Penguin Lost

by Andrey Kurkov

  “Ten for five hryvnas.”

  Producing a 5-hryvna piece, he selected a clump of violets.

  “Hang on,” said the old woman, tearing in half a Marlboro carrier bag to wrap around the roots.

  He walked slowly, letting his legs lead the way, and came at last to the now grassy mound, marking where Penguinologist Pidpaly lay. He put the violets down on the mound, seeing, as he did so, the good, gentle, ill-used old man he had known and done a little to help. Pidpaly had had charge of Misha at the zoo, until it could no longer afford a penguinologist or penguins …

  Away in the distance the clank of a tram. He looked round. No-one was about. The only sound apart from cawing crows was now the whisper of the wind in the lofty trees. “I have no unfinished business”, Pidpaly had told him shortly before his death. Would that he, Viktor, could say as much.

  And buried somewhere here now was Igor Lvovich, cut off in life at speed on the Borispol Highway, when heading perhaps for the airport. He would have left any amount of unfinished business, to say nothing of a wife and a son in hiding in Italy from the horrors of Ukraine. Every story must end at a full stop, and none bolder and more final than that of death.

  Some way off, in a little enclave, he spotted a skip filled with cemetery rubbish. There was a standpipe, a bucket and a watering can, both stencilled with numbers in red, and leaning against the skip, an old spade. Taking it, he planted the violets around the grave, watering them well in an attempt to create something of a memorial to Pidpaly amidst all the marble and the portraits in oval frames.

  With a last regretful look at the grave, he retraced his steps, skirting a life-size marble statue of a man in modish tracksuit standing before a Mercedes radiator, also in marble.

  Rastoropov, Pyotr Vitalyevich, 15.03.1971 – 11.10.1997 who might well have been one of the three thugs whose lavish interment Lyosha had been bodyguarding on the morning of Pidpaly’s funeral. Lyosha, remembering him and Misha from a New Year celebration, had hailed them as they passed, driven them home, and later made a lucrative business of hiring black-suited Misha out as a fashionable adjunct to mourning parties.

  Faintly, above the clanking of far-off trams and the cawing of crows, he caught the strains of a funeral march, and spotted mourners in the distance.

  As he got to the main avenue, flashy cars and a limo hearse drove in at the gate. Four identical black jeeps followed, from the last of which two men alighted to post themselves either side of the gate, while the cavalcade went on to the church and crematorium.

  What’s a Mafia funeral without a penguin? he thought suddenly.

  Quickening his pace, cutting corners, he made towards the cemetery church, dodging headstones and railings, stumbling, literally, over names and dates with the church hovering, mirage-fashion, inaccessible, unattainable – like happiness after death. Even so he was in time for the carrying in, by elegantly attired males, of a costly, bronze-handled coffin in polished mahogany, while 40 or so mourners, of whom the few ladies wore long black gowns and dark glasses by Armani or Versace, prepared to follow. And for one brief moment a small black-and-white something went waddling in with them. His heart missed a beat. Misha! Yes, there had to be a penguin! He collided painfully with something, and nursing a bruised knee walked on. The mourners were now inside, then suddenly a ragged urchin sprinted out, pursued by a steward. Tripping him, Viktor continued on his way.

  “Thanks,” said the steward, catching up, having wrested a book from the urchin and banged his head with it. “There’s no stopping them. Twenty Bibles we’ve lost. God knows what they do with them. They can’t read. Whipping flowers and selling them back is all they’re good for. They even take them to Kreshchatik Street.”

  Breathless, he fell silent, and watched by a guard, they entered the church unchallenged.

  In the agreeable half-light of candles burning before icons and banked on stands, a wheezy priest was chanting monotonously, and but for the odd “This, Thy servant Vasily”, unintelligibly. The steward slipped away, and Viktor, in the vain hope of seeing something of the deceased, joined those pressing around the fine coffin.

  Later, as the coffin was borne out, he again glimpsed a tiny creature dodging in and out amongst the mourners. Tagging on to the end of the procession, he followed it along the avenue, craning to see ahead but attracting questioning glances that resolved him to contain his curiosity until they gathered at the graveside. He felt naturally, professionally at ease, as much at home in the presence of mourning strangers as priest or simple grave digger.

