“I beg of you,” Alexander said, “you must leave. You were not invited.”
Alexander’s entire countenance had an air of suspicion about it. Sergei had never seen him so nervous. During his day-to-day activities at the hospital, in his dealings with patients, even the difficult ones with the troublesomely incurable afflictions, Alexander always maintained a firm air of formality, never joking, at all times securing his emotions behind a reserved wall of poise and self-assurance. In his hasty attempt to usher Sergei from the ballroom, Alexander’s pupils had dilated. His brow glossed with the first showings of perspiration. Alexander’s hands shook — the very hands that that afternoon had reached inside the open chest cavity of a patient and with delicate precision massaged the patient’s atrioventricular valve, saving the patient from a major hemorrhage and almost certain death. These hands, the steadiest in all the republic, were trembling in Sergei’s black and blue presence.
At last, Sergei thought, I have the best of him.
“What’s the matter?” Sergei said. “Has the physician finally been failed by his steady hand?”
Before his rival could respond, a familiar aroma rose in volumes to the embattled doctor’s nose. So faint that no one save Sergei could discern it from the buffet’s miscellaneous odors, it flowed to him like a wave, this enchanting elixir created by the merging of a sumptuous lilac perfume with a natural skin scent so intoxicating it could have come from only one woman — Asenka. Sergei’s ex-wife approached the two men from behind. The doctor Namestikov forgot all about Alexander and turned to see Asenka’s ageless beauty, her wide shimmering blue eyes. Sergei’s heart skipped a beat. He remembered instantly why he’d fallen in love with her. All of the moments he’d spent agonizing and blaming himself — smashing heirlooms in his office late at night and curling up in tears on his bathroom floor — were instantly forgotten. She was within a meter of him now. Oh, how Sergei wished she would run up and embrace him. All would be forgiven.
But she did not embrace him. Asenka sauntered straight into the waiting arms of his rival. At this moment, exactly seven months, one day, nine hours and four minutes since Sergei had begun working with Alexander, his ex-wife placed a kiss flush on Alexander’s lips.
“Hasn’t Alexander told you?” she said. “We’re in love.”
Astonished, Sergei’s brain slowed to a Neanderthal crawl. His synapses fired with lethargy. It was as if Sergei’s body were somehow striving to keep his soul from grasping how truly belittling this moment was. The desperate look he’d initially given Asenka now reeked of weakness. How crudely obvious he had been, displaying his dopey-eyed pleadings before the entire room. Sergei looked from Alexander to Asenka and back to Alexander again. His rival’s face flushed with embarrassment. Alexander even appeared contrite. In the recesses of his mind, Sergei thought perhaps somehow he could one day understand Alexander’s role in all of this. But he could never forgive Asenka for what she’d done — for what she was doing even now at this very moment. Just the sight of her, with her full-length white gown accentuating the magnificence of her every curve, her long gloves and dark smoking pen, those wondrous bright blue eyes — everything about her enraged Sergei. He hated her magnificent cheekbones and chiseled pert little nose. He hated her very existence.
Sergei’s gaze drifted to Asenka’s purse where, from out of the far corner, popped the head of the smallest dog ever bred in Russia. The blue Chihuahua, named for the subtle hint of indigo in its coat, had been banned by the government. At issue was the inbreeding process that produced a high number of deformities. To get that blue Chihuahua, the average litter of five dogs included at minimum four with unspeakably gross birth defects. This was the prize animal to escape the womb intact, the only one out of a hundred deemed fit for sale. It was a marvel of science that this little creature had survived. And all Sergei wanted to do was strangle it with his bare hands.
“Old friend . . .” Alexander said.
“Do not speak,” Sergei said.
Asenka let out a caustic laugh. “Sergei,” she said, “your jacket doesn’t match your pants.”
A tempest formed within Sergei. His rage, simmering now for months, finally reached full boil. Asenka had kissed his enemy right in front of him! And he had accepted her embrace. Still she languished in his arms! Now she dared to take issue with what he was wearing? What he had been forced to wear? Good Lord, was there no limit to the injustice?
