He went back to the sitting room. Vladimir ignored him. Sheremetev gazed at the old man. In the last few days, Sheremetev had found his feelings for the ex-president veering from compassion to revulsion, often in seconds.
‘How did you get the watches, Vladimir Vladimirovich?’ he demanded suddenly.
Vladimir’s head turned towards him.
‘Who are you?’
‘Sheremetev. I’ve been looking after you for six years.’
Vladimir snorted. ‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘How did you get the watches?’
Vladimir smiled. ‘My mother gave me a watch when I was only ten, but I kept it and I looked after it, just like I promised her.’
‘What about the others?’
‘What others?’
‘The other watches.’
‘You only need one watch in life, if it’s a good one and if you look after it. That’s what my grandfather said.’
There was a knock on the door. The house attendant stood outside carrying a tray with two sandwiches and a plate of fruit salad, together with a bottle of water. Sheremetev took the tray from him and closed the door.
He looked at the sandwiches. One was smoked salmon and dill, the other ham and mustard.
‘Are you hungry, Vladimir Vladimirovich?’
Vladimir shook his head.
Sheremetev tucked a napkin under Vladimir’s chin, put the plate of sandwiches on a table next to his armchair, and brought over a chair to sit beside him. He picked up half of the ham sandwich and put it to Vladimir’s lips.
‘Come on, Vladimir Vladimirovich. This is good. Eat.’
Vladimir’s lips parted and mechanically he took a bite.
Sheremetev waited until Vladimir swallowed, then put the sandwich to Vladimir’s mouth again. He was conscious of feeling a kind of unreal detachment as he watched Vladimir eat – not empathy, but not antagonism, either. Almost a kind of numbness.
Again, he wondered, how could he stay in this place – but how could he leave? He had begun to think that he hated this man, and yet he couldn’t bear the thought of the confused, fearful look that Vladimir got in his eyes and the trauma he would inflict on him by leaving.
Vladimir ate only half a sandwich. Eventually, Sheremetev took the food to his room and finished the other pieces himself. Then he took the tray downstairs. The atmosphere in the house was tense. The guard in the hall watched him come down without a word. Three more security guards sat in the staff dining room having a conversation in low voices. They stopped as soon as Sheremetev came in.
‘How’s Artyusha?’ he asked.
The guards glanced at each other.
‘Alive,’ growled Lyosha, Artur’s shaven-headed deputy.
‘Is he going to be alright?’
Lyosha looked at Sheremetev suspiciously and then shrugged.
Sheremetev found Stepanin brooding in the staff sitting room, smoking and nervously tapping the ash of his cigarette into a saucer.
‘What’s going on, Vitya?’ asked Sheremetev.
‘You heard about Artyusha?’
Sheremetev nodded.
‘What fuckery!’ Stepanin drew deeply on his cigarette and the smoke billowed from his nose. ‘I got a note today from Barkovskaya saying she has suppliers for everything, and I should tell my guys to stay away. All of them! She’s gone mad, Kolya. Shooting Artyusha? What the fuck is that about?’
Sheremetev refrained from pointing out that it was Stepanin himself who had described this as a war and had remarked sanguinely that in a war, people get hurt.
‘Does she know who he is? Does she know what’s going to happen now? What a piece of fucking fucked-up fuckery! Fuckery with a cock on top! This is going to be bad, Kolya. I’m telling you, this is going to be bad.’
Stepanin took a final drag on his cigarette, then ground out the butt on the saucer, pushing down hard with a snarl on his face.
‘Vitya,’ said Sheremetev, ‘it’s enough, don’t you think?’
‘What’s enough?’ retorted the cook.
‘With Barkovskaya.’
‘Enough? It’s enough, alright! This is it, Kolya. She wants everything. The whole lot! What am I going to do? Walk away?’
‘Maybe you should.’ It occurred to Sheremetev that there was no alternative for Stepanin now, and at least if he walked away, no one would get killed.
‘Sure, and let her win, huh? Is that what you want? I’ve only got half of what I need, Kolya. What am I going to do? Open half a restaurant? Serve my diners half a dish?’