  The late lamented Vasily’s plot was no distance from the church. The coffin was lowered onto trestles draped in blood-red velvet, the highly polished mahogany lid removed, and the bandaged head, intelligent face and designer frames of the deceased revealed, as also his expensive suit, two rings, and what looked like a Rolex.

  As he edged through the press of people, he saw, to his disappointment, a tiny boy in dark suit and a white shirt. So much for his penguin! And conscious of a yawning void within, he stood glaring at the boy, as if he was the cause of deception rather than Viktor’s own eyes. With a nasty taste in his mouth and an urge to vomit, he continued to glare at the boy, unaware of being himself observed by two heavies and a grey-haired man, who gave a signal to the former.

  Viktor’s attention was strangely diverted by the men present reaching into their pockets as one and producing mobiles. Grey Hair produced two, and approaching the coffin, placed one in the hand of the deceased. Stepping back, he dialled a number and the tango “Now going down is the weary old sun” blared forth. Grey Hair adjusted the emerald-green handkerchief protruding from his breast pocket, nodded, and two men replaced the lid, muffling the music.

  The coffin was lowered into the grave, and the same two men, unusually presentably attired for cemetery employees, took spades, and sent earth thudding down onto the lid. Now, to the strains of the tango, friends and relatives of the dead man took a handful of brown clayey soil from the heap and threw it too.

  Five minutes, and the tango faded into silence, buried with the dead. Viktor was saddened. Whose idea was it, this new ritual? Misha, Lyosha, where were they? Who were they, these new undertakers?

  There being nothing to detain him, he turned away, but had hardly taken two steps before his way was barred by two men in identical black suits.

  “Hold it,” said one in a steely voice. “We’ll drive you.”

  Seated beside one of the men in the back of a Mercedes 4 × 4, he watched mourners making for their cars. A woman in black passed, leading the tiny boy by the hand.

  Grey Hair jumped in beside the driver.

  “And who are you?” he demanded, looking back at Viktor as they joined the slow procession of cars leaving the cemetery. “Crashing a wedding for the drinks and eats is one thing. Crashing a funeral’s quite another.”

  “I was looking for someone,” said Viktor lamely.

  “Looking for someone, eh? And did you find him?”

  “No. He used to stand guard over funerals here.”

  “What was he called?”

  “Lyosha. Chap with a beard.”

  Grey Hair exchanged glances with the man beside Viktor.

  “Do you know him?” Viktor asked hopefully.

  “He may do, or did,” said Grey Hair, nodding at Viktor’s escort.

  “Chap who copped it in August,” said the latter.

  “The coffin bomb?”

  “That’s the one,” said the escort.

  “Some funeral!” said Grey Hair. “Why were you looking for him?”

  “To find out what’s happened to my penguin.”

  “Your penguin?” Grey Hair repeated, suddenly interested. “So it’s you they were after.”

  “When was that?”

  “In May, I think. ‘Just conducting enquiries … Phone if you hear anything.’ Actually produced a photostat mug shot of you!”

  “Who were they?”

  “Civvies, all smiles … Polite but
persistent. Twice waylaid me leaving the house. ‘Would I show your mug shot to my boys?’ What the hell had you been up to?”

  “Are they still around?”

  “No idea. Shall I find out?” Grey Hair asked, reaching for his mobile.

  “No, don’t bother.”

  “If they are, they can’t be looking too hard. I’m Andrey Pavlovich, by the way.”

  “Viktor Zolotaryov.”

  The Mercedes passed out through the cemetery gates and gathered speed. With the other cars they were now travelling along Gorky Street in the direction of Moscow Square. Viktor’s thoughts as he looked out the window were of Lyosha, the coffin bomb, and the significance of “does, or did, know him”.

  “How many got killed?” he asked the man beside him.

  “Five or six. But no-one escaped injury. Your friend Lyosha lost his legs, I heard. Might still be alive.”

  They drove on in silence through Moscow Square, finally turning into the private estate of Goloseyevo Park. Viktor glimpsed the lake with its sandy beach and mushroom sunshades. Five minutes later they stopped.

  “We’re here,” said Andrey Pavlovich.

  “Where?”

