73
TWO DAYS LATER the postman brought me an appointment slip for a long-distance telephone call. It was from Kiev, so my mood improved immediately. ‘Petro must have found out something, or the colonel has made good on his promise,’ I thought on the way to the post office.
The post office was a long way from the house, so I went out half an hour before the time indicated for the call. Gulya stayed at home.
I walked along the asphalt surface of the road, avoiding the puddles that reminded me of the previous week’s rain. Those long-lasting puddles demonstrated the powerlessness of the autumn sunshine. ‘October is already here,’ I thought, recalling the line from Pushkin. There was a time when that line used to make me laugh out loud, because it was the answer to the question: ‘Where in Eugene Onegin does Pushkin mention the Great October Revolution?’ But now as I thought about the arrival of October, the only thing I felt was the tenacious chill in the air, which ignored the sun’s presence as completely as the puddles did.
I gave the telephone operator my slip of paper and sat down on a bench facing the row of empty telephone booths. The round clock on the wall said eleven o’clock.
Half an hour later I went back to the operator and asked her to check the appointment for the call. She looked up from reading a women’s magazine, took my piece of paper and called the exchange. ‘Irochka, check number thirty-seven. Kiev.’
Then she glanced at me indifferently, said ‘Wait!’ and stuck her head back in her magazine.
I returned to my seat.
I heard the sound of a car stopping on the street and when I turned round to look out of the window, I saw a brown Zhiguli No. 6. A respectably dressed man wearing spectacles got out of it and came inside. He cast a calm glance at me, went over to the telephone operator and asked her something in a quiet voice. Then he glanced at me again and came over.
‘Nikolai Ivanovich Sotnikov?’ he asked, stopping in front of me. His intelligent eyes were narrowed in a smile behind the lenses in his slim metal spectacle frames.
‘Yes,’ I said, puzzled.
‘Let’s go, there’s something we have to talk about,’ said the man.
‘I’m waiting for a call . . .’
‘Don’t bother, I’m the one who sent you the appointment,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Are you from Vitold Yukhimovich?’ I asked.
‘Who?’
‘From Colonel Taranenko . . .’
‘Close,’ the man said with a nod.
We walked out of the post office and got into the brown ‘No. 6’.
‘You can call me Alik, or Alexei Alexeevich,’ the man said as he started the engine. ‘This is a beautiful area – are you fond of unspoiled nature? Of course you are, otherwise what would you have been doing in the desert?’ he said and turned towards me with a calm smile.
Then he polished the drop-shaped lenses of his spectacles with a handkerchief and put the spectacles back on his slightly snub nose.
We drove past the railway station and turned on to a street that I didn’t know.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked, seeing that we were driving out of Kolomya.
‘I want to show you a very good sanatorium,’ said Alik. ‘For future reference . . . It’s a place where you can rest and recover your strength . . .’
The No. 6 swung out on to the main highway and started driving behind a trailer with Polish number plates.
Alexei Alexeevich stuck his nose out to the left a couple of times, thinking of overtaking the trailer, but decided not to risk it. We drove along the edge of a pine forest at a speed of no more than sixty kilometres an hour, which was probably why my driver’s face turned so sour.
His appearance and his way of speaking, pronouncing every word and every letter clearly, expressed a remarkable self-con fidence. The basic expresson of his face was affable, even without a smile. A man with a face like that couldn’t help but inspire trust.
‘I’m sorry we’re moving so slowly,’ he said, casting a quick glance at me. ‘The highway’s not usually this busy . . .’
About fifteen minutes later we turned into the forest and started driving along a deserted asphalt road that was as smooth as glass and just wide enough for one car. We drove in through a pair of open gates, turned to the right and stopped in front of a wooden cottage with a porch and a broad glazed veranda. Before we got out of the car, Alexei Alexeevich reached over to the back seat and took hold of an elegant leather suitcase.
He walked up on to the porch, opened the door with a key and looked round at me.
