The Big Book of Modern Fantasy

by The Big Book of Modern Fantasy (retail) (epub)

  When Oksana went off to the maternity ward, Shulgin got a simple white envelope. He tore it open immediately and sure enough, there was a handwritten note in block letters: “199 square feet.” He rushed home in a cab and at first his heart sank: his apartment looked exactly the same. But then he noticed what seemed to be a contour of a doorway, right under the wallpaper. He picked at the plaster—indeed, there was a door, and behind it a room—199 square feet, as promised. Shulgin jumped from joy, hitting his left palm with his right fist while yelling “Yes!” and danced around the room as if doing the Lezginka.

  If you think about it, there was no place for this wonderful addition to be accommodated—at that same exact spot was the neighbor’s apartment, inhabited by one Naila Muhummedovna. Shulgin apprehensively stopped by for a visit—allegedly to borrow some matches—everything was fine, Naila Muhummedovna was making dumplings as always. He went back to his place—the room was still there, it smelled like wet plaster. The wallpaper was uninspiring, but that’s easy enough to change.

  Oskana came home with an adorable little girl whom they unanimously and immediately named Kira. Shulgin told Oksana that the new room was a surprise for her; that it was always there behind the wallpaper. And Oksana said that he’s simply the best, the most thoughtful man, absolutely wonderful. And that they now need a stroller for Kira. Shulgin zoomed off to the window, but instead of a stroller was gifted a six-burner gas grill—the kind usually used at dachas, with two red gas canisters. “I don’t have a dacha…” said Shulgin to the closed shutters. “I do have a little baby.” But the window was silent. Shulgin waited around for a bit, then waited some more, but what was there left to do? He dragged the gas grill home. “You shouldn’t have done that,” said Oksana “I asked for a stroller.” “Tomorrow!” promised Shulgin, but tomorrow brought something even more ludicrous—a full set of parts for a mini-boiler, complete with pipes, gaskets, and valves.

  Things weren’t going well for him; he rang Frolov’s doorbell, who didn’t immediately open—it must have taken him that long to walk through all his endless rooms to the front door.

  “Take my mini-boiler!” pleaded Shulgin.

  “I won’t.”

  “Then take one of my grills. Or both.”

  “No, I won’t take the grills either.”

  “Frolov, I’m giving it to you for free!”

  “There is no such thing as ‘free,’ ” answered Frolov, and Shulgin could see that his neighbor’s eyes were dimmed with unhappiness, and that behind him in the endless enfilade of rooms were TVs and more TVs—on the floor, on the ceiling, and still in boxes.

  “But you said that there is?”

  “I didn’t. I said they were handing things out ‘free of charge.’ There is a big difference.”

  “Okay, fine…Can you buy this mini-boiler, then?”

  “Where would I get that kind of money?” sighed Frolov.

  Shulgin also didn’t have any money, only things. What else could he do, he took the boiler to the Savelovsky Trading Complex, and there, after much haggling and for a third of the price, the only buyer he could find was one of those gloomy Kebobs.

  “Can’t they just stay in their sunny Shesh-besh-abad? Why do they need to come here anyway?” thought Shulgin. He used the money to buy Kira a stroller, the most expensive and beautiful one, with pink ruffles. On the next day the window handed him an envelope, and there, on graph paper, a handwritten note: “Minus ten.” Shulgin broke out in a cold sweat, terrified: what is this “Minus” business? Once home, he grew even more alarmed: Oksana relayed to him, through tears, that in a corner in the new room, the plaster from the ceiling came crashing down, scaring everybody, but thankfully not falling on top of the stroller with Kira in it! And wouldn’t you know it, ten square feet of plaster—exactly—had fallen down with the cement peeking through. They cleaned up the mess, but at night a strange rustling was heard. Shulgin jumped up to look—but no, nothing fell. It was simply the walls moving to make the room a little smaller.

  He grew suspicious, his wheels turning:

  “You didn’t throw anything away yesterday, did you?” he asked Oksana.

  “Just some logs from the bathtub, why?”

  “Please don’t throw anything else away,” said Shulgin.

  “But they were crooked and useless!”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about, woman.”

