The Museum of Doubt Read online

  Gives a smoke, said the fair-haired one to Mykola in Russian. His eruptions were the angriest but for that his eyes were blue like forget-me-nots.

  Sorry, said Mykola in Ukrainian. Don’t have any cigarettes. He smiled. The conscripts hesitated. It wasn’t the no they knew. It was a where do we go from here? and a whaddawegonnado about it?

  Foreigner or something? said the dark one to the fair one.

  Where you from? said the fair one to Mykola in Ukrainian.

  New York.

  New York, Fair whispered to Dark out of the corner of his mouth.

  Ask him if he likes Dépêche Mode.

  Don’t be stupid.

  They’re OK, said Mykola.

  Where d’you learn to speak Ukrainian?

  Mykola shrugged. America.

  The conscripts giggled. America! You’re what, doing business here?

  Mykola laughed. His eyes ranged up and down the tunnels. All these questions! Don’t you want to go somewhere and talk?

  D’you drink vodka?

  Maybe.

  We haven’t got any money.

  Oh, I’ve got money. Mykola looked between the two faces. Fair was interested that he was a foreigner. Dark was more intense, interested that he was a foreign man, alone in the tunnels at night, not in a hurry. Mykola looked into Dark’s brown eyes. This one was the hustler. I’ve got money, he repeated. Maybe we could work something out. It’s all the same to me.

  The two conscripts looked at him. Fair’s mouth was a little open. He didn’t get it. Dark took Fair’s elbow and dragged him away. Mykola stuck his hands in his pockets and walked on slowly. He looked back over his shoulder and saw the two by the wall, close together, chest to chest. The fair one was looking after Mykola with what was supposed to be pride but looked like a penguin spotting something in the distance. Dark was fidgeting with one of Fair’s buttons and tapping him on the chest, looking up into his face while he spoke to him.

  Mykola heard one of them coming up behind him. Mistr! Mistr! The dark one was walking alongside him, holding his sleeve in his fist, leaning his head and talking out of the side of his mouth.

  My friend’ll take it in the mouth for a thousand dollars.

  Mykola laughed. He sighed. No need, he said. I’m going home.

  So, well, come on, how much?

  How about ten dollars?

  The conscript was quiet for a couple of seconds. OK, he said.

  Mykola stopped and looked down at the boy. They were supposed to be seventeen. This one looked younger and older. He looked like he was about to jump straight from teenager to pensioner without bothering with manhood.

  How about nothing at all? said Mykola.

  How’s that? said the dark one foxily, sensing he was missing the point. Here he was on the verge of a breakthrough into the world of intoxicating deals he’d always thought was his due but how to push through the cunning American’s negotiating screen?

  I don’t like to pay, said Mykola.

  What are you, greedy?

  Money doesn’t settle everything.

  It’s only people who’ve got it who say that.

  Mykola looked into his eyes and said: I’m into it if you’re into it, otherwise forget it.

  The fair one was coming towards them. Mykola asked the dark one’s name.

  Petya. He’s Taras. Don’t think I’m a shirtlifter. Petya worked his shoulders and smacked his fist softly into his cupped palm. A man should try everything once in his life.

  Mykola told them his name and shook their hands. There was a silence while they looked at each other. Petya whispered in Taras’ ear. Mykola said: I’ve got some vodka and food back at the flat if you want to share.

  Nu, let’s go, said Petya. Taras hesitated. There was more whispering.

  Mykola … said Petya. What’s your patronymic?

  Cliffovich.

  Seriously?

  Yes. My father was called Cliff.

  Mykola. Kolya. Taras wants to ask you something.

  Will you buy some roses for my girl? said Taras, tightly.

  Mykola shrugged. How many? he said.

  Oh, the Americans and their numbers, said Petya.

  It has to be an odd number, said Taras.

