by Unknown
‘We’ll be seeing each other,’ Tatyana said.
‘We will be.’
A quarter to six. We were shooing out the lingerers. The rain won’t stop and the minutes won’t leave. Head Curator Rogorshev will be prettying himself up in his private washroom now. Not many men get to manicure their own corpse. A cigarette would be nice. Jesus Christ, the sooner Rudi and I get out of this damned place the better. I say to Rudi, ‘Look! Let’s just bag ten whoppers in one night! Some Picassos, some Cézannes, some El Grecos, and in seventy-two hours we could be shopping for chalets in Switzerland on the money we’ve already got, and sell off pieces of the golden goose year by year.’ Lakes, yachts, water-skiing in the summer. I’ve already designed my boudoir. I’m going to have a full-length leopard-skin coat. The locals will call me the White Russian Lady, and all the women will be jealous and warn their cheesemaking financier husbands against me. But they won’t need to worry. I’ll have Rudi. Away from all the distractions of the lowlife here, I know he’ll straighten out. When the weather is warm, he’ll teach our children to swim, and when it’s cold we’ll all go skiing. As a family.
‘Let’s do it! Gregorski can get the visas ready,’ I say. ‘It’s so simple!’
‘It’s not simple at all!’ he says. ‘Forget the fact you’re a woman and use your brain! The reason it’s worked so far is that we haven’t been greedy. If we lift pictures at a faster rate than Jerome can replace them, people notice they are missing! And for every single picture that is missing, multiply by ten the number of pigs Interpol give the case! Multiply by twenty the pay-offs I have to dish out! Multiply by thirty the difficulty I have in finding buyers! And multiply by fifty the years we’ll get in the slammer!’
‘It’s all very well for you to lecture me in arithmetic, it’s not you who has to get skewered by that bald porker every week!’
Then Rudi really bawls me out and if he’s been drinking slaps me about a bit, just a bit, because of the drink, and he storms out and goes for a drive and I might not see him for a couple of days. He’s under a lot of pressure.
‘I love you!’ yells Head Curator Rogorshev, jockeying up and down with my bra strap wrapped round his windpipe. ‘Rabbit’s coming! Oh, gobble me and be spliced my fairy cake. I gobble you and devour you! Bunny’s coming! Destroy me, my whore, my master, I love you!’
I know he’s imagining I’m Tatyana. That’s fine. I make it tolerable by imagining he is Rudi. I hope he’ll finish soon so I can have a cigarette. I’ll steal some of his Cuban cigars for Rudi, to impress his business contacts. I wrap my legs around his hippo girth to hasten the end. He groans like a kid on an out-of-control go-cart hurtling down a hill, and mercifully soon comes the hanged-man gasp and the legs on his eighteenth-century chaise longue stop squeaking.
‘God, my god, I love you.’ He kisses the flat bone between my breasts. For a moment I wonder if he means it, whether there is an alchemy that turns lust to love. ‘You’re not jealous of Tatyana, are you? She could never replace you, you know, Margot, my love . . .’
I blow a smoke ring and watch it spinning into the corners of his office, where the evening is thickening. I imagine a circle of wild swans and pat his toupee-less pate. He doesn’t even bother to take his socks off these days. His portrait – farcically flattering – stares down from behind the desk. Quite the man of destiny.
All alchemists were frauds and liars, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll work on Rudi. He doesn’t know it yet but we’ll be spending Christmas in Zurich.
Head Curator Rogorshev always leaves first. He showers in his private office bathroom so his wife can pretend nothing is happening, and I might do a little paperwork for the sake of appearances. I hear him, singing and shampooing me down the plug-hole. He puts on a new shirt, kisses me to show me he cares, and goes off. I might do some invoicing for Rudi’s cleaning company, or make Jerome out a new pass, or some free passes for Rudi’s clients. Or I might just stare out of the window at the cupolas of St Andrew’s Cathedral. I usually leave around 7.30. Jerome wants the guards to stay used to seeing me around after hours.
‘Nothing to declare tonight?’ the Head of Security at the staff exit grins his buttery grin. I wish I could be around to see it dribble off his chin when the shit explodes. He knows about my affair with Rogorshev, and has the hots for me himself. Of course, it’s a part of the plan for everyone to know. He body-searches me! Me, Margot Latunsky! Him, an ex-army malingerer who thinks shiny badges and a walkie-talkie make him Rambo. I feel his hands lingering longer than they should. I think of ways I could incriminate him from Zurich.
