The Tool & the Butterflies Page 14

  “You’re supposed to call the police in those situations, not pry open other people’s doors!” I growled. “I don’t have anything valuable in my apartment! What gives you the right to intrude on perfect strangers? What are you, my brother?”

  “Gimme fifty rubles,” my neighbor pleaded. “If I don’t kill this hangover, I’m gonna do something criminal! I’ll stick up Zinka’s store!”

  “Why not the bank? I don’t have any money, I’m unemployed!”

  Ivanov rapidly muttered something, but I was already on my way up the stairs, agitated by a single thought. What if my luck turns? This can’t go on forever!

  I sat down, put the old stationary telephone in my lap, and stared at it for a long time …

  I couldn’t muster the resolve to call on my mobile phone, but that old black rotary machine somehow filled me with optimism. I dialed every combination of numbers I knew. Nobody picked up on the other end. I just heard it ringing, the same note over and over again. C-sharp, two quarter notes … I even whined in tune … I waited at the phone for a few hours, and then I detected the smell of something burning coming in through the open window.

  I looked outside and saw the little tent that housed Zinka’s corner store burning down beyond the row of old poplars and instantly understood that my neighbor Ivanov really had stuck it up. “Yes,” I thought. “A man with a perpetual hangover means what he says.” I heard the sirens of a fire truck, but I was already bored with all of that. I had pressing business that could not be delayed. I shook the contents of the trash can into a bag, stepped outside, and … Sitting in his usual spot was my neighbor Ivanov, looking contented. There was an open case of beer on the bench next to him. Three cans were crumpled up in the dirt. I threw my bag into the dumpster …

  “Is Zinka alive?” I inquired.

  “Why wouldn’t she be?” he asked with a smile. “She kept hollering, though. I shoulda torched her, too!”

  “But she’s going to turn you in!”

  “She can suck it! And what are you so worried about? Are you my brother or something? You gonna bring me care packages in jail?”

  “That’s true,” I thought. “Why the hell am I always conversing with this idiot? I have numerous urgent matters to attend to …” I went back to Senescentova’s apartment. The old woman was lying on the rug. Well, it’s not like she was going to go anywhere. I rummaged in her writing desk, opened a drawer with a little key, and fished out a bundle of papers, including a document signing over the deed to her apartment—to me, of course. I opened a folder and found the actress’s ID, as well as a card from a major bank. A piece of paper with the PIN written on it had been thoughtfully attached to the back. I put everything I had found in my breast pocket and called the local cop. All in accordance with the law! While I waited for him to arrive, I gnawed on the marshmallows again, but even my tough teeth proved unequal to the task …

  The policeman arrived shortly thereafter. He stepped into the apartment and gave the corpse the faintest inclination of his head.

  “So you decided the rug was the place for her?”

  “Precisely!” I reported. “The meat wagon orderlies are always annoyed when they find a dead person in a seated position.”

  “And how do you know that?” the policeman inquired. He looked tired, but he showed no sign of shirking his duties and inspected the apartment exactingly.

  “Nowadays, practically everyone has some experience with matters funerary!”

  “That’s for sure … Where’s her ID?”

  “I have it right here!” I handed it to him.

  “Wow!” I could hear that the policeman was intrigued. “A hundred and three!”

  “Oh yes, many people live for over a century these days! But then others barely make it to retirement, or don’t even make it at all! You pay taxes your whole life, then you croak a year before you start collecting your hard-earned pension and the government grabs all the money!”

  “I won’t be getting my pension for a while … but yeah, that’s what happened to my uncle. He died at fifty-nine, just a year to go …”

  “What illness did he die from, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “It wasn’t an illness. He just blew himself out … One time, this huge machine tool at his factory came off its base and slid along a bunch of pipe they’d left lying around. Just negligence. It weighed three tons, and my uncle held it up for ten whole minutes until help arrived.”

  “But what for?”

  “To save the gear.”

  “Whose gear?”

