Delicate Indecencies

by Sandy Mccutcheon

  After scouting the pantry he pocketed the apartment key and went down to the street in search of provisions. As he had feared, there was no supermarket or even a general store, though the restaurants and bars were a mini United Nations of obscure third-world cuisines. Maybe cooking was out of the question and they would be better to go out for a Taste of Mali or a Mongolian Barbeque, or live dangerously and book a table at what sounded like a gastronomic oxymoron — Basil’s Baltic Treats. Fortunately, just as he was about to give up, he noticed a small blackboard on which a chalk arrow directed him to the Village Delicatessen. The owner was a garrulous individual who, after labelling Teschmaker as ‘not from round these parts’, went on to describe himself as a ‘swampy’. Teschmaker escaped half an hour later with a bag of vegetables, a packet of frozen oxtail and more local history than he cared to know.

  Back in the apartment he prepared the vegetables for the stock while the microwave made short work of thawing the oxtail. It wasn’t until the casserole was bubbling away that he noticed the flashing light on the answering machine. The message was from Jane. Don’t worry. Having lunch with Oliver. Back later. Well, he thought as he started to peel the potatoes, it was just as well he was cooking dinner.

  Later he polished the benches, cleaned up the cooking utensils and then lay down on the couch intending to watch television and catch up with the news. He didn’t get as far as switching the TV on and slept soundly until he was woken by the sound of the key in the door. He glanced at his watch. It was four thirty.

  ‘Something smells good,’ she said as she came in. ‘Pity I had lunch.’

  ‘It’ll keep. How did you go?’ he asked.

  ‘Better than expected. I think if Oliver had his way, Rusak would be dead by now.’ Jane put down her bag and went through to the kitchen. ‘I’m just putting the kettle on. Do you want tea or coffee? I ended up drinking a bit too much with lunch.’

  ‘Coffee would be great. Lunch must have been very cosy.’

  Jane popped her head around the door. ‘No, Teschmaker, just civil. Though I must say I was surprised by the way Oliver behaved. Instantaneous civility.’

  Teschmaker stretched and got to his feet. ‘So what did he say?’ He went through to the kitchen and sat at the table.

  ‘It was all I could do to stop him going after Rusak straight away, but when I explained the situation with my father he agreed to hold off.’

  ‘Did you ask him about Norman and Edwards assisting us?’

  ‘He raised it before I had time to. He said he had a couple of people and you should have seen his face when I asked him if he meant Norman and Edwards. He asked how I knew and so I told him about you. For some reason he thought you were out of the picture.’

  ‘I bet he did,’ Teschmaker said, but decided again against telling her that it had been planned that she would be too.

  ‘The strangest thing was the change in Oliver. Once it sank in that it was his daughter in danger, he started saying how sorry he was about the way he had treated me. It was as though he blamed himself.’

  ‘Well, it was his fault —’

  ‘Of course, but I mean the whole thing. Not just Melanie, but way back. Everything.’ Jane put out the coffee cups and sat while she waited for the kettle to boil.

  ‘And you believed him?’ Teschmaker didn’t bother to veil his cynicism.

  ‘Yes. I wish you could have seen him. It was as though Melanie being at risk suddenly put everything in perspective.’ She shot a look at him. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I’m not going back to him. In fact, he agreed that we had come to the end of the road, but at least we aren’t going to fight over Mel any more.’

  ‘It sounds too good to be true. But what about your father? When do we try and free him?’

  ‘We don’t,’ Jane said as she got up to switch off the kettle and make the coffee. ‘Norman and Edwards will handle it this evening and bring him back here.’

  ‘Just the two of them?’ Teschmaker said dubiously.

  ‘Sorry, I’m sure it wasn’t a reflection on you, but he said it needed professionals.’ Jane turned back to him. ‘Black or white?’

  ‘Black, no sugar.’ It worried Teschmaker that even if Norman and Edwards managed to rescue Jane’s father, they were all still a long way from finding anything that could be used to get Melanie back safe and sound. There was something at the back of his mind that he had been meaning to ask Jane about, but each time something else came up. As they took their coffee out onto the balcony he decided to raise it. ‘Jane, do you have much of a memory of your father before he defected?’

