As usual on a sunny afternoon, there was a group of children going about their business in the courtyard, trailing sticks through dust and making pies out of sand, spit and leaves. Their babushkas lined the benches in a higgledy row, soaking up the sun, their wrinkled faces resembling walnuts. Mitya remembered his own babushka and her dacha. He hadn’t thought of her in years. He could hardly remember her face. But he could recall her voice as she scolded him for eating strawberries straight from the bush. Her garden had been a safe haven for him. He smiled, and embraced the feeling, his steps light on the path as he made for his van. How they’d enjoyed those days in the garden, he and his best friend.
‘Murderer!’ The screech was like a slap in the face. His head jerked up and he was surprised to see a small girl with brown pig-tails and a dust-smeared face standing directly in front of him, blocking his path. She had a large stick in her hand and was trailing its end across the clean paintwork of the van, leaving smudges that set Mitya’s teeth on edge. She looked vaguely familiar.
‘Citizen Small Girl, please remove yourself from my van.’
‘You’re a murderer!’ the small girl persisted.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, but please—’
‘You’re the Exterminator. I know you! My babushka told me about you. And you killed Boroda!’
‘I remove canine infestations, or I have done in the past, as a service, that’s—’
The girl smacked the stick against the side of the van and shrieked.
‘Murderer! Boroda wasn’t stray! Baba Galia loved her. And she only had three legs.’
‘Ah, you’re referring to that tri-ped, aren’t you?’ he muttered, more to himself than to the little girl. ‘Look—’
‘She wasn’t a tri-ped, she was a dog!’ the girl smacked the stick against the van again.
‘Yes, look, stop doing that.’ Mitya made a grab for the stick and missed as the girl jumped backwards.
‘And now Baba Galia has gone to Moscow to tell the Minister.’
He cocked his head to one side and looked at the girl with surprise.
‘Really? She’s gone to Moscow?’
‘And you will go to hell.’
The girl threw the stick at him and ran off to join her gang under the birch tree. They thumbed their noses at Mitya and mimed horrible deaths, while their babushkas looked on in mute approval. Mitya stared after her open mouthed. Had the Elderly Citizen really gone off to Moscow to make a complaint? Shouldn’t she be dropping off parcels for … for the old man, Volubchik? He’d been in the SIZO for several days now, and must be in need of additional sustenance. Had she just abandoned him to go complaining about a dog – a dog which, whatever way you looked at it, whoever was in the wrong or in the right, must surely be dead by now? He unlocked the van and slid carefully into the driver’s seat. The sun-baked interior stank of faeces and matted hair, and took his breath away for a moment. He wound down the window and looked out over the courtyard. Had the old woman really gone all the way to Moscow about a dog? He looked into the wing mirror and caught sight of the children in the background, still miming horrible deaths and gesticulating crudely. They were laughing and daring each other to come closer to the van. Mitya turned the key and pressed the gear stick into reverse. The children scattered into the dusty courtyard, howling and shrieking to each other, as the radio belched on: they were playing Depeche Mode, ‘Walking in my Shoes’. If Mitya had understood the lyrics, he would have found them apt.
* * *
Petya Kulakov had endured a tiring morning dealing with other people’s shit. His landlady had failed to do his washing, as her sister had died (or so she claimed), so his uniform today was crispy with yesterday’s sweat. He didn’t care: sometimes a stinking policeman was worth more than a fresh one. Not that Petya Kulakov ever made ‘fresh’: what was the point, when you only got dirty again? At the kiosk that morning, where he habitually indulged in a little ‘hair of the dog’ over a breakfast bag of biscuits, there had been nothing but grumbles and bad omens, complaints over bad business and lack of protection. And the final nail in the coffin of the day was the news from his dentist. Oh, Kulakov had been struggling with his mouth. For weeks, he had resisted the dread conclusion, but now he could resist no more. The rotten tooth tormented him by lying low for several hours with not so much as a murmur, and then bursting into full-blown pulsating agony that made his eyes water and his fists punch whatever was close. Oh yes, he’d had two caps punched out last night by that Plovkin bastard, but if he’d only aimed a little to the left, the rotten incisor would have been smashed out instead. He might even have thanked him. And now the news was awful: he had finally called the dentist, and was disturbed to learn that she had emigrated to Israel. Israel! He’d been having his teeth seen to for free by a Jew for all this time, and he didn’t even know. He winced.
