‘People certainly know how to spoil … everything,’ said Vera suddenly. ‘They make it ugly with their very presence. The hills, the sea … how beautiful it was here without us. We’re probably a disease, a virus. We’ve contaminated the Earth and won’t rest until we’ve destroyed it all.’
I didn’t tell her, but I recalled having similar ideas on Kamchatka some fifteen years before. I’d clambered up an unnamed volcano and looked out with a sense of anguish upon the unsullied Breughelian greenery of the coast near the smooth-sloped Avachinsky volcano and its neighbors and then upon the filthy city, a disgusting fungus that had sprouted along the coast with jerry-built five-storey buildings, their panels cracking and the black and greasy smoke from the boilers …
‘But how beautiful the horsemen looked here.’
‘The horsemen?’ said Vera without comprehension.
‘The horsemen of Istemi,’ I said, opening the car door. ‘Let’s go. I’ll tell you about it on the road. Today it’s my turn to tell stories.’
We headed farther north then around in a big loop and returned to Yalta after lunch. I told Vera the entire story, from the very beginning up to the events of three days ago and my conversation with her father at the Home Cooking Café in Podol. I didn’t mention that until very recently I had considered the professor to be the instigator of all our troubles, nor did I mention his connection to the KGB. The first point was my error, and the second no longer mattered.
‘Strange.’ Vera shook her head. ‘I knew bits of this. I must have been eight when my father came home and said some students had been expelled for “a game with political implications.” I never understood what it meant, but I remembered the words exactly: a game with political implications. How stupid … Incidentally, I’ve read the ultimatum, but that was later, much later.’
‘Korostishevski’s ultimatum?’
‘Alex, I didn’t know everyone’s last names. It was the ultimatum of some Emperor Karl—’
‘Karl XX: Korostishevski. How did you end up seeing it?’
‘Natasha showed me. Natasha Belokrinitskaya. You know her.’
‘Yes, yes, I know. But how did she get hold of it?’
‘Ask her. I’ve got her telephone number. My address book is in Kiev, but when we get back I’ll give it to you. I have her address, too. She left Europe for the States five years ago now. She works at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. And it’s ages since she’s been Belokrinitskaya.’
‘I’ll be sure to ask her,’ I said, shaking my head just like Vera had. ‘Strange.’
When we got back to Yalta I checked my e-mail. This time there was nothing from Kurochkin, but Kanyuka had responded. ‘I’m in Zaporozhye,’ he wrote. ‘I’d love to talk to you, see you, etc., but not if you’re on Kurochkin’s business. He’s been burying me with his dispatches, but I have no intention of reading them, and I don’t want even want to hear about that animal.’ Kanyuka left his mobile number, and I called him straight away. We agreed to meet the day after next at his place. It needed to be soon because he was going away on a business trip, and I didn’t want to postpone the meeting for a long time.
Vera and I stayed on in Yalta for a day and a half in all. That evening we went back into town—but this time we returned before it got late.
In the morning a pale-grey veil was stretched across the east, and the small matte globe of the sun was scarcely discernible. I lay motionless, gazing at the morning sun; the broad window, broad as the wall, and its drawn curtains; the armchair with Vera’s jeans, jumper and blouse; and the pillow with the small depression where she had slept. She had slept there, and the pillow faithfully preserved the imprint of her head. On my fingers I could still feel the tender warmth of her skin, and on my lips there was still the faintest taste of blackcurrant, the taste of her lips. The sound of water could just be heard beyond the door to the shower room. I lay there peacefully; peacefully ran the water; the peaceful sun was rising beyond the low clouds. I suppose it was happiness. I don’t know. I didn’t get the chance to digest it fully. There was a remote on the bedside table, and I idly switched on the television. I turned the sound off and surfed channels until I came to the Ukrainian news. I rarely watch the news—and not just the Ukrainian news but any news—so the jowly faces of our politicians speechifying within mottled gold interiors were for the most part unfamiliar to me. On the screen one head replaced another and the cheerless landscapes outside of Kiev flashed by along with signage showing the town names. Occasionally the anchorman would surface to say a few words. Near the end of the broadcast he lingered a little longer than usual, and I decided he was bidding the audience goodbye and asking them not to change the channel because the advertisement would be followed immediately by the weather forecast and an entertaining family talk show. But I was wrong. Instead of an advertisement I saw Kurochkin. It was an old clip from his days as Deputy Premier—they probably couldn’t find anything more recent. Kurochkin was vigorously holding forth on the steps to the Cabinet of Ministers. Then the screen flashed to a bank sign—and I realized it was Kurochkin’s bank—and someone was waving his arm in protest before the camera, making it clear there would be no comment. The footage immediately cut to the sign of the General Prosecutor’s Office. I reached for the remote but accidentally dropped it, and when I finally picked it up and turned on the sound all I could see were the final shots of the report: yellow earth, white houses with flat roofs and the flag of Israel in the foreground.
