by John Burke
Zargo stared glumly across the room. At a far table two tarts were adding the final touches to their appearance in a vain attempt to look seductive. They could have saved themselves the labor. Drink—a lot of it, tipped down men’s throats—was the only thing that would soften the reality and make them appear desirable.
A droshky jingled away down the street. Soon the stinging wind from the gulf would drop, the slush would harden, and the snow would fall. The droshkies would give way to sleds. Winter would settle on the city—dry and invigorating for those with young blood in their veins. Zargo shivered at the prospect. He shrank into himself. Only another drink would warm him now.
The door opened. Zargo hardly bothered to turn his head. Someone else from the market, no doubt.
But he saw the girls across the room stiffen and open their eyes wide.
“D’you fancy him?”
“Well . . . he’s big, isn’t he?”
The Fox turned. Zargo raised his head. The newcomer was indeed big—a great strapping figure of a man, with an unkempt beard and a wild tangle of hair. Not a rich man, not even a mildly prosperous one. That was pretty obvious. Not worth their attention.
He went to a nearby table and sat down. Hard on his heels came two young men and then a group of older men. The place was filling up at last. It would soon be time to start—time to go through the humiliating routine, to do tricks like a circus dog simply in order to be able to afford drink and forgetfulness.
“What can I get for this?”
The newcomer was holding out his hand, the great palm opened to show a kopeck. The patron, balancing a tray of drinks, was used to this kind of thing. He banged down a glass on the table.
“This.”
The two girls grimaced and turned away. They smirked at the young men, who edged their chairs round so that they had their backs to the girls.
The Fox assessed their chances. He studied the larger group in the corner, drew his lips back from his teeth, and silently consulted Zargo. There was no point in waiting. Zargo wanted a drink. It was time to start. He nodded.
The Fox took out a handful of coins and slammed them noisily down on the table.
“Well—who’s going to take him on?”
There was a murmur from some of the customers. One of the regular habitues grinned and said something to a crony. There was a short burst of laughter.
The patron came to the table with three opened bottles of cheap red wine. Zargo gazed thankfully at them.
“I’ve got ten kopecks,” shouted The Fox, “which say that the Doctor here will outdrink any one of you.”
Another regular customer came in and nodded at them. It was all part of the ritual. Everything going on as normal.
Zargo could not wait another second. He reached for one of the bottles. His tongue anticipated the first harsh bite of the wine.
“Look out!” someone called across the room. “He’s starting already.”
The Fox scowled and grabbed the bottle.
A shadow fell across the table. Zargo, groping for another bottle, looked up. The bearded stranger towered above him.
“I accept your challenge.”
The Fox glanced quicldy at Zargo and then at the newcomer. He wanted to argue. Zargo didn’t blame him. There was little likelihood of this man having ten kopecks. But he wasn’t the type you’d pick a fight with.
The Fox said reluctantly: “Well, if you think you can—”
“I said I accept your challenge.”
“All right.” The Fox watched one great fist clench. “All right, you’re on. But I warn you—the Doctor’s no beginner.”
“Nor am I.”
Zargo indicated that the man should sit down. He did so without ceremony, tilting the chair back on two legs and sprawling with one elbow on the table.
“Allow me to introduce myself. I am Doctor Zargo.”
“Rasputin,” grunted the man.
“Shall we begin?”
Zargo got his hand firmly around a bottle this time. He tilted it and lovingly watched the red stream pouring into the glass. He drank it down in one gulp. Rasputin filled a glass and did likewise. Zargo poured another measure. This time he drank more slowly. He knew the right speed for such a session. He was ready now to settle down and drink steadily into merciful oblivion—but the oblivion would not come until he had drunk his opponent under the table. Nobody yet had matched him.
Rasputin poured the wine down his throat.
More people came in. Four tzigane musicians arrived—late, as usual—and music began to pound through the room.
The wine swilled round Zargo’s mouth and was gone. Then there was more. The patron set more bottles on the table. Rasputin reached forward and poured steadily, unwaveringly.
Zargo saw to his satisfaction that his opponent was no weakling. He would not give up too soon. There was a chance of drinking far more than he usually managed. With a rival like this, he would have a splendid share this evening.
Dancers swung close in and jarred their table. A few men gathered round to watch the contest.
Smoke stung Zargo’s eyes. The wine began to rasp in his throat. His hand shook slightly as he took up another bottle. But wasn’t Rasputin’s hand shaking, too; or was it only the haze and his own unsteadiness that made him imagine this?
“Careful!” The Fox was saying close to his left ear.
Zargo realized that he had tipped wine down his suit. He spluttered a laugh. Wring out the jacket when he got home . . . keep drinking . . . keep at it all through the night . . .
Rasputin methodically poured and drank, watched Zargo to make sure that they were keeping level, and then poured and drank again.
Zargo’s head began to throb.
Rasputin tipped his chair forward and sat upright. His eyes were shining and his back was straight. The wine seemed hardly to affect him.
More people came in. Taking his time over a glass in order to get his breath, and trying to make the room stay still, Zargo watched two well-dressed young women sweep past him with their escorts. The patron leapt forward. He indicated that the newcomers should sit at a table near Zargo’s. The two tarts had settled there for a moment on their peregrination round the room, but the patron swooped on them.