We walked on to the veranda, then opened another door and found ourselves inside a comfortable, spacious room with an open fireplace.
‘Have a seat, Nikolai Ivanovich,’ said Alexei Alexeevich, sitting down on a polished table and moving a chair up beside him. ‘This place isn’t being heated yet. I think it’s warmer outside,’ he said, rubbing his hands together.
I sat down. I was burning with curiosity, desperate to discover why he had needed to bring me to this sanatorium. Obviously not in order to say hello from Colonel Taranenko and tell me I could now go back to Kiev. Especially since his response to the colonel’s name had been rather uncertain.
Meanwhile, Alexei Alexeevich opened his leather briefcase, took out a big envelope, laid it on the table and looked at me expectantly.
‘I think you can guess what state agency I work for,’ he said with a gentle smile. ‘My colleagues in Kiev asked me to have a word with you. About your journey. Before we talk, let me tell you that like the rest of the country, we work according to different rules now, and that means we no longer rely on the assistance of unpaid enthusiasts. If they decide in Kiev that your information is valuable – you’ll be paid.’
He opened the envelope, took out several large photographs and laid them on the table in front of me.
I was surprised to see Petro in one of the photographs, sitting at a table in a cafe with two men I didn’t know. I was even more surprised when I saw myself in another photo, following a chess battle in University Square.
When I looked up at Alexei Alexeevich my face must have expressed extreme bewilderment.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve only just received the instructions from my colleagues in Kiev. I’m not interested in who you know in these photographs. They are just to refresh your memory. I’m going to give you some other photographs now. Look through them very carefully, while I make some coffee.’
Alexei Alexeevich took another large envelope out of his briefcase, placed it on the table, and then he left the room.
There were about twenty prints in the envelope. I ran through them quickly first: groups of people in the street, at a table set for a celebration, at a funeral.
‘The photos in my desk drawer are far more interesting than these,’ I thought and starting looking through the prints more attentively.
In the first photo I counted twenty-two faces and I didn’t recognise a single one of them. My curiosity waned with every minute that passed. They had brought me to this sanatorium only to let me know that they knew all about me and to show me some photos with dozens of faces that I didn’t know.
The next few photographs only reinforced my disappointment, but then came the turn of the funeral photographs. In the first one my eye was caught by a thin young guy walking in the middle of the funeral procession. He was looking round, as if someone had just called his name, and his face seemed vaguely familiar to me. In the next photo from the same funeral I noticed two men a bit older. I stared hard at the print, trying to remember where I could have seen them.
Alexei Alexeevich came back into the room and set down a tray with a coffee pot and two little cups.
‘Well?’ he said. I shrugged uncertainly.
‘There are a couple of faces, but I can’t remember where I saw them.’
‘The coffee’s ready. Take a seat and we’ll look at them together.’
Alexei Alexeevich poured the coffee into the
cups and a powerful aroma permeated the air in the room. ‘Colombian,’ he said in the satisfied voice of a lover of life. ‘I didn’t offer you sugar. Shall I bring some?’
‘No thank you.’
‘So, who have you recognised here?’
I showed him the young guy and the two men. He took those two photographs and I started looking through the rest of the funeral ones. The thin young guy showed up again. And beside the grave, which was already covered with wreaths, another face caught my eye. It was a military man in the uniform of a major. He looked as if he really wanted to smile and was having difficulty restraining himself. His lips were tense, and his eyes were very wide open. He was looking away from the grave.
‘That man too,’ I said, pointing at the major. Alexei Alexeevich thought for a moment and took another sip of coffee.
‘I tell you what, Nikolai Ivanovich, let’s run through your journey together.’
‘From the very beginning?’
‘Oh no, I’ll tell you where to start . . . There are some things we already know. Start from Krasnovodsk.’
I began telling my story, recalling some of the details as I went along.
