The developments detailed above do not permit the Government of the Holy Roman Empire to henceforth maintain the patient and long-suffering stance which it has adopted for years in the face of events begun first in Tver and thence propagated throughout the territory of the Empire.
On the contrary, these circumstances compel it to bring to an end all such activities that threaten the peace within the Empire. Towards the achievement of these ends the Government of the Holy Roman Empire finds it necessary to demand that the Slovenorussian Government make an official statement to the effect that it condemns all propaganda directed against the Holy Roman Empire and that, as proof of the sincerity of this statement, it will withdraw all of its armed forces from the border of the Empire to the Marburg-Leibach-Trieste Line and return these cities, as well as the Istrian Peninsula, to the rightful possession of the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
The Government of the Holy Roman Empire expects the answer of the Government of the Slovenorussian Confederation no later than six o’clock on Thursday evening, the eleventh of March of the current year.
I knew these words only too well. There was a time when I had read them repeatedly and knew them by heart. I had kept the yellowed sheets of writing paper on which the ultimatum was printed at our dacha, between pages 44 and 45 of an ancient issue of Youth, coverless and thick with dust.
The letter and appendix stayed hidden in the magazine for almost seven years. All that time I was afraid someone would find it, someone who was looking specifically for the ultimatum, or else that, one fine summer evening as darkness fell, the last remaining document connected to Istemi, Khan of Zaporozhye, would be used to kindle the family campfire—vodka, potatoes, the mournful strains of ‘Black Raven’ and the buzz of mosquitoes here for the warm season.
But nothing happened to the ultimatum at the dacha. I brought it home again in the early 1990s—by then it was no longer dangerous. But at home I lost it. There’s no point describing just how hard I searched for it. Words are insufficient. Soon I moved to a new apartment, then another. The ultimatum—sent by Karl XX, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, to the President of the Sloveno-russian Confederation, Stefan Betancourt, and copied to the President of the United Islamic Caliphates, Caliph Al-Ali, the Lama of Mongolia, Undur Gegen, the Khan of the Khanate of Zaporozhye, Istemi—the last and only remaining document, in my safekeeping, that referred to the history of those states had disappeared.
But evidently someone still had a copy. Who? I rang Kurochkin. Kurochkin didn’t answer.
1984
Getting arrested, it seemed, was a bit of a laugh. At first. As long as the serious, remarkably similar faces that had suddenly surrounded me remained unfamiliar, as long as my grasp of the absurdity of the situation did not give way to an uneasy sense of reality, hard and irrefutable as stone, as long as I was freely able to feel and think, it was fun.
They began by searching the house. The search lasted twenty hours, even though all the Khanate documents they were looking for—diplomatic correspondence, reconnaissance reports, extracts from the government’s annual report—were lying on the window ledge in three messy heaps and in a folder on my desk. All they had to do was neatly gather the papers together, put them in special canvas bags, and seal the bags. It would have taken thirty minutes. Half an hour. As for the remaining nineteen and a half hours, they could have had some beer, or vodka if they wanted it. Mama would have boiled some potatoes, sliced up some sausage and got out a jar of pickled gherkins. My mother made the most wonderful pickled gherkins, with garlic and dill, cherry leaves on occasion, sometimes even black currant leaves. So, instead of wallowing in the dust under the sofa, rapping at the walls and the floor, moving bookcases and taking down shelves without putting them back again, disturbing my books and underwear and old notebooks, instead of all that they could have munched on gherkins and burnt the tips of their fingers and tongues on tasty hot potatoes, drunk some beer and had a laugh. Afterwards they might have had a little nap. And all the while the sacks with the Khanate documents would just have been lying there, safely sealed and in the corner of the room. Then they would have woken up and gone off happily to work. Taking me with them.
They certainly took me with them. But they went away feeling bad-tempered, hungry and sleep-deprived. And I went with them feeling bad-tempered, hungry and confused. I didn’t understand what was happening.
The interrogations began several days later. Major Sinevusov, round and sallow pink, alternately oozed oil and venom. Once he finished with formalities he asked me to draw him a map of the Zaporozhye Khanate. He handed me a light-blue topographic map, the kind used in schools, and a red marker, bright and moist.
‘Roughly like this,’ I said a few minutes later and handed the map back to him.
The red line demarcating the territory of the Khanate from adjacent states ran along the southern and western borders of Bulgaria, cut across Romania and Ukraine and headed east just north of the small border town of Kiev. From the confluence of the Voronezh and the Don, the line followed the Don until it emptied into the Sea of Azov.
‘Roughly like this, then… roughly like this…’ The pores of Sinevusov’s face were glistening with oil. He took a handkerchief and mopped his forehead, cheeks and neck. ‘So that’s the Khanate of Zaporozhye?’
I nodded.
‘What about the capital? Why haven’t you shown the capital?’
‘The capital is Uman.’
‘Uman?’
‘Two million two hundred thousand inhabitants, according to the 1980 census. Uman.’
‘Uh-huh,’ the major snorted. ‘Put it on the map?’
I shrugged. ‘Sure.’
‘Uman—Two million two hundred thousand… So what else can you tell me? Pretend I’ve never heard anything about this state… which, in fact, I haven’t. Tell me more.’
‘What do you want me to say?’ I asked uncertainly. ‘That’s all there is to the entire state.’
‘Take your time,’ he said. ‘There’s no hurry, right? Be thorough. Give me details. Let’s begin with the way it’s organized. What’s the socio-political system?’
‘Constitutional monarchy.’
‘Excellent. A constitutional monarchy. Like Britain?’
‘Not quite. Everyone knows that the British queen reigns but doesn’t rule. The khan, however, wields real power, and his power is handed down by succession.’
‘What an old-fashioned form of government you have in your Khanate,’ said Sinevusov, not quite asking but without drawing a conclusion either.
I wasn’t going to argue, but I added, ‘The prime minister is appointed by the khan but approved by the parliament. The laws are ratified by the parliament but approved by the khan.’
‘Like I was saying,’ Sinevusov nodded, ‘an old-fashioned form of government. Very nineteenth century. Who’s looking after the interests of the working class? Or the laboring peasantry? Hmm? Enough. We can discuss that later. Carry on. Population size? Key branches of industry?’
‘The population is 118 million—’
‘According to the 1980 census?’
‘Yes.’
‘Brilliant. Carry on.’
‘It has a territory of one million one hundred thousand square kilometers. The state language is Zaporozhian—’
‘Even its own language…’
‘The monetary unit is the grivna. The state religion is Judaism.’
‘You’ve got Jews living there?’
‘No, Zaporozhians.’
‘And the religion is Judaism?’