Read The Secret History of Moscow Online
Authors: Ekaterina Sedia
Tags: #Fiction, #Fantasy Fiction, #Fantasy, #General, #Contemporary, #Moscow (Russia), #Psychological fiction, #Missing persons
The Secret History of Moscow (9 page)
Sovin was released in 1958, after ten years of hard labor, and returned to Moscow. His reputation as a geneticist prevented him from working in his former position, and he realized then that the world as it existed did not have a place for him and, the letter of rehabilitation notwithstanding, he felt hollow and wrong, somehow. He took a job as a night guard in some vast and empty warehouse.
He did not concern himself with what it was supposed to be warehousing, and paid no mind to the miles of razor wire surrounding the perimeter of the empty lot in the middle of which the warehouse sat like a monstrous toad. It felt familiar, especially in winter when the winds howled and the flat lot froze and grew humped with snowdrifts, save for a single path that led from the locked gates to the warehouse and a small cabin, heated with a woodstove and illuminated by a naked bulb hanging from the ceiling like the lure of an anglerfish-his home.
He spent his days sleeping and reading-he became interested in physics and electrical engineering-and his nights pacing under the echoey corrugated roof of the huge warehouse, empty save for the piles of refuse in the corners. There were rats and he left them be, wondering how they survived in the empty frozen place.
The rats grew bold and invaded his cabin; when he woke up in winter, after the early sunset, he heard their scrabbling and the howling of dogs somewhere outside, and thought that he still was in the camp, and had to wait for his heart to stop thumping against his fragile ribcage.
The rats ran free, and he shared his modest food supply willingly. He knew from his time in Siberia that feeding them prevented theft and wreckage of flour bags and other delicate groceries, even though the other prisoners and the guards never believed him; it was their loss, Sovin thought. He was the only one whose stuff the rats left alone.
In his new home it was the same, and the rats behaved. He gave them names, and they learned to come when he whistled gently; they took stale bread from his hands. The rats were cunning and mistrustful, and he felt somewhat proud of having won their benevolence. They watched him from the corners, silent, whiskers a-twitch, as he read or soldered. He put together radios and other small appliances, but never used them.
He was rather isolated in his warehouse and his cabin, and only came into contact with the outside world when he went to pick up groceries-he had developed ascetic tastes, and only bought unrefined flour which he mixed with water and fried into heavy flat pancakes, an occasional carton of milk, rice, buckwheat and canned pork. At the store, he picked up on what was happening to the world-what they called “Khrushchev's thaw” was in full swing, and young people talked about changing times and the unprecedented freedoms of the sixties. Sovin did not believe that; he had learned that the world
was not friendly, and any freedom was just an illusion. He heard about the dissidents who moved west, but he knew that their new lives and freedoms were illusory too. He envisioned the world as a giant machine, bloodied fragments of bones stuck in its monstrous wheels, and the only periods of happiness or perceived freedom were just a pause while the cogs swung around, nearing the next bone-crunching turn. He knew better than to be lulled by the temporary silence and to stick his head out.
He bought what he needed and headed back, never talking to anyone. He brought day-old bread for the rats. They waited for him, their eyes twinkling in the shadows.
He never listened to the radios he built, but the rats seemed to enjoy the static and the voices and somber music that occasionally broke through it, and he placed small radio sets along the walls of the warehouse and the corners of his room. He supposed this was why the rats made him a gift.
They labored in secret, and he only found out when they decided to reveal that the back wall of the warehouse had been gnawed through-they pushed away the sheet of corrugated metal, and he saw a hole with ragged edges and distant wan stars shining in a black expanse of frozen sky. He stood a while, looking at the snowy plain, listening to the distant dogs and occasional laughter the wind brought from somewhere far away, from the world he knew about but wasn't a part of. The rats gathered together and nudged him along.
He took one step and realized that the hole, clearly leading outside, did not take him onto his empty lot-instead, he found a dry path under his feet, slightly powdered with dry crumbling leaves, and a distinct smell of autumn and smoke. The rats gathered behind him, chittering excitedly, and he sighed. We can run away together, he told the rats. No one will miss us, we're the unloved children of the world. We are the corners which time sweeping by never touches, and leaves us clogged with our dust and useless memories. Let's run away.