‘No, Chief,’ I demur, a wary little stray, ‘no stolen masterpieces tonight.’
‘Good girl. The floor polishers are due . . .’
‘Not for three weeks. Three weeks today. Nine-thirty p.m.’
‘Three weeks today.’ He ticks a clipboard and waves me through. I feel his eyes pucker my body as I walk away. He is repulsive, but I can’t blame him. I’ve always had this mystical allure to men.
In the winter, I take the metro. Otherwise, I prefer to walk. If the weather’s fine I walk up to the Troisky Bridge, and then cross the Mars Fields, where the women wait. But if it’s raining I walk down Nevsky Prospect, a street of ghosts if there ever was one. Jerome says that every city has its street of ghosts. Past the Stroganov Palace and the Kazan Cathedral. Past the Aeroflot offices, and the scrubby Armenian Café. Past the flat where I made love to my Politburo member. It’s been turned into an American Express office now. All these new shops, Benetton, The Häagen-Dazs shop, Nike, Burger King, a shop that sells nothing but camera film and key-rings, another that sells Swatches and Rolexes. High streets are becoming the same all over the world, I suppose. In the subways is an orderly row of beggars and buskers. I buy a pack of cigarettes from a kiosk, and a little bottle of vodka. Surely buskers in no other city on Earth can hold a candle to ours. A saxophonist, a string quartet, a wisp of a woman playing a didgeridoo and a Ukrainian choir all competing for spare roubles. Sometimes I give money to the priests, I don’t know why, they’ve never given anything to me. The beggars often hold cards on which is written their own particular sob story, often with translations in different languages. Only visitors to the city bother to read them. Petersburg is built of sob stories, pile-driven down into the mud.
Go over the Anchikov bridge and turn left. Mine is four down. Through the heavy iron door, past the cabin where the porter is sleeping – a quick look in my mail-box where, to my surprise, there’s a letter from my dear, ailing sister – across the weedy courtyard and up three flights of stairs. If Rudi’s at home the TV is turned up loud. Rudi can’t abide silence. Tonight it’s all quiet. We had the little disagreement about our leaving date yesterday evening, so he’s decided to concentrate on business for a little, I suppose. That’s fine. I cook the fish that I bought for our dinner, and leave him half in the pot in case he comes home later. He’s never away for more than one or two nights. Not usually.
The White Nights are here. Bluish midnight dims to indigo at about two. The sun will rise again a little later without pomp. I stay in my living room and think about the past and about Switzerland. This is where my admiral and I made love. Under this very window. He used to tell me stories of the ocean, Sakhalin, the White Sea, submarines under the ice. We watched the stars come out. I pile the washing-up in the sink and light a mosquito coil. I put the Cuban cigars in Rudi’s coat pocket so he’ll find them and think about me. I can hear jazz playing somewhere. There was a time when I would have gone and found it and danced and been admired, desired. Men’s faces shone. They vied for the next dance.
I light another cigarette, and pour myself a brandy. Just a small one, and not the best bottle. Rudi needs that for when his business partners come over for meetings. I set fire to my sister’s letter, unopened, and lay it in the ashtray. That’ll teach her. Sipping my brandy I watch the front of flame turn the bitch’s words into a ribbon of smoke. Rise, spiral, and disappear, up, and up,
and up.
The jazz has stopped. Rudi still isn’t home. Little Nemya, fed and happy, comes and curls up on my lap, falling asleep as I tell her my troubles.
Jerome is making tea. His movements are clockwork, like a butler’s. Rudi is late again. Rudi is usually late by three quarters of an hour. It’s a beautiful summer’s day around lunchtime, and the streets and parks of Vasilevsky Island are shimmering in the heat as though underwater.
‘What gives the tea that smell?’
Jerome thinks for a moment. ‘I don’t know the Russian for it. In English it’s called “bergamot”. It’s the rind of a species of citrus.’
I just say, ‘I see. Nice teacup.’
Jerome hands me a cup, on a saucer, and sits down. His Russian is fluent, but I never know what to say to him. ‘This bone china is a last surviving luxury,’ he says, ‘real Wedgwood. It should be worth a lot, but since your civilisation fell into its own basement bin I probably couldn’t even get a tin of tuna for it. Don’t drop it.’
