Even by December standards it was frigid. Despite three layers, plus his lined coat and wool ushanka, Vasya shivered. Next to him, wearing his trademark red nylon track jacket, knit cap and tank top, Kolya was implacably red-cheeked and cheerful. He was puffing away on yet another cigarette; he went through the things the way some people went through water.
"We've seen a few of the younger ones so far. Ren and Stimpy, Snout, Short Tail. Some of the previous litters." How Kolya could tell one rat from another, even in the dim light of an alley, was as much a mystery to Vasya as the man's apparent superhuman immunity to cold. "Mommas have to come out soon; they got pups to feed…"
Listening to him talk about the rats, with their individual traits and quirks, not to mention the absurd names he made up for them, felt like behind-the-scenes access to an oddball nature documentary on public access television. It even helped Vasya ignore the biting wind. "They can't see us, can they?"
"Not likely," Kolya said, staring ahead at the darting shapes under the single sodium vapor light. "Their vision is terrible. But smell? Taste? That's where it's at, bratan. We're talking thousands of times better than ours. An entire galaxy of senses. They even make sounds we can't hear."
Vasya could feel his long legs cramping up from squatting down, and his arms stiffening by the minute. It had been a long, bitterly cold day, and the spicy chicken he'd eaten protested loudly in his gut. Worse, a small voice in his mind kept telling him he'd overlooked something. Still, he was enjoying the ground-level field biology lesson too much to leave. "Are you going to keep doing this? Once you graduate, I mean?" he asked.
"Maybe." Kolya shrugged. "If they money's right. Maybe I'll just go into business for myself. 'Nikolay Volkov, Esq.'" He gestured with his hands, like he was envisioning his future office. "You could be my lovely assistant. Get me coffee, answer phones…"
"That's not funny."
"Jesus, Vasya, lighten up. You're never going to be a real American if you're so serious all the time."
That made Vasya stiffen, and this time it had nothing to do with the cold. Ever since he'd met Kolya…gregarious, fearless, hilarious Kolyen'ka… it had become more apparent to Vasya how much like his own father he'd turned out to be, despite his trying, despite all the attempts at rebellion and subterfuge. Alexei Fet was stubborn, impassive, dogmatic, and utterly humorless. He'd been that way as long as his son could remember. Vasya had tried to distance himself at every opportunity from his father's long shadow. Had it all been futile? There had never been any other discussion when it came time to go to college: the best architecture program in the country, where he'd carry on a family tradition. It was simply the way it would be. Like father, like son.
And here he was instead, in the company of a man his father loathed, making homemade bombs by day, stalking wild rats in a seedy alley by night. His private insurgency continued.
Papa, it doesn't matter if you don't approve if you don't know about it…
"Are you even listening, Vasya? Look, before she runs away. That's Tsarina, one of the big mommas I mentioned…"
Apparently Kolya had been jabbering on nonstop, and Vasya had simply zoned out, the way he tended to whenever the Russian brooding side of him took over. Looking over the piles of garbage bags, he spotted the big dark shape atop a cardboard box. Even from where he was, he could see the rat was about the size of a toy dog.
"Shit, she's huge," said Kolya, whistling softly. "I'd seen her before, but she's really filled out. Must have had another litter."
Before he'd come to New York, Vasya had always thought of rats as mere vermin. Thanks to Kolya and their "hunting" excursions together, he still knew they were, but intelligent, highly adaptive, clever vermin. Their teeth, Kolya had once explained, were sharp enough to gnaw down concrete or copper wiring, and because those teeth never stopped growing, the city was one big 24/7 rat buffet. What about those high-rises in Manhattan? he'd asked. Kolya had laughed and assured him that nowhere in New York was truly rat-free. Like a virus. Man might hold them at bay, but could never eradicate them. Even the really high-end skyscrapers, from the Trump Tower to the Stoneheart building, were full of rats, according to Kolya.
"I hate to think of those poor bastards hunting these things day after day," Vasya said, his eyes following the female rat as she darted to the next pile of rancid Chinese food. "You never really win."
Kolya snorted. "The exterminators? Those guys are hardcore. They're always gonna have jobs, and most of them seem to like it. Sometimes, I call this one guy over in the city pest control office. From the old country, like us. Gives me tips on where to go to see the big 'muncher' nests. That's what they call 'em. Clever, huh?"
It was too bad, Vasya figured, that no one ever got rich doing work like that. For a moment he wondered what it would be like to spend all day as one of those "poor bastards" himself, to hunt munchers and get paid for it, not to mention providing a useful, practical service. He made a mental note to ask Kolya about the man in pest control.
The rats kept gnawing away at anything edible and a few things that weren't. The thoughts kept gnawing away in Vasya's mind. Kolya was an excellent friend and a better teacher, but he had the unintended effect of making him forget what time it was and where he was supposed to be.
