Londongrad

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I stood in front of Tolya Sverdloff’s house in London, trying to figure out how to tell him his daughter, his Val, the only thing in the world he completely loved, was dead. Murdered. Suffocated with a pillow, lying on her own bed, as if she had just gone for a nap. And that it was my fault for not taking care of her. I felt like somebody had ripped my guts out.

It was early. Heavy green trees lined the long street. Overhead the sun was flushing out the early London mist, pearly light skimming the tall white houses. Milk bottles rattled as a delivery guy placed a couple of quarts on the stoop next door. A woman in tight red shorts jogged by, a tiny dog like a mouse on a leash behind her.

Notting Hill. London. July. This was Tolya’s Eden, his paradise, the shining city on a hill where he had believed no bad thing could ever happen.

I’d been up most of the night, crammed in a plane seat, my head hurt now, jaws, teeth, neck, too little sleep, too much Scotch. Most of the way across the Atlantic, I’d stared into the darkness, thinking about Tolya, thinking about Valentina. If I dozed off, I dreamed about her as she had been the other night at my place, alive, laughing, beautiful, curious, or at breakfast on the boardwalk, eating lox, cracking jokes, snapping pictures. Asleep it was much worse. I forced myself to stay awake.

From the other direction a second woman appeared, this one in sky blue, also jogging, and smoking, and the two woman, both young, not more than thirty, stopped a few feet from me and kissed three times, and greeted each other in Russian. I strained to hear them.

Was this what Roy Pettus wanted from me? Check out the Russians in London? Eavesdrop?

So far as I could find out, he had kept the media in New York at bay, Val’s death had not been reported and I knew he’d want something in return soon.

How long did I stand outside Tolya Sverdloff’s house? Time seemed to collapse. I stared at the doorbell. I put my bag down on the steps.

Mercedes, Audis, Range Rovers lined the street, punctuated by Smart cars and Minis and VWs in red and racing green and yellow and blue, little colored buttons of cars, shiny in the early light like M amp;Ms on this rich, gorgeous street.

From a door opposite where I stood, a man emerged with a little girl in a straw hat. I could hear them laughing softly as they climbed into a red Range Rover and the girl tossed her school books onto the back seat.

A man in a black linen jacket and pressed jeans, a guy talking softly into his collar, suddenly moved into the frame. He had been standing a few doors down. He was, I figured, somebody’s guy, some kind of muscle who kept a lookout on behalf of the inhabitants in one of the pretty houses.

Tolya never got up early. I would ring the doorbell and he’d come out, grumpy about the time, grinning because I was there.

“You came for my birthday,” Tolya Sverdloff would say, seeing me in front of his door. “You just arrived? You flew overnight? I’m so happy, my friend. Come in, Artemy,” he would say, and I would have to tell him the truth.

Past sleeping houses, doors gleaming with fresh paint, red, black, past pink, white, purple flowers tumbling from window boxes, I walked toward the church at the end of the street, light glistening on it, turning the stone gold.

A few blocks away near Portobello Road, I found a coffee joint. The smell of fresh coffee hit me. A young guy in back was grinding beans and packing them into silver bags. He made me some espresso to go and I asked him if I could leave my bag for a while. He just yawned, dumped more beans into the grinder and said sure.

I walked. I told myself Tolya was still asleep. Why wake him? I thought. I made excuses. I tried not to think about Valentina’s death, and who killed her.

Was it the same thug who murdered Masha first, by mistake, and left her on the swing? I couldn’t think about anything else. Somebody had killed her to get at her father, to warn him.

Tolya had been messing with bad people, maybe in New York or here in London, and he got out of line, made too much money, told too many jokes; Valentina’s murder was a warning. I would kill him.

This was the real consequence of murder. The horror was for the people left alive, unspeakable if they were the parents. It would go on and on for them. Their friends, not knowing how to respond, not wanting to know the ugly things, would look the other way. And it would never ever stop until they were dead themselves years later-of natural causes, the obits might say, though there would never be anything natural in their world again.

This knowledge, that he, Tolya, was a target, that Val’s murder was a threat, a warning, would make news of her death even worse for him.

Trucks delivering vegetables edged past me on the crowded road. The color of strawberries already on a stall was an intense, other-wordly red.

In the next street a guy unloaded flowers off a van for an outdoor flower store. Pink, green, red, yellow, purple all in tight bunches. Next door was a public toilet in a building made out of pale green tiles. The whole place had the quality of a fairy tale, or an article in a glossy travel magazine.

On the front page of a newspaper I bought was a picture of Litvinenko, late fall ’06. Scanning the story I saw that British officials had now confirmed it was the Russians who killed him. A two-year investigation had revealed that it was state terrorism. As of this morning, it was official. I bought a bunch of white tulips for Tolya.

At Tolya’s house, my suitcase on the polished stone step, I finally rang the bell. My pulse pounded in my neck, I tried to form up some words before he opened the door. Then, from inside, I heard the heavy steps, steps coming down a flight of stairs, coming towards the door, his cheerful voice calling out in mock irritation: “Okay, okay, I’m coming.”

“What time is it?” said Tolya.

