Life on the farm had been energetic and loud. The other farm dogs had shown her a trick or two, and she had done her best to get on and do as expected. But she was a gentle soul by nature, and not particularly clever: they quickly saw that she was no good as a guard dog, and not much of a hunter. She followed the pack, and kept her nose clean, but she was not a prized canine. She liked the women and children, but at the farm they were kept quite separate: she would occasionally receive a pat from a chubby pink hand, or a crust thrown over the fence, sometimes butter smeared, but there was none of the cosy comfort that she had grown to love as a mature dog. The farm had meant work.
The farm had also been full of machinery and sharpness, thumpings, scrapes and clankings. Boroda had often hidden among the calves when the machinery was being used: their black softness made her feel protected, and safe. Maybe it had always been her fate: maybe it was meant to be. But the machinery had been her downfall. She’d learnt the hard way that it was not to be climbed upon, no matter whether it was still and cold, and no matter how excited you were about the rats running around the grain store.
Boroda didn’t know what order her life had happened in; she could remember people and places, but not when they were. She remembered train tracks and kiosks, cold winds, fleas and ticks in her coat. And warmth: a quiet flat with sunshine and lino and plenty of bacon fat to eat and clear water to drink. Oh, treacherous bacon fat! Although she loved it, she knew it was not her friend. Bacon fat tempted her, made her move when she knew she should be still, and had, in the end, made her old lady very sad.
And now there was no old lady, and no bacon fat. Now there were just cages ranged along a long, dark room. She could stand up in hers and stretch her legs a little, the muscles shaking with the effort, but some of the other dogs were not so lucky. Every so often a pair of large black boots would beat down the corridor and dogs would be taken from their cages. They howled and barked, and some whined. But they never came back. Maybe they were moving on to new homes: new old ladies. Maybe the new homes were being rationed, and that was why it was so slow. There was certainly nobody here to give a tickle behind the ear or compliment a dog on a waggy tail. She sighed and turned around in her cage, and hoped that her turn for a new home would come soon.
She missed the kitchen table and the old lady. She could hear a radio somewhere far away, the sound muffled by several thick walls and windows. A clock was striking the hour. It reminded her of home. Her companions in their cages were getting restless: they had water, but no food. Some had been here since before she had arrived. Boroda’s belly had long since shrunk to a tight ball. She wasn’t hungry now. She yawned and let out a soft whine. She wanted to see her old lady: to sniff her floral skirt, and give her toes a gentle lick.
Footsteps echoed down the corridor, and Boroda stood as the now-familiar black boots stopped before her cage and a hand reached down to draw back the bolt. It hesitated, and then moved away again. Through the bars she could make out a shambolic human form, wad of papers in one hand, and broken eye glasses in the other. The human scratched its head, and tried to read what was written on the papers.
‘What the … where are the papers, dammit? They’ve sent the wrong ones!’ There was a scuffling of skin on paper, and then paper on concrete as the wad slipped from the fingers and cascaded on to the floor.
Boroda whimpered in response. She knew nothing about papers. The human bent to scrunch up the papers from the floor and let out an ‘argh!’ as its spine clicked painfully.
‘Why can’t they, just for once, do their jobs properly?’ the human snorted and straightened up gingerly, before stomping off back up the dark corridor and slamming the door. Boroda waited for him to re-appear, but all was quiet. She turned two circles in her cage, slowly and with difficulty, and sat back down, to wait. Somewhere close by, a dog howled.
20
The Return
‘Olya will be angry.’
The taxi driver hunched forward in his seat, and took a prolonged and emphatic chew on his stubby yellow fingernails. The rough edges hurt the end of his tongue, but it was as nothing compared to the turmoil in his psyche. It had seemed like a good job at the time: in the dead of night, a group of past-it out-of-towners needing a lift home. But now he wished he hadn’t started.
