The Gardener from Ochakov

by Andrey Kurkov

  They went into what must have been the living room. ‘You can sleep here,’ said Vanya, gesturing in the half-darkness towards an old-fashioned sofa with a high wooden back that extended up the wall, incorporating a mirror and shelves for displaying ornaments. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know where the sheets are.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, I’ll be fine with a blanket,’ whispered Igor. ‘Where do your parents sleep?’

  Vanya silently pointed at some folding wooden doors.

  ‘Mother sleeps in there, on the left, and my room’s at the end of the hall.’

  He went off and came back carrying a quilted blanket.

  ‘Can I go to bed now?’ he whispered. ‘Is it all right if I write the declaration tomorrow?’

  ‘Go ahead! You can write it tomorrow,’ nodded Igor.

  Vanya left the room but returned almost immediately.

  ‘Here, comrade lieutenant, drink this. It’ll help you sleep.’ He handed Igor a large glass of white wine. It smelt sharp and sour.

  Barely suppressing the desire to wrinkle his nose, Igor carefully took the glass and sipped the wine. He looked at Vanya and nodded. Satisfied, Vanya nodded in response but didn’t move.

  ‘Is it from the wine factory?’ asked Igor.

  ‘Yes,’ said Vanya. ‘Our home-made wine’s not ready yet . . . You have to drink it all, otherwise you won’t be able to appreciate the taste!’

  The last thing Igor felt like doing was getting into an argument with Vanya Samokhin about wine-tasting techniques, so he downed the wine in three mouthfuls and handed the glass back to his host. Only then did Vanya leave the room.

  Igor removed his boots, unbuckled his belt and undressed. He folded the uniform and placed it neatly on a nearby chair, then quickly lay down and pulled the blanket over himself. He was immediately sucked into a strange kind of weightlessness. As his sense of spatial orientation ebbed away, he twitched and fell into the abyss.

  9

  IGOR WOKE UP with a headache. His head wasn’t actually aching so much as buzzing, as though several bees had flown into it and were unsuccessfully trying to find their way out, bumping repeatedly into his temples, the back of his head and his forehead.

  He opened his eyes and wiped a hand over his sweaty brow. He forced himself into an upright position and sat on the edge of his bed. Everything outside his window was grey, and he could hear the monotonous murmur of television voices from the living room.

  ‘Ma!’ called Igor, and immediately the sound of his own voice intensified the painful buzzing in his head.

  Elena Andreevna looked into her son’s bedroom.

  ‘What’s up, son?’

  ‘Have we got any aspirin? I’ve got a splitting headache.’

  ‘Did you have too much to drink yesterday, or is it the old pains?’ asked his mother, with a mixture of disapproval and sympathy.

  ‘Too much to drink,’ Igor nodded.

  She went into the kitchen, where they kept all their medicines in an old shoebox in the cupboard.

  Igor stood up and walked over to the window, then turned and looked back into the room. His eyes fell on the police uniform, neatly folded in a pile, and the old-fashioned peaked cap.

  That was a pretty strange dream! Or did it really happen? thought Igor.

  He sighed and took a tracksuit out of his chest of drawers. As soon as he was dressed, he called Kolyan.

  ‘Hello there!’ Kolyan sounded pleased to hear from him. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Listen,’ Igor said slowly, carefully choosing every word to try and avoid sounding stupid, ‘did I . . . did I turn up yesterday?’

  ‘I can’t believe you’re asking me that!’ Kolyan burst out laughing. ‘Can you really not remember? Must have been a good night then! Of course you turned up. You were wearing some old military uniform and had obviously been drinking before you got there. You were really winding up the bouncers, you know! We managed to drag you away from them just in time. They wanted to throw you out, and it was chucking it down outside.’

  ‘Right, I see . . . What were we drinking, in the club?’

  ‘What weren’t we drinking! You were on the brandy, mainly. You must’ve had a bottle and a half, maybe even two . . . We had to flag a car down to take you home. You were in such a state, we gave the guy two hundred hryvnas. So you can pay me back when you get the chance!’

