Two Cousins of Azov

‘Is it relevant?’ Vlad answered meekly. He knew he should be drilling for facts, perhaps working through a structured Q and A about the weeks leading up to the old man’s admission. He also knew Polly would be waiting for him after work. She’d probably have sex with him – joyous, sweaty, slippery sex – if she was in a good mood. Which she wouldn’t be, if he was late. He checked the Tag-Heuer watch strapped to his wrist.

‘You said you would listen, Vlad! Please listen!’

The old man wanted to ramble, to go way back. Maybe it would be good for a bit of practical analysis. Maybe, even, he could write it up as a ‘talking cure’? It depended on what was said, of course, but … He had thought the old man would cough up some story about a fall, maybe TB, too much vodka or maybe some old war wound … But a spot of psychoanalysis might be worth a try. A story was a story. And to be honest, he had always loved a good story. Just not as much as sex.

‘Yes, of course, go ahead, Anatoly Borisovich.’

‘Once upon a time, in a forest far away, there lived a young lad: green eyes, impish smile, and cow-lick hair. A simple-clever lad called Tolya—’

‘That’s you?’

‘You’re sharp! A boy called Tolya, simple-clever, who lived with his granny, whom he called Baba, his dog called Lev, and his papa. Away in the East, where the bears prowl and the pine trees sway. Where the saws bite the trees day-in, day-out, and where little boys learn about life …’

Vlad rested the pen nib on the paper, ready to write.

Tolya wrapped his hands around the mug of broth waiting for the warmth to flow through his sore, grubby fingers into the bones of his hands. He was sitting in his corner on the wooden bench, swinging his feet under the table and leaning against the wall. The lamp was lit but his eyes strayed to the blackness beyond the window next to him and his breath steamed up the glass. Not seeing was worse than seeing. He put the mug on the table and wiped the steam with his sleeve. He peered into the hole he’d made and moved the lantern away, the better to make out what was outside.

For a handful of heartbeats there was nothing but darkness and the noise of the wind chasing through the sky and the trees. Then he saw something move near the well. He strained forward, feet nearly touching the floor as he pivoted. He watched the rectangle of black, holding his breath. Nothing materialised into a shape. He slowly breathed out and sat back down to slug the last mouthful of broth. It was good, salty and hot, and he felt cosy with the mug in his hands. He observed his own reflection in the bottom, all fat nose and tiny bug eyes. He chuckled: Tolya the monster, RARRRRR! King of the forest! He roared and nearly choked, coughing broth back into the mug and spluttering barley grain down his chin. He wiped his face on his sleeve. As he turned his head to do so, again he saw a movement in the corner of his eye, far off in the yard: a fluttering, maybe at ground level, maybe in the arms of the pine trees reaching out like giants when the wind blew. It had not been a figure, but a flicker. A flapping wing, perhaps. He shivered, and swung his legs under the table to keep himself brave.

‘We are marching … we are marching … and we march to vic-tor-y!’ he sang in a wobbly, high-pitched, keeping-his-spirits-up voice, determined to sit it out until Baba’s return. He would keep watch, and not be scared. Although being scared was one of his favourite thrills. Just not too scared.

‘Where’s she got to, eh boy? Don’t be scared: there’s nothing to be scared of.’ He addressed Lev the dog in comforting tones. Lev wasn’t scared: Lev was never scared. He was stretched out under the table resting his bones, dreaming of rabbits. Tolya rubbed his ears. ‘She’ll be back in a moment. Or Papa. And he’ll bring some sausage. I’m sure he will. And cheese. And maybe a drawing pad, like he said he would. Hmmm … We are marching, we are marching, and we march to—’

The singing ended in a squeak. A thump had rattled the window. He’d been lying belly-down on the bench, stroking the dog under the table, and had forgotten to keep a look out. Now he dared not look up, dared not move. There was something monstrous in the yard. His heart thudded. There it was again! A tapping on the window, faint but insistent, as if hard, icy fingers were reaching out, piercing the glass, and if he sat up …

‘Lev … Lev!’ His voice squeezed between taut vocal cords, his body stiff like washing left in the frost. ‘Lev … come here, boy!’ The dog looked up drowsily, puzzled by the child. He licked the empty hand proffered to him and flopped back down with a groan.

