Pig: A Thriller (8 page)

             
M
at
is
a form of Russian underground s
wearing
,
o
nce only spoken on the street and in prisons
.
Soviet soldiers used it as they attacked the Nazis, and Russian hockey players used it when defeating the Canadians.
Unlike other languages, Russian obscenity is rooted entirely in sex. Defecation is not part of cursing.
Neither is religion or matrimonial status.
M
at
is multi
-
leve
led, multi
-
functional, and extensively articulated
–
more a philosophy than a language.
It is too semantically capricious, too dependent on intonation
for non-Russians to ever understand
.
It is linguistic theatre and verbal art that exploits the whole range of Russian suffixes and prefixes.

             
Dostoyevsky claimed that a Russian could express the entire range
of his feelings with one word --
which he dared not write
--
khuy
, a term for the male sexual organ, which along with
pizda
("cunt"), and
blyad
' ("whore" or "bitch") and the verb
ebat'
("to fuck"), are the cornerstones of
mat
, which derives from the Russian word for
“
mother,
”
as in
yob
tvuoy
mat
, meaning "fuck your mother."
Khuy
comes from the word
khvoya
, which means "pine
needle," or something that pricks. A theory holds that these terms were once employed by pre-Christian fertility cults. Christianity turned this language of sexuality into a language of blasphemy.

On the door
of the
Camp Medical Clinic was a schedule of this week’s C.C.T.V. movie schedule. Tonight’s highlight?
Shaving Raisa’s Privates
.
Raisa was the name of ex-leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s wife.
The only thing Pig hadn’t liked about the movie was that Raisa was played by an actress and not Gorbachev’s real wife.

             
On a cot a few beds down from Snow, lay Kolya. Kolya who worked in the same office as Snow. Kolya, the unrepentant Communist, who’d been camping out in that office for long nights trying to discover who was stealing documents from the locked records. Kolya, who suspected who, but had never had time to find
proof
. Kolya, who’d been sent to the clinic only days ago from a bullet that had snicked through an unsuspecting window and found a place inside his skull.

             
“Magda!”
a wizened creature with stubbled face and nearly bald head, held out a hand and gripped Magda’s arm fiercely. She’d been wandering around the clinic trying to find the small bedside
alarm
clock that
she had
seen earlier be
side Snow’s bed
,
but had now mysteriously disappeared.

             
“Arkady! What are you doing here? What’s happened to your hair?”

             
“It’s nothing,” Arkady demurred. He smelled strongly of sweat and tobacco. Showers weren’t part of his lifestyle, unlike Pig, who seemed to shower hourly. Probably to get the smell of sulfur off of him.

“I’ve just been working too hard. S
ome kind of bug,
the Doctor says.
Some nosebleeds, a little fainting, diarrhea, the food’s coming out of me from both ends.
I’ll be right as rain in a week or two. Maybe they’ll even send me on one of those
sanatorium
vacations to Crimea on the Black Sea.
I’m tired.
”

“Chernobyl
, more likely
,” muttered Magda under her breath.

“
Listen, what are you doing here?
With him?”

“Who?”
“Pig. I hate that bastard.”

             
“Don’t. Don’t give him that power. When water fills a jug, it takes the shape of the jug. But the water is not the jug. The jug isn’t the water. Don’t become like him.”

             
“What are you doing here?” Arkady asked again. “What’s wrong with the
chuzhie
?” He used the Russian word for “foreigner,” so she knew he was talking about Snow.

             
“Never mind. Just get well. Were you putting in double shifts again?” Arkady was trying to put together a retirement nest egg by working two jobs.
His pension from the Soviet era was less than worthless now.

             
“Yes, in the Lab and on the pipeline. Helping out with the pigging.”

“Enjoying yourself?” Pig interrupted
from behind them
.

             
“Yes,” said Magda. “But nothing else. There’s nothing else here to enjoy.” But Pig’s point was made. He didn’t want her talking to Arkady. Had just warned her off. That was okay. Another kind of person might have challenged Pig over it, asked questions. Not Magda. Magda was of the opinion that when you asked a question, all you got was the answer to the question, not the truth. If you wanted the truth, it was better to shut up, watch and listen. That’s how you learned the truth.

             
Snow was dreaming again. Not about hock
ey this time. “Snowball
”
-- the
model
worker as Pig sarcastically referred to him
--
was dreaming about Snowball.
And Pig and Magda and the Doctor and
Schrödinger
and Kolya and Arkady. Except somehow in the dream, they had all become animals
, except
Schrödinger
, who was a cat to begin with
.
There were a bunch of signs on the wall, but he couldn’t manage to read all of them, just the ones that said no animal will wear clothes and that all animals were equal. Magda was a mare, trying to help him sound out the words written o
n the wall. Nearby, Pig held a
dripping paintbrush in his hand, as he looked at what he had written on the wall.
He told everyone who would listen that he couldn’t be happier if they all knew how to take care of themselves, but since they didn’t he would take on the onerous responsibility of making sure the Camp ran smoothly for them.
Doctor Bandar was also a pig, reading out statistics in a shrill voice that proved the Camp residents had suffered fewer illnesses, lived longer, ate better food and had more recreation hours than they had prior to the Camp being privatized
and Pig took over
.
Some of the female animals professed their belief that their menstruation cycles were more regular and less painful under the guidance of Pig.
Arkady was listening to strange bird tell him stories about Sugar
Candy
M
ountain. “I must work harder,” he’d say. And “Napoleon is always right.”
“Four legs good, two legs bad,” Kolya was
bleatin
g.
A herd of sheep was milling about trilling that while four legs may
be good, two were much better.
A pack of dogs was
gambolling
around
,
nipping at everyone’s heels
to
keep them frightened and pointed the same way.
Schrödinger
the cat didn’t much care one way or another, just so long as Snow kept feeding him and scratching
the scent glands on
his cheeks.

             
Obviously, Snow’s mind had been seriously damaged during the freezing. What were his chances now that he had begun the thaw? If one had to guess, they’d probably say he had a snowball’s chance in …

… hell!

             
Magda
had waited until the medical clinic was almost empty before sneaking back with
Schrödinger
, Snow’s best and only friend.
Quietly, careful not to disturb the shadows, she reached inside her bag and set
Schrödinger
down on Snow’s chest, where he sat, purring and rubbing noses with his chum.