He looked at his watch again, and muttered to himself: it was almost six in the morning. The three elderly revellers in the back had been asleep for some time, sprawled, as best they could, across the shiny black plastic of the seat. Their mouths were endlessly puckering and twitching, and in the rear-view mirror, to the driver’s tired and distracted eyes, they had looked like a row of ghastly, wizened babies, sucking up the last sleepy milk from the swollen teats of the night, while the lights of Moscow had twirled by, hour after hour, mile after mile. Occasionally they had made slight mewling and burping noises. The driver had felt a certain affection for them at first, but it had soon disappeared: now he just wanted to be rid of them. He had driven, and enquired about direction, and received no clear instructions one way or the other. The younger man with the scar who had got in with them had been more forthright: he had known exactly where he was heading to next, and had alighted quickly outside a smart block in the diplomatic area. But then, then it had got difficult. The old man had occasionally roared something very insistently, but completely unintelligibly. And the two old women seemed to have no idea who they were, let alone where they were.
He’d been paid to take the old ones home, so he hadn’t wanted to be fierce with them, but they had steadfastly refused to tell him where home was. Now they had made him late, and made him run out of petrol, and it was miles to the nearest garage. Olya was going to be so very, very cross. The taxi was beached, washed up on the edge of the grand weed-riven pavement, its fuel gauge stark, staring dead. It had coughed its last just as it was making its way, slowly and for the third time, around the great edifice of the Moscow State University. Up, up towards the sky the spikey towers of the university stretched, and down, down the needle on the gauge had fallen, unnoticed by the driver, who was too much in a quandary what to do with his sleeping passengers to see how his night was going to end.
The three on the back seat continued to snore.
‘Olya will be so angry! You … lazy old bastards!’ With shaking hands, the driver picked up his water bottle and, with a fierce squeak of trouser on plastic, turned and gave the three passengers a good, hard squirt.
‘Everybody out! Out, I say! I have to go for petrol, you’ve made me late, and you’re a lot of stinky old lazy bastards. Olga’s going to kill me, and it’s all your fault!’
The three on the back seat squirmed slightly as the water drizzled them, and a floppy hand was raised, vaguely, to fight off the drops.
‘Ha! Yes, that wasn’t nice, was it? And there’ll be more of that, too, if you don’t get out of my car! Go on! Shoo! It smells like a brewery. She can’t stand booze – especially in the morning! She’ll be so cross! And I’m late!’ The driver turned in his seat again and started flailing at the sleepy OAPs with his gnarled hands, tugging at their togas and pushing at their swollen, pinky-purple knees.
Galia batted away the water, and her hand came into contact with Zoya’s nose with a hard slap. Zoya squawked, and thrashed her head away from the blow, head-butting Grigory Mikhailovich, who stirred like a long-dormant volcano on a tropical island. A trickle of blood escaped the end of his bulbous nose, and the driver crossed himself.
Grigory Mikhailovich emitted a vodka-soaked roar and, in slow motion, raised both massive fists before his face, as if about to tear off Zoya’s head.
‘Oh Saints preserve us! Now there’ll be trouble. Get out of my car!’
The driver shrieked, and Grigory Mikhailovich opened his eyes, one and then the other, and fell silent, fists still raised, but looking about slowly as if the movement of his lead crystal eyes caused him great pain. Galia also finally prised open her eyes, which had up to now been glued shut with an earthy co
cktail of Zoya’s mascara, Moscow air and her own sleepy dust. She tutted, blinked rapidly, and tried to recall where she was, and how she had got there. Grigory Mikhailovich let out a loud, hacking cough, and opened the car door to spit plentifully. Zoya slept on between the two wakeful monoliths.
‘Get out of my car, or I’ll call the police! Really, this is enough. You’ve had all my petrol. You’ve had your tour. Now get out! I’m an honest man, and I have business to do. I have to get to the market. Olya will be so cross …’
Galia struggled with the door handle on her side, if only to get away from the screeching farmer, or driver, or whoever he was, but her hand did not seem to be part of her own body any more: momentarily, she couldn’t really remember what she needed to do to make it move, or why she wanted it to move. Eventually the door fell open of its own accord and Galia pitched forward, steadying herself by grabbing hold of Zoya’s bony knee, which caused the latter to emit a piercing scream and slap the driver in the face, which he happened to be poking through the gap between the two front seats.