‘Lev! listen! There’s something outside. I can hear it. It wants to get in!’ Still Tolya bent under the table, now pushing his head and shoulders down and tipping himself off the bench to the floor. He lay alongside the dog. ‘It’s coming for us … we must be brave … we must shut our eyes, and cross our fingers. That’s the drill. The boys at school told me. Cousin told me. And we must ask Comrade Stalin—’

Tolya’s head cracked the underside of the table as the door opened and cold air washed into the cottage. He cowered. Lev thumped his tail.

‘Tolya!’ A voice like a pistol shot. ‘Come help me, son! I’ve got a lot to carry. Come on now, pet, help Baba!’

Lev heaved his tired bones from the floor and ambled towards the owner of the voice, tongue lolling as she cuffed his ear with a large, reddened hand.

‘Lev, you old rascal, what do you want with me, eh? And what have you done with my grandson?’

‘Baba, I’m here,’ Tolya scrambled out from under the table, pulling hair and dirt from his baggy grey trousers as he did so. His hands shook. ‘We heard a scary sound. It was the moth boy, fluttering in the trees. He tapped on the window! I was … I was petrified!’ The boy looked up from his trousers and a single tear escaped each of his bright green eyes as he blinked.

Baba’s hands stopped still on the dog’s nose and she regarded the boy. ‘You heard the moth boy, you say? And what did he sound like, eh? Like wind in the trees, or like me walking in the yard?’ She raised an eyebrow and waited for Tolya to reply, but the boy avoided her gaze, and instead fiddled with the buttons on his jerkin, running his fingers over their smooth surface again and again. ‘Did Lev hear the moth boy?’

Tolya shook his head. ‘I don’t think so, Baba.’

‘You’ve been scaring yourself instead of doing your jobs. Hiding under the table with the dog – you should have been drawing water from the well, or clearing ash from the stove. You’re a rascal, young Tolya, and Papa will have to be told!’

She put down her bag and handed him a solid brick of black bread. ‘Food in our stomachs, son, that’s what you need to worry about. The real – the here! You’ve scared yourself, and now no one will sleep.’

‘But I’ll sleep with you, Baba, and with Lev here, and I’ll sleep well. No matter what the moth boy does.’

‘Ha, maybe you’ll sleep well with some food inside you, we’ll see. But you mustn’t get between me and my sleep, I’ve a lot to do tomorrow. Now, help me get the dinner ready. We won’t wait for Papa, he’s going to be late.’

‘He’s got a quota,’ said Tolya in a serious, grown-up tone.

‘He’s got a quota,’ echoed Baba, nodding her head.

The pair washed their hands in the bucket by the stove and began preparations for the evening meal.

‘No sausage tonight, Baba?’ Tolya searched through her bag.

‘Ha! Sausage? No sausage tonight. I’ve forgotten what it looks like. They say things will get better but … but there, we will wait and see. I haven’t forgotten the taste!’

‘Ah, the glorious taste!’

‘Pure heaven,’ grinned Baba.

‘Like eating sunshine,’ said Tolya.

‘You know, we could always try making sausage out of Lev. What do you reckon?’ Baba’s worn cheeks glowed red as she chuckled.

‘Baba! That’s not funny!’

‘No,’ she agreed wryly, after a short pause, ‘it’s not. You’re my sunshine, boy. You are my joy. Don’t ever change.’ She hugged him close, bread knife in hand, and breathed in the familiar, warm smell of his hair, his neck, his young life.

They set about their tasks, and swapped stories of the day’s events.

‘Did you draw me anything today, young Tolya, eh?’

‘No, Baba. I need a new piece of chalk. That one’s all worn away, I can’t hold onto it.’

‘Akh, again? Well, we’ll see what I can do. Maybe up at the school house we’ll be able to beg a piece of chalk. We’ll keep trying. I love your pictures. You’ve got a gift there, son. Much good it’ll do you.’

The well bucket clanked as the wind whipped out of the trees and across the yard. The boy dropped his spoon. ‘So, Tolya,’ said Baba slowly, ‘now you’ve told me about school, what’s this talk of the moth boy? Where’s this coming from? Old stories, boy … not good Communism.’ She observed him from the corner of her eye as she began to cut the black loaf into slices. Tolya stirred the buckwheat porridge with an inexpert hand.

‘We were talking after school, Baba. Pavlik has seen him. And Gosha. He came to their windows, in the night. He was tapping for the candles. And cousin Go—’

‘He should know better!’ Baba tutted, and shook her head.

‘It’s true though! He said the moth boy wants to get into their houses, to get near the light, and lay eggs in their ears. They’ve all seen him! All of them! He waits at the windows! Maybe he wants to eat them! Suck out their brains—’

‘Enough! On with your jobs!’ Baba scowled over the bread. ‘Those boys with their stories! I’m going to have a word with that cousin of yours!’

