Penguin Lost (15 page)

“Bucket!” ordered Seva.

Viktor placed the bucket beneath the opening of the inner furnace, and Seva, using a long-handled tool, scraped out the furnace contents into it.

How little, how insubstantial! Viktor thought, reminded of the urn containing militiaman friend Sergey’s ashes which he and Nina had received as a parcel out of the blue. Where was all the rest? Where was what had made him a live, physical presence? Where his experiences, principles, joys?

Something metallic fell into the bucket.

“First catch,” said Seva, extracting a small nugget of gold and slipping it into a pocket. “His ring.”

As the ashes, when bagged, seemed on the short side, and since these Chechens were a decent lot, Aza got Seva to top them up with some from a petrol drum in the corner, before handing them over.

Aza was given a number of banknotes, Seva and Viktor a crumpled
$5 apiece.

“The Feds should have been here by now,” Aza said finally. “But hang on, you two, and call me if they do come.”

Next morning Viktor awoke with a headache, the result both of the lack of sleep and the all-pervasive smell of kerosene. On top of which, the odour of cremation lingered as an unpleasant taste in his mouth. In the other bed was Seva, head pressed into uncased pillow, now snoring, now calling out in, or commenting on, his dreams. And as he jerked from one side to the other, his face was coated with what looked like soot, and Viktor, passing a hand over his own face, encountered something similar.

The only sound was of steady rain.

Suddenly it all came back – three Feds with the corpse of a comrade and a bottle of spirits, morose tin-mug toasts to the departed, committal to the furnace, and the two hour wait while it did its work. Seva had sent him to fetch Aza, and Aza had come with his ledger. But apart from Kineshma as place of birth, he remembered nothing beyond that their disbursement of roubles or dollars had been so meagre that Seva dispensed with the normal top-up of ashes. Other Feds turned up – regulars this time, not conscripts – dragging evil-smelling sacks. Grubby, unshaven, they’d watched him and Seva put the sacks into the furnace, and then hung about sweating profusely in the blistering heat, obliging him to stay too, hardly able to breathe and longing for fresh air. But at last they left the shed, slipping Seva dollar bills and something else which he later displayed in the light of his torch: three signet rings and a lady’s
ring set with a stone.

The regulars did not claim the ashes.

“All they want is to get shot of Chechen bodies,” Seva explained, later adding the raked out ash to his secret stock.

Gradually the headache eased, but not the unpleasant taste in his mouth.

Looking around the kitchen for something to fetch water in, he came across some enamel Winnie the Pooh mugs and plates stamped kindergarten property, and wondered how Sonya was. Still thinking of him? And of Misha?

He opened the tall cupboard and was surprised to find that it also did service as a wardrobe. Hung on hangers from a bar were two army greatcoats and a militia uniform. There were various small white sacks which felt as if they had been starched, tins without labels, a litre bottle of sunflower oil. One of the bags contained oatmeal and vermicelli. Suddenly ravenous, he took a saucepan and went outside for water.

Two weeks passed, and then the first snow fell.

The white flakes had a cheering effect, stirring memories of last winter’s walks with Misha.

He had grown accustomed to their nocturnal employment and all that went with it. Every now and then explosions and automatic fire could be heard, and military aircraft and helicopters flew overhead. The war, like the night incineration of corpses, ground on without respite. More often than not it was the Feds who brought
bodies, either in sacks or with heads concealed, and on two occasions the bodies were those of young women.

Chechens were something of a rarity. Cremation, Seva said, was not the Muslim tradition. So anyone the Chechens brought would be from another country, and if a Muslim, then from as far away as Saudi Arabia, Yemen or Turkey, where the ashes could be sent for burial.

Chechens and Feds gave only small dollar tips, but the latter more often than not gave watches or gold rings, and Viktor, knowing how such things were come by, was happy to pass the gold to Seva. Sometimes towards dawn, when Aza had retired to bed taking his ledger with him, Seva would fetch an iron mould from under the tree nearest the shed, and from somewhere else, a heavy gold brick. This he returned to the mould, and laying his new gold on top, placed the mould in the furnace.

“Don’t want anyone recognizing some ring or trinket one day,” commented Seva. “Gold’s more precious than dollars.”

