Death and the Penguin (22 page)

Nina had returned to the subject of buying a dacha, and was bringing home the weekly advertisers. He patiently studied everything she marked. It seemed to him they ought to get moving and buy their little house with garden as quickly as possible, so as to have it right for the three of them in the summer. But at the same time he fell victim to a certain passivity.

After the 9th of May it would all be over he thought, connecting his strange state with lack of work and anticipation of Misha’s departure.

Sonya asked after Misha less and less often, and that pleased
him. He was by now almost convinced that the disappearance of the penguin from her life would be achieved with a minimum of fuss. He was more fearful and sorry for himself, having no difficulty in imagining the occasions when he would soon miss his Misha.

But the decision having been taken, and therefore out of his hands, he was spared any premature self-pity.

Lyosha rang.

“First-rate, the whole thing!” he said. “In a couple of weeks we’ll be drinking your penguin’s health at someone’s wake!”

Yes, thought Viktor, and for the first time in ages he managed a smile.

Nina came back from a visit to Sergey’s mother with a post-office chit for a parcel.

They sat down to supper. It was early evening, getting on for six.

“Funny,” Nina said. “it looks as if it’s from Sergey, but it’s not his writing. And there’s $20 at exchange rate to pay. As if it’s from abroad.”

“We
are
abroad,” said Viktor gloomily, applying a blunt knife to his chop.

“Mine’s tough,” complained Sonya.

“I’ll cut it up for you,” said Viktor, leaning over and sawing away.

“The knives need sharpening,” said Nina.

“I’ll see to it,” he promised.

“Will you come when I go to the post office?” Nina asked later as they drank tea. “In case it’s heavy.”

“Of course.”

That evening Sonya again fell asleep in front of the television.
They put her on the settee, covered her with a blanket and turned down the volume. They watched the latest Mel Gibson block-buster to its bloody conclusion, before finally retiring to bed.

Next morning, having paid $20 at the rate of exchange, they received the parcel: a fairly heavy cardboard box with a diagonal
FRAGILE – HANDLE WITH CARE
Strip.

“That’s not his writing!” Nina declared, seeing the address on the cardboard box.

As Viktor picked up the parcel, there was a chinking sound inside.

Taking another look at the warning strip, he shook his head.

“Sounds as if something’s broken,” he said.

“$20 for nothing then,” said Nina, far from pleased. “So we’ll take it home first, and have a look. No sense in taking it straight to her. She’ll only be upset if it’s broken.”

Back at the flat, they praised Sonya’s latest drawings, then unpacked the box on the kitchen table and took out a strange, dark-green, four-sided vase with a little lid, wrapped round with sticky tape.

Was it copper? Viktor wondered, examining it.

“It’s got something inside,” Nina said. “And look! There’s a letter.”

It was a sheet of paper folded in two.

He watched while she read, stony-faced, lips moving, hands trembling. Saying nothing, she passed the letter to him.

Having read this, Viktor looked again at the four-sided urn. Nina slipped out into the corridor. He could hear her crying.

Gingerly he picked the urn up with both hands and gave it a gentle shake. A strange, dull, sand-like sound resulted. He put it back on the table.

As rattles went, one of the sadder sort, he thought gloomily. All that was left of Sergey.

From the bathroom came the sound of running water. A minute later Nina returned, wet-faced and red-eyed.

“I shan’t tell his mother,” she said. “It would kill her. We’ll bury him ourselves.”

Viktor nodded.

Several days passed. Time, continuing its snail-like pace, weighed heavily on him, and despite the warm sunny weather, he stayed indoors. A couple of times he dragged out his typewriter from under the table and tried to write, but thought and imagination seemed paralysed by the sight of the white paper.

He ought perhaps to have been reading – the popular crime report sections of the newspapers – in search of material and notables.

He remembered how he had winkled out the subjects of his first
obelisks
and wondered where they were now, those notables.

