The Senility of Vladimir P (13 page)

‘I know a Rospov. In the duma.'

‘That was my father,' said the doctor. ‘He died eight years ago.'

‘Very reliable man. Always sold his vote to the highest bidder.'

The doctor coughed nervously.

‘Absolutely no honour,' continued Vladimir, perhaps taking the doctor's cough as a sign of interest. ‘Absolutely no principle except one – whoever pays the most gets the vote. But I'm not opposed to that. Let me tell you, a man like that, at least you know where you stand. You know exactly what you're getting. You pay more than anyone else, you get him – you pay less, you lose him. Simple. And the ones with principles, you know where you are with those ones, too, although they're not too thick on the ground. No, the tricky ones are the ones with principles
and
with a price. Sometimes one, sometimes the other. They're like a woman – one day yes means no, the next day no means yes . . . how the hell do you know? Just get into bed and spread your legs already, like Rospov! I'll take a man like him any day.'

‘Well,' said the doctor. ‘I was just —'

‘I liked him. A real Russian! No airs. No shame. Always holding his hand out. Give me the money, and I'll do what you say. He's dead, you say?'

‘Eight years ago,' murmured the doctor.

‘Tragedy. Did I go to the funeral?'

‘No, Vladimir Vladimirovich.'

Vladimir laughed. ‘Well, he got enough out of me over the years. How do you know him?'

‘He was my father.'

‘Are you in the duma too?'

‘No. I'm a doctor.'

‘Why are you here? Is someone sick?'

‘Do you feel sick?'

‘No.'

‘Let me have a look at you, now that I'm here.' The doctor reached for Vladimir's pulse. As he counted the beats, his eye wandered. ‘That's a beautiful watch, Vladimir Vladimirovich.' The doctor's fingers were still on Vladimir's pulse, but he was no longer counting. ‘A Hublot. Very nice.'

The doctor took a stethoscope out of his bag and listened to Vladimir's chest. He couldn't keep his eyes off the watch that Sheremetev had fastened on Vladimir's wrist before the outing to the lake.

‘That's enough!' snapped Vladimir.

‘Alright. You look fine, Vladimir Vladirovich.'

‘Are you Rospov's son?'

‘Yes.'

‘Tell the old bastard that if he doesn't vote the right way next week, he'll never get another ruble. Nothing, understand? Make sure you tell him.'

‘Yes.'

‘Good. Go.'

‘Goodbye, Vladimir Vladimirovich,' said the doctor, stealing a last, lingering look at the watch on the old man's wrist.

Vladimir waved him away without a word.

Outside the suite, Sheremetev didn't know what to say after hearing those things about the doctor's father. As they descended the stairs, the doctor shook his head. ‘What a crook that man was.'

Sheremetev wasn't sure if the doctor was talking about Vladimir or his father.

‘Did you see the watch he was wearing? Do you have any idea what it's worth?'

‘A lot?' guessed Sheremetev.

The doctor laughed. He pulled back his sleeve and showed Sheremetev the watch he was wearing, a chunky, silver timepiece with a dark blue face and a silver band. ‘I like watches, alright? It's my weakness. My wife tells me it's childish but I don't care. This is a Breitling Chronospace, so it's not nothing. Do you know what you'd pay for this one? Seven thousand. Dollars, Nikolai Ilyich, not rubles.'

Sheremetev stared at the watch on the doctor's hairy wrist.

‘That's right. Seven thousand dollars, and believe me, it wasn't easy for me to find that money. But a watch like
that
one . . . that's out of my league. Way out of my league.'

‘More than seven thousand dollars?'

The doctor laughed again. ‘I bet he didn't even pay for it. Someone would have given it to him, for sure. A little sweetener to help him make a decision, a little thank you for giving someone what he wanted. A lifetime's wages for a working man, right there on his wrist, for doing someone a favour. It's absurd, Nikolai Ilyich. With all the wealth that he had, he probably never had to pay for a thing. You've got to take your hat off to him. What a crook – a world champion.' The doctor mused on it for a moment, then his expression changed. ‘Did I hear from someone that you have a new house­keeper here?'

