Ghostwritten

by David Mitchell

  • • •

  The switch between the fake and the real Delacroix had gone like clockwork. Almost.

  I’d met Rudi and three rent-a-granny cleaners at the goods entrance at exactly eight in the evening. Gutbucket Petrovich, still in that ghastly uniform she wears, and two of her cronies were there to supervise them. I was the fourth Hermitage employee. When I arrived they all stopped talking. So utterly obvious. While I was allotting corridors and handing floor-plans to the women, I thought Gutbucket Petrovich was about to break her vow of silence and say something, but she bit her tongue at the last moment. Wise. The head of security was playing cards in the lodge with his bat-faced brother-in-law. He nodded briefly at Rudi, and waved us through. Rudi and his cleaners wheeled their cumbersome floor-polishing contraptions in different directions, one guard per cleaner. I went with Rudi.

  We didn’t say a word. Rudi and I make a great team. When he’s happy, he’ll say that to me, like the time I attended his birthday party at the Petersburg Hilton banquet halls. When nobody was looking, he chinked our champagne glasses and whispered, “Babe, you and I make a great team.”

  When we exchanged a picture in the winter, we had to work in the weak electric lights of the Winter Palace. In the bright summer twilight we could leave the lights off. I stood guard in the corridor outside the Delacroix gallery, while Rudi unlocked and clicked open the compartment specially built into the base of the machine. He slid Jerome’s forgery out, and leaned it against a half-moon table, inset with lotus flowers and orchids of jade and amber.

  There was no noise but the drone of the other machines in the distance.

  Rudi reached up and unhooked the real Delacroix, and slid it into the compartment, locking it shut again. I thought about Eve and the serpent, making their getaway together.

  I heard stout footsteps marching this way.

  “Rudi!”

  The serpent’s poison sacs back-flooded, and venom dribbled up.

  Rudi stiffened and stared at me.

  I felt locked in and left behind.

  I’d been mistaken. A hammering in a false wall. No, nothing. And the echo of that drone.

  Rudi unfroze, frowning at me. Then he hung Jerome’s fake in the empty space.

  I believe I would have sold my soul for a cigarette.

  Rudi then started waxing the seventeenth-century portrait corridors, pushing the noisy handlebarred contraption up and down the long passages, up as far as the Cubist pictures of cut-up instruments. The gardener in our Swiss gardens will mow my lawns in the same way. I watched Rudi, outwardly as bored as a gallery attendant. I wanted to help him, but it would have looked suspicious. Inwardly I was aching for the hours to topple, quickly, so we could leave this ghastly palace and the treasure would be truly ours. I yielded to temptation and imagined promenading through Zurich’s plushest department stores, a train of attendants wrapping the objects I indicate in polka-dotted wrapping paper and gold ribbon. Then I imagined being nibbled and ravished by Rudi in the truffle department.

  At midnight Rudi’s new Italian chronometer beeped and he switched off the waxing machine. We returned to the goods entrance. On the way down Rudi smiled at me. “Soon, babe, very soon,” and he smiled the smile our son will smile. I bit my lip and imagined the clothes I would dress him in. “You can bang me up later,” I whispered. In his lodge, the head of security was asleep, his legs splayed and his snores aquatic. Two of Rudi’s cleaners were there, complaining about their bones, complaining about the weather, complaining about the waxing machines. I pray that Rudi will put me to sleep before I get to that point. We watched the head of security for a minute or so, until Gutbucket Petrovich came with her cleaner. Gutbucket Petrovich poked him awake.

  He blinked and hauled himself to his feet. “What?”

  “We’re all done here, officer,” said Rudi.

  “Then go home, then.”

  “And what about conducting the body searches?” prodded Gutbucket Petrovich. “ ‘Regulation 15d: All ancillary staff, including gallery attendants, must undergo compulsory body searches upon leaving the—’ ”

  The head of security squelched out his nose into a tissue, which he lobbed at the wastepaper basket. He missed. “Don’t quote the regulations at me. I know what’s in the regulations. I wrote the bloody regulations.”

  “I refuse to have his hands anywhere near me,” said the oldest cleaner, rearing up. “And if you say he can,” she warned Rudi, “I’ll take what you owe me and resign.”