  She looked at him, surprise in her eyes. ‘That’s an odd question. Why?’

  Teschmaker shrugged. ‘Just curious. Not having a father around was something we shared, remember?’

  ‘I was thinking about it last night before I went to sleep. Your father was ill or something?’

  ‘He drank. He was an alcoholic. He’d take off on these binges and then go into hospital or a boarding house. But he was at home from time to time, though Mum couldn’t stand the sight of him after a while.’

  ‘At least you knew where he was.’ Jane stared out through the buildings towards the river. ‘My father was there one day and gone the next.’

  ‘Did you know why?’

  ‘No, not for ages. For a while I thought he must have died. It’s all pretty hazy now, but I think that just after he left there were several occasions when people came and searched the house. I remember throwing a tantrum and accusing some man of killing my father, and Mum took me upstairs and explained that Dad wasn’t dead but had gone away and the men in the house were going to help find him and bring him back. That was the worst thing.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Teschmaker asked.

  Jane continued to stare resolutely away into the distance. ‘It would have been easier if he had been dead. For years I had this fantasy of him walking up the drive and coming home.’

  ‘But you knew where he was?’

  ‘No. Mum refused to talk about it. You remember what she was like — stubborn as hell. When she made her mind up about something that was it. She’d decided that the best way to protect me was to keep the truth hidden. She was so ashamed; in fact, I think it’s what killed her eventually. His betrayal was her betrayal. She thought she should have been enough to —’

  ‘Like you with Oliver?’ Teschmaker interjected.

  ‘Like mother, like daughter?’ Jane thought about it for a moment then nodded. ‘I guess.’

  ‘So when did you find out about what your father had done?’

  ‘First time I applied for a job with the Department of Foreign Affairs. I went through the usual vetting and then a couple of very smooth gentlemen took me aside and asked me how often I was in contact with my father. I told them they were nuts and that I didn’t even know if he was alive, and to my amazement they didn’t believe me. Eventually they told me that he was still alive and in the Soviet Union. They said he was a traitor. It was a hell of a way to find out. And, of course, I didn’t get the job.’

  ‘Too much of a risk, huh?’

  ‘Something like that,’ she said flatly, then laughed. ‘Mind you, after I’d made a bit of a name for myself in strategic analysis they were falling over themselves to offer me work. I let them hire me as a consultant and made the bastards pay through the nose.’

  She drained her coffee and got to her feet. The air was beginning to cool down and in the dusk the streets between the taller buildings were deepening canyons of shadow.

  ‘Before he went away,’ Teschmaker persisted, ‘did he spend much time in the garden?’

  Jane leaned on the balcony rail and looked at him quizzically. ‘Gardening?’ Then it dawned on her what had prompted the question. ‘Oh, you mean all that stuff he goes on about, the flowers, bouquets and the gardeners?’

  ‘It does seem strange that he’s fixated on it.’

  ‘I thought about that as well, but he never liked gardening. Mum once told me that she h
ad an argument with him because he wanted to concrete around the front of the house so he didn’t have to waste his time mowing the lawns. So I guess the short answer is no.’ She held out her hand for his coffee cup. ‘Finished? I’m going inside.’

  Teschmaker nodded and handed it to her. But he remained seated, looking out over the city. ‘I’ll be in shortly.’

  For the first time in ages he felt like having a cigarette. Sometimes he found they helped him concentrate, or so he told himself. But he resisted the urge to go downstairs to buy a packet. For a few minutes he sifted through everything he knew about Rusak, trying to find some connection to Sydney Morris. It just didn’t gel. Apart from the fact they had both lived in Russia in the Soviet days, there was nothing. Their worlds would have been totally separate. The world of the Mafia meets that of the nuclear researcher? Hardly. And there were years in age between them. Sydney Morris had probably retired long before Rusak’s short stint in the Duma. He certainly hadn’t even been in the country when Rusak left the parliament to take up his dubious career in biznes. But their worlds must have intersected somewhere. Why had Rusak gone to the trouble of seeking out Morris in some obscure village in the Czech Republic? Teschmaker’s ruminations were cut short as Jane poked her head around the corner of the door.