Sheremetev thought of the watches. In that one cabinet upstairs was enough to satisfy everyone. Enough to get Pasha out, enough for Stepanin to have his restaurant, and enough, surely, even for Barkovskaya.
‘What is it?’ growled Stepanin. ‘I’m not walking away, so don’t say that again. Have you got any other ideas?’
Sheremetev shook his head.
The cook poured himself a vodka and threw it down.
‘Vitya, what are you going to do?’
‘It’s me or her, Kolya. Isn’t that clear? It’s not my fault. I didn’t start this thing. Everything was fine until she arrived. This is it, Kolya! The finish, the finale, the end game.’
‘Vitya, don’t do anything rash.’
Stepanin laughed, almost choking on his hatred.
It seemed to Sheremetev that the cook was like a hog on a spit, roasting and blackening in his own caustic juices. Sadly, he remembered the jovial, garrulous cook of days gone by. He stayed for another couple of minutes, then got up, leaving Stepanin throwing down another drink.
Upstairs, Vladimir was sniffing suspiciously and muttering dark imprecations about the Chechen.
‘There’s no Chechen,’ said Sheremetev, trying to get him into his pyjamas. ‘There’s only me, Sheremetev.’
Vladimir looked probingly at the short, balding man who was standing in front of him with a pyjama top in his hands. Suddenly the Chechen’s head poked out from behind him – then it was gone.
‘Vladimir Vladimirovich, let’s get your shirt off.’
There! He saw it again for an instant before it disappeared, the huge slimy black slug of a tongue lolling from the mouth, the lips stretched in a teeth-baring grin.
Vladimir let Sheremetev unbutton his shirt, glancing surreptitiously around the room, trying to spot the Chechen while he was off his guard. He put one arm after the other through the sleeves.
‘Now the trousers.’
Again! There it was! Vladimir snapped into a judo pose and launched his attack. Tai Otoshi!
The blow swept Sheremetev off his feet and sent him sprawling on his back. ‘Vladimir Vladimirovich!’ he cried.
Vladimir looked down at him in confusion. What was that man doing on the floor? But he couldn’t afford to be distracted. He peered carefully around the room. The Chechen was so cunning and so quick. He’d do anything to get his death tongue onto his face.
Sheremetev hauled himself up and hurried off to get Vladimir’s tablets. If he got them into him quickly enough, he thought, he might be able to avoid using an injection. He caught sight of himself in a mirror – the laceration on his cheek, which had been healing well, was bleeding. He took a closer look. The scar had opened between a couple of the sutures when Vladimir had thrown him. Sheremetev pressed on the cut to staunch the blood, remembering what Dr Rospov had said about making sure the wound stayed closed to prevent it scarring. Eventually he went back and warily handed Vladimir a glass of water, then his pills, standing as far back from him as he could.
‘Take them please, Vladimir Vladimirovich. They’re good for you.’
Vladimir swallowed a couple.
‘Also the others . . . Good.’ After what he had just seen, Sheremetev had added an extra sedative.
He took Vladimir to the bathroom. Vladimir looked suspiciously around the room as he led him back to bed and helped him in. He left Vladimir staring up, as he always did, and prayed that the sedatives would soon kick in and
do their job.
Sheremetev didn’t go back downstairs that night. The atmosphere in the dacha was poisonous. He had a pain at the base of his spine, where he had landed after Vladimir’s judo attack, and his cheek was throbbing where the scar had been opened.
How much longer could he bear to stay here? In the last couple of weeks, the dacha, where he had thought he would stay until Vladimir died, had become like some kind of hell on earth. So why not leave? Perhaps not tonight, or tomorrow, but in a few days, so they had time to find a nurse to replace him. That wouldn’t be abandoning his patient. That’s all that Vladimir was to him. A patient, and he was just a nurse. Another nurse would be as good.
But Vladimir would never find the same familiarity with another nurse as he found with him. He had reached a stage in his disease when traces of recognition could never again be created – only forgotten. And even though he asked ten times a day who Sheremetev was, underneath it, that familiarity, that ease, was still there, as Vera had discerned. That was why he could resolve the look of fear and confusion in Vladimir’s eyes with a word, a touch, when no one else could. If he left, that look would never be dispelled.
