The Secret History of Moscow

by Ekaterina Sedia

  "How do we do that?"

  She nodded at the pack of jackdaws industriously pecking at the snow.

  "Do you think it'd work?” Fyodor said.

  "It worked with Sergey and that rook,” she said. “We can try it."

  "How do we catch one?"

  Oksana glanced around to make sure there was no one watching them; Fyodor thought that to the passersby they were invisible, too ordinary to draw attention. When she was content that there was no one paying them any mind, she shook several rats out of her sleeves, and pointed them toward the birds.

  Fyodor was skeptical at first, but the rats were faster and more organized than he expected. They broke into two groups, outflanking one of the birds and cutting it off from the rest of the flock. Just as the bird noticed that it was surrounded and raised its wings, ready to fly, the rats pounced all at once, like a pride of tiny, well-coordinated lions. The bird squawked once and was overwhelmed, buried under the shifting mass of fur and agile tails.

  "Don't you eat it,” Oksana called to the rats in a scolding voice. The snow crunched under her boots as she approached the fallen bird, still pinned under its attackers. She picked it up, ruffled but unharmed, and stuck the glass granule into the wide-open beak quivering in distress.

  The bird swallowed hard, working the round foreign object into its crop. Then the bird spoke.

  * * * *

  His name was Vladimir, and he used to be a businessman-the real kind, not one of those thugs and racketeers who only called themselves businessmen but had never done an honest day's work. Vladimir was among the brave few who were the first to open co-ops; his manufactured carpets and pseudo-Persian rugs, and business was good. His story was sad in its familiarity: at first, there were several gangs extorting and threatening, and he did what everyone else had to do-he chose the lesser of the many evils that beset him to rob him blind. Even ‘lesser’ was a relative term. He couldn't quite distinguish between them, coming and going, robbing and threatening, brandishing electric irons and pliers, their favored instruments of persuasion and extraction of assets, confessions and on occasion teeth. They even looked the same: back in the day before maroon jackets, they all wore their hair short, their torsos clad in leather jackets. For comfort and freedom of movement they wore track pants, just like back in the days when their favorite occupation was forcible shearing of hippies. Vladimir wished that they had remained on the fringe and never even entered the consciousness of the budding entrepreneurs, but there they were, fully in view and menacing from every corner.

  He went with Slava because he had the appearance of a member of the intelligentsia, with his thin fingers and tired but kind eyes, with his habit of nodding thoughtfully along with the pleadings of his extortees. He was a reader too, given to quoting from John Stuart Mill and Jonathan Swift; he was fond of Thomas Mann and Remarque. Vladimir chose him as his protection-his roof, in the vernacular with which had become disconcertingly familiar-because if he had to be subordinate to someone, he wanted that someone to be an educated man. Just a small vanity, he thought.

  But there was danger in being under protection of a man who liked to consider whether personal experience was the limit for one's imagination, and whether it was possible to invent a truly alien creature, for example, not just an amalgam of familiar beasts. There was danger in being subject to someone who wondered whether the dragon on the city's crest was related to the Komodo dragon it so closely resembled, and if so, when St Georgiy had a chance to travel to Komodo. The man with imagination could notice the magic that was seeping into the world, cast for him to notice, like round shining lures.

  "You know about magic?” Oksana said.

  The jackdaw flapped its wings. “Of course I do; I did from the time he first started thinking about it. He borrowed some books from me-books on Kabbala. My grandmother was a Jewish mystic of some sort. The books were old though; valuable. I knew nothing about that crap, just had no interest in it at all."

  "But now you do,” Fyodor said. He glanced around, making sure that no one eavesdropped on his conversation with the bird. “Tell me, why do they come here?"

  "That I don't know,” Vladimir said. “But if you want to follow them, now's the time.” He pointed his wing at the three men who finished their stretching, smoking and leisurely conversation, and headed down the freshly plowed path.

  "We know where they're going,” Oksana said. “What did Kabbala have to do with it?"

