Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Beauty and the Beast

Katya was a beauty. For five years, she fought with her husband, Sashka, a drunk and a good-for-nothing. In return, Sashka regularly beat her. Finally, Katya took their little daughter Sveta and left him. The commonly accepted maxim, “If he beats you – he must love you,” did not sit well with her.

Stargorod’s hospital, where Katya worked as a nurse, took pity on her and found her a one-room flat in an old barrack still heated with firewood. The neighborhood women only shook their heads: Sashka was known far and wide for being ferociously vindictive. Katya’s neighbor, Aunt Klava, pitying her, called the young woman “my kamikaze.” Several times Sashka tried to break through Katya’s door at night and broke her windows. Katya would call the police, they would put him in the slammer for 15 days, but every time he came out he’d go after her again – the official divorce seemed to have done nothing but rile him up more.

Katya’s life turned into a nightmare. She would gladly sign up for a job in the North, but she had neither the energy nor the money to pull up roots and move to a new place with a small child: under the auspices of a new national program, the hospital’s clinic and emergency room doctors got a 10,000 ruble raise, and the nurses saw a grand total of 700 added to their monthly 3,000. Katya worked two full-time shifts and could barely make ends meet.

One night Katya was walking home after her shift; it was late, already dark. She had to walk past St. Christopher’s cemetery, about which people liked to tell many scary stories – many featured werewolves who gnawed on buried skeletons at night, robbed passersby and demanded pay-offs from passing cars. Katya walked faster along the cemetery’s fence; she could hear someone breathing heavily behind her, catching up with her.

“Wait, bitch, I gotta talk to you!”

Katya recognized Sashka’s voice. Facing him in this deserted place, at night, alone did not bode well at all – Sashka had long been threatening to stab her. Katya gripped the handle of her purse harder and prepared to defend herself. Her ex pounced at her like a rabid animal, drunk and vicious, knocked the useless purse out of her hand, and twisted her arm behind her back; she saw the gleam of a blade. Realizing she was done for, Katya screamed.

Suddenly, the nearest bushes shook and a thing, a creature, something so dreadful it could only be called a Beast climbed out. Without idle talk, it struck Sashka on the jaw, knocked him off his feet and went to work on him, saying: “I see you bother this beauty one more time, I’ll bury you right here.” Sashka whimpered in horror and pain and swore to forget Katya forever.

The Beast turned out not as scary as it was in the cartoon Katya watched with little Sveta. It had a pleasant voice and spoke kind words to Katya, comforting her as she wept with relief from the terror she’d survived, and it stroked her hair in a way that sent electric sparks flying all over her body and instantly robbed her of any sense. The Beast saw Katya home, went through her door and told her not to turn on the light. “Shh, keep quiet, lest we wake up the kid.”

The Beast seemed to have paralyzed Katya’s will; she felt no fear whatsoever towards him. Everything happened in a blink, almost like in the cartoon. No – it was better, much better, so much better. No movie could ever hope to match what happened between them.

At dawn, Katya woke and stoked the wood-burning stove – she had to start potatoes boiling in the cast-iron vat for the piglet she kept in the yard. The Beast was sleeping, arms spread wide on the bed, and his linen-blond curly hair gleamed on the pillow. Last night, before they climbed into bed, he told her specifically not to touch the skin he shed on the floor. Katya considered the prohibition, thought about all the trouble that usually ensued in fairy-tales when such orders were disobeyed, and decided not to listen. Be what may! She bundled the whole pile together, threw it into the stove, and added a few logs for a good measure. The flames shot up high, red flashes leaped around the room. Katya made sure the skin couldn’t be saved, then went back to the room, climbed under the blanket and pressed close to her Beast. He mumbled something in his sleep, and put one arm around her shoulder.

And that’s when the bullets began to explode inside the stove.

Lieutenant Ivanets jumped up as if someone had scalded him; a terrified Sveta howled from behind the curtain. Katya prepared to receive her well-deserved death.

Ivanets dashed to the stove, grabbed a pale of water and splashed it onto the fire. Then he grabbed a poker and spread out what was left of his uniform. Seeing that he wouldn’t be able to save any of it, he looked reproachfully at Katya. She, chin held proudly high, explained, “I was afraid that you would turn into a Beast again and leave us.”

At those words, Kolya Ivanets looked at her with awe and, suddenly finding the courage, said, “Now not in a million years!” and stuck his tongue out at Svetka who poked her head out from behind the curtain.

For leaving his post without permission and for negligence in handling his personal weapon Lieutenant Ivanets was discharged from the State Traffic Police.

“I’ve done my turn as a werewolf in uniform – that was plenty,” he declared, returning to Katya’s apartment with a bottle of champagne and a bouquet. “Tomorrow, I’ll submit an application to the fire brigade, the guys promised to find a spot for me.”

“You do know how to handle a fire,” Katya said as she came up to the Beast and kissed him.

Everyone knows since times immemorial that the Beauty got seriously lucky with the Beast – but why is it that those who make it their business to write such stories never bothered to wonder: and what about the Beast?