Death And The Penguin, page 15
He hung up.
Viktor shook his head, sick at heart at this evidence of his own impotence and defencelessness.
“Vik!” Nina called from the kitchen.
“Coming.”
The table was already laid. Two plates had vodka glasses beside them.
“Why waste good stuff? When it’s still fresh … Sit down. – Sonya!” she called into the corridor. “Come and eat. We must drink to this person – it’s bad not to,” she said, turning to Viktor, who was still standing by the table, and following the direction of her eyes, he unscrewed the Smirnoff bottle.
“Look what I’ve drawn!” said Sonya, coming in with a sheet of paper and holding it out to Nina.
Nina took the drawing and put it on top of the fridge.
“First we’ll eat, and then we’ll look,” she said in a schoolmistressy way.
60
A day passed, and with a fresh batch of files from the courier, Viktor sat at his typewriter. A spring sun was shining, and though it was still cold outside, in the kitchen its yellow rays not only flooded the table but even warmed the air. Work and the long-awaited warmth eased the burden of the recent past. And although all that had transpired was still, in a sense, present, the work of interspersing the philosophico-literary with facts underlined in red, provided an escape from affliction and all that served to remind him of his own helplessness.
One of his coffee breaks was enlivened by his suddenly calling to mind having written, some time ago, an obelisk on one Safronov. Who he had been and the nature of his attainments underlined in red Viktor had completely forgotten. But he felt sure that it was this Safronov whom he and Misha had buried a few days before. He couldn’t, of course, be absolutely sure, but the fact that the funeral had been so patently obituary-worthy seemed to confirm the accuracy of his guess.
The thought that he who had first written the obituary had then attended the funeral, in the role of inspector to check that burial was indeed taking place, even brought a smile to his face.
Nina had taken Sonya to the Dnieper for a walk, so there was nothing to distract him from work. And that day work went smoothly. Reading through what he had written, he was well satisfied, and forged ahead with his improvisations on other people’s deaths.
With four obelisks completed, he squinted out of the window at the sun, and went over to the stove. He put the kettle on and walked about the flat. Misha was standing by the balcony door, as if in expectation of an icy draught, and Viktor squatted down beside him.
“How are we doing?” he asked, taking a good look at him. “Very nicely, very nicely,” he said, answering for his penguin and straightening up.
Noticing two framed drawings on the wall, he went over. One was the familiar portrait of Misha, the other – a threesome and a tiny penguin. Uncle Vik, me, Nina and Misha said the wobbly letters, but then, obviously in Nina’s hand, Uncle had been corrected to Daddy, and Nina to Mummy. Nina’s writing was neat and schoolmistressy. The signature at the bottom looked as if it had been improved by Teacher. All that was missing was the mark. Eight out of ten, probably, in view of the two corrections.
That drawing gave him a chilly feeling. He didn’t care for Nina’s corrections. There was a certain violence about them, to words and to the actual situation. The fact that the drawing was hung rather high up where Sonya could see it only by standing on a chair, meant that Nina had made the corrections for herself and for him.
Nina, too, seemed to be pretending they were a family, nursing, like him perhaps, the illusion of their being a single entity. Only it was an illusion shattered daily, lightly and unintentionally, by Sonya, the words Daddy and Mummy being either unknown to her, or ones she saw no reason to employ.
She was closer to reality: too young to invent a complicated world for herself, and too straightforward to suspect the thoughts and feelings of two grown-ups.
Would she not like a child of her own? he wondered uneasily, his thoughts returning to Nina. To call her Mummy to the end of her days? There would be no difficulty about that …
But was he, he fell to thinking, anxious to be called Daddy? He had no objection in principle. He had money, work, everything. Even a young, attractive woman capable of motherhood. There was no love in it. Love wasn’t the main thing, but something that came with time. Maybe one had only to move to the country and a spacious two-storey house with all conveniences, for it to light up like a candle.
He shook his head as if to rid it of so foolish a notion.
61
March brought warmth. Every morning, like a conscientious caretaker, the sun climbed into the sky and shone its brightest.
Viktor was getting through the latest batch of files, breaking off at intervals to make coffee and take his cup out onto the balcony. Misha joined him occasionally, seeming also to enjoy the sun.
Just another five minutes, and then it was back to the kitchen table, to hammer away at the typewriter.
His sunny mood accorded easily with the poetic gloom of his obelisks. Even a recent, second funeral with penguin had failed to unsettle him, although it had meant sitting through the wake of the unknown departed. But, strange as it seemed, even that proved not so very terrible. Of the good 200 or so mourners not one paid Viktor any special attention. Apart, of course, from Lyosha, sitting beside him. But he had soon become drunk, and pushing his plate aside, had fallen asleep, head on table cloth, or, more precisely, his table napkin.
There were no speeches. The well-dressed men seated at the two long tables exchanged business-like looks of sorrow, raising glasses of vodka to each other – a form of silent association Viktor had no difficulty in imitating, raising his glass, inclining his head, and looking with genuine grief at those sitting opposite. His sadness was unfeigned, but had nothing to do with the departed. It was just that the ambience of these wakes oppressed him, added to which the company at table was mainly male – Viktor did, looking around, notice some women, but no more than three or four, of mature years and marked by their conspicuous mourning as the original sources of grief.
