“A Russian and an American died and went to hell,” The Oracle was saying. “Satan told them that they each had the choice of spending eternity in American hell or Russian hell. ‘What's the difference?’ they asked. ‘In American hell,’ the Devil explained, ‘you have to eat one shovel of shit per day. In Russian hell, you have to eat two shovels of shit per day.’ Well, the American chose American hell, of course, and the Russian headed for Russian hell.
“Many years later, the two met again. ‘My friend,’ the American said, ‘you made a poor choice. I eat my shovel of shit in the morning and do whatever I want for the rest of the day. That’s it. One shovel of shit per day, no more.’”
“‘No, my friend, it is you who made a poor choice,’ the Russian said. ‘Half of the time in Russian hell there's no shovel, and the other half of the time there's no shit.’”
Doctor Bandar joined The Oracle in a hearty laugh at the expense of the country that supported both of them so well. Back home in Palestine and Wales, both of them would have been on the dole. Here, they were able to live like royalty.
“It wasn’t like that,” Kolya said quietly.
“Like what?” The Oracle asked, wiping tears from his eyes. He and the Doctor had finished their laugh.
“Like you said. It wasn’t Communism that made Russia sick. It was Russia’s sickness that made it Communist. Nobody remembers what Russia was like before Lenin. It was already sick. The country was being led by a couple of German dilettantes who were supposedly divine but somehow couldn’t manage to feed the people. You only ate well if you lived in the countryside. There was no food in the cities. In the cities, the factories were primitive and inefficient and didn’t produce enough to supply the farms. The two sides were squeezing each other to death. Meanwhile, the Orthodox Church and the aristocracy were skimming off what little was left and the Tsar was sending boys to the German front without rifles. You have to remember what it was like before Lenin came to power. Life was stitched together like a factory-made sweater. Bulgarian, at that. One wrong pull at a loose end and the whole thing would have come unravelled. We were born to make skazka fact,” the Bolsheviks told the people. And they were. Progress the ordinary people only dreamed of was starting to come true.”
“Skazka?” asked the Doctor, who spoke no Russian.
“Fairy tale,” translated The Oracle, who did. “Problem was it wasn’t skazka you made fact, it was Kafka.”
“Kafka?” questioned The Doctor.
“A German writer,” answered The Oracle. “Famous for describing existentialism. Like life in the U.S.S.R. What a joke. Four words. Four lies.”
“Right,” snorted Kolya. “Unlike that most altruistic of systems you come from, capitalism. What kind of system takes its being from the words ‘me’ and ‘mine’? Two-year-olds start like that and we spend the next twenty years trying to teach them to stop being sociopaths and share. You know how the great capitalist economist John Maynard Keynes defined capitalism don’t you? ‘Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.’ There’s your joke. Okay, we weren’t successful. At least under Communism we were trying to make things better for everyone.”
“Weren’t successful?” repeated The Oracle, as if amazed. “Weren’t successful? You had blood on your fucking hands. The Red Cross could have used the Volga to supply themselves for the next century.”
“Yeah, well, I’d rather have blood on my hands than water, like Pilate. At least we didn’t wash our hands of the care of millions of people like Rockefeller and Carnegie and Dupont.”
“‘The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries,’” quoted The Oracle right back. “Winston Churchill. Given their track records, I’ll take capitalism and the vice, thank you very much. You can keep your little existentialist paradise. In your memories, anyway. It was so wonderful, it couldn’t even survive.”
“Do you even know what existentialism means?” asked Kolya.
“Sure,” shrugged The Oracle. “Life under a bureaucratic thumb is pointless. There’s no way to be happy under a system like Communism. Communism is like life living under one big phone company. That’s existentialism in a nutshell.”
“No,” corrected Kolya. “At least in Soviet schools they taught us what the words we use mean. Existentialism just says that the individual is responsible for his own happiness; that society, bureaucracies, the universe are all indifferent to what happens to you.”
