Valentina’s leading rival, A. Tarkhanov, countered that her theories were a blind alley. In his opinion, the Spa should concentrate on the isolation of the bacteriological agent responsible for the reanimations with a view to the development of a serum cure. Tarkhanov, a Party member, also insisted the phenomenon had been created artificially by American genetic engineers. He complained the monster-makers of the United States were so heavily financed by capitalist cartels that this state-backed bureaucracy could hardly compete. The one common ground Valentina held with Tarkhanov was that the Spa was desperately underfunded. Since everyone at the meetings had to sit on the floor, while Director Kozintsev was elevated cross-legged on a desk, chairs were deemed a priority, though all the scientists also had long lists of medical supplies and instruments without which they could not continue their vital researches. Lyubashevski would always counter these complaints by detailing his repeated requests to appropriate departments, often with precise accounts of the elapsed time since the request had been submitted. At Chirkov’s third meeting, there was much excitement when Lyubashevski announced that the Spa had received from the Civil Defense Committee fifty-five child-sized blankets. This was unrelated to any request that had been put in, but Toulbeyev offered to arrange a trade with the Children’s Hospital, exchanging the blankets either for vegetables or medical instruments.
At the same meeting, Captain Zharov reported that his men had successfully dealt with an attempted invasion. Two Amerikans had been found at dawn, having negotiated the slippery steps, standing outside the main doors, apparently waiting. One stood exactly outside the doors, the other a step down. They might have been forming a primitive queue. Zharov personally disposed of them both, expending cartridges into their skulls, and arranged for the removal of the remains to a collection point, from which they might well be returned as specimens. Valentina moaned that it would have been better to capture and pen the Amerikans in a secure area—she specified the former steam bath—where they could be observed. Zharov cited standing orders. Kozintsev concluded with a lengthy lecture on Rasputin, elaborating his own theory that the late Tsarina’s spiritual advisor was less mad than popularly supposed and that his influence with the Royal Family was ultimately instrumental in bringing about the Revolution. He spoke with especial interest and enthusiasm of the so-called Mad Monk’s powers of healing, the famously ameliorative hands that could ease the symptoms of the Tsarevich’s hemophilia. It was his contention that Rasputin had been possessed of a genuine paranormal talent. Even Chirkov thought this beside the point, especially when the Director wound down by admitting another failure in his reconstruction project.
With Toulbeyev, he drew last guard of the night; on duty at three A.M., expected to remain at the post in the foyer until the nine o’clock relief. Captain Zharov and Lyubashevski could not decide whether Chirkov counted as a soldier or an experimental assistant; so he found himself called on to fulfill both functions, occasionally simultaneously. As a soldier, he would be able to sleep away the morning after night duty, but as an experimental assistant, he was required to report to Director Kozintsev at nine sharp. Chirkov didn’t mind overmuch; once you got used to corpses, the Spa was a cushy detail. At least corpses here were corpses. Although, for personal reasons, he always voted, along with two other scientists and a cook, in support of Technician Sverdlova’s request to bring in Amerikans, he was privately grateful she always lost by a wide margin. No matter how secure the steam bath might be, Chirkov was not enthused by the idea of Amerikans inside the building. Toulbeyev, whose grandmother was Moldavian, told stories of wurdalaks and vryolakas and always had new anecdotes. In life, according to Toulbeyev, Amerikans had all been Party members: that was why so many had good clothes and consumer goods. The latest craze among the dead was for cassette players with attached headphones; not American manufacture, but Japanese. Toulbeyev had a collection of the contraptions, harvested from Amerikans whose heads were so messed up soldiers were squeamish about borrowing from them. It was a shame, said Toulbeyev, that the dead were disinclined to cart video players on their backs. If they picked up that habit, the staff in the Spa would be millionaires; not rouble millionaires, dollar millionaires. Many of the dead had foreign currency. Tarkhanov’s pet theory was that the Amerikans impregnated money with a bacteriological agent, the condition spreading through contact with cash. Toulbeyev, who always wore gloves, did not seem unduly disturbed by the thought.
