The Monastery, page 43
“Jackal! Where were you?” asked the first and pushed Artiom in the chest.
He smelled terrible, as though he were chasing his vodka with frog caviar seasoned with bog silt.
“I was checking on the rabbits in the attic,” Artiom answered without a pause.
“Ha! I told you,” said the second and pushed Artiom as well.
They walked into the room where the light was turned on — Artiom had left it on when he was running after the mugs — but they didn’t find what they were looking for.
“There are only fucking water rats here,” said one of the soldiers. He pulled the word “water” out of his mouth as though it were long and disgusting, like a worm.
“Hey, fucker! Where are the rabbits?” one of them called Artiom.
“He said already: in the attic,” the other remembered.
“Turn on the light, jackal,” the first commanded. “Can’t see shit.”
Artiom thought about it, then turned it on.
“There you go, fucker!” The guards rejoiced at the light, and, making a racket, climbed to the attic.
Stomping broke out in the attic, swearing and counter-swearing, more stomping — someone, it seems, had fallen down… then laughter.
“One’s enough,” said the soldier, coming down and hawking up phlegm.
Artiom turned aside, lest they spit on him. Then he took one more step back, lest they push him again.
“Is there anyone else here?” asked a soldier without looking at Artiom.
“No,” he answered.
“Any whores?”
“No,” Artiom repeated.
“Well, skin it and fry it,” said the soldier, shoving a rabbit with a broken neck into his hands.
“They’re going to be here all night,” Artiom thought feverishly.
The second soldier appeared, missed the last few steps and he counted them with the noise of his falling body.
He sat on the floor, then got up moaning. He noticed the rabbit in Artiom’s hands, silently took it, barking at his friend who was lost in the kitchen.
“Why the fuck did you give it to him? What, are we going to sit here with him? Let’s go get that… Lial’ka… in the female barracks. She’ll prepare it.
Artiom stood in place, praying that all this would end soon.
The guards moved something in the kitchen for another three minutes and then left without saying goodbye, leaving all the doors open.
Artiom slowly moved to follow them, afraid to curse his good luck. Outside, he saw it was a gorgeous white night — lighting up everything, as though naked. He quickly shut the door.
“Galia!” he called quietly.
She wasn’t in his guard-room. Nor in the laboratory. Nor in the other rooms.
Finally, he pulled aside a curtain in the kitchen and saw her. She was sitting on the windowsill, petting the cat.
The cat purred with his eyes closed, but he still peeked at Artiom with one of his eyes.
“He wanted to eat the pigs too,” she whispered, nodding at the cat.
“The soldiers were standing right next to her,” Artiom realized. He almost laughed. Good thing the curtain was opaque; what if it weren’t?
Galia was completely sober.
“I’ve scratched myself,” she said with a clear voice. “There’s a nail here somewhere.” She showed him a finger with a crimson drop on it.
Artiom took Galia by the wrist and licked off the blood, immediately wiped his tongue on the back of his own hand and licked off her blood again.
“The water’s singing. Like a grouse,” she said, listening.
It was pouring from the faucet and then, with a barely audible gurgle, poured out somewhere under the floorboards.
In the morning, Artiom, when he was admitting the scientists, forgot the most important thing.
That same evening in the iodine plant, Troianskii met him with a look as though he had just found out everything about Artiom — the most horrible and most impossible truths. And now Osip didn’t know what to do with that knowledge.
“I didn’t tell you in the morning, I’m sorry,” Artiom said with a quick apologetic whisper. He took Troianskii into his room and in vivid, yet mainly invented, details told him about the drunk soldiers.
He also added the fib that they took not one rabbit, but two.
“You have to write an official complaint about this to the administrative section,” Osip immediately said. “Otherwise, they’ll demand it of us.”
“What are you talking about?” Artiom answered quietly. “I won’t write anything. Tomorrow they’ll come and twist my head off.”
“Are you a coward?” asked Osip, spitting the word coward from his lips to such a degree that it was as though it still hung to his lips, stuck on the last letter.
“Only insofar as you’re an idiot,” thought Artiom, sincerely bored from this stupid conversation and only thinking about how best to accompany these devils out of the building.
“Osip, did you ask your friend?” asked another learned fellow, coming into the room. He had a rabbit head in his hands, complete with its ears, its backbone, and a few other furry scraps.
“Yes, by the way,” Osip raised his hands. “What’s this then?”
Artiom had thrown the rabbit out the window last night, together with the cat. The cat immediately started to gnaw at the dead rabbit meat. Artiom was sure that no traces would be left.
All the more so considering there were bushes under the window. What sort of demon the scientists were looking for in those bushes, he had no idea.
“… At least it could have chewed off the ears, the Chekist pest,” thought Artiom, and, snickering, asked, “You’re trying to say that I ate two rabbits? Raw? Together with their fur? And didn’t finish the second’s head?”
“And you’re trying to say that the Chekists ate the rabbits raw?” asked Osip.
Hearing about the Chekists, the second scientists, coughing, left the room. He carried away the rabbit’s head, holding it by the ears.
