The Zoo

by Christopher Wilson

  *

  I used to watch the Boss from a distance, morning and evening, but I hadn’t seen him around for several days, not on the benches outside the zoo.

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ I ask of Lemkov, ‘but where’s the Emperor these days?’

  ‘Ah …’ says Lemkov. ‘The Emperor …’ He looks sorrowfully down to his feet. He shuffles his boots. ‘Thereby hangs a tale.’

  ‘Is he not well?’

  Lemkov looks away, sucks hard and considers, then spits some phlegm to the side of my feet. ‘Regarding the Emperor, there is mixed news, both uplifting and dispiriting, happy and sad …’

  ‘Tell me the sad, first.’

  ‘He is gone.’ Lemkov nods emphatically. ‘There is no getting around it. He is stone-cold, dead, departed, passed over, moved on, deceased, stiff as a stick. Dead as a Mastodon, stony as a fossil. We won’t see the likes of him again.’

  ‘Whatever happened?’

  ‘Last week some thugs set on him. Stole his coat and boots. Then pushed him into the lake. It was a freezing night. We saw him go in. We didn’t see him come out.’

  ‘Murder? For old boots and a torn coat?’

  ‘He was throwing his weight around. Telling people what to do. Threatening to have them shot. Ordering them off to The Cold Lands, and such, for fifteen years or more. Seizing their possessions for himself. Saying it was State Property. It doesn’t go down well. It isn’t comradely. It isn’t Socialistic. People object. It gets on their nerves … It stands to reason. Folk who live on the streets mostly want more vodka. They don’t want taxation, and they don’t want more government.’

  ‘The good news?’ I sniff. Tears are forming against my better judgement, smearing my cheeks, misting my eyes. The Boss was a difficult customer, no doubt. But he’d looked after me, in his harsh way, and made himself my friend.

  ‘The good news,’ says Lemkov, ‘is that the crazed, demented old bastard is no longer in pain.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘He wasn’t happy. Not at the end.’

  Lemkov tells me the tale.

  ‘The yellow dwarf used to give us money to look after him. He said he would have us arrested if any harm came to him. But then he stopped coming. There was no more money.’ He rubs empty fingers against naked thumb. He looks hopefully at me and down to my pocket.

  ‘I only have thirty-seven kopecks.’

  ‘Every little helps.’ His hand closes around the coins and imprisons them in his fist. ‘Myself, I didn’t mind the old man, even though he acted like he was Tsar of Greater Slavia, and shouted at us, and gave us stupid titles and idiotic jobs to do. Not as long as I was paid to look after him …

  ‘In my old capacity as psychiatrist, I would have diagnosed him as a Paranoid Schizophrenic. He had delusions of grandeur. He believed he was a great and powerful man. He thought the world was trying to do him down. All this was compounded with vascular dementia and the destructive toll of a series of strokes. Alongside he had Korsakoff’s Syndrome – which prevented him remembering anything new, which stopped him learning in life …

  ‘But it is hard, here on the streets. It is not a kind place. This is not a Sanatorium. Nor an Asylum. The crazed have to look after themselves, same as the sane, the drunks, the outlaws and addicts.

  ‘We can barely raise a bonfire, and brew a samovar. So we do not have the facilities to run a psychiatric clinic and safe-house for demented old misanthropes who think they rule the world. We listen to each other’s problems. We are sympathetic. We help if we can. But we do not offer systematic pharmacology, convulsive therapy, lobotomies or talking-cures …’

  I patted Lemkov’s arm. ‘See you, Comrade,’ I said. I wished him good-day, and a good life.

  *

  But I thought to myself – Who knows? You could never be sure with the Boss. He was a tough old bird. It took more than his death, by poisoning, freezing, drowning and strokes, to keep him down. He had more lives than a cat.

  Maybe he swam to the other side of the lake, warmed himself up with a bonfire, added another two names to his back-pocket list – ‘People to be shot’ – then took himself off somewhere else. Gorky Park? Sparrow Hills? The Arch of the Unknown Martyr?