What if Vladimir died? The thought came into his head. Families of some other patients who had reached this stage had even said that they thought it would be for the best, occasionally going so far as to ask for his help. What kind of life did Vladimir have? There was no dignity or quality in it. And if Vladimir died, he could leave.
It had to happen sooner or later. Maybe it would be best for everybody if it was sooner.
He drove the thought out of his head.
His mind drifted. He thought of the money under the mattress on which he was lying. Thirty-two and a half thousand dollars, including what he had got for the first watch and what he had got for the second two. He was glad now that he had sold them, even if the other watch by itself was enough. There would be something for Pasha when he got out, something he could take with him from Russia to start a new life.
What if he sold more watches? What if he swallowed his distaste for Vladimir and stayed on at the dacha for a while, after all, and built himself up a nice nest egg? Sell a watch each week, for example, on his day off. Not always to Rostkhenkovskaya. There must be others who would buy. Mix it up a bit so no one would be suspicious. After a few months, he would have a fortune.
Be like Goroviev. Gouge Vladimir back for all the gouging he had done.
He grimaced, disgusted at himself.
And yet the thought persisted. Why not? Maybe give some of the proceeds to Stepanin, so he could leave his hopeless feud with Barkovskaya before it killed him. Who would know? Who would ever miss those watches? Why leave them for others to have after Vladimir was dead, people who almost certainly already had so much wealth that the whole cabinet of watches would add barely a speck to the mountain of their riches?
The whole cabinet of watches . . .
Again, Sheremetev tried to put the idea forcibly out of his mind, dismayed at the way it kept coming back. First things first. Tomorrow, he had to get the three hundred thousand for Pasha. Right now, that was all he should be thinking about: how he would safely carry the watch, how he would get to the shop, how he would transport the money to Oleg.
He lay in bed, resting on the mattress with the money hidden underneath it, his back aching, his cheek throbbing, torn between disgust for himself and hope for Pasha, thinking about tomorrow.
15
THE NEXT MORNING DAWNED grey and drizzly. The atmosphere in the dacha was oppressive. In the staff dining room, the security guards ate their breakfast gloomily. Stepanin’s assistants came out of the kitchen to refill the kasha pot and went back in without uttering a word.
Just before ten o’clock, the drizzle petered out and the clouds parted for a time, allowing through rays of weak, watery sunshine. Sheremetev took Vladimir out for his walk. Goroviev passed by with a hoe in his hand. He stopped and asked how Vladimir was. Vladimir ignored him. The gardener walked with them for a few minutes, but Sheremetev had nothing to say to him, and eventually Goroviev went away.
At around the same time, in the staff wing of the dacha, Stepanin knocked on the door of Barkovskaya’s office. ‘Come in,’ called out Barkovskaya’s voice. The cook entered and closed the door behind him.
VLADIMIR’S LUNCH CAME UP at one o’clock: vegetarian stew with polenta cakes. Sheremetev fed Vladimir in his sitting room, then took the tray away and finished the leftovers himself, not wanting to go downstairs. Vera was due at three o’clock. A few minutes before she arrived, Sheremetev left Vladimir watching footage of himself on the television and went into the dressing room. He retrieved the Patek Philippe from the cabinet and slipped it into his pocket.
Eleyekov drove him into town, where a client had scheduled a pickup for three-thirty. Sheremetev had toyed with the idea of paying Eleyekov to drive him all the way to Moscow and wait for him while he settled his business at Rostkhenkovskaya’s shop, then take him to Oleg’s, thus avoiding the risk of carrying the watch and later the money on the metro. But it occurred to him that if an inventory of Vladimir’s watches actually existed, and if the ones he had taken were ever missed, the last thing he needed was for Vladimir’s driver to recall that he had taken Sheremetev to a watch shop in Moscow. Even getting him to wait out of sight, so he didn’t know exactly where Sheremetev was going, would have been a risk.
