The Wolves of Leninsky Prospekt

by Sarah Armstrong

He laughed. ‘Oh, Fleming? No, that was Goldfinger.’

  ‘You read Fleming?’

  He flushed a little. ‘I used to. A long time ago.’ He signalled to the waiter to pay. ‘Of course, those rules allow for the second time being a coincidence, and the third time is the suspicious one. I think they’re a bit lax, personally.’

  I looked around again. The woman in the hat had gone.

  ‘I’m cured of my paranoia. Or, maybe I’m just drunk.’

  ‘Lovely, darling. Let’s go home.’

  He stood and picked up my jacket to help me into it. I’d adjusted to the temperature and it no longer felt too much.

  ‘I love this room. Moscow is wonderful.’

  ‘This is a delightful room,’ he said. ‘You’ll have fun finding all the beautiful bits, I’m sure.’

  He held out his elbow and I slid my arm into his. In the lobby, I pulled him to the lift to look at the seven panels of delicate stained glass flowers.

  ‘I wish I’d brought a camera. Do you think I’d be able to get one?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. They sell some in the foreign shops, but they aren’t any good.’

  ‘Can you take me to a foreign shop tomorrow?’ I asked.

  ‘No. It’s Sunday. Back to work for me tomorrow.’

  ‘That was a short honeymoon. I’m going to be a terrible housewife, you know.’

  Kit kissed my forehead. ‘I wouldn’t have it any other way.’

  Just before we got to the door, he stopped.

  ‘I want you to enjoy it here, Martha, but I don’t want you to be deceived. There’s a reason I put that poster up.’

  I thought of the poster, man and dog, dreaming of the stars. ‘The astronaut?’

  ‘Cosmonaut. It’s to remind me that I’m dealing with the kind of bastards that would shoot a dog into space to die. If it’s beautiful here, it’s for show. For every palace for the people, there’s a gulag in Siberia. Don’t forget what they’re hiding.’

  I shuddered, suddenly sober. ‘Understood,’ I said.

  ‘And no camera, OK? There aren’t any camera films, in any case. We’ll find you something fun.’

  I nodded, but felt that this huge world, which had been open to me, was closing down.

  In the car, Pyotr silently driving, I thought of how we’d giggled in bed on our wedding night, remembering the happy faces of our parents who all thought that they’d got shot of a troublesome child, their relief that convention had won out and happiness and stability were ahead.

  I looked at Kit’s profile. His eyes were closed, his mouth fixed. Was he regretting it? I hadn’t come here to create more stress for him. I would take the next few days to find my feet and behave. I might even develop a Russian soul.

  7

  The chest arrived ten days late, which Kit assured me was a bloody miracle, so I applied myself to placing everything around my small room. Clothes in the drawers, books on top of the drawers. It felt like I was starting a new term at university in a windowless room. I realised that buying a new lightbulb might be tricky, so I tried to leave the light off when I could.

  I poked around the flat. I looked at the view. I wondered at the electric samovar, resolved to get one back to Britain somehow, and drank too much tea. I read a bit and wondered why Kit didn’t have a phone. Or a TV. I had grown fond of the schools programming during my workless months waiting to come here, and I knew they would seem equally odd to a Russian viewer. Or maybe not, being a kind of communal learning with pupils all over the country learning together. The more I thought about it, the more Soviet it seemed. Still, it would have been useful to immerse myself in TV and pick out words. I fiddled with the radio, but I couldn’t find the shortwave BBC World Service that Kit had mentioned.

  Kit had expected me to accompany him to ballets and operas, but nothing had been arranged yet. I knew the Bolshoi Ballet was world famous and I’d regret it if I didn’t go. I went through Kit’s books again. History, geography and politics that I wasn’t quite in the mood for.

  I went through the small fridge in the kitchen and the cupboards but, unless Natalya had been shopping, there was little in there. She arrived three mornings a week, the time depending on how long she’d spent queuing in the commission shops. They weren’t as bad as the shops for Russians, and she was allowed to do this because Kit left out the hard currency vouchers for her to use. It seemed to go against the idea of communism, where everyone had the same, but foreigners were singled out as almost beyond hope. Strange guests, allowed to skip queues and buy rare items, but also expected to pay more for their privileges.

