The Zoo

by Christopher Wilson

  ‘Next?’

  ‘For the chop …’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘We have a lion, a tiger, a bear, a python and an alligator. All in the same cage. I think there will be fatalities. In the end, only one can be left alive … It is no secret … They all know this …’

  ‘Yes?’ I ask. It’s news to me.

  ‘Who will win? Who scares you the most?’

  ‘It’s hard …’ I hesitate, ‘I don’t know them well enough, but …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Bruhah broke my nose. I’m sure he did it on purpose.’

  ‘Good choice.’ He slaps my back. ‘Well chosen … The rest are all evil bastards, but even they are scared of Bruhah … Even Bruhah is scared of Bruhah … Bruhah is the beast of beasts. He is the monsters’ monster … But, because he is the worst, the others might gang together to eliminate him first …’

  ‘Is it quite safe, Comrade,’ I ask, ‘to talk this way?’ I admire Director Dikoy. I don’t want his friendship with the bottle to get him into trouble. I gesture to the Magnates, at the senior end of the table. ‘Someone might overhear …’

  ‘Who knows …’ he slurs. He splays his palms. ‘Is it safe to be human?’

  I shrug.

  ‘Is it safe to think? Is it safe to care? Is it safe to breathe?’

  Then the shutters come down on his eyes. He promptly topples sideways, off his chair, and sprawls still on the ground. I think he’s passed out. He seems to be kissing the floor. Now gravity has had its way with him, he seems to have no upright plans of his own.

  *

  Myself, I am feeling light-headed too, because I’ve been not only sampling the different courses of food, but sipping the variety of liquor and beverages including Hungarian hock, Czechoslovakian cherry beer, Hungarian Bulls Blood wine, German lager, peach nectar, Polish vodka, Scottish whisky, French absinthe, Estonian brandy, Finnish cloudberry liqueur and Slovenian schnapps.

  All the small sips add up. It is a lot for a twelve-year-old to take in, new to alcohol.

  I step out swaying on my feet, and trip downstairs to the visitors’ toilets and find Minister Bulgirov there ahead of me, perched on a marble toilet in a cubicle, with the door wide open.

  His eyes are closed. His head has swayed to the side. His arms hang limp at his sides. His open palms are splayed towards me. His trousers lie crumpled round his ankles.

  Naturally, you worry. Even the youngest of these Ministers are getting on, and stretching their lease on life.

  ‘First Deputy?’ I tap his shoulder. ‘Are you well?’ By which I really mean, ‘Are you dead?’

  His glazed eyes flicker. He blinks and takes me in.

  ‘Piss-heads …’ he says. ‘All they do is drink, drink, drink.’

  ‘Are you unwell?’ I ask.

  ‘Tired unto death,’ he groans, ‘and drunk as a sailor. This is the only sleep I get.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Will you do me a favour, kid?’

  ‘Ask,’ I say, ‘and it’s yours.’

  ‘Let me sleep. Let me sleep the just sleep of the dead,’ he says. ‘Give me seven sublime, whole, complete, entire, uninterrupted minutes. Then wake me up …’

  ‘Is seven enough?’

  ‘Usually, kid, I have to make do with five or six.’

  And, sure enough, when I wake him, after watching the slow passing of time on the mother-of-pearl inlaid face of his jewelled, gold Rolex wristwatch, with the krocodile-leather strap, he seems alert, jolly and much refreshed.

  ‘Good kid,’ he beams, brushing some dust from the lapel of his jacket. ‘That was a great catnap. I’m in your debt. Come,’ he says, ‘let’s get back, and have a drink. We’re missing all the entertainment.’

  True enough. Upstairs, when we rejoin the company, there’s fun all round. Through the dining room window we can see that the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs is trying to grapple the Yugoslav Ambassador into the duck pond, while inside, at the long table, we find that the Boss is arm-wrestling the dacha guards, and beating everyone with devastating ease, including Sergeant Igor Stavrov, weightlifting champion of the entire Slav Army.

  The Kind Uncle, the Great Father, is not called the Man of Iron for nothing.

  9. THE SUNLIGHT IN THE GARDEN

  Next morning, after breakfast, the Boss invites me to walk with him in the garden.

