Babayaga: A Novel (31 page)

Distracted with these thoughts, Vidot lost count of the floors as they climbed up the stairs and did not notice which floor they were on when they finally started down a hallway, the sniffing rat leading the way until he stopped at a door. The old woman leaned forward and ran her fingers along the edge of the frame as she carefully inspected the door from top to bottom, sniffing now like a shopper suspicious of cheese. Finally, she pulled a white envelope from her pocket. She poured out a handful of a brown substance and, crouching down, blew it beneath the doorsill. Vidot could smell it, cinnamon. He couldn’t imagine how that spice could possibly help Elga and his brain was feeling sorely taxed from trying to make sense of so many irrational events. He decided it was time to stop swimming against the currents of all these nonsensical details and simply ride along in this wild and fantastical flood.

The old woman was now stooped on her knees in the hallway, picking the lock with a hairpin. The noise of a door opening down the hall made Vidot look up and he observed a small, balding man emerging from the neighboring room. Vidot felt his tiny heart skip a beat, certain that they would be discovered. He was not sure why he was nervous—he was, after all, the most insignificant player in this caper—yet when the neighbor walked past without a second look, Vidot exhaled with relief. He had to respect the audacity of this old woman, so confident in her camouflage that she had not even looked up from her work as the stranger passed by. The lock clicked and the door creaked open. “You go in first,” the woman said to the girl.

“Me? Why?” asked Noelle, clutching her chicken close to her chest.

“Because you are innocent. Now go. This is the last time this trick will work for you,” she said and pushed the girl forward. Elga and the rat followed.

Vidot watched as Elga quickly took charge of the situation. First, she took the kitchen chair and stood it in the center of the floor, facing the door. “You sit there, so you are the first thing she sees. When she comes in, you start saying these two words, ‘knife light,’ over and over, like a chant.”

The girl sat hesitantly down on the chair. “Why ‘knife light’?”

“Why, why why? Why does your finger fit so perfectly in your nose? To get the buggers out. Do not ask so many stupid questions. Do what I say, repeat it over and over, no matter what happens, no matter what occurs. There may be smoke, fire, blood, I don’t know. But do not be scared, do not let yourself be distracted, repeat it over and over again. Got it?”

“I think so,” said the girl.

“Good.” Next the woman took a piece of chalk out and went to the door. With her elbow she erased some chalk marks written there and in their place she scrawled a new hieroglyphic. “If you do this well, we will go buy you a new winter coat. Maybe one with a fur collar. You would like that, yes?”

The girl’s eyes grew big. “Yes, I would.”

“Right. So be good. Remember, ‘knife light, knife light, knife light.’ Repeat it like that.” Elga went to unpack her case. From its depths she brought out the clock. How had she gotten her hands on that? He recalled that day so clearly, finding Bemm on his way to the station, meeting with the shopkeeper in his storeroom, watching from the pharmacy as she dropped the clock off and then following the woman home. Yes, he thought, Elga must have gone back to the shop. He did not like to think about how she got the owner to hand the clock over. It was a sobering realization, reminding him that he could not let his habitual bemusement distract him from the fact that this woman was perhaps the greatest single evil the city had seen since the mass murderer Petiot preyed on his victims. Vidot squinted his small insect eyes at her and waited for what was to come next.

For the next hour he watched as Elga took a small screwdriver and systematically dismantled the ancient clock, meticulously removing its escapement from the frame, then carefully disassembling the springs and hands and all the other mechanical features until finally a hundred or so pieces were spread around her on the rough wooden floor, as if she were the center of some marvelously ordered brass universe.

After that, nothing happened. Elga set herself down in the middle of this vast circle of parts and remained seated there, completely quiet. The girl called Noelle seemed apprehensive, watching the door nervously, waiting for it to open so that she could begin repeating her mysterious phrase. Even the chicken was silent. They all sat there, the old woman, the young girl, the chicken, the rat, and the flea, surrounded by the discrete metal pieces of a deconstructed clock. Propped up on top of the rat’s head, with an unobstructed view of the still and silent hotel room, Vidot could not help feeling as though time itself had stopped.

