Алексей Никитин - Y.T.

When we got back to Yalta I checked my e-mail. This time there was nothing from Kurochkin, but Kanyuka had responded. ‘I’m in Zaporozhye,’ he wrote. ‘I’d love to talk to you, see you, etc., but not if you’re on Kurochkin’s business. He’s been burying me with his dispatches, but I have no intention of reading them, and I don’t want even want to hear about that animal.’ Kanyuka left his mobile number, and I called him straight away. We agreed to meet the day after next at his place. It needed to be soon because he was going away on a business trip, and I didn’t want to postpone the meeting for a long time.

Vera and I stayed on in Yalta for a day and a half in all. That evening we went back into town—but this time we returned before it got late.

In the morning a pale-grey veil was stretched across the east, and the small matte globe of the sun was scarcely discernible. I lay motionless, gazing at the morning sun; the broad window, broad as the wall, and its drawn curtains; the armchair with Vera’s jeans, jumper and blouse; and the pillow with the small depression where she had slept. She had slept there, and the pillow faithfully preserved the imprint of her head. On my fingers I could still feel the tender warmth of her skin, and on my lips there was still the faintest taste of blackcurrant, the taste of her lips. The sound of water could just be heard beyond the door to the shower room. I lay there peacefully; peacefully ran the water; the peaceful sun was rising beyond the low clouds. I suppose it was happiness. I don’t know. I didn’t get the chance to digest it fully. There was a remote on the bedside table, and I idly switched on the television. I turned the sound off and surfed channels until I came to the Ukrainian news. I rarely watch the news—and not just the Ukrainian news but any news—so the jowly faces of our politicians speechifying within mottled gold interiors were for the most part unfamiliar to me. On the screen one head replaced another and the cheerless landscapes outside of Kiev flashed by along with signage showing the town names. Occasionally the anchorman would surface to say a few words. Near the end of the broadcast he lingered a little longer than usual, and I decided he was bidding the audience goodbye and asking them not to change the channel because the advertisement would be followed immediately by the weather forecast and an entertaining family talk show. But I was wrong. Instead of an advertisement I saw Kurochkin. It was an old clip from his days as Deputy Premier—they probably couldn’t find anything more recent. Kurochkin was vigorously holding forth on the steps to the Cabinet of Ministers. Then the screen flashed to a bank sign—and I realized it was Kurochkin’s bank—and someone was waving his arm in protest before the camera, making it clear there would be no comment. The footage immediately cut to the sign of the General Prosecutor’s Office. I reached for the remote but accidentally dropped it, and when I finally picked it up and turned on the sound all I could see were the final shots of the report: yellow earth, white houses with flat roofs and the flag of Israel in the foreground.

When Vera emerged from the shower I was attentively watching a commercial for German lemonade. She stopped and gave me a bemused look.

‘Are your rivals on the offensive?’

‘I’ve just seen Kurochkin on TV,’ I said, turning off the television. I wished I’d never even turned it on—it had spoiled my mood for the rest of the day.

‘Your Kurochkin?’

‘Mine. If I’ve decoded this pantomime correctly, he’s got into trouble and fled to Israel.’

‘Did they say what kind of trouble?’

‘They might have done, but I didn’t hear. “There was an old monkey who had a clogged ear”—especially when he tried to watch TV without any sound.’

‘Wait until the next news broadcast—if it’s important.’

‘It’s important all right. But not important enough to spend the day glued to the box. I’ll ask Kanyuka about it tomorrow. He’ll probably know more than the journalists do.’

Having uttered these prophetic words, I spent almost two hours in front of the screen, flipping from one news broadcast to another. Different things were being said about Kurochkin: they muddled his position, age, even his name, calling him first Yuri then Igor. Varying accounts were given of his urgent departure for Israel—I hadn’t been wrong about that. The one statement that remained consistent throughout the reports went something like, ‘The prosecutor’s office is conducting an inquiry into the legitimacy of agreements signed by Kurochkin during his tenure in the Cabinet of Ministers.’ The feeling of guilt that had flowed over me (after all, he’d asked me to get in touch; maybe I could have helped him) receded somewhat when I heard this. I couldn’t have helped him after all.

Kanyuka had grown fat. A bald little man with drooping cheeks, double chin and eyes where the life had been snuffed out forever, he pressed me against his immense paunch at the door to a Zaporozhian diner. He uttered a few well-worn stock phrases, but he seemed genuinely touched, and his words were sincere. It was more than a decade since we’d last met when we’d been around twenty-five. If I hadn’t known how old he was I’d have put him at fifty, he’d aged that much. In our country business is bad for your health.

‘I don’t think you’ve met. This is Vera, Nedremailo’s daughter.’

‘What a last name!’ roared Kanyuka. ‘Just the sound of it makes me break out in a cold sweat.’

‘Don’t overdo it now.’ I thumped his back. ‘This your place?’

‘You guessed it. You were always good at that. Let’s go in and you can have yourselves something to eat after your journey. It’s not exactly Maxim’s, but I can feed my own.’

Kanyuka had a small chain of cafés within Zaporozhye and the surrounding area. He would be an ideal client for my firm. I should have got him to sign a contract and serve our cola; we could beat any competitor’s price. Taste and quality, no; price, yes. But I didn’t say anything about cola. Instead I asked Vadik about Kurochkin.

‘Our Kurochkin has really landed himself in it now. The worthless bastard has finally jumped in the shit. The silly grasshopper. Bloody hope of our young democracy,’ Kanyuka said with satisfaction and poured the vodka.

‘I’m driving, Vadik.’ I had to push my glass aside.

‘And the lady? Is she driving, too?’

‘The lady can have a drink,’ replied Vera. ‘But just a little, thanks.’

‘Here’s to us, then.’ Kanyuka raised his glass. ‘To us, knocked around by this bloody life in this bloody country… three times I’ve been ruined. I’ve lost everything, everything but my debts. My debts were rescued like children from a burning house—last time thanks to that Doberman Pinscher Kurochkin. But, what the hell, I’m living the way they taught us to do in the army. I’ve fallen down and pulled myself back up again. So what’s the lady do?’

‘She’s a physicist,’ I said and raised my glass of tomato juice. ‘Vadik, that toast…’

‘Huh? It was to us. What didn’t you understand? To big businessmen who used to be physicists and to physicists with a future. With a big future, that is.’

‘Just how did Kurochkin screw you over?’ I asked when I’d finished eating the salad, pork chop and fried potatoes with mushrooms, and when the vodka, thanks to Kanyuka’s efforts, was almost gone. ‘What’s going on with him?’

‘It’s simple. The mine he planted beneath his feet fifteen years ago, the one he’s thrived on like a fungus on a rotted tree stump, it’s finally exploded, and the shit is flying. And he’s about to crash down on top of us and spin us a sob story. It should be fascinating. Kurochkin’s always made such a big deal about being his own man. “I’m not right or left. I have no ties to corporate interests. I don’t depend on anybody—I’m an honest man.” ’