His Majesty stops speaking. So that’s what it is! Once again the tax law has stuck in the craw of one of the departmental clerks. They didn’t get to share the lucre, the thieves!
“I want to ask my oprichnina: What do you think about this whole issue?”
A grumble is heard in the hall. It’s clear what we think! Each wants to have his say. But Batya raises his hand. We quiet down. Batya says:
“Your Majesty, our hearts tremble with anger. It wasn’t the Chinese who invented the Tan Xu buy-up. You, Your Majesty, in your heartfelt goodness, you have taken care of our friendly Celestial neighbors, but enemies from the western Siberian districts are weaving their wily webs. They are working with a pink minister, with an ambassadorial, and along with customs they invented the Tan Xu buy-up.”
“True! That’s right! Work and Word! We Live to Serve!” sound numerous voices.
Nechai jumps up, a Moscow-born oprichnik who has skinned more than one cat in his time:
“Work and Word! Your Majesty! When the Ambassadorial Department was purged last year, the extremist Shtokman confessed on the rack that Tsvetov personally pushed On the Four Taxes in the Duma, and drilled the assessors! It makes one wonder, Your Majesty: Why is that cur so interested in On the Four Taxes now?”
Sterna jumps up:
“Your Majesty, it seems to me that On the Four Taxes is a good law. There’s only one thing that’s not clear—why ‘four’? Where did this number come from? Why not six? Why not eight?”
Our oprichniks buzz:
“Sterna, mind what you say!”
“True, it’s true what he says!”
“The number four isn’t the problem!”
“No, four is the problem!”
Svirid, older and experienced, stands up:
“Your Majesty, what would change if another number was written in the law? For example, a Chinese family would have not four assessments, but eight? Would the tax assessment increase twofold? No! But why, one wonders? Because they wouldn’t let it increase! The clerks. That’s what!”
The oprichniks mutter and clamor:
“True! You speak to the point, Svirid! The enemies aren’t in China, but in the departments!”
At this point I can’t restrain myself:
“Your Majesty! On the Four Taxes is a good law, only it has been diverted in the wrong direction: the district police officers don’t need regular business petitions, but black mortgages. That’s where they’re going with this law!”
The right wing approves:
“That’s right, Komiaga! The law isn’t the problem!”
But the left wing objects:
“The problem isn’t the mortgages, but the law!”
From the left wing Buben jumps up: “Chinese can handle six taxes! Russia will only gain from this! Your Majesty, the law needs to be rewritten with another number, to increase the assessments, then they won’t travel to pawn things—they won’t have time to straighten their backs!”
A lot of noise:
“True!”
“Not true!”
Then Potyka stands up; he’s young, but he’s tenacious when it comes to guile.
“Your Majesty, I see it this way. Whether there are six assessments or eight, this is what could happen. The Chinese have big families; they’ll begin to split and to divide, they’ll register by twos and threes, to reduce the tax. And then they’ll all mortgage one place, but not as contract workers anymore—instead, as single parasites. Then, by law they can turn in the tax to us by halves. We take two parts, set ourselves up on the third, and the rest will disappear back to the Chinese. It’ll turn out that they’re all sitting on the tax, bag and baggage. That sort of Chinese guy will marry one of our women—and then there’s no Chinese tax assessment at all! He’s a citizen of Russia!”
The room is abuzz. Good for Potyka! He sees to the root of things. It wasn’t in vain that he served in the Far Eastern customs before the oprichnina. Batya bangs his fist on the table with pleasure.
His Majesty says nothing. He looks at us from the ceiling with his attentive gray-blue gaze. We calm down. Once again silence reigns in the hall. His Majesty speaks:
“Well, I have listened to your opinions. I thank you. I’m glad that my oprichnina is as sharp as ever. I will make a decision about the law on taxes tomorrow. But today I’m taking another decision: to purge the district councils.”
A roar of approval. Thank God! Those western Siberian thieves will finally get what they deserve!
We all jump up, pull our daggers out of their sheathes, and lift them:
“Hail! Purge!”
“Hail the Purge!”
“Hail the Purge!”
With a sweeping gesture we stick our daggers in the tables, and clap our hands so hard that the chandeliers shake.
“Hail the Sweep of the Broom!”
“Hail the Sweep to Their Doom!!”
“Hail and Sweep Them Clean!”
Batya’s resounding voice thunders:
“Sweep them clean out! Sweep them clean out!”
We take up the cry:
“Sweep them out! Sweep them out!”
We clap till our hands hurt.
His Majesty’s face disappears.
Batya lifts his glass:
“To His Majesty’s health! Hail!”
“Hail! Hail!”
We drink and sit down.
“Thank God, we’ll have work!” grunts Shelet.
“It’s long overdue!” I put my knife back in its sheath.
“The councils out there are seething with maggots!” Pravda shakes his gold forelock indignantly.
Rumbling fills the refectory.
A conversation flares up at Batya’s table. The fat chairman of the All-Russian Society for the Observance of Human Rights throws up his plump hands:
“My good men! How long must our great Russia bow and cringe before China?! Just as we bowed before foul America during the Time of Troubles, so now we crawl hunchbacked before the Celestial Kingdom. Imagine, His Majesty worries about the Chinese paying their taxes properly!”
Churilo Volodevich seconds him:
“You speak the truth, Anton Bogdanych! They’ve crammed themselves into our very own Siberia, and we have to worry about their taxes to boot! They should pay us more!”
The bath attendant Mamona shakes his bald head:
“His Majesty’s goodness knows no bounds.”
The paraxyliarch strokes his gray beard:
“Those border predators feed off His Majesty’s kindness. All those insatiable mouths!”