Free Day of the Oprichnik by Vladimir Sorokin­ Page A

grams of coke in any apothecary for the standard government price: two and a half rubles. Every apothecary is equipped with counters where a workingman may come in the morning or at his midday break and have a snort, in order to return, energized, to work for the good of the Russian state. They sell syringes with invigorating angel dust , and cigarettes with relaxing weed . True, weed is sold only after five o’clock. Now, if we’re talking about horse , acid , and mushrooms , these substances really do poison the people. They weaken, flurry, and deprive them of will, and in so doing bring great harm to the government. For this very reason they are forbidden throughout the entire territory of Russia. This has all been wisely thought out. But these little fish—they are matchless, far above all your coke-horses taken together. They resemble a heavenly rainbow—they come, bring joy, and leave. After the sterlet rainbow there’s no hangover or withdrawal .
    The door opens with the blow of a metal-tipped boot. Only our Batya enters that way.
    “Komiaga, you here already?”
    “Where else would I be, Batya?”
    I toss the sphere to Batya. He catches it, looks at it through the light, squinting.
    “Ah…good!”
    Shelet, Samosya, Yerokha, Mokry, and Pravda follow Batya in. Batya’s entire right hand. In other places, with the left , Batya suppresses his excitement . That’s as it should be—in such affairs it doesn’t do to mix left with right.
    Everyone’s already a tad edgy . What do you expect? The fish are right at hand. Samosya’s dark eyes flit back and forth and his fists are clenched. Yerokha’s cheekbones bulge, he’s clenching his teeth. Under drooping eyebrows, his teary walleye stares intently, as though he wants to bore a hole in me. Last time, he was the one who found the fish. Pravda always keeps his knife at hand—just a habit. His fist blanches as he squeezes it. All the right-side oprichniks are like that—fiery fellows. They’ll fly off the handle, snuff ’em without flinching.
    But Batya reins our guys in.
    “Shoo!”
    He places the sphere on the stone floor and is the first to take off his clothes. Servants aren’t supposed to be here—we dress and undress ourselves. The oprichniks take off their brocaded jackets, peel off their silk shirts; we walk around naked and each of us takes his place on his lounge chair.
    I lie down, covering my privates with my palms, and the shakes begin: golden ecstasy awaits just around the corner. As always, Batya does the launching. Baring himself, he takes the sphere with the fish and walks over…to me, of course. I was the procurer today. Therefore I’m the first of the seven. The first little fish is mine. I stretch my left arm out to Batya, squeezing and pumping my fist, pressing my forearm with the fingers of my right hand. Batya leans over my arm, like the Lord of the Hosts. He places the divine sphere on my swollen vein. I see the fish grow still, rocking in their aquarium. One of them is pulled in the direction of the vein pressed to the sphere. It wiggles its tiny little tail, drills through the supple glass, and pierces my vein. That’s it! Hail to you! Tiny golden fish!
    Batya moves over to Yerokha. He’s already shaking, clenching his teeth, squeezing his fist, pumping his vein up stiff. Batya-Saboath the Bare-Assed leans over him…
    But my eyes are not directed toward them. I see the vein in my left arm. I see it clearly. The teensy, millimeter-long tail of the golden sterlet peeps out from the pale bend of my elbow, straight out of the middle of my swollen vein.
    O, divine instant when the golden fish enters the bloodstream! You are beyond compare, unlike any earthly pleasure, closest to what our forebear Adam experienced in the thickets of paradise, when he tasted of the invisible fruits created for him alone by the gray-bearded Saboath, Lord of the Hosts himself.
    The little golden tail wiggles and the fish hides inside me. It swims