  ‘Oh, by the way, Oliver told me to tell you that he really is sorry about having misled you. He says he’ll find a way of making it up to you.’

  ‘That’s big of him,’ Teschmaker snorted.

  ‘I think he meant it. Honestly, Teschmaker, this has hit him like a brick. Don’t get me wrong, the man is an absolute bastard, but his one and only redeeming feature is that he adores Mel. As he said, he would kill anyone who hurt her.’

  Jane went back inside and he returned to his musing. While it was true that the threat to Sinclair’s own daughter had probably pulled him up pretty damn quickly, Teschmaker wasn’t about to forget that the man had contrived a scheme to kill his wife and him in order to have total custody. Teschmaker had always been suspicious of conversions on the road to Damascus. He went inside, shutting the balcony doors behind him.

  ‘You don’t feel like eating yet, do you?’

  Jane shook her head. ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ve got a friend in the Russian Quarter who might be able to shed some light on Rusak. It’s a long shot, but I think we should try everything.’

  ‘You can take my car. I’m going to stay here until I hear how Oliver’s men got on.’

  ‘Fine,’ Teschmaker said and then changed his mind. ‘Actually I won’t take the car. It’s likely I’ll have a couple of drinks and I wouldn’t want to put any dents in it.’

  Jane laughed. ‘You could hardly make it any worse. The Saab is a different matter but the Golf is already a mess.’

  ‘Thanks, but I’ll walk. It’s not all that far and I feel like I’ve been cooped up for days. I’ll take the key so I can let myself back in.’ Then he remembered something else. ‘The casserole in the oven should only need a little warming and there are some spuds in the pot on the stove that I was going to mash.’

  ‘Thanks, Teschmaker. I’ll help myself if I get hungry.’

  He let himself out and went down the stairs to the street. Entering the first bar he came to he bought a packet of cigarettes. The sun had gone now and the earlier cool breeze had developed into a distinct chill. Teschmaker lit a cigarette and set out through the streets, melding with the flow of people making their way home. He had no doubt that by now Rusak would have his people out looking for him, but he felt confident that he was reasonably safe in a crowd. He was less confident about Jane’s belief in her husband’s change of attitude. It was, Teschmaker thought, a distinct possibility that the first thing Sinclair had done was alert Rusak as to Jane’s whereabouts.

  As he had expected, Restaurant Shlyapnikov was closed. Aleksandr Yefremovich ran it more out of tradition than necessity and, giving into the constraints of old age, only opened from Wednesdays to Saturdays. The clientele were almost exclusively émigrés who frequented it more out of habit than anything else. No, that wasn’t quite right. Zoya Nikolayevna still made the best stroganoff this side of St Petersburg.

  Teschmaker went around the side of the restaurant and climbed the stairs to the family’s apartment. He rang the bell and a moment later the door opened and he was warmly greeted by Zoya Nikolayevna. Her plump girth was encircled by a slightly grubby apron and there was flour on her hands and a solitary white streak across her wrinkled brow.

  ‘He’s in the kitchen, come on through,’ she said and bustled Teschmaker in the front door. ‘As you can see, I’m baking. Just in time, it would seem. You are all skin and bones.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Teschmaker retorted.

  ‘Then you’ll have a fine appetite.’ Zoya made it sound like a command. She prodded him in the ribs. ‘Unless you think I’m too old to be trusted at the stove.’

  ‘No, I just don’t want to put you to any trouble.’

  ‘Trouble? Isn’t that we are put on this earth for — to get you men out of trouble? That worthless peasant inside is nothing but trouble and do I complain? All day he plays chess against himself and at night I get no rest. The stupid man yelps in his sleep like a dog that has had its tail stepped on.’

  She shuffled along the corridor and pushed open the kitchen door. ‘Aleksandr Yefremovich will be glad to see you.’ She nodded to where her husband was hunched over a chessboard and went back to her mixing bowl.

  ‘Ah, Teschmaker, Bozhe moy! You have come just in time.’ Shlyapnikov struggled out of his chair and embraced Teschmaker, kissing him on both cheeks. ‘Sit down, sit down. See what I am reduced to?’

