Andrey Kurkov - The Gardener from Ochakov

‘It’s the antibiotics that cost the most. I’m afraid they’re the only option these days.’ The pharmacist spread her hands sympathetically. ‘So, are you going to take them?’

‘Yes, definitely,’ Igor assured her, backing away from the counter. ‘I just need to get the money.’

Igor had planned to spend the afternoon ‘loafing around the house’, as his mother sometimes put it, but things didn’t turn out that way. No sooner had he picked up the TV guide to plan his viewing schedule for the rest of the day than Kolyan called.

‘I hope you’re at home,’ he exclaimed cheerfully.

‘Er, yes.’

‘Well, I’m in a minibus taxi on my way to your place. I’ve got meat and vodka! Although, come to think of it, you were supposed to provide the drinks…’

‘Meat and vodka?’ repeated Igor, sounding somewhat less enthusiastic than his friend.

‘Aren’t you pleased?’

‘Of course I am!’ declared Igor, managing to sound genuinely enthusiastic.

‘Well, you’d better get the skewers, the matches and the glasses ready!’

In less than five minutes Igor had reconciled himself to the change of plan and was looking forward to the barbecue. He checked once more that it wasn’t going to rain, then selected two large shot glasses from the kitchen cupboard and took a couple of onions from the basket under the table, in case they needed them. Two plates, for the sake of propriety, and a couple of forks. By the time he’d finished getting everything together, he’d managed to fill two carrier bags.

‘You take after your mother all right!’ remarked Kolyan, when he saw his friend standing there armed with the bulging carrier bags, ready for the afternoon.

They decided to base themselves in a small birch grove about three hundred metres from the nearest house. It had the added bonus of an abundant supply of firewood. Igor spread a square of oilcloth and laid out the plates, then started preparing the fire.

Meanwhile, Kolyan wandered about singing to himself. As chief benefactor, having provided the meat for the shashlik, he was fully entitled to do so. Suddenly he cried out. Squatting down in the undergrowth, he turned and called out to Igor.

‘Hey, bring me a knife and a carrier bag!’

Kolyan cut two sizeable orange-cap boletus mushrooms and put them into the carrier bag. From that point on his energies were entirely devoted to mushroom hunting and he no longer paid any attention to his friend, who was busy assembling a small grill for the shashlik over the roaring fire.

Neither of them bothered to keep an eye on the time. It was irrelevant, anyway. They had the whole afternoon ahead of them and it was going to revolve around quality leisure time, in which shashlik and vodka would play a critical role. The only limits on such occasions are the energy and stamina of the participants. As the birch firewood turned to coals, Kolyan returned to the fire with his bag full of mushrooms and opened the bottle of Nemirov vodka. Given the success of his spontaneous foraging Kolyan decided on the first toast.

‘To the mushroom harvest!’ he declared, raising his glass in a jubilant mood.

Kolyan didn’t even chase his first shot of vodka, simply sniffing a piece of bread instead. He did, however, start eyeing up the plastic bucket of marinated meat that he’d brought with him. Reaching for the skewers, he set about skilfully threading pieces of pork onto them.

‘You know what, it takes me an hour’s trek by metro and minibus taxi to get to the nearest forest… but you’ve got it all right on your doorstep. I ought to buy a dacha round here.’

‘Business is booming then, I take it,’ remarked Igor.

Kolyan smiled. ‘It’s only a matter of time. A good hacker will always be in demand – everyone needs information!’

Igor thought about it. ‘I don’t,’ he said, smiling back at his friend.

‘Yeah, but what do you matter? You’ve got no ambition . By Soviet standards you’re a parasite and a sponger. I bet you’d love to be a landlord! Letting something out and living off the money you earn, without having to actually do anything… Trouble is, you’d need something to let out in the first place, which you don’t have. If you want to buy an apartment or an office, you need to be making five to ten thousand dollars a month, or more. That’s why people need information!’

‘Well, if you happen to come across any information worth ten thousand dollars a month, do me a favour and send it my way!’ retorted Igor, not at all offended at being called a parasite and a sponger. ‘The thing is, I’m just not a natural businessman. I see myself as more of a treasure hunter – always have done, really, ever since I was little.’

‘Well, I’m happy to drink to you finding your next treasure trove!’ Kolyan burst out laughing and filled their glasses. ‘So, what are we drinking to? A pot of gold, or a chest full of diamonds?’

‘A suitcase full of diamonds and guns.’

They clinked glasses and downed their shots. Kolyan placed the skewers of meat over the glowing birch coals. Igor felt a sudden and overwhelming urge to bring up the subject of his trips to Ochakov again, but two shots of vodka were not enough to loosen his tongue. Particularly since all previous attempts to tell Kolyan about Ochakov had been crushed by the scathing sarcasm of his response.

The shashlik was cooked to perfection, so much so that they soon ran out of vodka to wash it down with. The empty bottle lay near the campfire, dampening their mood.

Igor volunteered to rescue the situation. ‘I’ll go back for more,’ he declared, swallowing the piece of meat he’d been chewing.

‘Needs must,’ said Kolyan with a nod. ‘Your country will thank you for it!’

The journey home took about ten minutes. Igor went straight to the kitchen and took a bottle of brandy from the cupboard. The door creaked behind him.

‘Are you back, then?’ asked his mother.

‘No, we’ve just run out of supplies. You used to have a bottle of homebrew in here somewhere, didn’t you?’

‘In there, under the sink.’

Putting the brandy back in the cupboard, Igor bent down and opened the little wooden door. He took out a two-litre jar of home-made vodka and looked around in search of a smaller container.

‘You could pour some into a smaller jar,’ suggested his mother, pointing at a bag that contained her spare preserving jars.

‘We’re not tramps!’ Igor shook his head. ‘We used to have some empty beer bottles, didn’t we?’

‘I took them out to the shed.’

Igor went outside and glanced into the shed. Stepan wasn’t there. He took an empty bottle and went back into the kitchen, where he filled it with vodka and sealed it with a wine cork. As he was doing so he had an idea for a stunt he could pull on Kolyan, which might finally convince his friend that he really had been to Ochakov in 1957. He went through to his bedroom and put the old police cap on his head, then fastened the belt around his waist and inserted the gun into the holster. He went back into the kitchen, grabbed the beer bottle from the table and left the house.

It was already getting dark outside. At the gate Igor bumped into Stepan, who stopped and stared at him in surprise, glancing ironically at the cap, belt and holster.

‘You look like you’re enjoying yourself,’ he said, then smiled and went into the yard. The gardener’s voice floated back to him. ‘Just make sure you don’t get too attached to that uniform, or you might find you won’t be able to live without it!’

The white trunks of the birch trees created the illusion of prolonged twilight. At the point where their little grove merged with the coniferous forest, night had fallen and darkness reigned.