Russian Roulette

ФОРТОЧНИК – FORTOCHNIK

For the next few days, we barely left the flat. Dima was worried the police would be looking for us and I also had my concerns. Forget Estrov. I was now wanted for theft and for assaulting a police officer. It was better for us not to show our faces in the street and so we ate, drank, played cards… and we were bored. We were also running out of cash. I never asked Dima what he had done with the rubles he had taken from me and it wasn’t as if we were spending a lot of money but somehow there was never enough for our basic needs. Roman and Grigory brought in a few rubles now and then but the truth is that they were too unattractive to have much success begging and Roman’s stutter made it hard for him to ask for money.

Even so, it was Roman who suggested it one night. “We should try b-b-b-burglary.”

We were sitting around the table with vodka and cards. All we had eaten that day was a couple of slices of black bread. The four of us were looking ill. We needed proper food and sunlight. I had got used to the smell in the room by now – in fact I was part of it. But the place was looking grimier than ever and we longed to be outside.

“Who are we going to b-b-burgle?” Dima asked.

Roman shrugged.

“It’s a good idea,” Grigory said. He slapped down an attack card – we were having another bout of Durak. “Yasha is small enough. He could be our fortochnik.”

“What’s a fortochnik?” I asked.

Dima rolled his eyes. “It’s someone who breaks in through a fortochka,” he explained.

That, at least, I understood. A fortochka was a type of window. Many apartments in Moscow had them before air conditioning took over. There would be a large window and then a much smaller one set inside it, a bit like a cat flap. In the summer months, people would open the fortochkas to let in the breeze and, of course, they were an invitation for thieves… provided they were small enough. Grigory was right. He was too fat and Roman was too ungainly to crawl through, but I could make it easily. I was small for my age – and I’d lost so much weight that I was stick-thin.

“It is a good idea,” Dima agreed. “But we need an address. There’s no point just breaking in anywhere, and anyway, it’s too dangerous. His eyes brightened. “We can talk to Fagin!”

Fagin was an old soldier who lived three floors down in a room on his own. He had been in Afghanistan and had lost one eye and half his left arm – in action, he claimed, although there was a rumour he had been run over by a trolleybus while he was home on leave. Fagin wasn’t his real name, of course but everyone called him that after a character in an English book, Oliver Twist. And the thing about Fagin was that he knew everything about everything. I never found out how he got his information but if a bank was about to move a load of money or a diamond merchant was about to visit a smart hotel, somehow Fagin would catch wind of it and he would pass the information on – at a price. Everyone in the block respected him. I had seen him a couple of times, a short, plump man with a huge beard bristling around his chin, shuffling along the corridors in a dirty coat, and I had thought he looked more like a tramp than a master criminal.

But now that Dima had thought of him, the decision had been made and the following day we gathered in his flat, which was the same size as ours but at least furnished with a sofa and a few pictures on the wall. He had electricity too. Fagin himself was a disgusting old man. The way he looked at us, you didn’t really want to think about what was going on in his head. If Santa Claus had taken a dive into a sewer he would have come up looking much the same.

“You want to be fortochniks?” he asked, smiling to himself. “Then you want to do it soon before the winter comes and all the windows are closed! But you need an address. That’s what you need, my boys. Somewhere worth the pickings!” He produced a leather notebook with old bus tickets and receipts sticking out of the pages. He opened it and began to thumb through.

“How much is your share?” Dima asked.

“Always straight to the point, Dimitry. That’s what I like about you.” Fagin smiled. “Whatever you take, you bring to me. No lying! I know a lie when I hear one and, believe me, I’ll cut out your tongue.” He leered at us, showing the yellow slabs that were his teeth. “Sixty per cent for me, forty for you. Please don’t argue with me, Dimitry, dear boy. You won’t get better anywhere else. And I have the addresses. I know all the places where you won’t have any difficulty. Nice, slim boys, slipping in at night…”

“Fifty-fifty,” Dima said.

“Fagin doesn’t negotiate.” He found a page in his notebook. “Now here’s an address off Lubyanka Square. Ground-floor flat.” He looked up. “Shall I go on?”

Dima nodded. He had accepted the deal. “Where is it?”

