Ghostwritten Part 22

'Rudi! How could you? This is where you and I and Nemya live!'

I opened the kitchen door and felt like I'd entered a piece of theatre. Standing against the window with his back to me stood a short, dark, lithe man. He was wearing Rudi's dressing gown, one I'd made for him out of scarlet flannel, and was inspecting Rudi's gun. I heard myself say, 'Huh?' 'Huh?'

Moments pa.s.sed before he turned around. 'Good evening, Miss Latunsky. Thank you for your hospitality. It's good to revisit your majestic city.' Perfect Russian, an accent dusty with Central Asia. Nemya yowled for her supper behind me. 'Your little cat and I are already acquainted. She considers me her very own Uncle Suhbataar. I hope you will do the same.'

My gallery is empty now, so I walk over to the window to stretch my legs. A storm is coming, and the air is stretched tight like the skin of a drum. Walking to work today, the city felt left to brew. The Neva is sultry, turgid as an oil spill. An election is being held next week, and vans with tinny tannoys are driving around the city talking about reform and integrity and trust.

A mosquito buzzes in my ear. I splat it. A smear of human blood oozed from its fuselage. I look for somewhere to wipe it and choose the curtain. The guide is approaching, so I quickly sit down again. The guide turns the corner, speaking j.a.panese. I catch the word 'Delacroix'. In eight days the same guide will be saying the same things waving the same pointy stick at a completely different picture, and only six people in the world Rudi, myself, Jerome, Gregorski, that Suhbataar man, and the buyer in Beijing will ever know. Jerome says the perfect crime is that which n.o.body knows has been committed. The Sheep nod. Inside, I snicker. They've already taken photographs of several fakes today. And paid their foreigner's price for the privilege.

A little girl walks over to me and offers me a sweet. She says something in j.a.panese and shakes the bag. She looks about eight, and is clearly bored by our wonders of the Renaissance world. Her skin is the colour of coffee with a dash of cream. Her hair is pleated, and she's in her best dress, strawberry red with white lace. Her big sister sees her, and giggles, and several of the adults turn around. I take a sweet, and one of the j.a.panese cameras flashes. That annoys me about Asians. They'll photograph anything. But what a beautiful smile the little girl has! For a moment I'd like to take her home. Little girls are like old cats. If they don't like you nothing on Earth will make them pretend to.

My Kremlin official lover insisted that I had the abortion. I didn't want to. I was scared of the operation. The priests and old women had always said there was a gulag in h.e.l.l for women who killed their babies. But I was more scared of being cast off by my lover and winding up in the gutter, so I gave way. He didn't want to risk bad publicity: an illegitimate child would have been evidence of our affair, and although everyone knew corruption and scandal kept the Soviet Union ticking, appearances had to be kept up for the plebs. Otherwise, why bother? I knew that doing it would make my mother howl with shame in her grave, and that was a pleasing thought.

Most women had one or two abortions during their lifetime, it was no big deal. I had it done at the old Party hospital over at Movskovsky Prospect, so the quality of care should have been better than that for ordinary women. It wasn't. I don't know what went wrong. I kept bleeding for days afterwards, and when I went back to see the doctor, he refused to see me, and the receptionist got security to escort me out. They just left me on the steps, screaming, until there was no more anger left and there was nothing to do but sob. I remember the cropped elm trees leading down to the waterfront, dripping in the rain. I tried to get my lover to pull strings, but he'd lost interest in me by that point, I think. He'd come to see me as a liability. Two weeks later he dumped me, at the tea shop in the Party department store. His wife had somehow found out about my pregnancy. He said that if I didn't keep my mouth shut and go quietly he'd have my housing reallocated. I'd become damaged goods. I'd damaged his conscience.

I kept my mouth shut. When I could eventually see a gynaecologist he took one look and said that he hoped I never planned to have children. He was a stubbly man who smelt of vodka, so I didn't believe him. There was some iron cow of a counsellor there, who said it was an old bourgeois conceit that dictated the only role in life for women was to provide for capitalists to exploit, but I told her I didn't need her advice and I walked out. A year later, I read about my lover's heart attack in Pravda. Pravda.