‘I’ve never broken a beautiful thing in my life,’ I tell him.
‘I’m sure that might be true. Anyway,’ Jerome stands up again, ‘since our nouveau riche Robert de Niro has better things to do, allow me to give you a private view of my handiwork.’ He goes into the next room, his studio, and I hear things being shunted across the floorboards. A camphor tree swims in the sun in the little park next to St Andrew’s Cathedral. Over the Leytenanta Bridge on Angliyaskaya Embankment a new Holiday Inn is being constructed. Today is Heroes’ Day, so nobody is on the scaffolding. I hear a sportscar being revved to a roar and a sudden screech of brakes.
‘Ah,’ Jerome calls through. ‘Sounds like Rudi.’
Jerome’s apartment is sparse, in a not unpleasant part of the city. Not as well situated as mine, of course. On stuffy days when the wind is from the north you can smell the chemical factory, but other than that it’s not so bad. It’s bigger than my apartment, if you include his studio – though he never lets anyone into his studio. The living room is dominated by the largest drinks cabinet I’ve ever heard of. It dominates the room like a cathedral altar in a country chapel. Apparently it was a present from Leonid Brezhnev. Jerome keeps the place tidier than a woman would. But Jerome has never had a woman here, or anywhere else, I imagine. I wonder if all English men are so orderly, or whether it’s only English queers. Jerome was a spy in the Cold War. He used to lecture in art history at Cambridge University. Moscow hasn’t paid his war pension for six or seven years now, and he’s wanted for treason in Britain, so he’s scuppered. He always talks about selling his memoirs, but ex-spies trying to flog their stories are two-a-rouble these days. His only marketable talent is his ability to paint copies of masterpieces. That’s why he’s a member of our circle. I notice a shiny, maroon flying jacket that could not possibly belong to tall spindly Jerome. I need a cigarette, so I light one. There’s nothing to use as an ashtray so I have to use the saucer. From a nearby room I can hear a piano.
Jerome returns, unveiling the picture, tutting at my cigarette.
Eve and the Serpent, not by Lemuel Delacroix, but by Jerome . . . I don’t know his family name. Smith or Churchill, probably. I’ve never much liked Jerome, but I have to admire his craftsmanship. ‘I can’t see how anyone could tell them apart. Even the way the gilt on the frame is worn away on the bottom.’
‘I can’t quite get the cracks in the glaze right, not quite. And there are secrets in the blue pigment that got lost in the nineteenth century, and not even Gregorski’s money can procure them. No, it’s not perfect. But it will do. Nobody is going to be looking for a difference until it’s too late.’
‘You’ve spent twice as long on this one, compared to the last.’
‘Well, my dear, that’s Russian Constructivism for you! Kandinsky’s an absolute cinch, from a copyist’s point of view. Just measure the proportions of the stripes, get the tone right, slap on the paint and bingo! No, Delacroix deserves more than that . . . you could call it a labour of love, this one. I would have liked a fortnight more, just to tamper, but Gregorski’s chomping at the bit for another sting this month. I could die to get my hands on the original, though, even if it’s only to look after it overnight. Moreover, the Delacroix is worth enough to let me raise the Titanic and buy up Bermuda.’
‘A quarter of Bermuda,’ I reminded him. ‘Split four ways.’
‘Did you know that Delacroix was a friend of Nicholas I? He was employed by the Tsar several summers running to help decorate the Cathedral of Our Saviour. A Westerner in service to the Russian state. Maybe that helps to explains the empathy I feel with the man.’ When Jerome rattles on like this I feel I’m no longer in the room with him.
A coded knock at the door. I wait for the sequence to finish, rolling my eyeballs at this pantomime. The code is correct, but Jerome waves me through into the kitchen anyway, his finger on his lips. I suppose old habits die hard. ‘Open up!’ says Rudi, just like he always does. ‘It’s draughty out here.’ Jerome relaxes. The word ‘draughty’ indicates that Rudi is alone and hasn’t got a gun pointed in the small of his back. ‘Cold’ means ‘get away’. Exactly how you would get out of a sixth-floor apartment with one entrance and no fire-escape is another matter. But boys will be boys.
