Death And The Penguin, page 14
Out of the blue, and contrary to this logical line of thought, he remembered something that diverted him from it and made his blood run cold. And just as he seemed about to grasp what was going on, he was back where he started, with his attempt to solve an equation having two knowns and one unknown frustrated. What he had remembered was how the Chief had responded to his probing on the night when the car had been waiting to take him to the airport: The full story is what you get told only if and when your work, and with it your existence, are no longer required.
It had seemed then that he and the Chief were parting for ever. And Viktor had naturally thought that his work was now at an end, although the mystery unearthed in the Chief’s safe continued to disquiet him. But by the next day it was as if time had relegated that to the distant past. And the time distance created in imagination between past mystery and a Viktor now entering upon a new stage of existence, blunted interest in the former, regardless of his own obvious involvement. Better, he thought, not to know, yet still be alive – especially as it was now all over and done with.
And now it turned out that far from over and done with, it was still going on, with him still working, still paying especial attention to underlinings in red.
Was it worth trying to discover what was going on? Worth risking comfort – curious though it might be – and peace of mind? He would still have to write obelisks, still have to be needed in order to stay alive.
Again the Chief’s parting shot came to mind.
To hell with it, Viktor decided. Easier all round not to give it a thought.
Picking up the long-completed batch of military obelisks from the window ledge, he ran through the names and what he had written.
What difference did it make to him what happened to these generals? Or for what date some unknown person had planned their deaths and subsequent obituaries, the latter suggestive of their richly deserving to die?
If then his life was that dependent on his work, let that work continue. In which case it might be best simply to distance himself from what was going on. Not do anything foolish, like trying to disappear or lose himself in some other city – but, more simply: realize Nina’s dream – buy a little house in the country, move and live happily there, all four of them together, he writing his obelisks and sending them off to the city, as one might to another land where not all was as it should be.
Out of which thoughts he was jolted by Misha laying his head upon his knee, and looking down at the penguin, he stroked him.
“How about a move to the country?” he asked Misha, smiling wrily at the apparent unreality of his dreams.
56
As if to confirm yesterday as indeed the end of his holiday, Viktor sat now at his typewriter, sipping hot coffee and contemplating the new obelisk laboriously taking shape. The other half of the kitchen table was occupied by Sonya with her pencils and felt-tipped pens, Nina having gone somewhere that morning, leaving no note. But he wasn’t worried – she wouldn’t be long.
In the folder of new material brought by courier the evening before, as well as files on a number of representatives of the Ministry of Health, he had found an envelope of holiday pay. At least, those were the words typed on the slip of paper accompanying the $500. Money which gave a little lift to his creative spirit. Even so, progress was terribly slow. Words refused to deploy in battle formation, sentences scattered, only to be slaughtered by irritable x’s and reformed.
“Is it like him?” Sonya asked suddenly, showing her drawing.
He looked closely. “What’s it supposed to be?”
“Misha!”
He shook his head.
“It looks,” he said thoughtfully, “more like a chicken.”
Sonya frowned, looked at the drawing, and threw it on the floor.
“No good being cross,” he coaxed. “Learn drawing from life is what you’ve got to do.”
“How?”
“Just sit down in front of Misha, look at him, and draw. That’ll make it like him.”
Pleased with this idea, she gathered up pencils and felt tips, got a few more sheets of paper from Viktor, and set off in search of Misha.
Viktor went back to work. He managed, in the end, to get through the first obelisk, and having done so, massaged his temples. Clearly he was rusty.
A door banged.
Nina, he thought. The alarm clock on the window ledge showed just short of noon.
A minute later she looked into the kitchen.
“Hi!” She was all smiles.
His response was on the cold side.
“Notice anything?”
He looked. Same jeans, familiar sweater. No change.
He shrugged, looked at her, puzzled at first, then more closely.
“Well?” she urged, still smiling.
“Your teeth!” he exclaimed, astonished.
And it was – beautifully white, no trace of yellow. Hers was now the smile of the dentifrice advert.
He too smiled.
“At last!” She kissed him resoundingly on the cheek. “I had to wait a whole month. $400, and I could have had it done without waiting. I got it for $80 …”
Sonya came running in with a sheet of paper. “Nina, look! I’ve drawn Misha!”
She showed Nina, who squatted down, studied the drawing, and patted her on the back.
“Well done!” she said. “We’ll frame it and hang it on the wall.”
“Can we?” Sonya was delighted.
“Of course! So everyone can see it.”
Viktor also had a look. Her drawing had caught something of the penguin.
“Right!” said Nina standing up. “I think we all deserve a good lunch today, so clear the kitchen!”
Sonya took her drawing to the living room, and Viktor followed.
Nina was already behaving like the lady of the house, he thought, but he was not the least bit angry. On the contrary, he was even cheered by the thought.
57
The first drizzle of spring was falling. The snow in the courtyard had almost all melted, and only under bushes were doomed remnants of winter still to be seen in the shape of frozen lumps. Another few days and fresh green blades of grass would peep from the warm soil.
