Death and the Penguin (10 page)

Someone could be heard running, stamping down the snow as he came, and a man dressed in camouflage combat gear and holding an automatic pistol came over to them and halted, breathing hard.

“What’s up?” he panted.

“This,” said the caretaker, directing the beam of his torch at the body lying face down in the snow. “Local man. Out stealing. Trod on a mine.”

“Ah,” said Camouflage Suit, putting away his weapon. “Killed in furtherance of attempted burglary.”

A dog burst suddenly out of the darkness, darted, tail wagging, around the caretaker’s legs, went and sniffed the corpse, then, snatching up the arm in its jaws, raced away into the darkness.

“Druzhok! Stop, damn you!” shouted the caretaker, but as the echo played back his hoarseness, he fell silent.

“Do we report it?” asked Camouflage Suit.

“What the hell for?” asked Down Jacket with Beard. “We didn’t come to have our holiday messed up giving evidence!”

“So what do we do?” the caretaker asked of no one in particular.

“Cover him with snow, tramp it down, and leave him till after the holiday,” Camouflage Suit suggested, after a moment’s thought.

As his leg was jabbed suddenly from behind, Viktor started forward, thinking it to be Druzhok returned from burying tomorrow’s breakfast, but it was Misha.

Viktor squatted down in front of him. “How did you get here?” he asked. “I thought you were asleep.”

“Whatever have you got there?” Camouflage Suit asked coming over. “Not a penguin? Hell’s bells! So you have!”

“Ruddy marvel!” laughed the man in the tracksuit. “Ruddy marvel!”

In next to no time, all were crowded round Misha, the corpse in the snow forgotten.

“Is he tame?” asked Down Jacket with Beard.

“Not very,” said Viktor.

“What do you call him?” asked the caretaker.

“Misha.”

“Ah, Misha, little Misha,” coaxed the caretaker hoarsely. Then, turning to those assembled, said, “All right, off you go.
And if there’s a bottle in it, I’ll cover him over.”

“There will be,” Down Jacket with Beard promised. “Pop in first thing tomorrow.”

Viktor, Sergey and Misha followed the boundary footpath back.

“Are all the dachas here mined?” Viktor asked.

“Not all,” replied Sergey. “I’ve got a different, more humane sort of trap.”

“What sort?”

“Ship’s siren. Wake every village around, that would!”

The snow crunched under their feet. Cold stars pierced the clear, immeasurably deep sky. There was no moon and the night seemed the darker for it.

“Here we are then.” Sergey stopped at the steps and looked round at Viktor and the penguin who were following. “Ah, you’ve decorated the tree!” he said in surprise. “I missed that when I drove in. Well done!”

The veranda door creaked, after which silence fell once more over the dacha plots.

The room was warm. Ash glowed in the hearth. Sonya was sleeping and smiling.

Not feeling sleepy, Viktor and Sergey shut themselves in the kitchen again.

Next morning Sergey and Viktor devoted themselves to preparations for New Year. The first thing was to bring the ancient television down from its hiding place in the loft. They put it in
the warm living room, plugged it in and got it working. As good luck would have it, cartoons were showing, and Sonya settled herself in the armchair to watch.

From the cellar they brought up a three-litre jar of cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers, jointly pickled, two more bottles of cherry brandy and a couple of kilos of potatoes.

“What we have to do now,” said Sergey, rubbing his palms together with satisfaction, “is see to the meat and get wood for the bonfire.”

Time dragged, as if the year was no longer in a hurry to depart.

When the meat had been cut up and left to marinate, wood chopped and built into a nice little stack near the tree, and other minor tasks completed, it was still only midday by the clock.

It was sunny and frosty. Misha stood on the top step watching a tiny flock of bullfinches wandering over the snow.

“How about a glass?” Sergey suggested, and sitting down at the kitchen table, they poured themselves cherry brandy.

“To time – and may it fly,” proposed Sergey, clinking glasses with Viktor.

The toast did the trick, and time did go a little faster. After lunch all save the penguin lay down for a rest, and even Sonya made no objection to Sergey’s switching off the TV and declaring a quiet hour.

When they woke, it was dark and the clock said 5.30.

“That was a good sleep!” said Sergey, stepping outside and rubbing his somewhat puffy face with snow to freshen up, as a result of which it turned lobster-red.