Sheremetev nodded.

‘You should introduce me.'

‘Certainly. I'll just have to see if she's —' The sound of Vladimir yelling came out of the monitor in Sheremetev's pocket. He looked at the doctor apologetically. ‘I'd better go back to him. I don't want him to get worked up.'

‘Okay. I'll meet her another time. Take care of that cut, Nikolai Ilyich. It'll be a bad scar if it opens. Don't disturb the sutures.'

Vladimir needed to go to the bathroom, and Sheremetev was soon able to settle him in front of the television again.

Later that evening, Oleg rang. He said that he had been to see Pasha, and the boy had a black eye. Apparently the kid gloves were off now, perhaps in an attempt to make the family pay up. Conversing under the watchful eye of a prison guard, Pasha had refused to say how it had happened.

‘He was trying to be brave, but . . . I can't bear it, Kolya! We have to get him out.'

‘Does he actually want you to do that?' asked Sheremetev.

‘What are you talking about?' demanded Oleg.

Sheremetev was thinking of what Vladimir had said – some people stand by their principles, no matter what. ‘Have you asked him? He might not want you to pay a bribe.'

‘That might have been how he felt the day he went in, but not now. Not with a black eye. Kolya, I don't know what they'll do to him in there . . . I don't know if he'll survive it.'

His brother sounded on the verge of breaking down.

‘Oleg, it's okay. We'll get him out.'

‘
How
?
'

‘Have you seen if anyone else has any money? I've got two thousand dollars. Perhaps, little by little, we can get it.'

‘Kolya, no one will give me a kopeck once they hear what he's in for. I'm a leper. “Oh, he insulted the president? And the
ex-presiden
t
? Goodbye, Oleg Ilyich.” Pasha's right, Kolya – this is the Russia your Vladimir Vladimirovich made. He's almost dead, but we have to go on living in it. And now, Pasha – just because he has the courage to stand up and tell the truth – he's the one who has to pay. Is that right, Kolya? Who should pay? He should, the old man, the one who made this mess! He should be the one in prison, he should be the one who's treated like a leper! Oh, he's old, and forgetful. Oh, let's leave him alone. Well, what about it? Pasha's young and has everything in front of him, and he says one thing, he tells the truth, and look what happens! That's our Russia, Kolya. And who's to blame?'

Sheremetev was silent.

Oleg sighed. ‘What about Vasya?' he said eventually. ‘What does he say?'

‘He can't do anything.'

‘Not even for his cousin? Come on, Vasya knows all kinds of people. He's like a cat, always falling on his feet. Don't tell me there's nothing he can do. What did he say?'

‘He said he doesn't have money.'

‘That's all?'

‘That's all.'

‘He doesn't have the money?'

‘Not on the scale we're talking about. I think . . . I don't know about his business. Maybe it's not going so well.'

‘Kolya, I swear to you, I feel people watching me. At the school. I look around and I see them. They know. They're thinking: he's the one whose son insulted the president. He's the one with the boy in jail.'

‘Olik, don't be paranoid.'

‘I'm not paranoid. Nina's noticed also.'

Us and them, thought Sheremetev. That was what Barkovskaya had said. Us and them. Was that how people thought, just as in the old Soviet days?

‘Come on, Olik,' he said eventually. ‘We'll get him out.'

‘How?' cried Oleg again.

Sheremetev closed his eyes. He wished he knew.

Images came to his mind. Pasha as a little boy, a thoughtful child, always quiet when you first started talking to him, but then warming up, bright and clever and confiding . . . A photograph that he had from Karinka's funeral, when Pasha was fourteen years old, standing next to Vasya, a full head shorter than his cousin . . . The serious, selfless young man into which he had developed, so quick to take up a cause.

