Death of a Nightingale

by Lene Kaaberbøl

  Jana said that Olga was ugly and had body lice, and that she didn’t want to sit next to her in school. Jana also said that she was just as dirty as her swine of a mother. Jana told the others in school how their old house sparkled now that Svetlova had taken over the housekeeping and that Svetlova was expecting a child who would soon replace Olga, Oxana and Kolja.

  Outside the cow barn, Grandfather was making his way to the woodshed, coughing. Olga stood with her hand on the cow’s neck and listened to the sound of the axe splitting wet birch wood until it hit the chopping block with a faint echo in the ice-cold air.

  Then came the roar.

  He was calling Mother, Olga could hear, and afterward he also called Grandmother, even though she had been dead for several years now. Olga felt a gust of terror blow through her. She wrenched open the door and raced across the yard to the woodshed.

  Grandfather lay with the axe in his shin, cursing and shouting for vodka. Olga and Oxana had to hold down both him and his leg while Mother pulled the axe free from the bone. There was blood everywhere. Even the bone bled, it seemed to Olga, and she knew bones couldn’t bleed.

  Mother sent Oxana off to get the barber, telling her to run as fast as she could. Olga got rags and blankets, and Mother tore a wide strip of linen from a sack and made a tourniquet right above the cut. She used the axe handle to tighten it and turned it around and around even though Grandfather screamed like an animal going to slaughter and cursed her to hell and back again.

  “Would you rather die?” Mother just said when he stopped screaming for a moment out of sheer exhaustion.

  Finally Oxana returned with the barber. He tied a piece of bluish-white sheep gut around the biggest of the pumping arteries and sewed the tear together with needle and thread. Only then could they help each carry Grandfather into the house.

  Even after the barber was done, Grandfather didn’t stop bleeding. Mother sat next to him and pressed one rag after another against the cut, her grip hard and frantic. Grandfather had drunk so much vodka that he could no longer speak, and spit and drool trickled from the corner of his mouth into his beard. There was a wet rattle in his chest. Olga wasn’t sure if she was more afraid of him dying or of him waking up again. She was feeling sick and couldn’t stop shaking, but Oxana was pale and calm and looked as if she were thinking of something else completely.

  “If he dies, he is no good to us,” she said gravely to Olga. “And even if he lives, he is no good to us. It is winter, and we have no man in the house.”

  Olga looked over at Grandfather. The darkness in the room was oppressive, and the glow from the oven illuminated it only enough that she could see the growing pile of soaked black rags on the floor next to him.

  Olga knew that she shouldn’t be thinking of herself, but still. Grandfather did more than just administer hard, unexpected slaps to the face and neck. Grandfather chopped wood and laid traps in the woods. The skins he sold were their only source of cash and goods like meat and sugar and tea and salt and petroleum; how would they do without?

  The barber had cost rubles, Olga knew. Rubles and bread. And today there were no rations from the kolkhoz’s communal kitchen because Mother had stayed home and left the pigs to the Caucasian whores.

  LATER, WHEN GRANDFATHER was fast asleep, and dusk had fallen outside, Father suddenly appeared in the doorway.

  Olga’s heart gave a little jump for joy in the middle of all the sadness and nastiness. Father must have heard about the accident and had come to … to take Mother back. Now that he knew she was completely helpless in the world, he had realized what a big mistake he had made. The widow and the baby had to go, of course, but that would be okay. The baby would be small and could live in a smaller house. And in any case, that was Svetlova’s problem, not theirs.

  Father carefully stomped the snow off his boots before he stepped inside. His broad shoulders filled the whole room, thought Olga.

  “Tatko!”

  Without thinking she rushed over and threw her arms around him. She took in the familiar smell of sawdust and pine sap and noticed that it was now spiced with a very faint new scent of chamomile, which probably came from Svetlova’s body. She didn’t care. She burrowed her face into his open coat and pressed her nose and cheek against his woolen shirtfront.

  He pushed her away.