I tell Rudi that I take the pill, because he made it known pretty early on that he thought condoms were only fit for animals. Who knows what can happen in Switzerland? The air is clean there, and the water pure. Maybe Swiss gynaecologists can do things that Russian ones can't. A little girl, half-Rudi, half-me, running around in the wildflowers. Ah, she'll be beautiful. And then there'll be a younger brother, and Rudi can teach him how to hunt in the mountains while I teach our little Kitten how to cook. We're going to learn how to make bird's nest soup, which Jerome says they eat in China.

Head Curator Rogorshev seems to have been avoiding me today, even though tonight's the night of our regular liaison. Fine by me. The Delacroix will be our last picture Rudi promised. Rudi says he's beginning to tie up loose business ends. He says he can't do it overnight, and of course I understand. Rudi explained the situation to Gregorski, and tolerated no 'ifs' or 'buts', so Gregorski had no choice but to bow down. If necessary, Rudi said, I can go on ahead and stay in the best hotel in Switzerland for a few weeks until he can join me. That would be nice. I could surprise him by buying the chalet first and having it ready for when he's sold his a.s.sets for the best possible price. As well as his pizza place and, of course, the modelling agency that I work in when I'm not doing the Hermitage he runs a taxi company, a construction company, an importexport business, has a share in a gym and is a sleeping partner for a group of nightclubs, where he handles security and insurance and such things. Rudi's a friend of the President. The President said that Rudi is one of the new breed of Russians who are navigating the New Russia through the choppy waters of the new century.

My gallery is empty again. I stroll over to the window. Giant gulls are shouldering the wind. The weather will soon be changing for the worse. I admire my reflection in the gla.s.s. It's true, what Rudi said last night, after we'd made love for the third time: as I age, I get younger. It's not an everyday beauty I have, out of a powder compact or shampoo bottle. It's more molecular than that. Wide, luscious lips, and a neck with curves that my admiral compared to a swan's. After dallying with platinum hair, I returned to my native auburn, the bronze of tribal jewellery. I got my looks from my mother, though Christ knows she gave me nothing else. My talents as an actress and dancer I must have inherited from some ill.u.s.trious, forgotten, ancestor. My eyes, deep sea green, I inherited from my father, who, in his day, was a famous movie director, now deceased. He never acknowledged me publicly. I choose not to let his name be known. I respect his wishes. Anyway, my eyes. Rudi says he could dive into them and never resurface. Did you know, I entered the Leningrad Academy of Arts as an actress? Doubtless if I'd chosen to I could have gone all the way to the top. My Politburo lover discovered me there, in the early stage of my career, and we entered the wider stage of society life together. We used to dance the tango. I can still dance, but Rudi prefers discos. I find them a bit common. Full of s.l.u.ts and tarts who are only interested in men for their power and money. The Swiss have more cla.s.s. In Switzerland, Rudi will beg me to teach him.

Jerome can't bear the sight of his own reflection, he once confessed after drinking a bottle of cheap sherry, and he's never owned a mirror. I asked him why. He told me that whenever he looks into one he sees a man inside it, and thinks, 'Who in G.o.d's name are you?'

The serpent is still there, coiled snug round the warty tree- Christ above!

My dream's just come back to me.

I was hiding in a tunnel. There was something evil down there, somewhere. Two people ran past, both slitty-eyed, a man and a woman. The man wanted to save the woman from the evil. He had grabbed her arm and they were running, faster than gas in air currents. I followed them, because the man seemed to know the way out, but then I lost track. I found myself on a bare hill with a sky smeared with oil paint and comets and chimes. I realised I was looking at the foot of the cross. There were the dice that the Romans had been using to divide Jesus' clothes. As I looked, the cross started sinking. There was the nail, hammered clean through Jesus' feet. His thighs, creamy and bloodless as alabaster. The loincloth, the wound in His side, the arms outstretched and the hands hammered in, and there staring straight back at me was the grinning face of the devil, and in that moment I knew that Christianity had been one horrible, sick, two-thousand-year-old joke.

