Day of the Oprichnik (13 page)

Evening. It’s snowing. I am driving my Mercedov through Moscow. I hold the wheel and squeeze the gold piece in my fist. It burns my palm like burning charcoal. It’s not pay, it’s a
gift
. Not much money, only ten rubles, but it’s dearer to me than a thousand…

Her Highness always creates a
storm
of feelings in my soul. Hard to describe. Like two tsunamis colliding: one wave is hatred, the other is love. I hate our mama because she shames His Majesty, undermines the people’s belief in their sovereign. I love her for her character, for her strength and integrity, for her unyielding obstinacy. And for…her white, tender, incomparable, boundless, ample breast, which
occasionally
I manage to glimpse out of the corner of my eye, thank God. Those unexpected evening
viewings
are unlike anything else. A sidelong peep at Her Highness’s breast…is rapture, gentlemen! One thing’s a pity, though: Her Highness prefers guardsmen to oprichniks. And it’s unlikely her preference will change. Well, let God be her judge.

I look at the clock: 21:42.

Today is Monday; the oprichnik repast begins at 21:00. I’m late. But it’s no big deal. Our communal evening meal is at Batya’s residence on Mondays and Thursdays only. That’s on Yakimanka Street, in the merchant Igumnov’s house, the very same house where French ambassadors nested for nearly a century. The house has been occupied by the oprichnina since the famous events of summer 2021, when His Majesty publicly tore up the French ambassador’s credentials and sent the envoy packing, having unearthed his plot to foment rebellion. No more skinny-legged Frenchmen walk there: it’s our dear Batya who paces the floors in his Moroccan leather boots. Each Monday and Thursday he has dinner for all of us. The house is whimsical, it reminds you of old-time Russia as though it had deliberately been built for Batya. It was waiting until our dear Batya moved in, and it waited long enough. Thank God.

I drive up to the house. There’s red all over from our Mercedovs. Like ladybugs around a piece of sugar, they’ve crowded around the house. I get out of the car and walk to the carved stone entrance. Batya’s stern doorkeepers let me in silently. I enter, throw my caftan to the servants’ waiting hands, and run down the stairs to a set of wide doors. Two guards in light-colored caftans stand by them. They bow, open the doors—and what a hubbub! The dining hall buzzes like a beehive. The sound dispels all exhaustion.

The great hall is completely full, as always. The entire Moscow oprichnina sits here. The chandeliers shine, candles burn on the table, gilded forelocks shimmer, little bells sway. Glorious! I enter with a bow to the floor, as is fit when you’re late. I proceed to my place, closer to Batya. The long tables are arranged such that all abut one central table, where Batya sits with the two
wings
—the right and left. I sit down at my lawful place—fourth from Batya on the right, between Shelet and Pravda. Batya winks at me while taking a bite of a savory pie. It’s no sin to be late here: we all have business to take care of, and sometimes dinner drags on till after midnight. The servant brings me a bowl of water, I wash my hands, dry them with a towel. And what do you know?—everyone’s just moving on to the next course. The servants bring in Batya’s grilled turkeys. And on the tables there’s bread and marinated cabbage. At weekday repasts Batya doesn’t care for all sorts of lavish dishes. There are carafes of wine, kvass, and springwater to drink. No vodka here on weekdays.

Pravda pours me some wine:

“So, Brother Komiaga, too many irons in the fire?”

“That’s right, Brother Pravda.”

I clink glasses with Pravda and Shelet, and empty my goblet in one gulp. I realize that I haven’t eaten a
serious
meal in some time: with Her Highness I couldn’t swallow a bite, I was so nervous. Hunger isn’t a maiden—you can’t treat it to a mere sturgeon-spine pie. Just in time, oh, just in time the servant places a dish with turkey, baked potatoes, and steamed turnip on the table. I pull off a turkey leg for myself, and sink my teeth into it: it’s good, roasted to a T in Batya’s wonderful stove. Shelet rips off a wing, and smacks his lips:

“You can’t eat better anywhere than at our Batya’s!”

“That’s the holy truth!” Pravda belches.

“One thing’s for sure,” I mutter, swallowing the juicy turkey meat. “Our Batya feeds and warms us, gives us a living, and teaches us how to keep our heads on our shoulders.”

