The Gardener from Ochakov

31

WHEN THEY GOT back to the house Igor’s mother was already bustling about in the kitchen, preparing breakfast. Kolyan took his boots and jacket off in the hallway. He went into the bathroom and spent a long time washing the green antiseptic ointment from his face. Then he went into Igor’s bedroom and sat down on the mattress where he’d slept, though not for long enough.

‘Here, look at these. Try to memorise them,’ said Igor, handing his friend the stack of photos that the photographer had given him.

‘Can’t I take them with me?’

Igor thought about it. ‘I’ll give you a few,’ he answered. ‘You won’t need all of them, will you?’

Kolyan started looking through the photographs again, screwing up his eyes and peering closely at them. Igor pulled the bedside table over to where he was sitting. He angled the reading lamp so it was pointing directly at Kolyan’s hands.

‘Breakfast’s ready,’ said Elena Andreevna, looking into the room. ‘Come and eat!’

‘Let’s go,’ said Igor.

Kolyan frowned. ‘I’m not sitting anywhere near a window,’ he said stubbornly.

‘Fine, I’ll bring it in here.’

Kolyan devoured his fried egg and sausage sitting cross-legged on the floor. He drank his tea in the same position.

‘So, when are you sending me?’ he asked, nodding at the photos that lay nearby on the floor.

‘Wait a minute,’ said Igor. He thought about it. ‘We need to think about the logistics. It’s like going abroad. We could do with a few documents. If only we could get you some official Soviet identity papers… then nobody would suspect a thing.’

‘Documents?’ repeated Kolyan. ‘Are you kidding? We’re living in the Information Age! A diplomatic passport, a certificate stating that you’re a descendant of the Romanovs, whatever… you just order it online, and it arrives the next day.’

‘Yes, but we need old Soviet documents. I’ve got an old police lieutenant’s ID pass – have a look at that if you think it’ll help.’

‘I don’t need to,’ shrugged Kolyan. He pulled his bag towards him and took out his laptop. ‘Right then, let’s see what we can find.’

‘While you’re doing that, I’ve got a few jobs to do,’ said Igor. ‘I promised to help a friend.’

‘How long are you going to be?’

‘I’ll be back before dinner.’

Igor left Kolyan in his bedroom. He told his mother that he was suffering from depression and asked her not to disturb him. Meanwhile, Igor himself went to Stepan’s new house, where he was immediately given a dust mask and some protective gloves. They even found a pair of overalls for him to wear. The builders had left some steel girders and planks of wood on the first floor of the new house, and there were also a number of radiators that needed to be removed. Working together, Igor and Stepan carried everything downstairs. They worked until Alyona called them for lunch, which she had set out in the old wooden house, in the same room where they had modestly celebrated the signing of the purchase deeds. After the meal, as he was drinking tea, Igor started to worry about Kolyan. He apologised for not being able to help any more that day and ran home.

He found his friend exactly where he’d left him, sitting on the mattress in the corner of his room. Except for some reason Igor’s passport was now lying open on the floor next to him.

‘What are you doing with that?’ Igor asked nervously.

‘It’s all sorted,’ said Kolyan, raising his hand in a gesture of reassurance. ‘I couldn’t order documents in my own name, could I? So I ordered them in yours. I sent my own photo, though.’

‘So what have you ordered?’ asked Igor.

‘A passport from 1957, a business trip certificate for a police lieutenant and a few other documents as well. They knew what I needed. The company I ordered from is affiliated with the state archives. As well as all the samples, they can provide blank documents too. For a price, of course!’

‘How much does it all cost?’

‘Five hundred dollars. I’ve already paid.’ Kolyan waved his credit card at Igor. ‘Look after this for me, OK? Maybe I’ll be back this time next year!’ A slightly crazed smile played on Kolyan’s lips.

‘When are you going to get them?’

‘Tonight, believe it or not, by courier!’

