Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Devil’s Bride

That Alexandra Konstantinovna Zaikina was a witch was not doubted by anyone in her neighborhood. One – she kept her curtains drawn, two – her fence and gates were solid plank, three – she had no TV set, and four – her cat was black and her chickens piebald. And if that weren’t enough – she’d go spend two months every winter with her grandkids in Leningrad and lock her place with two locks. No one, mind you, would ever be seen going in or out of there, feeding her animals, but in the spring – voila! – they’re all there and in perfect health.

“And she’s proud, too! I asked her once to put a blood spell on my Lyoshenka, so he’d finally get rid of his mange, but she just laughed at me,” complained Tanka Solodkova, Zaikina’s neighbor and, in the old days, her closest friend.

“What else would you expect from that crippled bitch! I wouldn’t ask her for a drink of water.”

“No, ladies, I know better – she used to do spells for me in the old days, before she got mixed up with those devils.”

Everyone knows Zaikina’s devil story.

A while back, in ‘47 or ‘48, Tanka and Alexandra – people called her Shurka then – were thick as thieves. Tanka was always a go-get-em kind of girl, and Shurka was born sort of lop-sided, grew up awkward, not a match for quick Tanka – so they stuck together. At work, they were side by side, but spent their nights apart. Tanka went out with the zampolit;¹⁶ Shurka listened to her stories the following morning, and sighed to herself, but she didn’t envy Tanka. Tanka was a beauty, Shurka was a cripple, and she knew it; to each her own, that’s how her mother, Lord rest her soul, raised her. Tanka, then, waitressed in the officers’ cafeteria, and Shurka washed the dishes there. And the zampolit was a handsome man: shiny boots with steel heels, brown strap across his chest. Single. Quick to laugh. Kind to Shurka, too – Shurka let him and Tanka into her hay-loft, why not, her house was too big for her alone anyway.

And then one day this happened. Shurka went to bed, and forgot to lock the doors. She was just lying there, without lights, and couldn’t sleep. Maybe thinking of Tanka’s stories – no one could go to sleep doing that. Shurka was dreaming. And suddenly she heard this click-click sound, like someone in the mudroom was stepping lightly on shod hooves. She pulled the blanket over her head. And then the door to her room opened all by itself, and closed just like that. Shurka peeked out – there’s no one there. And the next instant – something black, and smelly, and creaky darted to the bed from the corner, and reached his arms under the blanket.

“Sh-h-h,” the thing hissed.

“Who are you?” she asked and froze.

“The devil!”

Shurka couldn’t make another peep. And he climbed on top of her, pressed down on her, tickling her with his stubble, and whispered, “Don’t be scared, I’m not a scary kind of devil, I give gifts to those I love.”

And indeed, she felt with him like she got a great present. Then he vanished – and she didn’t even see how.

In the morning she was angry with herself: she knew better than to believe in demons, but then she’d remember the way his hooves clicked on the floor... and the feel of goose bumps on her skin, and a sweet, sweet tingling.

She kept mum that day, and didn’t say a word to Tanka. The following night, she left the door unlocked on purpose, but thought up a trick: put her bedside lamp under the bed, so she could click it on when he showed up. She wanted to see him.

She waited and wondered: would he come? Or not? He didn’t.

He came two days later. Clicked in the mudroom. Shurka lay quiet, as if she were asleep, and held her hand on the switch. He asked: “Are you asleep?” and that’s when she pushed it – click! But the light didn’t come on – she only knocked the lamp over under the bed – that’s how scared she was. And he made a sort of a bubbling sound: “Oh-ho-ho, you can’t look at the devil. I make the lights go out just by being there.” Then he rolled on top of her again, the beast!

The lamp convinced Shurka. The next morning, she told Tanka everything – her friend laughed her head off:

“You, Shurka, are long overdue for a real guy – you’re liable to go nuts if you keep carrying on like this. I’ll set you up with one, if you want – he’s not much to look at, but serviceable.”

“No, Tanka, he’s really a devil: he turns lights off just by being near them.”

“I’ve had enough of this – you’re making it all up!”

Tanka had no interest in devils: first she had the zampolit, now she found herself a Gypsy with money. Shurka, however, took offense, and said mean things to Tanka. So they fought. And it’s lasted forever. “Stupid cripple” and “fat rat” are about the mildest things Shurka’s heard ever since.

Shurka kept to herself, but she didn’t need Tanka anymore anyway. She could spend her day dreaming, and then at night her devil would come. As soon as she’d hear him clicking in the mudroom, the lights would go off, and he would come in. He was nice and kind to her.