One heard of things happening in Russia, so-called injustices, but one never thought of them happening to a person one knew. Beside, you never knew what the truth was – there are always two sides to a story. But now it wasn't just a name, a face on a television screen. It was Pashik, whom he had held in his arms the day he was born. And there weren't two sides to the story – there was only one.

‘It'll be alright, Olik, we'll find a way.'

‘How?' said Oleg again.

Sheremetev didn't have an answer. ‘I'll come and see you on Saturday,' he said instead. ‘I've got the day off.'

He put his phone back in his pocket, and went upstairs to give Vladimir his medications and get him ready for the night. As he walked in and saw the ex-president, the thought of the distress he had heard in Oleg's voice and his brother's bitterness towards Vladimir hit him like a slap and made him stop in his tracks. But he endeavoured to put it out of his mind, reminding himself that he was a nurse and the old man sitting in the armchair, looking at him with a benign blankness, was his patient.

Vladimir was still wearing the T shirt and jeans from the excursion to the lake. Sheremetev could see him peering at the cut on his face as he helped him undress.

‘What happened to you?'

‘Nothing, Vladimir Vladimirovich.'

Vladimir put out a finger and poked at the cut.

Sheremetev jumped back. ‘Don't!' he shouted angrily.

Vladimir smiled, seeming to enjoy the response.

‘It hurts,' murmured Sheremetev. ‘Don't touch, please.' He turned away, confused by the mist of rage that had engulfed him. His heart was thumping. Never before, in the six years he had cared for Vladimir, could he remember being angry with him. Impatient, frustrated, fed up ... yes, all of these, of course, as one was occasionally with any patient. But never anger. He took a deep breath. As a nurse, anger towards a patient wasn't an emotion he could allow himself to feel.

He waited a few moments, until he sensed the mist subsiding. Then he came closer again and cautiously helped Vladimir into his pyjamas, warily watching out for any more sudden jabs. He ­unfastened the watch that the doctor had envied so much and took it back, together with the clothes, to the dressing room. He opened the drawer from which the watch had come and laid it in its niche, then put his finger to the front of the tray to push it in, but hesitated. The watch he had just put back was out of his league, the doctor said, and his league obviously went up to seven thousand dollars. A lifetime's wages for a working man, he had said. And here, on this tray, was not one such watch – but fifteen.

Sheremetev opened another tray at random. Watches in gold and silver, some with white faces, some with faces in blue or green, some with what appeared to be tiny jewels set into faces or hands, some with metal wristbands, some with leather. He examined a couple of the leather straps. They were utterly smooth, never worn. He opened another tray. In this one, a niche was empty, like a missing tooth in an otherwise full jaw. Another tray. This one was full.

Sheremetev stepped back. How many trays in the cupboard? He counted them. Twenty-five. And on each tray, fifteen velvet niches, and only a few of them here and there that didn't contain a watch. Watches that were hardly ever even taken out of their hiding places. And was it true that Vladimir had never had to pay, that people had given them as gifts, watches, it seemed, that were so expensive that even a doctor couldn't afford to buy them?

As Vladimir waited in the next room to be put to bed, Sherem­etev gazed at the closed trays in the beautifully made cabinet, sitting one above the other in perfect precision. Tray above tray, watch beside watch.

And Pasha lay in jail for want of a bribe, while these watches, apparently so expensive, lay all but forgotten in their niches . . .

Suddenly he came to his senses. Nikolai, he said to himself: what on earth are you thinking?

The cut on his
face, together with Dr Rospov's ministrations, had bruised Sheremetev's cheek more than he had realised. The next morning, when he looked in the mirror, he saw the narrow black line of the laceration, festooned with suture knots like tiny blood-caked cactuses, across a swelling the colour of an aubergine.

