Sheremetev ran down the stairs and found the security guard in the lobby.
‘Did you see Vladimir Vladimirovich come through?’
‘No.’
‘What about before I called you?’
The guard shook his head.
‘Were you asleep?’
The guard quickly shook his head again.
Sheremetev didn’t believe him. ‘Have you told people to look outside?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who?’
‘The whole security detail.’
‘How many is that?’
‘Everybody, Nikolai Ilyich.’
‘How many?’
‘Two,’ murmured the guard sheepishly, gazing at his feet.
‘Is that including you?’
The guard bit his lip. ‘Me and Gorya.’
‘Where’s everybody else?’ demanded Sheremetev indignantly.
The guard shrugged.
‘What about Artur? Is Artur here?’
‘Artur’s . . . I don’t know where exactly.’
‘And Lyosha?’
‘Lyosha . . . also . . .’
Barkovskaya came out of the corridor that led to the staff quarters, wearing a dressing gown and slippers. ‘What’s going on?’ she demanded.
‘Vladimir Vladimirovich has disappeared,’ said Sheremetev.
She put her hand to her mouth. ‘Mother of God! Has someone taken him?’
It hadn’t occurred to Sheremetev that Vladimir might have been kidnapped.
‘Shall we call the police?’
Sheremetev reacted strongly against the idea. ‘He’s probably wandered, Galina Ivanovna. Let’s see if we find him. I’ve been through the upper floor. We’ve got the security detail – I mean, what there is of it – looking outside. Can you check down here? And get some of the others to go outside. Eleyekov, Stepanin . . .’ Sheremetev paused at the look of distaste that crossed the housekeeper’s face. ‘Anyone you can rouse.’
‘What about you?’ said the housekeeper.
‘I’m going out as well!’
Sheremetev ran back upstairs, threw on a coat, slipped his feet into a pair of boots, and ran down again.
‘Here, Nikolai Ilyich!’ called the guard at the door, holding out a torch to him.
Sheremetev grabbed it. ‘Get one for yourself and follow me!’ He ran out, the security guard close behind. In the direction of the main drive, he saw the light of a torch poking into the darkness.
‘That’ll be Gorya,’ said the guard behind him.
‘Then let’s go that way.’ Sheremetev ran around to the other side of the house. Immediately he sniffed the charnel pit. He had a horrible thought. ‘Check in there,’ he called out to the guard.
‘In there?’
‘In case he’s fallen in. I’ll go that way.’
The gigantic grotesque sausages of the greenhouses loomed at him out of the darkness. Sheremetev ran into the nearest one. Warm, humid air hit him. The beam of his torch pried into lines of plants stretching off into the shadows, ripe aubergines hanging plump and black in the darkness.
‘Vladimir Vladimirovich?’ He ran along the lines of plants, leaves brushing at his arms, calling out his name. At the end of the greenhouse he ran out the door and headed for the next one.
Sheremetev stopped. There was a glow in the darkness, some distance away on his right. A lantern was on the ground, and two figures sat on a bench, lit from below, as in a picture out of a children’s storybook.
Sheremetev went closer, still breathing heavily from his run.
Goroviev, the gardener, was on the bench. And beside him sat Vladimir in his pyjamas, a coat thrown over his shoulders.
‘Nikolai Ilyich!’ called out the gardener.
‘Vladimir Vladimirovich,’ said Sheremetev when he reached them. ‘Are you alright?’
‘He’s fine,’ said Goroviev.
Sheremetev peered at the gardener suspiciously. ‘What are you doing here with him?’
‘I found him sitting on this bench.’
‘When?’
‘Just now. I was trying to get him to come back, wasn’t I, Vladimir Vladimirovich? Come on, Vladimir Vladimirovich. It’s too cold for you to be out like this.’
‘What were you doing here?’ asked Sheremetev.
‘I couldn’t sleep. I thought I’d go and do a bit of work with the tomatoes.’
Sheremetev gazed at him disbelievingly.
Goroviev smiled. ‘I’m often up at night. Ask the security guys. They’ve seen me many times.’
‘Is that your coat he’s wearing?’
Goroviev nodded.
