Penguin Lost (2 page)

It would be good to be immortal. And to die young, cut off from physical time as if under a bell jar, yet seeing the trees on Shevchenko Boulevard, dogs cocking their legs, girls growing into women, while remaining the person one was. Foolish thoughts. But easier, pleasanter than wise ones.

Where was Misha now? At the Clinic? Resting between funerals? Baykov Cemetery would be the place to look – when the Mercedes turned up in force.

The grim icy waste that was home to Misha commanded respect – he’d not forgotten the searing cold to his cheeks. That was a country in its own right, giving not a damn what flags conqueror scientists sought to raise, secure in the knowledge that its native populace, its penguins, would remain free and unbowed come what might. The unprotected, paper frontiers of their “conquests” were the vanity and vainglory of the geography schoolbook for the patriotic edification of the children of a few countries bent on appearing bigger, colder, more inaccessible and of greater consequence than they actually were. Something else they vaunted were the penguins rounded up and brought back to their zoos to create the illusion of a quainter, more accessible Antarctica.
Roll up, this enclosure’s Antarctica. Breakfast at eight. Lunch at one. Muck out at four
.

As he tucked the paper into his bag, the sun broke through the louring sky, and just as unexpectedly retired again for a while. It was still summer, though autumn was on its way. As he was on his – though to where had yet to be decided. Home to his flat and a bath was where he felt like going. His next priority being to find Misha, and make up for doing him out of his flight to Antarctica – a debt only he, Viktor, could, and would, repay.

From the window of his bus, streets and pavements were again lit by the sun. The elderly man in jeans and white football shirt seated
next to him was immersed in an
Emigrate-to-Canada
brochure in the form of a quiz. A Higher Technical education earned you three points, an Intermediate – two points, Higher Arts – one point, and so on under each heading. A total of 15 or over put you in with a chance, so why not apply?

Assessing himself at eight points, Viktor sighed with relief. Maple Leaf Land was not for him. A paucity of chance offered more scope than a surfeit. From the bus stop to his block was about 30 metres, and the way led past a kindergarten, a school and a tiny square.

In no hurry, he stopped to watch a group of two- and three-year-olds playing trains, circling the sandpit on invisible rails, hands on the shoulders of the one in front, waddling like so many penguins.

He fell to thinking of Sonya and her father, Misha-non-penguin. Odd, Misha’s outliving his non-real equivalent, as hopefully was the case.

With greater assurance and a spring in his step he walked on to the entrance to his block, newly-operative autopilot disorientatingly disengaged. Looking up at his windows, he felt heavily oppressed.

Mashka, the neighbours’ cat, came flying down the stairs, and by the time he reached his own floor he was himself again. His metal door looked as impregnable as ever, except that beneath the existing keyhole another had been cut, leaving Viktor to finger his own now inoperative key uneasily, and to take in the new rubber doormat embossed with the English word welcome. Below, a door banged, footsteps followed, and he froze. A jingling of keys one floor down, the opening and shutting of a door, then silence.

Cautiously he made his way down to the entrance, and looked out, still in the grip of nameless past anxieties. Opposite, beyond the courtyard clotheslines, was the newly painted green door of the block where Old Tonya lived, one floor up. Mother of his friend Tolik,
Old Tonya sold milk in the yard, as she had all her life, her
Milk-o, milk-o!
from six in the morning on serving to prepare him for his mother’s
Up you get!
an hour and a half later.

Striding across the yard, he went up to her flat. “Why, it’s little Vik!” she exclaimed happily, opening the door. “Thought you’d gone away. Come in.” Neat in appearance, she took good care of herself, and though probably at least 60, had nothing of the old granny about her. Selling milk kept you young, did wonders for the complexion. “Like some broth?” she asked. “I bought a chicken, but broth was all it was good for.”

As they made for the kitchen, he glanced into the sitting room and saw on the sideboard a portrait of the eternally young Tolik, her son. Tolik had fallen to his death from a tree. In those days there had been any number of fine old trees to build houses in, then look down on the petty world of adults building Communism. It was plain, even then, that what each was in fact building was his own private version of it, secretly competing to be the one with the most smoked salmon and Soviet champagne in his fridge at home. Another age entirely!