Tolya pretended to get on with his jobs, but his eyes strayed back to the window. In his head, he could really see moth boy: his moon-washed face, pale as the northern summer night, pale as milk, luminous as ice; his huge eyes, round, bulbous, staring from his shrunken skull like twin planets, empty and dead; his stomach, round and furry, grossly blown up and dissected into two pieces – thorax and abdomen, both parts moving and throbbing; worst of all, his wings, fluttering, green and brown and blue, vibrating, shimmering, huge and furry: inhuman. He could see him flitting amongst the trees, shivering, diving, a puff of moth-dust from his vibrating wings, projecting himself, aching to cross from the trees into the village, from the dark to the light, fluttering over chimneys and into window frames, knocking on the panes, reaching out with limbs that were withered and ice-cold, frond-like … were they wing-tips, or antennae?

‘Is that done?’

He sucked in air with a jolt. The spoon in his hand was hovering over the pan, not stirring but making useless round movements in the air. The porridge looked stodgy, and was drying at the edges.

‘Yes, it’s done, Baba.’ He nodded and smiled, and carefully scooped a good serving into each of their bowls, adding a peck of salt as he went.

‘Eat well, Tolya. We have a Subbotnik tomorrow: you will need your strength for the voluntary work.’

‘Another Subbotnik! But Baba, it’s Saturday! I want to play, and help Papa in the yard, and teach Lev how to march!’

Baba gave Tolya a tired look, and sighed into her lumpy porridge. ‘Tolya, that’s the point of a Subbotnik. We do good works on our day off. Well, we who have no choice do. And everyone reaps the benefit. It is our duty.’

‘But that’s not fair!’ The boy’s bottom lip started to tremble.

‘Life’s not fair, Tolya, life’s not fair. Now eat your porridge, and grow big and strong. Then you can tell them what to do with their Subbotnik.’ She laughed, the sound gravelly and low. Tolya cuddled up closer to her, sharing her warmth, and chewed on his black bread and buckwheat, determined to grow big and strong.

Later that night, as they lay side-by-side in the big wooden bed in the corner of the room, Tolya listened to his baba’s breathing. Steady, big breaths whistled in and out of her chest, making the quilt rise and fall, rustling slightly. She was warm and solid, like a living stove. He knew she wasn’t asleep.

‘Tell me a story, Baba.’

‘Get to sleep, boy – it’s late. Too late for stories.’ She turned onto her side towards him, plumping up the straw pillow with her shoulder, and tucking down her head so that her nose and mouth were under the covers.

‘Tell me the moth boy story, Baba.’

‘Akh, I wish I’d never opened my mouth. Moth boy … what nonsense! There is no story. It’s just a myth; tittle-tattle. I’ve never seen him …’ Baba’s voice trailed off and she yawned, ‘And it was all so long ago.’

‘Not that long ago, Baba. Not like when you were a girl.’

‘Ha!’ She chuckled and opened her eyes. ‘No, not that long ago … yes, when I was a girl … that was another century! There were no radios, no mobile cinemas, no electricity, not anywhere – and no one could read! No one like us, I mean. There were no communes, no soviet councils …’

‘But that was before moth boy?’ prompted Tolya.

‘Akh, moth boy. No, moth boy’s not that old – although, if he’s a spirit then … he’s as old as water, as old as the stars. Maybe the shaman knows, eh? You know the local people believe, don’t you? And who’s to say they’re wrong.’

‘What did you see, Baba?’

‘Nothing. It was a dream … a story. The story got into my dream. Some words people were saying.’ She began to doze off.

‘But what about the story?’ He pressed his elbow into her chest.

‘A boy ran away to the forest; a strange boy. He wanted to be a shaman, that’s why he went. He hid in the trees, shaking the leaves … but the moonlight slid into him, through the cracks round his eyes.’ Tolya felt around his own eyes with soft fingers, looking for cracks. ‘It shone in his brain, you see. And once it got into him, he couldn’t come back, no matter how cold and lonely he was. He was moonstruck; a lunatic, half boy … and half moth. He taps at the windows, but he can’t come back.’ Baba’s voice was becoming thick with sleep.

‘I’ve heard him, Baba!’ Tolya rocked his blond head into Baba’s shoulder to rouse her. ‘He’s real.’