So all right – let’s say he’s a devil, that don’t make it right. Shurka got to thinking. And the more she thought, the scarier it got. She tried to remember what her mother told her about devils – and it was all scary! He, meanwhile, was telling her how he flew in the sky, and flew to visit her.

“You, Shurka, are a witch. You’ve got some mighty spell on me, I tell you that,” he’d say, and she’d feel happy. And then scared again – in the morning. When she couldn’t stand it anymore, she went to see the priest one Sunday. The priest, Father Amvrosy, listened to her, but she could tell he wasn’t paying attention. Clearly, he didn’t believe her. He’s heard enough of those stories. Father Amvrosy used to be Metropolitan’s sub-deacon. There were great hopes for him. But when the Metropolitan died, they shipped Father Amvrosy off to Stargorod, and that’s the end of any career: you just sit here, reading books and listening to old ladies and stupid girls. He absolved her, and told her to do a hundred bows, and read Our Father and Hail Mary before bed. Shurka took offense at him too. This was not what she came for.

She stopped going to church. But waited. Every night – she waited. Then she’d hear the nettles rustle – that’s him, walking through the vegetable patch.

“I can’t go in the street, Shurka. If someone sees me, they’ll go mute.”

“Why didn’t I go mute?”

“You’re special.”

And then he’d tell her such things – her head would spin!

About three months went by. Shurka noticed things were not as they were supposed to be with her. She went to see an old lady – she took one look and said, “You, my dear, are pregnant. Who’d you get it from?”

“The devil,” Shurka said.

“I’ll show you the devil, you little bitch! Don’t you sin in my house. Out with it – who was it?”

Shurka told the old lady everything. As she knew it. The old lady didn’t believe her, but just in case gave her a little icon of St. Nikita the Exorcist and some holy water.

“When he comes next, sprinkle some on him. If he’s a man – he’ll marry you, and if not...”

“Then what?”

“Then I really don’t know. You go now.”

At night, Shurka was afraid to sprinkle him at first, but told him everything. He just laughed: “That won’t hurt me!” It’s his own fault then: she sprinkled him later on the sly.

The next morning she went out into the mudroom and found one of the breakers flipped in the breaker box. She flipped it back. And got to thinking.

The next night she left the door open – he didn’t come. He didn’t come the night after that either. Or the one after.

Whether it was the holy water, or the icon, or maybe it really couldn’t hurt him – who knows. But he never came again.

Shurka had her baby. The neighborhood filled with rumors – women kept asking, but didn’t get a single peep out of her. They shamed her, didn’t believe her, but she stuck to the same tune – the devil came to see me. So they didn’t believe her and didn’t believe her – until they finally did. Shurka, in the meantime, changed radically – kept away from people. Stopped saying hello. Moved from the officers’ cafeteria to work at the technical school.

The cafeteria was soon closed anyway: they dismantled the military airfield, handed the buildings over to the city, and transferred all the soldiers to Motovikha.

Things only got worse from there. Shurka Zaikina got herself a black cat and some piebald chickens, and raised her son a little bastard. He kept apart from the other kids ever since he was little; he was always by her side, doing chores at home, or in the garden, and got all A’s in school. After school, he passed the exams into the Leningrad Shipbuilding Institute. He’s a big boss there now, and comes to visit his mother in a black Volga. Doesn’t say hello to anyone either. His wife too – she’s either Jewish or French. And our reader at church said that the Antichrist will come from the French – it’s from a book that scientists dug up in Palestine, it says so right there.

Alexandra Konstantinovna for the most part stays at home. She limps around her orchard and drinks tea. Tanka says that the cucumbers and tomatoes in Shurka’s greenhouse ripen faster than anyone else’s in the whole neighborhood.

“And she’s too skimpy to share. And I wouldn’t take any from a witch anyway, I’d be scared.”

“No,” Tanka admits, “I’ve taken plants she’d offered me, but they don’t come out right. She must have a spell on them.”

“Of course she does – wouldn’t you?”

So Zaikina stays in her kitchen and drinks tea with gingerbread, and the neighborhood kids nail all kinds of iron things, horseshoes and such, to her gate. When her son comes to visit, he takes them all off, but she never does. She’s a proud old lady – her pension’s a pittance, so she sells produce in the market, but other than that, she just keeps drinking her tea and lumbers around in her garden.

“Did you see Zaikin the other day? Had a trunkful of jellies again, he did!”

“And where, pray tell, does she get all that sugar on her pension?”

“Like you don’t know. He’s a boss – so he must be stealing somewhere. Everyone does.”

16. The political officer embedded with a military unit; a white-collar job responsible for keeping the troops ideologically sound.