“Come on—shift! You’re not here to enjoy yourselves.”
The young men were obviously army officers. They had probably drunk here and sung bawdy songs here in their student days: it was famous, or infamous, for such things. But now they looked out of place. They were too smart and respectable, and the young women were far too expensively dressed. A slumming expedition, of course: bored with the constant round of lavish parties, they had come to see how the less fortunate entertained themselves.
Zargo finished his drink, dribbling a few drops down his chin.
Rasputin filled a glass and raised it.
“Champagne, of course,” the patron was saying obsequiously at the next table.
“Yes.”
“No,” said one of the young women in a high, affected tone. “Bring me some vodka.”
“Well, miss, I wouldn’t really advise—”
“Vodka.”
“Very good, miss.”
When the patron had hurried away, the young men leaned towards their companions.
“Really, Sonia . . .”
“We came here to enjoy ourselves, didn’t we?”
“Yes, but—”
“I intend to enjoy myself.”
The other girl remained silent. She was the taller of the two, with fine, high cheekbones and fair hair which shone with all the more radiance in this murky atmosphere. Slumped against the table, Zargo thought drowsily of girls he had once known, girls like her, girls with fresh complexions and innocent eyes.
He realized that Rasputin was also staring at her. About to drink, he abruptly raised his glass as though in salute, and smiled. The girl caught his eye and at once looked away.
“Come on . . . wake up.”
The
Fox was shaking Zargo. Damn the fellow. Let him go away. Let them all go away. Had enough . . . Never been like this before, but tonight was too much. More than enough.
“What’s the matter with you tonight?”
Zargo pushed himself upright by clinging to the edge of the table. The joy he had felt earlier at the sight of all those bottles turned now to nausea. He gagged at the idea of lifting another glass.
Rasputin pushed a bottle towards him.
Zargo shook his head blearily. He was only vaguely conscious of The Fox pouring for him. The glass was thrust into his hand. With a superhuman effort he raised it to his lips. The wine was sour in his mouth, but he got it down.
There was a spattering of derisory applause. He knew that his usual little gang of supporters felt he had let them down. His reputation was ruined. He, Zargo, had been beaten at last. And the cursed fellow didn’t show any sign of slowing.
Rasputin poured another glass and downed the wine in one neat swallow. Then he picked up the bottle, put the neck to his mouth, and finished it off.
There was an outburst of cheering. The Fox kept prodding Zargo, but Zargo wasn’t going to respond. He conceded defeat with a vague wave of the hand. It was all he could do to summon up the strength for even that gesture.
“The dance!” All round him they were shouting. “The winner has to do a dance!”
Always it had been Zargo. Always this had been his triumphant moment when, with his opponent flat out, he had risen to his feet and showed them that he could still dance gracefully round the room.
Zargo got up. He leaned on the table for a few seconds, then stepped out on to the floor.
The band struck up a chord.
Zargo saw the floor coming up to meet him. He twisted as he fell, and his shoulder jarred heavily against the planking. Laughter howled around him as The Fox, groanning and cursing, dragged him back to the table.
The Fox would have liked to sneak away without paying up, but Rasputin was watching him coldly and unblinkingly. Zargo heard the chink of money. The Fox snarled at him. “Are you coming . . . are you coming, or aren’t you?” But Zargo could not be bothered to reply. He was aware that The Fox was leaving, and it just didn’t matter at all.
A waiter had brought champagne and vodka to the young aristocrats’ table. Zargo watched him go through the performance of opening the champagne. Everything seemed to be moving very, very slowly. And at a great distance. Zargo watched dispassionately. He had begun to emerge from his drunkenness into the sad tranquillity that always waited for you on the far side.
Rasputin stepped out on to the floor. He clicked his fingers for the band to start.
The violinist swung his bow into the first slow, rhapsodic strain of a gypsy dance. Rasputin spun in a slow circle, then smacked one heel against the floor. The tempo quickened slightly. He responded to its every mood: slow and stately at first, he built up to a succession of wild leaps. In the confined space he somehow conveyed the freedom and vastness of the steppes.
Zargo looked away. The mounting speed of it all was making him dizzy. He stared at the young women. They were concentrating on the dance, and he could study their fine, haughty profiles at leisure.
The girl who had demanded vodka reached for her glass. She did not take her eyes off the swirling abandon of the dance, but drank unthinkingly.
Then she gasped. She clutched at her throat, and tried to croak something to the young man beside her. He did not even hear her through the passion of the gipsy music. She despairingly grabbed his glass of champagne and swallowed it at one gulp.
Then she hiccuped.
The spasm was so violent that it cut through the music. The violinist started, produced a screech from his E string, and then fiddled away with renewed vigor.
She hiccuped again. On top of it, she got the giggles.
There was a dramatic pause in the music. Rasputin stopped, arms spread out, ready to stamp his foot and urge the tune on at a new mad tempo.
There was another hiccup, and now the girl was laughing helplessly.
