The Last Hiccup (18 page)

Vladimir just stared at the man, hiccupping, his eyes vacant.

“Here's what I'm going to do. And I must caution you that I haven't made an exception for anyone else. I'll put an asterisk beside your name. Tomorrow morning, all of the new recruits in Igarka are expected to report for duty at 8 a.m. in front of the alehouse across the way. If I see you there, I will understand you to be fit for duty and assign you to the field artillery unit of the 322nd Rifle Division of the 10th Army. If you are not there, I will declare you unfit for duty and relieve you of your responsibilities.” He put his hand on Vladimir's shoulder and pulled him near.

Vladimir could smell the smoke on the captain's jacket. He saw up close the blackened pupils of the man's eyes.

“I know you will do what is right.”

Vladimir completed his shift at the mill in a daze. When it was over, he eschewed Anatoly's offer of a ride home and returned to the same alehouse where he'd seen Ileana the night before. Vladimir sat in the same seat, ordered the same green goulash from the same ripened young waitress with the curly black hair and kept his eyes on the door, hoping Ileana would enter so they might duplicate their chance encounter from the evening before. It took an hour and a half of sitting in the half-empty tavern, shoveling the goulash and turnips into his mouth and feeling anticipation transform into disappointment for Vladimir to realize that in life it's often impossible to repeat a moment and any attempt to force it into existence will serve only to tarnish the original moment's place in one's heart. The goulash — clearly reheated from last night's dinner and now covered in a milky blue film — tasted funny. The few scattered souls in the tavern spoke in muted tones. No doubt their loved ones were going off to war. Vladimir cursed himself for coming here.

He pictured himself just days from now, clad in full military attire with a gun strapped to his belt and a helmet protecting his head, loading an artillery weapon and pressing fire, the blast of the cannon, the missile shooting upward and disappearing into the sky, only to be followed seconds later by a far-off muted explosion and then the distant caterwauling of men's screams — men he would never know, men he would never meet face-to-face. Vladimir thought of Russia, his homeland, what Usurpet had said. This war had been started by an enemy force so corrupt and obscene that they aimed to annihilate an entire branch of the human race. Could he really stand idly by and allow the Nazis to storm into his country and burn it to the ground?

Yet what about the hundreds of thousands of enemy soldiers caught in the quagmire? They couldn't all be driven by pure evil. He was sure of it. The German soldiers were men with families, with mothers, unwitting men like his comrade Anatoly or that poor soldier Vladimir had freed from the cage, good men forced into immoral misdeeds by their leaders. Would the greater good really be served by murdering these strangers? Would it be served by firing artillery shells like a coward who strikes from afar? Could Vladimir really leave his mother? And could he leave Ileana waiting for him in the snow on Sunday morning? Was he a coward to place these women above the needs of God and country or was it the bravest thing a man could do?

The waitress approached to take away what remained of Vladimir's goulash and sautéed turnips. She asked him if he wanted anything else and Vladimir couldn't speak. He stared at her pink eyebrows, the pink sheen cast over her hair, her plump pink bosom and the soft, quiet look on her face. Vladimir hiccupped and shook his head. The waitress removed his plate and walked away. Vladimir looked at the door one last time and then took his leave.

His walk home in the snow took over an hour. At the halfway point, the light snow drifting overhead turned into freezing rain. Vladimir's wool hat shielded him from the icy drops. He pulled his collar tight and soldiered on. Then a crackle sounded overhead. Vladimir looked into the distance. Black clouds had blocked out the last vestiges of starlight. A storm was edging its way toward his tiny village. Hail the size of marbles threatened to fall from the sky at any moment. Vladimir picked up his pace. He made it home just as the freezing rain grew unbearable, moments before two thunderous bolts of lightning flashed across the sky.

As he opened the door, Vladimir was startled by a neighbor's cat darting out into the storm. His mother must have let it in earlier in the day and forgotten to let it out. He brought his hands up to his eyes. The animal's hair was all over the floor. Its dandruff, imperceptible to the naked eye, permeated the air nonetheless. Already it was causing Vladimir's eyes to itch. He made a mental note to sweep up after the cat and went to find his mother. She was sleeping soundly on Vladimir's bed, having forgotten to place a sheet over her shoulders. Vladimir picked up a blanket and wrapped it around her. He kissed her on the cheek and walked into the kitchen. Inside the icebox were three bottles of carbonated soda — locally distilled
kvass
really, refined from barley, yellow and sour-tasting. Vladimir had placed them in the icebox just that morning and tiny bits of ice had crystallized inside the liquid.

