I sense the dead swarming when I look beyond and around– husbands, wives and children atop one another, paupers cheek by jowl with their sculpted betters. Here and there the initials ‘n.p’ – unidentified soldiers. Russia sandwiched flat.
After a seemly interval Anna takes the palekh from her purse, cradles it in her gloved palm, passes it to my mother, in turn to me. I tuck it into the pocket of my sheepskin coat, out of the spitting snow, where it fits snug. Both women wait. They shuffle nearer. I know I must give it back. We enact the same choreography in reverse, from me to Anna via my mother.
Proshai, Nikolai the Perfect.
In the end, Nikolai I has to be a rehearsal for the real thing. I write him out of our story so our lives can go on. Cruel – but the way it is. Go in grace. Go with God, my mother and Anna chant.
Spring is beginning underfoot. The fir forest, is shaking off its white blanket, green crinkles the horizon. Soil breaks, heaves this way and that. Rills honeycomb the surface. I can practically see all that hardwired chlorophyll flowing up the trunks, balling into buds, uncurling leaf tips. Orangeberry constellations in molecular modelling. A solitary sparrow capers on a birch tree, darts between branches. Towards Siberia the sun, a watery yolk, smears its arc. Every so often a tinkling puff as another bough releases its burden. Winter unleashes one last powdery flurry – but the game is up.
We walk through the cemetery gates, downslope to the Oka’s lip. Three old men are bobble lines for sprats. Further out, a skater, a girl around thirteen, caps her performance with an airborne spin. She curtseys, scoots across to be presented with a bucketful of wrigglers.
Anna turns, takes my hand, pats it on her midriff, bulging by more than the hem of her jacket.
I can’t help myself. I grin. I take her other hand. ‘Nikolai II,’ I promise, ‘you will bury us yet.’
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book took twenty seven years to write. So many people to thank. I’m in more debt than the early settlers.
To Liat Kirby and Angela Marshall way back when, who saw something in Nikolai, and what I had to fix. Liat has since been a staunch friend and supporter, indignant on my behalf as successive publishers turned it down. Every struggling writer needs a Liat. Toda raba, Liat.
To Kate Ryan, my old friend along the corridor at Abbotsford Convent who believed in the book, recommended me to my publisher, and has since blessed me with her brilliant editing.
To Jacqui Ross, another Convent comrade, for her friendship and astute editing suggestions over successive drafts. Other Convent friends who kept me going: Michelline Lee, Stephen Gray, Jen Storer, Chris Womersley, Ros Oades, Chris Keneally, Sal Cooper, Tony Wilson, Steve and Cam Miller.
To Sandy Cull, another long-time friend and supporter, who designs irresistible book covers like this one.
To Jen Hutchison, my publisher at Journeys to Words Publishing, the only one brave enough to take me on. Her team: Graeme Clifford, her partner who does the vital behind the scenes stuff and Daniel Chelchowski for immaculate proofreading and lots besides. It’s been a pleasure.
To Writers Victoria, for the privilege of my last four years at Glenfern writers studio. To Iola Matthews without whom Glenfern would not exist.
To Bram Presser, my Glenfern confrere for his unwavering belief that Nikolai would find a home and his wisdom and encouragement at low times. Toda raba, Bram. And other Glenfern writers: Tali Lavi, Blair Purvis, Jacinta Halloran, Caroline Arnaut, Fiona Wood, Isabel Robertson, Stephen Sholl and Nicole Howard to name only a few.
Grant Taylor, Catherine Eldridge, Judith Tregear, Lena Gottschall, Natasha Moskalenko, Alex and Olga Kuznetsov, Misha Krunov, Alexei Sladkov, Matthew Quick, Jane Harper and Michelle Wright contributed more to the book than they will ever know.
I would be remiss not to thank Arts Victoria for a writer’s grant in 2007, and Varuna Writer’s House for a three-week writing fellowship the following year.
Finally, Tanya, Daniil and Julian. For all their love, and putting up with Nikolai the Manchild for so long. And with me.
AUTHOR’S BIOGRAPHY
Jim McIntyre’s stories, non-fiction and translations from Russian have won prizes and commendations in numerous competitions. Several appeared in Arena, Overland, Visible Ink, and others including the Moscow publication Ogonyek, where he worked as editor, translator, education agent and English-overdub film narrator for Green Cross and other Russia-based environmental organisations. Nikolai the Perfect sprouted from that fertile soil.
Jim has been awarded a Varuna Writers House Residential Fellowship, and Arts Victoria and Australia Council Literature Board grants. An early version of Nikolai the Perfect was long-listed in the inaugural 2012 Griffith REVIEW Novella Project. In 2015 Nikolai the Perfect was Equal Runner-Up in the Victorian Premier’s Unpublished Manuscript Award.
When not writing, Jim is a drug and alcohol counsellor, aged carer, cricket coach and harvest hand, among other things. Some parenting on the side. His next project is a fictionalised biography of Nikolai Miklukho-Maklay, the nineteenth century Russian/Ukrainian explorer, anthropologist, linguist, campaigner against slavery and Sydney celebrity.
Jim lives with his family in the Melbourne maritime suburb of Williamstown.
Copyright
Journeys to Words Publishing
Registered Office
181 Drummond Street,
Carlton, Melbourne. 3053.
First published in Australia 2020
Copyright © Jim McIntyre 2020
The moral right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.
This novel is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance of actual people, living or dead, is coincidental and unintentional.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
Cover design by Sandy Cull