The Librarian

by Mikhail Elizarov

  Tanya took my hand and kissed me several times. Timofei Stepanovich sniffed and deftly brushed away a tear, then smiled and reached for his handkerchief.

  “Don’t say things like that, Alexei!” exclaimed Marat Andreyevich, upset. “Nothing terrible has happened to you. You’ve got facial contusions. The swelling will go down completely in two or three weeks. Yes, and your auricular cartilage is broken too, but don’t worry, it won’t affect your hearing, your ear will just be soft. And I think you were really lucky with your foot. The tendons weren’t affected. You’ll spend another day in bed here, and tomorrow we’ll take you home. Everyone’s waiting for you!”

  “I forgot to ask. What about the others? And Latokhin, is he pleased?”

  “We didn’t want to upset you…” Marat Andreyevich said and hesitated. “But I think it’s best to tell you. Right, comrades? Latokhin died a heroic death. And Zarubin too. Veretenov has replaced Latokhin as the Kolontayskites’ leader. They send you their very best wishes and thanks from whole reading room.”

  “And where are the Pavliks?”

  “They left, as they promised. They’ve gone to Kazakhstan,” said Ogloblin, waving his hand in the direction that he assumed was south. “All seven of their men were killed. They didn’t beg for mercy; they fought to the bitter end. And by the way,” he said with a smile, “the help from the council arrived yesterday… Punctually late.”

  Timofei Stepanovich snorted contemptuously.

  “Missed the boat, as usual…”

  “And what happened?”

  “Nothing. We politely told them it was all over and done with and in general it’s better to serve the mustard when dinner’s still on the table, so they cleared off. You’re a celebrity for everyone now!”

  THE UGLIES

  “FIGRUTDIN ANVAR-OGLY GUSEYNOV, Aslan Imanvedi-Ogly Guseynov, Ramazan Rustamovich Dzhabrailov. Rashid Akhmedovich Khaytulayev, Akhmadrasul Khaybulatovich Magomadov, Khasan Panuevich Yusupov…” I ploughed halfway through the list. Millstones started shifting about nauseatingly in my head—the recent concussion still bothered me, especially when I read anything. Conquering the sensation of nausea, I narrowed my eyes and ran over the gaudy string of names and patronymics, like bumps and ruts, to the end of the list: “Iskander Kazbekovich Bachayev, Abdulkhamed Timerbekovich Izmailov, Alvi Bakhayevich Sadulkhadzhiyev.”

  “Have you taken a look, Comrade Vyazintsev?” the liaison officer asked in a soft voice. My visitor was called Roman Ivanovich Yambykh; he was the one of the orderlies of Kovrov, the deformed observer from the council who had been present at our satisfaction three months previously. I noticed immediately that Yambykh’s way of speaking successfully reproduced the menacingly ingratiating manner of his immediate superior.

  The liaison officer’s appearance was unpleasant—a slimy individual with a wet little forehead that looked as if it had been licked. The middle finger of his right hand was adorned by a blue perforated ring with a little heart in it, and his left forearm bore a green tattoo of a busty violin.

  “The final individual on the list, a certain Sadulkhadzhiyev, is an associate of Girei, or Biygireyev, who is the head of an influential criminal organization in the region, with a wide range of activities— from dealing in arms and narcotics to violent robbery, extortion and contract killings. Your dead men met him to discuss, if I might put it this way, the purchase of a licence for appropriating local assets. This is what we know so far.”

  “You’ve made a great effort, Roman Ivanovich,” I said, handing him back the list. “You remember everyone by name. What other complaints does the council have against the reading room?”

  “Don’t be sarcastic, Comrade Vyazintsev. We still don’t know what the outcome of your vigilante actions will be! And note that this isn’t the first time! The flight of the reader Shapiro and the incident with the Gorelov reading room earned you a category “A” reprimand… Haven’t you received the council’s report yet? They’ll send it to you… And straight away—another problem. Possibly even worse than the previous one. Do you really not understand that you have put all of us at risk?”

