The Last Hiccup (9 page)

Vladimir raised a single knee. Still the water raged. He raised his left hand and then the other. Vladimir lifted his chin and opened his eyes. The water forced them closed, but in that moment he saw light. Vladimir saw the world as it existed: true, organic, a story yet unwritten. That plague in his core, the one that had festered for so many years, lost its sense of predetermination. Vladimir could move, he could feel, he could breathe and, most important of all, he could decide. Vladimir raised his arms. He screamed. Water swirled in his mouth. He spat it out and screamed again. Vladimir twirled around inside the waterfall now — slowly but with confidence. He opened his eyes. Vladimir cast Gog's followers a final glare. The hiccupping boy, now a man, turned and dove out from the Waterfall of Ion into the distant pool below.

The next day, before Gog's followers cleared out of the monastery, one of them presented Vladimir with a small box. Inside was a handwritten note in Russian. It read:

Have you found your peace, Vladimir?

Have you chosen your path?

Yes, you have. I always knew you would. Gog.

Vladimir smiled when he read the note. He set it aside and searched through the rest of the box. Inside was an envelope containing both Mongolian and Russian currency. It was more than enough to pay for Vladimir's passage anywhere he wanted to go. Underneath the Mongolian tugriks and Russian rubles was a compass and, beside that, a detailed map of their current location along with directions for how Vladimir could reach the border. At the top of the map, in the left corner, Gog had drawn a large red circle around the city of Moscow.

It took a full day after crossing the Russian-Mongolian border before Vladimir found a road. The long dirt and gravel expanse traveled northeast, and while Gog's map directed him due north, Vladimir chose to walk along the road, no matter what detour it caused. After two weeks of traversing the rolling green hills of Mongolia, he had started to feel hemmed in by the endless fields of grass. The open world, the absence of people and things, the indefinable sense of place where everything around him was lush and green, became claustrophobic with time. Vladimir might as well have been trapped on a desert island, a three-by-five-meter area of sand with a single palm tree, as walking alone through these fields.

He turned onto the rural road and kept marching, secretly hoping to meet a person along the way, someone, anyone, to remind him of the civilized world. Vladimir's salvation came in the form of a horse-drawn wagon. He saw it from a kilometer away. Vladimir thought it might be a mirage, a dream of some sort. The closer the wagon drew, the firmer the edges of its outline, the more apparent the discolored brown of the horse and the thick, bald head of the farmer steering the wagon, the more Vladimir realized this was not a dream. His imagination — he was sure — would have conjured up something more appealing than a tall, muscular farmer of late middle age with a jaw covered in long-healed acne scars and boils on his temples and neck.

As they neared, the farmer stepped off his wagon. He reached back onto the flatbed and produced a pitchfork, then brandished the weapon at Vladimir.

“Are you a soldier?” he said.

Vladimir stared straight through him, stunned. It had been so long since Vladimir heard someone speak the Russian language.

“Are you Japanese? Are you a soldier? Do you have a weapon?”

The farmer's words entered Vladimir's ears and traveled the long-unused auricular neural pathways of his brain. It took a few moments, but like a series of pipes being cleared of debris, the passageways slowly retook their familiar shape and Vladimir understood what the farmer was saying.

“I'm Russian,” he said.

The farmer poked the pitchfork in the air. “Prove it.”

“How?” Vladimir said.

“Sing the anthem. Sing ‘The Internationale.'”

Vladimir scratched his head. He racked his brain for the melody to a song he hadn't heard in over ten years. “I don't remember exactly how it goes,” he said.

“Then you're not Russian.”

“It has something to do with a final struggle. Grouping together to form a human race.”

The farmer waved the pitchfork in the air again. “Sing it!” he yelled.

Vladimir looked back at the limitless expanse of green fields. He could undoubtedly outrun this man. The farmer was at least twenty-five years older than Vladimir, maybe as many as thirty. His huge biceps and powerful shoulders would only hinder him in an all-out sprint. But was this how Vladimir wanted to reintroduce himself to society? By turning and running from the first sign of trouble he encountered?

