Red Russia

by Tanya Thompson

  On the lawn, Louis Vuitton is carving up the couch cushions with the chef’s knife, a tattooed man is singing, the Strongman is crying, and Felix is yelling at his trembling hand.

  Then, lest I forget, the Unimog is in the savannah-themed enclosure.

  Still holding the phone to his ear, Volikov lights a cigarette with one hand, and tells me, “I watch them drive straight through the fence. First chance at freedom and you know where the lion goes?”

  “Where?”

  “Right to the kitchen.”

  My eyes widen.

  “Feh. Do not worry. The staff are locked inside, safe as little mice.”

  “And the lion?”

  “Last I see him, he was in the foyer admiring the tapestries.”

  “And the people in the Unimog?”

  “If you look past the rammed picnic table, you will see they are napping on the lion’s rock.”

  Just a little farther left of that, someone in a suit is chasing the goat with a banana. “Is that Isaak?”

  “Indeed.”

  Of all the things so far, this strikes me as the most inexplicable. See, Isaak didn’t snort Ambien. He was nowhere near the brothers when they railed what they thought was cocaine. And because of his opiate addiction, Isaak doesn’t drink, which means Isaak should be as close to sober as anyone here. With or without the banana, there’s no good reason for Isaak to be chasing a goat.

  “This is the reason I never brought him back to Moscow,” Volikov says. “I did it to protect him. He does not have the stomach for real politics. He faints at the sight of blood. Did you know he does not eat meat? He calls himself vegetarian.”

  Volikov says into the phone, “It requires the full force of Avialesookhrana.” Aerial Forest Protection Service. “I want air tankers and helibuckets. I will stay on line.”

  The goat that says Meh, as all Russian goats do, reaches the fallen fence and quickly hoofs it in search of a gracious space, and Isaak follows with the yellow fruit fully extended.

  “But what is he doing?”

  “Same thing he does every time we come here: saving the poor creature these degenerates offer the lion. Normally the lion eats big beef patties made in the kitchen—they put a special little herb in it to keep him from ripping his own throat out in boredom—but when Isaak comes to Bereznik, the Bratva always give the lion a meal that can run.”

  “That is horrible.”

  “They are thugs. What do you expect?”

  “Small decencies?”

  “You are sweet. Same reason I cannot take Isaak to Moscow. He has a soft heart. He was already out there trying to lure that stupid creature to safety when they drove through the fence.”

  In the reflection of the glass, we both watch Alyona take Peter’s hand and walk slowly forward to stand beside us. Awestruck by the scene before her, she doesn’t think to drop Peter’s hand.

  Volikov looks to me and I to them and then back to him, and I know he’s wondering why I don’t have a problem with this.

  Looking pointedly at the matching stains on their clothes, Volikov asks Alyona, “Making friends?”

  Her expression is cold, murderous steel.

  And as I don’t particularly want to drive back out into the fire with her tonight, I point their attention east, to Isaak running over the grass, banana before him, calling unheard words into the distance that separates his mouth from the goat’s ears. “If he catches it, what does he plan to do with it?”

  “As usual, take it home.” Shaking his head, he sighs. “No, he would never survive in Moscow.”

  Chasing the goat into the shooting range, Isaak follows the animal’s sharp turn around the activation pillar, but unlike the cloven-hooved ungulate, Isaak slides on the grass. To keep from falling, he grabs the pillar with one hand and allows momentum to swing him 90 degrees back into pursuit, but at the same time he inadvertently triggers the range into life.

  The result of Sid Vicious’s day of knocking golf balls into the area is instantly felt. As the first trap clangs upright (a smiling Mark Zuckerberg), it zings a fast-moving golf ball at Louis Vuitton by the picnic tables.

  The thwack against his back coincides with a shot fired from upstairs.

  Vuitton spins to confront his attacker and sees Zuckerberg with a Halo Battle Rifle. Throwing himself to the ground, he belly crawls for the nearest picnic table.

  The second spring-loaded trap (Theresa May with an Uzi) rapid-fires three speedballs at two tattooed men.

  Upstairs, someone fires down the hall: Pif! Páf! Pow! Kapow!

