Bruhah opens up the folding chair and pats the striped canvas seat.
‘Yuri,’ he says, ‘help me out. I need you to sit here, not slump on the floor like a stringless puppet.’
His politeness is compelling. I oblige him. I sit myself down in his chair. I am relying on him to give me some food. If only I behave.
‘Arms on the rests,’ he commands. Then he reaches for a roll of tape, which he wraps around, tying my forearms to the metal frame. After that, he tapes round my shins to attach me to the chair legs.
‘Welcome,’ he says, ‘to Hell. We call this place the Palace of Miracles.’
‘You do?’
‘Because people remember miraculous things, here. Out of nowhere. Often, they remember things they never, ever knew …’
‘Really?’
‘I tell you a true story, a for-instance, Yuri. Once, the Boss finds he’s lost his favourite briar-wood pipe, taken from his office. He tells me to track down and punish the thief.
‘Guess what. Two hours later he finds his pipe. It was in his greatcoat all along. Lit. Burning a hole in the pocket. All’s well. So I never have to tell him. That the stenographer and the mail-clerk have already been to the Palace of Miracles, confessed to their crime, screamed to be spared, whimpered to be let out of their misery, and then passed on …’
Now, in his apron, with his galoshes on his feet, clutching a small claw-hammer, with his eyes bulging, Bruhah looks like some eager handyman, come to fix some faulty appliance.
‘We have been looking for a letter,’ says Bruhah. ‘We know Comrade Iron-Man wrote it, but we can’t find it.’
‘A letter?’
‘A last letter from the Boss. To those he leaves behind.’
‘Yes?’ I say.
He stoops and bends his knees. He circles me with shuffling feet, peering at me closely, as if looking for the exact place to start, the way you’d take a tin-opener to a can of herrings in tomato sauce.
‘Do you know what I’m talking about?’
‘No.’
‘Do you know what I’m going to do?’
I shake my head.
‘I am going fishing. Like we do in Georgia. Do you know how it works?’
‘No.’
‘It is not like normal fishing, which is a battle of wits between man and fish. We call it progressive fishing. We throw dynamite into the pond. There is a bang and a whoosh and a fountain of water. Then all the fish float to the surface. Many are gutted and cooked already.’
‘Yes?’ I say.
‘So, I will go fishing in your pond, Yuri, and see what fishy stuff comes to the surface. But for this I need force … I could tap your little head with this little hammer, until every last bone in your skull is broken. Do you know how that feels?’
‘Hurtful?’ I guess. ‘Horrible?’
‘Or I could snip off your fingers with these …’ He pulls out the shears. He pokes them under my nose. ‘Do you know what that means?’
I shake my sorry head. I have seen the tool before. These are shears for cutting metal sheets. The sharp edges are scalloped, like a serrated knife.
‘It gives us a schedule, a route map. It affords us both plenty of time. It means you have ten good chances, Yuri. To give me the right, helpful answers. Before I finish your fingers and start on your toes. And do you know why I have chosen your fingers first?’
‘No.’
‘The hands are very sensitive, the fingers especially, Yuri. So, if I want to touch upon your nerves, this is a good place to go. So you will become a confidential friend of pain. It will tell you all its secrets,’ says Bruhah, ‘and then you, in turn, will tell me what I want to know.’
Now is the time to confess. To avoid unpleasantness. To prevent inconvenience. And not before time. It’s best all round.
‘Forgive the childish opinion of a brain-damaged simpleton …’ I volunteer. ‘No disrespect intended. I’m sorry. But I am a special case. Truly I am. On account of my nerves and the state of my brain. I have a neurological condition. My nerves are wired together strangely, differently to other people. Due to damage. When a tram ran over my head and squashed my brain. Now, fear doesn’t work on me. Not the normal way. And nor does pain …’
‘No. Pain works on everyone,’ says Bruhah, ‘you cannot excuse yourself from pain. She is a hard mistress. She lets no one duck her lessons.’
