Death and the Penguin (21 page)

Nina and Sonya had gone for a walk somewhere, and taking
advantage of their absence, he counted Sonya’s dollars. Just over $40,000. He refastened the fat wad with elastic bands and put it back. Then he counted his own money, the bulk of it earned by Misha. Almost $10,000.

“I must phone,” he told himself, and at that moment the doorbell rang.

It was the taciturn courier, a man of pensionable age in an old drape overcoat, who took the folder, put it in his briefcase, produced another, nodded and hurried off down the stairs.

Viktor watched him go and went back into the flat, throwing the folder on the kitchen table. He went to the phone in the living room and again he dithered. Something was holding him back.

“I must phone,” he kept telling himself, still rooted to the spot, just looking at the instrument as if it could ring on its own and say what was necessary.

At last he did dial the number of the clinic. He asked for Ilya Semyonovich, and learning that he was out, felt amazingly relieved.

He did not ring any more that day, but got down to work, and by the time Nina and Sonya returned had written three
obelisks
. Another two and he could ring the Chief – show him how fast he was working!

Next morning Lyosha rang.

“Very big funeral tomorrow, old chap.”

“It’ll have to do without him, I’m afraid,” Viktor said wearily. “He caught a chill at the last one, and it’s not certain at the moment whether he’ll pull through.”

He gave the horrified Lyosha a full account.

“Listen,” said Lyosha, “if I’m to blame, let me sort it out. Where is he?”

Viktor gave him Ilya Semyonovich’s number.

“Good. I’ll get back to you,” he said. “Don’t go grieving.”

That evening he rang back.

“It’s going to be all right,” he said reassuringly. “The boys are taking on the financial side and everything to do with the operation. He’s a good fellow, your Ilya Semyonovich. He’ll ring each day, and keep you informed … By the bye,” he asked out of the blue, “could you come with me tomorrow? Taking the wake in after?”

“So it’s me who’s the penguin,” Viktor said gloomily.

Back at his typewriter he felt suddenly both hopeful and distinctly alarmed. The
boys
– and he could guess the sort – had decided to pay for the operation, and were, on the face of it, looking out for a donor heart …

The present situation had the feel of a horror film about it, and Viktor didn’t like horror films.

He shook his head to dispel the association, and returned to
the boys
. Why should they decide to take it on? Were they that good-natured? That fond of animals? Indebted to him in some way? Or to Misha?

Quickly wearying of questions, he determined to think of something else, but still his thoughts revolved around the sick penguin.

He suddenly remembered the television programme and the pretty presenter appealing for people to sponsor a plane with provisions to be sent to the Ukrainian research station in the Antarctic. He looked for the piece of paper he had noted the account and telephone numbers on.

A sudden happy thought struck him. If Misha survived, he must be sent home to the Antarctic on that plane. Viktor would
offer to contribute on condition that they released his penguin amid the icy wastes … Make an offer they couldn’t refuse.

Cheered by the idea, he tackled the remaining
obelisks
with enthusiasm, and two hours later had finished them.

That evening Ilya Semyonovich rang.

“You know it’s all OK?” he said.

“Yes.”

“I must say, you’ve got good friends. Your Misha’s stable at the moment. We’re preparing for the operation.”

“Have you got all you need?”

“Not yet. A matter of two or three days, I think. I’ll ring tomorrow.”

Half an hour later, after her supper, Sonya asked how Misha was.

“On the mend,” he said with relief.

Viktor delayed going to bed. Sonya and Nina must long since have been in the land of dreams, but he was still in the kitchen in the dark, watching the lights go out one after another in the opposite block.

He didn’t feel like sleep. It was not a case of insomnia. He was simply enjoying the silence and peace of watching the city fall asleep. And he was no longer irritated by the ticking of the alarm clock, now back on the window ledge. His agitation was past. His thoughts, too, under the influence of this peace, had stopped racing, and were now flowing with the ease of an unhurried river.

After all these shocks, unpleasant discoveries and the dark suspicions they prompted, and moments better forgotten than understood and accepted as commonplace, his life seemed to be resuming its normal course. And normality was the only state from which to contemplate the future – a future to be achieved only by striving forward, without stopping to throw light on some mystery or going into any change in the nature of life itself. Life was a road, and if departed from at a tangent, the longer for it. And a long road was a long life – a case where to travel was better than to arrive, the point of arrival being, after all, always the same: death.

