Vladimir noticed Kolyakov shifting uncomfortably. He was as ruthless as anyone in business, but when it came to things of flesh and blood, he was squeamish. Vladimir had no real respect for him, but he was a goose who knew how to lay golden eggs, and knew how many he could keep and how many to give away. Kolyakov was said to be worth eight billion dollars. Good luck to him. Vladimir himself had no idea how much he was worth, but it was many times as much.
‘Usually he comes at night,’ said Vladimir, enjoying the spectacle of the billionaire squirming. ‘That’s when I see him.’
‘What does he do?’
‘What do you think he does?’
Kolyakov stared at him. ‘I don’t know,’ he whispered.
‘I’d cut his head off, but I think someone already did that. At least he’s dead, huh?’ Vladimir laughed. ‘The only good Chechen…’
The billionaire, who had a Chechen grandmother, said nothing.
‘Look!’ said Vladimir, ‘it’s Monarov.’
‘Sheremetev,’ said Sheremetev.
‘Monarov, Dima has an arrangement to tell you about. Deal with it in the usual way, huh?’
‘It’s Sheremetev, Vladimir Vladimirovich,’ said Sheremetev again, unsurprised by the fact that Vladimir was addressing him as someone else. For much of the time, Vladimir would engage in conversations with chairs and benches on which, presumably, he believed that people were sitting, and if Sheremetev came in while the conversation was in full swing he often took him for someone out of his past.
Vladimir looked at him in confusion.
‘It’s alright, Vladimir Vladimirovich. It’s almost time for lunch. You’ll enjoy it. The chef’s made chicken in the Georgian style for you.’
A smile came over Vladimir’s face. He rubbed his hands enthusiastically. ‘Georgian chicken! Is it ready?’
3
THE CHEF AT THE dacha, Viktor Alexandrovich Stepanin, was a barrel-chested man with a seemingly permanent stubble. Stepanin was a creature made by nature and perfected by nurture for the kitchen – classically trained, as he often reminded people – totally entranced and enraptured by cooking, ugly, crude, loud and fractious, and yet despite all those qualities – or perhaps because of them – surprisingly attractive to women. He was having an affair with one of the maids, and she wasn’t the first one who had found her way to his bed.
Stepanin had developed a habit of chewing the fat with Sheremetev at the end of the day. Normally, Sheremetev gave Vladimir dinner at around eight and settled him in bed at nine-thirty, after which he would come downstairs for his own meal. By then, the rest of the inhabitants of the dacha had usually eaten and Stepanin would make sure there was something set aside for Sheremetev. The staff dining room with its long green formica table would be otherwise deserted, and the cook would march in through the connecting door from the kitchen as Sheremetev ate, apron tied at his waist, dishcloth over his shoulder, a bottle of vodka in one hand and a plate of chillied pork scratchings in the other, and pull up a chair. At that time of the evening, he would have only a set of snacks still to prepare for the security shift that would be working overnight. For half an hour he would sit and talk and drink a glass of vodka and chew on the scratchings, occasionally getting up to throw open the door and yell at his assistants and potwashers who were cleaning up inside.
Sheremetev couldn’t help but like the big-hearted, voluble cook who wore his heart on his sleeve. Stepanin’s great dream, as he had told Sheremetev countless times, was to open his own restaurant in Moscow. Russian Fusion! Minimalist décor! Sheremetev didn’t know how cooking here at the dacha was going to help him do that, since the pay, to judge by his own salary, was nothing special. He also didn’t know how Stepanin – classically trained, after all – got much satisfaction from cooking for the dacha staff, who probably had never in their lives eaten at the type of establishment he dreamed of opening and were not – Sheremetev included, he would readily admit – the most discerning in the culinary arts. Yet somehow the cook seemed certain that he would one day realise his dream, and in the meantime he strode around his kitchen like a fuming colossus, berating his assistants and inventing startling recipes which, he assured Sheremetev, would feature on the menu of the fantasy restaurant that Sheremetev was equally certain would never come to be.
That night, the cook was eager to know about Vladimir’s meeting with Lebedev, and most importantly, what had happened with the delicacies he had sweated so hard to produce.
‘Everyone loved the food,’ Sheremetev assured him.
Stepanin beamed with pleasure. Then he sat forward, a glint in his eye. ‘But Constantin Mikhailovich, Kolya, what about him? What did he say?’
Sheremetev shrugged, as if it was beyond question that the new president had enjoyed the food. The truth was, Sheremetev hadn’t seen the president touch a thing. As far as he could tell, the snacks had disappeared down the gullets of his security men and aides. The cameramen too, he noticed, had started grabbing them as they packed up to leave.
‘Well?’ said Stepanin, eager for details. ‘What did he like? What about the bulochki? Huh? The ones with cheese. They’re not the usual ones – a new invention! Russian Fusion: traditional, but with a twist. I put a bit of quince in, and just a tiny pinch of sumac – a hint, a sniff, that’s all. Lebedevki, I’m going to call them, in honour of the new president. What do you think? Did he eat them? Did he like them? Come on, Kolya! For God’s sake, tell me!’
‘I think… he liked everything.’
‘Everything? He tasted everything? But what did he say, Kolya?’
‘I can’t, Vitya. It’s… you know, when it’s the president, they make you promise you can’t repeat anything you hear.’
Stepanin’s eyes widened. ‘Do they?’
Sheremetev nodded.
Stepanin sat back, his imagination overflowing with images of President Lebedev scoffing his miniature cheese bulochki with quince and sumac and praising them in compliments so rarefied, so exorbitant, so… presidential that they couldn’t be repeated, not even between two people sitting in an otherwise deserted dining room. After a moment he looked up. ‘Seeing two presidents in one place! You’re lucky, Kolya. That doesn’t happen every day.’
‘Thank goodness,’ murmured Sheremetev.
‘Why?’
‘They didn’t exactly like each other.’
‘Really? What did they — no you can’t tell me, can you?’
‘Let’s just say a few choice words were exchanged.’
‘You mean words you wouldn’t use with your mother?’
Sheremetev nodded.
The cook laughed.
‘Vladimir Vladimirovich gave back as good as he got.’
Stepanin roared. ‘What fuckery! Two presidents swearing?’
Sheremetev was laughing as well now. ‘Like Cossacks!’
Stepanin had tears in his eyes. He wiped at them and took a deep breath, trying to control his laughter. ‘Why not?’ he said eventually. ‘They’re just men, after all.’
The cook sat musing on it, shaking his head and grinning. Then he got up and opened the door to the kitchen to yell at one of the potwashers. He came back and poured himself another vodka. ‘You want one?’ he said to Sheremetev.
Sheremetev shook his head.
‘You should drink more, Kolya.’ Stepanin threw back his vodka. He put the glass down with a thud, grimacing, and sat quietly for a moment.
‘I had another chat with the new housekeeper today,’ he said eventually, his tone more restrained, even sombre.