I kick open the door to the Tsvetnoy Boulevard station. Warm air bastes my face like the breath of an underground beast. I sneeze, shake the water off my hair, unzip my jacket, wring it out, and stuff it in my backpack. I merge with the throng of bodies and skip through the turnstile. I’m on the escalator long before the booth attendant shouts, “Hooligan! Get back! Pay the fare!” I hold on to the conveyor belt, ride down the inclined shaft, walk under a marble arch, and join commuters on the narrow platform.

The clock above the tunnel says it’s 12:54 p.m.

I’m hungry, wet, and cold, and I try not to breathe. It smells of earth, wet newspaper, cabbage soup, and sweat. The staccato of the train echoes somewhere deep in the tube. It will be here any moment, the tapeworm.

The rhythm of the rails picks up in volume. People cram the edge of the platform. I move with them and sense someone behind me, and I know it’s him. The heaviness of the steps, the breathing pattern, the snorting. The hairs on my back stand up. His stare strips me bare. He’s singling me out for a quickie. 

Hello, boar. Long time no see.

Boar? says the eaglet. Can I have it? I’m hungry.

Eaglet! My feet get cold. I forgot about you. I’m sorry. So many things have happened.

It’s okay. I forgot about myself too and now I woke up and remembered. Will you feed me?

Yes. Yes, I will.

The train arrives. Before the doors open completely, before the exiting passengers can clamber out, the mob pushes in and elbows its way through. I let myself be carried with them, grab on to the greasy bar, and hang over the heads of those who managed to get seated. 

“Be careful, the doors are closing,” says a bland recorded voice. “The next stop is Chekhovskaya. Dear passengers, please make way for the elderly and the invalids.”

Too bad “invalid” isn’t written on my face.

The doors slam shut and the train lurches.

A heavy palm lands on my ass and squeezes it. 

You stinky bastard, you perverted piece of shit.

Are these names for a boar? says the eaglet.

Not for any boar, only for this one. 

I twist around.

At first I can only stare. Despite my efforts, a gasp escapes me. Lyosha gawps at me, unblinking and unbelieving. Then he begins to laugh. He wears the same grimy sweater ragged to threads on his paunch, and a pair of training pants, his favorite. Easy to slip off and to pull out his dick. His piggy eyes narrow. He seizes my wrist. 

“I’ll be damned. Irkadura! Holy gee.”

The train stops. He drags me out, pushes me against a marble pillar, and leans over. His breath makes me want to puke.

“Surprise!” He is swaying, drunk, always drunk, the degree of his drunkenness varied in accordance to available funds. “Look at you, you got fat.”

Fat off your dick, asshole.

I wait for the opportune moment. 

“Vova says you work for him now. Whore.” He tightens his grip.

I wince.

Can I have it? says the eaglet.

In a moment.

It’s hurting you.

I don’t mind, I’m used to it. I don’t want to spook it. When hunting a boar you don’t attack it until you’re sure of your aim. I’ll hurt it back, eaglet, you’ll see.

Okay, but please hurry.

The train departs. The platform is relatively empty.

“Your mother has cried herself sick.” Lyosha spits.

You mean, drunk herself senseless?

“And here you are riding around metro. What did I tell you? What did I say I’d do if you run, you dumb bitch?” His voice drops. “You think because you rutted with Vova, you’re his now? He’s been asking me about you. Well, I told him you aren’t his, you’re mine. And you owe me my share.” His hand flies up to slap me.

Now! says the eaglet.

I grip Lyosha’s balls. 

Rip them!

I twist and jerk down. 

Lyosha’s eyes bulge. For a second he is still and silent, then he erupts into a monstrous bellow and lets go of me, cradling his crotch. I stand next to him, watching him, mesmerized. His mug turns purple. He buckles and hollers. “You bitch! You will pay for this!” His cries drown in the rumble of the incoming train.

A small crowd gathers around us.

Go, go! says the eaglet.

I surface from my stupor and run. 

Lyosha staggers after me. 

I hear his footfalls and threats and curses. I weave through the crowd that streams along the vaulted vestibule in both directions and aim for the exit. My belly aches, my lungs are on fire, and I have to slow down. 

I won’t make it. I won’t make it.

A train arrives on the opposite platform. 

I take a deep breath and speed up, focusing on the escalators some twenty meters ahead. Lyosha gains on me. My muscles cramp and burn from exertion. 

The train! says the eaglet. Board the train!

I lurch to my right, slip on the polished floor and almost fall. The train is about to depart.

“Be careful,” says the voice, “the doors are closing. The next stop is—”

I know the recording by heart. I have a few seconds to make it. 

Lyosha’s hand gets a hold of my backpack. 

I shoot forward, leaving it in his grip.

“—Tsvetnoy Boulevard.”

I leap and crash inside. The doors bang shut. I double over, gulping for air, forcing myself to straighten.

DO NOT LEAN is stenciled on the glass. 

Lyosha stands behind it, so close that his breath fogs it up. He shakes my backpack and yells something. His eyeballs are about to pop from their sockets.

And I grin. Eat that, fuckface. Eat that, you swine. You sack of shit. You degenerate pervert.

Those balls tasted good, says the eaglet. When can I have the rest?

Soon. I flip Lyosha two birds and watch him grow smaller and smaller. 

The train picks up speed and enters the tunnel.

. . .

For the rest of the ride, I’m in ecstasy. I don’t feel my legs and I don’t know how I can stand upright, and my wet shirt and jeans sticking to my skin don’t bother me. I even don’t mind the loss of my jacket, my backpack, and my disability certificate with it. It was worth it.

