Эдвард Докс - Pravda ['Self Help' in the UK]

“You understand well what he wants.”

“I don’t even know these people he seems to think I’m friends with. Not anymore. Most of the English, French, and Germans I used to hang around with have left or gone to Moscow or run out of excuses for doing nothing and returned home. People move on. Especially the foreign kids. The new crowd, whoever they are—Grisha probably knows them as well as I do.”

“Did you give him your shit back?”

“No.” Henry wished that he had taken measures to rectify the hole in his old black brogues. “How could I? I just won’t get any more for a while.”

Arkady’s eyes narrowed for a moment, then swept the sky. “I need a piss,” he said.

He stepped to the side of the track, where a once grand but now untended grave with an elaborate wrought-iron Orthodox cross was being choked by weeds.

Henry walked on alone toward the crossroads where the track that led to the central chapel met their own. It was thoroughly dark now. Ahead, the trees overhung in a complete canopy, branches shifting, though Henry could not feel any wind. An owl was hooting somewhere close by. He thought he saw its shape perched on a headstone. But it was only a trick of the ivy. Some cat or rat, rabbit or badger—he had no idea what—was rustling through the undergrowth to his left.

Unexpectedly, a cast of primitive superstitions he believed long forgotten revealed themselves in the forefront of his imagination. He smiled nervously to himself, drew rueful breath, and shook his head. Silly. Nonetheless, there was something about the Smolensky (and the answering crack of a twig) that caused him to wonder whether the place affected Arkady in the same way. After all, here they were, in a cemetery thronged with the Petersburg dead, a cemetery that had been built on the agonized bones of all those who had perished in hauling the city up from the marsh, and a cemetery whose perimeter was this very night ringed by their living and disendowed descendents—the desperate and the diseased—here they were, and Arkady was pausing unconcernedly to piss on an unknown headstone. One thing for certain: these ornate Old Believer crosses seemed to afford purchase only to the weeds. More places to bind and swathe.

He reached the crossroads and stood waiting. He often paused here on his way into town, by the main track down which the hearses came, day after day, followed always, he had noticed, by that stubborn delegation of white-haired women, forever in black, forever wailing, as if there were not time enough left in the world to get all the mourning done. But how quickly the generations forgot: his own father’s father, Henry had hardly known, and his great-grandfather not at all, no more who he was than where he was from. In so many brief years we become strangers to our own blood.

His pocket was vibrating.

Someone was trying to call him. No: there was a text message on his phone. Grisha. He thumbed it open. In Russian: “Your sugar bitch is dead.”

But in the time it took for him to turn and look for her son, he made the decision not to tell Arkady. Not until after the concert.

Ten-thirty in Petersburg. Seven-thirty in London. And the worst night of his life was squatting black and heavy in the shabby courtyard outside. He sat motionless in the window of Yana’s mother’s apartment, his face a picture of mute and frozen shock, staring out like some child marquis on the place where they had lately guillotined his mother. Opposite his vantage, the locksmith was closing up on the ground floor and the builders, two brothers from Belarus, worked with naked bulbs suspended from naked joists in the room above. A cat held mangy station at the bottom of the adjacent stairs, its back to the bags of sand. He continued to hold the phone in its cradle. Isabella would call back any moment and he would suddenly become animate again, everything would start over, everything would race and swerve and dart and fall. Yana’s mother was due to return from her gathering of special supplies. After their surreal trip to the hospital, Yana had gone back to the CCCP Café. But she would be home soon too. As would Yana’s brother, Arytom, carrying his endless manuscripts and proofs.

Gabriel let it ring once. His focus seemed to journey in from far away; his head lowered a moment, and abruptly he had the handset to his ear and he was back in the storm and swell of the present.

“Can you hear me properly now? Is this line better?”

“Yes. Forget my mobile. It—”

“I couldn’t get through.”

“Sorry, Lina. Isabella called again.” This was only the second time they had spoken since the afternoon, and already he knew that Lina was his savior and that he would never ever be able to do without her, not for one day, not for the rest of his life.

“Okay—this is definitely Yana’s landline? I can use this.”

“Her mother’s, yes. Yes, I think it’s fine.”

“Will you be okay there tonight, Gabriel?”

“Yes… I don’t know where I… I will be all right.”

Her voice became even more measured. “Okay, now, listen. I have booked you into the Grand Hotel Europe, Gabriel, where we stayed. For tomorrow. It’s all on my credit card. I don’t want you to even think about the money. We can talk in the morning about whether you want to go there. But I think you should have somewhere as a base. I’ve booked a twin, so you can be with Isabella. If you prefer to stay at Yana’s mother’s until later, then fine, but it’s there if you want. We can talk about it tomorrow.”

“Lina. God, you don’t… Thank you. Thanks.”

“And you have spoken with the consulate?

“Yes. Yes, I have. A guy called Julian Avery there—he’s being very helpful.”

“So don’t forget, I can call people from here too. I can call anyone you need—if it helps, I mean. I will be here on standby in the morning. There’s a lot I can do from here.”

“Okay.”

Gentle now: “We have to be practical for the time being.”

“Yes.”

“You are sure that you are going to have the funeral in Petersburg?”

“Yes. It’s what Mum wanted.”

“Right. Well, I’ll try to get a visa first thing tomorrow and I will be there… Thursday, Thursday night. Latest, Friday. Okay?” “If you can. But don’t—” “You have enough money?” “Yes.Yes… it’s all right. I have money.” “You have some food for tonight?” “I’m not—”

“I know. But you should try to eat something. Will Yana’s mother get you something?”

“It’ll be okay, Lina.”

“Just don’t… Just take care of yourself. You need all that fierce strength of yours. And try to focus on whatever you need to do. Try not to think too much, Gabriel. Sometimes just doing stuff is best—you know, fool the days, or you’ll go crazy. When is Isabella there?”

“Tomorrow evening. She’s getting her visa now and then she’ll fly.”

“Is she okay?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is Sasha coming?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

A pause. “Is there anyone here you want me to call tomorrow?”

This, he knew, was Lina’s way of approaching the question of his father. He loved her for her delicacy and for knowing him so well. He loved her for her endlessly decent strong sensible saving kind humanity. He loved her. “No. There’s nobody to call, Lina. But… But I don’t know. Tomorrow we should… we should try to think. Maybe there’s some of Mum’s old friends or something.”

“What time is it there?”

“Ten thirty-five.”

“Okay. You go now. I am going to call again at eleven-thirty your time, okay, before you go to bed? I love You’very much.”

“Thanks. Thanks for everything, Lina. I love you too.”