Ice Trilogy (28 page)

The beggar woman stopped crawling.

She raised her face. It was dark with years of dirt. Instead of a left eye there was a dark yawning depression. The eyebrow above it was split by a deep scar from the blow of a saber: heat, dust, a long trip on a cart, straw, watermelons, diamonds in a left boot, night, a campfire, people, people coming out of the forest, a murdered horse, swarthy people, swift people, stinking people tearing dresses, quick people lying down on her one after the other and then again lying down on her, and again lying down on her, the coming of the dawn, saber blows.

I recognized Nika Riabova. And I, too, stopped.

She looked at me with a cloudy, teary eye. Her lips separated, revealing yellowed teeth.

“Immer mimmer Jean Valjea
n..
.” she muttered. Then she passed gas, laughed, and crawled farther down the sidewalk.

I
watched
her go. Nika crawled away. With her, everything human crawled away from me. And I DIDN’T WANT to stop her.

She crawled like a machine. She too was a meat machine. One of hundreds of millions.

I turned around. And went on my way.

I walked to Lubyanka. Passing through the entrance I climbed to the second floor and handed the parcel to the boss. He was displeased by the delay. His mouth pulsed gloomily. I had to explain something to this meat machine. I recalled the words of meat machines.

“Comrade director, it was the library’s fault. They were still working on fresh material.”

“All right, Deribas, go and eat,” he answered. “Twenty minutes. And then back to it.”

The director loved: being a director, fried chicken, carving wooden picture frames, duck hunting, thin, hysterical women, the smell of gasoline, and military parades.

I went to the cafeteria to take a couple of apples to eat. The place smelled of food for meat machines. The large cafeteria was full of meat machines. They energetically ate borscht, barley porridge, and drank tea with sugar. I looked at them. Their faces swirled. They sweated. They felt fine. They reminded me of the guild at the machine factory. The meat machines sat and swallowed food. Spoons clinked, teeth chewed. This was a guild for the processing of food. Suddenly I
noticed
sister Fer. She entered the cafeteria. And the gloomy world of the meat machines
parted
. Fer was DIFFERENT! I went to her. My heart
spoke
with her. And I
saw
all of her. Her entire life. Fer
understood
what I saw. She picked an apple up off the tray and put it in my hand. Our fingers squeezed the apple. It split.

We left the cafeteria.

The brotherly
Circle of Light helped me to understand
what was new
in me. At night I held the Ice hammer in my hands and pressed it to my breast. My heart
calmed itself
. It healed with every new blow of the Light. Now it
saw
the world of the Earth.

The next day off, Fer, Rubu, Ep, and I set out to search. Our
magnet
illuminated the Moscow crowd. We took the tram down to the National Hotel and walked up Tverskaya Street. Our hearts
exerted themselves
. We went into stores,
looked
at the lines of people, glanced into the entrances of buildings. Meat machines moved all around us. They were busy with their affairs. Their faces whirled with worry. Their hearts pumped blood. Their muscles moved their bones. And around every meat machine was a
swarm
. I walked through dozens of these swarms, protecting my heart from them. It was
searching
. Fer was close by. She moaned from the tension. We
were trying
.

Having walked all the way up Tverskaya to Lesnaya Street, we stopped. Our hearts grew
heavy
. They beat hard, pulsing with the Light. The Moscow crowd was
heavy
. It hung in a dense
din
, which had to be
moved aside
. We crumpled in this din. Our faces covered with sweat. Our legs swayed beneath us. Rubu and Ep held our backs up. They pushed against us from behind. We threw our heads back and leaned against our brothers. We looked at the sky. We breathed heavily. We
remembered
the Ice. And
lay down
on it. And gathered new strength. The huge mass lying in Siberia
answered
us.