  ‘Right, I see,’ Igor repeated slowly. He couldn’t hear his own voice properly because of the buzzing in his head. ‘What happened before that?’

  ‘In Petrovich? You’re kidding! Can’t you remember any of it?’

  ‘No,’ admitted Igor. ‘And I’ve got a splitting headache.’

  ‘We were just drinking, having a laugh, dancing to old music . . .’

  Igor suddenly felt the sharp, sour taste of cheap white wine on his tongue.

  ‘Did I drink any wine?’

  ‘Wine? Yeah, right at the start. You tried some French Chablis, then announced that it tasted like cheap vinegar and washed it down with some Armenian brandy.’

  ‘All right, I’ll call you again later,’ said Igor, with a weary sigh.

  ‘Take it easy, old man!’ Kolyan replied cheerfully.

  Igor’s head was feeling calmer by the afternoon. His thoughts had finally gathered themselves into something resembling order. He went through his memories with a fine-toothed comb, searching for the slightest grain of truth or credibility. In the interests of soothing his agitated soul he was equally keen to find proof that it was merely the fruit of his drunken, and consequently overactive, imagination. But however many times he played back the evening’s events, however closely he examined the details, everything still felt incredibly real – and remarkably plausible. The watch that had suddenly started ticking and showing ‘Moscow time’, Vanya Samokhin, the Ochakov Wine Factory, the glass of white wine . . . And, perhaps most significantly, Vanya’s suggestion that Fima Chagin might be the reason a policeman from Kiev had been sent to Ochakov. The only thing on the other side of the scales of Igor’s common sense was the brandy he’d been drinking before Kolyan had called. Yes, and there was something else – the party in the Petrovich club in the Podil district! Igor couldn’t remember a thing about the birthday celebrations. He couldn’t remember where the club was, or even where he’d seen the poster advertising the ‘Retro Party’.

  Igor put his hand into the pocket of the policeman’s breeches and took out the gold watch. He brought it to his ear. Silence. He opened it. The hands had stopped at half past one. Igor sighed, utterly perplexed. Exhausted by his own unanswered questions, he drank a cup of coffee then went out into the yard. The shed door was still shut and padlocked. Stepan was obviously still not back.

  Sparse but heavy raindrops were falling from the sullen sky. When Igor looked up he saw a black storm cloud hanging low over Irpen, ready to unleash its contents at any moment, and he hurried back inside. The rain began hammering down on the slate roof the moment Igor entered the house.

  10

  THE AFTERNOON DOWNPOUR lasted several hours. When it suddenly stopped, the inhabitants of Irpen had no choice but to accept that the evening was upon them. Autumn evenings are all too brief; they are followed quickly, almost imperceptibly, by night. This particular night, with its leaden, starless sky, promised to be impenetrable.

  Putting aside the book he’d been staring at for the past three hours, Igor glanced out of his bedroom window and then at the clock. His thoughts returned to the night before. What would happen, he wondered, if he were to do the same again? What if he were to drink a couple of glasses of brandy, then put on the police uniform and take another walk towards the bus station? No one would be out in this weather, at this time of night. Even if they were, they wouldn’t pay him any attention.

  Igor went into the kitchen and poured himself a brandy. He drank it slowly, then poured himself another and drank that too. Noticing out of the corner of his eye a prescription for heart medication in the raised pan of his mo
ther’s scales, he poured a third glass of brandy and took it back to his bedroom. He swallowed a mouthful, then put the glass to one side and felt in the pockets of the breeches to check that the bundles of Soviet roubles were still there. With the next sip of brandy he felt a warmth on his tongue, which soon reached his nose and his forehead. Igor broke into a light sweat. He raised his glass to take another sip but it was already empty, so he went to the kitchen and refilled it.

  About half an hour later Igor felt a heady rush of adrenalin and confidence. He smiled to himself. Approaching the police uniform more decisively, he put on the tunic and breeches, pulled on the boots and buckled up the belt. This time he deliberately kept the gun in its holster. He put on the peaked cap and lifted the round table mirror up to get a better look at himself. This cheered him up still further. What a fine figure of a man! he thought.