Rasputin spun round, but he was off balance. He missed his step, toppled, and fell heavily on his back. The girl went on laughing, and other customers joined in. The laughter was infectious. It became absurd and hysterical.
Rasputin picked himself up. He was livid with anger. He strode across the floor, and the laughter died away. The girl who had started it all stared up at the tousled giant as he came to a halt at the table.
In a deep, quivering voice he said: “You will apologize for laughing at me.”
Her escort pushed back his chair and got up. “Now, look here, my man . . .”
Rasputin flicked out one arm and knocked him across the room.
The patron and two waiters hurried forward. They clamped down on Rasputin’s arms. They were tough men, used to getting rid of violent customers, and even this powerful creature was unable to free himself from their grasp. They dragged him back towards his table. Zargo blinked up. It was all getting too rough, too noisy for him. He wanted to go home; wanted to be in bed.
The girl was standing up, her hiccups and giggles silenced now.
Rasputin drew himself up and said heavily and deliberately: “You will come to me and say you are sorry.”
Then he shrugged the waiters off and tapped Zargo on the shoulder.
“Don’t want another drink,” muttered Zargo.
“Pay the bill.”
“What? Why . . . mm . . . ?”
“The bill, you fool.”
Zargo fumbled in his pocket. He had very little money and he had not anticipated having to spend any of it tonight. When he held out an assortment of coins, Rasputin took them from him, paid the waiter, and pocketed the rest.
The patron stood warily beside them, ready for further trouble.
“Where does he live?” asked Rasputin.
“Across the alley. Above the horse-meat butcher. And the sooner you get him out of here, the better for both of you.”
Zargo was hauled to his feet. Rasputin half carried him to the door. The shock of the bitter, damp night air struck his face. When he breathed in, it rasped against the back of his throat as though he had tossed vodka down on top of the wine.
They went down the alley and reached his door.
“The key,” said Rasputin.
Zargo wasn’t sure he wanted to let this dangerous fellow in. He wasn’t sure of anything. Only that he wanted to sleep. And when he woke up, he didn’t want Rasputin around. The man meant no good.
But he handed over the key, and Rasputin hauled him up the crumbling stairs to the attic.
A shirt dangled from the disintegrating line of washing stretched between the rafters. It flapped against Zargo’s face as Rasputin let go and shoved him forward. The bed, with the bedclothes still in the tangle in which he had left them this afternoon, reeled up to meet him. Thankfully Zargo surrendered. He sprawled out, face down, and then let himself roll over on to his side.
Rasputin kicked open the door of the stove. Zargo could have told him that he was wasting his time. There was no fire. Hadn’t been a fire for ages. And no fuel.
Rasputin picked up a chair and snapped it to pieces with his hands. He began to stack up the pieces in the stove.
Zargo’s eyes closed. He wanted to be sick. He wanted this intruder to go away. He wanted to be left alone, to be left in the solitude and silence to which he was accustomed.
Most of all he wanted to sleep.
4
The face swam out of the darkness and into her dreams. It was a cruel, commanding face. The lips twisted into a sneer and the eyes demanded an answer from her. It was a bestial face yet could be the face of a tormented saint: a saint or a terrifying fanatic. And by what right did it demand anything from her?
Sonia awoke with a start. In the night stillness of her bedroom she seemed still to see the face. It floated in the air like some supernatural manifestation. She closed her eyes to dismiss it; opened them again; and gradually
the outlines dissolved.
But even when it was gone it was somehow still real. Much too real.
They ought never to have gone to that café. The evening had been wretched and quarrelsome. What made it worse was that she had no one to blame but herself. She was the one who had been bored at the Pavlovich ball. She was the one who had not so much coaxed as badgered her brother and his friend Ivan to take them somewhere gay, somewhere unusual, somewhere less stiff and formal and excruciatingly ordinary than this ballroom. The Tsarina was due to arrive, and as one of her ladies in waiting Sonia had seen all she wished to see of the Tsarina during the day. Why should her evenings be boring as well?
“You and Ivan are always telling us what gay dogs you were when you were students,” she insisted. “Show us some of the places you used to visit.”
Peter had argued. But she would give him no rest. The more he hedged, the more determined she grew that they would get out of the ballroom before the Tsarina arrived. Vanessa didn’t back her up, but when the final decision was made she agreed to come along. Three of them had had misgivings: Vanessa, Peter, and Ivan. Sonia had carried the day . . . but now she ruefully acknowledged that their misgivings had been right.
She turned over in bed and tried to think of something pleasant.
You will come to me and say you are sorry . . .
The words were so clear that they might almost have been spoken in this room.
He was staring at her. She was back in the café and those terrible eyes were fixed on her. Hypnotic eyes, drawing her on.
You will come to me . . .
Sonia did not sleep. She rose early, took her cloak, and walked across the city, not daring to call for the carriage or to take a droshky to such an address.
The door of the café was closed. The whole place was asleep. Probably the last reveller had not tottered home until the early hours.
Sonia tapped on the door. There was no response. She knocked more loudly. Still no reply. It was not until she had hammered persistently on the woodwork with two fists that a voice shouted at her from within. There was the thud of bolts being drawn, and the door was dragged open.