The Gardener from Ochakov

13

AFTER AN ALMOST sleepless night on the train, Igor splashed his face with water from the sink to wake himself up before stepping out onto the platform at Lviv station.

The station was a hive of human activity. Trunks, suitcases and rucksacks flashed past him. The square outside the station surprised him with its modest dimensions. A tram, far skinnier than those in Kiev, loomed into view then rang its bell and disappeared off down a straight track that clearly led to the centre of the town.

‘You looking for a taxi? Good price!’ declared a sprightly old man with a thick regional accent.

Igor took Stepan’s letter out of his jacket pocket and glanced at the address.

‘How much to Zelenaya Street?’ he asked.

‘Forty hryvnas, if you can spare it!’

‘And if I can’t?’ grinned Igor.

‘In that case, thirty-five.’

The old Lada creaked and groaned for the duration of the journey. Every now and then Igor was thrown up into the air as the car lurched over the tram tracks that criss-crossed the cobbled streets. They left the beautiful old houses in the centre behind, and a winding road took them past a series of Khrushchev-era five-storey blocks. After that they passed a number of large industrial plots, with factory and warehouse fences stretching out into the distance on either side, before eventually reaching a district of neat, well-maintained private houses.

‘Number 271,’ Igor said to the driver.

When they arrived, Igor’s first impression was that the building didn’t look particularly grand. It consisted of two houses joined together; three steps led up to a green wooden door on the left, and three steps led up to a dark blue door on the right.

Igor went up to the dark blue door. He couldn’t see a doorbell, so he knocked three times. The door was opened by a young woman who was about thirty years old, wearing jeans and a dark blue sweater. Her hazel eyes looked at him enquiringly.

‘Are you Alyona Sadovnikova?’ Igor asked cautiously.

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve got a letter for you. From your father.’

Alyona hesitated, a fleeting look of concern in her eyes.

‘Come in.’

She led Igor into a room that was furnished neatly and modestly. Indicating that he should sit on the sofa, she took the envelope from him and walked over to the window. She moved the curtain aside. Taking out a piece of paper that was covered with fine handwriting, she read it several times. Then the hand holding the letter dropped to her side and she sighed with relief.

‘I’d started to think something bad must have happened,’ she said. ‘Does he want me to reply straight away?’ Alyona looked pensively at her guest.

‘No. He didn’t say anything. Just asked me to deliver it.’

‘Doesn’t he trust the postal service?’

She left the room and returned a few minutes later, holding a piece of paper torn from an exercise book, which she had folded in half and then in half again.

‘Give this to him,’ she said. ‘How is he? Is he well?’

Igor nodded.

‘I don’t suppose you have any photos of him?’

‘Photos?’ Igor repeated in surprise. ‘No.’

‘Why did he ask you to come?’ continued Alyona, her curiosity piqued. ‘Are you a friend of his? Or did he pay you?’

‘It’s not like that, he’s staying with us… He and I are… well, I suppose we’re friends.’

‘Why’s he staying with you?’

‘He’s helping us around the house,’ explained Igor. ‘It’s too much for my mother and me to manage by ourselves.’

‘Your mother?’ repeated Alyona. Then she gave a strange nod, as though everything suddenly made sense.

Igor noticed this and frowned. He knew what she was thinking, but for some reason he had no desire to clarify the situation. On the contrary he felt like asking her a few questions himself, although it somehow seemed like the wrong moment.

‘Do you ever come to Kiev?’ asked Igor.

‘Me? To Kiev? No,’ she replied, shaking her head. ‘Why would I want to go to Kiev?’

‘You should come,’ Igor shrugged. ‘You could see your father. You could come and visit us, although we don’t actually live in the city. When did you last see him?’

Alyona’s eyes widened. She paused before answering.

‘When did I last see him?’ she repeated slowly. ‘It feels as though I’ve never seen him… although I know that’s not true. He came a couple of times, when my mother was still alive. The last time was about fifteen years ago.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Igor lowered his eyes. ‘I didn’t know… I shouldn’t have asked.’

‘I’ve got to go to work now,’ Alyona said apologetically.

