A few minutes later Gor gave into habit and began pressing the buttons on the radio. It clunked into life, and after a thorough search, Stravinsky’s ‘Rite of Spring’ roared through the speakers, rattling the windows with a metallic buzz.

  ‘Ah! Classical!’ Sveta winced. ‘How lovely.’

  Albina glowered from the back, radiating disgust.

  They crossed the bridge over the wide, black river, headed for Rostov and then turned off, taking a deeply pot-holed road to the left, following it out into the country. An assortment of broken-biscuit buildings and the occasional battered wooden cottage passed them by. Chickens quivered at gate posts. Dogs in empty yards scratched fiercely at their fuzzy necks. The car slowed to a crawl as the lane narrowed and the pits and furrows in its surface widened. They bounced over hardcore and swallow-holes of mud. No one spoke, but the radio could not drown out Sveta’s yelps and the thuds as Albina’s head collided with the passenger window.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ muttered Gor. Checking the rear-view mirror, he caught Albina’s eye. She had become bored with being disgusted, and now mouthed something at him that he could not make out. He ignored it. He heard shouting, and looked back.

  ‘What?’ he mouthed over the music. She repeated it. Still he couldn’t hear. She was filling her lungs to bellow once more when Sveta’s finger shot out and prodded the radio into silence with a single jab.

  ‘Oh!’

  Sveta smiled. ‘My head, Gor.’

  ‘Were you a bank manager?’ Albina shouted over both of them. ‘A long time ago?’

  Gor winced. ‘Yes. As you know.’

  ‘Did you like it?’

  ‘Yes. I—’

  ‘It sounds boring to me.’

  ‘Ah, well, you’ll forgive me for pointing this out, but you are fortunate enough to be young, Albina. Many professions must seem dull to you, at the moment, when life is a blank sheet ready to be coloured. I expect you want to be a ballet dancer or a scientist or a cosmonaut when you grow up?’

  ‘No,’ said Albina, frowning. ‘Why would I want to do that? Loads of work, no money. I want to go into business: import-export, you know? I’m going to make a bundle. So that I can buy whatever I want.’ Then she added, with a sly smile, ‘Just like you.’

  Gor glanced over his shoulder, surprise elevating his eyebrows. ‘Like me?’

  ‘Come on, Mister Papasyan, everyone knows!’ Albina’s eyes were wide, but her mouth curled to show her blunt white teeth.

  ‘Now, malysh, you’re not being polite,’ Sveta cut in, a dull blush patterning her cheeks.

  ‘Knows what?’ asked Gor, his eye twitching.

  ‘That you’ve got gold hidden in the cistern of your toilet!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘And shares in all the oil companies! And jewels hidden under the bed! And—’

  ‘Albina!’ Sveta’s voice cracked across her daughter’s babble. ‘Enough!’

  Gor smiled, using only half his face. ‘Everybody knows this, Albina?’ he asked softly.

  ‘Oh yes. Mama told me, but … everyone in Azov knows. Probably everyone in the world.’

  Sveta squirmed in her seat. ‘I didn’t tell you that, did I, Albina? You were listening to my private conversations. And that was before I’d even met Gor. Oh look, baby-kins! Some rabbits! And a goat!’

  ‘Is that a fact?’ Gor did not look at Sveta, and ignored her pointing finger. He observed Albina in the rear-view mirror. ‘What else do you know, Albina? Any other pearls of wisdom you would like to share?’

  ‘Nope,’ she said, and then, after staring at a chewing goat for some moments, added, ‘only that we’re all going to die, so we may as well make money in the meantime.’

  ‘Well,’ Gor said, ‘that’s a point of view. But—’

  ‘Because of the hole in the ozone layer, I mean. That’s the layer of gas that protects the earth from the sun. And it’s being destroyed by rockets and space ships going through it all the time to get to the moon and stuff. It’s full of holes, like a sieve. So we’re all going to fry.’ She shrugged. ‘You may as well get spending, Mister Papasyan.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Gor, ‘wisdom indeed.’ He folded his lips, eyes on the road, shoulders hunched. Sveta said nothing, her gaze scanning the foamy grey sky as if looking for holes.

