The Good Angel of Death

by Andrey Kurkov

  ‘One dollar,’ said the Azerbaijani in control of the tap of the water tank. ‘Maybe you’d like some instant soup? Or grain to boil? We have everything, all at good prices . . .’

  I looked in the large envelope that Colonel Taranenko had given me, found the wad of dollars and took out the smallest note – a ten – then went back to the water tank.

  The Azerbaijani didn’t have any change, so I had to take three packets of instant soup made in some Arab country or other.

  After lunch, we settled down in a double row at the edge of the boat and dozed.

  Time passed slowly. I opened my eyes every now and then to see if the sun was still high in the sky. Eventually I looked and the sun was already on its way down.

  I got to my feet and leaned my chest against the side. The sea was still as calm as ever, but it was a bit cleaner. The horizon had moved closer. Between us and the horizon there was a cargo ship sailing in the opposite direction, going about its own business.

  I watched it for a while, glad to have something to fasten my gaze on at least.

  The others were asleep. Petro was snoring gently. Looking round, I saw several more groups of sleeping passengers. Almost everybody on this ferry seemed to be travelling in families. And almost everybody around me was sleeping on blankets spread out on the deck.

  The wind grew stronger and the swaying gelatine surface of the calm sea was broken up into rows of low waves. The ferry started rocking – the sea seemed to be trying to lull it to sleep, like a child in a pram. I immediately recalled the floating fish-processing plant: in fact, it didn’t actually surface out of my memory – it was my body that remembered the way the huge monster swayed on the waves. My hands remembered the trembling metal of the side that I clung to during that swaying. And that storm, the only sea storm of my entire life, was played out in front of my eyes like a movie newsreel. The crashing of the waves in the night, the creaking of the metal under the pressure of the wild water and me, clasped tight in Dasha’s embrace to stop me falling, while she, who was well used to storms, slept calmly through the wild raging of the Caspian elements. How much time had passed since then? How many days and weeks?

  Not so very many, it seemed, but now all that was part of the distant past, a past to which I could never return.

  I looked down at Gulya. She was sleeping on her side, with her head resting on Galya’s bag. The jeans suited her better than the shirt-dresses. She had immediately become one of us, as if she had simply changed her clothes after performing in a folk-dance ensemble. But even so, remembering her father and sister and those days spent in their kibitka, I realised that her view of life could never be the same as mine.

  Now, at least, there was no external difference between her and us – me, Petro and Galya, that is. ‘But in reality,’ I thought, ‘it must take a great effort to conceal her excitement and everything she thinks about our journey and our future together in general.’ I didn’t really believe all that strongly in her eastern spirit of resignation. And yet at the same time I trusted her completely, I trusted her more than Petro or Galya or – especially – the colonel. She was from another world, but she was my wife. Although our marriage was more of a mystical event, thrust upon us by the heavens above, than a reality behind which there lay concealed – as there must be behind every reality – the document that substantiates it.

  I suddenly heard a quiet clanking sound behind me and instinctively swung round. Standing about ten metres away from us behind a capstan engine was a short, swarthy man about forty years old. As soon as our eyes met, he turned his head abruptly and strode away rapidly. After he’d gone about ten metres, he disappeared behind an iron staircase that led to the covered lifeboats hanging above both sides of the ferry.

  He disappeared, but for several seconds I could still see his swarthy face in front of my eyes. He didn’t look like a Kazakh or an Azerbaijani. More like a well-tanned Slav. But then I forgot his face and my thoughts focused on Gulya again: I imagined her on the streets of Kiev, sitting at a table in a cafe or in my flat beside St Sophia’s Cathedral, on the square that was filled with the chiming of bells every Sunday.

  As darkness advanced, the horizons came to life, and here and there in the distance I could see the lights of invisible ships and fishing schooners. On the deck the ship’s lamps glowed dully behind their oval grille-work covers. A bright yellow light poured down from the captain’s bridge, but it was blocked off by the lifeboats hanging above the deck and the iron gangways and stairways, so that the only drops of it that reached us fell as patches on the inner deck.

