The Benefactor Index: Chapter Seven - The nephew of vodka

Throughout November, I will be participating in National Novel Writing Month, where the aim is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.

As I am treating this as a writing exercise, anything that I produce will be posted on this blog, one chapter a time. The text will have been edited for spelling and coherence but is otherwise a rough first draft, written at speed. There will be no second draft.

~

The Benefactor Index

By Sam Redlark

Prologue - A Sin of Gold
Chapter One - Pochka
Chapter Two - An arrow made of eagle feathers
Chapter Three - The milking of chickens
Chapter Four - Street without drums
Chapter Five - Swans to the snow
Chapter Six - Further from the eye
Chapter Seven - The nephew of vodka
Chapter Eight - The mayor of sidings
Chapter Nine - The enemy of the good
Chapter Ten - If even just one is absent
Chapter Eleven - The friend of an unlucky man
Chapter Twelve - The riches that are in the heart
Chapter Thirteen - What fell off the cart
Epilogue - New-forgotten old

~

Chapter Seven – The nephew of vodka

image generated by Craiyon

“Park here,” said Garin.

Orlov drew up to the kerb outside the herring bone façade of a wooden building. The lacquered brown planking on the exterior formed chevrons that pointed either up or down, depending on how a man chose to look at them. For Orlov they pointed upward.

A wooden telephone booth was built into the wall. A black, insulated cable descended from one of the walls above, like a slackened guy-rope, and connected with the overhanging roof of the kiosk. A narrow, enclosed shelter that ran along the front of the building, up to the door of the booth, seemed to have been added as an afterthought. Through the steamed glass of the windows, a short queue of people could be seen waiting to use the phone.

“That is KGB listening post,” said Garin, indicating the building and its downward pointing chevrons.

A dark-haired woman, wearing a heavy, pastel-pink coat, was meandering towards them, pushing a pram that was heaped with blankets. The three men instinctively stepped back to allow her to pass. The winding grey impressions left behind by the thin wheels in snow were already being filled in by a flurry of new flakes. Pestov glanced upward. He found it hard to tell whether the new snow was coming from the sky, or blowing down from the rooftops.

A group of men and women were milling around the blue and white-striped frontage of a bakery, peering in through the illuminated window. Staff were moving around inside and the shop seemed like it might about to open. A man in the crowd, who was holding a pair of plucked geese by their legs, rubbed a few thins coins together between his pinched thumb and fingers, as if doing so would somehow increase their value.

“You should see if he wants to buy your pigeons,” said Pestov.

“The man cannot afford my birds,” said Orlov.

“You have poultry for sale?” enquired an elderly woman, who was sitting under a floral umbrella on a blue shoe shiner's chair. Unruly tufts of coarse, yellow-brown hair sprang out from under her headscarf.

“It is a private joke between me and my friend,” said Orlov.

“It is not a very good joke,” replied the woman. “What am I supposed to feed to my husband?”

They walked on, rounding the corner onto Television Avenue.

Small crowds were gathered outside brightly-lit windows, where banks of televisions, stacked-up on the opposite sides of the otherwise barren shop floors, all screened the same channel.

“Who is able to afford such things?” said Pestov.

“My girlfriend wants one,” said Orlov ruefully. “I worry she no longer finds me sufficiently entertaining.”

In the window of one store, over a hundred identical colour television sets had been lined up in rows along a five-tier shelving unit that curved to form a rounded corner. The sets were swaddled in insulated cosies with only their fronts showing. The screens were all broadcasting the same test card pattern of multi-coloured squares and rectangles.

A woman with feather-permed blonde hair, who was dressed in a white lab coat, was standing in front of the shelves, giving a silent demonstration of a TV that was balanced on top of a serving trolley. She untelescoped both aerials at rear of the box and changed their positions, strengthening and then weakening the signal.

“Is this art or commerce?” enquired Garin.

“I see better elsewhere,” said Orlov.

His attention had drifted towards the windows of a bar across the street where a number of attractive young women were gathered behind the glass.

“I will be one moment,” he said.

He jogged across the road, pausing to purchase a single rose from a passing flower vendor. He had almost reached the bar when he paused. He dropped the rose and returned sheepishly to the others, breaking into a light jog to avoid an approaching tram.

“You dropped your pretty flower,” said Pestov.

“It was a mirage?” enquired Garin.

“No, they were men in disguise, sailors,” grinned Pestov.

“They are not real women,” said Orlov.

“I knew it! They are sailors on shore leave."