Viktor was sitting at the kitchen table, chair turned to the window, a cup of tea forgotten and growing cold beside him, staring down at the courtyard. He was looking forward to the warmth of spring. And although it was hardly likely to change his life, a certain vague, in no way justified feeling of hope brought a smile of pleasure to his face, as he saw the sunlight shafting through a light mix of bright and dark cloud.
The latest batch of obelisks lay ready in their folder on the table. He could ring the Chief and say the job was done, or he could wait another day, putting off work on the next batch for a bit.
Shifting his thoughts from the rain, he wondered who the next lot of obelisk notables would be. Cosmonauts? Submariners?
He had become accustomed to the files he received bringing together people already linked by interests or professions – military, health officials, State Deputies – and it no longer struck him as strange. The notebook he had opened when he started had lain forgotten since the Chief had called a halt to personal initiative in the choice of notables. After that, Viktor had given up reading papers in search of VIPs. He now worked exclusively on semi-finished material, in the form of detailed files. This was both easier and more suspicious. The more he worked, the more his suspicions grew, until they became the absolute certainty that this whole obelisk business was part of a patently criminal operation. The realization of this in no way influenced his daily life and work. And although he could not help thinking about it, he found it easier to do so every day, having recognized the complete impossibility of ever changing his life. Harnessed as he was, it was a question of hauling his load until he dropped. So he hauled.
The sitting-room phone rang, and the next moment Nina poked her head round the kitchen door.
“For you, Vik.”
He went and picked up the receiver.
“That you, Vik?” an unknown man’s voice enquired.
“Yes.”
“It’s me, Lyosha, remember? Gave you a lift from the cemetery.”
“Ah, hello.”
“Something rather important. I’ll be outside your place in 20 minutes. Come down when you see me.”
“Who was that?” Nina asked, seeing Viktor standing perplexed, still holding the receiver.
“Someone I know.”
“Sonya and I are learning to read, aren’t we, Sonya?”
“Yes,” the little girl confirmed, sitting on the settee with a book.
Hearing a car draw up outside, Viktor put on his jacket and went down.
“Get in,” said Lyosha.
The door banged shut. It was cold in the car.
“How’s the animal?” Lyosha asked amiably, stroking his beard.
“All right.”
“It’s like this,” his face grew serious. “I’d like to invite you and said animal to a certain occasion … Not exactly a jolly one, but there’ll be money in it.”
“What sort of occasion?” Viktor asked drily, becoming interested.
“The boss of some friends of mine has died. Funeral’s tomorrow. A big affair, as you can imagine. Bronze-handled coffin – cost a packet. I’d told them about your penguin, and now they’ve remembered … You and he are invited.”
“What for?” Viktor stared amazed.
“How shall I put it …” hesitant drawing in of lower lip. “A touch of style’s called for … And to have a penguin there would supply it, they thought. With a vengeance. Naturally suited, isn’t he, being black and white? … Get the idea?”
He did, though it all seemed like a stupid joke.
“Are you serious?” he asked, looking sharply at Lyosha and meeting an expression that was gravity itself.
“I’d call $1,000 for hire of a penguin serious,” he replied, forcing a smile.
“I’m not too happy about it,” Viktor confessed, finally convinced that Lyosha was serious.
“To be frank, you’ve no option,” declared the bearded Lyosha. “It’s an offer you can’t refuse. The departed’s friends could take it amiss … Don’t make problems for yourself. I’ll pick you up tomorrow about ten.”
Viktor got out and watched until the car disappeared around the block, heading for the road.
Back in the flat he locked himself into the bathroom. While the water ran, he stood in front of the mirror, staring, as if at a photograph he wanted to remember.
58
Next day they drove to the Baykov Cemetery in Lyosha’s ancient foreign-made car, Viktor and Misha in the back. They drove in silence.
At the cemetery entrance they were stopped by a young fellow in camouflage combat gear, who bent down at Lyosha’s window, nodded, and waved him on.
Monuments, railings flitted past. Viktor felt fit for nothing.
The avenue ahead was blocked by a cortège of parked foreign-made cars.
“We’ll have to walk a bit,” said Lyosha, turning to Viktor in the back.
Taking binoculars from the glove compartment and slinging them around his neck, he got out.
The sky was cloudless, the sun shone, and the air was filled with inappropriately cheerful birdsong. Viktor looked about him.
They made their way slowly past the impressive, new, foreign-made cars to where a crowd of people were waiting.
“Why the binoculars?” Viktor asked as they walked.
Lyosha, slightly ahead of him, looked back.
“We all have our job to do. Mine is to provide protection and ensure order, so no one spoils the –” he stopped short – “so that everything’s in order.”
Viktor nodded.
The crowd of sombrely well-dressed men made way for them.
They stopped at the graveside by the open coffin, in which lay a man in his 40s, grey-haired and wearing gold-rimmed spectacles. His stylish suit was covered up to the chest with sprays of flowers.
A tense look around showed that Lyosha had vanished, and that he and Misha were surrounded by sombre-faced strangers, none of whom seemed to pay him or the penguin any attention whatever.
