The Last Hiccup (8 page)

Vladimir gave him an empty look.

Alexander continued. “I think there is a deeper problem here. You're a very troubled young boy, Vladimir. I want nothing more than to cure your hiccups. And hopefully someday I'll be able to do that. But first you must quell the crisis in your soul. I'm not sure what's wrong with you. I cannot pinpoint your dilemma and I would be ill-advised to try. It's something you must find within yourself.”

Vladimir's expression, for so long a blank page, suddenly morphed into an implacable scowl. “Why do you want to help me?” he said.

Alexander, unprepared for the boy's question, was at a loss for words. “It's my job to help you,” he said.

“That's not the only reason. You wouldn't travel to some faraway land just to help one of your patients.”

“Nonsense,” Alexander said. “I would do this for any of my charges.”

“No,” Vladimir said. “It's something else. You're afraid of something. What is it that you're afraid of?”

Alexander was slowly growing more and more uncomfortable in the presence of this child. For the first time during their journey, he wished Ilvana would wake from her stupor. “It's not that I'm afraid or that Sergei is afraid,” he said. “We're all just concerned about you.”

The boy glared at him, the sharp yelp of his hiccups pulsating in a monotone rhythm. “You're afraid of what I might do. You think I might hurt someone.”

“Would you, Vladimir? Would you hurt someone?”

Young Vlad ignored his question. “You're worried that I might grow up to become an evil man. You think I could one day become a murderer.”

Suddenly the carriage lurched to a stop. Ilvana Strekov snapped to from her slumber, stretched her arms and let forth a full-body yawn. She wiped the sleep from her eyes and looked around the carriage. The boy was awake, the air in the coach thick with tension.

“What happened here?” she said.

The doctor remained perfectly quiet. Vladimir sat still as well, the sound of his hiccups filling the carriage. The door opened to reveal Tarkov standing outside in the damp air. He lifted Vladimir out of the coach and set the boy down on the wet grass. Alexander joined them. He pulled out his hand-drawn map and examined it in the face of the valley's rolling hills and lime-green vegetation. Alexander discussed their destination briefly with the driver, who pointed to a hill in the far distance.

“The horses are too big for the path,” the driver said in broken Russian.

“Where are we going?” Vladimir said.

Alexander crouched down to look Vladimir in the eyes. “You'll find out when we arrive. Now, I don't want any difficulty out of you,” he said. “You're going to come with us whether you walk on your own two feet or I have Tarkov here drag you along in the mud.”

Vladimir looked up at Tarkov. An absolute mountain of a man, Tarkov folded his arms to reveal thick Herculean biceps bulging under his winter coat. The orderly could crush Vladimir with a single hand. Vladimir gazed off into the distance. He was so far from the unending winter of his village. In every direction there were steep mountains and rolling green hills.

“I suppose he'll have to drag me in the mud,” Vladimir said.

Alexander turned to Tarkov. “Pick up the boy,” he said. “We must arrive before sundown.”

Led by their driver-turned-guide, the Soviets marched through the brush, alternating between muddy jungle paths and grass fields for over an hour before they heard the distant sound of a waterfall. They advanced in the direction of the crashing water until they came to a clearing. In the middle, surrounded by mountains on three sides, was an enormous dwelling with steep arches, its intricate framework laced with ornate carvings and long red cloths. The dwelling stood twelve meters high and three times as wide. A long winding path, lined by small, meticulously aligned bundles of rocks, led up to the entrance. Tarkov set Vladimir down and stared with the others in wonder at this vast structure in the middle of a deserted land.

They approached the front doors. Essentially a series of hollowed-out trees strung together, the doors looked fragile compared to the dwelling's thick, sturdy walls. Shards of light darted out between cracks in the doors, revealing fragments of the room inside. Alexander knocked three times. There was no answer. “Hello,” Alexander called, his voice drowned out by the sound of the nearby waterfall. With caution, he pulled on the doors. They flung open to reveal a long, large room, empty save for a lone figure sitting in a chair against the far back wall.