  ‘Follow me, boy,’ he says. ‘Don’t scuff your feet. And stop sniffing. And don’t speak unless you are spoken to. I don’t need your endless prattle. I want to enjoy the birdsong.’

  He strides in front, and addresses his remarks to the space behind, as I trudge in his wake.

  It is the end of February. There is a thin scatter of snow on the grass and treacherous grey slush on the path.

  I realise it is the first time I have been out of the dacha, and in the open air and sunlight, since we first arrived.

  I smell pine, earth and manure. Gone are the scents of wood panelling, floor polish and simmering cabbage. The cold air prickles on my cheeks and stings in my nostrils. I feel a tingle to my ears. The Boss spouts misty gusts of breath as he talks.

  ‘Do you know the best flower?’ he asks.

  ‘Well …’ I say, ‘the camomile gives us medicine. And the crocus is very beautiful.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ he concedes. ‘But the very best flower is the mimosa. It brings us hope. It raises the human spirit because it heralds the spring, and the end of our long, cold suffering.’

  Then the Boss looks upward and pauses, swivelling round to face me. I watch him as he closes his eyes in recollection and begins to recite –

  The bud has opened; now the rose

  brushes the tender violet.

  The lily, leant above the grass

  By grazing breezes, slumbers not.

  The lark, chirping its warbling tune,

  Skims high between the clouds;

  Meanwhile, the nightingale sounds

  Its sweet, mellifluous serenade:

  ‘Break forth in blossom Slavic land!

  As shivers of joy within you spread.

  While you must study, tiny friend,

  To delight your Motherland!’

  ‘That’s beautiful,’ I say. ‘Is it a song? Or a poem?’

  ‘A poem.’

  ‘Who wrote it? Pushkin?’

  ‘I wrote it myself,’ says the Boss. ‘It is called “Morning”. I wrote it when I was young and a romantic, before the Revolution, even.’

  ‘Do you still write poetry?’

  The Boss frowns and worries the gravel, chivvying the stones with the toe of his left boot.

  ‘When I was a young man, I thought it was enough to write my poetry in words. But now I make my poetry out of people.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Gaiety is the great feature of our national life. I write joy and hope. I inscribe it in the lives of the people.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ I agree.

  ‘Also, I deliver the law. Which is the poetry of power, and the rhythm of duty, and the rhyme of order.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We will visit the roses,’ says the Boss. ‘We will see how they have withstood the winter cold. There is a secret to tending roses. Can you guess what it is?’

  ‘You must feed and water them well? And always treat them with kindness.’

  ‘Not that. Far from it. They must learn to be tough and fend for themselves. The secret is to be stern with them. You must love them, but you must love them harshly.’

  The Boss swings open the door to the long, low hut. There are three parallel flower beds running the length of the wooden-framed, glass building.

  There are lines of spiky, black-stemmed, leafless, bloomless bushes, apparently dead. The base of each is locked in a cone of compacted earth.

  ‘The secret with roses is to cut them back. Their beauty only comes from a harsh, pitiless discipline.’

  ‘It does?’

  ‘You must cut out all the unh
ealthy or diseased tissue. You must dead-head the blooms that have lost their vigour and beauty. Do you know what the growing parts of the stems are called?’

  ‘No?’

  ‘They are called the leaders. If you do not cut the leaders back by a half, at least, the plants grow too fast, without strength or discipline. Then they will bear stunted blooms.’

  *

  A food-taster may not get much sleep. Not if he works for Comrade Iron-Man, Kind Uncle, Great Father. He can be kept up until four or five in the morning.

  ‘I’m an insomniac, Yuri. I do not sleep well. I feel tired most of the time. All the while my younger colleagues try to outsmart me with their energetic, fresh minds. But I cannot have them alert and sober, trying to run rings around me …’

  ‘No?’

  ‘So, I make sure they get no more sleep than me. And that they drink too much. It is a brake on their enthusiasm. It deadens their minds.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It is no more than common sense. I make them come here every night for supper. And I do not let them go until they are drunk and I, myself, am tired enough to sleep. Then, in the morning, I may ring them early to make sure they are awake, at work at their desks.’

