Penguin Lost (13 page)

The men with Kalashnikovs were gone. Rezvan was now alone on the passenger seat talking to his companion, who was driving. The Russian driver was no longer with them.

The narrow earth road through the forest was not for vehicles, but to Viktor’s amazement their mini climbed with a will, even with the engine sounding at times at last gasp. It was now light. Somewhere above the densely wooded mountain slopes the sun was shining, and what little of it penetrated to the forest floor seemed the brighter for having done so.

For a brief moment the road levelled out, and with a sigh of relief the driver pulled up and looked at his watch.

Rezvan produced a walkie talkie, spoke into it, waited, and receiving an answer in a burst of static and nodding to the driver, addressed the passengers.

“Which is it to be – blindfold or drugged tea? So if you fall foul of Fed Security, you can’t rack your brains remembering which tree or tree stump you passed.”

Variously expressed, passenger response was unanimously against drugged tea.

Rezvan grinned.

“Just as well, as we’re out of it. Have your kit on the seat beside you.”

The driver handed round black blindfolds, telling them to help each other and not cheat. Viktor blindfolded Matvey Vasilyevich, then himself.

The minibus set off again.

At each of the five or six stops that followed, Rezvan ordered everyone to stay blindfolded, then shouted who was to collect his things and get off, this being the stop requested. Outside were always Chechen voices, once there was yelling and the revving of a lorry or armoured troop carrier.

The names he shouted were fairly ordinary – Medvedyev, Pishchenko, Kartashov, Polenin, Dmiterkin – and others that he didn’t remember.

It was a good three hours before they stopped again, having been climbing almost continuously. He tried to reckon how many were left on the bus. Three or four, perhaps, apart from himself. He began to wish he’d asked Matvey Vasilyevich’s surname.

Resting his head against the soft plush curtain, he fell asleep again.

The bus stopped.

“You, and Vasilishin,” came Rezvan’s voice, followed, as Viktor raised a hand to his blindfold, “Keep it on, just get up and out!”

He felt for his sports bag, now the heavier for his clothes, and edging forward, stumbled, only to find an arm supporting him from then on.

“Two steps forward march,” ordered a Moscow voice, and he
obeyed.

“One of Eldar’s,” he heard Rezvan say.

The deafening beat of helicopter rotor-blades prompted Viktor, seated back to a tree, to look up, though to little purpose. Seated beside him, breathing but not saying a word, was Vasilishin. The blindfold heightened physical awareness, especially of the discomfort of his chewed left shoe, which wriggling his toes did nothing to ease. Two or three male voices approached, then went away – one, to his confusion, speaking both Moscow Russian and Chechen.

He dozed until woken by three helicopters flying over, one after the other, or was it the same one circling? Then silence, then the crackling of a fire.

“You can take your blindfolds off.”

Screwing up his eyes against the sudden light, he found that it was night and that his companion was Matvey Vasilyevich. He held out his hand, and it was firmly shaken.

Sitting by the fire were two men, one tall, crew cut, the other, shorter and plainly a native of the Caucasus, busy stirring a pot.

“We eat, then bash on,” said Crew Cut. “Which we can’t by daylight without one lot or the other trying to kill us, or Special Forces shinning down from helicopters … Come and sit down.”

Which, a waft of boiled mutton whetting the appetite, they did.

Crew-cut Petya was from Zagorsk, something he’d lived down by adopting a Moscow accent, which, in the silence of the Chechen night, rang out so odd and alien, as to be in danger of stopping a
bullet any minute.

Maga, the other man, was a Dagestani from Khasavyurt, here, as he explained in the very opposite of Moscow Russian, for the money.

“Good money?” asked Viktor.

“For some, not for others.”

They spooned the mutton stew straight from the pot, eating small dry cake-like loaves with it.

Before they moved on, Petya stamped out the fire and for good measure urinated on the embers.

Following a steep and tortuous path, they came out onto bare, moonlit mountain. Petya and Maga set a cracking pace, and Viktor kept up, gritting his teeth against increasing pain in his left foot. Looking back, he saw that Matvey Vasilyevich was managing, though with difficulty.

