the fern blossoms on Kupala Night

by plumedy

Summary:

Kivrin, Junta, and navigating a trade union meeting.

Notes:

• For hamsterwoman.

Dear recip,

thank you so much for your lovely prompts - this was very fun to write :D I hope you enjoy your gift and I wish you a happy New Year! <3🎄

The beige wall in front of me, vaguely the shade of dried-up Korovka caramels, sported a state flag hanging off a metal flagpole. In its shade nested three overlapping profiles so universally recognisable that my eyes automatically glazed over when I looked at them. Of course, it was only yet another iteration of-

Hm.

Of course, these were merely Marx, Engels, and-

My vision cleared. Something about that third profile interrupted the customary pattern of facial hair shapes that adorned the walls of every official institution in Solovets. Instead of Ilyich, yet another Marx was eyeing me with a kind of subtle contempt, his beard bristling forward in the generous shape of a bread loaf.

"We were out of Lenins," I heard someone whisper frantically. "Our last one broke and the blasted club doesn't have a spare. This is a place of chaos and disorder. I don't know why comrade secretary insists on using it to conduct the monthly meetings."

Modest Matveevich Kamnoedov breathed indignantly into my ear, clearly showing that the lack of Lenins was a personal affront to him.

For my part, I was merely happy that he chose to confide in me rather than in, say, Feodor Simeonovich. Kivrin was bad at navigating bureaucratic absurdities at the best of times, and I feared that he would've simply burst out laughing and earned himself an extra spot on tonight's trade union meeting's agenda.

As it was, I pushed my glasses up my nose with an expression of boredom and began doodling on a punched card. This was a piece of an algorithm I'd written a few days ago at, surprisingly, Naina Kievna's request. She bribed me with a slice of chocolate raspberry cake and gave me a suspiciously specific list of conditions that, in the end, were supposed to produce a single integer value. I was hazy on what that figure represented. The calculation included such intriguing variables as "the number of mature toads in Solovets during the last lunar cycle" and "the current density of zits on comrade Pirozhkova's face", as well as constant C that equalled the hour when fern blossoms on the Kupala Night. I had to ask Roman about that one. ("2.13 minutes past midnight," he informed me kindly, and gave me five roubles. "But if anyone's been telling you about the treasure it points to, Sasha, forget about it. It's not worth it after tax deductions. Here, buy yourself something.")

This particular punched card came out a bit crooked and was unsuitable for my machinery's sensitive insides. So I used it to draw a cartoonish sketch of Vybegallo, cowering before a heroic Roman with a black cape and a massive claymore.

I mentioned Feodor Simeonovich earning himself an extra spot on the agenda. The matter of fact was, his most recent project represented one of the main points of contention at tonight's meeting. This was not unusual, since unlike the many hairy-eared functionaries of NIICHAVO, Kivrin strove for nothing less than genuine scientific improvement; and there were few things the trade union despised quite as much as efficient change.

However, normally he dealt with it well. He'd stride into the room with a swish of a blue star-studded Spanish scarf Junta had once gifted him in an uncharacteristic fit of generosity, radiating an aura of indestructible optimism. He'd hand out a few cups of tea to those who seemed most affected by the intermittent nature of the central heating in the club building and joke about passing a resolution to improve the weather. Thus mollified, the committee would be disinclined to give him a hard time about whatever it was he was applying for, whether it was a rainbow generator or a rocking chair for a grandmother he employed to knit warm socks.

Today, however, nothing seemed to be going Feodor Simeonovich's way. Possibly this had something to do with the presence of Amvrosiy Ambroisovich Vybegallo, who always insisted on active and passionate participation in NIICHAVO trade union meetings.

"Comrade Kivrin," the secretary said, sounding bored. "We appreciate the importance of the work you do for the institute, but Room 216 is already occupied by another department."

"The D-department of D-dialectic Immaterialism no longer exists," Feodor Simeonovich countered wearily. It was obvious this was not the first time he was arguing about this. "The room's just gathering d-dust, and for what?"

The secretary adjusted his lapel and twirled a pen between his fingers. "It exists as far as the institute's accounting department is concerned." He was also evidently having an argument he'd gone through many times. "So I cannot justify turning the premises over to you even if this is, as you claim, necessary for the improvement of your staff and subjects' wellbeing."