“They didn’t eat them; they took them away,” Artiom repeated patiently.
“Oh sure,” Osip sarcastically grimaced. “Then they tore off the head of one of them and threw it under the window. Can you describe to me in detail how that looked?”
“I wasn’t watching it, Osip, I don’t know,” said Artiom, looking Osip in the eyes and grudging the fact that he had absolutely no energy left to strike that thin and sarcastic person on the face. That would have been completely wrong — he was no Sorokin, nor a Passport with his wet lip.
“So,” said Osip with a look as though he were standing on a cathedra. “Either you write a complaint to the administration or we will be forced to write it ourselves.”
“Go ahead,” Artiom offered amicably. “Only get the hell out of here quickly.”
“What does that mean, ‘get the hell out of here’?” Osip squawked. “It’s you who have nothing to do here! We’re not going to be returning to the city any more. Too much time lost in the journey.”
“What ‘city’?” Artiom didn’t understand.
“The monastery, the kremlin — there, that prison,” said Osip quickly.
In the crack in the door the learned fellow appeared again, this time without a rabbit, but behind his back a third figure shone from his wise, bald head.
“You have no right. Go away!” Artiom repeated again, understanding that now he was looking completely stupid.
The scientists looked at each other and each smirked in turn — it seemed that this was how they socialized with each other.
“Look at what he has, my friends!” said one of the scientists, pointing.
All three stared at something confounding.
Artiom looked aside, expecting this time to see a half-eaten guinea pig.
But no, it was a half-drunk bottle of vodka.
All the scientists laughed as one, only not Osip.
He left, disdainfully flapping the edge of his coat.
Artiom, forgetting himself, ran after them into their lounge, grabbed the first bottle that he saw and threw it against the wall.
It’s not that the learned people expressed an immediate readiness to start a fight, even with their superior numbers. However, neither did their eyes show any fear.
“He’s still drunk,” said one of them.
“Tomorrow we will write a detailed report concerning your behavior,” another one quietly promised Artiom, though he sat with his back to him and didn’t even turn to look at him.
Artiom ran outside, he wanted to immediately go into the kremlin, but immediately changed his mind. He had to meet Galia and tell her everything.
“Where does she usually wait?” thought Artiom, looking around. His heart thumped in his chest, his lips quivered — everything was impossibly upsetting and stupid.
Suddenly he understood that he had to climb the roof — he could see better from there.
He returned to the building, immediately climbed to the attic; a thought flitted past him to choke the rest of the rabbits and throw them down for the enjoyment of the scientists…
He couldn’t see Galia anywhere.
As strange as it may seem, the birds were still singing in the soft evening light, in the gentle warmth of the approaching white night of Solovki. The singing was also quiet and warm.
A cuckoo flew up somewhere very close and trilled. Artiom looked for it — there, it sat right on the post in the yard — what a large bird! It was the first time in his life that he saw a cuckoo.
It also saw Artiom and immediately flew from its place, quickly flapping its big wings.
Turns out you could also see the sea from here.
It lay immovable, as though dead. You could see stony islands in it. Artiom stared into the depths of the waters for a long time.
His heart slowly calmed down.
The sun didn’t set downwards as it did over there, in Russia, but it seemed to roll along the horizon, gradually descending.
The sun looked as though it were melting and oozing like ice cream, and by the time it got below the horizon, nothing would be left. Tomorrow it would rise, but instead of a huge sun, it would be a clipped, barely warm ball, all frazzled with embarrassment.
They say that the sun here rises and sets almost exactly over the North Pole. That means North is over there.
“… What if we go into Philip’s cell?” thought Artiom, noticing the log hut in the front yard. “Grandfather Philip, allow us our sin, we’ll do it quietly…”
The mosquitoes were completely gone.
The clouds were pink and purposeful, foaming beautifully and aromatically, like French soap.
He could also see the lake. On the water, from time to time, quick circles appeared — probably those were the same musk beavers introduced by Eichmanis.
If not for the circles, the lake would have appeared to be as immovable and hard as steel. The setting sun licked that steel, just like children who used to lick metal when it was frozen during their Russian childhood — but the sun’s tongue didn’t stick to the lake.
They’re going to take this job away from me — what am I guarding here anyway?” Artiom was suddenly afraid. “Am I guarding the scientists…? Plus, with their report, oh!”
Galia needed to appear quickly and resolve all his doubts.
Artiom searched with his eyes first here, then there, then once again he grew quiet, not breathing. While he was on the roof, nothing was happening and nothing would happen. Only the rabbits romped about underneath him.
Artiom heard someone climb to the attic. “They’re checking if I’m eating another rabbit, my eyes sparkling in the half-gloom.”
He was barely calming down when once again his heart began to ache unpleasantly. Why couldn’t he live in peace at least for a week? Artiom imagined himself to be either an animal or a person who was climbing up a cliff — at first, one stone collapsed under his foot, then another… then some bird began to circle around his liver — he couldn’t push her away with his hands or spit on it…
He felt all this so keenly that he caught himself holding the roof with all his might.