  The road followed the steep bank of a tidal waterway. Silence filled the car as they zig-zagged on. Up ahead crows crowded around a crumpled, brown-furred body reclining on the verge. Sveta turned away as Albina pressed her nose to the glass to examine it. The crows barely raised a tarry eye, and Gor had to swerve to avoid them. A few minutes more and the water emptied out into wide, khaki flats shining like a greasy pan under the autumn sky. They had arrived: here before them on the open plain, looking out towards the brown, windswept sea, rose the pitted cadaver of the Vim & Vigour sanatorium.

  Gor slowed the car to a crawl, observing the faded warning symbols depicting residents intent on jumping into the road. Not a soul stirred. Not even a crow. He parked the car on the muddy gravel space at the foot of the building’s crumbling concrete steps, and Albina jumped out. The adults sat side-by-side, surveying the grey façade, its entranceway hung with aged red flags that were now no more than tattered ribbons, trembling silently in the breeze.

  ‘I’m very sorry, Gor.’

  ‘Don’t be.’

  ‘Albina was rude.’

  ‘Children repeat what they hear. And evidently, that is what they hear about me.’

  ‘Well …’ she began to shake her head and pursed her lips, but deflated suddenly, her ready denial pricked by Gor’s single, raised eyebrow. ‘I am sorry. I was one of the gossips that spread tales about you. But that was before I’d met you. And, well … everyone thinks you have … wealth, and gold and jewels … and things. Hidden.’

  ‘Gold and jewels? Ha!’ He slapped his hands on the steering wheel and snorted, before taking a long, slow breath and turning to her. ‘And what do you think now, Sveta? Now you know me better. Do you think I have hidden treasure?’

  ‘Well, um …’ Sveta’s eyes darted across the windscreen, her hands, the floor of the car and the windscreen again. She recalled the worn shirts, the empty cupboards and lack of light-bulbs in his apartment. ‘You told me you’re not a millionaire. It seems to me that you have nice things, but that you have to … live within your means. And your means are not terribly considerable.’

  ‘Hmmm!’ he nodded his head. ‘Well, you are more astute than the rest of Azov.’

  She smiled.

  ‘“Not terribly considerable” is a fine phrase.’

  ‘Gor, I didn’t mean to—’

  ‘I can barely scrape the roubles together to buy bread. In fact, you should know, as a person, as a citizen … I am ruined.’ He continued nodding his head but his eyes, dark and wide, never left her face. Sveta swallowed.

  Twin fists hammered on the window behind her head. ‘Are you ever going to get out of the car, Mama? I’m getting a cold! Look – I have no gloves!’ Albina brandished her pork-chop hands in the autumn air.

  ‘We should get out of the car,’ Gor said.

  The Vim & Vigour sanatorium had once been a Soviet jewel: a fitness hotel, a health spa of the workers, designed to give rest and rehabilitation to those who toiled hard, paid for by councils, employers and unions alike. Now they could no longer afford it, and it received guests on a thoroughly haphazard basis: it had become a cross between a holiday camp and an asylum. In the off-season, most of it lay empty. Only the truly frail remained.

  ‘Look at this place,’ gasped Gor, scratching his head as he squinted up at the three-storey casket. ‘Just imagine ending up here.’

  The colour palette in its design had heavily utilised shades of grey, varying from cemetery grey to November grey to sewage grey. It squatted like a concrete coffin on the edge of the creek, broken nets fluttering between the flag-poles above its entrance: no fishermen’s nets, they were there to protect visitors’ heads from falling masonry.

  ‘I’m sure it’s not that bad on the inside,’ said Sveta, although her face puckered as she looked up. ‘I know people who have holidayed here. Yes, it’s true!’ Gor was shaking his head. ‘Yes! It was a few years ago, but people used to come. There is a mini-cinema, and a masseuse, and they did sketching and keep-fit and all sorts. It was quite desirable.’

  ‘Maybe, Sveta, back in the “good old days”, but who would want to stay here now? Party has-beens who’ve gone gaga: people abandoned by their families. No one comes here on holiday.’ Gor shuddered under his jerkin, and turned to Albina. ‘Take note, Albina: if you waste your youth, and do badly at school, you might end up working in a dump like this.’

  ‘No way!’ cried Albina, stomping off along the bottom of the entrance steps, her boots crunching on the gravel. ‘I told you, I’m going to be rich!’

  ‘I think it’s just a phase,’ said Sveta quietly.