  The Queen laid the Voice on the coffee table and studied the clubbing notes. Everything had changed. What happened to that place where they’d driven a herd of sheep across the dancefloor one night, and Boyz, where in transparent booths along the walls naked boys could be watched as they showered to the beat? In the space of a couple of years she’d missed entire trends and their revivals. It was wonderful to see how fashion slew its avatars. The Queen was impervious to fashion. The camera was her vassal. Her every look was history. She did not dress up or pose. It was natural. She was more than photogenic. She was optogenic. The eyes of others adored her. In every moment they watched her, people around her saw, in the present, the kind of mythologised image that in others took the distance of a twenty-year-old photograph to create. If not death. That was why the Queen always got what she wanted. Even if they hated her when they were out of her sight.

  She tore the club pages out of the magazine one by one and crumpled and squeezed them into tight balls. She moved the firescreen away from the fireplace and put them on top of the plastic logs. She lit a match from the hotel’s complimentary matchbox and set fire to the paper. She rang for Natalie.

  Send down to reception for some raw pork and get Zagrebelny’s people to make some shashlyk, she said.

  Yes, Ma’m … where? said Natalie.

  Here, said the Queen, nodding at the fireplace. A stink of smouldering plastic was beginning to come up off the artifical logs.

  Of course, Ma’m, said Natalie. The park might be even better.

  D’you think? said the Queen, stepping through the open balcony door and leaning out over the parapet. The sun was just down and Central Park was dimming. Muggers, she said. Dealers, policemen. And you know how they love arresting people for the strangest things here.

  As you wish, Ma’m, said Natalie. I’m sure the law doesn’t apply inside the hotel.

  This is the best suite in New York, isn’t it? said the Queen, raising her voice.

  Yes Ma’m.

  Well, get about it.

  Ma’m, your press attaché wishes to see you.

  Tell him to wait. Get Kiev on the phone. I want to speak to the SBU.

  Natalie went out. As she opened the door to the reception room the press attaché, Vasily Hrynyuk, slithered in through the gap. The Queen looked at him and as he opened his mouth put her fingers to her lips. She pointed to a chair in the corner. He sat down. The room was filling with white smoke. Hrynyuk began to cough and the smoke detectors went off with an eardrum-drilling wheee wheee wheee. The Queen took one of the phones and went out onto the balcony, closing the door behind her. Turning up the collar of her Prada jacket she sat down in a lounger as the phone rang.

  I’ll tell you what time it is, she said. It’s not Kiev Time, it’s not Eastern Standard Time, it’s Royal Time. Which just now is seven pm. Time for a snack and a drink before changing. Not Kiev, New York, New York, if I was in Kiev I’d tell the general to come to the palace. Yes, I’ll wait.

  She lay back in the lounger, laid the phone on her heart and closed her eyes. She heard tapping on the glass of the window. She opened her eyes. Swirls of smoke and spurts of foam could be seen, and faces, swimming up to the glass with wide eyes and strangely working mouths like fish.

  Good evening, General.

  Your Majesty.

  Say it again.

  Your Majesty.

  Oh, it was better the first time. Are you in full dress uniform?

  Your Majesty, I regret … I’m naked, apart from the bedsheet.

  You spies! You know why I’m calling.

  The missing one.

  Mykola.

  We’re trying new approaches. We contacted ZAGS and the residence registration bureaux and we’ve drawn up a list of men
in Ukraine named Mykola aged between 25 and 45. We could fit them all inside the Republican Stadium.

  Then what?

  Well, they could file past you. It would take a few days.

  It’s very sweet of you. I can’t allow it. The humiliation would be intolerable.

  They’d have to put up with it.

  Don’t be a fool. For me! It can’t be known that there’s such an emptiness in the Queen’s life. You’ll just have to find him.

  The general said: We had another idea. There was a KGB research department in Bukovina where they experimented with trying to synthesize the dreams of dissidents and western leaders. The operatives would be supplied with hypnotically introduced false memories to correspond with their targets and dressed and fed accordingly. In the morning they would report on the dreams of Ronald Reagan and Andrei Sakharov. The data wasn’t reliable and most of the researchers have gone into advertising now but perhaps we could try it with you.

