Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five

Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

mitri Dumatskoy stumbled out into the cold sunlight of mid-afternoon, January 23, from the dark innards of the bar at the Soldiers and Sailors Hotel on Chiloveki Street. He felt like a man just released from ten years in a dungeon. He was ecstatic and filled with hope. He was also very drunk, although he didn't realize it at the time, the euphoria would not last long.

Dmitri had just spent a considerable amount of money on wine and whiskey, money that since his suspension from his job on January 12, he needed to feed his family and pay rent. Dmitri came directly to the bar following the hearing that was held that morning at 9:00 a.m. at the Education Ministry. Six Education Ministry officials made up the jury. The proceedings were presided over by a Comrade Sudkho from Petrograd, who represented Commissar Lunacharsky.

Olga B. Shpion presented her case against Dmitri Dumatskoy. She testified, that acting under a direct order from Comrade Lunacharsky, she instructed Dumatskoy to cease working on the Tsar Ivan Grozny Library project on September 2, 1921. She then related that her censorship of the incoming and outgoing department mail on 1/10/22 uncovered a letter from Professor Holtz at Marburg University, Germany, to Dumatksoy making it clear that Dumatskoy was still directly involved with the project. She also reiterated a fact that was known to everyone in the hearing room - that the Soviet press had reported on January 18, that Holtz had been found strangled in his Marburg apartment. She told how she locked the letter in her office safe. She discovered the next morning, January 11, that the safe had been broken into and the letter along with everything else in the safe stolen. Interrogation of building security and her entire staff revealed nothing. Cheka was then notified and an investigative agent came to the Education Ministry on January 12.

Comrade Sudkho then asked Shpion if at that time, she suspected her Research Assistant, Comrade Dumatskoy, of the theft? Shpion answered that she most certainly did. The investigative agent, Comrade Sprashivali, then testified that he found the Holtz letter fastened with string under Dumatskoy's desk in his workspace. Sudkho next read a report from Shpion saying that she immediately suspended Dumatskoy without pay, and called for the hearing.

Dumatskoy was called to testify. He admitted continuing to work on the Library Project after the September 2 deadline to cease the project. In his defense, he cited Holtz's earlier letter, dated 8/31/21, the day of Sasha Dumatskoy's birth, where the professor tells Dumatskoy about the Fichte reproduction of the eyewitness' list of Tsar Ivan's Library holdings. Dmitri submitted the letter to Comrade Sudkho and the six-member jury. In addition, Dmitri emphatically denied breaking into Olga Shpion's office and safe, and stealing documents. Comrade Sudkho and the jury called a 30-minute recess to evaluate the letter.

After Sudkho reconvened the hearing, he recalled Olga Shpion to testify. When Dmitri had produced the letter from Professor Holtz and introduced it into evidence, Shpion had froze in her seat. That information seemed to have drawn a chilly pall with glove-like tightness over the whole of Shpion's being. She opened her mouth, had a spasm of the face and a movement of her body as if to speak, but she relapsed. With everything else she thought she had going for her to destroy Dmitri, she had forgotten about that letter. As she walked from her seat to where she had to sit in front of Sudkho and the jury, she was very nervous, but focused on what she had to say.

"Comrade Shpion," Sudkho began, "Are you familiar with this letter here?"

"No, Com-rade Sud-kho, I am not," she answered.

"You have never seen this letter, nor have been informed of its contents?"

"No, I ha-ve not."

"Are you quite certain? Would you care to examine it?"

"Of course. Thank you." Shpion took her time and read the letter. She needed a grimacing tumultuous mask for the face she had to conceal. Then, she answered, "I have ne-ver seen this letter un-til this mo-ment. Now. Here. Nor have I been briefed on its con-tents." She handed it back to Comrade Sudkho.

"Comrade Shpion, Comrade Dumatskoy has just testified that he informed you of this extraordinary information of the greatest, if true, historical and cultural significance." Sudkho looked at Shpion for an answer to his non-question.

