Eternal Empire (32 page)

Tens of thousands of Russians took to the streets in Moscow on Saturday shouting “Putin is a thief” and “Russia without Putin,” forcing the Kremlin to confront a level of public discontent that has not been seen here since Vladimir V. Putin first became president twelve years ago. . . . A photographer circulated photographs of a riot police officer holding a white flower, a symbol of the protest, behind his back.

—“Rally Defying Putin's Party Draws Tens of Thousands,”
New York Times
, December 10, 2011

A
t th
e house in Leova, the front door had been put back on its hinges. It had always been one of the nicer homes at the edge of the city, with tables and chairs set up in the garden, but now the lawn was showing signs of neglect, and the curtains on the top two stories were drawn.

Ilya studied the house from a distance. He had parked up the dirt road and walked a quarter of a mile. In the field across the way, children were chasing one another with guns made of folded paper, among the small flowers that had sprouted with the coming of spring.

Climbing the steps, he tried the door, which was locked. There was no sign of movement in the windows. He was raising a hand to knock when he noticed the sound of music. Moving quietly around the house, keeping to a strip of shadow, he found himself facing the rear yard.

On the porch, a girl was seated in a lawn chair, facing away from him. She was smoking a cigarette, her hair tied back with a kerchief, and had evidently been working in the garden. On the table behind her lay a pair of canvas gloves and a trowel, along with a cassette deck that was playing a song from America.

Ilya came up softly and pressed a button on the tape deck, silencing the music halfway through the fourth verse. The girl glanced back, then straightened up so quickly that her chair tipped over and fell sideways to the ground.

“It's all right,” Ilya said, opening his hands to show they were empty. “I'm not here to hurt you. I only came to talk.”

The girl took a step backward. He saw that she recognized him. “Dolgan isn't here.”

Ilya remained where he was. “I know. I've been in town for a week. No one seems to know why he was arrested, but I'm sure they'll come up with a charge. Apparently there are limits to protection these days, even in Moldova.”

Moving slowly, so as not to startle her, he reached down and righted the fallen chair, then took a seat at the table. “You can sit down, if you like. But I won't be long. Are you here alone?”

The girl swallowed. “Yes. There used to be many visitors. But they're staying away. And I have nothing else.”

Ilya observed that she was keeping her fear under control, but that it could break out again at any moment. “You're taking care of the birds?”

She shook her head. “I let them go. A few wouldn't leave. I feed them when I can.”

“It can be hard to give up the old ways,” Ilya said. “Even when your cage is opened. Or when it has fallen apart on its own.”

He paused, weighing what the best approach would be. “It isn't just happening here,” Ilya continued at last. “I've seen it with my own eyes. The thieves are dying out. They've been overtaken by stronger forces. But some things can't be undone. Their works live on, even if their empire does not.”

The girl glanced down. Following her eyes, Ilya saw that she was looking at his arm, which still bore the tattoo he had received here nine months earlier. He had left it there as a reminder.

“When I was your age, I lost my own parents,” Ilya said, his eyes still on the snake. “I was told they had died in an accident. Really, though, they were taken from me so I would become what the brotherhood wanted. But that doesn't make me less guilty. If I changed, it was to turn into something I had been all along. I learned this when I tried to change again. Do you understand?”

The girl only stared at him. Ilya glanced away, looking out at the garden, and thought of his own recent travels. Almost unconsciously, he had retraced his steps, working back across the places he had visited over the last year. And it was only in Romania, near the palace in Sinaia, that he had seen the truth at last.

After their fall, the Khazars had vanished, dispersed among the steppes they had once ruled. Yet even now, signs of their presence could still be seen, if you looked carefully enough.

Shortly before the empire's decline, several tribes had broken from the king and gone west. Allying themselves with the Magyars, they had fought bravely in a series of bloody wars and ultimately found refuge in the Carpathians. Their images were still unearthed there from time to time, mounted on horseback with hauberks and spears, like the one he had seen in the owner's suite of the yacht.

Looking at these warriors, it was hard to believe that such a nation could change its underlying nature, even for a moment. Yet the signs were there, in the tombs of the Khazars themselves, who had once buried their dead with their horses, like Scythians, but later had inscribed their gravestones, even those of the poorest among them, with the menorah and the staff of Aaron.

This was the lesson of the Khazars. The legends stated that the conversion was a political decision, decreed by the king and the ruling class, but in fact, it had begun among the people. Jews from Constantinople had sought refuge on the steppes, bearing their laws and history, and almost invisibly, a gradual transformation had occurred, on all levels of society, one imperceptible step at a time.

Tarkovsky had understood this. Ilya suspected that this was why the oligarch had taken such an interest in Transylvania, where the last traces of the empire could be found. The Khazars were the secret model for the transformation he hoped to enact in Russia, building it from the ground up, not imposing it from above. Change could arise only from within. But it could also be helped along.

These thoughts, which had been growing slowly within him for a long time, passed through his mind now in the space of a few seconds. He turned back to the girl, who had remained standing, and rose from his chair.

