Hot Blood

On that August afternoon in 1993, the most noticeable noise, if not the loudest, to the passer-by in the outskirts of Belgorod was the hacking and grinding of hoes and trowels mashing the soil and weeding the gardens of the Müzhev estate, accompanied by the clips of pruners, the snaps of loppers, and the occasional groan of the wheelbarrow axle. Not to mention the barking voice of Yana Bronislavovich, the head of the household, and the yaps of communication between the workers. At least it was quiet outside.

Inside, however, it was a rather different story. In the maroon-paneled dining hall, adorned with portraits, lit candlesticks, and an elaborate silver chandelier, Fyodor Yegorovich Müzhev, the reigning patriarch of the family, lorded at the head of a long linen-covered table bedecked with silvery platters and pitchers and pots and bowls. He was accompanied by his father, Yegor Pyotrovich Müzhev; his wife Valeriya Cesarova; his sons Mikhail, Grigori, Arkadiy, Aleksandr, Isaak, and his daughter Karin, all grown or close to grown; his older brother Sergey, his wife Nastasya Nikiforovna, and their four children; his younger sister Yevgeniya Yegorovna, and her husband Vitaliy Alekseyvich Krinov, also with four children; and his younger brother Vasily, his wife Radoslava Ivanovna, and their three sons. There were also four additional visitors: Yefim Gennadiyovich Pik, Vasily’s partner in crime; two blonde females that Arkadiy had brought in, patting their backsides; and Aleksandr’s fiancée, Yekaterina Andreyovna Ludova.

Fyodor, boxed-faced, built like a farmer and having topaz eyes that shone like fire in the light, led the family and a corps of guns, most hired but some loyal, in a network that smuggled chemicals, especially alcohols, and monitored sex and drug trafficking in the region, inside and outside of the Russian border. His paternal grandfather, Pyotr Dmitrovich Müzhev, used to keep prostitutes in the basement of the mansion, fucking them over wine and losing his mind. Yegor, disdainful of his father’s pastime, took a lower dose of alcohol daily but was all too happy to drink it nonetheless. When drugs entered the picture of crime he was quick to capitalize on engaging in the business, but was equally swift to ban all family members from using the drugs themselves. Now in a wheelchair at ninety-eight, he yet maintained a strict oral regime over his kin.

The wine bottles on the table were a fine Sangiovese, the courtesy of Tuscan friend and collaborator Antonio Tozzi, who had entered the family by marrying Fyodor’s first cousin, Fedora Matveyovna. Occupying the space on the tabletop were morsels of the most exquisite sort; borsch, beef Stroganoff, chebureki pastries, eggplant caviar, dishes that only an aristocratic family like the Müzhevs could afford every day. Such was the skill of Igor Isidorovich, the house chef, that not only would the Müzhevs be pleased; they would also stuff their stomachs, continue to eat until the platters and plates were spotless, and then ask for more.

But the atmosphere was not at all homogeneous. Whereas most of the seniors were talking lowly in dark tones together at one end, the succeeding generation members chirped and cried merrily at the other. With polar ends like these, one wondered what might ensue.

Perhaps the most volatile spot was with Arkadiy, who joked and laughed boisterously, to the silent ire of his relatives, and his two lady-friends seemed quite happy to follow suit with him. In fact, they lost so much of themselves enough to their little fun that the girl on Arkadiy’s left reached, without looking, to take her fourth croquette of the meal with her bare hand, a motion that Arkadiy’s siblings and Yekaterina all shook their heads at. But her hand found its way to Isaak’s plate, which was right next to her, and grabbed a leg of turkey that Isaak was working on. Isaak, infuriated as he tended to be when crossed, much like his grandfather, slapped her wrist harshly.

The girl gasped, as if she didn’t believe she deserved her punishment. She glanced at the red blotch on her hand for a brief moment, and then laid her head in Arkadiy’s shoulder, sobbing. Arkadiy patted her long, slender hair, like a lover might, and then turned his eyes to Isaak, a childish complaint on his lips. Isaak responded indignantly, and two men quickly started picking and punching at one another, squabbling like vigorous, irritated eagles with disjointed beaks.

Aleksandr and Karin rolled their eyes. Sergey and Vitaliy’s children bore mixed faces of excitement. Vasily’s sons laughed. Mikhail didn’t seem to notice.

Grigori wiped his face with a grunt, and then stood up before any of the adults, marched straight around the table, and used his wiry strength to force his two warring brothers apart. He fixed each of them with a steely, imperious gaze as he held them by their shirt collars.

“Keep your friends and yourself under control!” he hissed at Arkadiy, and turned to Isaak, “Yourself too!”

Most of the other younger ones settled down, but Kazimir, Leonid and Konstantin continued to snicker.