Pulling a huge black silk bathrobe around him, feet bare, hair a mess, eyes clogged with sleep, he said, “Jesus, Artyom, Christ, you wake me at this crazy hour, but I forgive you. You came for my birthday. I’m happy. Come in.”

Taking my suitcase, he set it down inside, closed the door, hugged me and kissed me three times on both cheeks, Russian style, and let out a stream of insult and affection.

“You came for my birthday? You came for my party? You are a good friend, I knew you would come, I have surprise for you, in your room. Come,” he said, leading me to the staircase with the curving banister.

“And Val?” he said. “When’s she coming? She’s not going to forget my birthday, is she, I’m giving a big party, she says she is coming, she texts me, come upstairs,” he said, chattering at me in Russian, in English, joking around, telling me about the party, what he was serving, what vintages, which caviar.

I felt like a fraud.

I followed him up the staircase, its ancient stone steps salvaged from some palace, some chateau, smoothed thin by centuries of wear, polished to a high gloss. At the top, Tolya put down my bag. “Welcome!”

Double doors led into a large room with high ceilings and curly plaster moldings. The tall windows looked out onto a green square. On an antique wood table in front of the windows were boxes wrapped in fancy paper and tied with ribbons. Famous labels. Designer stuff. Next to the packages was a large photograph of Valentina in a silver frame. I tried not to look at it.

“Presents,” said Tolya, glancing at the packages and smiling. “I have very very nice friends, so many presents come. Don’t look like that, so gloomy,” he added, glancing at me. “It is not a big birthday, I will be forty-six in one day, and I am younger than you.” He laughed, and found a half-smoked Havana in his bathrobe pocket, put it in his mouth, and said, “What’s the matter, Artyom? You didn’t curse at me as usual on my birthday because you’re almost four years older? You didn’t bring a present? No, look you brought for me these wonderful flowers,” he said, and took them out of my hand and with them the newspaper still held.

Glancing at the front page, he made his way to the kitchen with me in his wake. “Come,” he said. “We’ll eat. You’ll feel better.”

Even while he made coffee in a red and chrome espresso machine, he talked, exuberant, fully awake now, glad to see me, full of news, and plans for my visit. And I listened and tried to find a space where I could tell him why I was in London. He put on the radio, listened briefly to the news about the Litvinenko case. Turned it off, talked some more about his birthday party.

He felt bad about Sasha Litvinenko, he said, the story had haunted him a long time, but he had worried enough, and he had tried to help find the killers. The thing was not to mourn but to celebrate life.

“I mean I offered what I knew about Sasha himself to someone I know who could use it. I didn’t do anything stupid, Artemy. I didn’t. Don’t worry. You always think I’m going to get in some kind of trouble.”

I couldn’t speak. I drank a glass of water, but my throat closed up. Tolya chattered on.

“But we don’t need to talk about serious stuff, you’re here on vacation, unless Roy Pettus persuaded you to become a spy.” He laughed his escalating laugh which, as it reached its peak, made him shake. “Listen, it’s okay, right?” said Tolya. “You don’t have to worry. Now let’s talk about where we will have lunch today, and then we’ll go buy presents for Valentina. Her birthday too, you knew that?”

I nodded.

“Also, I said to myself finally: Anatoly Anatolyevich, stop this crap with your kid. She’s a grown-up. Leave her some space. Give her some peace. She’s a young woman now. Let her find her way. This comes to me in the middle of the night recently when I wake up and I think, I have to let go of Valentina, I say to myself, Artemy is right, I can’t watch over her forever, and it is you who has always said this, and you approve, right?”

He pulled the espresso and handed me a dark green cup, then looked out of the window into the green communal garden. “I am so happy you’re here in London,” he said. “I’ve found my Zen place, my Brigadoon, you remember this disgusting musical they loved so much in Russia? I remember one production in Moscow where the fantasy Scottish never-never land becomes socialist paradise. You ever saw this?” He drank some espresso. “It was so awful people had to bite their lip to stop from laughing. My father directed it, it almost killed him. They put my mother in this plaid dress and she had to sing some schlock, which almost killed her, this was a woman who preferred Wagner.” Tolya turned from the espresso machine and belted out a song. “Go home, go home, go home with Bonnie Jean,” he sang. “I could have been musical star.” He laughed, and added, “So who the hell was this Bonnie Jean? And what’s with the glen?”

Tolya still laughing, I went to the glass doors and out onto a balcony. In the lush square below, four tiny girls with pale hair were hanging like pretty little monkeys from a jungle gym. Others chased each other, while their mothers and nannies watched and baked in the sun.

When I went back to the kitchen, Tolya was looking at some newspapers, drinking coffee, and chatting to somebody in his phone. He hung up.

“You can smoke in here if you want, Artyom, you don’t have to go onto the balcony. What’s with you? You haven’t said a word, not even when I sing. What’s wrong?”

I reached for the water glass.

“Artie? What’s going on? Maybe you should go take some sleep, and later I’ll take you for lunch,” he said, his voice sober, faintly concerned now, but for me.

It was me he was thinking about. He had no idea. “You don’t feel good? What’s the matter, Artyom?” he said again.