  As soon as Igor shut the gate behind him and set off towards the bus station the darkness around him intensified, as though it were attempting to swallow him whole. But his feet kept walking straight ahead, apparently not in need of a sighted guide, and the soles of his leather boots met the concrete surface of the road with reassuring familiarity.

  Fear crept up on Igor several times, surprising him from behind or from the side. Each time he would stop and look around, trusting his hearing more than his sight, but everything was quiet.

  After a while a faint light appeared ahead of him, and this became a reference point. About twenty minutes later Igor recognised the illuminated gates of the Ochakov Wine Factory. He stopped under the trees, about twenty metres from the gates, and wondered what was going on. Was it really happening again? Was it going to be like that American film, where the same day repeats itself endlessly, driving the main character insane?

  Just then the green gates opened. They seemed to be taunting Igor, mocking his apprehensions. He heard the rumbling of an engine, and then the same little old lorry that he’d seen before drove out of the grounds of the wine factory. It turned right and drove away from Igor, lighting up the road with its headlights. The gates closed and silence gradually seeped back to fill the space illuminated by the powerful factory lights. Strictly speaking, the factory lights illuminated everything on the other side of the concrete fence and the green gates; the square in front of the gates was lit by a street lamp.

  The gates suddenly creaked again and opened slightly. A lad with a strange sack over his shoulder peeped out of them, just like the day before.

  Now he’s going to come out and wave back at the guard. Then the gates will close, and the metal bolt will make a loud clang, thought Igor. Then I’ll come out from under these trees and walk over to him, and he’ll panic, throw the sack on the ground and ask me not to arrest him.

  Just as Igor had predicted, the lad waved to the guard and the bolt made a heavy, metallic noise as the gates closed. Igor walked out from under the dark trees and took several decisive and exaggeratedly stern steps towards him.

  ‘Oh!’ Vanya exclaimed happily, a smile lighting up his face. ‘Where did you disappear to this morning? I brought you a cup of tea and some sliced sausage for breakfast.’

  Igor continued walking, his demeanour no longer either decisive or stern. He stopped in front of Vanya and shook the hand that was held out to him.

  ‘Did you have some urgent business to attend to?’ enquired Vanya. He adjusted the sack of wine, which had slipped down to his forearm.

  ‘At it again, I see,’ remarked Igor, ignoring the question and nodding at the wine.

  ‘Er . . . I thought we had an agreement. I’ll write the declaration right now, if you like.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’ Igor brushed away the suggestion, irritated and confused by both this strange parallel reality and the fact that it didn’t quite correspond to his expectations.

  ‘Let’s go back to my place. I’ve got something to tell you,’ continued Vanya, with a friendly smile.

  ‘You’re Vanya Samokhin, right?’ Igor asked, keen to establish beyond all doubt that what was happening right now was a direct continuation of what had happened the night before.

  ‘That’s me! Come on.’

  They set off into the darkness, just as before. Only this time Igor wasn’t glancing nervously around him but walking calmly behind Vanya Samokhin, who was carrying the sack of stolen wine with ease.

  They went into Vanya’s house, trying to make as little noise as possible. Vanya led Igor to the room with the old-fashioned sofa.

  ‘Go ahead, get ready for bed,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

  About two minutes later he returned with a glass of wine, again full to the brim.

  ‘This is for you,’ he said quietly. ‘It’ll help you sleep.’

  Igor took off the peaked cap and sat down on the sofa without undressing. He felt that as soon as he lay down and closed his eyes this parallel reality would cease to exist; then he would never find the answers to the questions that were multiplying by the minute.

  He took the glass from Vanya Samokhin and drank the wine, feeling the familiar sharp, sour taste on his tongue. Then he nodded at Vanya, indicating that he should sit too. Vanya sat down.

  ‘So, you said you had something interesting to tell me,’ Igor said.

