Rumata looked down for a couple of seconds, then examined the window frame. As was customary here, the frame had been firmly embedded in the window opening. Rumata groped for his sword in the dark and smashed the glass with the hilt. Shards of glass tinkled down. “Hey, you!” he barked. “Tired of being alive?”
The banging on the door stopped.
“They always mess things up,” someone said softly downstairs. “The master’s at home.”
“What’s that matter to us?”
“It matters because he’s the best swordsman in the world.”
“And they also said that he left and won’t come back till morning.”
“Scared?”
“We’re not scared, except there are no orders about him. If we have to kill him …”
“We’ll tie him up. Maim him and tie him up. Hey, who has the crossbows?”
“As long as he doesn’t maim us …”
“Nah, he won’t maim us. Everyone knows he’s taken a vow not to kill.”
“I’ll massacre you like dogs,” Rumata said in a terrible voice.
Kira was clinging to his back. He could hear the wild beating of her heart. Someone downstairs ordered in a raspy voice, “Break down the door, brothers! In the name of the Lord!” Rumata turned around and looked at Kira’s face. She was looking at him with horror and hope, like earlier. Reflections of torches danced in her tearless eyes.
“Come on, little one,” he said tenderly. “Are you scared? Are you actually scared of this trash? Go get dressed. We have nothing else to do here.” He hurriedly pulled on the metalstrom armor. “I’ll drive them away, and we’ll leave. We’ll leave for Pampa’s.”
She was standing by the window, looking down. Red flashes ran across her face. Rumata felt a pang in his heart from pity and tenderness. I’ll drive them away like dogs, he thought. He bent over, looking for his second sword, and when he stood up again, Kira was no longer standing by the window. She was slowly sinking to the floor, clutching the curtain.
“Kira!” he cried.
One crossbow bolt had pierced her throat. Another was sticking out of her chest. He lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed. “Kira …” he called. She sobbed and stretched out. “Kira …” he said. She didn’t answer. He stood over her for a bit, then picked up his swords, slowly descended the stairs, and started waiting for the door to fall …
Epilogue
And then?” Anka asked.
Pashka looked away, slapped his knee a few times, bent down, and reached for the wild strawberries by his feet. Anka waited. “Then …” he muttered. “No one really knows what happened then, Anka. He left the transmitter at home, and when the house started burning, the patrol airship realized that something was wrong and they immediately landed in Arkanar. They dropped grenades of sleeping gas on the city just in case. The house had almost burned down. At first they were taken aback, weren’t sure where to look for him, but then they saw …” He looked uncomfortable. “Anyway, it was obvious which way he went.” Pashka stopped talking and started tossing berries into his mouth one by one.
“Well?” Anka said very quietly.
“They came to the palace. That’s where they found him.”
“How did they find him?”
“Well … he was asleep. And everyone around him … they were also … lying down. Some were asleep and some, well … They found Don Reba there too.” Pashka took a quick look at Anka and averted his eyes again. “They took him away—I mean Anton—brought him to the Base. You see, Anka, he hasn’t told us anything about it. He doesn’t talk much at all anymore.”
Anka sat very pale and upright and looked over Pashka’s head at the meadow by the little house. Pine trees were rustling, swaying gently. Puffy clouds slowly drifted through the blue sky. “And what happened to the girl?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Pashka said harshly.
“Listen, Pasha,” said Anka. “Maybe I shouldn’t have come here.”
“No, don’t be silly! I think he’ll be happy to see you.”
“And I keep thinking that he’s hiding somewhere in the bushes, looking at us and waiting for me to leave.”
Pashka chuckled. “No way,” he said. “Anton wouldn’t sit in bushes. He’s probably fishing somewhere, as usual.”
“And how is he with you?”
“He isn’t anything. He tolerates me. But it’s different with you.”
They were quiet.
“Anka,” Pashka said. “Do you remember the anisotropic highway?”
Anka frowned. “What highway?”
“Anisotropic. The one with the do-not-enter sign. Remember, the three of us went there?”
“I remember. It was Anton who said that it was anisotropic.”
