Day of the Oprichnik

The Kremlin Concert Hall has always delighted me. It thrilled me when I first visited it with my deceased parents twenty-six years ago, to see Swan Lake; when I ate blini with red caviar during the intermission; when I called my friend Pashka on Papa’s mobilov from the buffet; when I peed in the spacious toilet; when I watched the mysterious ballerinas in snow white tutus; and even now, when my temples are sprinkled with their first gray.

A magnificent hall! Everything in it is grand, it has all the amenities for state holidays, everything is perfect. Only one thing is wrong—not all the events produced on this mighty stage are appropriate. Subversiveness seeps through even here. Well, that’s why we exist, to keep order and exterminate rebellion.

We sit in the empty hall. On my right is the director. On my left, an observer from the Secret Department. In front of me is Prince Sobakin of the Inner Circle. Behind me—the head of the Culture Chamber. Serious people, state servants. We’re watching the holiday concert that’s coming up. It begins powerfully, like a peal of thunder: a song about His Majesty shakes the dimly lit hall. The Kremlin choir sings well. Russia knows how to sing. Especially if the song is from the soul.

The song ends; the valiant fellows in decorated shirts bow, the girls in sarafans and holiday headdresses curtsey. Sheaves of grain bow in an iridescent rainbow, and above them frozen river willows bow. Natural sunlight shines, almost blindingly. Good. I approve. All the others approve as well. The long-haired director is happy.

The next song is about Russia. No questions here, either. It’s a strong piece, finely polished. Next—an historical number: the time of Ivan III. A grim, fateful time in Russian history. A serious struggle for the integrity of the Russian state is under way—a fledgling state, not yet strong, only beginning to stand on its own. There’s thunder and lightning on stage, Ivan’s warriors are heading for the breach, the Metropolitan raises a cross illumined by flickering flames. Rebellious Novgorod, which opposes the unification of Russia, is conquered; the apostates fall on their knees, but Great Prince Ivan Vasilevich’s sword touches their guilty heads with mercy:

“Neither enemie nor adversary be I. I am Protector, Father, and Defender of you and all the Great Russian Kingdom.”

Bells ring. A rainbow shines above Novgorod and over all of Rus. The heavenly birds sing. The Novgorodians bow and sob with joy.

Now, that’s good, that’s appropriate. But the warriors should have broader shoulders and the Metropolitan could be taller, more dignified. And there’s a good deal of unnecessary fuss in the background. The birds fly too low, they’re distracting. The director agrees with the suggestions, and makes notes in his book.

The next act is a page from our recent past, troubled and sad. Three Stations Square in Moscow, during the years of the accursed White Revolt. Simple people mill about, brought out of their homes onto the square by a wave of rebellion, forced to sell whatever comes to hand to earn enough for a piece of bread, stolen from them by criminal rulers. My earliest childhood memories are of those foul times. The Time of the White Pus, which poisoned our Russian bear…back when the inhabitants of Russia stood on the square with teakettles, frying pans, shirts, even shampoo and soap in their hands. Refugees and people who had lost everything flooded into Moscow and traveled there from grief. Elderly men, the war-wounded, veterans and heroes of labor. Seeing that crowd left a bitter taste indeed. The sky above is overcast and dank. Sad music sounds from the orchestra pit. Then, as though a pale ray of hope has suddenly pierced the gloomy picture, the colors of center stage grow warmer and we see three homeless children, rejected by the world: two little girls in torn dresses and a grimy little boy holding a teddy bear. The timid flute of hope comes alive, awakes and sounds, striving upward with its delicate voice. Over the gloomy, sullied square we hear a touching children’s song:

“I hear a voice arising, lovely in the distance—

The voice of dawn, adorned in silver dew.

I hear a voice, and now the road, insistent,

Does daze me like the childhood swings that I once knew.

“O distance lovely, don’t be cruel.

Do not be cruel, oh cruel never be!

From purest streams to lovely distance

The road to lovely distance beckons me.