When Vera emerged from the shower I was attentively watching a commercial for German lemonade. She stopped and gave me a bemused look.
‘Are your rivals on the offensive?’
‘I’ve just seen Kurochkin on TV,’ I said, turning off the television. I wished I’d never even turned it on—it had spoiled my mood for the rest of the day.
‘Your Kurochkin?’
‘Mine. If I’ve decoded this pantomime correctly, he’s got into trouble and fled to Israel.’
‘Did they say what kind of trouble?’
‘They might have done, but I didn’t hear. “There was an old monkey who had a clogged ear”—especially when he tried to watch TV without any sound.’
‘Wait until the next news broadcast—if it’s important.’
‘It’s important all right. But not important enough to spend the day glued to the box. I’ll ask Kanyuka about it tomorrow. He’ll probably know more than the journalists do.’
Having uttered these prophetic words, I spent almost two hours in front of the screen, flipping from one news broadcast to another. Different things were being said about Kurochkin: they muddled his position, age, even his name, calling him first Yuri then Igor. Varying accounts were given of his urgent departure for Israel—I hadn’t been wrong about that. The one statement that remained consistent throughout the reports went something like, ‘The prosecutor’s office is conducting an inquiry into the legitimacy of agreements signed by Kurochkin during his tenure in the Cabinet of Ministers.’ The feeling of guilt that had flowed over me (after all, he’d asked me to get in touch; maybe I could have helped him) receded somewhat when I heard this. I couldn’t have helped him after all.
Kanyuka had grown fat. A bald little man with drooping cheeks, double chin and eyes where the life had been snuffed out forever, he pressed me against his immense paunch at the door to a Zaporozhian diner. He uttered a few well-worn stock phrases, but he seemed genuinely touched, and his words were sincere. It was more than a decade since we’d last met when we’d been around twenty-five. If I hadn’t known how old he was I’d have put him at fifty, he’d aged that much. In our country business is bad for your health.
‘I don’t think you’ve met. This is Vera, Nedremailo’s daughter.’
‘What a last name!’ roared Kanyuka. ‘Just the sound of it makes me break out in a cold sweat.’
‘Don’t overdo it now.’ I thumped his back. ‘This your place?’
‘You guessed it. You were always good at that. Let�
��s go in and you can have yourselves something to eat after your journey. It’s not exactly Maxim’s, but I can feed my own.’
Kanyuka had a small chain of cafés within Zaporozhye and the surrounding area. He would be an ideal client for my firm. I should have got him to sign a contract and serve our cola; we could beat any competitor’s price. Taste and quality, no; price, yes. But I didn’t say anything about cola. Instead I asked Vadik about Kurochkin.
‘Our Kurochkin has really landed himself in it now. The worthless bastard has finally jumped in the shit. The silly grasshopper. Bloody hope of our young democracy,’ Kanyuka said with satisfaction and poured the vodka.
‘I’m driving, Vadik.’ I had to push my glass aside.
‘And the lady? Is she driving, too?’
‘The lady can have a drink,’ replied Vera. ‘But just a little, thanks.’
‘Here’s to us, then.’ Kanyuka raised his glass. ‘To us, knocked around by this bloody life in this bloody country … three times I’ve been ruined. I’ve lost everything, everything but my debts. My debts were rescued like children from a burning house—last time thanks to that Doberman Pinscher Kurochkin. But, what the hell, I’m living the way they taught us to do in the army. I’ve fallen down and pulled myself back up again. So what’s the lady do?’
