The Paper Wings

Recalled to Death

 I

“I hate my job!” spat Varian Pavlovich Cheremisinoff like a weary viper expectorating venom at random, just to spite the world.  His rangy form collapsed into his chair and his let out a long, discontented sigh. 

The nearest human being, and thus object of his malice, was his own Auntie Orya.   The old woman, hobbling past, turned to him her empty gaze. “I too hate you job,” she conceded with equal sting, “It is a very bad job.  On the rare occasion you are are home, you are unannounced and good for nothing but sulking!  Why is this house so big anyway?  Sasha is going hungry because I am to blind for all the working in this humunguous house!  Sasha too is blind and cannot find the food anyway!  Do you not see my woes?  Varian Pavlovich, if you do not feed my pug I will be very unhappy.  I am already very unhappy.”  Sasha, an incorrigible tank-shaped pug, trotted over on his stiff little legs to Varian and snarled. 

“Sasha!” Orya ordered, “Come away from that hateful man!”  With his tale curled in the air and his nose up the pug gave Varian one final snort of distain before trotting back to Orya’s heels. “Oh, dah, dah.  Who is Mommy’s favourite?”  

She annunciated favourite such that Varian knew had been replaced.   Auntie Orya  had hoped to offend Varian’s pride, but he was to possessed by his own brooding to be affected. Varian shaded his brow with one hand, massaging his throbbing temples  and muttering hoarsely, “It’s the worst job in the world.  It’s despicable and absolutely the worst, it’s completely obscene and if I have to sharpen one more stake, load one more silver bullet, I swear I’m putting it through my own head!”   

“What’s this?” creaked Auntie Tasha, Orya’s sister-in-law raised her small head and stared at Varian with her single eye.  Masha, pug number two raised her head as well and growled at Varian in union with Sasha.  Masha was more delicate than Sasha, but with a face so wrinkled it was hard to determine which feature was which.  Auntie Tasha, the only one who was actually Varian’s aunt simply shrugged and said.  “Complaints, complaints. That is all I hear! Bleh-bleh-bleh! It is too much for a lady’s ears to take!”   Natalia Alexandrevna, reclining on a damask settee next to her nephew’s stern, high-backed chair, was trying to read this week’s penny-dreadful.  Why a lady must endure such disagreeable society, she hadn’t the first notion.  The cold of the drafty manor made her bones ache, even though she was bundled in furs and blankets.  The cross words between Orya and Varian made her head  ache, even though she spoke twice as loud as they.  And Varian’s foul mood made her heart ache.  She found herself sinking into deeper dismay with every minute in their presence.   How no one noticed her obvious distress was absurdly insensitive, she thought.  

Orya squeezed into the settee between Natasha and a mound of pillows, and upsetting Masha.  She reached for her snuffbox, groping for a moment to find it.  “Well, if your nephew weren’t so sullen that he won’t even change a lightbulb, even though he knows he’s the only one tall enough to reach, I wouldn’t--” 

“He is a hero!” defended Natasha, slamming her book shut, and looking as though she might have hurled it at Orya.  “Can I not enjoy one nice, quiet evening with the pugs and the family!  Grab a book, have some coffee, but please have some patience with the boy.”  

Varian interrupted her, suggesting that if she needs work done about the place, there are more than enough capable lads to hire out down at the workhouse.  His eyes drifted to the empty window seat, with wide,  stained glass window arching over it.  “Playing  God isn’t heroism.  The trials are unfair.  I’d have left if I had the choice, or were I not the only one with a mind to cheat them--- this can’t last forever.  Traitors stink like a plague,” he said quietly with a wry, humorless smile.