“I hear a voice arising in the distance,

It summons me to far and marv’lous climes.

I hear a voice; it asks of me, insistent,

What deed I’ve done today to aid tomorrow’s time.

“O distance lovely, don’t be cruel.

Do not be cruel, oh cruel never be!

From purest streams to lovely distance,

The road to lovely distance beckons me.”

Tears well up in my eyes. It’s the hangover, of course. But the dignified Prince Sobakin is sniffing as well. He has a large family, many small grandchildren. The brawny observer from the Secret Department sits still as a statue. Well, of course—they have nerves of steel, they’re ready for anything and everything. The portly head of the Culture Chamber sort of shakes his shoulders like he’s caught a chill—he seems to be fighting off tears, too. The piece hits a raw nerve even in strong, seasoned men. That’s wonderful…

His Majesty awakened in us not simply pride in our country, but compassion for her painful past. Three Russian children stand stretching their hands out to us from the past of an insulted and injured country. And we cannot help them at all.

We approve it.

Next—the present day. A full, bountiful cup. The Moiseev Ensemble performs dances of all the peoples of Great Russia. Here you’ve got the smooth Tatar dances, and the dashing Cossack whirls with sabers drawn; Tambov quadrilles to the sound of an accordion; and Nizhny Novgorod folk dances with their rattles and whistles; the whooping, yelping Chechen circle dance; Yakut tambourines; and the Chukots with their Arctic fox furs; the Kariaksky deer; the Kalmyk rams; Jewish frock coats—and Russian, Russian, Russian dancing till you drop—dashing, boisterous, bonding, reconciling everyone.

No question about this legendary group.

There are two more acts: “Flying Balalaikas,” and “A Young Girl Rushes to a Rendezvous.” Now these are real classics—everything honed, checked, polished. A feast for the eyes. You watch, and it’s just like you’re sledding down a hill. The observer applauds. We do, too. Good for His Majesty’s artistes!

Then comes a short literary piece: “Hello, My Dear Nanny, Arina Rodionovna!” It’s a little old, a bit forced. But the people love it and His Majesty respects it. The head of the Culture Chamber suggests lamely that Pushkin should be younger—the same not-very-young actor, Khapensky, has been playing the poet for the last twelve years. But we all know it’s pointless. The actor is one of Her Highness’s favorites. The director shrugs his shoulders, opens his hands:

“Gentlemen, you must understand, it’s not up to me…”

We understand.

And now we come to the most important act. A new piece on the topic of the day: “Like Hell I Will!”

Each of us squirms in his seat and tenses. The stage is dark, the only sounds are the howl of the wind, and the strumming of the Kazakh dombra and the Russian balalaika. The moon crawls out from behind clouds, illuminating the scene with a faint light. In the middle of the stage is the Third Western Pipeline. The very one that’s caused so much hullabaloo the last year and a half, so much trouble and concern. The pipeline stretches across the stage, through Russian forest and field; sparkling in the dim light, it arrives at the Western Wall. There it passes through a flow-regulating valve marked closed, dives into the wall, and moves farther westward. Our border guard stands there with an automatic ray gun, looking through binoculars toward the other side. Suddenly the dombras and balalaikas grow anxious, a warning bass sounds—and near the valve a molehill erupts. In a flash, a mole-saboteur in black goggles crawls out, looks around, sniffs the air, jumps, grabs the valve, digs his huge teeth into it with all his might. He’s just about to turn it, to let the gas through. But—a ravaging ray flashes from the wall and cuts the mole in half! The mole’s guts tumble out, a howl rends the air, and the thieving saboteur breathes his last. Lights flare, and three bold border guards, full of mettle, leap from the wall. Their jumps are agile, accompanied by handsprings and valiant whistles. One of them holds an accordion, the second a tambourine, the third wields wooden spoons. Each of them wears an automatic, loyal and true, on his back. The fine young border guards sing:

“The valves we closed up:

Like His Majesty told us.