The rats indicated that this was the idea, their idea from the beginning. Uncertain of what lay ahead, he stepped back into the jagged hole and packed a bag with a thermos of strong sweet tea and enough food to feed himself and the rat army. And then they left, he leading the way, the rats close behind. He did not turn around but with his back he felt the rats following him, the weak phosphorescent spots of their eyes bobbing on the wave of brown fur and sharp claws, their long yellow teeth bared in giddy smiles.
* * * *
Fyodor dozed a bit and when he woke up long before dawn he discovered a large rat sitting on his chest, watching his face with an intent but inscrutable expression.
"Hello,” Fyodor said. He guessed the rodent for one of Sovin's rats, the ones who showed him the way underground, and he smiled. “You're still watching over him, huh?"
The rat twitched its nose and bared long dangerous incisors.
"It's all right,” Fyodor said. “We are friends."
The rat sniffed and twitched and skittered up to his neck on its pink nervous feet. It sat up, its paws, disconcertingly similar to human hands, reaching up to Fyodor's neck.
He froze, scared now, but reluctant to do anything that would upset Sovin or his pets.
The rat grabbed hold of the chain around his neck and pulled it out from under his T-shirt. The faceless coin dangled in its paws, catching light from the glowtrees outside. The rat studied the coin while Fyodor held his breath; finally, the rat was satisfied. It jumped off his chest, hopped across the floor, and disappeared through a cleft in the wall.
Fyodor breathed; this incident disturbed him even more than jumping through the windows of a moving train and finding himself in an underground world. Perhaps Galina was right, he thought; perhaps they did die in the fall, and this was the afterlife. He fingered the coin on his chest, warm from his body heat. Perhaps this coin was meant to weigh down his eyelids; perhaps the rat was just assessing his ability to pay for the passage.
His train of thought was interrupted by a quiet scrabbling at the door.
"Who's there?” he whispered.
"It's me.” The door opened and Galina looked in. “I couldn't sleep."
"Rats?” Fyodor asked.
"No, haven't seen any.” She tiptoed inside and closed the door behind her. “Yakov's sleeping like a log."
"Figures,” Fyodor said.
Galina sat on the floor by his makeshift bed. “Did you hear what David said? About Berendey?"
Fyodor nodded. “Berendey's Forest. I remember; it was a movie or something."
"I saw it too, when I was a kid. How can it be real?"
"It probably isn't,” Fyodor said. “Or at least different. Do you think anything here's real?"
"Feels real,” she said. “What else do we have to go by?"
Fyodor had to agree with that assessment-once one started doubting one's senses, the subsequent reasoning led straight to a brain in a jar. “Nothing,” he said. “It is real. Sovin certainly is."
Galina laughed, covering her mouth with her hand to keep it down. “Yeah. I couldn't have dreamt him up.” She grew serious. “Can I ask you something?"
"Sure,” Fyodor said, and propped himself up on his elbow.
"How did you know to jump through that reflection? I mean, how did you know it would work?"
"I didn't,” he said. “It was a literal leap of faith."
She eyed him cautiously. “But you dragged us along."
"I had to. If I were by myself, I would've doubted. When I had two lives on my conscience, I had to believe in it. Otherwise…"
Galina shook her head, as if chasing away doubt or harsh words. “It worked, so that's all that matters. Do you think Berendey will show up tomorrow, or are we just going to hang out in the pub again?"
He shrugged. “Don't know. But if you ask me, I don't mind the pub that much. Seems like a lot of interesting people."
"Yes.” Galina sighed.
"I know that you want to find your sister,” Fyodor said. But sometimes you just have to wait."
She nodded. “Let's hope I won't have to wait too long. Thanks for talking. I'll let you rest now.” She stood and left as silently as she had appeared.
