Penguin Lost (18 page)

“So you’ve been there.”

His nod earned him greater deference.

“So it’s feet first?”

“Other way round. You use the legs to shove.”

“How about a bit of heat now?”

“Not till dark, because of the smoke.”

When darkness fell, Vasya proved a quick learner.

“And when’s Fat Friday?”

“We’ll ask Aza,” said Viktor, having lost count.

Fat Friday fell two days later, producing a half-litre tin of pork to augment their vermicelli soup.

“We had this when we were stationed at Mozdok,” Vasya said in surprise, examining the tin.

After breakfast Viktor retired to bed, only to be woken at midday by the noise and vibration of two Sukhoy fighter bombers passing low overhead.

Outside he found Aza taking his ease on a felled tree trunk.

“Has Khachayev said anything about me?”

“Should he have?”

“He’s letting me go. He’s given his word.”

“If he’s given his word, he will let you go.”

“Where were Seva’s ashes put?”

“Drum in the corner.”

“Perhaps they should be sent to his home. Have we an address?”

“We have, but no postal service. Not unless you fix something with the Feds and pay for it.”

“I could, I suppose, or I could take them and post them from Kiev.”

“I’ll give you his address. His are on top in the drum. No-one’s been added since him.”

“I need a bigger bag,” Viktor said, thinking of having to carry Misha.

“I’ll give you some canvas. You can make one.”

Returning to his room, he got out a Marlboro carrier bag from under his bed, folded it neatly and put it in his jacket pocket. Vasya was asleep, and to judge from the movement of his lips and the half-smile on his face, dreaming pleasant dreams.

He made his way to the shed and the well-filled drum of unclaimed ashes, got his carrier bag ready and fetched a spade. He half-filled the bag, and thinking that wasn’t quite enough, dug into the ashes again, this time striking something solid. He shovelled this spadeful into the bag, then plunged his arm in and fished out Seva’s gold brick, weighing a good seven kilos, if not more.

He left the shed with the carrier bag in one hand and the gold brick in the other. Outside, he put the carrier down on the snow and wiping some of the ash from the brick, saw that it had precious and semi-precious stones embedded in it. He pushed the brick down into the ashes, and carried the bag in his arms for fear the handles would break.

Another Fat Friday came and went, and Viktor lost his appetite. He and Vasya had worked well together, harmoniously even, and Vasya had come on well, doing and saying nothing to irritate him. His response to Viktor was that of raw recruit to hardened old soldier. He did exactly what he was told, and Viktor made a good superior. As Vasya had put it early on, after life in his Mozdok unit and freezing and starving in the Chechen pit, here, offshore, with the nightly sauna of the shed, was a holiday. Only from time to time, the excessive dryness of the heat produced an unpleasant taste in the mouth forcing them out into the chilly night for a quiet chat with, whenever the Chechen
sky cleared itself of cloud, a pause for silent contemplation. The stars of this winter sky were of the same magnitude as those of southern Ukraine or northern Archangel. They were common to all those stars, though Chechens refused to concede as much, despite having sun and moon in common with Russians and Ukrainians.

Feds came and went with their corpses. Chechens put in a rarer appearance. Vasya’s pockets bulged with small dollar bills and rouble notes, at night a source of anxiety with the thieving of army life still fresh in his memory. Of his own anxieties and growing sense of grievance concerning Khachayev and his promise, Viktor said nothing.

Then, stoking of passage stove completed and with Monday inclining to an early sunset, Viktor was about to join Vasya, who was sitting outside smoking, when the familiar jeep turned up, Aslan driving, Khachayev in the back.

Dismissing Vasya to the furnace shed, Khachayev, in Viktor’s room, sat on Vasya’s bed and producing a half-litre bottle of cognac, lit the bedside candle.

“Any glasses?”

Viktor brought Pooh Bear mugs.

“Pity no penguins,” said Khachayev, pouring for them both. “Now listen. You go first solo, together’s not on. From Taganrog you make your own way, and I’ll call within a fortnight.”

“You’ve got my number?”

“And Andrey Pavlovich’s. So drink up!”

He poured Viktor another.

“Good luck!”