  There were also Beriozkas, Birch Tree shops, which only foreigners could use. Some sounded like gift shops, with Matryoshka dolls and filigree glasses. It was all hypothetical to me as I found myself utterly unable to venture outside by myself. The fear of doing something wrong and embarrassing Kit was paralysing, and I exaggerated the slight cold I’d caught to explain it away to him.

  I went back to the window and looked at the tops of the birch trees, just seeing some of the dappled white trunks and the pond below. I looked directly out to the north-east and knew that Siberia would send wind and snow, and I would see it all coming from here.

  I sat on the sofa, looking at the man and the dog, ready for space. The kind of people who would kill dogs, Kit believed. I didn’t know if we were much better.

  I couldn’t concentrate on reading anything. I got the biggest book from Kit’s shelves and opened it to look at the photographs. One of Siberia struck me. It looked like early morning or evening, the windows of the simple cabin in the centre glowing bright orange from the fire within. A woman stood in the foreground, wrapped in furs, two rabbits hanging from one glove. Other than the window, the colours were cold, white snow still unshaken from black boughs, their shadows casting the snow blue. The forest which surrounded the cabin could have hidden anything – bears, wolves – and that woman, fur hood pulled low, would have known the tracks of each of them. Light was everywhere, in the sky, reflecting from the snow, illuminating the trees she would cut for her fire. I envied her mastery of the wilderness, knowing that I would last two hours before getting lost or eaten.

  I did fear getting lost. I looked out of my window at the straight, wide rows and carefully spaced blocks of apartments and stretches of green leaves between them. The buildings were so similar, the trees masking any landmarks. Kit had told me that the city people still foraged in the bits of forest for mushrooms and berries, still loved the dis-ordered nature of their wild spaces, however small.

  I’d been out for a couple of short walks, but they felt aimless. All the interesting buildings were right in the centre and I wasn’t ready for that. I wanted to see it all, but I feared that Moscow was not going to live up to the photographs in his books, and those I’d seen in the library, of rich churches and carved wood dachas. I was torn between my expectations and what I might find. I told myself that, but I wonder if it was really the thought of the militiaman guarding the building making notes about me that worried me most. Only, when I thought about it, I was excited. To be so dull and at the same time so interesting. Anything I did would be noted. Maybe I had performance anxiety.

  I waited for Kit.

  In fact, I’d been waiting for Kit for so long that the soup was in danger of evaporating away. He’d been so regular about coming home that, now he was late, I had to remind myself he’d warned me this would happen sometimes. A drink with Charlie, and work meals; things cropped up. But having him not come home made me feel vulnerable. I could hear people in the hallway, voices next door, footsteps above me. I put a record on and watched the sparrows settle in the birch trees.

  8

  I heard the banging in the kitchen and dressed quickly. It was Wednesday, I reminded myself. I needed some weekly structure to hold on to. I felt guilty if Natalya got here when I was still in bed, and I dressed quickly. She would know. I could tell she knew. I picked up my book and wandered into the kitchen, as if I’d b
een up for hours.

  ‘Natalya Ivanovna, dobroe utro.’ I said ‘good morning’ because I still couldn’t make out the sounds of ‘hello’, let alone make it into words.

  Natalya turned her beautiful face towards me and flicked on her thinnest smile. ‘Marta,’ she said, and nodded.

  It was my Russian name, too close to Martha for anyone to make further changes. I wasn’t going to argue with Natalya, or anyone else, about it.

  ‘Kofe,’ I said, but I pointed at the jar of coffee, in case. It was running low, but I needed coffee rather than tea this morning. Natalya loudly snatched the sweeper from the corner and sashayed through to the front room. Kit was using my chest to store his bedclothes, tipping them in on the weekdays when Natalya was here. Natalya probably had looked in there and knew exactly what was going on. I was supposed to stay around, keep an eye on her, but I hadn’t yet been able to be up in time.

  ‘Lots of couples sleep separately,’ I’d said, and Kit shrugged.

  ‘I suppose. It will just go on a file somewhere.’ He looked resigned.