  Gor blinked slowly and nodded. ‘Well, let’s find our friend Vlad, and see what he has to say for himself.’

  They started up the steep bank of crumbling steps with quick strides and had reached the darkened glass of the entrance doors when a familiar shriek made them pause.

  ‘Good Lord,’ murmured Gor, ‘what is it now?’

  ‘Mama!’ Albina appeared from the far end of the building, running, her rubberised legs threatening to tangle at any moment as the gravel squirmed under her feet. ‘Stop!’ Her face glowed red, the breath coming in steaming gasps. ‘Help!’

  ‘Oh goodness! What is it?’

  ‘Look!’ she galloped to the foot of the steps and skidded in a shower of muddy stones to point back the way she’d come.

  ‘Oh malysh, that’s just the rubbish dump. Nothing to be scared of. Although there may be rats—’

  ‘Not there,’ persisted Albina, ‘there!’ The girl pointed upwards, towards the far end of the building.

  They trod back down the steps to crane their necks in the direction Albina was pointing.

  ‘Is it a bonfire?’ Sveta’s voice trembled.

  ‘No bonfire,’ said Gor.

  A thick black snake of smoke was writhing into the clouds.

  They heard a crack of breaking glass followed by a cry.

  ‘Oh!’ Sveta began to push Gor in the direction of the car. ‘You must get away immediately! Remember the warning!’

  ‘Now Sveta—’ he began, but the smell of the smoke had bled his face white and his hands, raised in protest, were shaking. She propelled him backwards.

  ‘Albina, go with Gor to the car, and make sure he stays there. I will raise the alarm.’

  The girl stood stock-still. ‘But Mama!’ She frowned. ‘It might be dangerous!’

  ‘There are fragile people in there, Albina: I must do my duty, and make sure the alarm has been raised. I won’t do anything dangerous.’

  ‘But Sveta—’ Gor took a step towards the building.

  ‘Don’t tempt fate, Gor! I will be back almost immediately!’ She smiled her best and bravest smile and, without a further word, trotted up the steps. She did not look back.

  It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dimness of the entrance hall. She made out a mosaic covering one wall, depicting workers and peasants engaging in recreation, their jaws square around smiling, ruby lips. She spied the reception desk at the far end. There was no one there. No alarm was ringing: she heard no scurrying. The only sound was the muffled clack of a typewriter, coming from a doorway behind the desk.

  ‘Coo-eee!’ The typing continued. ‘Hey! Emergency!’ Sveta crossed to the desk and shouted over it. The clattering of keys continued. She scanned the hall, eyeing the doors leading off from each corner to who-knew-where. All was peace. Her hands hammered on the desk. Still there was no response. She noticed a small brass bell, like those they have in hotels. Under it read the legend ‘Ring for attention’. She patted the bell and it let out a mournful ding. The typing stopped and an anaemic-looking administrator sauntered through the door in her slippers.

  ‘You’re on fire!’ cried Sveta, jigging from one foot to the other.

  The administrator looked down at her legs and over her shoulder.

  ‘Not you – the building! There’s smoke – in that wing!’ Sveta pointed, now jiggling on the spot.

  ‘I don’t hear the alarm,’ said the administrator, and pushed her glasses back up her nose.

  ‘Go and look if you don’t believe me. But hurry! People may be trapped!’

  The administrator sighed, undid the latch on the counter and scuffed her heels towards the main doors.

  ‘I don’t see anything,’ she intoned, poking her head out of the door. A blob of ash fluttered around her face like a charred butterfly and stuck to her glasses. ‘Oh, over there?’

  She scuffed back to the office and grabbed the handle of the fire bell, cranking it in slow motion. ‘It needs oiling,’ she said, ‘I’ve told Ivan a hundred times …’

  Sveta stood open-mouthed as the girl struggled to get more than a clank out of the bell.

  ‘No one will hear that! Shouldn’t you go down the corridor and warn the staff? Lives may be at stake!’

  ‘You do what you like. My role is to ring the bell. It’s in the regulations.’ She jabbed her elbow at the small print plastered to the wall behind her.

  Sveta’s eyes fell on the reception desk bell. The wood cracked as she ripped it from its moorings and then bolted for a corridor she guessed would lead her to the fire.