Gutbucket Barbara Petrovich came to take my place while I went for a tea-break. As usual, she said not a word. Pious and holier-than-thou, just like my mother on her deathbed. I walked down my marbled hallways. A shuffler with a guidebook garbled at me in a foreign language, but I ignored it. Past my dragons of jade and blood-red stone, through my domed chambers of gold leaf, under my Olympian G.o.ds, there's Mercury, living by his wits, down long rooms of blue sashes and silver braid and mother-of-pearl inlaid tables and velvet slippers, and down sooty back stairs and anterooms and into the murky staff canteen, where Tatyana was stirring chocolate powder into warm milk, all alone.

'h.e.l.lo, Tatyana! You've been exiled here too?'

'I take my break whenever I choose. Chocolate? Forget your waistline for today. Put some sugar into your blood.'

'Ah, go on then. What the h.e.l.l.' I sat down, felt too hot, stood up and the legs of my chair shrieked against the tiles. I opened the windows through the iron bars, but it didn't make much difference. Outside and inside were the same. There was a tank in the square outside, and lots of people moving very slowly. The outer edges of a whirlpool.

'You seem a little agitated today, Margarita,' ventured Tatyana.

I longed to tell her about Switzerland. I longed to tell her everything, and I almost did. 'Really? I've been thinking about taking a little holiday, as a matter of fact... Maybe abroad... I don't know where...'

Tatyana lit me a cigarette. Her fingers were beautiful.

We listened to the drone of a distant boiler, and the slosh of a cleaner's mop in the corridor outside. I wondered if Tatyana was a pianist, with fingers like that.

'It's strange and it makes me sad,' I thought aloud, 'that a place carries on without you after you've left.'

Tatyana nodded. 'It's the world slapping you in the face and saying, "Look, honeybunch, I get along without you very well." The sea does the same thing, but n.o.body lives there. It hurts more if it's a place where you've grown up, or worked, or fallen in love.'

Tatyana's chocolate sweetened my tongue to its roots. 'Sometimes I imagine that I'll walk out into the corridor and b.u.mp into an eighteenth-century Count of Archangel.'

Tatyana laughed. 'And what does the Count of Archangel want with Margarita Latunsky?'

'Well, it depends. Sometimes he wants me to show him the way to the Empress's chambers for a tryst. Sometimes he wants to paint me in oils, and hang me in his gallery. Other times he wants to drag me back to his four-poster bed, to ravish me so utterly that I can't walk for three days.'

'Do you ever put up a struggle?'

And I laughed. A tap started dripping in the back kitchen.

'You appear to imagine a lot of things.'

'Rudi says so too.'

'Who's Rudi?'

'My friend.'

Tatyana crossed her legs, and I heard her tights rustle. 'Your man?'

I like Tatyana being curious about me. I like Tatyana. 'In a manner of speaking...'

'What does he do?' Tatyana finds Margarita Latunsky worthy of her curiosity.

'He's a local businessman.'

'Oh, him! him! You mentioned him when we went out last week...' You mentioned him when we went out last week...'

'I did?'

Tatyana uncrossed her legs, and I heard her tights rustle. 'Sure... but go on, tell me all about him...'

'There's a storm closing in.'

I nodded. A cavern-pool quietness.

'Tatyana, you didn't mean it the other day when you said that love doesn't exist?'

'I'm sorry it upset you so much.'

'No, you didn't upset me. But I've been thinking. If there's no love, what keeps love in a different cage from evil?'

'I knew you had promise, the moment I saw you. That is is an astute question.' an astute question.'

'You told me a secret. Can you keep a secret about me?'

'I am one.'

'I'm a lapsed Christian. My mother used to smuggle me into clandestine services when I was a teenager. Before Brezhnev died, you understand. If you were caught, two years prison, straight out. Even owning a Bible was illegal.'

Tatyana wasn't looking remotely surprised.

'I guess this isn't really a secret, it's more of a story. I remember a sermon. A traveller went on a journey with an angel. They entered a house with many floors. The angel opened one door, and in it was a room with one long low bench running around the walls, crammed with people. In the centre was a table piled with sweetmeats. Each guest had a very long silver spoon, as long as a man is tall. They were trying to feed themselves, but of course they couldn't the spoons were too long, and the food kept falling off. So in spite of there being enough food for everyone, everyone was hungry. "This," explained the angel, "is h.e.l.l. The people do not love each other. They only want to feed themselves."

