Death And The Penguin, page 19
The sun reappeared, turning a black-and-white scene into colour. The waters danced and played, shot through with an emerald sparkle. The white concrete of the balustrade, now yellow, was not only rough to the touch, but warm from a kind of inner glow.
Heading back towards the open-air cafés he stopped dead, having spotted Nina and Sonya. They were alone. In front of Sonya was a tall glass containing three different-coloured balls of ice-cream. Nina was drinking coffee.
Where, he wondered, looking around, was nosy Fat Man?
Selecting a table some distance away from them, he ordered coffee.
They were chatting, and every now and then Nina turned and looked in the direction of the Metro exit.
Some 15 minutes passed. Viktor finished his coffee and sat on, lost in untimely memories.
When he looked again they were a threesome. Fat Man had arrived, and the waitress was bringing coffee.
Viktor watched. Sonya sat saying nothing, while Nina talked to Fat Man. He was smiling broadly, his moon-face growing still rounder. From a pocket of his white summer jacket he produced a bar of chocolate, which he offered to Nina. She set about unwrapping it. It was, Viktor could see, stuck to the silver paper, having melted. Nina licked some of it off and passed the silver wrapping to Fat Man.
Disgusted, Viktor turned away, feeling a stab of pain in his neck from the effort of keeping watch. After massaging it a bit he looked back.
Fat Man seemed to be inviting them somewhere. He had got up and was standing at the plastic table, talking, gesticulating gently.
Nina and Sonya also got to their feet, and the trio started in Viktor’s direction.
He tensed, momentarily at a loss how to conceal himself, as he sat leaning over the table, his back to the pavement where they were about to pass.
Pushing back his chair suddenly, he bent down and pretended to re-tie a shoelace.
“Do you like the circus?” asked a sugary male voice directly behind him.
“Yes, I do,” said Sonya, and Viktor bent still lower.
“We’ve been twice already,” Nina was saying, her voice growing fainter. “Once we saw the tigers, the second time …”
He gave them another 30 seconds before looking the way they had gone and straightening up.
They were making for the bridge over the channel, but just short of it, they turned right.
Viktor set off in hot pursuit and arrived at the bridge just in time to see them enter the Mlyn restaurant.
He went up onto the bridge, and this time stood looking the opposite way towards Vladimir Hill. After about ten minutes he turned, and there they were, on the restaurant balcony, Fat Man in conversation with the waiter, Nina with Sonya.
He didn’t see the hand-over of the photograph, but the bottle of champagne on their balcony table infuriated him even more than their sharing melted chocolate. His fury could not have been greater if he had actually seen the photograph pass into Fat Man’s hands. Unlike the champagne and the chocolate, that was something he had anticipated.
The sun continued to shine, and Viktor was hot in his anorak, the discomfort of this only adding to his fury. He was now leaning over the balustrade, watching Sonya again. She was eating ice-cream while Nina and Fat Man did the same between sips of champagne.
When they emerged an hour later, Viktor set off behind them, staying well back. At the Metro entrance under the bridge they stopped, and he stopped too, keeping his distance.
Fat Man was taking his leave in rather modest fashion, without so much as a peck on the cheek for Nina. Viktor watched the ceremony with a malicious sense of irony, until Fat Man disappeared into the Metro, and Nina and Sonya made for the other side of Hydropark.
Viktor set off quickly after Fat Man, and spotting him on the platform, dodged behind a pillar.
They boarded a city train, entering the carriage by adjacent doors, and now he got a good look at Fat Man, standing sideways on to him reading one of the dozens of adverts stuck to the inside of the windows.
It was the first time he had seen him close to. He was wearing wide mouse-coloured canvas trousers and a white summer jacket over a dark-orange football jersey.
His appearance said nothing – he could have been anybody or nobody, so total was the lack of detail suggestive of either character or employment.
At Central Station he alighted. So did Viktor, and suddenly finding himself close behind Fat Man, he dropped back until the latter set foot on the escalator; then, with other passengers between them, Viktor did the same, keeping him in sight.
They crossed the platform of Central Station and came out by way of the underpass at the top of Uritsky Street. In company with Fat Man, Viktor waited for a tram, and travelled two stops, getting off when he did.
Fat Man looked once in his direction, but that was all. Either he didn’t know Viktor by sight, or he wasn’t particularly observant.
The street was fairly deserted and Viktor hung back at the tram stop. He watched Fat Man walk up a path beside a car park towards a multi-storey building somewhat removed from the road.
Viktor followed slowly along the same path, and seeing Fat Man heading for the entrance to the building, he halted and waited for him to go in.
In a flash he, too, was at the entrance, standing at the open door, listening, and noticing out of the corner of his eye the familiar blue Moskvich estate parked outside.
The entrance hall was empty and silent but for the hum of a lift. The service lift door was open, but above the closed door of the passenger lift a succession of tiny bulbs was lighting its unhurried upward progress. At last the hum ceased, and the bulb by 13 went out.
Entering the service lift, Viktor pressed the button for Floor 13.
