Babayaga

by Toby Barlow

  It was rough and Impressionistic. Done mostly in shades of blue—cornflower, Persian, and cobalt—it showed an older woman with melancholy eyes gazing out a garret window. She looked as if she might be recalling better days, or watching her beloved depart down the avenue. “I introduced a dealer I know to the artist today. He liked the work, picked up a dozen or so of this fellow’s pieces. Interesting artist, he mostly does portraits of his wife. He’s been painting her for years now,” said Vidot. “The dealer, Christof, owed me a favor. He’s going to cobble together a show of the work and get them a bit of press as well. I picked this one out to keep, I thought you might like it.”

  “Oh,” Adèle said, studying the painting. “I’m not sure it’s very good.”

  “No?” Vidot came and stood by her side. “Why don’t we let it stay a few days and try it out? If we still don’t like it, I can return it to Christof.” He looked down at her, trying to look calm and serene. “It is good to be home, Adèle.”

  “I am glad you are home too,” she said, looking up at Vidot, her expression unfathomable.

  He stood there, trying to guess what she felt. Relief? Guilt? Absolution? The mantel clock’s ticking was the only sound in the apartment. Vidot felt torn, his whole soul exhaling with relief at having made it, finally, here to his own apartment. But his heart was twisted and unsure whether, despite both his words and hers, he truly was at a place he could call home.

  He reminded himself that he was a Frenchman, he was expected to understand these wanderings of the heart. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to ignore the whole thing and simply find a lover of his own. Perhaps she expected him to, or perhaps she thought he already had. But that had never been his style. He was not moralistic, he was simply a man in love with his wife.

  For the past few days he had done all he could to resolve the many complex facets of this case, as well as coming to terms with the parts he would never solve. He had considered paying a visit to her lover, Alberto, repeatedly imagined walking up to him on the street and popping the man in the nose or socking him in the eye, but after he had turned it over in his mind he decided that he did not want or need that kind of justice.

  His only desire was to know if this apartment could hold any possibility of being a home for him. If it did, then he could begin again, letting the past grow faint and weak and vanish in that way it naturally does. But this was it, the final riddle of his journey. He did not feel the urge to smile. The emotions he was going through and whatever she might be feeling seemed more unfathomable to him than the secrets of any crime, more mysterious than any mystical spell. Over the past few days he had gone through an incredible, inconceivable metamorphosis and somehow, miraculously, had survived. Along the way he had accomplished amazing feats and overcome grave threats of a scale he could have never imagined, and yet here he was, in the end, standing in a smartly tailored suit, fumbling, awkward, wordless and shy, faced with nothing more than the eyes of the woman he loved. Like an ancient blind weaver who has run out of thread, he felt quite empty-handed.

  So, in a gesture that held uncertainty, curiosity, and more than a little fear, he gently reached out to take his wife’s small, soft hand into his own. She did not resist, yet her acquiescence did not reassure him. He was uncertain if her heart held any ardor for him or if she was merely giving the appearance of obedience and acceptance. He knew he had the strength to seize, slap, shake, even beat her to wrest a confession, but that was the last thing he wanted. He simply longed for a hint of her small, perfect smile and pined for a sparkling glint of happiness in her eyes. He had come so far to reach this moment, and this was all he wanted, her hand in his, with full trust, steady until the morning. He thought to himself that in these tenuous times, this was perhaps the most he could hope for. He felt the warmth of her skin on his and looked down at both their hands. A riddle’s truth lay here, how absolutely large and great one very small thing can be, and how, with sweet, tender vigilance, one can take these small, fleeting moments and build them into something eternal. This is all we are at our best, he thought, tiny instances accumulating up into a greater whole. There is nothing magnificent in this world, he thought, that is not born from an act so slight as to go wholly unnoticed. We must be especially attentive to see them, and to remember to perform them, he thought, yes, that is the crux: we must simply pay attention. He squeezed her hand softly, as if to say, I am here, I am right here for you. Then, with barely a pause, he felt Adèle gently squeeze his hand back. He took this as a good sign.