“Enter,” the figure said. Alexander ordered the others to remain outside and took Vladimir by the arm. They walked along a thick red carpet toward the figure. The walls were barren as was the ceiling, save for two enormous skylights, one consisting of blue stained glass, the other red. Two beams of incongruent light shone down to cast a nebulous purple glow about the room.

The Russians arrived at the figure. Sitting perfectly erect on an uncomfortable wicker chair was an old Asian man, so tall and rail-thin he would tower over Alexander if he were to stand. The man's head was shaved completely bald and his eyes were closed. His body was covered by a yellow robe. Vladimir had never seen a man so tall. Aside from their guide, he'd never seen a man with such dark skin before either. He glanced up at Alexander, who was quiet as a ghost, waiting for the man to speak.

“Are you Alexander Afiniganov of Russia?” the tall man said in perfect Russian.

“Yes,” Alexander said. The doctor's rancorous demeanor had all but vanished. “Are you the Great Gog?”

“I am.”

Vladimir hiccupped.

“Does the child always make that sound?” the Great Gog said.

“Yes,” Alexander said.

The man looked down at Vladimir and then stood, his legs stretching out like fallen trees rising from the ground. He towered over the Russians. The Great Gog took a long look at the boy. He knelt down on one knee and placed his hand to Vladimir's cheek. Gog looked deep into the young boy's eyes. He stared for a full minute in absolute silence before he stood up again.

“Your fears are well-founded, Alexander Afiniganov of Russia. There is a battle being waged deep within this young one.”

“Which battle?”

“The only battle, Doctor — one of good versus evil. Vladimir needs time away from the world to reflect on the child he is and the man he will become. You may leave now. It is time for your party to return home.”

“The boy is on a regimen of medication to help him sleep. I can leave you a six-month supply.”

“That will not be necessary,” the Great Gog said. “Vladimir will no longer need his medication.”

Alexander's eyebrow raised. “When should we return to retrieve the child?” he said.

“You must never return for the boy.” The Great Gog stepped toward Alexander. “When Vladimir is ready, he will leave on his own.”

Alexander had anticipated that the Great Gog would present him with some manner of timetable, an organized method they could use to track the boy's progress either through intermittent visits or correspondence through the post. He looked down at young Vlad and then around the room with its barren walls and hazy lavender light. For the first time, a flicker of doubt resonated in the doctor's mind. What he had done was tantamount to kidnapping. He had no firm idea of Gog's intentions with the boy. Were he to leave Vladimir here and the child happened to never return, there could be a litany of charges back in his homeland — child abduction, abandonment of a minor, crossing the border without proper documentation and, were they to dig deep enough, bribery and the promotion of slavery. What would happen, he wondered, if he turned around and took Vladimir back to Moscow? The answer was nothing. Absolutely nothing would change. The boy would return to Sergei's care, Alexander would be admonished for taking a patient on a trip without permission and Vladimir would continue on his present course, one that Alexander suspected would end tragically amidst an ocean of violence and sorrow.

To Alexander, a man of action and conviction, such a bleak outcome was unacceptable.

“I leave Vladimir in your good care,” he said and turned to depart. Alexander walked the long red carpet to where Tarkov and the others were waiting. To his surprise, Vladimir didn't plead with him or beg to return home. The boy stood stone-faced as always. At the door, Alexander waved farewell to the leviathan and the pale child. Young Vlad shot him one last look. It contained not happiness or sorrow, but indignation. Alexander, troubled in his bowels by an obstinate plum he'd consumed during the walk and unsure of himself for the first time, closed the doors and left Vladimir alone with the tall man.

The Great Gog sat down in his hand-woven chair. The wicker splintered and cracked under his weight. With a content sigh, the man closed his eyes and returned to his meditation.

“What now?” Vladimir, standing a meter away, said between yelps.

“My people will rise from their slumber in several hours' time,” the Great Gog said without opening his eyes.

“And until then?”

“Until then, we wait.”