  His eyes were swimming a little, and Olga realized that nothing was exactly as it should be. He had been drinking, she could see, and behind him Oxana now stomped into the room and shot Olga a cranky look.

  “You wanted to speak with me?” Father said to Mother, his expression foreign and hostile.

  Mother got up on uncertain legs, nodding to Father as she smoothed her hair. Olga could see that she was attempting to hide the gaping holes in her rows of teeth when she spoke. “We need money, Andreij. Or at least some of your rations from the kolkhoz.”

  “Sell something,” said Father. “The old man still has a cow, and that’s more than most people. That it was allowed to survive last winter was a miracle in itself. Fat and pregnant as it was. If I were you, I’d eat it now before it is collected for the kolkhoz. That’s the best advice I can give you.”

  Mother lowered her head but went on. “But your children,” she said. “Will you let them starve because of this new bastard of yours? What kind of man are you?”

  Grandfather stirred uneasily in the gloom behind her. He made a drawn-out, whimpering noise that sounded more like an animal than a human. He lay with his eyes closed, his breathing labored.

  Father had narrowed his eyes to slits, and the rage and vodka made his face ruddy in the light from the oven. Olga was afraid now. It seemed like an eternity since he had sat on the veranda outside the house in Kharkiv and called Olga his “most highborn princess” and Mother “the most beautiful flower in the field.”

  Now he was a person she didn’t know at all, and she realized that there was also more than one truth about her father. The man who loves and smiles one day can hate the next. Turn your back for a moment, and feelings will change and flow in new directions.

  “Tatko,” she whispered and grabbed hold of his hand. But he didn’t notice her.

  “I have been man enough for you,” he hissed. “Now I am man for another woman, and I cannot support two families. It’s hard enough with one.”

  Mother’s face distorted in a terrible grimace. “You’re lying,” she said. “I know how much you have put aside over time. Jewelry from your mother. My silk shawls from town and my sewing machine. At least give me those things, Andreij, so I can take care of your children.”

  Father stepped forward and raised his hand. Even though he lowered it without striking, Olga knew that Jana had been right. He had chosen the widow and the new child, and she and Kolja and Oxana were nothing to him.

  WHEN HE HAD left, they sat for a long time in the silent gloom. Then Oxana finally got up and began to get ready to go out again.

  “Where are you going?” Mother’s voice was flat and low, as if she were speaking from the bottom of a grave.

  “To school,” said Oxana. “There’s something I have to discuss with Comrade Semienova.”

  The doorbell’s synthetic ding-ding hammered at Søren’s eardrum. He had a confused sense that it wasn’t the first ring but perhaps even the fifth or sixth. He had been going through Babko’s case files, both the official ones and the unofficial USB-key, until almost one o’clock, when he had had to admit that he couldn’t think straight any longer.

  He tumbled out of bed, still with a heavy sensation of sleep and unreality weighing down his body, and lifted the shade a bit so he could see who it was ringing his bell at whatever hour it was in the night.

  An adult and a child. They were both bundled up in down jackets and scarves, and it was probably more a sense of inevitability than actual recognition that made him conclude that it had to be Nina Borg and the girl. What was her name? Katerina?

  He looked down at himself. Bare, middle-aged legs and boxer shorts. Whe
re was that robe Susse had given him for Christmas? He grabbed a pair of sweatpants instead and pulled them on over his hairy legs.

  He turned on the light in the hall and the entranceway. Through the flecked glass of his front door the figures were just vague silhouettes, but he had been right. It was Nina holding the hand of a skinny blonde girl. The girl was clutching a pink backpack.

  “You were in the phone book,” said Nina. “Your address and everything. I didn’t think that was allowed when you were in the PET.”

  “It doesn’t say than I am in the PET,” he said, feeling stupid with sleep and thoroughly unprepared. But despite the untimely invasion, he was glad to see her. “Come in.”

  “They don’t know I’m here,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “The police.” She looked at him and corrected herself. “That is, the other police.”

  “What happened?”

  “He tried to kidnap Rina.”