  "From what I understand,” Vladimir said, “he wanted to learn magic. Kabbala seemed like a good place to start; he even got some symbols branded into him. It didn't give him any abilities, but he said that it was like a sign for the forces from the other side to find him."

  "What forces?” Fyodor asked, feeling the fine hairs on his neck prickle.

  "You know,” the jackdaw said. It didn't actually shrug, but Fyodor imagined that it did. “The usual-Satan or whoever, I guess."

  "All right,” Oksana said, and tugged on Fyodor's sleeve. “Let's go check out the cabin."

  "Thanks for putting me into a bird,” Vladimir said, “but… would it be possible to maybe make me human again?"

  "We don't know any magic,” Oksana said. “I suppose if were to put your soulstone into a person…"

  "I doubt it,” Fyodor said, and started down the path after the thugs who had by then disappeared from view. “We do know someone who might be able to help you, though. If you help us, we'll talk to him on your behalf."

  "That would be acceptable,” the jackdaw said. “Very satisfactory, in fact.” The jackdaw settled on Fyodor's shoulder. “Is there anything else I can help you with? And where are we going, by the way?"

  "Peter the Great's cabin,” Oksana said. “Meanwhile, do you know anything about people turning into birds?"

  "Of course,” Vladimir said matter-of-factly. “Everyone who pays attention knows. The cops were looking for all the people who went missing. Where I live, Biryulevo, one of our cops disappeared too. The rest of them lost their heads over it, interrogated every Chechen and Georgian and illegal they could get their hands on. They started asking business people, too-who disappeared, why, that sort of thing. No one wants to cross the racketeers, but people know. They see the gang strutting by, and the next thing you know your mate is flapping his wings… I was sort of hoping for that fate when they came for me. Always wanted to fly, ever since I was a kid."

  "Who didn't?” Fyodor muttered.

  Who didn't indeed. Even now, quite free if the delusions of childhood, he occasionally dreamt about flying. He never rose far above the ground nowadays, hovering just above the nodding stems of autumn grass. He always flew over the grass fields in his dreams, a cartoon yellow from one horizon to the other, nodding, whispering. If he closed his eyes, he could hear the rustling of one stem against the next, he could feel their stiff bristles trailing against his bare toes and fingers.

  He snapped back to the crunching of snow when they heard the voices coming from the cabin. The sun was setting already, long tree shadows stretching long and blue, undulating across snow drifts and hollows. Still it was too light to approach the cabin; they stopped, and a moment later the voices inside stopped too.

  "Did you hear anything?” said one of the men inside.

  "Spies,” answered a rustling, despicable voice; it felt like the scratching of a nail across a windowpane. “Go get them."

  There was nowhere to run, and Fyodor turned to Oksana for support.

  She faltered and then whistled; the rats poured from her and Fyodor's sleeves, came running from the cabin. There were so many of them-Fyodor thought that the wild rats joined them too, subject to Oksana's peculiar charm. Rat on rat, column on column.

  Three maroon jackets stood in the cabin's doorway, their eyes troubled. Guns glinted in their hands, but they didn't shoot, as transfixed by the rats’ performance-tail twisting with tail, hands holding hands-as Fyodor. They didn't shoot even when a bear made of rats stood to its full height, raised its arms
, and stepped toward the cabin.

  16: One-Eyed Likho

  The soldiers went about their business outside-Galina heard their footsteps, accompanied by the cheerful clinks of their spurs against the cobbles of the yard.

  Timur-Bey shook his head in disapproval. “Tearing up their horses’ sides, that's not good. Horse is a clever animal. It's like spurring your child."

  "I don't know about that,” Yakov replied. “Be quiet-I'm trying to hear what's going on."

  The voices that reached them were muffled, the words indistinguishable. And then there were other sounds-scratching and awful quiet slurping, and whispers like icy needles. Galina bit down on the knuckle of her index finger, trying to keep herself from screaming and running in blind terror.