‘She’s a physicist,’ I said and raised my glass of tomato juice. ‘Vadik, that toast …’
‘Huh? It was to us. What didn’t you understand? To big businessmen who used to be physicists and to physicists with a future. With a big future, that is.’
‘Just how did Kurochkin screw you over?’ I asked when I’d finished eating the salad, pork chop and fried potatoes with mushrooms, and when the vodka, thanks to Kanyuka’s efforts, was almost gone. ‘What’s going on with him?’
‘It’s simple. The mine he planted beneath his feet fifteen years ago, the one he’s thrived on like a fungus on a rotted tree stump, it’s finally exploded, and the shit is flying. And he’s about to crash down on top of us and spin us a sob story. It should be fascinating. Kurochkin’s always made such a big deal about being his own man. “I’m not right or left. I have no ties to corporate interests. I don’t depend on anybody—I’m an honest man.” ’
‘But the truth is?’
‘The truth is this honest man was reared by the KGB. First the KGB, then the Ukrainians. Then he got big enough to stand on his own two feet, but the ties are still there.’
‘But they think he’s pro-American in the States,’ I said, remembering Malkin’s fervent monologue of the previous week.
‘Sure they do. But you don’t remember Kurochkin. He’s everyone’s friend. He thinks everyone else is an idiot, and he’s the smartest one of all. But they’re not idiots. And I can’t be the only one he’s got his teeth into. But never again. They’ve got all they want now from Kurochkin—and not just the Cheka secret police. There are others, too, but the game’s up, and he’s really going to get it. There’s no one backing him up any more but a handful of Chekists. And after fifteen-odd years they must be sick to death of him. Chances are that’s what they’ll do.’
‘As far as the secret police are concerned, let’s just say that’s speculation on your part. So what was the problem? Can you tell me?’
‘There shouldn’t have been any problem at all, Davidov. There was a small factory outside Kiev that I wanted to buy from the state—or, rather, privatize. That’s all. Kurochkin was Deputy Premier at the time. I don’t know what the hell made me get in touch with him—I could have handled it by myself, but I thought I’d get myself some protection. He said, “Bring your money out into the open. We’re creating a transparent economy. But I’ll help you and press the right buttons.” Like an idiot I did everything he said. After all, he was an old friend, and he was running the show around here. I was losing almost 10 per cent as it was, but right there and then everyone swooped down on me: the tax police, the Economic Crime Office, state security, funds, schmunds and a few moronic bandits … You know what he did? He used me to settle his debts.’
‘No way. That doesn’t hang together somehow …’
‘As ever, Kurochkin is as white as snow. He said, “You attracted attention to yourself. You should have been more careful.” And he washed his hands of me.’
‘Maybe it didn’t have anything to do with him?’
‘In that case he could at least have given me a hand. But no … And later on, when the dust settled, I made enquiries. Everything pointed to him. I can tell you don’t believe me.’
‘Not exactly.’
‘I can’t prove anything—there’s nothing in writing—but my advice is to steer clear of him. Don’t even get close. Not just because he’s got problems right now, they’re nothing to do with you anyway. It’s when he’s strong and things are going his way that Kurochkin is dangerous. The bait is on the hook, the nets are in place. He’s like a spider—he devours everything within reach.’
‘What a picture.’ I laughed. ‘But what’s the point of the ultimatum, then? You got a copy, right?’
‘Yes. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read it—straight from our snot-nosed childhood and all. But that’s something else. Entirely.’
‘That’s what I’m saying. There are things you don’t know—’
‘Certainly,’ interrupted Kanyuka. ‘And lots of them. But I know what matters—that Kurochkin’s a piece of shit, and the security services are shaking him down for good reason. The rest is just details. Now, come clean. Did you send it?’
‘The ultimatum? You’re kidding. Kurochkin asked me to find the author … that is, not the author—we all know who wrote it—he asked me to find out who sent it. You know, he thought it might be Korostishevski, and he wasn’t fooling around.’
‘Alex, I’ve got one more thing to say about Kurochkin, and then we won’t talk about him anymore, okay? He’s not worth it. But the fact that he’s even afraid of Sashka Korostishevski—God rest his soul, may he rest in peace and all that, he was a lovely bloke—the fact that he’s afraid of Sashka’s ghost tells you a lot. Just think about it. He’s charming, certainly, and he wears a velvet glove, yes, but heaven forbid you should—’
‘Vadik, I’ve known him for more than twenty years and he’s never—’
‘That only means you don’t know everything. Or your time hasn’t come yet. But enough of that. Let’s talk about something more pleasant. Tell me,’ he said, turning to Vera, ‘how’s your father getting on? I think about him now and again.’