  *

  The late hours exhaust the Magnates. They tire me too.

  I’d taken to snoozing, fully clothed, on blankets behind a sofa in the small dining room. Then I could manifest immediately, from nowhere, when summoned to my tasting duties.

  This morning I wake to an exchange of gruff male voices. It is Bruhah and Krushka on either side of the dining table, leaning forward so their heads nearly touch, as if ready to butt each other like stags. They are eyeballing each other steadily, each challenging the other to look down or away.

  I guess they think they’re alone, because they’re talking softly, but with menace, with the doors closed. So, I’m slow to show my face.

  ‘If he throws hedgehogs under me,’ observes Krushka, ‘I’ll throw porcupines under him.’

  ‘He’s gunning for Myokan and Motolov,’ says Bruhah. ‘He wants their heads.’

  ‘Yes,’ Krushka nods, ‘but for a mad dog, seven versts is just a short detour.’

  ‘He’s coming after me,’ says Bruhah, ‘I know it. He’s constructing a case. He’s fabricating evidence. He’s getting people to sign papers.’

  ‘Yes, your elbow is close,’ says Krushka, ‘but you still can’t bite it.’

  ‘He wants to eliminate the doctors. He wants to put all the Jews into camps. And there are new orders out to assassinate Tito. He’s planning to take on Amerika,’ says Bruhah. ‘He thinks they’ll attack us. So he wants to strike first.’

  ‘It shows the goose can’t be friends with the pig,’ says Krushka. ‘He sees only enemies. He knows only threats.’

  ‘Yes …’ says Bruhah. ‘No doubt.’

  ‘He’ll have his hands full, if he tries to milk the bull.’ Krushka makes a rude-looking gesture with his hand.

  ‘Indeed?’

  ‘So make the butter soon. Before the milk sours.’

  ‘An act of finality … that can’t be undone.’

  ‘Now,’ says Krushka. ‘Quick. Get in there. While the milkmaid’s still willing.’

  ‘A natural event – a final stroke.’

  It’s then I decide to show myself. While they are still on the farming-talk. Before anything I shouldn’t hear gets said, to get me into trouble.

  ‘Don’t mind me, kind Comrades,’ I say, stepping out from behind the sofa. ‘I’m just getting up. Is it morning already?’

  They are most surprised to see me. As if I am some scary apparition. Bruhah jumps backward. Poor, pink Krushka goes white as a noodle.

  ‘Were you listening?’ says Krushka.

  ‘Why? Were you talking?’ I say.

  ‘What did you hear?’ asks Bruhah.

  ‘Why? Did you say something?’ I ask.

  ‘You’re a fool, aren’t you, Yuri?’ Bruhah’s glare melts to a sly smile.

  ‘You’re a moron, aren’t you?’ Krushka taps me on the shoulder.

  ‘I am.’

  I was most surprised to see them hug each other and exchange kisses to both cheeks. Then whisper to each other while taking a backward glance to me.

  I could only catch their last few words as they turn to gaze on me: ‘ … wait till it’s done.’

  *

  I never knew that Bruhah and Krushka were so friendly, to meet together, and sort things out, like now, without the Boss to guide and advise them.

  It was said Bruhah made himself unpleasant to the others by threatening to arrest their wives, and do rude, unkind things to them in prison. But you never knew if he really meant it. Because he’d had Motolov’s wife Karolina imprisoned, so people said, but then kept her alive and hardly touched her.

  And he’d stand too close to the other Magnates at the urinal, downstairs at the dacha, and peer sideways at their privates and smile.

  And he’d slip over-ripe fruit into the pockets of Malarkov’s white dress uniform, then pat his jacket from the outside to make the fruits burst, and spread broad, red, purple and orange circles over his uniform.

  Or, he’d pop a special liquid into Terakov’s wine glass, because it made you want to relieve yourself, but without warning, all of a sudden, in a hot lava flow, like a volcano.

  But when Terakov worked out who did it, he had Bruhah’s favourite Mercedes-Benz car crushed up to the size of a travel chest and left on his doorstep. Some people say the chauffeur is still at the wheel.

