Fardwor, Ruissa! A Fantastical Tale from Putin’s Russia

For whatever reason there were no buses waiting on the tarmac at this airport, and a line of stooping passengers, stretching to the dark concourse, was the first thing that Marina saw when they exited the plane among the last of the passengers.

“Hey, what’s with you, go on.” Karpov gently nudged her in the back, and Marina suddenly realized how nervous he was. “Go ahead,” he repeated. “We’re here.”

She knew without being told that they had arrived, though the very idea of this trip still bothered her. If someone asked Marina if she knew why they had come here, she would answer without hesitation that she did not, but this would be only half the problem; after all, a wife is not required to understand everything that her husband does, sometimes it’s enough simply to trust him. What bothered her more was that he himself apparently didn’t understand why they’d had to give up everything in Moscow, quit their jobs, empty out their apartment, palm off their excess books and things on their friends, and fly to this strange land they didn’t (not even Karpov) fully understand. Karpov’s anxiety frightened and upset Marina; during the flight she had almost managed to convince herself that all of her worries most likely stemmed from insecurity, whereas all that was happening was that a new life was beginning, one that was interesting but still as happy as before. As for his nighttime laboratory experiments—well, they weren’t exactly in a laboratory, but in the kitchen, and who the hell knows what kind of experiments they are anyway—she always considered them a harmless hobby and of course was surprised when he suddenly told her that this hobby required sacrifices from them, like necessitating that, at the very least, they had to move to another city. There was nothing keeping the two of them in Moscow, and Karpov was so convincing and, more importantly, so committed to the idea, that it didn’t even occur to her to object, and she immediately agreed: yes, of course, if you think so then we have to go. And although everything after that point took longer than they might have expected, they both still had plenty of time to think it over and argue about it; but for whatever reason she didn’t think it over or argue, and when he told her that he had bought tickets for the 28th, she merely shrugged her shoulders—fine, the twenty-eighth, what difference does it make?

On their way to this taxi stand at the airport, he said that it probably wasn’t worth the effort to head on to the village now; there wouldn’t be anywhere to eat dinner there and in general he didn’t know if there was much of anything there at all, so it was better to spend the night in a hotel, to have dinner and breakfast in the city, and to head to the village the next day, well-fed and after a good night’s sleep. For whatever reason this immediately calmed her down; if he could think about food and comfort it meant that he still had it together and could still be trusted. Having arrived at this conclusion, Marina kissed her husband silently on the cheek; Karpov flinched, and she smiled: after all these years together, he still couldn’t get used to the fact that she was in constant conversation with him, even when she was silent.

They didn’t bother to haggle with the taxi driver; the three hundred rubles that he wanted was perfectly acceptable. Marina got into the back, and Karpov sat next to the driver; the taxi passed through a dark alley, and after a minute or so, Marina saw an illuminated crossroads bounded by a line of trees, and through the darkness behind them she could see a cemetery with crosses.

“My grandfather is buried here, and my grandmother and greatgrandmother,” Karpov said, and Marina for...