  The terrible sounds-she didn't dare to imagine their source, but she knew without verbalizing it that the calamity outside was not human-drew closer. It was as if someone was licking the door of the barn with a scratchy yet wet gigantic tongue. Stories, stories forgotten out of fear when she was still a child, flooded her memory, as fresh as years ago. The witch that licked through oven doors made of seven layers of cast iron. Creatures with tongues hanging down to their withered breasts, their claws finding the eyes of their children-victims with the unflinching accuracy of fate. Words like needles, eyes like coals.

  The snuffling by the door. A giant wet nose pressed against the treacherous boards, sniffing out the human flesh inside. Hot fetid breath reached her face through the gaps between the wooden planks, bathing it in a stench of rotten onions. She bit harder in order not to gag.

  Even Zemun seemed scared-her massive body pressed into Galina, seeking comfort and almost toppling her. She pushed back, and the warmth and the milky smell of the cowhide momentarily comforted her. She wondered what was inside Zemun-was it real flesh or just stars? If one were to poke a hole in her white hide, would the blinding light spill out, burning everything in its proximity to hot astral cinders?

  And then, just like that, something burst through the boards, like a blast from a sawed-off shotgun. Galina saw spread claws and a giant eye, burning like the stormy anxious sun, and she felt a knock on her chest, an impact throwing her to the ground. Yakov and Timur-Bey grabbed at the intruder, and Zemun's hooves beat the air as she reared up. Her horns tilted and threw the attacker against the wall. He landed with a dull thump and Galina sat up, her breath ragged and wheezing.

  The creature was smaller than she had originally thought-it was human-sized, but with sharp talons and tufts of feathers on wrists covered with puckered livid skin. Its lipless mouth twisted, baring large yellow teeth square like the grid of a chessboard. Its single eye blazed from the middle of its forehead, and Galina realized who had just laid hands on her.

  Zemun spoke first. “One-Eyed Likho,” she said. “I thought we were rid of you two."

  Galina heard the stories about Likho and its companion, Zlyden. She knew these two parasitic entities, the embodiments of bad fortune, that attached themselves to their victim until the victim lost everything and was eventually killed by the sheer constellation of bad luck.

  Likho breathed heavily. “Stupid cow,” it said in a rasping voice. “You think putting me into a barrel and throwing me into a river would get rid of me? There's always some poor fool who will open it. People can't stand closed barrels and chests and boxes-haven't you learned that?"

  "Those soldiers let you out then,” Koschey said. “Stupid mortals."

  "Yes, they did,” Likho gloated. “And we stuck to them, stuck to them like tar to fur. We followed them home, only they were dead and dumb, stuck on the wrong side of the river, never to find their kin, never to find your stupid little town. Too dead to know what bad luck is."

  "Why are you staying with them then?” Timur-Bey asked. “And why the birds?"

  Likho gave a small, demented titter. “Too curious and yet too blind. Blind like Berendey-stupid old man, thought he could lure us back into a barrel. But we changed his luck, changed his luck. And your luck will change too, you two-insane girl, lazy cop. You'll have it so bad you'll think you had it good before."

  The soldiers crowded the doorway, muskets at the ready.

  Zemun lowed and shook her head at them. “You don't have to do what Likho and Zlyden tell you to."

  "Yes, we do,” said the Corporal. “They promised us life, they promised us that we will walk the earth again, escape this tepid hell and live again. They promised us eyes and wings of birds that fly, that see…"

  As his voice trailed off and his musket lowered, its bayonet leveling at Yakov's chest, he stepped forward. The embrasure left where the door used to be let in the scant light, and Galina's gaze followed the upward sweep of the palace wall outside. The roof was too high above to see it, but she could imagine it, crusted over with the black mass of poor displaced birds. “Masha!” she screamed.

  The soldiers stepped closer but stopped, unsure whether they should do anything-after all, she was not fighting them, but calling. “Masha, Masha!"

  A thunderous clapping of wings and cawing answered her, the birds startled by her screams. She could picture them, circling, crying out-and then they came, pouring in a feathered stream, black as pitch, through the doorway.