‘Congratulations,’ said Igor, glancing from Kolyan’s open laptop to his own passport. ‘Now you’re me, and I… I’m not quite me… Well, I’m still me, but I’m also Vanya Samokhin.’

‘What interesting lives we lead,’ Kolyan said with a grin.

‘We live in an interesting country, these are interesting times… we can’t help being interesting ourselves,’ said Igor, smiling back at his friend. ‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to stay here for a little while longer. Just a day or two.’

‘Why?’ Kolyan’s smile dropped.

‘I’m going to Ochakov, to arrange for someone to meet you… And to say my goodbyes,’ said Igor. His voice was uncharacteristically firm.

A scooter pulled up outside the gate, and the doorbell rang a few moments later. Igor’s mother answered it.

‘Who is it?’ she asked.

‘A courier. I’ve got a delivery for Igor Vozny.’

‘It’s for you, son,’ called Elena Andreevna.

Igor took the package from the courier and returned to his bedroom. He held the package out to his friend. Kolyan ripped it open immediately and took out a plastic folder containing his documents.

‘Do you want a drink?’ asked Igor. ‘This feels like a fairly momentous occasion.’

‘I don’t need an excuse these days,’ nodded Kolyan, looking up. ‘I’ll have whatever’s on offer.’

By 11 p.m. they were coming to the end of one of the bottles of brandy Igor had bought on the way home from Stepan’s house. They were both drinking this time, at the same pace.

‘So you’re just going to go there and come straight back?’ asked Kolyan, glancing nervously at Igor.

‘Yes, I’ll be as quick as I can. Do you want me to leave you something to read while I’m gone? To stop you getting bored? I can recommend a great book about food, written by a man of the people. Actually, maybe it’s getting a bit late –’

‘No, I can’t read… I’m too scared to concentrate. I’ll just wait. I’d rather you left me something to drink.’

‘I will,’ Igor assured him.

He went to the kitchen and came back with the second bottle of brandy and two bottles of wormwood liqueur.

‘Will that be enough?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ said Kolyan. ‘Enough to get drunk and sleep it off three times over.’

Igor changed into the police uniform in silence. He fastened the belt and holster around his waist, pulled on the boots and put on the peaked cap. Then he put his waterproof jacket on over the top of the tunic. Kolyan watched Igor’s transformation in stunned fascination. He didn’t say a word.

‘Right, I’m ready. Stay here,’ said Igor. He gave Kolyan a farewell glance and left the room.

A cold wind was blowing outside. It wasn’t particularly strong, but it was blowing right into Igor’s face, as though it were coming directly from the past.

The darkness was growing thicker. The houses and fences on both sides of the street receded from view. A little light trembled in the distance up ahead. Igor felt a few raindrops. He automatically tried to pull up his hood but the peaked cap was in the way, so he took it off and carried it.

Igor’s feet led him to the square in front of the wine factory. The rain had stopped, leaving the air damp and heavy.

The factory gates opened slightly. Vanya peeped out of them, then emerged with a sack of wine over his shoulder.

‘Hi,’ Igor called to him.

Vanya stopped, looking around guardedly. Igor walked out into the part of the square that was illuminated.

‘It’s me,’ he said.

‘Yes, I recognised your voice,’ nodded Vanya. ‘We haven’t seen you for a while… Something happened while you were away.’

They turned into the road that led to Vanya’s house.

‘What happened?’ Igor asked as they walked.

‘Valya’s husband was stabbed.’

‘Is he in hospital?’ asked Igor.

‘No, he’s in the cemetery. She doesn’t go to the market any more. She just sits at home, wearing her mourning scarf and crying.’

Igor gave a heavy sigh. ‘Did they find whoever did it?’ he asked despondently.

‘No,’ said Vanya, shaking his head. He stopped and adjusted the sack of wine on his shoulder. ‘He was stabbed so that the handle of the knife broke off, and the blade stayed between his ribs.’

They walked the rest of the way to Vanya’s house in silence. When they got there, they went and sat in the kitchen and Vanya poured them both a glass of wine. He smiled at his own thoughts.

