The Black Russian

by Lenny Bartulin

  She stepped out but then stopped and blocked the way. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Give me a lift.’

  Jack was right up against her now, trying to close the door behind him. The Fiori wedged them together into the narrow space, between building and car. Jack twisted himself up a little and pulled the handle. The door clicked shut.

  They heard running footsteps approach the nearest corner. Kim grabbed the car door. ‘Get in!’ she said, firmly. Her tone sounded a little too much like she was enjoying herself. She jumped into the car, reached across and popped the driver’s side door open.

  Jack ran around. As he reached the door, he saw Pascal swing into the lane, leaning like a motorbike on the apex, then head full pelt straight at him.

  Shit. He pulled keys out of his pocket and pushed one into the ignition. Shit. The Fiori moaned, whirred, but did not kick. Come on. Jack glanced up: Pascal was getting bigger in the rear-view mirror. Ignition again. The car clicked, then squealed.

  ‘Hurry up, Jack.’

  ‘Yeah, I know —’

  The car kicked over. Jack dropped the clutch and took off down Market Row. The Fiori could probably just beat a three-legged poodle, but anything else was out of its league. Jack checked the rear-view mirror again. He hoped Pascal was not as fit as he looked.

  ~

  20 ~

  NOT THAT IT MATTERED.

  Up ahead, Kablunak’s Mercedes swung into the lane, illegally. Hazard lights flashing. It stopped a few metres in. Jack slammed the brakes and the Fiori came to a soggy stop. Hazard lights flashing, too. Nobody moved for a moment. Engines idled in hot Market Row. Jack gripped the thin steering wheel, stared at the darkened windscreen of the Mercedes. He revved the Fiori’s toy engine. The Mercedes revved back. A face-off. Between a tsunami and a gumnut.

  ‘What’s that guy doing?’ asked Kim, irritated that her excitement had ended prematurely.

  ‘Winning,’ said Jack.

  Pascal came up the side of the Fiori and opened the driver’s side door. ‘Hey, Jack.’ He leaned in and switched off the motor. ‘Out you get.’

  Jack turned to Kim. ‘Wait here.’ He got out of the car. Pascal walked him over to the Mercedes. The tinted front passenger window slid down, silently. It stopped just past halfway. Viktor Kablunak’s face was behind it.

  ‘Hello, Jack,’ said the Russian, sunglasses on, dark hair slicked, crisp white collars on a crisp white shirt. ‘It is hot today, no? Let’s go for a ride. I want to buy you a gelato.’ Behind the shades, his face gave nothing away.

  ‘Thanks. But I’m diabetic.’

  ‘Get in,’ said Pascal.

  ‘I can’t leave my car there.’

  ‘Tell your friend to take it away.’

  The Russian turned to Pascal. ‘Check the car, first.’

  ‘You still don’t believe me, Viktor? I told you I haven’t got it.’

  Kablunak stared straight ahead.

  Jack shrugged, looked at Kim. She held up her hands — what’s going on? — then rested an elbow on the windowsill. Smiled. Somehow, the gravity of the situation had not hit her. She still looked like she was having fun.

  Pascal searched the car. A minute or so later, he shook his head at Kablunak in the Mercedes.

  ‘Say goodbye, Mr Susko.’

  Jack walked back to the Fiori. Crouched down beside the open, driver’s side door. ‘You drive?’

  Kim nodded.

  ‘All right if you take the Ferrari back to your place?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I’ll pick it up there later.’

  Her face tightened with concern. ‘Are you okay? Should I call the police?’

  ‘No, it’s fine. Just going for a chat. Nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Jack smiled. ‘Careful in this thing,’ he said. ‘It’s powerful.’

  ‘Hey … have you got a phone?’

  ‘Yeah, I do.’ Jack tapped the mobile in his pocket. It was not a bad idea. He pulled out his wallet and handed Kim a card. ‘My number’s on there. Call if you don’t hear from me in a week or two.’

  Jack walked back to the Mercedes. The rear passenger door opened with a thick, expensive-luxury-car sound. He glanced at his own reflection for a second, distorted in the dark curved glass, and climbed in. Pascal followed on the other side and sat across from him on the back seat. Walter was behind the wheel. He backed the car out of Market Row, ignoring traffic, and took off down the street.