  That night the two of them did not make love, they did not even kiss more than to say good night, but as they lay in bed, their arms draped around one another, their toes tentatively touching, Adèle finally shifted, pulling him close and burying her nose into his nightshirt. Then they both slept, soundly, their breath rising and falling, slipping in and out of unison.

  IX

  It was late in the afternoon and Oliver had a black eye. He dropped a sugar cube into his coffee and stirred. “Of course I meant to call earlier, but it’s been so busy. The embassy had a lot of questions, but it all was manageable, at least for a while. Then French intelligence showed up and insisted on asking their own questions. It became less of a friendly debriefing and more of an interrogation, but I held up well until, out of pride, I suppose, I shared my theory that the French resistance was a bit of a mythical beast. Of course one of my interrogators turned out to be an actual hero of the resistance, and, well…” He exhaled his cigarette and sipped his coffee before continuing. “That was only a minor side note, really, the rest of it’s all cleared up or shut up by now. I did manage to get my hands on a good amount of cash to pay Red and the rest of the jazz boys, and I’m pleased to say they were happy with that unexpected bonus. They said you got them some money too. Speaking of cash, you ever meet Philip Strong?”

  “No,” said Will.

  “Thought Brandon might have introduced you. Phil’s a big honcho, runs the whole theater for the agency, one terrible son of a bitch. Anyway, word is he had to pay an astronomical sum to the Paris police to keep them from poking around Bendix’s lab, and then, only hours later, the damn place caught fire and burned to the ground with Bendix trapped inside. Dunno who was behind it, Phil’s people or the police or whomever, though it seems rather messy for company work.” Oliver paused for a drag of his smoke. “You know, I almost pity that Bendix, the good doctor had such grandiose plans. Imagine, finding the means to bond the world into one shared consciousness. Incredible stuff, really. If only he had aimed that power in a slightly more peaceful direction, he might have enlightened us all. He could have been a Buddha, but he turned out to be a pest, ha ha. Sounds like something right out of Cole Porter.”

  He had been rambling on like this ever since he arrived at the station. Earlier, waiting by the small café stand, Will had been unsure if Oliver would even show. When he did arrive, Oliver had seemed listless at first. But then he had settled into his chair, lit his cigarette, and starting talking. Apart from Oliver’s rambling monologue, the station was quiet, an off-season calm before the holiday storm, with only a handful of travelers waiting. Porters pulled their carts by, and station agents wandered about, occasionally checking their watches. Will’s own train was scheduled to leave on the quarter hour.

  “I did want to ask you one question,” Will said.

  “Really? Okay.” Oliver winced, butting out his cigarette. “Though I have to tell you, I am deathly tired of questions.”

  “I know, but seriously, tell me this, what was the knife for?”

  Oliver looked curious. “The knife?”

  “Yes, that first night,” said Will, “you wanted me to bring the knife to that meeting with Boris and Ned. I figure you couldn’t have planned on blackmailing me that early on, you didn’t even really know who I was yet.”

  “Oh, yes. The knife.” Oliver nodded. “It sounds silly now but I had planned for us to do a little bonding together, a little ritual with a blood oath, something w
e boys used to do up at Camp Kinloch when I was young. It was only meant to be a bit of theater to show our commitment to the good fight, a bit of rah-rah.”

  “What were we fighting for?”

  “To remain here in Paris, of course, to stay on the agency dime. It was a time for serious action, Will, they were chopping funding, pulling the plug on us all. Now that de Gaulle’s back in, there’s no reason for them to stay. The local Communists have been neutered, the Russians are contained, and Germany’s quiet, which makes this conflict pretty much over. The big-theater stuff here is done, Washington has no need to keep funding it, which means all of us, the ad men, the journalists, the intellectuals, and even the poets, every single soul of us who’s been living on the company’s largesse, we’re all being cut off.”

  “Come on, there weren’t that many people working for the agency,” Will said.