But fiendish foes did try

To suck our gas completely dry.

“Right off we told them: ‘No! We’ll fight!’

And honed our eagle gaze.

Europa Gas, that parasite,

For Russian gas must pay!

“Just try to stop those cyberpunksters,

Across the wall’s most chilly side.

What bifurcations, made by funksters,

Like mushrooms sprout both far and wide.

“Each time more brazen do they act,

But wait a moment, contemplate,

How could we give them gas like that?

In a thrice they’d suffocate.”

One border guard opens the valve while the two others rush to the end of the pipe, put it to their rear ends, and fart. With a menacing howl the good fellows’ farts pass through the pipe, flow through the wall, and…screams and wailing are heard in the West. The final chord sounds, and the three valiant fellows jump onto the pipe, raising their automatics in victory. Curtain.

The high-placed audience stirs. They’re looking at Prince Sobakin. He twists his mustache, thinking. He speaks:

“Well now, what opinions do we have, gentlemen?”

The head of the Culture Chamber speaks:

“I see an obvious element of obscenity. Although the piece is topical and executed with vim and vigor.”

The observer from the Secret Department:

“First of all, I don’t like the enemy scout being killed rather than captured alive. Second, why only three border guards? I know for a fact that outposts have a dozen. So there should be twelve guards. Then the fart itself would be more powerful…”

I:

“I agree in regard to the composition of the border guard. And this is a much-needed number, a topical number. But there is an element of obscenity. And His Majesty, as we all know, champions chastity and cleanliness on stage.”

Prince Sobakin says nothing, but nods. Then he speaks:

“Tell me, gentlemen, does hydrogen sulfide, which our valiant warriors fart—does it burn?”

The observer nods. “It burns.”

“Well, if it burns,” the prince continues, twisting his mustached, “then what does Europe have to fear from our farts?”

Now that’s a member of the Inner Circle for you! He sees right to the bottom of things! You can heat European cities with Russian farts! Everyone grows thoughtful. I blame my brain: I didn’t catch on to an obvious thing! But then, my education was in the humanities…

The director pales and coughs nervously.

The observer scratches his beard. “Hmm. Yes…there’s a little discrepancy…”

“A blunder in the script!” The culture head lifts a fat finger in forewarning. “Who’s the author?”

In the darkness of the hall a lean man in glasses and a belted peasant shirt appears.

“My good man, how did you slip up like this? The story of our gas is as old as the world!” the culture head asks him.

“I’m at fault. I’ll fix it.”

“Fix it, fix it, my dear,” yawns the prince.

“Just remember that dress rehearsal is the day after tomorrow!” the observer says sternly.

“We’ll make it in time, of course.”

“One more thing,” the prince adds. “On the subject of moles: the ray gun causes his intestines to fall out. It’s a bit too much.”

“What, your Highness?”

“Intestines. Naturalism is out of place here. Fewer gizzards, my man.”

“At your command. We’ll fix everything.”

“And what about the obscenity?” I ask.

The prince glances at me sideways:

“It isn’t obscenity, Sir Oprichnik, but healthy army humor, which helps our Streltsy bear the severe conditions on the far borders of our Motherland.”

Laconic. Can’t argue. The prince is smart. And judging by his cold, sideways look—he doesn’t like us oprichniks. Well, that’s understandable: we step on the Inner Circle’s toes, we breathe down their necks.

“What else is there?” the prince asks, taking out a nail file.

“The aria of Ivan Susanin.”

Don’t have to watch that one. I rise, bow, and head toward the exit. Suddenly in the darkness someone grabs me by the hand:

“Sir, Sir Oprichnik, I beg of you!”

A woman.

“Who are you?” I pull my hand away.

“I beg of you, hear me out!” she says in a hot, fitful whisper. “I’m the wife of the arrested scribe Koretsky.”

“Get away, you Zemstvo spawn.”

“I beg you, I beg of you!” She falls on her knees and grabs my legs.

