Eric Lustbader - Last Snow

Annika rang a bell, one of many in four long ranks next to the locked doors. A moment later, they were buzzed into an antechamber, where she was obliged to repeat the process. The dim, cathedral-like vestibule smelled of wet wool and old shoe leather. Their footsteps set up echoes, like protestations for old inequities perpetrated on the souls the building had once harbored.

The agonized groans of the tiny elevator caused Jack to say, “We’ll walk down on the way out.”

“This way,” Annika said, as they went down the dusty fourth-floor corridor, which in better times or at night would be lit by the bare bulbs screwed into cheap plastic sockets bolted into semicircular niches in the walls.

At the far end, they stopped in front of a door on which she rapped twice, then three times, then twice again. Afterward, nothing. The bellicose sounds of a TV show rolled along the hallway like a damp fog.

At length, Jack heard a scratching on the other side of the door, as of a dog or a cat. The door jerked inward and a pair of eyes magnified by wire-rimmed spectacles peered out at them from a long, sallow, emaciated face.

“Hello, Dyadya Gourdjiev.”

At the sight of Annika, the old man’s face lit up like a neon sign. “My child!” he cried as she flew into his arms. “Too long, my little one, too long!”

“What’s going on?” Alli asked. “Lazarus is too old to be her father.”

“She called him ‘uncle,’ ” Jack said. “Anyway, I think you mean Methuselah. Lazarus was the beggar Christ supposedly raised from the dead.”

“He ought to do it with this guy before he turns to dust,” Alli whispered conspiratorially.

Annika made the introductions and asked Dyadya Gourdjiev to speak English because the girl didn’t understand Russian.

“Who does?” Dyadya Gourdjiev said with a grave laugh as he welcomed them into his apartment.

Jack supposed he was expecting a broken-down musty mess, typical of old people who live on their own and, with eyesight and attention to detail failing, continue to exist in squalor without ever being aware of it. The apartment smelled of lemon oil and applewood. It held none of the sickly-sweet scent caused by the imminence of death.

True, the apartment itself was old, as was the furniture, which had been built in another age. But all the exposed wood shone, the brass and copper lamps glittered, and the floor gleamed with a new coat of wax. Not a mote of dust emerged from the deep pillows of the sofa as they sat while Dyadya Gourdjiev went into the kitchen to brew tea and set out an enormous tin of homemade cookies, “baked by my girlfriend, who happens to live next door.”

He must have been eighty if he was a day, Jack judged, but apart from the peculiar thinness of the old man and a slight stoop to his shoulders, which might just as well have stemmed from his profession rather than time, he exhibited none of the unsteadiness of body or vagueness of mind normally associated with old age.

His voice was still strong and sonorous, and his eyes—easy to examine, enlarged as they were through the twin lenses of his spectacles—twinkled and sparked like the man he must have been fifty years ago. But his skin was so thin that it appeared blue from the ropy veins that were now so close to the surface.

He made a great fuss over Alli, believing, as most people did, that she was much younger than she was. Jack thought it interesting that Alli didn’t disabuse him of his mistake. Possibly, he thought, it was out of deference to Dyadya Gourdjiev’s extreme age, but it seemed just as likely that she was in need of the coddling the old man provided without hesitation or wanting anything in return. She was not immune to his obvious pleasure in her.

When the tea had been served in glasses set in metal holders with handles, and the cookies nibbled on, at least by Alli, Dyadya Gourdjiev finally sat in a large leather chair that exuded like perfume the odors of sweet tobacco and lanolin.

“I must say, Annika, you always arrive with fascinating people in tow and under—well, what would one say—remarkable circumstances.” Dyadya Gourdjiev chuckled like a Dutch uncle. “I imagine that’s one of the reasons I so look forward to your visits.” He leaned forward and patted her hand aff ectionately. “Which, despite being exhausting, are too few and far between for this old man.”

“You’re not old,” Annika said. “You’ll never be old.”

“Ah, youth,” said Dyadya Gourdjiev, addressing everyone in the room now, “forever flirting with the concept of immortality!” He chuckled again, as if signaling that he forgave Annika her delusion. “The truth is when you get to be my age living becomes a deliberate act of will. Nothing works quite right, the mechanics, the mechanisms of the body and the mind so interconnected begin to erode, and yet we go on.” He squeezed the hand he’d just caressed. “Because of those who love us and those we love most fiercely. In the end, there’s nothing else to life, is there?”

“No, Dyadya Gourdjiev,” Annika said with tears in her eyes, “there isn’t.”

The old man took out a linen handkerchief, newly washed, pressed, and meticulously folded. Like an opthalmologist, he used one corner to soak up each tear before it slid down her cheeks. “Now, little one, tell me what mischief you’ve got up to this time.”

Annika flicked a quick complicit glance Jack’s way, possibly to warn him to keep quiet before addressing the old man. “This is one time I think saying nothing is the best option.”

For a moment Dyadya Gourdjiev said nothing. While they had chatted, sipping their tea and nibbling on sugar cookies, the light from outside was caught in the sheer lace curtains on either side of the windows, honing their outlines, lending them a substance they otherwise would never have. Now that weight gathered in the room so densely time itself seemed to slow to a crawl. Everyone—even Alli, whose attention was apt to wander—was watching Dyadya Gourdjiev for a reaction, as if they were scientists drawn to a volcano they feared would erupt after decades of uninterrupted slumber.

“I don’t like the sound of that, little one,” he said after a time during which he appeared to be struggling with his response. He pulled out a thick manila packet, which he opened. Tipping it, he slid out three passports. “Now that you’re an American, little one, you no longer need a visa to enter Ukraine, but I’ve provided one in the event you choose to be Russian once again.”

“Thank you, Dyadya Gourdjiev.”

She leaned forward, gathering up the documents, but as she moved to stuff them back into their manila envelope, the old man put a hand over hers, stopping her.

“You must answer me this, little one: Do you think I’m too old to be of help beyond what I’ve already provided?”

Annika appeared alarmed. “No, not at all, Dyadya Gourdjiev, it’s just that I . . .”

Jack immediately saw his opportunity and took it. “What Annika is trying to say is that I need some help finding someone here and she wasn’t sure she should ask you.”

Dyadya Gourdjiev took his hand away from Annika’s and sat back in his chair. He eyed Jack with a keen appraiser’s eye, honed through decades of experience. Slowly, a smile spread across his face and he lifted a forefinger, moving it back and forth through the air in mock admonishment.

“I see what you do, young man, don’t think I don’t, but—” he poked the air with the finger “—if you’re serious, let me hear what you have to say, because, after all, I’m quite certain my Annika wishes only to protect me, though the truth is I’ve never required her protection before.”

“Today is a different day, Dyadya Gourdjiev,” she said.