Igor placed the five plastic containers on the glass tabletop.
‘Three hundred hryvnas,’ said the photographer. ‘German paper.’
‘It’s a deal,’ Igor nodded.
When he got home Igor went into his bedroom, moved the reading lamp to his bedside table and looked through the photographs with a magnifying glass. They sent shivers running down his spine – the people, the buildings, even the trees in the photographs seemed so familiar. Magnified by the lens, Iosip looked exactly like Stepan, but it wasn’t just him – Red Valya reminded him of an ex-girlfriend of Kolyan’s called Alla, and also of the salesgirl in the kiosk at Irpen bus station where he always ordered an instant coffee.
‘I must be tired,’ Igor said to himself with a yawn. He stuffed the photographs back into the cardboard envelope and switched off the lamp. As he did so he remembered Vanya’s request to bring him a couple of burnt-out light bulbs for darning socks, and his lips parted in a smile.
19
THE FOLLOWING MORNING Stepan came to the house and asked Elena Andreevna to adjust the knot in his tie. When Igor came out of his room into the hallway, he found the two of them occupied by this very task.
Igor thought Stepan looked extremely strange. His tanned, weather-beaten face contrasted starkly with the new grey suit, and the expression on the gardener’s face implied that he was all too aware of this – Stepan’s eyes were full of uncertainty, and his thin lips were frozen halfway between a smile and its opposite.
After spending several minutes trying to align the knot in the tie with the top button of Stepan’s shirt, Elena Andreevna gave a heavy sigh and lowered her hands.
‘This knot isn’t right,’ she said, shaking her head.
Stepan’s expression grew even more strained. He glanced in irritation and dismay at Igor, who was watching them both attentively.
‘Could you possibly tie it again for me?’ he asked eventually. ‘Seems I’ve forgotten how to . . . It’s not every year I wear a tie.’
Elena Andreevna hesitantly loosened the tie, undid the knot and turned up the collar on Stepan’s shirt. She paused for a moment, then her hands began to weave a new knot. She seemed to be observing them objectively, marvelling that they still remembered how to tie a man’s tie.
‘There you go. That’s better!’ Igor’s mother took a step back.
Stepan broke into a relieved smile and suddenly came to life. He rushed into the bathroom to look in the mirror, then out again.
‘Are you off on a date?’ asked Igor, with a hint of derision.
‘No,’ replied Stepan, looking intently at his landlady’s son. ‘I’m going for a walk.’
Without waiting for Igor to respond, the gardener went straight to the front door and disappeared outside.
Igor shrugged. He hitched up his tracksuit bottoms and went into the kitchen, where his mother was sterilising glass jars in a large pan on the stove. The air was hot and steamy, almost tropical. A bag of sugar sat in the left-hand pan of the scales on the windowsill, and Igor almost bumped into a basket of small tomatoes awaiting their fate.
‘Did you want some breakfast?’ asked his mother, turning round.
‘No, I’m fine,’ said Igor, retreating into the hallway.
The sun had migrated from the capital to the suburbs and hung in the very centre of the sky, almost directly over the bus station. Glancing up at the blue sky, Igor smiled. So what if it was raining in Kiev? Irpen was enjoying a golden, sun-drenched autumn!
Igor had originally planned to go to the local clinic and speak to a genito-urinary specialist about Red Valya’s diagnosis, but he changed his mind before he even got there. Someone’s bound to see me and report back to Mother, and then I’ll never hear the end of it! he thought. At that moment, as luck would have it, he spotted a pharmacy. Igor waited outside while an old woman in a quilted jacket pushed her prescription through the little window at the counter; as soon as she left, he dived inside. The elderly female pharmacist smiled expectantly at him.
‘A friend of mine has been given this diagnosis,’ said Igor. ‘I’m not even sure what medicine she needs. She’s too embarrassed to come herself.’
The woman in the white coat took the piece of paper from him. She put her glasses on and peered at the writing on it.
‘I can see why,’ she said, looking up at Igor. ‘She’d be better off going to the clinic and getting it treated properly. Or is she too embarrassed to do that as well?’
