It was Grisha who had twice asked Henry to push among the ever-growing but ultra-cautious expatriate community. Henry knew the reasons why well enough: the money from many of the Russian addicts was desperately difficult to come by, constant work to extract and easily dried up (into corpses), while the better clients—the seriously wealthy Russians—were more than likely connected and went over Leary’s head via Moscow or direct; so what Leary wanted most of all was Eurotrash, wealthy expatriates who would trust only a Western dealer.
But of course Grisha and Leary were wrong in their suppositions about Maria Glover’s support. Henry had in fact been using his own money—what was left of the fifty thousand pounds he had made selling his damp little house. (Not much now, not much. He picked at the label of his water with his fingernails.) And yet… and yet they were also right. Because what mattered most to Henry was what mattered most to Arkady. And as far as the Russian was concerned, Henry realized, the whole edifice had collapsed this last hour (with the cold and unforgiving instantaneousness of death) into a sudden rubble of questions. Had she left a will? Was Arkady provided for? Arkady had just started his second year. This term’s tuition would probably have been paid already. They’d know soon enough if not. Certainly, without her funding, the corrupt members on the committee (in the papers again for embezzlement this very week) would refuse Arkady his place for the remaining year and a half, regardless of his teacher’s petitions. If he were not given some kind of a legacy, then Arkady would be out. No final concert. No launch. No expectation and no concomitant resource or opportunity. No graduation of any sort. More or less back where he started. Good. Brilliant, even. But amateur.
Unless—Henry’s mind began to move forward again—the wider family might be persuaded to help. (How many more people was Sergei going to cram in here?) Henry cursed himself. He couldn’t remember what anyone in Maria Glover’s family was called. Idiotic of him. He should have developed the acquaintance. She had seemed open enough—willing. But—damn, damn, damn—he could not now be sure if she had mentioned a single person by name, let alone where they lived or what they did. Where were her “new” children? Was her husband dead? She had never said one way or the other. Would any of them know anything at all about Arkady? He very much doubted it. God, he had been a fool; but then, you don’t expect people to die—no matter how often it happens, you just don’t expect it.
Sitting there at his tiny table (label now shredded, cheap glue sticky on his fingers), Henry could think of only one thing to try: call Zoya as soon as possible, during the intermission. Make inquiries. Discover what she knew. A shameful thought slipped nimbly through the door after the others: that Arkady might never get out of the flat after all. Henry cringed involuntarily, glanced around, almost as if to see whether his mind might have been somehow overheard, and then began to survey the room more thoroughly to distract himself.
Over by the entrance, a clutter of students were having their hands stamped with the indecipherable fluorescent insignia of the club. Sergei himself—a startlingly faithful doppelg&adie;nger of Mussolini if ever there was one—came bustling through the door again and started remonstrating with them (all jowls and chops and slather) to move farther inside, though clearly there was nowhere farther inside for them to move to, since along both brick walls, all the way back to the buried bar, people were standing three deep. It was now quarter past ten and Fish was as full as he had ever seen it. Fifteen minutes to go. Clearly the word was abroad: people were not here to see the support acts.
The lugubrious hum and chunter of a hundred Russian conversations reverberated off the curve of the shallow-arched ceiling, making individual exchanges impossible to catch or follow. Henry saw that additional chairs were being sneaked between the tables, blocking the way, so that latecomers could cram in with their friends. He assessed the crowd. Most were younger—the students and those whose dress indicated that they would be going on afterward to other clubs. But by no means all. Fish could seldom have had such a mixed clientele. The real surprise was the number of older people. A group of weathered old-timers sat immediately to his left—aficionados, judging by their modest glasses of beer and heavy brown suit jackets worn over sweaters despite the heat, men who must have tiptoed through the dark decades listening to their heroes with the volume down. Even more unusually, right at the front there was a table drinking champagne—unheard of in Fish—the women with their dedicated approximations of the latest Hollywood hair, bedizened in designer jeans and jewelry, and the forty- or fifty-year-old men in Armani or Gucci; either business or the government, Henry thought. Institutional mafia. His mouth felt dry. He took the last gulp of water. The students were laying down newspaper: they had decided simply to sit on the floor right in front of the stage; he watched as one filled his glass covertly from a flask while another, a young woman, demonstrated with her arms what she obviously felt was the ostentatious posture adopted by some pianist or other—music students, then, from the conservatory.
Aside from the erroneous plural of “mongoose” (which he would have taken a teacher’s pleasure in correcting), the irony of the entire concert, Henry realized, was that Arkady himself was the only person uneasy about the numbers: one of the Russian’s few articulated fears—and the reason he had disbanded Magizdat—was that he might become well known for jazz before he had finished his course and had the chance to establish himself as a concert pianist. And Henry could now see that Arkady was right: this was the Chernobyl Mongeese’s first night in nearly a year, and already he was in danger of gathering a following again—locally, at least—for his hobby rather than his true work. The Petersburg Times was almost certainly here. Arkady used a stage name, but there would be a picture, unless he had somehow arranged for that to be prevented. (The stage dimmed and Henry felt a tangible charge of anticipation enter the room, seeming to draw energy to itself.) And yet if everything were about to collapse again, would Arkady continue to cling to his ambition? Would he stick to his self-imposed rule—that the Mongeese would live for three nights and three nights only? Or, if the money stopped, would Arkady’s desire finally give out as well?
The house lights went all the way down. The room shrank. And suddenly, waiting in the dark with three hundred other eager bodies, Henry felt the piercing needle of his conscience followed by the all-consuming flood of his duty. Obsessed compulsion or sober free will, he did not care; this was what he must do. Keep trying. Find a way. Don’t give up. Not yet. Make Arkady finish the fucking course. At least ask the family first. And he, Henry Wheyland, would be the man to tell his friend of his mother’s death—right after the concert.
There was an agonized whine. Then an amplified voice asking for quiet sounded from the stage. Sergei stood at the principal microphone, his pate glistening beneath the spot and his tormented T-shirt straining against his bulbous stomach as he spoke. He completed his introduction by naming each member of the band in turn, then raised his arms and began clapping above his head. The charge leaped the gap, the fuel was ignited, and the answering applause ricocheted off the brick. Someone with spiky hair came out from the back of the stage, hand up against the glare of the spot, crazed shadow on the black wall behind. He was followed by another, taller figure. The other stage lights went up. The clapping was redoubled. Sergei jumped heavily down. And one by one, the Chernobyl Mongeese came forward, looking less like musicians than men accustomed to breaking rocks on some forgotten desert chain gang, long days of thirst and shuffling—unkempt, ruefully aware of the intimacy of their work, determined to look anywhere but at the audience.