*
Speak not, lie hidden, and conceal
the way you dream, the things you feel.
Deep in your spirit let them rise
akin to stars in crystal skies
that set before the night is blurred:
delight in them and speak no word.
How can a heart expression find?
How should another know your mind?
Will he discern what quickens you?
A thought once uttered is untrue.
Dimmed is the fountainhead when stirred:
drink at the source and speak no word.
Live in your inner self alone
within your soul a world has grown,
the magic of veiled thoughts that might
be blinded by the outer light,
drowned in the noise of day, unheard...
take in their song and speak no word.
--- FEDOR TYUTCHEV [translated by V. Nabokov]
*
Every year, in late December, Nikolai’s father, Grigory, puts his small son in the passenger seat of his Moskvitch 407 and drives him two hundred kilometers to a sagging izba, a rough-hewn log cabin in a nameless village near Kolchedan. Grigory’s mother Irina lives there.
Grigory has not set foot in his childhood home in more than fifteen years. He is a hardy Communist, a Party member, and his mother’s quiet Christianity disturbs and embarrasses him. Her poverty disturbs him as well. After the death of his father, he urged her to move to Kopeysk, or Chelyabinsk, to be near her grandson. Grigory has some influence. Irina would have a small apartment of her own, with running water, central heat, and an indoor toilet. She could leave the ibza, where chinks in the walls are stuffed with mud and paper. The wood stove is smoky, bad for one’s health. The only water comes from a pump down the road. The outhouse is cold and smelly. But Irina will not move, and Grigory cannot find it in his heart to deny her the pleasure of her grandson’s visits.
Grigory brakes to a stop beneath two wooden poles. Strung between them is a ragged banner proclaiming V.I. LENIN’S PRECEPTS ARE TRUE. The village is ramshackle, its buildings grey concrete, depressing and depressed. Even the deep snows that cover the wide brown fields of the farm collective cannot transform the tragedy of the landscape. The ibza itself has about it an air of extreme neglect, but Nikolai sees none of that; he leaps from the car, runs to the door, and hammers on it with a small fist. Grigory follows with his son’s baggage, some cured wood, and a bulging sack of illicit food. When Irina opens the door, Nikolai flings himself into her arms. Grigory sets the bags on the snowy doorstep, stiffly kisses Irina on both wrinkled cheeks, tousles his son’s hair, and walks back to the car.
“Thank you for bringing him, Grisha. May God protect you, my little one.”
Grigory nods, eyes cast downward. He gets in his car and drives back to Kopeysk.
Baba Irina ushers Nikolai inside and covers him with kisses. She appears far older than her sixty-seven years. Her body, bent by years of farm work, is plump and soft, she has few teeth, and her twinkling blue eyes are scarcely visible beneath seamed, hooded eyelids. To Nikolai, she is beautiful. During the next few weeks, she will cook the seasonal meals he has come to treasure: kutya, the thick porridge seasoned with honey and poppy seeds, baked fish, potatoes hot and steaming in their little brown jackets, beans with garlic and pepper, borscht, beautifully deep-red and flavorful, and oatcakes made with nuts, dates, and honey. She tells him stories: of the Holy Family seeking shelter on a cold night, of the angels who guided the shepherds and kings, of Babushka who declined to accompany the Magi and forever afterward roamed, seeking the Christ Child, bringing gifts to children. Together they spread a tattered lace cloth on a table, light thin brown candles, and pray before an icon of the Virgin and Child.
The most wondrous treasure at Baba Irina’s, however, is her set of matryoshka dolls. There are nine of them: three angels, the largest of which is half the size of Irina’s battered brass samovar. Their faces are serene, their folded wings limned in gold. Then come the three kings, bearded and colorfully robed, each bearing his gift. Finally the Holy Family – Joseph, Mary, and the Christ Child. The infant is hardly bigger than his thumb, with tiny, beatific brown eyes and a cupid’s bow of a mouth. Nikolai marvels at the intricacy of the dolls’ painted clothing, the smooth, lacquered curves of their bodies, the way they fit so perfectly within one another, shells within shells, hollow and encompassing.