‘It’s this way,’ I say. I need to convince him. ‘I’m a casestudy. Well known. I have been written about. I am “Boy Z” in The Handbook of Advanced Traumatic Neurology, by Doctor Luria. Students answer exam questions about me. I am a sick boy with a damaged mind … My Temporal Lobes got scrambled … Like a breakfast egg,’ I say, ‘when something hard and fast ran over my head. Now, whenever anyone tries to hurt me, my left hemisphere throws a fit. All the bullies at school have taken turns to hurt me. But they never get past page one …’
It’s true. Any strong stimulus starts it off. But especially pain. There’s scar tissue in the left-hand side of my brain. It causes the electrical impulses to amplify. That makes them amplify more.
They call it a feedback loop. They call it white noise. Then it passes into the other side of the brain. Then it’s like an electrical storm. And, then, all hell breaks loose, all through this boy’s mind.
It’s then I feel it coming. There’s a nauseous swirl. There’s the stench of rotting fish and pulses of burning orange light. It feels like my head’s being hammered from the inside with a wooden mallet.
So, now I’m going to have a grand mal, an epileptic episode. And I fear it’s a whopper coming.
I look away from Bruhah who is moving the mouth of his shears around my finger.
The last thing I remember is an unpleasant crunching, splitting sound, as bone yields to steel. Then white hot molten metal pours through my finger into my arm, up through my neck, into my skull. It is flashing light then dark with brilliant blue lightning bolts …
And, as I fade out, I hear the peevish complaint of Comrade Bruhah, his voice receding, as if he’s speaking from far, far away.
‘How can I hurt you properly, you shitty little runt, if you keep throwing a fit whenever I touch you?’
*
I haven’t fallen out of friendship with the tapper on the citizen’s telephone, on the other side of the wall. But, our initial delight at talking has waned. Day by day we seem to have less to say to each other. And what we have to say does not seem to quench our souls, or raise our spirits.
To my shame, I am close to ignoring him sometimes. For I often feel sadder and worse, for talking to him.
He tells me he feels weaker, that he needs more water, to keep himself hydrated. No one has visited him now for days. He thinks they have left him to rot. The bastards.
He says he needs more nutrition and liquid than you can readily extract from insects and the odd rodent that passes your way.
Drinking your own water only gets you so far. After a while, you can feel more thirsty, not less.
*
I am running out of jokes to tell him and, anyway, they are poor compensation for a man in his sorry, neglected condition.
‘If I die here,’ he says, ‘take a message to my family, if you survive.’
‘Sure, Comrade,’ I say. ‘But let’s make each other a promise. We’ll make sure we both survive.’
‘Take a message to my son. Tell him I love him. Tell him to keep to his studies. And tell him to choose his words carefully, and try not to speak out of turn …’
‘I will. Most certainly.’
‘His name is Yuri …’
‘Now, there’s a coincidence,’ I say, ‘because my own name is Yuri. And that’s the kind of sensible, school-teacher-advice my father would give me too …’
‘Then, where do you live?’ he asks.
‘In the staff block,’ I say, ‘in The Kapital Zoo.’
‘Yuri?’ he answers. ‘Yuri?’
‘Papa,’ I sob, ‘Papa, Papa … Is that truly y
ou?’
‘My boy … Oh, my boy …’
*
Talk? We can’t stop. We talk over each other. We talk through each other. We shout. We yell. We laugh. We howl. We chatter through the night. We have so much to say, so much to catch up.
Late on, tired and drained, we get awkward pauses. He gets sentimental. He says a man dies two deaths. Once when his heart stops. And, a second time, when people stop talking about him or remembering his life and character.
He says he always tried to be a good father, but that he could not be a good mother too. He says I must try to forgive him for that.
He says if we are parted now, and don’t see each other again, I must do as he said, and not as he did. I must live to help other people, and try to make the world a finer place, and to remember to have children myself. And, if I can lend a helping hand to those in need – people, elephants, or whoever – that would be a fine thing too.
He says when I get home I must look on his bookshelves for Trofim Lysenko’s The Science of Biology Today. He says I will find certain papers inside, near the centre pages, where no one would be tempted to look, in an otherwise dry, unexceptional book.
