Red Russia

by Tanya Thompson

  “Table is rocking.”

  “Ocean is rough today.”

  “Take his head.”

  “No, asshole, that is foot.”

  “Fucking waves.”

  “Roll him back over.”

  “Not that way.”

  “For fuck sake!”

  “You think you know better way to do this more stupid?”

  That gives them all pause.

  Holding Elvis’s head, Louis Vuitton eventually breaks the spell by asking, “What does it mean if your dick burns when you piss?”

  “No idea. The water is keeping mine cool.”

  “You lose most of body heat from your head.”

  “Of your dick?”

  “No, of your head.”

  “He has a lot of hair on his head.”

  “Could be why he is overheating.”

  “If we are going to save him, it has to come off.”

  “For the love of god, someone get a razor.”

  And that, for the uninitiated, is Ambien. That’s how you wake up in a pool on a picnic table shaved completely naked.

  * * *

  It wouldn’t be such an unmitigated disaster if it stopped there. But it won’t. Not tonight. Not when seventeen brothers are still awake.

  Already, the Mongolian with a Mohawk is peeling off from the group for the lion’s pen, and Vicious is standing on a chair over the grill using a 9-iron to knock coals into the woods.

  When Demyan exits the conservatory to stand beside me and stare, Peter is on his hands and knees, his face two inches from the turf. Nearby, still dripping wet from the pool, Louis Vuitton seems to be stuck in the crane pose, Rotten is trying to fit his knee in his mouth, and Felix is talking to Konstantin, but Konstantin is nowhere to be seen.

  In that unique tone produced when confusion mixes with disbelief and results in anger, Demyan asks, “Kakóvo čórta?” What kind of demon?

  You think I’m going to tell the Devil which demon broke loose from hell? Not on my life. No, I’m going to shrug and act clueless.

  “Yo—what-the-fuck?—stop it.” Demyan goes after the Ken Doll who is slicing the air with the hunting knife from earlier, swearing, “Fucking webs everywhere.”

  It’s a good moment to take control of Peter.

  “Okay, sweetie, party’s over. Let’s go. You did good. Mission: success. But it’s time to leave now. Come on. Upsy-daisy.” I repeatedly try to haul him from the ground, but he’s utterly absorbed and determined to stay down.

  “How have I missed this for so long?”

  “Come on, Peter.”

  “It’s so obvious.”

  “Get up.”

  “It’s amazing.”

  “Let’s go.”

  “Did you know this?”

  “What’s that?” Hooking under his arm, I strain to lift him.

  “Grass is… alive.”

  “Yeah, sweetie, grade school biology there.”

  “It’s breathing.”

  “Respiring.”

  “Totally. You know what else repeat inspires?”

  “Tell me while we walk.”

  “Oh my god, baby, we can’t walk on it. It’s alive.”

  “It doesn’t mind.”

  “Don’t. Walk. On. Grass. The signs were everywhere. Eek!” He looks down in horror, raises his right foot, then his left, then his right, and continues to swap feet until he’s a caricature of Yosemite Sam.

  Grabbing him by the face, I ask, “Did you know there’s a storm on Jupiter that’s more than three hundred years old and twice the size of Earth? Did you know if you had a dollar for every year the universe existed, you still wouldn't be one of the fifty richest people? If God scattered humanity across the world for building the Tower of Babel, what’s he going to do over the International Space Station? Did you know Adam strangled Eve in the Garden of Eden with the Snake? I didn’t either. Do you want to see it? Come on, then, I’ll show you.” (No one who’s worked the Renaissance circuit for more than a year hasn’t dealt with a day tripper skitzing on psychedelics sold to them by the magicians. You quickly learn to recontextualize.)

  With his attention now galaxies away from the grass, Peter follows me into the conservatory in an awe-inspired daze.

  As promised, I lead him to Adam and Eve.

  The fountain gurgles and groans and the struggle sounds so real I wonder if I took Ambien as well. Then, from the bulk of twisted limbs, the Polar Bear lurches into view with Alyona in a choke hold.

