All That Man Is

by David Szalay

  ‘I mean, Stalin,’ Aleksandr says, as Mark arrives with the coffee, ‘was his hero. He worshipped him. Sincerely.’

  ‘There were some who did.’

  ‘And then Khrushchev makes that speech.’

  ‘Yes, the so-called Secret Speech,’ Lars says.

  ‘And so everyone was supposed to say they’re sorry, and how they never liked Stalin anyway. Well, he wouldn’t say it. Even though he knew he might be killed. He wouldn’t say it. It was like the end of Don Giovanni,’ Aleksandr says, ‘when he won’t say he’s sorry, even with hell opening in front of him. He won’t be a hypocrite. You know.’

  Lars just nods.

  ‘My father, he said sorry,’ Aleksandr tells him.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  Having served the coffee, Mark has slipped out.

  ‘My father said sorry. My uncle – his name was Aleksandr, like me – he wouldn’t say sorry. In his own mind he had done nothing wrong. It was his enemies who were wrong, he thought. He thought history was on his side. It wasn’t. In the end, he took his own life,’ Aleksandr says. ‘He killed himself.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear it.’

  Aleksandr shrugs exhaustedly. ‘He was old, then. He had nothing left to live for,’ he says. ‘He had devoted his whole life to the cause of Communism. It was his whole life. He had nothing else.’

  Lars nods thoughtfully.

  ‘What did he have left to live for?’ Aleksandr asks him, insisting on the point.

  ‘Nothing, I suppose,’ Lars says.

  Aleksandr nods and presses out the soggy end of his cigar. ‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘It was over. That was it.’

  *

  In the morning, Capri passes off the starboard side. Naples under a layer of smog. Lars, from his little terrace, wearing a fluffy Europa-logoed towelling robe, watches them pass. The air is mild, fresh. He did not sleep well. Too much fine wine and pre-war Armagnac last night. And then, when he was back in his cabin, he had found among the hundreds of films available on the entertainment system, Tarkovsky’s Nostalghia. He had started to watch it. It was strange to see Erland Josephson, whose voice, speaking Swedish, was so familiar to him, dubbed into Italian. He had fallen asleep less than halfway through.

  There is a knock at the door.

  It is Mark.

  He says that Aleksandr has invited Lars to join him for breakfast.

  Which is exactly what Lars was hoping would not happen.

  ‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘Tell him I’ll be along in a while.’

  When he presents himself, half an hour later, Enzo is there informing Aleksandr that he expects to dock in Monte Carlo at about midnight.

  Lars sits down. He is wearing a sweater and his hair is still damp from the shower.

  ‘I had a phone call this morning,’ Aleksandr says, when Enzo has left, ‘from my solicitor in London.’ Aleksandr does not sound pleased.

  Lars, eating scrambled egg, looks up quickly.

  Aleksandr says, ‘They’ve heard from Ksenia’s lawyers, with her demands.’

  ‘Yes?’ Lars says, still eating hungrily. ‘What are they?’

  ‘The two houses …’

  ‘London and Saint Barthélemy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And …?’

  ‘And twenty-five million,’ Aleksandr says.

  ‘Sterling?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s impossible,’ Lars says, forking egg into his mouth. ‘You’ll fight it?’

  Aleksandr nods. He is drinking some sort of effervescent liquid – probably he too has a hangover. He looks, anyway, as though he did not sleep well. Actually, he looks as though he did not sleep at all.

  ‘It’s just an opening shot,’ Lars says. ‘They want to get more than ten, so they ask for twenty-five. They’ll settle for fifteen. And even that’s too much. Fight it,’ he advises. ‘Don’t go above ten.’

  ‘I will fight it,’ Aleksandr says.

  Lars accepts some tea from the steward with the pot.

  ‘Don’t go above ten,’ he says again. The tea is extraordinary, the finest he has ever tasted – it is like some new thing; not tea at all, something finer, subtler, more intense. He says, ‘Is she aware of your …’ He is not sure how to put it. ‘Impaired position?’

  For a moment Aleksandr says nothing. He is still staring at the sea, at the waves pursuing each other towards the grey horizon. He says, ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘So perhaps she doesn’t understand,’ Lars says, trying to be helpful, ‘that in asking for twenty-five she is in fact asking for …’

  Everything you have, he was going to say.