“They are photographs that have been taped to the inside of the windows to give the impression women are drinking there.” said Orlov.

“Where there any women inside?” asked Garin.

“I did not look.”

On the western foot of Transmission Hill, the road expanded into an amorphous plain of asphalt. The few lane markings that did exist were buried underneath the slush. The night-time traffic was chaotic as drivers intuitively joined forces with others to muscle their way through. On the opposite side of the junction, just beyond the park, a state of the art wind turbine was set up next to shipping crate that had been converted into a display area. The turbine was garlanded with a multitude of red and white petals. It rotated fluidly, and at an even pace, in the light piecemeal gusts that were blowing across the wide intersection. A pair of insulated cables snaked from its tripod base through holes in the side of the shipping container. Through the open doors at the front, a small colour television, resting on a plinth, was broadcasting a recorded film concerning the ongoing efforts of the State to harness the power of the wind. The sound of the swarming traffic drowned out the audio.

A man and a woman, wearing heavy winter coats were standing on either side of the container, as if they were guarding the television.

“Do you have time to watch a documentary about State wind power, comrades?” said the man. “It is shown on a television that is powered by the wind.”

Garin was vaguely aware of the documentary. A script had passed across his desk many months ago to be stamped for approval.

“We are on urgent business,” he said.

“I have been on enough senior-level committees to have witnessed State wind power first-hand,” he added, under his breath, as they entered the park.

Transmission Hill was an artificial construction, formed partly from the earth that had been removed from Goremykin Park to make the boating lakes and open swimming baths. The remainder had come from a dyke building initiative where the aim had been to prevent the flooding of farmland.

Just inside the gates, a gigantic brick plinth, that resembled the foundation of an ancient South American pyramid, supported a towering statue that was referred to as 'The Parade of Workers'. It consisted of five figures in possession, carved from the same immense piece of rock, each one representing a different idealised archetype: The politician leading from the front; the soldier covering the rear, regarding the horizon behind with a steady backward glance. In between, the farm labourer, the industrial worker and the doctor. They were lined up along a narrow rectangular plinth, the politician gazing imperiously over the city, apparently unaware that another half step forward would carry him over the edge, where he would be dashed to pieces on the plaza below.

An intricate marble staircase ascended the hill in a series of right-angled turns. At every fourth corner, a semi-circular plinth supported a metal crane arm, with a seat and a camera mount of the end farthest from the pivot.

The summit of the hill was crowned by an unusual building that was referred to by people in the city as 'The Flower Bowl,' 'The Chrysanthemum,' or 'The Broken Vase,' though it looked like none of these things.

A procession of four gigantic concrete H-frames stood partially astride a stumpy central column. One hundred feet above the ground, the upper prongs of the frames had been forced apart by a layered arrangement of matchbox-shaped high-rises, lying facedown as if they had toppled over. The blocks were positioned alongside each other so that they formed jagged horizontal peaks. The grey filled-in windows that lined their faux facades looked straight down onto the plaza below. There was no colour anywhere on the building.

At a party, Garin had heard his boss, Vasnev, describe it as “the end of Brutalism; of beauty breaking through the hard shell of functionality.”

Seeing it floodlit against the winter sky, at the top of the staircase, he had to agree with his superior. It was like an entire school of architecture was in the process of being screwed-up into a ball by a closing fist of its own making.

Heating pipes underneath the plaza had melted the snow, leaving parts of the ground bruised with patches of damp. 

They walked across a circular helicopter landing pad that had been applied to the cement in red paint. A Trifonov military helicopter, painted in mottled green camouflage, was perched on its skids alongside.

Pestov jogged over and peered in through one of the square windows towards the rear of the fuselage.

“There is nothing inside,” he reported. “It is all just a movie prop.”

They advanced into the shadow of the curated wreckage that was cradled by the H-frames high above their heads like a demolition on pause.

"It is best not to think too hard about how it stays in the sky," counselled Orlov.  

A barred door in the foot of building had been wedged partway open, allowing entry to a short corridor that was paved with chipped and foot-worn maroon tiles. 

In a lobby, shiny black, half-dome lampshades, with honey coloured interiors, dangled from varnished ceiling decking. The tan backrests of some leatherette sofas bore the abstract, wrinkled impression of their previous occupants.

They climbed an open-sided staircase made from slabs of polished concrete to a bar area. In the centre of the floor a chocolate brown and tan sofa booth, shaped like the letter 'C', encircled a small round table with a pale-orange inset. The shelves and draws that occupied a recess in the wall behind the bar were painted in different tones of white, pale orange, pale yellow and tan. From a distance Orlov mistook the arrangement for a piece of modern art, though he kept his misinterpretation to himself.

