Mark Blair - Stroika

NOVGOROD

‘Mother, why don’t you move back into the city,’ Viktoriya asked, already suspecting the answer. It would be so much easier if her mother moved to Leningrad. She could get her a job at Leningrad Freight. Her mother had just turned fifty-five, was still attractive, but had had no particular man in her life, not since her father had disappeared. She imagined her mother happier that way. Her father had only made her mother’s life a misery – sober for days before hitting the bottle and more often than not turning violent. Perhaps she didn’t trust herself to make the right judgement again.

‘It would be nice to be near you, darling, but you are working and no doubt busy in the evenings, as you should be, and I have my friends, my sister, all here. I think I’ll stay put for now, but maybe later…’ She kissed her daughter on the cheek. ‘And how about you, is Agnessa still living with you?’

‘No, she moved out last month. She moved in with her new boyfriend.’

Apart from Konstantin, Agnessa had remained the only person who knew what had happened to her that night. It felt odd to be living alone.

Her mother handed her a cup of tea. She took it over to the window and looked down onto a small square surrounded by a tall yew hedge. A workman busied himself with a wide spade clearing snow from a footpath towards a large circular flower bed that lay fallow at its heart. She watched his breath billow as he moved the spade back and forth, pausing occasionally to marshal his handiwork neatly at the path’s edge.

‘I like it here,’ her mother said, gazing out of the window with her. ‘I have everything I need… and you come and visit me.’

Viktoriya kissed her mother and took her nearly empty cup back over to the sofa she had been sitting on five minutes before. The apartment was a reasonable size, with a separate bedroom and double bed, a small kitchenette and a good-sized bath in the bathroom. The heating and plumbing worked too, as did the lift to the third floor… at least more often than not.

‘And what about that boyfriend of yours – Kostya? He was always a handful, that one.’

‘Still is… I don’t know about boyfriend . We still see each other,’ Viktoriya said, smiling. And in fact they still did see each other… occasionally on a more intimate level. She would finish back at his place or hers after a night at one of his clubs or a party.

‘Well, be careful, Vika. You know what I think.’

‘Yes, Mother, you don’t have to repeat it. He’s not like you think. He’s always been a good friend.’

‘And Misha… such a nice young man?’

‘You know Misha, always up to something. No, he’s doing fine.’ Better than fine, she thought. ‘He’s not the street trader you remember.’

Her mother took a seat on the sofa. Her smile had disappeared. She tugged anxiously on the hemline of her dress.

‘What is it, Mother?’

‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about. I didn’t want to raise it on the phone… I’ve heard from your father.’

‘Father?’ she said, shocked. She hadn’t seen or heard of him in over ten years. Part of her thought, even hoped, he might be dead.

Her mother nodded.

‘He has written me a letter.’ Her mother unfolded a sheaf of paper from her pocket.

‘What does he want?’ With her father, it could only be bad news.

‘Money… He says he’s stopped drinking, found a labouring job with a building cooperative but has got himself into debt. Could I help him out? He says he’ll pay me back.’

Viktoriya knew her mother had little in the way of savings. What spare cash she did have, Viktoriya had sent her, despite her mother’s protests. She always maintained she didn’t need it, but Viktoriya knew otherwise.

‘Where is he living?’

‘Leningrad, Smolninsky district. You haven’t seen him?’

‘No. I thought he’d left the city… How much?’

‘Five hundred roubles.’

Five hundred roubles was over six months’ pay for her mother.

‘He asked after you.’

Viktoriya felt she did not owe her father anything; he had only made their lives wretched, but she didn’t want him worrying her mother either, and this was something she could take care of, easily – pay him off and get shot of him.

‘Mother, I’ll take care of it.’

‘That wasn’t what I intended.’

‘I know. But, really, I can handle this.’

LENINGRAD

Misha drove his fourth-hand battered red Zhiguli into the icy courtyard behind his new premises, a nineteenth-century three-floor construction on Malaya Morskaya. Outside, a team of workmen busied tearing rusting balcony railings from first-floor windows and replacing them with modern glass balustrades, while another repaired lintels and the façade ready for painting. He parked to the side of the Kamaz, got out, and admired his car for at least the third time that day. Two men standing guard with Kalashnikovs acknowledged him as he approached.

‘Rodion, where’s Ivan?’

‘In the warehouse, boss,’ replied the taller of the two, waving the barrel of his machine gun in the direction of the warehouse door.

Men ferried merchandise past him from the truck. He stopped one of them and lifted up a neat compact box labelled Amstrad.

‘If only I could get more of these,’ he said. The handler looked at him blankly. Misha replaced it on the trolley and continued into the warehouse.

Ivan saw him first. He was fifteen metres down the main aisle, talking with the warehouse manager who was busy ticking off items from a clipboard.

‘Do you have the number of the agency you were talking about the other evening?’ he asked him, deadpan.

‘I do,’ he answered with an amused look. He reached inside his leather jacket, extracted his wallet, retrieved a business card, and handed it to him. ‘Leningrad Angels, and they are, truly.’

Misha looked at him blankly, and without saying a word he put the card in his back pocket. He climbed the steps two at a time to the first floor and stepped into the main building. Elegant rooms with long ornate French windows looked out onto the courtyard below. In one, a painter was put finishing touches to the new showroom. Half a dozen brands hung neatly grouped around the walls. Misha switched on the accented spotlights and turned the dimmer for effect.

Alina walked in with a cup of coffee and handed it to him. Misha recognised the two-ply cream cashmere roll neck from a new Italian supplier.

‘Ilaria has been on the phone for you.’

He nodded. ‘I’ll call her back.’ He twirled the dimmer again. ‘Beats the old place.’

He took a sip of boiling hot coffee and winced at its bitterness before taking another. Below, two men with AKs slung over their shoulders lingered in front of the high steel gate. Misha watched as Rodion walked up to one of them and said something.

He turned back to the room and took the card Ivan had given him out of his pocket and looked at the graphic outline of a topless angel. He dialled the number. A woman with a sing-song voice answered the phone and asked him how he had heard of Leningrad Angels, did he have any preferences ? ‘A friend ’… ‘ attractive ’, and ‘ two ’ was all he said in response, slightly disappointed with himself when nothing more definitive immediately came to mind. He agreed the money – US dollars of course – and gave her the name of the new restaurant: Canali, next to the Mariinsky Theatre.

How much was it all going to cost this time, just to open a currency account?

That morning he had appeared at the bank laden with small gifts and had asked to see a manager. He had sat there for an hour and a half mesmerised by the clack clack of a hundred typewriters and the elongated zip of the carriage return. A legion of clerks, sitting at grey metal desks, typed forms in triplicate. Eventually a manager had appeared. Heavyset, in a dark grey ill-fitting suit, Misha guessed him to be in his early forties. He had introduced himself as Grigory Vasiliev and led him to a wooden and frosted-glass cubicle.