A fist again passes across Dima’s face, punching away the sweat. He whispers
Jesus God
to himself and stares around their tiny box for help. ‘You gonna tell this to your English apparatchiks, Professor?’
Perry will do what he can.
‘Night October 30 two thousand eight, after this Pakistani arsehole wake me up, I don’t sleep good, OK?’
OK.
‘Next morning October 31 I call my goddam Swiss banks. “Get me the fuck outta Mumbai.” Services, timber, tea, I got maybe thirty per cent. Hotels seventy. Couple week later, I’m in Rome. Tamara call me. “Turn on the goddam television.” What do I watch? Those crazy Pakistani fucks shooting the shit outta Mumbai, Indian stock market stop trading. Next day, Indian Hotels are down sixteen per cent to 40 rupees and falling. March this year, they hit 31. Khalil call me. “OK, my friend, now you get the fuck back in. Remember it’s me who told you this.” So I get the fuck back in.’ The sweat is pouring down his bald face. ‘End of year, Indian Hotels are 100 rupees. I make twenty million profit cold. The Jews are dead, the hostages are dead and I’m a fucking genius. You tell this to your English spies, Professor. Jesus God.’
The sweated face a mask of self-disgust. The cracking of the rotten weatherboards in the sea-wind. Dima has talked himself to a point of no return. Perry has been observed and tested and found good.
*
Washing his hands in the prettily decked-out upstairs lavatory, Perry peers into the mirror and is impressed by the eagerness of a face he is beginning not to know. He hurries back down the thickly carpeted staircase.
‘Another nip?’ Hector asks, flapping a lazy hand in the direction of the drinks tray. ‘Luke, lad, how’s about making us a pot of coffee?’
7
In the road above the basement, an ambulance tears past, and the howl of its siren is like a scream for the whole world’s pain.
In the wind-beaten, half-hexagon turret overlooking the bay, Dima is unrolling the satin sleeve from his left arm. By the changeful moonlight that has replaced the vanished sun, Perry discerns a bare-breasted Madonna surrounded by voluptuous angels in alluring poses. The tattoo descends from the tip of Dima’s massive shoulder to the gold wristband of his bejewelled Rolex watch.
‘You wanna know who make this tattoo for me, Professor?’ he whispers in a voice husky with emotion. ‘Six goddam month every day one hour?’
Yes, Perry would like to know who has tattooed a topless Madonna and her female choir on to Dima’s enormous arm, and taken six months to do it. He would like to know what relevance the Holy Virgin has to Dima’s quest for a place at Roedean for Natasha, or permanent residence in Britain for all his family in exchange for vital information, but the English tutor in him is also learning that Dima the storyteller has his own narrative arc and that his plots unfold with indirection.
‘My Rufina make this. She was
zek
, like me. Camp hooker, sick from tuberculosis, one hour each day. When she finish, she die. Jesus Christ, huh? Jesus Christ.’
A respectful quiet while both men contemplate Rufina’s masterpiece.
‘Know what is
Kolyma
, Professor?’ Dima asks, still with a husk in his voice. ‘You heard?’
Yes, Perry knows what is
Kolyma
. He has read his Solzhenitsyn. He has read his Shalamov. He knows that Kolyma is a river north of the Arctic Circle that has given its name to the harshest camps in the
Gulag archipelago, before or after Stalin. He knows
zek
too:
zek
for Russia’s prisoners, the millions and millions of them.
‘With fourteen I was goddam
zek
in Kolyma. Criminal, not political. Political is shit. Criminal is pure. Fifteen years I serve there.’
‘
Fifteen
in
Kolyma
?’
‘Sure, Professor. I done fifteen.’
The anguish has gone out of Dima’s voice, to be replaced by pride.
‘For
criminal prisoner Dima
, other prisoners got
respect
. Why I was in Kolyma? I was murderer.
