The Gardener from Ochakov (25 page)

‘Oh!' he said, pretending to be surprised. ‘It's run out! I'll have to open another one!'

He got up and left the room.

While he was gone, Igor took another good look around the room. His eyes settled on a little car made of tin cans, evidently a home-made child's toy. It stood in the corner by the dresser, as though it had been abandoned there by its young owner.

Fima returned with another half-litre bottle, which had already been opened. He filled Igor's glass, then sat down again.

‘Please, take a seat!' he said, peering at Igor through narrowed eyes.

Igor sat down.

‘So, shall we drink to getting to know each other?' asked Fima.

‘Let's talk first,' said Igor, his voice mild and amiable.

‘Are you on about Valya again?'

‘Yes,' nodded Igor. ‘You swore that you'd kill her . . . Now she's terrified.'

‘Me? Kill her? How can you say such a thing?' Fima clasped his hands together theatrically. ‘Well, it might have come out of here,' he said, prodding his mouth with his forefinger. ‘In the heat of the moment. Maybe, but . . . they were the words of a desperate man!'

‘So you're not going to touch her?'

‘Not going to touch her? I never said that. I can't wait to get my hands on that bitch!'

‘Listen,' said Igor again, trying to sound firm and conciliatory at the same time. ‘I won't come here again. If you promise you won't touch her, then I promise this is the last time you'll ever see me. OK?'

As Fima contemplated Igor's offer, a perplexed but otherwise inscrutable smile played on his lips.

‘I still don't get it,' he said, shaking his head. ‘But we need to drink! Come on,' he raised his glass. ‘To getting to know each other!'

They drank at the same time – Fima in one gulp, Igor in three. Igor felt a burning sensation in his mouth and throat, and the vodka left an unpleasant aftertaste.

‘Eat something.' Fima nodded at the bread. ‘You weren't expecting branded vodka, were you?'

Igor chased the home-made vodka with some bread, then a piece of salted cucumber. The fire was extinguished but the unpleasant taste remained.

‘So how else are you going to make it worth my while?' Fima placed his elbows on the table and leaned forward, resting his sharp chin on the back of his folded hands.

‘I can pay you,' said Igor.

‘How much?'

Igor quickly estimated how many hundred-rouble notes he had in his pockets.

‘Ten thousand.'

Fima flinched in astonishment.

‘You're bluffing,' he said menacingly.

Igor took the unopened bundle of roubles from his left-hand pocket and placed it on the table.

‘Well, well, well . . .' murmured Fima, standing up and walking round to Igor's side of the table. He leaned over the bundle of banknotes and peered closely at it, almost inhaling it, but he didn't touch it. Instead he took the bottle from the table and poured some more home-made vodka into Igor's glass. ‘Oh dear, it's run out again!' he smiled. ‘I'll get another one!'

He left the room a second time, returning with another full bottle. He filled his own glass and sat down.

‘I think we can come to some arrangement,' he said, baring his crooked teeth. ‘Let's drink!'

They both drank. This time, the fire burned all the way down Igor's throat to his feet. His whole body felt warm, and he was no longer aware of his wet clothes.

‘All right,' continued Fima, chewing a piece of bread. ‘I give you my word that I won't touch the bitch – thief's honour! Happy now?'

Igor nodded. His unsteady gaze fell on the little car made out of tin cans.

‘Did you make that for your little boy?' he asked, pointing to the corner of the room.

Fima followed the direction of his guest's gaze, and another strange smile crept over his face.

‘Yeah,' he nodded. ‘Well, someone else's. I haven't got any kids.'

‘This little boy . . . he wouldn't happen to be called Stepan, would he?'

Fima instantly stopped smiling. He shuddered as though he'd just been given an electric shock.

‘If you're not a police officer, why are you asking me so many questions?' Fima leapt to his feet and grabbed the bottle, but he let go of it straight away and sat down again. ‘I don't know what's the matter with me,' he said apologetically. ‘What a day I've had! My neighbour's son was murdered in cold blood, for no apparent reason . . . I saw that bitch Valya sitting on the beach with a police officer . . . Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't mean . . .'

