The Secret History of Moscow Read online

  In truth, she wasn't sure what she wanted to do in Moscow. She could visit some remote relatives, but her heart wasn't in it. She could take rooms and cloister herself from the world. Instead, she wandered down to the Moscow River embankment and watched the frozen river, green with crusted ice, with black cracks showing the sluggish black water underneath. She shivered in her furs and wondered if the water was as cold as the air that clouded her breath as soon as it left her lips. She stayed there until the stars came out.

  The night had a different color here-farther south, the blue of the sky had grown deeper, more saturated, and the stars had become large and yellow, not the white pinpricks she remembered from St Petersburg. She missed the aurora borealis.

  A movement on the ice caught her attention-she squinted at the dark shapes, worried that some clueless peasant children had wandered onto the ice, thick but liable to split open every time a smallest child set a lightest foot on it. She was about to call out, to tell them to get back, when her breath stopped fogging the air; she forgot to breathe. The shapes crawled out from under the embankment on which she stood, covered in mud and raw sewage, and they were not children at all but grown women. Pale filthy women, dressed in nothing but thin linen shirts.

  They crawled on all fours like animals, until they reached the first patch of open black water. They slid into it, one by one, noiseless as seals. Before Elena could break her stupor or call for help, they re-emerged, sleek and clean, the linen clinging to their young bodies, their wet hair plastered to their faces and necks. As she watched, they gathered on the ice where it seemed more solid and held hands, forming a circle like peasant girls did at weddings. And they started dancing-moving around in a circle, faster and faster, until Elena felt dizzy. And then their bare feet left the ice, and the women danced in the air, water on their shirts and faces frozen. They looked like ice sculptures come magically to life.

  Elena leaned over the embankment, her heart racing. In the back of her mind she knew who these women were-rusalki, spirits of drowned girls, but she wanted nothing more than to join them. There was nobody around, and she climbed over the parapet, awkward in her heavy skirts and coat, but eager. She could not remember the last time she had such a longing to join people.

  She stepped onto the ice; the women seemed oblivious to her approach. She skirted far around the black dizzying splotches of open water. The ice creaked under her shoes. She was close to them now. Just as if someone had given a signal, all of the faces turned toward her, and she heard a thundering, roaring noise as the ice cracked under her feet, opening a black rift across the river. Her feet slid from under her, and the black water reached up, seizing her chest in its icy embrace. It flooded her mouth opened in a scream, washed over her eyes, twined her hair around her neck. She felt hands on her shoulders and arms, and grabbed at them. But instead of pulling her to safety, the women laughed and pushed her down, down, deep down into the black water where even the wan starlight could not reach.

  Her lungs burned and her chest heaved, rebelling against the dead heavy embrace of the ice-cold water. She swallowed and breathed water, feeling it churn in her stomach, waiting for the inevitable darkness. She felt hands dragging her along, under ice, where the starlight did not reach and where she could not hope to reach the surface.

  Her skin was so numb from the cold that it took her a while to notice a change in temperature-the water had turned balmy, and the glow on the surface signaled escape. She lunged toward it and did not believe her senses when her head emerged into musty stale air and her lungs convulsed, expelling the ice-cold water of Moscow River into the unknown warm lake. The girls that dragged her there surfaced too, laughing and lisping gentle nonsense. She didn't know where she was, but she knew that her former concerns had fallen away, like crust from the eyes of a cured blind man.

  * * * *

  "It's all the same with everyone here, isn't it?” Galina said. “You wanted so badly to escape."

  "And we didn't fit in anywhere else,” Elena said.

  Galina nodded. “You know, I always hoped that there was a place for me, a promised land-and I could never find it, until someone I love disappeared."

  "You know,” Elena said and took a long drag on her cigarette, “people are notoriously bad at discerning what it is they really want. Besides, this is really no promised land-funny you would think that once you stick all the misfits into one place, it would somehow magically become a paradise."

