The Superfluous Man

by Botyakov Anatoly

  Having attentively listened to this chain of consecutive assumptions, Victor nevertheless somehow managed to switch off his common sense and calmly ignored the logical argument.

  “By the way, where exactly are we going?” he asked strictly instead of maintaining the subject.

  “Oh, do not worry about it, we will just take a ride,” Eduard grinned, “and you know, he has called me, this well-mannered person, civilized, of good stock, by the way, his father was a professor. However, words that I heard from him when he was talking about you may scarcely be called habitual even for my old ears. He has very kindly asked me to let him know anything about your location if I suddenly met you, like now, for instance. Of course, he has promised me to be everlastingly grateful if I helped him.”

  “Sounds interesting… And what was your answer?” Victor could not help showing his interest.

  “There was no answer. I have never done anything like this in my entire life and I am not going to begin doing it in my old age. If he needs you, he may look for you himself. Honestly, I simply cannot understand this muddled thinking; I would not make myself understand it even to save my life! Can you believe it? How can one possibly become so crazy about a woman to such a degree that even his head ceases to operate? What the hell, the question arises, did he ask me to find someone capable of bringing the hidden to light if he was not even ready to face the truth?” Eduard soliloquized, skimping neither on gesticulations, nor on turns of speech. “If you learned the truth in the most evident way, what else do you want? That is all! Turn your former beloved out of doors and keep living. Is it really worth straining one’s nerves, especially at such age, when each affective experience, I beg your pardon, friends, threatens to disconnect one of vital functions of your body.”

  “I have a feeling that you are somehow trying to point out some of my mistakes here as well, Eduard,” Victor grew a little bit displeased.

  “Oh, seriously? I am so impressed that you have managed to notice that. I wonder if you asked yourself about her serial number in your list. What has bitten you? What the hell have you started all this for? Out of boredom? Played so long that forgot yourself in playing?” feeling the problem as his own, Eduard refused to calm down.

  “Something makes me think that you will not be interested in details of this story,” Victor answered quietly, having forgotten his former promise to lay his card on the table, “I can only tell you that I fully accept reality and do not try to escape from it. Exactly as I always did…”

  “And what is this all about then? What sort of nonsense is this? Be so kind to explain what exactly stands behind all this. Otherwise, I will irretrievably lose sleep over the question,” Eduard stretched his hand as a beggar pleading for charity, “is it possible that you two decided to die a romantic death? I have always known that these movies are no harmless.”

  “You see, Eduard, there are very many people like this Tumenov in the world. Yes, he wields power, I am not going to guess here at those paths that brought him where he is now, nor I think that I would like to know it. Yes, he wields power, seeing nothing beyond that. He is not even a human being anymore; if he had ever known it, he forgot what it took to be a human being, he forgot how to feel compassion, how to respect others. You see, it is exactly how reality and logic work. He believes that he is better than someone solely because he is richer or more powerful, but it also means that according to his own system, anyone who is more powerful than he is has the right to spit in his face without hesitation. You called it more than accurately, it is muddled thinking as it is. In every situation, he sees no one but himself. And when she, seemingly absolutely powerless, rose against his tyranny, I could not stand aside.”

  Victor was speaking slowly, leading not only his listeners but also himself to the complete understanding of the situation; his eyes peered into the distance, through the impenetrable, pouring rain, but his heart was with Mariam.

  “At the beginning of this conversation, you told me that I had no chances against him,” he looked at Eduard, “before, yes, maybe… But not now, when he is desperate. He has already killed one person because of this sheer despair, he began to make mistakes that will eventually dig his own grave. He has consciously crept to the very edge of the mountain he had been climbing so long, and now cries, asking to push him down and save from his miserable existence.”

  “Who was that poor thing that he killed?” Eduard’s face grew serious.

  “It was Anna, his wife’s friend. He sent his thugs to her place, hoping to find Mariam there, but killing the owner of the apartment by mistake was the only thing they achieved. I was there at that moment. They simply threw her out of the window of the seventh floor. And after all this, you keep asking me about what makes me do what I do.”

  “Yes,” Eduard heaved a deep sigh, slowly shaking his head, “it seems that I was wrong when I looked at this story the way I did.”

  “He went blind now and does not understand what happens around him anymore. He cannot even trust to his own men; I will not be surprised if I learn that he has already begun to skew at those who were once considered his most loyal ones,” Victor added, having put an end to the narration of this unfinished story.

  “What do you intend to do now?” Eduard raised his thick eyebrows.

  “I am going to help her to win her freedom,” Victor answered with words of a fanatic, smiling awkwardly, “but I need a weapon to do it.”

  “Yes, yes, there is no need to remind me about it. I did not forget anything!” Eduard swung his arm. “We will come very soon.”

  Meanwhile the car slowly drove down from the road and headed for a small hamlet, which was gleaming with hundreds of lights. About ten minutes later, the car pulled over near one of detached houses, and Eduard held out his hand.

