Death And The Penguin, page 3
The coffee, though bitter, proved immediately restorative. His fingers stopped trembling, the throbbing in his head eased. Calm once more, he took stock.
It wasn’t the end of the world, he found himself thinking, and with an assurance dismissive of any doubt. That was life. As per usual. Just a question of calling the Chief and asking what to do.
When he had finished his coffee and paid, he went to his room and rang Kiev.
“You’ve got your return ticket for today,” the Chief said calmly. “So back you come. Carry on with Kiev. The provinces can hang fire for a bit.”
Taking his seat on the night train, Viktor opened the Evening Kharkov he had bought at the station. As he turned the pages, he came to a Criminal Chronicle setting forth, in small print, all the most recent crimes, and under Murders, read:
Capital News correspondent Nikolay Agnivtsev was shot dead at his flat yesterday afternoon by persons unknown.
With a sick feeling, he lowered the paper to his knees. The train gave a sudden jolt and the paper slid to the floor.
13
On the way up to his flat the next morning, Viktor met the district militiaman.
“Good day to you!” said Sergey Fischbein-Stepanenko gaily. “You’re looking a bit pale, though.”
“How is he?” asked Viktor anxiously.
“In fine shape!” said the militiaman with a smile. “Missing his master, of course. And your freezer’s out of fish.”
“I can’t thank you enough.” His attempt at a grateful smile produced a sickly sour grimace. “I’m in your debt. How about raising a glass together some time?”
“Wouldn’t say no,” confirmed the militiaman. “Just ring – you’ve got my number. And if you need me again, don’t hesitate! I love animals. Real ones, I mean, not the sort I deal with every day …”
Misha, standing in the corridor, was delighted to see Viktor come in and turn on the light.
“Hello, old fellow.” Viktor squatted and looked at him.
He seemed to be smiling.
And as he took a lumbering step towards his master, he had a happy twinkle in his eye.
At least someone in this world’s glad to see me, thought Viktor.
Straightening up, he removed his jacket and went through to the living room, Misha plip-plopping behind him.
14
Next morning Viktor lay in bed with a headache and no inclination to get up.
The alarm clock showed 9.30.
Heaving himself over onto his other side, he became aware of Misha standing by his bed.
“Oh God!” he muttered, swinging his feet to the floor, “I’ve not fed him since yesterday!”
And in spite of his splitting head and buzzing temples, he washed and dressed.
The frosty air perked him up a little. Winter seemed to have followed him from Kharkov.
Must phone the Chief, he decided as he walked, say I’m unwell … Get the papers, and maybe do a bit of work …
At the fish counter of the food store he purchased two kilos of frozen plaice; then, after a moment’s hesitation, a kilo of live fish.
Back at his flat he ran a bath of cold water, released the three silver carp, and called Misha. Misha took one look at the fish swimming in the bath, turned away, and plip-plopped back to his room. Viktor shrugged. He was at a loss.
The doorbell rang.
Espying Misha-non-penguin through the peephole, he let him in.
“Hi,” said Misha. “Got a couple of obituary orders for you. You all right?”
Viktor gestured vaguely.
They went through to the kitchen, just as the penguin came plip-plopping that way.
“Hi, namesake!” grinned the visitor, then, looking at Viktor, asked, “Why so gloomy? You off colour or something?”
“Yes. Everything’s bloody …”
He felt like having a moan, although something inside him protested that he shouldn’t.
“Here I am, writing and writing, but nobody sees what I write,” he declared, more in anger than in a bid for sympathy. “Two hundred pages to date. And all for nothing.”
“What do you mean for nothing?” interrupted Misha-non-penguin. “You – like so many in the good old Soviet days – are writing for the drawer. With the difference that you, sooner or later, are going to be published … That I guarantee.”
Unsmiling and unrelenting, Viktor acknowledged as much with a nod.
“Who do you reckon you’ve done best by?” Misha-non-penguin asked amiably.
“Yakornitsky,” said Viktor, recalling their lengthy, Finnish-vodka-assisted table talk.
“The author-State-Deputy?”
“That’s him.”
“Right,” said Misha. “And here’s something of interest for you. Have a look at that lot.”
Viktor glanced at the several pages: names he was unfamiliar with, biographical details, dates. Not what he felt like immersing himself in just then. With a nod of thanks he laid them aside.
“Ring when you’re ready,” Misha-non-penguin said, handing him his card.
15
The first snow was falling. Viktor was reading, over coffee, what Misha-non-penguin had brought a couple of days before: files on the Deputy Head of the Taxation Service and the Manageress of The Carpathians. The lives of this pair were garish enough to make quite exceptional obelisks. With characters like them – anti-heroes of the first water – a thriller would write itself! Except that novel-writing called for unlimited free time, which Viktor didn’t have. True, what he did have now was money, Penguin Misha, and three silver carp in the bathroom. But was he to regard all that as compensation for an unwritten novel?
Reminded of the carp, he fetched a piece of bread and went to the bathroom to feed them.
He had just crumbled the bread, when he heard breathing beside him. He turned and saw Misha gazing dolefully at the fish in the bath.