‘Babe,’ Rudi greets me, breezing in and handing Jerome a pizza he picked up from one of his restaurants. His new suede jacket is the colour of blackcurrant juice. He likes to call me ‘babe’, even though he is younger than me by eight or nine years. He’s smiling. A good sign. He takes off his wraparound sunglasses, and whoops at the picture. ‘Jerome, even better than your normal high standard!’
Jerome mock bows. ‘How good of you to drop by!’ Rudi never sees Jerome’s irony, leaving it to me to feel offended for him. ‘Yes, thank you. I am rather pleased with my production. How did the meeting with our public guardian friend at the City Hall go?’
‘Gregorski’s cool. He’ll send someone over to pick up the Delacroix here the morning after.’
Right then, it felt wrong. ‘Why aren’t you meeting the buyers directly this time?’
Rudi lifted his hand like the Pope. ‘Helsinki’s a long way to go, babe . . . Why not let them come here? It’s a sign we’re moving up. It also means I don’t have to risk my neck at the border . . . Oh, Kitten, I missed you last night . . .’ There was a silliness to Rudi’s grin. A landslipped cocaine silliness. A bad sign. He tried to grab my breasts, but I didn’t let myself be grabbed, and Rudi fell onto the sofa laughing. ‘Tell her, Jerome!’
‘Tell her what?’ Jerome came through with plates and a knife for the pizza.
‘Gregorski’s on the level.’
Jerome frowned. ‘If he’s not, and chooses to sell us up the river, we will be royally butt-fucked from here to Windsor.’
Rudi’s smile shrivelled up like a burning page. ‘Jesus Christ, what’s the matter with you two today? The sun’s shining, in two weeks – and forty-eight hours – we’re going to be two hundred thousand dollars richer, and here you two are looking like you’ve had to sell your mother to a body-donor pedlar! The point is for Mr High-and-fucking-Mighty Gregorski, if we’re not on the level, he is the butt-fucked. He’s not dealing with tadpoles any more. I have muscle in this city. I have muscle outside this city. I have muscle.’
‘Oh, St Ciaran Above, nobody’s disputing that—’ began Jerome, making the mistake of sounding martyred.
Rudi’s eyes began to shine. ‘Dead, damned, fucking right nobody is disputing that! Kirsch is not disputing that! Shirliker and his associates are not disputing that! Arturo Fucking Kopeck is not disputing that! You know who Arturo Kopeck is? Only the biggest – fucking – crack dealer east of Berlin and west of the Urals! So why are my own partners disputing the notion that I have more muscle that Boris fucking Frankenstein?’
Jerome’s owl gaze. ‘Nobody’s disputing that. Are we, Margarita?’
My poor, dear, baby. Bad cocaine. ‘No, Rudi. Nobody’s doing any disputing.’
Rudi seemed to suddenly forget what we’d been talking about. ‘Any tabasco sauce, Jerome? That dumb Georgian bitch forgot to put any on. Big tits, gives a good blowjob, but dippy as horseshit. Remind me to sack her before she gets too far behind on her rent.’
‘I’ll get the tabasco,’ I said, smiling at Rudi’s little joke, ‘and shall I make you some nice strong coffee?’
He didn’t bawl ‘no’ so that meant ‘yes’.
We ate in silence until half the pizza was gone.
‘There’s one last little touch,’ said Rudi, ‘that I’ve decided to introduce for the next pick-up.’
‘Do tell,’ said Jerome.
‘Margarita here meets us and the other cleaners at the staff entrance, instead of waiting for me in the gallery.’
‘I don’t see why,’ I said.
‘That is precisely why I am the brains of this operation. You never see why, and I always do. Listen. You come and meet us. The girls go off to their allotted galleries separately. We go to the Delacroix Gallery. As usual, we make the switch, wax the floors, take it back to the staff entrance, and out through security. And what precisely is the difference?’
Jerome picked prawns out of congealing cheese. ‘You’ve been accompanied the whole time by Winter Palace personnel. Are there any anchovies hiding down here?’
‘And therefore placing me even more above suspicion than usual!’ Rudi swished his wine around the glass. ‘These little details are the Rudi Touch. This is why my outfit thrives the way it does. This is why Gregorski selected me for this cleaning contract, why he wanted me for this operation: not Kirsch, not Chekhov, not the Koenighovs, but me. Now. Any questions?’