Igor panicked.
‘No, she can’t go to the clinic . . . She’s worried she’ll lose her job.’
The pharmacist browsed the array of medicines in the cabinet behind her.
‘Well, if you’re able to personally supervise the dosage,’ she said, ‘then –’
‘I will,’ promised Igor, who wanted to escape from this medicinal cornucopia as soon as possible. He was terrified that someone else would come in and overhear their conversation.
‘Don’t you need treating yourself, young man? It’s not the sort of disease to be taken lightly.’
‘No, definitely not,’ Igor answered hurriedly, with a glance at the door. ‘We’re just friends!’
The pharmacist nodded, then sat down and began writing something on a piece of paper. Igor’s nerves were stretched to their limit. Just then the door opened and a young woman came in. Her cheeks were unnaturally flushed, and her eyes were watering.
The woman in the white coat finally finished writing. ‘Here,’ she said, passing the piece of paper to Igor. ‘I’ve written down the instructions for each medicine – there are thirteen altogether. So, that’ll be eight hundred hryvnas.’
Igor was flabbergasted. He automatically felt his pockets. He knew he only had about a hundred hryvnas on him.
‘I’ll have to come back in half an hour,’ he said, glancing at the woman behind him, who was holding her hand over her mouth and coughing discreetly. ‘I didn’t realise it would be quite so much. Can you put them aside for me?’
‘It’s the antibiotics that cost the most. I’m afraid they’re the only option these days.’ The pharmacist spread her hands sympathetically. ‘So, are you going to take them?’
‘Yes, definitely,’ Igor assured her, backing away from the counter. ‘I just need to get the money.’
Igor had planned to spend the afternoon ‘loafing around the house’, as his mother sometimes put it, but things didn’t turn out that way. No sooner had he picked up the TV guide to plan his viewing schedule for the rest of the day than Kolyan called.
‘I hope you’re at home,’ he exclaimed cheerfully.
‘Er, yes.’
‘Well, I’m in a minibus taxi on my way to your place. I’ve got meat and vodka! Although, come to think of it, you were supposed to provide the drinks . . .’
‘Meat and vodka?’ repeated Igor, sounding somewhat less enthusiastic than his friend.
‘Aren’t you pleased?’
‘Of course I am!’ declared Igor, managing to sound genuinely enthusiastic.
‘Well, you’d better get the skewers, the matches and the glasses ready!’
In less than five minutes Igor had reconciled himself to the change of plan and was looking forward to the barbecue. He checked once more that it wasn’t going to rain, then selected two large shot glasses from the kitchen cupboard and took a couple of onions from the basket under the table, in case they needed them. Two plates, for the sake of propriety, and a couple of forks. By the time he’d finished getting everything together, he’d managed to fill two carrier bags.
‘You take after your mother all right!’ remarked Kolyan, when he saw his friend standing there armed with the bulging carrier bags, ready for the afternoon.
They decided to base themselves in a small birch grove about three hundred metres from the nearest house. It had the added bonus of an abundant supply of firewood. Igor spread a square of oilcloth and laid out the plates, then started preparing the fire.
Meanwhile, Kolyan wandered about s
inging to himself. As chief benefactor, having provided the meat for the shashlik, he was fully entitled to do so. Suddenly he cried out. Squatting down in the undergrowth, he turned and called out to Igor.
‘Hey, bring me a knife and a carrier bag!’
Kolyan cut two sizeable orange-cap boletus mushrooms and put them into the carrier bag. From that point on his energies were entirely devoted to mushroom hunting and he no longer paid any attention to his friend, who was busy assembling a small grill for the shashlik over the roaring fire.
Neither of them bothered to keep an eye on the time. It was irrelevant, anyway. They had the whole afternoon ahead of them and it was going to revolve around quality leisure time, in which shashlik and vodka would play a critical role. The only limits on such occasions are the energy and stamina of the participants. As the birch firewood turned to coals, Kolyan returned to the fire with his bag full of mushrooms and opened the bottle of Nemirov vodka. Given the success of his spontaneous foraging Kolyan decided on the first toast.