“Don’t care for freshwater fish, is that it?” he asked. “But of course!” he continued, supplying his own answer. “We creatures of Antarctic and of ocean …”
Going to the phone, he rang the militiaman and invited him to a fish supper.
It was still snowing.
He put his typewriter on the kitchen table, and word by word, set about painting vital images of the future departed.
Slowly but surely the work advanced, every word as rock solid as the base of an Egyptian pyramid.
Much against his will, the departed acquiesced in the murder of his younger brother, the latter having chanced upon a list of shareholders of an as yet unprivatized washing-machine factory. However, the monument erected by the deceased in memory of his brother has become a veritable adornment of the cemetery. Often life makes it necessary to kill, while the death of someone close makes it necessary to live on regardless … Everything in this world is united by virtue of blood. The life of all is a single whole, and for that reason the death of one small part of the whole still leaves life behind it, since the number of living parts always exceeds the number of deceased …
District Militiaman Fischbein-Stepanenko came to supper wearing jeans and a black sweater over a striped flannel shirt, carrying a bottle of cognac and a bag of frozen fish for the penguin.
Supper being still in the making, they together set about frying the former occupants of the bath. Misha, meanwhile, was in the bathroom, splashing about in fresh cold water. Viktor and Sergey could hear him above the sizzling of the fish in the frying pan, and exchanged smiles.
At last the meal was ready.
Host and guest downed a cognac before addressing themselves to the fish.
“Bony,” said Viktor, as if apologizing on the fishes’ behalf.
“Not to worry,” said the militiaman shaking his head. “Everything has its price … The bonier the fish, the better the flavour. I remember I once tried whale. That’s fish too, of course! No bones, but no flavour either …”
They helped the fish down with cognac, watching whirling snowflakes lit by the dim light of other people’s windows. Their supper had a touch of New Year about it.
“Why do you live alone?” asked Sergey, in the new intimacy of having drunk to their friendship.
Viktor shrugged. “It’s the way it’s been. No luck with women. They’ve always been the otherworldly sort. Quiet. Mousy. Here today, gone tomorrow … Got me down. I took on Misha, and somehow things improved. Except that he’s always down in the dumps for some reason … Better perhaps to have got a dog … They’re more emotional: bark when they see you, lick you, wag their tails …”
“Think so?” Sergey waved dismissively. “Two walks a day … Stinking the flat out … Better off with a penguin. But you, what do you do?”
“I write.”
“For children?”
“Why for children?” asked Viktor in surprise. “No, for a newspaper.”
“Ah,” Sergey shook his head. “Don’t care for newspapers. They always upset you.”
“I don’t care for them either. – But where, if you don’t mind my asking, did the Fischbein come from?”
Sergey gave a deep sigh.
“From being bored and having an aunt in Documents. I thought one day I’d turn Jew, and get the hell out of it. So I just wrote, like Auntie said, reporting loss of identity card, and she made me out a new one in a new name. Seeing later how unenviably émigrés from here lived abroad, I thought I’d stay, and to get myself a weapon, went into the militia. It’s a safe job, basically: sorting out domestic brawls and every sort of bloody fool complaint. Not quite what I dreamt of, of course.”
“And what was that?”
At this point the door opened, and Misha the penguin appeared, dripping water. He stood for a moment, then, marching past the table to his bowl, looked quizzically at his master. The bowl was empty.
Viktor went to the freezer, and breaking three plaice from the frozen mass, cut them up and put them in the bowl.
Misha rested his head against the frozen fish.
“He’s thawing it!” cried Sergey, watching with interest “He really is!”
Returning to his chair, Viktor watched, too.
“Well, that’s it,” said Sergey, reaching for his glass. “We all of us deserve better fish, but eat what we’ve got … So, here’s to friendship!”
Clinking glasses, they drank. And Viktor felt a sudden sense of relief. Past dissatisfaction with himself and others was wholly forgotten, and with it, his obelisks. It was as though he had never worked anywhere, but just lived, planning a novel which some day he would write. Looking at Sergey, he was moved to smile. Friendship. Something he had never had. Any more than a three-piece suit, or real passion. Life had been pale, sickly and joyless. Even Misha was down in the dumps, as if he, too, knew only a pallid life devoid of colours, emotions, delight, and joyous splashings of the soul.
“Look, let’s have another,” Sergey suggested suddenly, “then go for a walk, all three of us.”
It was late and quiet. All children were long since in bed, the street lamps were off, only the odd light and the occasional lighted window lit the newly fallen first snow.
They slowly made their way to the waste area where there were three dovecotes, cheeks stung by the frosty air, snow crunching underfoot.
“Behold!” cried Sergey, striding towards a figure in a shabby overcoat recumbent in the snow beneath one of the dovecotes. “Your neighbour Polikarpov from Flat 30, who, if he’s not to freeze to death, must be lugged into the nearest block and parked against a radiator.”
Grasping him by his coat collar, they dragged the drunken Polikarpov through the snow to the nearest five-storey block, Misha waddling behind.
When they came out, they found Misha and a massive mongrel standing nose to nose, each, apparently, sniffing the other. Seeing them, the dog ran off.
16
The next morning Viktor was woken by the phone.