Good
murderer. Who I murder? Lousy Sovietsky apparatchik in Perm. Our father suicide himself, got tired, drank lotta vodka. My mother, to give us food, soap, she gotta fuck this lousy apparatchik. In Perm, we live in communal apartment. Eight crappy rooms, thirty people, one crappy kitchen, one shithouse, everybody stink and smoke. Kids do not like this lousy apparatchik who fuck our mother. We gotta stand outside in kitchen, very thin wall, when apparatchik come to visit us, bring food, fuck my mother. Everybody stare at us: listen to your mother, she’s a whore. We gotta put our hands over our goddam ears. You wanna know something, Professor?’
Perry does.
‘This guy, this apparatchik, know where he get his food?’
Perry does not.
‘He’s a fucking
military administrator
! Distributes food in barracks. Carries a gun. Nice pretty gun, leather case, big hero. You wanna try fucking with a gun belt round your arse? You gotta be big acrobat. This
military administrator
, this
apparatchik
, he take off shoes. He take off his pretty gun. He put gun in shoes. OK, I think. Maybe you fuck my mother enough. Maybe you don’t fuck her no more. Maybe nobody gonna stare at us no more like we’re whore’s kids. I knock on door. I open it. I am polite. “Excuse me,” I say. “Is Dima. Excuse me,
Comrade Lousy Apparatchik
. Please I borrow your pretty gun? Kindly look me in my face once. You don’t look me, how do I kill you? Thank you so much, Comrade.” My mother look me. She don’t say nothing. Apparatchik look me. I kill the fuck. One bullet.’
Dima’s forefinger rests on the bridge of his nose, indicating where
the bullet went. Perry is reminded of the same forefinger resting on his sons’ noses in the middle of the tennis match.
‘Why I murder this apparatchik?’ Dima inquires rhetorically. ‘Was for my
mother
who protect her
children
. Was for love of my crazy
father
who suicide himself. Was for honour of
Russia
, I kill this fuck. Was to stop stares they give us in corridor, maybe. Therefore in Kolyma I am
welcome
prisoner. I am
krutoi
– good fellow, got no problems, pure. I am not
political
. I am criminal. I am
hero
, I am
fighter
. I kill military apparatchik, maybe also
Chekist
. Why else they give me fifteen? I have
honour
. I am not –’
*
Reaching this point in his story, Perry faltered, and his voice became diffident:
‘I am not
woodpecker
. I am not
dog
, Professor,’ he offered dubiously.
‘He means informant,’ Hector explained. ‘Woodpecker, dog, hen: take your pick. They all mean informant. He’s trying to persuade you that he isn’t one when he is.’
With a nod of respect for Hector’s superior knowledge, Perry resumed.
*
‘One day, after three years, this good boy Dima will become
man
. How he become
man
? My friend
Nikita
will make him man. Who is
Nikita
? Nikita is also
honourable
, also good
fighter
, big criminal. He will be
father
to this good boy Dima. He will be
brother
to him. He will
protect
Dima. He will
love
Dima. It will be
pure
love. One day, it is very good day for me, proud day, Nikita bring me to
vory
. You know what is
vory
, Professor? You know what is
vor
?’
Yes, Perry even knows what is
vory
. He knows
vor
too. He has read his Solzhenitsyn, he has read his Shalamov. He has read that in the Gulag the
vory
are the prisoners’ arbiters and enforcers of justice, a brotherhood of criminals of honour sworn to abide by a strict code of conduct, to renounce marriage, property and subservience to the State; that the
vory
venerate priesthood and dabble in its mystique;
and that
vor
is the singular of
vory
, plural. And that the
vory’
s pride is to be Criminals within the Law, an aristocracy far removed from street riff-raff who have never known a law in their lives.
‘My Nikita speak to very big
vory
committee. Many big criminals are present for this meeting, many good fighters. He tell to
vory
: “My dear brothers, here is
Dima
. Dima is
ready
, my brothers. Take him.” So they
take
Dima, they make him
man
. They make him criminal of honour. But Nikita must still
protect
Dima. This is because Dima – is – his –’
As Dima the criminal of honour hunts for the
mot juste
, Perry the outward-bound Oxford don comes to his assistance:
‘Disciple?’
‘
Disciple! Yes
, Professor! Like for Jesus! Nikita will protect his
disciple
Dima. This is normal. This is
vory
law. He will protect him
always
. This is
promise
. Nikita has made me
vor
. Therefore he protect me. But he die.’
