The Devil's Garden

by Richard Montanari

  At ten, a visiting teacher named Mr Oskar showed him how to play the flute. It was the first kindness ever shown him. He taught Aleks the basics, and every Sunday afternoon for two years gave him lessons. Aleks learned not only the Estonian composers – Eller, Oja, Pärt, Mägi – but many of the Russian and German composers as well. When Mr Oskar died from a massive stroke, the elders saw no worth in the battered old flute. They let Aleks keep it. He had never been given anything.

  At eighteen, Aleks joined the federal army. Over six-feet tall and powerfully built, he was immediately deployed to Chechnya.

  Soon after completing his basic training he was recruited and trained by the FSK in interrogation techniques. He did not take the lead so much as provide a presence, a phantom that haunted prisoners by night, and shadowed them by day. He learned to sleep soundly as men around him pierced the night with their screams.

  Within six months he was deemed ready for the front. They sent him first to the border city of Molkov, but that would prove to be only a stopover. Three weeks later they sent him to place called Grozny.

  They sent him to Hell.

  THE SIEGE OF Grozny began on New Year’s Eve 1994, and was a disaster for the Russian forces. At first, the one thousand men of the mighty Maikop 131st Battalion, amassed just north of the city, met with little resistance. They took the airport north of Grozny with few casualties.

  But their gains were short-lived. Ill-trained, poorly supplied, the Russian soldiers were not ready for what awaited them in the city. Some commanders were as young as nineteen.

  The Chechens, in contrast, were fierce and determined warriors. They were, by and large, trained and highly experienced marksmen, having learned to shoot and handle weapons since they were children. After picking off fleeing and confused soldiers, they would come down from the hills and grab weapons from the dead Russians, bolstering their meager armories. Some managed to steal machine guns from the armored vehicles, turning them on the doomed men inside.

  As the day wore on, the Chechen separatists fought back, using everything they could: Russian-made, rocket-propelled grenades, fired from rooftops; Russian grenades thrown into tanks; even the deadly kinzbal, the prized Caucasian heirloom daggers. The number of dismembered and decapitated Russian soldiers all over the city were testament to the effectiveness of these comparatively primitive weapons. It was estimated that in the Battle of Grozny, Russians lost more tanks then they did in the battle for Berlin in 1945.

  Over the month of January, federal forces would suffer even greater humiliations and defeat.

  IN EACH ILL-CONCEIVED AND executed battle, against clearly underestimated Chechen separatist forces, the bodies fell. All around Aleks, Russian soldiers and Chechen rebels were dead or dying. Yet, many times, while the blood of his fellow soldiers, his enemies, drained into the fields, mingling with the bones of centuries below, only Aleks was left standing.

  Three times that January, in three fierce firefights, he emerged with little more than a scratch. His legend began to grow. The Estonian who could not be killed.

  Then came January 15, 1995. One hundred and twenty federal soldiers were hunkered down in the marshes, outlying buildings, and silos just south of the Sunzha River. Intel, or what little they could gather with their primitive radios, told them that there were one hundred rebels holed up in the village. Their orders were to wait them out. For three days, with few rations, and even less sleep, they waited. Then the order came to advance.

  At just before dawn Aleks’s unit of twenty began to make their way slowly across the frozen marsh. Some marched with newspaper stuffed into their boots for warmth. They did not make it far.

  First came the mortar fire, huge 150-millimeter shells. The outbuildings and silos exploded on impact, killing all inside. Red rain fell. The shelling went on for more than six hours, the incessant roar of the explosions was deadening.

  When the quiet came, Aleks dared to take a look. Body parts were scattered up the hillside. The armored cars were destroyed. The sounds of moaning could be heard beneath the staccato of automatic-weapons fire near the river.

  Nothing stirred.

  Then came the helicopters and their NURS mini-rockets.

  In all, one hundred and nineteen Russian soldiers were killed. Most of the village was burned to the ground. Livestock were slaughtered and the streets ran crimson.

  Only Aleks lived.

  When the smoke cleared, and the screaming stopped, Aleks prepared to return to his base. He walked through the deserted village, now little more than blackened rubble. The smell of death was overpowering. At the end of the main street was a rise. In the near distance was a farmhouse, mostly intact.

  As he strode up the hill, on alert, he began to feel something, something that had been growing within him for years. He stood tall, threw his rifle sling over his shoulder. He felt strong, the numbing fatigue and fear sliding away.

  He looked through the doorway of the farmhouse, saw a Chechen woman, perhaps in her seventies, standing at her small kitchen table. On the table was an old leather-bound book. The walls were pitted clay, the floor dirt.

  It was clear that the woman had seen the firefight, the grenades, the torn flesh and rivers of blood. She had seen it all. When it was over, she was not afraid of the Chechen rebels, or the Russian soldiers. She was not afraid of the war itself, or even of dying. She had met many devils.

  She was afraid of Aleks.

  He put down his weapon, and approached her, hands out to his sides. He was starving, and preferred to sit at a table. He meant her no harm. As he neared the woman, her eyes grew wide with horror.

  “You,” she said, her hands beginning to tremble. “You!”