  ‘Hey!’ shouted the administrator. ‘You can’t—’

  Sveta prised open the creaking door, took a deep breath and plunged on.

  The corridor was badly lit, windowless, and long. There was no sign of life. She trotted down its middle, filling it with the sound of her steps, the dinging of the bell and her alarm call.

  ‘Fire!’ she yelled in a voice loud enough to wake the dead.

  ‘Fire!’ There was no reply.

  ‘Fire!’ The lights before her flickered gently in the gloom, and went out.

  Ding-ding-ding went the little bell on her palm as she hurried on, confused there was no one to save, and no one came running. Where were all the guests, all the staff? Her boots echoed. She pushed out a fist and rapped on a door marked ‘Dietary Advice and Monitoring’. No one answered. She felt foolish.

  ‘Fire!’ she yelled, and dinged the bell. Now her voice wobbled, and she coughed as the smoke began to bite the back of her throat. She stopped and looked around, wondering whether to turn back. She thought of Albina waiting at the car. She thought of Madame Zoya’s warning. The burning smell was strong now. Was that a cry she heard, behind the far door? She was sure she had heard a shout. Someone was trapped, scared. Maybe they were becoming unconscious down there, in the dark and the smoke? They were probably elderly, immobile, alone. If she turned back now to fetch help, it might be too late! She squared her shoulders, dinged her bell, and ran down the corridor.

  Vim and Vigour

  ‘Let me out!’

  ‘Mama said to make you stay in the car.’

  ‘I have to go and help!’

  ‘But what about your warning?’ She arched a dark eyebrow and waggled her finger at him from the other side of the glass.

  Gor had allowed himself to be returned to the car and had sat immobile behind the wheel, face grim as he watched the black smoke pulse like blood into the insipid sky. He couldn’t make out the source: the broken window must be at the back. But now he couldn’t sit still. He should not have let Sveta go. He had been a coward.

  ‘Albina, move away from the door. I must get out.’ The girl’s reply was to lean her hip even more heavily against it. There was nothing else for it: Gor pushed with all his might, an ‘akkhh!’ croaking from his throat as he did so, the veins standing out on his forehead. She squealed as he heaved, but after regaining her balance, simply pushed back, effortlessly. The situation called for more than brute force. He rolled down the window a couple of centimetres.

  ‘Albina, I have to go and help your mother. I cannot sit here and watch a catastrophe unfolding.’

  ‘No way! Mama told me to make sure you stayed here, and that’s what I’m going to do. But if you want to fight about it …’ She shifted her weight away from the door and stood back, flicking the pigtails out of her eyes and pushing up her sleeves. ‘Karate: do you think you stand a chance?’ She drew back on her tiptoes, hands raised, face perfectly serious.

  Gor regarded her for a moment and rubbed a hand over his eyes. He opened the window further, so that he could lean out.

  ‘Albina, I’m not going to fight you. I’m an old man, and you’re a girl. But listen to me. You have a choice: either way, you must be brave, and make the right decision. I have to go into that building, and I think you know that. Your mother has not returned. I have to make sure the fire brigade has been called, and your mother is safe. You can either stay here at the car, which is the safest option, or …’ he took a breath ‘… you can come with me, and help. Just promise to stay by my side. And do what you’re told.’

  The girl looked hard into Gor’s eyes, and turned to examine the building. She nodded. ‘Let’s rescue the people. And Mama.’ Gor rolled up the window and unfolded himself from the car.

  ‘Come!’ he said, taking her hand, and her pigtails bounced as they hopped up the battered stairs into the smoking building.

  ‘We will tell your mother I overpowered you: that you could not make me stay in the car,’ said Gor as they headed for the empty reception desk.

  ‘She won’t believe you.’

  Gor nodded.

  At the desk the administrator, in the process of oiling the alarm bell, sulkily confirmed that she had called the fire service. When Gor inquired about Sveta, she waved him away with an impatient flap of the hand. ‘She went off down the corridor before I could stop her! I told her not to! I told her it was dangerous! It’s Communal Sitting Room No. 2 that’s on fire,’ she added, as Gor and Albina made for the corridor, ‘right at the end.’

  ‘You stay here,’ said Gor.

  ‘No!’ Albina gazed up at him, eyes fierce. ‘She’s my mother!’ She sprang through the door, Gor scrabbling behind her.