Andrey Kurkov - The Gardener from Ochakov

‘Hey, what are you doing here?’ called Igor.

Kolyan couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from at first. He moved towards the house and eventually spotted his friend.

‘Open up, quickly!’ he hissed. His voice was shaking, as though he were shivering from the cold.

‘Go to the front door,’ said Igor. He climbed down from the stool without taking his eyes off his friend.

As soon as Kolyan was inside the house, he threw his bag to the floor and locked the door behind him.

‘Has something happened?’ Igor asked him.

Kolyan nodded. He noticed Igor’s mother in the depths of the hallway.

‘I’m sorry to come so late,’ he said hurriedly.

‘I’m going back to bed,’ said Igor’s mother.

‘Bring some chairs or stools out here,’ whispered Kolyan. ‘We need to talk.’

‘Let’s go and sit in the kitchen,’ suggested Igor.

Kolyan shook his head. ‘I’d rather not be near any windows.’

Igor didn’t move. He was staring in astonishment at his friend, who was dressed strangely and too warmly for autumn. Kolyan was wearing winter boots with ski trousers tucked into them, a warm padded jacket zipped up to the chin and a black ski hat.

‘Hey,’ said Kolyan, ‘did you hear me?’

Igor nodded. He brought two stools. Kolyan sat down heavily on one of them.

‘Why don’t you take your things off?’ suggested Igor. ‘And I’ll go and put some on. It’s a bit chilly out here!’

He went into his bedroom and put on a tracksuit, then went back out to the hallway. Kolyan was sitting on the stool exactly where he’d left him, except the ski hat was now lying on his lap. He was looking up at the overhead light.

‘Switch it off,’ he said.

Igor flicked the switch and sat down opposite his friend, blinded by the sudden darkness.

‘So,’ he muttered, ‘are we going to talk like this?’

‘Yeah,’ whispered Kolyan, ‘I’m afraid so. I’m scared… You’re not going to believe it… I was nearly killed!’

‘Who was it this time?’ asked Igor.

‘The same guys,’ said Kolyan, unzipping his jacket. It made a sinister sound in the silence, like the hissing of a snake. ‘You know how I told you that guy was going to let me off, in exchange for a load of files and email correspondence…’

‘I remember.’

‘Well, I did everything he wanted but then he went back on his word… He handed me over to the enemy! Turns out it was all just a game.’

‘Businessmen don’t kill people,’ said Igor, who suddenly felt cold, in spite of the tracksuit he’d put on.

‘Depends what kind of business they’re in… A sniper tried to shoot me when I was sitting in the kitchen. Can you imagine? I’d just leaned back so I could reach the kettle without standing up, and suddenly there was a hole in the window and a bullet whizzing right past my ear like a metal bee, bzzz! I felt the heat of it.’

Kolyan touched his left ear. ‘Go on, feel it,’ he whispered.

‘Why?’ asked Igor, surprised. ‘So what are you going to do now?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Kolyan. He sounded desperate. ‘I can’t go back to Kiev. I can’t go home… I can’t go anywhere! They won’t leave me alone. I had a look at the files before I handed them over, you know, and it was all about money, big money… That banker, the one whose computer I hacked into, had done a runner with his bank’s money. Overseas… Do you get it? I’m dead!’

‘Well, you can stay here for a bit.’

‘Thanks,’ said Kolyan bitterly. ‘But if they start intimidating people to find out where I might be hiding, anyone who knows me would immediately give your name.’

‘Not immediately, I hope,’ said Igor.

‘On top of everything else, I’ve got a splitting headache,’ said Kolyan, rubbing his right temple.

‘We’d better think of something,’ whispered Igor. ‘We’ve got to sort this out.’

‘Please do! I’m your problem now,’ said Kolyan, in the voice of a doomed man.

‘Let’s go into my room,’ suggested Igor.

Kolyan stayed where he was and said nothing.

‘Do you want some brandy?’

Kolyan liked this idea, so Igor went into the kitchen and fetched a bottle of Koktebel brandy and two glasses.

They drank in silence. Igor could tell that Kolyan was on a mission to get drunk, and he was so focused on topping up his friend’s glass that he barely sipped from his own.

Finally, Kolyan relaxed enough to agree to go into Igor’s bedroom. Leaving his jacket and boots in the hallway, he insisted that they sit on the floor of the bedroom, as far as possible from the window.

‘Have you got anything else to drink?’ he asked.

‘We’re out of brandy, but there’s some of Ma’s home-made wormwood liqueur.’

‘Let’s have some of that!’

Again they drank in silence. Or rather Kolyan did, because he was the only one drinking, but no matter how much he drank he couldn’t get drunk.

‘What am I going to do?’ he asked, his voice faltering slightly. ‘You’ve got no idea… Life has just been one long headache since I ended up in that hospital.’

‘Since you got beaten up, you mean,’ said Igor. ‘It’s not the hospital’s fault. They were just looking after you.’

Kolyan ignored him.

‘If only I could get away from it all, go abroad somewhere… But how, and where? They’d still find me. Oh, I’m so sick of all this!’

‘You need to go somewhere they’ll never be able to reach you,’ mused Igor.

‘South America?’ whispered Kolyan. ‘I’d die of boredom. Or tequila.’

Igor shook his head. ‘No, not South America…’

The two friends sat in silence. The little top window was open, and they could hear the distant drone of an aeroplane high in the sky.

‘Say something!’ whispered Kolyan, his lips trembling. ‘Think of something! You haven’t got very long… Maybe a day, at most. That sniper’s obviously been paid to do the job, and he’ll keep on trying until he gets me!’

‘Come on, let me make you up a bed in here, on the floor,’ suggested Igor. ‘You can have a sleep, and I’ll have a think.’

Kolyan nodded his assent. He lay down on the thin mattress from the folding bed and fell asleep immediately, without taking off his ski outfit. Igor brought Kolyan’s bag into his bedroom. He lay down on his own bed and stared at the ceiling, listening to the agitated breathing of his sleeping friend.

Maybe I should ask Stepan if Kolyan could stay at the new house for a while? thought Igor. He could give them a hand with the building work at the same time.

He imagined Kolyan carrying a sack of building debris out of the house, while Stepan and Alyona were painting inside… Suddenly, a black jeep pulled up by the fence, with the men who were looking for Kolyan inside. How did they know he was here, at Stepan’s house?

The more Igor thought about it, the more complicated the problem seemed to be. The combination of stress and fatigue was making his head ache. He rubbed his right temple with his fingers, and as he did so he remembered Kolyan complaining of a headache in the hallway and rubbing his temple in the same way.

‘What’s the answer? What’s the answer? Come on, brain, think!’ muttered Igor. He was yawning, on the point of surrendering to sleep but still trying to keep his eyes open.

‘A distant border,’ he whispered, his voice already fading.

As Igor’s eyes began to close, he saw an image of Red Valya – her beautiful face terrified by Chagin, her large eyes full of despair. Igor rarely saw fear in people’s faces or heard fear in their voices, but recently there had been a lot of it about.

His eyelids snapped open as an idea occurred to him.