Read Death and the Penguin Online
Authors: Andrey Kurkov
The landing door led into a long dark corridor smelling of dog.
He listened at doors as he passed. From one came the shrill barking of a wretched dog. At one end of the long corridor there was a window, but the light from it penetrated scarcely half way to the lift exit.
At the dark end of the corridor, he stopped and listened again. Outside one door stood a child’s bicycle. Outside another, opposite, chained and padlocked to a pipe conveying water or gas to all floors, was a car tyre cover. He went and stood close to the door. Faint sounds were audible, a door creaked, a lavatory flushed.
His eyes having by now accustomed themselves to the semi-darkness, he took in the brown leatherette upholstery of the door and the black doorbell button. He had already wiped his
feet on the crumpled cloth in front of the door, but seized by a familiar, partly understandable fit of indecision, he stood wondering whether it was worth trying to discover the reason for Fat Man’s curiosity. What if he wouldn’t say?
He felt for the gun, still heavy on his thigh, and was reassured, having made certain it was still there.
We’re all entitled to satisfy our curiosity, he thought. And now it’s my turn.
He gave the black button a determined press, and four bars of
Moscow Nights
resulted.
Shuffling steps came to the door.
“Who’s there?” wheezed a man’s voice.
“A neighbour.”
The lock clicked, the door opened just a little, and a flabby man of about 50 in pyjama trousers and undershirt looked out.
For a moment Viktor stood staring into a round, unshaven face.
“What do you want?” the man asked.
Barging him aside, Viktor found himself in the corridor. He quickly took in the layout, ignoring the stupefied master of the house, and there, peering out of the open bathroom door, was Fat Man.
“Who do you want?” Pyjama Trousers managed to get out.
“Him!” said Viktor, pointing.
Pyjama Trousers followed his gaze.
“Kolya?” he asked, aghast.
Kolya, clearly startled, shrugged.
“Who are you?” he asked slowly.
Viktor shook his head, surprised.
“What a question to ask!” he said.
He motioned Fat Man in the direction of the kitchen.
Fat Man led, Viktor followed.
“What do you want?” Fat Man asked, standing with his back to the window.
“To find out why you need my photo and take such an interest in my life.”
Comprehension dawned on Fat Man’s face. Staring thoughtfully at his uninvited visitor, he reached slowly into an inner pocket of his white summer jacket, produced the photo, and looked at it and at Viktor.
Viktor was emboldened by his obvious dismay.
“I’m listening!” he said, a note of menace in his voice.
Fat Man said nothing.
Slowly unzipping his anorak, Viktor produced the automatic, and without actually threatening him, let him get the message.
Fat Man moistened his lips as if they were suddenly dry.
“I can’t tell you,” he said in a trembling voice.
At the sound of shuffling steps, Viktor swung round, and looking into another frightened face, raised the automatic.
“Get lost,” he said, and Pyjama Trousers retreated into the corridor.
“Well?” Viktor glared, his patience wearing thin.
“I was promised work …” began Fat Man. “This was my first assignment.”
“What sort of work?”
“With a newspaper … Sort of interviews …” His voice trembled. “I worked in a different section … This was better paid.”
Sort of interviews? Was that what
he
had been writing all these months? Was Fat Man his replacement?
That bleak conjecture had a numbing effect, and an old
suppressed fear reared its head, striving to take possession of his thoughts and feelings.
“What’s the photo for?” Viktor asked icily.
“It wasn’t essential. It was just that having learnt so much about you, I wanted to see your face.”
“My face … What’s my face got to do with you? When I wrote
sort of interviews
, faces were of no interest to me. Show me what you’ve written!”
Fat Man didn’t budge.
“I can’t. If they find out -”
“They won’t!”
Fat Man marched along the corridor to a bedroom where there was a desk in front of the window with a typewriter on it. To left and right of the machine were orderly piles of paper – indeed, the room itself was excessively tidy. But the air was oppressive and stuffy, as though breathed for months without ventilation.
