Y.T.

by Alexei Nikitin

  ‘You must be tired of my chatter,’ Vera said. ‘I usually don’t talk so much, but I’m making an effort today for Larissa. Perhaps it’s not making any difference, but I thought the journey would be easier for her if I reminisced about our childhood. We really did travel a lot to Crimea. But it doesn’t seem to have done any good. She came home a changed person.’

  ‘Came home from where?’ I asked politely. I wasn’t that interested in Larissa’s life story. I was interested in Vera.

  ‘From Chechnya. You mean you didn’t know?’

  ‘Ah …’ I started in embarrassment. ‘No, I didn’t. What was she doing there?’

  ‘It’s a long story. We don’t have much time now, but I’ll tell you later some time.’

  She was right. We didn’t have much time. Hurriedly we gulped down our chicken soup and tucked into the overdone chicken legs and rice—for some reason the café only served chicken.

  Then it was time to go back to the car.

  Suddenly it dawned on me. ‘Vera,’ I said. ‘You look astonishingly like an old classmate of mine.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You wouldn’t know her. Natasha Belokrinitskaya.’

  ‘I know Nastashka very well. All our relatives used to tell our parents we looked like her. “Your girls were poured from the same mold as Natasha.” She’s seven years older so it was a natural comparison.’

  ‘You know her?’ I was amazed.

  ‘Our mothers are first cousins, so we’re second cousins.’

  ‘Has she ever been to your home?’

  ‘Not that often, but she’s been there.’ Vera got up. ‘Shall we? It’s time we were off.

  We went outside. The sea could already be felt close by. A gentle mild spring breeze ruffled the air. It smelled of the sea and melting snow and grasses. Where do grasses come from in March? I don’t know. I was standing at the door to the café watching Vera get into the car. Something had changed, decisively and irretrievably. Within and without. Only the sky remained the same—heavy, wet, grey and endlessly familiar. I had spent years beneath this sky. No, more than that. I had spent a lifetime beneath it. Once upon a time, before I’d begun trading in American fizzy drinks, Istemi’s horsemen had swept beneath this sky, horsemen who were as light as death and as fast as time.

  We reached Vostochni at dusk. Vakha was expected. I don’t know who they were, friends or relatives, but they met him noisily and joyfully. I was allowed to stay the night, which was all that I wanted. I was very tired. Larissa didn’t talk that evening, the same as during the day, the same as always. Vera, finding herself surrounded by people she didn’t know and not knowing their language, suddenly lost her bearings. In the morning I asked her what her plans were.

  ‘I was going to stay on for a week and help Larissa settle in, but now I’m not sure what to do with myself. It’s not at all what I’d expected.’

  ‘Would you like to go to the sea?’

  ‘I’d love to,’ she said happily. ‘When are you going?’

  ‘Right now.’

  No one tried to stop us. I had a good look at Vostochni as we drove away; it was a typical Tatar village. Many settlements like this had sprung up in Crimea in recent years. The sense of poverty and despair that stifled them in the early 1990s was gone. People obviously had some money now and confidence in themselves. Even the Chechens were catching up. How would it all end?

  ‘What does Larissa think about this move?’ I asked as the road followed a bend and Vostochni disappeared behind a rare line of trees.

  ‘Nothing. I think it’s all the same to her. I said I’d tell you how Larissa married Vakha. We need something to do on the road, and there isn’t a radio.’

  ‘Indeed,’ I agreed.

