Babayaga

will not die.” He drew a small revolver out of the holster beneath his suit jacket. “But of course you will.”
    Bendix aimed and fired and White’s head snapped to the side as he fell. Then, before his body had landed, the shrill sound of a patrolman’s whistle sounded and a voice shouted out from the brush, “ Police! Ne bougez pus. Lâchez vos armes .” The voice was familiar, but before Vidot—who was already bewildered at the great number of people popping up out of the park’s shrubbery—could put a face to the voice there was an even greater commotion as a strange and thunderous thumping noise began to fill the air, like rugs being beaten on a balcony, immediately followed by a wild chorus of piercing screeches.
    He heard Oliver yell “Run, Will!” and then, despite the policeman’s insistence that they stop, all the players in the conflict began fleeing in a variety of directions in what quickly became a blur of frantic action. A woman’s voice cried out. More guns were fired. Vidot, craning in vain to see exactly what was happening, could not focus on anything because the skull he was riding on was now tearing through the woods as fast as it possibly could. Navigation was clearly difficult in the dark, and various tree branches came flying in fast at Will’s head, almost scraping poor Vidot. Finally Will stopped, ducking behind a thick tree. He crouched down, breathing hard with panic but otherwise perfectly still, not even moving when the shouts and commotion from the now far-away voices began to fade. Vidot instinctively crouched down too, low on Will’s skull, as if hiding in his own thick forest.
    Nearby, a twig broke in the dark. Sensing what was about to happen, Vidot wanted to cry out a warning, Don’t move , don’t say a word . But he couldn’t.
    “Oliver?” Will whispered, peering into the dark. “Is that you?”
    The small gleam of light, perhaps from a distant streetlamp, caught the edge of the gun as the little man stepped out from the shadows. “No. I’m afraid it is not,” he said. “You will stay silent, please. My driver has the car waiting, parked right past the edge of the trees there. See his headlights? Yes, let’s go.”

Book Four

Really, nobody knows whether the world is realistic or fantastic, that is to say, whether the world is a natural process or whether it is a kind of dream, a dream that we may or may not share with others.
— JORGE LUIS BORGES , The Paris Review

I

    Maroc had awoken that day feeling desperate. Lying in his bed, he reflected on how he had only meant for this position to be a brief sojourn in his professional life, a mere stepping-stone to a more lucrative appointment. But lately it had appeared as if this post might wind up derailing his career entirely, for beneath his watch the entire district seemed to be breaking apart in uncontrolled insanity—why, only the night before he had received a report of a victim found with his eyes gouged out and his throat ripped open. To make it worse, neighborhood witnesses had reported that the man had been killed by a chicken.
    Enough, thought Maroc. He would have to assert himself more forcefully. He could not have episodes like this—along with police officers simply disappearing off the face of the earth—occur without consequences. The criminals must be found and then they must pay or, as his superior, Papon, had told him yesterday in what had been a very short, curt chat, Maroc himself would pay.
    But now, only hours later, the wheel of fortune had turned again and Maroc was feeling a sense of radiant confidence and dawning possibility that made him almost ecstatically hopeful that things were changing for the better. After a week in which he sensed the whole world conspiring against him, good news finally began arriving. He learned the first piece of it that morning when, as he came into work, it was reported to him that Bemm and Vidot’s police patrol car had been recovered. Better still, the suspected thief was locked up downstairs in his jail. Maroc had immediately grabbed Lecan out of his office and the two headed down to the cells. Ignoring all the hissing and lurid catcalls from the prostitutes, they found the cell with the ancient woman sitting cross-legged on her bunk, chewing on a hunk of dry bread. She did not acknowledge them as they watched her through the bars. None of them said a word, and after a few minutes the two men turned and left her alone again.
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