Just as Toulbeyev was elaborating upon the empire he could build with a plague of video players, a knock came at the doors. Not a sustained pounding like someone petitioning for entry, but a thud as if something had accidentally been bumped against the other side of the oak. They both shut up and listened. One of Toulbeyev’s tape machines was playing Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “It Came Out of the Sky” at a variable speed; he turned off the tape, which scrunched inside the machine as the wheels ground, and swore. Cassettes were harder to come by than players. There was a four-thirty-in-the-morning Moscow quiet. Lots of little noises: wind whining around the slightly warped door, someone having a coughing fit many floors above, distant shots. Chirkov cocked his revolver, hoping there was a round under the hammer, further hoping the round wasn’t a dud. There was another knock, like the first. Not purposeful, just a blunder. Toulbeyev ordered Chirkov to take a look through the spyhole. The brass cap was stiff but he managed to work it aside and look through the glass lens.
A dead face was close to the spy-hole. For the first time, it occurred to Chirkov that Amerikans were scary. In the dark, this one had empty eye sockets and a constantly chewing mouth. Around its ragged neck were hung several cameras and a knotted scarf with a naked woman painted on it. Chirkov told Toulbeyev, who showed interest at the mention of photographic equipment and crammed around the spy-hole. He proposed that they open the doors and Chirkov put a bullet into the Amerikan’s head. With cameras, Toulbeyev was certain he could secure chairs. With chairs, they would be the heroes of the Spa, entitled to untold privileges. Unsure of his courage, Chirkov agreed to the scheme and Toulbeyev struggled with the several bolts. Finally, the doors were loose, held shut only by Toulbeyev’s fists on the handles. Chirkov nodded; his comrade pulled the doors open and stood back. Chirkov advanced, pistol held out and pointed at the Amerikan’s forehead.
The dead man was not alone. Toulbeyev cursed and ran for his rifle. Chirkov did not fire, just looked up from one dead face to the others. Four were lined in a crocodile, each on a different step. One wore an officer’s uniform, complete with medals; another, a woman, had a severe pin-striped suit and a rakish gangster hat; at the back of the queue was a dead child, a golden-haired, green-faced girl in a baseball cap, trailing a doll. None moved much. Toulbeyev returned, levering a cartridge into the breech, and skidded on the marble floor as he brought his rifle to bear. Taken aback by the apparently unthreatening dead, he didn’t fire either. Cold wind wafted in, which explained Chirkov’s chill. His understanding was that Amerikans always attacked; these stood as if dozing upright, swaying slightly. The little girl’s eyes moved mechanically back and forth. Chirkov told Toulbeyev to fetch a scientist, preferably Valentina. As his comrade scurried upstairs, he remembered he had only three rounds to deal with four Amerikans. He retreated into the doorway, eyes fixed on the dead, and slammed shut the doors. With the heel of his fist, he rammed a couple of the bolts home. Looking through the spy-hole, he saw nothing had changed. The dead still queued.
Valentina wore a floor-length dressing gown over cotton pajamas. Here bare feet must be frozen on the marble. Toulbeyev had explained about the night visitors and she was reminding him of Captain Zharov’s report. These Amerikans repeated what the Captain had observed: the queuing behavior pattern. She brushed her hair out of the way and got an eye to the spy-hole. With an odd squeal of delight, she summoned Chirkov to take a look, telling him to angle his eye so he could look beyond the queue. A figure struggled out of the dark, feet flapping like beached fish. It went down on its f
ace and crawled up the steps, then stood. It took a place behind the little girl. This one was naked, so rotted that even its sex was lost, a skeleton held together by strips of muscle that looked like wet leather. Valentina said she wanted that Amerikan for observation, but one of the others was necessary as well. She still thought of capturing and observing specimens. Toulbeyev reminded her of the strangeness of the situation and asked why the dead were just standing in line, stretching down the steps away from the Spa. She said something about residual instinct, the time a citizen must spend in queues, the dead’s inbuilt need to mimic the living, to re-create from trace memories the lives they once had. Toulbeyev agreed to help her capture the specimens but insisted they be careful not to damage the cameras. He told her they could all be millionaires.