  “At this point I have to say goodbye to you, my friend,” he mumbled with a forced smile upon his face as if keeping something in his mind, “I doubt I can understand you now, but maybe it is what we have been created different for. I only hope that you correctly appraised your life.”

  Victor silently gave his hand a squeeze and went out of the car, having found himself at a gate of a two-storied, shabby house. Several moments later, he managed to discern a crooked, grim man staring at him threateningly. The stranger was dressed in a waterproof raincoat protecting him from heavy raindrops that pattered loudly, breaking into hundreds of thousands of parts.

  “Follow me!” the stranger ordered strictly and immediately disappeared behind the gate.

  Victor obediently followed him, pulling along all the gloomy thoughts, all the doubts that he had brought here. The rain rustled as a broken radio receiver, preventing Victor from thinking or maybe on the contrary, helping him not to do it. In a corner of the courtyard, rattling with a heavy, thick chain, a rabid dog was baring its white teeth as a leading light in the ocean of mud. A big satellite dish, rusting on top of the house, seemed to have been placed there at least a century ago. There was light in windows of the house, but when Victor rose on his toes, he saw that rooms were empty and lifeless, making the whole place seem dead. The stranger slowly dragged his right foot by reason of being unable to bend it at the knee, Victor walked right behind him, purposely reducing his speed.

  “This way!” the stranger ordered again, going deeper into a maze built of strange constructions.

  When Victor asked Eduard to help him to get some weapon, he sincerely believed that the latter would just hand him a gun during their meeting, whereas fetching it himself was not even considered as an option. Now, however, he was following someone he did not know and did not want to know, and the darkness was following them both.

  After a couple of turns the stranger suddenly stood still, clanking with a bunch of keys, then he removed a heavy padlock from a door, and entered an old woodshed, where, judging by its look, only hens could live. However, when Victor only followed his silent guide, he understood how drastically mistaken he was with his last assumption, for it was a r
eal weapon store containing enough guns to arm a small army. There was literally everything, from knives of different length to automatic rifles with optical sights. Additionally, both temperature and dampness of the room were maintained at a constant level, which made Victor’s surprise even more obvious.

  “Before we start, I will explain the basic rules of the house in order to avoid misunderstanding,” the keeper of the arsenal drew attention in a croaky voice, “first of all, I do not know you, and you do not me. It is how it remains until the end of our cooperation. When you leave, your primal objective is going to be forgetting everything you will see or hear here. If you try to remember anything and to share your vivid recollections, you may start treating yourself as a corpse that very moment. It is of no importance where you are going to leave, we have kind, understanding friends everywhere, therefore there will be no problem with sending to you our best regards. Understood?” the dealer asked, squinting his right eye; the left one was almost completely closed because of an ugly scar spreading from the forehead towards the cheek.

  “Everything is clear,” Victor nodded respectfully.

  “It is good,” the stranger reduced the level of vigilance a little. “Secondly, you never show up here with the same requests again. I absolutely do not care whom you know, so you had better leave your connections for somebody else because it is not how I work. Rush brings no good, ever. If someone wants to get a gun the way you want it, it may only mean that either you have no plan, or that your plan is absolutely useless. If you need my help again, you will first have to get your hands dirty, if you know what I mean by that,” he grinned just as that dog did, having bared his misplaced teeth.

  “It is the first and the last time!” Victor refused beforehand.

  “You all say so at the start, but when you have need for money, you come again, ready to kill anyone including your own grandmother. You do not seem to have understood what path you choose for yourself coming here. But it is fine, you still have time to realize it.”

  “The first and the last time!” Victor repeated as a robot.

  “Well, an opinion of a customer is my opinion,” the anonymous dealer hid his frightening smile, “what exactly do you want?”

  “A gun,” Victor shrugged his shoulders without knowing what else he could answer and if differences were so important.

  “I get it,” the keeper removed the hood from the head showing his close-cut skull, “any preferences maybe?”

  “You may show me what you have, and I will choose something,” Victor proposed logically.

  “Well, we will arrange an individual excursion for you then. I am going to pause neither upon TT, nor upon Makarov, those are time-tested, but still, time changes just as guns do. Additionally, your potential purchase is prepaid so it is more preferable for me to sell to you something more expensive, and at the same time, it is more preferable for you to get a high-quality gun. Judging by your knowledge, your hands barely held any handguns, therefore I would advise you to consider, for example, this ‘Glock’. Nowadays ‘Glock’ and this 17th model in particular is one of the most reliable of all the guns ever produced,” the dealer began to narrate, “it is a really good weapon that is preferred by the best special forces of the world. It is always better to have a gun that will not let you down when you need to use it. You know, it is not rare when people simply forget to check the safety catch, when they find themselves in a critical situation. Of course, it is not a problem for a trained professional, but for an average man as you simplicity of a gun is vital.”

  “And what is the magazine capacity for this one?” Victor asked guardedly.