Standing on the window ledge where he had moved it to clear the table for lunch on the day they had received the parcel, was the dark-green four-sided urn. Whenever it caught his eye it made him think of Sergey, of New Year at his dacha, and of their winter picnics on the ice with Misha. And he felt a strange sense of happiness lost forever. Looking at the curious urn with its artificial dark-green patina, he could not believe that that was the new shell of Sergey’s mortal remains. That, for him, was still simply a curiosity, a mute newcomer from another world. And its presence in the kitchen, while puzzling, roused no feeling of protest. It seemed alive, the velvety green of the patina, and the urn itself an animate object, in spite of its contents. And he could not believe it had anything to do with Sergey, his life or his death. No. If Sergey was no more, he
was no more
. In that urn or anywhere.

Towards evening Nina and Sonya returned.

“We had an uncle asking about you,” said Sonya, busy
changing her shoes as Viktor looked out into the corridor.

“What uncle?” he asked, surprised.

“A young fat one,” said Sonya.

His look of surprise was switched to Nina.

“Some friend of yours,” she explained. “Just interested to know how you were at present, and what you were doing.”

“He bought us an ice-cream,” Sonya added.

For supper Nina roasted a chicken. And then, as they drank tea, produced a page of advertisements from her bag.

“Look,” she passed it to Viktor, “seems ideal: Koncha-Zaspa, tenth of a hectare, and not expensive.”

Two-storey dacha
, he read,
four rooms, tenth hectare, new garden
, $12,000.

“Yes,” he said, “we must ring.”

Only immediately after, Ilya Semyonovich rang, and the dacha was forgotten.

“He’s mobilizing, walking round the ward,” said the vet.

“Can I fetch him?”

“Well, I think we should keep an eye on him for the next ten days.”

“Would the 7th or 8th of May be all right for fetching him?”

“Yes, I think so.”

With a sigh of relief Viktor replaced the receiver. Glancing towards the balcony he saw it was still light.

“Just going out for ten minutes for a stroll,” he called from the corridor, putting on his trainers.

Two more days passed, bringing what was once Victory Day closer.

He did after all ring about the dacha in Koncha-Zaspa, and arranged to view it the coming Sunday. Nina felt sure it would be to their liking.

In this sort of weather any dacha would seem like paradise, he thought, standing on the balcony with his cup of coffee.

By midday the sun was scorching. There was a slight breeze, but even that was warm, like the wafting of a giant hair-drier.

After the ninth he would ring the Chief and get some work, he decided, otherwise he would be bored … Or maybe they would break loose, the three of them, go to the Crimea for a fortnight. But then what about the dacha? No, they must see to that first. And if they bought it, why go to the Crimea?

Nina and Sonya came back at about five.

“What have you been doing?” he asked.

“We’ve been to Hydropark,” said Nina, “boating.”

“And people are swimming already,” added Sonya.

“We saw your friend again,” Nina said. “He’s a bit odd.”

“What friend?”

“The one who treated us to an ice-cream and asked about you.”

Viktor thought for a moment.

“What does he look like?”

“Fattish, about 30.” She shrugged. “Nothing special … Sat at our table in the café outside the Metro.”

“He asked did you love me,” said Sonya. “And I told him you didn’t much.”

Viktor felt a growing sense of unease. Even among his former acquaintances there was no one fat and 30-ish.

“What else did he ask?”

Nina thought, looking at the ground.

“Oh – about your work. Whether or not you liked it … And if you were still writing stories … Used to enjoy them, he said. Oh, and could I show him something you’d written … Without your knowing … Writers were never keen on giving manuscripts to be read, he said.”

“And what,” he asked coldly, “did you say?”

“She said she’d have a look,” said Sonya in her stead.

“I didn’t,” said Nina. “He said Kiev was a small place, and we’d meet again. I said nothing about manuscripts.”

Who could it be, wondered Viktor. And why was he asking about him?