Fat Man went over to the desk, closely followed by Viktor.
His hands were shaking. He turned and faced his visitor.
“Let’s have it!” urged Viktor.
With a heavy sigh Fat Man extracted a sheet from a green folder.
The brief but eventful life of Viktor Zolotaryov would suffice for a substantial trilogy, such as, it must be supposed, will in due course be written. Meanwhile, by way of a sad note to that future trilogy, it is his obituary that must be written.
Had he stuck to literature or journalism, he could safely have been described as an author
manqué
. But while clearly lacking purely literary talent, he possessed a manifest surplus of talent for the invention of subjects
and plots. He did not go the way of more senior authors manqués – into quiet politics and a peaceful doze sitting as a deputy. But revealing his real interest to be for politics, he discovered a rather unexpected application for his talents.
A great deal concerning his life remains at present a mystery. And that includes the exact moment of his association with State Security Group A. But following this association, Viktor Zolotaryov became obsessed with a need to cleanse society. And already it is possible to identify some results of his abruptly curtailed politico-literary activity: 118 killings or deaths under suspicious circumstances, of persons, all, to use a Western term, of VIP calibre – from State Deputies to Ministers and factory managers – all persons of not-unclouded antecedents, on whom Group A had opened files. The impossibility – by virtue of Deputy immunity or judicial corruptibility -of bringing these persons to book, was evidently what, in the final analysis, led Group A agents to employ Viktor Zolotaryov. His
obituaries of the still living
became, uniquely, indents for future death, each supplying
per se
ample cause.
His appointment – through the good offices of our late Assistant Arts Editor – to be a freelance correspondent of this paper, proved ideal cover.
Much remains to be discovered, but already it can be stated that he not only made future death a basis for social justice, but even determined the date and manner of death – sometimes an unduly cruel one. Ballistic examination of the Stechkin automatic with which he
shot himself, permits the supposition that he had personally taken part in at least one social cleansing operation, Deputy Yakornitsky having been killed with this weapon and hurled from a sixth storey.
The personal life of Viktor Zolotaryov was also more literary invention than real, the sole creature to which he showed genuine attachment being a penguin. So highly did he value his penguin, that on its falling seriously ill, he arranged for the transplant of a child’s heart, buying it, literally, from the parents of a boy fatally injured in a motor accident, regardless of the ethical and moral questions involved.
Another mystery is that of his link with bosses of the criminal world, among whom he was known as
The Penguin
. A striking feature is the frequency with which he attended the funerals of persons he had assisted in killing, completing as it were, an original cycle: from file of future departed, to participation, with friends and relatives, in the departed’s wake.
Now that the
social cleansing
operation he conceived and carried through has reached the public domain, there is hope that the full details will become known. A Committee of Deputies is already conducting an inquiry. The Head of Group A has been relieved of his duties, and while his name, like that of his successor, is kept secret, there are grounds for believing that nothing similar will recur, and that no organ of State Security will in future abrogate to itself the right to sit in judgement on anyone, criminals outside the law included.
Viktor Zolotaryov’s contribution to the literature of
our young country is nil, but his contribution to the political history of Ukraine may well become a subject of research not only by a Committee of Deputies, but by his fellow writers also. And who knows, a novel on that theme may enjoy a longer and more successful life than that of Viktor Zolotaryov.
He looked up at Fat Man, and Fat Man looked at him, awaiting his judgement.
Viktor deposited the sheet of paper on the table without a word, oppressed by a sudden heavy burden.
He remembered the Chief’s When you do know what’s
what
, it will mean there no longer is any real point to your work or to your continuing existence.
The weight in his right hand brought his thoughts back to the automatic, which he now knew to be a Stechkin.
Fat Man was watching closely, his round face gradually losing its look of fear, his lips moving as if framing thoughts.
“Well?” he ventured at last, faced with a softened, no longer aggressive Viktor.
Viktor looked wearily at him. “Well, what?”