  I wondered if I had a file yet.

  I picked a mismatched cup and saucer from the shelf. Most of the things in the kitchen were hand-me-downs from ex-colleagues, chipped and loved. I was on strict orders to grab any new ones I saw, and Natalya was going to teach me to shop. I was too scared to arrange this with her.

  ‘Is it that hard?’ I’d asked.

  ‘Wait and see,’ said Kit. ‘You have no idea.’

  I took my coffee to the window, listening to Natalya’s continual muttering as she swept the next room. I smiled, thinking that, when I learned Russian, I could spy on her for a change.

  The wood below the window looked inviting in the sun, casting hard shadows on the scrubby grass. There were small patches of bare earth. The night before, Kit had pointed out where the flowers had all been torn up.

  ‘Teenage hooligans,’ said Kit. ‘They spend all day drinking vodka in the forest.’

  The militiaman on the door was supposed to keep them out of our building, but some of them lived here. There were important Russian families in with us foreigners. The guard was only there really to take notes on our Russian visitors, and to scare them off whenever possible.

  I refilled my cup and took my book into the front room. Kit had left his scarf on the back of a chair. It was the one he’d been wearing last night when he came back smelling of papirosy and an aftershave that wasn’t his. I folded it and placed it on the record player.

  Natalya sniffed, smoothed down her apron, and went back to the kitchen. In her early twenties, she was slim, as if she hadn’t succumbed to the pastry and bread diet of older Russian woman. I sat in the armchair and looked at the poster again. The kind of bastards who would kill dogs. The only Russian I had met was Natalya. She was grumpy, but not in a way that made me think she was untrustworthy around small animals. It could just be that she disliked that I couldn’t speak Russian, so she talked to herself instead.

  I looked at the chest. The tin money box Kit always placed on top was how it should be, the gaudy rocket pointing towards the ceiling.

  The kitchen door slammed closed, and Natalya closed all the other doors to the hallway too.

  ‘Proshchay,’ she said, as she closed the door to the front room.

  ‘Spasibo!’ I shouted, but too late.

  Pyotr waved at the guard on the gate and pulled up to let us out. We stood together as he drove away to park.

  ‘What do you think he does while he’s waiting?’ I asked.

  ‘He probably drinks. That’s generally how they fill in spare time.’ Kit looked at the building numbers. ‘This one.’

  I was relieved that numbers were the same in Russian. The alphabet was so odd, familiar letters making unfamiliar sounds, that I relied on numbers more than ever. We walked to the entrance, and an elderly lady turned away from us as we passed, pushing a mop and bucket. We took the lift to the eighth floor, the stink of vinegar overwhelming.

  ‘At least our lift only smells of cabbage,’ mumbled Kit. ‘Someone must have dropped a whole bottle.’

  Charlie opened the door. There was the sound of whining nearby, then a slap and a wail.

  ‘Sorry about this,’ said Charlie. ‘Bobby is playing up. Let me get you a drink. Wine OK?’

  He led us into a front room slightly smaller than our own, filled at one end with two sofas, underneath which toys had been crammed, a tiny television and a round table next to the balcony. There were two chairs and two stools of different heights. Elton John was on in the background.

  ‘So, the tallest person goes on the shortest stool.’ He manfully grabbed Kit by the shoulder. ‘Martha, who is tallest?’ There was nothing in it, but I disliked how he manhandled Kit.

  ‘Christopher, just.’

  Charlie looked put out and slapped Kit rather too hard on the back.

  ‘Right, then. I’ll get the wine.’

  I grimaced at Kit, but he looked confused. I’d misjudged that. He wasn’t in competition with Charlie. He actually liked him. Kit lit a cigarette and followed Charlie to the kitchen.

  Alison came in looking even more tired than at the restaurant. She slumped onto a chair.

  ‘It’s been a long day.’ She tried to smile. ‘It’s nice to have visitors, though. Have a seat, Martha. No, have a proper chair.’

  She pointed to the one opposite her, and I felt pushed away.

  ‘How old is your son?’

  ‘Bobby is four.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said.