Resting a bit, we crossed to the other side of Tverskaya. And moved down underground. The
din
of the meat machines seized us. We
illuminated
and
parted it
. Ep and Rubu held us up by our backs.
They helped
us with their hearts. Our legs moved with difficulty. We arrived at Strastnoi Boulevard. We stopped and rested. We turned around and our hearts
flared
: one of ours! A tall, skinny man in an expensive coat was getting into an automobile. There were two others with him. While he slowly settled himself on the seat, I
saw
him: a foreigner, from a good family, an old father, eighteen columns of a university courtyard, a rapier, two scars, a new home, war, shrapnel, seven shards, the small breasts of his wife, coffee rings on a blueprint, two daughters, fear of blood disease, fear of safety pins, fear of getting lost in the forest, underground work, cement, water and machines, milk chocolate, shaving a woman’s pubis, a great deal of money, hemorrhoids, a labyrinth of trimmed hedges, an orderly desk, his favorite horse Nereid, a lake in the mountains, an airplane, the circus. The circus. The Circus.

The car growled loudly and took off.

“Stop!” Fer screeched, running after the car. Her legs swayed and she fell into Rubu’s arms.

Her heart
was exhausted
. She gulped at the air. Her face grew pale. I kneeled. I gathered wet snow from the sidewalk and sucked on it. Ep held me by the shoulders.

“The circus,” I said. “They’re going to the circus.”

Fer began to vomit. Then she came to herself.

The Moscow circus was located on Tsvetnoi Boulevard. We bought tickets. That evening we sat in a circular hall. Fer and I immediately noticed
our own
. He was sitting next to the minder who was with him in the automobile. The four of us sat
calmly
. The hall was filled with meat machines. A brass band started to play a march. The curtains opened and the show began. Clowns and acrobats came into the arena. Meat machines applauded them. One clown hit another on the head with a large hammer made of papier-mâché. From each blow the other’s head rang loudly and streams of fake tears flowed. And the meat machines were happy that they weren’t as stupid as the clowns. The acrobats risked their lives, flying on trapezes right up under the cupola. They received money for this. The meat machines enjoyed the agility of the acrobats. And were afraid that the acrobats would fall. Then muscular meat machines came out into the arena. They lifted weights, tore apart chains, held three women on one arm. Then they began to fight. The ordinary meat machines followed the fight of the strong meat machines with great interest. Many in the auditorium envied their strength. After the strong men, little meat machines ran out into the arena. They began to goof around, dance the Charleston, and giggle in thin, high voices, depicting nepmen. Suddenly from behind the curtains a bear ran out. He was in a muzzle, in a large jacket with a red star on it, and wearing the apron of a yard keeper. A large red broom was attached to his paws. The bear ran at the little meat machines. And they ran away from him with a yelp, hiding behind the curtains. The audience whistled and laughed. The trainer ran over to the bear and discreetly stuck a piece of meat in his mouth. A loud voice announced that “a red broom would soon sweep the garbage out of the Soviet capital.” The audience applauded.
Our brother
sat and watched everything with interest. We
calmly
observed him. A female trainer in a bright dress ran into the arena. An elephant came out. In the trainer’s hand was a baton wound with a gold ribbon. On the end of the baton was a fuzzy ball. Inside the ball a sharp steel point was hidden. The trainer stuck the elephant so that it would follow her commands. The audience saw her touching the elephant with a fuzzy ball. The huge elephant was afraid of the little trainer. He climbed onto a barrel and raised his front legs. Then he stood on his front feet and lifted his back ones. He wanted this to end as quickly as possible so they would take him back to his cage where there was food. The meat machines clapped. They liked the trainer. The elephant was taken away. And three monkeys ran into the arena. They were dressed in tuxedos. They depicted Chamberlain, Curzon, and Poincaré. The monkeys scrambled up on a large drum with the inscription
IMPERIALISM
and began to jump. The audience laughed and clapped. The Soviet meat machines were happy that the monkeys resembled the foreign meat machines that criticized the Soviet newspapers. Then came a magician. He began to deftly deceive the meat machines. And they were in awe of his skills. He pretended that he pulled a rabbit and baby chicks out of his hat, pretended that he was sawing a woman in half. Pretended that he became invisible. The meat machines liked it that the magician could deceive them so deftly and discreetly. The trainer came out with a dog. He told the audience that the dog knew how to count to ten. But he was also deceiving them; in fact, the dog did not know how to count. It simply barked on time, in order to receive a piece of sugar from the hand of the trainer. But the meat machines clapped for the dog and believed that it knew arithmetic. After the dog came a meat machine in the costume of a knife thrower with his knives stuck in his belt. A wooden circle was placed in front of him. He asked for a volunteer from the audience. The volunteer turned out to be a woman who had been in the front row. In fact, she also worked in the circus. The knife thrower tied her to the circle, walked away, and then began to throw knives at the circle. The knives landed near the woman’s body. Then he gave a command and the circle began to spin. He was brought four knives with torch handles. The lights in the circus went out. A drumroll sounded. The knife thrower lit the knives and threw them at the circle. The meat machines enjoyed the knife thrower’s agility. But they didn’t know that most of his life he’d been throwing knives at the circles. The woman had been working with him for the last year. He had caused serious wounds to four women. This woman had nine scars from his knives. She was given money for this. At the end of the show came the gymnasts with the Soviet flag, sickle, and hammer. They played around, and then began to make a pyramid on the summit of which was a flag, and on its sides a hammer and sickle. The meat machines applauded for a very long time. They rose and began to move toward the exit. We had been waiting for this moment. We immediately pushed our way through to
ours
. He was accompanied by a thickset meat machine. I quickly
looked through
the minder and realized that he was a Chekist. And that he had been attached to the foreigner as a guard. The foreigner was important to Soviet meat machines. We followed him along the path. They exited onto the street. Near a church stood nine carriages with drivers and six automobiles. One of the cars was waiting for him. He walked over to the car, retrieved a cigarette case, and lit a cigarette. I stood close by and
looked through
him. He was connected with something underground: cement, earth, water, dirt, liquid, workers, hoses. He smoked. The minder also smoked, something cheap and unfiltered. A
papirosa
. He despised the foreigner. But he did his job. Fer, Ep, and Rubu stood a ways off. I
waited
, to see what to do. The foreigner laughed, finished smoking, and tossed the cigarette butt on the ground. The minder opened the door of the automobile for him.