Igor stood up and said goodbye. They went out into the hallway and stood there looking at each other in silence.

‘Where are you going to stay tonight?’ Alyona asked suddenly. ‘I’m afraid I can’t put you up here.’

‘Don’t worry, I’m going back tonight,’ said Igor.

‘You mean you came just to deliver the letter?’

‘Well, I’ll have a little walk around the town too… My train doesn’t leave for hours.’

‘Yes, the town’s certainly worth a visit,’ said the young woman, nodding in approval.

Igor walked down the street, recognising the buildings and fences he’d driven past in the old Lada just half an hour previously and feeling the eyes of this attractive young woman on his back. Her reaction to the letter that Igor had brought had been so subdued. But when he thought about it, that wasn’t really so strange. She’d answered Stepan, hadn’t she? She’d given Igor a note to take back to him. A folded piece of paper.

When he reached the Khrushchev-era blocks, Igor stopped and took the piece of paper out of his pocket. If it had been in an envelope, even unsealed, he probably wouldn’t have dreamt of reading it. But it wasn’t in an envelope. Igor had no idea what Stepan’s letter to his daughter had said, but maybe her answer would somehow enlighten him.

He unfolded the piece of paper. There were just four words: ‘Nothing is impossible. Alyona.’

Igor spent the rest of the day wandering the old alleys and cobbled streets of Lviv. He went into a church, browsed the shops, even got his hair cut for thirty hryvnas in a little salon. He spent the last two hours of his visit at the train station, remembering at the last minute that he’d forgotten to buy a present for his mother.

The following morning the sun was shining over Irpen again. Only the puddles in the street gave any indication that it had been raining during the night.

The first thing Igor did was to give Stepan the note from his daughter.

‘How is she?’ asked the gardener.

‘Fine,’ Igor shrugged. ‘She was on her way to work, so we couldn’t really talk.’

‘Does she live alone?’

Igor thought about it. He recalled the living room, the hallway, the slippers by the front door.

‘I think so,’ he said.

Stepan nodded a few times. Then he read the note. To Igor’s surprise, her brief answer made the gardener smile. There was something touchingly childlike about the look on his face.

‘Thank God,’ breathed the gardener, looking at Igor. ‘She’s not ruling it out.’

‘Ruling what out?’ asked Igor.

‘The idea of coming to live with me,’ said Stepan.

‘What, here?’ Igor looked around the shed in astonishment.

Stepan burst out laughing. ‘Oh, you do surprise me sometimes,’ he said. ‘Don’t forget, I paid you an advance, didn’t I? You’re my gardener now!’

‘But I don’t know anything about gardening!’

‘Don’t worry, I’m joking. I’ve got another job lined up for you. Have a little rest. You need to recover from your trip. Then I want you to start asking around, find out whether there’s a house for sale near here. Or, even better, two houses right next to each other. All right? I’ll ask around as well. Hopefully we’ll be able to find something between us.’

Igor nodded, and his eyes came to rest on Stepan’s left hand. It had been bandaged up last time he’d seen him, but now it wasn’t.

Following the direction of Igor’s gaze, Stepan held up his left arm and looked at the cuts that had been rubbed with iodine.

‘Sometimes you even have to raise your hand against old friends,’ he said. ‘In order to jog their memories. Pashka the Jeweller, he and I go way back – known each other for thirty years, we have. But he seemed to have forgotten that. Didn’t offer the right price for our treasure. Trying to cheat his old friend, he was. But he changed his mind eventually.’

Igor’s tiredness caught up with him at around lunchtime, and he went to bed. It took him a long time to get to sleep. He was thinking about Stepan and his daughter, about the money he’d got from Pashka the Jeweller, whoever he was, and his request to find two houses somewhere nearby. Igor couldn’t shake the strange feeling that he was somehow related to Stepan, even though he knew virtually nothing about him.

Suddenly it began to pour with rain. The air filled with an autumnal humidity, and the hushed, monotonous patter of the rain on the tenacious leaves outside the window finally lulled Igor to sleep. The last thing he thought about was the attractive, melancholy face of Alyona and the way she’d held his gaze when they were saying goodbye in the intimate hallway of the house on Zelenaya Street.