“Away with you.” I kick her in the chest with my boot.

She lies on the floor. Then, from behind me—another pair of hot female hands, and more whispering:

“Andrei Danilovich, we beg you, beg you!”

I grab my dagger from its scabbard:

“Away, you whores!”

Thin hands recoil in the darkness:

“Andrei Danilovich, I am not a whore. I am Uliana Sergeevna Kozlova.”

Ah! The prima ballerina of the Bolshoi Theatre. His Majesty’s favorite, the best Odile and Giselle of all…I didn’t recognize her in the dark. I look closer. Yes—it’s her. And the Zemstvo bitch lies prone. I remove my dagger:

“Madame, how may I be of service?”

Kozlova comes closer. Her face, like the faces of all ballerinas, is far more ordinary than on stage. And she’s not in the least tall.

“Andrei Danilovich,” she whispers, glancing at the dim stage, where Susanin, with his stick and sheepskin coat, sings his aria slowly, “I beseech you to intercede, I implore you in the name of all the saints, I beg you with my heart! Klavdia Lvovna is the godmother of my children, she’s my closest, most beloved friend, she’s an honest, pure, God-fearing woman, together we built a school for orphans, an orphanage, a neat, spacious school, where orphans study. I beg of you, we beg of you…the day after tomorrow Klavdia Lvovna will be sent to the settlement, there’s only a day left, I beseech you as a Christian, as a man, as a theatergoer, as a cultured person, we will be in your eternal debt, we will pray for you and for your family, Andrei Danilovich—”

“I don’t have a family,” I interrupt.

She looks at me silently with large, moist eyes. Susanin sings “My time has come!” and crosses himself. The Zemstvo widow lies on the floor. I ask:

“Why are you, a favorite of His Majesty’s family, asking me?”

“His Majesty is terribly angry at the former chairman and all of his assistants. He doesn’t want to hear anything about clemency. But the clerk Koretsky personally wrote that very letter to the French. His Majesty doesn’t want to hear a word about the Koretskys.”

“All the more…What can I do?”

“Andrei Danilovich, the oprichnina is capable of miracles.”

“Madame, the oprichnina creates the Work and Word! of the state.”

“You are one of the leaders of that mighty order.”

“Madame, the oprichnina is not an order, but a brotherhood.”

“Andrei Danilovich! I beseech you! Take pity on an unfortunate woman. In your masculine wars we are the ones who suffer most. And life on earth depends on us.”

Her voice trembles. The Zemstvo woman’s sobs are barely audible behind her. The culture head glances sideways in our direction. What can you do, people ask us to intercede almost every day. But Koretsky and that whole gang of the Public Chambers chairman—they are double-dealers! Better not to even look their way.

“Tell her to leave,” I say.

“Klavdia Lvovna, dear heart…” The ballerina leans over her.

Koretskaya disappears in the dark, sobbing.

“Let’s go outside.” I head toward the door with the illuminated word “Exit.”

Kozlova hurries after me. Silently, we leave the building through the service entrance.

On the square I go to my Mercedov. Kozlova follows me. In daylight the best Giselle in Russia is even more frail and plain. She hides her thin little face in a luxurious arctic fox collar with a short throat wrap. The prima ballerina wears a long, narrow skirt of black silk; under it, pointed black boots with patches of snakeskin peek out. The prima has beautiful eyes—large, gray, anxious.

“If it’s uncomfortable for you, we can speak in my car.” She nods in the direction of a lilac-colored Cadillac.

“Better in mine.” I show my palm to the Mercedov and it obediently opens its glass top.

Even tax collectors don’t make deals in other people’s cars these days. A seedy scrivener from the Trade Department would never sit down in someone else’s car to talk about a black petition.

I take my place. She sits to my right in the only seat.

“We’ll take a ride, Uliana Sergeevna,” I say as I start the engine, and drive out of the government parking lot.