Emerging on Floor 13, he was confronted by a graffiti-scrawled wall and abandoned cardboard boxes.
The landing door led into a long dark corridor smelling of dog.
He listened at doors as he passed. From one came the shrill barking of a wretched dog. At one end of the long corridor there was a window, but the light from it penetrated scarcely half way to the lift exit.
At the dark end of the corridor, he stopped and listened again. Outside one door stood a child’s bicycle. Outside another, opposite, chained and padlocked to a pipe conveying water or gas to all floors, was a car tyre cover. He went and stood close to the door. Faint sounds were audible, a door creaked, a lavatory flushed.
His eyes having by now accustomed themselves to the semi-darkness, he took in the brown leatherette upholstery of the door and the black doorbell button. He had already wiped his feet on the crumpled cloth in front of the door, but seized by a familiar, partly understandable fit of indecision, he stood wondering whether it was worth trying to discover the reason for Fat Man’s curiosity. What if he wouldn’t say?
He felt for the gun, still heavy on his thigh, and was reassured, having made certain it was still there.
We’re all entitled to satisfy our curiosity, he thought. And now it’s my turn.
He gave the black button a determined press, and four bars of Moscow Nights resulted.
Shuffling steps came to the door.
“Who’s there?” wheezed a man’s voice.
“A neighbour.”
The lock clicked, the door opened just a little, and a flabby man of about 50 in pyjama trousers and singlet looked out.
For a moment Viktor stood staring into a round, unshaven face.
“What do you want?” the man asked.
Barging him aside, Viktor found himself in the corridor. He quickly took in the layout, ignoring the stupefied master of the house, and there, peering out of the open bathroom door, was Fat Man.
“Who do you want?” Pyjama Trousers managed to get out.
“Him!” said Viktor, pointing.
Pyjama Trousers followed his gaze.
“Kolya?” he asked, aghast.
Kolya, clearly startled, shrugged.
“Who are you?” he asked slowly.
Viktor shook his head, surprised.
“What a question to ask!” he said.
He motioned Fat Man in the direction of the kitchen.
Fat Man led, Viktor followed.
“What do you want?” Fat Man asked, standing with his back to the window.
“To find out why you need my photo and take such an interest in my life.”
Comprehension dawned on Fat Man’s face. Staring thoughtfully at his uninvited visitor, he reached slowly into an inner pocket of his white summer jacket, produced the photo, and looked at it and at Viktor.
Viktor was emboldened by his obvious dismay.
“I’m listening!” he said, a note of menace in his voice.
Fat Man said nothing.
Slowly unzipping his anorak, Viktor produced the automatic, and without actually threatening him, let him get the message.
Fat Man moistened his lips as if they were suddenly dry.
“I can’t tell you,” he said in a trembling voice.
At the sound of shuffling steps, Viktor swung round, and looking into another frightened face, raised the automatic.
“Get lost,” he said, and Pyjama Trousers retreated into the corridor.
“Well?” Viktor glared, his patience wearing thin.
“I was promised work …” began Fat Man. “This was my first assignment.”
“What sort of work?”
“With a newspaper … Sort of interviews …” His voice trembled. “I worked in a different section … This was better paid.”
Sort of interviews? Was that what he had been writing all these months? Was Fat Man his replacement?
That bleak conjecture had a numbing effect, and an old suppressed fear reared its head, striving to take possession of his thoughts and feelings.
“What’s the photo for?” Viktor asked icily.
“It wasn’t essential. It was just that having learnt so much about you, I wanted to see your face.”
“My face … What’s my face got to do with you? When I wrote sort of interviews, faces were of no interest to me. Show me what you’ve written!”
Fat Man didn’t budge.
“I can’t. If they find out –”
“They won’t!”
Fat Man marched along the corridor to a bedroom where there was a desk in front of the window with a typewriter on it. To left and right of the machine were orderly piles of paper – indeed, the room itself was excessively tidy. But the air was oppressive and stuffy, as though breathed for months without ventilation.
Fat Man went over to the desk, closely followed by Viktor.
His hands were shaking. He turned and faced his visitor.
“Let’s have it!” urged Viktor.
With a heavy sigh Fat Man extracted a sheet from a green folder.
The brief but eventful life of Viktor Zolotaryov would suffice for a substantial trilogy, such as, it must be supposed, will in due course be written. Meanwhile, by way of a sad note to that future trilogy, it is his obituary that must be written.
Had he stuck to literature or journalism, he could safely have been described as an author manqué. But while clearly lacking purely literary talent, he possessed a manifest surplus of talent for the invention of subjects and plots. He did not go the way of more senior authors manqués – into quiet politics and a peaceful doze sitting as a deputy. But revealing his real interest to be for politics, he discovered a rather unexpected application for his talents.