We talk football, a holiday we took in Odessa, and the music of Shostakovich, pork chops, chocolate cake, and meatballs in cream sauce, and the character of Fox Terriers. Till, at last, he says he is tired. He must sleep.
SLEEPWELLPAPA
I say.
And he replies –
SLEEPWELLYURIANDLIVEAGOODLIFEMYBEAUTIFULBOY
But the next morning there is no answer, so I know they must have come in the night. They must have moved him on.
Poor Papa. I hope they treat him better in the new place. I hope it is better there. Wherever they have taken him. And I hope they feed him well. At last.
I don’t really believe in God. But, even so. This world is very odd. As you see with electrons and magnetism. Unlikely things happen. You can never be sure. So, I say a prayer for Papa. Just in case.
At least I got to speak to him and hear that he was well.
16. MY SOUL FOR A HERSHEY BAR
No one comes to my cell. No one answers my taps on the piping. I watch the world go from gloomy grey to inky black, and back again. I am two more days without word or company or sustenance.
I would not be pleased to see Comrade Bruhah again. But for one special, particular detail. Walking behind him there’s a guard. And he’s bearing a tray of food, and a jug of water. He places it on the ground before me. And I am not slow to fall on it and help myself. Without invitation.
I cannot speak too well of this water.
It is fresh, clear, cold, completely wet, water. So far as I can taste, it hasn’t passed through anyone else before. Not once. It hasn’t dripped through a crack in the wall. It hasn’t been crushed, drop by drop, from a beetle, or squeezed out in a paste from the back end of a dead, matted-haired mouse.
‘Yuri, Yuri, my young friend …’ Bruhah watches me gulp it down, straight from the jug. He awards me a brilliant smile and a flash of china teeth. He reaches out to hug me, then promptly steps back, sniffing, dabbing a cologne-scented handkerchief to his face. ‘How have you been keeping, young man?’
‘Not so well,’ I croak. Even with the unexpected drink, my throat is sore – dry as sand, crackly as autumn leaves underfoot.
I maybe sound resentful. As far as I’m concerned, he’s treated me badly.
‘The last time we spoke, I was harsh,’ Bruhah concedes. ‘Now I have taken advice from Comrade Krushka. He says you are a good boy. Just stupid.
‘He says you will help us if only we treat you kindly. He says I need to learn new tricks. He tells me I must learn to play better with other children. He says sugar traps more ants than vinegar. He says I mustn’t force entry in everybody I talk to, or break them apart …’
‘You cut off my finger,’ I remind him. ‘It’s hurt ever since. Look. The stump’s got infected. And you left me without a blanket, food or water.’
‘Yuri,’ he wags a warning finger – he has a complete set, himself – ‘it does not pay to bear a grudge.’ He arches his eyebrows. He shakes his head. ‘In politics, you must learn to be flexible. We must let bygones be bygones. You must forgive and forget, as I do. And then move on. This is the dialectical method. Thesis. Antithesis. Synthesis. Supper …’
He tells me that although he taxed me of just one small finger, he left me all the others, attached and entire. He says that, everything considered, in the circumstances, in his experience of these matters, nine fingers and thumbs is a high number to hang onto. Many people end up with far fewer. Especially in the Palace of Miracles. And, anyway, Nature’s design gave us spares.
‘Would you like a Hershey Bar?’ he asks.
‘What?’
‘Favourite Amerikan chocolate bar.’ He produces a silver and brown wrapped bar. ‘Hershey’s are first in favor and flavor. Five-cent candy bar. You are a lucky boy, Yuri. There are only twenty-three Hershey Bars left in the whole Socialist Union, until the next consignment.’
I do not say it is the best thing I have eaten. Ever. In my whole life. But it comes close to roast goose with crunchy roasted potatoes and spiced red cabbage.
Then I set about the food on the tray.
There’s a slice of rye bread, two smallish cold potatoes, half a raw onion, a couple of rounds of raw turnip, a bowl of gruel and two slices of sausage. It takes whole minutes to gobble them all, and then lick the residual smears off my remaining fingers – for the chewing slows me down, and my mouth is still dry.