  Flipping the picnic table, Vuitton shouts, “Prepare for thunder!” i.e., impact.

  The Strongman dives down beside him. Snatching a derringer from an ankle holster, he blindly fires over the table at a fifty-degree angle, sending bullets into the blackened woods.

  Isaak doesn’t notice. Isaak’s only concern is the goat, and the goat’s only concern is Isaak. Though, perhaps, by the way he’s looking over his shoulder, the goat also has a similar worry to me: where exactly is the lion?

  A third trap is triggered, and the entire country of Chechnya rises up with a metallic shwang to hurtle a small array of missiles at the picnic table where Louis Vuitton and the Strongman are pinned down.

  Near the sauna, Felix takes notice, and shouts, “What the devil is going on?”

  And Vuitton calls back, “Bastards are shooting at us.”

  Squinting into the target range, Felix spends a few seconds focusing his eyes before shouting, “All right, fucker, if that is how you want it.” He slaps a tattooed man on the arm, and the two disappear around the side of the house.

  At my side, Alyona whispers, “Ready to tell me what was in vodka?”

  “Nothing, actually.”

  “Is a lot of something for nothing.”

  I look around for Peter and find him slumped to floor, dead asleep, his head resting in the springy new fronds of a fern.

  Back outside, an unexpected militant rises in the form of Scarlett Johansson. She comes to the party with a cigar in one hand and dynamite in the other and lobs an errant missile at Johnny Rotten that ricochets off the floating picnic table and rolls to a stop outside the sauna.

  But it’s Angela Merkel that deals the first real damage. She launches an artillery strike on the conservatory that shatters windows across the entire western front. Glass slices through the vegetation, shearing off leaves before shattering on the tiles.

  Covering our heads, Alyona and I cower, but Volikov stands unmoved. He talks calmly into his phone. “Tell the pilot to land in front. If he lands in back, one of these khuibolisty will shoot him.”

  A multilayered insult, khuibolisty means losers, though literally it’s dick ballers, like footballers, which is to say dick kickers who involve the balls. Tolstoy would weep.

  Upstairs, a single round is fired, bux, bang, and the Strongman, peeking over the top of the table, is simultaneously hit between the eyes, thax, schwack, by Tommy Hilfiger springing to life with a Stars and Stripes bazooka.

  The goat hides behind Johansson, Isaak peels the fruit, and the Strongman crashes to his back.

  Still in his underwear, the Fat Man comes screaming and careening out of the Savannah chased by Sid Vicious and the Ken Doll.

  The goat startles to Merkel, Isaak follows with the banana, and the Fat Man passes the overturned picnic table—“Oooyyyaaahhh!” Aaarrrggghhh!—on his way for the pool.

  Presumably for his own safety, Vuitton tries to take him down with a tackle, but his arms slide down the Fat Man’s still heavily oiled body, and he lands with his face in the turf. Bukh. Thunk.

  With his hands slipping from the Fat Man’s ankles, Vuitton struggles to his knees, and Vicious and Ken trip over him.

  The Fat Man cannonballs into the pool. The Strongman falls asleep in the grass. And Zuckerberg springs back up to drive a wedge into the stumbling Ken Doll’s side.

  Ken falls into Vicious who falls onto Vuitton.

  Merkel is ratchet
ing down for another strike, and Vicious is both laughing and swearing, “Akaka, blya,” Ahaha, fuck, when Alyona’s phone rings.

  Both Volikov and I stretch to look at the screen.

  It’s Peter.

  But Peter is sleeping behind us.

  Ripping the phone from her hand, Volikov answers.

  A Russian shouts in English, “Where is Konstantin?”

  I recognize the voice as Demyan’s, and I suspect Alyona does as well, but Volikov doesn’t. He does, however, recognize the accent, and he wants to know: “Who is speaking?”

  Silence.

  “Who is speaking?”

  Who is not speaking.

  “Who is speaking?”

  Nope, who is definitely not speaking. Who has found Peter’s option to hold. I know this because Volikov dangles the phone derisively at an angle so we all hear the piercingly high Vitas scream. 1

  Peter mumbles in his sleep, “Two Elements past the Fifth.”

  And Volikov angrily answers whoever is on the satellite phone, “Of course I am fine. The only way I could shriek like that is with testicle clamps.”

