Penguin Lost (5 page)

“What use am I to you? You’re a Deputy, the world’s yours–.”

“I’m not a Deputy, but I’m standing for election. But when I am a Deputy, your shell will be the sounder. You’re a free man. It’s only a temporary job I’m offering. You’re a dab hand at writing obituaries, it seems. My lot are practically illiterate. You, with your imagination and your dodgy life, are just the man I now need to write me speeches and a manifesto. You’re closer to the voters, know what they want – not that there’s any need for that, though it looks good. Once I’m in, off you go: Moscow, New York, Santiago de Chile, wherever.”

“What if you don’t get in?”

“Wrong question! My opponent, known as Boxer, is damned nearly bald and looks the bruiser he is. Not an attractive proposition. Oh, by the way, by morning – two hours from now – the boys expect to have word of your penguin. So you go and get your head down. You clever ones need more sleep than the rest of us, and live longer, so they say.”

It was almost midday when Viktor woke, undressed and snug under his warm woollen rug, to the caress of the sun on his face. Swinging his feet to the floor, he sent a cut-glass tumbler rolling, and there, thoughtfully placed on the floor beside the divan, was a bottle of beer and a natty wooden-handled opener. As he drank, wishing there was more than one bottle, he suddenly remembered the promise of news of Misha by morning, a morning already well advanced.

He dressed and made his way downstairs, encountering not a sound, not a soul. Further inspection of the kitchen fridge yielded sausage and butter, which he washed down with beer – as good for clearing the head as coffee for the French – from a crate in the corner.

Two cars drove into the courtyard, and a thoughtful, worried-looking Andrey Pavlovich poked his head around the door.

“Come down to the basement when you’ve finished.”

*

In the basement there was a large billiard table, and a bar with three tall, single-legged stools. A door behind the bar looked as if it might lead to a sauna.

Andrey Pavlovich, potting balls aimlessly, lost in thought, looked up and smiled.

“Any news of Misha?”

“He’s not here in Kiev. But we’ve found your Lyosha. He might be able to tell you something. He’s got a café, the Afghan, in Tatar Street. Nice spot.”

“Can I go and see him?” Viktor asked doubtfully.

“Of course. You’re not a prisoner, you’re on the payroll.”

“You’re not afraid I’ll run?”

“You’re not a fool. Besides, I’ll have your two passports in my safe, safe from pickpockets. Terrible place, Kiev, for pickpockets! Mobiles, purses – they pinch the lot … Oh, and I wouldn’t advertise to your old friends that you’re back.”

Viktor handed over his passports.

“Quick learner!” smiled Andrey Pavlovich. “This is now home – your
shell
, which you nip back into at the first whiff of danger.”

Though the worse for lack of sleep, he kept going, cheered by the dazzling late-afternoon sun. He bussed to Kurenevsky Rise, then proceeded on foot to Nagornaya Street. No-one was about, just the odd car careering at speed, heedless of the Emmentaler-cheese-like surface.

Café Afghan was on the ground floor of some research institute, with a concrete ramp with a rail instead of steps. The double doors were open. Inside, a surprisingly low bar and no-one serving. The tables were more like occasional tables, but not a chair anywhere. Behind the bar, a Siemens coffee machine, bottles, and glasses large and small hanging on hooks.

Viktor tapped with a coin.

“Just a mo’.”

He thought he recognized the voice.

Doors behind the bar creaked open, and out, still bearded and with what little remained of him in camouflage battledress, came Lyosha in a wheelchair.

“Well I’m damned! Viktor! Fit?”

“And you?”

“Not jogging much, but come through to the back, get yourself a visitor’s chair.”

Taking one of the three collapsible wheelchairs, he wheeled himself to a table.

Lyosha joined him with coffee and sugar on a tray.

“Well,” he said, sugaring his coffee and stirring, “win some, lose some.”

“You’re into philosophy.”

“Not much else left.”

“What happened?”

“A bit like bomb-disposal – one mistake, and if you survive, you never forget it. The mistake we made was not to check the coffin. Not content with killing one of ours, they somehow managed to get a bomb into his coffin. Killed my boss and his number one, and I got this. No legs, no money. Friends rallied round, and as you see, I’ve not been idle. I now actually run the place.”