  They hit the exit ramp for Anzac Bridge.

  ‘So what have you guys been up to today?’ said Jack, trying not to think about where they might be taking him. ‘Beach? Barbecue at a friend’s house?’

  No answer. Kablunak reached over for the controls on the car audio system and turned the volume up. There were enough buttons there to manoeuvre a small satellite into position. It was probably what he had just done. The sound from the stereo was deep and round and the music seemed to be coming out of everywhere. Slow, smooth trumpet filled the Mercedes to the brim.

  Jack listened, a little surprised. It was Dizzy Gillespie. ‘Cocktails for Two’.

  ‘Is that the Paris recording?’ asked Jack, forgetting for a moment that he might be in serious physical danger.

  ‘Théâtre des Champs-Elysées,’ said Kablunak, in pretty good French. ‘March 25, 1952. Do you know it, Mr Susko?’

  ‘Sure. Don Byas on tenor sax, Art Simmons on piano, Joe Benjamin on double bass, Bill Clark on drums.’

  Kablunak turned a little of his profile towards Jack and held up a manicured finger. ‘And Humberto Canto Morales on congas,’ he said.

  ‘Not on this track.’

  Kablunak nodded. ‘So, you know something, Mr Susko.’

  ‘Sometimes,’ said Jack.

  ‘Excellent. Then there is a good chance we will understand one another.’

  Walter indicated and changed into the right lane to pass a bus, indicated and swung back again into the left. It was tight with traffic, all red brake lights down the line. Jack could see him in the rear-view mirror, grimacing through the jazz.

  ‘Dizzy Gillespie is in my top five of the best trumpeters ever,’ said Kablunak. ‘Do you —’ The track stopped and he held up his hand. ‘Wait. Listen.’

  Now ‘Moon Nocturne’ spilled in around them. Like floating in heaven. Jack saw Fat Boy close his eyes for a moment, as though suffering a toothache. Pascal looked out of the window.

  ‘My God,’ said Kablunak. His fingers played his thigh. ‘A genius.’

  Jack nodded, but not too much. ‘Sure is.’

  The Russian watched a couple of motorcycles weave through the traffic. ‘And you, Jack?’ he said. ‘Who would make your top five?’

  ‘Wouldn’t know where to start.’

  Viktor Kablunak shook his head. ‘Do not be so boring. Okay, yes, you are right, it is a stupid question. A game. Who is the best, who is your favourite, what is your top five of all time, yes. It does not tell the whole truth. But conversation is … too abstract, in the beginning. We start somewhere because it is necessary to start. No? Am I making sense to you, Jack?’

  ‘Can I think about it for a minute?’

  ‘Bah. All I mean is that I see you like jazz. This is just a start. We must move around one another. A first coordinate. A simple question. I would like to know you better, Jack.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘But you do not wish to indulge me with an answer?’

  ‘You think we can be friends, Viktor?’

  ‘I see.’ Kablunak was thoughtful for a moment. ‘Yes. We have not met under normal circumstances. That is a problem.’

  As comfortable as it was in the Mercedes, Jack was moving swiftly towards discomfort and unease, like a kid about to hit a muddy puddle at the end of the slippery slide.

  ‘I was fifteen,’ said Kablunak, spreading himself in the seat, tugging at the ironed creases of his pale-grey pants. ‘Living in the Soviet Union’ — he waved a hand above his shoulder — ‘Nowhere. Living. A kind of
life. I heard Duke Ellington.’ He paused, apparently lost for words. ‘Glorious. Free. A black man soaring high above the clouds. Do you understand, Mr Susko?’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ said Jack, his tongue thick and dry. He understood that Viktor Kablunak liked an audience.

  ‘It was my revelation. My … revolution. Because of Duke Ellington, I found a home in America.’

  Jack remembered Kablunak mentioning the Russian border deal with the Chinese that had displaced his family.

  ‘Where?’

  He patted his chest, firmly, twice. ‘Here.’

  Jack glanced at Walter and Pascal: from the looks on their faces, he guessed they had heard this before.

  ‘Music is a parallel universe,’ the Russian continued. ‘There are no limits, no … restrictions, on who a man is, who a man can be. Music is pure energy. Man is simply just the wire along which it runs.’ Kablunak turned towards Jack again, twisting his head half around. ‘Freedom, you see? Freedom.’

