Day of the Oprichnik

Indescribable. Because it’s so divine.

Reclining on the soft chaise lounges after oprichnik copulation is like the bliss of paradise. The light is on, buckets of champagne sit on the floor, forest air, Rachmaninov’s Second Concerto for piano and orchestra. Our Batya likes to listen to the Russian classics after copulation. We lie there weakly. The lights in our genitals go out. We drink silently, catch our breath.

Wisely, oh so wisely, Batya arranged everything with the caterpillar. Before it, everyone broke off in pairs, and the shadow of dangerous disorder lay across the oprichnina. Now there’s a limit to the pleasures of the steam. We work together, and take our pleasure together. And the tablets help. And wisest of all is that the young oprichniks are always stuck at the tail of the caterpillar. This is wise for two reasons: first of all, the young ones know their place in the oprichnik hierarchy; second, the seed moves from the tail of the caterpillar to the head, which symbolizes the eternal cycle of life and the renewal of our brotherhood. On the one hand, the young respect the old; on the other, they replenish them. That’s our foundation. And thank God.

It’s pleasant to sip Szechuan champagne, feeling how healthy oprichnik seed soaks into the walls of the large intestine. Health isn’t the least thing in our dangerous life. I take care of mine: I play skittles twice a week, then I swim, I drink maple juice with ground wild strawberries, I eat overgrown fern seeds, I breathe properly. Other oprichniks strengthen their bodies as well.

Batya is informed from above that Count Urusov has appeared. The bath attendants hand out sheets to everyone. Covering our extinguished private parts, we lie back on our chairs. The count enters from the bathhouse dressing room. He’s wrapped his sheet to look like a Roman toga. The count is a stocky man; he has white skin and thin legs, a large head and short neck. His face, as usual, is gloomy. But something new is imprinted on this well-known face.

We look at him silently, as though he were a ghost: previously we saw this man only when we were wearing tuxedos or gold-embroidered caftans.

“Health to you, oprichniks,” the count says in a flat voice.

“Health to you, Count,” we answer separately.

Batya, lying on his chaise, says nothing. The count’s mirthless eyes find him:

“Hello, Boris Borisovich.”

And…he bows to the waist.

Our jaws drop. Now that’s heavy. Count Urusov the mighty, all-powerful, unapproachable, bowing to the waist in front of our Batya. Makes you remember the ancient: sic transit gloria mundi.

Batya takes his time standing up.

“To your health, Count.”

He bows in reply, crosses his arms on his stomach, and looks at the count silently. Our Batya is a head taller than Urusov.

“So then, I decided to visit you,” the count says, breaking the silence. “I’m not intruding, am I?”

“We’re always happy to have guests,” says Batya. “There’s still some steam.”

“I’m not terribly keen on steam baths. I have a pressing matter to discuss with you, one that will brook no delay. Shall we retire to a more private setting?”

“I have no secrets from the oprichniks, Count,” Batya answers calmly, making a sign to the attendants. “Champagne?”

The glum count purses his lips, glances at us sideways with the eyes of a wolf. And he is a wolf—only exhausted, at bay. Cao brings them champagne. Batya takes a slender glass, gulps it down, puts it back on the tray, and grunts as he wipes his mustache. Urusov only puts his lips to the glass, as though it were hemlock.

“We’re listening, dear Andrei Vladimirovich!” Batya says in a loud voice. He lowers himself onto his chaise lounge again. “Lie down, don’t be shy.”

The count sits sideways on the chaise and locks his fingers together:

“Boris Borisovich, you’re aware of my situation?”

“I’m aware.”

“I fell from grace.”

Batya nods. “It happens.”

“To what extent, I don’t yet know. But I hope that sooner or later His Majesty will forgive me.”

Batya nods again. “His Majesty is merciful.”

“I have a proposition for you. My accounts are frozen by His Majesty’s decree, and my trade and manufacturing properties have been expropriated, but His Majesty left me my personal property.”

“Thank God.” Batya belches Chinese carbon dioxide.

The count looks at his well-groomed nails, touches his ring with the diamond hedgehog, and pauses. Then he speaks:

“I have an estate near Moscow, in the Pereyaslavsky district, and one near Voronezh, in Divnogor. And of course the house on Piatnitsky Street, you’ve been there…”

“I’ve been there.” Batya inhales.

“So this is the offer, Boris Borisovich. I give the house on Piatnitsky to the oprichnina.”