In a sudden spastic motion, Sergei ripped the black jacket off his body and threw it wildly to the ground. His eyes glazed over. He clenched his fists and stepped forward.
“Be reasonable,” Alexander said.
But Sergei was beyond all reason. He reached out and grabbed Alexander by the collar. Before he could throttle him, the two doormen took hold of Sergei and a small skirmish erupted. The doormen wrestled Sergei to the ground only to find they were unable to hold him there; so great was Sergei’s fury that he struggled to his feet and made another unsuccessful lunge at Alexander. Asenka stepped forward and slapped Sergei square across the face, leaving a red mark that would last for days. Sergei, however, would not be deterred. He stumbled back against the buffet table, surrounded on all sides by the angry doormen, a befuddled Alexander and his malicious concubine. In the midst of it all, the maître d’ was bellowing out orders to anyone who would listen.
Sergei was about to be overcome. In a moment of panic, he reached back and grasped the large punch bowl, still three quarters full of bright red juice and an assortment of fruit slices. He lifted it above his head and threatened the growing crowd.
“Stand back,” he said. “I will splash you all.”
“Think of what you’re about to do,” the maître d’ said.
“Yes, Sergei. Put it down,” Alexander said.
From the back, dozens of voices joined in.
“Don’t throw it.”
“You’ll ruin my dress.”
“For the love of God, man, you’re at a formal function!”
Each of them pleaded with Sergei to set the bowl down. Every voice, that is, except Asenka’s. She stepped to the front of the crowd and faced Sergei eye to eye.
“Do not fear, good people.” She raised her arms with authority. “Sergei will not throw the bowl. It’s just not in his nature. He doesn’t have the nerve to do it.”
Sergei stared straight at Asenka, who in turn looked back at him fearlessly. She was surrounded by a thicket of Moscow’s elite, nearly two hundred of them now, all in formal attire, all out for an evening when Sergei had been expected to remain home in his bed, stewing about those who’d done him wrong. In his heart, he questioned whether he truly had the gumption to thrust the fruit punch on them. He’d lived his whole life strictly abiding by society’s rules. That hadn’t changed yet. Were he to set the bowl down, he still might be able to use his considerable charm to make light of the situation, to elicit a laugh from the swarming mass and perhaps even ingratiate himself with his hosts. It wasn’t too late to turn back. Sergei could exit of his own accord. He could leave Alexander and Asenka to canoodle together in front of these bastards and he would be none the worse off. Yes, Sergei could have left with his dignity intact.
But what good is dignity when it is coated in regret?
In one fluid motion, Sergei raised the bowl to the rafters and dumped its entire contents over Asenka’s pure white gown. He conked her over the head with the bowl for good measure. She screamed a bloody scream and then collapsed. Her dress turned red, pink and orange in splotches. Ice cubes tumbled into her bosom. Sergei stood above her triumphantly, his hands raised in a V, a jubilant smile stretched from ear to ear.
One second passed and then two. Then Sergei was tackled, his face planted into the ground. A mêlée ensued in which Sergei — kicking, screaming and even biting — was dragged out of the Isirk Ballroom.
Alexander stood over an ailing Asenka. He thought not about her welfare, nor the ultimate disgrace of his rival. Beside him, tracked across the mar
ble floor, were the birdlike paw prints of the world’s smallest dog. Alexander knew he would be charged with retrieving the animal from whatever fat lady’s gown it had sought sanctuary under. Only he couldn’t manage to organize his thoughts well enough to begin the search. Inevitably, he kept returning to the same thought over and over again. It loitered in his mind, slowly pressing against the forefront of his skull.
Vladimir. The boy with the tragic case of the hiccups. Sergei had said the child wasn’t insane. It was something much worse. What could it be? What was it, Alexander wondered, that made Sergei storm in here like a madman? What was this evil that lurked beneath the surface of the young boy?
seven
Alexander Afiniganov had long been a man of action. Alternately stern and callous, he had a reputation for lapses into ill-temperament. Quick was his rise to ire when he had the occasion to contend with fools and slow was his patience when confronted by those not matching his superior intellect. Unlike Sergei, Alexander wasn’t tortured by personal demons. From the moment he lay his head on his pillow at night until the moment he woke in the morning, he slept the peaceful sleep of a man content with his role in this world. To those who hardly knew him, Alexander was an acerbic character, obsessed with his own brilliance and incapable of regard for the feelings of others. To those who knew him well, he was not only short-tempered and inconsiderate but also conceited and utterly humorless.