A great deal concerning his life remains at present a mystery. And that includes the exact moment of his association with State Security Group A. But following this association, Viktor Zolotaryov became obsessed with a need to cleanse society. And already it is possible to identify some results of his abruptly curtailed politico-literary activity: 118 killings or deaths under suspicious circumstances, of persons, all, to use a Western term, of VIP calibre – from State Deputies to Ministers and factory managers – all persons of not-unclouded antecedents, on whom Group A had opened files. The impossibility – by virtue of Deputy immunity or judicial corruptibility – of bringing these persons to book, was evidently what, in the final analysis, led Group A agents to employ Viktor Zolotaryov. His obituaries of the still living became, uniquely, indents for future death, each supplying per se ample cause.
His appointment – through the good offices of our late Assistant Arts Editor – to be a freelance correspondent of this paper, proved ideal cover.
Much remains to be discovered, but already it can be stated that he not only made future death a basis for social justice, but even determined the date and manner of death – sometimes an unduly cruel one. Ballistic examination of the Stechkin automatic with which he shot himself, permits the supposition that he had personally taken part in at least one social cleansing operation, Deputy Yakornitsky having been killed with this weapon and hurled from a sixth storey.
The personal life of Viktor Zolotaryov was also more literary invention than real, the sole creature to which he showed genuine attachment being a penguin. So highly did he value his penguin, that on its falling seriously ill, he arranged for the transplant of a child’s heart, buying it, literally, from the parents of a boy fatally injured in a motor accident, regardless of the ethical and moral questions involved.
Another mystery is that of his link with bosses of the criminal world, among whom he was known as The Penguin. A striking feature is the frequency with which he attended the funerals of persons he had assisted in killing, completing as it were, an original cycle: from file of future departed, to participation, with friends and relatives, in the departed’s wake.
Now that the social cleansing operation he conceived and carried through has reached the public domain, there is hope that the full details will become known. A Committee of Deputies is already conducting an inquiry. The Head of Group A has been relieved of his duties, and while his name, like that of his successor, is kept secret, there are grounds for believing that nothing similar will recur, and that no organ of State Security will in future abrogate to itself the right to sit in judgement on anyone, criminals outside the law included.
Viktor Zolotaryov’s contribution to the literature of our young country is nil, but his contribution to the political history of Ukraine may well become a subject of research not only by a Committee of Deputies, but by his fellow writers also. And who knows, a novel on that theme may enjoy a longer and more successful life than that of Viktor Zolotaryov.
He looked up at Fat Man, and Fat Man looked at him, awaiting his judgement.
Viktor deposited the sheet of paper on the table without a word, oppressed by a sudden heavy burden.
He remembered the Chief’s When you do know what’s what, it will mean there no longer is any real point to your work or to your continuing existence.
The weight in his right hand brought his thoughts back to the automatic, which he now knew to be a Stechkin.
Fat Man was watching closely, his round face gradually losing its look of fear, his lips moving as if framing thoughts.
“Well?” he ventured at last, faced with a softened, no longer aggressive Viktor.
Viktor looked wearily at him. “Well, what?”
“Well, what I’ve written …”
“Dry as dust … lousy opening … newspapery … here!” He held out the gun to the flabbergasted Fat Man. “Something to remember me by.”
Eyes riveted on Viktor, Fat Man held out both hands for it.
Viktor’s right hand was its unencumbered self again. Giving Fat Man the gun was like throwing off an illness. Turning silently on his heel, he walked out of the flat.
75
Viktor sat until midnight with hundreds of passengers in the waiting hall at the Central Station, listening to muffled and unintelligible arrival and departure announcements.
He sat in his anorak, and froze.
He no longer felt afraid. It was not that he was resigned or had given up. After the shock of reading his own obelisk, the noise of the busy station resuscitated him. All right, his end was imminent and obvious: the same people who had created him in the image of a future notable, had already determined what that end should be – suicide – and when it should be. Having no idea who they were, he should have been in mortal fear of anyone sitting or passing near. But there was no point. Fear was for those who still had a chance of staying alive. Sitting there at the station, he could see no such chance, though he would have liked to prolong his life, if only by a day or two.
At the same time he felt hurt that his own obelisk should be the product of so obviously untalented a hand.
He, he thought, would have made a better job of it, but immediately rejected the idea as crass and obscene.
And why no mention of Nina and Sonya? Why just Misha? Someone must have known him better than he knew himself. It was obvious, too, that those who had compiled the file were better informed than he. They had even known, as he had not, the source of the donor heart.
The train arriving at Track 9 is the train from Lvov for Moscow, declared an indistinct tinny voice, and the women sitting around him sprang up, shouldering heavy sacks and lifting enormous shopping bags.
He felt ill at ease. Firstly, because he was in their way, and secondly, because when they had gone, the whole row would be empty. He got up too, and made for the station exit.
It was about one when he arrived back at the flat. He shut the door quietly behind him and took off his shoes.
Nina and Sonya were asleep.
Without turning on the light, he sat down at the kitchen table, and looked out at the windows of the block opposite. Only one was lit, on the first floor, over the entrance, which was, he thought, where the caretaker woman lived.
In a far corner of the window ledge he noticed a mayonnaise pot with a candle. It stirred a memory. Fetching matches from the stove, he put the pot on the table and lit the candle.