  ‘You will have more money than me, Lars,’ Aleksandr says desolately, ‘at the end of this.’

  Again unsure what to say – it may well be true – Lars just has another taste of his tea, and then says, after a few seconds, ‘We need to discuss the disposal of assets. As we agreed yesterday. The details.’

  He looks at Aleksandr, worried that he may have upset him again.

  Aleksandr seems okay.

  He is eating grapes now – slowly and methodically tearing them from their stems and transferring them to his mouth.

  Lars takes out one of his scraps of paper.

  For the next hour they talk about the disposal of assets – the sale of the Dassault Falcon, and the Barbaresco estate, and the house in Surrey, and the super-yacht. For most of these assets, Lars has possible buyers in mind.

  Aleksandr, eating grapes, is matter-of-fact. He seems more interested in the long green grapes than in the subject under discussion.

  Lars expresses the hope that he will end up with some millions in cash, when everything is settled, as well as the shares in the Belarusian mobile-phone operator.

  ‘This isn’t the first time,’ Aleksandr says, ‘that I’ve been wiped out, you know, Lars.’

  ‘Ninety-eight, the Russian default?’ Lars ventures, still making notes.

  ‘Exactly.’

  Lars is still writing. He says, ‘Yes, that must have been quite something.’

  ‘It was, sure,’ Aleksandr says.

  Lars murmurs, his thoughts elsewhere, ‘Total mess, wasn’t it.’

  ‘Sure.’

  In fact Aleksandr now thinks of that time with something like love. In his memory, it is one of the most vivid periods of his life, along with the period earlier in the decade when the Soviet Union just suddenly vanished, and he was in his early forties and already a fairly senior official in the Ministry of International Trade. All international trade had been handled by the ministry. The individual enterprises that might wish to trade internationally – most importantly in the natural-resources sector – just had no idea how to do so on their own, and had no access to trade finance. He saw the opportunity. Still, what happened next exceeded anything he might have imagined. For a while nothing seemed impossible. He set up his own bank, InTradeBank, to provide trade finance, and soon it was accumulating stakes in industrial enterprises – especially after the loans-for-shares scheme that financed the second election of Boris Yeltsin and transferred gargantuan portions of formerly state-owned industry into the ownership of a few men. Some ended up with oil, some with nickel, or aluminium, or Aeroflot. He ended up with iron. The Emperor of Iron. In just a few years he went from modestly pampered Soviet official to world’s number-one iron-ore magnate.

  The default of ’98 didn’t actually wipe him out. It had the potential to; and though InTradeBank went under in a storm of litigation, he managed to save the Empire of Iron by secreting the shares in an offshore labyrinth – this was when Lars started to play his part – in trusts with mysterious names in the Cayman Islands, and other distant, tranquil places.

  Aleksandr is sitting at the table staring, it seems, at something far away, over the horizon. Lars is still writing things down.

  The panic of ’98. When he thought he might lose everything, and somehow managed to preserve it. His fiftieth birthday happened tha
t summer, in the middle of the meltdown. ‘Fuck it,’ he said. ‘I want a party.’ Blenheim Palace hired for the occasion. A party for a thousand people. His hero, Rupert Murdoch, there. Helicopters on the lawn. In his prime, then. New woman on his arm: Ksenia. Fireworks. Those were the days.

  Those were the days, my friend.

  ‘Those were the days, Lars,’ he murmurs.

  Lars looks up. ‘When?’ he asks.

  ‘Then.’

  4

  And then it sinks, from light into darkness. Up there it was all sunlight, all sun-filled, squint-inducing blue. Then darkening. Deepening. Ever deeper, and ever darker. And then, suddenly, the wet November morning. The sodden land, still lurking in semidarkness. It is the morning rush hour in south-east England, under a lid of weeping cloud. Headlights hurry along motorways. Houses huddle in dull towns. They are near now, as the jet descends. Drops of water smear across the window, through which he sees a sewage-treatment plant, wind-flattened grass, whizzing tarmac …

  Last night they docked at Monte Carlo just after midnight.

  The jet was already at Nice airport, having flown in from Venice the previous day.

