‘Cousins? In Barkovskaya’s position, if you’re looking for cousins, you’ll find them everywhere!’
‘But for a cousin you need an uncle and an aunt,’ pointed out Sheremetev. ‘You can’t just—’
‘If I let Bolkovskaya do this, the bitch will do it with everything, just you see. And that, Kolya, isn’t right. It’s not just. Things should be as they were. She’s happy, I’m happy, everyone eats well, and there’s peace in the world.’
‘I still don’t understand about the dried fruit,’ said Sheremetev, deciding to forget about Stepanin’s theory of endless cousins, which made no sense to him, whichever way he tried to look at it. ‘Where does it go, this dried fruit? I can’t remember the last time I had a piece.’
‘What do you like?’
‘Apricots.’
‘I’ll get you a packet. Look, can’t you see how dangerous this is? If I let Barkovskaya win on this, it’s all gone. Everything! Let someone like her take an inch, and she’ll take the whole mile.’
‘Maybe you should go to Barkovskaya and say… you know… let’s have some kind of arrangement. Maybe one time your friend, one time her cousin. Share.’
‘Share?’ The cook’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets. ‘Kolya, there’s the principle, and there’s… there’s…’ Stepanin’s voice trailed off. He stubbed out his cigarette, and again, and again, until it wasn’t only stubbed but broken, flattened, smashed, destroyed.
‘Vitya, is there something you’re not telling me?’
Stepanin looked up at him sharply. ‘What am I not telling you?’
‘I don’t know. That’s what I just asked you.’
‘Kolya, you know what my dream is.’
Sheremetev knew. Russian fusion! Minimalist décor! What that had to do with Barkovskaya ordering chickens from her cousin, Sheremetev had no idea.
‘Is it such a terrible thing, to want to have my own restaurant? What am I asking for? To reopen the gulag? Imagine it. Russian fusion! Minimalist décor! Something totally new. The first night I’m open, you’ll have a table. Is it some kind of crime, Kolya, to want this?’
‘No, it’s not a crime, Vitya.’
‘So?’ said Stepanin.
‘So?’ said Sheremetev, still at a loss to understand what the cook thought was really so terrible about what the housekeeper had done, or what it had to do with his dream of a restaurant.
Stepanin stared at him for a moment, then sat back. ‘What fuckery! Fuckery with a cock on top.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I can’t let this go.’
Sheremetev watched him, wondering for a moment if this was all some kind of joke.
Stepanin eyes narrowed. ‘I’ll do what I have to.’
‘Which is what?’
‘Don’t worry.’ He tapped the side of his nose. ‘Vitya Stepanin always has a plan.’
VITYA STEPANIN DID HAVE a plan, although it wasn’t of the most sophisticated subtlety. In its essence, it consisted of doing nothing – but a special kind of nothing. The next day, when Barkovskaya’s cousin rang to find out what he wanted, he replied: ‘Nothing.’ He said the same thing the next day, and the day after that. Chickens were not required. Nor were ducks, geese, pigeons, partridges, pheasants, snipe, grouse or any of the other feathered beasts that the housekeeper’s cousin purveyed. Stepanin had no idea what was going to happen next, but as far as he was concerned, Barkovskaya wasn’t getting any more chicken fricassee until she backed down.
Chicken fricassee disappeared from the menu. So did chicken soup, chicken kiev, chicken wings, chicken supreme, chicken cacciatore, chicken curry, chicken salad, chicken with mango and all the other chicken dishes that Stepanin was wont to serve up. A cook down to his fingernails, Stepanin grieved for his lost dishes, but he hoped that in time he would send them out of his kitchen again, and for the present there was too much at stake, he told himself, to let sentimentality prevail.
Stepanin asked Sheremetev to apologise to Vladimir on his behalf, knowing how partial the old man was to chicken Georgian style. From the moment he took the job at the dacha, the cook had made it his mission to prepare for the boss, as he called him, the foods of which he was most fond. Not only had he questioned Sheremetev extensively on the subject, but he had researched all he could find about the ex-president’s culinary predilections. Vladimir ate almost all his meals at the table that had been installed for the purpose in the sitting room of his suite, so Stepanin never saw him devouring the results of his labours and consequently had to rely on Sheremetev’s reports of the boss’s reactions. Sheremetev didn’t have the heart to tell him that Vladimir couldn’t remember what he had eaten at the start of the meal by the time he got to the end, much less an hour or a day later, and the cook could have served up beans and brisket, which Vladimir relished, for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and Vladimir would have been just as happy as he was with chicken Georgian style, boeuf à la Tversk, sole in butter sauce and all the other immediately forgotten delicacies that arrived on trays from the kitchen.
Accordingly, Vladimir didn’t notice the disappearance of chicken from his diet. To check, Sheremetev asked him if he had had any recently.
‘Yes,’ replied Vladimir. ‘At lunch.’
It was ten o’clock in the morning.
‘What if I was to tell you that there’ll be no more chicken?’
Vladimir laughed. ‘That’s preposterous. I’ve never heard such a stupid proposition. Get rid of the official whose idea this is.’
‘There may be a problem for a time.’
‘A problem?’ said Vladimir. ‘What sort of problem?’
‘With chicken, Vladimir Vladimirovich.’
‘No, there’s no problem with chicken. The problem,’ said Vladimir, waving a finger, ‘is that Russians think chicken is the problem, when in fact, it’s not chickens at all. Chickens are a distraction that our so-called friends in the west would like us to waste our time on, when it is the west itself that has caused the problem by sending us the second rate chickens they themselves won’t eat. Why else would I impose sanctions on them to stop them sending us this rubbish? Yes, this is exactly what Obama, Merkel and the rest of them want to see. This whole thing is a crude attempt to retaliate for our perfectly legitimate restrictions on the distribution of gas through the Ukraine pipelines, when in reality there is no comparison between the two. Chicken is not gas! Gas is not chicken! Is that clear? Russia has no problem with chicken. Russia has no problem with anything. Every problem in Russia is the fault of the west, which can’t bear to see a Russia that is strong and independent. I call on Russians to stop eating chicken and strike a blow against those in the west who would like to put us back into a cold war!’
‘Yes, Vladimir Vladimirovich.’
Vladimir nodded emphatically, a fierce expression on his face.
Slowly the look changed and his face became blank again. Sheremetev tidied up around him.
‘Who are you?’ he said after a while.
‘Sheremetev, Vladimir Vladimirovich.’
Vladimir nodded, as if he remembered now. ‘Do you know my mother?’
Sheremetev shook his head.
‘What about my brothers?’
‘No, Vladimir Vladimirovich.’
He smiled slyly. ‘How could you? They died before I was born.’
‘I know,’ said Sheremetev.
‘How do you know?’
Sheremetev shrugged. ‘Everyone knows.’
Vladimir narrowed his eyes. ‘How does everyone know?’
‘It’s known, Vladimir Vladimirovich. It’s very sad.’
Vladimir watched him suspiciously for a moment. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Very sad. My mother has never recovered. She gave me this cross, you know, only last week.’ He fingered a small gold crucifix that hung around his neck.