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

Arkady pressed a half-hidden button to one side, then stood in the glare of the bulb. There was no sound from the buzzer itself and no sound from within. Henry leaned against the wall. Neither spoke.

There had been nothing back from Paris. But London—London was good. London was hope. London was their chance. All Henry had to do was hand over the down payment and there would be no turning back. Arkady would be on his way.

Henry prayed. And he didn’t care that prayer was as big a joke as communism. He prayed with fervor and dutiful urgency, as if he were thirteen again and trying not to touch himself and come top of the class in Latin and not be punched in the arm by Mark Rolke on the bus. He prayed without a second’s counterthought, prayed to God’s only son, somehow both fully human and fully divine, somehow born of a virgin, died (definitely died), and somehow resurrected for our sins—he prayed that they would have enough money, that there would be no problem with Arkady’s friend of a friend of a friend, that the passport and visa would be ordered and collected safely, that Arkady would go, would not delay or stall, that the Russian would make it unhindered to London, and that his family would treat him kindly.

And so far it was damn well working: his prayers had been answered. Okay, so Paris was a nothing. Perhaps Arkady was right—what man wants to hear from his wife’s long-forgotten love child? Perhaps the address was wrong. But Henry’s assiduous Internet fishing for Gabriel and Isabella had finally produced results: too many Isabella Glovers, and no matches at all for Isabella plus Maria, but a single match for Gabriel and Maria Glover—an article from a local newspaper. A godsend. From this Henry had learned that son had “followed mother’s footsteps into journalism.” So, a search for journalists called Gabriel Glover. Disregarding the Americans and subtracting those listings attributable to the same person, three possibles. Next, some very expensive calls to receptionists at the companies most recently served by these Gabriels to “confirm the e-mail because I have to send something…”

Then nothing for five days.

So more calls.

No, Gabriel Glover did not work here anymore, try the Camden Journal. Passed about like a pedantic reader. Until someone on the news desk said, Oh yes, that Gabriel Glover used to work here, on features—God, that must have been about five years ago now. Ask Jim. But Jim was off on holiday.

One week later he had found his lead again: try the contract-publishing firm Roland Sheekey Ltd., Jim advised. Another call to another receptionist, another e-mail pretending to be from Arkady. This time, despite the cost, Henry waited at his desk in the cheap-Internet-and-foreign-calls café near Primoskaya, hoping. Three hours later, he had his man.

Sure, by all means, get in touch when you arrive, look forward to talking very much.

It was enough. It was hope. Arkady was going to London.

The red door remained shut. Henry dared not suggest they press the buzzer again, and Arkady seemed content to wait. The bulb hissed periodically. Three minutes must have passed before, with a shock, Henry realized that Arkady was standing in the middle of the passageway because a camera was set up high in the lintel. He wondered who might be looking at them and what they were looking for. He noticed afresh that his friend was growing more ragged. That greatcoat, those tattered jeans, those boots, the frayed collar on that favorite shirt, fake Armani. When the time came, Henry knew, he would not have the courage to suggest that Arkady clean himself up: cut his hair, shave, find a new shirt at least. And yet it was his duty to do so. To improve Arkady’s chances. Simply, there was nobody else to say these things. No other person who could see beyond the struggle of their own circumstances as to what goodness or salvation the wider world might yet bestow if only they could keep on believing. He must say something. What did it matter if Arkady came to despise him, as long as he made the best possible impression when he found his family? The danger was that on the streets of London, Arkady would simply look insane or worse—frightening. Besides everything else, the Russian had his right index finger wrapped and bound in a fat bandage, which he had recently taken to wearing all the time, even though he had not been near the conservatory this week or last, as far as Henry knew. And the injury looked gruesome. Violent. Henry understood—up to a point—that Arkady had to live his lies religiously once asserted, had to actually believe in them himself, had to perform them. (There was something especially Russian in this, he thought.) But all the same, Henry hoped that the grimy bandage would come off as soon as they had the passport.

Without warning, the door started to move. There was a whirring, as though the hinges were motorized. The corridor within was better illuminated; a series of doors—some shut, some half open—led off, right and left. They passed a filthy toilet, a bedroom of sorts with the floor covered in mattresses, a decrepit shower with its head dangling loose, and, last of all, on the left, a big kitchen—gas rings, saucepans. Ten more paces beneath weak multicolored light and they emerged into the wide cavernous low-lit room—the spider’s den: Club Voltage.

The place was almost empty and there was no music, but then, it was only eleven in the morning. They were in a vast cellar. Like the passageways, the walls were all bare brick; a glowing row of yellow, orange, and red light bulbs set in two plastic bulb racks was wedged up by a series of nails hammered irregularly into the mortar behind the makeshift bar, the cables looping down like ossified tapeworms. There were no drinks on display save sample cans or bottles of the range available—one Russian beer, one Polish beer, vodka, vodka, vodka, cheap, cheaper, cheapest—standing strangely spaced across the solitary shelf. Aside from a few other bulb racks and one or two random strip lights, the decoration was limited to a series of poster portraits that had been lacquered like fliers for forthcoming gigs to the bricks of the far wall—poster portraits of famous Soviet athletes in various attitudes of exertion, muscular repose, or medal-winning triumph. In English, across the face of each, someone had sprayed the words “Drugs are for winners” with scarlet paint. High up, behind the bar, there was a second series, these much smaller, pages cut from magazines rather than posters: presumably the bartender’s true love, some model never quite dressed.

Sitting just inside the door to the right on the threadbare sofa and chairs were four or five youngsters—couples, friends, strangers, it was hard to be sure—all as thin as coat hangers, their faces oddly blue beneath the fizzing of one of the strip lights. One girl sat forward, her banknotes ready, clutched thick and tight in her scrawny fist.

Someone came through the door behind them, sped past at an incongruous jog, and circled back behind the bar. Arkady moved forward and spoke in Russian.

“Hello, Genna.”

“Piano.” Offering a raised fist (held sideways for Arkady to knock with his own), Gennady, the teenage tender, greeted Arkady from behind the makeshift bar with a grin.

He could be no more than fourteen years old, Henry thought. Eyes like flattened lead shot, flared nostrils, skin like congealed lava.

Arkady declined the fist, enveloping it in the mighty palm of his left hand instead.

“How you doing, Genna? Still running. Next Olympics is your Olympics, I just know it.”

“If I can get the invisible drugs that the pussy-boy Americans use, then I’ll be the fastest man on the planet.” Gennady sucked in a sharp breath. “Whoa, shit, you bust your finger.”