"What I c-claim is immaterial," Kivrin parried, his usually amicable tone growing heated. "It is obvious to anyone with a b-brain that the human happiness quotient d-decreases in crowded quarters. Not to m-mention the m-mice."

"That, comrade Kivrin, is a profoundly seditious thought," Vybegallo piped up from his place behind a heavy lacquered wooden desk he'd taken a liking to when the club was first given to the institute. "Communal living should be a source of happiness for every citizen, n'est-ce pas? What are we but an anthill full of hard-working ants, each, mmhm, fulfilling his own role in the grand machine of socialism?"

This was an obvious load of tripe and normally Feodor Simeonovich would've generously ignored it. However, having to resist both Vybegallo and the trade union committee was clearly taking a toll on him. Kivrin was the type of mage who dealt better with being burnt at the stake or having his nostrils pulled out than with being browbeaten by bureaucrats. His figure drooped a little, like a bluebell in heavy rain.

I was about to stand up and say something injudicious myself when a clear acerbic voice from behind me interrupted Vybegallo's tirade.

"Ants, machines," Cristobal Junta said crisply. "Your metaphors are rather running away from you, comrade Vybegallo."

I snickered at the pun. Meanwhile, Junta rose up and made his way to the front of the room, smoothly positioning himself between Kivrin and Vybegallo's desk. I could see Amvrosiy Ambroisovich shrink a little in his seat. Even he knew a quarrel with Junta was bad news.

"You're nitpicking my language," he muttered. "Very bourgeois of you, indeed, very narrow-minded, Cristobal Josevich..."

He knew better than to call Junta comrade. Junta gave him one last withering glance and made a dismissive gesture, like a butcher putting down his knife after carving a good slice of meat.

"And as to Teodor's request," he continued, now turning his hypnotic attention to the secretary, "I agree there are better uses for room 216."

This turn of events left me, I confess, somewhat disappointed. I should've remembered Cristobal Josevich's ruthlessness; but in a way I suppose I did expect him to defend Kivrin, if only because he was - dare I say it - a friend. Junta was not an easy man to have a close relationship with. Apart from being a luminary, he was, frankly speaking, intimidating. Although he and I had a few moments of camaraderie amidst our bickering over his use of the Aldan, at the end of the day I always preferred to retreat to the safety of Roman Oira-Oira's lab, where I would be enthusiastically treated to chicory cardamom coffee and an abstract or ten of Roman's newest work.

But Feodor Simeonovich and Junta were mages of equal standing, and despite all their differences, they seemed to find something compelling in each other. Evidently, though, this was not enough to unite them before the trade union committee.

Ruminating that I shouldn't have underestimated the strength of their academic rivalry, I watched the proceedings unfold further.

Junta took a sip of tea from his porcelain gzhel cup, his little finger sticking out. "Room 216 should be given to me," he purred. "I have just the project in mind. It requires an empty lab for safety purposes, you see, comrade secretary."

The secretary looked fairly ambushed. I could see the veins on his hand stand out as he gripped the edge of his desk.

"What kind of a project, Cristobal Josevich?" he asked.

"I've long had the ambition to find a use for the Banach-Tarski paradox in solving the problem of meaninglessness," Junta confessed. "If it could be harnessed to calculate meanings from previously existing ones, that would potentially allow for infinite usable material to be derived from only a shred of existential motivation. The resulting minor structural damage to the surroundings is more than worth the philosophical yield of such an experiment."

The secretary no doubt understood little from this abstruse explanation, but what he did understand seemed to have caused him some considerable alarm. In this he was not alone; I heard Kamnoedov gasp behind me and move his chair with a creak, as if preparing to jump up with an objection.

"The committee will have to discuss this, of course," the secretary said weakly. "We must put the matter to the vote. But you will excuse me now, Cristobal Josevich - I believe it is time for a smoke break."

The institute workers began rising from their chairs and moving towards the exit, chatting between themselves. Kivrin left among the first, and I hurried after him; Junta remained, submerged in his own secret room-requisitioning thoughts.

