He really did know who the wooden horsemen were, who appeared suddenly in tall grass just as he was getting off the train at Konstantinovo. He had to convince his relatives of his own existence (which he did); but the wooden horsemen were always after him wherever he went. One of them he recognized as Omar, one of Fatih’s warriors, who had almost killed him in the church five hundred years ago.
Wooden horsemen—now, that would be truly terrifying, because they alone had power over wandering poets. One of them had chased after the automobile he rode in with his wife. The wooden horseman started losing ground. He knew he could not reach Seriozha with his crescent sword, so he tugged at the woman’s blue scarf, pulling her out of the car and under the hooves.
Seriozha could not forgive himself her death—though he did not love his wife. Revenge was senseless, for the wooden horsemen had special, invincible powers. He cried then, listening as the din of oaken horseshoes on the paving blocks grew fainter.
The dark angels are no naïve and trusting Cheka officers. Why, if he had heard the wooden neigh of their horses on St. Isaac’s Square just now, right under his windows, the whole plan would have been ruined! As for these two, let them think they had caught him in a hotel-room trap they had set.
At that very moment the visitor said something about some high school students, and Seriozha poured himself some vodka, spilling it on purpose. The vodka tasted of disappointment. Yes, beautiful illusions should be left behind.
All of a sudden, the man in the overcoat jumped on him, and in the same moment another man dashed into the room. Together they wrestled him down, and the second one threw a thin cord from a suitcase around his neck.
The poet stopped resisting and surrendered his body to them.
The trap they had set had worked. But then his own plan began to unfold. First let them think they had succeeded.
The man in black punched the poet in the stomach a few more times, and Seriozha felt a belated surprise at human cruelty. He waited for his death as though for an unpleasant procedure—he had died many times before, and it was unpleasant, like a coarse male nurse administering an enema.
With a dull pop, the little ventilation window flew wide open, and he felt himself hanging, the steam-heating pipes searing his side.
This won’t do at all, he thought, looking down through his long eyelashes at the Cheka officers who were stamping their feet, brushing themselves off, and straightening their sleeves, as though after a snowball fight. One left, while the other began to search the room.
Hanging like this was terribly uncomfortable, but soon the man in black grew tired. He stood up, then disappeared behind the bathroom door. The poet quickly loosened the knot and hopped onto the floor. Then he slipped into the armoire.
He didn’t have to wait very long. From the depths of the armoire, he could hear a wild cry from the fellow who discovered the body was missing. He listened to the halting explanation, interrupted by threats, and heard them send someone down to the morgue to look for an unclaimed dead body.
A dead body was found, but it turned out to be a suicide who had slit his wrists. By then, however, the Cheka officers had no other choice. Time had them in a stranglehold, chafing their throats, pulling them toward the open window.
The poet watched through a crack between the doors of the armoire as they smeared glue on the gutta-percha mask, which they now pulled over the face of the hapless suicide.
He caught sight of the dead man’s feet, then a lifeless arm—and then a new body was hanging from the noose, and the poet listened to their unsteady breathing.
When at last they had left, Seriozha climbed out of the armoire and looked sadly at the lifeless face of his double. Bidding himself farewell, he touched a cold dead hand and left the room.
Seriozha closed the door using a copy of the key, and went out into the corridor, past the receptionist in a paramilitary uniform who was fast asleep.
Leningrad was black and still.
The damp cold struck him in the chest, honing his senses. The wolfhound had missed—and the poet’s trick had worked; as had the Cheka officer’s trap, for that matter.
Now he could move far away, to the east, to hide beneath Siberia’s snowy quilt, where cities and towns have peculiar and wonderful names like Ol’ Erofei Palych. Or Winter. Winter sounded like a good name. Why not settle down there?
A new page of his life was beginning: with the dawn snow and the pale sun—a fair copy right off the bat.
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
JULIA BELOMLINSKY was born in 1960 in Leningrad. A poet, artist, and songwriter, her cult novel The Poor Girl was short-listed for the National Best Seller Prize. Belomlinsky is a founder and leader of the Poor Girls movement, a member of the artistic community the Insane Madmen, and a member of the Professional Artists Union of Russia. She lives in St. Petersburg.
VLADIMIR BEREZIN was born in 1966. He graduated from the department of physics of Moscow State University and studied economics in Germany, specializing in the history of the Soviet economy. Berezin is the award-winning author of many titles written in different genres, among them the novel Witness. He contributes to the magazines Novy Mir and Zna-mya, and he lives in Moscow.
ANTON CHIZH is a journalist, scriptwriter, and head of a PR agency in St. Petersburg. He is the author of a best-selling historical mystery series featuring the criminal investigator Vanzarov, which has been adapted into a video game. Chizh also writes for a series of TV documentaries about criminal investigations that occurred in St. Petersburg in the early twentieth century.