Viktor, in similar need, did the same.

Sonya came out, looked on in amazement at the two grown-up uncles braving the cold, then retreated into the dacha.

Until nine she watched TV, while Sergey and Viktor played cards. Then they broke off and got the bonfire ready for the New Year kebabs.

“What,” asked Sonya, coming out for another look, “have a penguin and the telly got in common?”

Sergey and Viktor exchanged glances.

“Both sleep standing?” Viktor suggested.

“Both black and white,” she said, closing the veranda door behind her.

As the fire blazed, Sergey threaded the pieces of meat onto skewers. Viktor stood and watched.

“Do we eat them this year, or next?” he asked jokingly.

“Start them this year, and finish them next,” said Sergey. “We’ve got two kilos of meat!”

When all was prepared, they sat and watched the old favourite
Diamond Arm
on TV. Sonya dropped off before the end, and the friends decided not to wake her until New Year. They moved the kitchen table to the veranda, also the hotplate, and while it warmed the air, spread an old cloth and laid the table. They made a centre piece of the two bottles of champagne and a two-litre bottle of Pepsi, opened the tinned fish, and sliced the cheese and sausage, giving the table a genuinely festive look.

“And one for Misha,” declared Sergey, carrying in the low magazine table.

He put it beside their table, and fetched a large dish.

“Poor Misha,” he sighed. “Never known a hot meal, or strong drink. Perhaps we should pour him a glass, for the hell of it.”

Viktor objected vehemently.

“Sorry, I wasn’t serious. What’s the time?”

“Nearly eleven.”

“In Moscow they’ll be clinking glasses already. We can take our seats,” said Sergey. “Do we wake Sonya? Or limber up first?”

“Limber up first,” said Viktor fetching the already opened bottle of cherry brandy from the kitchen.

Limbering-up completed, Viktor woke Sonya, who at once asked for the TV to be switched on. The voice of the announcer, though unintelligible out on the veranda, seemed, in a strange way, to brighten the proceedings.

“Why hasn’t
he
got anything?” she asked, looking at Misha standing beside them.

Dipping into his shopping bag, Viktor brought out a bulging, brightly coloured paper carrier.

“This is his New Year present really,” he said, feeling inside, “but we’ll take it that it’s already New Year in the Antarctic!”

What then emerged was a trade pack, which had to be slit open with a knife, after which Viktor emptied the contents into a large dish on the occasional table.

For a moment all stood in silence, staring – as well they might – at a small octopus, a starfish, king prawns, a lobster and other denizens of the deep now in process of defrosting. Misha, coming to the table to see what his present was, seemed equally amazed.

“You’ve been extravagant!” said Sergey under his breath. “That’s more than I’ve ever eaten the like of!”

“Not me, her father – it’s from him,” whispered Viktor, turning to see if Sonya was listening.

She wasn’t. She was leaning forward, pointing at the starfish.

“That’s a star,” she told Misha, then, pointing to the lobster, “I don’t know what that is.”

They sat down at the table. The penguin started on the king
prawns without waiting for any special signal. As the television chimes rang out in the living room, Sergey seized a bottle, unwired the cork and gave the bottle a shake. The cork shot out with a pop, and champagne flowed into the cut-glass tumblers. Viktor poured Sonya’s Pepsi.

Coloured rockets crackled into the sky from other dacha plots and descended, bathing the winter scene now in green light, now in red. Mingled with the noise of rockets was the sound of actual shots.

“Tokarev semi-automatic,” Sergey observed knowledgeably.

The New Year had arrived. The bonfire blazed, lighting up tree and decorations. Rockets shot up from various points around. And in the glassed-in veranda celebrations proceeded apace, with Sergey and Viktor doing justice to the champagne, and Sonya – the Pepsi. Misha, temporarily forgotten, was still standing at his little table. Having finished the prawns, he was sizing up the small octopus.

Once the bonfire had burnt down, they transferred the embers to an iron brazier over which they laid the first three kebabs.

“But the presents – where are my presents?” asked Sonya, coming back to earth.

Viktor reached again into the shopping bag, and brought out two wrapped presents from Misha-non-penguin, and his own, unwrapped, Barbie doll.

“No, not like that!” said Sonya. “Put them all under the tree!”

Dutifully he carried them out.