  “That’s what I asked him before he died. They were like, ‘Uncle Victor, what the hell for? It’s not like it was a state enterprise—it was some crook oligarch’s factory! What, you didn’t want to see the poor capitalist’s property get damaged?’ He said ‘I don’t know what the hell for, it just kinda happened that way … ’ and then he died. How were you related to the old lady?”

  “She thought of me as a nephew …”

  “Let’s have your papers, I’ll write down your information.” We discussed various social issues for a while, as well as a scandalous television program. This cop was a decent conversationalist!

  The doorbell rang, announcing the arrival of the meat wagon. Its crew surveyed the landscape morosely.

  “Give me that paperwork,” the policeman commanded. “I’ll sign off. Fill them out yourself.” He turned to me. “You will receive the death certificate tomorrow, provided there is no sign of foul play.”

  “Foul play? You must be joking!”

  The policeman shook my hand firmly and excused himself, saying that he had duties to attend to. The morose young men put Senescentova on a stretcher and carried her down the stairs feetfirst.

  “I’ll ride along with you,” I declared sternly as they pushed the stretcher into their old Gazelle van. The morgue employees shrugged. They didn’t care. They didn’t even ask me for any money. It was a shaky ride.

  “The old lady died a long time ago,” stated the employee who was broader in the shoulders. “She got mummied!”

  “Mummified,” I corrected him.

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing to worry about,” I reassured him.

  “Like Lenin,” announced the second one, who was narrower in the shoulders. “Lenin’s a mummy, too.”

  “He was embalmed,” I said, striving for precision. “This is different. My auntie lived a righteous life, so her body is not rotting now that she’s passed.”

  “I’m definitely gonna rot,” said the broader one.

  “Me too,” the narrower one said with a nod.

  The orderlies turned to me expectantly.

  “I don’t know,” I said, vacillating. “Nah, I do know. I’ll start rotting in an hour, just like you guys.” I didn’t want to upset them.

  That’s how our little group came together, around a common understanding of the things that really matter. The broader one pulled a bottle of vodka from his uniform pocket and the narrower one produced some plastic cups. They promptly poured.

  “To us!”

  “To us!”

  Yeah, I repeated the toast. But they didn’t have any pickles or anything to follow the shots … The orderlies bent over the old woman and took deep breaths to get rid of the smell of the vodka. I abstained …

  We arrived at the morgue of Hospital 36. The orderlies knocked on the metal door and a woman of about forty with a large head and a tiny surgical cap opened it.

  “Paperwork!” she commanded, sparing them only the briefest of glances. The orderlies presented the papers to the coroner.

  “Are you in a mood, Nina?” asked the broad one.

  “You’re the one in a mood, Gregory!” she answered. “I can smell the vodka on your breath from here, and I’ve got a ton of work! Get moving, stick her on slab eight.” The orderlies carried the stretcher into the morgue, and I scampered after them.

  “Pardon me, Nina, but I’d like to address you properly. Would you mind telling me
your patronymic?” I asked the coroner.

  “Solomonovna,” she answered harshly.

  “Your father was granted a most worthy name!” “You aren’t allowed to come any closer!” She took a can of Coca-Cola out of her pocket, neatly opened it, downed the bubbly beverage, and covered a burp with her hand …

  “Well, you see, the thing is,” I began, trying to explain myself. “It was the departed’s last wish that I, and I alone, prepare her body for its final resting place. She only trusted me—”

  “And you are?”

  “Me? Well, I suppose you could say I’m a makeup artist … This is Ms. Senescentova, the actress, you may remember her from—”

  “No, I don’t. I don’t care who’s gonna do her up. Just kindly come back the day after tomorrow at seven in the morning. I’ll be done examining the body by then.”

  “Could we forgo the autopsy?” I asked. “She’s a hundred and three years old! Natural causes, you know …”

  “I will conduct a visual inspection. I won’t cut into her if I don’t have to.”

  “Thank you!” I said happily.

  “Senescentova … no, never heard of her. See you later.”

  I bowed out. The next order of business was going to the nearest ATM and taking out a decent amount of money. I flagged down a car and asked the guy to take me to Herzen Street.