He gathered his words as best he could and then — absent any redeemable melody — sang what he remembered of “The Internationale.” The sound was ghastly. Vladimir knew it even as it exited his mouth. He could barely carry a tune and every time he felt he was gaining momentum, a hiccup would emerge from the back of his throat. The farmer's expression turned more peculiar with each involuntary yelp. Eventually he lowered his pitchfork and put his hand in the air, the universal symbol for an aspiring vocalist to immediately conclude an audition gone awry.

“What's that sound?”

“I have the hiccups. It's been almost twelve years now.”

“Strange,” the farmer said. “Very strange.” He paused. “Are you looking for a ride?” he said.

“I'm headed back to Moscow,” Vladimir said.

The farmer stared off into the distance. “That's quite a long way. You might think of taking a train.”

“My plan exactly. I'm journeying first to Irkutsk.” He held his map up in his hand. “There I intend to book passage westward on the Trans-Siberian railway.”

“Going back the way you came?”

“More or less.”

The farmer tossed his pitchfork into the back of his empty wagon. He climbed up and took the horse's reins. “I'm going to Irkutsk on business in three days' time.” He took a long look at Vladimir. “I could use a young man like you around the farm. If you're willing to work hard for a few days, I'll take you straight into Irkutsk. We'll even take my automobile, travel in high style. Does that seem like a fair exchange to you, boy?”

Vladimir nodded. The farmer motioned for him to climb aboard and Vladimir hopped up with his satchel in hand. They started traveling along the road in the direction from which Vladimir had just come. Vladimir said his name. He reached out to shake the man's hand. The farmer just grunted and took Vladimir's hand in his. “My name's Usurpet,” he said, his eyes locked on the road. It was thirty minutes later, after they'd circled through a valley and out the other side, when Usurpet spoke again. “I thought you were a soldier.”

“A Russian soldier?” Vladimir said.

“Maybe. Meeting a Russian soldier along this stretch of road wouldn't be all that bad. Though even one of our own can't be trusted these days.”

“I don't understand,” Vladimir said. “Who else would it be? Is the Mongolian army attacking the Soviet South?”

Usurpet shot Vladimir a curious look. “You don't know about the Germans? About the war?”

“I've been away a long time,” he said.

“How long?”

“Ten years.”

Usurpet shook his head. “We're at war, boy! The Great Patriotic War has been waging for well over two years now. Germany and Hitler have invaded Russia. They're in the north and they approach the south. Just last year the Japanese attacked Russia through the East Mongolian border.” Usurpet paused. “How did you get past the border?”

Vladimir shrugged his shoulders. He showed Usurpet his map. “I followed the directions here. I didn't see any soldiers or any border guards. I just walked through a series of grass fields, each greener than the last, until I came upon this road.”

Usurpet pulled on the horse's reins, forcing the wagon to come to an abrupt halt. He gazed at Vladimir, watched the hiccups pulse out of the young man's mouth and turned his bald head to the side until his entire body formed a question mark. “You're the luckiest fool I've ever met. These fields are teeming with enemy soldiers. Even now as we speak, the Germans advance on Moscow. They practically own the south. Thousands of Russian soldiers are dying every day. If that isn't all we have to worry about, the Japanese are still here. Their army stagnated in the Mongolian deserts but some of them slipped through. There've been sightings; I know it for a fact. The Japanese army left behind dozens of soldiers, dangerous armed men scattered across the south, now cut off from any communication with their generals. They've been trolling the fields for random villages to plunder. I haven't let my wife or daughter off my property in over a year. It's not safe. The world isn't safe.”

“What about the railway?” Vladimir said. “Will I still be able to book passage?”

Usurpet nodded. “As far as I know. You might have trouble getting close to Moscow, but here in the east, the railways are still functioning as normal.” He thrashed the reins and the horse started up again.

Usurpet steered the wagon off the main road straight into a grass field and past an assemblage of tall oak trees. They traveled deeper into the woods, where the smell became a hodgepodge of decaying tree bark and freshly cut nepeta mint plants, before coming upon a clearing. Usurpet's home was a bungalow of sorts, not attached to any road or township as far as Vladimir could see. His dwelling stood in front of a white barn situated next to a steep ravine and behind that, fields of crops. It was just as Usurpet had described it. Safe. Hidden. Ramshackle.