‘The newspaper bought one of my photographs,’ he said proudly. ‘I’ve started taking my own! A friend developed and printed it for me.’

‘Which newspaper?’ Igor asked absently.

‘Our local paper, the Ochakovan,’ said Vanya. He paused to sip his wine. ‘They said they’d pay me twenty roubles for it. I love taking photographs. I’ve even read a book about it – Photography for Beginners.’

‘Yes,’ said Igor, sipping his own wine. ‘You’re good at it.’

‘I wish I could develop and print them myself too, but you need to buy special trays for the chemicals. And an enlarger.’

Igor took several hundred-rouble notes from the pocket of his breeches. He pushed the money across the table towards Vanya.

‘There you go. Buy whatever you need.’

‘Oh, thank you! You… I don’t know what to say,’ stammered Vanya, overwhelmed with gratitude.

‘Then don’t say anything,’ said Igor.

‘What kind of coat is that? Is it fashionable?’

‘It’s a waterproof jacket. You can have it, if you like.’

‘Really?’

Igor took his jacket off and gave it to Vanya. Then he nodded at the cupboard in the corner of the kitchen.

‘Is that where you keep your knives and forks?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

Igor got up and pulled the top drawer towards him. His eyes fell on a kitchen knife with a solid wooden handle. He picked it up and turned to Vanya.

‘Have you got a sharp file?’ he asked.

‘We’ve got all kinds of files.’

‘Can I borrow one?’

Vanya left the kitchen and returned with a wooden box, which he put on the table. He opened it and took out a bundle of imitation leather.

‘There you go,’ he said, unrolling it onto the table. It was a storage pouch with lots of little pockets, containing files of different shapes and sizes.

Vanya was watching his guest intently. Igor began to feel irritated by his curiosity, so he stuck the kitchen knife into one of the little pockets and rolled up the pouch.

‘You know, next time a different… police officer will come, instead of me. His name is Nikolai. I want you to help him, show him the town, tell him everything.’

‘What about you?’ Vanya’s face fell. ‘I’ve got used to you coming.’

‘Then you’d better get used to me not coming,’ Igor said coldly. ‘I… I’m leaving. It’s to do with work… I’m leaving the police force.’

‘Because it’s so dangerous?’

‘Yes.’

Igor had no desire to prolong this conversation. He finished his wine, then went into the room with the old sofa, switched the light on and sat down on a chair. Selecting one of the files from the pouch, he began sawing into the blade of the knife at the point where it met the wooden handle.

It was hard work. Igor persevered until his hand was sore, although the notch he’d managed to file into the blade was still no more than a couple of millimetres deep. He put the knife on his knees and paused for breath, flexing his fingers. Then he picked up the file and tried again. Through sheer effort and determination he managed to file a further millimetre and a half, by which point his fingers had started to hurt too, so he took another rest. He found a sharper file, and thereafter his progress improved.

When the blade was sawn through almost completely, with only a couple of millimetres still connecting it to the handle, Igor stopped work. He looked at his hand. There were two broken blisters – testimony to the urgency with which he had applied himself to the unfamiliar task.

He thought about Stepan, about his ‘words of wisdom’ on stabbing techniques. It was strange that a gardener should know so much about it – paradoxical, even. A gardener is supposed to know how to use a fork and spade, how to nurture flowers and trees, how to enhance the beauty of the surrounding world… You can’t make the world a better place by stabbing someone.

Or can you? he suddenly thought. One stabbing ruins lives and makes the world a terrible place, but another, even with the same blade, might make the world and life itself more beautiful.

Igor thought back to the spring, when his mother had asked him to fetch a bag of carrots up from the cellar and sort them out. He had topped and tailed them, cutting off the bits that had started to rot and leaving the edible parts of the fat red rhizomes. His mother had made them into spicy Korean carrot salad, which he loved.

Weird… Why was he thinking about those carrots all of a sudden? Because of the knife?