“Andrei Danilovich, I’ve been in worried to death all week long…” She takes out a pack of women’s Motherland and lights up. “There’s a sense of doom around this affair. It turns out that I can’t do anything to help my oldest friend. And I have a performance tomorrow.”

“She’s truly dear to you?”

“Terribly. I don’t have any other girlfriends. You know the ways of our theater world…”

“I’ve heard about it.” I drive out of the Borovitsky Gates, turn onto the Great Stone Bridge, and speed down the red lane.

Taking a drag on her cigarette, Kozlova looks at the Whitestone Kremlin and the barely distinguishable snow on it.

“You know, I was very anxious before meeting you.”

“Why?”

“I never thought that asking for others would be so difficult.”

“I agree.”

“And then…last night I had a strange dream: the black bands were still on the main cupola of Uspensky Cathedral and His Majesty was still in mourning for his first wife.”

“Did you know Anastasia Fyodorovna?”

“No. I wasn’t a prima ballerina at the time.”

We reach Yakimanka Street. The Zamoskvoreche neighborhood is noisy and crowded as usual.

“So, I can count on your help?”

“I’m not promising anything, but I can try.”

“How much will it cost?”

“There are standard prices. Zemstvo affairs currently cost a thousand in gold. Departmental—three thousand. But an affair in the Public Chambers…”

“But I’m not asking you to close the case. I’m asking for the widow!”

I slow down as I drive down Ordynka Street. Good Lord, how many Chinese there are here…

“Andrei Danilovich! Don’t torture me!”

“Well…for you…two and a half. And an aquarium.”

“What kind?”

“Well, not a silver one!” I grin.

“When?”

“If they’re sending your friend off the day after tomorrow, then the sooner the better.”

“So, today?”

“You’ve got the right idea.”

“All right. Please drive me home, if it’s not too much trouble. I’ll get my car later…I live on Nezhdanov Street.”

I turn around and race back.

“Andrei Danilovich, what kind of money will you need?”

“Preferably gold pieces of the second minting.”

“All right. I think I’ll be able to get the money together by evening. But the aquarium…You know, I don’t do gold aquariums; we ballerinas aren’t paid as much as it seems…But Lyosha Voroniansky is sitting on piles of gold. He’s a great friend of mine. I’ll get it from him.”

Voroniansky is the premier tenor of the Bolshoi Opera, the people’s idol. He not only sits on gold, he probably eats off it…I zip across the Great Stone Bridge again, in the red lane. On my right and left cars sit in endless traffic jams. After the Nestor Public Library I pass Vozdvizhenka Street, the university, and turn onto disgraced Nikitskaya Street. The third cleaning has passed and the street has quieted down. Here, even the hawkers and bread peddlers walk fearfully and their cries are timid. The windows of burned-out apartments that have never been restored blacken menacingly. The Zemstvo swine are scared. And for good reason…

I turn onto Nezhdanov Street and stop near the gray artists’ building. It’s fenced off by a three-meter-high wall with a constant ray of light shining upward. That’s all as it should be…

“Wait for me, Andrei Danilovich,” says the prima ballerina as she gets out of the car. She disappears into the lobby.

I call Batya:

“Batya, we’ve got a request for a half-deal.”

“Who is it?”

“The clerk Koretsky.”

“Who’s buying?”

“Kozlova.”

“The ballerina?”

“That’s right. Do we help the widow beat the rap?”

“We can try. We’ll have to share quite a bit to manage it. When’s the money?”

“She’ll have it by evening. And…my heart can feel it, Batya, she’s going to bring an aquarium out to me shortly.”

“That’s great.” Batya winks at me. “If she does—drive straight to the baths.”

“You bet!”

Kozlova is taking a long time. I light a cigarette. I turn on the clean teleradio. It allows us to see and hear what our domestic dissenters spend so much time and energy to listen to and watch at night. First I go through the underground: the Free Settlements channel broadcasts lists of people arrested the previous night, and talks about the “true story” behind the Kunitsyn affair. Fools! Who’s persuaded by these “true stories”?…Radio Hope is quiet during the day—they’re catching up on sleep, those late-night SOBs. But the Siberian River Pirate, the voice of runaway prisoners, is wide awake:

“At the request of Vován, Poltorá-Iván, released just three days ago, we’ll play an old convict song.”