IX

Zoya walked up from the metro to her hotel. It was too warm. Over the years she had become accustomed to most things being within her control, but the weather was always mysterious. She had heard of women who could make it hail or draw thunder, but despite many attempts, those spells had always eluded her, the same way that some children cannot master the violin or a foreign language.

She entered the lobby and went to check in with the desk clerk. It was a different man from the one she had met when she had first moved in. This one was a thin man with yellowed skin who always seemed a little worried.

“I’d like to know if I have had any visitors or mail,” she said.

“No, mademoiselle, none, but there is a note here saying that you are late with your rent.”

She nodded. Then she started whispering. Confused, he leaned in close to try to understand what she was saying and then she reached out and softly touched his clean-shaven cheek. Immediately he fell fast asleep. She laid his head down on the counter and whispered some more, feeding his dreams and confusing them with reality. With that, she had paid the rent.

As she walked up the stairs she got her key out. Later she would remember the scent of cinnamon, but at the time it had barely registered. She was distracted, worried that the owls might not have left any pellets, and wondering if Max had found her yet.

Upon entering the apartment, she noticed the girl first, seated there, holding a red chicken in her arms. It was a confusing sight and she dropped her guard for a moment. It wasn’t until the girl started chanting that Zoya realized it was too late. “Knife light, knife light, knife light…” Zoya turned to flee, but the door slammed in her face. Then she heard a familiar voice speaking to her in Russian.

“You cannot leave,” said Elga.

“Knife light, knife light, knife light…”

Zoya looked back and saw the old woman sitting on the floor, surrounded by small pieces of metal. It was a curious sight, even for someone as odd as Elga. “Why are you here?”

“Because Max said you would be here,” said the old woman.

“Knife light, knife light, knife light…”

“But, Elga, why did you want to come find me?”

“Because,” said the old woman, “you betrayed me. You sent the police to my house.”

Zoya shook her head. “I did not.”

“Knife light, knife light, knife light…”

The old woman shrugged. “So you say. You lie a lot. But it does not matter. I have reached my decision. I brought you in, I can take you out, and it is time for you to go.”

“To go.” Zoya nodded. “You mean to die?”

The old woman did not answer.

Zoya started trying to think, but no ideas were coming to her. She knew without even trying that the little girl’s chant was a trick that kept her from employing her own. “I see, yes, every journey has an end and this has certainly been a long journey. So”—she put her hands on her hips, trying to look resigned—“how would you like me to die?”

Elga grinned her old wicked grin. “I am going to feed you this clock.”

“Knife light, knife light, knife light…”

Zoya knew her options were very limited. Elga would have thought of as many angles as she could come up with herself. Zoya felt like a bug crawling across the dusty floor and her two uninvited guests were the curious chickens about to peck her to death. There was a movement in the far corner and she looked across and saw the rat sitting there, watching. Ah, yes, she thought, my old friend Max. Maybe he can help. She looked at the old woman. “If you would let me smoke some pellets, I could go out in a dream. That would be kind, Elga.”

The old woman shook her head. “No, that won’t work, I don’t know where you go in a dream.”

“Knife light, knife light, knife light…”

Zoya wanted to smash that chanting child’s face. “I see. Then, perhaps I can have one last glass of water?”

The old woman studied her for a moment, weighing this indulgence. Zoya knew that Elga was not, by nature, merciful. But they had crisscrossed the borders of countless countries in the span of more than two centuries. They had ridden in private locomotive cars to aid in the looting of conquered cities, and they had trailed dying asses in retreating caravans, trudging past corpses through snowbound passes. There had been exotic palaces, expansive suites, and countless garbage pits where they were forced to dig for mildewed scraps of sustenance. They had been through enough together that she was sure she should be granted this small, last request.

But she wasn’t certain, for who could comprehend what went on in Elga’s mind? Zoya had no idea what madness was driving the old woman to this bloody deed now. Zoya suspected that it was the accumulation of all the many ages, now balled up like sewage debris jammed in a dam’s drain. But it really did not matter. What mattered was getting to the kitchen. What mattered was Elga’s answer.

“Knife light, knife light, knife light…”

“Fine,” the old woman grunted, warily watching Zoya for a trick, but still confident, like a knowing spider eyeing the struggling fly stuck in her web, “you can have some water.”

