Kovalev shrugged his shoulders. I guess he didn’t think the story was funny.
Then we drank some more, and he suddenly smiled crookedly.
“I thought your face looked familiar right away, but I just couldn’t remember where I had seen you. Have we bumped into each other before?”
I assured him that, no, we hadn’t.
Alina called and said that she would stay in with Yanochka.
Kovalev started asking me about how I ended up in Switzerland, about my Swiss wife.
“Aren’t you bored among all these flowers and chocolates?”
He drank more than I did and quickly began to get drunk. Out of nowhere he started telling me about how his first wife was a bitch and how happy he was when they divorced.
“I came out of the courthouse and felt like I was flying! I swore I would never get married again. I kept my word for five years and then Alinka came along! I love my Alinka like a madman! How could you not love a woman like that? Have you seen her body? Tell me, have you?”
He had a revolting habit of slapping his companion first on the knee, then on the shoulder.
“And I love my Yanochka so much that I’d do anything for her! You believe me?”
I kept nodding my head the whole time. That was enough for him.
We sat there for a long time. In any case, one bottle wasn’t enough and he started ordering himself more shots.
Kovalev told me something muffled and unclear about his business, about the criminals he had to deal with, about how disgusting it was for him to take part in all this filth, and how he was doing it all only for Alina and Yanochka.
“See,” he yelled so loudly that everyone in the bar kept turning around to look at us, “I don’t have anything on this earth as dear as Yanochka! I’d kill anybody for her sake! If he so much as touches her with one finger! I’ll do everything for her! I’ll become a murderer myself! I’ll stuff my face with shit! I’d do everything for her, for my bunny! Got it?”
And then he whispered confidingly in my ear that he had ensured a future in Switzerland for his wife and daughter in case something were to happen to him.
“You never know,” he explained. “Anything could happen. But I did everything so that Yanochka can grow up here. Among all the flowers and chocolates! I’ve fixed it so that everything’s provided!”
When he was totally wasted, he started to confess that his enemies were out to kill him.
“See, I’m already a marked man! And I know it! And I know who!”
I think he didn’t really understand where he was and who he was talking to. He drunkenly growled, “But I won’t let them get me! I’ll hang onto life by my teeth, see? By my teeth!”
We left the bar and went outside to get some fresh air down by the lake.
We stood on the waterfront. We couldn’t see the mountains in the fog and it felt like we were standing at the edge of a great sea.
Kovalev yelled out to the whole Lake Leman in the night.
“You think they marked me alone for death? No, they marked all of us! All! And you too, understand? No, you don’t understand shit! You have to live now! Maybe this lake won’t even be here tomorrow!”
I smirked. “So where’s it going to go?”
He waved me away with his arm. “You didn’t fucking understand anything!” and trudged back to the hotel on unsteady legs.
But I spent some more time walking along the waterfront. I felt like I was drunk, like I was talking to myself. The rare passersby turned to look at me. I told myself, “What if something happens to you? He ensured a life for his wife and child—you didn’t. You despise him, but how are you any better than he is?”
And then I felt very sharply that the lake might not in fact exist tomorrow.
The next morning, we said our goodbyes. Kovalev seemed crumpled. His eyes were red and glazed. He looked at me strangely, with a heavy and unpleasant stare.
“Yesterday I might’ve blabbed a little too much—forget it! Got it?”
I nodded.
The tip I got from Kovalev was fit for a king. In a good movie I would leave his money on the table and proudly walk out. But we were not in a movie.
Alina and I said goodbye almost like friends, and Yanochka just hung on to me and wouldn’t let go.
We didn’t see each other after that.
On her birthday, my wife unwrapped the boxes of presents. I badly needed to hear her laugh happily, to see how our son smiled from his bed.
Having your loved ones near you is the only important thing, and everything else has little meaning.
One morning a couple of months later I sat down at my computer and on the Yandex newsfeed I stumbled upon a familiar last name. Kovalev, one of the executives of a well-known bank, had been shot to death on the street right in front of his building. Just a typical news story for Moscow at that time.
The killer had waited for the victim next to the entrance lobby and fired an extra shot at his head to be safe—the neighbors saw this from their windows.
I don’t know what happened to his wife and daughter. So many years have passed. Yanochka has to be so grown up by now. I wonder what she’s like today. Who did she become? What happened to her life after the death of her father? She must have grown up somewhere around here, in Switzerland.
What if you’re here now, reading this, Yanochka? The strangest things can happen in life…
I wonder what you have left in your memory about our trip? Maybe everything’s been erased, besides the pony? How’s Pinga doing? He’s probably long gone by now.
And what do you remember about your father?
He would’ve explained to you himself about our Institute, and about everything else. And about why he was killed.
Or maybe he wouldn’t have.
You know, the only important thing is that there was a person for whom you were the most important being in world. Everything else is inconsequential.
Tell me, do you remember that inkblot?
Of Saucepans and Star-Showers
All winter long I fantasized about spending the summer in Valais and roaming the mountains every day. I pored over the map and plotted out various routes. I’d be mountain-bound bright and early and homeward-bound come evening, tired and happy after a full day’s ramble.
But then summer came, and I landed up in hospital with a bilateral hernia. There was no escaping postoperative complications, either—inflammation, high fever, antibiotics. As soon as my stitches were out I went off to Brentschen. But I had to kiss goodbye to all my wonderful plans. No hours-long hikes in the mountains. The first few days I ventured only as far as the table on the lawn in front of the chalet. I gazed at the Weisshorn and rejoiced at life.
The mountains in this vicinity have inspired so many descriptions that they seemed like quotations emerging suddenly from beyond the clouds.
I thought, too, about how, as the years go by, taking genuine delight in something becomes possible only when you can share that delight with somebody else. My son had promised to come and visit for a couple of days, and, watching the Rhône valley change colour in the twilight, almost as if it were pulling on a lilac stocking, I so wished I could enjoy this spectacle in his company rather than alone.
But he could never seem to find the time to come.