  “Five hundred if you show me the way.”

  “Too steep! Come on, knock off a hundred for navigating.” “Hop in, Mr. Navigator!”

  The car stank, and there was something sideways about the way it moved, but the driver—he was from Uzbekistan or maybe Tajikistan—was cheerfully singing along to his people’s music … We got there alive, glory to the Almighty. I held out a five-hundred-ruble bill.

  “Don’t have change!” came the typical reply.

  “No? Oh well. Then I’ll just take your music in lieu of change.” I reached for the car’s tape slot.

  “Ey!” yelled the startled driver. “Don’t touch music!” My hand had a death grip on the dashboard. “I’ll give ya it, hold on! So anxious!”

  Hundred-ruble bill in hand, I went into the theater supply store, where I bought two yards of translucent white chiffon and a case of stage makeup. I also purchased a kolinsky sable-hair brush, some mascara, and a pair of ballet slippers …

  On my way back, I broke the one-hundred-ruble bill by buying a pack of unfiltered Primas, took Senescentova’s Raymond Templier cigarette holder out of my pocket, stuck one in, borrowed a lighter at a kiosk, and lit up … Until that day, I had never tried tobacco, so I wholly surrendered myself to these new sensations. Despite blowing the smoke through my nose and rolling it on my tongue, I could find nothing joyful about smoking … and nothing sad, for that matter … I tossed the butt into a trash can yet decided that I would still occasionally emit columns of smoke like the fearsome volcanos of Kamchatka, just to show off.

  The next stop on my journey was a clothing store where you could buy Italian brands off the rack. After a few trips to the fitting room, I chose a dark suit, two dress shirts—one black and one white—and three colorful, fashionable bowties. I also picked out some shoes and a couple pairs of socks. On my way out, I came face-to-face with Iratov. It made me shudder. His eyes stopped on me longer than one generally looks at a stranger. Struck dumb, I stared at Vera’s incomparably beautiful legs. I walked out of the boutique sideways, wondering how Iratov could get by without his tool. What use was he to Vera now?

  I returned home, pleased to think that I could be sure I wouldn’t see my neighbor Ivanov. The government would be paying the rent where that lowlife was going.

  You may well imagine my surprise when I saw my pleased neighbor in his usual spot on the bench in front of our apartment building. Furthermore, he was not alone; he had his arm around the waist of a curvy woman with dark circles under her eyes, her hair dyed a raspberry color that had not reached her gray roots.

  “Meet my lady Zinka!” my smug neighbor Ivanov gnashed and began shamelessly pawing her. “I’ll bet you thought I was already halfway up the river!”

  “I was sure of it!”

  “Quit it,” Zinka said in her bass voice as my neighbor tried to slide his hand up her blouse. “Not in front of a stranger!”

  “What stranger?” Ivanov asked, surprised. “Neighbors are never strangers! A neighbor can be even more important than a wife. He keeps me from raising hell!”

  “What, pray tell, were the virtues that inspired a lady of quality to forgive you?” I inquired.

  “I invited my darling Zinka to become my faithful companion for all the time my liver has left. She was generous enough to agree. Isn’t that right, Zinka?”

  The retirement-aged Zinka, lowering her dim eyes to the ground, nodded and answered in that bass voice worthy of Chaliapin.

  “Yes …”

  “Zinka will be living in my apartment, in consideration for which I will have the status of a lawful stakeholder in her store! Fifty-fifty! The apartment, the booze, and the grub!”

  “But didn’t the store burn down?” I asked, surprised.

  “Sure it did,” my neighbor agreed. “But not Zinka’s, it was Tamarka’s! Our store just got a little singed.”

  “So was it you who burned down Tamarka’s store?”

  “You’re my brother, so I’ll give it to you straight. It was us. We had a family meeting and decided to remove our competition.”

  “And Tamarka wasn’t inside, I hope?” Zinka and Ivanov exchanged glances at this.

