On the front page of a newspaper I bought was a picture of Litvinenko, late fall ’06. Scanning the story I saw that British officials had now confirmed it was the Russians who killed him. A two-year investigation had revealed that it was state terrorism. As of this morning, it was official. I bought a bunch of white tulips for Tolya.
At Tolya’s house, my suitcase on the polished stone step, I finally rang the bell. My pulse pounded in my neck, I tried to form up some words before he opened the door. Then, from inside, I heard the heavy steps, steps coming down a flight of stairs, coming towards the door, his cheerful voice calling out in mock irritation: “Okay, okay, I’m coming.”
“What time is it?” said Tolya.
Pulling a huge black silk bathrobe around him, feet bare, hair a mess, eyes clogged with sleep, he said, “Jesus, Artyom, Christ, you wake me at this crazy hour, but I forgive you. You came for my birthday. I’m happy. Come in.”
Taking my suitcase, he set it down inside, closed the door, hugged me and kissed me three times on both cheeks, Russian style, and let out a stream of insult and affection.
“You came for my birthday? You came for my party? You are a good friend, I knew you would come, I have surprise for you, in your room. Come,” he said, leading me to the staircase with the curving banister.
“And Val?” he said. “When’s she coming? She’s not going to forget my birthday, is she, I’m giving a big party, she says she is coming, she texts me, come upstairs,” he said, chattering at me in Russian, in English, joking around, telling me about the party, what he was serving, what vintages, which caviar.
I felt like a fraud.
I followed him up the staircase, its ancient stone steps salvaged from some palace, some chateau, smoothed thin by centuries of wear, polished to a high gloss. At the top, Tolya put down my bag. “Welcome!”
Double doors led into a large room with high ceilings and curly plaster moldings. The tall windows looked out onto a green square. On an antique wood table in front of the windows were boxes wrapped in fancy paper and tied with ribbons. Famous labels. Designer stuff. Next to the packages was a large photograph of Valentina in a silver frame. I tried not to look at it.
“Presents,” said Tolya, glancing at the packages and smiling. “I have very very nice friends, so many presents come. Don’t look like that, so gloomy,” he added, glancing at me. “It is not a big birthday, I will be forty-six in one day, and I am younger than you.” He laughed, and found a half-smoked Havana in his bathrobe pocket, put it in his mouth, and said, “What’s the matter, Artyom? You didn’t curse at me as usual on my birthday because you’re almost four years older? You didn’t bring a present? No, look you brought for me these wonderful flowers,” he said, and took them out of my hand and with them the newspaper still held.
Glancing at the front page, he made his way to the kitchen with me in his wake. “Come,” he said. “We’ll eat. You’ll feel better.”
Even while he made coffee in a red and chrome espresso machine, he talked, exuberant, fully awake now, glad to see me, full of news, and plans for my visit. And I listened and tried to find a space where I could tell him why I was in London. He put on the radio, listened briefly to the news about the Litvinenko case. Turned it off, talked some more about his birthday party.
He felt bad about Sasha Litvinenko, he said, the story had haunted him a long time, but he had worried enough, and he had tried to help find the killers. The thing was not to mourn but to celebrate life.
“I mean I offered what I knew about Sasha himself to someone I know who could use it. I didn’t do anything stupid, Artemy. I didn’t. Don’t worry. You always think I’m going to get in some kind of trouble.”
I couldn’t speak. I drank a glass of water, but my throat closed up. Tolya chattered on.
“But we don’t need to talk about serious stuff, you’re here on vacation, unless Roy Pettus persuaded you to become a spy.” He laughed his escalating laugh which, as it reached its peak, made him shake. “Listen, it’s okay, right?” said Tolya. “You don’t have to worry. Now let’s talk about where we will have lunch today, and then we’ll go buy presents for Valentina. Her birthday too, you knew that?”
I nodded.
“Also, I said to myself finally: Anatoly Anatolyevich, stop this crap with your kid. She’s a grown-up. Leave her some space. Give her some peace. She’s a young woman now. Let her find her way. This comes to me in the middle of the night recently when I wake up and I think, I have to let go of Valentina, I say to myself, Artemy is right, I can’t watch over her forever, and it is you who has always said this, and you approve, right?”
He pulled the espresso and handed me a dark green cup, then looked out of the window into the green communal garden. “I am so happy you’re here in London,” he said. “I’ve found my Zen place, my Brigadoon, you remember this disgusting musical they loved so much in Russia? I remember one production in Moscow where the fantasy Scottish never-never land becomes socialist paradise. You ever saw this?” He drank some espresso. “It was so awful people had to bite their lip to stop from laughing. My father directed it, it almost killed him. They put my mother in this plaid dress and she had to sing some schlock, which almost killed her, this was a woman who preferred Wagner.” Tolya turned from the espresso machine and belted out a song. “Go home, go home, go home with Bonnie Jean,” he sang. “I could have been musical star.” He laughed, and added, “So who the hell was this Bonnie Jean? And what’s with the glen?”
Tolya still laughing, I went to the glass doors and out onto a balcony. In the lush square below, four tiny girls with pale hair were hanging like pretty little monkeys from a jungle gym. Others chased each other, while their mothers and nannies watched and baked in the sun.
When I went back to the kitchen, Tolya was looking at some newspapers, drinking coffee, and chatting to somebody in his phone. He hung up.
“You can smoke in here if you want, Artyom, you don’t have to go onto the balcony. What’s with you? You haven’t said a word, not even when I sing. What’s wrong?”
I reached for the water glass.
“Artie? What’s going on? Maybe you should go take some sleep, and later I’ll take you for lunch,” he said, his voice sober, faintly concerned now, but for me.
It was me he was thinking about. He had no idea. “You don’t feel good? What’s the matter, Artyom?” he said again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
When I told him Val was dead, Tolya stayed at the kitchen table where he was, not moving, his hands wrapped around a coffee cup, his cigar in an ashtray, the morning sun coming in from the window on the white tulips in a blue glass vase, the sounds of little children from the green gardens outside, the smell of coffee.
The ash on his cigar grew and tipped over into the ashtray. Fried eggs, untouched, on a yellow plate were on the table like a still life. The phone rang. In another room a TV played, or a radio. Tolya didn’t move. It was as if his soul had already left the room, leaving only his body. No motion, no expression, no sound at all.
Then, suddenly, he bent over, his head bowed, his arms wrapped around himself. Like an immense turtle, a creature from prehistoric times, he seemed to pull himself inside his shell, make a shield, protect himself from this body blow.
“I’m sorry.”
“How?”
“Somebody put a pillow over her face while she was asleep,” I said. I didn’t know this for sure, that she had been asleep, but I thought it would help him if he thought she had been sleeping.
“I wish they killed me instead.”
For a minute, he stayed where he was, head on his knees, breathing too hard, gasping for oxygen, his right hand on his left arm, as if he expected a heart attack. What he finally sat up, I thought he might hit me.