'Then the angel took the traveller to another room. It was exactly the same as the first, only this time instead of trying to feed themselves, the guests used their spoons to feed one another, across the room. "Here," said the angel, "the people think only of one another. And by doing so, they feed themselves. Here is heaven."'

Tatyana thought for a moment. 'There's no difference.'

'No difference?'

'No difference. Everybody both in heaven and h.e.l.l wanted one and the same thing: meat in their bellies. But those in heaven got their s.h.i.+t together better. That's all.' And she laughed, but I couldn't. My expression made Tatyana add, 'I'm truly sorry, Margarita...'

The minutes are hauling themselves by like a shot Hollywood gangster crawling down a corridor.

I know my Rudi's business sometimes demands a tough line, but there's a difference between a.s.sertiveness and violence, just as there's a difference between a businessman and a gangster. I never delude myself. My Rudi can adopt a very direct manner. But what do people expect if they default on legitimate loans? Rudi can't give money away, he's not a charity. People understand the terms when they take on the loans, and if they don't keep their end of the bargain, then my Rudi is quite within his rights to take whatever action is necessary to ensure that he and his partners are not out of pocket at the end of the day. It's incredible how some people find that so hard to understand. I remember about two years ago, shortly after Rudi agreed to move in with me, he came back late one night with a knife gash down his neck the length of a pencil. A loan defaulter, he'd explained. Blood was oozing out, thick and sticky like toothpaste. Rudi refused to go to hospital, so I had to staunch the bleeding myself, with one of my ripped-up cotton blouses. The hospitals are for the needy, he said. He's so brave.

After that night, Rudi got himself a gun, and I got myself some bandages.

Clouds and the distant Alps in the blue afternoon, ice cream and eiderdown. It was siesta time in the Garden of Eden, the drowsiness was murmury in the groves. Insects wound up and unwound. Eve was coming to a decision.

'Ask your desire what you want,' hissed the snake.

'It's a big step. Exile, menstruation, toil, childbirth. I've got one last question.'

'Fire away,' said the serpent.

'Why do you hate G.o.d?'

The serpent smiled, and painted spirals in the air, down onto Eve's lap. 'Be so good as to tickle my throat, would you, my dear? Yess, I knew...'

Eve loved the flecks of emerald and ruby in the serpent's golden scales. 'Then give me an astute answer.'

'That fruit you're holding, Eve, that plump, juicing, yielding b.u.t.tock of fruit, in its flesh you are going to discover all the knowledge you desire. Why do I hate G.o.d? Zoroastra, Manichean heresies, Jungian archetypes, Thingysky's pyramid, virtual particles, from whence serpentine sybillance, immortality... Why do things happen the way they do? All you have to do...' The serpent's eyes whirlpooled like the kaleidoscopes of Nostradamus, '...is to wrap your soft lipsss around the juicy beauty, bite hard, and see what happens!'

Eve closed her eyes and opened her mouth.

An amba.s.sadorial convoy just graced my Delacroix gallery. Amba.s.sadors are idiots who possess only one skill: outkowtowing one another at official functions. I know. I saw enough in action in my power-politics days. There was the Head of Security, a Cultural Attache, The Director of the Winter Palace, Head Curator Rogorshev who pretended not to notice me a multi-lingual translator and eight amba.s.sadors. I knew which countries they were from because I'd typed the invitations myself. The French one I could tell straight off because he kept interrupting the translator to point things out to everyone else. The German one kept looking at his watch. I caught the Italian one looking at my b.r.e.a.s.t.s and neck. The British one kept nodding politely at the pictures and saying 'Delightful', the American was videoing the tour as though he owned the place, and the Australian kept taking crafty swigs from his hip flask. That left the Belgian and the Dutch amba.s.sadors, and I couldn't tell one from the other but who cares anyway? They each had their own bodyguard. G.o.d knows why anyone thought these nonent.i.ties needed bodyguards. I've known a fair few in my time, too. Much more fun than amba.s.sadors.