Now, at lunchtime, he couldn’t face chewing. He’d snuck off a couple more vodkas to ease the pain, and tipped back in his office chair, sockless feet on the desk, his mouth wide open as he dozed. Occasionally he was aware of a buzz near his face: his only concern in this moment, and it was a slight one, was that he might swallow a fly. There were plenty of them in the office, attracted by something under Kulakov’s desk. But then, it wouldn’t be the first time, and he’d suffered no ill consequences on the previous occasions when this had happened.
‘Kulakov!’ The word was accompanied by a rap of knuckles on the desk, and a sharp intake of breath. The policeman did not stir. Mitya remembered his knuckles, and this time kicked his chair.
‘Hey, Petya! Wake up! I have a bottle for you.’ Mitya kicked the chair leg again, and waved the spirit in the policeman’s face. Kulakov shut his mouth and opened first one bleary eye, and then the other. He surveyed the vision of the proffered bottle cloaked in its dewy blanket of coolness. He surmised that it must have come straight from a freezer. He wondered if he had any gherkins left in his drawer. Then he wondered why that bastard Plovkin was waving it at him.
‘I just came to say … no hard feelings about last night.’ Mitya cleared his throat and leant against the desk slightly.
Kulakov sat motionless, eyeing him suspiciously but hungrily. He licked his cracked lips, and wondered where Big Vova was, just in case he was needed.
‘I don’t know what came over me.’ Mitya couldn’t quite meet Kulakov’s eyes, but fixed his gaze as close to his face as he could: his left earlobe seemed about right. ‘I’m not usually a violent person.’
Kulakov’s smile oozed across his face.
‘Well, Mitya my brother, this is a surprise.’ Kulakov sucked at his teeth, and found that at present, they did not ache. ‘I didn’t think I’d see you for a while after the beating I gave you last night. You caused me a great deal of offence, you know. I was only trying to help you.’
Kulakov reached out and fingered the glass neck of the bottle. The cold kissed his fingertips and he swallowed hard. ‘Apology accepted. You can leave the bottle on the desk.’
‘There’s another matter, Kulakov. I wanted to tell you … I’m withdrawing my complaint against the Elderly Citizens we dealt with on Monday night. I won’t be giving evidence. I’ve filled out the form; you’ll find it in here.’ Mitya pointed to the ten-page document on regulation grey paper which now resided, like a dead fish, in the net of the policeman’s in-tray.
‘Well, get you!’ Kulakov slid his feet from the desk and thudded his chair back on to the concrete floor, the impact jolting his incisor into action, and pain roaring through his face like molten lava. ‘Arrghh!’ His hands flew to his face.
Mitya peeled the thin metal lid from the vodka bottle and placed it to Kulakov’s lips.
‘Drink, Petya. It will help.’
The policeman took a swig, and then another one, vodka spurting on to his collar and cheeks as he choked slightly with the force of the spirit travelling up his nose and down his throat, as Mitya raised the bottom of the bottle. He gasped slightly, and then giggled
.
‘You’re a joke, Plovkin. But you can do what you like: I’ve processed the paperwork. I don’t need your evidence. I can give plenty of evidence. I always do!’ Kulakov took another swig. ‘You can’t stop this wagon, brother. He’s going to rot in jail, and the dog’s already cat meat.’
Kulakov’s jowls wobbled as he began to giggle. Mitya looked down at the stained concrete floor and nodded slowly. It was too late. There was no reason for Kulakov to help him, and there was no more that he could do here. He turned and started to walk away, every bone in his body suddenly aching and heavy.
‘Don’t you want to know how I found out?’ Kulakov’s shout held him back from the door.
‘Not really.’