He is too small to understand metaphors, but in his heart, he feels a strange, inexplicable kinship with the matroyshkas. Nikolai does not tell Grigory about the prayers, nor does he tell Irina of his mother’s desolate weeping, of his father’s long silences. Each circumstance would hurt those he protects; each causes him pain, and he does not speak of that either. Even a very small boy understands loyalty and discernment. So he builds shells. One is for home, the other for Baba Irina’s. Both are real. Both are hollow. Both are necessary.
Irina hugs him and caresses his hair. Nikolai’s heart is full.
This is Nikolai’s Christmas.
*
Try as he might, Nikolai cannot bring himself to love St. Petersburg. It has ceased to awe him – even palaces become commonplace, given enough time – but he has never found the city endearing. Its chilly pastels and majestically proportioned wedding-cake classicism seem to rebuke rather than beckon, and even on warm summer days, a coldly radiant Nordic sky surrounds Petersburg like a dome of ice. On winter days like today, the ice is impenetrable; it pervades the air, numbs the blood, glitters on the frozen Neva. Nikolai admires Peter the Great’s pioneer spirit if not the brutal methods he employed in order to indulge it, but this gateway to the West is only a remote cousin to the European cities it emulates. Beneath its pale splendor beats the heart of a darker, older Russia.
Nikolai sits in the driver’s seat of the ZiL limousine, patiently waiting for his employer, Anatoly Karpenko. The heat is blasting, the window halfway down, letting in frigid air. He has not been invited inside, but that is not absolutely essential, as a peculiar blend of overweening pride and profound insecurity has made Anatoly a compulsive rehasher. Every golden syllable of every conversation is turned over and scrutinized like a diamond in a jeweler’s loupe, and Nikolai listens carefully, his face impassive, his memory precise.
Today, however...today he longs to be inside, for Anatoly is with Janus, or so he claims. Anatoly has been known to boast before. This time, Nikolai suspects he is not lying. The nervous sweat above his lip was genuine, as was his uncharacteristic silence on the ride to this place, a crumbling eighteenth-century house near the city’s center. “Kolya,” Anatoly said, before exiting the car behind his bodyguard, Lev, “keep a sharp ear, will you? It’s not that I don’t trust Lev to do his job, but --” He shrugged as if to say one must confront the inevitable. His face radiated a false joviality; his eyes glittered with fear. And for good reason. If the man he is meeting truly is Janus, Anatoly has much to fear. He’s been skimming the cream from every one of his deals for years, even more carelessly now that Communism is little more than a twitching corpse and the economy is on the verge of collapse. If his dishonesty is discovered, there will be hell to pay.
Nikolai lets his gaze drift upward, over a weathered frieze, a pedimented window. And then, he hears a thin scream and the sudden shocking noise of a firearm discharging. He opens the glove box and grabs a Tokarev pistol. He leaps from the car and sprints over the snow to the door, skidding on the hard-packed snow and ice. His breath plumes in front of him as he fumbles with the handle, and finds himself facing the business end of an AK-47.
“Drop your weapon,” a quiet voice says – not the voice of the hard-eyed man who trains the assault rifle on him, but a voice from the gloom beyond. “Toss it inside, if you please.”
Another barrel prods his spine without gentleness. Nikolai breathes a sigh of resignation. There is no way to disarm one without being shot by the other; the response of the Kalashnikov is too quick. Slowly, he lowers the Tokarev and tosses it into the room.
“Come in.”
Nikolai obeys, stoic and unblinking when the two men with the rifles bring the barrels close to his neck.
“On your knees.”
Nikolai squints into the darkness of the room. “Who are you?”
“On your knees.” The voice is patient, slightly amused.
The barrels press into Nikolai’s flesh. “All right. Don’t do anything foolish.” He lifts his hands and lowers himself to his knees. He can see the shapes of bodies in the dim grey light. They look suspiciously like Anatoly and Lev. He hopes he hasn’t made too serious an error in judgment. He was under no responsibility to protect Anatoly, and while his superiors at the Directorate understand the inherent risk in his job, as well as what a coup it would be to take Janus’ measure in the flesh, they would be furious to learn that he charged headlong into this situation. The trick now is to get out alive.
“That’s better.” The owner of the voice steps into the feebly flickering light cast by a chandelier, evidently wired for electricity before the Revolution, and stands still.
Nikolai sees a pair of gleaming black shoes, long legs clad in black wool. He allows his eyes to travel upward – a sober blue shirt, a dark tie – and rests his gaze on his captor’s face. “Janus,” he whispers. And now it is perfectly clear why this man bears that name. One side of his face is handsome, coldly elegant. The other is a twisted, writhing roadmap of healed burn flesh and angry scars.
