The Benefactor Index: Chapter Twelve - The riches that are in the heart

 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 Twelve – The riches that are in the heart

image generated by Craiyon

Yemelin watched Katin and Volkov making their way up the slope towards the concert hall. Flakes of snow flurried around them. Both men were hunched over in the gathering blizzard like a pair of Arctic explorers on their last legs. Volkov was holding his left arm across his chest.

“Where are your two men?” he enquired.

“They are around, cleaning up,” said Garin.

As the snowfall had intensified the air had grown strangely warmer. He removed his gloves so he could change the magazine in his pistol.

The two brothers had almost reached the top of the slope. Both were breathing heavily from the exertion. Katin's glasses were missing. There were small cuts on his cheeks and around his eyes.

“Were either of you shot?” said Yemelin.

“The bullets went where we were,” said Katin. “Neven pushed both of us clear.”

“I saw you go down,” said Yemelin. “I felt certain one or both of you had been injured or worse.”

“I have fractured my arm, or broken it,” said Volkov. “I can live with it until after we have taken care of matters.”

“We need to discuss how we should respond,” said Garin.

Further down the slope a slouching figure was making their way out from under the Sound Dome. He could not tell who it was. From the bearing he thought that it might be Orlov.

“Your spectacles, Radmilo,” said Yemelin.

“Gone. I could not find them in the snow. The glass had broken anyway.”

“But can you see well enough without them?”

“Not long range. But you will not have to lead me around by the hand.”

“It is a blessing that both of you are alive,” said Yemelin.

“What happened up here while we were gone?” enquired Volkov

“There was some more shooting. It was a close run thing for a while. Pavel's men are taking care of the last of them.”

“We need to reconsider our strategy,” said Garin. “It is obvious we cannot return to the van.”

He kept one eye on the human figure who was ascending the slope at a wretched pace. He was almost certain now that it was Orlov.

“The Spring Palace is about a mile from here,” said Yemelin. “It is well within reach on foot.”

“There may be others hunting us,” said Garin.

“Perhaps,” said the General. “There is something that troubles me about the men who were sent to kill us: If they were special forces, we would certainly all be dead. I don't believe they were even rank and file military – no discipline or basis tactics. Could they be police?

“No offence,” he added after a pause.

“It's possible,” said Garin.

“I am thinking criminals. Street thugs,” said Yemelin. “Sherstov has access to more highly-skilled and better armed personnel. Why does he not send them after us? And why send such a small number?”

“Maybe he really is sick, after all,” said Garin.

“There is some other factor in play that we are not seeing,” said Yemelin.

Garin pointed through the snowflakes to the east, in the approximate direction of the Spring Palace. On the horizon the sky was beginning to brighten.

“Our best approach is through the retail district. It is fairly recent addition to the city. You may not know it.”

“I remember there was a street market near the Palace,” said Yemelin.

“It has grown out of that,” said Garin. “There will be plenty of crowds; workers who have come off the night shift.”

“We should not keep all our eggs in one basket:” said the General. “If we divides ourselves into groups then that will increase our chances of getting to the Palace. I suggest you will lead one group and I will lead the other.”

“You with your boys?” said Garin.

“If we are to die, then we will die as a family,” said Yemelin. “You take Iosif and the other one, along with those two.”

He glanced over at Konev and Yury who were sitting on top of the heating vent. Both men looked tired and dishevelled.

“I can spare a gun if you think it is necessary,” said Garin.

If I needed a gun I would take one off the bodies,” said Yemelin.

His gaze travelled to the distant end of the building where three men lay dead in the snow.

“I am going there to talk to Sherstov, to convince him that none of us are any threat to him.” he said. “If I meet him with blood on my hands, or with something on my person that indicates an intent to do harm, then our dialogue is unlikely to bear fruit.”

“After today, we all have some blood on our hands,” said Garin.

“If there is blood there today that wasn't there yesterday, then it was put there by others,” answered the General.

The sound of footsteps crunching across frozen snow drew everybody's attention towards the slope.