  Aleks stepped into the house. It smelled of fresh bread. His stomach lurched in hunger.

  “You know me?” he asked in halting Chechen.

  The woman nodded. She touched the weathered book on the table. Next to the book was a loaf of black bread, a stone-sharpened carving knife.

  “Koschei,” she said, her voice quivering. “Koschei Bessmertny!”

  Aleks did not know these words. He asked her to repeat them. She did, then crossed herself three times.

  In a flash she lifted the razor-sharp knife from the table, brought it to her throat, and slashed her jugular vein. Bright blood burst across the room. Her body slumped to the cold floor, quaking in its death throes. Aleks looked at the table. The loaf of bread was splattered with deep carmine.

  Aleks fell upon the blood-soaked bread, wolfing it down, the taste of the old woman’s blood, along with the yeast and flour, an intoxicating mixture that both sickened and exhilarated him.

  It was not the last time he would taste it.

  IN THE DYING LIGHT he read the book, a book of folk legends. He read the fable of Koschei the Deathless. There were many tales, but the one that moved him was the tale of the immortal Koschei – a man who could not die because his soul was kept elsewhere – and Prince Ivan’s sisters: Anna, Marya, and Olga.

  He wept.

  AFTER HIS DISCHARGE, Aleks returned to Estonia, where he took odd jobs – carpentry, plumbing, fixing fifty years of shoddy Russian construction. He worked the slaughterhouses in the south, the mines in central Estonia, anything to get by. But he always new he was destined for something else, something greater.

  Aleks befriended the mayor of the town, a man who also owned just about every business within fifty kilometers.

  The man brought him along on a job, a job robbing an old Russian of his wealth accumulated on the backs of Estonians. Aleks had no loyalties, no God. He went. And found that the violence was still deep within him. It came easy.

  Over the next few years, from the Gulf of Finland to the Latvian border to the south, and sometimes beyond, there was not a shop owner, business man, farmer, politician, or criminal enterprise, large or small, that did not pay Aleksander Savisaar tribute. He always worked alone, his threats and assurances couched in his ability to make believers of those who doubte
d his sincerity with torture and cruelty of such intensity, such speed, that his actions never had to be repeated.

  By the age of twenty-seven his legend was widely known. In his pocket were politicians, law-enforcement agents, legislators. He had bank accounts and property in six countries. A fortune he never dreamed of.

  It was time to turn his attention to his legacy but, with all his wealth and power, he did not know where or how to begin.

  He began by building a house, a large A-frame set among tall standing pines atop a hill in Kolossova. Isolated, secure, and tranquil, he began to fell the logs he needed. By fall he had all the lumber milled, and had the structure fully framed.

  He returned to the long-abandoned Treski orphanage, the place where he had been left. At great expense, he had locals tear it down stone by stone. Back in Kolossova he hired stonemasons to build a wall around his house.

  Hurrying to close in the roof before the winter snows came, Aleks worked well into the evenings. One night, just as dusk claimed the day, he sat on the second floor, looking out over the valley as it began to snow in earnest.

  He was just about to gather his tools when he thought he saw movement amid the stand of blue spruce to the west. He waited, stilling his movements, his breathing, dissolving into his surroundings, becoming invisible. He fingered the rifle at his side, shifted his eyes back and forth, scanned the clearing, but there was no movement. Yet there was something. A pair of shining pearls, seemingly suspended on the snow. He looked more closely, and a form began to take shape, seeming to grow around the glistening orbs. The high dome, the pointed ears, the dusty rose of a lolling tongue.

  It was a gray wolf.

  No, he thought. It cannot possibly be. The wolf who had discovered him in the cemetery, by all accounts, was full grown at that time.

  When he saw the old wolf slowly rise, on its terribly gnarled forelegs, and begin to move with an arthritic sluggishness, Aleks believed. The ancient wolf had come to see him before he died.

  But what was the message?

  Days later, when he saw the young girl, the soothsayer named Elena Keskküla, standing on the same spot, observing him, it was an epiphany.

  He watched many times over the next few years, even after her family moved north, observed the people coming to her farmhouse, their tributes in tow – money, food, livestock.

  In these days he often envisioned himself on a hillside, the days speeding by, spring given unto winter in seconds, decade born of decade. He watched the fields grow ripe with fruit, fall fallow. He watched cities grow from timberland, only to flourish, expand, reach for heights of glory, then decay, and crumble into ash and dust. He watched saplings reach to the sky, then yield to farmland. He watched animals grow fatted, calve, nurse their young, only to see their offspring seconds later begin the wondrous cycle again. Skies blacken, seas churn and calm, the earth opens and closes in massive quakes, pines grow down the mountains to the valleys, only to farther lakes and rivers, which in turn gave life to the gardens and farms.

  Through all of it, through eons of war and pestilence and greed, generations of lawlessness and avarice, there would be his daughters at his side. Marya, the pragmatist, the keeper of his mind. Anna, the artist of his heart. Olga, never seen, but always felt, his anchor.

  He fingered the three vials around his neck. Together, one way or another, they would live forever.

  HE WATCHED THEM play their games in the backyard, their gossamer blond hair lifting and falling in the breeze. They had Elena’s air about them, an aura of prudence and insight.