LENA ELTANG was born in Leningrad. A journalist and translator, she has also become known as a poet and as a shortprose writer. Blackberry Shoot, her first novel, created a stir on the Russian literary scene and was short-listed for the National Best Seller Prize. Her second novel, The Stone Maples, won NOS, the Modern Literature Award, in 2010. Her most recent novel, The Other Drums, has been short-listed for the International Russian Prize. Eltang lives in Vilnius, Lithuania.
JULIA GOUMEN was born in Leningrad in 1977. With a PhD in English, she has worked in publishing since 2001, and started her own literary agency after three years as a foreign rights manager. Since 2006 Goumen has run the Goumen & Smirnova Literary Agency with Natalia Smirnova, with whom she also coedited Moscow Noir.
ANDREI KIVINOV (PIMENOV) was born in Leningrad in 1961. Originally a shipbuilder by profession, he worked in a St. Petersburg criminal investigations agency for twelve years. Kivinov is the author of thirty books of prose, many of which have been adapted for screen, including the TV series The Streets of Broken Lanterns and the movie High Security Vacations. He is the winner of the prestigious television prize TEFI.
EUGENE KOGAN was born in 1974. He is a writer, journalist, and an editor at Corpus Publishers. He is the author of four books of prose, among them the best-selling novella Raccoon and I, and a collection of short stories, The Fear of Darkness. He also edited a collection of short stories, Forever Yet.
PAVEL KRUSANOV was born in Leningrad in 1961. He graduated from the department of geography and biology of Leningrad State Pedagogical Institute. In the 1980s he was an activist in the musical underground movement. He is a prizewinning author of the cult novel Angel’s Bite (1999); his novels Bom-Bom (2003), American Hole (2006), and Dead Tongue (2010) were short-listed for the National Best Seller Prize and the Big Book Award.
ALEXANDER KUDRIAVTSEV was born in the Bryansk region in 1979, and moved to St. Petersburg in 1996 to study at the journalism department of St. Petersburg State University. He is the author of the coming-of-age novel Never Fear Nothing, and he is currently at work on a collection of short stories. Kudriavtsev lives in St. Petersburg and works as a staff reporter at RIA News.
NATALIA KURCHATOVA was born in 1977 in Leningrad. She graduated from the department of journalism of St. Petersburg State University. She writes novels, short stories, essays, and articles. Kurchatova has contributed to such magazines as Time Out and Expert. She lives
in a village not far from St. Petersburg.
VADIM LEVENTAL was born in Leningrad in 1981. He graduated from the philological department of St. Petersburg State University. As a literary critic he contributed to publications such as St. Petersburg Vedomosti, Izvestia, and Sol’. His prose has been published in literary magazines and several anthologies of short fiction. He is an editor at a Russian publishing house and is currently working on his PhD. Levental lives in St. Petersburg with his wife and son.
MIKHAIL LIALIN was born in Leningrad in 1983. He graduated from the department of economics of St. Petersburg State University. Lialin is the author of two novels, The Soldiers of TRASH Army and RST.
SERGEI NOSOV was born in 1957. He is the author of five novels (including Give Me the Monkey and The Rooks Have Gone), several collections of short stories, and a dozen plays. All the novels have been short-listed for various literary prizes, as has his recent collection of essays, The Secret Life of St.Petersburg Monuments.
ANDREI RUBANOV became widely known to Russian readers in 2006 with his self-published prison novel, Do Time Get Time, which was short-listed for the National Best Seller Prize and then translated into several European languages. He is the author of ten books, including the best-selling dystopian novel Chlorophilia. Rubanov lives in Moscow and runs his own small business.
ANNA SOLOVEY was born in Leningrad. She graduated from the Leningrad State Pedagogical Institute, and is a journalist by profession. Also a scriptwriter and a director of several documentaries, Solovey has been published in various literary magazines, and she is the author of the collection of stories Ward #.
NATALIA SMIRNOVA was born in 1978 in Moscow. After studying law and working as a lawyer, she moved to St. Petersburg to become the foreign rights manager for a Russian publisher. In 2006 she cofounded the Goumen & Smirnova Literary Agency, with Julia Goumen, representing Russian authors worldwide. She is also the coeditor, with Julia Goumen, of Moscow Noir.
KSENIA VENGLINSKAYA was born in 1977 in Peterhoff, “the town of fountains,” in the vicinity of St. Petersburg. She has directed music videos for underground musicians and natural history documentaries. With Natalia Kurchatova, she cowrote the novel Summer According to Daniil Andreevich. She currently works at a photography studio.
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