"I'm sorry, Comrade Sud-kho what ... is your ques-tion?"

Sudkho did not speak. He simply stared at Shpion and waited.

"He's lying! Just as he lied be-fore! He broke into my off-ice, my safe, the peo-ple's office, the peo-ple's safe! He is a li-ar and a thi-ef." As Shpion spoke, her lips quivered and her whole body shook noticeably.

"Comrade Shpion, if Comrade Dumatskoy wanted you to permit him to continue this project, would it not have behooved him to share this extraordinary information with you, his immediate supervisor? So that you could inform Commissar Lunacharsky of it? Why would he keep this information from you?"

"I'm not ly-ing, Comrade Sud-kho, no ... not m-me. There, I say. Th-ere is your li-ar and thi-ef." She pointed her finger at Dmitri. Shpion saw her shaking right arm out in front of her, and immediately dropped it to her side. She looked at Marya Timofeevna, who was seated in the hearing room next to Shpion's empty chair. Shpion thought that if she could just see Marya's sweet face, perhaps she could calm herself. But Marya had her head down. Shpion took several deep breaths.

"All right, Comrade Shpion, let me ask you this: If Comrade Dumatskoy had shown you this letter or told you of its contents, what would you have done?"

"Brought it to Com-rade Lu-na-char-sky's attention at once! But ... he did n-not! Did not!"

One of the six jury members, an archivist, a woman in her late 40's with wavy red hair, passed a note over to Comrade Sudkho. He read it, and nodded to the woman.

"Comrade Shpion, the letter from Holtz to Comrade Dumatskoy that you intercepted on 1/10/22, was this the entire correspondence on that day from Holtz to Comrade Dumatskoy?"

Shpion's heart was pounding! She began to sweat, and her body tremors started up again. It occurred to her that the Fichte reproduction of Merchant X's list was either in Dumatskoy's hands, if he, in fact, had broken into her safe -- and there was still no reason for her to believe that he hadn't -- or out there somewhere in someone else's hands - some unseen, unknown enemy who was trying to destroy her! Her eyes darted around the hearing room furiously, as if searching for the culprit. She looked at Marya Timofeevna again, but the young woman's head was still lowered. Her face could not be seen! Podly's face suddenly rose up in Shpion's consciousness. Was it he?

He's taking his revenge on me for not telling him about the list and letter, thought Shpion. She looked terrified, thinking that she might have blurted out loud what she had just thought. She was now very confused. She knew one thing, and one thing only. She was the boss, Dmitri Dumatskoy was under her supervision. She must continue lying.

"No! No!" she shouted. "Just that let-ter, no-thing m-more!"

"Did you ask Comrade Sprashivali of Cheka to have Comrade Dumatskoy's living quarters searched?"

"No! No! Af-ter the let-ter was found, what was the u-use?" She was satisfied with her answer. And that calmed her. On her mouth, a ghastly travesty of a grin appeared.

Sudkho ended the hearing. A decision would be made as soon as possible. Until then, Dumatskoy would remain on suspension without pay. Cheka, having legal precedence in the case since Shpion initially brought it into the matter, would be notified as to the charges and the evidence, and it would be up to Cheka to investigate further in that regard.

Dmitri walked along Chiloveki Street. The two bottles of Chianti he had drunk were still reigning supreme in his veins. He remembered Ostavlyavich still inside at the bar, mooching drinks and telling his sad stories to anyone who would listen. Ostavlyavich had been in the bar when Dmitri arrived after the hearing. Dmitri had bought a lot of whiskey for his father-in-law. They had something in common besides Zina -- they were both out of work! Ostavlyavich had returned to his old alcoholic, slovenly lifestyle since January 9, when he was fired from the Honey and Fur Trust. Because he had not taken stock of himself after the unfortunate incident, and had not attempted to do something else positive with his life after he had gotten a taste of honorable work again, his lady friend, A. A. Gromenko had abandoned him. He was once more spending quite a lot of time at 120 Novokirovskaya, which rekindled Zina's old disgust for him and his ways.