  The birds seemed confused as they attacked the soldiers, then turned on Galina and her friends. Zemun chased the flapping birds away with flicks of her tail, unimpressed by their sharp beaks and shiny eyes. Yakov just covered his head with his folded arms, but looked up into the cloud of birds, as did Galina, both of them searching for the impossible recognition-every jackdaw looked the same as any other, every crow was the same too. Maybe Masha was among them, maybe not. And she suspected that Yakov was hoping to see his pet crow Carl, and perhaps ask his forgiveness.

  She peeked between the fingers protecting her eyes, and saw that the soldiers chased the birds away with their muskets, even knocking some out of the air with the stocks. There were feathers fluttering through the air. One of them, shiny-black, spun past her face like a miniature helicopter rotor.

  "Please,” Galina whispered to the spinning feather, even as rough hands and wooden musket stocks pushed her through the doorway, “please don't let me die before finding you. Please don't let them kill me before I talk to you again.” She whispered to the feather until it hit the ground, like it was a falling star.

  * * * *

  "Of course they're not going to kill us,” Yakov said. “Weren't you listening? Why would they kill us if they can just drain our luck? Use your brain, for once."

  Galina bit her lip and didn't answer. Ever since they had been ushered into the palace, all the while fending off frenzied, screeching birds, Yakov had seemed unsettled. His usual apathetic demeanor was replaced with irritability and occasional vicious malice.

  The room they currently occupied was a bona fide dun-geon-underground, with a crisscrossing of thick beams, a heavy bolted door and a stern tiny window in the door, guarded by iron bars. There was plenty of straw to sleep on and a dim light in which Yakov's face seemed haunted and angry. Perhaps it's just the beard, Galina thought, giving him that hungry, desperate countenance. But his angry words still rang in her ears, and she retreated to a corner, wishing nothing better than to bury herself in the straw and disappear.

  Yakov paced the room. “I can't believe it,” he said. “This place… they plunder everything you believe, then they take your memories, and now our luck. What kind of place is this?"

  "Elena said it wasn't supposed to be a utopia,” Galina said.

  Yakov shook his head and continued pacing. “Where did they take Zemun and the rest?"

  "I don't know,” Galina said.

  "Well, think!"

  She dug herself into the straw and hugged her knees to her chest. She would've killed for a bath about now, and for an opportunity to be alone just for a little while. With Yakov acting like that, she couldn't concentrate on anything. She felt irrelevant and small, just like she did when a teacher quizzed her in front of th
e class and she couldn't get any answers right, and the more she scrambled the more she messed up. She felt like crying. “I don't know,” she repeated. “Stop talking to me like this."

  He stopped and spun around. “Like what?"

  "Like this,” she repeated. “You keep acting like it's my fault."

  "And it's not?"

  She shook her head in disbelief. “You're the cop here."

  "And I was doing my job. I was doing it well, thanks, and then you showed up and dragged me to meet your crazy friend who nevertheless was smart enough to stay out of this little adventure, and then we all are here. How do you know your sister is here? How do you know this kerfuffle has anything to do with us?"

  "The birds…” she started.

  "Yes, yes, I know. The birds are everywhere. And how does it help?"

  "They are their eyes,” she said. “They see everything. Maybe if we could find a way to learn what the birds know…"

  "And how do we do that?"

  Galina sat up, straightening. “Do you have any food left?"

  "No. Well, just a bit of that awful fruitcake David made.” A brief smile lit his bearded face when he thought of his grandfather, and Galina felt a pang of guilt at denying him this reunion.

  "This will do,” she said. She took the sticky slice covered in lint and grime from Yakov's calloused fingers. Her father used to have hands like that, she remembered. Hard and tough as leather, and she had thought that all men had hands like that. She remembered her surprise when she shook hands with one of her mother's coworkers, and discovered that his hands were soft, feminine. In fact, she soon learned that very few people had hands like her father; that was one of the very few things she remembered about him still.

  She kneeled by the grate in the door and crumbled the fruitcake on the floor, cooing gently. If she craned her neck, she could see the length of the corridor outside and at the end of it the small embrasure of a window too small for a person but large enough for a bird. “Come on,” she cooed. “Come, little birds, I have a nice cake for you."