Andrey Kurkov - The Gardener from Ochakov

‘“Himself or his s”…’ Igor read aloud, trying to guess what Fima had been writing. Suddenly he realised. ‘Himself or his s-s-son!’ Igor was very pleased with himself for working it out. ‘His son… Iosip or his son. That’s why Iosip tattooed Stepan! It’s like the slowest ever postal service, or the slowest ever bank transfer… the criminal version of Western Union!’

Igor put the money into the white bag and looked around. The room was so familiar, he felt almost at home. Over there, opposite the little window, in the top cupboard of the dresser behind the cut-glass panels – that’s where the glasses were kept. It probably wouldn’t take him long to find the bottles, if he wanted to. But Igor didn’t feel like drinking at that particular moment.

What had she said, that old woman in Ochakov who’d put him and Stepan up that night? That they’d found Fima stabbed, with two bundles of money nearby and a note that read: ‘For a proper send-off’.

Igor picked up the pencil. He walked over to the dresser and pulled the top drawer towards him. Among the assorted odds and ends, postcards and sets of fishing hooks, he saw three police station attendance forms.

‘Interesting,’ murmured Igor.

He picked up one of the forms and turned it over. The back of it was completely blank. He placed it on the table, bent over it and wrote painstakingly in pencil, ‘For a proper send-off’.

Igor walked over to Fima’s body. He took two bundles of roubles out of the bag and put them next to his head, then placed the note on his chest.

‘Now there’s one less forester in the world,’ he whispered, looking at Chagin’s body as impassively as if it were a patch of grass or a stone.

It had grown colder outside by the time he left. On his way back to Vanya’s house Igor kept stopping, thinking that he’d forgotten something, that there was something he should be carrying. Then he remembered that he was no longer holding the knife and he felt calmer, knowing that he would never need it again. He couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed that the handle hadn’t broken off, like it was supposed to, but he was consoled by the idea that it was because he’d stabbed Chagin like a ‘gardener’, not like a ‘forester’.

There will be no more knives in my life, thought Igor. Filed down or not. From now on, everything in my life is going to be beautiful.

The word ‘beautiful’ made him think about Red Valya. He wanted to see her, even in her mourning outfit. He wanted to comfort her, because she was no longer able to pity her husband and her pity had been stronger than love. She was probably at home right now, all alone. Sleeping or crying… No, he would never see her again! He would never come back to this time or this place. But there was nothing to stop him writing her a note, or even leaving her some money… Yes, he would ask Kolyan to go and see her, to introduce himself. Maybe Kolyan would fall in love with her and replace her husband, her fisherman, who enabled her to do what she loved best – selling fish at the market. Maybe she would feel as sorry for Kolyan as she had for her murdered husband, and Kolyan would benefit from the strength of her pity a hundred times more than he would from her love.

Igor pushed the front door open, then walked through to the room with the old sofa. He took his boots off, undressed and lay down, covering himself carefully with the blanket he’d left on the stool earlier.

Even on the brink of sleep he continued to think about Valya and Kolyan’s future together, as though his imaginary scenarios would inevitably lead to a wedding in real life. Once he’d finished deciding their destiny, his thoughts turned to Alyona, the gardener’s daughter. He fell asleep thinking about her.

IGOR WAS WOKEN by a loud cough nearby. He opened his eyes and reached out a hand to the reading lamp on his bedside table.

The dim light was gentle enough not to startle him. It just nudged the pre-dawn greyness back out of the window. Igor was lying in his own bedroom. Kolyan was sleeping on the mattress in the corner. He was no longer coughing but lay still, wheezing almost with every breath. At the head of the mattress on the floor stood a glass containing some of Elena Andreevna’s liqueur. A little further away, by the wall, stood two empty bottles and one that was half full.

Igor sat up in bed. His head was buzzing, but as soon as his eyes came to rest on Kolyan the noise receded. It was replaced by a number of vague, unformed thoughts and a distinct sense of pity. Igor felt sorry for Kolyan, but only mildly. Kolyan clearly deserved more pity, and more sympathy. His hacking skills had backfired somewhat, leaving him with a closed-head injury and in fear of his life. As a result he was having to get used to the idea of entering into a different reality that wasn’t really any more humane than the one he knew. There would still be threats and dangers, just of a different kind. At the same time Igor felt slightly envious of his friend. It was only a niggling feeling, but he couldn’t ignore it. Say the happy future Igor had imagined for Kolyan and Valya really did involve a wedding, and say they asked Vanya Samokhin to be their wedding photographer… Then their happiness could turn out to be considerably greater than Igor’s own vague, imagined happiness. It was a lot easier to imagine Kolyan and Valya’s good fortune and, equally, to believe in the reality of it. Igor hadn’t yet allowed himself to fantasise about his own future in such detail. Maybe now would be a good time to start.

He forced himself to file away his virtual portrait of Valya, with her bold, ardent eyes, and summoned up a mental snapshot of Alyona instead. Alyona’s image was calm and gentle. She had no wish to compete with an outspoken market seller. Alyona was a ‘gardener’ – hard-working, quiet and modest. Valya, on the other hand, was a ‘forester’. This distinction helped Igor to balance the two worlds in his mind, and by extension he naturally came to think of them as the ‘world of gardeners’ and the ‘world of foresters’. His envy of Kolyan evaporated, as did the pity he had previously felt for him. Kolyan was a ‘forester’, and he would almost certainly be at home in the ‘world of foresters’ – as much as he was here, if not more so.

As though he sensed someone thinking about him, Kolyan turned over onto his side, facing Igor. He raised his head slightly and reached out for the glass, then brought it to his lips and drank. When he put the glass back down, he noticed Igor in the light of the reading lamp.

‘Are you back already?’ he croaked.

‘Yes,’ nodded Igor.

‘So when am I going?’

‘Tonight.’

Later that morning, after a breakfast of sausages and buckwheat on the floor with Kolyan, Igor went off to help Stepan again. Stepan was in a good mood, singing what sounded like military marches to himself while he worked. After lunch, made by Alyona, they carried on working on the first floor of the new building.

‘What are all these going to be?’ asked Igor, referring to the rooms they had just finished emptying of rubbish and the remains of building materials.

Just at that moment, Alyona went into one of the rooms with a bucket and floorcloth and started wiping down the new parquet, which was covered in building dust.

‘Bedrooms,’ answered Stepan. ‘There’s going to be a cafe downstairs, and the owners are going to live upstairs.’

‘Four bedrooms?’ Igor couldn’t contain his surprise. ‘Plus the ones in the old house…’

‘The old house is for the old owner, for me,’ smiled Stepan. ‘And the new one is for the new owner and her family. Incidentally, I’ve got a proposal for you.’