  Early this morning it took off for London. Lars, humiliatingly, had to lend him ten thousand euros for the fuel. The pilot had phoned and said, embarrassed, that Total were wanting payment up front.

  Smoothly, the plane is taxiing. The English morning is very real now. It is right there, on the other side of the window’s oval, where the rain is steadily falling.

  The small terminal building shines in the twilight.

  He was not supposed to see this place again.

  The plane stops with a slight jerk.

  Ten minutes later he is in the Maybach, on his way into London, slumming it on the packed tarmac with everyone else – visibility is too poor, he was told, to use the helicopter. So it takes an hour of rain-lashed traffic-jamming to reach the Mayfair office, where the solicitor is waiting for him.

  Aleksandr is late. He apologises and they sit down. The offices – Iset Holdings, it says on the polished plate next to the front door – are in an eighteenth-century town house near Park Lane. The room they are in is on the first floor – high ceiling, heavy hardwood doors, some contemporary office clutter too.

  The solicitor, a Mr Heath, starts to set out Ksenia’s demands, as transmitted to him by her legal team. The London house, the St Barts villa …

  ‘I know,’ Aleksandr says, ‘you already said.’

  Mr Heath looks up from the papers. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘So you know what Ms Viktorovna is asking for.’

  ‘The London house, the villa, and twenty-five million.’

  ‘Yes,’ Mr Heath says. ‘And also the use of your plane, precise terms to be worked out between the parties.’

  ‘The plane is being sold,’ Aleksandr tells him. Though it is a dark day – the taxis passing in the street have their headlights on – the light from the tall windows troubles his tired eyes.

  ‘Ah,’ Mr Heath says. ‘Alright. I’ll communicate that to the other party.’ He writes something down and has a sip of the coffee they have been served. ‘We also feel,’ he says, ‘that, in addition to the two very valuable houses, the twenty-five-million cash component is excessive.’

  ‘Yes?’ Aleksandr says, not seeming very interested.

  ‘We would advise you to contest that,’ Mr Heath says.

  ‘Contest it?’

  ‘We think it highly unlikely that a court would award Ms Viktorovna such a large sum, in addition to the houses.’

  Aleksandr says nothing.

  Mr Heath says, ‘Of course, you may prefer to offer her the sum she wants, plus only one of the houses.’

  ‘You think I should contest it?’ Aleksandr asks, as if he hasn’t heard the last thing Mr Heath said.

  ‘Yes, we do.’

  ‘It would mean going to court?’

  ‘Not necessarily. I would say probably not, if Ms Viktorovna is being properly advised. But possibly, yes.’

  Aleksandr, again, says nothing. He is not looking at the middle-aged solicitor. He seems to be looking at the green exit sign over one of the doors. Enormous dark pouches hang under his eyes. His face seems somehow to have fallen in. He has lost quite a lot of weight, Mr Heath thinks, since they last met, only a few weeks ago. He seems much older.

  ‘I don’t think you would have anything to fear,’ Mr Heath says, ‘if this should come to court.’

  There is another long silence.

  Then Aleksandr says, in a soft tired voice, and still not looking at the solicitor, ‘Let her have what she wants. Everything.’

  Mr Heath looks puzzled. ‘Everything?’ he says.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘With respect, that isn’t what we advise …’

  ‘I know.’

  Mr Heath tries again. ‘Her solicitors are being aggressive,’ he says. ‘I very much doubt they expect to get what they’re asking for. It’s a negotiation.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to take some time to think about it,’ Mr Heath suggests. ‘There’s no hurry.’

  ‘I don’t need time,’ Aleksandr says. ‘Let her have what she wants.’ Mr Heath seems at a loss. ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  There is another long pause. ‘Well, alright,’ the solicitor says, looking almost sadly at his papers. ‘If that’s what you want. I must stress – it is not what we advise.’

  ‘I understand,’ Aleksandr says.

  When Mr Heath has gone, he sits alone at the long table, until his secretary finds him there some time later and tells him that, in case he has forgotten, he is having lunch with Lord Satter. They have a table, she says, at Le Gavroche.

  He looks at her with a strange, empty expression.

  He had forgotten.

  He is not supposed to be here.

  He is not supposed to be having lunch.