A juicy harmonica starts, and a husky young voice sings:

“Two convicts lay flat on their bunk beds

And dreamed of a past that they craved.

The first one was nicknamed Bacillus,

The other one’s handle was Plague.”

This River Pirate, jumping around western Siberia like a flea, has been caught between the nails twice: first the local Secret Department squashed it; then we did. They got away from the department guys, and they hopped away from us using Chinese aquari ums. While negotiations over the ransom were going on, our guys managed to put three newscasters on the rack and dislocate their arms, and like a huge bear Sivolai knocked up the female announcer. But the backbone of the radio station remained whole; it bought a new, horse-drawn studio, and those shackle-fetters began broadcasting once again. Fortunately, His Majesty doesn’t pay much attention to them. Why not let them yowl their prison songs?

“All Siberia howled in sync,

Their fame reached to old Kolymá.

Bacillus he fled the taigá,

While Plague returned to the clink.”

I tune in to the West. It’s the real stronghold of anti-Russian subversion. Like slimy reptiles in a cesspool, enemy voices teem: Freedom for Russia!, Voice of America, Free Europe, Freedom, the German Wave, Russia in Exile, Russian Rome, Russian Berlin, Russian Paris, Russian Brighton Beach, Russian Riviera.

I choose Freedom, the most vehement of the vermin, and I immediately run up against sedition, fresh out of the oven: they have an emigrant poet in the studio, a narrow-chested, dour-eyed Judas, an old acquaintance of ours with a shattered right hand (Poyarok made use of his foot during an interrogation). Straightening his old-fashioned glasses with his mutilated hand, the traitor reads in a quivering, nearly hysterical falsetto:

“Where there’s a pair of Grafs—there’s a paragraph!

Where there’s just a court—no justice is courted!

You’ll ‘do your time,’ without ever hearing ‘time to go,’

Since by rights you’re not arighted!”

The Judas! With a touch of my finger I remove the pale face of the liberal from my sight. These people are like unto vile worms that feed and nourish themselves on carrion. Spineless, twisted, insatiable, blind—that’s why they are kindred with the despicable worm. Liberals differ from the lowly worm only in their mesmerizing, witch-brewed speechifying. Like venom and reeking puss they spew it all about, poisoning humans and God’s very world, defiling its holy purity and simplicity, befouling it as far as the very bluest horizon of the heavenly vault with the reptilian drool of their mockery, jeers, derision, contempt, double-dealing, disbelief, distrust, envy, spite, and shamelessness.

Freedom for Russia! whines about “persecuted will,” the Old Believers’ “Posolon” grumbles about corruption in the top hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church; Russian Paris reads a book by Iosif Bak, Hysterical Gesticulation as a Way to Survive in Contemporary Russia; Russian Rome plays some kind of shrill monkeylike jazz; Russian Berlin broadcasts an ideological duel between two irreconcilable bastard-mongrel emigrants; the Voice of America has a program called “Russian Expletives in Exile” with an obscene retelling of the immortal work Crime and Punishment:

“The un-fucking-believable blow of the butt-fucking axe hit the goddamn temple of the triply gang-banged old bag, facilitated piss-perfectly by her cunt-sucking short height. She cried out cumly and suddenly collapsed on the jism-covered shit-paneled floor, although that rotten pussy-hole of a hag had time to raise both of her ass-licking hands to her fuckin’ bare-ass pimped-up head.”

An abomination. What else can be said?

