“Hi! Where’ve you got to?” came a soft sweet voice.
“Like some coffee?” I asked from the doorway.
She stretched, smiling a freckled smile, gave a child-like nod, and placing a pillow behind her back, half sat up in bed.
“It’s only instant,” I said, going back to the kitchen.
She was beautiful, too beautiful to be a prostitute, and too young. Tumbling to her shoulders, light, once bleached, chestnut hair, slant Tatar eyes, tiny pointed nose, and thin, bright lips which I must have kissed.
“Are you coming?”
“I’m on my way.”
Sitting on the edge of the bed, I passed her the cup.
“Any chocolate?” she asked.
I shook my head sadly.
“No matter,” she smiled.
It troubled me that I could not remember her name.
“You’re nice, but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten your name.”
“As I yours. I’m Tolya.”
“I’m really Lena, but out there I’m Vika.”
“I like Lena better.”
“So that’s settled.”
It was practically evening when she said she must be going.
I said I would definitely pay her, but at the moment I was broke.
“Forget it,” she said with a smile. “Lena doesn’t take money, but Vika, if it was her you had wanted, would have charged you $20 …”
We kissed.
“You know where to find me,” she said from the landing.
“The lift works!” I called, hearing the click of her heels on the stone of staircase.
“Good for it!” she called back.
It was dark. Autumn spreading its gloom. But I didn’t care. I was happy. Happy for this my second birth, second breath or something, and the hope it offered for the future.
11
Evening
AT ABOUT 7.00 the phone rang. It was school friend Dima.
“Bit of a botch-up yesterday. Kostya’s been in offering excuses. Got time at the moment?”
“About all I have got.”
“Come and have a drink, then.”
*
This session went on till midnight. So warm and cosy was the little boutique with a powerful heater and curtains drawn, we might have been sitting by a fire.
As we switched from Hungarian red to a lemon vodka that went well with our feast of cod’s liver, it was borne in on me that to taste of life’s riches, you really did have to work in a select boutique or be related to someone who did. I was getting the benefit on the score of school friendship and pure luck. School friendships being something most want to forget.
“His watch packed up on him apparently,” said Dima, returning, as the vodka warmed within, to the serious. “The long and short of it is, he got there only when they were closing. He’s punctuality itself usually. Still, no panic. He’ll sort it. Matter of honour. Enough said, then, about that. Life’s great! So much to it. Like the girl I got to know yesterday …” He shook his head, clearly at a loss for words to do justice to her. “Hairdresser. Love at first sight. Might marry her. Need first to buy a flat.”
“I’ve got a flat,” I said. “My wife’s left me.”
“She’ll be back.”
“Over my dead body.”
“Signed out officially, has she?”
“No.”
“It’s not yours yet, then. When I get one, I’ll see I’m the one registered occupant, and be master in my own house.”
He shut up shop, slipped me a farewell bottle of vodka, and we made for the metro.
“If you’d like to earn a bit, I could put something your way,” he volunteered as we walked. “Interested?”
“Something dodgy?”
“No more than anything else nowadays. My boss is getting divorced and needs a witness.”
“Meaning?”
Dima scratched an ear. “You’d be the one supposed to have slept with her. You attend the hearing, and if they ask, it’s ‘Yes, I did and hubby caught me,’ or words to that effect.”
“That’s perjury.”
“It’s a civil case, not a criminal one, and who’s to prove you didn’t? She can’t, though she may deny it … On what you’d be paid, you could booze for a year, and no need to work.”
Not an attractive proposition, but with a promise of money not to be got elsewhere, and good money at that. It would mean running foul of the wife. But what the hell?
“If you like, I’ll fix a meeting. The boss’ll tell you what’s needed. Then it’s up to you.”
“Fine,” I said, welcoming the delay.
“I’ll give him your number,” Dima said, as we parted.
