The Senility of Vladimir P

by Michael Honig

  Sheremetev stayed alone in the dining room. A couple of the security guards wandered in and took servings of cold cuts from the sideboard, and he exchanged a few words with them before going upstairs. He slept with the baby monitor on his bedside table. The vague rustlings and mumblings that were always coming out of it didn’t disturb him. It was the nights when Vladimir suddenly started shouting that he dreaded.

  Just after three am, the monitor squawked into life. Sheremetev woke and lay for a couple of minutes, listening groggily.

  ‘Come here, you fucking Chechen!’

  Thump.

  ‘You stinking dead Chechen!’

  Sheremetev groaned. The door to Vladimir’s suite was only a few metres from his room. He got up and opened it quietly. Inside, there was a small antechamber with two doors. The one on the left led to Vladimir’s sitting room, and one directly in front of him was the door to the bedroom.

  Warily, Sheremetev turned the handle of the bedroom door and peeked in.

  Bathed in the dim glow of the night light, Vladimir stood by his bed in his sky-blue pyjamas, his wispy grey hair awry, fists raised, legs spread in a judo pose, eyes fixed on a spot somewhere towards the window on the far side of the room.

  Quickly, before Vladimir could notice him, Sheremetov closed the door. If he got to him early enough, he could sometimes calm Vladimir and get him back into bed, but by the time Vladimir had reached this point, by the time he was striking his judo poses, there was only one way to handle the situation. Vladimir might seem like any other old man, frail and hesitant, but when the delusions took hold of him, he had the strength of a man thirty years younger and a martial arts technique with which to channel it. Sheremetev went to a phone on the wall outside the suite and called the security man who was posted in the entrance hall of the dacha. The phone rang for what seemed like minutes before someone answered. Then Sheremetev went to a locked cupboard in his room and took out a vial of tranquilliser. There were fifty milligrams in the vial – he carefully drew up five milligrams into a syringe, the dose prescribed to calm Vladimir when he was acutely agitated.

  In his bedroom, the ex-president took a silent, stealthy step forward, then stopped again, muscles tensed, his eyes fixed on the spot in the air where he saw the Chechen’s head hovering, its sunken eyes cloudy and blind, its huge swollen tongue thrusting out from between its clenched, yellow teeth. Vladimir knew what it wanted – what it always wanted: to plant that black tongue on his face and smother him with the slime of death like a giant mollusc suffocating him in the putrid mucus of its muscular foot.

  During the Chechen war, a Chechen prisoner about to be executed in front of Vladimir by a Russian firing squad – one that had got into the interesting habit of shooting their prisoners from point blank range in the face, usually after cutting off their ears – had prophesied to him that he would die a slow and excruciating death. Vladimir knew that if that tongue ever planted its poison on him, the prophecy would come true.

  Suddenly the head shot off around the room, weaving, darting, bobbing. Then it swung and came straight for him. Vladimir leapt into action with a judo manoeuvre. Tsukkake! He struck hard and the head went spinning away, ricocheting off the window. It stopped, hanging in the air, the blind eyes watching him, the black tongue dripping its toxic slime.

  Vladimir bounced softly from foot to foot, poised, ready to spring into another judo manoeuvre. ‘You fucking Chechen!’ he cried. ‘What now, huh? Come on! Give it a try! Let’s see what you’ve got, you boy-fucker!’ That he was engaged in a mortal combat, Vladimir had no doubt, just as Russia, it was no exaggeration to say, had been caught in mortal combat with the Chechen rebels in their tiny, faraway republic. Yet at the same time, there was something exhilarating about the fight. Just him and the Chechen’s head, one on one – winner take all. He had already written – or ghostwritten – three books about judo, but they were about the conventional art. No one, he thought, had laid down the principles of this type of combat before. He would write a book, he thought, about the art of judo against a head.

  It flew at him again. He was ready. Sode-tore! Ushiro-dore! Then down on his knees – Tsukkomi! The head shot up and smashed into the ceiling. Ha! The Chechen wasn’t expecting that.

  ‘Now, what, you stinking head?’ he shouted, as the head bobbed under the ceiling. ‘Go! Crawl back into the toilet with the rest of your body! Let the maggots crawl back into your eyes and finish their feast —’

  Suddenly he was flat on his face.