Fima's voice was full of menace. Igor could hear it, but he was preoccupied with his own body, which no longer seemed to be obeying him. His arms were like lead weights, and he couldn't move his legs or even feel his toes. There was an unpleasant warmth in the pit of his stomach, which soon turned into a burning sensation and began to rise upwards, towards his mouth. Igor started greedily gulping air.

Fima was no longer grimacing or smiling, and his face suddenly looked completely normal. ‘This is it, time to say goodbye. You promised I'd never see you again . . . Well, now nobody else will either!'

Fima stood up and walked slowly round the table. When he reached Igor, he put his right hand on his shoulder and gave him a hard shove. Igor crashed to the wooden floor and lay there without moving. His body was no longer paying any attention to him, although his eyes were still working and his ears were full of noise, both real and imaginary.

‘Never mind,' said Fima, standing over him. ‘You'll suffer for a couple of hours, then it'll all be over! You're not afraid of death, are you? You've got a gun!'

Laughing, Fima left the room. Igor heard the metallic sound of the hook as the front door opened and then closed again. The burning had reached his mouth. It hurt to breathe. Igor lay on his side on the wooden floor. He could see the table above him and the light bulb hanging from the ceiling. It was growing darker by the minute, as though some unknown force were raising the ceiling higher and higher into the sky until the last remaining speck of light dissolved in the darkness that enveloped him. Now it no longer mattered whether he opened or closed his eyes.

The life that had previously reigned throughout Igor's body took refuge in a secret little corner, where nobody else could possibly find it. His body was still. His eyes were closed.

Half an hour later the door of the house opened again and two men came in. They stopped in the living room and looked down at the body in the police uniform.

‘He's not a police officer, he's from the KGB!' said Fima. ‘And you were the one who brought him here! Why the hell did I take you on? Eh?'

‘What makes you think it's my fault?' his accomplice wheezed in surprise.

‘Iosip, he was asking about your Stepan! How would a regular police officer know anything about your son? Eh?'

‘So you bumped him off?' Iosip barked gruffly. ‘That's a bit . . . Well, what's done is done. I'm glad I sent Stepan to Odessa – just in time, too. I knew something like this was going to happen. We'll have to go on the run!'

‘Run? From my own home? I don't think so! I'm used to things going my way, and they will this time, too! Let's dump him by the bird with balls. Yeah, imagine the cops finding a dead KGB agent, his breath reeking of moonshine!'

‘Maybe we should just stick him under the floorboards, like the other one?'

‘Iosip, Iosip . . . you never know when to stop, do you? You're just a peasant! I don't have to listen to you. I didn't in Ust-Ilim, where the thieves helped you, and I don't here. Do you think I want to spend my life living above a cemetery, sleeping on top of dead men, drinking on top of dead men? No, one's enough! We need to get rid of him. It's the middle of the night, no one'll see us. The nights in Ochakov belong to us, not them. They might be in charge during the day, but at night we take over.'

‘How are we going to get him there?' asked Iosip.

‘I've got an army greatcoat. We can wrap him up in that.'

The life that was hiding in the depths of Igor's motionless body felt this body being rolled over, lifted up, lowered again and carried off somewhere, rocking and swaying.

That night Ochakov was still and quiet, deserted and devoid of stars.

THE LIFE THAT
was sheltering deep in Igor's motionless body suddenly heard a dull thud, which echoed and reverberated throughout his entire frame.

Two pairs of feet in coarse, heavy boots came to a standstill nearby.

‘Maybe I should take his gun out and shoot him in the head,' suggested Fima, his voice hesitant and weary. ‘They'll think he got drunk and shot himself . . . Or shall I just take the gun?'

‘No, it's not worth it,' murmured Iosip. ‘Why shoot a man who's already dead? And if the gun goes missing you'll have the cops all over you, given your reputation.'

‘All right,' agreed Fima. ‘Let's get the coat out from under him, though. I can use it again.'

Quick as lightning, Fima leaned over the body and, with one smooth motion, struck it in the side. Then his fingers closed firmly over the edge of the greatcoat.