“No. Valk. Breaze,” the foreigner said in broken Russian; he turned and headed down the boulevard.

The minder set off after him. The automobile turned around and drove behind them, keeping close.

I took Fer by the arm. And we followed him. Ep and Rubu moved off. The foreigner walked along the boulevard ring toward Tverskaya. An occasional passerby walked down the boulevard. The foreigner walked to Petrovka and turned in the direction of the city center. Near the Petrovsky Monastery he stopped and shivered.

“Sergie. Is cooled. Go home.”

The minder made a sign to the driver of the automobile. The car drove up. The minder walked over to the car and opened the back door. I looked around: ahead a carriage moved off and a pair of meat machines laughed drunkenly. Here and there lampposts illuminated the street. A dog barked. I jolted the brothers’ hearts. They
understood
. The brothers grabbed their weapons. Ep hit the minder on the head with the butt of his gun. He fell. I aimed a pistol at the foreigner.

“
Ne bouge pas!
”

Rubu placed the butt to the windshield of the automobile. The driver froze.

“
Montez dans la voiture!
” I ordered the foreigner.

He began to sit down slowly in the automobile. I pushed him. Rubu sat on the front seat next to the driver. The Chekist who’d fallen moaned. Ep and Fer lifted and pushed him into the car. Fer squeezed in behind him.

“Stay,” I told Ep. “Call Pilo and Ju.”

And he moved away from the car into the dark.

The foreigner was frightened. I sat next to him, pushing the pistol into his stomach. The cracked head of the minder was on my knees.

“Sit still,” I told him in Russian.

“Turn around,” Rubu ordered the driver, searching him.

The driver obediently began to turn the wheel. He didn’t have any weapons.

“Drive to Liubertsy,” Rubu said, putting the barrel of the gun to the driver’s temple.

“There’s not enough gas,” muttered the driver.

I
saw
that he was deceiving us. And quickly
looked through
him. “There’s enough gasoline. Remember your dead wife. Don’t be afraid of bees. They won’t sting you a third time.”

The driver froze.

“Take a swallow from your mother-in-law’s flask. And let’s go.”

The driver, not understanding, glanced at me. Then, with a trembling hand, he opened the glove compartment and removed the flask of buffalo-grass vodka. He took a big swallow. He closed the flask and put it away.