“The same.” Janus’ voice is smooth, tinged with wry humor, and there is a faint crisp undertone – could it be British? – to his words. “But you have me at a disadvantage, Comrade --?”
“Luzhin. Nikolai Luzhin.”
“May I see your hands, Comrade Luzhin?”
Nikolai lifts his hands, turning them palm-up. “I have no weapons.”
“The backs, please.” Nikolai shows the backs of his hands. The man is silent for a moment. “You are a vor.”
“Yes.”
“You were in prison. In Siberia?”
“Yes.”
“Your employer was no vor.”
“No,” Nikolai says. He looks squarely into Janus’ pale green eyes. “But one must earn a living somehow.”
Janus smiles faintly. “Anatoly was a petty thief, no better than a mugger under a bridge. He had bad taste and stole enough to indulge it, and worse, he was far too invested in the externals of living. That monstrosity of a house, his clothes, his whores, that flashy car you drove for him, Comrade Luzhin – it’s a bad idea to live so conspicuously in times like these. Eventually all that liquid attracts attention, don’t you agree?”
“Perhaps.” The man was right. Anatoly was greedy, and not nearly as important as the contacts he made. The Directorate would be extremely unhappy at his demise. But if he could deliver Janus...what a triumph that would be. “He was reluctant to share it, in any case.”
“I’m sure he was. You may lower your hands.” Janus takes a step back, and then leans down, scrutinizing Nikolai’s face. “Are you ready to die, Comrade?”
Nikolai feels a trickle of sweat run down his back. “Not especially.”
“Were you a cousin to Anatoly? A close friend, perhaps?” Janus straightens and makes a slow circle around Nikolai. His expensive shoes make faint gritting noises on the dirty stone floor. The gunmen back away, but keep their weapons pointed at Nikolai’s head.
The sound of Janus’ slow footsteps sets Nikolai’s teeth on edge. “No. Only an employee.”
Janus stops in front of Nikolai, tilts his head to one side in a delicately inquisitive gesture, and laces his long fingers together. “So you had no particular allegiance to him?”
“Not enough to follow him into hell.”
“You believe in hell, Comrade Luzhin?”
“Yes.”
“So do I.” Janus stops and seems to consider. He holds out one hand to Nikolai, and pulls him gently to his feet. For a moment their faces are close. If Nikolai leans forward, he would be able to brush Janus’ scarred cheek with his lips. Janus’ clear green gaze meets his. There is a moment of frisson between them, as rapid and fleeting as the sudden fluttering of a hummingbird’s wing. “You are prudent, for a vor.”
“Not all vor are stupid and impulsive.”
“Too many are. Were they not, they’d live longer. They tend to die fairly young, like alley cats. You, on the other hand, strike me as an entirely different sort of man.” Janus smiles, showing even white teeth. “As you seem to be unemployed at present, Comrade Luzhin, perhaps you’d consider a position with my organization.”
Nikolai examines Janus’ face in the faint light. Even scarred, he is extraordinarily handsome. Nikolai wonders if the mutilation was deliberate, to mar his beauty, perhaps to punish vanity or pride. It puzzles him that he longs to discover the cause. “I might consider it, with the proper motivation.”
“And you think I can supply that?” Janus asks softly.
“Possibly.” Nikolai lets his gaze linger on Janus’ mouth for a moment, then focuses on his eyes again. Something long dormant simmers beneath his calculation. He is being bold, far too bold. Janus is only half-right about him – he is rarely impulsive, but the addictive spice of danger combined with certain possibilities make a heady brew. “What do you think?”
Janus’ eyes are coolly appraising. “I think you intrigue me, Comrade Luzhin.”
“Nikolai.”
“Nikolai, then.”
“Where shall I find you if I should decide to accept?”
“No need...Nikolai. I’ll find you. Yevgeny?” Janus nods at one of the men with the AK-47s.
Before Nikolai can turn, he feels a heavy blow on his skull, just below his ear. He crumples to his knees, then topples over. Dimly, he senses a hand on his face, turning his head this way and that. Just as he begins to lose consciousness altogether, he feels the light pressure of a fingertip brushing against his lips.