  ‘Careful!’ cried Sheremetev at the two security guards. ‘Don’t hurt him.’

  One of the guards yelled as Vladimir elbowed him.

  ‘Hold him down carefully. That’s it! Careful!’

  ‘Ah! What the fuck!’ yelled the guard, as Vladimir elbowed him again.

  Vladimir’s legs thrashed. Sheremetev struggled to pull down the former president’s pyjamas with one hand while holding the syringe in the other. In the end he gave up and simply rammed the needle into Vladimir’s buttock through the fabric and injected the tranquilliser.

  A minute or so later, the thrashing lessened.

  ‘Let him go,’ said Sheremetev.

  The two guards stood up warily. One of them, Artur, a tall fair-haired man with green eyes and prominent cheekbones, was the leader of the security detail at the dacha. ‘Shall we put him on the bed?’ he asked.

  Sheremetev nodded. ‘Gently.’

  They turned Vladimir over and lifted him onto the mattress. He lay motionless. Under his part-closed lids, his eyeballs had rolled back, leaving two slivers of white as if in a face out of a horror movie.

  The other guard, whose nose was bleeding from the blows he had taken from Vladimir’s elbow, gave a slight shiver. ‘Is he dead?’ he whispered.

  Sheremetev shook his head.

  ‘Shame.’

  Artur looked at him sharply. ‘Get the hell out of here!’

  ‘But —’

  ‘Out! Now! And clean your nose. You’re bleeding like a stuck pig.’

  The guard put his hand to his nose and looked at the blood on his fingers. He muttered something and left.

  ‘I apologise for that, Nikolai Ilyich,’ said Artur.

  ‘He was hurt.’

  ‘Still, it’s not acceptable. I’ll speak with him. He needs to improve his attitude. If he can’t, I’ll get rid of him. To be entrusted with the safety of Vladimir Vladimirovich is a sacred duty. I see it as a privilege, Nikolai Ilyich, not a job. A bit of borsht from the nose is nothing to complain about!’ Artur paused, as if overcome with patriotic emotion. He took a deep breath. ‘Will there be anything else, Nikolai Ilyich?’

  ‘No. It’s a shame. We’d had quite a good month up to now.’ He paused, gazing at Vladimir, who was breathing steadily, eyes fully closed now. ‘Thank you, Artur. I don’t think we’ll have any more trouble tonight.’

  ‘If you do,’ said Artur, ‘just call. We’re here to help.’

  The guard left. Sheremetev straightened Vladimir’s pyjamas, then covered him with the quilt.

  It was a terrible thing, dementia, a disease that struck at the very core of what made a person who he was. No matter how many times Sheremetev saw it, it never became less sad. And for such a thing to have happened to Vladimir Vladimirovich, five times president of Russia . . .

  Sometimes, when Vladimir looked at him, Sheremetev saw in the ex-president’s eyes such confusion and fear, it was almost heartbreaking. He had seen that same look in so many of his dementia patients. What they needed most then was nothing that drugs or other treatments could give them, but simple human comfort. The fact that Vladimir had been five times president of Russia didn’t lessen what it must feel like for him in those moments, thankfully fewer and fewer now as his condition progressed, when he was suddenly aware that he didn’t know where he was or who was with him or why anything was happening around him.

  The old man lay on his back, snoring peacefully.

  Sheremetev leaned over him and smoot
hed his ruffled hair. ‘I’m sorry I had to use the injection,’ he murmured. ‘Sleep well, Vladimir Vladimirovich.’

  He left, closing the door quietly behind him.

  Soon, all was quiet again in the dacha. Vladimir snored, visions of the Chechen, temporarily, dissolved by the tranquilliser in his blood. A few metres away, Sheremetev had gone back to sleep, the baby monitor rustling quietly on the bedside table beside him. Downstairs, Stepanin slumbered in the arms of the maid, Elena Dmitrovna Mirzayev, his lover. Behind the door off the main entrance hall, the guard on duty lay asleep on a comfortable bed that the security contingent had set up in a warm, cosy antechamber.

  Only the new housekeeper, Galina Ivanovna Barkovskaya, was awake. She sat at the desk in her office, a table lamp glowing, poring over the dacha’s accounts.