“Mashkova Street. Number seven. It’s owned by a rich banker. He collects stamps. Many of them valuable.” He flicked the page over. “Maybe you’d prefer a house in the Old Arbat. Lots of antiques. Mind you, it was done over last spring and I’d say it was a bit early for a return visit.” Another page. “Ah yes. I’ve had my eye on this place for a while. It’s near Gorky Park… fourth floor and quite an easy climb. Mind you, it’s owned by Vladimir Sharkovsky. Might be too much of a risk. How about Ilinka Street? Ah yes! That’s perfect. Nice and easy. Number sixteen. Plenty of cash, jewellery…”

“Tell me about the flat in Gorky Park,” I said.

Dima turned to me, surprised. But it was the name that had done it. Sharkovsky. I had heard it before. I remembered the time when I entered Dementyev’s office at Moscow State University. I had heard him talking on the telephone.

Yes, of course, Mr Sharkovsky. Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.

“Who is Sharkovsky?” I asked.

“He’s a businessman,” Fagin said. “But rich. Very, very rich. And quite dangerous, so I’m told. Not the sort of man you’d want to meet on a dark night and certainly not if you were stealing from him.”

“I want to go there,” I said.

“Why?” Dima asked.

“Because I know him. At least… I heard his name.”

At that moment, it seemed almost like a gift. Misha Dementyev was my enemy. He had tried to hand me over to the police. He had lied to my parents. And it sounded as if he was working for this man, Sharkovsky – assuming it was the same Sharkovsky. So robbing his flat made perfect sense. It was like a miniature revenge.

Fagin snapped the notebook shut. We had made our decision and it didn’t matter which address we chose. “It won’t be so difficult,” he muttered. “Fourth floor. Quiet street. Sharkovsky doesn’t actually live there. He keeps the place for a friend, an actress.” He leered at us in a way that suggested she was much more than a friend. “She’s away a lot. It could be empty. I’ll check.”

Fagin was as good as his word. The following day he provided us with the information we needed. The actress was performing in a play called The Cherry Orchard and wouldn’t be back in Moscow until the end of the month. The flat was deserted but the fortochka was open.

“Go for the things you can carry,” he suggested. “Jewellery. Furs. Mink and sable are easy to shift. TVs and stuff like that… leave them behind.”

We set off that same night, skirting round the walls of the Kremlin and crossing the river on the Krymsky Bridge. I thought I would be nervous. This was my first real crime – very different from the antics that Leo and I had got up to during the summer, setting off schoolboy bombs outside the police station or pinching cigarettes. Even stealing from the back of parked cars wasn’t in the same league. But the strange thing was that I was completely calm. It struck me that I might have found my destiny. If I could learn to survive in Moscow by being a thief, that was the way it would have to be.

Gorky Park is a huge area on the edge of the Moscow River. With a fairground, boating lakes and even an open-air theatre, it’s always been a favourite place for the people in the city. Anyone who had a flat here would have to be rich. The air was cleaner and if you were high enough you’d get views across the trees and over to the river, where barges and pleasure boats cruised slowly past, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, another Stalin skyscraper, in the far distance. The flat that Fagin had identified was right next to the park in a quiet street that hardly seemed to belong to the city at all. It was too elegant. Too expensive.

We got there just before midnight but all the street lamps were lit and I was able to make out a very attractive building, made of cream-coloured stone, with arched doorways and windows and lots of decoration over the walls. It was smaller and neater than our apartment block, just four storeys high, with a slanting orange-tiled roof.

“That’s the window – up there.”

Dima pointed. The flat was on the top floor, just as Fagin had said, and sure enough I could make out the fortochka, which was actually slightly ajar. The woman who lived there might have thought she was safe, being so high up, but I saw at once that it would be possible to climb in, using the building’s adornments as footholds. There were ledges, windowsills, carved pillars and even a drainpipe that would act as one side of a ladder. It wouldn’t be easy for me but once I was inside I would go back down and open the front door. I’d let the others in and the whole place would be ours.

There were no lights on inside the building. The other residents must have been asleep. Nor was there anyone in the street. We crossed as quickly as we could and grouped ourselves in the shadows, right up against the wall.

“What do you think, Yasha?” Dima asked.

I looked up and nodded. “I can do it.” But still I hesitated. “Are you sure she’s away?”

“Everyone says Fagin is reliable.”

“OK.”

“We’ll be waiting for you at the door. Make sure you don’t make any noise coming down the stairs.”

“Right. Good luck.”

Dima cupped his hands to help me climb up to the first level and as I raised my foot, our eyes met and he smiled at me. But at that moment I suddenly felt troubled. This might be my destiny but what would my parents have said if they could have seen me now? They were honest people. That was the way I’d been brought up. I was amazed at how quickly I’d become a burglar, a thief. And if I stayed in Moscow much longer? I wondered what I might become next.