“I know a house in Yalta,” Ilya said quietly, reaching into his jacket pocket. “When I was there, I met a woman. Years ago, she was sent to prison, and when she went to work for the thieves, she gave up her only child. But perhaps it isn't too late for them to make a life together.”

From his pocket, he withdrew an envelope, about a quarter of an inch thick, that was held shut with a rubber band. A name and address had been written on the front. The girl watched as he set it down on the table, then looked up at him again. She did not move to take it.

Ilya gave her a nod, as if she had spoken, and turned away. As he did, he pressed the button on the tape player, which resumed where the song had left off:
“And she fears that one will ask her for eternity—”

Descending the steps of the porch, he went around again to the front of the house, not looking back until he was standing at the edge of the lawn. The children across the way had disappeared, leaving only a few guns of folded paper on the ground. For the moment, he was alone.

He looked down at the white flowers that had sprouted in the dirt, some of which had been trampled underfoot. For all their strength, he thought, the Khazars had not survived, but had been destroyed by a trick of history.

Ilya headed up the road, his hands in his pockets, moving away from the house. There were no guarantees. A revolution was more likely to die than endure. Yet one still had to believe that change was possible, for men as well as nations, even if it came like a thief in the night.

Many thanks to David Halpern, my agent; to everyone at the Robbins Office, especially Kathy Robbins, Louise Quayle, Arielle Asher, and Micah Hauser; to Danielle Perez, Kara Welsh, Talia Platz, Jessica Butler, and the rest of the team at New American Library; to Jon Cassir and Matthew Snyder at CAA; and to Mark Chait, Eileen G. Chetti, Alla Karagodin Holmes, Trevor Quachri, Stanley Schmidt, and Stephanie Wu. Thanks as well to my friends and family, to all the Wongs, and to Wailin and Beatrix.

In Russia, the outlaw is the only true revolutionary. . . . The outlaws of the forests, towns, and villages . . . together with the outlaws confined in the innumerable prisons of the empire . . . constitute a single, indivisible, tight-knit world. . . . In this world, and in it alone, there has always been revolutionary conspiracy. Anyone in Russia who seriously wants to conspire, anyone who wants a people's revolution, must go into this world.

—Mikhail Bakunin

A
ndrey was nearly at the border when he ran into the thieves. By then, he had been on the road for three days. As a rule, he was a careful driver, but at some point in the past hour, his mind had wandered, and as he was coming over a low rise, he almost collided with two cars that were parked in the road ahead.

He braked sharply. The cars were set bumper to bumper, blocking the way. One was empty; the other had been steamed up by the heat of the men inside, who were no more than shadows on the glass. A yellow field stretched to either side of the asphalt, flecked with mounds of debris.

Andrey waited for what he knew was coming, barely aware of the music still pouring from his cassette deck. As he watched, the door of one car opened, disclosing a figure in a fur cap and greatcoat. It was a boy of twelve or so. His rifle, with its wooden buttstock, seemed at least twice as old as he was.

As the boy approached, Andrey reached into a bag on the floor of the van, removing a fifth of vodka and a carton of Bond Street Specials. He rolled down his window, allowing a knife's edge of cold to squeeze through the gap. As he handed over the tribute, something in the boy's eyes, which were liquescent and widely spaced, made him think of his own son.

The boy accepted the offering without a word. He was about to turn away, rifle slung across one shoulder, when he seemed to notice the music. With the neck of the bottle, he gestured at the cassette deck. “What band?”

Andrey did his best to smile, painfully aware of the time he was losing. “
Dip Pepl
.”

The boy nodded gravely. Andrey watched as he carried the vodka and cigarettes over to the other car, speaking inaudibly with the man inside. Then the boy turned and headed back to the van again.

Andrey slid a hand into his pocket, already dreading what the thieves might do if they asked to search the vehicle. Withdrawing a wad of bills, he peeled off a pair of twenties and held them out the window. When the boy returned, however, he waved the cash away and pointed to the stereo, which was singing of a fire on the shore of Lake Geneva:
We all came out to Montreux—

“Cassette tape,” the boy said with a grin. “
Dip Pepl
. You give it to me, okay?”

Andrey's face grew warm, but in the end, he knew that he had no choice. Smiling as gamely as he could, he ejected the cassette, silencing the music, and handed it to the boy, who pocketed the tape and went back to his own car. A second later, the thieves pulled over to the road's scalloped edge, clearing a space just wide enough for Andrey's van to slip through.

Easing the van forward, Andrey drove through the gap, keeping an eye on the thieves as he passed. Once they were out of sight, he exhaled and took his hands from the wheel, flexing them against the cold. Reaching up, he lowered the sun visor, glancing at the picture of the woman and child that had been taped to the inside. After a moment, he raised the visor again and turned his eyes back to the road.

The following morning, unwashed and weary, he arrived at a town on the river Tisza. Studying the ranks of buses preparing to cross over to Hungary, he saw a familiar face. The driver seemed pleased to see him, and was especially glad to load a cardboard box from Andrey's van into the back of his bus.