  4

  THE NEXT MORNING, PROFESSOR Kalin arrived at ten o’clock for his monthly visit. He brought with him another expert, Professor L P Andreevsky, who visited only every second or third time to oversee Vladimir’s general physical health. Sheremetev took the two doctors upstairs to the sitting room, where Vladimir was waiting for them.

  At each visit, Professor Kalin attempted to evaluate Vladimir’s awareness and memory, charting its decline in the notes he dictated in his car after he left the dacha. Vladimir never made it easy for him, perhaps, at some level, sensing that the professor’s questions carried an implication of illness, even if he no longer had any insight into what that illness was.

  Professor Kalin crouched in front of the ex-president and started off on his usual questions to test if Vladimir had any awareness of his current time and place. Sheremetev and Andreevsky exchanged a glance. Vladimir hadn’t given a correct answer to even one of those questions for the last twelve months.

  The professor nodded to himself. ‘Do you know this man here?’ he asked, pointing at Sheremetev.

  ‘Do you?’ riposted Vladimir, which was one of his stock evasions when asked a question he had no idea how to answer.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then who is he?’

  ‘Don’t you know?’ asked the professor.

  ‘Don’t you?’ shot back Vladimir.

  ‘Do you know, Vladimir Vladimirovich?’

  ‘Why should I tell you? Who are you, anyway?’

  ‘Don’t you remember?’

  ‘I’ve never met you in my life.’

  ‘I’m Professor Kalin,’ said the professor for the fifth time that morning.

  ‘What about him?’ demanded Vladimir, pointing to the other doctor.

  ‘That’s Professor Andreevsky. He’s another doctor, like me. He’s been looking after you for years.’

  Vladimir grunted dismissively.

  Professor Kalin stood up. He glanced at his colleague and gestured towards Vladimir, inviting Andreevsky to take over.

  Andreevsky drew out his stethoscope. ‘May I, Vladimir Vladimirovich?’

  Vladimir turned to Sheremetev. ‘Is he a doctor?’

  Sheremetev nodded.

  Vladimir scrutinised Andreevsky for a moment, then slowly unbuttoned his pyjama top.

  The professor laid his stethoscope on Vladimir’s chest. He listened to his heart, then began to move the stethoscope from place to place. ‘Breathe in . . . Breathe out . . . Very good. Continue please. In . . . Out . . . In . . . Out . . .’

  ‘That’s enough,’ said Vladimir irritably, and pushed the stethoscope away.

  Andreevsky stepped back. ‘Blood pressure?’ he said to Sheremetev.

  Sheremetev pulled out the chart on which he recorded the blood pressure readings that he had been instructed to take twice a week. The results of the urine tests that he regularly took were there as well, together with other pages detailing the medications that Vladimir had received and notes on his behaviour.

  Andreevsky looked over the blood pressure chart. ‘Fit as an ox,’ he murmured, handing the chart to Kalin.

  ‘Fit as a Siberian ox!’ declared Vladimir, whose hearing showed no sign of accompanying his intellect into decrepitude.

  Kalin turned the page and scanned the behaviour charts. He saw the note that Sheremetev had made that morning of the episode that had taken place overnight. Prior to that, there had been almost three weeks without the need for an injection to top up the tranquilliser and sedative tablets that Vladimir took each night before bed.

  ‘What happened exactly last night?’ asked Kalin.

  ‘He thought he was fighting with someone,’ said Sheremetev.

  ‘But he’d had his tablets?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Do you know who he was fighting with?’

  Sheremetev glanced at Vladimir, who was staring straight ahead, as if oblivious to the conversation going on around him. ‘The same as always.’

  Vladimir’s eyes narrowed and his nose wrinkled slightly.

  Kalin handed the charts back to Sheremetev. ‘Vladimir Vladimirovich,’ he said, crouching down to his eye level again, ‘did someone come here last night?’

  ‘Last night?’ said Vladimir.

  Kalin nodded.

  Vladimir shrugged. ‘Do I know you?’

  ‘I’m Professor Kalin. I look after you.’

  ‘Why do you look after me? I’m as strong as . . . something or other.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said Kalin. ‘It’s good to be strong. Does anyone come to bother you?’

  ‘Do you know what I would do if someone came to bother me?’ countered Vladimir.