At the head of the coffin stood the priest, Bible open, muttering into his beard. Standing behind him was a young man in a cassock, who was evidently his curate.
Viktor would have liked to shut his eyes until all was over. But there was a kind of almost electric tension in the air that every now and then produced an unwelcome, yet annoyingly invigorating pricking sensation to face and hands. He stood, like the penguin, motionless. The burial ritual took its course. On the brow of the deceased was a strip of paper bearing a cross and an inscription in Old Church Slavonic. The priest opened his book at the next marker, and in a strained baritone, launched into his gloomy recitative. All bowed their heads, except Misha, who stood as before, head bent, gazing into the grave.
Viktor squinted down at him.
They were part of this ritual, Misha and he.
The coffin having been lowered on ropes by two spotlessly attired gravediggers, the mourners came back to life. Earth drummed down on the coffin lid.
And for the first time, Viktor and Misha seemed to attract interest to the extent of receiving oblique glances, of curiosity, perhaps, or sorrow.
“You’re invited by the next of kin to join them at the wake,” Lyosha announced, coming over to him. “Just you, not the animal. Six o’clock this evening. Hotel Moscow restaurant. And I’ve been given this for you.”
He handed over an envelope which Viktor mechanically pocketed without a word.
“Go to the car. I’ll catch you up,” Lyosha added, slipping away.
Looking round, Viktor saw there was a little old man videoing the proceedings.
“Well, shall we go home?” he asked, squatting down in front of Misha, saddened by the indifference his eyes reflected.
They drove home. Again in silence.
“Don’t forget the wake!” called Lyosha, as they parted.
Viktor nodded. The car drove off.
“To hell with the wake!” he thought, climbing the stairs with Misha in his arms.
59
With Sonya abed, Viktor and Nina sat in the kitchen that evening, drinking wine and talking. He gave her an account of the funeral with penguin.
“So what?” she asked skittishly. “For $1,000, why worry?”
For a minute he was silent, then he said, “I don’t … It’s a lot of money … Just that it’s strange …”
“Maybe you’ll raise my wages, now Misha’s earning,” she said, smiling but serious. And then in a gentler tone she added, “I’m always spending on our behalf anyway. I bought some little boots for Sonya …”
“For heaven’s sake, don’t call it wages,” he said with a sigh. “I’ll let you have some money in the morning. When that’s gone just tell me.”
He looked at her and shook his head.
“What is it?”
“Just that you’re very much the country girl, sometimes.”
“I was born in the country,” she confirmed, smiling again.
“Right. Let’s go to bed,” he said, rising from the table.
Next morning he woke to find Nina shaking him.
“What is it?” he asked sleepily, and with no inclination to get up.
“In the kitchen, there’s a bag.” She was clearly worried. “Come and see.”
Getting up, Viktor threw on a dressing-gown, and headed uncertainly for the kitchen.
There was indeed a bag on the table. Back to the old tricks, he thought wearily.
He went and checked the locks. The door was securely shut.
Returning to the kitchen, he gingerly felt the bag, and emboldened by the outline of a bottle, set about unpacking it.
Five minutes later, having examined the contents, he called Nina.
Nina came in, stopped dead, and gazed in amazement at what was laid out on the table: a plate of fish in aspic, a clingfilm-covered restaurant selection of traditional meats, fresh tomatoes, a chop, a bottle of Smirnoff vodka.
“Where did this come from?”
Pulling a face, Viktor pointed to the blue letters forming the abbreviation of Ukrainian Restaurants on the rim of a plate.
“There’s a note,” Nina said, indicating the bottle.
Scotch-taped to the neck was a folded piece of paper which, detached and unfolded, read:
Don’t do that again, old chap. Respect for the dead! This is from the relatives. It’s Aleksandr Safronov’s memory you’ll be drinking to.
See you! – Lyosha.
“Who’s it from?”
He handed her the note. She read it, then looked at him, perplexed.
“What was it you did?”
“I didn’t go to the wake.”
“You should have gone,” she said quietly.
Giving her an irritable look, he went and felt in the pockets of his sheepskin jacket for Lyosha’s card, and snatching up the receiver, dialled his number.
For a long time there was no response.
At long last a thick, sleepy voice said, “Hello?”
“Lyosha?” Viktor asked coldly.
Lyosha, clearly the worse for a night’s drinking, muttered indistinctly.
“It’s me, Vik. Look, about this stunt with the bag –”
“What stunt? Is it really you, Vik? How’s the animal?”
“Listen, that bag, how did it get into my kitchen?” Viktor demanded irritably.
“How? By request of the next of kin … What’s bugging you?”
“What’s bugging me is how it got through closed doors!” His voice was now almost a shout.
“Take it easy. I hear you. But I’ve got a headache … Through closed doors – you ask? But no doors ever are completely closed! Grow up! Drink to Safronov’s memory. Me, I’ve got to sober up, too, but I’d like a bit of sleep first. What the hell did you have to wake me for?”
