"That, Timur-Bey said, used to be one of the oldest buildings of the Kremlin."
"It's all stone now, Galina said.
"It used to be all wood, Timur-Bey said, his almond-shaped eyes dark and stark in the grounded starlight. I remember it; the Tatars burned a few of those palaces and they kept burning throughout history. Your people rebuilt them in stone, but some of the old buildings made it here. This one I hear that Napoleon burned it Moscow burned for many days then."
Moscow burned for many days then. Historians argue about who started the fires. Some said it was the Russians, intent on depriving the invaders of food and shelter. They burned the houses and the food stores, the shops and the warehouses; they did not care that the privation would affect them too. Others said that the Napoleonic troops burned the Kremlin on purpose and everything else by accident, due to the windy weather and too many unattended cooking fires in their encampments. Yakov didn't know who it was, and it didn't seem important to him, but he did wonder how the soldiers they had seen-Petro and the corporal and the rest-ended up here. He could imagine it now-burned and injured, suffocating from smoke, their mouths tasting of ash, they stumbled through fire and sparks, wincing at the crashing of the great beams of the palace burning around them. They must've seen the doorway, distorted by heat and smoke, and rushed through. He thought they were soldiers, probably used to fighting and routing and shooting and stabbing, but not this, not being caught in a burning building, gilded with molten flames. He imagined a despair great enough, a fear powerful enough to pick up the ghost of the stately building that roared and collapsed in a tornado of fire and howling smoke, and to bring it with them underground even though Yakov suspected that they were not as much underground as on the other side, in some unseen lining of the known world.
Zemun had done a bit of reconnaissance-she knew the sheds and the piles of firewood in the yard, the small barracks where the soldiers with burned hair and boiled white eyes sat in dreamless sleep all night long. She still did not know who was inside, since the palace's gates were locked tight. They decided to wait until morning, hiding in one of the sheds filled with half-rotten logs and rusted axes.
Galina kept looking up, searching for something in the molded ceiling beams.
Yakov guessed that she was looking for birds. They're not there, he whispered.
She nodded, still looking up, as if expecting them to materialize out of the surrounding stale air. Yakov looked too, squinting up into the cupped ceiling, where shadows grew dense in the corners, reaching for the thickly hewn supports and twining around them in an elaborate chiaroscuro. If he squinted and tilted his head, the shadows shifted and something glinted between his eyelashes, impossible to see directly but shifting to the corners of his vision and dancing and taunting, they twinkled like the stars that fell out of Zemun's udders, like large slow drops of magical milk.
Galina watched them too; she asked, Did you have a kaleidoscope when you were a kid?"
"Of course, Yakov said. Show me a kid who didn't."
Sergey the rook squawked in the affirmative on Yakov's shoulder, and Yakov felt sudden and acute pity for this man, a criminal imprisoned in a bird's body, at yet another similarity, another reminder that he used to be a child too, and that he and Yakov shared many experiences, few things being unique in the mass-manufactured Soviet childhood.
"Did you ever break yours open? Yakov asked Galina.
She smiled, finally looking away from the ceiling and meeting his eyes. Of course. Every kid does-how can you not want to see all those treasures inside?"
Yakov smiled at the memory. There was nothing of interest inside that cardboard tube, slightly dented at the end where the plastic caps fitted, one of them with an eyepiece. There were several small mirrors inside that tube, and nothing but a button, a glass bead and several triangular pieces of colored paper. That was messed up, he said. I cried for hours afterwards."
Galina nodded. It's funny how everyone goes through this kaleidoscope thing. You think the adults do it on purpose?"
"Why?"
"To teach the kids something I don't know."
Sergey huffed. Teach what? The illusory nature of the world?"
Galina shrugged. Maybe. Or the futility of beauty, or something depressing like that. I still don't understand adults, even though I am one myself."
"No you're not, Sergey said. You don't have kids. Neither do I, so don't feel bad. See, I figured it all out guarding the nuclear silo-I always felt like a kid, you know, just playing a game or something, like I just pretended to be a soldier with a stick for a gun. And there was a lot of time to think. So I figured it all out. You're either a parent or you're a kid. As long as you don't have kids of your own and become a parent, you're a kid. So, Yakov, what are you?"
Yakov couldn't decide which one he was-neither a child nor a parent felt right. I don't know, he said. But that day when I broke that kaleidoscope, I swore that my kids would never have one of those things. Damn depressing, and a horrible toy to give to anyone. I wouldn't be one of those asshole parents that teach kids nothing but how much everything sucks and that the world is messed up."
"It is messed up, Galina said. In case you haven't noticed, we're underground. With a talking cow and Koschey the Deathless, about to ask a bunch of soldiers circa 1812 why on earth did they kill a beloved fairytale character with a bayonet. Also, my sister is missing."
"I'm sorry about that, Yakov said. That part is indeed messed up. But everything else it's not too bad. Is it?"
"No, Galina said. It's not. I always dreamt of a secret place like that I just wish I found it under better circumstances."
"You can't get here under better circumstances, Timur-Bey said from the darkness in the corner of the shed. Haven't you been paying attention?"
"Perhaps we should sleep a bit, Sergey said, and hid his head under his wing.
"I don't feel like it, Yakov said.
Galina snuggled against Zemun's flank. Neither do I."
Zemun smiled. She seemed content now, peaceful. Why sleep when you can talk? she said. Just keep it down. There are enemies afoot."
Yakov moved closer to Galina. Sorry if it's too personal, he said. But you mentioned-that you were hospitalized before?"
Galina let his half-question hang, unanswered, for a few seconds as she frowned as if gathering her thoughts. Schizophrenia, she said, finally.
Yakov was surprised. She didn't seem crazy, at least most of the time. You look normal to me, he finally mumbled, and cringed. Now she would think that he doubted her veracity.
"Thanks, she said instead. It comes and goes. They call it sluggish schizophrenia-ever heard of it?"
He did. It was a fake diagnosis for political malcontents, as far as he remembered. A convenient way of oppression that did not require prisons. He looked at Galina with pity-she seemed like such a small woman, so hurt and broken up about her sister, so driven with the desperate resolve of the one who had very little of value in life and would fight for the last thing that was left for her.
He didn't know how to tell her, and whether he should tell her at all-that the disease they diagnosed her with did not really exist, that it was a fabrication. He wondered if it would do any good to tell a person who believed herself crippled that she was not-would it fix her, or would it become a crushing burden? He tried to imagine what it would be like, to reconsider his concept of self, to find that he was not what he thought he was-would it be liberating or devastating? Yes, he finally said. I heard of it. You seem to be dealing with it well."