This is the first chapter of a novel that I finished last Christmas (2007) but was never really happy with. I will try, at some point in the future, to rewrite it, perhaps taking a leaf out of the book of the Simsonian hamster: starting at the end and working backwards. In my mind, I called it My House is on the Outskirts, which is a Ukrainian proverb that means the equivalent of the English "see no evil".
Chapter 1
The armed guard stood at the entrance to the steam-baths as Arkady puttered up on his motorbike-sidecar was dressed entirely in black. He seemed to have modelled his outfit on the Spetsnaz, the Russian special forces, but it was as though he’d received the kit instructions over the telephone, on a poor connection, so that the effect was scruffy and ragged rather than menacing or sharp—a bit shabby, provincial, second-hand. Recognising the newcomer, the security man stepped aside to let him in. The steel door creaked on its hinges and a flake of its khaki paint helicoptered to the ground, unobserved.
Arkady’s contact with the “Donetsk Fellas” was Valentin Kulyeba, a petite Ukrainian who worked for the Russian crime clans. Arkady had dealt with him once before, “helping out” as the front man for a certain pyramid investment scheme. He hadn't exactly enjoyed the experience, but Arkady's attitude was “needs must when the devil rides”. Kulyeba was clever alright, but in the same way as a clockwork mechanism, or an elaborate statistical proof; he was a gifted minor administrator who would have been equally at home as a zealous official in a ministry of one of the totalitarian regimes of the previous century.
At the far end of the corridor Arkady Shapiro came to a heavily padded door, and a shiver of dread shot through him. Relax, relax, he told himself, and he knocked on the door and strolled into the room as breezily as he could manage. Kulyeba was sitting behind a low desk on the far side. He had a creamy white jacket draped over his shoulders, Napoleon-style. Hunched up over some paperwork, which seemed to absorb all of his attention, he looked for all the world as though he was doing the firm's accounts. On the desktop, to one side, was a black coffee steaming away in a white cup and saucer; on a large plate beside it, there was a selection of cold meats and pickles from which, from time to time, Kulyeba would pick out a morsel to munch. Under the desk, his leg shook obsessively. He seemed to breathe exclusively through a half-smoked panatella that had fizzled out some time before.
“Come through,” he said as he stood to his feet, gesturing to a low wooden chair in front of him. As he spoke, he stood up and wheezed phlegmatically into a hanky. “Come in. Come in and shut the door—stop those damned mosquitoes getting in.” Next to the refreshments on his desk there were two neat stacks of documents; a series of biros, laid out in parallel; three pads of yellow post-its, fanned out slightly; a metalworker’s rasp. Kulyeba was no more than five feet six, slim, with narrow shoulders. His movements were as staccato as his pattern of speech, conveying more irritation than anxiety—in no way compromising an implacable sense of self-belief. His dark eyes were emotionless, as if he was never fully engaged with anyone around him, looking over their shoulder for the next opportunity or risk. His hair was messy, like a sunburst in negative, and he was just starting to go grey at the temples. These elements combined to produce a crow-like impression about him, something of the scavenger.
On Arkady’s left, three of Kulyeba’s men were sitting at a round table playing cards. The youngest, jug-eared and shaven-headed, had on a long-sleeved paisley shirt in red and black. He looked the new arrival up and down, but, most likely judging him a negligible threat, went straight back to the poker game. Arkady pulled himself together and crossed over the cold stone floor. Kulyeba’s handshake was swift, limp, damp.
“We got your call,” said Valentin. “I’m only sorry we couldn’t get back to you sooner.”
“No problem, no problem,” said Arkady, bearing his uneven teeth.
“We heard that you were in trouble,” said Kulyeba, and he brought together his palms with a savage slap, surprising an unlucky insect out of existence. The three men looked up from their card game and Arkady jumped. With an index finger, Kulyeba poked at a gap in his teeth to dislodge a shred of pork. Then he got round to the real reason he had called Arkady in.