Silence. Batya says nothing. Urusov says nothing. Nor do we. Cao freezes with an uncorked bottle of Szechuan champagne in his hand. Urusov’s house on Piatnitsky…It’s shameful to even call it a house: it’s a palace! Columns of layered marble, a roof with sculpture and vases, openwork grills, gatekeepers with halberds, stone lions…I haven’t been inside, but it isn’t hard to imagine that it’s even more incredible inside. They say that the count’s drawing room floor is transparent, and that under it—there’s an aquarium with sharks. And all the sharks are striped like tigers. How inventive!

“The house on Piatnitsky.” Batya squints. “Why such a valuable gift?”

“It isn’t a gift. You and I are businesspeople. I give you the house, you give me a roof over my head, protection. When I’m back in good graces—I’ll add more. I won’t forget you.”

“It’s a serious proposition,” says Batya, squinting and casting his gaze over us. “We’ll have to discuss it. All right, who’s first?”

The sophisticated Vosk raises his hand.

“Why don’t we hear the young ones first.” Batya glances at the youngest. “All right?”

The ever alert Potyka raises his hand.

“If you’ll permit me, Batya!”

“Go on, Potyka, speak.”

“Forgive me, Batya, but it seems to me that there’s no benefit for us in protecting dead men. Because a dead man doesn’t care whether there’s a roof over his head or not. For that matter, it’s not a roof he needs, but a coffin.”

Silence hangs in the bathhouse. It’s silent as the grave. The count turns green. Batya smacks his lips:

“So you see, Count. Note that this is the voice of our young people. You can imagine what the elder oprichniks would have to say about your proposition?”

The count licks his bloodless lips:

“Listen, Boris. You and I aren’t children. What dead man? What coffin? So I fell under His Majesty’s hot hand, but it’s not forever! His Majesty knows how much I’ve done for Russia! A year will pass—and he’ll forgive me! And you’ll still have the profit!”

Batya frowns:

“You think he’ll forgive you?”

“I’m certain.”

“Oprichniks, what do you think: Will His Majesty forgive the count or not?”

“No-o-o-o,” we answer in unison.

Batya’s hands gesture in dismay.

“You see?”

“Listen!” the count jumps up. “Stop fooling around! I don’t have time for jokes! I’ve lost almost everything! But I swear to God—everything will be returned! Everything will be returned!”

Batya sighs and stands up, leaning on Ivan:

“You’re just like Job, Count. Everything will be returned…But nothing will be returned to you. And you know why? Because you placed your lust higher than the state.”

“Boris, don’t go too far!”

“I’m not taking anything too far.” Batya walks up to the count. “You think His Majesty is angry because you like to fornicate in fire? Because you’re shaming his daughter? No. That’s not why. You burned state property. Therefore, you took a step against the state. Against His Majesty.”

“Bobrinskaya’s house is her own property! What does His Majesty have to do with it?!”

“You blockhead, what he has to do with it is that we are all His Majesty’s children, and all of our property belongs to him! The whole country is his! You of all people should know that! Life hasn’t taught you anything, Andrei Vladimirovich. You were His Majesty’s son-in-law, but you became a rebel. And not just a rebel, but a son of a bitch. Rotten, dead meat.”

The count’s eyes flash with dark fury:

“What?! You cur, you…”

Batya puts two fingers in his mouth and whistles. And as though by command, the young guys rush the count and grab him.

“Into the pool with him!” Batya orders.

The oprichniks tear the sheet off the count and throw him into the pool. The count comes up, sputtering:

“You’ll answer for this, you dogs, you’ll answer…”

All of a sudden knives appear in the youngsters’ hands. Now that’s new! It should be clear to you now, you dolt! Why didn’t I know? Curtains for the count? They gave the go-ahead?

The youngsters stand around the edge of the pool.

“Haaiiilll!” cries Batya.

“Hail, hail!” cry the youngsters.

“Hail, hail!” the rest of us take up the cry.

“Death to the enemies of Russia!” Batya exclaims.

“Death! Death! Death!” we continue the chant.

The count swims up to the edge of the pool, and grabs on to the marble. But on the other side, Komol strikes with a flourish: his knife flies like lightning, piercing the count’s stooped back up to its handle. The count lets out a furious wail. Okhlop waves his hand—and his knife flies, landing right next to the first. Yelka and Avila aim their knives—just as precisely, also at the back of the naked count. He screams with fury and indignation. How much anger that bastard has stored up. The knives of the remaining youngsters fly into him. And all of them hit their target. They know how to aim knives, those lads. We old-timers prefer to use our knives closer up.