  “Roman Ivanovich, I get the impression that you feel sorry for these Khasbulatovs,” said Dezhnev. “We acted in the interests of our common security…”

  “Matters of this kind are discussed collectively!” Yambykh retorted. “But you showed once again that you don’t give a damn for the council! Am I not right, Comrade Selivanova?”

  “Not entirely. First, the individuals who were the source of danger are all dead. Secondly, we did not arouse the slightest suspicion on the part of the authorities or the criminal elements. What more do you want? And thirdly, not even your experts have been able to discover any hidden motive!”

  “And they won’t, either!” said Timofei Stepanovich, who had remained silent so far.

  “Actions are a shout in the mountains; let us wait and see what kind of echo there is. The problem that has arisen is far more serious than it seems at first. First…”—Yambykh smiled venomously at Margarita Tikhonovna—“… the Shironinites attracted the attention of outsiders, and rather aggressive outsiders at that. All this indicates gross violations of the code of secrecy. And permit me to object. Secondly, we have good reason to suspect that the raid on your reading room was prompted by a tip-off. Which means that someone from the outside is trying to penetrate the mystery of the Books. If this information is confirmed, then I am afraid that your reading room will most likely be disbanded.”

  “The average annual growth of all libraries and reading rooms is two hundred members,” Lutsis put in hastily. “More than enough for a minor leak to occur anywhere at all. What has this got to do with us?”

  Yambykh nodded.

  “Well yes, but you have a new librarian… Oho, Comrade Selivanova is ready to kill me!” He laughed with a crackling sound. “Let me repeat, we still don’t know what we’re talking about here: monstrous bad luck, criminal negligence on the part of the Shironin reading room, or an external conspiracy. Whichever it is, our common security is at stake. Even if formally speaking this has nothing to do with you, there are higher priorities…”

  “Does it not seem to you that a certain prejudice can be discerned in this decision of the council?” Margarita Tikhonovna interrupted.

  “And does it not surprise you, Comrade Selivanova, that it is precisely the Shironin reading room that finds itself at the epicentre of the problem yet again? Can it really be nothing but malicious fate?” Yambykh asked reproachfully. “I’m not a superstitious man, I’m a pragmatist. Problems pursue those who have deserved them. We are investigating. If there are no consequences from your high-handed behaviour, the business will go no further than a reprimand. I promise that no one intends to persecute you for no good reason. But meanwhile the Shironinites are under house arrest for a few days, and after that we’ll see…”

  Disaster had descended on us out of the blue a week earlier. Until then everything had been going really well. For six weeks the reading room had been a haven of calm. On 12 July we had returned in triumph from Kolontaysk. A week later my bandages were removed in Marat Andreyevich’s hospital. I tried not to show myself outside, feeling shy on account of my appearance. The swellings on my cheekbone and the bridge of my nose stubbornly hung on right until the beginning of August.

  Sometimes I looked at myself in the mirror, studying my unfamiliar blue features in alarm. However, the unknown doctor had not deceived me—my nose really did remain as it was before, without any boxer’s twists or humps. The foot that had been run through with a bayonet healed up, leaving only a scar that looked like a navel. Marat Andreyevich jokingly called it “the librarian’s stigma”.

  As soon as we got back, I called my parents. The novocaine no longer distorted my speech and I informed them in a cheerful, relaxed voice that I had found a job—running a theatre studio in a local House of Culture. I realized that I would never abandon the Shironinites and I had to prepare my family.

&
nbsp; My father took the news calmly; he had anticipated this kind of possibility for a long time, but my mother, on the contrary, started worrying about how I would manage in a strange town, and complained that she couldn’t come to see me—Vovka couldn’t manage Ivan and Ilyushka on her own. I said that I would be earning decent money and would probably apply for Russian citizenship soon. Then I assured my parents that I would visit them at the very first opportunity.

  The Book was still with Margarita Tikhonovna for safekeeping. I had suggested this myself, motivating the request by saying that I found the readers’ daily pilgrimages exhausting and I needed complete peace and quiet. The Shironinites didn’t argue, but they said that while bed rest did not require a guard, a nurse was necessary. I chose Tanya for this role.