‘Out! Out!’ Blood-pressure mounting, he was working himself into a frenzy, now producing a yellowish froth at the corners of his mouth. Galia could tell it was time to go.
She tugged Zoya out of the car, mostly by the hair, and then stood still, looking down at her feet for a moment. She was missing her left sandal, and had acquired a child’s pink plastic slipper instead. It was not comfortable. She breathed in deeply through her nose, and shut her eyes. Her head was full of helicopters and the angle of the ground beneath her just wasn’t right. Her stomach seemed to be making an attempt to crawl up to her throat, and she felt the wrinkles in her face deepening, forming some sort of relief map of the Himalayas, even as she breathed. She was aware of the sound of Grigory Mikhailovich being levered out of the back of the taxi by the driver, and could hear him coughing and swearing on the other side of the car. She was almost tempted to sit down on the tarmac where she stood, wavering slightly, but then something in the air, not as solid as a smell but something like it, made her stop. The quality of the light touching her still-closed eyelids made her heart miss a beat and she looked up, squinting for a moment.
‘Let’s get away from the car, shall we, Zoya? That driver is rude. There’s no need for rudeness.’
Zoya cawed a vague affirmative, and the two ladies stumbled forward, away from the car and on to the grey expanse of empty pavement.
‘I’m going to crawl,’ whispered Zoya, bending her knees stiffly and stretching her fingers towards the infinite grey slabs.
‘No, you’re not. You’ll be arrested, and then where will we be? Just breathe, and put one foot in front of the other.’
Galia hoisted her back up.
‘You’re a fine one for … perambulatory advice,’ muttered Zoya thickly, as Galia’s plastic slipper flopped about on the ends of her toes like a dead fish, threatening any moment to send her plunging to the ground. ‘That’ll teach you to bet your shoes,’ she added, spitefully. Galia had no recollection of betting anything the previous night, but felt it was wiser, at this stage, to resist further questioning. They staggered across an acre of grey, before coming to a barrier: a parapet.
As Galia’s eyes accustomed to the zesty lemon light, she raised her gaze and, with a little gasp, surveyed the view that spread from her feet to the far horizon. Her fuddled brain gradually focused on the jumble of colours and lights before her. She breathed deeply, and with each breath, her head raised a little higher from her shoulders, her chin lifted slightly from her chest, and she began to feel a little more like a person, and a little less like one of the living dead. Zoya leant against her slightly, whimpering, and she put her arm around her friend’s sharp shoulder. The car had come to a halt on a terrace that marked the edge of a huge green escarpment. The ground in front of them dropped away in green undulations towards the banks of the wide, deep river below. Their vantage point was complete and unspoilt. Laid out at their feet was the entire city of Moscow, bordered by the silver-green Moskva River, and stretching out languidly in all directions into the hazy morning. In the pink distance she could just make out the Ostankino TV tower, famous across the federation: a symbol of progress, homogeny and mediocre state-run TV. She counted the Stalin sky-scrapers, and could see six. Everybody knew there were seven. She tried again, and still only saw six. She couldn’t believe she was wrong. And then some sense made her look back, and up, over her shoulder, and she tutted to herself. Turning to face the opposite direction, she witnessed the majesty of the Moscow State University looming over her. It made her heart flip over, and then thud with a mixture of pride and fear. The seventh of the seven sisters was breathtaking and very close, almost hunching over her. She nodded to it, and then slowly turned back to her private vista. She caught the glint of the Kremlin’s golden roofs, and the vague ice-cream outline of St Basil’s cupolas. A patch of mottled green dotted with bright fairground rides must be Gorky Park. And at their feet, much closer, lay the Luzhniki Olympic stadium, huge and dark and empty. And to set it all off, to their right, slightly surprisingly in the green of summer, a ski-jump lounged.
The new blue sky still sported a smudge of rose at the horizon, and the air itself felt alive with dew and promises. In nearby streets, Galia could hear the approach of teams of cleaners, washing down the pavements and the previous night’s spillages, and bagging up the waste and dust and grime. Making the city clean and bright, ready for the new day.