Valentina held Toulbeyev’s rifle like a soldier would, stock close to her cheek, barrel straight. She stood by the doorway covering them as they ventured out on her mission. Toulbeyev assigned himself to the first in the queue, the dead man with the cameras. That left Chirkov to deal with the walking skeleton, even if it was last in line and, in Moscow, queue-jumping was considered a worse crime than matricide. From somewhere, Toulbeyev had found a supply of canvas post-bags. The idea was to pop a bag over an Amerikan’s head like a hood, then lead the dead thing indoors. Toulbeyev managed with one deft maneuver to drop his bag over the photographer’s head and whipped round behind the Amerikan, unravelling twine from a ball. As Toulbeyev bound dead wrists together, the twine cut through gray skin and greenish red fluid leaked over his gloves. The rest of the queue stood impassive, ignoring the treatment the photographer was getting. When Toulbeyev had wrestled his catch inside and trussed him like a pig, Chirkov was ready to go for the skeleton.
He stepped lightly down to the skeleton’s level, post-bag open as if he were a poacher after rabbit. The Amerikans all swivelled their eyes as he passed and, with a testicles-retracting spasm of panic, he missed his footing. His boot slipped on icy stone and he fell badly, his hip slamming a hard edge. He sledged down the steps, yelping as he went. A shot cracked, and the little girl, who had stepped out of the queue and scrambled towards him, became a limp doll, a chunk of her head dryly gone. Toulbeyev had got her. At the bottom of the steps, Chirkov stood. Hot pain spilled from his hip and his side was numb. His lungs hurt from the frozen air, and he coughed steam. He still held his bag and gun; luckily, the revolver had not discharged. He looked around: there were human shapes in the Square, shambling towards the Spa. Darting up the steps, unmindful of the dangers of ice, he made for the light of the doorway. He paused to grab the skeleton by the elbow and haul it to the entrance. It didn’t resist him. The muscles felt like snakes stretched over a bony frame. He shoved the skeleton into the foyer and Toulbeyev was there with his ball of twine. Chirkov turned as Valentina shut the doors. More Amerikans had come: the skeleton’s place was taken and the little girl’s, and two or three more steps were occupied. Before bolting the doors, Valentina opened them a crack and considered the queue. Again, the dead were still, unexcited. Then, like a drill team, they all moved up a step. The photographer’s place was taken by the officer, and the rest of the line similarly advanced. Valentina pushed the doors together and Chirkov shut the bolts. Without pausing for breath, she ordered the specimens be taken to the steam baths.
Breakfast was a half turnip, surprisingly fresh if riddled with ice-chips. He took it away from the cafeteria to chew and descended to the Pool to report to the Director. He assumed Valentina would make mention of her unauthorized acquisition of specimens at the evening meeting. It was not his place to spread gossip. Arriving at the cubicle before the Director, his first duty was to get the samovar going: Kozintsev survived on constant infusions of smoky tea. As Chirkov lit the charcoal, he heard a click, like a saluting heels. He looked around the cubicle and saw no one. All was as usual: clays, wig, shaping tools, skull, samovar, boxes piled to make a stool. There was another click. He looked up at the chandelier and saw nothing unusual. The tea began to bubble and he chewed a mouthful of cold turnip, trying not to think about sleep—or Amerikans.
Kozintsev had begun again on the reconstruction. The skull of Grigory Yefimovich Rasputin was almost buried in clay strips. It looked very much like the head of the Amerikan Chirkov had secured for Valentina: flattened reddish ropes bound the jaws together, winding up into the cavities under the cheekbones; enamel chips replaced the many missing teeth, standing out white against gray-yellow; delicate filaments swarmed around the glass eyes. It was an intriguing process and Chirkov had come to enjoy watching the Director at work. There was a sheaf of photographs of the monk on one stand but Kozintsev disliked consulting them. His process depended on extrapolating from the contours of the bone, not modelling from likenesses. Rasputin’s potato-like peasant nose was a knotty problem. The cartilage was long gone, and Kozintsev obsessively built and abandoned noses. Several were trodden flat into the sloping tile floor. After the Revolution, the faith healer had been exhumed by zealots from his tomb in the Imperial Park and, reportedly, burned; there was doubt, fiercely resisted by the Director, as to the provenance of the skull.