  Of course he didn’t know what he was talking about either, and he couldn’t figure why his living quarters have been made smaller: was it the mini-boiler or the half-logs? What were the rules here? Maybe it’s like backgammon? You make a wrong move and voila, you can’t get rid of any of your checkers? And Frolov—how does he play? Why is his apartment endlessly getting bigger and bigger, why is it deluged with TV sets?

  For two months following, things were boring and dull but safe: he went to the window like it was his job; there, random crap was meted out—baby powder, paper clips, a bland white “Polar Bear” waffle cake, homeopathic pellets for an unspecified illness; pots with seedlings. All of it took up space. Shulgin behaved, he kept everything, and was finally rewarded for good behavior with an envelope containing a note: “270 square feet, with balcony.” It all worked the same as last time, only difference being that Oksana found the door obscured by the wallpaper herself, and by the time Shulgin came home she had already moved the Nefertiti ottoman, along with a table and two armchairs, into their new room.

  “Perhaps there are other surprises hidden beneath the wallpaper?” rejoiced Oksana.

  “Perhaps…but not all at once,” responded Shulgin, playfully slapping her on the ass and mentally calculating that they already swallowed up the entire expanse of Naila Muhummedovna’s apartment, extending into the space where the Bearshagsky kitchen is. But neither Naila Muhummedovna nor the Bearshagskys were complaining.

  Another week went by with Shulgin receiving necessary and unnecessary things, and then something dreadful happened: they were invited to a birthday party at a dacha. Oksana mused and debated out loud, trying to choose which gift is best—“Obession” Eau de Toilette or a tie, so Shulgin’s guard was down. Upon getting out of the cab, however, he finally noticed Oksana dragging a big white box, and his heart stopped.

  “What’s that?”

  “A charcoal grill.”

  “Did you buy it?”

  “No, it’s one of ours. We have two of the same, remember?”

  “What have you done?! We have to take it back right this minute!”

  But it was too late: their cab, having made a U-turn, had already left, and the birthday boy had already come out from the gate to greet and joyfully thank them for such a helpful gift. Shulgin couldn’t take a single bite of his shashlik, he was worried sick about what the window will think about this, how it will punish him. Oksana also looked crestfallen: she must have incorrectly labeled him, Shulgin, as greedy, a dog in the manger. Once home later that night, Shulgin ran to check: did the walls move, and what about the ceilings, is the balcony still there, what’s going on with the fridge and the stove?—misfortune could come from anywhere. He inspected the fuse box, looked under the beds, counted the appliances and the unopened boxes stuffed with unnecessary things that were imposed on him by the window. Counting was easier said than done: there were boxes up to the ceiling filling up all three rooms; in the hallways you had to squeeze by sideways. But everything looked to be okay until his mother-in-law called—she had picked up Kira for the weekend—to say that the child had a high fever, she was burning up.

  “This, this is all your doing! That’s what you get for the grill!” Shulgin yelled at Oksana.

  “Are you nuts?” Oksana broke into tears.

  “Don’t touch my kid! You hear me? Don’t you dare touch my kid!” yelled Shulgin into thin air, shaking his fists.

  By morning, Kira’s fever was down,
and Shulgin—enraged and resolute—marched on over to the window to hash this out mano a mano: “What the hell is this shit?” The window issued a pair of valenki, just as at the dawn of their liaison.

  “What’s this supposed to mean?” Shulgin demanded angrily, banging the closed shutters with his fist. “Hey! I’m asking you!” The window was silent. “Answer when people are talking to you!” Silencio. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you!” forewarned Shulgin.

  He cooled down a bit at home and started thinking about his next steps. Things weren’t looking good. On one hand, the unseen evil forces behind the window daily dish out gifts—perhaps not of the highest quality, but quite decent nonetheless. In the span of just eighteen months Shulgin had accumulated enough to open up his own store. But on the other hand—and here is the catch—the window won’t allow you to sell anything. Won’t let you sell anything, won’t let you give away anything, won’t let you throw out anything. It’s a totalitarian regime, thought Shulgin bitterly, absolute control and no free market. But then again, it’s not without humanitarian aid—once the apartment is so full it’s about to burst they expand your living quarters. In Frolov’s case, they seem to be expanding ad infinitum. Yet be that as it may, who needs all this square footage, even with a balcony, if you can’t do with it as you please? “Maybe I should privatize it?” considered Shulgin.

