The effects of high-dose radiation were evident all around them. Oaks and maples bore asymmetrical leaves the size of guitars. Psychedelic ferns genuflected in the breeze. Nine-toed squirrels with patchy fur scampered over boulders blackened by lichen. Beneath the smells Pfefferkorn associated with a normal forest (sweet decaying vegetation, savory sunlit rock) lay an unnatural, chemical base note. He could get cancer just by being here. But that concern was overridden by a more pressing one. He and Fyothor were alone.
“Pretty, yes?”
Pfefferkorn, frowning, did not reply. He was trying to figure out why Fyothor had left the troika driver behind. If two men went into the forest and only one emerged, that demanded an explanation—unless it was the expected outcome. So the driver had to be in on it. But then why trade four arms for two? The answer must be that Fyothor didn’t consider Pfefferkorn dangerous. This had to be counted as an advantage, albeit a slight one that might not hold much longer. The sooner he acted, the better. He spied a half-buried stone with a sharp edge. He visualized himself diving to the ground, rolling toward the stone, prying it up, and using it—all before Fyothor had a chance to react. Too many potential snafus, he decided. He didn’t know how big the hidden part of the rock was. It might not come up easily or at all. He passed. They walked on, following a widening creek. Fyothor, his hand around Pfefferkorn’s waist, was talking about the hardships he had endured growing up, a large family and a tiny hut. There was no word for privacy in Zlabian, did Pfefferkorn know that? Pfefferkorn, still frowning, scanned the forest floor. It was spongy with mutant foliage, pine needles as long as pool cues curling in piles. There were countless broken branches, any one of which would have made a decent club had he stopped to pick it up. He waited for his training to kick in. Yet his body was rubbery and accepting as Fyothor urged him on. Muscle memory, Pfefferkorn shouted to himself. Solar plexus! Pressure points! It was awful, being jostled along toward death like a rag doll.
The creek fed a murky pond. At long last Fyothor released him and walked to the water’s edge, standing with his back turned, looking out. Now or never, Pfefferkorn thought. He crouched noiselessly and pulled a stone from the mud. It made a sucking sound but Fyothor did not notice. He was talking about coming to this spot as a boy, pouring out his troubles to the fish and the trees. He had not visited in years but he felt happy to be here now with Pfefferkorn, his friend. Sockdolager had said that the right place to inflict blunt-force trauma was at the temple, with its abundance of blood vessels and nerves. The important thing was to commit. A pulled punch was worse than no punch. Pfefferkorn rolled the stone in his hand. All the moisture in his mouth seemed to have been redirected to his palms. He was thinking of his one experience inflicting violence on another living being. His old apartment had mice. Usually they were clever enough to skirt the glue traps he put out, but one evening while reading he heard a series of frenzied squeaks. He went to the kitchen and found a mouse stuck by its hind legs. It was trying to pull itself across the linoleum by its front paws. He had given up on ever catching any mice and so had no plan for what to do if he did. He’d heard of people drowning them in a bucket of water. To him that sounded sadistic. He gave it some thought, then picked up the trap by the other end and put it in a shopping bag. He tied the bag shut and took it down to the street. The bag twitched and squeaked. He untied the handles and looked inside. The mouse was going berserk, like it knew what was coming. Pfefferkorn thought of removing it and setting it free but he was afraid of ripping its legs off. So he just looked at it for a long minute as it shrieked and clawed at the plastic. At times like that he wished he had become an electrician or a bus driver. Real men did not stand around, staring dumbly into a shopping bag. They knew what to do. But did the job make the man or vice versa? He retied the bag, lifted it high in the air, and smashed it against the curb. There was a crunching sound but he could still feel the mouse squirming. He smashed the bag again. The squirming stopped. He gave the bag one more whack and dropped it in the sidewalk bin before running upstairs to take a shower. Then as now his whole body shook. He broke the problem down into steps. He visualized. The problem with visualization was that, done well, it made the task ahead more concrete and divisible but also intensely tangible and gruesome. He was feeling the stinging reverberation in his palm as the rock made contact with Fyothor’s skull. He was seeing the bloom of blood and hearing a sound like a fistful of potato chips being crushed. He swallowed back acid and tightened his grip. He supposed he had killed plenty of spiders in his day, too, but they didn’t count. He stepped forward. Fyothor turned and saw what was happening and smiled knowingly and said “Ah yes” and with breathtaking speed his hand darted out and snatched the stone away. Pfefferkorn wheeled backward and dove to the ground, rolling with his arms clamped around his head for protection. He ended up crouched behind a log, poised and ready for action. But Fyothor was not charging him or taking out a gun. He was staring at him in unadulterated confusion. Pfefferkorn stared back. There was a silence as they stared at each other. Fyothor shrugged and wound up and sent the stone skimming across the pond. It bounced three times before sailing into the bushes on the far bank. He picked up another stone and offered it to Pfefferkorn. “Your turn.”
Pfefferkorn did not move.
Fyothor shrugged again and skimmed the second stone. “Akha,” he said. “Very poor. When I was young . . . pip, pip, pip, seven times or more.” He extended his arm along the imaginary trajectory. Then he addressed Pfefferkorn with a look of concern. “How is your lip?”
The back of Pfefferkorn’s neck prickled.
“To continue making that face for so long must be tiring. Certainly, there is no need to perform on my account.” Fyothor smiled faintly. “I can see the glue where it pushes out.”
Pfefferkorn said nothing.
“There have been others like you, before. None of them have survived.”
There were no other rocks within easy reach.
“You have secrets. I understand. Who among us does not? Who among us does not suffer because of them?”
There were no broken branches, either.
“You may speak freely. There are no listening devices here, I can assure you.” Fyothor paused expectantly. “Very well. This is something I understand, to be afraid to speak. We Zlabians understand it too well. But you must believe me, friend: the burden does not get lighter with time. It gets heavier. I know, because I am fifty-five years old and my own burdens are so heavy that often I feel I cannot go on. I think, sometimes, that I would like to sit down forever, to let the dust and the cobwebs cover me over. I might become a little mountain. I would like this very much. Mountains feel nothing, yes? Because I know that change will not come for me. I know this. Perhaps, though, if I become a mountain, others will climb upon me and stand upon my shoulders, and from there they will look into the future.”
There was a silence.
“No listening devices,” Pfefferkorn said.
“None.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I am sure.”
There was a silence.
“A tour guide,” Pfefferkorn said.
“In my spare time.”
“And in the rest of your time.”
Fyothor bowed. “I am but a humble servant of the Party.”
“Serving in what capacity.”
“Executive director for electronic monitoring,” Fyothor said. He bowed again. “Ministry of Surveillance.”
There was a silence.
“I see why you’re so popular,” Pfefferkorn said.
“I have thousands of friends,” Fyothor said. “Not one of them likes me.”