‘Oh, my boy! Real, not real: what’s the difference, eh?’ She smiled and patted his hair with a heavy hand as her eyes fell shut. ‘Nothing lasts forever, except stories.’

‘But we believe in him, don’t we Baba?’

‘Go to sleep. We believe what we want to. And what we believe must be real, mustn’t it?’ Tolya nodded. ‘Maybe you’ll be a scientist when you’re grown up, and you can tell me if spirits are real or not.’

‘I will, Baba. I’ll be a scientist. Then we’ll know.’

‘Good. But now it’s time to sleep. Papa will be home soon, and he’ll be angry if we’re awake.’

Tolya closed his eyes and pressed his nose into the pillow, nestling into the warmth of his babushka, and imagining how his laboratory might look, when he was grown and big and strong. He would get to work in a flying machine, and eat only sausages and sweets.

‘Next time you see moth boy, Baba, you know what to do?’ She did not reply, but he carried on talking, looking down into his own hands. ‘Just close both your eyes, and cross both your fingers, and say to yourself, as loudly as you can, “Comrade Stalin, protect me!” and all will be well. That’s what the boys said. All will be well. Just believe. That’s what they told me.’

Baba grunted and stroked his head. The warmth of the bed spread through his limbs and over his mind as he fell into the velvet nest of sleep. A sleep so deep, he heard nothing, sensed nothing. Not even the lonely sound on the windowpane.

tap-tap-tap

The old man’s head snapped up.

‘You see, Vlad, moth boy is as old as the wind, the water. The story … I didn’t make it up! Ask anyone!’ He rubbed his eyes with a sticky, squelching sound. ‘They go to the flame, they get too close and – fssssst!’

Vlad stared at the old man, puzzled, and then turned his eyes to the fine grey mist rising from the mud flats beyond the window. He blew out his cheeks.

‘We didn’t really get very far, did we, Anatoly Borisovich?’

‘I was too young … too young to know the half of it! I thought Comrade Stalin would protect me! What did I know?’

Vlad glanced at his watch.

‘Indeed. Anatoly Borisovich, I’m sorry, I have to go.’ It was gone four o’clock. He licked his lips at the thought of Polly. ‘I am sorry to leave at such an interesting moment.’

‘Interesting?’ Anatoly Borisovich yawned. He felt warm inside. He hadn’t talked at such length for a long, long time, and had forgotten how energising it was to converse with another person, instead of muttering to himself. He also felt extremely tired.

‘I’ll come again, maybe later in the week? Perhaps then we can get to the research part? What you’ve told me is fascinating, thank you, but I can’t use it. It doesn’t help me understand what has been troubling you recently, you see, and what caused your collapse, and your memory loss. That is the point of my research.’

‘Research?’ repeated the old man absently. ‘Collapse?’ He frowned. ‘Oh yes.’ He cleared his throat. ‘You couldn’t see your way to bringing me a little morsel to eat next time, could you? We don’t get much that is sweet here, Vlad, and I do find talking exhausting. Do you like a bit of cake, yourself?’

‘Cake?’ Vlad looked hurt. ‘I don’t eat cake. I’m an athlete – or at least, I was.’

‘Oh really? That’s a story!’

‘Not really.’

The old man’s eyes rested on Vlad’s arms as the muscles flexed under his sweater, then travelled to his legs, slim in their close-fitting jeans.

‘I’ll see what I can do to find you something sweet. And hopefully next time we can make some progress on how you got those scars. It will help us make sense of what is … going on now.’ Vlad was shuffling his papers and jangling his keys.

The old man reached a wrinkled hand up to his cheek to feel the marks with dry fingers.

‘I loved my baba. It wasn’t my fault, you know, what happened to her.’

A Study in Bisection

Gor drove home through the autumn mist, back across the bridge, past the newspaper stand, past the busy, bustling square, past the kiosks and the lights, hurrying for a little peace. On arrival, he bolted the door behind him, put on the safety catch, and cleaned his teeth, twice. The second time, he used rock salt and oil of menthol, slicing through the film of moth that clung to his canines. He flossed with a piece of white cotton, and examined his mouth in the bathroom mirror, grinning back at himself with a mirthless growl.

A visit to a psychic: he couldn’t believe he had agreed to it. But Sveta had been keen to help, and what was more, her concern had seemed genuine. He hadn’t expected it. When they first met, two weeks before, he had not found her a promising prospect. She had been hesitant and largely displeased, full of sighs and fussy questions: not the best properties of a magical assistant. Their second rehearsal had been little better. But today she had smiled, laughed even, and turned into a real person. A real person who served up giant, hairy moths in her sandwiches. Gor shuddered. Was he losing his mind? Had the moth even been real? No one else had seen it. He ran his tongue around his teeth as he sat in his armchair, the cats twisting around his ankles, mewing.