There were questions he would have liked to ask Seva – about his future plans, how he proposed to get away from here and Chechnya – but was in no mood to ask. Time was passing, and without his learning anything of Misha or Khachayev. Twice he’d tried to sound out Aza, but Aza wasn’t to be sounded out.

“What do you want to know about Khachayev for?” he asked, and Viktor, not wanting to tell him about Misha, didn’t say. It was, he kept telling himself, only a question of hanging on. As boss of the crematorium, Khachayev must, some time, put in an appearance.

So he waited – simply living, working, eating from enamel bowls, drinking from enamel mugs, once kindergarten property. The mugs and bowls even had a cheering effect, reminding him not so much of his own childhood as of that night in Kiev with Svetlana and semolina.

Invariably cheerful, Seva became doubly so on Thursday, when Aza offered a reduction in the rate for cremation. How great a reduction, Seva and Viktor never knew, but more custom meant more tips.

This Thursday Viktor woke earlier than usual at getting on for twelve. They had gone to bed on the early side, having completed the last cremation by five. The Feds had given them a bottle of vodka and – an unusual departure – some recent Russian newspapers. Flopping out on the stove bench, Viktor had fallen asleep, thinking how next day he would read every last word and maybe something about Kiev, a plan that came to nothing, or more accurately, went up in smoke. Following the first snow, he and Seva had been taking it in turns to get up early and put more wood in the stove. Today he found Aza consigning the last of the newspapers to the flames of the passage stove together with some logs. Boiling on top of the stove was a saucepan of water into which, with Viktor watching in amazement, he poured two one-kilogram packets of salt, popped in a number of cloth bags and proceeded to stir them with a fork.

“Are they for lunch?” he asked.

“No,” said Aza in all seriousness. “Winter brings the mice in. Chechen mice are a hundred times worse than Russian, but they don’t like salt.”

He went on stirring the boiling bags, then, with a nod in the direction of Viktor and Seva’s room, said, “Don’t go modelling yourself on him. He’s greedy. Thinks I don’t know. But I do.” And he left it at that.

Outside, snow, deep-blue sky and keen conifer-scented air. It was as if the whole cremation shed area had been deodorized. Seva
came out wearing the smile that only exhaustion was capable of removing. The fate of their newspapers left him unmoved.

“How about a drink?”

Viktor shook his head, not feeling like vodka, and wanting the pure air and the joy of breathing it to last.

“OK. Healthy spirit in healthy body! Another time. In three days it’s my birthday.”

“How old will you be?”

“Nineteen.”

“Just a boy.”

“But still teaching you, old grey beard, how things are done. And with more earned than you’ve ever dreamt of!”

*

At six the sun sank behind the mountain top, providing the signal for Seva and Viktor to set off for the shed, and half an hour later the furnace was roaring.

First to arrive were two Chechens carrying a body wrapped in a greatcoat, followed at a distance by another man.

“Where’s Aza?” asked one.

“Not here yet,” said Seva, and was brusquely sent to fetch him.

The bearers, tall powerful fellows with stubbly black beards brought the body to Viktor in the shed.

“Open the furnace!”

Viktor took his time. These Chechens had an air of insolence about them that he’d never before encountered. Most were submissive, these were anything but.

“We’ll have to wait for Aza.”

“Look, new boy,” said one menacingly. “Open up – we haven’t got all night.”

Viktor opened the furnace. The body was that of a man aged
about 20 – pale, emaciated, check flannel shirt, jeans, gold star earring – clearly a civilian and apparently Russian.

“What are you gawking at? Friend of yours, is he?” demanded one of the Chechens engaged in sliding the body into the furnace. “Come on, get cracking!”

Viktor closed the inner and outer doors and adjusted the flow valve.

“Give what’s left of him to the old bloke outside. And be polite and humane!” said the same Chechen making for the door.

“Name and date of birth?” Viktor called after him.

“The old bloke’ll tell you.”

Aza and Seva entered, Aza, as always, carrying his ledger, but muttering in Azerbaijani, clearly very put out.

“The old man outside will tell you the name,” Viktor said.

“He’s told us,” said Seva answering for Aza.

Sniffing the hot acrid air, Aza made a wry face, and left, saying he’d be back in an hour.

“What’s biting him?”

