Ghostwritten

by David Mitchell

  “Hello, Tatyana! You’ve been exiled here too?”

  “I take my break whenever I choose. Chocolate? Forget your waistline for today. Put some sugar into your blood.”

  “Ah, go on then. What the hell.” I sat down, felt too hot, stood up, and the legs of my chair shrieked against the tiles. I opened the windows through the iron bars, but it didn’t make much difference. Outside and inside were the same. There was a tank in the square outside, and lots of people moving very slowly. The outer edges of a whirlpool.

  “You seem a little agitated today, Margarita,” ventured Tatyana.

  I longed to tell her about Switzerland. I longed to tell her everything, and I almost did. “Really? I’ve been thinking about taking a little holiday, as a matter of fact.… Maybe abroad … I don’t know where.…”

  Tatyana lit me a cigarette. Her fingers were beautiful.

  We listened to the drone of a distant boiler, and the slosh of a cleaner’s mop in the corridor outside. I wondered if Tatyana was a pianist, with fingers like that.

  “It’s strange and it makes me sad,” I thought aloud, “that a place carries on without you after you’ve left.”

  Tatyana nodded. “It’s the world slapping you in the face and saying, ‘Look, honeybunch, I get along without you very well.’ The sea does the same thing, but nobody lives there. It hurts more if it’s a place where you’ve grown up, or worked, or fallen in love.”

  Tatyana’s chocolate sweetened my tongue to its roots. “Sometimes I imagine that I’ll walk out into the corridor and bump into an eighteenth-century Count of Archangel.”

  Tatyana laughed. “And what does the Count of Archangel want with Margarita Latunsky?”

  “Well, it depends. Sometimes he wants me to show him the way to the Empress’s chambers for a tryst. Sometimes he wants to paint me in oils, and hang me in his gallery. Other times he wants to drag me back to his four-poster bed, to ravish me so utterly that I can’t walk for three days.”

  “Do you ever put up a struggle?”

  And I laughed. A tap started dripping in the back kitchen.

  “You appear to imagine a lot of things.”

  “Rudi says so too.”

  “Who’s Rudi?”

  “My friend.”

  Tatyana crossed her legs, and I heard her tights rustle. “Your man?”

  I like Tatyana being curious about me. I like Tatyana. “In a manner of speaking …”

  “What does he do?” Tatyana finds Margarita Latunsky worthy of her curiosity.

  “He’s a local businessman.”

  “Oh, him! You mentioned him when we went out last week.…”

  “I did?”

  Tatyana uncrossed her legs, and I heard her tights rustle. “Sure … but go on, tell me all about him.…”

  “There’s a storm closing in.”

  I nodded. A cavern-pool quietness.

  “Tatyana, you didn’t mean it the other day when you said that love doesn’t exist?”

  “I’m sorry it upset you so much.”

  “No, you didn’t upset me. But I’ve been thinking. If there’s no love, what keeps good in a different cage from evil?”

  “I knew you had promise, the moment I saw you. That is an astute question.”

  “You told me a secret. Can you keep a secret about me?”

  “I am one.”

  “I’m a lapsed Christian. My mother used to smuggle me into clandestine services when I was a teenager. Before Brezhnev died, you understand. If you were caught, two years prison, straight out. Even owning a Bible was illegal.”

  Tatyana wasn’t looking remotely surprised.

  “I guess this isn’t really a secret, it’s more of a story. I remember a sermon. A traveler went on a journey with an angel. They entered a house with many floors. The angel opened one door, and in it was a room with one long low bench running around the walls, crammed with people. In the center was a table piled with sweetmeats. Each guest had a very long silver spoon, as long as a man is tall. They were trying to feed themselves, but of course they couldn’t—the spoons were too long, and the food kept falling off. So in spite of there being enough food for everyone, everyone was hungry. ‘This,’ explained the angel, ‘is hell. The people do not love each other. They only want to feed themselves.’

  “Then the angel took the traveler to another room. It was exactly the same as the first, only this time instead of trying to feed themselves, the guests used their spoons to feed one another, across the room. ‘Here,’ said the angel, ‘the people think only of one another. And by doing so, they feed themselves. Here is heaven.’ ”

  Tatyana thought for a moment. “There’s no difference.”