Kulyeba, it turned out, had had a bit of a bust up with Irakliy Sashukian, "the Armenian", a rival leader from their home town of Utansk, where Kulyeba still took care of metals exports for Donetsk. A convoy of Kulyeba's trucks carrying steel pipes to China had been hijacked, and he blamed Sashukian. One of Sashukian’s men had been “picked up”—but hadn’t held up “under questioning”. The dead man was Misha Karbak, Sashukian’s cousin. Kulyeba couldn’t see what the fuss was about—except it was bad for business. Of course, no one wanted a return to the “dog eat dog” of the mid-90s, no one wanted a return to the "good old days". For a moment Arkady rolled to and fro on the balls of his feet, nervily. Then he said he could help.
“And how’s the family?” asked Kulyeba, escorting his visitor back out onto the dusty street. “I trust they are well”—perhaps intending to bolster an impression of concerned cordiality, though without going so far as to wait for a reply. Vazgen, his jug-eared associate, left with them, heading out for a bite to eat with his sallow-faced girlfriend, whom Arkady thought he recognised—but from where? She had long, black, shiny hair, and the imprints of dark half-circles under her eyes, as if she hadn't slept for days. Vazgen nodded to the scruffy guard at the building's entrance and made off in the direction of a café on the corner, arm-in-arm with his paramour. Kulyeba, meanwhile, had ventured as far as the kerb. At the sight of Arkady’s motorbike-sidecar, an ancient black Dnipr K-650 parked there, Kulyeba almost choked on his own glee. “What’s this?” he spluttered. “What happened to the Fabia?” Arkady didn’t feel like explaining that he’d sold the car to pay for his father’s trip abroad. “It's a long story,” he said.
“I hope you’re not going to turn up at the Armenian’s on that thing,” said Kulyeba. “We can’t have that,” and he pulled from a calf-skin wallet a slim green wad of $100-bills. “Here,” he said, “live a little, why don’t you? Get yourself something with a little more class,” and he pressed some cash into Arkady’s hand, which seemed to extend itself of its own volition, without consulting his will.
On the two-lane highway from the city, Arkady shivered. Interrogating the afternoon’s events, he had his gaze fixed firmly on the road ahead, scanning for potholes.
Could he deliver?
Changing gear, he overtook a struggling red Zhiguli.
Would he be able to deliver what he’d promised? Of course he would, no question, no question. Hadn’t he’d always been lucky?
But the low, hypnotic growl of the bike’s engine failed to reassure him, and the sidecar rattled, unutterably empty now he’d seen his father off for the flight to Kiev. (Through the double-glass windows from the first floor of Donetsk Airport he’d watched the "internal" short-haul passenger planes taking off and unsteadily landing, and when he’d looked down, he’d caught sight of the old man shuffling along the tarmac towards the airport’s shuttle-bus, with almost no luggage. He was probably in Kiev already—perhaps in the air on the way to Tel Aviv. Had Arkady seen his father for the last time? This thought pierced him sharply.)
Tall rows of poplars sprouted from a flat horizon that seemed to posses them in inexhaustible supply, with only the odd field of wilting sunflowers or a coal-pit's spindly winding gear, turning slowly, to relieve the monotony of the scrubby steppe. A wind stream whipped over Arkady's cheeks and pushed back his unkempt, curly hair. And if a militiaman were to stop him for riding without helmet, so be it (he kept a few 100-hryvnya notes in his back pocket for bribes), because the deal with Kulyeba seemed to offer a way out of a tight spot he'd got himself into with the tax department, who were now investigating his business affairs. Feeling lighter than he had in months, he steered the bike onto a slip road: it seemed to handle more easily now. As he drove past the football stadium, the artificial lake, he felt almost wholly calm, coming to a halt steadily at a red light ahead of a crooked, narrow bridge. Just over the bridge, at the centre of a roundabout, he eyed a huge glossy poster for New Superslims, the purple waves of its silky backdrop, the stylish arrangement of the delicate cartonettes somehow seeming to welcome him home. He pictured the dinner for two he had planned for later that night with his mistress, Mila. Above him, the sky seemed blue and hopeful, and there was no cloud cover. “Whatever happens, happens,” said Arkady to himself, as if to throw any remaining anxieties off the scent, the bike wobbling a little as he pulled away.
