Andrey Kurkov - The Gardener from Ochakov

Kolyan was staring into the campfire. ‘Oh!’ he exclaimed when he saw Igor. ‘Is it a retro picnic now?’

‘Yeah, something like that.’ Igor sat down next to the square of oilcloth that was serving as a table. He held the beer bottle out to his friend. ‘I’m afraid we’re going to have to switch to home-made vodka, though.’

‘Did you make it yourself?’

‘No, my mother gets it from the next-door neighbour.’

‘Your neighbour wouldn’t poison you!’ Kolyan took the bottle, removed the cork and inhaled. ‘Oh! It smells of the earth! The art of the people! A celebration of the unbreakable spirit of the nation!’ He brought the bottle to his nose once more.

As everybody knows, it’s impossible to drink home-made vodka without food to chase it. Fortunately Kolyan never did things by half and had brought no less than a kilo and a half of meat. They’d already eaten three skewers each, and six more skewers of meat were still cooking over the mellow embers of the fire.

As he knocked back the first shot from the beer bottle, Igor felt his appetite return. The shashlik meat was not as tender as before, but it still tasted delicious. Kolyan devoured another skewer too.

‘Oh, I still owe you a hundred dollars,’ exclaimed Igor, suddenly remembering. ‘Come back to mine later and I can give it to you then.’

Kolyan waved his hand dismissively. ‘Some things are worth more than a hundred dollars,’ he said, nodding at the bottle. He picked it up and refilled their glasses.

The homebrew ran out after about twenty minutes. Igor and Kolyan kept eating until they’d finished the meat, more out of a sense of duty than because they were actually enjoying it.

Igor casually took the gun out of the holster and started looking at it.

‘What’s that you’ve got there?’ Kolyan leaned towards his friend.

‘Oh, just something I found in a treasure chest,’ replied Igor, with a drunken smirk.

‘Is it real?’

‘Yes, and there’s a uniform to go with it.’

‘Let me see.’

Igor gave the gun to Kolyan. He could still feel the cold metal grip in his warm hand.

‘Put the empty bottles on that tree stump over there,’ said Kolyan.

Igor placed both bottles on a birch stump about five metres away from where they were sitting. Kolyan took aim. He pulled the trigger, but no shot was fired. Surprised, he took aim and pulled the trigger again. Another empty click.

‘Isn’t it loaded?’ asked Kolyan, looking at Igor.

‘Yes, it is,’ said Igor. ‘I checked.’

‘I’ve got an idea,’ said Kolyan. ‘Why don’t you let me have it? You never gave me a present for my birthday!’

‘You said the best present people could give you was to come dressed in “retro” fancy dress. Anyway, why do you want a gun that doesn’t shoot?’

‘It might come in handy. You and I know it doesn’t shoot, but other people don’t know that. It could still save my life.’

‘As if anyone’s bothered about your life,’ smiled Igor, taking the gun back from his friend. ‘Do you want to scare all the drunks with it?’

Kolyan waved his hand dismissively and seemed to forget all about the gun.

‘Right! Let’s head back,’ he said, struggling to stand up. ‘What time’s the last minibus?’

‘You might as well stay over at my place,’ said Igor. ‘You’re in no fit state to travel.’

‘What are you saying?’ Kolyan cried indignantly. ‘It’s impossible to get drunk if you’re eating as well as drinking – and we had plenty of food!’

Apparently true to his word, Kolyan managed to pull himself together. He helped Igor pack up and even remembered the carrier bag full of mushrooms that he’d gathered at the start of the afternoon. Stumbling and swaying, they left the forest and shuffled along the road – past houses lit only from within, past windows that stood out like egg yolks, beyond which the inhabitants of Irpen were getting ready for bed.

They stopped at Igor’s gate. Kolyan flatly refused to stay the night. Igor had neither the strength nor the desire to walk his friend to the minibus stop, but Kolyan didn’t ask him to.

‘I know where it is,’ he said, and set off in the direction of the bus station.

THE PHOTOGRAPHER CALLED at around 11 a.m. the following morning. Igor thought he sounded almost too friendly.

‘Everything’s ready! The quality is magnificent, I’m sure you’ll be delighted,’ he said. ‘You’re welcome to come and collect them, preferably before two o’clock as I need to leave then – I’ve been commissioned to do a family portrait for one of the deputies.’

Why did he tell me that? thought Igor, surprised. Did he think I’d be impressed?

He slipped his mobile phone back into his pocket and looked at his watch. It would take him about an hour to get into town, to be ‘delighted’ by the ‘magnificent quality’ that awaited him there, and it was a full three hours until the photographer had to leave. Time was very much on his side, so there was no need to rush. The day felt like an echo of the night before – he didn’t have a headache or any other sign of a hangover, as such, but was consumed by listlessness.

He made himself a cup of tea, with three spoonfuls of sugar instead of his usual one. Then an instant coffee. Eventually he started preparing to leave, but when he was ready he looked at his watch and felt another wave of inertia – he didn’t even feel like moving, let alone going into town. He wandered out into the yard. The sky was gloomy and grey. He glanced over his shoulder then walked towards the shed. The door was slightly open, and there was a quiet, muffled noise coming from inside. He looked through the gap in the door and saw Stepan extracting nails from wooden boards with the end of a hammer. There were three separate piles of boards lying on the concrete floor.

Stepan glanced up at his landlady’s son.

‘You look rather the worse for wear,’ he remarked indifferently. ‘I dismantled an abandoned fence. I’m going to make a couple of storage crates. They might come in handy.’

First a new suit, now storage crates, mused Igor. ‘Where were you off to yesterday, dressed so smartly?’

‘I just went for a walk around the town. The first of many! I want people to get used to seeing me around. I’m starting a new life, and I’m here to stay.’

‘With us?’

Stepan smiled. ‘No, I’ve had enough of sleeping in sheds. I’m going to buy a house. I can afford it now. I seem to remember that you were planning on buying a motorbike, weren’t you?’

‘In the spring,’ said Igor, waving his hand airily. ‘There’s no point at the moment.’

‘True, a motorbike isn’t much use in winter,’ agreed Stepan.

By a stroke of luck, Igor was the last passenger the minibus taxi been waiting for, and it set off as soon as he got in. There was no Radio Chanson this time, but Igor barely even noticed. He was quite happy to let his mind wander – first he imagined himself buying a motorbike in the spring, then he started thinking about the photographer and his wife.

The photographer greeted Igor with a smile and offered him brandy with his coffee, which was rather unexpected. It would have been foolish to refuse such hospitality. Igor sat down on one of the soft leather armchairs and looked around the room. Over by the black screen he saw some photographs attached to a nylon cord with little multicoloured pegs. They were somebody else’s studio portraits.

‘My wife’s gone to visit her mother,’ said the photographer, approaching Igor from behind. He was carrying a tray containing two coffee cups, two brandy glasses and a bottle of Hennessy, which he placed on the coffee table. He poured brandy into the glasses, then fetched a long-handled copper coffee pot. Igor thought the coffee, as it was poured from the cezve , looked unusually thick.