Day of the Oprichnik Read Online Free PDF Page B

of the oprichnina, its sharp barbs pointed outward. With this ring His Majesty drew a sick, rotting, collapsing country together, he lassoed it like a wounded bear, dripping ichor blood. And the bear grew strong of bone and muscle, its wounds healed, it put on fat, its claws grew out. And we let its blood, blood that was rotten, poisoned by enemies. Now the roar of the Russian bear is heard by the entire world. Not only China and Europe, but lands beyond the ocean heed our roar.
    I see Batya’s mobilov blink red. Indirect conversations are forbidden during the repast. We all turn off our mobilovs. A red signal means His Majesty is calling. Batya puts his solid gold mobilov to his ear, and it jingles against his bell earring.
    “At your service, Your Majesty.”
    Everyone in the refectory grows quiet. Batya’s voice is the only sound:
    “Yes, Your Majesty. I understand. We’ll be there right away, Your Majesty.”
    Batya stands up, looks us over quickly:
    “Vogul, Komiaga, Tiaglo, with me.”
    Ah. By Batya’s voice I can sense something has happened. We stand, cross ourselves, and leave the refectory. By Batya’s choice I understand— an affair of the mind awaits us. Everyone chosen has a university education. Vogul studied the workings of the treasury in St. Petrograd; Tiaglo specialized in book manufacturing in Nizhny Novgorod; and I joined the oprichnina from my third year at the history department of Moscow’s Mikhailo Lomonosov State University. Actually, I didn’t join…You don’t join the oprichnina. You don’t choose it. It chooses you. Or, more precisely, as Batya himself says when he’s had a bit to drink and snort: “The oprichnina pulls you in like a wave.” Oh, how it pulls you in! It pulls you in so fast that your head spins, the blood in your veins boils, you see red stars. But that wave can carry you out as well. It can carry you out in a minute, irrevocably . This is worse than death. Falling out of the oprichnina is like losing both your legs. For the rest of your life you won’t be able to walk, only to crawl…
    We go out in the yard. From the White Chamber to His Majesty’s Red Palace is just a stone’s throw. But Batya turns toward our Mercedovs. So that means we’re not going to chat in the Kremlin. We all get into our cars. Batya’s Mercedov is distinguished—wide, bug-eyed, squat, with glass three fingers thick. It’s high quality work by Chinese masters, custom-made on special order, what they call te tzo dei . On the front hood is the head of a German shepherd, on the back a steel broom. Batya drives toward Savior Gates. We fall in line behind him and drive out through a cordon of Streltsy. We cross Red Square. Today is a market day; peddlers take up most of the square. The hawkers shout, saloop men whistle, bread sellers boom, the Chinese sing. The weather is sunny, nippy; there was a good snow during the night. The main square of our country is cheerful, musical. As a boy I witnessed an entirely different Red Square—grim, stern, frightening, with a big pile of granite housing the corpse of the Red Revolt’s maker. At that time a cemetery of his henchmen stood nearby. A gloomy picture. But His Majesty, our little father, tore down the granite box, buried the corpse of the squint-eyed rebel in the ground, and demolished the cemetery. Then he ordered the Kremlin walls to be painted white. And the main square of the country became genuinely krasny— red as in krasivo , beautiful. And thank God.
    We drive toward the Hotel Moscow, along Mokhovaya Street, past the National Hotel, past the Bolshoi and Maly theaters, past the Metropol Hotel, and onto Lubianskaya Square. That’s what I thought: the conversation will take place in the Secret Department. We drive around the square past the monument to Malyuta Skuratov. Our forefather stands there in bronze, dusted with snow, short, stocky, stooping, with long arms; he gazes intently from under overhanging eyebrows. For centuries he