The Gardener from Ochakov

by Andrey Kurkov

  ‘It’s on Kostya Khetagurov Street,’ said Anastasia Ivanovna, once they’d set off. ‘Not far from here. It’s an office of some kind now, for a pension fund, or something similar.’

  They turned left past a small shop and saw a number of two-storey brick buildings, but kept walking until they came to a patch of wasteland and a burnt-out wooden hut. Beyond this vacant plot, behind a low metal fence, stood an unsightly single-storey building with a high socle around its base. Double wooden doors served to emphasise the building’s unwelcoming bureaucratic nature. There were two signs, one on either side of the doors: ‘Organisation of Ochakov Labour Veterans’ and ‘Public Office of A. G. Volochkov, Deputy of the Nikolaev Regional Council’.

  The old woman stopped. ‘There it is,’ she said. ‘It looks exactly the same!’ Her voice sounded tearful. ‘In Fima’s day the house used to be divided into just four big rooms with old stoves, but there must be at least ten rooms in there now. I came here once, to the veterans department. I thought they might be able to help me get some extra money on top of my pension.’ She waved her hand sadly. ‘And about five years ago, it must have been, I saw Egorov here, the divisional inspector who got Fima locked up. He must be dead by now.’

  Stepan stared at Anastasia Ivanovna with interest.

  ‘Divisional inspectors usually live to a ripe old age,’ he said pensively. ‘Maybe we ought to check . . . Where did he used to live?’

  ‘I don’t know the address, but I know which house it is. It’s down there.’ She waved her hand along the street. ‘Towards the sea. It used to have a red fence.’

  ‘Maybe we could call on him now?’ suggested Stepan. ‘We really do need to speak to him, if he’s still alive.’

  It took about five minutes of gentle persuasion before Anastasia Ivanovna agreed to take them to Egorov’s house.

  They arrived at a small stucco house with a red fence around it. The door was opened by a young girl with freckles, who must have been about six years old.

  ‘Is your grandfather at home?’ the old woman asked her.

  ‘Grandad!’ the girl shouted back into the house. ‘It’s for you!’

  A wizened old man looked out into the hallway. He was wearing a dark blue woollen tracksuit emblazoned with the Dinamo football club logo. At the sight of two strange men on his doorstep he froze. Then he noticed the diminutive figure of Anastasia Ivanovna beside them, stooping beneath the burden of her years, and his expression softened.

  ‘Nastya, is that you?’ he asked, unable to take his eyes off the old woman.

  ‘Yes, and these two lodgers of mine twisted my arm until I brought them to see you,’ she said, indicating Stepan and Igor. ‘Can we come in?’

  The old man nodded.

  He led them into the living room, trying on the way to capture a moth that had flown into the hallway. He invited them to sit down at a table covered with a velour cloth.

  ‘So, what can I do for you?’ he asked, sitting down opposite them.

  ‘Well,’ began Stepan, ‘I think Fima Chagin was either a relative, or a friend, of my father’s . . . I just want to find out for sure. That’s why I’ve come to Ochakov.’

  ‘And what does this have to do with me?’

  ‘Well, you were the one who put him away, so you must know something about him,’ said Stepan. ‘What about his friends, for example? He must have had friends. Who were they?’

  ‘Friends?’ repeated the old man. ‘Maybe he did have friends. I don’t know. As for what he got up to . . . how can I put it? Let’s just say he had his fingers in a number of pies. He sold stolen goods, he had suspicious visitors . . . His house was like a kind of “poste restante” service. People used to leave things with him to look after for a year or so, sometimes longer. They would pay him for this, of course. People reported him, and the police came with search warrants, but they never found anything. So he just carried on like that, right up until he was killed. Would you like some tea?’

  Anastasia Ivanovna brightened and nodded on behalf of herself and her lodgers. While they were drinking their tea Stepan tried his best to find out more, but the old man had nothing further to tell.

  ‘My father must have been one of his visitors,’ Stepan reflected that evening, when they were sitting on the beds in their little room. ‘And I bet he left him something to look after as well . . . So he was a thief, after all.’

  The following day they went to a hardware shop near the market, where Stepan bought a crowbar and two torches. Igor paid, albeit reluctantly.

