be done. Even the man Uchitel who…
“Wake up and look at me. Use your eyes.” To Ivan, the words were senseless, as
was the laugh that followed them. “I tell you I have books and I can read them.
Even a book that tells me how to speak with the Americans across the ice river
east of here. Think of that. But I talk and you listen. Now you must talk and
Uchitel will listen.”
“What?”
“The gold and the silver you have hidden. A book of old times, far before the
long winter, tells that peasants—filth like you—hoard riches. You pretend to be
poor. But you are not. What of that?”
Ivan Ivanovich was delirious, hardly knowing how he forced out a reply.
Everything was blurred and shimmering, like objects seen through the glowing
beat above a stove.
“Nothing.”
“No?”
“Nyet, nyet, nyet.”
Uchitel smiled then and stood up. “You will meet Pechal.”
“Sorrow?”
“Yes, sorrow. He is well named, grandfather. He takes his only pleasure from
torture. You will speak with him.”
“But I swear, I know nothing, sir. Please, my lord. Nothing. By Saint Gregory I
swear it.”
“Swear by all the saints you want. Only the truth about your secret stores will
spare your life.”
Uchitel didn’t truly believe that such a stinking hamlet as Ozhbarchik could
possibly have anything worth hiding. But his men liked to dream. Sometimes they
had actually discovered little caches of arms or a few antique coins of
worthless copper.
The voice at Ivan’s elbow was gentle, like the voice of a clerk politely
requesting information. “Shall I ask him for his secrets, Uchitel?”
“Yes, Pechal. I’ll wait and watch.”
Pechal’s appearance fitted his voice. He wore gray furs, with matching gauntlets
and hood. Most of the band were bearded; he was as clean shaven as Uchitel
himself. Pechal, the Sorrow, had pale soft cheeks and a rosebud of a mouth that
was permanently pursed in disapproval of the world and its evil. He resembled a
priest who had spent all his life in a closed seminary, speaking only of good
works and following the pathways of the Lord.
Ivan stared up at him, seeing all of this. Pechal leaned over him, and the old
man saw the eyes.
They were like chips of wind-washed agate frozen in the eternal ice of the
farthest north.
“Tell me now and all will be well.”
“Nyet. There is nothing. Please. On my wife’s grave, I swear, nothing.”
It began.
Gradually Ivan Ivanovich disappeared within the pain of the probing and cutting
and rending of his body.
Pechal crooned to him constantly, like a father keeping a baby amused while he
bathed it in warm water. At first Ivan’s pain had been a light, fluttering
thing, like touching a hot iron momentarily or feeling the prick of a needle
that hurt a moment, then ceased.
“Tell Pechal of your hoard, grandfather. This is nothing to you. Ah, that made
you start, didn’t it?”
With a slow delicacy, Pechal forced the point of a knife down beneath a toenail,
down to the quick, slowly thrusting and scraping until it seemed to Ivan
Ivanovich that the marrow of his bones was being rubbed raw.
“You have your hearing, your sight, your voice. Even this.”‘ He touched Ivan’s
limp penis with the cold edge of a dagger. “You can keep them all, old man. Tell
Pechal everything and live.”
Nothing.
Pechal lit a tallow candle with a match. Then Ivan felt scorching heat on the
inside of his elbows, then behind his knees in the soft crinkled flesh. Ivan
smelled his own flesh burning. His body tensing upward, he pulled at the cords
so hard that they cut into his bloodied, swollen skin.
From, outside came the smell of roasting meat and loud, bellowing laughter.
Pechal stopped for a moment and stood, stretching his arms. “It is tiring, this
asking of questions, is it not?” he asked the old man, “Spare us both and answer
me.”
Uchitel was drinking from an earthenware mug of ryabinovka, a fiery vodka
flavored with ashberries. Muttering something to Pechal, he rose and walked out,
leaving the door open so that light from the fires outside the hut capered