  “What do you think about privatization?” he shouted to Frolov. His friend was silent, perhaps he couldn’t hear him. It wasn’t at all comfortable sitting or playing in Frolov’s apartment anymore—there were railroad tracks everywhere, mine trolleys were riding every which way, knocking down backgammon pieces and coffee mugs. The racket was insufferable and so was the smell. There were TVs continuously mounted along all the walls.

  “What’s all this?” shouted Shulgin over the noise, meaning the railroad tracks. “I dunno. ‘Siberia Aluminum’ they say.”

  “I thought Deripaska owns it?”

  “I hear he’s the majority shareholder.”

  Shulgin suddenly felt bad for Deripaska: if Deripaska decides to buy some more shares from Frolov for absolute happiness, he’ll be shit out of luck. The window won’t allow it. But something was amiss, thought Shulgin—they started out practically at the same time, but now Frolov had an entire manufacturing plant, he was basically an oligarch. And all Shulgin had was a three-room apartment and a sausage vendor wife. Imagine, social inequality and no free market. Take that, North Korea!

  Oksana was planning to get a nanny for Kira in order to go back to work, so when the window shouted “Nanny for Kira” Shulgin hopped up—“Deal!”—and by the time he saw what’s what, it was too late. The nanny came out of the window feetfirst, as if in a breech birth, and while the legs were making their way out, Shulgin realized the full scope of the impending disaster. She was around twenty, Playboy Bunny curves, tits from a sergeant’s wet dream, dyed hair, pink lipstick, playfully biting down on a blade of grass. She adjusted her mini skirt:

  “Where is the kid?”

  “I won’t let you near her!” scowled Shulgin.

  “And why not?”

  “I need a stupid old hag, and not this…What the hell is this!”

  “We’ll grow old together! And I ain’t that smart.” She roared with laughter.

  “I have a wife at home!”

  “Oh muffin, how sweet, he’s got a wife!”

  If we walk through the food market she’ll get disoriented and lose her way, plotted Shulgin. But things didn’t go as planned: the nanny held on tight, swayed her leather-clad hips, and loudly demanded he buy her black caviar and cherries. “Where is the Kebob mafia when you need them?” Shulgin looked around dejectedly. “Who’s in charge of this market? The Azerbaijanis, I think? Or is it the Chechens? Where did they all go?!”

  They finally made it home, caviar and cherries in hand—passersby craning their necks, a disgrace for all to see.

  “Break me off some lilacs for a bouquet, tiger,” moaned the nanny.

  Here’s what I gotta do: stop by Frolov’s house, as if for a game of backgammon. And there, shove her into a trolley, pile on some of that aluminum he’s got, and secure it with a cover. And let her merrily roll along. It won’t count as giving her away—Shulgin mentally rationalized with the window—it’s simply a cruise! Yep, that’s what it should count as. “Siberia, Siberia, I’m not afraid of you, Siberia, Siberia, you’re Russia with a view,” he purred softly.

  Frolov’s door was opened by members of an indigenous people of the Far North in fox fur hats, they said the boss wasn’t home.

  “I’ll wait.” Shulgin tried to make his way inside, even though it was rather unpleasant stepping on the snow. For that’s what everything was covered with—snow. The railroad tracks, the backgammon table, the coffee service set, all of it was a white tundra, completely devoid of coziness: dim, with long rows of TVs, icy plains with hummocks, and gas flares blazing on the horizon. A deer ran by to catch up with the herd.

  “No way, José.” The northern peoples shooed Shulgin away.

  “I didn’t ask you! Where did he go?”

  “House of Representatives,” must have lied the peoples.

  Shulgin, of course, didn’t buy it, standing in front of the just-slammed-shut door, an ordinary pressed-wood one with a peephole. A faint smell of soup emanating from the cracks. A worn doormat on the floor. On the other hand, everything is possible. Then he’ll need to ask Frolov for a neighborly favor, maybe he can speed up the economic reforms finally allowing to sell, exchange, and all that. To enter the free market. It would be so convenient: whatever you don’t need, you sell, and using the money from the transaction you’d buy the stuff you need. Don’t they get it? Take Oksana with her hot dogs—she’s free as a butterfly. And he’s stuck with this craptastic floozy.

