Death and the Penguin (4 page)

It was still snowing.

He put his typewriter on the kitchen table, and word by word, set about painting vital images of the future departed.

Slowly but surely the work advanced, every word as rock solid as the base of an Egyptian pyramid.

District Militiaman Fischbein-Stepanenko came to supper wearing jeans and a black sweater over a striped flannel shirt, carrying a bottle of cognac and a bag of frozen fish for the penguin.

Supper being still in the making, they together set about frying the former occupants of the bath. Misha, meanwhile, was in the bathroom, splashing about in fresh cold water. Viktor and Sergey could hear him above the sizzling of the fish in the frying pan, and exchanged smiles.

At last the meal was ready.

Host and guest downed a cognac before addressing themselves to the fish.

“Bony,” said Viktor, as if apologizing on the fishes’ behalf.

“Not to worry,” said the militiaman shaking his head. “Everything has its price … The bonier the fish, the better the flavour. I remember I once tried whale. That’s fish too, of course! No bones, but no flavour either …”

They helped the fish down with cognac, watching whirling snowflakes lit by the dim light of other people’s windows.
Their supper had a touch of New Year about it.

“Why do you live alone?” asked Sergey, in the new intimacy of having drunk to their friendship.

Viktor shrugged. “It’s the way it’s been. No luck with women. They’ve always been the otherworldly sort. Quiet. Mousy. Here today, gone tomorrow … Got me down. I took on Misha, and somehow things improved. Except that he’s always down in the dumps for some reason … Better perhaps to have got a dog … They’re more emotional: bark when they see you, lick you, wag their tails …”

“Think so?” Sergey waved dismissively. “Two walks a day … Stinking the flat out … Better off with a penguin. But you, what do you do?”

“I write.”

“For children?”

“Why
for children
?” asked Viktor in surprise. “No, for a newspaper.”

“Ah,” Sergey shook his head. “Don’t care for newspapers. They always upset you.”

“I don’t care for them either. – But where, if you don’t mind my asking, did the
Fischbein
come from?”

Sergey gave a deep sigh.

“From being bored and having an aunt in
Documents
. I thought one day I’d turn Jew, and get the hell out of it. So I just wrote, like Auntie said,
reporting loss of identity card
, and she made me out a new one in a new name. Seeing later how unenviably émigrés from here lived abroad, I thought I’d stay, and to get myself a weapon, went into the militia. It’s a safe job, basically: sorting out domestic brawls and every sort of bloody fool complaint. Not quite what I dreamt of, of course.”

“And what was that?”

At this point the door opened, and Misha the penguin appeared, dripping water. He stood for a moment, then, marching past the table to his bowl, looked quizzically at his master. The bowl was empty.

Viktor went to the freezer, and breaking three plaice from the frozen mass, cut them up and put them in the bowl.

Misha rested his head against the frozen fish.

“He’s thawing it!” cried Sergey, watching with interest. “He really is!”

Returning to his chair, Viktor watched, too.

“Well, that’s it,” said Sergey, reaching for his glass. “We all of us deserve better fish, but eat what we’ve got … So, here’s to friendship!”

Clinking glasses, they drank. And Viktor felt a sudden sense of relief. Past dissatisfaction with himself and others was wholly forgotten, and with it, his
obelisks
. It was as though he had never worked anywhere, but just lived, planning a novel which some day he would write. Looking at Sergey, he was moved to smile. Friendship. Something he had never had. Any more than a three-piece suit, or real passion. Life had been pale, sickly and joyless. Even Misha was down in the dumps, as if he, too, knew only a pallid life devoid of colours, emotions, delight, and joyous splashings of the soul.

“Look, let’s have another,” Sergey suggested suddenly, “then go for a walk, all three of us.”

It was late and quiet. All children were long since in bed, the street lamps were off, only the odd light and the occasional lighted window lit the newly fallen first snow.