Orlov had come to a halt just beyond the plaza. His face and clothes were smeared with blood. He stared at them with hollow eyes, and with his mouth partly open, as if he was waiting for the words to come.

“There is no need to say it,” said Garin.

Orlov nodded. He took off one glove. The hand underneath was covered in blood. He attempted to wipe his face clean with it.

“We are splitting into two teams,” Garin told him. “Yemelin and his boys, and you, me, Tihomer and Nadislav. We will go our separate ways through the retail district to the Palace. It will increase the chances of one of us getting there.”

Again Orlov nodded.

“Okay,” he said.

“You will need to clean yourself up,” said Yemelin. “Your face and your hands. Use some of the snow.”

Orlov removed his other glove. Squatting down, he scooped up some of the fresh snow and began to massage it into his face. Rivulets of red water trickled through the gaps between his fingers. He gathered up some more snow and did the same again. Wandering away from the plaza and back onto the slope, he spread his arms and allowed himself to fall forward, face-first into a shallow drift.

He stayed there for a few seconds, then got back up, his face streaked red with blood, his hair and clothing covered in ice crystals and wet feathers.

A red, vaguely man-shaped impression stained the snow where he had briefly lain.

“Let his memory nourish the daisies in the Spring,” he said.

Yemelin looked on, embarrassed.

“We have all lost people,” he said quietly to Garin.

“This is his way of dealing with it for now,” said Garin “Let him do what is necessary. I need him with me in the present moment; not chained to a painful memory of the past.”

“Arkady, we are done here,” he called.

“Eduard will have to find his own way,” said Yemelin, sadly.

They did not say goodbye to each other.

Garin and Orlov remained at the top of the slope covering the three men as they descended. After the trio had disappeared from sight, they rounded up a subdued Konev and Yury and went down a different way.

~

The ocean of grey slush plastering the road junction was six inches deep in places and patterned with the tire marks of the most recent vehicles to pass through. A pair of women were attempting to negotiate a partially obscured pedestrian crossing. They walked with their knees rigid and slightly bent, and their arms stretched out, as if they were trying out ice skates for the first time. The foot of one of the women began to slide forward, aquaplaning on the liquefying snow. She let out a loud shriek before managing to bring herself to a trembling standstill.

One of the residential streets that branched off from crossroads had been fenced-off by a work barrier. An unoccupied earth excavator had been paused, with its pneumatic hammer-drill pointing down at an angle a foot above the road surface, like it was a fountain pen.

At the end of the vista the threads of light were beginning to merge and grow brighter.

“It will be morning soon,” said Konev. His voice was cracked and tired.

A market had occupied a long section of a brutalist arcade. Metal clothes racks, loaded with shirts, dresses, trousers and colourful anoraks barred the space between the square concrete pillars. On the fringe of the open-plan shop, an elderly woman, who was operating a set of manual scales, kept a tape measure draped around her neck. Upon request, she would provide cursory measurements of the waists and chests of women who were eyeing the clothing on display.

Behind the window of a small, empty butchers shop, a man with a bushy moustache, wearing a dark, knitted cap, added a ring of cook sausage to a small quoit-like stack under a glass display counter.

A few doors along, a queue of night workers congregated outside the open door of a bakery, their breath fogging the large window, turning it opaque.

On the edge of the covered market, a few scattered traders were selling disparate items that were spread out in front them on the bare concrete.

A bald man of indeterminate age, wearing the padded white coat and trousers of an ice house worker, trundled past on a pair of roller-skates. In a vacant shop nearby, a large group of workers, swaddled in their winter clothes, were seated on rows of chairs, facing a radio that was perched on the counter on a set of four stilt-like legs. Their breath fogged the cold air.

On the snowy pavement, outside a grand old building with an arching, glass lattice roof, a group of children had placed a tinsel garland on the head of a toy bear.

A little girl, whose boyish haircut was garnished by a enormous silken flower, ran over to Orlov with her hand out.

“Money for the bear,” she demanded.

Wearily the soldier reached into the pocket where he kept his dollars and handed over what was there.