“That was the time Anton went through the sign, and when he came back, he said that he found a blown-up bridge and the skeleton of a fascist chained to a machine gun.”
“I don’t remember that,” said Anka. “So what?”
“I often think about that highway nowadays,” said Pashka. “Like there’s some connection. The highway was anisotropic, like history. You weren’t supposed to go back. But he did go back. And stumbled on a chained skeleton.”
“I don’t understand you. What does the chained skeleton have to do with it?”
“I don’t know,” Pashka admitted. “It just makes sense to me.”
Anka said, “Don’t let him think too much. You should always talk to him about something. Any kind of nonsense. So he’ll argue with you.”
Pashka sighed. “I know that. Except what does he care about my nonsense? He’ll listen, smile, and say, ‘Why don’t you just sit here, Pasha? I’ll go wander.’ And off he goes. And I sit there. At first, I was discreetly following him, like an idiot, but now I just sit and wait. But if you—”
Anka suddenly stood up. Pashka looked around and also stood up. Anka watched, holding her breath, as Anton walked toward them across the clearing—huge, broad, with a pale, untanned face. He hadn’t changed much; he had always been a bit gloomy.
She walked toward him.
“Anka,” he said tenderly. “Anka, my friend …”
He stretched his huge hands toward her. She timidly reached for him and immediately shrank back. On his fingers …
But it wasn’t blood—only strawberry juice.
Afterword
by Boris Strugatsky
Can this novel be considered a work about a “bright future”? To some extent, definitely. But only to a very small extent.
As a matter of fact, while my brother and I worked on it, it underwent substantial changes. It began in the planning stages as a fun adventure story in the spirit of The Three Musketeers, as indicated in this excerpt from one of my brother’s letters:
01/02/62—AS: … I’m sorry, but I inserted Seventh Heaven [into the Detgiz (an acronym for the State Publishing House for Children’s Literature) plan for 1964], the novel about our spy on the feudal alien planet with two kinds of intelligent creatures. I’ve sketched out a plan, it’s going to be an exciting story, might be very funny, full of jokes and adventures, with pirates, conquistadores and so on, maybe even the Inquisition….
The actual idea of “our spy on an alien planet” had emerged back when we were writing Escape Attempt. That book briefly mentions a certain Benny Durov, who was exactly such a spy on the planet Tagora. The idea flashed across our minds; we didn’t have the time for it, but it didn’t vanish without a trace. Now it was its turn, although we still didn’t fully understand all the opportunities and perspectives that would arise here.
The title Seventh Heaven had been taken away from an unwritten novel about wizards that eventually became Monday Starts on Saturday. Why it was given to a similarly unwritten novel about “our spy” becomes clear from Arkady’s letter. I can’t resist reproducing a long excerpt from it here, so that the reader can see through concrete example how much the authors’ initial plans and outlines can differ from an idea’s
final realization.
Somewhere there exists a planet, a precise replica of Earth, possibly with minor deviations, currently in the era immediately before the great geographical discoveries. Absolutism, merry drunk musketeers, a cardinal, a king, rebellious princes, the Inquisition, sailors’ taverns, galleons and frigates, beauties, rope ladders, serenades, etc. And this is the country (a cross between France and Spain, or Russia and Spain) where our earthmen, long since absolute communists, “plant” someone—a young, strapping, good-looking guy with a huge fist, an excellent fencer, etc. Actually, not all earthmen plant him there, but, say, the Moscow Historical Society. One day, they approach the cardinal and tell him, “Here’s how it is: you wouldn’t understand, but we’re leaving this kid here; you’ll protect him from any intrigues; here’s a sack of gold, and if anything happens to him, we’ll skin you alive.” The cardinal agrees, the boys leave a broadcasting satellite by the planet, the guy wears a gold circlet around his head, as is the local fashion— except with a camera built into it instead of a diamond, which communicates with the satellite, which then in turn communicates pictures of the society to Earth. The guy is left alone on the planet, rents an apartment from Monsieur Bonacieux, and occupies himself in sauntering around the city, milling about the noblemen’s anterooms, drinking in pubs, sword-fighting (but he never kills anyone, he even becomes famous for it), chasing girls, etc. This part would be very well written, fun, and amusing. When he climbs up the rope ladders, he modestly covers the lens with a plumed hat.