  His apprehensions proved to be well founded. That evening, the gardener grabbed the torches and crowbar and led him out onto the street.

  ‘We’re just going to scope out Chagin’s house for a bit first . . . Get a feel for the place,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Then we’ll take a look inside.’

  The dark southern sky hung low above them, and the smell of the sea tickled their noses. Somewhere nearby, a radio was blaring out Turkish music.

  After walking past Chagin’s house several times, they went into the yard and hid behind a tree to the right of the doorstep.

  ‘We could get locked up for this!’ Igor panicked. He knew what was coming next.

  ‘For what? For trying to understand my childhood? It’s not like we’re robbing a bank,’ Stepan reassured him.

  They stood there for about twenty minutes, just listening. The silence was broken only by a single car going past. The town was obviously early to bed as well as early to rise.

  Stepan deftly forced open the padlock with the crowbar, then levered the door up until the built-in lock disengaged from its mortice. The door opened.

  Stepan slipped through the gap with Igor close behind him. They shut the door and immediately found themselves in pitch darkness. Stepan switched on his torch, and Igor did the same.

  ‘The police aren’t stupid,’ whispered Stepan. ‘If they came here with search warrants they would have checked under the floorboards, and in the attic. They must have searched the old stoves too . . . I bet they’ve all been ripped out, though.’

  They were in a kind of hallway, with various doors leading off it. Stepan shone his torch along the walls and over the cast-iron radiators, which had been painted white. He approached the closest set of double doors, which were marked ‘Public Office’. Before Igor even noticed the doors opening, Stepan was inside, illuminating the walls and floor with his torch.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘We need a system, otherwise we’ll be here all night. You stay here while I go back and open all the other doors, then we can start working our way round clockwise.’

  Igor switched off his torch and stood motionless in the darkness, listening to the hushed whispering of the doors as they opened one by one, yielding to pressure from the crowbar.

  It wasn’t long before Stepan returned. He touched Igor on the shoulder and motioned for him to follow. Together they went back into the hallway and then walked around each of the rooms in turn, shining their torches over the floors, the walls and the unprepossessing Soviet-style furniture. They ended up back in Deputy Volochkov’s office.

  ‘Right, here’s what we’re going to do,’ said Stepan, voicing his thoughts aloud. ‘We can rule out the attic and the floors. There are no stoves. That just leaves the walls. Do you know how to sound out walls?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Igor.

  ‘Like a doctor. Rap on them with your knuckles, and if they sound solid keep going. But if they sound hollow, then stay where you are and call for me. We’ll do it together. I’ll start to the right of the doors, and you can start to the left.’

  In the pitch-black silence, they started knocking on the walls: right up to the ceiling, and right down to where they met the floorboards. In the third room, to the right of an enormous, brooding safe, Igor thought the wall sounded different.

  ‘Stepan!’ he whispered urgently. ‘I think I’ve found something.’

  Stepan went over to check.

  ‘Yes, it does so
und empty just here,’ he said, although he sounded unconvinced. ‘I’ll go and check from the other side.’

  He came back pleasantly puzzled.

  ‘The wall sticks out strangely on that side,’ he said, grasping the crowbar in his right hand. ‘Right then, here goes!’

  The exertion was reflected on his face as he smashed the crowbar into the wall. After a certain amount of resistance the crowbar plunged deep inside.

  ‘Now, that’s interesting,’ whispered Stepan, shining his torch onto the wall.

  He widened the hole he had made. Igor noticed pieces of dark plywood sticking out of the plaster. It took the two of them them about ten minutes to open up a section of the wall big enough to shine their torches inside.

  ‘Well, fancy that!’ exclaimed Stepan. The light from their torches fell on three old-fashioned leather suitcases, covered in dust and building rubble. ‘All that time they spent searching for left luggage, and we’ve finally found it!’

  Stepan dragged the suitcases out one at a time. He blew the dust and debris from them, then brushed his clothes down and switched off his torch. They left the building carefully, trying to make as little noise as possible. Stepan even managed to close the front door silently behind them.

  The streets were equally deserted on the way back to Anastasia Ivanovna’s house. What a lovely little town! thought Igor.