  Granny Cleaner Number Two advanced in solidarity. “Same here. I refuse to be treated like a tart in a police cell.”

  “It’s the regulations,” snarled Gutbucket Petrovich. “You have no choice.”

  Jesus, it’s not like anyone’s asking you to sleep with the knobbly troll.

  Rudi turned on the charm, the rogue. “Ladies, ladies, ladies. The solution is obvious. The head of security here can body-search me, while one of his female members of staff—perhaps this”—Rudi gestured at Gutbucket—“zealous member … can body-search you. Then we can all go home to an honest night’s sleep at the end of an honest day’s labor. And Rudi always pays what he owes. Are we agreed?”

  After the body searches we loaded two of the waxing machines into the back of the van. The three cleaners and two of the guards had gone home. Rudi was in the head of security’s office getting his billet signed and countersigned in triplicate. Gutbucket Petrovich lingered like a bad smell, hatching some new scheme. The last signature was scrawled off, and Rudi folded up the papers.

  “How do we know,” said Gutbucket Petrovich to the head of security, “that he hasn’t hidden a painting in one of the waxing machines?”

  Christ above. A poison thorn slid in, bent, and snapped.

  But Rudi just sighed, and addressed the head of security. “Who is this woman? Your new boss?”

  “I’m a government employee,” snarled Gutbucket Petrovich, “paid to protect our cultural heritage from thieves!”

  “Fine,” said Rudi, still not looking at her. “First, search the galleries. Second, locate the missing pictures that my internationally notorious gallery thieves, cunningly disguised as groaning grannies, have spirited away from under the very noses of your own guards while they blinked. Third, dismantle each of my machines, screw by screw, onto sheets of newspaper by moonlight. Then put them back together. Perfectly, mind you, or I’ll sue big time. Great idea. You are lucky to have such a fastidious public servant ruling your roost. I’ll be adding overtime to my invoice. Under the terms of the contract I have with Head Curator Rogorshev, I clocked off at twelve sharp. You’ll forgive me if I sit down, help myself to your newspaper, and phone my wife to tell her that I won’t be home for another eight hours?”

  Rudi sat down, and unfolded the newspaper.

  My heart beat at least twenty times in the few seconds that followed.

  “That won’t be necessary,” said the head of security, staring daggers at Gutbucket Petrovich. “The head of security makes these kinds of decisions. Not a gallery attendant supervisor.”

  Rudi stood up. “Very glad to hear it.” He barged past Gut-bucket Petrovich, who was left to stew in her own juices—the only juices that she’d ever know in her lifetime. Through the door of the porter’s lodge I could see Rudi trundling the third waxing machine into the back of his van, still in the loading bay. I noticed he’d left his papers on the desk, so that I could pick them up, and follow him. We’re a team of professionals. Sure enough, he was waiting for me in the back of the van.

  “Babe,” he muttered, “I’m going to go to Jerome’s first, to drop off the painting. I’ll be back later. There’s one or two of Gregorski’s people I need to see first.”

  “Suhbataar?”

  “Never mind who. I’ll see you soon.”

  “I love you.” What else could I have said?

  The backs of his fingers brushed my breasts. He jumped down to get the last waxing machine. The one with the Delacroix hidden in its unde
rcarriage, still in the loading bay. So close now, so close.

  “Well, you must be very pleased with yourself, Latunsky.” Gutbucket Petrovich’s head and shoulders appeared in the loading door of the van.

  Why choose now to stop ignoring me? “Why, it can talk, after all.”

  She rolled up a strip of chewing gum, put it in, and bit down hard. She folded her arms. “Do you really think a nobody like you is going to get away with this?”

  “I have no idea what you think you’re talking about.”

  She smirked as she chewed. I wondered what to do. How could she know? “Drop the ham acting, Latunsky. Everyone knows about the little game you’re running here.”

  Behind her, out of sight of the gloom of the lodge, Rudi had picked up a monkey wrench and was walking up very slowly behind her, his forefinger over his lips. My mind raced ahead, saw the steel flashing down onto her skull—I felt—I don’t know what I felt—keep her talking, keep her talking, I felt afraid, a part of me even wanting to warn her, but another part of me felt warm and hungry. Don’t move a muscle, bitch. Bunnykins is coming.