The far-off sounds of muffled explosions and laser weaponry, buffeted by bleary snatches of dialogue, echoed indistinctly along the gradual bend of a futuristic corridor. The floor-to-ceiling windows that paraded in a continuous row along one wall, were at least thirty feet high and set inside a skeletal, subdivided metal frame. The view they provided was of a monolithic fusion of  jagged concrete architecture, that was rendered even more disorientating by the spotlights that served to cast confounding blocks of  threatening shadow.

Inside the gold-rimmed chandeliers, frosted glass tubes, packed close together, dangled like icicles in an inverted undulating patterns.

“We are closing on him,” said Garin.

In one room they found an improvised arcade machine, made from a television set perched atop a column sporting a pair of small steering wheels. The screen of the the TV was lit up by a white glow. Orlov wandered over to the machine and pressed a pressed a few of the buttons on the front. He turned the steering wheels in both directions. No image appeared.

“Is broken,” he said, walking away, refocusing his attention on an enormous combination TV and Hi-fi system in a wooden cabinet, that was pushed up against an adjacent wall. He fiddled with some of the buttons and dials next to the screen but could not bring it to life.

“Nothing works here,” he said.

“It is not plugged in,” said Pestov.

He kicked the black power cord away from the wall, revealing exposed wiring at the end of the cable.

“Also, there is no plug.”

“Stop messing around,” said Garin, 

He pointed toward a pair of double doors framing rectangles of frosted glass.

They climbed another staircase. The tall windows at the summit were draped with thin sets of pale olive curtains that sagged down at the top like wet clothes that had been hung up to dry. A pointless concrete archway divided the rail of the interior balcony that looked down over the floor below.

The muffled sounds of the film continued to buffet the walls of a theoretical space that lay perpetually somewhere just ahead of them. Garin could not work out whether they were getting nearer to it or further away. 

Along yet another, gently-arcing corridor, a false metal wall engraved with a recurring 'X' pattern had been split in two halves. The panels had been turned ninety degrees on hidden axes, revealing a concealed screening room. Lines of red tub chairs on four-pronged metal stands, faced onto an area of darkness and shadow.

Just ahead, above a pair of double doors, a sign made from individual metal capital letters read:

ВЕСТЕРН АКТОВЫЙ ЗАЛ

(WEST AUDITORIUM)

At the end of another short span of corridor, a set of black velvet curtains were pulled, framing the entrance to an amorphous, high-ceilinged mezzanine. The bulging stone walls were carved to resemble rows of television sets. The grey and gold veining of the rock that formed the screens had been polished to a dim shine, that reflected the pinpoint spotlights in the fanning grid of the ceiling. Just beyond the balcony rail that divided the room, a metal scaffold, that stretched from the ceiling to the unseen floor below, supported hundreds of television sets, each one silently screening the same self-generating abstract pattern. The noise of the film was film noticeable louder now, ceding only in quieter moments to background hum of the massed electrical equipment.

They made their way between low-backed leather sofas to a staircase that descended to another lobby on the lower floor.

“This way,” said Garin. He had paused outside a set of windowless double doors. 

“I am through with playing nice, but don't kill anyone either," he said. "Remember, we no longer have a clear picture of why we are doing this. We must act with caution.”

He led the way along a short corridor, pausing outside a set of double doors that were identical to the first. The sound of laser weaponry could be heard on the other side. A man's voice announced loudly in Russian: “It is interesting how they have created this effect. Do we have any insight into how it was achieved?”

Garin looked over his shoulder. He nodded to Orlov and Pestov who both nodded back. Quietly, he drew his gun. He raised his other hand and gave a descending finger count of three, mouthing the numbers with his lips. As the last finger folded into his palm, he pushed one of the doors open and moved fluidly into the space beyond. The two soldiers did likewise through the other door.

The cavernous room they had entered was round with a domed brass ceiling. Directly in front of them was a bulky sound mixing desk. A semi-circular cinema screen arced around the far wall. A western science fiction movie was playing. There was obviously something wrong with the print. Everything was pink, as though the film was being filtered through a coloured lens. The towering images on the screen dwarfed a trio of men who were sitting around a low rectangular table in the middle of the room, on simple fold-away chairs.