He awakens with a splitting headache and a lump the size of a hen’s egg below his ear. Slowly, he staggers to his feet, groaning. Janus and his henchmen are gone. Anatoly’s body is missing, as is Lev’s. Nikolai stumbles outside. The ZiL is no longer parked beside the building. The light is purple and soft; snow falls from the sky, as quiet and gentle as swan’s-down.
Gingerly, Nikolai touches the bump on the back of his head and begins the long walk home.
*
The thick, hot, aromatic air of the Azerbaijani restaurant is filled with the harsh smoke of a dozen different blends of tobacco, eddied around by ceiling fans. Nikolai stubs out his own cigarette and takes a bite of his aubergine stuffed with heavily spiced meat and rice. It’s delectable, the best meal he’s had in a long time, but he says nothing to Konstantin Beletsky, his dinner companion, who shovels in his food as if he’s not expecting any more for years.
Konstantin washes down a sizeable mouthful of his spinach and lamb pancake with a noisy swallow of vodka and wipes his mouth on his napkin. A grain of rice is caught in his mustache. “This is one big fucking risk you’re taking, Luzhin,” he says. “What the hell were you thinking, making an overt move like that?”
“Should I have let Janus get away?” Nikolai replies mildly. “The biggest fish in twenty years and you want me to abandon him? So the Americans can get their hands on him, or maybe MI-6?”
Konstantin sighs. “The higher-ups aren’t happy with you.”
“They’ll be happy when I deliver Janus to them in person.”
“Not before you extract every piece of information you can. If he’s as cool a customer as you say, he’s not going to spill anything once we’ve got him in Lubyanka. Not unless we apply hot irons to the soles of his feet.”
Nikolai takes another bite. “I’m sure that won’t be necessary.”
“You’ve got three months. Everything you can find. Names, places, contact points, drop points, shipping manifests, payroll, financiers....”
“I’ve done this before,” Nikolai reminds Konstantin patiently.
“Not with Janus, you haven’t. Oh – and try to find out his real name, would you? That would be immensely helpful.”
“I’ll do my best.” Nikolai pats his mouth with his napkin and drops it on the table as he rises to his feet. “If you don’t hear from me for a while, try not to panic, Konstantin.”
“I live for panic,” Konstantin says morosely, taking another tremendous bite of pancake. He chews for a moment, then swallows with some effort. “Take care of yourself, Kolya.”
Nikolai nods and threads his way through the restaurant’s crowded tables. He reaches the door, trots up the stairs, and steps into the night. It is brilliantly cold and clear; peering upward, Nikolai can see a few stars in the light-polluted sky. He buttons his coat and stuffs his hands in the pockets.
“Nikolai.”
The voice comes from the back seat of a car parked on the street, a simple black sedan. The window glides further down, and a familiar face appears.
Nikolai looks one way, then the other, and at last approaches the vehicle.
Janus offers a friendly smile. “No hard feelings from the other evening, I hope.”
“No hard feelings, no. A rather large lump, though.”
“My apologies.”
Nikolai shrugs. “I’ve been giving your proposal serious thought.”
Janus’ dark-blond brows arch in polite enquiry. “And?”
“And I’ve decided to accept.”
The car door opens, and Janus beckons him inside. “Come in, Nikolai. We’ll discuss it.”
As the car drives away, Nikolai takes the measure of his host. He dresses expensively, but unlike Anatoly, whose clothes were expensive but vulgar, Janus’ wardrobe is tasteful, dark, the clothes cut close to his body. A steel watch gleams on one wrist; besides a small sapphire tie pin, it is his only adornment. He is impeccably groomed, his hair smooth and short. Nikolai’s assessment takes only a few seconds, but he realizes that Janus has been inspecting him as well. All at once he feels strangely vulnerable. “So,” he says, “you have an offer for me?”
“Indeed I do. In fact, for the past few days I’ve been pondering exactly what sort of motivation might suit you best, Nikolai.” Janus’ voice caresses his name.
“Have you?”
“Oh, yes.” Janus grins. “And please – call me Alec.”
*
Summary: A love story
Rated: NC-17
Categories: Crossovers Pairing: Alec Trevelyan/Nikolai Luzhin
Warnings: NoneChallenges:
Series: NoneChapters: 2 Completed: Yes
Word count: 9637 Read: 1455
Published: 30 Jan 2010 Updated: 30 Jan 2010