  Jack nodded, wanting a little of that freedom himself right now.

  ‘But free only while playing the music. Free while they play, because when they play, they are music. Not men anymore. But’ — this time he held up his forefinger, waved it like a school teacher at a student, accusingly — ‘we all, eventually, must return to our minds. And so to our identities. To our histories and our geographies. To be judged by inferior minds. To be imprisoned in ways worse than the worst gulag. To be held against our will in untruths and falseness.’ He lowered his voice. ‘By men made of mud.’

  ‘You get all that from Duke Ellington?’

  Kablunak did not reply. He patted Walter on the thigh. His driver flinched. ‘Don’t forget I need to post a letter.’

  His tubby driver nodded. He swung the Mercedes off Anzac Bridge and followed Victoria Road.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Just a drive, Mr Susko. So we can talk.’

  ‘About jazz?’

  Kablunak nodded.

  ‘What about the blues? That’s more the mood I’m in.’

  Kablunak reached over to the audio controls again and pressed a couple of buttons. Dizzy went away and silence padded out the inside of the Merc. Not even a flutter from the speakers. A moment later, a loud hissing and scratching: something old, digitised and compressed into a CD, but forever grained with its own time. Acoustic guitar, stripped and bare. Played on a knife-edge and true as a pummelling, straight-line train. Jack felt the warmth of recognition. Robert Johnson, riding the rhythm, sweat stinging his eyes. Resigned to his fate and getting there fast.

  If I had possession, over Judgement Day

  If I had possession, over Judgement Day

  Lord, the little woman I’m lovin’ wouldn’t

  Have no right to pray

  Kablunak turned the music down a touch. ‘I know what it is to be a black man, Mr Susko,’ he said, eyes on the road in front of them. ‘Like nothing, like a lump of man, treated without dignity or respect. Treated worse than a dog.’ He brushed his pants and then rested his hands on his thighs, continued looking through the windscreen. ‘The terror of no escape from your condition. The hell of being chained to a post in the ground while everybody around you walks this way and that, driven by whim.’ He paused for a moment. ‘I am from Russian peasants, Mr Susko. From nothing. I know what it is to be a black man.’

  Walter approached a set of lights, got the green arrow straight away and turned the big car right. They drove slowly along Darling Street, under a green canopy of plane trees, still lit golden by the late-afternoon sun. A slightly wind-twisted banner stretched across as well, strung between the buildings on either side, announcing a school fête. Jack shifted in his seat, the leather creaking lightly beneath him. The outside world seemed unreal and distant. A little like the world inside the car, only nowhere near as menacing.

  Had to fold my arms and I, slowly walked away

  Had to fold my arms and I, slowly walked away

  I said in my mind

  ‘Your trouble gonna come some day’

  Viktor Kablunak sat and listened to the music and felt the smoothness of his chin with his fingertips.

  ‘I told you I still haven’t got the Sergius,’ said Jack. ‘You searched the car, the shop. What’s with the ride?’

  Kablunak took his time answering. ‘I fear temptation, Mr Susko. It is around every corner, hidden in every shadow. Waiting to pounce.’

  ‘Sounds like you need God, Viktor. I really can’t help you with that.’

  ‘Oh, no, Jack. It is your temptation I fear. It has come to my attention that others, too, know of the Sergius and its … unfortunate redirection out of my hands.’ A pause. ‘Into yours.’

  Jack frowned. Larissa? Kablunak surely knew. Shane would hardly have endured any more beatings to keep her name out of it.

  ‘Maybe you underestimate my desire to get out of this situation as quickly as possible,’ said Jack. He glanced over at Pascal beside him.

  ‘Really?’ Kablunak grinned. ‘I personally do not know anybody who rushes out of situations that might be worth millions of dollars to them.’

  ‘What’s worth millions of dollars, Viktor?’ Jack hoped he sounded like he had no idea what Kablunak was talking about.

  ‘I think that is obvious, Mr Susko. Even if you do not know what the Sergius is worth, you know it is worth something. And besides, I have essentially just told you. Do not play the fool with me.’ The Russian looked out the window. ‘There is already enough foolishness with Richard de Groot.’