‘He told me! The old goat just went and told me. How about that? I didn’t have to do anything to him at all!’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We were sitting in the car – I was sobering up a little, you know – I had paperwork to do. So I gave him a nip of vodka, just to settle him down. I don’t think he drinks much – unlike some fathers we could mention, eh? And he told me he was sorry … sorry you turned out so bad.’
Mitya turned and pushed through the grimy grey door into the bright light of the station courtyard beyond.
18
The Third Way
‘This isn’t going to work.’ Kolya stood in the hallway, jaw slack, surveying the three elderly Bohemians before him. ‘OK, so it’s not one of those glitzy places that charges you thirty dollars just to get in and makes you feel like it’s your privilege, but still – they have standards. Ladies, Grigory Mikhailovich, with all due respect, you look like you have escaped from a lunatic asylum. Why don’t I just put the kettle on and make us all a nice cup of tea and then perhaps I can fry some potatoes—’
‘Insolent pup! We have to get in to The Third Way. We have to speak to the Deputy Minister about this lady’s dog and boyfriend—’
‘He’s not my boyfriend.’
‘Potential boyfriend.’
‘No.’
‘Man friend?’
‘Well, that implies something more, don’t you think?’
‘Acquaintance?’
‘That’s a little cold.’
Kolya rolled his eyes and snorted. He felt he knew how to handle Grigory Mikhailovich, difficult as he was, however three of them was just impossible. He had been looking forward to a pleasant evening of flirting with the girl next door, if she would let him in and he could get past her damned dog, but now things were looking decidedly more irritating. The old man was clearly delusional, as usual, but the fact that tonight he had two female accomplices was most peculiar. And they seemed relatively with it, although the small one with no hair was a bit odd.
‘Shall we get back to the subject now?’
Galia shifted her headband further up her forehead and focused on Kolya, trying not to rub her itching eyes. The mascara that Zoya had applied had tickled like madness at first, and now felt like diseased growths weighing down her lashes. She could see the fibres in the periphery of her vision and kept thinking they were blue-bottles buzzing her. The jodhpurs, found in the bottom of an old army trunk and smart enough once the wizened spider corpses had been removed, fitted her quite well, although as she was unaccustomed to wearing trousers of any sort, they did seem to chafe a bit. There was consensus that they didn’t really go with her sandals, but that couldn’t be helped. She hoped that the green-and-yellow striped shirt draped over her top half gave her an artistic air, but wasn’t entirely sure. She hadn’t had much experience with Bohemians, so it was all guesswork.
‘Ladies, what is this nonsense about the Deputy Minister. Which Deputy Minister is it, and why do you think he is at The Third Way? I have been to that club, and I can assure you, there are no Ministers there. Not even the Minister of Culture, or the Deputy Minister of Music.’
Kolya laughed through his nose a little, and Galia decided that she didn’t particularly like him.
‘Grigory Mikhailovich gets a bit confused. Maybe you, too, get confused sometimes, ladies? A nice cup of tea and a sit-down—’
‘We do not, ever, get confused. We are perfectly in control of our faculties. We simply need to get in to the club, and you will help us do it.’ Zoya said, leaning in towards Kolya and pinning him to the wall with her bright, beady eyes.
‘I have no money,’ said Kolya softly, with a smirk, ‘I am a student.’
‘I have money. Here – 50,000 roubles. Now, we need to get to Novokuznetskaya, and quickly, so please step outside and hail us a cab, and we will join you on the pavement presently.’
Kolya made for the door with a petulant sigh, and the others stooped to collect their bags and other accessories, which on this occasion included a pallet and brushes, the ladies’ opera glasses and a packet of biscuits, to keep Grigory Mikhailovich going.
‘Is he really your flesh and blood, this Kolya?’ asked Zoya with a frown.
Grigory Mikhailovich nodded and belched quietly behind his great paw. ‘It hurts me to say it, but … yes. He is something of a disappointment. I wouldn’t mind so much if he were wicked, but as you can see, he is just rather wet.’