  After the events at Kolontaysk I suddenly realized that I had a right to a woman. For the next two weeks Tanya lived with me. For a while I felt rather awkward in Veronika’s presence—I really didn’t want this powerful girl to feel insulted by my choice. But no matter how closely I watched her, I couldn’t spot even a hint of jealousy or resentment in her eyes. I think I made the right choice. Devoted to the reading room and the Book, Veronika had only been concerned for my “male comfort”, but Tanya simply loved me…

  In short, for a month and a half everything went well. Then suddenly one August evening the phone rang. A slightly embarrassed Margarita Tikhonovna informed me that problems had arisen for the reading room and it was a matter of urgency. She had informed the readers and they were all gathering at my place.

  “What exactly has happened, Margarita Tikhonovna?”

  “It’s too serious for a phone call…”

  An hour later the Shironinites were all assembled. Agitated and outraged, Lutsis reported to us on what had happened.

  “Yesterday Grisha and I were walking back from Margarita Tikhonovna’s place. He had read the Book and I promised to see him home…”

  Vyrin had been discharged from the hospital in July. He was making a rapid recovery, although he still needed help. After all, the Book was a powerful emotional upheaval and one of our group always accompanied Grisha on his way back home. This time Denis was with him.

  Just outside the entrance to Vyrin’s building they had been stopped by two young men who looked as if they came from the Caucasus and had the accent to prove it. These were the Guseynov cousins, Figrutdin Anvar-Ogly and Aslan Imanvedi-Ogly, known by the nickname “the Uglies”. Denis had already heard about them.

  The older Ugly—Figrutdin—was twenty, and the younger was nineteen. The cousins were still only starting to spread their criminal wings, gradually mastering the simple skills of blackmail and extortion. So far their new gang had only eight members—scraggy and spiteful children of Chechnya and Azerbaijan—and they plied their trade at the lowest level on the outskirts of town, where there were no competitors. After a short time the Uglies and their comrades had subjugated the old people and miserable bottle-collectors in the district and imposed a tax on them. When they grew a bit stronger, the Uglies moved on to the collection points for jars and bottles. When obstinate owners didn’t want to pay up, their depots caught fire.

  In a long side street outside a small bus station a little market had spontaneously sprung up in the mornings—women from local suburbs brought the surplus from their vegetable plots to sell here. The Uglies set the illegal traders a price for their spots, and if anyone refused to pay they promised to set the cops on them or threatened them with expropriation of their entire stock. The female lawbreakers had no one to complain to, and they agreed to pay the protection money.

  The next victims were the private taxi drivers. A threat to burn their cars worked without fail. The people were absolutely terrified of Chechens, and the Uglies had no scruples about exploiting their gang’s menacing ethnic profile.

  The Uglies first demonstrated their character in a showdown with the gypsies. They suggested dividing up the territory half and half and claimed that their protector, or “roof”, was the well-known criminal boss Girei, whom they didn’t even know. To avoid a conflict, the gypsies agreed. Half the job was done; now they only had to persuade Girei to take them under his protection.

  Securing their status, the Uglies rapidly took control of all the local drug dens, to provide outlets for the future. They were hoping to squeeze the gypsies out at some stage and become the undisputed masters of the suburbs…

  “They told us ‘the old woman’s joint’ was being taken over,” Lutsis said, continuing his account of the situation. “They said they knew all about us, said they’d been watching Selivanova for a long time. They mentioned Denis’s address, and Sasha’s…”

  “And the worst thing,” said Vyrin, “is that they know Alexei’s address. They really have been watching us…”

  “Let me sum up, comrades,” Margarita Tikhonovna concluded. “Absurd as it sounds, some villains have decided that I run a drug den. By the way, today they approached me in person with the same threats. I don’t understand anything,” she said with a dispirited sigh. “And I used to love the Caucasus so much. I often used to go there on holiday…”

  It was quite possible that the Chechens’ visit was a subtle provocation, that we were being tested, that someone was trying to set us up. But in such cases the council’s machinations never went beyond the bounds of the Gromovian universe, with its own etiquette and rules. The uncontrollable spontaneity of an attack from the outside made it something to be feared. The questions that arose were: who were these intruders; why had they chosen us; and what was the ultimate goal that they were actually pursuing?