I began the climb. The three boys scattered. We’d agreed that if a policeman happened to come along on patrol, Grigory would warn me by hooting like an owl. But right now we were alone and at first it was easy. I had the drainpipe on one side and there were plenty of bricks and swirling plasterwork to give me a foothold. The architect or the artist who had built this place might have had plenty of ideas about style and elegance but he had been less brilliant when it came to security.

Even so, the higher I went, the more dangerous it became. The pipe was quite loose. If I put too much weight onto it, I risked tearing it out of the wall. Some of the decorations were damp and had begun to rot. I rested my foot briefly on a diamond-shaped brick, part of a running pattern, and to my horror it crumbled away. First, there was the sound of loose plaster hitting the pavement. Then I found myself scrabbling against the face of the building, desperately trying to stop myself plunging down. If I’d fallen from the first floor, I’d have broken an ankle. From this height it was more likely to be my neck. Somehow I managed to steady myself. I looked down and saw Dima standing underneath one of the street lamps. He had seen what had happened and waved a hand – either spurring me on or warning me to be more careful.

I took a deep breath to steady my nerves, then continued up – past the third floor and up to the fourth. At one stage I was right next to a window and, peeping in, I saw the vague shape of two people lying in bed under a fur cover. I was lucky they were heavy sleepers. I pulled myself up as quickly as possible and finally reached the ledge that ran along the whole building just below the top floor. It was no more than fifteen centimetres wide and I had to squeeze flat against the wall, shuffling along with my toes touching the brickwork and my heels hanging in the air. If I had leaned back even slightly I would have lost my balance and fallen. But I had come this far without killing myself. I was determined to see it through.

I got to the window with the smaller window set inside it and now I saw that I had two more problems. It was going to be an even tighter fit than I had imagined. And it was going to be awkward too. Somehow I had to lever myself up and in, but that would mean putting all my weight on the main sheet of glass. The windows were only separated by a narrow frame and unless I was careful there was a real chance they would shatter beneath me and I would end up being cut in half. Once again I looked for Dima but this time there was no sign of him.

I reached out and held onto the edge with one hand. The fortochka was definitely unlocked. The room on the other side was dark but seemed to be a lounge with a dining area and a kitchen attached. I grabbed the glass with my other hand. I saw now that I was going to have to go in head first. It just wasn’t possible to lever up my leg. Using my forehead, I pushed the little window open. I leant forward, pushing my head inside. Now the glass was resting against the back of my neck, making me think of a prisoner in the old days, about to be decapitated by guillotine. Trying to keep as much of my weight off the glass as I could, I arched forward and in. The fit was very tight. The opening was barely more than forty centimetres square… a cat flap indeed. My shoulders only just passed through and I felt the loose end of the glass scraping against my back. I pushed harder and found myself wedged with the lower rim of the fortochka pressing into my back just above my buttocks. Suddenly I was trapped! I couldn’t move in either direction and I had a nightmare vision of being stuck there all night, waiting for someone to discover me and call the police in the morning. The glass was creaking underneath me. I was sure it was going to break. I pushed again. It was like giving birth to myself. The edge cut into me but then, somehow, gravity took over. I plunged forward into the darkness and hit the floor. I was in!

If it hadn’t been for the carpet, I would have definitely broken my nose and ended up looking like Dima. If there was anyone in the flat, they would certainly have heard me and I lay there for a moment, waiting for the door to open and the lights to go on. It didn’t happen. I remembered the people I had seen beneath their fur cover in the flat below. Surely they would have heard the thump and wondered what it was. But there was no sound from below either. I waited another minute. My arm was sticking out at a strange angle and I was worried that I had dislocated my shoulder, but when I shifted my weight and got back into a sensible position, it seemed all right. Dima and the others would have seen me go in. They would be waiting for me to come down and open the front door. It was time to move.

First I examined my surroundings. As my eyes got used to the half-light, I saw that I was in the main living area and that the owner must have been as wealthy as Fagin had said. I had never been anywhere like this. The furniture was modern and looked brand new. Living in a wooden house in a village, I had never seen – I had never even imagined – glass and silver tables, leather sofas, and beautiful cabinets with rings hanging off the drawers. Everything I had ever sat on or slept in had been old and shabby. There was a gorgeous rug in front of a fireplace and even to steal that would make this adventure worthwhile. How much more comfortable I would be lying on a luxurious rug than on the lumpy mattress back at the Tverskaya Street apartment!