Sheremetev made to take his own coat off with the intention of replacing the gardener’s.
‘It’s okay,’ said Goroviev. ‘Leave it with the guard in the hall. I’ll pick it up in the morning.’
‘But you’ll be cold.’
‘No. I think I’ll go back to the lodge now. The tomatoes can wait until morning.’ The gardener got up. ‘Goodnight, Vladimir Vladimirovich.’
Vladimir looked at him. ‘Goodnight.’
The gardener picked up his lantern. ‘Goodnight, Nikolai Ilyich,’ he said, and walked away.
Sheremetev watched him go, dumbfounded. Was it really possible that the gardener had just happened to find Vladimir sitting here, in this place, on the exact same bench where they had all sat the previous day? That the two of them should by chance converge here at three in the morning? But otherwise, what? How else had it happened?
The gardener, who had confessed that there was a time when he would have strangled the ex-president, could have done anything he wanted to him in the time that they were sitting there. Vladimir was entirely at his mercy.
‘Are you alright, Vladimir Vladimirovich?’
Vladimir nodded.
‘Do you know where you are?’
‘Praskoveevka.’
‘And what are you doing, Vladimir Vladimirovich?’
‘What am I doing?’
Sheremetev nodded.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Did that man who was here . . . did he do anything?’
‘Who was here?’
‘A gardener. Goroviev.’
Vladimir frowned. ‘You mean Boroviev, that bastard?’
‘No, Goroviev. Arkady Maksimovich.’
‘He changed his name?’
‘No.’
‘He ran away to London, the coward. If we could have got him back here, the place I would have put him would have made the gulag look like a holiday camp!’
‘Let’s go back, Vladimir Vladimirovich. It’s too cold to be sitting here.’
‘Do you think so? Who are you, anyway?’
‘Sheremetev.’
‘Oh. I thought you were talking about Boroviev. Do you know Boroviev?’
‘No.’
‘Boy-fucking bastard. Traitor! Pig!’
Sheremetev sighed. ‘Come, Vladimir Vladimirovich.’
‘Still, he didn’t last long, did he? People have a habit of dying in London if they’re not careful.’ Vladimir laughed. ‘It’s that English tea they’re always drinking. There’s more than one way to make it hot!’
‘Please, Vladimir Vladimirovich,’ said Sheremetev, who had no idea what Vladimir found so funny in what he had just said. He pulled gently at his arm. ‘It’s cold. You’ll get ill. Please stand up.’
Vladimir stood. Sheremetev took one last look around the bench, shining his torch on it, then they started walking back.
Barkovskaya was waiting in the hall. ‘Thank God,’ she whispered, fingering a crucifix at her neck, as the ex-president appeared.
‘It’s okay,’ said Sheremetev. ‘Everything’s okay.’
‘Are you sure?’ Barkovskaya peered anxiously at Vladimir.
‘I’m taking him upstairs. Please let the others know that he’s safe, Galina Ivanovna.’
He guided Vladimir up the stairs and into the bedroom. Now Sheremetev took a good look at the ex-pre
sident. His pyjamas were wet and muddy, but otherwise he looked unharmed. Sheremetev took a new pair of pyjamas from the dressing room and helped Vladimir into them. Vladimir cooperated, as docile as a lamb. Sheremetev took him to the toilet, then brought him back to the bed.
The old man looked at him and smiled.
‘Are you tired, Vladimir Vladimirovich?’
Vladimir nodded.
Sheremetev went to the bathroom, unlocked the cabinet in which he kept Vladimir’s tablets, and came back with a sedative. After what had happened, he thought, it wouldn’t hurt for Vladimir to have an extra one. He took a glass of water off the bedside table and gave it to him. ‘Here,’ he said, turning over Vladimir’s other hand and pressing the pill into his palm. ‘Take this.’
Vladimir put it in his mouth and swallowed a couple of mouthfuls of water. His Adam’s apple worked up and down noisily in his throat.
Sheremetev took back the glass and set it down. He helped Vladimir into bed and turned off the light, leaving only the night light glowing.
‘Goodnight, Vladimir Vladimirovich.’
There was no response.