Then the era of geographical discoveries begins. The local Columbus returns and reports that he discovered America, a country as beautiful as Seventh Heaven, but there’s no way to stay there: he was beset by beasts unseen on this side of the ocean. Then the cardinal summons our historian, and tells him, help us, you are capable of a lot, let’s avoid unnecessary victims. The rest is clear. He calls for help from Earth—a high-powered tank and ten of his buddies with blasters, assigns a rendezvous with them on the other shore, and sails there on the galleons with the soldiers. They arrive, war begins, and then it’s discovered that these animals are also intelligent creatures. The historians are humiliated, called up to the World Council and given a good dressing down for their mischief.
This can be written in a really fun and interesting way, like The Three Musketeers, only with medieval piss and filth—how women smell there, how the wine is full of dead flies. And there would be the implicit idea that a communist who found himself in such an environment would slowly but surely become a petty bourgeois, although for the reader he would remain a sweet and kind kid.
That’s almost it, isn’t it? But at the same time it’s not quite it—and in a certain sense it’s definitely not it. We used to call these kinds of plans “sturdy substantial skeletons.” The existence of such a skeleton was a necessary (although not sufficient) condition for beginning real work. At least in those times. Later, another extremely important condition appeared: we absolutely had to know what would “soothe our souls”—what would be the ending of the planned work, the final landmark in the direction of which we were supposed to be dragging the plotline. But at the beginning of the 1960s, we still didn’t understand how important that was, and therefore we would often take a risk and be forced to change the entire plot along the way. Which is exactly what happened with Seventh Heaven.
The “sturdy substantial skeleton” of the novel Arkady suggested was without a doubt good and promised us some wonderful work. But apparently, even at an early stage of the discussions, some differences in approach between the coauthors appeared; we hadn’t even sat down at the table to begin the work when there was already a debate, the details of which I certainly do not remember, but its general course can be traced through other excerpts from Arkady’s letters. (My own letters through the year 1963 were lost—alas!—irretrievably.)
03/17/1963—AS: … the entire program which you outlined can be completed in five days. But first I’d like to tell you, my pale flabby brother, that I’m for a light kind of thing—I’m talking about Seventh Heaven. So women would cry, walls would laugh, and five hundred villains would shout, “Get him! Get him!”—and they wouldn’t be able to do a thing with one communist.
The last phrase is a slightly modified quotation from our beloved Dumas trilogy, and we’re apparently talking about the vein in which to write the new novel.
I had my own views on that subject. What they were exactly can be guessed from my brother’s comments in this next excerpt:
03/22/1963: … About The Observer (that’s what I’ve renamed Seventh Heaven). If you’re interested in a rush of tumultuous life, then you will have a full opportunity to spill your guts in Days of Kraken and The Magicians. But what I’d like to do is to write a novel about abstract nobility, honor, and joy, like Dumas. And don’t you dare argue. Just one story without modern problems in naked form. I’m begging on my knees, bastard! My sword, my sword! Cardinals! Port taverns!
This entire exchange was happening against a very interesting political backdrop. In the middle of December 1962 (I don’t remember the exact date), Nikita Khrushchev saw an exhibition of contemporary art at the Moscow Manege. Goaded (according to rumors) by Leonid Ilichev, then the head of the ideological commission of the Central Committee, the furious chief—a renowned expert in the areas of painting and all fine arts, you understand—ran through the exhibition halls (again according to rumors), shouting, “Assholes! Who do you work for? Whose bread do you eat? Motherfuckers! Who did you daub this for, daubers?” He stamped his feet, blood rushed to his face, and he showered spittle for two yards around him. (This was precisely the origin of the famous anecdote in which Nikita the Corn Man, staring at a certain ugly image in a frame, yells in a voice not his own, “And what’s this butt with ears?” And is answered with fear and trembling: “That’s a mirror, Nikita Sergeyevich.”)