I totter out onto Medeleevskaya and hop up the worn steps of the crossover to the Novoslobodskaya station. My sneakers make squelching noises. I walk along the long white-washed cavern together with the horde of grim shuffling bodies. By the wall on the right are the usual metro fixtures. An Afghan war veteran, a twenty-something guy without legs, sits on a piece of cardboard and brays an army song. A fleshy middle-aged woman sells yellow press. A pensioner begs for money, a few crumpled rubles and coins in his earflap hat. 

I grin at every one of them. I taught that pig a lesson.

I run down the stairs to the station that looks like a crypt decorated with illuminated pylons and walk onto the platform.

“Citizen Myshko!” I hear Lenin’s voice.

I spin around.

“Ay-ay, citizen Myshko,” says Lenin. He’s part of the stained glass ornament lit up from inside. He sits by the desk with a globe on it, a stack of papers in his hands. “You still haven’t answered my question. What is your goal in life?”

To shut you up. To live to the day when you will listen to me and not the other way around.

“You must believe in the Soviet power. It will teach you how to speak. Do you doubt it, citizen Myshko?” He points at me with an admonishing finger.

The only thing I doubt is if you can stick it up your ass, because it might be too fat for your tight communist butthole.

. . .

I exit on Smolenskaya. 

The downpour has stopped but it’s still drizzling.

I rub my arms and stop by the vending kiosks. A shoe repair booth, a newsstand, and a cigarette stall. Passersby come up, study the displays, exchange their rubles for goods, and move on. The street bustles with cars and trucks and buses and exhaust and dampness. 

I’ll walk to the White House and from there I’ll find my way to Pavlik. I put a hand on my stomach. Thank you, eaglet.

For what?

For egging me on.

No, says the eaglet, thank you.

For what?

For not aborting me.

Oh. I shudder. I’m sorry.

It’s okay. Don’t be. Every mother wants to murder her child at least once in her life. You’re not the first one and you’re not the last one. 

If that is true, how are we different from animals?

You mean, how people are different from animals?

Yes.

They aren’t.

They aren’t?

They’re worse. They think because they’ve learned how to walk upright and how to talk about morals that they’re somehow better, but they aren’t. They kill each other every day.

Animals kill, too.

For survival. 

And people?

People do it out of fear.

But you want me to kill Lyosha.

No. I want the animal in you to slaughter the boar.

I shake my head. Wait.

I’m the animal, not the mouse. Let me out. 

I hold my face.

. . .

I’m cold from standing outside for so long in damp clothes and I want to pee. I rub my face and cup my elbows and jog to warm up and to stop thinking. I go down into a pedestrian underpass that smells of vomit and come up on the other side of the street and weave in and out of back alleys.

It’s getting dark. Streetlights whiz to life. Let the animal out. Let the animal out.

I climb up the granite steps to the Freedom Square, pass by the remnants of the barricade, and meander through the streets for another hour, groping inside my memory for landmarks. Buildings or roofs or anything I saw that might lead me. Then I see a peeling church. We definitely drove by it on the way to Pavlik’s place. Behind it is a daycare, two dismal concrete blocks sandwiched together. 

I hop over the fence and cross the yard, ignoring the smoking boys on one of the verandas and pretending like I don’t hear them call me names and jeer. On the other side of the fence I come to the boulevard that ends in the familiar parking lot lit by a weak streetlight. There is the elm, now almost bare, and among other cars is parked the model 9 Lada.

I found it. 

The parking lot is situated across from the last entranceway into the five-story brick Khrushchovka and I decide to try it first but my bladder is burning. 

I look around. The yard is empty. I squat behind a tree.

A fat old woman in a kerchief labors out of the front door. A black cocker spaniel tugs on the leash in her hand. It sniffs the air and swings its head with floppy ears in my direction and begins to bark. 

“Be quiet, Nika,” says the woman, and gives me a stern glance. “Damned homeless, pissing anywhere they want.” 

I wait for them to clear, so I can pull up my pants, and suddenly, I’m angry. Angry at being chilled to the bone and hungry and broke and alone. Angry at this dog and the woman’s outburst, at the dreary building where Pavlik lives, at not knowing his apartment number. Angry at everything. 

A crow croaks at me. I pick up a stone and throw it at it. 

There! Is that the animal you want?

It takes off, screeching. 

I walk up to the entrance. The coded lock is gutted. The door gives a creak. A foul odor hits my nostrils: rotting potatoes, soggy garbage. It’s dim and cold like a crypt. There is no elevator, typical Khrushchovka—the prefabricated Soviet housing wonder. 

Citizens, to reward you for your loyalty to the Communist Party, we will give you free apartments. The buildings have no insulation and no elevators but jogging up and down the stairs is good for your communist health. Sucks if you’re an invalid. Not our problem. 

I think about the Afghan veteran I saw in the metro underpass.

I get your Soviet power, Lenin. Those who don’t fit your ideals and who don’t believe your dogmas are ostracized and then discarded, good as dead.

A hand brushes my ankle. 

I flinch.

On the first floor landing lies a filthy drunk. 

“Daughter. Help me.” 

I offer him a hand. 

He slaps it. “No. Rubles. Give me rubles!” 

An empty bottle of vodka rolls away from him, his crotch is wet. I edge around and sprint upstairs. 

I press my ear to every door and listen. There are sounds of TV and Vysotsky songs. A couple has a fight, a baby cries, a dog is woofing. Most flats are quiet. I keep going until I reach the fifth floor. The second door on the left is the cleanest in the whole entranceway, newly painted metal with a shiny plastic number 18 above the spy-hole. 

I smell meat dumplings. This must be it.

My heart drums hard. My stomach rumbles. I place my ear against the metal. Soft voices, clinking cutlery, then footsteps and a cough so close that I recoil.

“Yulechka, I’ll go take out the trash.” 

The door chain jangles, the locks rasp and turn.