Igor shrugged. Standing up, he turned to face the high, wooden back of the sofa and looked at his reflection in the old mirror. He bared his teeth, as though he wanted to see how ferocious he could make himself look. He thought about Fima Chagin’s face in the darkness on the cliff path, then in the light, in his own home. He seemed to be physiognomically predisposed to malevolence and menace. It was impossible to imagine a genuine smile on his face… it would never reach his eyes. Then again, why should it? Fima Chagin’s role in life did not involve smiling. He was both a source and a conduit of aggression and evil. This evil was also a kind of energy, like electricity. And like electricity, it could be fatal.

But what about me? thought Igor. Stepan’s a gardener, Chagin’s a forester… but who am I?

The doubt that had interrupted Igor’s thoughts made him shrink inside. He felt sorry for himself, as though he were a small child lost in a forest. He even imagined a child of about five years old, wearing shorts and a T-shirt, wide-eyed with terror as he looked around at the endless pine trees towering above him.

‘The forest,’ said Igor. ‘No,’ he murmured, eyes smiling, as though he were suddenly laughing at himself for thinking such thoughts. ‘Everything’s fine. I’m at a crossroads, but I know which way to go. I’m going to spend a couple more hours in this forest, and then I’m going back to the garden. A couple more hours of pretending that I’m a forester, and then that’s it – I’ll never set foot in the forest again!’

A bold, almost arrogant smile had begun to play on Igor’s lips. He adjusted his belt, checking the holster to make sure it was fastened. Then he put on the peaked cap, grasped the handle of the knife and crept out of the room.

The rest of the house was quiet. As he left, Igor pulled the front door towards him as far as he could without actually closing it.

Ochakov had a decidedly autumnal feel about it that night. The fallen leaves were no longer crisp and dry but squelched underfoot, saturated with the moisture from the air. There was no light in the windows of the houses, no sound from the trees. Not even the slightest trace of an echo.

Igor walked slowly, barely looking at the road. His boots knew where he wanted to go. They led him straight to Fima’s house. Igor stopped by a tree across the road, and he looked at the house. The darkness to the right of it was thinner, somehow lighter. The living room, where he’d almost been poisoned, was on that side of the house.

Igor crossed the road, trying to make as little noise as possible. The gate opened and closed without creaking. He glanced around the right side of the house and saw a faint light coming from the window.

‘He must still be up,’ whispered Igor. ‘Perfect! I won’t have to wake him.’

Returning to the porch, he walked up the steps to the front door. He held the knife in his right hand and looked at it with respect. Then he knocked on the door twice with his left hand.

He heard a noise, then footsteps.

‘Who’s there?’ snarled Fima’s voice from behind the door.

‘Iosip,’ wheezed Igor, trying to imitate the voice he’d heard several times before.

The internal bolt slid open with a metallic clang. The hook jingled as it was lifted from its catch. The door swung open and Igor burst in, forcing the astonished Fima to take a step backwards. It was dark in the hallway, and Fima didn’t immediately realise who was standing before him. Even if he had, it’s unlikely that it would have changed his destiny.

Igor thrust the knife he was holding up under Fima’s ribs. It went in smoothly and quickly, without meeting the slightest resistance. For a brief moment Igor panicked that his hand would also disappear into this strange hollow cavity, but the handle stopped when it came up against Fima’s body, which suddenly seemed heavy and unpredictable. Fima was still standing in front of Igor, opening and closing his mouth, either gulping air or mouthing words he could no longer speak. Igor held firmly onto the handle of the knife as he felt it grow heavier and heavier. Fima’s legs buckled under him. He leaned towards Igor, who pushed him away and let go of the knife. Fima’s body crashed to the floor. The thud reverberated up the walls of the house and through the air.

Igor bolted the door and switched on the light. Fima was lying on his back, his arms spread wide. His stomach was rising and falling, which meant that the handle of the knife was rising and falling too. Igor stared at the wooden handle, willing it to stop. Fima raised his head slightly then dropped it back again. Igor squatted down next to him. Fima’s eyes were open and he was staring straight ahead. Igor raised his hand, which was still sore from the blisters, to Fima’s open mouth. He was no longer breathing.