It should not be a surprise that these two young men had brawled, though. Isaak had never approved of Arkadiy’s oblivious habits, which oftentimes got in his way. He usually took to sardonic mockery, his nasal voice getting under Arkadiy’s skin, but as we have just seen, he had little compunction against force. Arkadiy, with his closed mind, never understood why he got on his younger brother’s wrong side. He wasn’t prone to getting into a fight either, but when it came to women, he always took the role of knight in shining armor.

Aleksandr let his eyes wander to their spot. All of the men were leaning in closely, speaking in low voices so as not to attract the attention of the younger ones. It wasn’t like them to talk business at the table, but they always made exceptions. The elder women, though part of the circle, carried on as if nothing was afoot.

He didn't like the sound or the look of it.

* * *

The corridor was unlit, save for a lamplight resting on a thin bureau against the copper-with-red-rose walls. Aleksandr leaned on one end of this bureau, a glass of Shiraz-Kotsifali in his hand, and his face sunken.

“Don’t drink too much of that after already drinking wine with dinner,” said a kind but deep, grinding voice. “It’ll make your head spin.”

Grigori stepped into the light.

Aleksandr let the corner of his mouth curl into a smirk.

“Do you want a glass?”

Grigori snapped his fingers, and in a few seconds Yana, primly and elegantly dressed, appeared with a bottle and a glass on a mirror-surface tray. He filled the glass halfway, graciously obliging when Grigori motioned for even more, and handed it to his young master.

“Anything else for you gentlemen?” Yana asked, in the silvery tone with which he always appraised those two young men, and which he reserved for few other members of the family.

Aleksandr and Grigori both shook their heads appreciatively, and Yana bid them both goodnight, vanishing into the blackness.

“After three years of Sangiovese I’m no longer in the mood for the pride of Tuscany,” Aleksandr said.

They both chuckled, and before they stopped Grigori put in, “I don’t blame you.”

Aleksandr studied his brother. Grigori stood a few inches higher and he, and with an iron-bending build. He bore a cracked, sallow and boxed-in face with a thick mouth for a man of twenty-five, wiry, dark-brown hair that was thinning, and piercing green eyes, but beneath which lay a well of conviction, marked with a tinge of disdain. Aleksandr knew full well it was from watching the family power deteriorate and witnessing deals go bad.

One time, before Grigori’s twenty-second birthday, the family had caught wind of a rival family staging a power deal outside of Kiev. In response, Fyodor ordered that the exchange be monitored and the money stolen, and Mikhail, leading the operation, let his guard down. Retaliation by the traders went badly, but only because Grigori, acting as backup for Mikhail, had intervened. He saved Mikhail’s life, but at the cost of the skin of his left cheek from a gunshot. The scar, though faded, remained a black-and-blue to this day, and seemed to come alive whenever Grigori frowned.

Grigori was an idealist, but in the cruelest sense of the word. He was relatively young, but a man nevertheless, and already a killer. It wasn’t hard to see why Fyodor favored him over Mikhail, despite Mikhail being the firstborn male.

“I’m leaving early tomorrow to secure a heroin transfer,” Grigori said darkly. “I wanted to say goodbye.”

So that’s what Father and they were talking about.

“Whereto?”

“Kiev again.”

Hm.

“Who’s going with you?”

“Mikhail, along with Lazar and the rest of his and my men.”

Aleksandr chuckled again. Like Yekaterina, Lazar Boleslavovich Vossky had parents that had both served the family prominently, and had been friends with her during childhood. Close friends. And now she was Aleksandr’s fiancée. He wasn’t sure about what to make of it. He let out a breath.

“Well, just keep on your toes,” he remarked, “I don’t imagine Katrasov is going to soon forget us thieving his capitol. And you know what’ll happen if you dig into those drugs, too; Grandfather will whip your ass and cast you out if not kill you.”

“Don’t worry,” Grigori replied, “you know me.”

“I know you’re bound to get into trouble.”

“I’m good at making it.”

“Of course you are,” Aleksandr laughed, and they embraced heartily, clapping each other on the back.

“No drugs or thugs?”

“No drugs or thugs.”

“Take care, now.”

“You too.”

And then Grigori was gone, just like Yana.

* * *

Aleksandr awoke smoothly the next morning. The sun was shining, and the air was cooler than it had been the previous day. Summers in Russia were usually brutal, but this was a favorable day. When he roused, Yekaterina was still asleep, so he took advantage of her slumber to drape her large, curly black hair over her face and bury his head in her breasts, kissing them. She slapped him in the face upon waking, but they both laughed at it, and kissed for nearly ten minutes before getting out of bed.