At the door, Sheremetev stopped and looked back at the old man lying in the bed. Vladimir’s eyes were already closed. In another moment, a light, rasping snoring began.
Sheremetev rested his head against the door jamb. What was it that Nina had said? How hard was it to know how to steal?
He knew how to steal, thought Sheremetev, watching Vladimir sleeping peacefully. If even half the things people said were true – or a quarter, or a tenth – he had been the biggest crook in Russia, the king of bribe-takers and embezzlers. What would he do if his nephew was in prison? He wouldn’t hesitate.
Only he, Sheremetev, would. Only Saint Nikolai, as his colleagues had derisively called him.
Sheremetev closed his eyes. He remembered Stepanin laughing, saying that Sheremetev had drawn the short straw because the old man had nothing that was worth taking, nothing but old clothes. But Stepanin didn’t know what else was up here.
There were a couple of empty niches in the watch cabinet that stood in Vladimir’s dressing room. Occasionally Sheremetev had come across a watch somewhere – down the back of a sofa, in a sock drawer – which Vladimir must have taken at some point and forgot where he left it. Was that why the niches were empty? Or had they never been filled? Or were they the evidence of earlier thefts? In six years, Sheremetev had never seen anyone check the contents of the cabinet. But surely there must be an inventory of these watches? But if there was, surely he would have seen someone check from time to time – or at least once in his time with the ex-president – to see that everything was still there.
Yet he was afraid that there was, and that if he did what he was thinking of doing, someone would find out.
So was that all that had ever stopped him? Fear? The fear that someone would catch him if he did something wrong as a conscript, the fear that someone would discipline him if he took a bribe as a nurse – even though all the time he knew that everyone else was doing it? Not only fear, but cowardice. Extreme, snivelling cowardice. Everyone always thought it was principle, and in the very sharpness of their mockery of him, he knew, there was a certain grudging acknowledgement of his supposed integrity. Funnily enough, the mockery had sometimes made his resolve to stick to his principles even stronger. But how much principle had he really ever had?
There was some, surely. He hadn’t been able to let the poor patients languish just because the rich ones had money, and that wasn’t only because of fear. But was that principle or softness? Well, there was no room for softness in Russia, and if it was principle, there was even less room for that. Wasn’t that what all of this was showing him?
He was a fraud. Cowardice dressed up as virtue – making his brother commit the offence for him. He wondered if Oleg still did such things today. And why not? Why shouldn’t Oleg do it when the whole of Russia was doing it as well? Why be like his idiot older brother?
And he – Sheremetev – what if he had never been afraid? What would he have done then? Would he still have stuck to his so-called principles?
Was he going to continue to be afraid? Now? Always?
Quietly, Sheremetev went to the dressing room. A soft glow came in from the night light next door. Sheremetev peeked back into the bedroom for a moment to check that Vladimir still slept.
He turned. In front of him stood the cabinet. He opened its doors.
Sheremetev counted the trays. Twenty-five, each one resting neatly in its slot.
Twenty-five!
What about his duty to his wife? Nina had flung that at him, and it had cut him to the bone. Had he been too proud, too self-righteous to sacrifice his so-called principles? Even for Karinka?
But Karinka was gone now, and nothing could bring her back, and what he had done he had done – and what he hadn’t done he hadn’t done – and somehow he would have to live with that. But Pasha could still be saved.
In front of the cabinet, with its tray above tray of watch beside watch, Nikolai Sheremetev asked himself: what about his principles now, and what about his duty to his nephew?
12
SHEREMETEV DIDN’T GET MUCH sleep that night. It was almost a relief when he heard Vladimir stirring and had a reason to get out of bed and stop thinking about the questions that had kept him awake. He knew what he was going to do. It wasn’t exactly a decision to do it, more a resignation to the fact that it had to be done. He didn’t know whether it was wrong or right – both, probably – and he didn’t know how to balance one side against the other, and so he gave up trying. Pasha was in jail. That was enough.
After getting Vladimir showered and dressed, Sheremetev went outside and called his brother.
‘Oleg,’ he said, ‘I’ve had an idea.’ Sheremetev looked around to make sure there was no one nearby who could hear him. Even so, he lowered his voice. ‘I have something. Something that . . . maybe I could sell.’
