Andrey Kurkov - The Gardener from Ochakov

I have to send him back to Ochakov in 1957, thought Igor. The rush of adrenalin that accompanied this idea made him break out into a cold sweat. Yes! He can put the uniform on, I’ll tell him everything!

Igor raised himself up on his elbows. He looked at Kolyan, asleep on the thin mattress, then he sat up and put his feet on the wooden floor.

He doesn’t believe any of it, thought Igor, hesitating briefly as the shadow of a doubt surfaced in his mind. But what’s the alternative? Igor grinned, chasing the doubt away. This is our only hope!

He walked over to Kolyan and squatted down by his head.

‘Get up,’ he whispered.

But Kolyan was out for the count, his sleep strengthened by brandy and home-made wormwood liqueur. Igor shook him by the shoulder. Kolyan mumbled something and turned his head away.

‘Get up, or I’ll switch the light on,’ Igor said firmly and confidently.

Kolyan raised his head and looked round.

‘What?’ he whispered.

‘Get up, I’ve had an idea.’

Kolyan sat up on the mattress with his mouth open. His head dropped towards his shoulder, and his eyes looked as though they were about to close again.

‘Listen to me… You need to go to Ochakov! You’ll be able to start a new life there.’

‘Not that old nonsense again.’ Kolyan sighed heavily. ‘Seriously, you woke me up just to tell me that?’

‘You need to look at it a different way,’ urged Igor. His voice was enthusiastic and persuasive. ‘Let’s assume that you’re already dead… It’ll be like going to a world beyond the grave. They’re all dead too, from the present-day point of view at least. But back there, they’re still alive!’

‘OK,’ nodded Kolyan, suddenly more receptive.

‘So you can go and join them and live… well, the rest of your life. You won’t meet anyone from here, and if you do, then you won’t even know about it.’

Kolyan nodded again. ‘Tell me more,’ he said.

‘Do you really want to know?’ asked Igor doubtfully.

‘Yes. If it’s the only option, then yes… I’ll go, I’ll go back to the past… I’ll be dead soon anyway, so what difference does it make? No, seriously, I do want to know.’ He looked up at Igor.

‘You’ll believe it when you get there,’ said Igor, with conviction. ‘I’ll give you some photos… you’ll be able to recognise people from them. Someone’ll meet you, help you settle in. Get your things ready.’

‘What for?’ asked Kolyan in alarm.

‘The first commuter train to Kiev is in an hour. That photographer has developed some photos for me. I haven’t seen them yet. I’ll be able to show you the town and the people… I’m in some of the photos too. You still don’t believe me, do you?’

‘I do,’ Kolyan said weakly, almost helplessly. ‘At least, I’m starting to believe you… But what if I get killed there?’

‘In Ochakov?’

‘No, in Kiev.’

‘Killers don’t get up this early. We’ll get a taxi straight back here. I’ll call the photographer right now. He’ll be fine with it, I’m sure he will.’

Igor listened to the outgoing ringtone on his mobile phone for about five minutes. Several times the phone cut itself off, and each time Igor redialled. Eventually the photographer answered

‘Who is it?’ he asked sleepily.

‘It’s Igor, about the exhibition.’

‘What time is it?’

‘I’m sorry, I know it’s early, but I need to ask you something… Have you printed the photographs yet?’

‘The large-format prints? Yes. They’re drying.’

‘Do you live near the studio?’

‘Yes, on the next street.’

‘I’ve got a friend with me, and I need to show him the photographs urgently. Can we come and see them in a couple of hours?’

‘Well,’ the photographer began hesitantly. He was obviously still not fully awake. ‘I suppose so, it’s just that –’

‘We’ll give you a call when we get there,’ said Igor.

‘Fine,’ was all the photographer managed to say before Igor hung up.

GETTING KOLYAN OUT of the house in his morose, drunken state was no easy task. Igor tried persuading him gently, then talking to him sternly. Eventually he fetched Kolyan’s padded winter coat from the hallway and forced him to put it on. He made him pull the warm hood with its fake fur trim over his head and pull the drawstring around it taut, leaving just a small gap for his eyes. Then Igor took a vial of bright green antiseptic ointment from the medical kit and painted the visible part of his friend’s face green. Kolyan decided to cooperate. Either that or he could no longer be bothered to resist.

‘They’ll think you’re a drunk and that you’ve been beaten up,’ said Igor, helping his friend to stand up so he could look at himself in the mirror. ‘Honestly, I wouldn’t recognise you!’ He looked at Kolyan’s reflection – a pair of eyes, apparently bruised, staring vacantly out of the ‘burrow’ formed by the tightly pulled drawstring of the hood.

‘Yeah,’ sighed Kolyan. His voice sounded lost and helpless. Igor knew that he had to seize the moment and drag his friend out into the yard before he gathered the strength to stand his ground or to panic in the face of his destiny.

‘What about my bag? It’s got my laptop in it,’ protested Kolyan, looking back at the front door as Igor pushed him towards the gate.

‘Don’t worry, we’ll be back here in a couple of hours.’

Kolyan didn’t speak for the rest of the journey. To begin with, he walked quite energetically. Only the closely drawn hood betrayed his fear. After a little while, clearly overheating, he released the drawstring and greedily inhaled the cool, moist air.

The first commuter train was almost empty. They had the whole carriage to themselves. Kolyan sat on one of the wooden benches and tightened his hood again. Thanks to Igor’s newly discovered artistic talent, Kolyan’s face was genuinely unrecognisable – he looked like a typical alcoholic, on the well-trodden path to becoming a tramp and thereafter to the eternity of winter, to a blizzard and a snowdrift from which there is no return. The brandy and home-made liqueur he’d consumed helpfully reinforced this impression. Igor smiled as he admired his own handiwork and the effects of the antiseptic ointment.

‘You don’t look like yourself at all,’ Igor whispered to his friend.

‘I’m never going to look like myself again,’ Kolyan muttered gloomily.

He seemed to be starting to sober up, but the return to sobriety is a lengthy process and not even the walk from the station to Proreznaya Street was enough to turn Kolyan back into a normal, fully functional human being.

As they passed the Opera, Igor called the photographer and told him that they would be there in ten minutes.

When they arrived, the photographer was already waiting for them in the courtyard. He was yawning, and his eyes were still adjusting to the light of the breaking day. He looked alarmed at the sight of Kolyan, but his expression softened when he saw Igor and he visibly relaxed.

‘Everything’s nearly ready,’ said the photographer, opening the door. ‘Would you like a coffee, perhaps?’

‘I think we could all do with a coffee,’ nodded Igor.

Igor-the-photographer hung his all-weather hunting jacket on a hook near the door and disappeared into the kitchen.

Igor beckoned Kolyan into the living room and reached his hand out to the wall. There was a click, and light flooded the room. In front of them, a number of photographs had been attached to makeshift washing lines with plastic pegs and were moving gently, as though they were swaying in a breeze.

‘What are those?’ murmured Kolyan.