  What did Reagan dream of?

  The Lone Ranger was queuing for sausage and there was a college football quarterback played by James Stewart who started reciting Pushkin in a Georgian accent every time he made a touchdown. As I say, it wasn’t reliable.

  Why did you never get married, General?

  I did, your Majesty. Don’t you remember? We live in separate parts of the flat now. I still love her, but she won’t sleep with me. Our children carry messages between us.

  Stay on the line. But lie back. Put your head on the pillow, said the Queen. Here’s what I remember. Perhaps it was a vision. Mykola’s in Independence Square, in black jeans, teeshirt and an open black cardigan. He’s tall and thin, not muscular but not flabby. He’s in his late thirties, early forties. He’s standing there by himself, listening to a soldier just demobbed who’s sitting on the edge of the fountain, playing a guitar and singing. It’s May, there’s that long, slow, bright twilight that never seems to end. The first thing you notice about him is how he can stand alone and not look alone, as if the whole world was keeping him company but was too shy to step forward. All the young girls are looking at him, of course, but he doesn’t notice. All his attention goes to the guitarist and the guitarist feels it, it inspires him and he sings better. When his song’s finished Mykola goes over to the guitarist who gets up and shakes his hand and they talk for a while. After a few minutes Mykola wishes him well and walks away by himself, with his beautiful walk, looking to one side and the other like if there’s anything good to be found in the city, he’ll be there. The guitarist looks after him and even though his friends are around him, it seems as if the world is following Mykola, a few steps behind him, and the guitarist has been left behind. He thinks about running after Mykola but he doesn’t, he’s too proud, and he doesn’t have anything to say to him, he just wants to be with him. He knows he’s lost something and the next song he plays is a Russian lover’s lament.

  My sweet, take me with you

  And there in the far places

  I’ll be your wife

  She could hear the general snoring. She put the phone down and wiped her face with a tissue.

  The balcony door opened and a fireman with a mask and breathing apparatus, drenched in foam, stepped out of opaque curls of smoke. He looked at the Queen for a while, hands on his hips. He reached into the fog and pulled a choking, writhing sinner out of the cauldron. He shoved Hrynyuk into a chair. Next he ushered in a hybrid imp, half maid, half fireman. Natalie wore the black skirt, black tights and heels and a fireman’s jacket and mask. She was carrying the cooked shashlyk on a tray. She laid it down carefully on a table next to the Queen, forked the meat off the skewers onto a plate, arranged it with bread and green herbs and hot sauce and a white napkin, pulled off the mask and collapsed onto the floor. The fireman went over and began administering artificial respiration.

  Press conference, croaked Hrynyuk. They’re waiting.

  The Queen stood up. The fireman had one knee clamped high between Natalie’s thighs. Her fingernails were picking at the fastenings of his suit while they ate each other.

  Give the meat to the poor people of New York, said the Queen.

  Petya and Taras followed Mykola down Karla Marla, through an arch into a dark yard lit only by the light from upstairs windows. Cat kings of the wheelybins scattered at their approach from mounds of potato peel and carrot scrapings. At the entrance way Mykola felt for the doorknob and the conscripts closed in behind him, their hands reaching for his back and elbows to reassure themselves he was still there. Inside it was still dark, the bulbs stolen. There was a stench of urine. They shuffled up a set of steps like the newly blind and by memory Mykola found the lift button. The rough, time-chewed plastic wobbled under his fingertip and glowed cigarette-weak when the lift began to descend from its station above, clanking like an iron horse.

  In the lift there was a smell of old vegetables and rancid stains on old blankets. Taras put his nose into one of his five red roses and inhaled. From Azerbaijan, he said.

  No, they bring them from the west now, said Petya. Africa or something.

  Africa? said Taras, sniffing the flowers again, suspicious. Do they have roses in Africa?

  Petya laughed. America! he said to Mykola. This probably seems like Africa to you. D’you have lifts like this in America? Bet you don’t.

  Oh, we have all sorts of lifts in America, said Mykola.

