Алексей Никитин - Y.T.

‘But he left the KGB a long time ago. It’s been at least ten years, hasn’t it?’

‘Yes. It seems something happened. But how did you know?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said, paying Kurochkin back for his ‘I don’t know.’ Kurochkin waggled his brows and feigned nonchalance, but he was obviously displeased. Nor did he like the fact that I knew something about Sinevusov and wouldn’t tell him how. But what could I actually tell him? That one day I’d decided to have myself a bun and a cup of tea? It was ridiculous.

After I’d finalized matters with Malkin the day following our meeting and won my two weeks of freedom, I agreed to meet up with Sinevusov. Two weeks is a long time. Long enough to meet Mishka Reingarten and Kanyuka, find out whatever we didn’t know about Korostishevski and convince myself one more time that none of us had anything to do with the ultimatum or the disappearance of the money.

‘Very Dostoevskian,’ I said with a nod at the room. The room wasn’t remotely Dostoevskian. It was just your average watering hole, moderately filthy and immoderately full of smoke, refuge of the local drunks and of the traders from Zhitni Market.

Sinevusov looked around the room, a group of young people—clearly students—briefly holding his eye, then shrugged. ‘I don’t like Dostoevsky.’

I didn’t say anything, gave him time to graze on the nuts, one after the other, and drink some beer.

Finally, he continued. ‘Dostoevsky was a wimp—a wimp and a coward. A brilliant coward. He broached such themes… plumbed such depths… it took your breath away. And then what? Nothing. He carefully tiptoed around it. Along the very edge, softly, softly, so that, God save him, he wouldn’t plant a foot wrong.’

‘Such as?’

‘What about Smerdyakov? Tell me, where’s it, say, that Smerdyakovs get hanged? Karamazovs get hanged, but Smerdyakovs live happily ever after. Because the rules of our world are written and approved by Smerdyakovs. It’s suffocating here for Karamazovs, but Smerdyakovs find it comfortable. Do you remember what he did to Ivan and how he framed Dmitri? Just masterful. Do you think a man like that would stick his head through a noose over such a trifle?’

‘It wasn’t exactly a trifle.’

‘Not to anyone else, but to him it was a trifle. To him everything was permissible. That’s the point.’ Sinevusov looked me straight in the eye and asked sternly, ‘Can’t you see?’

‘Who gave him permission?’ I shuddered under his gaze.

‘No, you can’t see…’ His gaze softened, the lines on his face smoothed out and formed a smile. A calm, clear smile. ‘He allowed himself everything. He was his own supreme authority. There was no other. Now do you see? And Dostoevsky went and hanged him. And for what?’ Suddenly Sinevusov broke into ear-splitting laughter. ‘Because some Ivan Karamazov denied his words? What are words? They’re like the wind; they blow and they disappear. And, for this, Smerdyakov hanged himself. He gave his life. He wouldn’t have given a torn rouble that easily, but here… What sort of psychologist does that make of your Dostoevsky, eh?’ Sinevusov didn’t finish. He waved his arm contemptuously and reached for his beer. ‘He was a wimp…’

He spoke firmly and confidently, and I could see he had carefully thought through everything he’d said. There was truth in his words, but it was the truth of our times, times that believed in nobody and nothing. Although who could say Dostoevsky’s times were any different?

‘Look,’ whispered Sinevusov, leaving aside his beer and looking across the room at the large group of students sitting at two tables that had been pushed together. They were drinking beer and having a quiet discussion. As often happens, the general conversation fragmented after a while, and the group split into smaller groups according to interests. It wouldn’t have been worth the attention but for a short, energetic bloke with the look of an ageing Mephistopheles who was flitting among them. Half a glance was enough to see that he was a foreigner. Mephistopheles half sat with one group of students then another, constantly striking up conversations, asking questions and immediately jotting notes into a notebook.

‘You see?’ said Sinevusov, still whispering. ‘There are hundreds of them here. I used to work at the Soros Foundation. I’ve seen my share.’

‘Huh?’ I said, mystified. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘He’s a spy. It’s a long time since I’ve come across such a colorful example. Watch—he could have stepped right out of a poster.’

Sitting across from me only moments before had been a home-grown Nietzschean, reader and commentator on the Russian classics, retiree and nonentity; but just as soon as quarry flickered across his field of vision, his hunter’s instinct had surfaced. Tiny caplets of venom appeared on Sinevusov’s cheeks.

Unaware that a beast of prey was lurking near by, Mephistopheles was chatting away lightheartedly with the students. He looked absurd and out-of-place.

‘What does he want with the students?’

Sinevusov tore his gaze away from Mephistopheles and looked at me. All I had asked was one completely neutral question. But a sequence of other questions, although unspoken, was effortlessly discernible. Suddenly I saw an old paranoiac, unhinged by the world of spies, ready to dig away at any foreigner until under the dusky artificial tan he found the rapacious grin of a worldwide cabal. And he knew as much.

‘Students?’ repeated Sinevusov.

‘Yes, what can they tell him?’

‘They’re not students. They’re journalists. I know at least three of them. Not stars but not exactly bottom of the heap either. I can’t imagine what the hell they’re doing in this dump.’

‘They’re spying on the old goat.’

‘And I’m trying to figure out who the old goat is,’ snorted Sinevusov. He scowled. ‘Davidov, I may strike you as an incurable maniac, but I’ve learned a thing or two, that’s one; and two, it’s a long time since I’ve been in the service, so espionage is no longer my concern. But if I see what I’m seeing then what am I to do? Deny what’s before my very eyes? Kiev has become a hotbed of espionage. Everyone is here working against Russia: the French, the British, the Germans, the Poles. Not to mention the CIA. The Chinese are the only ones who are stealing local technology on the sly and don’t give a damn about anything else. For now.’

‘This one doesn’t exactly look Chinese.’

‘Well, the small fry are international. They gather rumors, gossip, search for compromising evidence. Anything that anyone else might want. Just like you and me, incidentally,’ he said, taking an unexpected dig. ‘Get a pen and write this down.’

From his jacket pocket Sinevusov took out a notebook and read, ‘Reingarten, Mikhail Aleksandrovich. Born 1966. Diagnostic-Treatment and Scientific-Pedagogical Psychiatric Centre…’

‘What?’ I was confused.

‘Frunze Street, 103.’

‘Whatever… Scientific-Pedagogical…’

‘Department four. Will you go?’

‘I’ll go tomorrow.’

‘They don’t have visiting hours tomorrow.’

‘When do they have visiting hours?’

‘Today.’

‘You’re saying I should go right now? Are you going, too?’

Sinevusov screwed up his left eye, tutted and shook his head.

‘He’s your friend, not mine. You haven’t seen each other for ages, so go and visit him. You think I’ve any reason to go to the hospital, that I’ve forgotten something there?’

‘I’ll remind you what you’ve forgotten.’ I nodded and got up from the table. ‘Clearly your memory is failing you. You drove someone into a nuthouse for fifteen years—as good as killing him. And no one wants to remember. Retirees…’