Yana brought up their breakfast as he did every day, and left them to dine, off as he was to serve members of the family with whom he was less cordial, or more. After they finished, which took about an hour, wearing bathrobes over their pajamas and nightgown, they exited their room, arm in arm and merry in the face. As they marched down the staircase, they saw that the adults were gathered in the main lounge and waved. All eyes turned to them and narrowed affectionately, Valeriya and Sergey especially. Vasily let his eyes droop and shrugged frivolously.

Then the happy pair stopped in their tracks as the door from the lounge to the front section of the house below flung open and Lazar came rushing in. Although his hair was short, any longer hair he might have had would’ve been awry, for his body was shaken. His words seemed terrified, hiccupping.

Sergey and Vitaliy’s faces melted like chocolate in front of a furnace. Valeriya’s legs buckled and collapsed as tears began to trickle from her clamped eyelids. Yekaterina hurled herself downstairs to help as Yevgeniya and the other women brought her over to rest on the sofa. Vasily’s cheeks and brows steeled and he gritted his teeth, which seemed like fangs beneath his mustache. Fyodor grew red in the cheeks and began to pace, his breath becoming an audible hiss.

Aleksandr trembled as he made his way downstairs.

“What is it?” he asked Sergey, quivering.
“Grigori is dead,” was the reply.

* * *

That evening, most of the lights in the house were turned off. Aleksandr was again in his room, but this time alone. Yekaterina was in Karin’s room, trying to comfort her, as Nastasya and Radoslava consoled Valeriya in her great despair. Meanwhile, the family maid had gone into town to purchase supplies for the women. Yevgeniya went with her, in an attempt to exhaust her own tears.

The loss of Grigori was like a great hollow pit, hopelessly black.

Aleksandr took a tissue and blew his nose, so hard that it might as well have been a train whistle. Livid, he hurled the crumpled piece of paper, harder than he had meant to, through the door and onto the blue-and-violet carpeted hallway floor that Yana had just vacuumed. He cursed himself, banging his fist against his head, and then walked out his door to pick it up.

As he did, however, a shape in the corner of his eye caught his attention.

Arkadiy had his body and ear pressed against the wall.

Walking soundlessly down the hallway, he saw that the door to the upstairs study was ajar, and a lance of golden light emanated from the slit. He leaned forward slightly and peered through.

The lights were on, and Sergey, Vasily, Vitaliy and Fyodor all stood in a circle, arguing in hushed tones and making small but aggressive hand gestures. In a corner, Yegor sat in his chair, hands resting on the polished wooden arms, and watching tersely.

“…my firstborn son!” he heard Fyodor mutter. “If I were not already planning to disinherit him it would be a disgrace!”

“We need to plan this out,” Vitaliy warned forebodingly.

“Plan?!” Fyodor snarled, “every minute we wait, Katrasov is making his next move!”

“We’re all angry, Fyodor, but yours is going to your head,” Sergey said, flustered, “and merely pointing the gun back at Katrasov and pulling the trigger isn’t going to accomplish anything.”

“Sergey is right,” Vitaliy said, “Katrasov has family and friends. He isn’t alone.”

“But neither are we!” Vasily steamed. “We need to do something or the other families will think we are cowards and encroach on us!”

“So we shall! But we cannot afford to be so straightforward,” Sergey said.

Sighs.

“So Mikhail sold out Grigori,” Sergey observed furiously.

“I thought he had given up on pursuing the role of heir,” Vitaliy said, “We should’ve kept a closer eye on him.”

“Damn correct!” Fyodor husked. “Tomorrow, he will be executed, with all male members of the family at witness, for his death and for what I will have to say to him.”

“But what’s this cock-and-bull about Lazar being there for a few extra minutes?!” Vasily said.

“I’m not sure,” Sergey said, shaking his head.

“The matter still isn’t over,” Yegor cut in, his voice weak but sufficiently clear. “A new heir must be named.”

“Sergey, you’re the first of our generation,” spoke Vitaliy, “Osip is your eldest son. Why not bring him to the front?”

“I am not the heir to Yegor,” Sergey replied firmly, “Fyodor is the de facto head. Then comes me, then you, then Vasily.”

Vasily twitched roughly, his eyebrows not losing their slant. But the others simply acknowledged him. Fyodor sighed darkly.

“My next-in-line,” he mused, as if beginning to ponder a great math problem.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Vasily growled. “Arkadiy is a weakling, and he cares about women and himself, more than anything else. You know as well as I do, Fyodor! He’s a womanizer and a drinking fool, not fit to survive the trade, unless we had no competitors and it only meant transporting alcohols!”

“So skip him, then!” Vitaliy put in, “he wouldn’t engage in the family business even if everyone told him to!”