  Vera began telling me her sister’s story when we were getting on to the motorway between Stary Krym and Theodosia, and by the time she finished we had passed Alushta. We didn’t get out at Theodosia, but we did go for a walk along the bar-infested seaside at Koktebel, and we had lunch in Sudak. Then Vera called home and told her father she had left Vostochni but was going to spend a couple of days in Crimea, and I checked my e-mail. I was waiting to hear from Kanyuka, but he was maintaining his silence. Instead of a letter from Kanyuka I found a demand from Kurochkin either to meet him immediately or to contact him straight away. I wasn’t going to do either. What did I care about Kurochkin now that I was travelling through springtime Crimea with Vera alongside me—and her resemblance to Natasha Belokrinitskaya had already become almost inconsequential. Vera had been telling me about Larissa for several hours, but, strangely, this grave account didn’t spoil our journey to Yalta or the following days in Crimea. As they say, it happened a long time ago and to somebody else, so what can you do about it now? There was Kurochkin, tearing about the cold, sleety streets of Kiev hunting for me, while I was … Well, never mind, he could wait a few more days. I decided to give him a ring when I got back home. Even though my conscience was still bothering me about letting a friend down, the situation would be clearer then.

  The way Vera talked wasn’t exactly confusing, but neither was her account neat and tidy. As she related a particular episode she might leap forward a couple of years or go back in time just to pick up an important detail. At times I didn’t confine myself to the role of listener, and then our conversation would stray far from Larissa’s fate. I’ve already forgotten many details of her story, and some I don’t want to remember.

  ‘It began when Larissa was abducted. Ten years ago.’

  ‘In Kiev?’ I asked in surprise.

  ‘No, Moscow. She was kidnapped from a competition.’

  At which point I understood it hadn’t begun ten years ago but much earlier.

  Vera and Larissa had looked alike from earliest childhood. But they were alike only on the outside. Larissa seemed older. She was reserved and only reluctantly did she let her parents and relatives close, whereas the role of beloved child was performed consummately by Vera. When they were around five years of age the girls began to study music. With Vera it was immediately obvious that while she would have loved to have pleased her parents she was little inclined towards the fine arts, so much so that to expect anything from her in this area was simply inhumane. And they left her in peace. With Larissa it was more complicated. It was discovered that the little girl had perfect pitch. At a music-school audition the commission members played various musical phrases, some quite complicated, and the child was able to reproduce them quickly and without mistakes. Even then she had a powerful hand that seemed designed for playing the violin. She was assigned to a violin class. But the problem wasn’t merely that Larissa couldn’t bear the instrument, it was that she quietly but passionately detested this whole business of music, and she resisted it in every way she could.

  The war between parents and child lasted nearly four years and ended in total victory for Larissa. Her parents surrendered. Over time Larissa had grown into a hardened warrior. She now had a plan of which her victory over music was the first point. To fulfill the second point she enrolled in judo classes. By the time she finished school Larissa had battled her way to black belt. Vera tagged along with her sister to the sports hall a few times, but the sight of Larissa in a judogi didn’t inspire her. And the throws, grapples, strikes, defenses, they didn’t scare Vera off, but they didn’t draw her in either. Hers was a clear, analytical intellect, and she had a tangibly abstract mind. When they finished school, Vera enrolled in the university physics department; Larissa in the Institute of Physical Education.

  In early September 1993, before Vera had even learned to navigate the tangled corridors of the laboratory building at Kiev’s physics department, her sister went to Moscow for an international judo competition. She didn’t come back. The trainers and the girls on her team neither knew nor understood what had happened. Larissa had been with everyone else in the gymnasium, she was seen in the changing room, and someone even noticed her walking towards the exit of the sports complex. Alone. But Laris
sa wasn’t seen back at the hotel. Naturally they informed the police of her disappearance. And the Moscow police—despite their reassurances along the lines of ‘Don’t worry, your girl will turn up. The little wrestler’s probably gone on a spree with the men. Give her a week, and she’ll be back without any help from us. What’s the hurry?’—reluctantly took the statement. Apparently they even took it upon themselves to search for Larissa. But their searches didn’t turn anything up.

  In the end, the Russian guardians of law and order were at least partly right. Larissa did turn up by herself. Exactly three years later, in September 1996, she telephoned home. Nedremailo picked up the receiver.

  ‘Papa, this is Larissa. I’m in Grozny. Don’t worry, everything’s okay.’