12
Saturday
DIMA’S BOSS RANG next day, and at 3.00 that afternoon we sat together in my kitchen, he having brought vodka and something to eat. Tall, smooth-shaven, dark, trace of grey, well-trimmed moustache, Sergey was the typical functionary.
“She’s cunning,” he said, drinking in sips like a man unused to vodka. “Absolute pain. Her lover’s someone I know, but don’t want to tangle with. It’s the morality of the thing – I’ve a reputation to consider, a future to think about. The odds are, you won’t be called. If you are, get up and say your piece. Carefully remembering what most don’t know: two birthmarks: left nipple, left buttock.”
I listened in silence. Much as I was out to earn money, I wasn’t keen on getting into business of that sort. Big money would, I had imagined, involve an element of risk, but there was no obvious risk in this. A few awkward moments, perhaps, but just moments, quickly relegated to the past and forgotten.
“Coming now to the main thing,” said Sergey, rubbing his hands as if they were cold, “the rate for the job is $1000. So, yes or no? For me it’s urgent.”
I swallowed.
“The dollars are yours, whether or not you’re called.”
I nodded acceptance.
“Come along then.”
“Where?”
“Where you and she slept – I’ll tell you when – then I’ll bring you back.”
He drove me in his Opel to Pechersk and an apartment vast enough to get lost in.
“The bedroom,” he said, throwing open a plate glass door. “Where, last autumn, you scored, while I – don’t you forget – was in the States. That photograph over the bed is Alina. Remember the name.”
She was an attractive, heavily made-up blonde.
“That’s about it, then. Court appearance Monday, 10.00 a.m. A friend’s picking you up. Be ready and waiting.”
He drove me home, and for a long while I sat in the kitchen. It was dark. I could have gone to bed, except that I felt too excited and alert, and remained so until 2.00 or 3.00 a.m.
13
THE DAYS FOLLOWING my non demise dragged unbelievably. It was difficult to grasp that only two had elapsed since the one on which I was supposed to be murdered, each having extended beyond power of description – the session at Dima’s boutique and my meeting with his boss mere droplets in a vast, futile stream of time. I used to like reckoning time on the basis of some expected event – visit, rendezvous or letter. I was not, of course, averse to unexpected letters, but they were chance products and good because not planned for. Now it was Monday I had to look forward to, and acting, for the first time ever, as witness. False witness, to be exact, and the interesting task of performing not the stated role but its precise opposite. Something that was almost second nature to me, as if I were preordained to do. As when I had decided to play victim of contract killer to the full, and chance or Some Other has arranged for me to do the reverse. Why? Could it be that fate was a kind of censorship allowing or forbidding us to do this or that?
So on Monday it was a relief to wake, knowing that something was at last going to happen. It was just before 8.00 when I entered the kitchen, made tea and sat waiting for the car Sergey had promised to send.
The tick of the wall clock was deafening.
O
utside it was drizzling. October was the month I liked least – not so much for its Revolution as its wet.
At 9.00 a car hooted, and looking out I saw a Zhiguli. Putting on my jacket, I went down. The middle-aged driver was as silent as the grave.
At the courthouse Sergey told me to wait outside, and when the time came, follow everyone in and stand outside the courtroom until called.
Half an hour later the doors opened, and a whole lot of unsmiling people streamed out into the drizzle, amongst them a lady dressed emphatically in black. Then someone beckoned from the doorway, and Sergey led the way in.
I was standing outside the courtroom as instructed, when a matronly-secretary-like girl in grey check told me to join the others.
“I’m a witness. I was told to wait,” I explained.
“Only when it’s a criminal case,” she said with a smile. “So in you go and sit near the front.”
I sat at the back near the door.
The hearing was brief, and so far as I was concerned, painless. The wife opposed divorce. Sergey, however, began by stating that the co-respondent was present in court and prepared to testify if required. At which, Alina looked nervously around at those present, and kept doing so.
At the end Sergey slipped me an envelope.
“Money for old rope,” he said with a laugh, turned on his heel and left me.