As Chirkov looked, Rasputin’s jaw sagged, clay muscles stretching; then, suddenly, it clamped shut, teeth clicking. Chirkov jumped and spat out a shocked laugh. Kozintsev arrived, performing a dozen actions at once, removing his frock coat and reaching for his smock, bidding a good morning and calling for his tea. Chirkov was bemused and afraid, questioning what he had seen. The skull bit once more. Kozintsev saw the movement at once and asked again for tea. Chirkov, snapping out of it, provided a cupful and took one for himself. Kozintsev did not comment on the appropriation. He was very interested and peered closely at the barely animated skull. The jaw moved slowly from side to side, as if masticating. Chirkov wondered if Grigory Yefimovich were imitating him, and stopped chewing his turnip. Kozintsev pointed out that the eyes were trying to move, but the clay hadn’t the strength of real muscle. He wondered aloud if he should work in strands of string to simulate the texture of human tissue. It might not be cosmetically correct. Rasputin’s mouth gaped open, as if in a silent scream. The Director prodded the air near the skull’s mouth with his finger and withdrew sharply as the jaws snapped shut. He laughed merrily, and called the monk a cunning fellow.
* * *
The queue was still on the steps. Everyone had taken turns at the spy-hole. Now the line stretched down into the Square and along the pavement, curving around the building. Toulbeyev had hourly updates on the riches borne by the Amerikans. He was sure one of the queue harbored a precious video player: Toulbeyev had cassettes of 101 Dalmations and New Wave Hookers but no way of playing them. Captain Zharov favored dealing harshly with the dead, but Kozintsev, still excited by the skull’s activity, would issue no orders, and the officer was not about to undertake an action without a direct instruction, preferably in writing. As an experiment, he went out and, halfway down the steps, selected an Amerikan at random. He shot it in the head and the finally dead bag of bones tumbled out of the queue. Zharov kicked the remains, and, coming apart, they rolled down the steps into a snowdrift. After a pause, all the dead behind Zharov’s kill took a step up. Valentina was in the steam baths with her specimens: news of her acquisitions spread through the Spa, inciting vigorous debate. Tarkhanov complained to the Director about his colleague’s usurpation of authority, but was brushed off with an invitation to examine the miraculous skull. Dr. Dudnikov placed several phone calls to the Kremlin, relaying matters of interest to a junior functionary, who promised imminent decisions. It was Dudnikov’s hope the developments could be used as a lever to unloose vital supplies from other institutions. As ever, the rallying cry was “Chairs for the Spa!”
In the afternoon, Chirkov napped standing up as he watched Kozintsev at work. Although the jaw continually made small movements, the skull was cooperative and did not try to nip the Director. He had requisitioned Toulbeyev’s Jew’s harp and was implanting it among thick neck muscles, ho
ping it would function as a crude voicebox. To Chirkov’s disgust, Rasputin was becoming expert in the movement of its unseeing eyes. He could suck the glass orbs so the painted pupils disappeared in the tops of the sockets, showing only milky white marbles. This was a man who had been hard to kill: his murderers gave him poison enough to fell an elephant, shot him in the back and chest with revolvers, kicked him in the head, battered him with a club and lowered him into the Neva, bound in a curtain, through a hole in the ice. The skull bore an indentation which Kozintsev traced to an aristocrat’s boot. In the end, men hadn’t killed the seer; the cause of his death was drowning. As he worked, the Director hummed cheerful snatches of Prokofiev. To give the mouth something to do, Kozintsev stuck a cigarette between the teeth. He promised Grigory Yefimovich lips would come soon, but there was nothing yet he could do about lungs. His secret dream, which he shared with the skull (and, perforce, Chirkov), was to apply his process to a complete skeleton. Regrettably, and as Rasputin had himself predicted while alive, most of the monk had been scattered on the wind.
Lyubashevski barged into the cubicle bearing a telephone whose cord unreeled through the maze of the Pool like Ariadne’s thread. There was a call from the Kremlin which Kozintsev was required to take. While Chirkov and Lyubashevski stood, unconsciously at attention, the Director chatted with the First Secretary. Either Dr. Dudnikov had tapped into the proper channels or Tarkhanov was the spy everyone took him for and had reported on the sly to his KGB superior. The First Secretary was briefed about what was going on at the Spa. He handed out a commendation to Kozintsev and insisted extra resources would be channelled to the morgue. Chirkov got the impression the First Secretary was mixing up the projects: Kozintsev was being praised for Valentina’s studies. The Director would be only too delighted to employ any funds or supplies in furthering his work with the skull.
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