‘There …’ Bruhah beams, ‘I think we are friends again, aren’t we? Now, I want you to do some things for me. What do you say? Are you willing?’
I nod. It is a terrible state of affairs. How your stomach can lead your morals astray.
‘We got off to a bad start,’ he concedes. ‘Let’s start over again. You are a lucky boy, Yuri. You are a utensil whose use has come. Like a wooden spoon for stirring the porridge. So, I do not want to hurt you. I want us to be friends.’
‘I’ll happily do things for you,’ I declare, ‘but could you do something for me?’
‘What do you want?’
‘I would like my mother and father back,’ I tell him. ‘Just that. No more. No less. Mama is in a camp in Kolyma. Papa was here, next door, in a cell.’
‘Is that all?’ Bruhah smiles. ‘Of course. It is yours. I will arrange for you to go where your father has gone. Only it may take a couple of days to arrange.’
Then Bruhah tells me what he wants from me.
He says I spent more time with the Boss than anyone else at the end. He says I must make a list of everyone the Boss saw in his last days. He says I must write down whatever he said. I must remember any phone calls he made, any letters he wrote. He says history deserves to know.
He says that Matryona knows of a letter that the Boss had written. She thinks I must have seen it. It is very important. Do I know of this letter? Where is it?
I tap my head with my knuckles. There’s an empty, wooden sound. ‘Can you hear?’ I ask. ‘That’s traumatic brain damage,’ I explain. ‘It can make me foolish. There’s scar tissue in the left side of my brain. It causes me to have fits. When I’ve had a fit, I completely forget what happened before …’
‘Do you remember a letter?’
I crease my eyes in concentration. I crumple my brow. I bite on my lower lip. I show how hard I am thinking. I am thinking so hard, I’m on the threshold of tears.
I am doing my best. But, as they well know, I’m a stupid child.
‘There’s something …’ I admit, ‘at the back of my mind. I believe I saw it once. But – for the moment – I can’t remember where it is now.’
‘Yes?’
‘Do the words last testament mean anything?’
‘Yes.’ Bruhah nods rapidly, with enthusiasm, like a woodpecker. ‘They do.’
‘Could the letter be written to someone whose name began with an S?’
>
‘Yes,’ he agrees. ‘Think clearly. Was it Saitov? Samokhin? Surikov? Or Siyan? Sergeyev?’
‘Yes,’ I agree, ‘one of those. Unless the name began with an R.’
‘An R?’
‘Could be,’ I agree.
‘Like Reshetnikov? Rodin? Rusnak? Rykov? Ramazanov? Raitov? Ramokhin?’
‘Exactly,’ I agree, ‘Though maybe it began with a T.’
‘A T?’
‘Don’t worry …’ I say. ‘Give me time. Let me look. Then let me look again.’ I tap my empty cranium. ‘It will come to me. Out of nowhere. That’s how this mind of mine works. I’ll be doing something else. Then I’ll suddenly remember this letter. And just where I saw it last …’
Maybe I can see it now. In the kinema of my mind. But it doesn’t pay to be too hasty.
*
Much has changed in a hurry.
The dacha has been ransacked, and emptied of people, possessions and papers. Most of the guards have been sent to other postings, far North or far East, far away from The Kapital.
Matryona is packing. She has been given travel documents, ordered to visit her sister in Yekaterinburg, and stay far away until further notice.
The staff are gone, leaving only a handful of guards. The kitchen has been closed. The library is cleared of books. It has even been emptied of bookshelves. The walls are cleared of pictures. The garage is empty of limousines.
Now footsteps are boomy and echoey on the parquet flooring.
The Iron-Man’s study is a bare space. Clean, clear patches on the walls show where the maps and pictures had hung. The desk, bookshelves and filing cabinets have all been taken. Only his armchair, and scuff marks on the parquet flooring, show where the furniture stood before.
*
It is part of my arrangement with Bruhah that I keep the constant company of Isakov.
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