  "It seems like one,” Galina said.

  Loud splashing and cries turned her attention to the lake, and even Elena stood up and looked over, squinting. The rusalki, several of them at once, wept and cried, and shied away from something in their midst.

  "What are they doing?” Galina said.

  "No idea.” Elena carefully picked up the hem of her dress, exposing a pair of small but sturdy combat boots. “Let's go see."

  The rusalki left the water, and stood on the shore, dripping wet, fear in their eyes that showed no whites. Elena moved among them as if she were at a party, working her way toward the plates with canapés, and Galina followed in her wake. On the bank, they both stopped, looking.

  Galina could not quite understand it at first-dark fabric flapped in the water, concealing the outline of its contents, until she saw a hand. And like in a brainteaser where one was supposed to find a hidden figure, everything fell into place-there were two hands and a leg, and a pale face with wide open eyes. She was about to call to the man bobbing in the waves when she realized that his hands were lashed together with blue electrical tape, and that the deep blue shadow around his eye was a bruise, spreading slowly over the left half of his face. A dark smear at the corner of his mouth was undoubtedly blood, but at this point Galina did not need any confirmation of the man's dead state. “Who is it?” she asked Elena, unable to look away from the corpse that neared the bank on which they stood, certain as death. “Why is he here?"

  "I don't know.” Elena bent down to tear out a long and stout cattail stem, and reached out, pulling the body closer. “Never seen him before. And his clothes-do they look familiar?"

  Galina looked over the sodden leather jacket and track pants, at the buzz cut. “He's a thug,” she said. “What they call a racketeer. There're plenty of them on the surface now."

  "I see.” Elena grabbed the lapels of the dead man's jacket, and heaved the body ashore. “Never seen a corpse making it here.” She turned to the rusalki, still huddling in a disturbed clump, like deer. “Did you drag him here?"

  They all shook their heads in unison and cried, wringing their hands-it almost looked like ritual mourning, Galina thought.

  "Now, this is really strange,” Elena said, looking over the man at her feet thoughtfully. “What, the surfacers don't think they're good enough for us and dump their garbage here?"

  "They don't even know about this place,” Galina reminded her.

  Elena sighed. “I know. I just don't understand."

  "There have been strange things happening on the surface too.” Galina told her about the birds and her sister.

  "This is strange,” Elena agreed. “There's magic on the surface and corpses down here-it shouldn't happen. I think someone's breaching the barrier. We better talk to one of the old ones."

  "I was looking for Berendey when the rusalka led me here,” Galina said. “Do you know where we could find him?"

  Elena snorted. “Berendey? To be sure, he makes things grow; he even steals sunlight from the surface for my plants-see how green they are? But he wouldn't do something like that; he couldn't if he wanted to. Nor Father Frost, no any of the others-they have a link to the surface, but it is subtle. No, we need someone who actually knows what this is all about."

  "And who would that be?"

  "The Celestial Cow Zemun,” Elena said seriously. “Don't even think of laughing."

  Galina didn't feel like laughing, with a dead body almost touching her sneakers. “Can we talk to my friends first? One of them is a cop, and ma
ybe he would know something about this body."

  "What is there to know? He's dead.” Elena prodded the corpse with the toe of her boot. “But suit yourself. Go get your cop and come back here as soon as you can."

  * * * *

  Galina found Yakov in the back room of the Pub. She paused on the threshold, breathing in its sweet smell of pipe tobacco and fresh sawdust. Yakov and David talked in quiet voices, the silences often stretching between them like clouds of smoke.

  Galina hated to interfere with their conversation-she could not make out the words, but the obvious comfort between them clung with the warm air of familiarity, and she sighed to think that she wasn't a part of anything like that. She cleared her throat. “Yakov, there's something I want you to see."

  He startled with a guilty look on his face. “I'm sorry,” he told David. “I guess I better go-we did come here for a reason."