  “He?”

  She gestured impatiently with her hand. “Someone. Not Natasha. Someone who uses gas grenades and infrared goggles.”

  He took a deep breath. “What happened to the guards?” he asked.

  “They … one was taken away in an ambulance. Because of the gas. A very young man. They say it’s critical, that he might die. He stopped breathing. He is under observation for brain damage. I took Rina and locked us into the walk-in refrigerator. Otherwise they would have taken her. Or rather, he would have. I didn’t see more than one person.”

  Her eyes were huge. She was speaking calmly even though her sentences weren’t quite coherent. She looked peculiarly happy, like someone who has said all along that it would end badly and finally has been proven right.

  “They still think it’s just Natasha,” she said; this time she apparently meant the police. “They don’t understand that Rina is in danger. But … you do. Am I right?”

  “Maybe,” he said. He wouldn’t give her too much.

  “You have to help me protect her,” she said. “Will you?”

  The words came out all edgy and awkward. He sensed that she didn’t often ask for help.

  “At least come in and have some breakfast,” he said. “I have to call my boss. You understand that, right?”

  A cop killing. If the young policeman died, it would be a cop killing. No one would condone Nina’s disappearing act then. But when he looked at the little Ukrainian girl, about to collapse and breathing like a leaky balloon, he couldn’t quite blame her.

  “Is he … not an idiot either?” she asked.

  He wasn’t quite sure if Torben, with his adherence to rules and career focus, would be able to live up to her definition of non-idiocy. “He usually knows what’s what,” he said. “And he’s super smart.”

  “Okay,” she said, as if he needed her permission.

  To BE WOKEN up in the middle of the night—or in this case, at a quarter to five on Sunday morning—was of course a part of the job for a man like Torben, but that didn’t necessarily mean he liked it.

  “What is it now?” he said shortly.

  “Everything has gone pear-shaped,” said Søren quickly. “Someone tried to kidnap the daughter from the Coal-House Camp, and one of the men from the guard detail is in intensive care. They say his life is in danger.”

  There was silence for a few seconds.

  “Could it be the girl’s mother?” asked Torben.

  “It was a man. Of course you can’t exclude the possibility that it was at the mother’s request. But I’m calling because the girl is sitting in my kitchen right now with Nina Borg. And no one else knows.”

  “For fuck’s sake, Søren. Why?”

  “Because Nina is convinced that the girl would be in imminent danger if she stayed in the camp.”

  “That woman is hostile to authority and borderline paranoid,” said Torben. “How on earth did she manage to walk off with the kid without anyone noticing?”

  “I haven’t asked yet. But I would like you to contact our colleagues and explain to them that we are planning to provide Katerina Doroshenko with the necessary personal protection.”

  “Søren, I can’t do that. Especially not if they have a dead colleague on their hands!”

  “Maybe precisely for that reason. The girl’s safety is not their priority. They just want to get hold of the perpetrator and Natasha Doroshenko—and that’s not necessarily the same thing.”

  “Do you know something? Or are you just guessing?”

  “The original Ukrainian case against Natasha Doroshenko, that is, the killing of her husband, is based primarily on two circumstantials: the fact that she fled the country, and a confession from a violent criminal who claims that she paid him to attack Doroshenko.”

  “That latter is perhaps more than circumstantial.”

  “Torben. It’s Ukraine. You can extract confessions like that in so many ways.”

  “Okay. I hear what you are saying. But who is ‘you’ in this case, and why would ‘you’ do so?”

  Søren tried to structure his argument before answering. “The Ukrainian policemen who originally came up here to interrogate Natasha are from two different services—as you know, Lieutenant Babko is from GUBOZ. His colleague, a Colonel Savchuk, is from SBU.”

  “Hold on,” said Torben. There was a creaking, followed by footsteps and the sound of a door being closed carefully. Torben had left the bedroom, Søren guessed, in order not to wake Annelise and to be able to speak freely.

  “GUBOZ and SBU,” said his boss thoughtfully. “You have to ask yourself why they are interested in Natasha Doroshenko.”