“Nor has he yet done so,” Fyodor agreed. “That leaves…”

A chill engulfed Aleksandr’s flesh. Arkadiy glanced at him, his face melted.

“Aleksandr is young,” Sergey stated, “he needs some time at least.”

“And he shall have it then!” Fyodor snapped. “But sooner or later the future patriarch needs to be groomed for his role!”

They dispersed, a signal that the debate was drawing to an end. Aleksandr felt the blood in his upper body churning.

“I’ll go along with this,” Vasily said to Fyodor, “but only as long as my sons are involved more often in the business.”

“So be it, then!”

* * *

Morning in the house. All of the men in the family, from Dmitriy to Yegor, were gathered in the parlor. The women had been told to remain outside the house until the afternoon. All in the room were standing up, except for Mikhail who was sitting nervously in a chair, untied but under the vigil of two armed guards.

Fyodor snorted.

“Pathetic boy!” he spat. “If the rest of your brothers were gone, your uncles would still have sons of their own to replace them! Thought you could be patriarch again? On your own? We don’t play Machiavelli on our own. We are a family, and we play Machiavelli as a family!”

Mikhail sat silent, his head shaking back and forth along the floor, as if he was trying to keep his gaze up with a scurrying rat.

Aleksandr let his eyes wander. He wasn’t sure of how he’d feel about Mikhail’s fate. But then he noticed something; there was not one chair but two. Mikhail was sitting in one; the other was empty.

Fyodor gestured towards the door. Two more guards marched in, dragging Lazar and keeping guns on him to make sure he stayed in the empty chair.

Aleksandr’s heart took a little shock. But if Lazar was to be dealt with, there was likely a reason for it.

“What’s the meaning of this?!” Lazar demanded.

“You know full well!” Sergey said contemptuously.

“I informed you about Mikhail!” Lazar cried.

“After Grigori was killed!” Vitaliy shouted.

“I was uncertain!”

“Even if you were, your uncertainty makes you a liability!” Fyodor continued the lecture. “But if you knew that Mikhail was working behind our backs, you must’ve known something else!”

Lazar sat back, defeated. Fyodor did not waste his time to press the matter.

“It was convenient, wasn’t it? When he took you for a few more minutes of meeting time! Mikhail wasn’t the ideal heir to the family and Katrasov knew it, eh? He found the both of you and you sang to him!”

“About what?!”

“About Yekaterina! You told Katrasov that she was engaged to Aleksandr, and so he planned to have you intentionally inform us about Mikhail’s betrayal, to make us think that while Grigori was gone his remaining brothers still had a loyal friend and servant in you! From there, you would stab Aleksandr and Isaak in the back and I would have no worthy sons left! I would be made a fool in the eyes of my competitors and encourage them to encroach upon the family! Is that what it was?!”

Lazar’s head and eyelids sank. That meant a yes.

“Aleksandr!” Fyodor barked, without turning his head.

Stifling a jump in his lungs, Aleksandr walked forward. The older men parted to make way for him, and rested their cold eyes on his face.

Fyodor approached him, a black Makarov pistol in his hand. When Aleksandr hesitated, Fyodor placed the gun in his hand. His hesitation did not cease.

“Why must it be me who kills them?” he asked lowly.

“You must know what it’s like to kill,” Vasily answered swiftly, taciturn as ever.

Aleksandr had seen this coming, but had hoped they would not actually tell him to do it.

He stared at the gun in his hand and sighed. What would Yekaterina say to this? She admired Fyodor, and Grigori, but she loved Lazar as well. Would she believe if she was told that Lazar planned to betray him too? Would she understand if he killed Lazar? Or would she think he murdered him?

It was pointless to argue, he knew deep down. Grigori, the best of his father’s children, was dead; the eldest had betrayed the family; the next-eldest was unwilling to partake in the family business. If he backed out, he would be simply repeating what Mikhail and Arkadiy had demonstrated, and Isaak was still too young to carry out something as terrible as an execution. If the task fell to any of Sergey’s, Vitaliy’s or Vasily’s sons, it would be an extended reflection on Fyodor as a failed member of the family, not only in the eyes of Katrasov and other rivals, but also in Yegor’s. Besides, Yekaterina had chosen him, when she had known Lazar for far longer. She would not love him any longer for this. A weak assertion, but nonetheless…

Aleksandr swallowed without letting his mouth open.

“Step away,” he ordered, echoing Fyodor’s disciplinary note.

The older men promptly parted, followed by the rest. He could feel their approval of him in their relaxing gazes. It almost sickened him. Waiting a second, he then nodded to the guards. They hoisted Mikhail and Lazar to their feet.

Aleksandr took one long glance at each of the two men, abhorring their uneasy faces, and took a deep, silent breath.

The Makarov discharged with two bloodcurdling cracks.