“What’s this?” Chemayev asked, and the bartender said, “Yuri’s private booze. Everybody gets one. Everybody who meets with him.” He set down the glass, and Chemayev viewed it with suspicion. The liquid appeared to be vodka.
“You don’t have to drink,” the bartender said. “But it’s Yuri’s custom.”
Chemayev wondered if he was being tested. The courageous thing to do, the courteous thing, would be to drink. But abstinence might prove the wiser course.
“I can pour you another if you’d like. I can open a new bottle.” The bartender produced an unopened bottle; it, too, was embossed with a silver L.
“Why don’t you do that?” Chemayev told him. “I could use a drink, but… uh…”
“As you like.” The bartender stripped the seal from the bottle and poured. He did not appear in the least disturbed, and Chemayev supposed that he had been through this process before.
The vodka was excellent and Chemayev was relieved when, after several minutes, he remained conscious and his stomach gave no sign that he had ingested poison.
“Another?” the bartender asked.
“Sure.” Chemayev pushed the glass forward.
“Two’s the limit, I’m afraid. It’s precious stuff.” The bartender lifted the glass that Chemayev had refused, offered a silent toast and drank. “Fuck, that’s good!” He dabbed at his mouth with a cocktail napkin. “Almost everyone who tries it comes back and offers to buy a couple of bottles. But it’s not for sale. You have to meet with Yuri to earn your two shots.”
“Or work as a bartender in Eternity, eh?” Chemayev suggested.
“Privileges of the job. I’m always delighted to serve a suspicious soul.”
“I imagine you get quite a few.”
“People have every right to be suspicious. This is a weird place. Don’t get me wrong—it’s great working here. But it takes getting used to.”
“I can imagine.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t bet on it. You have no idea what goes on here after hours. But once you’ve met Yuri”—the bartender slung a towel over his shoulder—“you’ll probably be able to educate me. Everyone says it’s quite an experience.”
Chemayev downed the second vodka. Yet another video was showing on the TV, and something was interfering with the transmission. First there was an intense flickering, then a succession of scenes skittered across the screen, as if the video were playing on an old-fashioned projector and the film was breaking free of the spool. He glanced at the bartender. The man was standing at the opposite end of the counter with his head thrown back, apparently howling with laughter; yet though his mouth was open and the ligature of his neck cabled, he wasn’t making a sound. His white hair glowed like phosphorus. Unnerved, Chemayev turned again to the TV. On screen, to the accompaniment of a gloomy folk song, two women in white jumpsuits were embracing on a couch, deep in a passionate kiss. As he watched, the taller of the two, a blond with sharp cheekbones, unzipped her lover’s jumpsuit to the waist, exposing the slopes of her breasts… It was at this point that Chemayev experienced a confusing dislocation. Frames began flipping past too rapidly to discern, the strobing light causing him to grow drowsy yet dumbly attentive; then a veneer of opaque darkness slid in front of the screen, oval in shape, like a yawning mouth. There was a moment when he had a claustrophobic sense of being enclosed, and the next instant he found himself standing in the blackness beyond the mouth. He had the impression that this black place had reached out and enveloped him, and for that reason, though he remained drowsy and distanced from events, he felt a considerable measure of foreboding.
From Chemayev’s vantage it was impossible to estimate the size of the room in which he stood—the walls and ceiling were lost in darkness—but he could tell it was immense. Illumination was provided by long glowing silvery bars that looked to be hovering at an uncertain distance overhead, their radiance too feeble to provide any real perspective. Small trees and bushes with black trunks and branches grew in disorderly ranks on every side; their leaves were papery, white, bespotted with curious, sharply drawn, black designs—like little leaf-shaped magical texts. This must be, he thought, the garden Polutin had mentioned, though it seemed more thicket than garden. The leaves crisped against his jacket as he pushed past; twigs clawed at his trouser legs. After a couple of minutes he stumbled into a tiny clearing choked with pale weeds. Beetles scuttered in amongst them. Fat little scarabs, their chitin black and gleamless, they were horrid in their simplicity, like official notifications of death. The air was cool, thick with the skunky scent of the vegetation. He heard no sounds other than those he himself made. Yet he did not believe he was alone. He went cautiously, stopping every so often to peer between branches and to listen.
After several minutes more he came to a ruinous path of gray cobblestones, many uprooted from their bed of white clay, milky blades of grass thrusting up among them. The path was little more than a foot wide, overhung by low branches that forced him to duck; it wound away among trees taller than those he had first encountered. He followed it and after less than a minute he reached what he assumed to be the center of the garden. Ringed by trees so tall they towered nearly to the bars of light was a circular plaza some forty feet in width, constructed of the same gray stones, here laid out in a concentric pattern. In its midst stood the remains of a fountain, its unguessable original form reduced to a head-high mound of rubble, a thin stream of silvery water arcing from a section of shattered lead pipe, splashing, sluicing away into the carved fragments tumbled at its base. Sitting cross-legged beside it, his back to Chemayev, was a shirtless man with dark shoulder-length hair, his pale skin figured by intricate black tattoos, their designs reminiscent of those on the leaves.
“March?” Chemayev took a step toward the man. “What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here?” March said in a contemplative tone. “Why, I’m feeling right at home. That’s what I’m doing. How about yourself?”
“I have a meeting,” Chemayev said. “With Yuri Lebedev.”
March maintained his yogi-like pose. “Oh, yeah? He was banging about a minute ago. Try giving him a shout. He might still be around.”
“Are you serious?” Chemayev took another step forward. “Lebedev was here?”
March came smoothly, effortlessly to his feet—like a cobra rising from a basket. He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, “Hey, Yuri! Got a man wants to see ya!” He cocked his head, listening for a response. “Nope,” he said at length. “No Yuri.”
Chemayev shrugged off his jacket and draped it over a shoulder. March’s disrespect for him was unmistakable, but he was uncertain of the Irishman’s intent. He couldn’t decide whether it would be safer to confront him or to walk away and chance that March would follow him into the thickets. “Do you know where the door to Yuri’s office is?”
“I could probably find it if I was in the mood. Why don’t you just poke around? Maybe you’ll get lucky.”