Out of the corner of my eye I glance at Batya, and he, our heart and soul, senses our affection and winks while eating his meal, slowly, as always. We all feel protected by him. Thank God.

I eat, glancing at Batya’s table now and then. At the edges, where the oprichnik
wings
end, honored guests sit, as is customary. Today as well: on the right is the broad-shouldered Metropolitan Kolomensky with the gray-bearded paraxyliarch of Yelokhovsky Cathedral; the ten-pood chairman of the All-Russian Society for the Observance of Human Rights wearing the badge of the Alliance of St. Michael the Archangel; smiling Father Germogen, Her Highness’s spiritual adviser; some young official from the Trade Department; the trade rep of the Ukraine, Stefan Goloborodko; and Batya’s old friend the entrepreneur Mikhail Trofimovich Porokhovshchikov; on the left is the oprichnina’s devoted doctor, Pyotr Sergeevich Vakhrushev with his eternal assistant Bao Cai; the imposing one-eyed commander of the Kremlin regiment; the folk singer Churilo Volodevich; the inevitably disgruntled Losiuk from the Secret Department; the Russian boxing champion Zhbanov; Zakharov, the round-faced Treasury representative; Batya’s game warden, Vasya Okhlobystin; the boyar Govorov; and the head Kremlin bathhouse attendant, Anton Mamona.

Batya lifts his wineglass and stands. The commotion dies down. In a stentorian voice, he proclaims:

“To His Majesty’s health!”

We all stand:

“To His Majesty’s health!”

We drain our glasses. Wine isn’t champagne, though, you can’t gulp it down. We drink slowly. We grunt, wipe our mustaches and beards, and sit down. Suddenly, like thunder from the heavens, a rainbow frame appears on the ceiling of the hall, and a painfully familiar, narrow face with a dark blond beard appears. His Majesty!

“I thank you, oprichniks!” His voice carries throughout the hall.

“Long live His Majesty!” Batya cries.

We take up the call threefold:

“Long live, long live, long live His Majesty!”

“Hail!” His Majesty answers, smiling.

“Hail! Hail!! Hail!!” sweeps across the hall like a great wave.

We sit, lifting our faces to him. Our sun waits for us to calm down. He gazes at us warmly, with a fatherly expression:

“How was your day?”

“Work and Word! We Live to Serve, Your Majesty! Good! Thank God!”

His Majesty pauses. He looks us all over with his transparent eyes:

“I know your work. I thank you for your service. I rely on you.”

“Hail!!” cries Batya.

“Hail!! Hail!!” we repeat.

The ceiling hums with our voices. His Majesty looks down from it:

“I want your advice on a certain matter.”

We immediately quiet down. That’s how His Majesty is: he values advice. This is his great wisdom, and his great simplicity. That’s why our state flourishes under him.

We sit holding our breath.

Our Sun takes his time. Then he speaks:

“About the mortgages.”

Now it’s clear. We understand. The Chinese mortgages. An old problem. A tangled knot. How many times has His Majesty threatened to cut it open, and his own people got in the way, held him back. And not only
his own
, but some of us. And outsiders. And simply—others…

“A half hour ago I had a conversation with Zhou Shen Min. My friend, the Celestial Ruler, is concerned about the situation of the Chinese in western Siberia. You know that after I issued the decree forbidding the transfer of the local
volosts
under mortgage to the districts, things seemed to straighten out. But as it turns out, it wasn’t for long. The Chinese are now getting mortgages not with the
volosts
, but with the settlements that have no landholdings under the so-called Tan Xu
¹³
buy-up with business petitions, so that our district officials have the right to register them as contract laborers rather than as taxed persons. They use the law On the Four Taxes. The tax collectors in the district councils, as I’m sure you realize, have been bought by them and register them not as taxpayers but as temporary hired workers with bag and baggage. And temporary workers are contract laborers according to the new regulations. It turns out that they cultivate allotments of arable land, but pay the tithe only as contract laborers, since their wives and children are listed on the shares as six-month parasites. Therefore, the district assessments of all the six-month-untaxed parasites are divided not in half, but two to three. Consequently, every six months China loses a third of its tithes. And the Tan Xu buy-up helps the Chinese living in our country to deceive their Celestial Ruler. Considering that there are twenty-eight million Chinese in western Siberia, I quite understand the concern of my friend Zhou Shen Min: China loses almost three billion yuan every six months. Today I had a conversation with Tsvetov and Zilberman. Both ministers advised me to get rid of the law On the Four Taxes.”