  "It's quite all right,” David said, and smiled at Galina. “Did you find Berendey?"

  "No,” Galina said. “Just a corpse."

  Elena waited for them by the lake. On the way, Galina explained the situation to Yakov, and he kneeled by the body, examining it. It struck her that this policeman who always seemed so unsure and so defeated actually knew what he was doing-he examined the cuts and bruises on the face and wrists of the body, and turned out the pockets of the leather jacket.

  The passport was sodden and unreadable, but there was also an address book and a wallet with a laminated library card. Yakov grunted and placed his hands behind the corpse's ears. The muscles on his arms tensed, and Galina stepped back instinctively-Yakov's usually placid demeanor had prevented any thought that he was capable of violence. Now, as she watched him wrench the corpse's lower jaw, she grew worried. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  "Trying to get his mouth open.” Yakov pointed at the dry trace of blood staining the corner of the dead man's lips and smearing his chin. “He was tortured, I think, and I'm looking for bite marks on his tongue and cheeks, and maybe some broken teeth. Those usually occur with torture."

  Galina looked away as the face under Yakov's hands crunched and collapsed. She stared at the calm black water, at the rusalki who still minced at the edge of the lake, at the rustling cattails. Anywhere but where Yakov was doing something to a dead man, something wrong. Galina understood the necessity of such procedures in the surface world, but here it felt almost sacrilegious. Then again, she thought, this was what people did. No matter how remote and magical a place was, there would always be corpses and brutish people with ropy arms messing it all up. No matter how beautiful the view from a rooftop was, there would always be empty bottles and squashed cigarette filters, dirty rags and smells of sweat.

  "It's all right,” Elena whispered to her. “He's almost done."

  "It's not all right,” Galina said. “You know how they say the grass is always greener on the other side? It is greener, because you're not there. And if you go you'll trample it and leave dirty footprints and probably spill something poisonous."

  Elena smiled. “I don't think that's how they mean it."

  "I know. Only they're wrong."

  She tried not to listen to the awful creaking and slurping sounds, the wet swish of fabric, the soft give of something organic and formerly human. And then a soft tinkling that inexplicably reminded her of the New Year tree ornaments and the long silvery strings of tinsel.

  "What on earth is this?” Yakov said behind her.

  Elena kneeled next to him. “I have no idea.” Her voice held a quiet awe, and Galina turned.

  The two of them looked at the dead man's face, his mouth open and his lower jaw jutting out at an unnatural angle. They stared at something in his mouth, and Galina looked, too.

  A small object, the size of a sparrow's egg, bright metallic blue, lay under the swollen purple tongue as if that were a monstrous nest. Yakov reached out and touched it, and the blue sphere tinkled and sang. Galina drew a sharp breath through her clenched teeth, trying to ignore the ruined body around the shining blue gem.

  Elena nudged Yakov aside, and plucked the object from its gruesome resting place. It rolled on her palm, still singing, sending icy sparks into the air that suddenly felt fresher, cooler. “I don't know what it is,” Elena said, “but it certainly did not belong on the surface, just as this corpse does not belong here."

  "What do you mean?” Yakov asked. He seemed to have noticed Elena for the first time and stared at her, wide-eyed, as if she was a greater miracle than the blue gem.

  "Underground used to be more isolated than it is now,” Elena said. “And I don't like that."

  "Why not?” Yakov said. “Wouldn't it be great if people on the surface learned about this place, if they could visit here?"

  "No,” Galina said. “It wouldn't be great at all. It will become just like the surface if that happens."

  Elena rolled her eyes. “Look at you two. You just got here and you already presume to decide for us. Now, can we go see Zemun?"

  "Who's Zemun?” Yakov whispered in Galina's ear.

  She moved away. “The Celestial Cow,” she said. “Don't ask. That's all I know."

  "I like cows,” Yakov said. “But what's a celestial cow doing underground?"