Paintings in gold frames hung on the walls. I didn’t really understand them. They seemed to be splashes of paint with no subject matter at all. There had been a few framed photographs in my house, a tapestry hanging in my parents’ bedroom, pictures cut out of magazines, but nothing like this. Next to the sitting area there was a dining-room table – an oval of wood, partly covered by a lace cloth, with four chairs – and beyond it a kitchen that was so clean it had surely never been used. I ran my eye over the electric oven, the sink with its gleaming taps. No need to run down to any wells if you lived here. There was a fridge in one corner. I opened the door and found myself bathed in electric light, staring at shelves stacked with ham, cheese, fruit, salad, pickled mushrooms and the little pancakes that we called blinis. I’m afraid I couldn’t help myself. I reached in and stuffed as much food into my mouth as I could, not caring if it was salty or sweet.

And that was how I was, standing in the kitchen with food in my hands and in my mouth, when there was the rattle of a key in the lock and the main door of the flat opened and the lights came on.

Fagin had got it wrong after all.

A man stood staring at me. I saw his eyes turn instantly from surprise to understanding and then to dark, seething fury. He was wearing a black fur coat, black gloves and the sort of hat you might see on an American gangster. A white silk scarf hung around his shoulders. He was not a huge man but he was solid and well built and he had a presence about him, a sense of power. I could see it in his extraordinarily intense eyes, heavy-lidded with thick, black eyebrows. His flesh had the colour and the vitality of a man lying dead in his coffin and standing there, framed in the doorway, he had that same, heavy stillness. His face was unlined, his mouth a narrow gash. I could make out the edges of a tattoo on the side of his neck: red flames. It suggested that the whole of his body, underneath his shirt, was on fire. Without knowing anything about him, I knew I was in terrible trouble. If I had met the devil I could not have been more afraid.

“Who is it, Vlad?” There was a woman standing behind him. I glimpsed a mink collar and blonde hair.

“There is someone in the flat,” he said. “A boy.”

His eyes briefly left me, darting across the room to the window. He didn’t need to ask any questions. He knew how I had got in. He knew that I was alone.

“Do you want me to call the police?”

“No. There’s no need for that.”

His words were measured, uttered with a sort of dull certainty. And they told me the worst thing possible. If he wasn’t calling the police it was because he had decided to deal with me himself, and he wasn’t going to shake my hand and thank me for coming. He was going to kill me. Perhaps there was a gun in his coat pocket. Perhaps he would tear me apart with his bare hands. I had no doubt at all that he could do it.

I didn’t know how to react. My one desire was to get out of the flat, back into the street. I wondered if Dima, Roman and Grigory had seen what had happened but I knew that even if they had, there was nothing they could do. The front door would be locked. If they were sensible, they would probably be halfway back to Tverskaya Street. I tried to collect my thoughts. All I had to do was to get past this man and out into the corridor. The woman wouldn’t try to stop me. I looked around me and did perhaps the most stupid thing I could have done. There was a bread knife on the counter. I picked it up.

The man didn’t move. He didn’t speak. He glanced at the blade with outrage. How could I dare to pick up his property and threaten him in his home? That was what he said without actually saying anything. Holding the knife didn’t make me feel any stronger. In fact all the strength drained out of me the moment I had it in my hand and the silver, jagged blade filled me with horror.

“I don’t want any trouble,” I said and my voice didn’t sound like my own. “Just let me go and nobody will be hurt.”

He had no intention of doing that. He moved towards me and I jabbed out with the knife without thinking, not meaning to stab him, not really knowing what I was doing. He stopped. I saw the face of the girl behind him, frozen in shock. The man looked down. I followed his eyes and saw that the point of the blade had gone through his coat, into his chest. I was even more horrified. I stepped back, dropping the knife. It clattered to the floor.

The man didn’t seem to have felt any pain. He brought up a hand and examined the gash in his coat as if it mattered more to him than the flesh underneath. When he brought his hand away, there was blood on the tips of his glove.

He gazed at me. I was unarmed now, trapped by those terrible eyes.

“What have you done?” he demanded.

“I…” I didn’t know what to say.

He took one step forward and punched me in the face. I had never been struck so hard. I didn’t even know it was possible for one human to hurt another human so much. It was like being hit by a rod of steel and I felt something break. I heard the girl cry out. I was already falling but as I went down he hit me again with the other fist so that my head snapped back and my body collapsed in two directions at once. I remember a bolt of white light that seemed to be my own death. I was unconscious before I reached the floor.