  While Volikov conveys more pressing information to his associate, I hold my own phone toward the ceiling until the bars settle enough to call Peter’s.

  Demyan answers, “Hallo?”

  “Where are you?”

  “In tower.”

  “Christ’s sake, man, get out of there.”

  “Why? Is more happening?”

  The Devil in the Tower... Lord have mercy. “What are you doing up there?”

  “Trying to save fortune. I call fire and forestry service, but I am not Pakhan. Is Konstantin who must call for federal favors, but no one can find him.”

  “Earlier I heard the cook mention he was in the sauna with a woman. You should come down now and look for him there.”

  “If I leave tower, I lose reception, and I am holding on four phones with services from here to Moscow.”

  “Mr. Volikov is sorting out the rescue effort with Mosco—”

  “Fuck your mother!”

  “Well, okay, but that’s a bit… Oh, right: he’s a mother fucker. Sure. Got it.” Not that it matters, the call is dropped.

  If Peter were awake, he’d probably say I’d failed in the art of phoneshui, but Volikov simply offers, “The cell towers are burning.”

  Of course they are. That’s what towers do. And if we hope to leave even one tree standing, we really need to get the Devil out of and away from any and all towers.

  I consider retrieving him from the tower myself, but on opening the gallery door, I notice the gas-canister assault on the second floor has filled the foyer with an opaque haze of smoke. The tattooed man in Saint John’s Ascension is lost in the cloud.

  I should probably try to save him.

  But I’m unarmed and there’s a lion on the loose.

  He could even be hiding in the fog.

  Or up the stairs… because something is definitely moving down the spiral stairs from the tower. And it’s hard to tell on how many feet it will arrive because each foot echoes in the narrow stone passage.

  The first footfalls on the marble floor are hurried and end abruptly in an audible “Ux,” Oof, and a fleshy slap. Fleașc. Splat. Flat palms against polished tile sort of splat.

  From the mist, someone swears, “The fuck?”

  “Demyan?”

  “Hell did I trip on?”

  “A man sleeping in a tapestry. While you’re there, maybe drag him out of the smoke.”

  “Is house on fire?”

  “No, that’s just a bomb from the floor above.”

  Silence.

  “Demyan?”

  “Na khuya?” For fucking what? = Why? “Why is everyone gone crazy?”

  “Now’s not the time to agonize. The lion is missing.”

  "Ex, jób tvojú mat!" Oh, what the fuck! "Rodilá rebjónka: tri nogí, četýre xúja, pjátaja, pizdjónka." Have born a baby: three legs, four dicks, fifth is pussy = Things are really messed up.

  Beneath an inaudible mumble of continuing obscenities, there’s the swoosh of fabric being dragged across the floor. Moments later, at the gallery doors, Demyan materializes with a fistful of tapestry to hurl the cocooned body of a tattooed man into the conservatory.

  He points above and says, “I lost all calls. How is Maksim calling?”

  “Satellite phone.”

  “Konstantin is in sauna?”

  “Maybe.”

  He stalks out the back of the conservatory to find out.

  Upstairs, someone—who I am beginning to suspect is alone—fires another round down the hall, and outside, the Fat Man backstrokes across the pool.

  Ken, Vicious, and Vuitton are still pinned down by Chechnya when Hilfiger pops up to zing two balls against the table and one into the stomach of the Fat Man.

  Vicious screams at the sky, “Where did shitstorm come from?”

  To convince the goat how delicious it is, Isaak pretends to eat the banana. Khrum, khrum. Yum, yum. And the goat does seem interested, but he’s keeping his distance because you can never tell when any of these monkeys might turn.

  Halfway to the ground, Zuckerberg glitches out in a spasm of twitches, klatz-klatz shchyolk, titikity-tik-schwick, but Johansson springs up to zing a hard one at Johnny Rotten in the pool.

  Zvyak. Thwack.

  Dazed, he looks around for the source.

  Back behind the picnic table, Vuitton shouts, “Gruz-300!” Injured need transport.

  Rotten says, “Fuck it,” lays his head down on Elvis’s belly, and goes to sleep.

  Demyan enters the sauna.

