influence on Vydrino! They dispatched, feeling a new sense of urgency and competition. Save Vydrino they must, and they must do it their way.
“You know what you’ll have to do, little guy, when you’re older? There’s only one way to get by, and that’s by deleting the world. Just hold your finger on that backspace key and tap, tap, tap. Let it all disappear. Because all that matters is what’s up here, and what’s in here.”
Az took another mouthful of his favorite Polish vodka, and Kolya sat warmly on his lap, a convert to his easy manner and unhesitant voice.
“Mik?”
“What’s ‘at, boy?”
“Mik?”
“Mik? Mik. Mik. Ah, milk. No, this isn’t milk—well, it may be, after a manner of speaking. But I’m sure we can find you come back at old Wynn’s place. He is a strange one though, isn’t he?”
“Mik.”
They sauntered back to Wynnet’s house, Kolya sometimes at Az’s knee, and other times off investigating the forms he found in the snow. All search parties of Novosibirsk having been mobilized, they entered the empty house, where only a computer stood guard over the randomness of natural life, ready to organize it into newer facts. Walidah’s incense had burned down to fragrant, gray ashes, leaving no speck of light, and all over the cottage a calm grayness pervaded, as though it had finally been allowed to breathe in a non-artificial light.
Az plopped onto a wide, cushioned chair and set to opening his vodka bottle, but Kolya interrupted with his best hungry gaze, prompting Az to search out the kitchen. He rewarded himself, having found it, with a turnip salad (provided by Karyne), bamboo sprouts, and a handful of toasted nutmeats. Kolya got his little glass of milk, and for a brief moment they did not talk to one another.
That evening Elsa, resting beside Omar in her cottage, had a dream. She was walking deliberately beside a moving train, a train that was travelling fast from New Siberia back to Denmark. From where she walked she could see the long plains that led to the Kirghiz Steppe, but she could see nothing on the other side of the train, a train that was endless. Its whistling air brought her many scents: the scent of rain-swept wood, the scent of lake water, the scents of wild geese and deer hide, of pollen and milky grass stems, of breast milk. Omar’s scent. The scent of the pages of Letters from Novosibirsk, of the wooden toys found under her floor planks. And lastly, the scent of the garden behind the cottage in Tibet where Kolya had been born.
Blue poppies sprang up around her; and the train, still travelling next to her, roared less heavily. She found herself engulfed by them, by the blue poppies and red-speckled yellow impatiens on their long stems, by Asian azaleas and tall lilies, by the sweetness of her baby’s breath.
Then the train stopped, without a screech or rattle. There was still a garden, but now it held a huge, silent train. She would never be able to board it, to cross over it, or to deny that it was there blocking her path, her direction….
A warm light awakened her, the artificially-heated light from a window in winter. Omar breathed heavily beside her, and she could do nothing but bury her tearful face in the pillow, feeling as though she’d never lived, so empty was she inside.
If Todd was going to save the king, then he was going to do it right. What if he should find him? What to bring him back to? His cottage must evoke the proper atmosphere. Before even beginning the hunt, Todd spent a morning rereading his whole collection of Accents of the Ages, the internationally celebrated decorating journal. King Kolya’s living space, even if temporary, must be in tune with royal homes of past ages—though, Todd understood, reflective of contemporary times as well.
Beginning with the Wawel castle of Kraków, and moving on to the palaces of Ravenna, Cairo, Alhambra, Lhasa, and Limerick, Todd retrieved his power tools and paints, and commenced with the recreation in his beloved cottage. Undeniably, some aspects of the desired effects had already been present. Mostly he rearranged things, gilded a ceiling or two, and completely re-did the draperies. But having made substantial progress after a couple of days, Todd felt that he should become better acquainted with royal etiquette. After all, Kolya stood on the threshold of language acquisition: better that he should not adopt the local vulgarisms, and the culture (or lack of) that bred them. Todd dipped into his most treasured library of regal catechisms and spent a couple of long evenings memorizing forms of address, toilet habits, bows and curtsies, facial and hand gestures; as well as many long phrases of introduction, phrases of gratitude, humility, servitude, and latitude.