  After catching up on our sleep, we felt wide awake, despite the darkness and the waves that were rocking the ferry like a cradle.

  Petro was twirling the pistol with the silencer in his hands.

  ‘Put that away,’ I told him, leaning closer.

  ‘It’s an awkward weapon,’ he said, stowing the pistol in the bag. ‘The silencer’s very heavy. Do you know when we’ll get to Baku?’

  I shrugged. That was something I’d like to know myself.

  ‘I wish we were already on that train,’ Petro sighed. Then he turned to his girlfriend and said, ‘Galya, make some coffee.’ Galya took out her coffee apparatus. She tipped coffee into the djezva, added some water from the canister that had been refilled in the port of Krasnovodsk, lit a tablet of solidified alcohol and set the djezva on the blue flame.

  55

  A FEW MORE hours went by. The sea calmed down again, and the waves eased off. The ferry sailed close by an oil-drilling platform with the bright flame of a flare dancing above it like a beacon.

  Gulya and I were standing at the side again. My hand was resting on her shoulder. We silently watched the blazing flare until it was left far behind.

  Petro was sitting on a bed mat, smoking his pipe and generously sharing the light tobacco smoke with us. Galya was sleeping. The only sound in the silence of the dawn was the droning of the ship’s engine. But we had rapidly grown accustomed to this mechanical sound and no longer noticed it, as if it didn’t even exist. For us it was simply a part of the silence.

  ‘Hey,’ I whispered to Gulya, ‘where’s our little chameleon?’

  ‘In my bundle,’ she whispered back in my ear.

  ‘Isn’t it stuffy for him in there?’

  Gulya laughed. ‘Of course not. He likes it much better than the desert.’

  I heard the hollow echo of rapid footsteps somewhere behind me and turned to look. The shadow of a man slipped up the lower steps of the iron staircase leading to the lifeboats.

  ‘Someone isn’t sleeping,’ I said.

  ‘It will soon be morning,’ Gulya whispered. ‘Look, there’s the waterfront!’

  I turned to follow her gaze, looking straight ahead in the direction of the ferry’s movement. In the distance I could see constellations of little lights rising up into the air.

  ‘Petro!’ I called in a gentle voice. ‘Baku!’

  He got to his feet and came over to me, still with the pipe in his mouth. He looked hard at the distant lights. Then he tapped it against the side, knocking out the smoked tobacco. He sighed.

  ‘In three or four days we’ll be home,’ he said in a fatalistic voice, as if he didn’t want to go home at all.

  ‘Provided there are no adventures on the way,’ I said. He turned towards me with a sad look and nodded.

  ‘It would be good if there were no ad-ven-tures . . .’ he said.

  About forty minutes later the ferry came to life. The passengers woke up and started gathering their things together and folding up the blankets and sleeping mats laid out on the deck.

  Petro went over to the KrAZes – he wanted to check the plan of action with the drivers. Galya woke up, splashed a handful of water from the canister into her face and got to her feet. She looked curiously at the lights of the city that our ferry was approaching – they were closer now. Then she offered to brew coffee for Gulya and me and we eagerly accepted.

  ‘Everything�
��s good,’ Petro said when he got back. ‘They’ll load everything themselves, and we’ll travel in the guards’ carriage, accompanying our cargo.’

  Galya made coffee for Petro too. When he finished his favourite beverage, he lit up his pipe again.

  ‘You could try not smoking for one day at least, your tobacco’s almost run out already,’ Galya reproached him.

  ‘We’ll find tobacco and coffee in Baku,’ Petro replied calmly.

  The halo of the rising sun appeared above the horizon behind the ferry. The darkness was rapidly dispersing almost before our very eyes, making way for the new day, for new light. The passengers lined the entire edge of the deck, contemplating the smooth surface of the water and the approaching city. We could already see the port, with the jibs of the cranes rising up above it.

  We sailed past tankers, cargo ships and trawlers standing at anchor in the roadstead and our mood improved. The energy bubbled up inside us, even though we had been awake most of the night.