Everyone who saw him seemed to take Sheremetev's lacerated cheek as an invitation to pass comment, as if by his mere presence he was advertising a newfound desire to hear what they considered either their wisdom or their wit. ‘You need to take care of yourself, Nikolai Ilyich,' said the maid in the corridor, using a tone one would normally reserve for a decrepit octogenarian. ‘Been on the booze again?' offered the house attendant who brought up the breakfast tray for Vladimir, grinning from ear to ear. And Vladimir, the cause of the injury in the first place, took one look at him and said: ‘Learn to use your razor, whoever you are!'

‘Yes, Vladimir Vladimirovich,' muttered Sheremetev, staying out of range of his finger.

After he had helped Vladimir with breakfast, Sheremetev left him in the sitting room while he went downstairs. He found half a dozen of the security guards in the staff dining room breakfasting noisily, including Lyosha and two of the others who had been at the lake the previous day. A chorus of chortles and jokes greeted him, many of them about the danger posed by that most deadly of weapons, the zipper.

‘Very funny!' declared Sheremetev irritably, and he helped himself to bread and honey.

The jokes carried on for a few more minutes, then petered out.

Eventually the guards drifted away. Sheremetev sat alone, sipping coffee, thinking about Pasha and his black eye, now and then prodding tentatively at the tender swelling around the cut on his cheek. The fear and desperation he had heard in Oleg's voice the previous night tormented him. He tried to imagine how he would feel if Vasya was in Pasha's situation – except somehow it was impossible to imagine Vasya being in such a situation, and not only for the obvious reason that Vasya would never have written the kind of thing that Pasha had produced. If Vasya was in jail, he'd probably end up running the place. But Pasha . . . Oleg was right – who knew what would happen to him or if he would even survive it?

And Oleg was right about another thing – it was because of Karinka. The outrage that had built up in Pasha over the years, and which had exploded out of him in that blog, had started with Karinka's death. Somehow, as Oleg said, he had found out what was going on, and he had never been the same.

Sheremetev feel a deep sense of responsibility, as if somehow he had had a part in putting Pasha in jail.

Stepanin poked his head out of the kitchen. He came out and got himself a bowl of
kasha
and a coffee.

‘That looks bad,' he said, gesturing at Sheremetev's face. ‘If you're going to go out brawling, Kolya, take a gun.'

‘Very funny.'

Stepanin chuckled. ‘On the other hand, it can be hard to defend against a zipper.'

‘
And
an elbow,' muttered Sheremetev.

‘The boss hit you with his elbow?' Stepanin made a show of looking impressed. ‘Whatever you did, you must have really upset him.'

Sheremetev didn't rise to the bait.

The cook grinned. He seemed more like his old self. The frown of anxiety that seemed to have become a constant feature of his expression since Barkovskaya commenced her assault on his chicken supply was absent. He drizzled honey on his
kasha
, took a spoonful, and ate it with a smug expression.

Sheremetev wondered what was going on.

Stepanin ate quickly, then slurped his coffee. He put the mug down with a thump and grinned again. ‘Do you think Vladimir Vladimirovich would fancy chicken Georgian style one of these days?'

Sheremetev looked at him in surprise. ‘Have you sorted things out with Barkovskaya?'

Stepanin got up, an enigmatic smile on his face.

‘So everything's okay?' asked Sheremetev, with a sudden sense of relief.

‘It will be.'

‘It
will
be?' That didn't sound good, nor the portentous tone in which the cook had said it. ‘What do you mean it will be?'

‘Who started this, Kolya? Was it me or was it Barkovskaya? Well? If you start a war, someone's going to get hurt.'

‘Vitya, what are you talking —'

‘Just tell Vladimir Vladimirovich he'll soon have Georgian chicken for lunch again.'