‘The people,’ said Alexei Alexeevich, interrupting me. ‘List the people you saw, and then look at these photographs. It will be easier that way.’
I told him about the Kazakhs – the drivers and Colonel Taranenko’s two colleagues.
Then I told him about the ferry, the Oilman. When I remembered the ferry, I suddenly recognised the guy from the funeral photographs – he was the swarthy Slav who had followed us, the one we had had to deal with on the train.
I told Alexei Alexeevich about the swarthy guy, how he had tried to get rid of us and how we had thrown him off afterwards.
‘Did you kill him?’ Alexei Alexeevich asked, eager to make certain.
‘I don’t know,’ I told him. ‘He was concussed, unconscious. We threw him off in that condition. We found out about him afterwards. His nickname’s the Moldovan.’
Alexei Alexeevich seemed pleased with that. He circled the guy’s face with his pen on the photograph and wrote something on the back of it.
We talked for about half an hour. I remembered another three men – they were all from the same chain of events. Two had taken part in unloading the guns and loading the narcotics into our wagon, and the major had unloaded the narcotics on the railway siding near Bataisk.
‘All right,’ Alexei Alexeevich said eventually. ‘That was a useful session. By the way, a cottage like this costs only twenty dollars a day. Including meals. It’s an official departmental sanatorium . . . And those lads’ – he nodded towards the photographs – ‘are former colleagues of ours. Trying to make a bit of money . . .’
He stopped and chewed on his lower lip. His face took on a sad expression.
‘Did they ask you to pass anything on to me?’ I asked.
‘How do you mean? Money? Or what?’
‘No, what I’m interested in is if I can go back to Kiev or not.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Alexei Alexeevich. ‘They didn’t tell me anything about that. But I can ask. I’ll be reporting on our conversation tomorrow anyway.’
‘By the way, I have some interesting photographs too,’ I said in the most mysterious voice I could manage.
‘What kind of photographs?’
‘It’s not easy to describe in a couple of words. It looks like the murder of a man who was following someone . . .’
‘Did you take them yourself?’
‘No, it’s an old film, from 1974. It was in a camera that I found in the desert.’
‘That’s interesting,’ he said with a nod. ‘Will you let me have a look at the photos? Perhaps our archive department will buy the film from you.’
We agreed that Alexei Alexeevich would drive me home from the sanatorium and wait outside for me to bring him the old photographs.
As we drove along, I tried to understand why he hadn’t mentioned the colonel even once and why, if he knew so much about my journey, he didn’t know anything about why I was in Kolomya. I realised that his colleagues in Kiev had enlightened him about my journey. But they couldn’t have known about that without Colonel Taranenko’s help! So why hadn’t there been a single word about him?
‘All right,’ I thought, ‘when I give him the photos, I’ll ask him to find out from his colleagues if I can go back to Kiev. It will be good if they take an interest in my old film. The film in exchange for a “landing strip” and a promise of safety.’ I wondered if maybe the guys I had prevented from grabbing the contents of the storeroom had already gone on to the next world, and it was pointless to get the jitters about them.
But no, as long as I didn’t know for certain, it made good sense to stay worried. Only dead men never worry! We reached Kolomya very quickly – there were no cars on the highway.
After I’d given Alexei Alexeevich the envelope with the photographs, I told Gulya about the trip to the sanatorium with him and our conversation. We were sitting in our own room and Gulya chewed on her nails as she listened to me. She was obviously very nervous.
‘Everything will be fine,’ I said, trying to reassure her. ‘If we don’t hear from them in a week, I’ll go to Kiev anyway. After all, they found us through Petro. Maybe he knows something?’
74
I DIDN’T HAVE to go to Kiev. Four days later, in the morning, the familiar brown No. 6 stopped outside the gate. Alexei Alexeevich, once again dressed in a respectable suit and tie, invited me out ‘for a ride’. He asked me to bring the film and the camera with me.