  “At the wake,” he said gazing thoughtfully at Viktor through half-closed eyes. “Come on, you’ve done the funeral, time now to drink to his memory.”

  8

  Viktor found himself frisked. The contents of his pockets were carrier-bagged and he was motioned to join the others.

  Most did not sit for long at the long table in the spacious lounge with its blazing fire, but having toasted the departed went their way. Eight or so stayed on. They were, Viktor gathered, at the house of Andrey Pavlovich, whose daughter Natasha, one of those still at table, was the departed’s widow. Her husband had been shot while hunting, a drunken military party shooting in the same area, having mistaken him for an elk.

  “As,” declared Andrey Pavlovich, raising his glass, “might happen to anyone.” At which point, one of Viktor’s friskers entered to whisper in Andrey Pavlovich’s ear and give back Viktor’s carrier bag of possessions.

  Andrey Pavlovich delivered a few brief words concerning the departed, and was followed by two others who stumbled through banalities culminating in the inevitable “May earth repose light as thistledown upon him”.

  “What a glum lot we are!” declared Andrey Pavlovich, flushed with drink, and ordering a minder to nip off to Kreshchatik Street “to get some music”. Forty minutes later said minder reappeared with a crumpled, unshaven, pale and sickly busker, carrying a guitar and clearly ill at ease.

  “This,” Andrey Pavlovich announced, “is a house of sorrow – got any sad songs?” The busker nodded. Vodka and black bread were brought, and standing by the fireplace, he gave vent to a raucous, “Lonely gainst the dark of sky / Burns bright a lonely star.”

  Beaming with satisfaction and helping himself to vodka, Andrey Pavlovich came and sat beside Viktor.

  “Bored?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Good. You’re an interesting chap, I see, and soon to go to Moscow.”

  “When I’ve found my penguin.”

  “Look, I’ll help you over that, and you can do something for me on your courier run to Moscow. You must be a good man if those people trust you. One in a million.”

  “Could you find out about Lyosha?” Viktor asked, sensing that there was nothing Andrey Pavlovich couldn’t do,

  “I could,” he said, raising his glass. “Here’s to friendship!”

  Viktor was about to clink glasses but Andrey Pavlovich prevented him. “Not done at funerals. We’ll talk later,” he added, getting up and returning to his place.

  The busker was now singing of the hard life of the druggie. Time had flown, it was getting dark, but Viktor was asleep already, head rested on the table where, until thoughtfully moved aside, had been a plate of cabbage rissoles. Roused by one of Andrey’s men, he saw, through bleary eyes, that the fire was out and he was alone. He was guided up to a tiny attic room containing a small divan with a black and red striped rug over it. On this he flopped down fully clothed, and pulling the rug over him, went back to sleep.

  Feeling too hot, he woke and opened the window.

  Later, he became dimly aware of voices in the courtyard below.

  “Just see you don’t upset him,” Andrey Pavlovich called loudly to someone.

  “I won’t, I promise,” a young voice answered. A car started, drove away, and there was silence.

  Parched with thirst and restless, Viktor switched on the light, and finding himself still dressed decided to go down to the kitchen for some water. He made his way along a narrow corridor and down a steep wooden staircase. From the next floor wider stairs brought him to the familiar vast room with fireplace, whence he found his way to a kitchen dimly lit through uncurtained windows by light from the street. Opening a tall fridge, and screwing up his eyes against the burst of yellow light, he selected a carton of orange juice and a can of tonic water.

  “Cut the light!” came a voice. Viktor swung round, and there, sitting at a small table in the corner over an open tin, a bottle of vodka and a glass, was the busker.

  Viktor closed the fridge door, and waited for his eyes to grow used to the semi-darkness. A match flared briefly, leaving the glowing tip of a cigarette.

  “Hungry?”

  “Thirsty.”

  Finding a glass, he poured himself an orange and tonic. The busker was smoking, but strangely there was no smell of tobacco.

  “Come and sit down. Have a drink,” said the busker.

  Viktor took a chair, sat opposite him and presented his glass.

  “Nice place, this. Enough in that fridge to last a month. Every bloody thing you can think of – five sorts of frozen fish, crayfish, shrimps … Does himself well, does the Deputy.”

  “Deputy?”