  “We didn’t check …”

  “If your competitor burned up,” I said, kindly enlightening them, “and you get caught, you might be going away for a long time—twenty years. Well, that’s your problem! I have no time for you!” Then I switched to a threatening tone. “I will have no spitting, no improper disposal of cigarette butts, and no consumption of alcoholic beverages in front of the building! Young children can see through these windows! Otherwise I will turn you in myself. Is that clear?”

  “Perfectly clear …” my neighbor answered cheerlessly, as Zinka seemed lost in thought about Tamarka’s fate. They were sisters, after all …

  I went up to my apartment and dialed the same phone number … I shouldn’t call so often—if I’m too much of a nuisance, I risk never getting an answer.

  I used my cell phone to order some sushi from a restaurant two blocks away. I had a quick, pleasant lunch … Then I went online to pay for the coffin, hearse, and carnation wreath for the day after tomorrow. It seemed like everything was in place, so I set my alarm for six in the morning the day after tomorrow and fell asleep with a clear conscience.

  At 6:45, I was already ringing the bell at the morgue, two bags in hand. The coroner opened the door at once, since she had only just arrived at work herself. She had not even managed to change out of her street clothes and into her uniform, so she had a sweet, domestic look about her.

  “You’re a little early!” She pointed to a chair. “Have a seat!” Fifteen minutes later, she came back and called to me.

  “I’m ready!” I sprang to my feet and followed her into a large hall that seemed to be brightly lit.

  “Will you bury her today?”

  “Oh yes, certainly,” I answered, examining the doors of the refrigerated compartments. “Goodness, you have a lot of those!”

  “This is the largest morgue in the city.”

  “Then where are your assistants?”

  “Late, as usual, the bums! By the way, I finally remembered that Senescentova of yours. Or my mom did, I should say. She’s eighty-six … She said Senescentova was a legendary beauty, and her films enjoyed great success.”

  “May I begin?” I inquired. I had limited time to work with, after all.

  “Get to it! Compartment four. I didn’t cut into your actress. The table has wheels on it. Push it over to the refrigerator and then roll the stretcher over there, too. Can you handle that, or do you want to wait for the orderlies?”

 
“That’s nothing. I can handle it …”

  There was nothing difficult about transporting the old lady’s naked body. Five minutes later, it was lying on a stainless steel table, and my efforts commenced. I took all the necessaries out of my bags. The first order of business was to unwrap a little parcel that had been in my care for almost three decades. It contained the nightgown that Iratov had once given to Svetlana, his first love, on Valentine’s Day, the one he put on all his college girlfriends, the precious object he had thrown out the window in a fit of pique … Then came the time when I collected it and preserved it in good condition.

  I arrayed the ancient Senescentova in that silken garment of love. Imbued with hundreds of shades of passion, that nightgown radiated mighty energy that would adorn the actress’s dismal virginity … Soon my auntie’s dry soles were shod with ballet slippers, and I moved on to her face. I did indeed once work as a makeup artist. It was not a film director or television studio that provided me with employment, though, but a photographer by the name of Beskrylov who specialized in erotic material. I was his assistant back in the 1970s; I took the pale faces of his girls, dimmed by poor nutrition, and got them fixed up. Beskrylov was soon arrested for producing pornography and sent to prison. I went free and never worked as a makeup artist again, but I maintained my skills.

  After fifteen minutes of work with the brushes and specialized wands, the dry, sunken-eyed face of the old woman was transformed. With vibrant, pink-tinted skin, the scarlet lips she loved so much, and false lashes, the ancient Senescentova looked almost alive, as if she had simply dozed off before her evening tea and chocolate-covered marshmallows. I covered her skinny little body with the translucent white chiffon. Peeking through the cloth, the actress’s face looked almost childlike.

  “Boy, you know what you’re doing!” said a voice behind me.

  “Thank you,” I answered, turning to the morgue director. “I did my best.”

  “I hope somebody does that for me when the time comes!”

  “Well, now is not the time to think about that. But beauty will matter little to you when they call you up to heaven! It only matters to the living …”