  “No difference?”

  “No difference. Everybody both in heaven and hell wanted one and the same thing: meat in their bellies. But those in heaven got their shit together better. That’s all.” And she laughed, but I couldn’t. My expression made Tatyana add, “I’m truly sorry, Margarita.…”

  The minutes are hauling themselves by like a shot Hollywood gangster crawling down a corridor.

  I know my Rudi’s business sometimes demands a tough line, but there’s a difference between assertiveness and violence, just as there’s a difference between a businessman and a gangster. I never delude myself. My Rudi can adopt a very direct manner. But what do people expect if they default on legitimate loans? Rudi can’t give money away, he’s not a charity. People understand the terms when they take on the loans, and if they don’t keep their end of the bargain, then my Rudi is quite within his rights to take whatever action is necessary to ensure that he and his partners are not out of pocket at the end of the day. It’s incredible how some people find that so hard to understand. I remember about two years ago, shortly after Rudi agreed to move in with me, he came back late one night with a knife gash down his neck the length of a pencil. A loan defaulter, he’d explained. Blood was oozing out, thick and sticky like toothpaste. Rudi refused to go to the hospital, so I had to stanch the bleeding myself, with one of my ripped-up cotton blouses. The hospitals are for the needy, he said. He’s so brave.

  After that night, Rudi got himself a gun, and I got myself some bandages.

  Clouds and the distant Alps in the blue afternoon, ice cream and eiderdown. It was siesta time in the Garden of Eden: the drowsiness was murmury in the groves. Insects wound up and unwound. Eve was coming to a decision.

  “Ask your desire what you want,” hissed the snake.

  “It’s a big step. Exile, menstruation, toil, childbirth. I’ve got one last question.”

  “Fire away,” said the serpent.

  “Why do you hate God?”

  The serpent smiled and painted spirals in the air, down onto Eve’s lap. “Be so good as to tickle my throat, would you, my dear? Yess, that is an astute question …”

  Eve loved the flecks of emerald and ruby in the serpent’s golden scales. “Then give me an astute answer.”

  “That fruit you’re holding, Eve, that plump, juicing, yielding buttock of fruit, in its flesh you are going to discover all the knowledge you desire. Why do I hate God? Zoroaster, Manichean heresies, Jungian archetypes, Thingysky’s pyramid, virtual particles, from whence serpentine sibilance, immortality … Why do things happen the way they do? All you have to do”—the serpent’s eyes whirlpooled like the kaleidoscopes of Nostradamus—“is to wrap your soft lipsss around the juicy—beauty, bite hard, and see what happens!”

  Eve closed her eyes and opened her mouth.

  An ambassadorial convoy just graced my Delacroix gallery. Ambassadors are idiots who possess only one skill: outkowtowing one another at official functions. I know. I saw enough in action in my power-politics days. There was the head of security, a cultural attaché, the director of the Winter Palace, Head Curator Rogorshev—who pretended not to notice me—a multilingual translator, and eight ambassadors. I knew which countries they were from because I’d typed the invitations myself. The French one I could tell straight off
because he kept interrupting the translator to point things out to everyone else. The German one kept looking at his watch. I caught the Italian one looking at my breasts and neck. The British one kept nodding politely at the pictures and saying “Delightful,” the American was videotaping the tour as though he owned the place, and the Australian kept taking crafty swigs from his hip flask. That left the Belgian and the Dutch ambassadors, and I couldn’t tell one from the other, but who cares anyway? They each had their own bodyguard. God knows why anyone thought these nonentities needed bodyguards. I’ve known a fair few in my time, too. Much more fun than ambassadors.

  The air conditioner judders on. Its innards sound queasy.

  Tatyana whisked me onwards, but the Thewlicker’s goose between her legs flew faster than mine, and vanished honking down a fire escape, a sooty pot holder swinging from its foot. Catherine the Great sailed by on a royal barge. She was decomposing and full of holes and muddy, but I had a bottle of extra virgin olive oil which I poured into her orifices. Light shone out of her and she sat up, fully restored.

  “Ma’am,” I curtsied.