  ‘Everything will be just fine,’ Petro declared with firm, even slightly aggressive confidence to no one in particular. And after this declaration he raised his pipe to his mouth once again and drew on it. ‘Everything will be really fine!’

  ‘A spirited attack is already half a victory,’ I thought, feeling glad for Petro and envying him slightly.

  At least another two hours went by before the ferry finally docked and allowed the thirty-something vehicles, including our two trucks, to drive off its deck. Now they were all standing in line on the long, broad quayside, waiting for the group of Azerbaijani customs men who had surrounded the first car – a grey Volga that had not seen a bucket of soapy water and a rag in a very long time.

  We were also standing on the quayside with our things, waiting for the trucks with our cargo to approach the customs service barrier. On all sides the port stretched out as far as the eye could see.

  The piers bit into the Caspian Sea one after another, like long fangs. Some had a single ship standing at them, while others had several small vessels. There were different-coloured flags waving above the ships – the new flags of new states. I glanced round curiously at the radio antenna of the ferry Oilman and saw the new flag of Azerbaijan fluttering on it.

  Suddenly an alarming thought interrupted my study of the port. The main thing they did at customs, I thought, was to check baggage! I recalled my rare crossings of the Soviet-Polish border, with the stony-faced customs men in green uniforms who had made me open my suitcases and tip out the contents of my bags straight on to the lower bunk of the compartment.

  ‘Petro!’ I said in alarm. ‘We have guns . . . And this is the customs! We could get caught.’

  ‘Have you read the newspapers at home?’ Petro asked me calmly. ‘In Azerbaijan the average monthly income is twelve dollars. Take a look at the notes we have in the envelope!’

  I pulled the envelope out of my rucksack, glanced inside it and rustled through the notes without taking them out – the wad of dollars was mostly twenties and tens.

  ‘There are twenties and tens,’ I said, turning back to Petro.

  ‘You see,’ he said with a smile. ‘Let’s say it’s ten for each of them, we’ll give them forty.’

  My moustachioed partner’s optimism calmed my nerves. I set aside forty dollars in my pocket and stuffed the envelope back deep into the rucksack, almost down at the very bottom, close to the Smena camera, the cans of ‘baby food’ and the pistol with the silencer, so that it wouldn’t be too obvious if the customs men decided they wanted to take a look inside anyway.

  And then I watched the customs men at work. They worked at a leisurely pace.

  As far as I could see, their job consisted of talking to the driver and receiving a certain amount of money from him, but from the quayside it was impossible to see exactly what sum and in what currency. I finally calmed down and began glancing round at the sea, the ships and the port buildings again.

  ‘Kolya,’ Gulya said in a warm whisper that tickled my ear. ‘I think we’re being followed . . .’

  She gestured towards the ferry, and I saw a man I had noticed before – the suntanned Slav type dressed in canvas trousers and a blue sweater. He was standing sideways-on to us, examining something on the waterfront.

  There was a half-empty kitbag dangling behind his shoulder. Even from where I was standing I could see his snub-nosed profile. His light brown hair stuck up in an untidy grown-out crew cut.

  ‘He was looking at us and our things for a long time,’ Gulya whispered.

  I nodded.

  Looking at someone for a long time didn’t necessarily mean that you were following them, I thought, but in my heart I felt that Gulya’s suspicions were correct.

  The first of the KrAZes drove up to the customs barrier. Petro and I were watching the customs men closely now. Both drivers got out and talked calmly to the customs men about something. Then one of them showed the customs officers some documents and papers that were obviously to do with the cargo. One customs man studied them carefully and gave them back to the driver, but that was obviously not the end of the conversation. About two minutes later the driver with the papers walked over to us, leaving his partner and the trucks at the customs barrier.

  ‘The documents aren’t in order,’ the Kazakh driver said as he reached us. ‘They say we’re not registered for transit!’