“Hello?” he answered in a husky, half-awake voice.
“Congratulations, Viktor Alekseyevich! You’re off the mark! Didn’t wake you, did I?”
“Time I was up anyway,” said Viktor, recognizing the Chief’s voice. “What’s the trouble?”
“You’re in print! And how are you feeling, by the way?”
“Better already.”
“Call in, then. We’ll talk.”
Viktor washed, breakfasted, drank tea, looked in on Misha and found him standing asleep in his favourite hidey-hole behind the dark-green settee.
Returning to the kitchen he put a large piece of frozen cod in Misha’s bowl, dressed and went out.
Outside lay a fresh fall of snow. A blue-grey sky was pressing down almost to the rooftops of the five-storey blocks. There was no wind and it was not very cold.
Before boarding the bus, he had bought the latest Capital News, and having secured a comfortable seat, he opened it out and scanned the headlines, coming at last to a rectangle of text set high on the page and framed heavily in black.
Writer and State Deputy Aleksandr Yakornitsky is no longer with us. In the third row of the Chamber, a leather seat stands empty. To be occupied, before long, by another. But in the hearts of the many who knew Aleksandr Yakornitsky there will be a sense of emptiness, of profound loss …
So there it was, his first publication.
But he did not feel particularly happy, despite the long-forgotten sense of personal satisfaction that stirred deep down. He read through to the end. Every word in place, no sign of a cut.
His eye rested on the signature – A Group of Friends – more like a phrase than a pseudonym, the four words serving as an umbrella for any number. The funny thing was that this was exactly how he had typed it, both nouns with a capital. And even this the Editor had left, treating Viktor more like a respected writer than a journalist.
Lowering the paper, he looked out at the approaching city.
“Look, a little bird!” said a mother sitting in front of him with her child, and pointing. Glancing automatically in the direction indicated, he saw a sparrow fluttering inside the bus.
17
The Editor-in-Chief greeted Viktor cordially, as if he had not seen him for a year. Coffee, cognac and $100 in a long elegant envelope made their appearance. It was quite a celebration.
“Well,” said Igor Lvovich, raising his glass of cognac, “a start’s been made. Let’s hope our remaining obelisks don’t hang around for long either.”
“How did he die?” Viktor asked.
“Fell from a sixth-floor window – was cleaning it for some reason, apparently, though it wasn’t his. And at night.”
Clinking glasses, they drank.
“Do you know,” the Chief confided further, “I’ve had colleagues from other papers ringing. Green with envy, the parasites! I, they say, have invented a new kind of obituary!” He smiled smugly. “The credit’s all yours, of course. But you being under wraps, I take the compliments, and the kicks! OK?”
Viktor nodded, though he was secretly pained at being kept out of the limelight, fame still being fame, albeit journalistic. Something of which became apparent to the Chief from Viktor’s expression.
“Don’t take it to heart. Everyone will know your real name some day – if you want … But for the moment, best keep to the Group of Friends that no one knows. You’ll see why in a day or two. And incidentally, don’t forget: everything underlined in the files from Fyodor, you’re to use. I don’t cut your philosophizings, do I? Even though they have, quite frankly, damn all to do with the late lamented.”
Viktor nodded his agreement. He sipped his coffee, and was reminded suddenly, by the bitterish flavour, of the hotel bar in Kharkov and the morning he had been woken by shooting.
“What did happen in Kharkov, Igor?” he asked.
Sighing, the Chief poured cognac and gave Viktor an inhibited, arrested sort of look.
“Bowed his head did our brave young Red,”
he crooned softly:
“Cruelly shot through his Komsomol heart …
“As a newspaper, we’ve had our losses. This one’s our seventh. Before long we’ll be unveiling a pantheon … Still, no skin off your nose! The less you know, the longer you live!” said the Chief. Then, in quite a different, somehow weary voice, and looking hard at him, he added “And it’s not your business any longer. Just that you know a bit more than others do … OK …”
Viktor regretted his curiosity. The whole ambience of their little tête à tête celebration had been lost.
18
The end of November saw the transition from deep autumn to deep winter. Children threw snowballs. An icy chill crept under coat collars. Cars drove slowly, as if frightened of each other, the roads being now much narrower. The cold diminished, shortened, shrivelled everything. The kerbside mounds of snow were the only things to grow, and these only by virtue of the hard work and broad shovels of the clearers of courtyards and pavements.
Having completed the second of Misha-non-penguin’s obelisks, Viktor looked out of the window. Today had been a day when he had neither wanted nor needed to go out. To break the silence, he switched on the set-programme speaker standing on the fridge. The carefree hubbub of parliament (plus hiss) burst forth. He turned down the volume, put the kettle on for tea, and glanced at his watch: 5.30. A bit early to be finishing for the day.
He rang Misha-non-penguin.
“All ready,” he reported. “Come and collect.”
Misha came, but not alone. With him was a little girl with round inquisitive eyes.
“My daughter,” he said. “No one to leave her with … Tell Uncle Vik your name.” He stooped to unbutton her little coat of reddish fur.
“Sonya,” she said gazing up at him. “And I’m four. – Have you really got a penguin living here?”