  “Oh yes there were. You couldn’t throw a copy of Fodor’s across a Spanish Quarter café without hitting someone on their payroll. In the low season, pretty much every American you saw in this town was a penny ante spook of some sort. I’d rather hoped we could all rally together, all for one, one for all. Ridiculous, obviously, childish stuff, but that was another time, really. A whole other era.”

  “It was two weeks ago,” said Will.

  “Was it? Well, it seems like a lifetime, doesn’t it?” said Oliver. “Come to think of it, I suppose for Brandon it was.”

  “So, what about Brandon, what was he was up to?” Will asked.

  Oliver raised an eyebrow. “No one at the embassy offered any specifics, but it’s not too difficult to deduce. Clearly, his goals for those pharmaceutical experiments were not very different from what I was up to, ginning up the game so that he could stay here, overseeing wave after wave of hallucinogenic assaults against Ho Chi Minh’s godless hordes while sitting in the comfort of the Ritz bar. Ordinarily, he would have run that scientist’s operation through more proper channels, but doing it the right way would have eaten up too much time and he was desperate. He was going to be shipped out too; he had to rush. I think Brandon only wanted the same thing Ned, Boris, me, even you wanted. We all simply wanted to stay in Paris.”

  “Looks like you’re the only one who’s staying.”

  Oliver shook his head. “Not for long. I’ll probably ship home soon. I’ve got a friend at the Herald Tribune who’s offered me a spot at the sports desk. It’s not ideal. I’ll have to find some angle to make it interesting, but I need the job, right now the larder is pretty bare.”

  “Really? What about your family money?”

  Oliver smiled. “Here’s a little secret, Will: the money I come from is so old it’s dead. The great cod fortunes swam away some time ago. But that doesn’t matter, I’m always happy to work, I’ll be fine. What I’m curious about is what’s next for Paris? Look at this grand station, Will, think of this city, it’s been the eye of the hurricane for centuries, a firestorm of ideals, art, and philosophy, a place where fierce arguments became actual revolutions, which then exploded into bloody wars. Think about all that happened here, Pascal, Descartes, Voltaire, Napoléon, the barricades of the commune. This was it, the glistening pearl resting at the center of a grand transcendent battle for mankind’s soul. I wanted to be a part of it, to help in some small way to keep it going. But now it’s all over, the bullies and the bankers back home need a real war and what we’re doing here these days is far too subtle.”

  “What do you mean, subtle?” Will asked.

  Oliver shrugged. “Well, American factories need orders for jeeps and jets, and American politicians need full employment. A cold war doesn’t get you that, only a real war will do the trick. After all, every soldier hit with a bullet means another new job listing, and every jeep blown up means another order on the books. So they’ve got that kind of war now and, well, bully for them. But when we pull out of here, that’s it for this place. As funny as it seems, this was the last battle for Paris, the final act, and now, mark my word, this city will be abandoned, not by people but by history. The local intellectuals will go on with their philosophies, and de Gaulle will wrestle with his little Algerian conundrum, but the idea of France as the beating, vibrant heart of the world is over. They will be left with nothing but dull tourists coming over, packed like wet sardines on those new Pan Am and TWA flights, pouring out in record numbers to overwhelm the palaces, plazas, and galleries. They won’t have the slightest notion that they’re standing where Marat shrieked to the crowds, or where Baudelaire searched for his absinthe, or where a Stravinsky ballet—a ballet, mind you—caused a bloody riot. They won’t see Degas for the shifty little snob he was, and, my lord, they won’t bother reading Proust. For them, all this will be little more than one of those cheap roadside attractions you see up in the Catskills, all will be trivial. The mighty dynamo is dead.”

  “Okay, well, then,” Will said with a grin, “sounds like it’s a good time to hit the road.” He stood up and looked over toward the waiting train. “They’re probably boarding now, Oliver. Thanks for coming, I appreciate it.”

  “Ah, yes, of course, sorry for going on like that. Ridiculous of me, really,” said Oliver, rising to his feet. “But I am glad I could see you off. That’s what friends are for, right?”