Usurpet led Vladimir out back of the barn and let him wash up in a barrel of gelid rainwater. Once Vladimir had wiped his armpits and face, and cleaned his nether regions with a rag, Usurpet led him inside the bungalow, where his wife and teenage daughter were preparing dinner. He barked a few words at the women and then motioned for Vladimir to sit next to him in front of the fireplace. Usurpet threw a log on the pile of burning embers and leaned back in his chair. Bright orange sparks settled in the air. On the wall directly above Usurpet, the upper torso and head of a mounted bear stared directly at Vladimir, its eyes glassy and white.

“You'll have to excuse my wife,” Usurpet said. “We haven't had visitors in two years, ever since the war started in Europe. You're the first man besides me to set foot in this house in a long time.”

Vladimir looked at Usurpet's wife in the distance.

“She can't speak,” Usurpet said. “Something was wrong with her throat when she was a girl.” His wife walked by and cast a look at the two men sitting by the inglenook. She received a swift slap on the buttocks from Usurpet for her troubles. “The boy's hungry,” he said and turned his attention back to Vladimir.

“A question for you,” Vladimir said. “You explained the war during our journey.”

“Was there something wrong with my telling of it?”

“No, of course not. There are just a few things I don't understand. For instance, can you tell me again the difference between a Nazi and a kamikaze?”

Usurpet exhaled a half chuckle, half groan of exhaustion. “A Nazi is a German soldier. They belong to a political movement, an extreme brand of socialism. The kamikazes are Japanese soldiers, pilots by trade. They aim their planes into Soviet ships and buildings with the intent to kill everyone aboard and themselves as well.”

“So these Nazis,” Vladimir said, “do they fly their planes straight into crowds of Jewish people?”

“No. They're committing genocide.”

“I'm not familiar with that word.”

“They're killing the Jews. All of them. Women and children too. I hear they've killed thousands of Polish people as well.”

“Why?” Vladimir said.

“What do you mean, why?”

“Why don't the Germans like the Jews?”

“Because the Jews murdered and tortured Jesus Christ,” Usurpet said.

“But that was a thousand years ago.”

“Two thousand, actually.”

Vladimir paused. “That seems like an enormously long time to hold a grudge.”

“People don't forget,” Usurpet said.

“Then what about the Polish? Why are the Nazis killing them?”

Usurpet shuffled in his seat. He glanced back at his wife and daughter and told them dinner had better be ready soon. Usurpet picked up a fire poker and, much as he handled the pitchfork earlier, jabbed the log atop the fire until tiny red fireflies danced in the air. “At our core, humankind is driven by our quest for power,” he said. “Simple men like you and me, farmers and boot makers and day laborers, have become few and far between. This is the year 1941. The industrial revolution is well behind us. The Eastern War with Britain and Sardinia is almost a hundred years past. In America, capitalism breeds like a virus. The world — Europe and the Americas at least — is there for the taking. And every man — Hitler included — wants to be the next Count Suvorov of Rymnik.”

“I'm afraid I don't know who that is,” Vladimir said.

Usurpet scrunched his nose in disgust. “In order to be a proud Soviet, Vladimir, you must know of the proud Soviets who came before you. Suvorov is the most famous Russian general of all time. He destroyed the Turks. He decimated the Ottoman Empire. He never failed in battle, not even once! All of these men, Stalin and Hitler and Churchill, can only dream of the glory Suvorov achieved.”

A small, almost tender voice sounded from the kitchen.

“Father,” Usurpet's daughter said. “It's time for dinner.”

Usurpet ignored her. “The world is at a precipice,” he said. “At the turn of the century, men had never seen tanks before. Now they're commonplace. Airplanes drop liquid fire from the sky. The Japanese hate us. The Chinese fear us. The Americans cannot be trusted. And the Germans march about with their chins held high like drunken louts leaving a tavern in search of a fight. Russia — as we know it — might end up in ashes.” He poked the fire again. “Men like us must never lose sight of who we are. The mettle of a Russian man's soul is carved not in wood but in stone.” Usurpet leaned forward. The flames flickered in the whites of his eyes. “I, for one, will die before I allow my great country to be burned to the ground.”