mischievously as she sized him up with her mottled eye, said to the pretty one, “Yes, I think he is ready now. Let us show him.” He looked around, bemused, confused, but still laughing along. The younger woman reached into the pocketed folds of her dress and when her hand emerged again it was holding a black rat.
“Here he is,” said the crone, pointing to the rodent. “Say hello to your little Max.”
The mood of the group had shifted, this absurd joke seemed in poor taste, but Andrei awkwardly chuckled along until, as he gazed down at the rat, his laughter stopped. The creature stood up on its hind legs, looked directly into his eyes, and nodded. In that moment, Andrei recognized his brother. The rat not only had Max’s posture, but his face held hints of his brother’s features and expression too, and, leaning close to observe him, Andrei quickly saw how much of Max’s poise was perfectly echoed in the bearing of the little beast staring up at him. Andrei gasped and fell backward in shock. The stars now streaked down like daggers descending upon him as the world above him spun widly. He heard the women laughing and a voice he knew as his own cried out, and then the heavens all reeled into blackness.
When he awoke, he was alone in the woods, lying by the smoldering gray and white ashes of the abandoned campsite’s dead fire. He knew if he ran he could overtake the women on the road, perhaps rescue his brother, and turn them over to the magistrate. But instead he closed his eyes and slept again. His sleep was deep.
When he finally awoke again, it was nearly dusk. He rebuilt the fire and sat contemplating his path. He felt he could not return to the monastery, yet he had no other home. Walking on to the next town, he stopped only briefly, sending letters to his relatives and to the priests saying that Max had disappeared. He was certain those who knew his brother would simply nod knowingly, for Max was always the sort doomed to vanish through some misadventure or lapse in judgment. Then Andrei wandered west, finding harvest, market, and scrap work in the hamlets, villages, and larger cities, slowly working to absorb and accept the strange new truths he had learned about the world.
Along the way, the women crossed his path again, first finding him scrubbing laundry in a Kiev hospital. Andrei was not surprised when they showed up. After that, they made it their habit to come and go at their whim, whenever he could be useful to their ends. He did not know how they traced his trail, he suspected the wine bottle they had shared that night by the campfire was part of some enchantment, a binding communion, making it impossible for him to ever lose them, or maybe that rat simply had a very good nose. Whatever their methods, Andrei was amazed to see how they controlled what others called coincidence, not only finding people but drawing them in as well. They lured prey to their door when they were hungry, pushed rivals together when they needed blood, and drove lovers into fevered embrace when they desired entertainment. Once you crossed their path, any conceit of free will became a fanciful notion.
Still, he tried to break free. Always itinerant, he attempted vanishing into various careers and stations, consciously hoping that each transformation would help him escape from the past. At times a soldier, a baker, a vagrant, a drunk, he had finally drifted back to the priesthood. It had been a pragmatic decision, not any sort of idealistic reconciliation. He did not regain his piety; he felt alternately angry and agnostic toward God, suspicious of any theology that could not explain what he had seen with his own two eyes, but he felt comfortable returning to the familiar patterns of his simple roots. So, here he was, decades later, tending his small garden in the fading light. Brushing the red clay off his hands, he headed to the farmhouse. The young girl was gone and the house silent. He suspected that Elga had already packed up and taken her to the city.
In a few hours he would mount his rickety yellow bicycle and ride down the narrow road to an ivy-laden, crumbling chateau. Inside was a small chapel. There he would say evening prayers to a congregation composed of one very pious Orthodox couple. They were ancient and wealthy and, like him, they had been exiled from their homeland of Russia for nearly half a century. They would kneel at the analogion and confess their imagined sins as he patiently listened. Then, as always, he would read them their absolution, and they would meekly smile, and he would smile back, knowing that at the same time another ancient friend of his was driving a young child toward the city, intent on evils that no God imaginable could ever forgive.
X
After working their way across town, making many fruitless stops at empty bistros, cafes, and apartments where no one answered, Oliver had the driver drop them off on a bustling corner on Place Pigalle. Crossing the promenade, they entered a small cafe a few doors down from the Grand Guignol. The waitress lit up with a bright “
“His chips are low, we’ll wait here till he’s done,” said Oliver. “You gamble?”
“Not a lot.”
“Probably a good thing.” Oliver grinned. “You don’t have much of a poker face, do you? What games do you indulge in?”
“I play a little euchre, some gin now and then.”
“Any sports?”
“Tennis.”
“Really? We should get a match on. It’s getting too cold now for Coubertin but there is a fine indoor court over on rue de Saussure. Boris claims to have some skills, but I’ve never played him, that would be a sight to see, wouldn’t it? Ha ha, that great Russian bear lunging up to the net?” Oliver looked over at the poker game as a player scraped in a big, noisy pot. “Gambling is funny, isn’t it? I’ve never heard any persuasive theories on its roots, I suspect its some primordial residue from our early days, similar to how we still wear the belts that once held our hunting knives, while our women carry designer purses to store all those harvested berries. We think we’re modern and civilized, but Lord knows we’re not.”
The album ended and the needle mechanically returned back to the beginning. As Renaud started singing “Mon Bonheur,” Will wondered how long the card players had been listening to that one side of the album. He tapped on the table impatiently. “You know, I probably need to head back to the office.”
Oliver shook his head. “Oh really? What, is the great wheel of capitalism going to grind to a halt without you?”
“No, but—”
“Relax, we’ll get you back to the trenches soon enough,” Oliver said. “Say, you wouldn’t have any more of those Chesterfields on you? I left my cigarettes at home.” Will gave him one and lit another himself. “Thanks,” said Oliver. “I’ll pick you up a carton at the commissary next time I’m at the embassy. So, tell me how you know that girl I was with the other night.”
“I only met her in passing, on the metro,” Will said, unhappy to have the subject brought up. He could remember the way Zoya had looked at him that first night. He had thought about it more than once in the past few days. There was a magnetic element to her gaze that had stayed tugging at him, a subtle but constant force that pulled at him, making him want to leave and walk the streets to find her right at that very moment so that he could see her or talk to her or grab her by the neck and kiss her breathless.
“What did you think of her?”
“I thought she was all right,” Will lied.
Oliver nodded. “Oh, she is more than all right. She’s an intriguing one, very beguiling. Easy on the eyes, obviously, and sharp-witted too, but also…” He shook his head, seemingly unable to find the right phrase. Will was impressed that even the thought of Zoya left Oliver speechless.
They watched Boris lose another pot and, as the winner stacked his chips, Will tried to push the girl out of his mind. There was no percentage in keeping her there. He should have stayed with her when they had walked off the metro that night. He could have asked her out for a drink and maybe found a way to go home with her, but he hadn’t. And now he did not like thinking about another man’s girl, it did not seem right, it was not the way he