“They didn’t pay. Maybe we’ll come in for something,” said Seva, pulling a packet of cigarettes from his camouflage jacket and heading out of the shed. Viktor followed, seeking relief from the sauna heat.

Watching the falling snow, he thought again of Kiev, and Sonya waiting for winter and snow. He even thought of Nina, waiting for he knew not what, though obviously not for him. A bit of stability in life was very likely what she was waiting for – a man at her side, a roof over her head, a bit of money. Oh, and a dacha with a garden to grow things in.

He shrugged, but went on thinking of her, doing his best to understand, which, with this distance between them, should have been easier. Except that he still saw her only as a chance outsider. But for militiaman Sergey, she would never have come into his life.

Melting snow ran down his face.

“Is it you, Viktor?” said a voice he knew.

“Matvey Vasilyevich!” All became suddenly clear.

“Well, there we are,” said Matvey Vasilyevich after a while. “It was my living son I came here for.”

“I’ll leave you,” Seva said quietly.

“Just sixteen, and they give him a gun ‘to scare Russians off with’, and he goes and pulls the trigger … Can you call that war?”

Viktor shrugged, asking himself the same question. He was not here to fight a war. He was here for no good reason at all. Fate – Misha-the-Penguin’s, not his – was why he was here.

“Found your friend?” Matvey asked suddenly, as if divining his thoughts.

“No, but I shall.”

The old man nodded approvingly. “Good for you,” he whispered. “With friends like you, my son might still be alive.”

*

Later as they stood watching Seva rake out the furnace into a bucket, something clinked. His face brightened, but quickly resumed the expression appropriate to the task.

Viktor remembered the gold star earring, but not any rings.

“Wait in the fresh air – I’ll bring out the ashes,” said Seva.

Five minutes later he handed the old man not the usual knotted black plastic sack, but a fine Aeroflot Duty Free carrier bag.

The old man pulled out and proffered two grubby one-dollar bills. Seva accepted one, and when Viktor made no move, the second also.

“Where now?” Viktor asked.

But the old man was far away, tears streaming down his cheeks, hearing, seeing nothing.

“Where now?” Viktor asked again.

“Not far. An hour and a half along the pipeline, then on. Any idea how I’m supposed to bury him? Ordinary grave? We always have coffins. We don’t have cremation.”

“In a grave,” said Viktor, not wanting to make things more difficult than they were. He, after all, had not yet decided what to do with the urn of Sergey’s ashes – or had, to the extent of deciding to do nothing, beyond keeping him warm and cosy in the kitchen, always there to be talked to.

Matvey Vasilyevich embraced him. Seva respectfully withdrew.

“Stay no longer than you have to,” said the old man. “Find your friend, and go. There’ll be no peace here.”

Seva’s birthday celebration began at midday, the idea being to get it over before dark, then recover. On the table were the Feds’ bottle of vodka, three enamel Pooh Bear mugs, three bowls of boiled potatoes, dried meat bars and a half-litre jar of damson purée, the last two Aza’s lordly contribution to the feast.

Seva poured a modest measure of vodka all round, then waited.

“Your health!” said Viktor, breaking the silence.

They clinked mugs, producing for Viktor a sound unnervingly like the dropping of a certain metal into a bucket.

“Have another,” said Seva. “Good stuff. Almost as good as Smirnoff.”

They drank and ate, dipping the meat bars into the open jar of purée.

Aza took the bottle and poured round another modest measure.

“First hand to pour, pours all!” protested Seva.

“Just Russian prejudice!” laughed Aza, “like your nonsense about unlucky black cats and empty buckets! You’re a big boy now. You’re 19.”

“The next pour’s mine, or it’s bad luck. I’ve tried. Break the rule, and next day a splitting head.”

Gesturing assent, Aza raised his mug in a toast. “May you grow in wisdom!”

“To higher education, then!” Seva corrected with a laugh. “With a bit of education and your low cunning you could run the whole show.”

Seva let this pass – maybe no offence was actually intended – and Viktor, fearful of the party’s ending in a drunken brawl, was much relieved, and even ribbed Seva himself.

Vodka and food soon ran out, but the festive mood endured. Seva looked questioningly at Aza, and Aza, getting the message, went to his room and returned with a bottle of Armenian cognac.