to retch all her marvelous supper onto the frozen ground. She tried to do it quietly, so that he would not know that she had lost all the lovely things he had set out for her. It’s not my fault, she thought furiously, unable to speak even now, when he was sleeping. Bellies trained on dry bread rations and salt fish cannot bear all this richness!
Marya Morevna looked up. The great black horse watched her calmly, his eyes burning phosphorescent in the dark.
Shame flowed into her mouth, sour and thick. She crept back into the little house so softly, like a thief.
* * *
In this way they traveled, across thrice nine kingdoms, thrice nine republics, the whole of the world, between Petrograd and Koschei’s country. The sleek, driverless car, which never seemed to need gasoline or maps, sped them on through wild, brambly woods and snowy mountains like old bones. It remained cold as midnight within the automobile no matter how bright the sun outside. Marya’s teeth ached from chattering. Yet each evening they would unfailingly discover a little house cheerily aglow in a larch forest or amid razor-spiky firs. Each evening a table would be set for them, the food growing finer and finer as they proceeded east and the snow grew deeper. Roast swan, vereniki stuffed with sweet pork and apples, pickled melons, cakes piled with cream and pastry. Each evening Koschei would ask her not to speak and then feed her with his long, graceful hands. Each evening she would sneak into the woods to throw it all up again, the muscles of her stomach sore with eating and retching, eating and retching.
“The vineyards that gave us this wine also provide the wine for Comrade Stalin’s table,” he said one night with a sly grin. “You will remember what I said about children and Papas, and who eats first, and who eats last.” Koschei the Deathless made a face as he tasted the wine. “It is far too sweet. Comrade Stalin fears bitterness and has the tastes of a spoiled princess. I savor bitterness—it is born of experience. It is the privilege of one who has truly lived. You, too, must learn to prefer it. After all, when all else is gone, you may still have bitterness in abundance.”
Marya Morevna thought this did not sound quite right. But the glistening swan meat and the vodka so pure it tasted only of cold water spun her faster and faster, and the faster she spun in his arms, the more sense he seemed to speak. And because her body could not keep the sumptuous food down, she found herself all the more ravenous whenever he lifted a spoon of roast potato to her mouth.
He placed honey on her tongue, and pear jelly, and brown, moist sugar. She swallowed his steaming tea. And he kissed her, again and again, sharing sweetness and heat between them. Outside the hut, the strange tall horse nosed at his trough of embers every night, watching her secret sickness without blinking. Only now his coat was red, with a mane like fire. And whenever she woke from her deep, downy bed, the automobile would be waiting in the mist, puffing exhaust, it, too, no longer black but scarlet, like beets, like blood.
But Marya was only a girl, thin and young, and the constant lurching from frozen car to warm, crackling fireside began to eat at her. She began to cough, only a little at first, but then harsh and sharp. She became feverish and sickly until, finally, she could not even eat the little candied quails or holiday bread piled with apricot syrup. She had to push the spoons away or else spill out her guts on the fine fur rugs.
Marya lay on the floor by the fire in the latest cheerful, obedient hut, her knees drawn up to her chest, sweating and shivering all at once. If she had wanted to speak, she could not have. Her eyes glassed over; the room swam. Koschei looked down at her, his dark hair wet with melted snow. “Poor volchitsa,” he sighed. “I have been in such a hurry to get you home. I have been too impatient, and you are only human. But you
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