The floor was made from a composite of boulder fragments as if a large sheet of rock had been broken into pieces and then fused back together. In the dim light it had taken on the colour of the tarnished dome above. As the three men advanced, it seemed to absorb the sound of their footsteps. On the screen, a rag tag band of heroes were being chased along a corridor by armoured men wearing pink and black armour.

Garin was now close enough to pick out Tihomir Konev from the group. He was wearing a buff coloured suit and a fat tie. The older, grey-haired, man to his left, viewing the film through a pair of rectangular spectacles, was Ladislav Yury – Chief of the cinema and arts section of the Committee for Lenin Prizes and State Prizes in Literature, Art and Architecture. Garin did not know the other man.

Konev had been the first to notice their arrival.

“Who is it?” he said, reaching for a half-empty wineglass on the table next to him. “Who intrudes upon the film?”

Garin pointed his gun at him.

“Good evening Comrade Konev,” he said. “Please, do not drink anymore. Presently we may need to make use of one of your kidneys.”

By now all three men were looking in his direction. The silver haired stranger was an elderly, bird-like man with a neat moustache. A pair of glasses magnified his brown eyes.

The clean-shaven Konev regarded Garin from beneath a pair of manicured eyebrows.

“I do not understand,” he said. “Am I under arrest?”

A sudden realisation took hold in his expression.

“Wait, I know you. You are Vasnev's aide, Pavel Garin. It is so nice of you to join us uninvited. And you brought such nice friends too. Soldiers, if I am not mistaken. I am afraid the film is almost over.”

He took a generous sip of wine.

“Put down the glass or I will shoot it out of your hand,” said Garin.

“Okay, okay, see, I am putting it down on the table, in front of me,” said Konev. 

He turned to his companions.

“Gavrilo, Ladislav: This is the hero of Hramevek Square, who had most of his face blown to pieces. He went from being a cop to a ministerial aide. Second acts in this country fascinating are they not? Any man can be anything.”

“Sherstov is dying,” said Garin. “He requires an urgent kidney transplant. Your name is on the donor list. I been instructed to bring you in.”

“I doubt it,” said the silver-haired man. His voice carried an air of assurance and natural gravitas.

“Who are you?” said Garin.

“Allow me to make the introduction,” said Konev. “This is Gavrilo Ibragimov. He is a poet visiting from Czechoslovakia. We have corresponded through the mail for years. In that time, he has sent me many films. This evening is the first occasion we have met in person.”

“Did he send you this film?” said Orlov. “It is all pink. There is something wrong with it.”

On the screen some men in futuristic flight suits were gathered for a briefing.

“Is it symbolism, perhaps?” said Garin.

“There is nothing wrong with the print,” grumbled Ibragimov. “I have watched it several times on other screens and there have been no issues.”

“It is not the colour-grading, “said Konev “It is a fault within the machine. I am still waiting for the parts to get it fixed.”

He reached for his wineglass. Garin's hand arrived there first. He tipped the contents onto the floor. Bending down, he placed the glass underneath his boot and crushed it.

“You are required to perform a duty in the service of the State,” he said. “Sherstov requires one of your kidneys if he is to survive. For this, I need you to be sober. I promise that it will be a loving injury.”

“That is what I told my very first girlfriend,” said Yury.

Konev peevishly reached into the pocket of his suit jacket. When his hand emerged it was holding a silver five rouble coin. He showed it to the other men like a magician performing a stage trick, before spinning it on the table top.

“My friend you cannot afford to go double or nothing,” said Orlov. “A healthy man only has two kidneys.”

Konev plucked the spinning coin from the table and put it inside his mouth.

Before Garin could reach him, he swallowed. There was a bulge in his throat as it went down.”

“What have you taken?” shouted Garin. 

Yury staggered upright in shock. Swiftly, Pestov pointed his gun at him. The old man took involuntary backward step and almost fell over his chair.

“It is a mild toxin from the Kanarchir region,” said Konev. “It is made from ground lichen. For the next week at least, you would be well advised not to take a kidney out of me and then place it inside someone else.”

Yury smoothe his jacket and sat back down again. Ibragimov had remained calmly seated.

“You have made yourself unwell to avoid performing your duties,” said Garin.

“I will not be ill,” said Konev. “I grew up in the region where the lichen is found. It grows on food as well as on the ground. I harbour an immunity to the poison. Anyone else who took some... For example if I were to dip the coin into an unsuspecting drink... They would be very ill for days, and that would not even be a full dose.”

“I am of a mind to bring you before the firing squad,” said Garin.