They slowly made their way to the waste area where there
were three dovecotes, cheeks stung by the frosty air, snow crunching underfoot.

“Behold!” cried Sergey, striding towards a figure in a shabby overcoat recumbent in the snow beneath one of the dovecotes. “Your neighbour Polikarpov from Flat 30, who, if he’s not to freeze to death, must be lugged into the nearest block and parked against a radiator.”

Grasping him by his coat collar, they dragged the drunken Polikarpov through the snow to the nearest five-storey block, Misha waddling behind.

When they came out, they found Misha and a massive mongrel standing nose to nose, each, apparently, sniffing the other. Seeing them, the dog ran off.

The next morning Viktor was woken by the phone.

“Hello?” he answered in a husky, half-awake voice.

“Congratulations, Viktor Alekseyevich! You’re on your way! Didn’t wake you, did I?”

“Time I was up anyway,” said Viktor, recognizing the Chief’s voice. “What’s the trouble?”

“You’re in print! And how are you feeling, by the way?”

“Better already.”

“Call in, then. We’ll talk.”

Viktor washed, breakfasted, drank tea, looked in on Misha and found him standing asleep in his favourite hidey-hole behind the dark-green settee.

Returning to the kitchen he put a large piece of frozen cod in Misha’s bowl, dressed and went out.

Outside lay a fresh fall of snow. A blue-grey sky was pressing down almost to the rooftops of the five-storey blocks. There was no wind and it was not very cold.

Before boarding the bus, he had bought the latest
Capital News
, and having secured a comfortable seat, he opened it out and scanned the headlines, coming at last to a rectangle of text set high on the page and framed heavily in black.

So there it was, his first publication.

But he did not feel particularly happy, despite the long-forgotten sense of personal satisfaction that stirred deep down. He read through to the end. Every word in place, no sign of a cut.

His eye rested on the signature –
A Group of Friends
– more like a phrase than a pseudonym, the four words serving as an umbrella for any number. The funny thing was that this was exactly how he had typed it, both nouns with a capital. And even this the Editor had left, treating Viktor more like a respected writer than a journalist.

Lowering the paper, he looked out at the approaching city.

“Look, a little bird!” said a mother sitting in front of him with her child, and pointing. Glancing automatically in the direction indicated, he saw a sparrow fluttering inside the bus.

The Editor-in-Chief greeted Viktor cordially, as if he had not seen him for a year. Coffee, cognac and $100 in a long elegant envelope made their appearance. It was quite a celebration.

“Well,” said Igor Lvovich, raising his glass of cognac, “a start’s been made. Let’s hope our remaining
obelisks
don’t hang around for long either.”

“How did he die?” Viktor asked.

“Fell from a sixth-floor window – was cleaning it for some reason, apparently, though it wasn’t his. And at night.”

Clinking glasses, they drank.

“Do you know,” the Chief confided further, “I’ve had colleagues from other papers ringing. Green with envy, the parasites! I, they say, have invented a new kind of obituary!” He smiled smugly. “The credit’s all yours, of course. But you being
under wraps
, I take the compliments, and the kicks! OK?”

Viktor nodded, though he was secretly pained at being kept out of the limelight, fame still being fame, albeit journalistic. Something of which became apparent to the Chief from Viktor’s expression.

“Don’t take it to heart. Everyone will know your real name some day – if you want … But for the moment, best keep to the
Group of Friends
that no one knows. You’ll see why in a day or two. And incidentally, don’t forget: everything underlined in the files from Fyodor,
you’re to use
. I don’t cut your philosophizings, do I? Even though they have, quite frankly, damn all to do with the late lamented.”

Viktor nodded his agreement. He sipped his coffee, and was
reminded suddenly, by the bitterish flavour, of the hotel bar in Kharkov and the morning he had been woken by shooting.

“What
did
happen in Kharkov, Igor?” he asked.