Back at the flat, I counted the money: $1000 in $50 and $20 bills. More than I had ever before possessed. I counted and recounted them, laying them out on the kitchen table in hundreds, only to reassemble them in one great wad. My hands were trembling, but this time from joy. I was in funds and could pay off my inconsiderable debts: to the Fraternal Street café for vodka, and to Lena of Kreshchatik Street.
Extracting a $20 bill and wrapping the rest in carrier bag and newspaper, I stuffed it under the bath, not wanting my wife with her key to the flat to cash in on a pleasant surprise.
That evening I took the metro to Kreshchatik Street. There I changed my $20 into the kupon notes that did service for currency during inflation, and with 60 of the 50,000 denomination in my pocket, set off to find Lena. Last time she’d been on a bench outside the Orbit Cinema. I looked twice, but there was no sign of her. Feeling the cold, I popped into the café-grill opposite the metro station for half a chicken doused in ketchup and 100 grams of vodka, before resuming my search for the girl who had been so easy to get on with.
It was nearly 11.00 before I found her. She looked rather tired, but seeing me, cheered up. We bought two bottles of Amaretto, bars of chocolate and some salami, and repaired to my flat.
We ate and drank, talking frankly and naturally – I of my wife, now off the scene, and my café past; she of liking to be free and disliking her parents and brother. That night and next morning were a great success. For a long while we had no inclination to get up, then at long last I did and brought her coffee and chocolate. Neither of us was in a hurry to go anywhere, but a time came when we ran out of steam a bit, and she, young as she was, had the womanly intuition to get ready and go.
“Like me to ring you?” she asked passing a hand over the dormant receiver of my ancient black telephone.
With alacrity I wrote the number for her.
“If I were you, I’d change the lock,” she said, on her way out.
I nodded. She was dead right.
Again she scorned the lift, and I stood listening to the click of her heels on stone before returning to the flat.
Another autumnal drawing in of the day, but with life now holding the pleasant prospect of her telephoning.
14
NEXT MORNING THE phone did ring. Only it was Dima, not Lena, urging me to look in that evening. Reluctantly I said I would.
Sickly sun, but dry and evidently bitter cold.
Counting what remained of my kupon notes, I took another $20 from under the bath.
Life went on. A late lunch: tea and chocolate. What I wanted was meat. Shaking out an old shopping bag in which I had brought potatoes from the market a month or more ago, I swept the mess into a corner.
My kupons sufficed in the local food store for a kilo of beef on the bone, a new loaf and a carton of soured milk. Returning to the flat, I found a couple of potatoes and three onions, which I added to the beef to make broth. This I left to simmer, and until it was ready, leafed through old magazines in the living room. At 3.00 I sat down to a plate of broth with crusty bread, followed it with another, and was happy.
The day was drawing in, this time with the parsimony of no street lighting.
So off to Podol and the Fraternal Street café, changing my dollars at Contract Square, and walking the rest of the way.
From the café, a feeble glow of light, voices and laughter.
No queue, and though the first room tables were all taken, there were some free in the inner room. Ordering a large double-strength coffee, I reminded Valya that I owed for vodka.
“Someone was asking for you,” she said. “Sounded like a school friend.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, remembering that she didn’t know my name.
“He had your photograph. Doesn’t live here any more, but was passing through and wanted to look you up …”
This news came as a shock. For some days I had given no thought to the matter. Taking my coffee through to the inner room and leaving my scarf on a seat, I went back for vodka.
“Lemon- or melon-flavoured?” Valya asked. “I’d go for melon, better taste.”
“Melon, then. This school friend, what did he look like?”
She shrugged. “Ordinary. Short. Dark leather jacket. Don’t worry. He’s either got your address or knows where to find you.”
“Did he show anyone else the photograph?”
“He showed it to the three or so who were here. He was in today for a coffee. Didn’t mention you, though.”
Back at my table, I downed the 100 grams of melon vodka, and thinking it not enough, went back for another 200.