  “Ah, Margarita, and how are we tonight? The Count of Archangel asked us to convey his felicitations, and gratitude. We gather you rendered him some assistance the other night.”

  “It was my pleasure, your majesty.”

  “One last eeny-weeny thing, Miss Latunsky.”

  “Majesty?”

  “We know that you’re spiriting our pictures away from under our very noses. We are prepared to overlook your misdemeanors to date. We’re the same breed, you and us, Miss Latunsky. We admire your sense of style. Heaven only knows, in this world a woman has to take opportunity by the horns whenever it comes calling, but we are warning you. Plots are being hatched in the palace. The time has come to cut and run. If you take another picture, the price will be pain and anguish beyond your imaginings.”

  I woke up with a start to see a peeping Tom staring at me.

  “What do you think you’re staring at, you faggot?”

  He zigzagged off, looking over his shoulder once or twice.

  I don’t understand why I’m so drowsy today. It must be this weather, this storm that refuses to break. It’s like being locked in a cleaning cupboard.

  Rudi and I have always enjoyed a very liberal relationship. Don’t be fooled by appearances! He’s an uncut diamond, and the love we have for each other runs deep, strong, and true. The lovers I took before Rudi were older men, who used to protect and nurture me. I won’t deny that Rudi brings out a maternal streak in me. But the bullshit that says a woman has to be one man’s slave and never even look at another man, that died out with my mother’s two-faced generation and good riddance! If she really believed that, where did I come from? Both Rudi and I go on dates with other people: quite informally, and it doesn’t mean anything. In Rudi’s work, escorts are often a necessary part of the right image. I don’t mind. He couldn’t conduct his business if he didn’t have the right image. It’s not that I’m getting too old to go with Rudi or anything, it’s just that I’ve done all that scene before, and frankly, it bores me. Usually, Rudi introduces me to some of his gentleman friends, always men of the very highest pedigree, and always very rich, as you’d expect. Rudi knows that I used to be a social firefly, and doesn’t like to see me fester in our little home. Rudi’s friends are often in town on business, and they just want a little feminine company to show them around. Rudi knows how gifted I am at handling men, and making them feel at ease. They always express their appreciation to Rudi in a financial dimension, and sometimes Rudi insists that I take some expenses for my time too, though God knows, that’s not what I’m interested in. It doesn’t mean anything. Rudi knows he is the center of my world, and I know that I am the center of his.

  • • •

  The evening is waiting in Head Curator Rogorshev’s office. I have the windows open, and the electric fan on, but my sweaty lingerie is still sticking to my skin. The tip of my cigarette glows in the gloom.

  Nemya, my little cat, will want to be fed. But Rudi won’t be back yet, and Mr. Suhbataar never answers the telephone. Mr. Suhbataar. He’s a strange man. I’ve barely seen him. Once I got used to the shock of his sudden arrival a week ago, things worked out all right. He’s quieter than Nemya, and often when I think he isn’t at home I’ll pass by him on the way to the kitchen, or when I think he is at home I’ll knock on his door, and there’s nobody in. I’ve never seen him eat anything. I’ve never even seen him use the toilet! He drinks, though, glass after glass of milk. When he shuts a door there’s no sound. And when I ask him about his family or about Mongolia, he’ll give answers which don’t sound evasive at the time, but when I sit down and think about what he said later, I realize that he’s told me absolutely nothing. I have strong powers of insight and intuition, and my grandmother possessed the power to place curses. So I can usually see right through people, but it’s as though Mr. Suhbataar is invisible in the first place. He is handsome, in a slight, hawkish, semi-Oriental way. I wonder what kind of woman he likes? Savage Wild Asian, or Refined Lacy European? Assuming he likes women, and he’s not another Jerome. No. He’s real man. I wonder what Mongolia’s like. I must ask him before he leaves.

  The telephone goes. I let the head curator’s new answering machine take the call.