  ‘Tell me. What would you do?’

  Vladimir smiled craftily. Never reveal your strategy, he knew, not even to your friends. Especially not your friends. ‘If you want to find out, I’d advise you to try,’ he replied, and then chuckled to himself.

  Kalin watched him for a moment. ‘Vladimir Vladimirovich, is there anything else you want to tell us before we go?’

  ‘What should I tell you?’

  ‘Whatever you like.’

  ‘You’re the doctor, aren’t you? You should be telling me!’

  ‘Alright,’ said Kalin. ‘Well, I’ll tell you what – I’ll see you again in a month, alright?’

  ‘Where will you see me?’ said Vladimir.

  ‘Here. We’ll come back.’

  ‘How do you know I’ll be here?’

  ‘If you’re not here, we’ll find you.’

  Vladimir grinned. ‘No, you won’t.’

  Kalin stood up. ‘Goodbye, Vladimir Vladimirovich. I’ll see you again in a month.’

  Vladimir didn’t reply, as if keeping his counsel.

  Sheremetev accompanied the two professors out of the room. Once the door to the suite was closed behind them, Kalin stopped.

  ‘I could increase the tranquilliser, I suppose,’ he said to Andreevsky, in a weary, dispirited tone.

  ‘If you’re asking my opinion, Vyacha,’ responded Andreevksy brightly, ‘from a cardiovascular and respiratory perspective, he could take it.’

  Kalin gave his colleague an irritable look. That opinion did nothing to solve his dilemma, and from the jauntiness with which Andreevsky had pronounced it, Kalin suspected the fact amused him.

  The professor held out his hand to Sheremetev for the charts. He made a show of minutely examining the notes on Vladimir’s behaviour. After a while he began to rub at his nose as if he had an itch, a habit he had, Sheremetev knew by now, whenever he was trying to disguise his procrastination.

  The dilemma was the same dilemma that confronted Professor Kalin each month, and everyone in the corridor – not only Kalin himself, but Sheremetev and Andreevsky as well – knew it. The tranquilliser that the professor had prescribed to reduce the rages when Vladimir still had insight into his condition had numerous potential side effects, which included, paradoxically, delusions, hallucinations and agitation. Right now, that was exactly what Vladimir had. Reducing the dose of tranquilliser might therefore solve the problem. On the other hand, these delusions, hallucinations and agitation might have nothing at all to do with the medication,
but be due to Vladimir’s dementia, and it might be the medication that was keeping them in check – in which case, increasing the dose might solve the problem. The only way to tell for certain would be to reduce the dose and see what happened, but the one thing one could say for certain about reducing the medication after so many years of use was that there would be severe withdrawal effects, which might well include . . . delusions, hallucinations and agitation. All in all it was an unholy mess and it would take months and months to sort it out, months in which the medication would have to be reduced in gradual, tiny steps and during which Vladimir would need to be monitored closely and assessed, ideally, once a week.

  It took a good half a day out of Professor Kalin’s schedule to come to the dacha outside Odinstovo, half a day in which he could otherwise be attending to his eye-wateringly lucrative private practice, for which there was already a waiting list of over three months – coming even once a month was already costing him a small fortune. Coming once a week would cost him a large one. Naturally, Professor Kalin was as patriotic as the next man, and was truly grateful – as were his British-educated children – for the health system presided over by Vladimir, in which people would literally crawl out of public wards in fear for their lives – he had witnessed it with his own eyes, not once, but twice – to get themselves into private hospitals, in a number of which the professor held considerable shares. But even so, there were limits to what could be expected from him. And really, looking at this chart, it was only every few days that Vladimir had an episode of agitation, and only every second or third of those was so extreme as to require an injection, and just this month there had been almost three full weeks in which he had been injection-free . . .

  ‘It really isn’t that bad,’ said Kalin.

  ‘No,’ said Sheremetev.

  ‘You could almost say it’s improving,’ said Andreevsky, peering over Kalin’s shoulder at the chart.

  Kalin glanced at him suspiciously, then turned back to Sheremetev. ‘It’s always this Chechen, is it?’

  ‘When he’s fighting, yes, it’s always him.’

  ‘And he really fights him? I mean, he physically gets up and fights him?’