At the end, he was put into one of the cars waiting outside the restaurant, together with three other men who did not introduce themselves, but simply asked where he lived and told the driver where to go. A night delivery service with a vengeance. Arriving home at about one, he encountered Misha in the corridor.
“Why aren’t you asleep?” he asked, happily drunk. “Must get your sleep. What if we have got to shoot off to the cemetery again tomorrow?”
A week had now passed with Viktor hammering away at his typewriter and rejoicing in spring and sunshine. And life seemed easy and carefree, despite painful moments and less frequent scruples over his own part in an ugly business. But what, in an ugly world, was ugly? No more than a tiny part of an unknown evil existing generally, but not personally touching him and his little world. And not to be fully aware of his part in that ugly something was clearly a guarantee of the indestructibility of his world, and of its tranquillity.
Turning again to the window, he let the sun fall on his face.
Maybe he really should buy a little dacha, sit in summer at a table in the garden, writing in the fresh air. With Sonya, who would like growing things, pottering in flower beds and vegetable plots, and Nina content …
He thought back to their New Year dacha, to Sergey, and how they had sat before the fire. How long ago that had been! How long, though not much time had passed since then!
62
On Sunday the sun continued to shine, and although in the morning there had been a thin haze of cloud, by eleven it had dispersed, revealing a sky of springtime blue.
After breakfast Viktor, Nina and Sonya set off for Kreshchatik Street, leaving Misha on the balcony with a bowl of lunch, and the door ajar so that he could, if he wished, go back inside.
He took them first to Café Passazh, where they sat on the terrace. For Sonya and Nina he ordered ice-cream, and coffee for himself.
Sonya having chosen to sit facing the sun, now screwed up her eyes, shielding them with the palm of her hand, playing peekaboo, watched by a smiling Nina.
Sipping his coffee, Viktor spotted an open newspaper kiosk, and saying he wouldn’t be a minute, left the table.
Returning with Capital News, he quickly ran an eye over the headlines and finding, to his joy, neither menace nor a single obelisk, went calmly back to page one, taking another sip of coffee.
Remarkable that on so fine a spring day the news should seem so amazingly peaceful. No shooting, no scandals. Quite the reverse, as if the paper was commanding its readers to be happy with life, with headlines inspiring gladness and hope.
NEW SUPERMARKET OPENED
PROGRESS IN NEGOTIATIONS WITH RUSSIA
TO ITALY WITHOUT A VISA
“Would you like to go to Italy, Sonya?” he asked jokingly.
Licking the little plastic spoon, she shook her head.
“No – I want to go on a swing,” she said.
Nina wiped the ice-cream from Sonya’s mouth with a napkin.
As they walked through the park above the Dnieper, they came to a play area, sat Sonya on a swing and swung her, laughing, high above the ground.
“No more! No more!” she cried after a few minutes.
And again they walked through the park, Sonya between them, holding their hands.
“I was thinking, Nina,” he said as they walked, “we could buy a dacha.”
She smiled and became thoughtful.
“That’d be nice,” she said a minute later, having evidently pictured the dacha she would like.
At lunch-time they went back to the flat and ate there.
Sonya joined Misha on the balcony. Nina and Viktor sat in front of the TV.
A Ukrainian version of Cine-Travelogue Club was on. A pretty blonde in a bright yellow bathing costume stood on the deck of a motor vessel, telling of exotic islands, then appeared on the beach of just such an island, exchanging smiles with sun-bronzed natives. Every so often captions ran across the bottom of the screen, with the telephone numbers of travel agents.
“Why were you asking Sonya about Italy?” she asked with sudden interest.
“They’ve done away with the visa requirement.”
“Could we go one day?” she asked dreamily.
The pretty blonde was back again, now dressed more warmly in tight knitted skirt and dark-blue jacket.
For the past year, she announced, a Ukrainian scientific research station has been operating, in the Antarctic. In an earlier programme we appealed for contributions towards sending our scientists a planeload of supplies. Many of you have responded, but unfortunately more is still needed than the amount so far received. I appeal to private entrepreneurs and others with funds – on you depends whether our scientists will be able to continue their work in the Antarctic. Have pencil and paper ready for the account number to which sponsor donations can be made, and a telephone number on which you can hear details of what your money will be spent on.
Darting to the kitchen, Viktor seized a pen and a sheet of paper, and returned in time to write down the numbers from the screen.
“What’s that for?” Nina asked in surprise.
He shrugged. “Thought I might send them $20,” he said uncertainly. “In memory of Pidpaly. I told you about him, remember? I’ve got a cutting about the station somewhere.”
Nina shot him a look of disapproval.
“Waste of money,” she said. “It’ll only get stolen. Remember how they collected for a hospital for the Chernobyl children?”
Viktor said nothing, folded the paper and put it in his pocket.
What business was it of hers where he sent his money?
63
Towards the end of March rain set in.