“Like Buddhism,” Snow piped up before he realized what he was doing.
The entire canteen looked up in surprise. If Kolya was said to know how to be silent in eleven languages, Snow was thought to be a deaf mute.
“How many Chicago School economists does it take to change a light bulb?” boomed a voice from the canteen door: Pig, who’d been listening in for the past few minutes. He stroked his moustache like it was a small pet, gold molars only slightly yellower than the rest of his teeth shining through the tobacco stains. His chest was a taiga of chest hair, he had a missing ring finger, two bullet scars on his throat and bands of colour tattooed around his forearms that imitated the Asian pit viper: reddish brown, with bulls-eye markings and a dark stripe. All in all, the appearance of a man who had aged but not grown. Some trudge across the Arctic to reach the poles; Pig trudged across the steppe to find a pole dancer. He owned two Beamers, a Mercedes, untold Customs officials and his own Chief of Police. Around the oil camp, it was believed he had magical abilities; he could see through wet T-shirts, get the worm out of the bottom of a tequila bottle and kill inconvenient people simply by pushing them in front of a backhoe.
“None. If the bulb needed changing, the market would have done it already.
“Isn’t this nice? All the boys playing so nicely in the same sandbox. Even you, Snowball. The peredoviki. You never leave your tomb. What happened? You drink all your vodka so soon? Why do Canadians do it doggy style?” he asked, just to show he wasn’t sparing anyone his contempt. So they can both watch the hockey game.”
Snow shrugged, not knowing what to say.
“Hell must have frozen over,” joked Pig. “Here, just to show I’m an equal opportunity offender, I’ll piss off the Red here, too.” Pig nodded at Kolya. “No need to insult only the capitalists.
“Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Gorbachev and Yeltsin are all riding a train to the future. The train suddenly breaks down and stops. Lenin springs into action, crying, ‘Organize the villagers to cut wood for ties. The steelworkers will forge tracks. The rail crews will hammer them into the ground. Shoulder to shoulder, we’ll roll on to true Communism!’
“Stalin interrupts, “‘It’s the engineer’s fault. Shoot him. Who needs tracks? We’ll run the train across his body.’”
“Brezhnez says, “‘I have an even better idea. We’ll pull the curtains and pretend they’re moving.
“But then Gorbachev says, ‘Who needs rails? We’ll call the train a bus, drive ahead and see what happens.’
“The train moves ahead. It’s almost off the end when Yeltsin shouts, ‘Stop. Forget the future. Everyone back to the past.’
“Is that what you want us to do, Kolya? Move back to the past? Not in this camp, comrade. Not here, not now, not ever.” Pig favoured the stalwart with a stare that would curdle tomato juice. “I hear any more talk like that and you’ll be shuffling papers in some other business, not here,” the threatened. Kolya looked impassively back. He’d lived through his share of tyrants in the Soviet days. As far as he was concerned, Pig was just one more. In response, he just stuck his thumb between his index and middle fingers, the Russian equivalent of the finger.
“And you, Snowball,” continued Pig. “Noyabrsk’s an awful long way to go just for a little pussy. Or should I say cunt. Keep consorting with that woman and the chief decoration in your trailer will be your scrotum, buffed and nailed over the
door so everyone can see it. I'll tell you why it'll never work between you two.”
“Why?”
“Horticulture.”
“Horticulture?”
“‘What were you?’ Pig asked the table in a sing-song voice, making sure everyone knew he was taking the piss out of them by asking the national question. “You know what? You can lead a horse to water, but you can't lead a whore to culture. That’s all that woman ever was and ever be. Physicist, my ass!
“Doctor,” he asked. “How’s our patient?”
“Stable,” the Doctor replied. “Diarrhea, vomiting and nosebleeds. He says it hurts when he breathes. For now, I’ve got him on a treatment of antibiotics and done up a complete set of blood work. We’re waiting for the results now. I’ve sent in an order to the warehouse to top up our supply of Prussian Blue.”