It belonged, he explained, to the Society of Internationalist Servicemen, and was therefore tax exempt. Not that anyone ever checked. Next door was a hostel for Afghan War veterans. They’d thought of organizing a veterans’ sports club, but hadn’t got round to it, though there were enough of them in wheelchairs to form a good one.

“What about Misha?” Viktor asked at last.

Lyosha scratched an ear.

“Yes, that was bad about him. The boss had been in a hole long before the last funeral Misha appeared at. $300,000-worth of smuggled booze was the start of it. Someone shopped us, the booze got seized, and no buying it back. Twice after that the same thing happened, putting the boss a million in debt to a chap in Moscow who runs petrol pumps here. So it was to him Misha went along with the
other assets, and not a bloody thing
I
could do.”

“And this Moscow chap?”

“He’s back there. Lost his pumps to some People’s Deputy. Got booted out.”

“What’s his name?”

“Really want to know?”

“I do.”

Lyosha shook his head.

“Ilya Kovalyov, a.k.a. Sphinx. Bank in Moscow. Commercial Gas. If you know what that means.”

“Money.”

“Your own intelligence, your own army’s what it means. Buy whoever you like, and do for anyone you don’t … You know you’ve been
sought
, as they say.”

“I do.”

“Yet you still go about openly?”

“I’m trying to find Misha.”

“That I call real love!”

As two men in camouflage battledress wheeled themselves in, Lyosha stiffened.

“Hi!” said one, pausing at their table and looking hard at Viktor. “Rung Potapych?”

“Here within the hour.”

“So let’s have some coffee.”

“Come over to the bar,” Lyosha said quietly, and there slipped Viktor a scrap of paper with his phone number. “Ring or look in.”

Viktor folded and replaced his chair, gave a farewell nod, and left, watched by the two wheelchairers, one with one leg, the other with none.

That evening Andrey Pavlovich sat down with Viktor in the lounge and ordered a bottle of red Burgundy and cheese to be brought, which augured well for a first working session with his candidate. His intuition told him that, by and large, Andrey Pavlovich was a good man, and if nothing else, a man of his word, allowing him the freedom of Kiev. As to his passports, he’d soon have one back for his trip to Moscow. Thanks to Andrey Pavlovich, he’d found Lyosha and learnt where to continue his search. There was much on the credit side. The tart red wine and firm tart cheese created an atmosphere of welcome and trust.

“Tomorrow,” Andrey Pavlovich began, “image makers arrive from Moscow. You’re to listen in. Anything you don’t care for, tell me.”

“Will do.”

“Having worked on a paper, you know about politics.”

“Not to the extent of writing articles.”

Dismissive wave of the hand.

“What you wrote
was
politics,
politics in action
. What I need to get the hang of is the politics of promises … Get it? Promises are what a political career starts with. So come on, what do I promise?”

“Who to?”

“The people, my electorate.”

Viktor thought back to what little he’d skimmed of manifestos.

“Money for the poor, food for the starving, comforts and lower taxes for the well-fed.”

“Not so fast,” Andrey Pavlovich broke in, calling for pen and paper which were duly brought.

“ ‘Money for the poor’, he repeated as he wrote. “ ‘The starving need food … The well-fed …’ But how do we know who is and who isn’t?”

“ ‘Well-fed’ is figurative,” said Viktor quickly. “ ‘The rich’ is another way of putting it.”

“Hang on. That smacks of simplification. ‘Well-fed’ and ‘rich’ aren’t quite the same. The rich, when not dieting, tend to be well-fed. Against which, the well-fed aren’t always rich. So where does that leave us?”

“With more well-fed than rich!”

“Making them the more important to us, since the few rich vote for themselves.”

“And don’t need to be promised anything,” said Viktor, relieved to find him so receptive and beginning to enjoy himself. “Once elected, you never stop promising – you can’t.”

“Well, we’ll see, though I get the point. Now let’s recap. First, what to promise the poor. Nobody shells out money in the streets – any fool can see that.”

“But they do, before an election, to secure votes. At least 10 hryvnas a head.”

Andrey Pavlovich looked surprised.

“Bribery. Promises, a manifesto, that’s what I need!”

“Promises re economy: new jobs, new factories, preferential credits for up-and-coming entrepreneurs …”

“That’s the stuff!” exclaimed Andrey Pavlovich, pushing pen and paper towards him. “So that by this time tomorrow we’ve a manifesto for discussion and maybe to put to these chaps from Moscow. God knows what image makers do! Do you? They charge the bloody earth.”