Finding no answer, he shrugged, went out onto the balcony, and leaning on the rail, looked down into the courtyard. The rectangle of asphalt was full of washing hung on lines stretched between white ferro-concrete posts. Children were playing nearby. On the left stood a white-painted skip at the base of which lay some old tin drums. Beyond, but not visible from the balcony, was the wasteland with the three dovecotes, where he, Misha and Sonya had sometimes walked in winter:
Plan View in Spring of Familiar Scene
 …

He harked back in thought to the nosy, fat young man.

Maybe he was shadowing them, he thought, looking down into the courtyard again. How else could he know they were a family?

A couple of old men sat on the seat by the entrance, and by the next entrance people were also sitting. A number of youths
were walking past the block opposite, quarrelling loudly.

Nothing and no one suspicious.

Reassured, he went back in.

That night sleep eluded him. Listening in the dark to Nina’s calm breathing, and conscious of her warmth beside him, he fell to wondering who this pryer into his life might be, where he came from and he was after. And the curious question about loving Sonya.

Such thoughts were accompanied by a growing sense of alarm that rendered peace of mind and sleep ever more remote.

They
were
being tailed. And he must be too. So he would just go out less often.

Trying not to wake Nina, he eased himself out of bed, slipped on his dressing-gown, and went out onto the balcony.

The star-scattered heavens shed a pleasant freshness. The tense silence of the dormant city was oppressive. The windows opposite were all dark. And below, inactive for the night, the courtyard was a set without actors.

Still, if someone really was tailing them, they would be in a car, parked without lights at the entrance to the neighbouring block.

Leaning over the rail, he looked the length of the block, and seeing the entrance approach blocked by two parked vehicles, smiled ruefully at coming so close to persecution mania.

He returned to the bedroom, but not until first light did he fall asleep.

Next morning, restored by strong coffee to a state of cheerful irritability, he took a bath and shaved.

After breakfast Nina and Sonya got ready to go into town.

“Where today?” he asked Nina.

“Hydropark again. It’s nice. They’ve got the amusements working.”

As soon as they had left the flat he scanned the courtyard, face pressed to the kitchen window, then looked directly down to watch the entrance. When Nina and Sonya emerged, he scanned the courtyard again, and saw a short, solidly built man rise from a seat outside the opposite block, and follow slowly in the direction of the bus stop. After 20 metres or so he stopped and looked back. A
Moskvich
estate drew up. He got in beside the driver, and the car drove off.

Puzzled by what he had seen, Viktor quickly put on his shoes and left the flat.

The bus stop was deserted, the bus having left. He hitched a lift, and five minutes later was making his way down the Metro escalator.

The more he thought about this strange tailing and prying, the more puzzled he became. And that chap in the baggy football shirt and a car no heavy would be seen dead in – they somehow didn’t tie up with his alarm and sense of danger at Nina’s second mention of the nosy, fat young man.

Still, strange as it might appear, someone definitely was tailing Nina for the purpose of staging another chance meeting in town and asking more questions about him. Someone was onto him, and his only comfort was that close-cropped young men in tracksuits and the latest flashy imported cars had no part in this mystery.

That being so, he had nothing to fear. But the mystery remained, and had to be solved.

It occurred to him, sitting in the Metro train, that he was enjoying this game – or more precisely, this chance to clear things up for himself. His confidence had come back – as though he had once again been reminded of the
protection
he enjoyed, although he had never understood why. But given Misha-non-penguin and Sergey Chekalin’s reverential mention of it at some point, it must be there, protecting him from something.

Bearing right as he left the Metro station, he stopped at a stand displaying dozens of sunglasses. Seated to the left of it, on a collapsible chair, was a girl of about 20, also in dark glasses.

Without stopping to think, he tried the rather old-fashioned aviators, followed by some
Made-in-Taiwans
. When at last he had made his choice, he paid and put them on.