Andrey Kurkov - The Gardener from Ochakov

‘Yes, we only shot one.’

The gardener reached out and took the broken knife blade from the bedside table, where the police officer had left it. He turned it over thoughtfully in his hands.

‘So you’re determined to sort this business out yourself, without any help?’ he asked calmly.

‘Yes, I’ll take care of it.’

Still holding the blade, Stepan made several sharp movements with his hand, watching the metal slice through the air. Then he held it up to his face and inspected it closely.

‘You see, just two millimetres left, it’s not completely filed through. Very risky! You’d have to be very sure of yourself to try a trick like that. You’d have to know exactly how much force to use.’

‘Why is it risky?’

‘If a knife like this hits a rib, the handle will break off too soon and the attacker will cut himself on the blade.’ He ran the tip of his forefinger along the edge of the blade. ‘And it’s sharp!’

‘So whoever stabbed me must have known he wouldn’t hit a rib,’ mused Igor.

‘Exactly,’ agreed Stepan. ‘Which means he must have stabbed you when you were already lying on the ground. And one of their rules is that if you’re attacked with a knife, you respond with a knife – you don’t use a gun!’ Stepan looked searchingly into Igor’s eyes.

‘Whose rules?’ asked Igor.

‘The rules of thieves.’

Igor recalled his last night in Ochakov.

‘Seeing as you know so much about their rules,’ he began, with something approaching respect in his voice, ‘what does “thief’s honour” mean?’

Stepan cleared his throat. ‘Well,’ he said, running his hand over his clean-shaven chin. ‘It’s stronger than “scout’s honour”, but it only works among thieves.’

‘So if a thief promised something on “thief’s honour” to someone who wasn’t a thief, then he wouldn’t have to keep his word?’

‘A thief wouldn’t promise anything on “thief’s honour” to someone who wasn’t a thief,’ declared Stepan seriously. ‘That’s against the rules.’

‘Interesting,’ murmured Igor. ‘Do you know the best way to stab someone?’

‘Yes,’ nodded Stepan.

‘Will you show me?’

‘Yes, I’ll show you, once you’ve made a full recovery. For now, you’d better get some rest.’

The gardener gave him a warm smile and left the room.

OUTSIDE IT WAS raining for the third consecutive day. Igor was initially puzzled by The Book of Food Stepan had lent him, and then he began to find it amusing. The book consisted of a seemingly random collection of strange culinary inventions, which were rather like traditional folk remedies, interspersed with solemn declarations arguing that the fate of the nation depended on the food people ate. Some of the comments were worthy of attention, whereas others were more like the ravings of a madman. The pages were covered with neat, childlike handwriting, and one page had been divided into pencil-drawn rows and columns, forming a graph. Various alimentary products had been sorted into groups under the headings ‘Enemy’, ‘Reactionary’, ‘Hostile’, ‘Benevolent’, ‘Natural’ and ‘Curative’. Igor noticed that meat products, pasta, seaweed, rice, citrus fruits and whale blubber were ‘enemy’ foods, whereas sour fruits, vinegar, herring, dried fish, halva and chocolate were considered ‘hostile’. The ‘natural’ group included buckwheat, pearl barley, millet, corn, dried peas, chickpeas and goat’s cheese.

‘Interesting chap, but clearly insane,’ murmured Igor, closing the manuscript.

He got out of bed and walked slowly and carefully over to the window. Accelerated by the inclement weather, twilight was taking over the world outside.

He thought back to Kolyan’s visit the previous day. Although his lips were still swollen and sore, his friend had smiled and cheerfully boasted that there was no longer any danger of him being ‘finished off’, because he’d been offered a deal, and fortunately for Kolyan the task could not have been easier. All he had to do was to hack into someone’s computer and copy all files and email correspondence containing any password information.

‘What are you going to get out of it?’ asked Igor.

‘His forgiveness!’ answered Kolyan.

They relaxed over a bottle of brandy that Kolyan had brought from the city, chasing it with apples that Stepan had picked from the garden.

Stepan looked in a couple of times and peered closely at Kolyan. When the time came for Kolyan to leave, he happily agreed to take the five undeveloped films and drop them off at the photography studio on Proreznaya Street.

After Kolyan left, the gardener knocked on Igor’s door.

‘Was that the banker you were telling me about?’ he asked.

‘He’s not a banker, he’s an IT specialist. He just works in a bank.’

‘Seems about the right age for my daughter,’ said Stepan, half questioningly, as though he were seeking Igor’s approval.

‘He’s not exactly marriage material,’ said Igor, looking into the gardener’s eyes with genuine concern. ‘He works as a hacker on the side, and that can be a dangerous business.’

Stepan looked puzzled. ‘What’s a hacker?’ he asked.

‘Someone who steals information from other people’s computers.’

‘You mean he’s a thief?’ asked Stepan, surprised.

‘No, he’s a hacker.’

Stepan suddenly looked suspicious. ‘Is he the one who made a promise on “thief’s honour”?’

Igor burst out laughing.

Before leaving, Stepan asked Igor what he’d thought about the manuscript.

‘Interesting, very interesting,’ nodded Igor, not wishing their conversation to end on an argument.

A faint smile appeared on Stepan’s face.

‘There are some serious messages in that book,’ he said. ‘You should read it more carefully.’

Igor’s recollections were interrupted by a lorry driving past noisily outside. He lay down again. Being confined to his bedroom, albeit temporarily, had made him desperate for company. He’d enjoyed seeing Kolyan the previous day, and talking to the gardener, but this evening seemed dull and interminable. His mother was watching television. The emergency doctor had already been and gone, noting with approval that Igor’s wound was healing remarkably quickly.

Igor was about to resign himself to switching the light off and going to sleep when Stepan knocked on the door and peeped into his room. He was wearing his new suit.

‘Igor, can I borrow your umbrella?’ he asked.

‘Where are you off to in this weather?’

‘I found a nice cafe the other day… I’m just going there for a bit.’

‘It’s in the hallway, on the coat stand,’ said Igor.

‘You mean the red one? That’s a woman’s umbrella! I’ve seen you with a black one.’

‘In there,’ he said, pointing at the wardrobe. ‘At the top.’

The gardener found the umbrella, thanked him and left.

Igor switched the light off, but he couldn’t sleep. His thoughts were in turmoil, flitting between Fima Chagin, the blade that had been left in his side as a souvenir of Ochakov, Stepan’s father Iosip and his Book of Food , and Valya and her fear. All of a sudden he could feel his mouth burning, either as a distant aftertaste or as a memory – it was the same feeling he’d had after drinking home-made vodka at Fima’s house.

Igor reluctantly got up, went into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of brandy, without bothering to switch the light on. He sat down at the table by the window to drink it.

It occurred to him that this was the time of night he usually drank brandy before putting on the police uniform and going out to walk along the road to the past, the road to Ochakov in 1957. A path that only he knew. Igor shivered with either cold or fear. He didn’t know which, until he realised that he’d come into the kitchen wearing nothing but his underpants. The little top window was wide open, and a cold, slanting rain was lashing down outside.