Read Online Day of the Oprichnik by Vladimir Sorokin - Free Book Online
Authors: Vladimir Sorokin
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count on your help?”
“I’m not promising anything, but I can try.”
“How much will it cost?”
“There are standard prices. Zemstvo affairs currently cost a thousand in gold. Departmental—three thousand. But an affair in the Public Chambers…”
“But I’m not asking you to close the case. I’m asking for the widow!”
I slow down as I drive down Ordynka Street. Good Lord, how many Chinese there are here…
“Andrei Danilovich! Don’t torture me!”
“Well…for you…two and a half. And an aquarium.”
“What kind?”
“Well, not a silver one!” I grin.
“When?”
“If they’re sending your friend off the day after tomorrow, then the sooner the better.”
“So, today?”
“You’ve got the right idea.”
“All right. Please drive me home, if it’s not too much trouble. I’ll get my car later…I live on Nezhdanov Street.”
I turn around and race back.
“Andrei Danilovich, what kind of money will you need?”
“Preferably gold pieces of the second minting.”
“All right. I think I’ll be able to get the money together by evening. But the aquarium…You know, I don’t do gold aquariums; we ballerinas aren’t paid as much as it seems…But Lyosha Voroniansky is sitting on piles of gold. He’s a great friend of mine. I’ll get it from him.”
Voroniansky is the premier tenor of the Bolshoi Opera, the people’s idol. He not only sits on gold, he probably eats off it…I zip across the Great Stone Bridge again, in the red lane. On my right and left cars sit in endless traffic jams. After the Nestor Public Library I pass Vozdvizhenka Street, the university, and turn onto disgraced Nikitskaya Street. The third cleaning has passed and the street has quieted down. Here, even the hawkers and bread peddlers walk fearfully and their cries are timid. The windows of burned-out apartments that have never been restored blacken menacingly. The Zemstvo swine are scared. And for good reason…
I turn onto Nezhdanov Street and stop near the gray artists’ building. It’s fenced off by a three-meter-high wall with a constant ray of light shining upward. That’s all as it should be…
“Wait for me, Andrei Danilovich,” says the prima ballerina as she gets out of the car. She disappears into the lobby.
I call Batya:
“Batya, we’ve got a request for a half-deal.”
“Who is it?”
“The clerk Koretsky.”
“Who’s buying?”
“Kozlova.”
“The ballerina?”
“That’s right. Do we help the widow beat the rap?”
“We can try. We’ll have to share quite a bit to manage it. When’s the money?”
“She’ll have it by evening. And…my heart can feel it, Batya, she’s going to bring an aquarium out to me shortly.”
“That’s great.” Batya winks at me. “If she does—drive straight to the baths.”
“You bet!”
Kozlova is taking a long time. I light a cigarette. I turn on the clean teleradio. It allows us to see and hear what our domestic dissenters spend so much time and energy to listen to and watch at night. First I go through the underground: the Free Settlements channel broadcasts lists of people arrested the previous night, and talks about the “true story” behind the Kunitsyn affair. Fools! Who’s persuaded by these “true stories”?…Radio Hope is quiet during the day—they’re catching up on sleep, those late-night SOBs. But the Siberian River Pirate, the voice of runaway prisoners, is wide awake:
“At the request of Vován, Poltorá-Iván, released just three days ago, we’ll play an old convict song.”
A juicy harmonica starts, and a husky young voice sings:
“Two convicts lay flat on their bunk beds
And dreamed of a past that they craved.
The first one was nicknamed Bacillus,
The other one’s handle was Plague.”
This River Pirate, jumping around western Siberia like a flea, has been caught between the nails twice: first the local Secret Department squashed it; then we did. They got away from the department guys, and
“I’m not promising anything, but I can try.”
“How much will it cost?”
“There are standard prices. Zemstvo affairs currently cost a thousand in gold. Departmental—three thousand. But an affair in the Public Chambers…”
“But I’m not asking you to close the case. I’m asking for the widow!”
I slow down as I drive down Ordynka Street. Good Lord, how many Chinese there are here…
“Andrei Danilovich! Don’t torture me!”
“Well…for you…two and a half. And an aquarium.”
“What kind?”
“Well, not a silver one!” I grin.
“When?”
“If they’re sending your friend off the day after tomorrow, then the sooner the better.”
“So, today?”
“You’ve got the right idea.”
“All right. Please drive me home, if it’s not too much trouble. I’ll get my car later…I live on Nezhdanov Street.”
I turn around and race back.
“Andrei Danilovich, what kind of money will you need?”
“Preferably gold pieces of the second minting.”
“All right. I think I’ll be able to get the money together by evening. But the aquarium…You know, I don’t do gold aquariums; we ballerinas aren’t paid as much as it seems…But Lyosha Voroniansky is sitting on piles of gold. He’s a great friend of mine. I’ll get it from him.”
Voroniansky is the premier tenor of the Bolshoi Opera, the people’s idol. He not only sits on gold, he probably eats off it…I zip across the Great Stone Bridge again, in the red lane. On my right and left cars sit in endless traffic jams. After the Nestor Public Library I pass Vozdvizhenka Street, the university, and turn onto disgraced Nikitskaya Street. The third cleaning has passed and the street has quieted down. Here, even the hawkers and bread peddlers walk fearfully and their cries are timid. The windows of burned-out apartments that have never been restored blacken menacingly. The Zemstvo swine are scared. And for good reason…
I turn onto Nezhdanov Street and stop near the gray artists’ building. It’s fenced off by a three-meter-high wall with a constant ray of light shining upward. That’s all as it should be…
“Wait for me, Andrei Danilovich,” says the prima ballerina as she gets out of the car. She disappears into the lobby.
I call Batya:
“Batya, we’ve got a request for a half-deal.”
“Who is it?”
“The clerk Koretsky.”
“Who’s buying?”
“Kozlova.”
“The ballerina?”
“That’s right. Do we help the widow beat the rap?”
“We can try. We’ll have to share quite a bit to manage it. When’s the money?”
“She’ll have it by evening. And…my heart can feel it, Batya, she’s going to bring an aquarium out to me shortly.”
“That’s great.” Batya winks at me. “If she does—drive straight to the baths.”
“You bet!”
Kozlova is taking a long time. I light a cigarette. I turn on the clean teleradio. It allows us to see and hear what our domestic dissenters spend so much time and energy to listen to and watch at night. First I go through the underground: the Free Settlements channel broadcasts lists of people arrested the previous night, and talks about the “true story” behind the Kunitsyn affair. Fools! Who’s persuaded by these “true stories”?…Radio Hope is quiet during the day—they’re catching up on sleep, those late-night SOBs. But the Siberian River Pirate, the voice of runaway prisoners, is wide awake:
“At the request of Vován, Poltorá-Iván, released just three days ago, we’ll play an old convict song.”
A juicy harmonica starts, and a husky young voice sings:
“Two convicts lay flat on their bunk beds
And dreamed of a past that they craved.
The first one was nicknamed Bacillus,
The other one’s handle was Plague.”
This River Pirate, jumping around western Siberia like a flea, has been caught between the nails twice: first the local Secret Department squashed it; then we did. They got away from the department guys, and
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