“Well, what I’ve written …”
“Dry as dust … lousy opening … newspapery … here!” He held out the gun to the flabbergasted Fat Man. “Something to remember me by.”
Eyes riveted on Viktor, Fat Man held out both hands for it.
Viktor’s right hand was its unencumbered self again. Giving Fat Man the gun was like throwing off an illness. Turning silently on his heel, he walked out of the flat.
Viktor sat until midnight with hundreds of passengers in the waiting hall at the Central Station, listening to muffled and unintelligible arrival and departure announcements.
He sat in his anorak, and froze.
He no longer felt afraid. It was not that he was resigned or had given up. After the shock of reading his own obelisk, the noise of the busy station resuscitated him. All right, his end was imminent and obvious: the same people who had created him in the image of a future notable, had already determined what that end should be – suicide – and when it should be. Having no idea who they were, he should have been in mortal fear of anyone sitting or passing near. But there was no point. Fear was for those who still had a chance of staying alive. Sitting there at the station, he could see no such chance, though he would have liked to prolong his life, if only by a day or two.
At the same time he felt hurt that his own
obelisk
should be the product of so obviously untalented a hand.
He, he thought, would have made a better job of it, but immediately rejected the idea as crass and obscene.
And why no mention of Nina and Sonya? Why just Misha? Someone must have known him better than he knew himself. It was obvious, too, that those who had compiled the file were better informed than he. They had even known, as he had not, the source of the donor heart.
The train arriving at Track 9 is the train from Lvov for Moscow
, declared an indistinct tinny voice, and the women sitting around
him sprang up, shouldering heavy sacks and lifting enormous shopping bags.
He felt ill at ease. Firstly, because he was in their way, and secondly, because when they had gone, the whole row would be empty. He got up too, and made for the station exit.
It was about one when he arrived back at the flat. He shut the door quietly behind him and took off his shoes.
Nina and Sonya were asleep.
Without turning on the light, he sat down at the kitchen table, and looked out at the windows of the block opposite. Only one was lit, on the first floor, over the entrance, which was, he thought, where the caretaker woman lived.
In a far corner of the window ledge he noticed a mayonnaise pot with a candle. It stirred a memory. Fetching matches from the stove, he put the pot on the table and lit the candle.
The nervy flame cast trembling shadows on the kitchen walls. For a while he gazed, fascinated, then, taking pen and paper, wrote:
Dear Nina,
In a bag on top of the wardrobe is Sonya’s money.
Look after her. Got to go away for a bit. Back when the dust settles …
The last sentence wrote itself, and he was about to underline it, but stopped and simply read it over several times. It had a soothing ring.
All the best, – Viktor.
he added, pushed the note from him, and sat for a long while contemplating the candle flame.
The dark-green urn with lid still stood on the window ledge, its surface reflecting the gentle glow of the candle.
Style
was a word beloved of bearded Lyosha. Maybe he, Viktor, should invent a style of his own. Do something new before suicide. Go where he had never been before and where no one would think of looking for him!
The candle lit a sad smile.
Quietly he went through to the bedroom and opened the wardrobe. From the pocket of his winter jacket he took his own bundle of dollars earned in conjunction with Misha. He went back to the kitchen and had another look out of the window. It would be cold, out there in the dark. Going again to the bedroom, he came back with a sweater, which he put on under his anorak. And shoving the weighty bundle of dollars into his pocket, he left the flat.
For $10 the taxi driver drove him to the door of
Casino Johnny
where his way was barred by a massive, dark-suited guard. Something about his mighty frame and aggressive manner moved Viktor to laughter. Flashing his bundle of notes and peeling one off, heedless of denomination, he stuck it in the guard’s breast pocket. The guard stepped aside.
A girl cashier in a snow-white blouse with a pale-blue scarf around her neck dozed behind her window. For a night-spot it was too quiet. He looked around, puzzled, having imagined something very different.
He tapped on the glass. The girl woke, and looked in surprise at his anorak.