Igor took the handle of the knife and pulled it towards him, hoping that it would break off, leaving the blade inside Fima’s body, but it didn’t. It was holding too tightly onto the blade.

Igor stood up. He looked at the open double doors to the living room, where the light was on. He went in and saw what Fima had been doing before he’d arrived. On the oval table lay eight bundles of hundred-rouble notes, fastened together with strips of paper. Alongside the money lay a white linen bag, a saucer of water and the stub of a pencil. The pencil had already been used to scrawl on the bag ‘I.S.S. To collect in 1961. Himself or his s…’

‘“Himself or his s”…’ Igor read aloud, trying to guess what Fima had been writing. Suddenly he realised. ‘Himself or his s-s-son!’ Igor was very pleased with himself for working it out. ‘His son… Iosip or his son. That’s why Iosip tattooed Stepan! It’s like the slowest ever postal service, or the slowest ever bank transfer… the criminal version of Western Union!’

Igor put the money into the white bag and looked around. The room was so familiar, he felt almost at home. Over there, opposite the little window, in the top cupboard of the dresser behind the cut-glass panels – that’s where the glasses were kept. It probably wouldn’t take him long to find the bottles, if he wanted to. But Igor didn’t feel like drinking at that particular moment.

What had she said, that old woman in Ochakov who’d put him and Stepan up that night? That they’d found Fima stabbed, with two bundles of money nearby and a note that read: ‘For a proper send-off’.

Igor picked up the pencil. He walked over to the dresser and pulled the top drawer towards him. Among the assorted odds and ends, postcards and sets of fishing hooks, he saw three police station attendance forms.

‘Interesting,’ murmured Igor.

He picked up one of the forms and turned it over. The back of it was completely blank. He placed it on the table, bent over it and wrote painstakingly in pencil, ‘For a proper send-off’.

Igor walked over to Fima’s body. He took two bundles of roubles out of the bag and put them next to his head, then placed the note on his chest.

‘Now there’s one less forester in the world,’ he whispered, looking at Chagin’s body as impassively as if it were a patch of grass or a stone.

It had grown colder outside by the time he left. On his way back to Vanya’s house Igor kept stopping, thinking that he’d forgotten something, that there was something he should be carrying. Then he remembered that he was no longer holding the knife and he felt calmer, knowing that he would never need it again. He couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed that the handle hadn’t broken off, like it was supposed to, but he was consoled by the idea that it was because he’d stabbed Chagin like a ‘gardener’, not like a ‘forester’.

There will be no more knives in my life, thought Igor. Filed down or not. From now on, everything in my life is going to be beautiful.

The word ‘beautiful’ made him think about Red Valya. He wanted to see her, even in her mourning outfit. He wanted to comfort her, because she was no longer able to pity her husband and her pity had been stronger than love. She was probably at home right now, all alone. Sleeping or crying… No, he would never see her again! He would never come back to this time or this place. But there was nothing to stop him writing her a note, or even leaving her some money… Yes, he would ask Kolyan to go and see her, to introduce himself. Maybe Kolyan would fall in love with her and replace her husband, her fisherman, who enabled her to do what she loved best – selling fish at the market. Maybe she would feel as sorry for Kolyan as she had for her murdered husband, and Kolyan would benefit from the strength of her pity a hundred times more than he would from her love.

Igor pushed the front door open, then walked through to the room with the old sofa. He took his boots off, undressed and lay down, covering himself carefully with the blanket he’d left on the stool earlier.

Even on the brink of sleep he continued to think about Valya and Kolyan’s future together, as though his imaginary scenarios would inevitably lead to a wedding in real life. Once he’d finished deciding their destiny, his thoughts turned to Alyona, the gardener’s daughter. He fell asleep thinking about her.