Deathless

by Catherynne M. Valente

If the world is divided into seeing and not seeing, Marya thought, I shall always choose to see.

Magic does that. It wastes you away. Once it grips you by the ear, the real world gets quieter and quieter, until you can hardly hear it at all.

“Excellent! All house matters must immediately be brought to the attention of the komityet! Come! We will make a report! We will file paperwork! We will make formal complaints!”

There is no better teacher of rough necessity than bad luck, and you will have great use of me, I promise. Keep your bread. Keep your tears. Neither will help you, and you will work hard to outgrow need of them.

But if I may teach you anything, it will be to relish everything, to devour it all

Therefore, it is better to be strong and cruel than to be fair. At least, one eats better that way. And morality is more dependent on the state of one’s stomach than of one’s nation.”

savor bitterness—it is born of experience. It is the privilege of one who has truly lived. You, too, must learn to prefer it. After all, when all else is gone, you may still have bitterness in abundance.”

Let the truth be told: There is no virtue anywhere. Life is sly and unscrupulous, a blackguard, wolfish, severe. In service to itself, it will commit any offense. So, too, is Death possessed of infinite strategies and a gaunt nature—but also mercy, also grace and tenderness. In his own country, Death can be kind. But of an end to their argument, we shall have none, not ever, until the end of all.

Zemlehyed spat again. “But Zemya,” she whined, “I’m bored! Why don’t I interrogate you again? It’ll be fun! I’ll leave my safety on this time, I promise.”

Did she enjoy punishing or rewarding more? Marya could not say. Everything in Buyan had a different pleasure to it, if only one learned how to find it.

To be Deathless is to treat with death in every moment. To stave death is not involuntary, like breathing, but a constant tension, like balancing a glass on the head.

“War is not for winning, Masha,” sighed Koschei, reading the tracks of supply lines, of pincer strategies, over her shoulder. “It is for surviving.”

patience for innocent girls, unless they have apples in their mouths and are on speaking terms with my soup pot.”

Let your old baba take you on an … expedition. It’ll be good for you! Morally fortifying, like having a good stare at a graveyard. A body needs a good memento mori to flush out the humors.”

“That’s how you get deathless, volchitsa. Walk the same tale over and over, until you wear a groove in the world, until even if you vanished, the tale would keep turning, keep playing, like a phonograph, and you’d have to get up again, even with a bullet through your eye, to play your part and say your lines.”

Do you have any idea how much I know about men? And women! Don’t look so shocked—after an eon or two of being a wife you’ll want one of your own, too.

Don’t be innocent, Marya. Innocent means stupid. Follow your friend, who is a goblin and knows better, and we’ll have raskovnik salad before dawn.” But if I am not innocent, are there lies in my heart? Smears on my soul? Am I a devil? What does it mean, to be one of

Whenever I get married, I always wear a caul ripped off of twin calves. Makes me young, makes me beautiful like a dollop of butter, makes me blush and tug my braids and pray in churches and bow down, humble as manure. The boys can’t resist it! They come panting with their cocks on a silk leash, their balls painted gold for my pleasure. I give them a night on my knees, just like they like, sweet and obedient and dumb as a thumbnail, confused by their mysterious bodies, oh my, so much stronger than mine! Then they wake up and—ha! There is Baba Yaga in their beds, extra warts, teeth like spikes, and the soup pot already red on the hearth. It’s a good trick. You should see their faces!” “I’m not like that.”

“Everyone is a criminal! We are beset on all sides by antirevolutionary forces. Naturally, then, humans fall into three categories: the criminal, the not-yet-criminal, and the not-yet-caught.”

Blue is for cruel bargains; green is for daring what you oughtn’t; violet is for brute force. I will say to you: Coral coaxes; pink insists; red compels. I will say to you: You are dear to me as attar of roses. Please do not get eaten.” Madame Lebedeva leaned

“Volchya, you must swear it. What do horses swear on?” “Nothing.” Volchya spoke with a strange accent, his brassy deep voice pinched and contorted. “Horses are godless. There is only the rider, and the whip. But I promise.” “Take me home, Volchya.”

but you will notice that everything living has a mouth. Mouths bite and swallow; they talk; they taste. They kiss. A mouth is the main tool for living. The mortar is like a very vicious spaniel. It is alive in some sense, but you wouldn’t set it a place at dinner.

wants a mistress, and it is accustomed to one who is ancient and strong, whose thighs can crush it between them, whose iron hips drive it home. You will never manage it.”

“I am Marya Morevna, daughter of twelve mothers, and I will not be denied,” she whispered to the girl in the mirror.

She rode the mortar and pestle like a savage thing, ripping through the night.

You will kill dogs, and hound old women in the forest, and betray any soul if it means having what you desire, and that makes you wicked, and that makes you a sinner, and that makes you my wife.”

You are mostly right, my love. But still wrong. She could say none of it, but she saved it in her chest, where it did not need to be spoken.

There need never be any rules between us. Let us be greedy together; let us hoard. Let us hit each other with birch branches and lock each other in dungeons; let us drink each other’s blood in the night and betray each other in the sun. Let us lie and lust and take hundreds of lovers; let us dance until snow melts beneath us. Let us steal and eat until we grow fat and roll in the pleasures of life, clutching each other for purchase. Only leave me my death—let me hold this one thing sacred and unmolested and secret—and I will serve you a meal of myself, served on a platter of all the world’s bounty. Only do not leave me, swear that you will never leave me, and no empress will stand higher.

Between us there must be no lies. To the world we may lie and go stalking with claws out, but not to each other. It is only fair:

“Death stands behind every bride, every groom. Even as they say their vows, the flowers are rotting in her crown, his teeth are rotting in his head. Cancers they will not notice for thirty years grow slowly, already, in their stomachs. Her beauty browns at the edges as the ring slides up her finger. His strength saps, infinitesimally, as he kisses her. If you listen in the church, you can hear my clock tick softly, as they tock together toward the grave. I hold their hands as they stride proudly down the very short road to dotage and death. It’s all so sweet, it makes me cry. Let me kiss your bride on both cheeks, Life. Let me feel her hot blood slowly cool against my eyelids.”

Ivan did not believe in God. Not really, the way he believed in breakfast, in butter, in cigarettes.

“Like a passion play. Like a sacrifice. It is certainly not my fault.” Ivan looked towards the black tent.

did. Then I must be the devil. And she the devil’s bride. Aren’t you lucky, to have fallen in with such exciting people?”

She did not have a girl’s body anymore; her hips were a lion’s hips, her chest strong and muscled, her legs trained to leap and run and kneel to fire. Scars marked her skin like constellations,

“He is the Tsar of Life, and blood is life. So is soup and vodka and baths and fucking.

“You hardly knew Koschei. Abduction is a marvelous icebreaker.”

“When do you feel most alive, Marya, but when you are closest to death? That is where I live. That is what my body is made of.”

Miserable means miserable. What can you do? You live through it, or you die. Living is best, but if you can’t live, well, life is like that, sometimes. So now I stop everything, and I say it is time for the dead to talk with the dead, and Zvonok has the floor, if there is a floor left to have.

said them a domovoi’s mass, but no one heard me because grief is louder than praying.

And then Ivan died in her arms, his last breath spiraling up to the ceiling like cigarette smoke.

This is Russia and it is 1952. What else would you call hell?”

Yes, you are dead. And I and my family and everyone, always, forever. All dead, like stones. But what does it matter? You still have to go to work in the morning. You still have to live.”