  Even before the lift opened they could hear the sounds of a woman screaming. They stood in front of the padded steel door to Mykola’s flat, Mykola with the silver key held out, Taras with his face half-hidden by the roses, Petya taking his hat off and holding it protectively in front of his heart. The door was shaking. Every time it shook, it rattled, and every time it shook and rattled, or just before, they could hear a woman screaming No! and a man shouting You bitch, I’ll kill you!

  Mykola turned to the conscripts. You couldn’t go and wait in the yard? he said. It’s my roommate. She wasn’t supposed to be back till next week. I’ll be down in a minute.

  Is it your wife? said Petya.

  It’s a friend who lives in the same house, said Mykola.

  Ah, a friend, said Petya. It’s a friend, he said to Taras, tugging his sleeve and turning to go.

  Can we help? said Taras, waving the roses towards the door so the leaves and petals rustled.

  Mykola smiled and shook his head. The door rattled and the woman screamed again, not a word this time, a higher scream. I’ll come down in a minute.

  The boys went back to the lift and Mykola rang the bell. It’s Mykola! he shouted. I’m coming in.

  Your mother, said Oleg. What the fuck do you want?

  Mykola! called Stella. I came back early.

  I’m coming in, said Mykola, pushing the key in the lock.

  Tell him to fuck off, whispered Oleg. Tell him we’re busy. He shouted: We’re busy!

  Mykola turned the key. He heard feet moving quickly across the carpet, a slamming door and running water. He went inside the flat and closed the front door. He held up his hand in front of his face to see what the stickiness on the doorhandle was. It was that.

  Stella had locked herself in the bathroom. It’s Mykola, he said. She let him in. She locked the door behind him and sat down on the edge of the bath. She had a bloodstained wet towel wrapped around her head. She sat there with her back hunched and her hands between her legs. She smiled at him.

  Hi, she said. How’s it going?

  I thought you were in London for another week.

  Yeah, said Stella, hunching further forward and lowering her head. But I couldn’t get his penis out of my mind. So I came back.

  Are you OK?

  Yeah, I’m OK.

  Was he beating your head against the doorhandle?

  Stella nodded, folded her arms across her stomach and sniffed.

  Here, let me have a look. Mykola put out his hand and Stella pushed it gently away.

  I’m fine, Mykola, honestly. He gets jealous.

  He’s psychot
ic. He could have killed you.

  Yeah, I suppose he could, said Stella. She smiled.

  You’ve got to stop seeing him.

  I couldn’t do that! What’d I do then? I’d just be thinking about him all the time. You think I’m crazy. He loves me, you know. I used to think once you were crazy that was it, you were crazy everywhere all the time. But it’s not like that. Now I know what my mind’s like, it’s like a big hotel. Down there in the ballroom it’s murder. But up in your own room it’s all quiet, and peaceful, and organised. You just lock the door, and take a shower, watch some TV, make some calls. She laughed. Then you’re all ready to go back to the ballroom again.

  Hard and loud as a gunshot, the heel of a boot smashed against the door. You come out of there, you bitch! screamed Oleg. You and the shitstabber!

  Go fuck yourself, you sick bastard! said Stella. Have you got a smoke? she said to Mykola.

  No. I think we should call the police.

  He’ll be fine, said Stella, putting her hand on Mykola’s wrist.

  The boot went in again, twice. The wood began to splinter. Mykola pulled a cylinder out of his jacket pocket and when Oleg smashed through sprayed him in the face with Mace. Oleg screamed that he was blind and spun back through the corridor, stotting against corners and bookcases like a pinball. Stella ran after him, crying his name.

  After a couple of minutes of the two of them shrieking together it went quiet. Mykola got up and went to the kitchen. He switched on the light and the roaches scattered across the table like a gang of nightbirds surprised by a helicopter. He rooted through the cupboards and shelves and poked around in the fridge. She’d brought back a stack of Marks & Spencer’s ready-to-eat curries but no coffee. He pulled the bottle of Stolichnaya out of the freezer. It was half empty.