  "Like all of us, she's in exile,” Elena said. She led them around the lake and through another labyrinth of twisty wooden streets. Galina surmised that there were no true boundaries to the city-it spread in rivulets between long stretches of woods and meadows and pulled in open plains, spreading with each new arrival. She did not want to think whether underground had a limit, or whether a day would come when the woods would have to go and the deep swamps would be drained to give way to more people. She did not want to consider what would happen to the rusalki and the forest spirits when there would be no more water or forests. She did not want to envision the underground world a darker, dustier copy of what lay above it. And yet, it was all she could think about.

  8: The Corpse

  They left the body in the care of the rusalki who acted fearful for a while, but soon giggled, reassured by Elena's whisperings, and played with it as with a gruesome oversized toy. Yakov wanted to object at first, but then decided that it made no difference, and watched the rusalki sink below the lake's surface, carrying their new amusement with them. After that, they left to find Zemun.

  He regretted not wearing sturdier boots as the clay and mud of the meadow, wet from a recent flood, sucked on his shoes. The meadow, green with stolen sunlight, spread downward on a gentle slope. Small white and yellow flowers winked in the verdant grass, and among them the Celestial Cow grazed, languid. Yakov recognized her because she emitted a soft glow that lit the meadow with a wavering light that reminded him of the northern lights he had seen once, when he visited some distant cousins in Murmansk.

  "What a pretty cow,” Galina whispered behind him.

  "Yes,” Elena agreed. “I haven't seen much livestock back on the surface, but I like this one."

  The cow lifted her head and studied them with an expression Yakov could only describe as ‘wise'.

  "Hi,” Elena said. “We came for your advice. We found a dead man who came from the surface-"

  "Was he dead when he arrived?” Zemun interrupted in a slow, melodious voice.

  "Yes,” Yakov said. “I'm Yakov, and that's Galina. We're looking for birds who used to be people. The dead man had something in his mouth."

  Zemun nodded. “I will listen to your questions, but one at a time. What did you find in the dead man's mouth?"

  "This.” Elena opened her palm, and the blue egg pulsed, as if revived with her warmth.

  Zemun sniffed at the gem, and even tested it gingerly with the surprisingly agile tip of her tongue.

  "Do you know what it is?” Yakov asked. “Elena thinks it's magical, somehow."

  "I don't really believe in magic,” Zemun said, and sniffed at the jewel again. “But this is certainly… strange."

  Yakov and Galina traded a look. Yakov wasn't
sure what he expected from this cow, but he hoped for something more insightful.

  "Can you help us?” Galina said. “If you don't know what it is, do you know who does?"

  Zemun thought for a bit. “You know,” she said. “I made the Milky Way."

  "That's-nice,” Yakov said, and looked to Galina for help.

  "You don't believe me.” Zemun looked mournful. “You think that stars just happen, that no one makes them."

  "Not necessarily,” Galina said. “But what about the people who turned into birds?"

  "Tell me about that,” Zemun said, still sulking.

  Yakov did, and Galina butted in a few times, talking about her sister. Yakov wished she would stop reminding him about that-he was acutely aware that he was not doing his job and missing work to boot; his mother was probably worried sick, and there was nothing he could do to help Galina.

  His thoughts drifted to the young girl, Darya, and her missing mother. He wished he could send her a message to let her know that he was looking, that he was trying, and hadn't forgotten about her. It was like the sleep paralysis he used to get as a child-a feeling of utter helplessness and despair, and it felt like it was his fault.

  Zemun chewed her cud, thinking. “I can help you,” she said after a while. “I will help you find why all of this is happening."

  "You mean you don't know?” Yakov tried to keep disappointment out of his voice. Nothing was ever easy, and he resented that his visit to a magical kingdom of fairytales was turning into a series of interviews. And corpse examinations. If one was a cop, this sort of thing would be unavoidable, he supposed. He just wanted a bit of a respite-and the ability to do something about it.