  Volikov grunts.

  Following his gaze to the corner of the house, I see Felix with the RPG.

  Alyona mutters, “Góspodi, nyet.” Lord, no.

  Beside Felix, the Blond with Cornrows holds a second rocket.

  Felix squints both eyes to focus on the target range. His steadier hand is on the trigger. His right is on the grip.

  Volikov’s expression toys with the idea of mild concern.

  Vicious makes a run for the house, but Theresa May nails him in the ribs.

  For no apparent reason, the Ken Doll howls, “Zába-ága!” Toad-master!

  And Felix responds with his favorite toast, “Poyékhali!” Let’s do it!

  His damaged brain sends a signal to the left hand to pull the trigger, but the transmission crosses to the right as well. Flinging the tube skyward, he launches a missile at the tower.

  With the impact, the foundation of the castle shudders.

  The goat bolts for the woods.

  Isaak drops the banana.

  Stones tumble from overhead and smash through the conservatory ceiling, taking glass and steel to the floor. Babakh! Tararakh! Babakh-trakh! KakaKarash! Crack-a-boom!

  Then Merkel follows with another barrage. Páf-au-pif-páf. Rat-a-tat-tat.

  The entire western front falls to ruin. The tower only has half a roof.

  Volikov considers it with a barely audible “Errm.” Hmph.

  Felix says, “Again,” and Blond with Cornrows loads the second rocket.

  Isaak yells, “You stupid idiot,” and stalks past Chechnya.

  Volikov steps back.

  Alyona and I are already there.

  Demyan emerges with Konstantin from the sauna.

  Konstantin’s brows come together as he questions, “Felix?”

  Then his eyes bulge as he cries, “Nyet!”

  But the neurons have already fired and the signal leaves Felix’s brain. It reaches his left hand as Isaak reaches Theresa May. The rocket reaches them both before Felix can answer, “Uhú?” Huh?

  Where Isaak and Teresa stood, there is nothing. Not even the pink mist of Louisiana hunters killing with tannerite. There’s nothing but a trail of smoke exploding in the remains of the western forest.

  Looking over his property, Konstantin stumbles where he stands.

  The tower is a burning matchstick on th
e corner of the castle. Half the conservatory is jumbled beneath it. The tables are upturned, and the forest is smoking. Farther west, flames still shoot into the ten o’clock sky and meld with the fireball sunset.

  Leaving the leafy green cover of the eastern forest, the lion trots across the grass to throw his front paws over the Pakhan’s shoulders and gently maw at his head.

  Konstantin drops to his knees.

  The lion falls with him. He licks from neck to ear and then chest to eye, raking his tongue over the blood-red skin of the Pakhan.

  Somewhere in the smoldering distance, the goat calls out, “Meh.”

  The Aeon

  Shuffle the cards right over left, cut the deck three times, and see what the future holds.

  In the center is the Sun.

  Not to be taken literal. Especially not in Russia where the sun set six months ago and is now only above the horizon for three short hours.

  In the Tarot, the Sun is the promise of new life.

  Now don’t go all sentimental and think baby. No one’s pregnant. It’s a new life for the dealer. And thank fuck for that.

  In the immediate past is the Tower. No shit.

  And rather appropriately, the Tower card is singed around the edges from the fire that collapsed the tower roof when Felix shot it with a rocket.

  I’d have done this reading sooner, but Konstantin’s construction crew only recently dug my cards out of the rubble, and the guards only gave them to me this morning, a morning indistinguishable from night.

  Sticking with the whole darkness and ruin theme, back to the Tarot: beside the Tower is the tattered Prince of Coins. Nothing to be surprised about there either. We did see that coming in the first reading.

  Below the Sun, in the subconscious mind, are the Three of Swords and the Five of Wands. Water-stained Sorrow and coal-dusted Strife.

  Above it, in the conscious mind, are two absolutely filthy swords. Nine cruel stabs and ten ruinous swipes with these things will leave wounds that fester. Being that’s my mental state, it’s also no news to me.

  It’s the future I’m hoping for a glimpse of.

  Left of the Sun are the Moon and the Wheel of Fortune. The face of the moon is clouded by soot and the wheel is cracked, but their location is heartening.