The sun was setting as the three ghoulish Bohemians and a furtive-looking Kolya fought their way out of the close confines of the Zhiguli cab and on to the street at charming, old-world Novokuznetskaya. Clouds of starlings undulated in the heavy, rose-tinted air. They were in an ancient part of the city, still quite central, but seemingly miles away from the wide busy boulevards and the Stalin towers. Here the crooked lanes clotted around gentle, tree-lined squares and the apartment blocks huddled meekly at a meagre three storeys. Small art galleries and silver-smiths nestled in clumps along the narrow road. To Galia’s eyes, it didn’t look like the kind of place a night club would be found, but then, her experience was very limited: she had once visited a discotheque in the basement of a holiday camp – during the holiday to Chelyabinsk, in fact. She remembered red plastic cups, juice that tasted like it came from Mars, very loud oom-pah oom-pah music and a dance trainer who had fuddled her mind by urging the sweating, red-faced dancers to build a perfect Communism while struggling to avoid tangling their limbs in a double-quick samba. It hadn’t been a pleasant evening. Galia’s first-aid skills were called on many times and although she didn’t have to set any serious breaks, the iodine and ice had been free-flowing. Galia wasn’t much for dancing.
‘Kolya, lead on. Where is the place?’ rumbled Grigory Mikhailovich, adjusting his beret to what he imagined was a more jaunty angle, and pulling up his voluminous red satin Cossack trousers, at the same time pulling them out of the tops of his shiny green boots. ‘These damn things will be the death of me. I say, Galina Petrovna, would you mind tucking them in to my socks a little more firmly?’ Galia wrinkled her nose, but complied with the request as best she could.
‘Follow me,’ said Kolya, with the look of a child being forced to take his parents, or maybe even maiden great aunts, along to youth rock club. They walked a hundred paces or so up the quiet street, until they came to a broad metal door in an anonymous-looking apartment building. At the door there stood a girl of about sixteen with long, dark hair, a lot of eye-liner and a mouth that must have been born sulky. She was ignoring an earnest-looking young man with straggly facial hair and dirty glasses. The young man’s mouth dropped open when he looked up into Galia’s eyes and realized that she wanted to gain entrance to the club. Nothing in life could have prepared him for this shock. His world had shifted on its axis, and would never be the same again. Bouncers at The Third Way were not your usual sort.
‘How much?’ asked Zoya in her best, shrillest bird voice.
The young man’s mouth opened and closed silently, and then did it again. His round eyes ran from Galia to Zoya to Grigory Mikhailovich and back, and finally rested on Kolya, who was standing behind the three elderly clubbers, trying to pretend he was not there at all.
‘Well?’ pressed Zoya.
‘
Ah, citizens, I’m not sure … you know, we’re a friendly bunch, but you—’
‘Face control?’ asked Grigory Mikhailovich, pressing forward and pushing his great shaggy head towards the lean young man.
‘Well, it’s not exactly face control, sir. It’s just that … well, you know, we want everyone to enjoy themselves at The Third Way. We love everyone; there are no bad vibes here. But … why do you old guys want to come in?’
‘We want to dance!’ said Zoya, indignantly.
‘Dance?’ The young man raised his eyebrows as his gaze travelled down her tiny, sparrow legs, every joint, vein and tendon of which was being thrown into eye-aching relief by the wet-look purple leggings she had purchased and put on (much to Galia’s embarrassment), at a kiosk on the corner outside Grigory Mikhailovich’s apartment block. Zoya had paired the leggings with the Brezhnev toga worn the morning before and a pair of girl’s ballet points found in the back of Grigory Mikhailovich’s fridge. Galia thought the leggings were preferable to Zoya’s own bare legs, which had been the initial proposal, but fully understood the earnest young man’s consternation.
‘We’re from Chelyabinsk,’ lied Galia, and smiled encouragingly.
The earnest young man nodded slightly, and gave a half smile of his own, as if this was sufficient explanation for the trio’s bizarre appearance. At this point, the young girl finally looked up from a long inspection of her shoes, and dropped a shiny grey knob of chewing gum on to the pavement as it tumbled from her open mouth.
‘They are from Chelyabinsk,’ Kolya repeated in his nasal whine, wincing slightly.
Galina Petrovna's Three-Legged Dog Story Page 19