His Majesty stops speaking. So that’s what it is! Once again the tax law has stuck in the craw of one of the departmental clerks. They didn’t get to share the lucre, the thieves!

“I want to ask my oprichnina: What do you think about this whole issue?”

A grumble is heard in the hall. It’s clear what we think! Each wants to have his say. But Batya raises his hand. We quiet down. Batya says:

“Your Majesty, our hearts tremble with anger. It wasn’t the Chinese who invented the Tan Xu buy-up. You, Your Majesty, in your heartfelt goodness, you have taken care of our friendly Celestial neighbors, but enemies from the western Siberian districts are weaving their wily webs. They are working with a
pink
minister, with an ambassadorial, and along with customs they invented the Tan Xu buy-up.”

“True! That’s right! Work and Word! We Live to Serve!” sound numerous voices.

Nechai jumps up, a Moscow-born oprichnik who has skinned more than one cat in his time:

“Work and Word! Your Majesty! When the Ambassadorial Department was purged last year, the
extremist
Shtokman confessed on the rack that Tsvetov personally pushed On the Four Taxes in the Duma, and drilled the assessors! It makes one wonder, Your Majesty: Why is that cur so interested in On the Four Taxes now?”

Sterna jumps up:

“Your Majesty, it seems to me that On the Four Taxes is a good law. There’s only one thing that’s not clear—why ‘four’? Where did this number come from? Why not six? Why not eight?”

Our oprichniks buzz:

“Sterna, mind what you say!”

“True, it’s true what he says!”

“The number four isn’t the problem!”

“No, four is the problem!”

Svirid, older and experienced, stands up:

“Your Majesty, what would change if another number was written in the law? For example, a Chinese family would have not four assessments, but eight? Would the tax assessment increase twofold? No! But why, one wonders? Because they wouldn’t let it increase! The clerks. That’s what!”

The oprichniks mutter and clamor:

“True! You speak to the point, Svirid! The enemies aren’t in China, but in the departments!”

At this point I can’t restrain myself:

“Your Majesty! On the Four Taxes is a good law, only it has been diverted in the wrong direction: the district police officers don’t need regular business petitions, but
black
mortgages. That’s where they’re going with this law!”

The right
wing
approves:

“That’s right, Komiaga! The law isn’t the problem!”

But the left
wing
objects:

“The problem isn’t the mortgages, but the law!”

From the left
wing
Buben jumps up: “Chinese can handle six taxes! Russia will only gain from this! Your Majesty, the law needs to be rewritten with another number, to increase the assessments, then they won’t travel to pawn things—they won’t have time to straighten their backs!”

A lot of noise:

“True!”

“Not true!”

Then Potyka stands up; he’s young, but he’s tenacious when it comes to guile.

“Your Majesty, I see it this way. Whether there are six assessments or eight, this is what could happen. The Chinese have big families; they’ll begin to split and to divide, they’ll register by twos and threes, to reduce the tax. And then they’ll all mortgage one place, but not as contract workers anymore—instead, as single parasites. Then, by law they can turn in the tax to us by halves. We take two parts, set ourselves up on the third, and the rest will disappear back to the Chinese. It’ll turn out that they’re all sitting on the tax, bag and baggage. That sort of Chinese guy will marry one of our women—and then there’s no Chinese tax assessment at all! He’s a citizen of Russia!”

The room is abuzz. Good for Potyka! He sees to the root of things. It wasn’t in vain that he served in the Far Eastern customs before the oprichnina. Batya bangs his fist on the table with pleasure.

His Majesty says nothing. He looks at us from the ceiling with his attentive gray-blue gaze. We calm down. Once again silence reigns in the hall. His Majesty speaks:

“Well, I have listened to your opinions. I thank you. I’m glad that my oprichnina is as sharp as ever. I will make a decision about the law on taxes tomorrow. But today I’m taking another decision: to purge the district councils.”

A roar of approval. Thank God! Those western Siberian thieves will finally get what they deserve!

We all jump up, pull our daggers out of their sheathes, and lift them:

“Hail! Purge!”

“Hail the Purge!”

“Hail the Purge!”

With a sweeping gesture we stick our daggers in the tables, and clap our hands so hard that the chandeliers shake.