  He crouched down to their level. They approached him, showing no fear or apprehension. Perhaps they saw in his eyes their own eyes. Perhaps they saw in him their destiny. They were so beautiful his heart ached. He had waited so long for this moment. All the while he had feared it would never happen, that his immortality had been something of fairy tale.

  Without a word he reached into his pocket, produced the two marble eggs. He handed them to the girls.

  The girls studied the eggs closely, running their small fingers over the intricate carving. Aleks had seen the drawing they had made on the refrigerator. He saw that one section of the drawing was missing.

  Anna, the one they called Emily, beckoned him close. Aleks got down on one knee. The little girl leaned even closer, whispered: “We knew you would be tall.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  The white van parked in front of the townhouse had EDGAR Rollins & Son Painting and Decorating on its side. Michael pulled up behind it, cut the engine. Nothing seemed real. This was the last place he wanted to be, but he could not take the chance of breaking with his schedule. He checked his cellphone for the five hundredth time. Nothing.

  When Judge Gregg had called him and John Feretti to the bench, he had seen something in the man’s eyes that looked like compassion. Rare for a sitting homicide judge. He had asked both lawyers if they wanted to break for the day, seeing as it was getting close to 4:30. As expected, John Feretti wanted to continue. Any time your opponent is melting down, the last thing you want to do is stop him.

  Michael took Judge Gregg up on his offer, and the session was adjourned.

  As the jury was filing out, Michael looked into the eyes of every single person in the gallery. If there was a kidnapper among them, he did not see it. What he had seen was confusion and no small measure of distrust. Michael would have to see the daily transcript from the court reporter to know precisely what he had said.

  He knew enough to know that a lawyer rarely recovered from a bad opening statement. It set the groundwork for the entire case. A bad opening meant playing catch-up the rest of the trial.

  None of that mattered now.

  Tommy had not been able to locate Falynn.

  On the way to Newark Street he looked at every car that pulled up next to him, at every cab driver, at any car that seemed to follow him for more than a block. No one stood out. His phone had not rung again. Nor had he called. His finger had hovered over the speed dial ever since leaving the office, but he had not pressed it.

  You will not call this house for any reason.

  THE NOXIOUS SMELL OF latex paint greeted him at the door. It filled his head, dizzying him for a moment. He checked his cellphone again.

  The painter stood on the second floor landing, smoking a cigarette. He wore a pair of white overalls and cap, a latex glove on his left hand. He smoked with his right.

  When he saw Michael he flicked his cigarette out the window, a look of guilt on his face for smoking inside a building. It was almost a capital crime in New York these days. “Are you Mr Roman?” the painter asked.

  Michael nodded his head. The painter checked his hand for wet paint, found it dry. “Nice to meet you. I’m Bobby Rollins. Edgar is my dad.”

  They shook hands. Michael noticed the flecks of drying paint on the man’s hands and arms.

  “That’s the cranberry.” The young man laughed. “It dries a little darker.”

  “Thank God.” Michael peeked inside the door to the second-floor offices. His heart was racing to burst. He had to get rid of this man. He had to think straight. “How’s it going in there?”

  “Good. Whoever did your plaster work was pretty good.”

  Michael stepped back, took a moment. “Look, something’s come up. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to come back another time.”

  The young man stared at the second-floor office for a moment, glanced back at Michael, then at his watch. It looked like Miller Time was coming a bit early. “Sure. No problem. It’s going to take me a few minutes to close the cans and clean the brushes and rollers.”

  “I appreciate it,” Michael said. His own voice sounded distant, like he was hearing himself talk through a long tunnel.

  Bobby Rollins walked down the stairs, said over his shoulder, “I’ll be out of here in ten minutes.”

  Michael stepped back into the second-floor office. There was little furniture, just a desk and a pair of plastic chairs. He paced
the room, his mind and heart ablaze with fear. He had to make a move, to do something. But what?

  He looked over at the long bookcase against the wall, at the leather-clad books of legal doctrine and opinions. What had always seemed like the solution to everything, things he believed in with all his heart, were now merely paper and ink. There was nothing in any of those books that could help him now.

  Before he could decide what to do his cellphone rang. He almost jumped out of his skin. He picked up the phone, looked at the screen.

  Private number.

  Pulse racing, he flipped open the phone. “This is Michael Roman.”

  “How did it go in court?”

  It was the man who had his family. The man called Aleks.

  “Let me talk to my wife, please.”

  “In time. You are at the new office? The office for the planned legal clinic?”

  It was a question, Michael thought. Maybe he wasn’t being watched. He peeked out the window. There were cars parked all along Newark Street. All appeared empty.

  “Look, I don’t know what you want, or what this is all about,” Michael began, knowing he had to talk. He didn’t know what he was going to say, but he knew he had to try and engage this man on some level. “But you obviously know a lot about me. You know I am an officer of the court. I am friends with the chief of police, the commissioner, many people in the mayor’s office. If this is just about money, tell me. We’ll work this out.”

  Michael heard the man take a deep, slow breath. “This is not about money.”

  Somehow, the words were even more chilling than Michael expected. “Then what is this about?”