‘Back to the sanatorium?’ I wondered as we walked to the garden gate. In addition to Alexei Alexeevich there was a heavyset man sitting in the car. He had a double chin that must have made him look older than his real age.
‘This is Oleg Borisovich, from Kiev,’ Alexei Alexeevich said, introducing him. ‘So, where shall we go?’
‘Do you have a decent restaurant with separate compartments?’ Oleg Borisovich asked.
Alexei Alexeevich laughed. ‘There is one establishment where we can sit on our own . . .’
About ten minutes later the No. 6 braked to a halt beside a small pavilion. I read the name on it – ‘Honeydew Cafe’.
Oleg Borisovich glanced at this establishment and knitted his brow in a frown.
‘This isn’t the capital,’ Alexei Alexeevich said in an apologetic voice, ‘but in this place we can get food and drink and I can ask them not to let anyone else in . . .’
Oleg Borisovich clambered out of the car with some reluctance and some difficulty.
The cafe had only just opened. We were the first customers of the day. The young-looking waiter or manager with short-cropped hair greeted us with a smile.
Alexei Alexeevich whispered something to him and he got out the ‘Health Inspection Day’ sign from behind the counter, hung it on the outside of the door and locked the door from the inside.
We sat down at a rickety table which was, nonetheless, covered with a clean white tablecloth. The youthful gentleman proved to be the waiter, or at least to be combining that duty with his others. He brought us a carafe of vodka, halves of boiled eggs decorated with red caviar and a small sliver of butter and a vegetable salad.
‘An ashtray,’ Oleg Borisovich said in a hoarse voice, taking a pack of Marlboros out of his pocket.
Oleg Borisovich lit up and then produced an envelope. I realised that it contained my photographs. ‘They’ve taken the bait,’ I thought, although that had been clear enough from the very beginning – after all, they had asked me to bring along the film and the camera.
‘Have you told anyone about this?’ Oleg Borisovich asked, with a nod at the envelope.
‘My wife. She’s seen them.’
‘You’re not married.’
‘Not registered,’ I corrected him. ‘But we got married here.’
‘Who else knows about the camera and the film?’
‘The photographer in the photo stu
dio, he developed them.’
Oleg Borisovich nodded. He inhaled and then slowly let the smoke escape from his mouth.
‘And what about the friends you shared these adventures with? This Petro from UNSO? His girlfriend?’
‘No, they don’t know.’
Oleg Borisovich smiled and his smile seemed to shift the excess weight of his cheeks to his double chin.
‘Why didn’t you tell your friends about your discovery?’ he asked.
Meanwhile Alexei Alexeevich had filled the glasses from the carafe and put some salad on his own plate. He added two half-eggs with caviar to the salad.
‘I thought it was just a camera, I didn’t know what was in it . . .’
‘But how did you know that the film was from 1974?’
‘There was a newspaper in the tent – the Evening Kiev for 15 April 1974, so I thought the man must have bought it on his way there and simply not bothered to throw it away . . .’
‘Do you have the newspaper?’
‘Yes.’
‘And the tent?’
‘I gave it to my wife’s father.’
‘A fine little story,’ Oleg Borisovich drawled in a sing-song voice and picked up his glass in both hands. ‘Well, Mr Sotnikov, you have no idea just how much you have earned! Your good health!’
We clinked glasses and drank, then started on the hors d’oeuvres.
I spread half an egg with butter and caviar on to a piece of bread.
‘What have I earned?’ I thought. This Oleg Borisovich was obviously a big wheel. And if he had flown in from Kiev just for the sake of this meeting, then my discovery might turn out to be worth too much. And too much was not always good. If a man built up too large a debt with someone, it was cheaper for him to kill his creditor than to pay back the money.
I squinted sideways at Oleg Borisovich. He spotted my glance and stropped chewing.
He extinguished the cigarette that was smoking in the ashtray.
‘Show me the camera!’ he said.
I took out the Smena and handed it to him.
The Good Angel of Death Page 32