  ‘It’s just that . . . I haven’t written the declaration yet.’

  ‘All right then, go and get a piece of paper,’ said Igor.

  Vanya left the room and came straight back bearing an exercise book and a tin inkwell with a fountain pen sticking out of it. He sat down at the oval table.

  ‘Tell me what to write, comrade lieutenant,’ he said.

  Igor hesitated. It was taking him a little longer to get into character this time.

  ‘All right,’ he said after a pause. ‘Write this . . . I, Ivan whatever-your-patronymic-is Samokhin, agree to cooperate voluntarily . . .’

  Vanya Samokhin bent over the exercise book and started scratching at it with his fountain pen, dipping it in the inkwell every few seconds. Igor waited until the scratching stopped. Vanya raised his head and looked questioningly at the police officer.

  ‘. . . to cooperate voluntarily with the police force,’ continued Igor, ‘and am prepared to risk my life to assist in the fight against criminal elements –’

  Vanya suddenly looked up at Igor, panic and confusion written all over his face.

  ‘Is there a problem?’ asked Igor.

  ‘I never agreed to risk my life,’ Vanya said quietly. ‘I’m happy to help you, but not if it means risking my life. My mother’s not well. Her heart . . .’

  ‘All right,’ sighed Igor. ‘Leave out the bit about risk, just say that you’ll help.’

  ‘You’re paid to risk your life, and they give you a gun to protect yourself!’ Before returning to the declaration Vanya glanced pointedly at Igor’s holster.

  ‘To assist in the fight against criminal elements,’ repeated Igor. ‘Date, place, signature.’

  Once he’d finished writing, Vanya neatly ripped the page from the exercise book, folded it into four and handed it to Igor, who took the piece of paper and put it into the breast pocket of his tunic.

  ‘Can I go to bed now?’ asked Vanya.

  ‘Why don’t we . . .?’ Igor wondered aloud.

  ‘Why don’t we what?’ asked Vanya cautiously.

  ‘Why don’t we go for a little walk? You can show me the sights.’

  ‘What sights?’ Vanya was puzzled.

  ‘Well, Fima Chagin’s house, for a start.’

  ‘Haven’t you ever seen it before?’ Vanya’s surprise was tinged with condescension, as though he’d suddenly realised that his guest was not a police lieutenant at all but the village idiot.

  ‘Of course! But it would be good to see it again, with two pairs of eyes!’

  Sensing trust and respect in the way the police officer spoke to him, Vanya raised no further objections. He stood up eagerly and turned towards the door.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said. ‘I’
ll show you a short cut.’

  Vanya led Igor outside. They walked about thirty metres along the unlit street, then turned left. They crossed an abandoned yard and an old garden and came out onto a different street, which was evidently more important – the street lamps at the crossroads were not merely for show but actually worked. The single-storey brick buildings were more impressive too. Their dark windows reflected the night.

  ‘There it is,’ whispered Vanya, gesturing towards an unsightly building with a high socle all the way around it and a set of steps leading up to a pair of folding wooden doors.

  They stopped. A motorbike roared somewhere in the distance. Igor felt on edge.

  ‘Someone’s up,’ said Vanya, staring at the house.

  Igor glanced at the dark windows. ‘What makes you say that?’

  Vanya gestured towards the right side of the house. Peering more closely, Igor noticed a glow of light that must have been coming from an unseen window at the back of the house.

  Igor beckoned to Vanya to follow him. They stopped by the gate.

  ‘Has he got a dog?’ whispered Igor.

  ‘No! It would never stop barking.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There are always people coming and going . . . Dogs don’t like being disturbed all the time.’

  Igor nodded. Just then there was a muffled bang and he froze, listening intently. The sound of men’s voices came from somewhere nearby. Igor glanced at Vanya and gestured towards a broad apple tree about five metres to the right, which stood up against the fence. They moved quickly towards it and hid under its branches, which still bore several fruit.

  Fima Chagin’s front door creaked open. Two men came out onto the doorstep and lit cigarettes.