Chapter 1
The armed guard stood at the entrance to the steam-baths as Arkady puttered up on his motorbike-sidecar was dressed entirely in black. He seemed to have modelled his outfit on the Spetsnaz, the Russian special forces, but it was as though he’d received the kit instructions over the telephone, on a poor connection, so that the effect was scruffy and ragged rather than menacing or sharp—a bit shabby, provincial, second-hand. Recognising the newcomer, the security man stepped aside to let him in. The steel door creaked on its hinges and a flake of its khaki paint helicoptered to the ground, unobserved.
Arkady’s contact with the “Donetsk Fellas” was Valentin Kulyeba, a petite Ukrainian who worked for the Russian crime clans. Arkady had dealt with him once before, “helping out” as the front man for a certain pyramid investment scheme. He hadn't exactly enjoyed the experience, but Arkady's attitude was “needs must when the devil rides”. Kulyeba was clever alright, but in the same way as a clockwork mechanism, or an elaborate statistical proof; he was a gifted minor administrator who would have been equally at home as a zealous official in a ministry of one of the totalitarian regimes of the previous century.
At the far end of the corridor Arkady Shapiro came to a heavily padded door, and a shiver of dread shot through him. Relax, relax, he told himself, and he knocked on the door and strolled into the room as breezily as he could manage. Kulyeba was sitting behind a low desk on the far side. He had a creamy white jacket draped over his shoulders, Napoleon-style. Hunched up over some paperwork, which seemed to absorb all of his attention, he looked for all the world as though he was doing the firm's accounts. On the desktop, to one side, was a black coffee steaming away in a white cup and saucer; on a large plate beside it, there was a selection of cold meats and pickles from which, from time to time, Kulyeba would pick out a morsel to munch. Under the desk, his leg shook obsessively. He seemed to breathe exclusively through a half-smoked panatella that had fizzled out some time before.
“Come through,” he said as he stood to his feet, gesturing to a low wooden chair in front of him. As he spoke, he stood up and wheezed phlegmatically into a hanky. “Come in. Come in and shut the door—stop those damned mosquitoes getting in.” Next to the refreshments on his desk there were two neat stacks of documents; a series of biros, laid out in parallel; three pads of yellow post-its, fanned out slightly; a metalworker’s rasp. Kulyeba was no more than five feet six, slim, with narrow shoulders. His movements were as staccato as his pattern of speech, conveying more irritation than anxiety—in no way compromising an implacable sense of self-belief. His dark eyes were emotionless, as if he was never fully engaged with anyone around him, looking over their shoulder for the next opportunity or risk. His hair was messy, like a sunburst in negative, and he was just starting to go grey at the temples. These elements combined to produce a crow-like impression about him, something of the scavenger.
On Arkady’s left, three of Kulyeba’s men were sitting at a round table playing cards. The youngest, jug-eared and shaven-headed, had on a long-sleeved paisley shirt in red and black. He looked the new arrival up and down, but, most likely judging him a negligible threat, went straight back to the poker game. Arkady pulled himself together and crossed over the cold stone floor. Kulyeba’s handshake was swift, limp, damp.
“We got your call,” said Valentin. “I’m only sorry we couldn’t get back to you sooner.”
“No problem, no problem,” said Arkady, bearing his uneven teeth.
“We heard that you were in trouble,” said Kulyeba, and he brought together his palms with a savage slap, surprising an unlucky insect out of existence. The three men looked up from their card game and Arkady jumped. With an index finger, Kulyeba poked at a gap in his teeth to dislodge a shred of pork. Then he got round to the real reason he had called Arkady in.