  “Silly billy, at least I don’t cost a thing!” sing-songed the nanny.

  “Drop dead!” howled Shulgin.

  “And death won’t separate us!”

  Shulgin fumbled for his keys, pushed the nanny aside, ran in, slammed and locked the door. His heart pounding, he tried to catch his breath. He barricaded the entrance with a mattress and secured it with an unopened box with something that said “Toshiba.”

  All night the nanny pummeled the door, trying to get in. Oksana refused to listen to any explanations. Crying and taking Kira she locked herself in the farthest, and, theoretically, nonexistent room. The nanny knocked on Shulgin’s door, Shulgin on Oksana’s, and the downstairs neighbors, angered by the noise, banged on the radiator with what appeared to be a wrench. The lilac bushes swayed in the wind outside; in Frolov’s universe moss was freezing over beneath the snow and sled dogs were heard yapping in the distance. When dawn came Shulgin, exhausted after a sleepless night, squeezed past the boxes into the kitchen for a drink of water and saw that a new room, faint like an aspen bud in the spring, was beginning to form in the wall—it was clearly being readied for the nanny. So they won’t leave him alone, then. This is the end. It was decision time.

  So he made a decision. Hesitated, and made it again.

  Resolute, he marched off to the window—right turn, left turn, another left and into building number five, the nanny clinging to him and happily chirping away.

  “A sick tricked-out ride!” swaggered the window.

  “Sweeeet,” egged on the nanny.

  “No deal,” a dignified Shulgin replied with pity.

  “Oh, then it’s my turn!” happily responded the window and slammed the shutters.

  They stood there, they knocked, but no answer. Shulgin turned around and walked back through the courtyard, stepping over the detritus and industrial debris.

  “What the fuck? I’m in heels!” the chimera yelped like she owned him.

  “Be gone, strumpet!”

  “How d…”

  “Deal!” came a voice from somewh
ere, and the nanny disappeared, having never finished her sentence. Shulgin looked around—no nanny. Fantastic! A weight was lifted. On the way home he bought some flowers.

  “What’s this?” gloomily asked Oksana, holding Kira.

  “Flowers.”

  “Deal!” came from the faraway window and the bouquet disappeared, leaving Shulgin with a bent elbow and his fingers still angled around where the flowers had been. Something hissed in the kitchen behind Oksana’s back.

  “The coffee!” croaked Shulgin, his larynx contracting.

  “Deal!” came from somewhere and the coffee also disappeared together with the cezve and the accompanying stain around the burner, making the stove look like new.

  “Oh, the stove,” said Shulgin—“Deeeaal!” and the stove was no more.

  Oksana got scared: “What’s happening?”

  “The window…” Shulgin exhaled inaudibly, but they still heard him. The windows in his apartment vanished, a dead wall appearing in their place, and all became dark, as it was before the beginning of time. Oksana let out a scream and Shulgin opened his mouth to comfort her: “Oksana! Oksanochka!” But stayed silent.

  He figured out the rules.

  Jeffrey Ford (1955– ) grew up on the south shore of Long Island, New York, and worked as a clam fisherman before deciding to study writing with the late John Gardner at the State University of New York, Binghamton. He published his first novel, Vanitas, in 1988; his second, The Physiognomy (1997), won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel and began the Well-Built City Trilogy, continued with Memoranda (1999) and The Beyond (2001). His first short story collection, The Fantasy Writer’s Assistant and Other Stories, appeared in 2002 and won the World Fantasy Award for Best Collection, as did his later collections The Drowned Life and A Natural History of Hell. Ford is known for lyrical, highly imaginative fiction that draws from a wide range of literary influences without being weighed down by esoterica. He has the uncanny ability to write brilliant stories from any prompt or subject given to him. Ford’s imagination is irrepressible. “The Weight of Words” first appeared in Leviathan 3 (2002), edited by Jeff VanderMeer and Forrest Aguirre, and collected in The Empire of Ice Cream and Other Stories.