A. Zander - Moscow City

Harper had heard of Rublyovka. The fabled suburb for Moscow’s most exclusive residents was out to the west of the city. It wasn’t somewhere you went without an invite and he planned to make the most of his. His mind skipped back to his second call from Morton. They were doing all they could from London, but they needed him to find anything he could on the missing genius, Vitsin.

“Do you want some of this?” said Harper, offering Anya a black hipflask he had in his jacket pocket.

“Oh, no thanks.”

“You don’t drink?”

“I’ll have some wine when we get there.”

“Me too.”

“You drink wine with Cognac?” said Anya, looking slightly surprised.

“I’m English. We drink anything with anything.”

“You mean like a Russian homeless person?”

“Yeah, I suppose you could compare English drinking habits to those of a Russian tramp.”

The traffic was light and they swept along the Moscow highways out into the countryside. The taxi driver looked a little twitchy as they pulled up to the large security gate at the entrance to the complex. Two armed guards strolled over, looking disdainfully at the rusting vehicle. One of them shot some questions at the driver and he swiftly pointed in Anya’s direction, who thrust two elaborate party invites into his hand. The guard must have seen the same invite multiple times that evening, but he shone his torch on them all the same and examined them thoroughly.

“Don’t take this piece of shit anywhere near the house,” he said to the driver in Russian as he handed the invites back to Anya. “Drop them at the gates.”

The driver nodded and pulled forwards. They all marveled at the waves of opulence that flashed past the car. Mansions in a myriad of styles sat among the trees. The Moscow grime had disappeared and been replaced with a moneyed sheen. The driver’s face looked less impressed and more irritated the further they got into the estate. He put his foot down so they arrived quickly at their destination.

“Can you take us up to the house?” said Anya as he pulled over next to the gates of the Katusev property.

“You heard what the guard said,” shouted the driver. “He doesn’t want my shit car up at that place. It’s not for people like me.” They paid him and he soon disappeared back off into the forest.

“What’s his problem?” said Harper.

“Some Russians don’t like to see this type of place. It can make them a little envious.”

Harper took another swig from his flask. “It’s not just Russians that it makes envious. I’m feeling pretty envious myself at the moment.”

“Well,” she said, linking her arm into his. “Why don’t we pretend we are arriving home to our own house. That way, for a few minutes, you don’t have to be envious.”

“Ha, why not.” Harper put his hands in his pockets, squeezing her arm onto the side of his body. They walked slowly up to the floodlit house. It was built in a classic Russian style and painted in a yellow pastel colour. A fountain on the vast front lawn spouted a spherical stream of water into the air. Anya handed the invites to one of the bouncers on the door and they were directed towards a hall straight ahead of them. Harper noted there were more bouncers blocking entrance into other parts of the house. They wandered down a small corridor and onto the top of a staircase leading down into a large ballroom. A sea of people thronged the room and a small army of waiters moved deftly among them distributing canapés and drinks to the guests.

“Oh, I can see some of the other teachers,” said Anya, grabbing Harper’s arm and pulling him down the stairs. They pushed their way past a few people to the back of the room. Harper recognised some of the faces from the minibus. He smiled at the two girls that had been dropped at the grotty flat.

“Hey there, how are you? He said. “Did you manage to get another place or did you have to stay there?”

“It was a lot nicer inside,” said the girl that had burst into tears on the pavement. “But the corridors just smell horrible.”

“The school don’t seem very concerned,” said the other girl. “They said they would let us know if anything else comes up, but it doesn’t sound too promising. How is your place?”

“Oh it’s okay,” said Harper, not wanting to sound too smug. “They’re all pretty much the same. The resident dog doesn’t seem to like me very much.”

“Well, we should all go out for drinks one day,” said the first girl. “We can meet at the school or something. You live with that nice girl Anya, don’t you?”

“Yeah, it’s us and another guy. She was just….” He looked around and spotted her a few yards away talking to Pavel and some students from the school.

“Excuse me,” said Harper as he turned and walked over towards the group. As he joined the circle, he noticed that Pavel had dropped his rule of never speaking English in Russia. He gifted Harper a cursory glance and continued talking.

“…I just found the pace of Crime and Punishment so leisurely. Dostoevsky seems to delight in dwelling on irrelevant emotions. Bulgakov seems to understand pace more and the importance of the external in literature. I just found Myshkin to be very difficult character to spend time with…”

“Raskolnikov,” said Harper.

Pavel flashed an irritated look in Harper’s direction. “What was that?”

“I think you meant Raskolnikov. Myshkin is from the Idiot .”

“Err, well…no…I said Raskolnikov.”

“If you say so,” said Harper.

“No, I think you said Myshkin,” said one of the students. “Pavel, I think you maybe need to be more diligent with your reading of Russian literature.”

Pavel scowled in Harper’s direction. “Well maybe Evans would like to regale us all with his opinions on Crime and Punishment since he is suddenly such an expert. I mean, I’m sure with your excellent Russian you’ve read all the classics in their native form.”

“I’m not sure people really…”

“No, I insist,” said Pavel. “We are on the edge of our seats.”

Harper thought of his grandmother’s library. The rows of Gogol, Tolstoy, Pushkin, Turgenev, Bakunin . He could picture it intimately in his mind. No television and an abundance of time. “It just seems to me Crime and Punishment shouldn’t be easy to read.”

“A book that is purposefully badly written?” said Pavel. “That’s the most ridiculous literary observation I have ever heard.”

“I’m not saying it’s badly written,” said Harper. “I’m saying it is written to make you feel uncomfortable. You are forced to spend time inside the head of man who is struggling with his own conscience. Dostoevsky wants to instill Raskolnikov’s sense of panic and guilt in the reader. The book is about the trial a man puts himself on inside his own head.”

“Or a woman,” said Anya.

“Or a woman,” said Harper. “Of course.”

“I think maybe you may have a Russian soul,” said one of the students.

“I think so too,” said Anya, looking up at Harper. Pavel’s face contorted slightly and he started to look over the heads of the students for alternative company. He spotted someone near the staircase and moved off without saying goodbye.

“I hope I didn’t offend him,” said Harper, half-heartedly.

“He is always a bit offended by something,” said Anya. “Anyway, he was talking bollocks. Is that right word? Bollocks.”

“Ha, that’s the right word Anya.”

“Oh good. Now, I’m going to find some wine. Do want some?”

“Please, any colour, whatever’s going.” Harper watched her walk off through the crowd. Her little black dress exhibited the contours of her body. She was thin, but not too thin to look boyish. And she proudly displayed a pretty brown birthmark on her left shoulder. As she disappeared towards one of the waiters, the striking figure of Nastya Katuseva flashed across his eyeline. A small entourage stood fawning over her as she showed off some jewellery. Harper grabbed a brief look at himself in a nearby mirror and walked over.