Did rounds of the city every day. He’d go to the gas station – they’d pour him a shot of 95, he’d down it straight, and see better. If things didn’t look sharper, it meant boys were mixing the good stuff with 76, he’d send the whole crew to the logging farm, “to the mosquitoes,” they’d straighten up in a blink – he wasn’t Yakuza or something, never chopped fingers. Then he’d visit his laundries, walk between spinning drums, watch his money dry, with the tips of his fingers he could sense second-rate work, punished the slackers, rewarded a beautiful job. Stuffed his pockets with bills, but didn’t take dirty ones – didn’t like the way they’d stick and wad up. Drove to his restaurant, held court, heard complaints, helped some folks, broke fights, rarely showed his teeth. Really, he only came to life if there was a raid, but raids were few and far between – his pawns in the proper corridors ran like clockwork. On City Day he stood on the Archdeacon’s right, and held his candle straight. The crowd whispered about him behind his back, in fear and awe.
He went abroad once – didn’t like it. Started running away to the woods, to a hut that looked like the one in which he’d been born. He went to hunt, the story was. Deep in the woods, alone, he’d drop his clothes, do a flip and his body would turn – scaly and covered with reddish-gray fur. He’d spend the night roaming under the trees, startling pigs, would sometimes wrangle a moose and drink the blood from its throat – to keep fit. His bodyguards knew nothing – he told himself; he could no longer see the way people looked at him when he came back. They looked with fear, they fawned: at night in the woods, the gleam in his eyes burned bright and dyed his pupils red, and the eyes would give him away, but he wasn’t one to look in the mirrors when he came back.
And still, in the woods he also got bored. No beast was his match – in speed, in wits, in pure strength – none of the many he’d seen in his life, all ferocious and merciless. Those who crossed him cooled their heels in the graveyard, and those who were smarter left him alone, and he did not bother them. And so it went, as the story goes.
Then – he must’ve lost his grip and slipped. Was walking in the forest, came to a clearing, sniffed – something seemed wrong. Looked up, scanned the tree line. All was quiet – too quiet indeed. You can’t hear a bullet lying inside the gun. You don’t smell a trigger yield.
He flew back a few steps, fell and died.
Three men in camouflage dropped from tree stands. Approached carefully, guns cocked.
“Look... his ears are down.”
Spade, who was in charge of the hunt, prodded the now harmless bulk of him, and pulled out his cell phone.
“Done, Comrade General. Positive – dead as a doornail.”
And fished for his flask in his backpack.
“Good job, boys, you’re all going to the Maldives. Bury him here,” he offered a drink to his whippers-in. “Whiskey, 12 years old.”
“And this ‘un here – all he drank was gas... Gave me an ulcer. Now this! That’s good shit.”
“What if we saved his head and stuffed it?”
“Are you nuts? They’d pack us in for poaching – these things all died out, he’s the last big one that was left! Damn reptile.”
“Don’t be so harsh, Vasya, let’s drink to the repose of his soul, poor sinner. His time’s over, it’s our time now,” the man drank, exhaled, and laughed with relief – a horsey, giggling laugh.
A neigh called back from the river – a young stallion tried out his voice, happy to be alive. The men spit into their hands, pulled the shovels they’d brought with them from the bushes and started digging a reptile-sized grave.
Karaoke
Hardy, orange-tinted apples hung on the branches. Father Artemon kept watch over the tree all through September, happy with how the Antonov apples were ripening. On the first Sunday in November – the bishop’s name day – Father Artemon rose before dawn and gathered a large basketful. So as not to spoil the beauty of the fruit, he did not wipe off the cool, damp droplets of evening rain. He walked through the city to the bishop’s residence and was let into the waiting room by a servant. He sat down on a chair outside the high office. The bishop had yet to arrive, and the church high priest and secretary of the eparchy were waiting for him in his office. The door was ajar and Father Artemon heard the servant’s voice: “…has come to intercede for Pavlin.”
“Three years he’s been interceding. That monkey-lover just won’t let it go,” the secretary sneered.
Four years earlier, the bishop sent the old priest into retirement: with his poor eyesight, Father Artemon had, in his church, administered communion to a chimpanzee, taking him to be a holy fool. Father Artemon, to be fair, had a different view of things: Foma the monkey had saved the church icon from a ferocious thief, laying down his life in the process, and Father Artemon faithfully believed that the monkey was an enchanted human being, and not a mute beast, but he had obeyed the bishop’s order. Now he stood through church services alongside the choir, thinking of how he might atone his sin: because of him, another priest – Father Pavlin Pridvorov, the one who had informed on Father Artemon – had also been banished from the city, to serve in Soggy Tundra. Pavlin, owing to his youthful mind, had entertained wild ideas and thirsted for a career. This was always repugnant to Father Artemon, but he had only to recall the poverty and utter hopelessness of his rural childhood, and he would begin to feel sorry for Pavlin’s six children,7 banished to the land of mosquitoes for their father’s mistake. Father Artemon had the dream of restoring the disgraced priest to the lush city post before he died. He believed that the bishop would listen to his entreaties and at first did not attach any significance to the secretary’s evil tongue.
The voice of the high priest floated out the office door:
“…He wrote a letter to the chief conservationist: ‘All the princes and persons of eminence in this world have given to the church, so why can’t the artist show his generosity and, out of his honorarium, give Father Pavlin a karaoke machine, in addition to the refrigerator and television he had already contributed, for which he would be inscribed in the church rosters as a warden and be eternally commemorated throughout the parish.’ That’s something, eh?”
“He’s indulging his fancy… We all know what he wants that karaoke for,” the secretary replied. “He is weaving intrigues. When we go out to sanctify that church, you keep Pavlin away from the Minister, while I keep him from the bishop. We keep our eyes peeled, and we’ll get through cleanly. I’ll get the message to the artist to not gift that karaoke.”
Father Artemon left the bucket with its greeting card in the corridor and quietly retreated. At home, he took his savings from beneath an icon and bought the best karaoke machine he could find in the department store, then boarded a bus for Soggy Tundra.
The Minister who is now all-powerful was born 57 years ago in Soggy Tundra. And now, as has become the custom at the pinnacles of power, he decided to restore the single little church in his tiny hometown. The restoration team had been working for two years, and the opening of the church was planned for Christmas, in the presence of the church leadership, politicians and the press. Everyone knew that after the holiday feast both the Minister and the bishop loved to sing Russian folk songs using a karaoke machine. Thus the lachrymose appeal to the brigadier of the restorers, which had somehow been intercepted by the eparchy. Father Pavlin’s calculations were precise: after the lavish feast and libations, the bishop’s and minister’s souls would thaw, songs would soften them to tears, and it would be the perfect moment to throw oneself at their feet and beg for forgiveness and a transfer – it hardly seemed likely that the bishop could refuse him in front of the worldly boss.