Andrey followed the bus across the border. At the customs checkpoint, he said that he was a businessman looking for deals in Hungary, which was true enough. Sometimes the officers wanted to chat, but today, after a cursory search, they waved him through without a second glance.

Driving slowly through the countryside, he caught sight of the bus parked at a roadside restaurant. The driver was leaning against the wheel well, smoking a cigar, which he ground out at the van's approach. The package in the rear was untouched. Handing the driver a carton of cigarettes, Andrey loaded the box into the van again. Back on the road, his mood brightened, and it grew positively sunny when, in the distance, he saw the city of Budapest.

He drove to a hotel on Rákóczi Road. In his room, he locked the door and set the box on the bed. The lid was secured with tape, which he sliced open. On top, there lay a loaded pistol, which he set aside, and ten rectangular objects wrapped in newspaper. Nine were icons taken from churches and monasteries throughout Russia, depicting the saints of a tradition in which he no longer believed.

The last painting was different. Andrey unwrapped it gently. It was no larger than the icons, perhaps twelve by eighteen inches, but it was painted on canvas, not wood. It depicted a nude woman lying in a field, her head gone, as if the artist had left it deliberately unfinished. Her legs were spread wide, displaying a hairless gash. In one hand, upraised, she held a lamp of tapered glass.

Andrey studied the painting for a long moment, stirred by feelings that he could not fully explain, then wrapped it up again. Casting about for a hiding place, he finally slid it under the bed, in the narrow gap behind the frame, which was just wide enough to accommodate the slender package. He put the gun back in the box, along with the icons, and went, at last, into the bathroom.

The shower stall was no larger than a phone booth, and the water took three minutes to grow warm, but by the time he climbed beneath the spray, it was steaming. Closing his eyes, he allowed his thoughts to wander. After the exchange, he would replace his lost cassette and buy ten kilos of the best coffee, five to sell, the rest to bring home. Even his son could have a taste.

He was still thinking about coffee when he emerged from the shower, naked except for the towel cinched around his waist, and saw the man who was waiting for him in the next room.

Andrey froze in the doorway, drops of water falling onto the rug. The man, a stranger in a corduroy suit, was seated before the louvered window. He was very thin. Although his age was hard to determine, he seemed to be in his early thirties. Behind his glasses, which gave him a bureaucratic air, his eyes were black, like those of a nomad from a cold and arid land.

“My name is Ilya Severin,” the stranger said, not rising from his chair. His legs were crossed, the tip of one polished shoe pointing in Andrey's direction. “Vasylenko wants to know why you're here so early.”

Andrey felt beads of condensation rolling down his back. “How did you find me?”

“We have eyes on the road.” Ilya hummed a few bars of music.
Smoke on the water, fire in the sky
—

Andrey thought of the gun in the cardboard box, which lay on a table across the room. “I was going to make the delivery. But—”

“But someone else wanted to see the icons.” It was not a question, but a statement.

“Only to look. Not to buy. I was told that I could bring them to you as arranged.” As he spoke, Andrey was intensely aware of his heart, which felt exposed in his bare chest. “He's from New York. I was never told his name.”

Ilya's expression remained fixed. If this information was new to him, he did not show it. “All right,” Ilya said, his voice affectless, as if he were reading off a column of figures. “Show it to me.”

Unable to believe his luck, Andrey crossed the room, the grit of the carpet adhering to the damp soles of his feet. As he approached the box, he forced himself to concentrate. He had never shot a man in his life, but had no doubt that he could do it. He only had to think of how much he had to lose.

He reached the table. Deliberately blocking it from view, he undid the flaps. The gun was at the top of the carton. Andrey reached inside, picking up an icon with one hand and the pistol with the other.

With his back to Ilya, Andrey said, “If you see Vasylenko, tell him that I am sorry.” He turned around, the icon hiding the pistol from sight. “I meant no disrespect to the brotherhood—”

There was a muffled pop, as if a truck had backfired in the street. Andrey felt something heavy strike his chest. At first, he thought that the stranger had punched him, which made no sense, because Ilya was still seated. Then he saw the gun in the other man's hand. Looking down, he observed that a hole the size of a small coin had been drilled into the icon that he was holding.

Andrey fell to the floor, the towel around his waist coming loose. He tried to raise his pistol. When he found that he could no longer move, it seemed deeply unfair. He made an effort to picture his son, feeling dimly that it was only right, but could think of nothing but the painting under the bed, the headless woman lying in the grass. It was the last thing that he remembered.

As soon as Andrey was dead, Ilya, whose other name was the Scythian, rose from the chair by the window. Kneeling, he pried the icon out of the courier's hands, looking with displeasure at the damage to the wood. He put the icon back into the box, then left his gun next to the body.

Ilya sealed the carton and tucked it under his arm. He glanced around the room, asking himself if he had forgotten anything, and concluded that he had not. Leaving through the door, he was gone at once. Under the bed, the headless woman lay, unseen, at the level of the dead man's eyes.