The broth recalled something of the distant past, too – the good homely childhood that had been his, with chicken legs of tooth-defeating toughness, and great yellow lakes of broth patterned with globules of chicken fat.

“There’s a bit of cold rice,” Old Tonya said, “Like some?” He nodded, and two spoonfuls of fried rice went plunging to the bottom of his broth.

“Where do you live now?” she asked.

“Over there.”

“So you’re renting the flat out. I thought you’d sold it.”

“A friend’s niece and a little girl are there.”

“Such a nice husband she’s got – tall, militiaman or a soldier, from the look of him.”

“Really? I didn’t know about the husband.” He looked anxiously across to his flat. “Could I, I wonder, use your phone?”

“On the fridge.”

He dialled his number, and Sonya’s clear voice answered. “Uncle Kolya?”

“No, Viktor.”

A slight pause, then,
“Uncle Vik! Where are you?”

“Kiev.”

“Is Misha with you?”

“No, but he’s somewhere here in Kiev.”

“Lost?”

“Yes, but I’ll find him.”

“You must, and bring him home. Auntie Nina’s got a cat and it scratches. Misha never scratched.”

“No,” said Viktor sadly. “Is Auntie Nina there?”

“She’s gone to the shops. Are you coming here?”

“Not just yet. And probably when Auntie Nina and Uncle Kolya aren’t there. He lives with you, does he, this uncle?”

“Yes, and he’s nice. Bought me roller skates. He’s just gone away for a couple of days. He’s going to bring me some mussels.”

“So he’s gone to the sea. What does he do?”

“Some sort of watchman – something special … But here’s Auntie Nina. Like to talk to her?”

“I’ll ring later,” he said, replacing the receiver.

“Spend the night here, if over there’s not on,” Old Tonya said matter-of-factly, now standing by the stove.

“Thanks, Tonya, but if I may I’ll just leave my bag, and collect it tomorrow.”

“Of course.”

Viktor walked along Kreshchatik Street feeling a need to unwind. Before leaving Old Tonya’s he had retrieved from his bag the fruits of beginner’s luck at the casino before his forced flight to Antarctica, and now the rattle of chips in his pockets revived a sense of reckless excitement. Still, more important than the chips, and safe in an inner pocket with his letter to his wife, was Bronikovsky’s Visa credit card. Whether there were children he’d forgotten to ask, but would find out when he took the letter to Moscow and told what he had to tell. And there’d be tears …

First, though, he must find Misha, seek his forgiveness, do his best to put things right. Maybe there’d be another chance to fly him to the cold far south.

“Wanna play our sure-win lottery?” a boy of twelve in jeans, check shirt under thrown-over jacket demanded cheekily, pointing to a dubious band of players at a collapsible table.

“No thanks, I never lose.”

“Wanna show us?”

“Why should I?” he asked, remembering that his luck at roulette had owed everything to fatalistic abandonment and nothing to skill.

Half an hour in a café, then on to Podol, where, to his disappointment, the Bacchus wine bar had now become a flashy window display of expensive clothes. Crossing to the other side of Konstantinov Street, he chanced on a tiny beer cellar which, to his delight, was selling Moldavian Cabernet by the glass!

And with time arrested, an ever-changing sea of flushed faces -Kievites drinking themselves silly – and substituting winey warmth for his modest experience of Antarctic cold, he again heard Sonya
asking after Misha, complaining of being scratched by a cat.

“These seats free, mate?”

He nodded. The two men now sitting drinking and talking beside him, might as well have been on the other side of a wall.

A third glass being beyond his means, he returned to a street now lit by shop windows. A short walk, and he’d be at the Dnieper embankment. Fresh air by the river would inspire new life.

For the next hour or so he made his way slowly along the embankment to Metro Bridge, heedless of the speeding traffic, concerned only with the fact of being home again. That he was ousted from his own flat, he accepted. No longer a home, that was a new world and probably one he had no right to intervene in. Except for now feeling closer to Sonya, with whom he had in common the fact of belonging to nobody any more. Faced with a need to vanish every bit as presssing as Viktor was to experience later, Sonya’s father, Misha-non-penguin, had left her in his care.
Back when the dust settles
, he’d promised, but those bent on killing him had got to him first.