Our liberals are dripping with anger and grinding their teeth after His Majesty’s famous Decree 37, which criminalized obscene language in public and private, and made obligatory public corporal punishment the sentence. Most surprising of all is that our people immediately accepted Decree 37 with understanding. There were some show trials, some drawing and quartering on the main squares of Russian cities, the whistle of the cattle whip on Sennaya Square, and cries on the Manezh. And in a trice the people stopped using the filthy words that foreigners forced on them in bygone days. Only the intelligentsia has trouble coming to terms with it, and keeps on belching forth foul fumes in kitchens, bedrooms, latrines, elevators, storerooms, back streets, and cars, refusing to part with this putrid polyp on the body of the Russian language, which has poisoned more than one generation of our compatriots. And the loathsome West plays up to our underground foul-mouths.

The Russian Riviera dares—in a brazen, impudent tone—to criticize His Majesty’s order to close the Third Western Pipeline for twenty-four hours. How much anger those European gentlemen have accumulated! For decades they have sucked our gas without thinking of the hardship it brought to our hardworking people. What astonishing news they report! Oh dear, it’s cold in Nice again! Gentlemen, you’ll have to get used to eating cold foie gras at least a couple of times a week. Bon appétit! China turned out to be smarter than you…

A knock and ring. That same clerk from the Ambassadorial Department:

“Andrei Danilovich, Korostylev here. The reception for the Albanian ambassador has been postponed until tomorrow at two o’clock.”

“Got it.” I turn off the clerk’s owly mug.

Thank God, because today we’re up to our ears in work. At state receptions for foreign accreditation, the oprichniks now stand next to the ambassadorials. Previously we alone carried the silver vessel holding the water. And a dozen ambassadorials stood in attendance in a half-circle. After August 17 His Majesty decided to bring them closer in. Now we hold the vessel jointly with the ambassadorials: Batya and Zhuravlev hold the cup; I, or someone from the right wing, holds the towel; the embassy clerk supports the elbow; and the rest stand on the rug or bow. As soon as His Majesty greets the new ambassador with a handshake and takes the credentials, we immediately begin the ritual washing of His Majesty’s hands. Of course, it’s a pity that the ambassadorials have been promoted after the mishaps of August. But—that is His Majesty’s will…

Kozlova finally comes out.

By her eyes I can sense that she has it. I immediately feel a rush of blood, and my heart quickens.

“Andrei Danilovich.” Through the window she hands me a plastic bag from a Chinese takeaway. “The money will be ready before six o’clock. I’ll call.”

I nod. Trying to restrain myself, I toss the bag casually onto the empty seat and close the window. Kozlova leaves. I drive off, turning onto Tverskaya Street. Near the Moscow Municipal Duma I park in the red lot for government cars. I stick my hand in the bag. My fingers touch the cool, smooth sphere. My fingers embrace it gently as I close my eyes: an aquarium! It’s been a long time, oh so very long since my fingers have held the sublime globe. Almost four days. How terrible…

My hands sweaty from excitement, I take the globe out of the bag and place it in my left palm: there they are! Gold ones!

The ball is transparent, manufactured from the finest materials. It’s filled with a clear, nourishing solution. In that solution swim seven tiny (only five millimeters each) gold sterlets. I look at them, bringing the ball close to my face. Teeny, tiny microscopic little fish! Divine, charming creatures. People of great intelligence created you for our pleasure. In ancient times, nimble golden fish like you, magical fish, brought happiness to Ivan Simpletons in the form of carved towers, tsars’ daughters, and self-kindling Russian tile ovens. But the happiness that you bring, divine little ones, cannot be compared to any towers or self-kindling tile ovens, nor to women’s caresses…

I look the globe over. Even without a magnifying glass I can see—Giselle did not deceive us! Seven gold sterlets in my hand. I take out the glass and gaze more intently: superb, obviously made in China, not in wretched America and definitely not in Holland. They frisk about in their native element, shining in the miserly Moscow winter sun. How glorious!

I call Batya. I show him the globe.

“Atta boy, Komiaga.” Batya winks at me and in a sign of approval flicks his bell earring.

“Where to, Batya?”

“The Donskoi.”

“I’m off!” I speed out of the parking lot.