Good thing he was holding on, because he suddenly saw someone in the forest.
For a moment, he stared at him — maybe it was a mirage… He waved at the person, but the person didn’t answer.
“Galia? No? If it’s Galia, then why is she coming from the other side of the road? In some kind of strange, unfamiliar shirt…”
Artiom, trying not to make too much noise, descended… It turned out that all the scientists had gone to sleep already. The most uneasy of them, it seems, had just checked the rabbits and went to bed.
Beyond the well, through the gate, turning off at a little distance, Artiom went into the forest to the place where he saw the person.
“It’s probably Galia, or who else? I won’t even say hello, but I’ll just kiss her,” he decided.
In the forest, it was much darker than on the roof, but he thought he had memorized the direction well enough.
From the unexpectedness, Artiom uttered a completely new noise: “Khak!” it was torn from him, as though a small bone had just fallen out of his throat.
An old man stood before him.
Possibly an old man.
Afterwards, Artiom tried to remember what he was like, but it was as though someone added color to the white night — a thick, foggy-white color — again, and again, until the entire face was rubbed out.
He wasn’t naked — he had a shirt on, and on his legs, it seems, there were some pants; but were there any shoes, or bast woven slippers, or boots? It was more like he was grown into the earth like a tree — or what?
His feet probably drowned in the grass.
He was as tall as Artiom, his beard was as white as the white night of Solovki. You couldn’t see his eyes.
“Who are you?” breathed out Artiom, staying a few steps away. But he himself didn’t want to know who it was — he only spoke to make sure that he hadn’t lost his wits from terror.
Artiom was suddenly covered in sweat up to his waist and, without waiting for an answer, in mid-stride, turned around and ran back to the windows where there were people — living, domestic, human people.
No one called after him.
In the morning, after an accidental, absurd, short sleep, it seemed to Artiom that when he ran, the old man was extending his hand towards him, and there were berries in that hand. But how could he have seen that?
When the sun had come up, all of yesterday had become not frightening and even, to use the proper word, idiotic.
Artiom walked to that place and naturally he found no footprints; but he didn’t really search for them. He needed to see Galia as soon as possible.
“Maybe she changed her mind?” he asked himself, kicking up moss and grass with his feet.
“Changed her mind about what?” he answered himself.
The scientists were still sleeping.
To not meet with them, he decided to immediately go — as it was now, apparently, acceptable to call it — into the city.
When he was already leaving, he heard the squeaking of the guinea pigs; they had grown accustomed to their morning feeding; but he didn’t go back — let the scientists feed them.
Some kind of bird accompanied Artiom, flying from tree to tree.
Fireweed flowers, which not long ago had covered everything, were falling off and everywhere stood clipped broom handles.
But at least he could smell mushrooms.
People were walking toward him — probably on their way to their morning work. In a minute, Artiom recognized with surprise some people from his former brigade — the feeling wasn’t the most pleasant.
It seemed that they would all begin to point at him and yell: “Look! A lazy bum! And he’s avoiding his work! Make him go to the logs with us!”
He almost jumped; he wanted to turn back and go in the opposite direction. But it would have looked completely stupid.
They recognized him as well; the faces almost came back to life.
Artiom suddenly understood how much better he looked than those who were walking towards him. They looked wrung out, with black shadows under their eyes, with sunken mouths — grey old people.
Passport shook his lip in such a way that it seemed that it was swinging back and forth like a censer and he kept prodding Shaferbekov, who was walking ahead, but he wasn’t answering. He had seen Artiom himself well enough.
Shaferbekov was thinking about something but couldn’t come up with an answer.
Sivtsev kept looking at Artiom as though with hope: maybe he would give them some good news or a piece of pie.
“Even Samovar’s here!” Artiom was surprised to see the former general’s batman, who had begun to serve Burtsev in faith and truth; however, his new master didn’t take him with him to the IID — he was a relic, after all. So go on, uncle, to your logs. We Soviet people know how to clean our own boots.
“Should I greet them or not?” Artiom quickly tried to decide. By that time, they had gotten close to each other. Artiom nodded at Sivtsev. The batman, not greeting him, carried his samovarian face onward. “Old idiot,” Artiom laughed, without looking away, for all that, from Passport’s lip or Shaferbekov’s red cheek.
It was a good thing that the group was accompanied by a foreman and two soldiers, or who knows what would have happened…
With every step, like a blind, half-buried turtle, the monastery crawled towards Artiom.
But it was closer than he realized and he had a slightly different impression. He saw the red cupolas of the kremlin, covered in gold — and if he squinted, the feeling arose that the sun was pouring with warm waves along the golden metal.
“I should tell Afanasiev about this, maybe it’ll be useful,” Artiom made a note to himself.
He walked towards the gates by the wide arc — so that he could see the building where Galia lived — next to the monastery, in the Petrograd dormitory where all the Chekists lived, on the second floor. Artiom had walked past that house several times, but he didn’t know her window. However, he did know many other things, and that knowledge made his head spin.
“Your pass?” asked the soldier.