‘To the mushroom harvest!’ he declared, raising his glass in a jubilant mood.
Kolyan didn’t even chase his first shot of vodka, simply sniffing a piece of bread instead. He did, however, start eyeing up the plastic bucket of marinated meat that he’d brought with him. Reaching for the skewers, he set about skilfully threading pieces of pork onto them.
‘You know what, it takes me an hour’s trek by metro and minibus taxi to get to the nearest forest . . . but you’ve got it all right on your doorstep. I ought to buy a dacha round here.’
‘Business is booming then, I take it,’ remarked Igor.
Kolyan smiled. ‘It’s only a matter of time. A good hacker will always be in demand – everyone needs information!’
Igor thought about it. ‘I don’t,’ he said, smiling back at his friend.
‘Yeah, but what do you matter? You’ve got no ambition. By Soviet standards you’re a parasite and a sponger. I bet you’d love to be a landlord! Letting something out and living off the money you earn, without having to actually do anything . . . Trouble is, you’d need something to let out in the first place, which you don’t have. If you want to buy an apartment or an office, you need to be making five to ten thousand dollars a month, or more. That’s why people need information!’
‘Well, if you happen to come across any information worth ten thousand dollars a month, do me a favour and send it my way!’ retorted Igor, not at all offended at being called a parasite and a sponger. ‘The thing is, I’m just not a natural businessman. I see myself as more of a treasure hunter – always have done, really, ever since I was little.’
‘Well, I’m happy to drink to you finding your next treasure trove!’ Kolyan burst out laughing and filled their glasses. ‘So, what are we drinking to? A pot of gold, or a chest full of diamonds?’
‘A suitcase full of diamonds and guns.’
They clinked glasses and downed their shots. Kolyan placed the skewers of meat over the glowing birch coals. Igor felt a sudden and overwhelming urge to bring up the subject of his trips to Ochakov again, but two shots of vodka were not enough to loosen his tongue. Particularly since all previous attempts to tell Kolyan about Ochakov had been crushed by the scathing sarcasm of his response.
The shashlik was cooked to perfection, so much so that they soon ran out of vodka to wash it down with. The empty bottle lay near the campfire, dampening their mood.
Igor volunteered to rescue the situation. ‘I’ll go back for more,’ he declared, swallowing the piece of meat he’d been chewing.
‘Needs must,’ said Kolyan with a nod. ‘Your country will thank you for it!’
The journey home took about ten minutes. Igor went straight to the kitchen and took a bottle of brandy from the cupboard. The door creaked behind him.
‘Are you back, then?’ asked his mother.
‘No, we’ve just run out of supplies. You used to have a bottle of homebrew in here somewhere, didn’t you?’
‘In there, under the sink.’
Putting the brandy back in the cupboard, Igor bent down and opened the little wooden door. He took out a two-litre jar of home-made vodka and looked around in search of a smaller container.
‘You could pour some into a smaller jar,’ suggested his mother, pointing at a bag that contained her spare preserving jars.
‘We’re not tramps!’ Igor shook his head. ‘We used to have some empty beer bottles, didn’t we?’
‘I took them out to the shed.’
Igor went outside and glanced into the shed. Stepan wasn’t there. He took an empty bottle and went back into the kitchen, where he filled it with vodka and sealed it with a wine cork. As he was doing so he had an idea for a stunt he could pull on Kolyan, which might finally convince his friend that he really had been to Ochakov in 1957. He went through to his bedroom and put the old police cap on his head, then fastened the belt around his waist and inserted the gun into the holster. He went back into the kitchen, grabbed the beer bottle from the table and left the house.
It was already getting dark outside. At the gate Igor bumped into Stepan, who stopped and stared at him in surprise, glancing ironically at the cap, belt and holster.
‘You look like you’re enjoying yourself,’ he said, then smiled and went into the yard. The gardener’s voice floated back to him. ‘Just make sure you don’t get too attached to that uniform, or you might find you won’t be able to live without it!’
The white trunks of the birch trees created the illusion of prolonged twilight. At the point where their little grove merged with the coniferous forest, night had fallen and darkness reigned.