  “People’s Deputy. We’ll drink his health. Good type. Obliging. I asked, as a joke, if he had such a thing as a joint, and he gave me one.”

  “How do you know he’s a Deputy?”

  “One, being rich and being a Deputy go together. And two, in the bog there’s an election poster of him promising the things he’ll do. Saw him watching me from it when I finished spewing my guts up.”

  Viktor tossed back his soft drink and vodka, and struck with a sudden vague unease, crossed to the fridge. The top two shelves were all frozen fish and exotic seafood – exactly what Misha would fancy, supposing he were hidden here somewhere. On the other hand the lower shelves were equally richly stocked with joints, poultry, game birds, and, amazingly, a couple of turtles. Banging the door shut, he returned to the table.

  “Well?”

  “Bet you never knew sea tortoises were what Deputies ate!”

  “You high, too, man?” he laughed. “Sea tortoises! A month back, when I skipped, hedgehogs were what I lived off.”

  “Skipped what?”

  “Soldiering.”

  “So isn’t it risky, busking in underpasses?”

  “What I skipped was the Russian army. Here in Kiev I’m abroad.”

  “What’s hedgehog like?”

  “With salt, which I didn’t have, not bad. Still, I should be off,” he concluded thoughtfully, refilling his glass.

  “Were you paid for playing?”

  “Didn’t like to ask, so this is by way of compensation.”

  Stubbing his joint out on the table, he got unsteadily to his feet.

  “Where’s my guitar? Ah, there you are, my lovely.”

  And as he stooped to retrieve it, the kitchen was lit by the headlights of a car entering the courtyard. The busker ducked down, Viktor leant forward over the table, then realizing he couldn’t be seen from the window, went over and looked out.

  Two men were unloading small but heavy, string-tied cardboard boxes from the Mercedes and stacking them on the brick path. Andrey Pavlovich went out, had a word with the men, then came back into the house. After which, soundtrack but no picture, just f
ootsteps in the hall which died away then suddenly returned. The kitchen door opened, the light clicked on blindingly.

  Andrey Pavlovich took the situation in at a glance.

  “Couldn’t sleep?” he asked rhetorically, then, addressing the busker, “The concert’s done, life goes on.” From a pocket of his crumpled white jacket he pulled crumpled notes and fanning them like playing cards, passed over two of 25-hryvna denomination. “So here you are, and off you go.”

  “I can sing more if you want,” said the busker picking up his guitar.

  “God forbid, old chap.”

  The busker tiptoed out.

  “Sit down, we’ll talk,” said Andrey Pavlovich.

  They sat at the corner table. For a while Andrey Pavlovich said nothing, then announced that he’d been interested to learn of Viktor’s past activities – especially as obituary writer for Capital News under Igor Lvovich, he added, eyeing him as if to gauge his reaction. Not a word, though, about funerals-with-penguin.

  Getting to his feet, Andrey Pavlovich made coffee and brought it to the table together with a sugar bowl.

  “Make yourself at home,” he said gently. “You’ll be all right, and you’ll go to Moscow – only maybe not for a bit. Don’t worry, I mean it,” he added, seeing Viktor’s unease. “The thing is, with Igor Lvovich, alas, no longer with us, you are now without protection, in short, exposed – to the elements …”

  Helping himself to sugar, Viktor stirred, tasted and sighed, as if mourning a freedom as yet not sufficiently savoured.

  “We don’t need much,” Andrey Pavlovich continued, “a bite to eat, a spot of cash, a roof, and we’re snug as a snail. Which brings us to Snail’s Law: small snail, small shell, like you; big snail, big shell like me. Mine, if I outgrow it, I build afresh. No shell – you’re a slug, and slugs come to a sticky end. Like me to build you one?”

  “What use am I to you? You’re a Deputy, the world’s yours–.”

  “I’m not a Deputy, but I’m standing for election. But when I am a Deputy, your shell will be the sounder. You’re a free man. It’s only a temporary job I’m offering. You’re a dab hand at writing obituaries, it seems. My lot are practically illiterate. You, with your imagination and your dodgy life, are just the man I now need to write me speeches and a manifesto. You’re closer to the voters, know what they want – not that there’s any need for that, though it looks good. Once I’m in, off you go: Moscow, New York, Santiago de Chile, wherever.”