Andrea Bennett - Two Cousins of Azov

Albina glowered. ‘I am not Olga! Olga is a grown-up! I am not Gor’s daughter! I’ve been staying with him, because my mama is ill.’

‘Ah? So you are—?’ he shoved his crinkly face towards hers, eyes enquiring.

‘Albina!’

‘Albina?’ He stretched his mouth over the word. ‘If you say so. But I still think you make a better Olga,’ he added, muttering into the lino. ‘So, where is my cousin? Is he here? Is he well?’

‘Well enough.’ Albina shrugged. ‘But not here. I really—’

‘If he is alive, and well, it must mean… he forgot me. Like I forgot myself.’ The old man put his hands in his lap and stared at the floor, a sad expression creeping across his face.

‘Listen, please!’ Albina shook at his shoulder. ‘Can you help me? I thought the other girl was Olga. She brought me here. She said she was Olga. I don’t think she is. And now I’m all confused. And…’Albina pointed to the living room ‘… and she’s in there.’

‘Another girl, you say?’ He looked up slowly. ‘She is very quiet.’

‘Yes. She’s a mean girl. She smells of antiseptic. And she shouts. But I think,’ Albina paused, her face serious, ‘I think she might be dead.’

‘Ah!’ The green eyes lit up, and he nodded. ‘Did you use magic?’

‘No! It wasn’t like that.’

‘No? But you’re wearing the shaman’s cap?’

‘Dressing up!’

‘Ah. Disappointing.’ He pushed himself up and peered into the living room.

‘I suppose we’d better take a look. She can’t scare us if she’s dead… can she?’ He smiled and propelled Albina forward into the living room.

Albina shrugged. ‘She told me there would be a reunion with Gor, and yoghurt, and my mama. But there’s only me… and now you.’

‘Ah, well, that is still a reunion, to be fair.’

‘But I want my mama!’ moaned Albina as she stood over Polly’s prone form.

‘Well, we all want our mamas, don’t we? But unfortunately, yours is in Moscow, and mine is in the grave.’ The old man made straight for the desk in the corner, scraping up papers and pencils from its top and hugging them to his chest as if they were children. Then he tutted over the tell-tale gaps on the dusty shelves. ‘My things, my lovely things,’ he muttered. ‘Someone has been here, disturbing my things. Where are the oil paints, Olga? Where is the book of nudes? Not here!’

‘My name is Albina, and I don’t know anything about a book of nudes.’

‘Ah?’ He gave her an assessing look. ‘Very well. You are my welcome guest, as long as it was not you who ransacked my home.’ He looked again to the shelves, and sighed. ‘I am Tolya. Your father may have mentioned me?’

‘Akh, he’s not my father! But yes, he has mentioned you. Quite a lot.’

‘That warms my heart a little. Good.’

‘Not really. As he thinks you’re dead.’

‘Oh-ho!’ Anatoly Borisovich tripped on Polly’s foot, protruding from behind the sofa. ‘And this is…’

‘The scary girl.’

‘Indeed?’ He shook his head and prodded the body with his naked toe. There was no response. He looked up and smiled. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about. Tea?’

‘The kitchen door is… stuck. She got it stuck. She was angry, and slammed it, and then it got stuck, and that made her more angry, and she got more stuck. Look!’

The old man circled the body on the floor, padding around on soft feet, leaving wet marks from his trailing hems on the carpet tiles. He approached the sliding door and gave it a gentle nudge in the middle with his hip, followed by a double-knock at the top with his knuckle and a quick kick at the base for luck. It squeaked, then slid open with a sigh.

‘Oh!’ exclaimed Albina. ‘Magic!’

‘As I said, this is my apartment. And I have pryaniki. Hurray! At least,’ he patted his pockets. ‘I did have pryaniki . I think, ah, maybe in here. It was a long walk, and can you believe it – all I had for sustenance were these biscuits.’ He brought out a soggy paper bag from his trouser pocket and popped a biscuit in his mouth.

Albina watched him chew and felt an odd, lonely sensation in the pit of her stomach. Perhaps tea was a good idea. But she didn’t want to get too close to this Tolya. He had strange eyes, and a strange smell, and he really wasn’t anything like Gor. She waited until he moved into the living room, his pudgy hands stroking the sheepskin on the wall, and hurried through. A wet munching sound emanated from the old man’s cheek.

‘Why aren’t you dead?’ she called through the hatch as the kettle began to hiss. He looked up from the book he was holding.

‘I don’t know,’ he replied, his green gaze on her forehead. ‘Do you think I should be?’

Albina twisted her hands behind her back. ‘I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean anything. I just meant… Gor thinks you’re dead, and he should know. They told him you’d gone!’

‘Well, quite right! You have the evidence before you! I am no longer there. I escaped, in the dead of night. I couldn’t bear it!’ He approached the hatch. Albina handed him a biscuit, and he padded on. ‘It was very easy in the end, once I remembered about clothes, and shoes, keys and offices. That grumpy orderly slept like a rock! And out I crept, like a little mouse. I couldn’t stay any longer; they were trying to kill me. And my new friend didn’t visit any more.’

He wiped his eyes and whiskers on his sleeve and then, with great care, rolled the girl’s body over with the side of his foot. ‘How did you do it?’

‘It wasn’t me!’ cried Albina. ‘She did it herself. She just came flying through the hatch and—’

‘Ah, magic then?’

‘No, not actually flying—’

‘But she came through there? That little hatch hole? And what propelled her, eh? If not magic?’

Albina thought for a moment. ‘Well. I don’t know.’

She crept forward to take a closer look. ‘She’s breathing.’

‘Very good,’ said the old man. He shuffled over to a drawer in the sideboard, and laboriously pulled out a blanket to lay over the unconscious girl. Returning to the kitchen, he pulled out two stools, sat on both of them and spread out the remaining pryaniki before him.

‘Come, eat, Olga! Share with me. We need sustenance.’

‘I’m not Olga! She’s the Olga! But what shall we do,’ asked Albina, ‘with her?’

‘With her?’ He shrugged. ‘Let’s wait. Wait… and eat.’ He shoved a biscuit into his mouth and chewed enthusiastically, eyes glazing over. ‘Mmm, these are good. A little damp, but—’

Albina’s eyes were drawn to a moth on the windowpane. Night was gathering in the corners like sooty cobwebs. The kettle boiled with a scream.

‘We’d better get the lamp lit,’ said Tolya.

‘But we have electric light. We don’t need a lamp.’

He crossed the living room, lumbering for the sideboard. Old sketch books, paint brushes and colourful, crumpled hats rained to the floor around him as he rummaged about. Eventually he stood up straight, a battered paraffin lamp held in his outstretched hands.

‘Here we have it! Fetch the matches, Olga!’

Albina rolled her eyes, but did as she was asked.

He lit the lamp with a hiss and a pop, and the air filled with the scent of burning paraffin and dust.

‘Such a happy glow!’ He peered into the light of the lamp as it burnt first white, then yellow, then a honeyed orange as he adjusted the wick. ‘It scorches my old eyes,’ he chuckled. ‘Now I see nothing but white and green and red! Look!’

Albina frowned as he flicked off the light switch. The glow of the lamp did not make her feel safe at all. Shadows shifted in the corners of the room and it felt to her as if another person had joined them. She fiddled with the fringes of the shaman’s cap. When were Gor and her mama ever going to arrive?