Sheremetev didn't know how Stepanin was planning to get Barkovskaya to back down, but the cook's dark intimations sucked away the relief he had felt and replaced it with a looming sense of foreboding. On top of his guilt and worry over Pasha, and the throbbing tenderness in his lacerated cheek, it made Sheremetev feel even more miserable. The situation with Pasha reminded him of the worst days with Karinka, when he could see her going downhill in front of his eyes, and for want of money, there was nothing he could do. He had said to Oleg that they would find a way to get Pasha out of jail, adopting the tone of an older, protective brother, but this wasn't a schoolyard in which he could put his head down and charge to Oleg's aid, and this wasn't a fight with people he could beat – not that the Pinto twins had emerged victorious from that many scuffles, anyway, not with the boys who learned to sidestep him. He had uttered the words out of an instinctive desire to comfort his brother, but the words were hollow, and if they had given Oleg any hope, then it was false. He had nowhere near enough money to get Pasha out and no idea who else might provide it.

He remembered the thoughts he had had in front of Vladimir's watch cabinet the previous night. But that was a fantasy, like a child dreaming of walking up to a hated teacher in front of the whole class and giving him a poke in the eye. Sheremetev knew himself too well. It wasn't possible that he would actually do it.

That morning, when he
took Vladimir for his walk, Sheremetev kept him away from the charnel pit. It was an unusually mild day for October and the smell was high. If Stepanin did find a way to finish the stand-off with Barkovskaya, at least they could fill in the hole and that would be the end of the stench. Sheremetev didn't want to go towards Eleyekov's garage either. He steered Vladimir in another direction.

Between the long plastic tunnels that covered this part of the estate, out of the breeze, the day felt almost warm. Vladimir was muttering something to someone with whom he was apparently holding a conversation. Sheremetev brooded as he walked alongside him, caught up in his sense of impotence about Pasha. Tomorrow was his day off and he had told Oleg that he would come to visit, although Sheremetev knew that he would have nothing new to say. He wanted to see his brother, of course, but going empty handed in Oleg's hour of need made him dread it as well.

Vladimir had spotted one of the benches that still stood amongst the greenhouses – or the commercial farm, as Sheremetev now understood them to be. Normally, he kept Vladimir walking on their morning outings, since the ex-president spent enough time sitting the rest of the day. But today he felt so demoralised that he didn't care. It was a dereliction of his professional duty, but when they reached the bench, and Vladimir said that he wanted to stop, he let him sit.

Sheremetev stood beside him. Still muttering to himself, Vladimir hardly seemed aware of him. Sheremetev hesitated a moment longer, then sat.

Inside the greenhouse in front of them, silhouettes of labourers worked at the plants. Sheremetev glanced at Vladimir. The ex-­president sat, arms folded, his gaze somewhere in the middle distance.

Sheremetev wondered if Vladimir's hallucinations and imaginings were getting worse. Living with him day to day, it was hard to tell, as it is hard to tell if someone's skin colour or weight is changing because of an illness when you're constantly with them – much easier to tell if you see them six months apart, and then the change hits you like a bolt. He could remember once, as Karinka became really ill, coming across a picture of her that had been taken a year earlier, and suddenly realising how much she had deteriorated. It was a shock.
Only a year?

He glanced at Vladimir again. The old man lived decades in the past. Sheremetev doubted that he recognised anyone at all in the dacha now, while only six months ago he had still been able to come up with a name from time to time. He tried to imagine what it must be like, to live surrounded entirely by people you took to be strangers. The idea was terrifying. But Vladimir at least felt a familiarity with him, Sheremetev was certain, and often mistook the other people who served him in the dacha for long-past friends – and enemies – so perhaps the world in which he was living, even if utterly distorted, was not as cold and alien as he imagined. True, it was fantasy, a memory confection that existed only in Vladimir's head, but Vladimir no longer had any insight into that fact, so as far as he was concerned, it was real. In a sense, thought Sheremetev, it was as real as the world in which he or anyone else lived.

Goroviev appeared out of the greenhouse, pushing a long, flat barrow laden with seedlings. The gardener stopped when he saw them. He left the barrow and came over.

‘Good morning, Vladimir Vladimirovich,' he said politely, as he always did.

Vladimir glanced at him and then looked away again.

‘Vladimir Vladimirovich is somewhat preoccupied this morning,' explained Sheremetev.