And off at a tangent he had gone, feeling his way past closed doors, but leaving behind him what traces of his contact they retained. All the same, they did stay with him, those traces of contact – in his memory, in a no longer burdensome past.

In the block opposite, only three lighted windows, and the one he sought not among them. Whoever was pottering behind those was of no interest. He wanted to see the woman he had watched during his last sleepless night. But even her absence failed to disrupt his peace.

He had, it seemed, divined the secret of longevity. Longevity depended on peace. Peace was the source of self-assurance, and self-assurance allowed one to cleanse one’s life of needless upsets, twists and turns. Self-assurance allowed one to take decisions for the prolonging of one’s life. Self-assurance led to the future.

He looked into that future and saw so clearly, as if for the first time in his life, everything that obstructed the peaceful path for him. It was, oddly enough, all connected indirectly with his beloved Misha. And although Misha himself had nothing
to do with it, he had become an involuntary cause of complication in Viktor’s life. Misha had drawn him into a mournful circle of people with an enhanced degree of mortality, and now Misha alone could free him from them. With Misha out of the picture, Lyosha and his binoculars would be also, as well as gilt-handled coffins. Of the two evils in Viktor’s life, only one would remain – his work. But that was an evil he had long reconciled himself to – someone else’s evil, to which, at the rate of $300 a month, Viktor imparted a philosophical dimension. It was an evil to which he was an indirect rather than a main contributor.

It was pleasing to picture Misha against a backdrop of Antarctic wastes. It was the only solution – to the advantage of them both. Freedom. Provided the operation went well. And even if the boys now shouldering the costs
were
to take exception to the disappearance of their penguin, what could they do? He was, after all, blessed with that mysterious
protection
, spoken of in awe by the late Misha-non-penguin and his enemy-friend Sergey Chekalin.

Seeming to discern the calm, measured rhythm of his future life, he smiled contentedly.

In the block opposite, the last window went dark, and the diffuse light of the moon was all the brighter.

Several spring days passed. Every evening the telephone rang and Ilya Semyonovich reported on Misha’s condition, which was, like Viktor’s – and that of the weather – stable. Nina and Sonya disappeared early each morning, Nina having conceived the idea of showing Sonya spring. They were studying it like a school subject. It was a game they both seemed to enjoy and Viktor enjoyed their absence for he was able to work in peace.
Obelisks
flowed fast and free, and he expected a call and words of praise from the Chief. But the Chief did not call. Nor, apart from Ilya Semyonovich, did anyone else. District Militiaman Sergey, now far away, had been the only one to make calls that did not tie Viktor down to something. Who else was there lurking on the shady side of his life? Lyosha, bodyguard of
big-affair
funerals? He would ring eventually. No doubt about that. And he wasn’t so bad, either. Lyosha, too, was living at a tangent, having found his niche and occupied it. No mean achievement, perhaps, nowadays. And having done so, the thing was not to excite envy – lest, God forbid, someone thought the niche too good for you …

At about 3.00 Ilya Semyonovich rang.

“We operated last night,” he said. “All’s fine at the moment. No sign of the organ being rejected.”

Viktor was delighted, thanked him, and asked when he would be able to bring Misha home.

“Not for a while, I think,” said Ilya Semyonovich. “Six weeks is the rehabilitation period … But I’ll keep you informed. It could be shorter. We’ll see.”

Viktor made coffee and went out onto the balcony, screwing up his eyes against the sun. An amazingly cool, gentle breeze was blowing. There was a pleasant feeling of freshness, and the early warmth of a still unsteady infant sun. An amazing feeling. The fragility of a light breeze and the continuity of the sun in combination. Warmth and freshness. That was what woke life, called life to the surface of the Earth.

The coffee was weak, but he didn’t want it strong. Strong coffee seemed now to savour of winter, of having to struggle with lethargy, too little daylight, and a weary expectation of warmth.

He could now ring the Antarctic Committee. And he, lover of warmth, would be happy here, and Misha would be happy there.

Returning to the living room he paused for a minute by Sonya’s framed family portrait with penguin.