That bluish-green goulash wasn't sitting well. It had mixed with the sautéed turnips to form a nauseating stew in his stomach. Vladimir felt a murmur in his chest. When he tried to stand still, he almost toppled over backward. He braced himself and quickly downed two of the ice-cold beverages. Vladimir sneezed. That cursed cat. Vladimir walked back into the living room and removed his mother's broom from the closet. He started sweeping, his sneezes and hiccups alternating to make the task near impossible.

Vladimir set the broom down by the front door and there for the first time he noticed a small yellow envelope bearing his name on the front. In the bottom corner the word “TELEGRAM” was spelled out in large capital letters. It must have arrived while he was at work today. Vladimir tore it open to find a single sheet of paper. The typewritten note read as follows:

The doctor has asked me to pass on the following words — Ilvana Strekov

Vladimir, my boy. The time has come. My execution has been scheduled for this Sunday evening. I am helpless to save myself and have no doubt I will fall to the executioner's axe. I fear the dark unknown. Help me. Save me. Don't let me die. Your doctor, father and friend, Sergei Namestikov.

Vladimir couldn't believe what he'd read. He picked up the envelope and peered inside, hoping to discover a second note, something handwritten by Strekov, perhaps explaining the doctor's words away as paranoid folly. No such note existed. Only the plea for help.

That same churning nausea played again in Vladimir's stomach. His eyes itched. Vladimir thought of Sergei, the fear in his eyes as the executioner approached with his axe. He thought of the countless Germans he would be forced to kill. The walls of his house, the deluge of snow through the window, the very air looked pink. That murmur repeated in his chest. Vladimir picked up the third soda. He inhaled its contents in four swift swigs.

Then it happened.

Everything changed.

Vladimir felt a small twinge inside his intestines. It was short and more uncomfortable than painful. As if by instinct, Vladimir picked up the broom and continued sweeping. The twinge shuddered again. Vladimir looked down the hallway. His mother was nowhere to be seen. He reached down and pulled his left buttock to the side. A long, loud spray of intestinal gas shot out. Vladimir's discomfort subsided and he continued sweeping when his insides tightened again. Simultaneously, the soda repeated on him. In the back of his mouth, the cat dandruff ignited a ticklish sensation. Vladimir felt it all coming at once. A belch formed in the base of his throat. Meanwhile the sneeze prickled in the meeting place of nasal passage and mouth. Down below, a second burst of gas readied itself.

He set down the broom and in one fell swoop, Vladimir belched, farted, sneezed, coughed and hiccupped all at once. The outpouring of gas and pathos was startling. Vladimir reeled. He dropped his broom and gripped the edges of a nearby chair.

Vladimir felt like he was floating above his body and could see the entire room, and the very next second his body went rigid. The blood in his veins turned to ice. The next hiccup, scheduled to arrive in its regular interval of 3.7 seconds, never came. Vladimir couldn't understand what was happening. A third consecutive hiccup failed to arrive as well, as did the one after that. He stumbled forward, his mind reeling. Vladimir looked around for something, someone, anything to explain to him what had just happened. In his throat, the phrenic nerve stood docile and still, unbothered by Vladimir's repetitive breaths.

The realization hit him like an automobile slamming into a cement wall. Vladimir had stopped hiccupping. The curse that had borne itself over and over again in his body for twelve long years was finally gone. Everything was so quiet. He looked down at the note again. Vladimir immediately forgot all about the army, about his holy patriotic duty. Doctor Namestikov was waiting for him, about to be executed, no less. Vladimir was the only one who could save the man. Yet the quiet, the stillness, the hush that had formed over the world, was unbearable.

For the first time, Vladimir feared he would lose all control.

All around him, Vladimir heard the sounds he'd been impervious to for twelve full years. The creak of the boards as he shuffled along the floor. The slow, methodical ticking of the antique clock on the wall. His mother breathing in her sleep from the room down the hall. The clatter of the world resonated for the first time and it was chaos. The sounds inside the house came and went, banged and ticked, wheezed and creaked as if Vladimir were made of stone, immovable, immedicable, and the air was alive, throbbing like a thousand overlapping heartbeats.