  He’d seized power once before. He was older now, if not wiser. He knew how it was done. Maybe he couldn’t manage ruling an entire Union of Republics, or a whole country. But he could certainly boss a gang of all-day drinkers in one of our Kapital’s parks.

  *

  Life scribbles on you. Like vandals scrawl on walls. You learn a lot of lessons along the way. Some of them useless. Some of them valuable.

  Even the greatest of men have their faults.

  In times of drought, you can drink your own urine.

  Nature gives you spares, so nobody needs every last finger.

  But you should take good care of your Papa, he’s the only one you get.

  Even the biggest things topple in time.

  Love is a liberal waster, and has no respect for the Party.

  You never know what will happen to a soul – they could get doubled, disappeared or disinvented.

  It’s not the votes that count, it’s the man that counts the votes.

  Where there’s a person, there’s a problem.

  Always look in the box, before you bury the coffin.

  The writer is the engineer of the human soul.

  You know how it is with a library book. You didn’t take it back. Now it’s late. Because it’s late, you put off taking it back. Now it’s later still, so you delay some more.

  It just gets worse. And the worse it gets, the worse it is, still. And you wake up to find you owe three whole roubles.

  That’s the way it was with the letter. Comrade Iron-Man’s last letter. That Marshal Bruhah wanted so much –

  The last testament of Josef Petrovich Iron-Man General Secretary of the Central Committee naming his successor

  I had it in the tin box of private things that I kept under my bed. I owed its delivery to a Comrade called Vislov.

  I asked a teacher at school who knows about politics. And, it turns out, this Comrade Vislov is not unknown.

  First name, Mikhail. Patronymic, Andreyevich. He has a seat on the Politburo. He’s Chairman of the Commission for Foreign Affairs, which means he gets to say what we do abroad.

  Sometimes I look for the easy way out. I was still hoping that the letter didn’t really matter.

  The envelope wasn’t properly sealed, just stuck in the centre. So you could open it with a knife, then glue it all back properly. I am hoping it says something ordinary, unimportant, like –

  Thanks for the parcel. See you next Thursday.

  Sorry you fell off your bicycle. Hope you get well soon.

  Then I wouldn’t have to worry about non-delivery, or the terrible delay. But, no. When I open the letter and peek at the first page, it confirms then inflates my very worst fears.

  It is very political. It is very personal. Names get named. Blames get blamed. Insults are aimed. Crimes get called. Angers flare. Characters are called into question. Old wounds are opened. Comrade Iron-Man has some very harsh words for his colleagues and friends.

  As goodbyes go, it is not a fond one.

  I, Josef Petrovich Iron-Man, declare that I have dedicated my life to increasing the Gaiety of the Motherland, labouring unstintingly for the joy and happiness of its peoples.

  And yet I have been betrayed, grievously, by the actions of my so-called Comrades, yapping and snarling like a pack of jackals.

  Let it be known that Marshal Bruhah is a character of the most depraved, perverse and sadistic character, unfit for leadership or government, and a rapist, murderer, torturer, as any forensic examination of his home will reveal.

  Let it be known also that Comrade Nikita Krushka is a barbaric and vicious character responsible for the murder and imprisonment of legions of honest workers in the Borderlands in atrocities conducted behind this General Secretary’s back, without his permission or knowledge … />
  It goes on and on. With loads of insofar-ing and plenty of letting-it-be-knowns. There’s seven pages of it. In spidery green writing. He has a bad word to say about everyone – Bulgirov, Malenkov, Motolov, Myokan …

  He regrets that the gaiety of Slav life has been soured by his barbarous colleagues, doing this and that behind his back, like shooting people, letting them go hungry, or putting them into prison. He concludes by saying that Vislov alone is fit to lead the Party.

  It burns a hole in my pocket, this letter. It scorches a guilt in my mind. And the longer I leave it, the worse the burn.

  Perhaps, it’s best to hand it in to the authorities – a police station, State Security, or the Party office.