“Oh, Pavel, you would not do that to me,” said Konev. “Accept that I have outplayed you and move on to someone who is less well-prepared. May I see the list you were given? Do you have it with you, or is it committed to memory?”

“No, you may not,” said Garin. “You will come with us regardless of whether you are still viable as a donor."

The crushed wineglass glittered like a nebulae of diamonds around the toe of his right boot.

“Maybe it is time that I was going home,” said Yury. He eyed Pestov nervously before getting to his feet.

“All of you are coming with us,” said Garin. “Even the poet.”

Orlov walked around the group to fetch Ibragimov, but the old man was already on his feet.

“Our coats are over there by the sound desk,” said Konev, miserably.

Pestov wandered over to the desk. The men's coats were tossed over a pair of chairs that had been pushed together, side by side. He emptied the pockets and ran his hands along the lining. Orlov joined him. 

"Whose is this?" he said holding up a very well-tailored grey glove. 

Konev tutted at a sleeve that had been left inside-out.

"That is mine," he answered in a strained voice.

Yury and Ibragimov switched scarves.

A bright pink explosion that filled the screen momentarily cast them into silhouette.

“Space station is blown up. All ends well,” said Orlov.

“Did you know there are two more of these films?” said Yury. “The man in the black armour is the boy's father.”

“The robot,” said Konev. Again his voice sounded strained.

“He is not a robot. He is a badly-injured man in a suit.”

“They made a better job of putting your back together Pavel,” said Konev. “Did you know there is a twelve-hour film all about your surgery?”

“I am more interested in why you are watching western cinema," said Garin. "Are films from outside the Soviet Union eligible for this year's prize.”

A chicken feather that had detached from his coat alighted on the edge of the table.

“Our viewing of the material is purely for reference,” said Konev.

“It is likely that no prize will be awarded in the film category this year,” said Yury, solemnly. “The work is all bad.”

“We need to take note of what the west is creating,” said Konev. “There is currently a revolution in American cinema.”

They began to walk back through the building. 

“This is the way you came? There is a much more direct route,” said Konev.

“We will return the same way,” said Garin.

“What do you think was the original purpose of this building?” said Konev as they passed the screening room. “Before it became a centre for film and television.”

“Maybe, a centre where radio broadcasts are made,” said Garin.

“It is an unwanted symbol,” said Konev. “A general named Dorokhin made the design as a badge for army uniforms. He was hoping that it would be taken up by the military as their insignia. He had this building made as an advertisement. Even then they did not want it.”

“Dorokhin,” snorted Ibragimov, disdainfully.

They passed underneath the superfluous arch.

“I don't think even I have been in this part of the building,” said Konev, as they descended the stairs. “I must thank you, Pavel, for giving me the guided tour.”

~

Outside, the blizzard has resumed. The lights and the dim silhouettes of Moscow, spreading out from around the foot of the hill, were smudged to a blur by the flurries.

At the top of staircase, Konev turned to face Garin.

“Pavel, please, don't do this to me," he said. “Don't take me in. Who is even asking anyway?”

“Chendev,” said Garin, grimly, like he was announcing a death warrant.

“Chendev?! He will kill me if he gets wind of what I have done with the coin,” said Konev. “Sherstov would have probably found the whole thing funny. A very dark sense of humour that man has. Please Garin, let me go. Tell Chendev that you could not find me. I am useless to you now anyway and there are others you can get. You have my word, we will not say anything about Sherstov to anyone. We will all return to our homes and go to bed.”

He regarded his captor with pleading eyes.

“You can tell him yourself that you are unwell,” said Garin. “You do not have to say how it happened. It will be his decision. Let us hope that he does not decide to have you X-rayed.”

“My life would be over if I lost a kidney,” said Konev. “How would I drink wine?”

Orlov and Pestov had paused along with the two men a couple of flights down. Garin and Konev joined them. Together they descended in zigzags down the hill.

“Incredible, we have finally succeeded in not killing anyone,” said Orlov under his breath.

“What is that?” enquired Yury.

“Never mind. Is nothing,” said the soldier.

The snowflakes were beginning to to cluster around the chicken feathers that were caught on his jacket. Roughly he brushed himself down, filling the air with a powdery effervescence.

The sound of Orlov's hands beating against his coat, caused Pestov to stop and look back. He saw his friend near the top of the flight of stairs seemingly dispersing in a glittering cloud of icy vapour. Ahead of him the lights of Moscow remained static on the horizon, as fixed and as enduring as the constellations in the heavens.

image generated by Craiyon