  We supposed that they had latched onto us through some misunderstanding or annoying set of coincidences that came together in the appearance of ideal bait for bandits. Margarita Tikhonovna had told us there had been whispers among her neighbours before about Selivanova trading in moonshine and telling fortunes for money—all sorts of different people came to her place far too often. The haggard Vyrin and Sukharev with his plastered hand, and I myself, limping and covered in bruises, gave the impression of asocial personalities and provided grounds for gossip. It wouldn’t have been too bad, but those words—“We’ve been watching you for a long time”—determined the Uglies’ fate. We couldn’t afford to delay.

  “Take the wogs out, no messing,” Sukharev said simply. “That’s the safest thing. They’ll never cut loose on their own.”

  “But how do we do it?” I enquired. “A mass road accident?”

  “Too difficult, Alexei,” Dezhnev said thoughtfully. “It would be easier to simulate a banal gangland rumble with the gypsies, a knife fight. The gypsies could easily have grudges to settle with the Uglies. They used to run everything, then Girei squeezed them out, and the Uglies are keen to get in with Girei. The cops shouldn’t have any doubts. Afterwards Biygireyev can sort things out with the local barons himself if he wants to…”

  “I’ve got an idea,” Sukharev suggested. “The lowlifes are always hanging out in the kebab house at the reservoir—you know, the old Village Hut café. They’re bound to show up there at the weekend. It’s a remote spot; there won’t be any witnesses. When the Uglies celebrate, all the normal people leave—they’re afraid. No, there won’t be any problems with an ambush.”

  THE VILLAGE HUT

  I WAS EXCLUDED from the Shironinites’ operation for health reasons. Vyrin fell under the same edict. Although Denis was terribly offended, they didn’t take him either—our enemies knew him by sight. For the same reason they had to do without Sukharev’s strong-arm help—he was often at Margarita Tikhonovna’s place and the Uglies could have caught sight of him. Sasha, Denis and I had to be content with contributing what we could to the theoretical planning of the ambush.

  The Uglies’ cars—an old Mazda and an old Opel—were put under constant surveillance. The Vozglyakovs’ motorbike and Ogloblin’s RAF never let the Uglies out of their sight and we learned all their routes off by heart.

  The Village Hut—a su
mmer café on the shore of the Urmut reservoir—was a dreary, quiet spot: a sandy yard surrounded by unkempt bushes. The winter pavilion contained a kitchen and a dozen tables and in the yard there were gazebos with gabled roofs on log pillars—the village huts from which the café had got its name. In recent years ownership of the Village Hut had changed hands often. The present owner had turned it into a kebab house. Three people worked there—the cook, his assistant and a waitress who doubled as the cleaner.

  The plan was thought through down to the finest detail. An hour before the Uglies arrived, the staff had to be neutralized. Kruchina took on the role of cook, support by Ogloblin and Anna Vozglyakova. Marat Andreyevich and Tanya became a married couple who happened to drop in when they saw the smoke. Timofei Stepanovich was loitering about outside the hedge, searching for bottles that had been planted in advance. Ievlev was working away with a spade outside the fence, deepening the drain. Especially for the ambush he made ten steel skewers, sharpened the ends himself and added convenient handles, like those on flaying knives. Every possible scenario was worked through for every eventuality, depending on which table our enemies chose to sit at. Who could have known then that this fine-calibrated plan would end in tragedy?…

  As soon as the Uglies and their men had got into the cars, of which there were three for some reason—a Mercedes had joined the cavalcade—Sukharev made a call from a public phone in the street to Margarita Tikhonovna, who was sitting by the phone in the first-aid post at the lifeboat station. Svetlana Vozglyakova was on watch outside with the motorcycle. It took her only a few minutes to dash to the Village Hut and pass on the combat alert.

  Silent figures in masks crept into the pavilion and tied up the cook, his assistant and the waitress securely. Kruchina, Ogloblin and Anna put on aprons and started preparing for the encounter.