  “And what little game would that be?” We would dump her body in the marshes out towards Finland.…

  “Stop playing games! You’re lousy at it! I’m talking about your little scheme to pull yourself up into the high life, of course!” That look in Rudi’s eyes, bad cocaine. Gutbucket thinks she has me on the run. Ravens would come and peck out those beady eyes of hers. Wild dogs would fight over her belly, ass, and thighs, the stronger getting the juicier cuts. Her life is in my hands, and she doesn’t even know it.… I no longer want her to run away, and I have to stop myself laughing. She’s still chewing, her fat face badly in need of an expensive beautician. “You’re after the head curator’s job, aren’t you? Sleeping your way into his office chair! You’re just a shameless whore, Latunsky. That’s what you’ve always been and that’s all you ever will be.”

  Rudi lowered the monkey wrench, and I laughed, and spat at her. That got rid of her.

  I finished my cigarette. Even the bats had gone. What was wrong now?

  Nothing, that was what. I checked my watch: 2:24 A.M. The picture would be safely stowed at Jerome’s, Suhbataar would be handing over the cash from the buyers, and I could start packing for Switzerland. After all these years I was finally getting out! In the iron curtain years Switzerland was as near in dreams and far in fact as Emerald City. I attacked the rest of the stairs. It was natural I should be jittery. I’d just stolen a painting worth half a million dollars.

  I knocked Rudi’s code on my front door, just to please him. But there was no reply. Well. I hadn’t expected one. He’d be home soon.

  In my hallway I clicked the light-switch, but the bulb had broken. I clicked a switch further down the hallway, but the second light also wasn’t working. Odd. The electricity must be down. But I didn’t really need electricity tonight, anyway. The White Nights were here, and the sky over towards Europe was lit by perpetual dusk and the Milky Way. I walked into my living room, saw my coffee table with its legs in the air, and my nerves snapped like a string of cat gut.

  My room had been wrecked.

  The shelves yanked off the walls, the TV smashed, the vases flung to the ground. The drawers ripped out, the contents hurled across the room. The pictures methodically pulled apart and tossed aside, one by one. My clothes foraged through and ripped to ribbons. Shards of glass littered the carpet like dinosaur teeth.

  Who would want to do this to me?

  All this destruction, all this silence.

  Oh God, not Rudi. Was he safe? Had he been taken?

  A corner of shadow was twitching under the wreck of the dining table. I felt my throat constricting and refusing to swallow. My eyes strained to read the swarmy dark. The corner of shadow was a pool of blood, blackened by the twilight—I recognized the tiniest of whimpers—

  Oh my God oh my God Nemya, not dear little Nemya. I crouched and peered under the table. There was a mesh of torn roots where one of her hind legs should have been. I think she was too close to death to be in pain. Her eyes looked back at me, calm as a Buddha on a hill somewhere, outstaring the sun. She died, leaving me falling alone, unable to see the bottom.

  An awful form was floating down the Neva from the marshes. Lazily, on its back, until it reached Alexandra Nevskogo Bridge. It would crawl up a support, and haul its stumps and teeth through the streets, looking for me.

  What do I do? What do you always do? “Ask your desire!” orders the serpent.

  I went into the bedroom, and telephoned Rudi’s mobile phone number, the one for emergencies. The static hiss sounded like the crashing of waves, or the noise of many coins falling? Thank God, the call connected. I blurted out, “Rudi, they’ve turned the flat over—”

  A woman’s voice was talking back. A cold, metallic one. Smug as Gutbucket’s.

  “The number you have dialed has been disconnected.”

  “Christ above! Reconnect it, you frigging whore!”

  “The number you have dialed has been disconnected.”

  “The number you have dialed has been disconnected.”

  What?

  I put down the receiver. What next? Desires. I wanted Switzerland, and Rudi, and our children. So I needed the Delacroix painting. That simple. Rudi will be proud of me. “Babe,” he’ll say, “I knew I could rely on you.”

  I telephoned Jerome.

  “Hello, my dear. A shplendid evening’sh work.” His voice was woozy with alcohol.