The girl ran back excitedly to her her friends who eagerly converged on the American currency and cast curious glances in the direction of their mysterious benefactor.

“We will go through here,” said Garin. “If there is anybody following we can shake them off.”

“I have seen no-one,” said Orlov

“This is the market for foreign tourists,” said Konev. “We will stand out like nuns at an orgy.”

“The many occasions that you thought were orgies were in fact church services,” said Garin.

The doorman eyed them suspiciously as they entered. The interior was a single very large and crowded room, filled with counters selling. luxury western goods. A wide mezzanine balcony overhead was occupied by a bar that sold quality vodka and caviar. Garin had been taken there once by his boss, Vasnev.

Mounted high on the arched wall, at the opposite end of the building, there was a giant cuckoo clock. The hands read four minutes past six.

As Garin and Orlov eased their way through the shoppers, Konev placed his hand on Yury's arm.

“Let us hang back here,” he said quietly.

“They will miss us,” warned Yury.

“If they miss us they will come back and get us,” said Konev. “We will say that we lost sight of them.”

Yury shuffled his feet and look uncomfortable. An American woman wearing a fur hat glared at him when he failed to get out of her way.

“I think that we both deserve a drink after all we have been through,” reasoned Konev. “Let Pavel and his man finish their war. Unless I am forced at gunpoint, I reuse to participate any further in his madness.”

~

Garin and Orlov passed under the cuckoo clock. A rush of cold air accompanied a guided group of red-cheeked tourists who were approaching from the opposite direction. As they jostled past, Garin glanced over his shoulder and noticed a fresh blood stain smeared across the pale-brown woollen coat of one of the women, where she had brushed against Orlov. He wondered how many other shoppers had been marked in a similar way by the ghost of Pestov.

The pair emerged through a set of gilded double doors, onto a snowy street that was beginning to come into focus in the predawn light.

After the crowded human warmth of the dollar mall, the cold seemed more biting than before. They were halfway across the road when Orlov stopped and called out to Garin: “We have lost the other two.”

Garin halted and turned around. An orange car that was crawling through the snow honked its horn at him.

He has raised an arm in deference to the driver and made his way quickly to the opposite pavement. Orlov trotted around the back of the car, through a blue-grey smog of exhaust fumes.

“Konev and Yury are gone,” he said. “They must still be in the mall.”

“Where were they last with us?” said Garin. “At the entrance for sure. Afterwards, I can't remember. I was too focused on possible threats from elsewhere.”

“The pair had become invisible,” replied Orlov. “I took it for granted that they would follow.”

Garin stared back towards the mall for a few seconds while he came to a decision.

“They have wandered away,” he surmised. “It was their choice.”

“I will go find them,” said Orlov.

As he moved away, Garin place a hand on his arm.

“No let them go. They are dead weight. They will just fuck things up.”

Orlov nodded.

“You should go too...” said Garin. “...There is nothing left for you to do. Mstislav or myself will talk to Sherstov. He will either listen and respond positively, or he will have us both tortured and then executed. If you are with me you will share my fate.”

He studied the soldier's face for signs of understanding.

“Now Konev is gone, you will be returning empty handed,” said Orlov. “You will have failed in your duties.”

“It is likely my responsibilities were not real anyway,” said Garin. “We have been sent for a turn around the board. Now we are almost back where we began at square one, and with less than we started. I must save what can be saved.

“If things go bad for me, and I am asked, I will tell them that you are dead. Let us say, if you do not hear from me after three days, you should try to leave the country. Wait until things have settled down along the border first. Go when there is an opportunity.”

There was pause between them, then Orlov spoke:

“It was a bad night.”

“For me there have been worse,” said Garin.

He turned away and walked through the tiled entrance to the covered market.

Orlov blew out some air from the middle of his bottom lip. He wandered back across the road towards the dollar mall. A woman was staring through a shop window at a mock-up of a modern red kitchen. He took up a position alongside her.

“I will buy you everything in this window if you will sleep with me,” he said. “I do not have the money with me now but I know where I can get it.”

“To be lucky with that line, you should save your excuses until afterwards,” said the woman from behind her thick, knitted scarf.