Soon the track narrowed to no more than a ledge bounded on the right by vertical rock, on the left by a void, slowing progress and calling for care.

Following close behind the pseudo-Muscovite, Viktor found himself thinking of Kiev and Snail’s Law, some article of which he was very likely offending against – possibly that of having, so to speak, drunk himself out from under the protective shell of Bim, in ignorance of what, beyond finding himself with no fixed shell of abode, the end would be. Here different laws applied, of which he had yet to learn.

He walked with a lighter step, temporarily forgetting the pain in his foot, just as for a while he had forgotten Matvey Vasilyevich.

They came to a ravaged village. Maga led the way through the ruins to where some houses were still intact.

“Take the old un on to Duda, shall I?” Maga asked Petya.

“Then come to Arbi’s.”

“Good luck,” said Matvey Vasilyevich, giving Viktor his hand.

Viktor was sad to see him go. Somehow he’d expected that they would be kept together.

“Come on,” said Petya.

The tiny street led downhill, and at last they came to a tiny house tucked away amongst the ruins. Smoke rose from the chimney. Telling Viktor to wait, Petya went in.

Standing watching the smoke, he became increasingly aware of the cold and its effect on hands, face, thoughts and breath.

On his flight to Argentina the pilot had announced “We are now at 10,000 metres. The air temperature –45°. Those who wish to acclimatize can open the windows.” Everyone had laughed. Thanks to the champagne, there had been a lot of laughter. What was the altitude and air temperature here?

The door creaked open. Petya motioned him to enter.

Viktor was allotted a corner curtained off with a camel-hair blanket, with, against the wall under a tiny cracked window, a trestle bed topped with two striped mattresses. On a bedside table a candle threw light on walls and ceiling. On the wall, two copper plates and a black-ribbon-draped photograph of a young man in Soviet Army uniform.

The old Chechen whose house it was spoke no Russian, and having shown Viktor to his corner and pointed to the bed, he left him.

Dumping his bag on the worn carpet, Viktor sat on his bed and took in the silence. From beyond the camel-hair blanket, which was decorated with a brown tiger, came a muttering and rustling. Peeping out, he saw the old man standing looking into an open cupboard.

On the dressing table there was a candle, and the walls were hung with a great number of photographs in old wooden frames. Of what it was too dark to tell.

“Good night,” Viktor said softly, at which the old man swung round in alarm and shook his head.

*

He was woken next morning by someone knocking loudly at the door of the house. Brilliant sunlight was streaming through the tiny window. Pulling on his trousers and scorning his shoes, he emerged from his corner. The old man, in grey dressing gown and black boots, was standing at the open door talking to Maga.

“You can wash out here,” Maga broke off to say.

Edging past them and treading cold stone, Viktor saw a blue washstand with an enamel bowl. Splashing his face and gargling in ice-cold water, he looked round for a towel, but there was none.

The cold was intense, in spite of the bright sun, and returning to the house, he dried his face on the camel-hair blanket, put on his shirt and his MoES tunic.

Maga motioned him outside.

“Got some photos?”

“No need. There can’t be more than one penguin in Chechnya.”

Maga looked puzzled. He repeated the question several times, thinking he’d misunderstood, and finding he hadn’t finished by giving a dispirited shake of the head.

“Where do we look?”

“He was brought here from Moscow by a businessman called Khachayev, so where Khachayev is, he’ll be.”

“This isn’t a Russian village, you know, where everyone knows everyone else. What are you prepared to pay?”

The question caught him unawares. “Quite a lot.”

“I’ll do my best, though penguins aren’t exactly my line.”

“What is your line?”

“We’ve our Green Cross, a bit like your Red, only privately run. We trace dead and prisoners, and we help negotiate. We’ve a fair fixed tariff.”

“How did Petya get here?” Viktor asked suddenly. “Desert?”

“Posted ‘Missing’. Look, I’ll see what I can find out about this Khachayev. No joy, and that’s my lot. I’ve a living to earn. Anything you need?”

“Boots. My shoes leak.”

Viktor spent two days in his corner, going out only to wash or relieve himself. The old man brought him disc-like loaves, dried meat and cheese from the two goats he kept. Maga advised him not to show himself outside any more than he had to.