Kolyan was staring into the campfire. ‘Oh!’ he exclaimed when he saw Igor. ‘Is it a retro picnic now?’
‘Yeah, something like that.’ Igor sat down next to the square of oilcloth that was serving as a table. He held the beer bottle out to his friend. ‘I’m afraid we’re going to have to switch to home-made vodka, though.’
‘Did you make it yourself?’
‘No, my mother gets it from the next-door neighbour.’
‘Your neighbour wouldn’t poison you!’ Kolyan took the bottle, removed the cork and inhaled. ‘Oh! It smells of the earth! The art of the people! A celebration of the unbreakable spirit of the nation!’ He brought the bottle to his nose once more.
As everybody knows, it’s impossible to drink home-made vodka without food to chase it. Fortunately Kolyan never did things by half and had brought no less than a kilo and a half of meat. They’d already eaten three skewers each, and six more skewers of meat were still cooking over the mellow embers of the fire.
As he knocked back the first shot from the beer bottle, Igor felt his appetite return. The shashlik meat was not as tender as before, but it still tasted delicious. Kolyan devoured another skewer too.
‘Oh, I still owe you a hundred dollars,’ exclaimed Igor, suddenly remembering. ‘Come back to mine later and I can give it to you then.’
Kolyan waved his hand dismissively. ‘Some things are worth more than a hundred dollars,’ he said, nodding at the bottle. He picked it up and refilled their glasses.
The homebrew ran out after about twenty minutes. Igor and Kolyan kept eating until they’d finished the meat, more out of a sense of duty than because they were actually enjoying it.
Igor casually took the gun out of the holster and started looking at it.
‘What’s that you’ve got there?’ Kolyan leaned towards his friend.
‘Oh, just something I found in a treasure chest,’ replied Igor, with a drunken smirk.
‘Is it real?’
‘Yes, and there’s a uniform to go with it.’
‘Let me see.’
Igor gave the gun to Kolyan. He could still feel the cold metal grip in his warm hand.
‘Put the empty bottles on that tree stump over there,’ said Kolyan.
Igor placed both bottles on a birch stump about five metres away from where they were sitting. Kolyan took aim. He pulled
the trigger, but no shot was fired. Surprised, he took aim and pulled the trigger again. Another empty click.
‘Isn’t it loaded?’ asked Kolyan, looking at Igor.
‘Yes, it is,’ said Igor. ‘I checked.’
‘I’ve got an idea,’ said Kolyan. ‘Why don’t you let me have it? You never gave me a present for my birthday!’
‘You said the best present people could give you was to come dressed in “retro” fancy dress. Anyway, why do you want a gun that doesn’t shoot?’
‘It might come in handy. You and I know it doesn’t shoot, but other people don’t know that. It could still save my life.’
‘As if anyone’s bothered about your life,’ smiled Igor, taking the gun back from his friend. ‘Do you want to scare all the drunks with it?’
Kolyan waved his hand dismissively and seemed to forget all about the gun.
‘Right! Let’s head back,’ he said, struggling to stand up. ‘What time’s the last minibus?’
‘You might as well stay over at my place,’ said Igor. ‘You’re in no fit state to travel.’
‘What are you saying?’ Kolyan cried indignantly. ‘It’s impossible to get drunk if you’re eating as well as drinking – and we had plenty of food!’
Apparently true to his word, Kolyan managed to pull himself together. He helped Igor pack up and even remembered the carrier bag full of mushrooms that he’d gathered at the start of the afternoon. Stumbling and swaying, they left the forest and shuffled along the road – past houses lit only from within, past windows that stood out like egg yolks, beyond which the inhabitants of Irpen were getting ready for bed.
They stopped at Igor’s gate. Kolyan flatly refused to stay the night. Igor had neither the strength nor the desire to walk his friend to the minibus stop, but Kolyan didn’t ask him to.
‘I know where it is,’ he said, and set off in the direction of the bus station.
20
THE PHOTOGRAPHER CALLED at around 11 a.m. the following morning. Igor thought he sounded almost too friendly.
The Gardener from Ochakov Page 15