Rastchev snorted. ‘It’s still the rule of thieves.’
‘Government of thieves, country of thieves…’ Vladimir shrugged. ‘Call it what you will. I’ve never worried about words. The country’s stable. People know what to expect. There’s order, there’s bread. If you don’t like it, you can leave – the borders are open. Compare that with the last years of Boris Nikolayevich and don’t tell me the people wouldn’t prefer it.’
‘Like saying you prefer the slower poison to the quicker. Vova, no one had a chance like you. You could have made us pure.’
Vladimir laughed. ‘Pure? Is that what you call purity? Listen, your communists, in their seventy years of gimmickry and distortion, as you call it, wasn’t it the rule of thieves? The nomenklatura, the apparatchiks, all getting their better clothes and their better food. Wasn’t that theft from the people, who got the worst of everything – when they were lucky enough to get anything? But these thieves, not only were they thieves, they were stupid thieves. Idiots! They had this system and it gave them nothing. What was there to steal in this godforsaken economy they created? Tell me. A better coat? A better sausage? Even the best thing we had was worth nothing compared to what an ordinary citizen in West Germany could buy in a supermarket every day of the week. And for that you needed to fill a gulag with ten million slaves? For God’s sake, such morons! Sure, rule the country, steal from the people – nothing wrong with that. In every country, those who rule, steal, one way or another. Fine. But first make sure there’s something to take!’ Vladimir paused for a moment. ‘That’s what the boys from the agencies, the ones who came with me, understood. They saw what the real thieves, the oligarchs, had got, and they wanted their share. But not by destroying the golden goose, like those idiots Lenin and Stalin and the fools who came after them, but by looking after it. Making it bigger. Using those oligarchs to produce even more golden eggs, and then taking them away. Not all of them, not every one. The trick is to leave the goose with just enough to keep it wanting to make more. That’s what we’ve done, Grisha. That’s what you’ve never understood.’
‘You not only let the others take, you took yourself.’
Vladimir shrugged, as if the point was barely worthy of mention.
‘You had the chance to be a great leader, to take us back to what could have been when Lenin died, before Stalin came.’
‘Grisha, you’re giving me a headache. History says: fuck the martyrs! They sacrifice themselves and the world goes on. Those who take, take, and those who don’t, don’t.’
‘And what did you do, Vladimir Vladimirovich?’ asked Sheremetev, who had been standing beside him, listening, as he had never listened before.
‘I took. Why not? With one hand, I gave Russia order, and with the other I took for myself. It’s a fair trade.’
‘What did you take?’
Vladimir smiled to himself. ‘Everything.’
‘And others? Should they take as well?’
‘Let them. Let he who can, take.’ Vladimir laughed. ‘We have all of Russia, Grisha. There’s plenty to go round. Support me – and you can have what you want. Why? Because I’ve given order. When my time as president comes to an end, that will be my legacy. Order, strength, stability, unity. Not the Russia of Boris Nikolayevich, falling apart like a senile old man, but a strong Russia, a Russia that can be proud, a Russia that the United States and the rest of them will fear, not laugh at.’
‘This is it, is it?’ said Sheremetev.
‘This is it. Look around, Grigory Markovich. This is Russia.’
‘Your Russia? Your creation?’
‘Yes,’ said Vladimir smugly. ‘My Russia. The Russia I made. No one else could have done it.’
‘And you wouldn’t change anything?’
‘Nothing.’
Sheremetev picked up the knife and fork from Vladimir’s dinner tray and slammed them down on the table.
Vladimir jumped.
‘Eat!’ Sheremetev stepped back. ‘There’s your food, Vladimir Vladimirovich! Go on! Eat!’
Vladimir looked up at him. His eyes filled with confusion.
Sheremetev turned away and took a deep breath. When he turned back, Vladimir was still gazing at him with the same heartrending look.
‘Okay,’ whispered Sheremetev, more to himself than to Vladimir. He sat down and began to fasten a napkin around Vladimir’s neck. ‘Let’s eat.’
‘Who are you?’ asked Vladimir.
‘Sheremetev. I look after you. Pick up your fork, Vladimir Vladimirovich.’
Vladimir made no move, perhaps sensing the uncharacteristic lack of warmth in Sheremetev’s voice. Sheremetev took another deep breath, trying to find the strength in himself to want to care for this man.
‘Are you hungry, Vladimir Vladimirovich?’ he asked.
Vladimir nodded.
‘Let’s eat, then, shall we? We’ve got beef stroganoff. You like beef stroganoff, don’t you?’
Vladimir nodded again.
Sheremetev closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again and forced himself to smile. Vladimir smiled back.
‘I’m having beef stroganoff!’ he said.
‘I know,’ replied Sheremetev. ‘Your fork, Vladimir Vladimirovich. Would you like to pick it up?’
Sheremetev waited a moment, but Vladimir made no move, so he picked it up for him.
Later that night, Sheremetev got a call from Oleg. His brother had the name of someone who bought watches.
13
THE ADDRESS THAT OLEG gave him turned out to be a shop in the centre of Moscow, in an alley near the Arbat. In the window was a dusty display of watches and pieces of jewellery that looked as if they had been there for centuries. Across the glass, in ornate gold letters, was written the name Rostkhenkovsky, and beside the door, which was locked, was a bell.
Sheremetev rang it. He heard a click. Tentatively, he pushed on the door and it swung open. The shop was long and narrow, with jewellery cabinets along either side. As he stepped inside, an inner door opened at the other end of the shop.
He was momentarily taken aback. In such a place, he had expected to find some wrinkled old shopkeeper with bushy nasal hair and sagging trousers. Instead, he found himself confronted by a smart, petite young woman in a cream and grey pinafore dress, with short brown hair cut stylishly to fall across one side of her pixieish face, almost covering an eye.
‘Yes?’ she said.
Sheremetev coughed nervously. ‘I’ve been told that you buy watches.’
The woman nodded.
Sheremetev waited, expecting her to say that she was going to go and find the resident horologist, but instead she continued to stand facing him on the other side of the counter.
‘You buy them?’
The woman nodded again.
‘So should I…?’
The woman cocked her head. ‘If you have a watch you’d like to sell, if I can’t see it, I can’t tell you if I want to buy it, can I?’
‘It’s just – you’ll excuse me – you look very young.’
‘Twenty-eight,’ said the woman combatively.
‘You look younger.’
‘That’s meant to be a compliment?’
‘No,’ said Sheremetev. ‘It’s just… the truth.’
‘Listen, my father died four weeks ago. Now the shop’s mine. I worked with him from the day I left school. That’s ten years. Even before that, I practically lived in this shop. If you think you know something about watches that I don’t, I’d like to know what it is.’
‘I’m sorry about your father,’ said Sheremetev.
‘Thank you. He built this business. Did someone send you here?’