Dmitri walked the length of Chiloveki Street until he reached the Arbat. From there to the Kremlin was about a mile and a half.

Poor Professor Holtz, thought Dmitri. His euphoria was quickly deteriorating. Dmitri had never met Holtz, but he mourned his death as a great scholar, and a link between himself and the Tsar Ivan IV library.

Strangled, the papers said! Who could have done such a thing, and why? The Fichte List! Where was it? Had Holtz ever sent it to me? It must be among his papers in Marburg! I must go there. It's up to me to continue the project. I am now free to work on it. Zina will help me, others: Uchitelnitsky, Ostavlyavich, Anya -- we'll all go to Germany at once!

Dmitri had forgotten the possibility of prison. When it loomed up in his mind, he stopped dead in his tracks and began trembling with fear. If anytime in his life he needed his place, his special place - that was the time. But the vulture had destroyed his place, murdered the nightingales, and poetry. Dmitri's head was pounding. He felt dizzy and was losing his balance. He felt like time and space were narrowing in upon him. Evil thoughts assaulted him. They began to fill his head with their hideousness. He felt his head was about to split open from the thoughts inside struggling for every inch of space. Without a job and facing prison - who would provide for Zina and Sasha? Who would feed them, and where would they live? Death, death and destruction all around -- his mother; Drugo killed, murdered no doubt ... Anya, all alone ... Holtz strangled ... lives ruined, Ostavlyavich, Dmitri's place destroyed ... What Podly did to little Zina ... Podly ... The Vulture ... Podly!

Suddenly, Dmitri saw V. V. Podly standing in front of him on the Arbat, his huge grotesque, blood covered wings flapping furiously, causing the snow on the sidewalk to swirl up around Dmitri. Dmitri couldn't see and couldn't breathe with all the snow whirling. Dmitri could hear Podly snarling at him, could feel the smoking, stinking breath of the vulture near his throat. The razor-sharp teeth were clicking together. The horrible cries of the nightingales as they were being devoured ... snow and feathers swirled and whirled about Dmitri. He screamed for his life.

. V. Podly's secretary, Marina Mikhailovna, had made a decision. Her boss had not been to the office in nearly three days. It was mid-afternoon, January 23. Podly had never been away from the office that long. He had always called if he wasn't coming in after two days. Once in the dead of winter, he was snowed in with somebody's wife in a cabin in the forest outside of the city; but he managed to get to a phone to call in by mid-morning of the third day. Should she wait until later? No, she would call Elizaveta Fyodorovna at Podly's home.

Elizaveta Fyodorovna knew that Podly's bed had not been slept in the night before. She entered the house on Krasnopresnenskaya at 10:00 a.m. on the morning of January 19. She was somewhat alarmed in light of the fact that she knew he had been experimenting lately with drugs and alcohol. By January 23, she could not be sure whether he was dead or alive. When Marina Mikhailovna called her, the two women, devoted to their employer, compared notes and assessed the situation. They would contact his associates and friends, such as Ladkov and Svyatovovich. Podly was hated by a countless number of people in Moscow. The two women feared for the worst. For the time being, it was decided that Marina should notify the Soviet Housing Commission in Petrograd that Podly was on a two-week vacation in the country. The two women hoped he would return by that time.

ina Dumatskoy tightly held her almost five-month old son, Sasha. They were riding in a taxicab heading home after spending the night of January 22 with Anya Drugo in her apartment in Labaznaya. Zina felt numb inside and outside. She stared out the window of the vehicle without seeing anything. Her thoughts were polluted with despair. Last night, Anya had talked at length about suicide. She told Zina she had been thinking about it since she received news of Drugo's death from a Soviet Government Official on Wednesday, January 18. The man, Anya never got his name, spoke in monotone about how Ivan Drugo had been killed in the line of duty as a special envoy of the People's Republic. That was all the official was permitted to say.