Once he had the money, Sheremetev thought, he would get a taxi. There were always taxis around Arbatskaya station.
‘Guess what’s for dinner tonight,’said Eleyekov, glancing at Sheremetev with a knowing smile on his face as they cruised down the drive of the dacha.
‘Fried air?’ suggested Sheremetev. Air was all Stepanin had left now if he persisted in refusing to cook anything that Barkovskaya’s suppliers were bringing.
Eleyekov laughed, pulling up in front of the security barrier at the gate. ‘Fried air! That’s good. No. Guess.’ The barrier rose as Eleyekov waited for Sheremetev to reply. ‘Chicken fricassee!’ he announced, glancing at Sheremetev to see what he would make of such momentous news.
‘Chicken fricassee?’
Eleyekov grinned and drove out of the gate. ‘Stepanin’s made it up with Barkovskaya.’
‘No!’
‘Yes! This morning. He finally bit the bullet and went and talked to her. It’s all okay, apparently. He’ll get something. Not as much as before – in fact, between you and me, reading between the lines, I think it’s quite a lot less – but still, something is better than nothing, right? If you can’t have the whole loaf, at least make sure you get a few crumbs from the table.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Barkovskaya’s won. That’s clear to him now. The fricassee is his surrender. She loves it, you know. Well, she’ll eat this one with double pleasure! She’s a tough one, Barkovskaya, there’s no doubt about that. But that’s what it takes to get ahead, right, Nikolai Ilyich?’
Sheremetev was amazed at what the driver had just told him. After what Stepanin had said yesterday, he would never have imagined that the cook would capitulate. But in reality, what else could he do? One person beaten up, two places firebombed, another person shot . . . What next? Burn down the dacha? It couldn’t go on. Barkovskaya held the trump card, that was what all of this had proved, and finally Stepanin himself had had to accept it.
‘If he had done it earlier,’ said Eleyekov, ‘he would have got more. I told him. Vitya, I said, talk to her.’
‘So did I.’
‘You know, at the start, it might really have only been her cousin with the chickens that she was trying to help. If he’d accepted that, she might not have gone any further. Still . . . Who knows? Maybe he was right to fight it. She’s so tough, maybe she would have given him even less if he had simply given up.’ The driver frowned, considering the conundrum. ‘Hard to say.’
‘And what about this business with Artur?’
‘Ah, that’s something else. If I was Barkovskaya .
. . I told you yesterday, I’d be shitting in my pants. But maybe she knows something we don’t know. Maybe she has protection. You know, Stepanin’s lucky it’s Artyusha in the hospital and not him.’
‘How is he?’
‘Artyusha?’ Eleyekov let out a long breath, shaking his head. He took his eyes off the road for a moment and glanced at Sheremetev. ‘Not good. They’re not sure if he’ll walk again. From what I understand, one of the bullets hit his spine. That’s not good, is it?’
‘They’re saying he might end up in a wheelchair?’
‘I think so.’
Sheremetev still didn’t know quite how to think about Artur. On the one hand, personally, he had always found him polite and thoughtful, by far the most amenable of the security contingent, and he couldn’t deny that he had taken a liking to him. On the other hand, he ran a protection racket that apparently had all of Odintsovo quaking in its boots, and although Sheremetev was no expert in the arts of intimidation and punishment, he knew enough to imagine that this must involve a fair helping of violence, as the breaking of the arms of Barkovskaya’s cousin demonstrated. Still, somehow, the idea of Artur being in a wheelchair for the rest of his life was appalling.
‘What are things coming to?’ murmured Sheremetev.
Eleyekov laughed. ‘That’s what each generation says as it gets older. Do you think things were better when we were young? They’ve always been shit. Shit piled on shit piled on shit. That’s Russia, Nikolai Ilyich. It was the same in the days of Ivan the Terrible and it was the same in the days of Stalin and it’s the same now. What do you expect? Every so often you get your head above the surface for a second and that’s when you realise it, there’s nothing around you but shit. After that – you’re in again.’
The Senility of Vladimir P Page 24