  Will suspected Oliver was only being polite, they weren’t true friends. Oliver was too naturally opaque, maintaining a safe distance from the world; and Will was little more than a stray white tennis ball that had rolled onto Oliver’s court from some clumsy beginner’s match. But there was no one else for Will now in Paris, and so this tall, thin man with the cool smile and his insouciant manner was probably the closest thing to a friend Will had left.

  Oliver walked him to the platform. “You really think you can find her?”

  “I can try.” Will said. “She mentioned Spain, so I thought I’d start looking there.”

  “You know, Spain isn’t particularly small.”

  Will grinned. “I know that.”

  “And while your Zoya is an exceptional woman, I have to say—”

  “I’m going to find her, Oliver.”

  “Yes, yes, of course you are.” Oliver gave him a bittersweet smile, as if he had done all he could. Will shook his hand and headed down the walkway. Looking back, he saw Oliver still standing at the head of the platform, his hand held up in a halfhearted farewell.

  Perched high in the station, a pair of owls sat resting upon the broad steel girders, watching quietly as the traveler made his way down toward the waiting train, his shadow growing long in the low, waning light.

  X

  It was the last ferry of the night. As the engine started up, its blue-gray diesel smoke blew back across the deck, mixing with white wisps of sea fog. Zoya lay in the lorry’s open bed, tucked, unseen, amongst paneling, packing crates, and rolls of insulation. The truck was parked on the deck amid long haulers, buses, and passenger cars. As the ferry eased away from the Copenhagen docks, bouncing softly into the choppy, cold waters of the Oresund Strait, the boat engine’s groan matched the ache in her heart.

  A narrow crack of the night sky was visible between the bales and tall boxes, and a low orange moon peeked down at her. She tried to distract herself, thinking about a newspaper article she had read a few months before about how the Russians, those old friends from so long ago, had recently sent a rocket up beyond the atmosphere, aimed at the lunar surface. That is so like us, she thought, we are always reaching up, clawing and grabbing, first for the fruits on tree branches and now for the stars. Even the spires of our small town churches and city cathedrals seem to be stretching up, straining to scratch at heaven’s peak.

  She imagined what the Soviet rocket must have looked like, sailing away from the confines of the earth. The thought reminded her of sieges she had witnessed, long ago, where the long, red streak of cannonballs arced high above the desolate, dusky wreckage of battlefields before falling against the failing buttresses of those great sinking cities.

  Ah, you
poor stupid moon, she thought, you idiot stone, circling up there, watching over us for so long. You must have thought you were safe from us, eternally remote, discreetly distant. I could have told you it does not matter how far you go or where in the darkness you hide, no place is safe from the fumbling throes of man.

  She looked down and stroked Noelle’s hair. The sleeping young girl had nestled her head on Zoya’s chest, wrapping her arms around her waist. Underdressed for the north, they had been huddling together like this for the last two days to stay warm. Zoya remembered how Elga often used to say a woman’s hands had poor circulation because her hot blood was always staying busy in her mind, keeping her out ahead of the brutes.

  The russet chicken rested by their side, it seemed to be sleeping too. Zoya had found the girl where the old ghosts said she would be, waiting for her on the outskirts of Paris in a small park near Gagny, but the bird in the girl’s arms had been a surprise. Leave it to those women to forget to mention the chicken, Zoya thought. She wondered how she would care for the girl, what tricks she should be taught. The ghosts will help us, she thought, or at least they will do their best to try. She would find the girl a pair of wool mittens in the morning.

  Pulling Noelle close, Zoya tried to settle in and rest as the churning ferry boat carried them north. The diesel’s thick cloud of exhaust trailed behind the boat, dimming the stars, one by one, as their course bore them deep into the comfort of the coming winter’s darkness.

  Sleepily, her thoughts drifted back to Will. She had not wanted to leave Paris. She had taken the girl back into the city with her and found them a place to stay. She thought they could be there for a while, perhaps she had hoped to stalk him. Both curious and protective, she wanted to watch her rabbit try to find his way. But instead it was he who had flushed her out, the way the shock of gunfire frightens fowl from the brush.