Conversation with the old man was out, even in sign language. Viktor tried to convey something about himself by way of the photographs on the wall, but in vain. The old man was simply not interested. All Viktor gathered was that he was sleeping where the old man’s younger son used to sleep. This son had died during military service, but how and where was not to be discovered.

After two days Maga returned carrying a large but not heavy canvas bag, and sitting down on Viktor’s bed pulled out a pair of dirty black boots for him to try.

They were tight and the soles bore traces of yellow clay.

The next pair was on the large side but passable. He tried walking in them. The left one slopped a bit, but puttees over his socks would
take care of that.

“Fine,” he said “How much?”

The question incurred a look of displeasure.

“Take them as a gift. The owner never had the full wear of them.”

“Killed?”

“Natural death’s uncommon here.” Then in a tone more suggestive of failure than success he added, “I’m onto Khachayev. But he’s unapproachable. Thirty-man bodyguard. The one road exposed to fire. Doesn’t deal in prisoners. Sees nobody. There’s just one possibility. He has a business here. I could get you a job. The past two or three months he’s been short of labour.”

“What sort of business?”

Maga shrugged.

“I don’t know. Probably oil. Or gas. You’ll have to go and see.”

“I’ll do that.”

Maga looked distinctly unhappy.

“You will? Then you’d better pay in advance. For a normal job I’d get $500 for this week’s work.”

“For doing what?”

“Inquiring, negotiating. That old man you came with has given Petya $500 to trace his son.”

“Leave me to myself for a moment.”

Maga ducked out under the blanket and was soon in conversation with the old man, and by the sound of it complaining.

Viktor delved into his sports bag to check how much he had. $570.

He called Maga.

“Here’s $200 to be going on with. Now tell me about Khachayev.”

“He’s recently returned from Moscow, where he has a casino and several jewellery businesses.”

“About here’s what I want to know.”

“What he said the moment he arrived was that he was here not
to fight but make money. His business dates from the beginning of the war. It was supervised by his younger brother, but now he’s been packed off to Turkey, and Khachayev’s in sole charge. He’s as well in with the Feds as he is with the Chechens, and he’s declared an exclusion zone. His
ashore
area, or something, where no outsiders may carry arms.”

“ ‘Offshore’ more likely.”

“Could be. Where no-one dares go. Anyone carrying arms will be shot on sight, he says, regardless of nationality.”

“You could get me a job there, you said.”

“I could try.”

“So what next?”

“I take you, and leave you somewhere while I negotiate. Which I do well. But guiding and negotiating come at a price.”

“How much?”

“$500 or $600.”

“$500 was your normal charge, you said, so I give you another $300.”

“OK, so give.”

“Not till you’ve got me there.”

Maga shook his head.

“And if you’re killed on the way I’ve got to go through your pockets for it … Not nice. Looks like looting. Give me now. I won’t let you down. I’ll even tell you which pocket it’s in, in case it’s me that gets killed.”

“Right,” said Viktor.

Maga called for Viktor at six in the evening.

“I’d leave that here,” he said, eyeing the fat sports bag lying ready on the floor. “The old man may be able to use something out of it.”

Viktor shook the old man’s hand, thanked him, and tried to indicate that he was leaving the bag as a present. Maga duly translated, throwing in something on his own account. The old man then presented Viktor with two scraps of red towelling bearing the Olympic symbol and half an Olympic teddy bear. Pointing to Viktor’s new boots, he said something which Maga translated as “May Allah preserve you!”

Dusk was falling, though the sky was still bright.

As they picked their way through the ravaged village, Viktor remarked on the absence of power lines.

“There never were any. No gas, no telephone, no school. They wanted us to quit the mountains and live down there.”

“Why no weapon?”

“To better my chances of staying alive. There are people who don’t shoot the unarmed. I’m no guerilla. Peaceful civilian, that’s me. As having no weapon shows. Feds included.”

Arrived at the narrow ledge, they halted. Maga looked up at the sky and shook his head.

“Something wrong?”

“Wind. We could get blown off.”

“But there isn’t any.”

“It’s coming. Still, let’s go.” And muttering to himself in Chechen or Russian, he led off along the ledge.