The count no longer wails; he’s wheezing, tossing and turning in the water. He looks like a sea mine.

“There’s ‘everything will be returned’ for you.” Batya grins, taking a glass from the tray and sipping it.

A convulsion passes through the count’s body, and he stiffens forever. Life and fate.

“Upstairs with him.” Batya nods to the bath attendants. “Change the water.”

The attendants drag Urusov’s corpse out of the pool, take the gold cross and the famous hedgehog ring off him, and give them to Batya. Batya tosses what remains of the powerful count in his hand.

“There you have it: here and gone!”

They take out the corpse. Batya gives the gold cross to Svirid:

“Give this to our church tomorrow.”

He puts the hedgehog ring on his pinkie.

“We’ve had our steam bath. Upstairs! Everyone—upstairs!”

The grandfather clock strikes 02:30. We’re sitting in the tiled drawing room. After midnight Batya has kept only five of us: Potyka, Vosk, Baldokhai, Yerokha, and me. After the wet stuff our Batya had a hankering for coke with vodka. We sit at a round table of red granite. There’s a dish with stripes of white, candles, and a carafe of vodka. Yerokha warms the dish with the candle, drying the coke from below. Batya’s already loaded, and when he’s really loaded, he likes to give us lofty lectures. Our dear Batya has three speeches: one about His Majesty, one about his deceased mama, and one about the Christian faith. Today it’s faith:

“Now you, my dear Enochs, you’re wondering, why was the Wall built, why are we fenced off, why did we burn our foreign passports, why are there different classes, why were intelligent machines changed to Cyrillic? To increase profits? To maintain order? For entertainment? For home and hearth? To create the big and beautiful? For fancy houses? For Moroccan leather boots, so everyone could tap their heels and clap? For all that’s good, true, and well made, so that there’d be plenty all around? To make the state as mighty as a pole from the heavenly tamarind tree? So that it supports the heavenly vault and the stars, goddamnit, so the stars and moon would shine, you sniveling scarecrow wolves, so that the warm wind would blow-not-stop-blowing on your asses, is that it? So your asses would stay nice and warm in your velvet pants? So your heads would feel cozy under their sable hats? So you sniveling wolves wouldn’t live by lies? So you’d run in herds, fast, straight, close together, most holy, obedient, so you’d harvest the grain on time, feed your brother, love your wives and children, is that it?”

Batya pauses, inhales a good snort of white coke and washes it down with vodka. We do the same thing.

“Now you see, my dearest Enochs, that’s not what it was for. It was so the Christian faith would be preserved like a chaste treasure, you get it? For only we, the Orthodox, have preserved the church as Christ’s body on earth, a single church, sacred, conciliar, apostolic, and infallible, isn’t that right? After the Second Nicene Council we are the only ones who glorify the Lord correctly, for we are Russian Orthodox, because no one took the right to glorify the Lord correctly away from us, did they? We didn’t retreat from the community of our church, from sacred icons, from the Mother of God, from the faith of the fathers, from the life-giving Trinity, from the Holy Spirit, from the life-giving Lord who comes from the Father, who venerates the Father and Son and speaks the prophet, right? We have rejected everything sacrilegious: Manichaeanism, and Monotheletism, and Monophysitism, right? For whomsoever the church is not mother, God is not the father, right? For God by His nature is beyond understanding, right? For all true-believing Orthodox priests are heirs of Peter, right? For there is no purgatory, only hell and heaven, right? For man is born mortal and therefore he sins, right? For God is the light, right? For our Savior became human so that you and I, sniveling wolves, could become gods, right? That’s why His Majesty built this magnificent Wall, in order to cut us off from stench and unbelievers, from the damned cyberpunks, from sodomites, Catholics, melancholiacs, from Buddhists, sadists, Satanists, and Marxists; from megamasturbators, fascists, pluralists, and atheists! For faith, you sniveling wolves, isn’t a change purse! It’s no brocaded caftan! No oak club! What is faith? Faith, my noisy ones—is a well of springwater, pure, clear, quiet, modest, powerful, and plentiful! You get it? Or should I repeat it to you?”

“We got it, Batya,” we always answer.

“Well, then, if you got it—thank the Lord.”

Batya crosses himself. We cross ourselves as well. We snort some more. Wash it down. Groan.

And suddenly Yerokha’s nostrils sniffle with hurt.

“What is it?” Batya turns to him.

“Forgive me, Batya, if I say something that might cross you.”

“Well?”

“I’m offended.”