"A special project of the utmost national concern that Comrade Drugo was working on had not gone as planned. It ended in failure. He was a brave man. You should be proud of him. I'm sorry."

Something to that effect, Anya remembered as being said. But it was the monotone voice and the blank eyes, the body rigid and military in posture - that stayed in Anya's mind. He had probably made similar statements to countless survivors.

"That's probably all he does, go from place to place all day, all week, just saying the same horrible, empty words, merely inserting the appropriate names," Anya said to Zina. They were drinking Chianti. They sat gloomily, Anya with a droop, Zina with a sag, both deflated. Anya had brought two bottles from the Red Rooster's bar. She wasn't sure when she was going back to work again.

As Anya and Zina sat at the kitchen table in Anya's apartment, talking and drinking Chianti, Anya was calm and reflective, but bitterness tinged her voice. She intermittently played with the gold ring and a piece of notebook paper in front of her: picking up the ring, sliding it on and off of several of her thick fingers; holding up the piece of paper with her big rough right hand, slapping it with her big rough left hand as if to say,

"... here, look at this!" while she talked to Zina.

"No funeral! Not even a closed casket! Buried somewhere in a military plot near where he died, I suspect. They wouldn't tell me. Here's the proof. Here's all that is left of Drugo!"

Anya held Drugo's plain gold wedding band in front of her eyes. She seemed to be talking to herself, an interior monologue -- verbalized. Zina listened and drank.

"See, our initials and the date engraved on it. He loved me, Zina! See, he says so on this note he wrote to tell me he had to go on a mission, on the back of my note telling him I was sleeping at work that night. I don't know what his problem was, why he couldn't make love to me. Or do I? And now we'll never know!" That said, tears filled Anya's big blue eyes. She put her head down into the stiffened cups of her two hands.

"And of course, Podly, that vile beast, ordered me to accept four people to share my apartment! I told you about that, didn't I, Zina?"

"To hell with that man," said Zina, "we received a decree a couple of weeks ago saying two more people would be sharing our place!"

Anya and Zina cursed Podly!

"It was probably Cheka, Drugo was so loyal, so obedient to his government. He would never have told me, not in a million years, probably Cheka. They have their own, everything: rules, laws, money, a separate world within ours, probably Cheka," Anya told Zina the night before. Zina thought of that for some reason as she rode home with Sasha in the taxicab. He was still sleeping. Anya had paid for Zina's taxicab ride from her apartment. Anya had received government insurance money from Drugo's death, a surprisingly sizeable amount.

Zina wondered what would become of them all. By the time she got home, Dmitri would probably be there with news of his hearing. No job; and the possibility of prison loomed on the Dumatskoys' horizon. No job, and a drunken, wasted life again for Ostavlyavich. Zina was convinced that Podly was behind their problems and responsible for every evil that had befallen her since 1910. Thoughts of shooting him with Drugo's pistol, the one Anya gave to her, seemed then, like the most natural and just thing to do. And beyond all these matters lurked more profound, emotional, and metaphysical concerns for Zina, concerns which pushed her down into the lowest levels of despair.

This despair had to do with Dmitri and her feelings for him, which were transforming, and for the worst, she feared! Did she still love him? Of course, but, and that was a very large, "but". Had she somehow fallen out of love with him? She loved Sasha, too. But could she continue to be a "mother", could she give him all of herself, for that is what it takes a mother to do? She knew that. She didn't think she could do it. These thoughts preyed on her like a vulture. In the last few days she had again began working on a painting of herself as Prometheus, chained to a rock on a mountain top, having her innards devoured by the vulture each day. Uchitelnitsky, his face on the body of Dionysos in her dream! What part had that played in all of her recent thoughts? She had to see him! She would call him, see him, talk to him. Yes, call him. Uchitelnitsky!