Free Dancing with Bears by Michael Swanwick Page A

Ivanovich seems to be enjoying himself.”
    He gestured toward the street ahead where Koschei and his young protégé walked alongside the Neanderthals—who were, for the occasion, shirtless and snarling—ringing the float carrying the Pearls. Arkady smiled and waved broadly, while the older man thumped his staff on the paving stones, scowling his disapproval at the wickedness of the crowd.
    Abruptly, the strannik seized Arkady by the nape of his jacket, bringing him to a sudden halt. He swung them both about ninety degrees and strode into the crowd, pulling the young man after him. It was an uncommonly deft maneuver. Had Darger blinked, he would have missed it.
    “We appear to have lost our two charges.”
    “The ladies will most likely miss Arkady mooning about and singing love songs. The Neanderthals will surely be glad to see the last of him. And I…well, he was a likeable enough fellow. But as he spent most of his time huddled with Koschei, absorbing the pilgrim’s doubtless fanatical theology, I had no opportunity to form any great attachment to him.”
    “You sum up the situation succinctly. But now I see that the crowds are as large as they are ever likely to be. So I too must leave.”
    “Do you have the book?”
    Darger placed a hand inside his jacket. Then, with a roguish smile, he flung open the door and, brandishing the book high over his head, leaped free of the carriage. He plunged into the crowd and disappeared.
    Behind him, he heard Surplus shout at the top of his lungs, “ Halt the carriage! ” A quick glance over his shoulder revealed Surplus leaning far out of the open carriage door, an anxious arm extended toward the distant fringes of the crowd. “Stop him! Stop that thief! A hundred solidii to whoever returns me that book!” Then, in apparent response to the puzzlement on the faces of those nearby, “Ten thousand gold rubles! To anybody who restores to me that book, ten thousand rubles—in gold!”
    The crowd stirred and eddied. Men began to run where they thought the fugitive had gone. More joined them and, because not all were clear on who was being sought, fights broke out among them.
    But Darger had not fled. Immediately upon entering the crowd, he had stopped and turned to face the procession. He then took a few jostling steps to the side and there remained, craning his neck, as if he were just another citizen anxious to see the spectacle. The book he slipped back in his jacket. Darger was blessed with a forgettable face, and it was his particular genius to be able to fade into the background wherever he was. Searchers ran past him and he turned to gawk but did not join in the pursuit.
    Shortly thereafter, the carriage started forward again. Inside it Surplus sat, arms crossed, ostentatiously glowering and sullen. The procession continued down the street.
    After a while, the crowds broke up and dwindled away.
    Darger pulled a slouch hat over his head and joined the general dispersal. He walked randomly at first, choosing the shabbier streets over the better. Always he considered the bars, taverns, and unlicensed purveyors of basement-brewed beer. As he strode along, he casually drew a square of paper from his pocket, extracted two pills, and swallowed them. By the time he finally selected a low dive that looked particularly dreary and unattractive, his eyes had turned from gray to green and his hair was bright red.
    He went inside.
    Two or three broken-down rummies sat slouched in the gloom. A man who was no discernible improvement over them wiped a filthy rag over a filthier bar. Standing just within the doorway, Darger exclaimed, “Dear Lord, this must be the vilest and most squalid bar in all Moscow!”
    The bartender looked up resentfully. “This here’s a drinking establishment, bud. If you want the kinda bar where faggots sit around discussing philosophy and plotting revolution, you shoulda gone to the Bucket of Nails.”
    “Thank you, sir,” Darger said. “Could you tell