Goroviev smiled. ‘Indeed? Affairs of state, no doubt. You have quite an injury to your face, Nikolai Ilyich.'

‘Just an accident,' said Sheremetev. ‘It's not as bad as it looks.'

‘I hope it heals quickly.'

‘Thank you.'

Sheremetev didn't know what to make of Goroviev now. He had formed an impression of him as a good, gentle soul, and yet it turned out that he was taking his cut, just like everyone else.

The gardener continued to stand there.

‘I'm afraid Vladimir Vladimirovich isn't in a great mood for conversation this morning,' said Sheremetev eventually.

‘Nikolai Ilyich . . . may I sit?'

‘Here?'

‘Yes.'

Sheremetev hesitated for a moment, then moved up along the bench, managing to preserve a sliver of space between himself and Vladimir. The gardener sat beside him.

‘I wanted . . .' began Goroviev in a low voice, and then he paused, glancing at Vladimir, who was mumbling again. ‘I wanted to say how sorry I was to hear about your nephew.'

Sheremetev looked at him in surprise.

‘Everyone knows what's happened. I read the blog, Nikolai Ilyich. It had been taken down, of course, by the time I found out about it, but there are ways to find things. Nothing ever really disappears from the internet, does it? It was a bold thing to write, I'll say that much.'

‘And now they're punishing him.'

‘Yes.' The gardener sat silently for a moment. ‘Nikolai Ilyich . . . I suppose people have told you about me?'

‘Told me?'

‘About my past.'

‘No.'

The gardener looked at him knowingly.

‘Well, people say there was something,' confessed Sheremetev, ‘but I don't know more than that, and why should I want to? What may have happened isn't any of my business, Arkady Maksimovich.'

Goroviev smiled. ‘I'm sure whatever you're imagining I did is worse than the reality.'

‘I don't know.'

‘Shall I tell you?'

‘You don't have to.'

‘When I was young, after I left university, I was a journalist. Things were different back then, of course. Your patient over there and his cronies hadn't yet taken control of all the newspapers and television stations. Foolish as we were, we thought Russia had changed, become like every other civilised nation, and that this was the way it would be forever. We were wrong, of course. Some of us stuck our necks out too far. Some stuck them out so far they lost their heads.'

‘You?' said Sheremetev. ‘Is that what happened?'

‘No. I mean, really – lost their heads, Nikolai Ilyich. Me, I lost my job and a few years of my life in prison. What does that amount to, by comparison? Some of us
died.
There was Anna Stepanovna, of course. Everyone remembers her, but there were others, plenty of others. In those days, to kill a journalist was like a sport. When I look back on it now, I realise that I was lucky to have got out alive.'

‘So you became a gardener?'

‘Not immediately. Things happened, but one way or another . . . the ins and outs don't matter. The thing is, there's something very peaceful and true about gardening, Nikolai Ilyich. Things live, things grow, things die. If you give them the right conditions, they thrive, if you give them the wrong ones, they wither. If you allow the weeds to grow, they'll choke off everything, if you cut them back, there's room for others. Isn't that the truth of life? What other truths are there, after all?'

Vladimir murmured something. Goroviev listened. Then the ex-president was silent again.

‘I'd love to know what he's thinking,' said the gardener quietly. ‘I've always wondered what went on in his head. He was such a liar, to Russia, to the world. You wonder, a man who tells such lies, for so long, to so many people, in the end, does he even know the truth himself?'

Sheremetev glanced at Goroviev in astonishment, amazed to hear such things coming out of his mouth. And with Vladimir sitting only a metre away! The gardener was gazing across him at the old man, but instead of condemnation in Goroviev's face, Sheremetev saw only curiosity, as if he really was pondering the question.

‘What did you write about when you were a journalist?' asked Sheremetev, trying to change the subject.

Goroviev looked back at him. ‘All sorts of things. But the really big thing, the thing that did for me, was when he went after Trikovsky.'