Above all things, Alexander was self-aware. He knew others were afraid to socialize with him in the hospital cafeteria and reluctant to seek his professional advice for fear of being disparaged were they even slightly mistaken in their diagnosis. Rather than dissuade his peers of this notion, Alexander did everything in his power to encourage his reputation as a difficult, gifted intellectual. In his heart he knew that when stripped of all the social baggage and cleansed of his brusque demeanor, Alexander Afiniganov was a compassionate man who did what needed to be done.
No more obvious was his empathy than when his rival was dragged by his heels out of the Isirk Ballroom. Alexander felt for Sergei Namestikov in spite of everything Sergei had put him through. Ever since grade school, Sergei had been a thorn in Alexander’s side, always competing with him and keeping every manner of tally in an imaginary contest of which Alexander wanted no part. Alexander understood why he did it. Sergei needed an antagonist whose success he could use as a benchmark for his own accomplishments. It was this adversarial relationship that drove Sergei to great heights both academically and professionally. Alexander, on the other hand, needed no external motivation and considered his rivalry with Sergei to exist mostly in Sergei’s own head. When he finished first in his class at Tomsk, he did so based on an inherent desire to push his intellectual capacity to new levels. He didn’t care that Sergei finished second (a distant second, Alexander might add). When his award-winning paper on phobias was published, Alexander dismissed Sergei’s moaning over the timing of its release. He wrote that paper for a personal sense of pride, not the satisfaction of besting someone else. Even when he bedded Asenka, it wasn’t to hurt Sergei. Alexander did so because fornicating with a beautiful, alluring woman was what a great man would do.
Now, despite his sympathy for Sergei, Alexander had to do what was right in the case of young Vladimir. Though loath to admit it, Alexander had never been so mystified by an illness as he was by Vladimir’s incurable hiccups. Initially, he applied thoughtful analysis and deliberate consideration in his quest to find their root cause. Then days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months. For the first time in his career, Alexander began grasping at straws. He unintentionally allowed a randomness to enter into his ever-changing assessment of the boy’s condition. Poor Vladimir was made to endure uncomfortable, often excruciating examinations, all in the hope they might inadvertently stumble upon a cure.
One afternoon while sitting down on the toilet to rid himself of a bothersome batch of zharkoye, Alexander had an epiphany. Vladimir’s case was untreatable through modern medical procedures. In fact, the hiccups were not the primary point of contention in this patient. Something was wrong deep within the child — not in his body, but in his soul. There was nothing he or Sergei could do. Shortly thereafter, Alexander approached Sergei on the cobblestone path and made his best effort to explain his sudden realization. He remembered a disinterested Sergei staring absently at the snow. Sergei wouldn’t listen to him no matter what he said. Incensed by his colleague’s demeanor, Alexander worked behind Sergei’s back and set a plan in motion. Vladimir would be cured if it was the last thing Alexander did.
Nearly nine days after Sergei’s fall from grace, Alexander’s plan led him to be sitting in a horse-drawn carriage, traveling up a bumpy dirt road on the side of a mountain in Northern Mongolia with Vladimir asleep in the coach beside him. Across from Alexander was a nurse’s aide and riding beside their driver in the icy air atop the carriage was Tarkov, an orderly Alexander had selected specifically for his oxen-like strength and dull wit. Were they to encounter any trouble that Alexander could not talk or buy his way out of, Tarkov would be relied upon to give their assailants a stern thrashing. A month earlier, when the initial arrangements of his plan were put into place, the strapping Siberian was the first piece in Alexander’s puzzle. Not only was Tarkov brave and strong, he was also foolhardy enough to demand no more than a single extra day’s wage as payment for the dangerous journey. Yes, cheap and stupid — that is how Alexander liked his henchmen.
