Dancing With Bears - Michael Swanwick [46]
Anya Pepsicolova saw it all.
When the deeds were done and the bodies cleared away, underlings would bring in an overstuffed green leather chair, and light a reading lamp beside it. Then Chortenko would sit puffing on his pipe and unhurriedly reading War and Peace or something by Dostoyevsky, a glass of brandy on a little stand by his elbow.
One day, a man was thrown into the kennel next to her. They hadn’t bothered to strip and shave him, which meant that he was one of the lucky ones who would be dealt with in a single night. When the guards were gone, he said, “How long have you been here?”
Pepsicolova was huddled in the center of her cage, chin on her knees. “Long enough.” She didn’t make friends with the meat anymore.
“What was your crime?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I wrote a treatise on economics.”
She said nothing.
“It dealt with the limits of political expansion. I proved that under our economic system, and given the speed with which information travels, the Russian Empire cannot be resurrected. I thought that the Duke of Muscovy would find it a useful addition to current political thought. Needless to say, his people did not agree.” He made a little laugh that turned into something very much like a sob. Then, suddenly breaking, as the weaker ones would, he pleaded with her: “Please don’t be like that. Please. We are both prisoners together—if you can’t do anything else, at least help me keep my spirits up.”
She stared at him long and hard. Finally she said, “If I tell you about myself, will you do me a favor?”
“Anything! Provided it is in my power.”
“Oh, this will be in your power. If you are man enough to do it,” Pepsicolova said. “Here is my story: I have been here for exactly one month. Before that I was in college. I had a friend. She disappeared. I went looking for her.
“I came very close to finding her.
“The trail I followed was twisty and obscure. But I was determined. I slept with many men and two women to get information from them. Three times I was captured. Twice I used my knives to free myself. One of those I used them on may have bled to death, I don’t know and I don’t care. The third time, I was brought before Chortenko.”
She lapsed into silence. The economist said, “And?”
“And nothing. Here I am. Now. I have kept my part of the bargain, now keep yours.”
“What do you want me to do?”
She squeezed one of her legs between the bars, reaching it as far into his cage as she could force it to go. Her near-starvation diet helped. “I want you to bite through my femoral artery.”
“What!”
“I can’t do it myself. The animal instincts are too strong. But you can. Listen to me! I have enough self-discipline that I can keep from yanking back my leg. But you’ll have to bite strong and hard, right through the flesh of my thigh. Give it your all. Do this small thing for me and I’ll die blessing your name, I swear it on my mother’s grave.”
“You’re crazy.” The man scrambled to the corner of his cage farthest from her. His eyes were wide. “You’ve lost your wits.”
“Yes, I’m sure it’s comforting to think that.” Pepsicolova drew her leg back into her own cage. She had dwelt with despair for so long that she felt only mild disappointment. “You’ll learn better soon enough.”
That night, she didn’t look away when the questioning began.
Later that night, Chortenko sat reading, as was his routine. “Listen to this,” he said after a time. “‘All is in a man’s hands and he lets it all slip from cowardice, that’s an axiom. It would be interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of. Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what they fear most.’ Isn’t that so very true?” Chortenko pushed his glasses up on his head and stared at her with those inhuman faceted eyes. “Even you, my dear, who have seen what happens to those who cross me—even you fear something more than joining their number. Even you fear most of all