  It’s possible that Larissa said more, but the professor didn’t last that long. He collapsed in a dead faint after her first few words.

  All that time the family had been searching for Larissa. It hadn’t taken long to find out that she was in Chechnya. There had been a phone call. A man had rung. He spoke Russian but with a very heavy Ukrainian accent. During the course of the conversation, Nedremailo switched to Ukrainian, but the caller stated right away that he didn’t understand that language. His speech was vague and muddled somehow. He didn’t ask for money in so many words, but he implied that Nedremailo’s daughter would require assistance to get away. He firmly advised against contacting the authorities, but Nedremailo ignored this advice. He was accustomed to relying on the state, so to the Russian special services he added the Ukrainian Security Service, the Church and the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He gave no peace to the Russian and Ukrainian ambassadors, the Red Cross people or any international organization he could get hold of. But to no avail. Nedremailo was forever traveling to Moscow, and twice he tried to go to Chechnya, but he wasn’t allowed beyond Mosdok a few kilometers from the border. Nedremailo told everyone around him that he was hopeful, but he hesitated to ask himself just what he was hoping for.

  After the first phone call from Larissa several others followed. The war was over, and she and her husband were getting ready to leave Chechnya. She needed assistance and not just money. Paying all the fees and preparing to move took around a year. Then Larissa and Vakha bought half a house outside Moscow and settled in Russia.

  Nedremailo went to see his daughter several times and came back looking glum. His child’s life in Russia was not working out. The authorities didn’t want to register them as residents, there weren’t any jobs, the neighbors watched them like wolves and once a week—as regular as clockwork—the cops would come to check their documents. And if the cops urgently needed money they might even drop by after hours. Vakha had friends in the next village. When these friends were banged up they knew they had to move on. They sold their half of the house and moved to Odessa.

  In Odessa they lasted longer, but they encountered the same problems—the police, neighbors, work. Vakha needed to recuperate. The health and nerves of the former Chechen fighter were absolutely shot. Once, when Vera and her father went to visit Larissa, she saw how the militant mujahid went about decapitating a chicken destined for the lunch broth. They were living in a typical city apartment, so Vakha decided it would be easier to deal with the bird in the bathroom. As there wasn’t a suitable axe to be found the deed had to be done with a knife. But the Ukrainian cock was extremely tenacious, and Vakha the Mussulman made a terrible butcher. Not yet done for, the cock escaped from under the knife and flew with a screech into the room. Spraying blood all over the walls and ceiling, it fled on to the balcony where it leaped across to the neighbors, frightening their children and grandmother half to death. The bird carried on squawking until, in a swift and practiced movement, the neighbor wrung its neck.

  For a long time Vakha sat mutely on the sofa, his face so pale it was blue-grey. He rocked to and fro, at times lowering his head below his knees. Then he looked at Vera and shrugged. ‘I told her I couldn’t do it. I can’t bear the sight of blood.’ At that moment Vera caught sight of her sister’s face. An expression of dark satisfaction flashed across it and immediately disappeared.

  The affair with the cock ended in the usual way—the quarrel with the neighbors, the police, the document check. The policeman from the precinct shuffled slowly between bathroom and balcony, scrutinizing the bloodstains and waggling his brows in consternation. ‘Whose throat have you slashed here? You’d do well to come clean voluntarily—we’ll find out anyway.’ Instead of the usual fifty grivnas they had to pay seventy, all that they had.

  After Vera finished her dissertation she found a post-doctoral post in Germany and spent a year in Western Europe. Larissa and Vakha moved in with her father in Kiev. It got a little easier then, but it was still impossible to find a job for Vakha. What could they do? He couldn’t spend the rest of his life sitting at home—he was a healthy man, even if he only had one leg. Then a friend of Vakha’s turned up from somewhere. He was hauling nuts in GAZelle minibuses and selling them in Kiev, Minsk and Latvia. It was a proper business, nothing criminal about it, and the people involved were all his own men—Chechens. And they all lived together. Just like they used to do.