The nurse’s aide, on the other hand, had proved to be quite a more difficult bargain. When Alexander left the Isirk Ballroom, he was so concerned about what Sergei might do with young Vladimir that he moved his plan forward by two weeks. It wasn’t good enough to wait until the morning. He had to act immediately. Alexander assisted Asenka home, placed her in bed and then took a car to the hospital and telephoned Tarkov. He woke the muscular oaf from his sleep and demanded Tarkov meet him at the hospital immediately, then set about finding a nurse. At 11 p.m. on a Friday evening it would be difficult to find a nurse willing to accompany them on their journey, let alone one who could maintain a clandestine air about her assignment. Alexander demanded complete secrecy. He would not have Sergei discovering what he’d done and beginning an ill-advised pilgrimage to find the boy. Alexander stormed about the hospital, moving from room to room until he eventually discovered Ilvana Strekov asleep on a chair outside the critical care unit.
“Are you a nurse?” he said.
Ilvana sat up in a fright, startled by the bellowing voice of a senior hospital official.
“No,” she said.
“What is your profession?”
“I’m a nurse’s aide,” she said in her timid voice.
“Good enough.” Alexander cleared his throat. “The hospital requires that you accompany me on a trip to a faraway land. The trip should take no more than a few weeks’ time and we must leave immediately. It is a matter of some secrecy.”
“Why is it a secret?”
“If I told you, my dear, then it wouldn’t be a secret.”
“And you’ll pay me for my time?”
“Yes. But we must leave right away.”
Ilvana Strekov scrunched her nose. “I will require more than my regular pay,” she said.
Alexander gave her a surprised look. He hadn’t expected anything other than complete obedience. This woman must have known he was disregarding hospital procedures and was taking advantage of the situation. She was completely unscrupulous. Alexander respected her already.
“Name your price,” he said. “Time is of the essence and I have none to spend bartering with you. What will it be? Rubles? A promotion?”
“I want to be your assistant.”
“On the trip?”
“No, here at the hospital,” she said.
“That’s out of the question. You wouldn’t like me. I’m ill-tempered and demanding. Moreover, I already have an assistant.”
“Then she can travel with you.” Ilvana sat back in her chair.
An image of Alexander’s current assistant floated about his brain. A thick-wristed, middle-aged woman of Latvian descent, she was the only assistant who could tolerate his petulant demeanor. The Latvian woman was a perfect aide — competent, intelligent, never tardy and wise enough to know when to leave Alexander alone. This Ilvana Strekov had none of these qualities. Alexander could tell just by looking at her. She was lethargic and had the voice of a retarded child. He would be forced to fire her in a week’s time.
“Fine,” he said. “Henceforth, you are my assistant. Now quickly, we must go.”
Ilvana stood up and followed the doctor. Together with Tarkov, they set about stealing the boy away in the middle of the night.
It took less than an hour for Alexander to regret recruiting Ilvana for their journey. She fell asleep twice before they left the hospital, once in a chair at the side of Vladimir’s bed and a second time while standing on her feet waiting for Tarkov to pull around in his automobile. The muscular orderly drove the group to the Yaroslavsky Rail Terminal, where they boarded a train traveling east on the Trans-Siberian line. Ilvana, taxed with the responsibility of keeping Vladimir sedated, proved unpredictable during their four days on the train. She was quite competent during her waking hours. She checked Vladimir’s heart rate, monitored his temperature and administered the exact amount of drugs to keep the boy in a hazy, semiconscious state. The problem was keeping Ilvana awake. She fell asleep at the most inopportune times — in the middle of meals, while stepping off the train and often in mid-sentence. During a stop in Tyumen, when they entered a delicatessen to purchase food and water, to Alexander’s astonishment the woman pocketed a glass figurine from a shelf near the back of the store and snuck outside with the item, an exhilarated expression on her face. Alexander had half a mind to throw her from the moving railroad car and leave her stranded on the outskirts of Mongolia. He would have too, if he hadn’t been so focused on getting Vladimir to their destination.
The Last Hiccup Page 6