Vladimir looked around the empty room. Alexander had abandoned him. Sergei would not be coming to save him. The good doctor probably had no idea even where his young patient was. Nor did Vladimir, for that matter. He'd never heard of Mongolia. He didn't know if he was still in Russia or if he'd been taken to the other side of the world. And, despite all their fears, he was still a child. Left alone in this foreign place, with the spectral purple light shining down from above and the tall man having forgotten he was in the room, Vladimir did the only thing he could do — he stood there waiting, his hiccups filling the silence every 3.7 seconds.

He was now at the mercy of the Great Gog.

Mongolia,
1941

The water pummeled down from above. Thousands of shards of ice pierced Vladimir's skin like tiny daggers. In his shoulder blades, deep incisions formed. Vladimir felt his temperature drop the moment he entered the waterfall. It was so dense he could stretch his arms to their full width and still not touch the air. Vladimir faltered under the torrent from above. Never before had the terror of dying been so immediate. It was a sensation like no other.

Thirty minutes before, Vladimir — a young man now, twenty years old, strong with a thick, sturdy frame and capable of growing a long beard — approached the doors at the entrance of Gog's temple. Vladimir hadn't seen the hazy purple light inside for months, ever since Gog banished him. In that time he haunted the monastery like a ghost that no one ever saw. Vladimir lived in the trees. He took shelter in a secluded cave a kilometer away. When he was hungry, he ate. When he was thirsty, he drank. The rest of his time was spent practicing his skills as a hunter. Vladimir's condition put him at a severe disadvantage. His hiccups announced his presence before he could catch his prey by surprise. Through sheer determination and cunning, he managed to capture animal after animal until there was not one manner of mammal, bird or lizard that he had not held in his hands.

Vladimir had reached physical maturation, and still the tortured, jangled collection of thoughts stormed about his mind. Still they pushed violently toward the front of his skull. At times Vladimir's year in the jungle bordered on sheer lunacy. He had taken to hunting animals as if they were humans. Vladimir would picture men, women, even children, as he stalked his prey through the wild, the glistening tip of a spear raised high above, a wild zeal encompassing him. After Vladimir made the kill, he would retreat to his cave and scream at the top of his lungs for hours. He spent days stumbling aimlessly through the brush, holding his hands to his head, panicked, with tears streaming down his face.

Now he returned to Gog — Gog, who in all these years had taught him nothing. Not civility or honor or passion or even arithmetic or how to cook rice. Gog, who was a monument, worshiped by his followers like a statue constructed millennia ago. Vladimir could count on his fingers the number of times Gog had spoken to him over the years. He dreaded going back. But he couldn't live in the wild anymore. Vladimir had become a prisoner in his own mind and he had to return while he still maintained some semblance of control.

It was the middle of the afternoon on a chilly mid-autumn's day. The grass was frosted. Even the bright sun wasn't enough to warm the air. Vladimir entered through the doors of the long room uninvited. Every few steps he emitted the sound of a frog's ribbit. The Great Gog seemed not to notice. He was sitting perfectly erect in his wicker chair as always, his eyes closed, a faded monument in this empty, forsaken room. Vladimir knew Gog had the ability to hear during even the deepest of trances. He walked straight up to the tall man.

“Gog?” he said.

There was no answer.

“Gog?”

The old warrior sat perfectly still. Vladimir waited in the purple light for Gog to release a long, pensive breath. It never came. He reached out and touched Gog's face. The tall man's skin was as cold as the air outside. “Gog?” He grabbed the leviathan by the shoulders and shook him. “Speak!” he cried.

Like an oak tree being felled, Gog toppled over. Vladimir stepped out of the way and Gog landed in an unceremonious heap on the floor. In the distance, Gog's followers entered through the hollow doors. Vladimir knew how this looked: the hiccupping child, a white devil standing over top of their fallen messiah. He stared straight through them. Almost immediately the followers disavowed their silence and yelled at Vladimir in their native Buryat dialect. Vladimir braced himself for what was about to come.

In the waterfall, the night destroyed the day. And not just the night but the end of all days, the absence of places and people and things. Blackness forced its way up from the ground, the heavens collapsed and all around was the sensation of liquid. Liquid land, liquid air. Vladimir's flesh felt malleable, dissolved. He existed but he did not exist. He could think and feel and understand the world around him but trust in nothing.