When he came to, after three days, Todd felt the pangs of rebirth welling inside him: the day he had been born for had arrived. Nothing leading up to it had held any importance. Life was only now beginning. The monarchy was about to be restored.
Wynnet, in preparing to ingest his 4 p.m. snack, noted with some dismay (but mostly consternation) the open honey jar on the countertop next to the refrigerator, which had developed a case of greasy fingerprints.
“Orlin will be evicted tomorrow morning immediately following my AM1 exercises,” he muttered to himself, knowing he would have to forego two or three exercises in order to perform this necessary chore.
Karyne had returned to her cottage for another evening of writing—she had been keeping a profound diary on the hunt for Kolya, as she was certain it would bring her great fame some day. (“Pioneer of Novosibirsk Tells First-hand How Bastard Child Was Expelled from Intellectual Utopia”) Since taking on this quest, her eyes had gotten larger, her lips thinner; and her hair appeared to be either too washed or not washed enough.
It would help, she wrote, if there were a unanimous spirit of purpose here at Novosibirsk. But I know of at least one woman who actually has her own designs on the little imp. Who knows what they are, or why. This is only another indication of how Novosibirsk is disintegrating as a beacon of hope before our eyes. What we cherish here is a definite kind of unity, the unity of purpose. And determination! The current trial we are facing only galvanizes the best of us, while (hopefully!) letting the weak of purpose fall away—dead wood.
“Don’t.”
Ears perked, Karyne looked up half-consciously, and wrote on:
Some tracking progress has been made, though a clear direction has not been established.
“Clearly.”
“Who’s there!” Karyne shouted, less surprised than angry at being interrupted. And out of the dark stepped Nura, wearing her most colorful translucent silk.
“I am here. And it’s about time you noticed me.”
“Don’t come any closer. I demand to know what you are doing in my house.”
“Might I also demand to know what you are doing in mine?”
Karyne chilled quickly to the bone, momentarily losing her composure and focus. She had no answer, and was not willing to question this woman any further. Nura, sensing her indecision, faded, reappearing in a comfortable chair near Karyne’s computer station, her hand supporting her chin with an over-confidence that drove Karyne’s confidence down even further.
“You’re a ghost,” Karyne rendered with pointed effort, “aren’t you?”
Nura nodded twice, quickly and regally, as if in condescending acknowledgement, then added a little smile:
“That’s correct.”
Karyne regained her posture, speaking up as always: “I’d still like to know what you’re doing in my house…” before freezing up again, sputtering out the last word like an asthmatic in ragweed season.
Nura yawned, turned her head, and said:
“Do you know what a home is, child?”
Karyne sighed like a bullfrog.
“A home,” Nura continued, “is a place where anything can and does happen. A home is laughter and grief, anger and unconditional love. In a home there is no time for bitterness. There is only concern for the present.”
“Oh, well, well. A little lecture? That’s why you’re here? IS THAT WHY YOU CAME?”
“Hush, dear. I came for no reason. In fact, I made no special effort to get here today.
I’ve been here all along.”
“All along! Watching me eat and sleep, get dressed (a loud sigh), shit, think, make tea…”
“And don’t forget—”
“Shut up!”
Karyne rose, unsure of what she might do, especially since Nura had dissolved into a smudge again, and had taken to flickering near the windows.
The silver clock she’d inherited with the house gleamed like no other thing in the room, and its hands seemed to be dissolving from one hour into another. Karyne did not know what time it was. Even the moon had disappeared from the sky. She went straight to the window, caught Nura’s reflection in it, and then saw nothing but the frozen snowdrifts outside, feeling a sense of wakefulness overcoming her.
“I have been sleepwalking,” she thought aloud.
24.
Elsa thought she saw him everywhere—in the bevelled edges of her dressing mirror, in her tea cup, reflecting from a polished tabletop, in her dreams. She thought, “This is just as it used to be. I remember now, that little boy who always seemed to be watching me, with that wishful look in his eyes.” She recalled all the places the little boy had peered out at her, then she could no longer go on remembering. She would force herself up from the bed and take long walks, with and without Omar, who could only map the desert in his soul. They had deleted the world again, and lived only in their dreams.
But Az, who also lived in a