Viktor felt suddenly he couldn’t care less. Thoughts, wishes ceased to exist. The future became a haze. Another minute and his past would vanish, he would no longer remember who he was, where he was from or his place of birth. There were now two candle
flames where there had been one. The bed rocked beneath him like a raft or yacht in heavy seas. He rolled forward, then back, banged his back against the wall, then his head in a way that made the wound in his temple throb.

“Put him in the jeep,” Khachayev ordered Aza and Aslan who came running to his call. “And don’t forget his things. Probably under his bed.”

“It’s heavy,” said Aza, dragging Viktor’s home-made bag out.

“Open it.”

Putting it on the bed, Aza undid the three greatcoat buttons fastening it, and was about to rummage inside, when Khachayev passed him the Pooh Bear mug.

“Stick that in and do the bag up. We don’t poke about in other people’s things.”

Aza put the bag on the floor behind the driver, Khachayev got in beside Aslan, and the jeep drove off, retracing its furrows in the snow.

*

Three hours later the jeep stopped and switched off its headlights. Three helicopters flew over towards the mountains, Khachayev followed the sound, leaning back against the jeep, grim-faced. A little later, a minivan displaying a red cross on a green background drew up, two Russians in battle fatigues got out, exchanged greetings, then transferred Viktor and his canvas bag to their minivan.

“Three boxes of Spanish disposable syringes and some super antibiotic three days from now,” said one of the Russians. “Bring them?”

“Yes,” said Khachayev, “but first get this chap away, safe, sound, and with his gear intact exactly as I’ve promised.”

The Russian nodded.

Shortly after, the vehicles went their separate ways, each retracing its own tread marks in the snow. Overhead, the clouds parted and a steely wedge of moonlight shone forth.

For the sake of physical and psychological wellbeing, some frontiers are best crossed in the state of unconsciousness that was Viktor’s entering and leaving Chechnya. But the ticket clerk at Taganrog station took one look at him, and shook her head, sorely tempted to inform this young man that two weeks ago a nephew of hers had died of a drugs overdose in Nikolayev.

Having more than an hour to kill, he spotted a beer kiosk, and beside it, an inebriated old man selling dried fish.

Totting up his roubles, Viktor decided he could indulge himself. Still unsteady on his feet, he bought a bottle of Baltika and a dried fish. The beer went down easily, the fish less so. A second bottle left him inclined to stay on here by the beer kiosk, until an idle glance at the clock betrayed that he had ten minutes to catch his train.

“Hi, don’t forget your bag!” cried the dried fish man, and Viktor, slowed by the weight of it, only just made the train in time.

Kiev was freezing. The sixteen-hour journey largely spent sleeping, had banished the effects of whatever drug he had been given. Squatting,
he felt in his bag, encountered cold metal, and had a good look. The gold brick lay at the bottom, no longer wrapped, with, he had been amazed to find, the Pooh Bear mug. That the brick should have survived road block checks and got through customs at the Russo-Ukrainian border, beggared belief. It was all there: credit card, both passports, and a wad of the small-value dollar bills regarded with suspicion in Kiev and usually rejected.

Washing his hands in the station toilet and seeing himself in the mirror, hairy, head in filthy bandage, he marvelled that he’d not been pulled in by the Taganrog militia.

He washed his face, and had another look in the mirror. He must get home quick before he did get pulled in. But what was this? Three medals pinned to the breast of his jacket! Someone’s idea of a joke. On the point of removing them, he thought better of it, shoved his hands into his pockets and in one of them found a card – a creased and grubby army pass in the name of Kovalyov, Sergey Fyodorovich, Sergeant. The photo could, at a pinch, have been him.

Leaving the toilet he came face to face with a military patrol, an officer and two cadets. One cadet, on the point of saluting Viktor and seeing that his officer wasn’t, desisted. Not everyone in camouflage battledress was a genuine veteran.

The patrol went its way.

“Drive you cheap,” offered a freelance driver outside the station.

“$10?”

“Fine.”

He was about to take Viktor’s bag, but Viktor forestalled him.

“God!” exclaimed Nina aghast, opening the door as Viktor stood on the welcome mat searching vainly for his keys. “Come in.”

Underfoot, a cat mewed.

Sitting on the floor, he removed his boots, and unwound his discoloured puttees.

“Where ever have you been?”

