I sit on a box, resting. I’m sore. We’ve been packing all week. Today we move to Margarita’s apartment. It’s her wedding gift to us. She said she wants us to start our own family in our own place, but Pavlik told me there is more to it. She hasn’t been the same since that murder in the flat across the landing. She’s been having dizziness spells, her blood pressure has spiked, and the other day she fell down the stairs. Yulia wants her here, to watch over her.

I’ve got someone to watch over me. The ravens.

Pavlik refuses to admit that he’s gotten any more death threats, and I refuse to believe him. His face is frightened and peaked, and there are dark circles under his eyes. He stacks the last of the books in a box, closes the flaps, plops on the floor, and surveys the room.

I follow his gaze.

Everything has been emptied. The bookcases and the dresser and the desk and the bed. Stacks of boxes line the wall, and when Pavlik coughs from the dust, the noise he makes is gutted and echoey. 

“You know, I still can’t believe that you did it. When you tipped the kettle, I thought, no way. It just slipped out of her hand. I mean, if it were me, I wouldn’t have the guts, Irina. If I came across one of them, say, on the street somewhere, I couldn’t do it, couldn’t hurt him or even say anything. I’d get paralyzed.” He lifts his eyes.

I regard him wearily. We’ve been through this so many times, I’ve lost count. He just can’t stop talking about it. 

“Didn’t”—he glances at the door—“he ever make you feel paralyzed?”

I nod. Every single time.

“Listen, I’m worried about you. What if he threatens you when he gets out of the hospital? I don’t think they’ll keep him there longer than a week.”

A raven croaks behind the window.

I flinch, suddenly angry, and cut across my neck with the edge of my palm. I’ll slit his throat with a kitchen knife. Words bubble up in me and surge in my mouth and die, dry and broken.

Pavlik shakes his head. “Please. You’re not serious, are you?”

I repeat the gesture.

“You’re scaring me, Irina. Look, I understand how you feel, but all of this fantasizing aside, if he attacks you, you won’t stand a chance. The man is huge. I can’t be by your side at all times, I simply can’t.”

You don’t need to. I’ll be fine on my own.

“And even if I was, it’s not like I’d be much help. Think about it. He’ll squish me like a bug. Or, in your words, like a butterfly.” He smiles at me sadly.

I reach for the bag that Yulia gave me, unzip it, take out the notebook and write. “The boar may be a big bully, but it’s a coward. The second I threaten it with a knife, it’ll shit itself. My only regret is that I didn’t realize it sooner.”

Pavlik looks at it, shocked. “Do you really mean this?” 

And for a moment I abhor his fragility, his gayness.

“Yes. I will fight it. I will fight them all. The ravens. The eels. I will fight them until—”

Several ravens scream at once. A jackal howls as if in answer. I tear to the window and draw the curtain aside. The steely sky is boiled with clouds. There is no sign of the sun, only a uniform grayness. And down below, on the naked elm, they sit, covering it entirely.

I recoil.

“What is it?”

“The ravens. About a hundred.”

Pavlik peers out. “I see only one.” He studies me for a tense moment. “You mean, it feels to you like it’s a hundred?”

I grab my head. I want to ram it through the glass. It takes me a moment to calm down. I pick up the notebook and fish the pen from under the radiator. “Something bad will happen today. I can feel it. Pretend like you’re sick, invent something, I don’t know, say you have a headache or a stomachache.”

“How do you know?”

“I don’t. I just have a funny feeling, like I had about the goat that got hit by the ravens, remember?”

A long yowl in the street. 

“Did you hear that?” I can’t write fast enough. “The jackal, just now. It must be nearby.”

“Shakalov is at the theater prepping it for the season opening. That was a dog, Irina,” says Pavlik carefully.

“I’m not mad! I simply have this—” I nibble on the pen. “First comes a noise, an animal noise, like a harbinger. Then I see them, the beasts, in the streets, on the roofs, or in the place where something will happen.” 

A rap on the door.

I vigorously shake my head. 

Anton peeks in. “Are you ready?” 

“Yes, I think we are.”

I punch the notepad in frustration. 

“There are sandwiches in the kitchen. Help yourselves. I’ll go and warm up the car.” Anton leaves.

I hurl the notebook after him. It hits the door and slides down in a rustle of pages.

“Is something wrong?”

I glare at him.

Pavlik backs away. “You terrify me.”

I terrify myself.

“Let’s have some tea. It’ll make you feel better.” He puts on his well-mannered theater face.

And I feel empty. Pregnant but empty.  

I trail after him into the kitchen and watch him fuss around me. He puts two plates on the table and takes out two sandwiches from the fridge and pours tea and drops in sugar cubes and slides in spoons. He rattles about how excited he is to move, to live in his own place, away from his parents’ constant overbearance.

I don’t really listen, as I bite into the sandwich and chew it. The cold bologna tastes like rubber and the bread tastes like dirt. I finish it, wash the plate, stick it in the dryer rack, dress, and follow Pavlik outside.

It’s biting cold. Heaps of blackened snow line the road. The yard rebounds with the usual Sunday din. Children’s calls, shouts, and dogs barking. I look at the elm. It’s bare. I watch for motion, for any movement in the shadows or in the open doorways. There is nothing.