  “Seventeen, optionally nineteen or thirty-three,” having responded to the question, the dealer put the gun aside and reached for the next one. “This model is a copy of the legendary M1911A1 which was noticed practically in all the wars of the twentieth century and proved both its efficiency and reliability. The magazine capacity is seven.”

  “And what is this?” Victor pointed at a big, shining gun.

  “One of the bulkiest handguns in the world. ‘Desert Eagle’ was never used and never adopted by any special forces or law enforcements of any country of the world. This weapon was not designed for using it in a combat. Believe me, chap, it is the last thing you want. One of the biggest problems when firing ‘Desert Eagle’ is the recoil along with the deafening sound. You will not be able to use it even in a forest without being heard. This gun, however, is a completely different matter. A very-very good gun, firing this pistol is a pleasure indeed. It perfectly feels in your hand, with almost no recoil, this gun is exactly what you need. As the manufacturer claims, the bullet with the steel core is able to pierce forty-eight layers of kevlar from 150 meters. The magazine capacity is twenty.”

  After an hour of the detailed studying of different tools of murder, Victor got back to the third offer, namely ‘Five Seven’.

  “And what is about the car?” Victor put away his purchase.

  “Follow me,” the dealer guided him through the wooden labyrinth again, and then they found themselves in a dusty garage with three cars in it.

  “Take your pick!” the dealer said indifferently. “What you are going to use it for – is not my concern. You will find the keys inside.”

  Victor silently approached the very first vehicle, took the wheel, waited until the self-acting gate opened, and drove out of the garage. The rain still kept flooding; however, it was not as fanatic as several hours before, doing it rather habitually. It was almost 10 p.m., which means Victor had only two hours until the end of this story.

  He believed that the whole idea was sheer madness, and there hardly could be anyone in this world ready to argue in favour of a different opinion, had that person learned about the plan. According to the plan, Victor had to come to the house of his bitter enemy in a certain hour, at the exact same hour when there could be one more man able to kill him, and whom, as a matter of fact, Victor hated himself. This all looked as some romantic love story that unexpectedly changed into a bloody thriller.

  On his way back to the city, Victor several times tried to reach Mariam on the phone, but it seemed to be switched-off. It was another lull before the storm, and he was going right into its center. About half an hour later, Victor got back to the city, which now had two faces: the former one and one more that looked up at the heavy sky from endless pools, reflecting everything that appeared near them after several minutes of the absolute peace. Victor was driving slowly, trying to constrain his heart that already began to accelerate. However, this trick was no longer useful; he applied it too many times, having completely wasted it. Everything around already was too silent and placid, so this overfed tranquility became now the reason of his doubts. In this absolute silence, only windscreen wipers prevented Victor from falling into a reverie, sweeping away the remains of the drizzle at regular intervals.

  The city was absolutely empty, and the fact was no surprising at all; no one really wanted to have an evening out in company of the rain that never knew any other thoughts except mournful and doleful. It took Victor about half an hour more to get used to this emptiness and universal silence, but the same couple turned out the reasons of his utter surprise, when he saw the last thing he needed to see now, being literally five minutes of driving from Tumenov’s house.

  Dressed in the uniform jacket, a police officer was standing virtually on the roadway; a patrol car was parked nearby.

  Once Victor drove several meters towards the patrol, the police officer raised his hand and pointed to a spot that was chosen for pulling over. At this moment, Victor nearly lost control over himself; he suddenly imagined the worst scenario of all, where he was caught with the gun and never got to Tumenov’s house, and Mariam disappeared from his life forever as dreams that sometimes just sink into oblivion and never come back regardless of a person’s vain attempts of recalling them. He imagined this picture so plausibly that for a short moment his very being stood still, ceased to exist, an
d when he returned to the reality again, his heartbeat was overly frequent and his hands began shivering noticeably.

  He pulled over right behind the patrol car and started to wait. One minute later, having discussed something with his partner, the police officer approached the car.

  “Good night, sir,” he greeted, giving light directly to Victor’s face.

  “Hello,” the driver yawned loudly in response, rubbing his eyes, “what is wrong?”

  “Seemingly nothing thus far, but you never know what might happen,” the police officer reported with some grief in his voice, while illuminating the back passenger seats, “however, it is exactly what we serve for – to prevent bad things from happening, am I correct?”

  Victor thoughtfully looked at his interlocutor who was calming the potential criminal, although without actually knowing it.

  “Are you carrying any drugs or guns at this moment, sir?” the police officer asked randomly, obviously looking for an occasion but not capable of understanding that he just put his finger on one.

  “I would never,” Victor slightly smiled, ready to awkwardly yawn once again, although this one it was mental fatigue inclining him to do it.

  “It is good, it is good,” the officer idly approved Victor’s lie, having shaken off several rain-drops from his cap, which instantly began to gather again, “if we stopped here anyway, maybe we will take a look at your papers then?”

  “And maybe we will not?” Victor asked softly, feigning he was the most law-abiding citizen in the entire world. “My driving licence and other documents are in order, and I am already late for a serious meeting, my friends will not understand if I come late.”