Andrea Bennett: Two Cousins of Azov

Eventually Sveta yawned and stretched. ‘Let’s have a feed. Everybody? We need to eat. I haven’t eaten all day. Albina, you must be hungry, baby-kins?’

‘Mmm, actually, I had quite a lot of yoghurt… and pryaniki . But if you’re making something?’

Sveta went to the kitchen. ‘To start, I will put the kettle on, and we will have tea. Now, Gor…’

She came back to stand in the doorway.

‘What a wicked girl: all those phone calls, all that mischief; and all for nothing! I still can’t believe it!’ Gor stared at the piano keys.

‘Greed,’ said Sveta, ‘that’s what it is. Gets hold of a person… when there’s not enough love.’

‘Ha! Only a woman could believe the bad turn bad due to lack of love.’

Sveta raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips.

‘And only a man could be too blind to see it. Now – have you any cutlets about the place?’ She trotted back to the kitchen, opening first the fridge and then the freezer compartment. ‘Oh, you have! How marvellous!’ She brought out a brown paper parcel, wrapped with string.

‘Have I?’ He began polishing the piano keys with spit and his handkerchief, rubbing at the ivory till it shone. ‘I didn’t know. What a fine piano!’ He stood back smiling to himself, and patted the piano’s lid.

Sveta cut the string with Gor’s sharp red-handled scissors and pulled open the paper.

Her shriek filled the apartment, echoing off the ceiling, jumping into the cats’ ears, making them hiss and arch their backs.

Gor dashed to the kitchen. Sveta was standing over the parcel, one hand to her throat. Inside lay the frozen remains of a headless white rabbit.

On a grim day in December, Gor looked from his little kitchen window, and smiled. Life was perking up. A rosy-cheeked glow had spread among the residents of the southern Russian town of Azov, and it wasn’t from the cold. School was out, the Year 2s still did not know the Roman alphabet, and Kopek had learnt a new song. Albina had settled down and was no longer being over-polite to her mama, which Gor reckoned was a good thing. The nights were long, the frosts hard, a promise of snow watched from the shoulders of the Urals, and New Year beckoned with glinting fir-tree fingers.

Gor had long-since torn the X-bespeckled calendar from the wall and shoved it down the rubbish chute with a ‘rom-pom-pom’ and a flourish. He and Sveta had embarked upon a series of serious rehearsals, even hiring a room at the House of Culture. And while he had resisted Sveta’s initial costume sketches, he was not equal to the task of putting her off completely. Eventually, he had agreed to both ostrich feathers and sequins, for her at least.

They were striving for normal, pushing the events of the autumn far behind them, like swimmers in a pool, pushing away the water, stroke by stroke. When he wasn’t visiting cousin Tolya or rehearsing magic tricks, Gor spent a lot of time thinking. He and the kittens held a series of long communions. He told them his troubles, and they listened attentively. In turn, they told him they were ready for new homes.

And today? Today was show day: the Fund-Raising Spectacular, or FRS. It had started when Albina had asked again about the Magic Circle money. He was trying to teach her the notes on the piano, just the basics. She was like a dog with a bone; all she wanted to hear about was his crime.

‘But what are you going to do?’

‘You don’t need to concern yourself. Now, this is middle C—’

‘Seriously! They could kneecap you!’

‘No, no! They are magicians! I will sell the piano. That is the answer. This note is D—’

‘You can’t sell the piano! It’s your only joy!’

Gor sucked in his cheeks and nodded. ‘Well, maybe I can sell the car. This note is E—’

‘Nooo! If you have no car, how will we get to the dacha ? How will you eat?’

‘Well, if I can’t do that, I may just go to the police and admit what I’ve done.’

‘But they’ll put you in jail with murderers!’

‘Albina, I don’t really care. So next to E comes—?’

‘But what about cousin Tolya, if you are in jail?’

‘You really are tiresome, young lady!’

‘You said a million roubles? That’s only about…’ She screwed up her nose and counted on her fingers. ‘… Two hundred and thirty US dollars. That’s not a lot. Not worth jail.’ She fixed him with a straight look.

‘I have three dollars,’ she said. ‘I can put that in—’

Gor shook his head. ‘Thank you Albina, you are most generous, but—’

‘I was thinking of it as an investment, not a gift.’

‘Either way, I cannot take your money. The piano must go—’

‘There has to be another way,’ said Albina, finger in her nose.

‘The accounts are due in January. There is no other way.’

‘Ooh! But wait!’ Albina leapt from the piano. ‘What about the spectacular? Eh? Eh?’ She looked from Gor to her mother.

‘Hmm?’ Sveta roused herself from her magazine. ‘The spectacular? But that’s just an idea, Albina. I don’t see how it could help.’

‘Spectacular? Spectacular what?’ Gor asked.

‘Oh Gor, you must remember – the idea I had for a variety show.’ Sveta’s eyes turned misty as she stared into the middle distance. ‘Something the like of which Azov has never seen: a glittering cornucopia of light entertainment.’

‘Mama, we will do it, and make it a fund-raising spectacular!’

The magazine dropped to the floor. ‘Tell me more, baby-kins?’

‘Imagine: the spectacular of the year, a glittering event: we charge for tickets to cover our cost, and use the profit to clear Gor’s debt.’

‘Ooh! That sounds—’

‘We charge two thousand roubles per ticket, give some to children’s homes and hospitals to make it look good… It’s so easy!’ She giggled.

‘Well, I have to say, Albina, I think you’ve had a marvellous idea!’

They jiggled up and down together on the sofa squealing with excitement.

‘Right!’ Albina clapped her hands. ‘Let’s start with the programme, then the marketing strategy, and then the budget.’

‘Ah-ha,’ said Sveta, ‘and the costumes. Don’t forget the costumes!’

Gor stared at the bowl of toffees on the table, and wondered if he should try one. After all, he would not need to speak now for at least an hour and a half.

‘We could have acrobats. You know we have a certain circus connection?’ Sveta gurgled. ‘Well, maybe I could use him—’

‘Oh no, Sveta—’ Gor coughed out the toffee.

‘Don’t worry, it will be very tasteful! He can get his hands on all sorts, believe me! The stories he used to tell: the Cossack troupe, the strongest man on earth, Rudolfo the Clown. Oh, and they had trained piglets, can you believe that? Piglets pushing cats around in prams! That would be super-fantastic, wouldn’t it?’

‘Kopek can sing, Mama. Kopek can be in the show, can’t he?’

‘Absolutely, malysh ! He has to be in the show!’

‘I could teach him a new song—’

‘And if we get the piglets—’

‘I’m not sure about piglets,’ Gor cut in.

‘We just have to do it! It will be marvellous, piglets or no! We have had more than our fair share of misfortune. It’s time to make us some luck!’

Excitement sizzled through the corridors of the Palace of Youth. Chattering school children, young couples with fingers interlaced, big-bellied local dignitaries and wizened old ladies with apple-pip eyes tussled one after the other with the stiff double doors, intent on the event of the year.

Intriguing posters plastering every bus stop, bottle-exchange and bread shop had promised the townsfolk an extravaganza they could not resist, and the great and the good had sallied forth, proud to pay up. Even the Deputy Mayor was in attendance, a tall blonde dripping diamonds by his sweating side. He’d insisted on paying double the going rate, on principle.