The air-conditioner judders on. Its innards sound queasy.

Tatyana whisked me onwards, but the Thewlicker's goose between her legs flew faster than mine, and vanished honking down a fire escape, a sooty pot-holder swinging from its foot. Catherine the Great sailed by on a royal barge. She was decomposing and full of holes and muddy, but I had a bottle of extra virgin olive oil which I poured into her orifices. Light shone out of her and she sat up, fully restored.

'Ma'am,' I curtsied.

'Ah, Margarita, and how are we tonight? The Count of Archangel asked us to convey his felicitations, and grat.i.tude. We gather you rendered him some a.s.sistance the other night.'

'It was my pleasure, your majesty.'

'One last eeny-weeny thing, Miss Latunsky.'

'Majesty?'

'We know that you're spiriting our pictures away from under our very noses. We are prepared to overlook your misdemeanours to date. We're the same breed, you and us, Miss Latunsky. We admire your sense of style. Heaven only knows, in this world a woman has to take opportunity by the horns whenever it comes calling, but we are warning you. Plots are being hatched in the palace. The time has come to cut and run. If you take another picture, the price will be pain and anguish beyond your imaginings.'

I woke up with a start to see a peeping Tom staring at me.

'What do you think you're staring at, you f.a.ggot f.a.ggot?'

He zigzagged off, looking over his shoulder once or twice.

I don't understand why I'm so drowsy today. It must be this weather, this storm that refuses to break. It's like being locked in a cleaning cupboard.

Rudi and I have always enjoyed a very liberal relations.h.i.+p. Don't be fooled by appearances! He's an uncut diamond, and the love we have for each other runs deep, strong, and true. The lovers I took before Rudi were older men, who used to protect and nurture me. I won't deny that Rudi brings out a maternal streak in me. But the bulls.h.i.+t that says a woman has to be one man's slave and never even look at another man, that died out with my mother's two-faced generation and good riddance! If she really believed that, where did I come from? Both Rudi and I go on dates with other people: quite informally, and it doesn't mean anything. In Rudi's work, escorts are often a necessary part of the right image. I don't mind. He couldn't conduct his business if he didn't have the right image. It's not that I'm getting too old to go with Rudi or anything, it's just that I've done all that scene before, and frankly, it bores me. Usually, Rudi introduces me to some of his gentleman friends, always men of the very highest predigree, and always very rich, as you'd expect. Rudi knows that I used to be a social firefly, and doesn't like to see me fester in our little home. Rudi's friends are often in town on business, and they just want a little feminine company to show them around. Rudi knows how gifted I am at handling men, and making them feel at ease. They always express their appreciation to Rudi in a financial dimension, and sometimes Rudi insists that I take some expenses for my time too, though G.o.d knows, that's not what I'm interested in. It doesn't mean anything. Rudi knows he is the centre of my world, and I know that I am the centre of his.

The evening is waiting in Head Curator Rogorshev's office. I have the windows open, and the electric fan on, but my sweaty lingerie is still sticking to my skin. The tip of my cigarette glows in the gloom.

Nemya, my little cat, will want to be fed. But Rudi won't be back yet, and Mr Suhbataar never answers the telephone. Mr Suhbataar. He's a strange man. I've barely seen him. Once I got used to the shock of his sudden arrival a week ago, things worked out all right. He's quieter than Nemya, and often when I think he isn't at home I'll pa.s.s by him on the way to the kitchen, or when I think he is at home I'll knock on his door, and there's n.o.body in. I've never seen him eat anything, I've never even seen him use the toilet! He drinks, though, gla.s.s after gla.s.s of milk. When he shuts a door there's no sound. And when I ask him about his family or about Mongolia, he'll give answers which don't sound evasive at the time, but when I sit down and think about what he said later I realise that he's told me absolutely nothing. I have strong powers of insight and intuition, and my grandmother possessed the power to place curses. So I can usually see right through people, but it's as though Mr Suhbataar is invisible in the first place. He is handsome, in a slight, hawkish, semi-Oriental way. I wonder what kind of woman he likes? Savage Wild Asian, or Refined Lacy European? a.s.suming he likes women, and he's not another Jerome. No. He's real man. I wonder what Mongolia's like. I must ask him before he leaves.