Feodor Simeonovich seemed to be less saddened by his failure to secure a new lab than I was. Of course, the man was hard to upset by anything; truthfully, I thought sometimes that he would've done better to study his own self to discover the secret of human happiness, rather than trying to find it in rainbows and antonovka apples.

Not only did he remain upbeat, but he made sure to take care of others, too. There was a genuine kindness about his manner that chastened even Kamnoedov, and I was no exception in being susceptible to Kivrin's stuttering paternal charm.

"Now, now," he boomed warmly, putting his index finger against my besweatered chest. "I can see you're g-getting upset over my bureaucratic d-defeat, Aleksandr Ivanovich. No need."

"When Cristobal Josevich attacked Vybegallo, I was sure he was about to defend you," I said indignantly. "And what was that carry-on about Banach-Tarski? Hypothetically that could work, sure, but he cannot truly mean to try it within the walls of the institute."

Feodor Simeonovich leaned against the wall next to the conspicuously large dry powder fire extinguisher. The club pointedly requisitioned it before handing the building over to NIICHAVO. Clearly the institute's safety record was a matter of some debate in the wider Solovets community.

"I am sure C-cristo is right and his work is of greater importance," he said, his expression thoughtful. He absently conjured a Rot Front "Batonchik" candy and put it into my angrily raised palm.

I was about to give him a piece of my mind on the importance of Junta's research when none other than Junta himself appeared before us like a jack-in-the-box.

I had not seen him emerge out of the room despite the door being directly in my line of sight. I found that suspicious.

"Alejandro," he acknowledged, with a blinding smile. "Teodor."

Something was beginning to dawn on me.

"C-cristo, you're the d-devil himself," Kivrin cried delightedly. "I could've sworn that was you in there!"

"Oh, no, only a particularly successful double, if I do say so myself."

Junta looked as close to a tom who's eaten a stick of butter as I'd ever seen him look. "He'll spend some time in there yet elaborating in grrruesome detail on the supposed damage I'm about to inflict on the institute's property," he added, rolling the "r" in "gruesome" with some relish. "After that I set him up to vanish into thin air. In view of my obvious mental instability the committee is simply bound to approve your request, Teodor.”

“I can't see how you can be so sure, Cristobal Josevich,” I said with grudging admiration, still chafing a little on Kivrin's behalf.

“I leave nothing to chance,” Junta replied, gesturing elegantly with one black-gloved hand. “A slight manipulation of probabilities, courtesy of Naina Kievna and her coven...”

That's what the old bat wanted programmed. I wondered momentarily whether Junta had given her something in exchange or if she'd helped him in a rare outburst of altruism.

Cristobal Josevich bowed slightly, as if acknowledging a round of applause for a particularly flawless stage performance. “I took the liberty of asking Stella and one of your new laborants to transport some of your titration setups to room 216,” he concluded.

Junta had calculated everything. But where someone like him would respond to his cunning scheme with a knowing smile and an insinuation of future favours, Feodor Simeonovich had a rather different idea of expressing gratitude. Before I could blink, Junta was swept up in a bear hug, Kivrin's large hands thumping his back.

From the looks of it, Cristobal Josevich wasn't particularly accustomed to that sort of thing. Plainly, he looked flabbergasted by the experience. His limbs stuck out haphazardly like he didn't know quite where to put them. I had to bite my lower lip to refrain from laughing. Roman was going to love hearing about this.

“Now, now, Teodor,” Junta said feebly, “there's no need, I haven't accomplished anything extraordinarily difficult...”

“Nonsense,” Kivrin interrupted, his tone that of unabashed affection, “of course you d-did, C-cristo.”

“If you say so,” Junta responded, hanging meekly in his grip like a kitten held by the scruff of its neck. He seemed to have finally recovered from the shock, because he relaxed a little and gave Feodor Simeonovich a surprisingly gentle pat on the shoulder.

I felt a little bad for having suspected him of nefarious intentions. It seemed the former Grand Inquisitor wasn't completely incapable of friendship, after all.

I retreated diplomatically, leaving Junta and Kivrin to their victory celebrations. I rather thought that Junta's double was going to be the centre of attention for the rest of the meeting, ensuring that not even Vybegallo would notice my absence if I went to have a cup of coffee with Roman.