  I could say, ‘I found it on the street.’ Then explain, ‘Of course, I haven’t read it.’

  Then, I wouldn’t be in any trouble.

  It was a hard road with a heavy load. It had worn me down. All this time with top people, helping out in history.

  I find the book that Papa had mentioned – Trofim Lysenko’s The Science of Biology Today – on the top row of shelving behind his desk. It was large and fat – the size of a box briefcase – but strangely light.

  He had cut out the centre of the pages with a razor to make a box-like cavity. Within were two brown envelopes.

  On one, Papa had written For emergencies, in red ink, and had underlined it twice. Inside was a wad of banknotes. Musty-smelling. Colour, green. Currency, US Dollars. Denomination, hundred notes. Total value, three thousand five hundred. Which – if the dollar is worth even half as much as the rouble – is a deal of money.

  On the second, fatter, envelope, Papa had written Valeriya, my mother’s name.

  Inside was their wedding photograph. Mama is young with blonde wavy hair and a smile to warm December. Papa, alongside, looks serious, older, plainer and lucky, in a starched collar and striped suit.

  With the photo were all her papers and certificates, neatly folded and in order of issue. Birth certificate, school exams, Membership of the Junior Pioneers, Violin aptitude – Grade 7, Gymnastic Awards, Medical Graduation, Gold Medal Prize for Surgery, Order for Outstanding Medical Research, Conviction under Article 58 for Counter-Revolution, and then her death certificate.

  Date: July 1951.

  Place: Kolyma Detention Camp.

  Status: Serving Prisoner.

  Cause of death: Cardiac failure.

  I guess Papa hadn’t wanted to tell me. He’d thought to protect me.

  I had no memories of Mama, Only hopes, I’d posted forward, to hold for the future. Like a parcel saved up for my name day. So Papa hadn’t wanted to deprive me entirely.

  But it came right out of the blue. Like a sucker punch to the belly.

  You double up. You feel winded and dizzy. Your breath won’t come. You can’t move. Your body just won’t obey your brain.

  It’s a sudden, unexpected way to lose your mother.

  I weep, of course. Then my sick mind takes over.

  I throw a big fit, thrash around, graze my knees, bruise my head and bite my lip.

  Then, next day, I feel much better.

  At least, I still have Papa.

  And I’ll value what I’ve got.

  I’ve polished his best pair of boots. They’re waiting for him beside the front door.

  I’ve put fresh, ironed sheets on his bed. I’ve laid out clean shirts and underwear in his drawers.

  I know what it’s like to go without food, and to be starved of all you crave. So, I’ve started a collection of some of his very favourite things, as treats to welcome him back: a hundred grams of Pushkin’s Spiced Pipe Tobacco, a quarter bottle of schnapps flavoured with caraway seed, a jar of peppermint bonbons, an unopened pack of Hero of the Revolution Tea, a quarter kilo of macaroni made from real semolina flour.

  It’s just a matter of patience. And never letting any dark doubt cloud your horizon. So, I’m just awaiting his return – whenever, from wherever.

  About the Author

  Christopher Wilson is the author of novels including Gallimauf's Gospel, Baa, Blueglass, Mischief, Fou, The Wurd, The Ballad of Lee Cotton and Nookie. His work has been translated into several languages, adapted for the stage, longlisted for the Booker Prize, and twice shortlisted for the Whitbread Fiction Prize.

  Wilson completed a published PhD on the psychology of humour at LSE, worked widely as a research psychologist and semiotic consultant, and lectured for ten years at Goldsmiths, University of London. He has taught creative writing in prisons, at university and for The Arvon Foundation. He lives in North London.

  Copyright

  First published in 2017

  by Faber & Faber Ltd

  Bloomsbury House

  74–77 Great Russell Street

  London WC1B 3DA

  This ebook edition first published in 2017

  All rights reserved

  © Christopher Wilson, 2017

  Cover design by Faber

  Cover image © Irina Rogova / Shutterstock

  The right of Christopher Wilson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

  ISBN 978–0–571–33447–6