Lashes black with mascara, not a hair out of place, she wore a blue sarafan and fur slippers, and looked a good ten years older.

“Taganrog. Where’s Sonya?”

“At her friend Tanya’s on the second floor … Not a happy family,” she added, with a note of maternal concern that was new to him. “The brother’s on the militia register of offenders, the father who’s a car park watchman, drinks … But what have you done to your head? Banged against something?”

“Someone banged it for me. Is there a bandage anywhere?”

“Yes.” She hurried out to the kitchen.

Viktor ran a bath, deliberately not looking in the mirror. The long-forgotten sound of running water was wonderful.

“Nina!” he called, addressing the little window above the bath, “How about some tea? And is there anything for lunch?”

“Soon will be,” came her gentle, compliant voice.

Stripping off his clothes, he at last stood in front of the mirror contemplating his long unwashed body and filthy bandage. He was about to take that off too when he spotted the disposable razor, brush and soap, and decided to shave.

Once in the bath, he felt like immersing himself completely, but didn’t because of the bandage. These last few hours, curiously, his wound had pained him not at all.

From the kitchen came other long-forgotten domestic sounds: table-laying, the clink of a saucepan.

The kitchen door squeaked open as Nina came into the corridor.

“Don’t touch that!” he called, hearing a clink of metal from his bag.

“Don’t worry, just moving it under the coat pegs.”

Now someone was knocking at the outer door when they could have rung.

“Auntie Nina! Tanya’s bitten my finger! I want something on it!” came Sonya’s voice. “And whose bag is that?”

“Daddy’s. He’s back.”

The bathroom door opened, as he’d forgotten it could be from the outside, and there, open mouthed, in red knitted leggings and green sweater, she was.

“So they did let you go! Hi! Where’s Misha?”

“Coming.”

“Did they hurt you?”

He nodded.

“Like me!” She held up her right index finger, brown with iodine. “We were playing doctors. I was seeing to her teeth.”

“Come and help me,” called Nina, “let Daddy have his bath.”

“I’ll do his back!”

“Next time,” said Viktor. Sonya shrugged and left the bathroom.

*

They ate in silence. Sergey’s urn, he was quick to notice, was where it belonged, on the window ledge by the gas stove, and the effect of it was calming. Even so, as he munched sausage and fried potatoes, his eyes returned to it, as they did not to Nina, now dressed, with make-up renewed.

Sitting between them, Sonya looked curiously from one to the other, but kept her peace.

After lunch Nina removed the bandage, swabbed the wound with
hydrogen peroxide, dressed it, and seeing how it pained him, said he must go to a doctor.

“What day of the week is it?”

“Tuesday.”

The half-hour drive in snow to Theophania cost him 20 hryvnas.

Entering the gates of the Hospital for Scientists he made his way to the Veterinary Clinic. An attractive girl in glasses and a sheepskin jacket was walking an emaciated Alsatian having trouble with its back legs.

“Come on, Caesar!” she was coaxing.

Following the well-trodden path to the entrance, he went up to the first floor and knocked at the veterinary surgeon’s door.

Just as at Viktor’s last visit some months earlier, white-coated Ilya Semyonovich was seated at his desk.

“You’ve been before – with a penguin. Where’s he now?”

“Some way off at the moment.”

“So?”

Viktor raised a hand to his bandage.

“Could you examine me?”

“It’s a long time since I switched from humans to animals.”

“You’re the only medical man I know.”

“Sit on the couch.”

Removing the bandage and putting on his glasses, he bent low over the wound.

“How long have you had this?”

“Several weeks.”

From a glass-fronted cabinet Ilya Semyonovich took tweezers, cotton wool and disinfectant.

“Be brave, this’ll hurt,” he warned, dipping the tweezers in disinfectant and probing the wound.

Viktor clenched his teeth, closed his eyes, his whole body racked with pain.

“Got it! Lie back for a bit.”

As he lay staring at the ceiling, the agony abated, leaving him with an intense burning sensation in his right temple.

“Well, Mr Emergency Service, think you’ll live?” Ilya Semyonovich laughed. “You get up and see what I found.”

It was a piece of bottle glass the size of a two-kopek piece.

“There’ll be a scar, of course. It was deep, near the bone. Come and see me in a couple of days.”