  “Margarita? It’s Rogorshev Rabbit. Are you there? Pick up the phone.… Don’t be cross with me, you know how much it cuts me up.…” I can’t be bothered. Another cigarette. “I forgot to tell you. It’s my wife’s anniversary. I promised her I’d take her and the kids to some new movie. Some nonsense about dinosaurs … I’m sorry, my fairy cake.… Next week? Are you there? No? Okay.… Well, I hope you get this message.…”

  I see. So, I did my makeup for nothing. Waste of time. Waste of money. Men don’t know how expensive decent cosmetics are. I hope there’s a fire in the cinema and all the little Rogorshevs turn into potato crisps. I can crunch them to crumbs, like I will their father.

  The head of security was reading the sports pages, chewing a brick-sized sandwich that dripped red jam. The tinny radio was on in the background. “Good evening, Madame Latunsky,” he said silkily. “How was your day? Quiet?” He groped down his pants to reposition his balls. “Or were you tied up with business in our head curator’s office?”

  Fat bastard. “Did your ambassadors have a nice time?”

  “Oh yes, yes, daresay we gave them something to brag about with their mistresses.” He looked at me for just a moment too long.

  I lit a cigarette. You are going down, Fatso. Enjoy it while it lasts, because you are going to be in prison by the end of the month. “Floor-polishing night, next week. The head of the cleaning company phoned Head Curator Rogorshev’s office just now to confirm. Usual time. It seems he’ll be coming along again himself this month, just to make sure the waxing machines run smoothly.”

  The head of security swiveled around on his squeaky chair to look at the office blackboard. “Right you are.”

  I knock Rudi’s stupid code on my own door, but there’s nobody home. No Mr. Suhbataar, no Rudi, not even little Nemya. I take a shower to wash away the day’s grime and the makeup. Green eye shadow and apricot blusher lost down the plug hole. The bathroom is much cleaner than usual: Mr. Suhbataar always cleans up after himself. He even cleans up after me. I don’t trust men who clean up after themselves. Jerome’s another one. Give me a slob like Rudi, any day. I force myself to eat a boiled egg, and sit down by the window to watch the canal. A pleasure craft chugs into view, with a cargo of tourists. I see my son and daughter among them, laughing at something I can’t see. Blond-haired toddlers. I want to go out but I can’t think where. I have many close friends, of course, all over the city. Or I could hop on the overnight train to Moscow and stay with some of my friends from my theater days there. I haven’t been to Moscow for years. They are always clamoring for me to visit, but I tell them, it’s a question of time. I can invite them to Switzerland when I’m sett
led, of course. They can stay in the guest chalet I’m going to have built. They’ll be green with envy! I’ve decided to live near a waterfall, so I can drink fresh water from the glaciers every day. St. Petersburg water contains so many metals it’s almost magnetic. I’ll keep hens. Why am I crying?

  What’s wrong with me tonight? Maybe I need a man. I could put on that pair of unladdered red fishnet tights, slip into the new black velvet suit Rudi got me as an extra birthday present last week—and go and pick up some young boy with a motorbike, in a leather jacket and with thick black hair and a powerful jaw … just for fun. I haven’t done that for a long time. Rudi wouldn’t mind, especially if he didn’t know about it. As I said, we have a modern give-and-take relationship.

  But no. I only want Rudi. I want Rudi’s shoulders, and his hands, and his smell, and his belt. I want to feel Rudi’s lunges, even if it hurts a little. Look at the rooftops, spires, cupolas, factory chimneys.… Rudi is out there somewhere, thinking about me.

  From Lapland comes a front of thunder, and when I look to where the night melts into the storm, I see a lick of lightning, and I wonder where my little Nemya could have got to.

  ————

  I stood in a well of moonlight. The stairs wound up to my apartment. Way, way past midnight. Not dark, not light, bats flickered here and there, specks in a sky of old film. The courtyard was silted up with menace. As usual, the lift wasn’t working, though it gave me a hell of an electric shock when I tried to pull the door open. I didn’t know you got electric shocks at night. For the fiftieth time since Rudi had driven off with the Delacroix in the back of his cleaning van, I told myself everything was fine. My new life was about to begin. For the fiftieth time I felt there was something wrong. Something had been wrong all week. What is who trying to tell me? I lit another cigarette. Nobody was stirring. See? There was nothing wrong, and to prove it I didn’t hurry up to my apartment, but stayed for a moment to smoke a last cigarette.