  ‘So now what?’ I asked Vera, as if I hadn’t bid farewell to Larissa and Vakha that very morning in front of their new home in Vostochni.

  ‘Wait and see,’ she said with a shrug. ‘Maybe they’ll put down roots, maybe they won’t … Who knows. It’s hard being away from home,’ Vera concluded unexpectedly. Over the past two years she had acquired experience of her own. It wasn’t the same kind of experience as Larissa and Vakha’s, not at all. But that’s how experience is; everyone has their own.

  After a long pause I nodded at a road sign. ‘We’ll be in Yalta soon. Shall we spend the night there?’

  ‘Let’s. But can you choose the hotel? I never get it right. I remember this one hotel, it was called the Oreanda …’

  Suddenly I had an idea. ‘I know. Last autumn our chiefs held a managerial conference for the Eastern European branches at the Levantine.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘On the waterfront just after the Oreanda. It’s excellent. The money’s Russian, the service Ukrainian.’

  ‘I can see it now …’

  ‘No need to be sarcastic. It’s seriously business class. From autumn to spring it’s just wonderful.’

  ‘And in the summer?’

  ‘I wouldn’t stay there during the summer. The windows look out over the sea, to the south-east, and I don’t like it when the sun blazes through the windows, especially in the morning. There you are, sleeping, and suddenly it’s like someone’s turned a light on inside your head. Even if you hide the sun behind heavy drapes and the room has air conditioning, I still don’t like it. In the south, windows should look on to tennis courts …’

  ‘… with palms and fountains and peacocks.’

  ‘Yes. With palms and fountains. And peacocks—except at night the peacocks should be blindfolded or wear little hoods over their heads so they won’t noisily greet the dawn.’

  We cruised through the city on the south coastal highway, and then, weaving through the colonnades of sanatoriums and guesthouses, we made our way down almost to the sea itself. Just before the waterfront we turned into the Levant. We had arrived.

  It was growing dark in the east and the sky was turning a deep blue. Across the sea and shoreline lay the first shadows of March twilight. The sound of waves breaking gently on the shingle was just audible. We took two small rooms on the first floor, left our things and went into the town.

  By the end of that first joyful year after I got out of the army I suddenly realized there were areas of Kiev I knew my way around perfectly at night but never went to during the day and would scarcely even recognize. Yalta was like that. For me it has always been a nocturnal city, its streets and buildings presenting themselves not as crumbling façades, a pastiche of architectural styles and the sight of underwear drying on balconies but as a symphony of lights�
�street lamps, windows, fiery lines of night-time advertisements, ships at anchor languishing in port and, finally, the moon. At night my judgment becomes clearer, and I find my way more surely, through everything—the flashing lights of cities, the cities themselves and the people who inhabit them. Night pares away the unnecessary and leaves behind what matters.

  An hour and a half before dawn we returned to the hotel. Even though I’d spent two days behind the wheel and hadn’t slept a wink all night, I was ready to jump right back up again and drive off somewhere, go swimming or walking, anywhere I felt like going. The sense of freedom I’d thought long forgotten was back. Routine no longer existed, no regular responsibilities or commitments enslaved my liberty. I felt a sense of power; I’d gained power over my circumstances. It was no longer I who depended on circumstances, but circumstances that depended on me. And this was all down to a petite woman with chestnut hair and dark-brown eyes that reflected the cool shadows of a spring time night in Crimea.

  In the morning we drove to the peak of Ai Petri. In the Crimean Mountains it was still winter. The snow lay wetly on the mountain plateau and above heavy flocks of fog swept swiftly and silently. At the meteorological station children and adults were bustling around and dogs were barking. Slowly we passed by a small ugly bazaar, continued north a few more kilometers, and then I stopped the car.

  A sharp, penetrating wind sliced my face. The mountain slopes bristled with the dark green of pine. On the slanting dome of one of the summits a few gloomy structures jutted out—scattered caravans and radar sets.