Kulyeba, it turned out, had had a bit of a bust up with Irakliy Sashukian, "the Armenian", a rival leader from their home town of Utansk, where Kulyeba still took care of metals exports for Donetsk. A convoy of Kulyeba's trucks carrying steel pipes to China had been hijacked, and he blamed Sashukian. One of Sashukian’s men had been “picked up”—but hadn’t held up “under questioning”. The dead man was Misha Karbak, Sashukian’s cousin. Kulyeba couldn’t see what the fuss was about—except it was bad for business. Of course, no one wanted a return to the “dog eat dog” of the mid-90s, no one wanted a return to the "good old days". For a moment Arkady rolled to and fro on the balls of his feet, nervily. Then he said he could help.
“And how’s the family?” asked Kulyeba, escorting his visitor back out onto the dusty street. “I trust they are well”—perhaps intending to bolster an impression of concerned cordiality, though without going so far as to wait for a reply. Vazgen, his jug-eared associate, left with them, heading out for a bite to eat with his sallow-faced girlfriend, whom Arkady thought he recognised—but from where? She had long, black, shiny hair, and the imprints of dark half-circles under her eyes, as if she hadn't slept for days. Vazgen nodded to the scruffy guard at the building's entrance and made off in the direction of a café on the corner, arm-in-arm with his paramour. Kulyeba, meanwhile, had ventured as far as the kerb. At the sight of Arkady’s motorbike-sidecar, an ancient black Dnipr K-650 parked there, Kulyeba almost choked on his own glee. “What’s this?” he spluttered. “What happened to the Fabia?” Arkady didn’t feel like explaining that he’d sold the car to pay for his father’s trip abroad. “It's a long story,” he said.
“I hope you’re not going to turn up at the Armenian’s on that thing,” said Kulyeba. “We can’t have that,” and he pulled from a calf-skin wallet a slim green wad of $100-bills. “Here,” he said, “live a little, why don’t you? Get yourself something with a little more class,” and he pressed some cash into Arkady’s hand, which seemed to extend itself of its own volition, without consulting his will.
On the two-lane highway from the city, Arkady shivered. Interrogating the afternoon’s events, he had his gaze fixed firmly on the road ahead, scanning for potholes.
Could he deliver?
Changing gear, he overtook a struggling red Zhiguli.
Would he be able to deliver what he’d promised? Of course he would, no question, no question. Hadn’t he’d always been lucky?
But the low, hypnotic growl of the bike’s engine failed to reassure him, and the sidecar rattled, unutterably empty now he’d seen his father off for the flight to Kiev. (Through the double-glass windows from the first floor of Donetsk Airport he’d watched the "internal" short-haul passenger planes taking off and unsteadily landing, and when he’d looked down, he’d caught sight of the old man shuffling along the tarmac towards the airport’s shuttle-bus, with almost no luggage. He was probably in Kiev already—perhaps in the air on the way to Tel Aviv. Had Arkady seen his father for the last time? This thought pierced him sharply.)
Tall rows of poplars sprouted from a flat horizon that seemed to posses them in inexhaustible supply, with only the odd field of wilting sunflowers or a coal-pit's spindly winding gear, turning slowly, to relieve the monotony of the scrubby steppe. A wind stream whipped over Arkady's cheeks and pushed back his unkempt, curly hair. And if a militiaman were to stop him for riding without helmet, so be it (he kept a few 100-hryvnya notes in his back pocket for bribes), because the deal with Kulyeba seemed to offer a way out of a tight spot he'd got himself into with the tax department, who were now investigating his business affairs. Feeling lighter than he had in months, he steered the bike onto a slip road: it seemed to handle more easily now. As he drove past the football stadium, the artificial lake, he felt almost wholly calm, coming to a halt steadily at a red light ahead of a crooked, narrow bridge. Just over the bridge, at the centre of a roundabout, he eyed a huge glossy poster for New Superslims, the purple waves of its silky backdrop, the stylish arrangement of the delicate cartonettes somehow seeming to welcome him home. He pictured the dinner for two he had planned for later that night with his mistress, Mila. Above him, the sky seemed blue and hopeful, and there was no cloud cover. “Whatever happens, happens,” said Arkady to himself, as if to throw any remaining anxieties off the scent, the bike wobbling a little as he pulled away.
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