With the disappearance of the sun Viktor’s spirits slumped. He worked away at his typewriter as before, but painfully slowly and with little inspiration. Even so, obelisk quality remained unimpaired, and reading over what he had written, he was invariably satisfied. No longer was his professionalism dependent on his mood.
Nina and Sonya kept to the flat for days on end.
Sometimes, when Nina went to the shops, Sonya, evidently weary of Misha’s company, came into the kitchen to distract Viktor. With great forbearance he answered her questions, breathing a sigh of relief when he heard Nina return. Sonya then ran to her and he got back to work.
When Lyosha rang to say there was a funeral the next day, his spirits hit rock bottom. He spent ten minutes attempting to convey that it was too raw, too wet, that he was feeling low, as well as worried lest Misha catch a chill. Lyosha heard him out, then said that he, Viktor, was not all that essential. The animal was the main requirement. “You stay at home,” he said finally, “I’ll take Misha and bring him back afterwards. I’ll keep an umbrella over him at the cemetery, so he doesn’t catch cold.”
A solution, a partial victory, Viktor decided, glad to give the funeral a miss.
And while he felt sorry for Misha there was nothing he could do about it. The possible consequences of a sudden refusal to release him for graveside attendance were all too obvious.
Viktor’s firmness paid off handsomely. The next time Lyosha did not expect him to participate. It was agreed that in future Lyosha would collect Misha and bring him back, and surprisingly this change of arrangement was not reflected in the amount of his honorarium. Each time it was the same $1,000, only now more easily come by, without any standing at gravesides or obligatory wakes. Misha was now earning on his own account, and the whole thing savoured of penguin hire.
Viktor was irked, of course, to think what Misha received for a single appearance, against his wage of $300. And though both lots of money came to him, the underlying inequality remained. There was nothing for it but to bow yet again to the inevitable. None of which in any way affected his attachment to Misha.
Ought he, he wondered, to ask the Chief for a rise, but immediately he sensed it wouldn’t be worth the effort. He was, after all, fairly relaxed in his work. No one breathed down his neck or chased him for his obelisks. He was his own master. Batch completed, he rang up and swapped it with the courier for another. He had money enough, and so no cause for complaint.
No, all was as it should be, and God grant it stayed that way. And when the rainy spell was over, he could start looking for a dacha!
And as he visualized a little house surrounded by a garden, a hammock stretched between two sturdy trees, and himself kindling a fire for kebabs, his mood brightened.
All would be well, said the persuasive voice of his imagination, all beauty and bright sun.
And Viktor believed it.
But the rain and the task of obelisk-writing continued. And funerals involving Misha became more frequent, regardless of the rain, as if there had been a rise in the death-rate among those whose friends and relatives could not imagine a funeral without a penguin.
The day after one such funeral, as Viktor was studying a fresh batch of files, Sonya dashed in in great alarm.
“Uncle Vik, Misha’s sneezing!”
Viktor went to the bedroom, and for the first time ever saw Misha lying on his side on his camel-hair blanket, trembling and wheezing.
Viktor stood paralysed with fear, at a loss what to do.
“Nina!” he shouted.
“She’s at Sergey’s mum’s,” said Sonya.
“Hold on, Misha, hold on,” he said in a voice charged with emotion, gently stroking him. “We’ll think of something.”
Going to the living room, he turned, not very hopefully, to V in the telephone book, and to his amazement found no fewer than ten vets listed. But what experience would any of them have of treating penguins? Dogs and cats would be more in their line.
In spite of these doubts, he rang the first number.
“Is Nikolay Ivanovich there?” he asked the woman who answered, having checked he had got his names right.
“Hold on.”
“Yes?” came a man’s voice almost immediately.
“Sorry, but I’ve got a problem – my penguin’s ill.”
“Penguin?” the voice repeated, and Viktor knew at once that he had got the wrong man. “Not my province, but I can tell you who to ring.”
“You can?” He sighed with relief. “I’ll get a pen.”
Viktor wrote the number – that of one David Yanovich – on the directory, and dialled without replacing the receiver.
“Well,” said David Yanovich, when he had heard him out, “if you’ve got that sort of animal, you’ll have the money for treatment. Address?”
“Is the vet coming?” asked Sonya, as Viktor came back and sat down beside Misha on the floor.
“Yes.”
“Like Dr Dolittle?” she asked sadly.
He nodded.
Half an hour later David Yanovich arrived: short, rather bald, with a frozen smile and kind eyes.
“Where’s the patient then?” he asked, coming in and removing his shoes.
“In there.” Viktor indicated the door. “Like some slippers?”
“No thanks.” He quickly hung his mack on the hook, and briefcase in hand, made for the door, his socks leaving moist prints on the linoleum.
“Now then,” he said, squatting down beside Misha.
He felt Misha all over, peered into his eyes, then, producing a stethoscope, sounded him front and back, like a normal doctor. Returning the stethoscope to his briefcase, he gazed at him deep in thought.
“Well?”
David Yanovich scratched the back of his neck, and sighed. “Hard to say, but clearly not good. It all depends, I’m afraid, on how you’re placed financially. It’s not my fee I’m talking about. There’s not much I can do. He needs to go to a clinic.”
“And what will that cost?” Viktor asked cautiously.