“Let me know as soon as possible,” Pig smiled and gave the table a steely smile. “Have a nice day,” he said and stomped out of the canteen
“Sheesh,” complained The Oracle. “What’s biting his bum? He needs a hobby. We were just having a friendly conversation here. Not doing nobody no harm.”
“He has hobbies,” Bandar offered. Of anyone in the camp, the Doctor spent more time with Pig than anyone else.
“Yeah? What?” challenged The Oracle.
“Hockey, weightlifting, gardening.”
“Not drinking?”
“He makes flavoured vodka. That’s gardening. Listen, I’ve got to get back to the clinic, check on the patient.” The meeting broke up, the Doctor to see to his patient, Snow to cocoon in his porta-cabin and The Oracle to corner anyone he could find and favour them with his Cliff Clavin impersonation.
Kolya alone remained sitting at the canteen table after the gathering broke up. Nursing his coffee, he watched as Pig and the Doctor met outside, the Camp Boss obviously angry, animating his orders with large gestures, finger pointing and even a poke in the chest, the Doctor meekly nodding in return. It wasn’t hard to guess he was getting a severe dressing down. Interested, Kolya nodded to himself sagely and made a point of reminding himself to use the office computer to Google the term “Prussian Blue” in the morning on Wikipedia.
Prussian blue is a dark blue pigment – one of the first synthetic pigments – synthesized for the first time in Berlin at the start of the eighteenth century. The substance is an insoluble, inorganic compound composed of iron and cyanide ions, with water. It has the idealized formula Fe7(CN)18 with 14 to 16 H2O. The pigment may also contain variable amounts of other ions. The colour of the pigment depends partly on the size of precipitated particles formed when it precipitates from the addition of iron (III) to soluble ferrocyanide. Despite the presence of the cyanide ion, Prussian blue is not especially toxic, because the cyanide groups are tightly bound.
Prussian blue is a common pigment, used in paints, and it is the traditional “blue” in blueprints. It has been used as an antidote for certain kinds of heavy metal poisoning. Prussian blue’s ability to incorporate cations that have one unit of positive charge makes it useful as a sequestering agent for certain heavy metal ions. Pharmaceutical-grade Prussian blue, in particular, is used for patients who have ingested thallium or radioactive cesium. Colloids derived from Prussian blue are the basis for laundry bluing.
Prussian blue pigment is significant since it was the first stable and relatively lightfast blue pigment to be widely used following the loss of knowledge regarding the synthesis of Egyptian Blue. European painters had previously used a number of pigments such as indigo dye and Tyrian purple, which tend to fade, and the extremely expensive ultramarine made from lapis lazuli.
Prussian blue in oil paint is the traditional material used in spotting metal surfaces such as surface plates and bearings for hand scraping. A thin layer of non-drying paste is applied to a reference surface and transfers to the high spots the workpiece. The toolmaker then scrapes, stones, or otherwise removes the high spots. Prussian blue is preferable because it will not abrade the extremely precise surfaces, the way many ground pigments do.
Prussian Blue is also the name of a white nationalist pop teen duo formed in early 2003 by Lynx Vaughan Gaede and Lamb Lennon Gaede, fraternal twin girls born on June 30, 1992 in Bakersfield, California.
Back in Snow’s trailer, Scrotum was living up to his name and cleaning his … well … you know. He’d confiscated Snow’s bed and was propped up against the pillow to display and make it easier to get at his tummy. His head was bent over, his tongue busily grooming his fur. He looked up briefly when Snow entered the room, then went back to his task. Sighing, Snow shooed him off the bed and dropped some leftovers from the canteen into a used margarine container for him. Greedily, Scrotum lapped it up.
