‘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! 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 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 hell. 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 hell wanted one and the same thing: meat in their bellies. But those in heaven got their shit 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 assertiveness 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 God?’
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 buttock of fruit, in its flesh you are going to discover all the knowledge you desire. Why do I hate God? 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 ambassadorial convoy just graced my Delacroix gallery. Ambassadors are idiots who possess only one skilclass="underline" 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 Attaché, The Director of the Winter Palace, Head Curator Rogorshev — who pretended not to notice me — a multi-lingual translator and eight ambassadors. 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 breasts 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 ambassadors, and I couldn’t tell one from the other but who cares anyway? They each had their own bodyguard. God knows why anyone thought these nonentities needed bodyguards. I’ve known a fair few in my time, too. Much more fun than ambassadors.
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 gratitude. We gather you rendered him some assistance 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.’