Fyodor lay awake. He felt as if he was the only one who was a tourist here, with no particular agenda or heartbreak, and no tragedy to run from. He felt dirty and thought of the loud foreigners that crowded New Arbat, haggling over mass-produced matryoshkas repulsive in their cheery colorfulness and floridly red cheeks. They bought the dolls and thought that they were somehow authentic, and that by carrying the little wooden monstrosities home they better comprehended the depressed souls of the drunken natives.
Fyodor wondered if the suffering he had found underground was the same, slightly obscene, mass-manufactured by the cruel system, with as much thought as a matryoshka artisan cooperative that slathered paint and varnish on the light pear-shaped birch husks; perhaps his curiosity had the same sordid taint to it, the illusion of comprehension. His ignorance of real life was now patched up by the images of Sovin's unshaven hollow-cheeked face, dark like a Byzantine icon; still it remained ignorance but armored now with the arrogance of delusion.
He kept an eye out for the rats but they didn't manifest again. He was still wide awake when the morning came-the light changed imperceptibly underground, with the glowtrees flaring up brightly, and the shimmer of golden dust that remained suspended in the musty air, as if millions of butterflies had shed the scales of their wings in midair.
Sovin knocked on the door and called for Fyodor to get up and get some breakfast. Fyodor obeyed, and brushed his jeans to get rid of the hay that covered them. Galina and Yakov already waited at the table, with an old-fashioned copper samovar lording over the rough kitchen table, chipped mugs, and a sugar dish. Sovin hunched over the stove, making pancakes.
"Sorry,” Sovin said. “Didn't expect visitors, so I don't have any cheese or meat."
They reassured him that it was quite all right and thanked him for his hospitality.
"Anyway,” Sovin said. “Stay as long as you need to. Eventually, we'll fix you up with houses of your own; they're pretty low-tech, but land is not an issue here."
Fyodor traded looks with Yakov. “I'm not going to stay here,” he said. “Are you?"
Yakov and Galina shook their heads.
"Huh,” Sovin said. “I don't really know about anyone who left."
"You don't think it is possible?” Yakov said.
The breeze outside caught a hold of white curtains on the window and tossed them about. Sovin watched their frantic dance. “I don't know,” he said. “I never asked. Although if you consider why this place was made, you'll doubt leaving here is easy."
"Could you explain that?” Fyodor asked. “You told us yesterday about who lives here but not why."
Sovin slammed a clay plate heaping with misshapen flap-jacks onto the table, and sat down. “Eat,” he said. “Have some tea, and I'll tell you all about it."
It started as the place for the pagan things to go, Sovin said. Back in 980, when all of Russia was christened with fire and sword; there was no Moscow then, and the forested, hilly spot was perfect for spirits and their human allies to seek refuge. When Moscow was built, the things that inhabited the forests and the swamps, the things that hooted in the night and laughed in the haylofts were buried under the foundations of the first buildings-pagan blood was spilled under every stone, and a spirit was interred under every foundation. Or so they said, the old things, who hollowed out the ground in which they were buried.
"Did anyone know about them?” Fyodor asked.
"Of course,” Sovin answered. “This is why they sealed the underground off, and it's not as easy to find an entrance as it once was. As for going back-I suspect that those who created the barrier took care of it. Don't know if it applies to people, but some of the old residents are itching to get out, only they can't, at least not for long. So they have to meddle indirectly."
As he talked, Sovin picked up a flapjack and tossed it on the floor. Immediately, a pack of several large, glossy rats appeared as if from thin air, quickly followed by a tiny bearded man, dressed in traditional Russian costume, of the sort one expected to see on the male lead of a touring troupe of folk dancers; in other words, a fake.
"Cute,” Galina said. “You actually have a domovoi."
Sovin nodded. “Everyone does; they appear the moment you build a house. Can't keep them away, but they do the dishes and dust occasionally."
They watched the little man and the rats engage in a brief standoff; the rats decided that the domovoi posed no danger and ate the flapjack, tearing off chunks with their front paws. The little man looked forlorn until Galina took pity and tossed him one of her own flapjacks. The domovoi grabbed the treat and ran toward the wainscoting, pursued by one of the larger rats.
"Yeah,” Sovin said thoughtfully. “So we live."