“Change your hairstyle, buy you ties, write your speeches …”

“Ah! Still, let’s not overtax our brains. We’ll play billiards – live like Tolstoy, spot of ploughing, then back to the novel!”

Trees, courtyard, city noise were lost next morning in a swirling milkiness of mist. Autumn had come, giving not a damn for the inconvenience it caused.

Standing at his attic window, Viktor took pleasure in the apparent absence of life. Sonya would be looking out at the very same mist, and he’d not rung her as promised.

An opened tin of olives in the kitchen and sausage from the fridge, provided a good breakfast. The house was silent, but in the hall he encountered Pasha, Master of Sport (Biathlon) and number one to Andrey Pavlovich.

“Is there a phone somewhere?” he asked, and Pasha with a lordly gesture pointed him to one.

A minute’s worth of ringing tones, then Sonya’s voice, and a happy “Uncle Vik!” as she recognized his.

“I think I’ve found Misha.”

“Where?”

“He’s gone to Moscow.”

“What for?” She sounded both surprised and sad.

“To be in a zoo.”

“Be what?”

“A penguin.”

“How can he?”

“Why not?”

“I can’t be a Sonya if I’m Sonya already!”

“In a zoo it’s different, penguins are there to be penguins, elephants to be elephants.”

Sonya capitulated, and they arranged to meet in an hour’s time at the bus stop near her block.

By midday the fog had thinned, letting the wan autumn sun through. Hydropark had an air of summer inertia about it, as if this, the most southerly beachy islet, were several degrees warmer than anywhere else. For how else to account for the greater frequency of ice-cream kiosks per kilometre and the logicality of starting out with a chocolate candied fruit ice.

“You look older,” observed Sonya, tackling her ice-cream.

“So do you.”

“So what?” she smiled. “But so does Auntie Nina.”

“How so?”

“She’s forever grumbling and quarelling with Uncle Kolya.”

“What about?”

“Not always coming home. Odessa’s where he’s from, and where he keeps going, promising to bring back mussels and forgetting.”

“And what does he promise Auntie Nina?”

“Not to keep going, but he does.”

“So Auntie Nina’s fed up.”

“She is. She’s put his bag outside the door.”

“So it’s a merry old time you’re having.”

“We are not. She promised to send me to kindergarten, and to find me a nanny.”

“But she hasn’t?”

“No.”

“I’ll have a word with her.”

“Best kick her out.”

“Why?”

“She was supposed to take me for walks – that’s what you got her for when Daddy went away and left me with you – but she hasn’t for
ages. Come on, let’s hire a boat.”

They went as far as Paton Bridge, with Viktor rowing and Sonya, ice-cream consumed, fingers duly licked, seated in the stern telling of her daily life, and inspiring a new feeling of guilt. For Sonya he was sorry, with Nina, angry. Not for the advent of Kolya from Odessa, but because Sonya, young as she was, had not forgotten what Nina was there for, and Nina had. So what next? Kick Nina and Kolya out, start afresh, just him and Sonya? Couldn’t be done – not at the moment. Sonya would be better left poorly looked after than completely alone. The flat was his. He had the initiative.

“You tell her what’s what!” Sonya said sudddenly. “Make her stand in the corner. And give Uncle Kolya the boot. She won’t. She’s afraid of him.”

“Though she puts his bag outside the door?”

“Last time she took it back in when he started shouting.”

“So he shouts.”

“And smacks her bottom and makes her cry.”

Viktor stopped rowing, resting his oars on the water.

“Are they ever nasty to you?”

“They don’t bother me, except when they wake me up quarrelling … Or forget to leave any food.”

“I’ll speak to them,” said Viktor gravely.

And Sonya smiled, reassured.

When Andrey Pavlovich returned at midnight, Viktor was ready with a 6-page manifesto. Compiling it, he had worked off his anger and irritation over Nina and her Kolya, and rereading it, was surprised
to find that it convinced even him.

Clearly depressed, Andrey Pavlovich took the pages with no great enthusiasm, but very quickly became engrossed.

“Nice bit of work!” he declared eventually, looking more relaxed. “Tomorrow morning the image makers arrive, and we start work in earnest. So no sloping off!”

Viktor nodded.

“Bit off colour today, are we?” he asked with sudden concern.