He smiled and sighed, feeling a certain sense of pride in himself and his solution, and thought how much easier it was to decide someone else’s fate than one’s own. Particularly as all attempts at changing his own had only led to further undesirable, more burdensome consequences. All change, as it turned out, was for the worse, regardless of its nature.

The offices of the Antarctic Committee were in two adjoining rooms behind a door bearing the nostalgic legend
Party Office
, on the second floor of the admin building of an aircraft factory.

He arrived at about eleven, having rung in advance. To have mentioned his penguin over the phone would have been
foolish – leading them to think he was either having them on or cracked. He had therefore presented himself as a potential sponsor.

At the factory gate he had a five-minute wait until a lean, grey-suited man of about 45 came down to collect him. This was Valentin Ivanovich, Chairman of the Antarctic Committee, who was, as befitted a raiser of funds, courteous and welcoming. Having first provided coffee, he opened the door to the adjoining office.

“You see, it’s mostly provisions we get offered,” he said, indicating rows of cardboard boxes and a corner filled with tins. “We take everything, even if the sell-by date’s long expired. It’s good to have the offer. Sometimes we’re given money. The Southern Construction Bank has donated $300. Money’s what we prefer, of course. We need fuel for the plane. We have pilots to pay for sitting idle.”

Viktor nodded sympathetically.

Returning to the first office, Valentin Ivanovich got out some documents detailing the provisions and the amount of cash collected.

Viktor leafed through them, noticing that one sponsor had donated an enormous quantity of Chinese tinned stew.

“That’s not all our stuff in there,” Valentin Ivanovich added. “We store equipment and warm clothing separately. And we also have two drums of sunflower oil.”

“When do you fly?” Viktor asked.

“Ninth of May, Victory Day as was. We’re making intermediate landings, so we’ve had to give advance notice. But how, if I may ask, would you like to assist? Cash or provisions?”

“Cash,” replied Viktor. “Subject to one condition.”

“Go ahead,” Valentin Ivanovich invited, staring hard.

“A year ago, when the zoo had no food for its animals, I adopted a penguin. And now I’d like to send him to the Antarctic, to his natural environment … That’s really what I want.”

For just an instant the bright blue eyes of the Chairman betrayed a flash of irony, but his face remained as grave as Viktor’s own. They stared as if playing
who-looks-away-first
, but after a minute or two the Chairman lowered his thoughtful gaze to the table.

“And how much will you donate for this passenger?” he asked, without looking up.

“A couple of thousand dollars.”

Viktor had no wish to haggle. So far all had gone well, the quizzical look – whether of irony or mistrust – having in no way influenced the business in hand.

For a minute or so Valentin Ivanovich pondered in silence.

“In cash?” he asked, looking keenly at him.

Viktor nodded.

“Good,” said the Chairman, “we’ll take your passenger. Could you produce the money in the next day or two, and the penguin at about nine on the day of departure? Take-off is at about midday.”

Viktor’s mood as he walked home along the sunny street was curiously one of anxiety. The ease with which he had decided Misha’s fate set him thinking about his own. On the 9th of May he would be left alone. And although he would have Nina and Sonya at his side, their autonomous, apparently independent presence, wouldn’t make him forget Misha.

Affection was not something he expected from Nina and Sonya, not being affectionate towards them himself. Was it then simply a protracted
we’re-a-family
game? Maybe. But it appeared
to suit Nina. Little Sonya didn’t understand, of course. The presence of grown-ups was a natural feature of her life. Of her own parents she seemed to have no recollection at all. Perhaps he should try to grow fond of Nina and Sonya, get them to respond, so that their strange union became that of a genuine family.

April was drawing to a close. The city, made verdant by warmth, was preparing for the chestnut trees to blossom. But the pace of Viktor’s life had been reduced. The last time the courier collected the finished obelisks he had left nothing in exchange. Viktor rang the Chief, and the Chief said that there would be no work for the time being. Viktor was caught unawares by this sudden hiatus. He had been off balance. Thus far, all had gone according to plan: he had long since delivered the $2,000 to Valentin Ivanovich, and Ilya Semyonovich was reporting daily on the progress of Misha’s convalescence. Now suddenly, this.