“Earlier this morning I killed a close friend,” confessed Orlov as he stared at the red cupboards. “It was an accident, or I was repaying a debt that was owed to the universe; I do not know which. It was dark and it was snowing. I could not see properly. I was not wearing my glasses when I fired the gun. I had to leave his body behind. I made an angel of his blood in the snow.”

When he turned to look, the woman had left the window and was making her way along the icy pavement, her handbag and her shopping bags herded together on one bent elbow.

“I know how it sounds bad,” he called after her.

~

Garin wandered through the market as though he was a customer, idly circulating with the crowds between the long white tiled counters, browsing the fruit and vegetables that were piled on top. When he found his way blocked by stacks of wooden crates made from crooked hand-cut planks, he used the obstruction as an excuse to turn around and check his surroundings. Nobody seemed to be following. He was scolded by a stallholder after he placed five apples in the pan of a set of weighing scales.

“I'm buying, I'm buying,” he said.

He handed the knotted old woman some notes.

“I have no change,” she grumbled.

“Never mind, keep it,” he replied. “Buy a beauty treatment with it.”

He left the market. Soon he was on the fringes of one of the parks that orbited the grounds of the Spring Palace. A table stall was selling women's ankle boots. One shoe from each pair was displayed on the plinth of its box.

An enormous concrete hammer and sickle, lying on its side, extended over the edge of a grass verge and onto a broad snowy footpath. An elderly woman, wearing a pink knitted hat, had rested her large black handbag on the handle of the sickle and was rummaging around inside.

Garin placed the bag of apples on the monument next to her

“Here, you are old mother, I do not need them,” he said.

The rising sun, showing pink in the eastern sky, had brought with it a white fog that was gathering in strength. He watched as the rising mist surrounded a man holding a leather briefcase, who was waiting at the side of a road. Within minutes it had simplified his identity to a grey silhouette. Soon after he was completely erased, engulfed by an opaque whiteness, along with the road and the street signs.

~

“A little drinky for me...” said Konev.

He lifted a glass of vodka from the round silver tray and placed it on the round table in front of his chair.

“...And a little drinky for you.”

He put the other glass down in front of Yury.

He settled the tray with the bottle in the centre of the table.

“And...”

He whirled one hand over a silver cloche that resembled a large doorbell, as if he was performing a magic trick. His other hand rushed in underneath, removing the cloche, revealing a mound of caviar, some rectangular strips of white toast, and a pair of lemon wedges. A pair of small bone spoons had been lashed together with a short piece of purple ribbon around their midpoints, so that they formed a cross.

On the balcony bar of the dollar mall, where the pair had settled, the tables were pushed close together. Konev had to jostle against the woman who was seated directly behind him, until he was finally able to squeeze himself into his own chair. As he forced his way behind the table, Yury held the vodka bottle steady by the neck.

It was a very confrontational place to eat and drink. There was always at least one person's elbow pressing against a part of your body, and always a lot of irritable sparring and fierce over the shoulder glances. Konev enjoyed the place nonetheless.

“Good caviar,” he said.

A generous infusion of vodka had restored some of the vitality to his drawn features.

“Very,” answered Yury. “The best in all Moscow.”

The sun was beginning to rise from behind a screen of white fog. A rose-tinted haze filled the arching lattice of the glass roof.

“I am seldom awake for the dawn,” observed Konev.

He raised his small glass in a toast.

“Against all the odds, we have lived to see another day.”

Yury tilted his own glass towards his companion's and clinked the rim against the bottom.

“To those who know best how to survive,” said Konev.

“I have found the best way is to do as little as possible,” said Yury.

“And that is why you, my friend, will die in your bed, with a young wife, at a grand old age.”

“I have also never seen the practical value in principles,” said Yury though a black and white mouthful of toast and caviar. Take the others, for example...”

“Garin and his man? The General and his two sons? They are all dead men,” said Konev. “Not one of them will live to see the glory of another morning.”

A rose-tinted parallelogram of filtered sunlight had settled on the table, just beyond the reach of his fingers.

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