Necromantic

People had only one dilemma regarding the unfortunate Anatoly. The gossip boiled down to the question of whether Anatoly was asexual or, in fact, a necrophile. And when such a dilemma exists regarding anyone, it is an ominous sign. Nothing good came of Anatoly’s life story; on the contrary, the poor wretch ended up in the embrace of a straitjacket, within the padded walls of an asylum cell, and between the electrodes of an electroconvulsive therapy machine. But not because of the gossip. Rumors do not yet possess the power to send people to the madhouse.

It was, rather, due to the long path Anatoly had walked—spanning nearly his entire life, beginning back when he was a primary school student. That path began at the city cemetery in Nizhny Novgorod, in the early seventies—during the gloomy Soviet era, in an old city on the fringes of European Russia. The procession was sorrowful and mournful, as one would expect at the funeral of an eleven-year-old girl. Young Anatoly was present, too, unable to tear his eyes away from the girl. His gaze was fixed with an intensity that an air-to-air missile could never match when locking onto its target.

For a missile has no soul. But Tolya Moskvin did.

The fixation could not be limited merely to gazing at the corpse. He felt something pulling him toward her, as if he heard a woman’s voice telling him to draw closer. The poor wretch made his way to the coffin and planted a shy kiss on the deceased woman’s forehead. Then, another on her lips—thereby sealing his emotional life forever.

It is not known when he first heard of Michael Scott.

No, this was not the endearingly irritating Michael Scott from *The Office*, but the man who believed the dead could be brought back to life through specific rituals and chemical formulas—the Scottish mathematician, astrologer, and necromancer who had been forgotten since the Middle Ages, a time when he was considered one of Europe’s greatest intellectuals. And a sorcerer. That was, however, before the trend of using sorcerers as firewood came into vogue.

Sometime during high school, or perhaps while pursuing his studies in Philology and Linguistics—which the exceptionally intelligent Anatoly Moskvin completed with top honors—he developed an interest in Celtic mythology; it may well have been there, amidst the vast university library in Moscow, that the name and work of Michael Scot emerged from the shadows, guided by the labyrinths of fate. In any case, Tolya carved out a modest yet relatively stable career on the fringes of the academic job market—teaching, working as an assistant, translating, proofreading, writing for magazines and newspapers, publishing eccentric works, and laboring over his life’s work.

That work was an inventory of every grave in the Nizhny Novgorod region—a sort of database of all the deceased, spanning from the inception of burial record-keeping to the present day. He pursued this somewhat morbid undertaking with the support of several colorful characters, such as Oleg Ryabov and Alexey Lesin, who backed him both verbally and financially. Alexey published a bizarre magazine dedicated to all things related to death—a publication to which our Tolya was, naturally, a frequent contributor.

But Anatoly was profoundly lonely. In Novgorod, and especially in Moscow—lonely in the way one can only be in a city of millions; the most terrible kind of loneliness, worse than that of the Arctic or the Sahara. Because there are people at every turn. Yet not a word is spoken. No friendly smile.No carefree chatter.

Nothing at all.

Alongside the loneliness and the periods spent living with his parents—who supported (?!) his peculiar life path—mental illness entered the picture: allegedly paranoid schizophrenia. However, this diagnosis would only come later, after the denouement—perhaps merely as a way to slot Anatoly into a designated place in society. Anatoly never had a girlfriend; he didn't know how to interact with women. He was painfully shy, withdrawn, bewildered, and incredibly awkward in their presence. His self-confidence was lower than the Dead Sea; his gaze wandered aimlessly to avoid direct eye contact.

But, ultimately, he didn't need them.

At least, not in that form.

At least, not when they had a pulse.

Perhaps to conquer his solitude, perhaps to kill the emotional hunger, or to neutralize the sense of inadequacy stemming from his physical unattractiveness—or simply because he was a total madman—Anatoly began digging up graves. Graves of recently buried young women, aged eight to thirty. He could hear them calling out to him, telling him how hard it was for them beneath the marble slabs and monuments. How no one came to visit them. How everyone had forgotten them. Except for Anatoly—Tolya—the man who loved funerals. In total, he had exhumed some 150 graves, yet he had brought "only" 26 sets of remains back to his home.

Likely the ones that weren't too badly decomposed—the ones that could be, hmm... "saved"—much like those the accursed Michael Scott once "brought back" to life amidst the Scottish hills, through the mist and the stench of death. And at home, everything stood ready: a bathtub filled with salt and chemicals, heavy esoteric symbols scrawled across the walls, and books—books containing recipes from Michael Scott. And so, day after day, our madman dried and embalmed the corpses. He dressed them and applied makeup. Finally, he would "revive" them using the Scottish mathematician's rituals.

At least, in his own mind. There, they were alive once more, grateful that he had delivered them from their cramped wooden coffins. Grateful for his company. For the way he asked how they were doing. For the fact that he never forgot their birthdays.

But in one instance, the parents of a deceased girl—murdered by a drug addict in search of petty loot—were frequent visitors to the grave, seeking solace in their grief. And that grief turned to horror—an indescribable anguish—when they discovered the grave had been opened. And their daughter wasn't there, either. The police, the media, and the local grapevine were all alerted. And it wasn't particularly difficult—even in a place as grim as Russia—to find the culprit. He had never made a secret of his obsessions, anyway. The trail led straight to his apartment, through a chaotic mess of some 50,000 books and magazines, filth, and squalor. And so, the parents had to bury their little daughter a second time.

As for the other twenty-five embalmed "dolls"? No one knows. Presumably, they were buried at the municipality's expense. Arrested in November 2011, Anatoly was declared insane; consequently, he avoided prison and was committed to a psychiatric institution. His case was reviewed every two years. In 2013 and 2015, it was decided that he was still too mentally ill to be released. The same decision was reached in 2017 and 2019., meaning the earliest he could possibly be set free is 2019.

Anatoly swore he never had sexual relations with the corpses, insisting that the rumors of necrophilia were malicious and vile. And that was likely the truth; judging by what is known about necrophiles, they would never go to such lengths or expend so much effort just to satisfy their urges.

But who can say for sure...It is better to hope he is right.

All he ever wanted to do was walk through the cemetery. To lie down when he grew tired.

Upon someone’s eternal resting place.

To spend the night there.

In company.

Just like back then.

In the tedious Soviet seventies.

When he spent his first night in a cemetery, beside the grave of his first love...the only girl he had ever kissed in his life.

(Roger Mortis, 162)