  “Fucking fantastic,” Peter exclaims. “Three-D art is totally future-proof.”

  The Polar Bear startles to see us, and Alyona uses the moment to drop forward and sideways and punch him in the groin.

  Peter winces.

  In a twist that takes her to the ground, she slips from his hold, grabs the closest terracotta pot (the one with a peace lily), and swings up to break it across his face.

  Still wincing, Peter says, “Owwie wah-wah.”

  The lily and a shower of loose soil fall to the ground between them. Across the Polar Bear’s face, where the impact broke skin, dirt mingles with blood, and a shard of orange pottery penetrates his cheek.

  The Polar Bear strikes out with his fists, but still insists, “I am not trying to kill you,” to which Alyona retorts, “I am not trying either.”

  She takes what remains of the pot and dashes it against his temple.

  The Polar Bear staggers. While he’s defenseless, Alyona couples her hands into a double fist and batter-up strikes. His knees drop to the floor and his head follows.

  I mutter, “My god,” and Peter asks, “Why hath thou forsaken him?”

  With the Polar Bear’s hair wound between her fingers, Alyona smashes his head into the edge of the fountain.

  Peter intones, “Now she lays him down to sleep.”

  Alyona keeps bashing. Smashing and repeatedly bashing until blood spreads through the water.

  And Peter keeps rhyming, “She prays the Lord his soul to keep.”

  When the snake begins to spew a stream of pink vomit across Adam’s feet, Alyona holds the Polar Bear’s head under water until he bubbles like Eve.

  Then Peter concludes, “If he should die before he wakes,” gur-blurble-blurble, “she prays the Lord his soul to take.”

  Turning to me, Peter says, “That prayer always scared the bejesus out me as a child.”

  * * *

  When you’re sleep stalking on Ambien and alcohol, nothing seems real, and the moment your attention strays from something it ceases to exist. Poof. Gone. Pretty much gone forever. Oh sure, you might feel a disturbing sense of déjà vu when a sober scene unfolds too similar to an Ambien scene, but as there’s no chance in hell Peter is ever going to witness a scene like that again, we can effectively say Alyona never killed the Polar Bear because Peter will never be troubled by the memory of it.

  Lucky fucking Peter.

  Gazing up at the Bermuda palms, he has no recollection what happened twenty seconds ago, or that Adam’s feet are still being splattered in pink pools of snake spit.

  Alyona unwinds her fingers from the Polar Bear’s hair and tells me, “He tried to kill me.”

  I nod with emphatic agreement because she is not someone I am going to argue the small details with.

  She says, “Konstantin will kill me.”

  I nod to that too.

  She says, “You have to help me.”

  And I nod to that as well because the little fox is not about to say No to the Queen of Swords after what she just did to a polar bear.

  With his attention now on the glass ceiling, Peter asks, “Do you honestly think that can hold the weight of the ocean?”

  Alyona looks at the ceiling, then at Peter, then at the dead man in the fountain.

  Peter asks me, “How did we get here?”

  “We were driven.”

  “In a boat?”

  “No, a car.”

  “Where do you think we are?”

  “Bereznik.”<
br />
  “No, baby, this is BioShock. This is Rapture. We’re Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.”

  Alyona pulls the Polar Bear’s head from the water and says, “We put him in car and drive to woods.”

  But Peter is resolute. “I’m not going anywhere without a diving suit.”

  “For good of God,” Alyona snaps, “exactly how drunk are you?”

  “On a scale of one to Russian, I’m Vladimir Putin.”

  While Alyona considers finding another peace lily, Peter two-step hip-hops to an impromptu song. “Vlad, Vlad, Vladimir Putin. Soon to be puking. You ain’t been drunk till you’ve seen Rasputin. Wooting, tooting, Vladimir Putin.”

  Ignoring Peter’s continuing performance, I ask Alyona, “Why was he trying to kill you?”

  “Is plan of Maksim Volikov. He protects Peter against Konstantin who uses me for kompromat. Understand?”