  Nevertheless, at twelve thirty, he walks the short distance, followed by Pierre and Madis, to Le Gavroche.

  Adrian Satter is already there, sitting in an armchair in the waiting area upstairs. He is about Aleksandr’s age. His half-silvered hair rises in silky corrugations from the rich pink glow of his forehead.

  ‘Shurik,’ he says, in a single movement slipping his glasses into the pocket of his immense-lapelled suit and standing up. He takes Aleksandr’s hand and pats his shoulder. ‘Good to see you.’

  ‘Hello, Adrian,’ Aleksandr says.

  Pierre and Madis loiter outside, where men are hanging Christmas decorations from street lamps.

  Aleksandr and Lord Satter study menus.

  ‘The soufflé Suissesse, I think, for me,’ Adrian Satter says. ‘And then the turbot.’ An early intimate of Tony Blair, and elevated by him to the peerage, he was now part of the establishment furniture. He was one of many such figures to be wooed by Aleksandr when he arrived in London, around the turn of the millennium. Aleksandr had wanted very much to be part of the British establishment, or at least to be publicly accepted by it – or, if even that was not possible, to be seen by it as an equal of some sort.

  ‘I’ll have the same,’ he says to the maître d’, and they are ushered down the quiet, dark-carpeted stairs to their table.

  ‘Awful,’ Adrian says indignantly.

  They are talking about last week’s harsh judgment in the High Court.

  ‘I’ve never heard anything like it. It made me ashamed to be British.’

  ‘I’m finished, Adrian,’ Aleksandr says.

  ‘Nonsense. You mustn’t talk like that, Shurik.’ Adrian is looking at the wine list. ‘You’ve taken a knock,’ he says, smiling at Aleksandr. ‘You’ll be back on your feet in no time.’

  Aleksandr says, ‘It’s not just that.’

  ‘You’re one of the great men of our time, Shurik.’

  ‘I thought that, once.’

  ‘Well, think it now.’

  ‘I would like to.’

  ‘Look at what you’ve achi
eved.’

  Assuming that the meal will be, as usual, on his friend, Adrian tells the sommelier to bring them a Lafon Perrières 2005.

  Satisfied, he removes his glasses.

  Looking very sad, Aleksandr says, ‘I’m sixty-five years old, and I don’t know what to do any more. I just don’t know what to do. I feel like everything is finished for me.’

  ‘Tell me,’ Adrian says, after a short pause, pocketing his glasses, ‘have you got a hobby?’

  ‘A hobby?’

  ‘Yes. You know.’

  ‘No,’ Aleksandr says. He has never had a hobby – in his Who’s Who entry, he had listed his ‘interests’ as ‘wealth’ and ‘power’.

  ‘I suggest you take up a hobby,’ Adrian says. ‘Take an interest in your garden,’ he suggests. ‘Did you know,’ he asks, twinkling, ‘that in his declining years Josef Stalin was more interested in producing the perfect mimosa than in fomenting global revolution?’

  ‘No, I didn’t know that,’ Aleksandr says.

  ‘He spent most of his time in his garden down on the Black Sea, pottering about among his mimosas, and pretty much left Beria to run the empire.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘It’s perfectly natural,’ Adrian says. ‘You have to step back. I’m having to slow down a bit myself,’ he admits, as the starters arrive.

  ‘Somehow …’ Aleksandr looks miserable. ‘I’ve lost the meaning of life. Do you understand?’

  Adrian smiles. He says, ‘Who needs meaning when you have soufflé Suissesse?’

  Aleksandr tries to smile too.

  He wonders, as he tries to smile, whether Adrian knows that he has been wiped out financially. That the Empire of Iron is no more. Adrian, now tucking into his soufflé, has shown no sign of knowing. Though he wouldn’t, would he? Aleksandr picks up his fork. That was the thing with the English – it was impossible to know what was happening in their heads, what was hidden under their mild, ironic manner. Did they know themselves?

  He tries to eat some soufflé. Then he puts his fork down next to the heavy, expensive plate and waits for Adrian to finish.

  ‘Something wrong with it?’ Adrian asks, still feeding himself. ‘No, it’s very good. I’m just not hungry.’

  ‘Oh?’

  Again, Aleksandr tries to smile.