“What offends you, Brother Yerokha?”

“That you put the noble’s ring on your finger.”

Yerokha is talking sense. Batya squints at him. Then he says loudly:

“Trofim!”

Batya’s servant appears:

“What do you desire, sir?”

“An axe!”

“Yes, sir.”

We sit, looking at one another. And Batya takes a look at us and suppresses a smile. Trofim comes back with the axe. Batya takes the ring off his finger, and places it on the granite table:

“Go ahead!”

Faithful Trofim understands immediately: he picks up the axe and smashes the ring. Splinters of diamond fly.

“There you go!” Batya laughs.

We laugh as well. That’s our Batya. That’s what we love him for, why we cherish him, and remain faithful to him. He blows the diamond dust off the table:

“So what are your mouths hanging open for? Go on and cut it!”

Potyka takes care of the coke, cuts the lines. I wanted to ask why the youngsters were involved with the count but we elders were in the dark. We weren’t needed? Lost our trustworthiness? But I hold back: better not to ask in the heat of the moment. I’ll get to Batya from below by and by…

And suddenly Baldokhai says:

“Batya, who wrote that pasquinade?”

“Filka the Rhymester.”

“Who’s that?”

“A talented guy. He’s going to be working for us…” Batya leans over and sucks a white strip through his bone tube. “He wrote a great one about His Majesty. Want to hear it? Hey, Trofim, call him.”

Trofim dials the number, and a sleepy, scared face in glasses appears not far away.

“Taking a nap?” Batya says, drinking from a shot glass.

“No, no, Boris Borisovich…” the rhymester mutters.

“Come on, then, read us the poem to His Majesty.”

The fellow straightens his glasses, clears his throat, and recites with feeling:

In our time, far distant and remote,

Behind the stone wall of the ancients,

Lives not a man, but Creation:

An act, a deed, as great as earth’s own globe.

Fate has given him his lot,

Which does precede the very void.

He is what all the boldest dream of,

Though none before has dared or thought.

But he remains a human being,

And should he come across a winter wolf,

He’ll shoot, and his shot, too, will echo in the woods,

As surely as it does for you and me.

Batya pounds his fist on the table:

“Well? Son of a bitch! See how cleverly he wrapped it up, huh?”

We agree:

“Clever.”

“All right, go back to sleep, Filka!” Batya says, turning him off.

Suddenly Batya begins singing in a deep bass:

The hour of grief, the hour of parting

I want to share, with you my friend.

Let’s drill right through our legs while farting,

And walk ahead, until the road does end.

I’d been hoping we’d avoid this today, that Batya would collapse before things came to it. But our commander is steadfast: after coke and vodka he wants to drill. What can you do—if it’s drilling, then it’s drilling. Not the first time. And there’s Trofim: he opens a red box; red bits are laid in it like revolvers. In every brace there’s a fine drill of viviparous diamond. I think Batya remembered this sharp pastime when the diamond ring was crushed. Trofim hands everyone a drill.

“At my command!” Batya mutters, smashed and stiff. “One, two, three!”

We lower the drills under the table, turn them on, and try to hit someone’s leg on the first try. You can stick only one time. If you blow it—don’t judge too harshly. I hit the mark—Vosk, it seems—and someone’s hit my left leg, probably Batya himself. The drilling begins:

“Hail, hail!”

“Hail, hail!”

“Burn, burn, burn!”

Endure, endure, endure. The drills go through meat like butter, and run into the bone. Endure, endure, endure! We endure, clench our teeth, look at one another:

“Burn! Burn! Burn!”

We withstand, withstand, withstand. The mosquito drills reach the bone marrow. And the first to cave is Potyka:

“Ooooowwww!”

“Break off,” Batya commands.

We break off the bits. The tips stay in our legs. Potyka lost: grimacing and whimpering, he grabs his knee. Patience—that’s what the youngsters need to learn from us, their elders.

“Vakhrushev!” Batya shouts.

The oprichnik doctor appears, silent Pyotr Sergeevich, with two assistants. They remove the pieces of diamond drill from our legs. The drills are finer than fine, just a bit thicker than a strand of woman’s hair. They bandage us up, inject us with medicine. Batya collapses in the arms of servants, hits them on their smackers, sings songs, giggles, farts. As the loser, Potyka hands over all the money he has on him to the oprichnik pot—a couple of hundred in paper and around a hundred and fifty in gold.

“All’s well that ends well,” Batya roars. “Drivers!”

The servants grab me under the arms and carry me out.