What was Magda thinking giving him a cat? Taking care of a goldfish would have taxed his abilities given the shape he was in. Feeding himself wasn’t even a priority, much less a living, breathing mammal. Limiting, not expanding, his list of responsibilities was. As far as he was concerned, the less he could get away with in a day, the better and it had already been busier than Snow wanted. Besides a full day in Document Control and his extended visit to the Canteen, Snow had managed to have a new TV placed in the porta-cabin and the cabin’s internet connection activated. He supposed he’d have to dig out his laptop now, too. He wondered what he’d do on the Web, look up hockey scores?
Without knocking, Magda pushed open the trailer door. Schrödinger immediately jumped up to curl himself around her ankles. Snow gave her a pointed look intended to remind her to knock.
“I did it out of nostalgia,” Magda laughed. “Better get that door fixed or Schrödinger will sneak out. How is he? Are you boys getting along?” She sniffed, disappointed. The only scent in the room was the smell of bodies inhabiting a room, nothing savoury worth eating.
“No, he’s too busy licking his balls. Must have learned it by watching Pig’s CCTV porn channel. Or your ‘employees’ at ‘work.’”
“Ooh,” cooed Magda. “Very good. Another joke. Two in one week. We’ll have to up your borscht ration, make you serious again.”
“You brought me some?”
“You have an appetite?”
“Yes, actually,” Snow said, surprised. “I just had dinner in the Mess Hall.”
“Eating? Twice in one day? What’s next? Changing your underwear?”
“Did you bring me any? Borscht?”
“No, I came to visit Frantisek in the infirmary. He was one of my regulars, both in the brothel and the Deficit Exchange Club. This isn’t funny anymore. He’s not the first of my customers to come down with this thing. I think the oil wells are polluting the water or something.”
“Yeah, I saw Pig and the Doctor talking about it at the Mess Hall.”
“What did they say?”
“Pig wanted to know how he was, if the Doc found out what was wrong with him.”
“And?”
“They were waiting for some tests. You didn’t bring any borscht? How about the mushrooms?”
“Why? You feeling bad again?”
“No…alright…it’s just…”
“You felt good after.”
“Yeah.”
“I told you, that was you, not any chemicals. Make your own. You hugged Schrödinger yet?”
“I kicked him once or twice. Does that count?”
“You didn’t.”
“Not on purpose. He keeps getting under my feet.
“It’s how he shows love. Indulge him.”
“Now that you’re here, you gonna read my past?”
“I didn’t bring the crown. Or the goldfish bowl.”
“Where’d you get that anyway?”
“It used to hold Bohr. Until Schrödinger ate him.”
“At least you found a use for it. Why Bohr?”
“You ever see a goldfish? Boring. All he ever did was sit there staring at me.”
“Sounds like Scrotum.”
“Scrotum?”
“Schrödinger. I
gave him a new name. Suits him better. Now you’ve got me afraid to fall asleep in front of him. If he’s not sleeping or licking, he sits and stares at me. Now I know why. He’s going to eat me.”
“Definitely more beets are needed,” Magda nodded. “More seriousness.”
“I thought you named your pets after physicists?”
“I do.”
“Bore?”
“Bohr. With an H. Niels Bohr. He was a little too religious to be really interesting. Lutheran. He was Heisenberg’s mentor in quantum physics.”
“Oh, God,” groaned Snow. “You’re going to start lecturing again, aren’t you?”
“Not if you don’t want me to. Here, I came up with a new idea for a sideline in my business. Want to hear about it?”
“Kitty porn?” Snow offered.
“No, beets. That joke wasn’t even funny.”
“Go on. What’s your idea for the business?”
“I’m thinking of calling it the Iron Curtain.”
“What would you sell?”
“Shower curtains. Institutional strength. Guaranteed to last. What do you think about this for a slogan? ‘Crushing capitalism since 1848?’”
“I think I’d rather hear about Niels Bohr. And that worries me.”
“Bohr introduced the idea that an electron could drop from a higher-energy orbit to a lower one, emitting a photon, or light quantum, of discrete energy. This became the basis for quantum theory.”
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