From Metro Bridge, Viktor went by metro to Left Bank, then, on foot, to
Casino Johnny
.

Different faces, but same hotel foyer, same heavy velvet curtain, same booth for encashing chips, and a guard to be slipped a couple. Placing his bets at the nearest table, Viktor watched three drunken youths do the same. The tiny ball danced the wheel under the indolent gaze of a young croupier. Everything about him proclaimed the night to be young! Another three hours and the real fun would start!

Watched just as indolently by Viktor, the little ball stopped on ten, losing him his stake. Staking more chips, he lost again. The effect was sobering. The three youths fared no better, but took it calmly, as if that was what they had come for. But why was
he
here? Because last time, staring death in the face but playing to forget it, he’d discovered he couldn’t lose?

He played a few more times but without success, as did one of the young men until ten chips were shovelled his way, while Viktor’s got shovelled off to the enrichment of others.

Enough, he decided, dipping into his pocket for more chips, and stepping back from the table, watched the others for a while. A waitress served the palliative of complimentary champagne, and this he drank before going to cash his remaining chips.

“You’ve had luck,” observed the cashier, as Viktor produced two handfuls of chips.

“10%’s yours.”

The cashier counted. “You’ve $800 worth here.”

“$800 then,” said Viktor, knowing he was being done, but not prepared to argue.

In fact, as he discovered, checking in the toilet, he’d been given $760, but wasn’t worried. Exchanging toy for real, he’d been bound to gain.

The one depressing thing was that his run of luck at the table was clearly at an end. This second casino visit was to be his last.

That here was a man with nearly $800 in his pocket was plain to see even in the night lighting of Kreshchatik Street by the look on his face, and the way he strode ahead, dodging no-one, making them dodge him. Twice some young girl over-scantily clad even for a mild summer night called to him as he passed. A little later, by Café Grotto, a third with a boyish haircut and massive shades parked on her forehead, challenged, “Not so fast – you could be missing something!”

Surprised, he stopped. She was petite enough to miss.

“Have you somewhere?” he asked.

The sunglasses dropped into position, leaving only a smile.

“Yep. Let’s go.”

“How much?”

Deftly she plucked the protruding wad of dollars from his pocket, folded it, and slipped it back. “This’ll do, but put it away. Why show off?”

“I’m just careless. What’s your name?”

“Svetlana.”

“I’m Viktor.”

“Come on.”

Past Friendship Cinema they went, then up Lutheran Street, making as for Pechersk.

“What do you do?” she asked, not greatly concerned.

“Polar explorer,” he heard himself say.

“So, labour camp?

“No, in the Antarctic.”

“On an ice-floe?”

“Sort of. We had a dacha-like set up. Penguin protection was my thing.”

She laughed.

“Pull the other one.”

“No,
really.”

“Well, Mr Explorer, here we are.”

Gates of a kindergarten – sand pits, swings, main building, shrouded in darkness, and the prospect of sex
alfresco
a bit of a turn-off.

“Not to worry – I’ve a magic key,” she said brightly, opening a side door and motioning him into an unnerving silence.

“It’s all right. There’s no-one here.”

Then up to the first floor, where their soles squeaked on parquet. She opened a door, and in the dim light that penetrated from the street, he saw rows of child-sized beds made-down army fashion. The plumped-up, carefully aligned triangular pillows took him back to the Pioneer camps of his Soviet childhood.

“Don’t just stand there,” Svetlana said, pulling beds together. “Help create us a bit of comfort.”

Five little beds pulled together made a normal double.

“So, out of your togs, Mr Explorer!”

“Is it still a kindergarten?”

“From 8.00 a.m. till 6.00 p.m., yes,” she said, naked but for panties.

“And for the rest of the time?”

“Oh, for God’s sake! What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said, throwing off his clothes and getting down beside her.

“It’s not a brothel, you know – mornings and afternoons I actually work here.”

“Doing what?”

“What do you think!” she asked, kissing the finger tracing her lips. “I get the kids learning songs, play mazurkas, polkas on the piano, and they dance. Makes me wish I was them!”