But the rabbit – there were witnesses to that. It had been very real, and very disturbing. A rabbit and a moth: there must be some logic to this. He leant down to tickle Pericles’ chin and thought back to his first encounter with Sveta, searching his mind for clues, trying to remember everything, exactly as it had happened. It had been warm and sunny in the morning, with a fine rain setting in at lunchtime. The headlines on the radio were of the rouble plummeting against the dollar, savings disappearing, huge rallies in oil stocks, the threat of war in Chechnya. And in his own apartment, he had been invaded by a woman who had answered his advert – fluttering on a lamp post in the leaf-strewn street – the day it had been put up. She had come in, fully unprepared, and fussed.

‘Mister Papasyan—’

‘Call me Gor.’

‘As you wish. Mister—’

‘Gor, please,’ he repeated politely but firmly. He was hunched away from her, grunting slightly with the effort of doing up the box clasps. She chewed on her red bottom lip, and then remembered her lipstick.

‘All right. Gor …’ Her voice trailed off.

She had forgotten what she was going to say. She strained her neck to observe the outline of his shoulder-blades through the old, thin cotton of his shirt, listening to him grunt, and wondered if he suffered from asthma. Her own chest felt tight with a sudden edge of panic. She breathed out noisily and tried to relax.

‘It would make what we have to do this afternoon much easier if you could just call me Gor. And breathe in.’

‘I see.’ She breathed in again, trying to make herself smaller, but resenting the implication of his words. She was not a large woman, although equally, not birch-like. Who needed twig women? What good were they? And who was he to tell her to breathe in? He had her at a disadvantage, and she wondered for the tenth time if this afternoon had been a mistake. All she could do was close her eyes, patient and saint-like, as he huffed and puffed.

‘And I will call you Sveta, if that is permissible to you?’

‘Oh yes, very good.’ Her voice fluttered and she did not open her eyes.

‘There, that all seems correct.’ He made a vague ‘rum-pum-pum’ sound in his cheeks and stood up tall, towering over her. ‘Where were we?’ He scratched his head, the silver hair ruffling as his fingers played a trill against his skull. He appeared more fuddled than she had expected.

She pursed her lips, unknowingly pushing her red lipstick further along the crevices that radiated from her mouth, out into the soft, doughy pallor of her face. Suddenly, she brightened.

‘You ask me to wiggle my toes?’ she asked hopefully, arching one heavy brown eyebrow.

‘No, not yet. It’s far too soon for that. We have a little way to go. Just …’ He positioned her hand higher, pulling on her fingers, and paused to observe the effect. ‘How do you feel?’

‘Um, fairly … normal. Not magical, at the moment, I have to say.’

He turned away tutting to himself, hands on hips, shaking his head.

‘Is something wrong?’

He did not reply, but turned slowly this way and that, scanning the room.

‘Gor?’

‘The saw …’ his voice came from between tight lips.

He turned back towards her and his eyes, large as the moon and dark as night, rolled slowly from one side of their sockets to the other, and back again. She felt a sweat break out on the palms of her hands and a fluttering in her stomach: he really was a fright to look at. ‘The saw, Mister … er, Gor?’

Gor spun away. He was annoyed with himself and what he considered the rather slow-witted woman before him. He took in the windowpanes, the rain behind them threatening to dissolve the sky and the land and bring everything to a smudgy, dripping halt. He took in his living room, bathed in the brown, honest glow of the books and sheet music that lined its walls, exuding a scent of permanence. He took in his baby-grand piano, dark and shiny as polished jet, perfectly tuned to be played at any moment. He took in the fluffy white cat reclining over its lid, one claw-prickled paw raised as if to strike at the polished perfection of the wood. And there, in the middle of it all, he took in the corpulent middle-aged woman, in a box.

He sighed, and removed his eyes from her: she upset him. The lipstick was too sticky, the hair too blonde, her understanding of magic zero and … and the rasping sighs that plumed and flowed from her like lava would have singed his tired nerves at the best of times. This afternoon was definitely not the best of times, despite the comforting rain. And now he couldn’t find the bloody saw!

‘It’s on the table, by the door,’ said Sveta quietly. He started at the words, coughed and refocused his eyes. They came to rest on the small table by the door. He shook his head.