“Thank you, Elga.” She got up and walked over to the kitchenette. The rat was her only option. Elga and the girl were steeled with charms, ready to withstand her attacks. But if she could find a way to break their concentration and distract them from the spell … “You know, on the metro tonight I was thinking about those saltpeter collectors back in Kiev, the two who came to dig out the cellar.” Her eyes desperately scanned the counter and the shelves. There it was, an answer to her prayers: the cleaver was lying on the drying rack, right next to the glasses. It could not have been better placed. “Do you remember them? They were a funny pair: one was a dwarf, the other was so tall he had to duck to get in the doorway…”

In one complete and dexterous motion, she spun, releasing her left hand full of nothing toward the girl on the chair and, following that feint in perfect succession, she grabbed the cleaver, spun, and released a whirl of steel across the room, splitting Max’s skull right between the eyes, spattering the rat’s blood and brains against the wall.

“Knife—”

At the sight of the rodent’s sudden explosion, the young girl screamed. Zoya hissed and held out her hand, sending a concussion of air toward the child that knocked her into the doorframe. Elga was hissing now too, with the loud sound of a fat steam pipe bursting, and Zoya ducked to escape the condensed balls of electricity coming at her. Two windowpanes shattered, spraying glass everywhere. She saw Elga pinching her fingers together. Zoya grabbed the cutting board off the counter, holding it up to block the shocks. The lightning blasted the board to smoking splinters. Knowing what was coming next, Zoya quickly looked for another shield. If she rolled she could duck behind the girl, now curled up in a screaming ball of panic with her hands over her ears. But Zoya had no doubt that Elga would take them both out, the little girl was a small price to pay. There was no defense in sight. The old woman’s face was drained of all color, her eyes bloodshot and bulging, her hair shot out frazzled and wild from her skull, the final spell forming on her lips, when, for a fraction of a second, she paused, looking over as the front door creaked and a curious Will poked his head in.

“Hello? What the—?”

His entrance had distracted Elga long enough for Zoya to leap across the floor, landing hard on the old woman’s body. Without the slightest pause she immediately began striking the old woman’s face with her fists. After less than a minute of this, Will pulled her off.

“We have to go!” said Zoya, stumbling to her feet.

Will looked around, taking in the bloodied rat with a meat cleaver solidly wedged in its skull, the small child balled up and crying in the corner, the unconscious, battered old woman sprawled out, nearly dead, before them, and the chicken pecking at smoky wood scraps that covered the floor. “There is a reasonable explanation for all this, right?” he said.

“No,” a nearly unconscious and reeling Zoya said, grabbing his hand with the last of her strength and pulling him out of the apartment.

X

As soon as they were in a taxi Zoya grabbed him and held him close. She was whispering some indecipherable words into his ear and, kissing his cheek, then whispered some more. Eventually, she stopped and lay down on his lap. She rubbed his cock through his pants and gave him a sleepy smile and then shut her eyes. He let her rest. It had been a crazy night. Already her whispered spells were making the memory of the fight and the old woman and the little girl fade from his mind, the spectacular becoming clouded out by the ordinary. What did they do tonight? Had they seen a movie?

The taxi sped along rue de Rome. Will looked down at his lover’s face. Even with the deep, sunken circles under her eyes she was unimaginably beautiful to him. He took her hand in his; it was ice cold. He remembered how his mother would complain about her cold hands throughout Detroit’s long, mean winters and how she would soak them in a sink filled with hot water at the end of each day. For some reason, that memory reminded him of the time when he was first living in Chicago, right out of college. He had a client who worked in the fashion industry selling chiffon ladies’ gloves to department stores, and one day, over a long lunch, they arrived at a discussion about how women were always complaining about the coldness of their extremities. Will remembered arguing that evolution must have centered the blood in the middle of a woman’s body, there where the warm womb and waiting eggs lay, nature’s primary interest being in protecting whatever came next as opposed to ensuring the comfort and happiness of what existed now. The client, a flat-nosed former pugilist from the South Side who only worked in fashion because his mother had founded the company, insisted that nature had designed women’s hands with poor circulation to keep them weak and unable to fight off the men who wanted to seize them, assault them, and, as the client bluntly put it, “pump them full of their dark demon seed.” They were both cynical theories, the second one especially brutal. Looking out the taxi window, Will wondered how many human truths were that horrible.