Dima dabs at his bald brow with his handkerchief, then smears his wrist across his eyes, then pinches his nostrils between his finger and thumb like a swimmer emerging from the water. When the hand comes down, Perry sees that he is weeping for Nikita’s death.
*
Hector has called a natural break. Luke has made coffee. Perry accepts a cup, and a chocolate digestive while he’s about it. The lecturer in him is in full flood, rallying his facts and observations, presenting them with all the accuracy and precision he can muster. But nothing can quite douse the glint of excitement in his eyes, or the flush of his gaunt cheeks.
And perhaps the self-editor in him is aware of this, and troubled by it: which is why, when he resumes, he selects a staccato, almost offhand style of narrative more in keeping with pedagogic objectivity than the rush of adventure:
‘Nikita had picked up a camp fever. It was midwinter. Minus sixty degrees Celsius, or thereabouts. A lot of prisoners were dying. Guards didn’t give a damn. The hospitals weren’t there to cure, they were places to die in. Nikita was a tough nut and took a long time dying.
Dima tended him. Missed his prison work, got the punishment cell. Each time they let him out, he went back to Nikita in the hospital until they dragged him off again. Beating, starving, light deprivation, chained to a wall in sub-zero temperatures. All the stuff you people outsource to less fastidious countries, and pretend you know nothing about,’ he adds, in a spurt of semi-humorous belligerence that falls flat. ‘And while he was comforting Nikita, they agreed that Dima would induct his own protégé into the
vory
Brotherhood. It was a solemn moment, apparently: the dying Nikita appointing his posterity by way of Dima. A passing of the chalice across three generations of criminals. Dima’s protégé –
disciple
, as he was now pleased to call him, thanks to me, I’m afraid – was one Mikhail, alias
Misha
.’ Perry reproduces the moment:
‘“Misha is man of honour, like me!” I tell to them,’ Dima is proclaiming to the
vory
’s high committee of made men. ‘“He is criminal, not political. Misha love
true
Mother Russia not Soviet Union. Misha respect all
women
. He
strong
, he
pure
, he not woodpecker, he not dog, not military, not camp guard, KGB. He not
policeman
. He
kill
policemen. He despise all apparatchik. Misha my
son
. He your brother. Take the son of Dima for your
vory
brother!”’
*
Perry still determinedly in lecture mode. The following facts for your notebooks, please, ladies and gentlemen. The passage I am about to read to you represents the short version of Dima’s personal history, as recounted by him in the lookout of the house called Three Chimneys between slurps of vodka:
‘As soon as he was released from Kolyma he hurried home to Perm and was in time to bury his mother. The early 1980s were boom years for criminals. Life in the fast lane was short and dangerous, but profitable. With his impeccable credentials Dima was received with open arms by the local
vory
. Discovering that he had a natural eye for numbers, he quickly engaged in illegal currency speculation, insurance fraud and smuggling. A fast-expanding folio of petty crime takes him to Communist East Germany. Car theft, false passports and
currency deals a speciality. And along the way he equips himself with spoken German. He takes his women where he finds them, but his continuing partner is Tamara, a black-market dealer in such rare commodities as women’s clothing and essential foods, resident in Perm. With the assistance of Dima and like-minded accomplices she also runs a sideline in extortion, abduction and blackmail. This brings her into conflict with a rival brotherhood who first take her prisoner and torture her, then frame her and hand her over to the police who torture her some more. Dima explains Tamara’s
problem
:
‘“She don’t never squeal, Professor, hear me? She good criminal, better than man. They put her in press-cell. Know what is press-cell? They hang her upside down, rape her ten, twenty time, beat the shit outta her, but she don’t never squeal. She tell them, go fuck themselves. Tamara, she big fighter, no
bitch
.”’
Again Perry offered the word with diffidence, and again Hector quietly came to his rescue:
‘
Bitch
being even worse than dog or woodpecker. A bitch betrays the underworld code. Dima’s getting the serious guilts by now.’
‘Then perhaps that’s why he stumbled over the word,’ Perry suggested, and Hector said perhaps it was.