Gog's followers were on him like a plague of locusts. They attacked Vladimir from all sides, their sudden vengeful fury shocking, considering the peace in which they'd lived. Vladimir struggled to defend himself. He fell to the floor amidst an onslaught of legs and fists, his only defense to curl himself into a ball and shield his organs with his limbs.

Minutes later, he felt himself being dragged up the mountain toward the Waterfall of Ion. Not since Vladimir's first month in Mongolia had a man entered the waterfall, and that man, Tomchar, did not survive. The power of the icy water had overwhelmed Gog's ambitious follower; it gushed and streamed its relentless force. Tomchar slipped. His head crashed into the limestone and his lifeless body cascaded into the rocks below. Gog — whose legend was established when he withstood the waterfall's fury — forbade his followers from ever entering the Waterfall of Ion again.

Vladimir screamed. He struggled in vain. The sound next to the water was staggering. Vladimir couldn't hear himself anymore. Without ceremony or discussion, they cast him inside.

For so long Vladimir's perspective had been distorted, bent to serve the thundering storms inside his mind. Evil is not only powerful, not just alluring — it's knowing, it's aware. From the first moment he had awoken in the hospital in Moscow, Vladimir knew his role in this world was to be a scourge on all mankind. He would kill hundreds, thousands even. Millions if he had the means. The doctors poked him, they prodded him, they cast him aside into the land of lunatics and still he knew. He kept it in his ever-present vacuous glare.

Imprinted forever on Vladimir's mind was the look of dread on Markus's face. When he finally spoke to that self-proclaimed practitioner of the brain, what emerged? Even Vladimir himself could not be certain. Was it a sinuous arrangement of jagged thoughts and emotions so utterly raw, so very base, that they set a plague upon the room? Or had Vladimir known exactly what he was doing and fallen victim to his own cleverness?

He'd seen through Markus, of that he was sure. As Markus lobbed question upon question into the air over multiple sessions in a futile attempt to make Vladimir talk, a pattern emerged. Markus was — and of this fact Vladimir had never been more certain — deathly afraid of his older brother. The questions Markus asked, the labored syllables that lurched off the tip of his tongue when he mentioned family, responsibility, brotherhood and obligation, spoke volumes. Vladimir waited, serpent-like in the weeds, until he was ready. Then he pounced. He attacked. He twisted Markus's words, contorted them until they were both potent and unrecognizable.

Had he meant it when he told Markus that he didn't love Ileana? No. Of course not. Even now, as the water crashed around him, he wanted nothing more than to see Ileana again, the profile of her face, enchanting and pure. But he would never tell Markus that, he would never even tell Sergei. He was then not even ten years old. And he had much work to do.

Now the waterfall raged. Vladimir's demise was a certainty, like the spinning of the Earth or the rising of the sun. He would meet his end here, and for the first time in his life he was afraid. His murderous aspirations abandoned him like a plague of rats streaming off a sinking ship. He lifted his hand and the waterfall pummeled him back down. Vladimir brought his shoulder blades up and was forced into the limestone by a wall of ice.

Was it not Alexander Afiniganov's plan for Vladimir to leave Mongolia a good man, a better man — reformed and matured? Why then did Gog leave Vladimir to his own devices? And where was his mother? Where was his long-lost father? Where were Sergei and Alexander while he stood under the waterfall with those who meant to kill him lurking outside?

Abandoned and left for dead, Vladimir looked within. What he found, what Vladimir clung to, what had defined him and separated him from lunacy all along, were his hiccups, the one part of his life that had never abandoned him. They'd become his constant companion, his security, an internal clock ticking with the regularity of a perfectly balanced pendulum. Vladimir had always hidden himself in their warmth. In the end, as the waterfall beat him down, the hiccups became the perfect cicerone. Their stamina and fortitude guided Vladimir to the realization that sometimes in life, the person you are is the person you decide to be.