The telephone goes. I let the Head Curator's new answerphone take the call.

'Margarita? It's Rogorshev Rabbit. Are you there? Pick up the phone... don't be cross with me, you know how much it cuts me up...' I can't be bothered. Another cigarette. 'I forgot to tell you. It's my wife's anniversary. I promised her I'd take her and the kids to some new movie. Some nonsense about dinosaurs... I'm sorry, my fairy cake... Next week? Are you there? No? Okay... Well, I hope you get this message...'

I see. So, I did my make-up for nothing. Waste of time. Waste of money. Men don't know how expensive decent cosmetics are. I hope there's a fire in the cinema and all the little Rogorshevs turn into potato crisps. I can crunch them to crumbs, like I will their father.

The Head of Security was reading the sports pages, chewing a brick-sized sandwich that dripped red jam. The tinny radio was on in the background. 'Good evening, Madame Latunsky,' he said silkily. 'How was your day? Quiet?' He groped down his pants to re-position his b.a.l.l.s. 'Or were you tied up with business in our Head Curator's office?'

Fat b.a.s.t.a.r.d. 'Did your amba.s.sadors have a nice time?'

'Oh yes, yes, dare say we gave them something to brag about with their mistresses.' He looked at me for just a moment too long.

I lit a cigarette. You are going down, Fatso. Enjoy it while it lasts, because you are going to be in prison by the end of the month. You are going down, Fatso. Enjoy it while it lasts, because you are going to be in prison by the end of the month. 'Floor-polis.h.i.+ng night, next week. The head of the cleaning company phoned Head Curator Rogorshev's office just now to confirm. Usual time. It seems he'll be coming along again himself this month, just to make sure the waxing machines run smoothly.' 'Floor-polis.h.i.+ng night, next week. The head of the cleaning company phoned Head Curator Rogorshev's office just now to confirm. Usual time. It seems he'll be coming along again himself this month, just to make sure the waxing machines run smoothly.'

The Head of Security swivelled round on his squeaky chair to look at the office blackboard. 'Right you are.'

I knock Rudi's stupid code on my own door, but there's n.o.body home. No Mr Suhbataar, no Rudi, not even little Nemya. I take a shower to wash away the day's grime and the make-up. Green eye shadow and apricot blusher lost down the plug-hole. The bathroom is much cleaner than usual: Mr Suhbataar always cleans up after himself. He even cleans up after me. I don't trust men who clean up after themselves. Jerome's another one. Give me a slob like Rudi, any day. I force myself to eat a boiled egg, and sit down by the window to watch the ca.n.a.l. A pleasure craft chugs into view, with a cargo of tourists. I see my son and daughter amongst them, laughing at something I can't see. Blond-haired toddlers. I want to go out but I can't think where. I have many close friends, of course, all over the city. Or I could hop on the overnight train to Moscow and stay with some of my friends from my theatre days there. I haven't been to Moscow for years. They are always clamouring for me to visit, but I tell them, it's a question of time. I can invite them to Switzerland when I'm settled, of course. They can stay in the guest chalet I'm going to have built. They'll be green with envy! I've decided to live near a waterfall, so I can drink fresh water from the glaciers every day. St Petersburg water contains so many metals it's almost magnetic. I'll keep hens. Why am I crying?

What's wrong with me tonight? Maybe I need a man. I could put on that pair of unladdered red fishnet tights, slip into the new black velvet suit Rudi got me as an extra birthday present last week and go and pick up some young boy with a motorbike, in a leather jacket and with thick black hair and a powerful jaw... just for fun. I haven't done that for a long time. Rudi wouldn't mind, especially if he didn't know about it. I said, we have a modern give-and-take relations.h.i.+p.

But no. I only want Rudi. I want Rudi's shoulders, and his hands, and his smell, and his belt. I want to feel Rudi's lunges, even if it hurts a little. Look at the rooftops, spires, cupolas, factory chimneys... Rudi is out there somewhere, thinking about me.