  ‘And are we?’ I asked

  ‘See for yourself!’ said the driver, handing me the papers. I ran my eye over them, but basically all I understood was that the Ukrainian-Kazakh joint venture ‘Karakum Ltd’ had dispatched twelve tonnes of building sand to Kiev via Baku, Makhachkala, Rostov-on-Don and Kharkov.

  ‘What do we do?’ Petro asked the driver.

  ‘Pay,’ he said with a shrug.

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Two hundred will do it,’ the Kazakh suggested.

  Petro gave me a thoughtful glance. I understood without having to be told. I opened the rucksack, took out the sum required and handed it to the driver.

  Five minutes later the truck had passed the customs barrier and stopped beside a block of containers stacked four high. One of the drivers got out and waved to us.

  Galya helped Gulya to throw the double bundle over her shoulder and then grasped the black shopping bag in her arms. We walked slowly up to the customs post. When we got there the final vehicle had just left.

  ‘Pa-ass-ports!’ a customs man with a short grey moustache commanded. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘To Kiev,’ I replied for all of us.

  ‘Transit?’

  I nodded.

  He studied our passports and compared the photographs with our faces, and then kept hold of the documents.

  ‘What are we carrying?’

  ‘Personal items,’ Petro said in Ukrainian.

  ‘What?’ asked the customs man, pricking up his ears.

  ‘Personal items,’ Petro said more quietly in Russian.

  ‘You can talk your own lingo at home, but here you answer in Russian!’

  Realising that the situation had to be saved, I drew the customs man’s attention to myself.

  ‘How much do we have to pay for transit? We’re on our way back from my wedding,’ I said, and nodded at Gulya.

  ‘Wedding?’ the customs man asked, suddenly smiling. He looked at my wife, still a smile on his face, and wagged his head in approval. ‘How much did you pay?’

  ‘A lot!’ I said, making it up as I went along.

  ‘A Kazakh girl?’

  This time Gulya nodded.

  ‘Ai, good for you,’ said the customs man, looking at me again. ‘Better travel to a long way than just pick up what’s lying in front of you! Give me twenty dollars each and be on your way!’

  I only had forty dollars in my pocket and I didn’t want to get anything out of the rucksack while he was watching me. I cast a quick glance at Petro. He understood.

  ‘What’s the best way to get to Kiev from here?’ he asked the custom
s man.

  The customs man thought about that, looking down at his feet. While he was thinking, I managed to open the rucksack and reach straight into the envelope.

  ‘You know,’ said the customs man, raising his eyes to look at Petro, ‘there’s a goods train from here to Rostov every day. There are wagons for Rostov and for Kiev. Go and have a word with the dispatchers, it’ll be safer than going on the passenger train . . .’

  I smiled as I clicked the spring catches on the rucksack shut. The customs man had advised us to do just what we were intending to do. Which meant the colonel really had worked the route out thoroughly before he briefed us.

  We paid the fee for transit and set out towards the truck. Only one of the drivers met us, the other had already gone into the Baku Port cargo depot to make arrangements for a goods wagon.

  ‘Listen, can you get me some coffee and something to smoke?’ Petro asked the driver in Russian.

  ‘What kind of coffee?’

  ‘Ground, of course.’

  The driver nodded.

  At Petro’s request I handed the driver a twenty-dollar greenback and he disappeared behind the huge four-storey block of containers, leaving us to guard the trucks. About fifteen minutes later he came back with a cellophane pack of ground coffee and a similar, smaller pack of tobacco.

  ‘What, is there a shop here then?’ I asked the driver, thinking about what I would like to buy for the journey.

  ‘A shop?’ the driver laughed. ‘This whole place is a shop,’ he said, gesturing round at the port. ‘They’ve got everything here! Vodka, cars, tinned goods . . .’

  ‘I get it,’ I sighed, suppressing my mounting consumerist hankerings. ‘We’ll wait for the lights of the big city.’

  ‘Everything’s more expensive in the city,’ the driver responded.

  I didn’t say anything to that.

  Soon his partner came back.

  ‘We have a wagon,’ he said. ‘Only it’s not very good . . .’

  ‘What does “not very good” mean?’ Petro asked him.