Sighing, the Chief poured cognac and gave Viktor an inhibited, arrested sort of look.

he crooned softly:

“As a newspaper, we’ve had our losses. This one’s our seventh. Before long we’ll be unveiling a pantheon … Still, no skin off your nose! The less you know, the longer you live!” said the Chief. Then, in quite a different, somehow weary voice, and looking hard at him, he added “And it’s not your business any longer. Just that you know a bit more than others do … OK …”

Viktor regretted his curiosity. The whole ambience of their little tête à tête celebration had been lost.

The end of November saw the transition from deep autumn to deep winter. Children threw snowballs. An icy chill crept under coat collars. Cars drove slowly, as if frightened of each other, the roads being now much narrower. The cold diminished, shortened, shrivelled everything. The kerbside mounds of snow were the only things to grow, and these only by virtue of the hard work and broad shovels of the clearers of courtyards and pavements.

Having completed the second of Misha-non-penguin’s
obelisks
,
Viktor looked out of the window. Today had been a day when he had neither wanted nor needed to go out. To break the silence, he switched on the set-programme speaker standing on the fridge. The carefree hubbub of parliament (plus hiss) burst forth. He turned down the volume, put the kettle on for tea, and glanced at his watch: 5.30. A bit early to be finishing for the day.

He rang Misha-non-penguin.

“All ready,” he reported. “Come and collect.”

Misha came, but not alone. With him was a little girl with round inquisitive eyes.

“My daughter,” he said. “No one to leave her with … Tell Uncle Vik your name.” He stooped to unbutton her little coat of reddish fur.

“Sonya,” she said gazing up at him. “And I’m four. – Have you really got a penguin living here?”

“You see? And she’s hardly been here a minute …” He removed her coat and helped her off with her little boots.

They went through to the living room.

“Where is he?” she asked, looking round.

“I’ll go and see,” said Viktor, but first he fetched Misha-non-penguin the two new
obelisks
from the kitchen.

“Misha,” he called, looking behind the dark-green settee.

Misha, standing in his hidey-hole on a treble thickness of camel-hair blanket, was staring at the wall.

“All right?” Viktor asked, stooping down to him.

The penguin stood staring wide-eyed.

Viktor wondered if he was ill.

“What’s wrong with him?” asked Sonya, having crept to join them.

“Misha! We’ve got visitors!”

Sonya went over and stroked the penguin.

“Are you feeling bad?” she asked.

Misha jerked round and looked at her.

“Daddy!” she cried, “He moved!”

Leaving them together, Viktor retired to the living room. Misha-non-penguin, deep in an armchair, was getting to the end of the second obituary. From the look on his face he seemed pleased.

“Good stuff!” he said. “Touching. Absolute shits, that’s clear, but reading this, one feels sorry for them … Any tea going?”

They moved to the kitchen, and while waiting for the kettle, sat at the table talking of the weather and other trivial matters. Tea made and poured, Misha-non-penguin handed Viktor an envelope.

“Your honorarium,” he said. “And there’s another client coming. – Oh, and you remember the one you did for Sergey Chekalin?”

Viktor nodded.

“He’s recovered … I faxed him your effort. I think he liked it … Anyway, he was impressed!”

“Daddy, Daddy,” came the little girl’s voice, “he’s hungry!”

“So he can talk, can he?” grinned Misha-non-penguin.

Viktor took cod from the freezer and put it in the bowl.

“Sonya, tell him food’s on the table,” he called.

“Hear that?” They could faintly heard her telling him. “You’re to come to table.”

The penguin arrived first, trailed by Sonya. Following him to his bowl, she watched with interest as he ate.

“Why’s he on his own?” she asked suddenly, looking up.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Viktor. “Actually he isn’t. We live here together.”

“Like me and Daddy,” said Sonya.

“What a chatterbox!” sighed Misha-non-penguin, gulping tea and contemplating his daughter. “Come on, time to go home.”