Vladimir ran to the back porch, stormed out into the cold and fell to his knees in the snow. There he closed his eyes and listened to the distant rumble of thunder, the hard rain pelting down around him. Against the roof, it rattled. Each successive drop landed in the snow like the muffled thud of an anvil plummeting out of the sky. Vladimir couldn't take it. He shoved his fingers into the back of his mouth in an effort to make himself throw up, anything to shock his system and make the hiccups return. It was no use. His stomach couldn't be encouraged, not even if Vladimir had reached down his throat with both hands and wrenched it into submission.

Vladimir's body felt like it belonged to someone else. The air and the snow turned black and Vladimir knew not where he was nor where he'd been, he knew nothing of this life and the Earth, only the unnerving absence of light. Everything disappeared and Vladimir wondered,
Is this death? Is this the end of everything I will ever know? If it is, why can I still think? How do I still know I'm here?
Wasn't this the cruelest trick of all, to be alive but dead, to exist on a plane of transcendental knowing and yet be unable to move, unable to feel the air against his face, unable to reach out and touch a blistered finger to the world?

Like a vortex, the blackness collapsed in on itself. Outside in the snow, the entire world evaporated and then materialized suddenly back into being. A sound rang out in Vladimir's ears, a whoosh that started as loud as anything he'd ever heard, swelled even louder and then stopped, leaving emptiness to resonate. Vladimir was on his knees in his mother's backyard. He was alive — dizzy and reeling, disoriented and nauseous, but alive.

He stood up quickly, suddenly. Some manner of beast was approaching, a tiger or a panther. He listened more closely to the heavy thud of paws stepping through the snow, to each syrupy breath the animal took as it stalked its prey. Vladimir turned and readied himself to be attacked.

Standing in front of him was the neighbor's small orange cat. It stretched its back and meowed. Vladimir, bubbling with panic, hurried back inside. He slammed the door shut and locked it, then ran to the window and peered back at that orange cat standing in the snow. Its yellow eyes glistened. Vladimir couldn't shake the feeling that it had come to kill him. Was it completely implausible that this creature could be a demon from the netherworld? Certainly it was at least possible. Countless ancient stories exist about evil spirits and mischievous hobgoblins taking animal form on Earth. How could Vladimir trust that this wasn't the case? Would a common house cat walk in the snow? Would it sneak into your dwelling to plan your demise while you're not at home and then run away like a cowardly beast when you finally enter through the door?

This thing, this demon, had come to kill Vladimir. He knew it now. It had started by deploying its dandruff to make his eyes itch. Now the cat had returned to finish the job.

Vladimir wouldn't let it happen.

He searched the kitchen like a madman.

Vladimir found a meat cleaver over by the cupboards and stormed out the door. He screamed a guttural scream and lunged into the snow. The cleaver sailed through the frozen rain. At the last moment the cat jumped out of the way. It scurried over to the porch with Vladimir in swift pursuit, grasping the cleaver like a bedlamite and bellowing into the night. The cat made a quick escape onto the neighbor's fence and off into the dark.

Vladimir pursued it to the fence and no farther. He knew exactly what was going on. The feline was trying to trick him! This whole business about entering Vladimir's home had been an elaborate ruse to convince Vladimir to leave the safety of his property and enter his neighbor's house, where his neighbor ruled the roost, where his neighbor could kill Vladimir sadistically and with complete moral and legal impunity. Well, Vladimir was too smart for that. He wouldn't enter through the backyard. He would barge straight through the front door and swing his cleaver at everything and anything that moved. Vladimir stormed toward the gate at the side of the house when his mother appeared at the door.

“Vladdy,” she said. “What are you doing out here?”

“Go inside!”

“You'll catch your death of cold,” she said.

Vladimir stopped in his tracks. Just like when he was a little boy, his mother was the voice of reason in this treacherous world. He stormed back into the house and dragged Ilga with him. Vladimir locked the door and peered outside again.

“Vladdy,” she said.

“Hush.”

“Vladdy,” she said again. “Your hiccups — they're gone!”

“Yes, Mother.” He closed the curtains and shot a look across the room. “They stopped a few minutes ago.”