  Not only do I understand both Volikov and Konstantin—not to mention Demyan—have plans to blackmail Peter for control of the timber empire, I also understand the Polar Bear was working for Volikov but sharing his plans with Demyan and Felix, which makes him something of a double agent and further indicates Demyan and Felix are allies, but mostly I understand we can’t stand here with a body until we’re caught.

  “Peter, sweetie.” I step into his dance and get twirled around. “One of our new friends clonked his head on the fountain and needs a little help getting to the car and hospital. Do you think you could help carry him?”

  “Help? Baby, I am the tank that carries the team.”

  “Excellent. Come with me. He’s right over here by the—”

  “Jesus! Is that blood? Someone needs to tone down the splatter effects. Hoss, you okay?” Peter kneels down to pat the Polar Bear’s shoulder.

  “He’s unconscious. You’ll have to carry him. Maybe use the fireman’s lift.”

  “Good idea, because I smell smoke. And where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And I fight fires. I am Morris and Hugo’s captain of the fire department. Chief firefighter, that’s me, fighting fires in every major account.”

  “Devil take me,” Alyona explodes. “Carry to car!”

  “Extrapediately, boss. Just tell me where you want him.”

  The Porsche Spyder is nearest the gate, but have you seen the storage space? Not really suitable for transporting bodies. There is one car, however, that could carry all four thieves in law (including the fat one) and still have room in the trunk for a case of vodka and grenade launcher. And from where it’s parked, it could cut straight across the circle drive and be on the road in a flash. Plus, given a choice, what would any true, decent, and patriotic American move the body of a dead Russian gangster in?

  I tell Alyona, “You direct Peter. I’ll get the keys and meet you at the Studebaker.”

  * * *

  The car is from the 50s, the T-tops from the 80s, and the scene from anywhere but Russia: two men in the backseat, a woman behind the wheel, and another closing the door to ride shotgun. The Polar Bear’s wet head rests against Peter’s shoulder. It could almost be mistaken for affection, if not for the watercolor hue of red seeping across Peter’s shirt.

  Giving Alyona the keys, I have to ask, “Don’t you think the trunk would have been a more appropriate place to put him?”

  “Need keys for trunk. Now we need keys for escape.”

  While she starts the car, Peter says, “Key figures will reach escape velocity before stick figures.”

  And Alyona asks, “Did he drink vodka you warn me not to drink?”

  As she drops the column shift into reverse, I mutter, “Uh… sort of.”

  “And did he”—she points a polished fingernail across the Bakelite steering wheel to Johnny Rotten in mid-Limbo with a tendril of smoke—“also sort of drink vodka?”

  “He might have had a sip.”

  Wrestling the wheel fully to the left to reverse, then three-sixty back to drive, she glances at the dead man in the rearview and concedes, “Maybe now is not time to judge.”

  “If we’re lucky, we’ll both have time for that later.”

  And good thing for us, luck and time are intrinsically linked. Fate would have it that the timing of your birth determines your measure of luck. You’re either born lucky or you’re not, though the only way to know for sure is to test it. The problem with that is most people find out they’re not lucky at the worst possible moment, usually in the throes of death or arrest.

  I know I am lucky and that Peter is lucky. The Polar Bear we might assume is not lucky, and Alyona is still a mystery. Best case scenario, the ratio of luck in the car is on our side, and at worst we’re traveling fifty-fifty until we dump the body. We are four bodies traveling on four wheels in an eight-cylinder car in the eighth hour of night.

  These details matter.

  Four and eight are in motion.

  Four and eight are in play.

  Four is stability, but eight is trouble.

  When we dump the body, we’ll be three and it will probably be nine, and three and nine are lucky. Lucky like nothing else. Three will keep us safe and nine ensures success.

  It’s all down to the power of three: the Rule of Three, the Three Ways, the Holy Trinity, the Law of Return, the universe’s triadic nature as found in the Tao Te Ching, the Bhagavad-Gita, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the Bible, and Kabbalah.

  One is the essence of God, but three is God manifest.

  Three times three is nine.

  Three is the idea. Nine is the realization.

  Three is the plan and nine its fulfillment.