  “Precisely. Especially when one of them disappears without a word to anyone, apparently blindsiding his GUBOZ colleague completely. A colleague who was sent up here specifically to keep an eye on him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  As briefly as possible, Søren told Torben about Babko’s admissions and about the connection between Savchuk and Nikolaij Filipenko, Babko’s “clean man.” “Unfortunately, I think Nina Borg’s concern for the girl’s safety is well justified.”

  “Because of Savchuk?”

  “I have no grounds for claiming that. Not at the moment. One might equally well argue that Savchuk is missing because during his search for Natasha Doroshenko, he got in the way of the person or persons who attacked the Coal-House Camp.”

  “But you don’t believe that?”

  “Right now I don’t believe anything. The closest I can come to a theory is that everything is connected to the killing of Pavel Doroshenko.”

  “Mmm.” Torben had the habit of humming inarticulately when he was thinking something he wasn’t saying. “Go on.”

  “It’s speculation.”

  “Go on anyway.”

  “Doroshenko was a journalist.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve looked through his articles. He published a good deal of controversial material with sensitive personal content.”

  “Okay.”

  “Presumably you remember the Gongadze case?”

  “The journalist. The headless corpse, which they at first tried to avoid identifying. When they couldn’t get away with that any longer, it came out that the murder was committed on the orders of the interior minister, what was his name …”

  “Kravchenko.”

  “Yes. Him. He got the journalist eliminated because he wrote critically about the administration’s abuse of freedom of speech and civil rights, wasn’t that the way it was?”

  “More or less. Four officers from the SBU were sentenced for the murder, and the investigation of who gave the order stopped with the death of Kravchenko. He was found with two bullet holes in the head a few hours before he was to due to be interrogated by the public prosecutor, and Oleksandr Turchinov, Savchuk’s boss in the SBU, closed the case with a declaration that Kravchenko had committed suicide.”

  “Very convenient.”

  “Yes. Of course, it is theoretically possible the first wound wasn’t fata
l and the suicide candidate was very determined, but …”

  “It’s pretty rare for people to shoot themselves in the head twice,” said Torben dryly.

  “Precisely. I’m not saying that Pavel Doroshenko is another Gongadze; I don’t have any proof of that. But what if … what if he was killed by someone in the system either because they were hired to do so or because they were protecting one of their own? Then you can’t really find fault with Natasha’s decision to leave the country in a hurry.”

  “And where in this speculative scenario do you place Colonel Savchuk and his brother the politician?”

  “Half brother. I don’t know. I have no idea whether Savchuk is a hero or a villain in this.” Among Doroshenko’s articles there had been nothing about Nikolaij Filipenko, his half brother or their mother. Nothing that tied Savchuk to the case. “It’s hard to get a sense of the relationship between the two brothers. There’s such a great distance between them age-wise and … historically. Savchuk was born in the postwar years with a supposedly ‘unknown’ father, an army brat who himself made a career of the military. From what little I’ve been able to dig up on him, it seems he was with the Russians in nineteen seventy-nine when they moved into Afghanistan. Later he joined the KGB and just continued on to the SBU after the Independence. A bit of a Cold War dinosaur, it looks like, but there are a surprising number of those in that part of the world, and a wise man doesn’t turn his back on them. Filipenko, on the other hand, was born in nineteen seventy-two. A completely different life—glasnost, perestrojka, independence. And it looks like a completely different personal life as well—the mother had at that point married a man who was somewhat younger than her, an engineer who later became a diplomat under Gorbachev. There are a number of foreign postings, two years of boarding school in England, engineering studies because he apparently wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps, then soccer hero status, which he begins to turn into a political career in the late nineties. Apparently Filipenko is a humane, well-intentioned, decent man who wishes to get to the bottom of corruption in his country. What Savchuk is … That’s more of an open question. And until now there was no other connection to Pavel Doroshenko than his energetic efforts to get the widow extradited to Ukraine.”