“This is a miracle!” she exclaimed. “What a joyous occasion. We must celebrate.” Ilga stopped suddenly. Her eyes shifted to Vladimir's hand. “What are you doing with that knife?”

Vladimir looked down at the meat cleaver. He tossed it into the sink and marched toward her. “Do we have a gun in the house?” he said.

Ilga's eyes grew wide. Her mouth gaped open, quivered.

Vladimir grabbed her by the shoulders. He shook the old woman. “A gun!” he said. “Do we have a gun?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Behind the boxes in the hallway closet.”

Vladimir pushed his mother aside and stormed down the hall. He flung the closet door open and tossed boxes into the air. Clothes and keepsakes tumbled onto the floor. Vladimir reached into the back and pulled out his father's old Nagant M1895 revolver. A seven-shot, gas-sealed gun, this relic from the First Great War had been his father's pride and joy. At the age of five, Vladimir's father had taken him to shoot at cans in the woods. Vladimir still remembered the feeling of cold steel in his hand, the powerful kickback of the gun, the warmth of the shell casings when he pulled them from the discharged weapon. He turned the chamber and rolled the barrel.

“Where are the bullets?” he yelled down the hall.

Ilga was standing in partial view in the kitchen alcove, her face riddled with shock.

Vladimir stormed back into the kitchen. He waved the revolver in the air. “Father kept boxes of bullets in the house. What did you do with them?” he said.

She started to cry. “I sold them years ago to pay for food.”

Vladimir looked at her in disbelief. “Why did you keep the gun if you sold the bullets?”

“I kept it in case your father came home,” she said. “He never did.”

Vladimir watched the tears stream down his mother's face. He could feel her heart breaking from across the room. Vladimir walked over and wrapped his arms around his mother. “It's okay, Mama. I'm sorry. I got confused and excited for a minute. But there's nothing to worry about anymore. Let's get you some tea,” he said.

Ilga heaved a low wail into her son's chest and allowed him to sit her down at the kitchen table. Vladimir was having trouble focusing. He'd already forgotten what he was looking for. “The tea,” he remembered. Vladimir opened the cupboards and searched for the tea leaves. If he concentrated and focused all of his energy, he could complete this one simple task. Once his mother settled down, then he could decide what to do about Doctor Namestikov. He reached into the cupboard and found a jar marked
Tea
. Vladimir opened the jar and brought it to his nose.

Then the house came under attack.

Vladimir ducked. He looked up at the ceiling and ducked again. The world was ending outside. “What is that?” he said. “What's that noise?” Thousands of small collisions reverberated off the ceiling. Vladimir's mind went wild. The government had come to shoot him. Somehow they'd learned of his plan to save Doctor Namestikov and had tracked the doctor's telegram to this address. Captain Karolek's squadron was outside now, spraying gunfire against the roof in the hope that one lucky bullet would find its mark. Well, they wouldn't be so lucky. Vladimir picked up one of Ilga's cooking pans and held it over his head.

“It's hail,” Ilga said.

Vladimir shot her an unglued glare. “What do you mean?”

“The rain turned to hail. There's a storm settling in. It's just the elements, Vladimir.”

Slowly and with great caution, he parted the curtains and looked into the backyard. His mother was right. Hail the size of marbles was falling down all around the house. Vladimir tossed the cooking pan into the sink alongside the meat cleaver.

He paused and tried to breathe deeply. Vladimir thought of Sergei, how years ago his doctor had taken him from the ramshackle medical room in Igarka and placed him under his care in the hospital. Vladimir would have died without him. The last time Vladimir saw Sergei, the doctor's arms had looked frail, and a wild beard jutted out from his chin like a patch of weeds. Those shifting eyes. Vladimir had to do something. He couldn't just let Sergei die.

Vladimir ran to the front hall and picked up his jacket. He wrapped it over his shoulders and donned his wool cap as well. Vladimir had already opened the front door when he realized he would need money. He ran down the hall to his room and opened his top bureau drawer. Vladimir placed the clip of rubles inside his jacket pocket and retrieved the bulletless gun from the counter. At the front door, he took one last look at his mother sitting in her kitchen chair, still waiting for tea.

“I won't be gone long. And when I return, I'll never leave you again,” he said and ran out into the storm.