  They put the suitcases on the floor in their room. Stepan wiped them with the cloth rag that served as a doormat.

  ‘We’ll have to leave early, before the market opens,’ Stepan said firmly.

  ‘Aren’t we going to see what’s inside?’ asked Igor.

  ‘We’ll open them up back at your place, when we can take our time over it. Let’s just concentrate on getting them there, for the time being.’

  Igor was not inclined to argue. They had two hours left before sunrise. Stepan was already packing his rucksack. He paused and looked at his young companion.

  ‘Put twenty hryvnas on the table,’ he said. ‘It wouldn’t hurt to leave a good impression.’

  6

  KIEV WELCOMED THE returning travellers with pouring rain. The sky hung dark and low over the train station. Wearing his rucksack on his back and carrying one of the old leather suitcases, Stepan walked briskly towards their suburban commuter train. Igor was carrying the other two suitcases as well as his own bag, and he struggled to keep up. At least the suitcases weren’t heavy. Though this did call into question the value of their contents.

  The puddles in the streets of Irpen reflected the autumn sun. It had obviously rained there earlier in the day.

  ‘Let’s take a taxi,’ suggested Stepan, looking around. They were not exactly inconspicuous with their three large, old-fashioned suitcases. Igor also noticed a few passers-by looking at them in surprise.

  There were five or six cars waiting for passengers in front of the little station. Stepan and Igor chose an old brown Mercedes. The journey to Igor’s house took less than five minutes. The driver, who had a moustache and was wearing camouflage hunting overalls, helped them to unload their luggage from the car. They took the suitcases straight into Stepan’s shed.

  ‘Why don’t you go and have a little rest?’ said the gardener solicitously. ‘Come back in half an hour. Then we’ll open them up and see what’s inside.’

  Igor looked at Stepan then glanced cautiously at the suitcases, which were standing on the concrete floor next to the old wooden shelf unit. Then he turned and left.

  ‘So, how did you get on?’ asked his mother, as soon as she saw him. ‘Did you see much of the town? Did you find anything? I bet you’re hungry!’

  ‘Put the kettle on,’ said Igor, ignoring his mother’s questions. Not that she seemed to be expecting any answers.

  Igor went into the bathroom and washed his hands and face. His face was pale and swollen from the rough train pillow. He ran his hand over his prickly, unshaven cheeks, and his eyes fell on the little shelf beneath the mirror, where toothbrushes and disposable razors bristled out of a plastic cup.

  Igor had a shave and brushed his teeth. Now he felt a little more alert, but at the same time he couldn’t help wondering what Stepan might be up to in the shed.

  ‘Tea’s ready, son,’ his mother called from the kitchen.

  Igor poured a second mug of tea and put a spoonful of sugar into his own, and two into Stepan’s.

  ‘Oh, thanks!’ the gardener exclaimed in surprise, when he saw Igor at the door of the shed.

  Igor noticed that Stepan was holding the crowbar from Ochakov. Before taking his mug from Igor he put the implement down on the concrete floor. They drank their tea in silence, sitting on stools with the door half shut. The light hanging from the ceiling seemed unusually bright. Igor kept glancing nervously at the suitcases. He was dying of curiosity.

  Eventually Stepan picked up the crowbar again and bent over one of the suitcases, although it wouldn’t have taken more than a screwdriver to prise open the two weak locks.

  The first suitcase opened without a sound. Inside were two packages wrapped in thick brown paper and tied up with string. They were about the same size as those boxes that women’s winter boots came in – the kind his mother kept in her wardrobe, full of photographs and balls of wool with knitting needles sticking out of them.

  Stepan picked up one of the packages and gauged its weight, biting his lip in concentration. He turned it over and stared at the three large letters that were written on the back in indelible pencil: I.S.S. Stepan gave a heavy sigh, although it was not tiredness that showed on his face but a kind of reflective contentment, as though he’d found what he’d been searching for his entire life.

  ‘Iosip Stepanovich Sadovnikov,’ he said after a pause, stroking the initials with the forefinger of his right hand.