  Three is the start, but nine is completion.

  Three is God, and nine will save your ass.

  I don’t really believe any of this, but as we leave behind Konstantin’s modern castle to enter the surrounding woods, I’m completely counting on it.

  Four miles of access road leads to the T-junction of a dirt road that runs south to the small town of Bereznik and north to the sawmill. Alyona turns north.

  The road grows thinner. The trees denser. The summer sun is blocked. Darkness envelopes, and something is off. More off than just driving through the woods with a dead man.

  Strange shades pulse in the woods.

  The light is eerie.

  Hues of yellow, blue, and red surround us.

  Alyona stares into the trees and asks, “Xúli?” What the fuck?

  “Military radiation,” Peter whimpers. “Medical experiments. Alien abduction. Sasquatch.”

  Foot on the brake, Alyona slowly brings the car to a halt. The woods radiate in shades of yellow, green, blue, purple, red, and orange.

  “We shouldn’t stop here,” Peter says. “Never stop under the mothership.”

  “Xúli?” Alyona repeats.

  The woods pulse yellow, green, blue, purple, red, and orange.

  “I don’t like this,” I whisper.

  Alyona takes her foot off the brake, and the car creeps forward.

  The light follows.

  On either side of the road, against the trunks of the trees, it shines: yellow, green, blue, purple, red, and orange.

  Alyona speeds up.

  The light does too.

  Alyona slams on the brakes.

  I scream as the Polar Bear’s face slams against the back of the seats and the light from the woods illuminates the forward splatter in pale shades of yellow, green, blue, purple, red, and orange.

  Alyona stomps on the gas. The Polar Bear shoots back against Peter, Peter screams louder, and the light keeps pace.

  Ruts in the road slam the undercarriage into the hard surface, and the light in the woods climbs the trees. The leaves glow yellow, then green, then blue, then purple, then red, then orange.

  Turning delirious with fear, Peter shrieks, “Trix are for kids!”

  Alyona goes faster.

  The light flickers with the speed, jumps with the potholes, dives with the impact, but always stays right outside the windows.

  Yellow, green,
blue, purple, red, and orange.

  Alyona says, “Devil.”

  Skidding to a stop, she says, “No more.”

  She says, “Peter, find out what is.”

  And Peter sneers, “Oh sure.”

  He hugs the Polar Bear to his side and says, “You play with snakes, and then when dad gets mad, you want me to handle it.”

  He says, “You go explain it to him.”

  Alyona turns to screech over the bench seats, “Find out what is!”

  “You’re not my mom!”

  But he still does what she says. Gently opening the door, he peeks over the running boards. He slides along the seat, leaning down to the road, stretching to see beneath the car, and he squeals. He squeals high and wild and beats the back of the seat while screeching, “Go! Go! Go!”

  And in sympathetic terror, Alyona stamps on the gas.

  The Studebaker shoots forward, then careens sideways.

  Inside the vast interior, four bodies are thrown to the left.

  Peter screams.

  The light follows.

  The four tires slide.

  The four bodies are hurled back right.

  I scream.

  The light pulses.

  The Studebaker spins broadside, and the light leaves the woods to illuminate the road.

  As the car fishtails, Peter warbles, “It’s beneath us!” and Alyona hand-over-hand spins the steering wheel right, then left, then right again.

  When the car finally lurches straight again, Alyona sighs and mutters, “Ux.” Oof.

  Resting back against the upholstery, she shakes her head in dismay and allows the weight of 1950’s steel to slow the car to a roll.

  Flexing her shoulders, she straightens her back before asking me, “Is contagious, yes?”

  The woods still pulse yellow, green, blue, purple, red, and orange.

  Peter mewls a sound of fear, and I ask with dread, “Is it?”

  “It is,” she confirms.

  “Oh god, is it lethal? Can it kill us? Is there a cure? Jesus Christ, what is it?”

  “Yes, yes, and no. Is American overreaction.”

  * * *

  Engine idling, we stand in the road in the Bereznik forest, surrounded by unnatural lights, staring at the horror that is the Studebaker.