  ‘I’ve heard, playing yourself at chess. It doesn’t sound so bad.’ Teschmaker noticed the half empty vodka bottle beside the chessboard.

  ‘But I lose.’ The old man drummed his gnarled fingers on the edge of the table. ‘I’m playing like some dumb Vanya.’

  ‘Let it rest for a while then, I’ve come to talk.’

  Shlyapnikov looked up, arching his bushy eyebrows. ‘Talk, is it? Then we had better go to the other room.’ He pushed back his chair and gripping the table for support got to his feet again. ‘Zoya, can you bring a bottle and glasses through?’

  ‘The boy wants to talk and you want to drink.’ She wiped her hands on the apron. ‘Rubbish is what you’ll be talking.’

  Shlyapnikov inverted his palms, protesting his innocence. ‘See what I must endure?’

  ‘Tush! Teschmaker knows the truth, Aleksandr Yefremovich. Now both of you get out of my kitchen before you ruin my cake.’ She handed two shot glasses and a bottle to Teschmaker. ‘Don’t let the old fool drink too much.’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ he laughed and followed the old man through to the lounge room. In all the years he had been visiting, he had only been in the room a couple of times and it was immediately obvious that it was used very little these days. Slowly over the years the couple had retreated to the kitchen, leaving behind only the stains of memory. Dust covers were draped over all but two of the chairs and most of the pictures had been long removed, bequeathing only faint outlines where the frames had once rested — the ghosts of paintings. Above the small gas fire was a single smoke-darkened icon. Teschmaker tried to imagine the couple in their younger days. Had they entertained in here? Or had it been a quiet sanctuary from the hustle and bustle of the restaurant? He realised he couldn’t visualise it because in his mind the couple had always been old.

  Teschmaker put the bottle and glasses down on the coffee table and took the box of matches that Shlyapnikov was holding out. As he bent to light the gas he heard the clink of bottle on glass.

  ‘I get cold, even on warm days.’ Shlyapnikov sat in his chair, inclining his body towards the fire. ‘You know, I grew up in a place were we had winters like you would never believe. Months of snow and cold that could freeze you to the bone. And on clear still days the frost would fall from the sky and you wouldn’t even see it till it start
ed to build up. But I don’t remember feeling this cold.’

  ‘Here’s to warm memories,’ Teschmaker said, taking the glass that Shlyapnikov had filled to the brim. He held it up in salute and then drained it. The old man did the same and watched as Teschmaker refilled them. Then he launched into a rambling story about the village where he had grown up. Though his family came from Moscow they, along with twenty other families, had been ‘rewarded’ for their patriotism by being moved into more spacious houses after Stalin had liquidated the previous inhabitants. The kulaks had vanished into history in such a hurry that the newcomers found the beds made, remnants of meals on the tables and, worst of all, the skeletons of the livestock that had starved to death still tied up in the barns.

  Just as the story was coming to an end, Zoya Nikolayevna came in with coffee and slices of cherry cake. The slices were huge but Teschmaker could tell by the smell emanating from the kitchen that a replacement was well on the way. ‘Why are you talking about that place?’ she demanded. ‘How many times must the poor boy hear about our miserable childhood?’

  ‘It’s the first time I’ve heard about it.’ Teschmaker came to his host’s defence.

  ‘Well, I bet that he doesn’t tell you that within a year every one of those families had forgotten their working-class lives back in Moscow and was going around putting on airs and graces; no better than those halfwit kulaks before them who got what they deserved. But I’ll tell you what they had really become — country yokels.’

  ‘Nonsense, woman. I would have never chosen to marry a yokel.’

  ‘Chosen?’ Zoya Nikolayevna snorted. ‘My father beating you with a stick until you said you would make an honest woman of me? You call that chosen?’ She winked at Teschmaker and, satisfied that she had scored a direct hit, retreated to the kitchen.

  ‘That woman — she is like pepper vodka.’ Shlyapnikov beamed at Teschmaker. ‘Rough on the throat but warms the heart.’ He pushed the coffee to one side and refilled the glasses. ‘So, since it is forbidden to bore you any longer with my reminiscences, what did you want to talk about?’