Day of the Oprichnik

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Always the same dream: I’m walking across an endless field, a Russian field. Ahead, beyond the receding horizon, I spy a white stallion; I walk toward him, I sense that this stallion is unique, the stallion of all stallions, dazzling, a sorcerer, fleet-footed; I make haste, but cannot overtake him, I quicken my pace, shout, call to him, and realize suddenly: this stallion contains—all life, my entire destiny, my good fortune, that I need him like the very air; and I run, run, run after him, but he recedes with ever measured pace, heeding no one or thing, he is leaving me, leaving forever more, everlastingly, irrevocably, leaving, leaving, leaving…

My mobilov awakens me:

One crack of the whip—a scream.

Two—a moan.

Three—the death rattle.

Poyarok recorded it in the Secret Department, when they were torturing the Far Eastern general. It could even wake a corpse.

I put the cold mobilov to my warm, sleepy ear. “Komiaga speaking.”

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