  ‘I know.’ She sighed. ‘This flat is far too small for three people, but we’re not allowed anything bigger. We have to make up our bed on the sofas every night. I can’t wait to get out of this sodding place.’

  ‘The flat or the country?’

  ‘The country. It’s so hard. The kid, the flat, there’s no way to replace anything or get anything new. I just want a proper bed and some new clothes. God, I hate it.’

  Her eyelids flickered. I wasn’t sure if she was going to cry.

  ‘Christopher tells me that a lot of people go to Helsinki to shop.’

  She spoke slowly, ‘But I have Bobby. And Bobby . . . well, we can’t eat out any more because he won’t have sauces. And then they say, well, it’s cooked in a sauce, you can’t have it without a sauce. And then if we get something else it will be wrong. The sausages are the wrong colour or smell, or – oh God.’ She put her face in her hands.

  I could hear Kit and Charlie chatting in the kitchen, the remnants of sobbing through the plywood wall behind me, and I felt like hiding too. The cigarette smoke filling the small flat began to sting my eyes, and Alison stayed quite still. I didn’t want to pull her out of, maybe, the first peace she’d had all day. But the longer the silence went on, the more uncomfortable I felt. I looked out of the window at dozens of other blocks, all the same as this one.

  ‘Alison!’ Charlie shouted. ‘Are we going to eat, then?’ More quietly, I could hear him say, ‘She burns everything given half a chance.’ Kit laughed gently, but I cringed.

  Alison lifted her face from her hands and I could see her composing it to still tiredness.

  ‘Don’t go,’ I whispered. ‘He’s in the kitchen, make him serve it.’

  She glared at me, pushed her chair back and walked away. I’d overstepped already. I was as bad as him, telling her what she should do.

  Charlie and Kit came back through with their glasses and one for me.

  ‘So,’ said Charlie, sitting on the tallest stool, his knee touching mine, ‘tell me about yourself, Martha.’

  ‘Oh, I’m just a housewife now.’

  ‘Christopher says you were at Cambridge. What were you reading?’

  ‘Classics.’

  ‘Clever girl.’ He moved a little closer.

  I looked to Kit for help, but he was gazing out of the window. ‘I’ll just see if Alison needs a hand.’ I pushed my chair back and felt his hand brush against my leg.

  Alison had filled two pla
tes with a kind of pie.

  ‘Looks good,’ I said. ‘I’ll take these in.’

  There was still a distant sob coming from behind the closed door of the bedroom. I put the two plates in front of the stools.

  ‘Ladies first,’ said Charlie, as he moved the plates in front of the chairs.

  In the hall, I stood between both rooms, cursing Christopher for bringing me here to these unhappy and lecherous people. I smiled, realising that using his full name when I was cross was probably as close to a normal married couple that we would get. I looked into the kitchen.

  ‘I’m finished,’ said Alison. ‘Just sit down.’

  I returned to the table and took my place between Kit and Charlie. Charlie’s knee slid back into place against mine as he poured the wine.

  ‘This is kulebiaka,’ he said, as if he’d cooked it. ‘Alison likes to try out the local recipes.’

  Alison looked at him, then started eating.

  ‘So, you and Kit work together,’ I said, unsure of how to break the awkwardness.

  ‘Yes, but we’ve been here for eighteen months. Old hands now,’ said Charlie.

  ‘And does Bobby go to nursery?’

  ‘No,’ said Alison. ‘Bobby does not go to nursery. Bobby stays at home with his mother because that’s what women are for.’ She looked at no one while she spoke, cutting and overcutting the pastry to crumbs.

  ‘Well, not everyone is destined to be a Classics scholar.’ Charlie winked at me. He turned to Alison. ‘And you are the one who said you didn’t want him mixing with the bloody Americans.’

  Alison stared at him. I looked at Kit, who made a minute shake of his head.

  ‘Where do you take Bobby?’ I asked. ‘Are there parks and entertainments?’

  Again, Alison didn’t answer.

  Charlie chuckled. ‘Bobby is quite headstrong. It’s tricky to leave the house if you’re not doing something that interests him.’

  ‘What interests him?’

  ‘The woods. He doesn’t like to hold hands, and it’s hard for Alison with all the busy roads.’