‘Look at that Zoya!’ said Galia, smiling. ‘It just makes you feel like everything will be all right with the world. Such beauty!’
Zoya said nothing. Galia wondered if she had gone back to sleep in a standing position, and wriggled her shoulder a little beneath her friend’s head.
‘Hey, Zoya, look at the view. It’s magical!’
‘Stuff the view,’ said Zoya in a thick rumble, before gently lowering herself to the pavement.
‘But look!’
Zoya refused to look and laid down on the pavement with her hands folded under her head. She was just about to nod off, when with a sudden snort, a regiment of fountains laid out before the University shot plumes of silver water into the dawn air, covering all three revellers with a cold, wet dew. Galia clapped her hands and laughed. Zoya’s response did not bear reporting.
‘Muph stuffun.’
‘What was that, Grigory Mikhailovich?’ laughed Galia.
The old man, now wearing an orange boob-tube borrowed from a large young lady the previous night, was trying to get some words out, muttering and gesticulating towards the east with a puffy but insistent finger.
‘Muph stuffun!’
He coughed loud and long, and struggled for breath, but still pointed.
‘I don’t get it, Grigory Mikhailovich. Can you mime it?’
Grigory Mikhailovich regarded her blankly for a moment or two, and then, very slowly, held his hands out in front of him, parallel, palms facing each other, and rotated them, in a single motion forward, round and round. He began slowly, but gradually picked up speed. As he did so, he began to shuffle his feet.
‘Is that some kind of burlesque he’s doing?’ asked Zoya, opening one eye.
‘Really, my dear!’ said Galia.
‘Woo woo!’ said Grigory Mikhailovich in a deep baritone.
‘It is a burlesque!’ and Zoya began to giggle uncontrollably. ‘Is there no end to his talents? He’s almost as good as that young lad last night!’
‘What young lad?’
‘The one you offered to take home!’
‘You’re hysterical,’ Galia snapped and sucked in her lips, turning her back on Zoya.
‘I think he’s miming a train: is it a train, Grigory Mikhailovich?’
He didn’t hear, so busy was he with his woo-wooing.
‘Grigory Mikhailovich, is it a train?’ Galia bellowed as loudly as she could, standing in his path and scaring a cloud of pigeons into the air.
Grigory Mikhailovich stopped, thought for a mome
nt, nodded, and then winced. In the middle distance, Galia could just make out the grand silhouette of the Southern Station.
‘We need to get a train? Well, of course, of course – Zoya, get up! We need to get a train! What was I thinking, standing here, looking at the view …’
Galia broke off, and with a yelp, shoved her hand deep in to her jodhpur pocket. Her fingers scrabbled about in the rough material as her heart stood still. It wasn’t there! She tried again, fingers digging as deep into the pocket as they could reach. And then, right at the bottom, folded several times and crumpled under her loose change, her fingers closed around it: the VIPP – Very Important Piece of Paper, signed by Glukhov, Roman Sergeevich, and sealed with his official seal. As far as she could recall, it set out, in official terms, that the dog, Boroda, and the man, Vasily Semyonovich Volubchik, should be freed immediately as they were friends and comrades of the Deputy Minister, Southern Section, and the State in general. Galia curled her fingers around the paper, and lifted her chin.
‘Come, Zoya, rouse yourself. We must go. We have to get to the station. We must get back!’
‘Muph …’ wheezed Grigory Mikhailovich, before erupting into a coughing fit that blew a great blob of bloody phlegm into the morning air, where it briefly shone like a ruby star on the top of the Kremlin roof, before disappearing over the parapet and into the shady greenery below.
‘That’s better!’ Grigory Mikhailovich wiped his face on the back of his hand and leant on the parapet for support. ‘I find … sometimes, the airways … are a little … stiff in the morning.’
‘The station, Grigory Mikhailovich?’ asked Galia.
‘Galina Petrovna, time is too short.’
‘But we must try!’
‘No, too short for trains! My advice is to fly. Time is of the essence, especially for the dog, and … what day is it?’
Galia thought for a moment.
Galina Petrovna's Three-Legged Dog Story Page 21