‘What?’ said Oleg.
‘Like I told you, I’ve never got any money out of caring for Vladimir Vladimirovich, just my salary. I know Nina thinks I’m a fool —’
‘Kolya, listen, she shouldn’t have said those things. I want to apologise —’
‘Wait. Let me finish. In the early days, when he still had most of his faculties, there were times when Vladimir Vladimirovich did want to show his appreciation. I told him it wasn’t necessary, and I didn’t feel comfortable, but he insisted, and he was a hard man to refuse.’
‘Naturally. He was the president.’
‘I wouldn’t accept such a thing now, of course, because he really doesn’t know what he’s doing. But back then, you know, the forgetfulness was much less, and when he said he wanted to do something, he really did know what he wanted. I mean, I think it was ethical to accept, you understand.’
‘Anything you did, Kolya, I’m sure it was ethical.’
Sheremetev hesitated. He had worried that he wouldn’t be able to lie, that Oleg would discern something in his voice, but actually, the story he had made up was sounding remarkably believable, even to his own ears, and surprisingly, almost disturbingly, easy to tell.
‘When you came to me, and yesterday, again, when you asked if there was any way I could help, any way at all . . . well, naturally, I thought of what I had in the bank. But last night, I realised, maybe there’s something that has some value, maybe I could sell it. So anyway, the thing is . . .’ Sheremetev paused again, knowing that if he kept going he was about to cross a dividing line, and even if he did nothing further, even if Oleg turned down his offer, he would never be able to go back, at least in his mind.
‘What is it, Kolya?’
Sheremetev took a deep breath, then blurted it out. ‘He gave me a watch.’
‘A watch?’ said Oleg. ‘What kind of watch?’
‘Some . . . watch. I don’t know exactly. But it’s a nice looking watch and Vladimir Vladimirovich’s doctor happened to be here the other day and he had a
watch on his wrist and he said this watch cost him seven thousand dollars – the watch he was wearing, I mean, not the one I have – and there are others that are even more expensive. For example, he said that the one that Vladimir Vladimirovich was wearing at the time was worth much more. A lifetime’s wages for a working man, Olik! And knowing Vladimir Vladimirovich, when he gave me the watch that I have, it was a year after I started working for him – it was to mark the year, I think – and he was genuinely showing gratitude, so I don’t think he would have given me something that isn’t worth anything. Who knows how much it’s worth? Maybe he gave me one that’s really worth a lot.’
There was silence.
‘Oleg?’ said Sheremetev.
‘You’d sell it for Pasha?’
‘Of course I’d sell it for Pasha! It’s a watch, Oleg. Who cares? I don’t even wear it. The old watch I bought when I got my first job is good enough for me. This one just sits in my cupboard. The thing is, it’s not going to be three hundred thousand dollars, right? But it might be something. It might be a start. And if the prosecutor realises that we don’t have the kind of money he wants, maybe in the end this will be enough. I mean, you said normally ten thousand is enough. Who knows? Before I spoke to the doctor, I had never imagined it, but this watch could be worth that much.’
Again, there was silence on the phone.
‘Well, watches can be expensive,’ said Oleg. ‘But so much?’
‘I don’t know. I’m saying it’s possible.’
‘And you’re prepared to sell it?’
‘Why not?’
‘It might mean a lot to you.’
‘More than Pasha? Oleg, for God’s sake! It’s a watch. A watch is a watch. I couldn’t care less about it. I care about my nephew. I care about my brother.’
‘I’m sorry about the things Nina said yesterday.’
‘Well, I even care about her as well.’
Oleg laughed for a moment. ‘She said some terrible things. She shouldn’t have asked you to compromise your principles.’
Sheremetev sighed. ‘I don’t know if those principles are right any more. I don’t even know if they are principles, if they ever were. Anyway, in Russia, I don’t know if one can live by them. Maybe I should have taken the money, all those years when I was working in hospitals. People came in with bundles of notes, Oleg. I said no and off they went to someone else. I didn’t even save them anything – they still paid. I could have done it. Maybe I should have.’
The Senility of Vladimir P Page 18