All mass media without exception immediately descended on abstraction and formalism in art, as if for the last ten years they had been preparing just for this, collecting materials and only waiting for permission to speak about this burning topic.
And that was only the beginning. “On December 17, at the Reception House on Lenin Hills, there was a meeting of the leaders of the Communist Party and the Soviet government with the writers and artists.” Brezhnev, Voronov, Kirilenko, Kozlov, Kosygin, Mikoyan, Polyansky, Suslov, Khrushchev, and various other prominent plainclothes literary and art critics gathered in one place in order to “make comments and suggestions on the development of literature and art.”
Observations were made. The press was no longer roaring, it was literally howling: THERE CAN BE No COMPROMISE; THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE ARTIST; THE LIGHT OF CLARITY; THE WORRY THAT GIVES US WINGS; ART AND PSEUDO-ART; TOGETHER WITH THE PEOPLE; OUR STRENGTH AND WEAPON; THIS IS OUR PARTY, THIS IS OUR ART!; DOING IT LENIN’S WAY; ALIEN VOICES … It was as if an ancient abscess had burst. Bad blood and pus overflowed from the newspaper pages. All those who during the years of the “thaw” had gone quiet (it seemed to us), who had flattened their ears and only looked around like hunted animals, as if waiting for the inconceivable, impossible, improbable retribution for the past; all these monstrous offspring of Stalinism and Beria-ism, who were up to the elbows in the blood of innocent victims, all these covert and overt informers, ideological operators and moronic do-gooders—they all instantly sprang out of their hiding places; they all turned out to be right on the spot, energetic, agile, able hyenas of the pen, alligators of the typewriter. Go to it!
But that wasn’t all. On March 7, 1963, the “exchange of opinions on literature and art” was continued. The experts were joined by a number of other connoisseurs of the fine arts—Podgorny, Grishin, and Mazurov. The exchange of opinions lasted two days. The newspaper howls intensified, even though you’d think that was impossible. THE GREATNESS OF TRUE ART; DOING IT LENIN’S WAY! (seen before, but now with an exclamation mark); THE PHILOSOPHY OF WESTERN ART: EMPTINESS, DECAY, DEATH; HIGH IDEALS AND ARTISTIC SKI
LL: THE GREAT POWER OF SOVIET LITERATURE AND ART; THERE’S NO “THIRD” IDEOLOGY!; CREATING IN THE NAME OF COMMUNISM; GLORIFYING, PRAISING, CULTIVATING HEROISM; HOLD STEADY! (the number of exclamation marks is definitely increasing); PURSUITS IN POETRY, TRUE AND FALSE; LOOKING AHEAD!
The sun is out, but no warmth—no matter.
There’s a flood, flowing floodwater.
All cattle join in joyous song,
A thaw has come, but it’s all wrong!
That was Yuliy Kim instantly responding—as always, poisonously and with perfect precision:
Flood water, spring water,
Turbid, wanton, dissolute water …
Grab your nets and toss them quick,
Brothers, you will have your pick!
Go to it!
All the record players in all the intellectuals’ kitchens were ringing with his verses, performed in a deliberately cloying and even tender voice.
Oh, what a time! A dream of a time!
How the Kochets crow and crow!
The kind of singing I hear outside,
Even the “October” never did know!
“Kochets” doubtlessly refers here to the colleagues and associates of V. Kochetov, the then-chief editor of the pro-Stalin journal October, an inveterate Stalinist, anti-Semite, and reactionary who was even occasionally reprimanded by the authorities in order to maintain decorum “in the eyes of the international labor movement.”
They started with the modern artists: Falk, Sidur, Ernst Neizvestny, and then, before anyone knew it, they went after Ilya Ehrenburg, Viktor Nekrasov, Andrei Voznesen-sky, Alexander Yashin, and the movie I Am Twenty. And of course, anyone who felt like it walked all over Aksenov, Yevtushenko, Sosnora, Ahmadulina, and even—but politely, bowing the whole time!—Solzhenitsyn. (Solzhenitsyn still remained in favor with the Man. But the rest of the entourage, how they all hated and feared him! In favor with the king, out of favor with his huntsmen.)