“What? No! You mean this is a-?”
“Ignore the politics. They are of no concern to us. The important thing to keep in mind about the forcible wresting of power from the old regime and its transfer to the new one is that when it happens, there is a brief, magical period-sometimes lasting weeks, and other times mere hours-when nobody at all is in control, and thus all items of value belong solely to whoever has the wit and initiative to walk in and pocket them. Museums, palaces, treasuries…all are suddenly open for the plucking. Now, where do you imagine the greatest treasures in Moscow are to be found?”
“In the banks.”
“At this time of night, their valuables will be locked away in sturdy vaults. Anyway, I am talking about real treasure. Not just banknotes, I mean, but gold, rubies, emeralds, and the like. For which we must turn to- where?”
“Oh! You mean the State Diamond Fund.” “That sounds promising. Tell me about it.”
“Don’t tell me you ain’t never heard of the Diamond Fund!”
“Since arriving in Moscow, I’ve spent most of my time underground,” Darger said. “Illuminate me.”
“Well, lemme see. It’s kept in the Kremlin Armory. I almost got in on a tour once. Big sonofabitch in a uniform began his spiel before he noticed how ragged I was and threw me out. Lemme see if I can remember it.” Kyril screwed his face in thought. “‘The Diamond Fund is an ages-old repository of all the greatest treasures in Russia, which was deposited here, within the Armory Museum, many centuries ago. It contains cut gems of every kind and color, including the Shah Diamond and a sapphire weighing over 260 carats; gold nuggets, such as the Great Triangle, which masses almost eighty pounds; as well as myriad items of incalculable artistic and historic value, beginning with Monomakh’s Cap, one of the most ancient symbols of…’ And that’s when he spotted me. What do you think?”
“I think that you are a fellow of hidden resources. A memory such as yours is a gift to be cherished. As for the Diamond Fund itself, you have completely sold me on the idea.”
“Yeah, but if we want to nab any of that stuff, we gotta find a way to get through all those crazies outside. Then we’d have to either climb the Kremlin walls-which I don’t think is gonna happen-or else talk our way past the guards, which maybe you could do but they’d never let me come in with you. Then we’d have to truck all that gold and shit back out the same way we came in. It sounds like a fucking big task.”
“There are no big tasks, Kyril. Only small ambitions. Let’s-” Darger stopped abruptly. “No,” he said. “What am I thinking? There exists an even greater treasure for our seizing, and we would be criminals not to take it up.”
“What are you-?” Kyril began. Then, “Oh, no. You’re talking about those fucking books, aren’t you?”
“I am talking about the treasure of the ages, the greatest and wisest words and thoughts the human mind has ever committed to paper. Or, as it may be, parchment or even papyrus. Kyril, gemstones are but pretty gauds with which we beguile ourselves on our hopefully long road to death. But books-great books, I mean-are why we were born in the first place. Also, there is a very good commercial value to a previously unknown play by Euripides. I know it sounds unlikely, but it’s true.”
Kyril had gone to the door during this speech and stood in its frame, staring out. “Well, I got some bad news for you.” He pointed. “Look at that.”
Flames were pouring out of the entryway to the staircase leading down to the Pushkinskaya docks.
“Good lord!” Darger was alongside Kyril in a trice. He clutched the lad’s shoulder. “This only increases the necessity for us going back to the lost library. We must rescue the books!”
“Yeah, but look at that. Half the fucking undercity must be burning.”
“It does not matter. Great stakes sometimes require great risks. I will not ask you to come along with me, Kyril, for I can see that this is not your cause. But for myself, I can only echo the illustrious if short-tempered German monk, Martin Luther: Ich kann nicht anders. This I must do. I-”
“Okay, okay,” Kyril said testily. “I wasn’t gonna say this. But there’s another way into the library.”
“What?!”
“If you climb up to the top of it, there’s a little door. Behind it, there’s a kind of secret passage. I was poking around and found it. I went through it once, almost got caught, and never tried it again.”
“Where does it come out?”
“In the Secret Tower,” Kyril said, “in the Kremlin.”
The square was empty when they emerged from the bar. Kyril had snatched up a bottle of alcohol as they left, “just in case we need to make friends with somebody,” he explained, and tucked it under one arm. Darger who, as a matter of principle, liked to keep his hands unencumbered by anything other than his walking stick, tidily closed the door behind them out of consideration for the bar’s proprietor.
An unceasing and strangely insistent mumble of noise sounded from Red Square, a mile or so distant. “Listen!” Darger said.
“That’s one fucking creepy sound.”
“On the contrary. It is the sound of opportunity.”
The baronessa’s carriage was an open troika. Thus, when the servile driving it pushed through the crowds to the front of the procession, it was the highest spot in the square. Tsar Lenin, seeing this, stepped lightly up onto the troika. Baronessa Lukoil-Gazproma surrendered her own seat to him and, tapping the servile on the shoulder, said, “Get off. Run alongside the rear wheel.” With the graciousness of old nobility, she climbed into the driver’s seat and took the reins.
The baronessa clicked her tongue, and the three horses started forward.
Tsar Lenin glanced at Surplus and Irina and said,“You should be wearing red scarves.” He produced two from his pocket, which they dutifully tied about their necks.
Sitting side by side with the legendary leader from Russia’s distant past and reasoning that he might never have such an opportunity again, Surplus said, “Pray tell me, sir-and you needn’t answer this question if you don’t want to-are you really Tsar Lenin?”
“No,” his companion said. “I am not even human. But the mob believes I am Lenin, and that is sufficient. It will give me all of Moscow in a matter of hours, and all of Muscovy shortly thereafter. Then I shall begin a war such as has never been seen before, not even in excesses of the Preutopian era. My armies will eradicate entire nations and reduce humanity to a fraction of its present pestilent self.”
“Excuse me?”
“There is no excusing you, for you have committed the first and greatest sin there is-you exist. All life is abhorrent. Biological life is worse. And intelligent biological life is beyond redemption.”
Surplus found it hard to contain his astonishment. “You are remarkably candid, sir,” he managed to say.
The tsar’s eyes glittered like steel. “There is no reason not to be. Were you to repeat my words, nobody would believe you. In any case, I am confident you will be dead within the week.”
“Does that mean you plan to kill me, sir?”
“If nobody else performs that service for me first-why then, yes, of course. We are entering into an tumultuous period, however. There will be riots tonight such as Moscow has never seen before. So the odds are excellent I will not have to.”
“I…I am speechless.”
“Then refrain from speech.”
The cheering about them was so loud and so constant that Surplus could barely make out Lenin’s words. So it was no wonder that the baronessa, much of whose attention was taken up by holding her three horses to a steady walk, continued smiling and waving to either side. She had not heard even a scrap of this conversation. But Irina, who had leaned in close to eavesdrop, had.
“You’re not God!” Irina cried in a wounded and disillusioned tone. “You’re not at all kind. You’re not one bit loving.”
Lenin favored her with a smile that contained not the least touch of warmth. “No, my dear, I am not. But I am great and terrible, and in the end, that comes to much the same thing.”
The wraith stalked the streets of Moscow, avid and dangerous, inchoate of thought, a creature without mercy, the void incarnate. She had no sense of purpose nor any desires that she was aware of, only a dark urge to keep moving. She had no identity-she simply was. Light and crowds she disliked and avoided. Solitude and shadow were her meat and drink. Occasionally, she came across somebody as friendless and isolate as herself, and then she played. Always she gave them a chance to live. So far, none of them had.