I stay by the car.

It takes Pavlik and Anton several trips up and down five stories to haul all the boxes and stack them in the trunk and on the back seat with barely any room left for me. By the time they’re done, my toes and fingers are numb and my face is burning. 

An hour later we’re at Margarita’s place.

I get out and cover my ears. There is a loud screeching and rustling and scraping of talons. 

They’re here, hiding and waiting.

Yell at them, says the eaglet. Drive them into the open.

I can’t. And don’t you try kicking me again.

I will. The eaglet jabs me.

I gasp for breath. Is that the way of it now?

It is, until you feed me. I’m hungry.

“See? Everything is fine,” says Pavlik.

The sound of his voice makes me flinch. 

“I don’t know what you were worried about.” His eyes sparkle, so black in the cold. Plumes of breath escape his mouth. He gestures at the empty yard, the broken swings, the benches. 

A bum wobbles along the sidewalk, gaunt and emaciated. An earflap hat covers half of his bony face and his pants are tied with a rope to stop them from falling. A quilted jacket hangs on his shoulders like on a rake. 

A horse, a homeless downtrodden horse. And I know what will happen. They will maul it.

“Pavlusha! Come here, son. You take this one and I’ll get the TV.” 

I have an urge to yank on Pavlik’s arm, to point out the bum to him, to write, to explain, then it’s gone. Convincing him will only make me lose time.

All right, eaglet. I know what to do.

Do you?

Watch me.

I spin on my heels and march to the entranceway.

“Irina, wait!”

They catch up to me by Margarita’s apartment. 

“Why didn’t you wait for us?”

“Irina, get back to the car. We can’t leave it unattended.” Anton is irritated.

The door opens. I rush past Yulia, straight to the kitchen. Any minute now, any minute. I’ll be late. I yank open drawer after drawer and rummage inside.

In the corridor Yulia is scandalized. “You left the car unattended?”

“Only for a few minutes, Mama.”

“Anton, you’ll strain your back like this!”

“I got this, Yulechka, I got this.”

And I hear it happening. 

It takes me by surprise. The breaking of the glass and the snapping of the bones and the neighing and the whinnying and the croaking. The ravens strike the horse and fell it and I scream a cry of dismay.

I’m late!

“Irina!” Pavlik is in the kitchen. “What happened? Why are you screaming?”

I close my mouth with an audible click. 

I’m coming to get you, bastards. 

I find what I’m looking for in the top drawer by the stove—a big steak knife, its blade worn, and its wooden handle polished with use. I snatch it, push past Pavlik, past all of them gathered in the doorway, and rush down the stairs and into the street. My arm outstretched, I sprint across the road to Anton’s Lada and halt, wheezing, clasping my belly.

Go ahead, eaglet. Say it.

Behind me are running footsteps.

“Oh God.” Pavlik pries my fingers off the knife. There is no need for it anymore, so I let him.

On the blackened snow lies the bum, face up. Blood runs from his fleshy nose. He has swarthy skin and his features are coarse and exaggerated. His hair is a matted heap of what once were black shiny curls.

Ethnic cleansing at its finest. Let’s butcher a homeless Jew to show our might. Russia for the Russians, is that what you ravens chant? Fury grips me. I look for a note. They must have left one, they must have. 

Anton cradles his head. “My car! My car!”

It’s destroyed. The windows are jagged holes. The tires are slashed. The trunk gapes open, its lock gouged out like an eye. Everything of value has been taken: the VCR, the computer, the radio and cassette tower with both speakers. The boxes of clothes and books have been dragged out and torn, their contents spilled around.

“I’m calling militia.”

“Don’t waste your breath. Better call the ambulance.” Pavlik squats next to the bum, shakes him, asks for his name.

I see a white corner sticking out of his pant pocket and pull it out. Same paper, same handwriting.

PAVEL BABOCH, PANSY JEW. A TASTE OF WHAT’S COMING.

I hand it to Pavlik. Our eyes meet and his pupils widen.

Will you believe me now?

“What’s this?” Anton takes the note.

I glare at him. A purge message, Russia or death. 

A small speculating crowd gathers around us. Muffled whisperings are exchanged, theories about what might have happened, who did it and why and how. The cost of replacing the windows and the tires. Who is to blame for the crime increase in Moscow and in the country on the whole. 

I help Pavlik gather up our things.

Shortly after we tie up what we manage to salvage in blankets, the ambulance shows up. The medics roll the bum onto the stretcher and depart. An army-green Kamaz truck labors into the yard. A bald driver hops out, and after a brief conversation with Anton and an exchange of cash, he tows away the Lada. 

At last we are ushered back into Margarita’s apartment where it’s warm and where we sip tea in the kitchen and I trace on Pavlik’s palm, “Sim.”

He studies me. He can’t really say anything under Yulia’s sharp eyes.

Who else? Who else will you listen to?

He nods.

The doorbell chimes. Militia is here. Yulia goes out to greet them.

“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.”

It’s okay. I’m having a hard time believing myself.