When the café shut, I wandered Podol for an hour, then looked in at Dima’s boutique.
“How’s it going?” he asked.
“So-so.”
“But the richer for $1000, eh?” Broad smile.
I nodded.
“Money when needed! Now you can let it rip!”
“I can.”
“Had a drink?”
“A small one.”
“Like to join me?”
Locking up, drawing the curtains and producing a bottle, he poured.
“As to your loan, I’m happy to wait, but seeing you’re in funds …”
I tried to gather my fuddled wits.
With a tut-tut, Dima knocked back his vodka.
“You’ve been hitting the bottle. The loan is what I paid Kostya for your co-respondent. And to be fair and businesslike, 10% of the nice little earner I got you would not come amiss.”
“My money’s at the flat. I’ll settle up tomorrow,” I said, downing the vodka and starting to catch on.
“As you like,” shrugged Dima, “tomorrow or the day after …”
Very soon I was paralytic. Dima found a freelance taxi to see me home. And paralytic as I was, I still saw the $10 Dima slipped the driver.
15
AT MIDDAY OR thereabouts I was woken by the phone.
“Kostya speaking,” came a youngish voice. “No trouble. I’m onto him.”
He rang off and it took time to grasp what he had said. The game I had stopped thinking about was very much still on.
Two cups of coffee and a cold bath, and I felt better – at least to the extent of thinking more calmly. Several times I went to the window looking for a young man in a black leather jacket, but none of those going about their affairs far below appeared to qualify.
He would hardly show up in broad daylight. Or kill me in front of a crowd. So by day I must be safe.
I no longer wanted to die – my life, though only I could see it, had taken on a modicum of meaning. I had freedom of action, and
my chosen course of a week or so ago no longer suited. I wanted to go on living.
Calmer now and more myself, I took out $550 – my debt to Dima plus his 10% – leaving me much the poorer, but still able to live for a while without thinking of the future.
It was sunny and cold, and on my way to the bus stop I saw that the trees had lost their leaves.
Dima was busy showing an old lady in a long, grey, mangy-collared overcoat a Chinese water pistol. Seeing me, he nodded.
“It’s my little grandson’s birthday,” muttered the old lady, “but there’s not much you can buy on a pension, is there?”
“Yours for 250,000,” said Dima impatiently. “And that’s with 50,000 off.”
Pulling from her pocket a bundle of 10,000-kupon notes wrapped in a handkerchief, she began slowly to count them. Dima raised his eyes to the ceiling.
“There’s 230,000,” said the old lady, adding, “I think I’ve got some more 1000 s about me somewhere …”
“Don’t bother! Have it for 230,000!” he insisted, his voice almost a shout, grandly handing her the water pistol, in the manner of one conferring Soviet papers on a person just come of age.
“Thank you, my son, thank you,” she muttered, backing her way out.
“Got my goat, she did,” sighed Dima.
“Here you are, $550 which includes your 10%,” I said, handing over the dollars.
“Steady on,” he said, “you’re doing yourself.”
“How so?”
“The $450 owing leaves you with $550, 10% of which is $55.”
I shrugged.
“Never did care for double taxation,” he said, producing from under the counter an opened bottle of Hungarian Palinka and two small crystal glasses. “Not put out, are you?”
“Sorry, no – just been having a bit of a bad time recently.”
“So may you now be in for a good one,” he said, raising his glass.
And suddenly, more clearly than ever, I felt that I was.
“A word of advice,” said Dima. “Those dollars of yours should be put to work. You’ve your life ahead of you. You need money to live. Several ways of going about it – the least troublesome is to let them earn you monthly interest. Don’t buy shares, that’s watching your money run off with. I can put you in touch with people who will give you 10%. What they do is lend at 15%, securing against property. So long as the mug pays his 15%, it’s 10% to you and 5% to them. If he doesn’t, they seize his flat or his garage, and sell. You get your 10%, they get 200%. They do the work, you do bugger all, just sit with a book.”
A Matter of Death and Life Page 3