‘I have a small favour to ask,’ Rudi called through, ‘I know you won’t mind.’
‘Oh?’
‘I have a business partner coming to town for a short time. Actually he’s a friend of Gregorski’s. Very high up in all the right international circles. He’s from Mongolia. Runs the place, virtually. He needs somewhere to stay.’
‘And?’
‘I thought the spare room would suit him.’
I watched the water brimming over the top of the vase. ‘If he runs Mongolia, why can’t Gregorski put him in a penthouse?’ I ignored Nemya, who was reminding me that she had claws.
‘Because then the police could keep tabs on him. He runs Mongolia unofficially. Even Mongolians have to pretend to have elections to get loans.’
‘So you want me to put up a criminal? I thought we’d left those days behind.’
‘We have, kitten, we have! I’m just doing a friend a favour!’
‘Why not go the whole hog and open up a doss house for junkie pyromaniacs?’
‘For Christ’s sake don’t overreact! I keep boxes of merchandise in the spare room: where’s the difference? And he’s not a criminal. He’s an official with enough high-level contacts to not be searched at the border beyond Irkutsk. Helsinki’s off, by the way. Gregorski’s found a buyer in Beijing. Our friend will be taking the Delacroix back. The less evidence of his tracks the better.’
‘Why doesn’t Gregorski just buy the police off like he always does?’
‘Because Gregorski only holds sway at the Finnish and Latvian borders. He can’t trust his usual channels as far east as Siberia. He can only trust me, and us. Kitten...’ I felt Rudi’s arms slide around my stomach, ‘let’s not argue... it’s for our future...’ His thumb wormed into my navel. ‘This is where our baby’s going to be one day...’ He nuzzled his face into my neck, and I tried to stay cross. ‘Babe, kitten, baby kitten... I know it’s a lot to ask, but we’re so close now. I’ve been thinking, about what you were saying earlier, at Jerome’s. About Austria. You’re quite right, you know. We should get out while the going’s good. I apologise for flying off the handle. I hate myself afterwards. You know that. It’s the stress. I know you understand. I sometimes lash out at the things that are most precious to me. I hate myself sometimes,’ Rudi was murmuring. ‘Look at me. Look at me. Look at how much this stupid man adores you...’
I turned and looked into his beautiful young eyes. I see how much.
‘Guess where I went today, kitten. To the travel agents, to check ticket prices to Zurich.’
‘You did?’
‘Yeah. They were closed, because of the holiday. But I went. And I’m not going to have that greasy curator bastard insult my kitten no more. Once we’ve gone, Margarita, his life is in your hands. Just one word from you, and I’ll have someone press the button on him. I swear on the Virgin Mary Mother.’
See? Tatyana was wrong. Rudi wants to make me happy. He’s going to give everything up, for us. How could I have doubted him, even for a moment? We kissed, long and hard. I whispered, ‘Rudi, you are the best present I’ve ever had on my birthday...’
Rudi murmured, ‘Yeah? It’s coming up soon, isn’t it?’ Eventually he drew back, his hands on my hips. ‘So. It’s okay for our buyer’s agent to keep a low profile here, yeah? It’ll only be until after the swap. Cleaning night. Just two weeks.’
‘I don’t know, Rudi. I was hoping you and I could spend a little time together, before we leave Petersburg. We’ve got a lot of planning to do. When’s he due?’
Rudi turned away. I opened a can of cat food. ‘He came today. He’d flown in, and really needed a bath, so I ran one for him. He’s in there now.’
‘What?’
‘He’s, er, already here.’
‘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?’
Moments passed 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 Japanese. 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 nobody 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 Japanese 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 Japanese 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 hell 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.