The Goose Fritz by Sergei Lebedev

Author:Sergei Lebedev
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781939931733
Publisher: New Vessel Press
Published: 2019-03-18T16:00:00+00:00

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Kirill liked coming here, to the quiet side street near the Garden Ring. The grim hulk of the Stalinist skyscraper housing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs loomed over it, but the lane itself breathed a different air, specifically Moscow air, gray like sparrows and pussy willows, myopic, better at transmitting the shuffle of an old man’s shoes than the ring of coin. The house built in 1910 by a famous architect for Andreas and Iron Gustav, a two-story mansion in the Moscow Moderne style, still stood at the old address, even though the lane’s name had changed three times.

The mansion now belonged to one of the shadow structures of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Kirill kept trying to guess what was there—intelligence? A semi-official business? He had not been allowed inside even with a letter of recommendation from the city cultural department. He looked at the tile roof, the wrought-iron bars on the balconies, the mosaic panels, and the old round windows like portholes; there was no connection between him and the house, he had grown up in an essentially different country and couldn’t imagine himself living inside it.

The biggest panel, over the main entrance, depicted a fish: a burbot swimming among water weeds on a river or lake bottom. The weeds floated in long ribbons, stems with orange flowers resembling gerberas; the burbot was winding its way, pink mouth open, eyes raised as if in prayer to the God of fish, pastor of schools and shoals, Father of cod, Lord of sperm whales and sharks. Next to it and a bit lower, strode a lobster sheathed in armor, antennae raised militantly.

When Grandmother Karolina taught Kirill how to draw, she often depicted the underwater world, accompanying her drawing with a poem that Kirill thought was for children:

Leeches and crayfish crawl through the silt,

The water hides many terrors ...

The pike—the crocodile’s younger sister—

Stands dead by the shore.

Crayfish, burbots, pikes, sea grasses with unknown orange flowers appeared in her drawings. Kirill was delighted by land beauty transferred underwater, and he quickly picked up the game and added roses and dandelions. He never wondered why Grandmother was so devoted to this subject, why she never drew the mushroom forest at the dacha, or a city park, but only the strange underwater realm inaccessible to the living.

The first time he saw the mansion, Kirill understood why. The mosaic over the door remained a secret sign for his grandmother, marking the blocked entrance to the past.

The fish, an ancient Christian symbol, what did it mean? A tribute to Andreas the seaman eaten by savages? A dedication to Arseny, who suffered at Tsushima and watched his comrades drown? Or was it just a vague sign, foretelling the coming flood that would be survived only by Noah in a house with porthole windows? Whatever it was, his grandmother never took Kirill to the house but continued to draw the picture with him that he would easily recognize if he ever found himself in that lane.

After his first visit there, Kirill naturally remembered the poem.

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