  Squatting down, he placed the package on the floor and began to unwrap it. Inside was a large bookkeeping ledger. Stepan grinned self-consciously, as though he didn’t quite know what to do next. There was an inscription on the front, handwritten neatly in fountain pen. Stepan read it out: The Book of Food.

  He put the book on the floor and took the second package out of the suitcase. The look of calm contentment had left his face, as though he knew the pleasant surprises were over. The second package was marked with the same initials and contained about a dozen small paper packets. Stepan opened one of them and caught his breath. He tilted the packet, and Igor watched in astonishment as a number of transparent faceted crystals fell into his palm.

  ‘Are they diamonds?’ whispered Igor.

  Stepan tore his eyes away from his hand and looked up at Igor.

  ‘No idea,’ he said, tipping the little stones back into the paper packet. He opened another of the little packets and looked inside. ‘We’ll have to ask an expert.’

  Igor thought about the money he’d spent on the trip to Ochakov. The money he’d been saving towards the cost of a motorbike. He hadn’t spent that much, as it turned out, but without his money they wouldn’t have been able to go at all. Meanwhile, Stepan put all the contents back into the suitcase and put it in the corner of the room. Then he turned his attention to the remaining suitcases.

  The second, which yielded as easily as the first, contained several little parcels wrapped in white cloth. They were also signed with indelible pencil. Each parcel was marked with different initials, but the handwriting was the same.

  ‘Those aren’t your father’s,’ Igor said warily.

  ‘So what?’ answered Stepan, forcing a smile. ‘My father had a son, maybe this lot didn’t.’

  Ripping one of the parcels open along the seam, Stepan pulled out a cardboard box. He shook it, but it didn’t make any noise. He opened it to find five antique gold pocket watches, carefully wrapped in handkerchiefs.

  ‘Choose one,’ Stepan said to Igor. He still had a furtive, scheming look about him, but he was noticeably more relaxed.

  Igor froze. He didn’t know whether the gardener was genuinely offering him one of the
watches or whether he was joking.

  ‘Go on, take that one,’ urged Stepan, prodding the largest watch.

  Igor picked it up and opened the protective cover. The watch really was quite beautiful. He turned the little dial on the side and lifted the watch to his ear, but it was silent.

  ‘It’s not working,’ he said despondently.

  ‘So take it to a jeweller and get it fixed. Let’s see what else is in here . . .’ Stepan picked up the second parcel.

  Igor was closely observing Stepan’s every move. He watched as the gardener opened the parcels one by one, taking out gold coins, signet rings set with precious stones and gold bracelets studded with emeralds. Once Stepan had familiarised himself with the contents of the second suitcase, he put everything back again.

  Sensing that Stepan was sneaking sideways glances at him, Igor suddenly felt quite depressed. It was obvious that the treasure they’d found in Ochakov was really worth something. The contents of the suitcases were valuable enough for men to fight over, valuable enough to cost lives. Being in possession of, or even in proximity to, so much gold was potentially fatal in any era.

  But when Stepan opened the final suitcase, his expression changed to one of bewilderment. Inside the suitcase lay a neatly folded old-fashioned police uniform, together with a pair of leather boots, a leather belt and a peaked cap. Stepan stuck his hand underneath the uniform and rummaged about in the depths of the suitcase. Suddenly he paused, his hands still hidden, a triumphant smile hovering about his lips – the smile of a child catching crayfish from the riverbank with his hands.

  When Stepan finally took his hand out of the suitcase, he was holding a gun in a holster. Then he pulled out two bundles of Soviet banknotes, which looked enormous in comparison to the contemporary currency.

  ‘That’s it, then,’ he declared, with a sigh of disappointment. He threw both bundles of money back into the suitcase, on top of the uniform, and placed the gun and its holster down carefully alongside them. ‘You might as well have this lot. A little souvenir of our trip to Ochakov!’

  Igor stared at the gardener. Does he really think he can buy me off with a moth-eaten old uniform and a broken watch? he thought. To be fair, the watch was probably worth more than he’d spent on their trip . . . But what about everything else they’d found? The contents of the first two suitcases must have been worth a fortune! And even if they split the bounty as Stepan had jokingly suggested, if Igor received only a third of what they’d found, that would still be a huge amount of money. Igor smiled and felt a rush of adrenalin.