It was late at night when I dropped Vera off on South Borschagovka. We agreed to talk the next day and quickly said goodbye. I still had another week of leave, and she had ten days before she left for Germany.
The whole week we were away it had been raining in the city. The rains had finally melted away the snow. Although the weather forecasts still reported that tiresome old refrain ‘Around zero in the capital, wind northerly changing to north-easterly, possible precipitation,’ it was clear that spring had arrived. Only the wind had yet to surrender.
The next day I left the house in the morning and spent the day wandering aimlessly. When I had felt like this in the past I would jump into the car late at night, get on to the ring road and let myself race along, cleaving through the changeable, swampy night. Then, dropping my speed a little, I would return to the city and zigzag at length inside the triangle between Lukyanovka, St. Sofia and the Botanical Gardens. Occasionally I went to Podol, less often to Pechersk. At this hour the roads were peaceful, travelled only by taxi drivers and other drivers like myself, petrol heads crazed with loneliness and the senselessness of existence. While waiting for the light to change I would study their greyish faces, their brows drawn in torment. Some moved their lips, talking to themselves, filling the emptiness with the sound of their own voices—they had nothing else to fill it with. Frequently I saw women at the wheel. Office managers. Plasticine businesswomen absorbed in business—usually not their own but somebody else’s—and absorbed far mor
e deeply than it warranted. Some had spent the day in negotiations and meetings. The bird language of negotiations was long the only language they could use or understand without an interpreter. This nocturnal journey was a crack in the unified, unshakeable picture of their world. In the morning they would hurriedly paint it out, but in another week or two it would once again mar the façade of the tidy little house they had built exactly according the instructions in glossy magazines. Even at night they concentrated on the road as if it would lead them to a target; they were always aiming for targets. They gripped the steering wheel tight. Nothing distracted them, and they didn’t look around.
On my way out I might have thrown the car keys into my jacket pocket this time, too, but a week on the road had been enough. I didn’t want to see the car—I couldn’t bear to see the car—so I walked.
It’s not for no reason that human beings have lived for thousands of years on these high clay banks, not wishing to leave them. Whatever the circumstances—and at times the circumstances were gut-wrenching and life grew utterly unbearable—life has never been snuffed out. Something keeps us here, replenishing us with the force of life. Come what may, the force of life has always been abundant in the Kiev hills. But wisdom has been in short supply, that’s for certain. The only ruler capable of introducing a more or less intelligible code of law was immediately christened ‘the Wise,’ although his decision has always struck me not so much a demonstration of wisdom as ordinary common sense. Even now our common sense is in good order—that’s pretty much always been the case, whoever the bosses may be, whoever is in charge. We’re not strategic thinkers, so there are always people who want to think strategically for us, but when it comes to making perfect tactical decisions, our Ukrainian Yarik, salt-of-the-earth and worthy heir to Prince Yaroslav the Wise, is without rival. What this means, in effect, is that Yarik has corn and wheat in the threshing barn and potatoes and apples in the larder as well as sauerkraut and salted cucumbers, tomatoes and garlic and salted lard, of course; he’s got a real beast in the stables and a young boar and a bull calf and a heifer; and in the little cellar he has moonshine for domestic needs and for settling up with workers for little jobs. He’s got a good mate on the district council, and his brother works for the road patrol. On Sundays he goes to the bathhouse for a steam with the priest, and the son of the nouveau-very-riche ‘New Ukrainian’ from the next village has sent matchmakers to Galya, his eldest daughter. His own son is growing up and going to school, and when he finishes his studies he’ll be just like his dad. What happened next was no longer his concern. That Vakha and his friends were already in Crimea in the brotherly company of their fellow Muslims, few but fervent, was not visible to him from behind his fence. And just what should he see? That Vakha was hauling nuts? Let him haul all the nuts he wants. Our fellow Yarik has a mate on the district council and a brother in the road patrol. If there’s a problem, his brother will give Vakha a fine for a traffic offence.
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