  Jack exhaled slowly. The air-conditioning inside the Mercedes was moving from comfortable to chilly. He swallowed a little nervousness down. ‘What’s the story with de Groot?’

  Viktor Kablunak scoffed, then laughed, lightly. ‘A fool’s story.’

  ‘Can you be more specific?’

  ‘There is only one fool’s story. It is as old as man’s vanity. Details are irrelevant.’

  ‘I heard you were old friends. What happened? Did Dicky get the girl?’

  ‘The girl, Mr Susko?’ Kablunak shook his head. ‘No. He, of all people, should know what I am capable of.’ His voice was not too loud, not too soft, and about as friendly as a serial killer asking for your home address. ‘He does not understand … things.’

  ‘What kind of things?’

  ‘Capitalism has always been about survival of the fittest. Competition,’ said Kablunak, as though he had not heard Jack’s question. ‘What makes Richard think that only he does not need to suffer it?’ The volume of his voice rose along the length of the sentence. ‘Pieces of shit like him, who have always had everything, who have trodden on the black man for so long. Apartheid! Hah! And now they cry, up and down Double Bay and Rose Bay and Vaucluse. The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!’ Kablunak pulled out a folded, paleblue handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his mouth. He regained his composure. ‘He must understand. Even if there is no borscht on the menus in the cafés, I am here. And I am not going away.’

  Jack looked at Walter, then turned to Pascal. Both continued to maintain the same blank faces as before. The smart money seemed to be on no comment.

  They drove through Balmain. The sky was fattening with storm clouds and shadows passed over the car. Kablunak stared out the window; in the reflection on the glass, Jack could see that his mouth was one muscle flick away from a snarl. The Russian flexed his fingers; wiggled them a little, like he was about to roll some dice. He curled his thumb around the forefinger and clicked the knuckle.

  ‘How we degenerate, Mr Susko,’ he said, breaking the silence. ‘How we decline. Entropy of the body. Of the spirit. Of dignity.’ Kablunak nodded to himself. ‘And the real difference between men? Only time. Some get there sooner. Some later. We should always remember that it is death that defines us. Yes, the darkness.’ Now he shook his head, sadly. ‘You will have yours and I will have mine. Are you prepared, Mr Susko? It is important not to be afraid.’

  Jack needed some air. He cleared h
is throat, breathed hard through his nostrils. A little feeling had gone from his right leg and he tried to squeeze some back into it. ‘So how do you rate Coltrane’s sax?’ he asked.

  Viktor Kablunak laughed; his shoulders bounced lightly for a moment. ‘Ah, maybe you are wise, Mr Susko,’ he said. ‘It is true. Philosophy is a downward spiral to depression and anxiety and … nothingness. Much better to live and die, than to think and die.’

  ‘Okay Viktor, how’s this? One hundred thousand for the Sergius. That’d leave you more than enough change. And compensate me for all the stress. And lead me not into temptation.’

  ‘But deliver you from evil?’ Kablunak showed Jack his profile. ‘I like you, Mr Susko. A man of action. But do not let yourself get too … spontaneous.’

  ‘I like you, too, Viktor. That’s why I’m giving you right of first refusal.’

  The Russian yawned. ‘I will explain it to you, Mr Susko. So that there is no confusion.’

  They had reached the end of Darling Street, a bus turning circle down on the water in Balmain East. With the harbour and the bridge and the city across from them, turning grey beneath the looming storm. Walter turned right into a narrow lane between two large sandstone buildings. He came to a nature reserve and swung the Mercedes into the gravel car park. He stopped, facing the harbour. Turned the engine off. Nobody else around.

  Kablunak stared out at the water and the city, silver and darkening steel. ‘I do not wish to spoil our new friendship, Mr Susko. But, you understand, I must apply some … pressure to this situation.’

  ‘All right. Fifty thousand. A bargain.’ Jack’s tone was coming in a little high and squeaky. A small wave of panic pinned-and-needled his back.

  ‘Please. I give you credit for some intelligence. So. Learn this lesson now and you will be your own man.’ Kablunak looked through the windscreen: self-assured, complete, like a king. He continued to gaze at the harbour, which now seemed huge, foreground and background at the same time, rising up. ‘There is pleasure,’ he said. ‘And there is business. Once it was called war and peace. But only labels change. What was there before is there still.’