“There was one for you, too!” she reminded him.

After laying her presents on the snow under the tree, he went back to the veranda. Feeling in the shopping bag for his own present, he was aghast at its shape and weight. Still holding it
in the bag, he stripped the coloured paper off, and came to cold metal. There was no doubt about it. Misha-non-penguin’s present was a gun. His hands trembled. Without giving it a look, he rewrapped it and zipped up the bag.

“Well, where is it?” shouted Sonya. “We’ve got to open them together!”

“Forgot it. Left it at home,” he shouted back.

Sonya gestured despairingly and gave him a look such as grown-ups reserve for offending children.

“Really! A great big man like you, and you forget!”

But Viktor had gone to join Sergey, who was squatting by the brazier turning the kebabs.

“Come on, show us your presents, Sonya,” Sergey called.

She crawled under the tree and sat on the snow. A tearing of paper followed. Viktor went over and bent down to look.

“What is it?” he asked, calmer now, doing his best to feign curiosity.

“A toy,” said Sonya.

“What sort? Show me.”

“A speaking clock. Like I’ve seen. Here, listen.”

“
0100 hours precisely
,” said a metallic female voice.

“And what this is, I’ve no idea,” she muttered, feeling the second present

Coming from under the tree, she held it out to Viktor.

“What is it?” she asked.

He took it from her. It was a very fat bundle of dollars, held together by elastic bands.

“What is it?” she repeated.

“Money,” Viktor said quietly, staring dumbfounded.

“Money?” asked Sergey, joining them.

Bending to look, he started back, thunderstruck.

“It’s all hundreds!” he whispered.

“Can I buy things now?” Sonya asked.

“You can,” said Viktor.

“A telly?”

“Yes.”

“A little house for Barbie?”

“That, too.”

“OK, give it to me,” she said, taking the bundle of dollars from Viktor. “I’ll put it in the dacha.”

She climbed the veranda steps.

Sergey gave Viktor quite a look.

“From her father,” Viktor said, answering his unspoken question.

Biting his bottom lip, Sergey went and squatted down by the brazier.

“Shame I never had a kind Daddy like that,” he whispered.

Viktor wasn’t listening. He had a new load on his mind. Presents from Misha-non-penguin entailed obligations, or so it seemed. He remembered his
you answer for her with your life
 … Rubbish, he thought. Some sort of New Year insanity. Why do I need a gun? Why does she need all that money?

Sergey touched him on the shoulder. “Listen,” he said, “I reckon you’ve been engaged as tutor … And she’ll be doing the paying!” He gave a smile. “Our kebabs are ready. We can continue to eat …”

Viktor welcomed the diversion. He went up the steps to the veranda. Sergey had already taken in the kebabs.

Viktor looked into the main room to call Sonya, but she was already asleep, one hand resting on the bundle of dollars.

Viktor went out as quietly as he could, shutting doors behind him. He took his place at the veranda table and looked round for the penguin. Misha was standing a little way off.

“Well, how about some vodka with our kebabs?” asked Sergey, opening the bottle.

“Good idea!” Viktor held out his empty glass.

After a kebab each and a fair amount of vodka, they retired to bed, overwhelmed with fatigue.

“0300 hours precisely
,” said the female speaking clock.

At getting on for 11.00 the next morning, Viktor was woken by a tapping at the window.

“Your neighbours are here,” called a hoarse but cheerful voice. “Happy New Year!”

Going to the window, Viktor saw two young men with girls standing there. The men’s faces seemed familiar. He had seen them by the body of the burglar blown up by the mine. Both looked the worse for wear, the girls – not their best.

The one with the beard banged on the window, holding up a bottle of champagne. “Hi! How about a look at the penguin?”

Viktor shook the sleeping Sergey.

“We’ve got visitors!”

“Visitors?” muttered Sergey, but in two minutes he was wide awake.

Soon all were sitting at the table on the veranda. There was plenty of food left and outside, on the extinguished brazier, were
the not yet grilled, now refrozen kebabs from the night before.

Having seen their fill of the penguin, the visitors ate, drank and told jokes. Viktor began to find these festivities wearisome and to look forward to their termination. It was not slow in coming. One of the girls suddenly started wailing drunkenly to the effect that she wanted to go to bed, and the visitors very soon left.