widow’s tender toes fall out of my mouth.
Colorful rainbows swim before my eyes.
I turn over my place to Posokha. His member has freshwater pearls sewn in it; the pattern resembles Ilya Muromets’s diamond-shaped vestments.
Oh my, the noble’s got the heat up high. I go out onto the porch and sit down on the bench. The children have already been taken away. Spurts of blood on the snow are all that remain of the slashed and beaten stable hand. The Streltsy dawdle about the gate, looking at the noble swinging in the breeze. I take out a pack of Motherland and light up. I’m fighting this heathen habit. Although I’ve reduced the number of cigarettes to seven a day, I just don’t have the willpower to quit permanently. Father Paisii prayed for me, commanded me to read the canon of repentance. It didn’t help…The smoke lies across a frosty breeze. The sun is still shining, the snow and sun winking at each other. I love winter. The cold clears the head, invigorates the blood. In the Russian winter state affairs get done faster, go more smoothly.
Posokha comes out onto the porch: his huge lips are swollen, saliva is about to drip from them, his eyes are dazed, and there’s no way he can zip his pants up over his purplish hardworked member. He stands with his legs spread out and does his business. A book falls out from under his caftan. I pick it up. I open it—Afanasev’s Secret Tale. I read the epigraph:
In those far-off olden times,
When Sacred Russia had no knives,
Carving meat was done with pricks.
This little book has been read till there are holes in it; it’s tattered and grease almost oozes from its pages.
“What are you reading, you impudent lout?” I slap Posokha on the forehead with the book. “If Batya sees it—he’ll throw you out of the oprichnina!”
“I’m sorry, Komiaga, the devil made me do it,” Posokha mutters.
“You’re walking along a knife edge, you dimwit! This obscene stuff is subversive. There were purges in the Printing Department on account of these sorts of books. Is that where you picked it up?”
“I wasn’t in the oprichnina then. I came across it in the house of one of them generals. The devil nudged me.”
“Just understand, you idiot, we’re guards. We have to keep our minds cold and our hearts pure.”
“I understand, I understand…” Posokha scratched the black hair under his hat, in boredom.
“His Majesty can’t stand cusswords.”
“I know.”
“Well, if you know—burn that indecent book!”
“I’ll burn it, Komiaga, here, I’ll swear on it”—and he crosses himself in a sweeping gesture, hiding the book.
Nagul and Okhlop come out. As the door closes behind them I hear the moans of the noble’s widow.
“What a fine bitch!” Okhlop spits, and cocks his cap back.
“They won’t bang her to death, will they?” I ask, stubbing out my butt on the bench.
“I don’t think so…” The wide-faced smiling Nagul blows his nose into a white handkerchief lovingly embroidered by someone.
Ziabel soon appears. After a roll in the hay he’s always excited and garrulous. Like me, Ziabel attended university, has a higher education.
“How glorious it is to destroy Russia’s enemies, don’t you know,” he mutters, taking out a pack of unfiltered Rodina. “Genghis Khan used to say that the greatest pleasure on earth was to conquer your enemies, plunder their possessions, ride their horses, and love their wives. What a wise man he was!”