  Bruhah and Malarkov would often share a limousine back to The Kapital, but never with either of the other two.

  You’d sometimes find Krushka and Bulgirov whispering into each other’s ears, in the same toilet compartment downstairs. But who knows what they were doing. Maybe they just liked to be close, like very firm chums.

  It all reminded me of the lads at school, doing secret business in the lavatory at breaktime.

  *

  The Boss likes quoting the writer Chekhov –

  When a person is born, he can embark on only one of three roads of life: if you go right, the wolves will eat you; if you go left, you’ll eat the wolves; if you go straight, you’ll eat yourself.

  But it always seemed gloomy. So alternatives keep coming to me.

  ‘Can’t you befriend the wolf? And tame him?’ I ask, ‘and make a pet dog of him? And maybe call him Wolfie?’

  He says I am a fool and a romantic. He says I must have lived a safe life. He asks me about my home.

  ‘Did your mother and father not beat you?’ he asks. ‘Viciously? Without reason? Like proper parents?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Never?’ he scowls. ‘Then how will you ever learn discipline? Doesn’t your father get drunk, go crazy, and thrash you with a belt?’

  ‘No, never.’

  ‘Really?’ He shakes his head. ‘What kind of father is that? Then does your mother not hit you hard, for nothing, mornings and evenings, with a wooden spoon, or a broomstick, to teach you some respect?’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘Anyway, she can’t. She’s at a work camp at Kolyma.’

  He nods, ‘As I thought. She must be an anti-social element, then … or an enemy of the people.’

  I shrug. I don’t remember. I cannot say.

  ‘Still, if you do not like your father,’ the Boss advises, ‘you can always get rid of him …’

  ‘I can?’

  ‘Report him to the Party. Say he is a reactionary. Say he is a Cosmopolitan spy. Say he listens to foreign radio. They will have him arrested. And sent to a camp. It will teach him a lesson. And you can be rid of him, for good.’

  ‘But I love my father,’ I say.

  The Boss flares his nostrils as if sensing a bad smell, narrows his eyes and shakes his head. ‘It can be good to respect your parents, up to a point, because it teaches you to love authority. But it is not proper to fall into sentimentality, and it’s a crime to love your family more than you love S
ocialism, the Party or the Motherland.’

  I shrug. I say I love all those more than my very own life but, in truth, this is not strictly so.

  ‘People are weak,’ he advises. ‘People are not to be trusted. People cannot help themselves. In time, everyone betrays you … You want to be just but it’s hard to forgive … When there’s a person, there’s a problem. When there’s no person, there’s no problem.’

  ‘You don’t trust anyone?’

  ‘I trust no one.’

  ‘Yourself?’

  ‘Not even myself.’

  I ask him if that is why he is not married. He tells me that his second wife shot herself. He says his first wife was called Kato and died of typhus, without a by-your-leave or warning …

  ‘I loved people until Kato died. When she went, my last warm feelings for people passed away too.’

  ‘Truly?’ I say. ‘You don’t love people? That’s strange.’

  ‘The way it is.’ The Boss is gruff, stiff and aggrieved. ‘People have always let me down …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I have taught myself to look people full in the face, in bright daylight, objectively, free from the glare of affection. Most human life is unnecessary. Futile. Tragic. Now, I see people for what they are – as transitory beasts in nature, as creatures passing from birth, through life to death. As Chekhov shows us, everything, everyone is in decay, rushing onwards to its decline and destruction …

  ‘I see a person like this …’ He swats at a circling gnat. ‘This fly was a maggot, then it was a larva. Next it will be a corpse, flat on its back with its feet in the air. It is born, it lives, it buzzes around, it feeds on shit, it lays eggs, it dies. When I see a blizzard of flies swarming round a cow’s arse, I do not think “Aren’t we lucky to live in such a golden, abundant age of flies? Thank goodness there’s enough shit for them all. Why doesn’t Comrade Shostakovich write a symphony to celebrate? Should we commission a heroic painting? Surely we should have more lyric poetry on this?”

  ‘So, now, whenever I am considering a serious question, an issue of substance, concerning my fellow man, I substitute the words “this fly” for the person’s name. This helps me decide.