  “Jerome, have you seen Rudi?”

  “Of coursh, he left here only twenty minutes ago after dropping off the latest addition to our family. My word, she is a beauty, isn’t she? Hey, did I ever tell you about Delacroix’s fling with the nephew of—”

  “Has Suhbataar come yet?”

  “No. The Great Khan telephoned to say he would be arriving shortly—did you know that in the thirteenth century, the Mongolians used to seal their captives in airtight containers and conduct feasting atop the box, listening to the sounds of suffocation—”

  “Jerome, shut up. I’m coming over now. We have to move out.”

  “But my dear, that’s scheduled for tomorrow. And after everything I’ve done I think I deserve not to be told to shut up like I was a—”

  “Tomorrow has to happen now! My place has been done over. I can’t get hold of Rudi. My—” My cat has been killed, and I felt it move nearer down the river. “Something’s going wrong. It’s all going wrong. I’m coming over for the painting now. Pack it.”

  I hung up. What did I want?

  I reached through the rip in the underside of the bedframe—thank you, Jesus! I untaped the loaded revolver. Guns are heavier than they look, and colder. I put it in my handbag and left. I came back for my passport, and left again.

  It’s true, it’s harder to get a taxi when you need one, and if you’re desperate, forget it. I walked. I shoved whatever it was that I mustn’t think about back upstream, but it kept floating down. I focused on the little things around me. I remember the cobbles on Gorokhovaya Street. I remember the smoothness of the girl’s skin, as she kissed her boy on the steps of the bronze horseman. I remember the heads of the flowers in cellophane around St. Isaac’s Cathedral. I remember the taillights of the planes as they took off from Pulkovo airport, bound for Hong Kong or London or New York or Zurich. I remember the mauve silk of a laughing woman. I remember the maroon of a leather flying jacket. I remember the crunched-up form of a homeless person, sleeping in a coffin of cardboard. Little things. It’s all made of little things that you don’t ordinarily notice. My jaw muscles were killing me.

  Jerome’s door was bolted from the inside. I banged it so loud that I set off a dog in another part of the building.

  Jerome flung it open, pulled me in, and hissed. “Shut up!” He locked the door and ran back over to where he was packing the picture with sheets of cardboard and brown tape and string. A suitcase was already packed, lying open on the sofa. Socks, und
erpants, vests, cheap vodka, a Wedgwood teapot. There was an empty bottle of gin on its side in his jukebox liquor cabinet.

  I stood perfectly still. What should I do? What did I want? “I’m taking the picture.”

  Jerome barked a laugh. He didn’t even bother to look up. “Are you indeed?”

  “Yes. I’m taking the picture. You see, it’s Rudi’s and my future.”

  I don’t even think Jerome heard me. He was crouching over the package with his back to me. “Make yourself useful, my dear, and put your thumb on this bit of string while I tighten it up.”

  I didn’t move. “I’m taking the picture!” When Jerome turned around to ask me again he found himself looking straight into the eye of my gun. His face lost its composure and then regained it.

  “This isn’t the movies. You’re not going to use that on me. You know you’re not. Not without your puppet-master pimp to tell you what to do. You couldn’t even shoot it straight. Now be a sensible lady, and put it down.”

  I had a gun. He didn’t. So. “Stand away from my picture, Jerome. Go and lock yourself in your studio and you won’t get hurt.”

  Jerome looked at me gently. “My dear, what we have here is a reality gap. It’s my picture. I painted the forgery, remember. My talents have allowed us to get this far. All you did was get undressed, lie back, and open wide. Let’s face it, that’s par for the course in your line of work.”

  “Nemya died.”

  “Who’s Nemya?”

  “Nemya! Nemya, my little cat!”

  “I’m very sorry that your cat died. Truly, I’ll weep buckets for your kitty when the time comes to pay my respects, but if you will kindly put that nasty little toy away and piss off so I can finish packing my picture—do you hear me, my dear? My picture—and catch a plane out of your squalid, lying, violent, subzero anus of a country for which not so long ago I traded in my entire damned future—”

  “I don’t know what a reality gap is. But I know what a gun is. It’s my picture. And another thing, my name is not ‘my dear.’ My name is Margarita Latunsky.”