Jerked roughly as the greatcoat was yanked out from under him, Igor now lay on his back, his head almost touching the base of the ‘bird with balls' – a pyramid of cannonballs surmounted by an eagle, commemorating Suvorov's victory over the Turks in the siege of Ochakov.

The footsteps of both pairs of boots faded into the darkness. A baby hedgehog shuffled out from a patch of grass nearby and stopped, lifting its pointed nose to the sky.

It began to rain. At first large drops drummed onto the ground, rustling the grass. Soon they were coming down in torrents, and the whole town was plunged into a nocturnal downpour. The earth, the grass, the memorial, everything glistened. Igor's tunic was soon wet through, for the second time that night. The water running over his face seemed to give some kind of signal to the life that was hiding within him. Or perhaps it was the rain streaming into Igor's half-open mouth, but whatever the trigger something happened inside him, something shifted, some kind of mechanism was released and began to press, weakly at first, on other mechanisms that controlled the body's internal and external movements. Igor's eyelids twitched and opened, and his mouth suddenly filled with the sweet taste of water he'd been longing for. He sensed the possibility of salvation – he didn't understand it, he felt it instinctively, as though he were a wild animal rather than a human being.

Summoning all of his strength, Igor turned his face towards the earth, towards the puddle spreading out beside him. He felt the sweet, cold water on his lips. He swallowed and leaned further into the water, sticking his tongue out and lapping it up like a dog, the only difference being that his tongue was thicker and considerably less agile than any dog's. He stuck his tongue out as far as it would go, probing the depths of the puddle and licking the firm, rough ground beneath it.

‘Water,' he whispered, the word trembling on his lips as he pressed himself into the puddle once more.

The life that had been hiding deep within him grew bolder, running through his blood and bones, amazed to feel his body coming alive and growing warmer by the minute.

Meanwhile, the downpour continued in full force. Ochakov was no longer shrouded in nocturnal silence. Water flowed noisily in every direction, even where there was no obvious channel, gathering strength and furrowing deeper into the earth.

After resting for a while, Igor drank more rainwater. He became aware of his fingers and moved them slightly. Then, pressing his palms flat against the ground, he raised himself up. He could still feel a burning sensation in his stomach but the fire was weaker now, more subdued.

‘Am I alive?' he whispered in astonishment, looking all around. ‘I'm alive!'

Greedily inhaling air, he struggled to his feet and staggered towards the nearest house. There was a street lamp next to it, illuminating the house number and the name of the road. He made it to the gate, pushed it open and stared at the dark windows of the house. Then he stepped back and let the gate swing shut. Swaying and holding his hand to his right side, which was hurting now more than his stomach, Igor shuffled on further down the street.

It was still raining, but Igor couldn't feel it. Nor could he feel that his clothes, hair and face were already soaking wet.

Every now and then he forced himself to look up, to try and get his bearings. Unfamiliar houses and fences were gradually replaced by ones he recognised. Igor stopped when he came to Vanya Samokhin's gate. Feeling desperately thirsty all of a sudden, he staggered to the side window of the house. He just about managed to raise his arm, which seemed incredibly heavy, and knocked on the glass.

Vanya let Igor into the hallway. He was wearing nothing but a pair of purple underpants.

‘Oh! What's happened to you?' he exclaimed, aghast.

Shivering and trembling with exhaustion, Igor staggered forwards and collapsed, scattering droplets of water over Vanya's bare legs. Aleksandra Marinovna hurried over in her long nightdress.

‘Good heavens!' she clasped her hands together. ‘He's gone blue!'

Igor turned his head and looked up at the faces above him, his eyes fading as he spoke.

‘Poison,' he whispered. ‘I've been poisoned . . . with vodka . . .'

‘Get him under a blanket!' Vanya's mother instructed her son. ‘Quickly!'

She ran into the kitchen, lit the paraffin stove and placed a pail of water over the burner. Taking a linen bag full of dried herbs from the cupboard, she opened it and inhaled before adding two handfuls to the water.

‘Whatever is the world coming to?' she murmured as she stared at the water in the pail, willing it to hurry up and boil.